San Marcos Hard Money and Investor Loans

Yes, across San Marcos and the Hays County corridor. We are a direct business-purpose lender, and we fund deals in San Marcos, Kyle, Buda, Wimberley, Dripping Springs, Woodcreek, Martindale, and Maxwell. San Marcos sits in the Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos metro area, not the San Antonio metro, and it is the slow-growth city inside a fast-growth county: Hays County grew 26.3% between 2020 and 2025 while San Marcos itself grew 14.9%, and Kyle, next door, grew 53.0%. USA Mortgage is headquartered in Bee Cave, Texas, and funds deals in most states with our own capital. Every loan is business-purpose only, on investment property, and terms are subject to underwriting. See the DSCR program or talk to us.

Budget around 2.07 per $100 of value, and check the parcel for a PID before you close. The San Marcos investor stack runs Hays County plus the Special Road line, the city, and San Marcos CISD, for a total of 2.0666 per $100, about $6,200 a year on a $300,000 basis. Unlike Kyle or Buda, a San Marcos parcel does not carry the Austin Community College rate, since San Marcos CISD sits outside the ACC taxing district. Several San Marcos neighborhoods, including Trace, River Bridge Ranch, and Whisper, also carry a public improvement district assessment that rides on the same county tax statement but does not appear on the appraisal district's rate sheet, so pull the title commitment or the district administrator's lookup before you underwrite the carry. Talk to your CPA or tax advisor about your own position. See the DSCR program. Subject to underwriting.

No more than three unrelated adults per dwelling, and the owner is on the hook for it. San Marcos raised its unrelated-occupant limit from two to three in 2023, and the Development Code makes the property owner and any property manager legally responsible for allowing a unit to run over that limit. The city's enforcement evidence is parking, not a lease audit: three or more vehicles registered to different surnames and addresses, parked overnight for most of a 21-day stretch, is treated as proof of over-occupancy. Every long-term rental inside city limits must also be registered with the city, a filing duty most cities in this corridor do not impose. A four-bedroom house underwritten at four separate rents does not comply here. See the DSCR program. Subject to underwriting.

Get the Floodplain Administrator's read before you set a budget, not after the appraisal. San Marcos requires a finished floor at least two feet above the regulated floodplain, and the regulated area itself extends beyond the mapped floodplain to a buffer set two feet above it, so a lot can be inside the regulated zone without showing as flood-mapped on a quick lookup. The city adopted new flood maps for the San Marcos and Blanco River watersheds in late 2024, so a comp or flood determination from before then is stale. A rehab that crosses 50% of the structure's assessed value must meet the full elevation standard, which turns a cosmetic gut job into an elevation project fast on Hays County assessed values. Ask the city before the offer. See the fix and flip program. Subject to underwriting.

Because this market runs on judgment calls a bank's checklist does not have a box for. Hays County list prices fell faster than the rest of the Austin-San Antonio corridor over the past year, with the median list carrying a wide markdown share and sitting on the market for months, so a bank underwriting to a stale comp set can misprice the exit. A ground-up deal here also has to clear a state aquifer-protection review before city permitting even starts, which can add months of carry a generic construction loan does not budget for. We underwrite the deal and the timeline ourselves, with our own capital. See the ground up construction program or talk to us. Subject to underwriting.