Lake Conroe Real Estate

A residential license from the San Jacinto River Authority, which controls the land up to the 201-foot contour. The homeowner signs the license agreement and sends scaled plans, then pays a yearly fee of $0.188 per square foot, at least $60. A bulkhead needs a separate permit, with a land surveyor's survey and construction plans.

The authority's rules say the right to build over the water does not come with owning the lot, and that it has no obligation to keep the lake at any level for a dock. A buyer should ask the seller for each structure's license and permit, the fee record and the survey during the option period. The fees, the permits and the 207-foot flowage easement are on the page about Lake Conroe docks, boathouses and bulkheads.

Only when the City of Houston asks. The city holds two-thirds of the lake's water rights, and the San Jacinto River Authority says it does not release water ahead of a storm without a request. Since April 2024 the protocol has allowed up to six inches of lowering at a time in spring and fall, more for a forecast major storm.

Seasonal lowering began after Hurricane Harvey in 2018, and in October 2025 the state raised the lake's maximum diversion rate from 700 to 2,000 cubic feet per second. The lake's normal level is 201 feet, and its record, 206.24 feet in August 2017, came within a foot of the authority's 207-foot flowage easement. The history is on the page about Lake Conroe's water level and the lowering policy.

It depends on the community. Adding the 2025 rates of the taxing units HAR lists for each one gives $1.6155 per $100 of value in Grand Harbor, $1.7855 in Bentwater, $1.9035 to $1.9855 in Walden, about $2.09 in April Sound, which is inside the City of Conroe, and $2.1752 in Point Aquarius.

Every home pays Montgomery County and its hospital district; the school district, any city, an emergency services district and a utility district make the difference. For 2026 the county raised its rate to $0.3860 while Montgomery ISD, Conroe ISD and Willis ISD all adopted lower ones. The units and rates for each community are in the table of Lake Conroe property tax rates by community.

In the Lake Conroe Area, homes sold at a $345,500 median as of September 2026, after a median 121 days listed. The communities differ widely: HAR's 2025 figures put the median sale price per square foot at $163.15 in Walden, $193.83 in Bentwater and $244.25 in Grand Harbor.

The area's figures mix lakefront homes with houses away from the water, and neither HAR nor Redfin separates the two, so a price for one waterfront house comes from recent closings in its own community on the same kind of lot. The monthly figures, the five communities side by side and HAR's per-foot history since 2017 are in the Lake Conroe housing market update.

Flood cover is its own policy: the Texas Department of Insurance notes that most home policies leave out flood damage and that a flood policy usually starts 30 days after it is bought. Windstorm is different from the coast, because Montgomery County is outside the state's catastrophe area, where the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association writes wind and hail cover.

Whether a lender requires flood insurance depends on the zone the FEMA map gives the lot, and on the lake the lot's height against the river authority's 207-foot flowage easement is worth reading too. Away from the coast, the department says, a homeowners policy probably includes wind and hail, sometimes with its own deductible. Insurance, schools, associations and the lake itself are covered in the Lake Conroe neighborhood guide.