Bridgeland is the premier master planned community in the Cypress area.  However, if you are thinking about moving over to Bridgeland, please do not forget to take the property taxes into consideration.

As of 2009, the property taxes in Bridgeland were 3.72% before the homestead exemption.  This is because Bridgeland has a 1.5% MUD tax on top of our typical school taxes.  For comparison, Coles Crossing has a tax rate of 2.72% and Lakes of Rosehill, which does not have a MUD tax, has a tax rate of 2.22%.

To put this in perspective, let’s say you would like to have a house payment of $2000/month not including your home owners insurance.  You qualify for a 30 year mortgage at 4.25% and plan on putting down 20%.  The price of house you would be able to afford in each of those 3 communities are as follows:

• Bridgeland:  $285,000
• Coles Crossing: $323,000
• Lakes of Rosehill:  $346,000

On the other hand, if you were wanting to spend $300,000 on a house with the same mortgage scenario as above, your payments in each neighborhood would be:

• Bridgeland:  $2110
• Coles Crossing: $1860
• Lakes of Rosehill: $1735

With this in mind, I still highly recommend Bridgeland.  The amenities and events that Bridgeland offers are top notch.  For instance, the Bridgeland pool area is probably 4 or 5 times larger than the main Coles Crossing neighborhood pool and Lakes of Rosehill doesn’t even have a community pool.

It is also important to note that MUD taxes will go down over time as the utilities are built out.  Our tax rate in Coles Crossing was over 3.25% when we moved out here in 1999.

The point of this post is to please keep property taxes in mind when you are shopping for your next house.

Also, I have a handy-dandy Google Spreadsheet to

Here is an itemized list of 2009 taxes for each community from HCAD.org:

District	Jurisdictions	BRIDGELAND	COLES CROSSING	LAKES OF ROSEHILL
4	CYPRESS-FAIRBANKS ISD	1.41%	1.41%	1.41%
40	HARRIS COUNTY	0.39%	0.39%	0.39%
41	HARRIS CO FLOOD CNTRL	0.03%	0.03%	0.03%
42	PORT OF HOUSTON AUTHY	0.02%	0.02%	0.02%
43	HARRIS CO HOSP DIST	0.19%	0.19%	0.19%
44	HARRIS CO EDUC DEPT	0.01%	0.01%	0.01%
45	LONE STAR COLLEGE SYS	0.11%	0.11%	0.11%
506	HC MUD 419	1.00%	0.00%	0.00%
617	HC WCID 157	0.50%	0.00%	0.00%
535	HC MUD 365	0.00%	0.50%	0.00%
633	HC EMERG SRV DIST 9	0.06%	0.06%	0.06%
	TOTAL:	3.72%	2.72%	2.22%