If you are shopping new construction in Grand Cay Harbour, Texas City, TX, you are shopping one of the few mainland Galveston County communities where a builder is still putting homes on canal-oriented lots. That makes it unusual, and it also makes it tricky. Grand Cay Harbour is not a brand-new subdivision with a blank slate of homesites. It is a community whose median home was finished in 2016, where resale inventory and builder inventory sit on the same streets, and where the tax bill works very differently from the rest of Texas City. Here is what actually matters before you pick a plan.
Best for what? New construction here means three different purchases
"New construction realtor" covers three jobs, and in Grand Cay Harbour they are not the same transaction. Picking a builder plan from a to-be-built lot, buying a nearly finished inventory home, and buying a 2016 resale three doors down all price differently and close differently. The HAR 2025 neighborhood record for Grand Cay Harbour shows 160 single-family homes, a median of 2,385 square feet on a median 6,681 square foot lot, and a median year built of 2016. Median market value sits at $563,035 with a median appraised value of $560,440 and a neighborhood value range of $471,000 to $687,000.
Now set that against the builder board. D.R. Horton currently shows three ready-to-build plans here, the Garland, Justin and Jackson, starting from $404,990 to $524,990 across 1,839 to 2,604 square feet, all four-bedroom layouts.
| What you are buying | Typical size | Price signal | The real question to ask |
|---|---|---|---|
| To-be-built builder plan | 1,839 to 2,604 sq ft | From $404,990 to $524,990 | Which homesites are left, and what do they back to |
| Builder inventory home | Varies by release | Set by the builder, often with incentives | What is the incentive worth if you use your own lender |
| 2016-era resale | Median 2,385 sq ft | Neighborhood range $471K to $687K | Has it been through a named storm, and what did it cost |
Read those two sets of numbers together and the headline becomes clear: the builder's entry price is below the bottom of the established neighborhood's value range. A new build here is not automatically the premium product on the street. That reverses the instinct most buyers arrive with, and it is the reason we walk clients through resale and new side by side rather than treating them as separate searches.
The tax line almost nobody prices in
This is the single most important fact about buying in Grand Cay Harbour, and it is the one that catches buyers who compared monthly payments across Texas City addresses. The 2025 HAR tax record for this neighborhood lists Galveston MUD 52 at 1.3900 percent, Texas City ISD at 1.1543 percent, Galveston County at 0.3227 percent, Mainland College at 0.2638 percent and County Road and Flood at 0.0030 percent. HAR does not print a combined figure, but those lines add to roughly 3.13 percent.
For comparison, established Texas City pockets outside a MUD district have been running near 2.22 percent on the same roll. That gap of roughly 0.91 percentage points is about $4,100 a year, or $340 a month, on a $450,000 home. It is not a rounding error. It is the difference between two very different budgets, and it exists because a municipal utility district financed the infrastructure that made building out here possible in the first place.
The right way to handle it is not to avoid the community. MUD rates typically step down as district debt is retired, and the waterfront access is the reason people buy here. The right way is to get the actual rate for the actual address from the Galveston Central Appraisal District before you sign, and to have your lender quote the payment with that rate rather than a county average. HAR's own page notes that tax type varies by property, so treat any single number as a starting point.
What the appraisal roll is telling sellers and buyers
There is a second number worth sitting with. The same HAR record shows a median appraised value of $234.99 per square foot against a median sold price of $217.08 per square foot. Sold is running about 7.6 percent below the roll. In plain terms, the appraisal district currently values this neighborhood slightly ahead of what buyers are actually paying.
| Signal | Grand Cay Harbour (HAR 2025) | Texas City overall | What it means for you |
|---|---|---|---|
| Median market value | $563,035 | Median sale price $289,681 (Redfin, Aug 2026) | This is a premium pocket inside a value city |
| Appraised per sq ft | $234.99 | Citywide $145/sq ft (Redfin, 3 mo to Aug 2026) | Waterfront orientation carries a real premium |
| Sold per sq ft | $217.08 | Not comparable at the neighborhood level | Sold trails the roll by about 7.6 percent |
| Days on market | Not published at neighborhood level | 62 days (Redfin, Aug 2026) | Galveston County overall ran 73 days in Sept 2026 (FRED) |
That inversion matters in two directions. If you are buying, do not let a seller anchor on their appraisal notice. If you already own here and are thinking about selling into the builder's active sales effort, understand that you are competing with a brand-new four-bedroom from the low $400,000s while your tax statement says something else entirely. Eleven resale listings were showing in the neighborhood record against 26 recorded sales, which is meaningful competition in a 160-home community.
Tradeoffs worth weighing before you pick a homesite
| Option | Upside | Trade-Off |
|---|---|---|
| Buying the builder plan | You choose finishes, you get builder warranty coverage, and incentive structures can quietly beat a price reduction on a resale | You are buying into the MUD rate at its current level, and you will not know your real neighbors or drainage behavior until after closing |
| Buying a 2016-era resale | Mature landscaping, a known storm history, and a seller who may be negotiable against new inventory down the street | Roofs, HVAC systems and bulkheads from the original build are now at or near the age where they need real money |
| Waiting for the next phase | More homesites to choose from, and MUD debt that may be further retired | Canal-oriented lots in a 160-home community are finite, and the best ones tend not to come back |
One practical note that is easy to miss on a tour: ask for the specific plat section and the recorded restrictions for the lot you like, not the community brochure. Streets here include Allen Cay Drive, Highborne Cay Court and Brigantine Cay Court, and what is permitted regarding boat storage, bulkhead maintenance responsibility and structures varies by what is actually recorded. The promotional copy on third-party neighborhood pages is not the governing document, and we have seen buyers assume amenities that nobody can point to on paper.
Why The Mandie McMillan Team, Client for Life, not "best agent"
Mandie McMillan was born and raised in La Marque, the center of Galveston County, and has lived in the area for 50 years. She is the 2026 Chair of the Texas City-La Marque Chamber of Commerce after four years on its executive board, which means the economic development shaping Texas City is not an abstraction to her. She is a RE/MAX International Hall of Fame inductee and a repeat RE/MAX Chairman's Club and Platinum Club honoree, with 26 years in the business.
In 2025 the team closed 75 sides and $22,127,458 in volume across just six producing agents, with Mandie personally closing 30 sides and $11,676,748. That is roughly 12.5 sides and $3.7 million per agent. You get an experienced agent who knows your file, not a number in a forty-agent funnel. On new construction that matters more than usual, because builder sales representatives work for the builder, and someone needs to be reading the contract, the MUD disclosure and the homesite plat on your side of the table.
We call it Client for Life. Call or message The Mandie McMillan Team at RE/MAX Coastal before you sign a builder contract in Grand Cay Harbour, and let us price the new build and the resale next door against each other with the real tax number in the payment.
