Alamo Heights, Texas: Home Prices, Taxes, Schools, and Hazard Data

An Independent City, Not a San Antonio Neighborhood

Alamo Heights incorporated as its own municipality in 1922 and has kept a separate city council, police department, and fire department ever since. It coordinates utilities with San Antonio’s CPS Energy and SAWS rather than through San Antonio’s city government, and it acts on that authority regularly: in June 2026 the city council declared its own Stage 2 water restrictions tied to Edwards Aquifer Authority pumping limits, and it is weighing a July 2026 bond issuance for capital projects, actions a subdivision inside San Antonio could not take on its own.

Is Alamo Heights part of the city of San Antonio? No. It is a separate incorporated city, population 7,357 at the 2020 U.S. Census, completely surrounded by San Antonio, with its own government, police, and fire departments, though it uses San Antonio’s electric and water utilities and a 78209 mailing address.

Why Median Home Price Figures Disagree by Nearly $300,000

Five sources, five different numbers, all describing the same city at roughly the same time: Redfin’s citywide median sale price was $531,000 in March 2026, down 23.1% year over year, and $694,000 in November 2025, when only 3 homes closed. Zillow’s home-value index averaged $718,319 in May 2026. Orchard’s 30-day trailing median hit $830,559 that spring. Movoto’s median list price in April 2026 was $774,000. The Census Bureau’s separate measure, median owner-estimated home value for 2020 through 2024, sits at $779,400, a figure built from what owners believe their homes are worth, not from closings at all.

The gap has three separate causes, not one: sale volume is small enough that a single teardown lot or a cluster of condo closings swings a monthly median hard, list price and closing price answer different questions, and the Census figure isn’t a sale price at all. Anyone comparing a Zillow number to a Redfin number is often comparing two different things wearing the same label.

Is now a good time to buy in Alamo Heights? Homes are selling faster than a year ago in Redfin’s data, 23 days on market in November 2025 versus 58 days the prior year, but other trackers show 81 to 89 days for the same general window. Check the listing’s own days-on-market figure rather than a citywide average, since 3 to 8 monthly sales make citywide timing noisy.

Property Taxes and the 78209 Zip Code Boundary

Alamo Heights levies its own municipal property tax in addition to Alamo Heights ISD and Bexar County rates, which combine to roughly 2.1% to 2.3% of assessed value, separate from, and typically higher than, San Antonio’s SAISD or NEISD-zoned rates nearby. The 78209 zip code, though, is a postal boundary, not a taxing or school-district boundary: it also covers parts of Terrell Hills and pockets of unincorporated Bexar County, and some southern addresses carry a 78209 label while sitting under San Antonio city jurisdiction instead.

Does a 78209 zip code guarantee Alamo Heights ISD enrollment? No. AHISD boundaries cut through streets that share the 78209 zip code with Terrell Hills and San Antonio proper; verify the exact campus assignment for a specific address through AHISD’s enrollment office before making an offer.

Schools: What AHISD Ratings Cover

AHISD runs two elementary campuses, Cambridge and Woodridge, one middle school, and Alamo Heights High School. Cambridge Elementary holds a Purple Star Campus Designation from the Texas Education Agency for its support of military-connected families, per a local realtor’s district guide. A Levi Rodgers Real Estate Group analysis, a real estate industry claim rather than an independently verified TEA rating, places AHISD in the state’s top 2% for academic performance and notes block-by-block resale swings of roughly $100 per square foot within the district.

Renting: Current Bands Before Assuming Everyone Owns

Median gross rent in the 2020–2024 Census ACS was $1,727. Rentcast’s July 2025 average across the zip code was higher, at $1,990, with per-bedroom medians below.

The zip-code rent figures sit below what the citywide sale-price story would suggest, mostly because 78209 rental stock skews toward smaller units near Broadway and toward addresses just outside city limits.

Climate and Hazard Risk Data for the Area

First Street risk modeling distributed through Redfin puts 13% of Alamo Heights properties at severe flood risk over the next 30 years, with flood risk rising slower than the national average. Wind risk is higher: 64% of properties carry a severe wind rating tied to hurricane exposure, with a 1-in-3,000-year storm projected to produce gusts up to 104 mph today, rising to 109 mph in 30 years. Heat risk is universal on this measure, 100% of homes carry a severe heat factor, with a projected 214% increase in the number of days above 108°F over the next 30 years.

None of this shows up in a listing photo. A buyer weighing two similarly priced homes gains more from checking a specific address against First Street’s flood layer than from another round of citywide median comparisons.

What’s the flood risk in Alamo Heights? About 13% of properties carry a severe 30-year flood risk under First Street’s model, a moderate rating overall, though risk varies block by block near Olmos Creek and the Salado Creek greenway.

A Brief History

George Brackenridge built a mansion near the headwaters of the San Antonio River in the late 1800s and named it Alamo Heights. The city incorporated in 1922, and later annexed Bluebonnet Hills in 1928 and Sylvan Hills in 1944 as it expanded north.

Who Alamo Heights Suits, and Comparable Cities Nearby

Buyers priced out of Alamo Heights but wanting a similar tier of schools and services look at Terrell Hills and Olmos Park, the two other members of what local guides call the Tri-Cities, or Stone Oak further north; no independent city-level price data was found for either during this search, so treat them as leads to research directly rather than confirmed lower-cost equivalents. For a genuinely different price point, New Braunfels sits about 30 miles northeast along I-35 with median home prices in the $350,000 to $400,000 range, a different commute and lifestyle, not a substitute neighborhood. On Broadway itself, longevity is part of the pitch: Cappy’s has served the corridor for more than 45 years, alongside newer entrants like Bistro09 and Paloma Blanca.

Common Mistakes When Evaluating the Market

• Trusting one price tracker. A single Zillow or Redfin number can sit $150,000 to $300,000 away from another tracker’s figure for the same month; check the metric type, sale, list, or index, before comparing.
• Assuming 78209 equals AHISD. Confirm the campus assignment for the specific address with AHISD directly.
• Skipping the rush-hour drive. Published commute times, 10 to 15 minutes downtown, 15 to 20 minutes to the South Texas Medical Center, reflect off-peak conditions.
• Reading “median” as “typical.” With 3 to 8 sales in a given month, one high-end teardown lot or one small condo cluster can move the citywide number by tens of thousands of dollars.
• Not checking address-level hazard data. Citywide flood and wind percentages mask block-by-block variation near Olmos and Salado Creek.