Same house, same price, four different metros. The number your realtor quoted is the city + county + school stack. The number you actually pay includes the layer they're often quiet about.
Illustrative annual property tax on a $400,000 assessed home, no exemptions, tax year 2024–2025. Hover bars for the source jurisdiction. See research files for verified vs. representative rates.
The MUD is the difference. Inside Houston city limits, there's no MUD — water, sewer, and drainage are city responsibilities funded out of the General Fund. In a Katy / Sugar Land / Pearland new build, those services come through a developer-formed special district that issues its own bonds and levies its own tax. That tax line, for the first 20–30 years of the district's life, is dominated by debt service on the original infrastructure bonds.
Same $400k house. Up to $2,300 / year more in property tax, mostly going to retire bonds that paid the developer back for the road and the water line in front of it.