Fix and Flip in El Paso

Plan on roughly 2.64% of value in the city, and check for a MUD before you underwrite carry. A City of El Paso, El Paso ISD stack runs about 2.643693 per $100 of assessed value: county 0.458889, the R. E. Thomason General Hospital District 0.240892, El Paso County Community College 0.103563, City of El Paso 0.759649 and El Paso ISD 1.080700 (Texas Comptroller 2025 Tax Rates and Levies). Investment property gets no homestead relief, so the full bill hits from day one, roughly $6,287 a year on the city's $237,834 mid-tier home. The newest-looking inventory is the trap: a far east side parcel in a Paseo del Este MUD, which run 0.6237 to 0.8018 per $100 on top of the base stack, can push the total near or above 3.3 per $100. Talk to your CPA about how the carry affects your specific hold period.

The published per-square-foot scale covers new construction and additions, so on a rehab it is the review and inspection lines that matter. The City of El Paso's FY2026 fee schedule prices new single-family construction and additions per square foot on a sliding scale: $0.87 per square foot up to 1,299 square feet, $0.82 from 1,300 to 2,399, down to $0.61 above 4,400, so a 2,000 square foot addition or new build runs about $1,640 before the technology fee, roughly three times the comparable Killeen permit. Straight rehab work is not priced on that scale, and the city does not publish a review turnaround in business days, so plan around the posted line items instead: a $200 submittal fee for expedited residential review, $256 plus $94 an hour of plan review on permits valued under $300,000, $212 for a plan re-submission, and inspections at $110 during business hours or $127 after hours. Working without a permit triples the fee. Build those into your fix and flip loan budget before you schedule contractors.

Only if you're comfortable with a small loan balance. At a 70%-of-ARV structure, a $200,000 exit implies a loan near $140,000, and in the lower valley submarkets, San Elizario at $181,064 and Fabens at $167,675 mid-tier (June 2026 Zillow), the arithmetic drops well under $130,000. Deal size, not deal quality, is the gating question in this market. No El Paso-specific flip rate or margin has been published, so the fallback is the Texas statewide figure: a 9.9% flip rate and 5.6% gross ROI in the first quarter of 2026, before rehab, carry, financing and selling costs. Run your specific numbers on the fix and flip calculator before you make an offer.

It's improving, and El Paso is an outlier for it. In the year to June 2026, El Paso was the only large Texas metro where home values (up 1.7%) and rents both rose, while Austin, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and Killeen all fell. On the listing side, active inventory dropped 15.4% year over year in July 2026, pending listings rose 10.6%, the median list price climbed to $310,450, up 3.9% year over year, homes sold in a median 65 days, and only 10.9% of listings carried a price cut. That's a tightening market, not a growth-story market: the county's population is essentially flat and losing domestic migrants, so the exit strength is coming from scarce supply, not an influx of buyers. Underwrite the flip on today's inventory and days-on-market numbers, not a population narrative borrowed from Austin or Dallas.

It's an option, but the tax picture just changed. On June 9, 2026, El Paso City Council voted to begin collecting hotel occupancy tax on short-term rentals, with collections starting 90 to 180 days after adoption, putting first collections between roughly September and December 2026. The city estimates the change will bring in about $3.5 million a year, and roughly 81% of local short-term listings are already advertised through Airbnb. Whether the city requires a separate STR permit or registration, and at what combined tax rate, hasn't been confirmed from a current source, so budget for the hotel occupancy tax and confirm the rest with the city before you commit to an STR exit strategy.

About 10% of the purchase, plus closing costs and the carry. We fund up to 90% of the purchase price and up to 100% of the rehab budget, capped to ARV, on a 6-month interest-only term. On a $200,000 El Paso purchase that is up to $180,000 from us and $20,000 from you (200,000 x 90% = 180,000), with rehab drawn against the schedule instead of paid up front. Budget the tax carry on top of that, because a City of El Paso parcel runs about 2.64 per $100 of value with no homestead relief. Subject to underwriting.

Yes, it clears. Loans run $100,000 to $5M, and in a metro with this entry basis the floor is worth checking before you write an offer. At up to 90% of the purchase price, a Fabens-type buy near the $167,675 mid-tier value pencils to about $150,900 on the purchase leg (167,675 x 90% = 150,908), well clear of the floor. Go much lower than that and the loan stops clearing $100,000, which is a deal-size problem rather than a deal-quality problem. Send us the address and the numbers before you go under contract. Subject to underwriting.

Yes. First-time flippers are welcome, though an exit that size leaves little room for a blown scope. The loan is asset-based, so the deal carries most of the weight: purchase price, rehab budget, and ARV. We run credit, but there is no minimum score on a fix and flip, and weaker credit is usually answered with lower leverage rather than a decline. There is no hard credit pull to start. What we will push on is the rehab budget, because a $200,000 El Paso exit leaves little room to absorb a blown scope. Subject to underwriting.