Vacant house, Texas
We Buy Vacant Texas Houses — Stop the Carrying Costs
A vacant Texas house is a meter running in the background. Vacant-dwelling insurance — if you can still get it — runs 50 to 100 percent over a standard homeowner's policy. Property tax keeps coming due even with no rent to offset it. Utilities cannot be fully shut off without risking the pipes. Code enforcement gets aggressive in the major metros. Squatters become a real exposure after a few months empty. We buy the house as-is, close in 9 days, and the burn stops.
The honest math
Why vacant houses are expensive — and why they get more expensive the longer you wait
The standard advice on a vacant house is "just leave it, you'll get to it eventually." That advice ignores how the cost stack actually works on an empty Texas home. A vacant property is not a frozen asset — it is an asset that produces a monthly bill in five different directions, and the longer the vacancy runs, the worse each bill gets. The purpose of this page is to walk through the math honestly, explain the insurance gap most owners do not know about until they file a claim and discover it has been denied, and lay out the option you actually have if the math is no longer working.
The voice here is deliberate: no shame, no judgment. People end up with vacant houses for normal reasons. They inherited the property and live two thousand miles away. They took a job in Phoenix and moved before the house sold. The last tenant left and re-leasing was harder than expected. A parent moved into assisted living. A snowbird decided not to come back south for one more winter and the house has been empty since. None of that is a moral failure. It is just an ongoing financial exposure that gets quieter and more expensive the longer it sits.
Vacant-home insurance premiums
Standard Texas homeowner's policies lapse coverage at 30 to 60 days of vacancy (the exact threshold is in your policy's vacancy clause). After that point, you need a vacant-dwelling policy — a different product, written by fewer carriers, at a 50 to 100 percent premium over the standard policy. If you never converted the coverage, the house is effectively uninsured for everything except basic named-peril fire, and that gap is the single largest hidden carrying cost on a vacant Texas home.
Property taxes with no rent to offset
Texas has no state income tax, which means the public-services bill lands on property taxes. The statewide average effective rate runs roughly 1.6 to 1.8 percent of assessed value, and counties like Fannin sit even higher. On a $250,000 vacant house, that is $4,000 to $4,500 per year — coming due whether the house earns a dollar or not. A vacant property cannot deduct the tax against rental income because there is no rental income.
Utilities you cannot fully turn off
Cutting all utilities sounds like the obvious move, but in Texas it is not safe. You need enough power to run a thermostat in summer (so the house does not bake and warp), enough power to run minimal heat in the rare winter freeze (so the pipes do not burst — see February 2021), and ideally enough power to run an alarm or camera system. If you have winterized fully, you saved the utility bill but spent the winterization money. Either way, there is a monthly base charge.
Code-enforcement exposure
Texas cities — especially Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, and San Antonio — have aggressive vacant-property programs. Overgrowth, broken windows, unsecured entries, missing screens, peeling paint visible from the street, accumulation on the porch — all of it is citation-eligible. Fines on sustained violations can reach $2,000 per day in some Texas cities, and those fines roll into liens that attach to the property. The city does not need your participation to file the lien.
Squatter risk
A house that visibly looks empty for months becomes a target. In Texas major metros, organized squatter networks watch utility-disconnect records, code postings, and uncut yards. Before Texas SB 1333 (2025), removal often required the eviction-court process even though squatting is not a tenancy — meaning weeks of court time, attorneys, and a property full of someone else's belongings. SB 1333 added a fast-track affidavit path, but the underlying risk of finding squatters in your vacant house has not gone down.
Stack the five. On a typical $250,000 vacant Texas house, the annual carrying cost — property tax plus a vacant-dwelling policy at the higher premium plus minimum utilities plus winterization plus the occasional repair from deferred maintenance — regularly runs $7,000 to $12,000 a year before anything goes wrong. One code-violation cycle, one storm with a lapsed policy, or one squatter event can multiply that number quickly. The longer the vacancy, the worse the ratio of carrying cost to market value, and the worse the eventual sale condition gets.
The load-bearing section
The Texas vacant-home insurance gap most owners do not know about
This is the section to read twice. The single most common bad surprise on a Texas vacant house is the owner finding out — after a storm, a fire, or a break-in — that their standard homeowner's policy stopped covering the property somewhere between 30 and 60 days into the vacancy, and the claim is denied. The carrier did not call to warn you. The vacancy clause was always in the policy. It is enforceable and Texas courts enforce it.
Here is how the product landscape actually works, what the differences between the policy forms mean, and why this matters in a state that leads the country in both hailstorms and tornadoes.
What "vacant" means to your insurer
Insurance carriers distinguish between "unoccupied" and "vacant." Unoccupied generally means the owner's belongings are still there and the owner could return on short notice — a snowbird home in the summer, a vacation property, a house being prepared for sale. Vacant means substantially empty — no furniture or minimal furniture, no current occupant, no clear intent to return. Most standard HO-3 policies will tolerate unoccupied for longer than vacant. Once the house crosses the carrier's vacancy threshold — typically 30 to 60 consecutive days depending on the policy — coverage for several major perils drops out: vandalism, broken glass, water damage, and (in many cases) theft. Fire often stays. The details vary by carrier, so the actual answer is in your policy.
DP-1, DP-2, DP-3 — the dwelling-policy spectrum
Once the standard policy will not cover a vacant home, the alternative is a dwelling-fire / vacant-dwelling policy. These come in three general flavors, varying by carrier and state, with progressively broader coverage:
- DP-1 (basic form): Named-peril coverage for a narrow list — fire, lightning, internal explosion, sometimes extended perils as an endorsement. Lowest premium. Lowest protection. Frequently the only thing actually available on a property in poor condition or a long-vacant home.
- DP-2 (broad form): Named-peril coverage for an expanded list — adds wind, hail, vehicle and aircraft damage, riot, smoke, falling objects, weight of ice and snow, accidental water discharge from plumbing, freezing of pipes (with conditions), and several others. The most common vacant-dwelling product written in Texas.
- DP-3 (special form): Open-peril coverage on the dwelling — meaning it covers everything except a list of named exclusions. Closest analogue to a standard HO-3 homeowner's policy. Most expensive. Hardest to get on a long-vacant or distressed property.
The exact perils, exclusions, and endorsements vary materially by carrier and by the state's filed forms. The descriptions above are the general industry shape — confirm specifics with your agent. The point is: a vacant Texas house needs the right product, and the right product is not the policy you had on the house when you lived in it.
Which carriers even write vacant policies in Texas
The market is meaningfully thinner than the standard homeowner's market. Major carriers like State Farm, Allstate, and USAA generally do not write stand-alone vacant-dwelling policies in Texas — they let the vacancy clause kick in on the existing policy and refer the customer elsewhere. The carriers that actually write the product in Texas are the specialty and surplus-lines insurers — Foremost (Farmers subsidiary), Lloyd's of London via wholesale brokers, Lemonade in some markets, and a handful of Texas-domiciled and specialty E&S carriers that handle vacant and distressed property as a niche. Premiums typically run 50 to 100 percent above an equivalent standard homeowner's policy on the same dwelling, and underwriting is stricter — they will ask about visit frequency, winterization, alarm monitoring, and condition.
The Texas weather reality
Texas leads the United States in both hailstorm frequency and tornado count in most years. A vacant house in DFW, the Hill Country, the Panhandle, or anywhere along the Red River corridor is one supercell away from a roof replacement and one EF-1 from a total loss. If the policy is lapsed when it happens — and the average Texas hailstorm does not wait for your renewal date — the loss is yours. We have walked vacant houses in North and East Texas where the owner had no idea the policy was inactive until they tried to file. The insurance gap on vacant Texas property is not theoretical; it is the most common bad outcome we see, and it is the single biggest argument for either buying a proper vacant-dwelling policy or selling the house and ending the exposure.
We are not insurance brokers and this is not insurance advice. Talk to a licensed Texas property-and-casualty agent before changing or canceling any policy. The purpose of this section is to make sure you ask the right questions — most vacant-house owners have never been told these questions exist.
Who reaches out
Why people end up with vacant houses
Almost nobody plans for their house to sit empty. The vacancy is usually a downstream effect of something else — a death in the family, a job move that happened faster than the sale, a tenant who left, a parent who needed care, a city letter that arrived in the mail. The five patterns below cover most of the calls we get from owners of vacant Texas property.
Inherited and the heir does not want to manage it
The most common call. A parent passes in a Texas city, the adult child lives in California, New York, Colorado, or another state, and managing the property from a distance is not practical. Mowing, securing, paying utilities, fielding calls from the city — none of it scales over two thousand miles. We close out of the estate so the heir does not have to fly back. See our dedicated inherited house Texas guide for the probate-path detail.
Job relocation — moved before selling
The job started in Denver, Phoenix, Atlanta, or out of state on a date that did not line up with selling the Texas house. The plan was to list, sell, and close in 60 days. Six months later, the house is still empty, the listing went stale, the price reductions have started, and the carrying cost from two cities is grinding the budget. We close on the existing condition, no staging needed.
Landlord between tenants
The last tenant left, the unit needs more work than the next month of rent justifies, and the landlord is doing the math on whether to invest in the turn or exit. Often this is an out-of-area owner with a single Texas rental who has decided one rental does not pencil out as a business. We buy tenant-departed homes with deferred maintenance — that is a category we already underwrite to.
Seasonal or snowbird owner who decided not to come back
The Texas Hill Country and East Texas have a real snowbird population — owners who spend winters here and summers somewhere cooler. When the summer turns into a longer absence, then into a permanent move, the seasonal house quietly becomes a vacant house, often without the owner reclassifying the insurance. We close on it without the owner needing to come back for a final walkthrough.
Code-enforcement-pressured
A letter from the city. Then a citation. Then a hearing notice. Then liens. The city wants compliance — secure the property, mow the lot, board the broken windows, demolish the unsalvageable structure — or it wants the property to change hands to someone who will. When the math no longer works on bringing it back into compliance from another state, the cleanest exit is a sale. We pay the city's liens at closing.
Why a cash sale, not a listing
What we do that a traditional listing does not
A vacant house is a hard listing. The agent needs photos that show well. The buyers want to walk through. The inspections find every issue that comes with a house nobody has lived in for months. The financing contingency stretches the timeline. The owner — usually out of state — has to coordinate everything from a distance. The list-it path is not bad. It is just not what most vacant-house owners actually want. Here is what we do differently.
We come to you
No showings to coordinate. No open houses. No "be ready for a 30-minute notice" pings from the listing agent's app while you are at work in another state. We drive the property ourselves and report back. You do not have to be there. You do not have to clean. You do not have to coordinate.
We buy as-is
Code violations, city liens, tax arrears, deferred maintenance from years of vacancy, storm damage from supercells you never knew hit the house — all of it is in the offer math. We do not ask you to fix anything before closing. We do not ask you to get a clean four-point inspection. We do not ask you to re-key the locks or board the broken window.
We close fast
Nine days from contract is normal once title is clear. The faster the close, the sooner the monthly burn stops — the insurance premium, the tax accrual, the utility base charges, the exposure to a storm or a squatter. Fast closing is not a sales pitch on a vacant house. It is the entire point.
How it works
Our process for vacant-house sales
Four steps. The whole thing is built around the assumption that you live somewhere else and that you do not want to fly back for the transaction. Everything happens remotely except the closing notary, and we coordinate that for you.
- 1
Phone or form — tell us the address, the situation, the timeline
Address. How long the house has been vacant. Whether there are code letters, liens, or tax issues you know about. Whether the insurance is current. Whether there is anyone living in or around the property who should not be there. Your timeline. That is the whole intake. We do not need photos. We do not need you to drive past the house.
- 2
We drive the property — you do not need to be there
A single member of our team visits the house at a time we coordinate. If you have a key or a code, great; if not, we do an exterior-and-accessible walkthrough and the offer accounts for the unknowns inside. The walkthrough takes 20 to 45 minutes. We pull tax records, comparable sales, any city records on file, and the lien history while we are at it.
- 3
Written offer factoring in any code, lien, or condition issues
We send a written offer that shows our work. Comparable retail sales, renovation budget at investor-retail rates, the cost of clearing city liens and tax arrears at closing, holding costs, and the margin we need to underwrite the risk. What you sign is what funds — no inspection-driven renegotiation, no surprise reduction the week before closing.
- 4
Close at title in 9 days
The title company opens escrow. They clear the liens and tax arrears at the closing table out of the proceeds — you do not bring money. A mobile notary comes to your home or office wherever you live. You sign. Funds wire on the day of close. The carrying-cost meter stops that day.
Our broader process is documented on the how it works page, and our typical answers to seller questions live in the FAQ.
At the closing table
What we handle at closing that you do not have to
The financial mess that builds up around a vacant Texas house — code liens, tax arrears, utility shut-off coordination, securing the property between contract and closing — is built into our process. None of it is on you to fix before talking to us, and none of it is on you to coordinate after signing. Here is the concrete list.
Code violations and city liens
Open citations, abatement charges, mowing-and-cleaning fees, structural-condition orders. The title company runs the lien search; we pay what is filed at the closing table. You do not negotiate with the city. You do not write a check.
Property-tax arrears
Past-due Texas property taxes accrue penalty and interest fast. The county attorney files suit eventually. We pay tax arrears at closing out of the proceeds — you do not catch the bill up before the transaction.
Utility shut-off coordination
We coordinate the final reads and the account transfers with electricity, gas, water, and city services. You do not call the utility, you do not transfer the account, you do not pay the disconnect fee.
Securing the property between contract and close
If the house is genuinely exposed during the escrow period — broken doors, unsecured windows, no monitoring — we will secure it on our dime as part of our pre-close diligence. You keep your insurance active through closing, but we shoulder the operational work.
Statewide service area
Where we buy vacant houses in Texas
Statewide. The vacant-house market is bigger in the rural and small-city Texas markets than the listing inventory suggests — vacancy rates outside the major metros run structurally higher because population growth is slower, inheritance flows are heavier, and there are fewer cash buyers willing to make the drive. We make the drive. Bonham sits at roughly 9.6 percent vacancy per the 2020 Census — notably above DFW suburbs — and Mineral Wells and similar markets run higher than that. Those are real per-city pipelines, not edge cases.
Cities with dedicated guides
Each link below walks through the local context — probate, foreclosure, housing-stock age, and market data — for that city. Useful for understanding how our process maps to where your vacant home actually sits.
Major metros and dedicated vacant-house variants in production
We buy vacant houses across all of the Texas major metros. Dedicated vacant-house variants for Dallas, Fort Worth, and Houston are in production — along with focused variants for the highest-vacancy small markets including Bonham and Mineral Wells. Until those publish, the statewide process on this page applies. The intake, the offer math, and the closing process are the same.
- Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex — Dallas, Fort Worth, Plano, Arlington, Irving, Frisco, McKinney, Denton, Garland, Mesquite, Richardson, and surrounding suburbs.
- Houston metro — Houston proper, Pasadena, Pearland, Sugar Land, The Woodlands.
- Austin and San Antonio metros — Austin, San Antonio, Round Rock, Cedar Park, New Braunfels.
- East Texas — Tyler, Longview, Marshall, Nacogdoches, Lufkin, Palestine.
- Central and West Texas — Waco, Killeen, Temple, Abilene, Midland, Odessa, San Angelo.
- South Texas and the Valley — Corpus Christi, Brownsville, McAllen, Laredo, Victoria.
Rural property without a city designation works the same way — we drive in. The farther we drive, the more travel and logistics enter the offer math, but the process is identical.
If your situation overlaps with another pillar — inherited property, hoarder conditions, code-enforcement pressure — those guides go deeper on the relevant Texas law. See our inherited house Texas guide, the hoarder houses Texas guide, and the broader situations index. For the general cash-offer process, see sell your house.
Vacant house FAQ
The questions absentee owners ask
Do I need to maintain insurance on the house while we are in contract?
Yes — keep whatever coverage you have in place through closing. If a storm hits the house between contract signing and the closing date, you want your policy active so the claim runs through your carrier rather than landing on us mid-transaction. If your homeowner's policy has already lapsed because of the vacancy clause, tell us during the offer conversation — we factor that into the price and the timeline, and in some cases we can move closing forward to shorten the uninsured window.
What if the city has already issued code violations or fines?
We pay code-enforcement liens at closing out of the proceeds. The title company runs a full lien search on the property before funding, and anything filed by the city — abatement charges, mowing-and-cleaning citations, junked-vehicle fines, structural-condition orders — gets cleared at the closing table. You do not write a check to the city. You do not need to negotiate the fines down before talking to us. We handle that conversation through the title company.
What if there are squatters in the house?
It happens more than people expect — especially on houses that have sat empty for 6+ months in DFW, Houston, San Antonio, or the smaller cities with visible vacancy. Texas passed SB 1333 in 2025, which created a fast-track sworn-affidavit process for removing squatters that is meaningfully faster than the old eviction-court path. We can either close around the situation (we take possession, we handle the removal under SB 1333) or, if you would rather handle it first, we can write the offer with a removal contingency that lines up with the law's timeline. Tell us what is going on and we will walk through both paths.
Can I sell if the utilities are off?
Yes. Utilities being off is actually common on vacant houses and does not slow us down. We do not need power, water, or gas to write an offer — the walkthrough is a daytime visit, we bring our own light, and we already know what to look for in a winterized property. If there is no power at all, we do an exterior-and-accessible-interior assessment and adjust the offer for any unknowns. We do not penalize you for a normal vacancy condition.
I am out of state — do I have to come to Texas for closing?
No. We close hundreds of miles of distance routinely. The title company coordinates a mobile notary in your city; you sign the deed and any related documents at your kitchen table or your office. The proceeds wire to your bank account on the day of funding. The entire transaction can happen without you setting foot in Texas. If you would rather come down — some sellers want a last visit to the property — we work around your schedule.
How long does the whole thing take?
Nine days from a signed contract is normal once the title company has clear title. If the house has been vacant a long time and the chain of title is straightforward — meaning no probate, no divorce-decree complications, no ancient unreleased lien from a mortgage paid off in 1998 — we can sometimes close faster. If there is a title issue, it depends on the issue. We have closed vacant-house deals in three weeks because of a stale lien that needed a release letter, and we have closed in nine days when everything was clean. We will be honest with you about the timeline as soon as title pulls the file.
What if the house has been vacant for years and the condition is unknown?
That is a normal situation, not a deal-breaker. Long-vacant houses tend to have a predictable cluster of issues — pipe failures from freeze-thaw cycles (especially after the 2021 Texas freeze), HVAC that has not run in years, roof leaks that nobody caught, pest intrusion, sometimes rodent or bird nesting in the attic. We underwrite to all of that. If you genuinely do not know what is inside because you live in another state and nobody has been to the property in years, we go look. We do not need you on site, and we will tell you honestly what we find in the offer.
Do you buy in small Texas cities and rural areas?
Yes. We work statewide. The vacancy rate in rural and small-town Texas is structurally higher than in the DFW suburbs — Bonham is at roughly 9.6 percent vacancy per the 2020 Census, well above DFW averages, and Mineral Wells and similar markets run higher than that. Vacant-house pipelines are real in those markets, and most cash buyers will not make the drive. We will. We have dedicated city pages for Bonham, Whitesboro, Glen Rose, Mineral Wells, Gainesville, Paris, Denison, Canton, Athens, Lindale, Hillsboro, Corsicana, Sherman, Tyler, Waco, Wichita Falls, and Granbury, and we buy in the surrounding rural counties for the right deal.
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