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In Jarrell, 5,281 of the 7,650 houses on the Williamson Central Appraisal District's file were built in 2020 or later. In Cedar Park, 190 of 20,166 were. Both are Williamson County cities that people lump together as Austin suburbs. The records say they are very different kinds of housing stock.
This is what the district's own file shows for the nine cities where it lists the most houses: how many there are, how recently they were built, how big they are, and how long the drive is to Downtown Austin. It is a description of houses, not a ranking of places, and the table is in order of house count.
The nine cities side by side
We loaded Williamson CAD's 2026 improvement records into our research database on October 7, 2026 (the district's property characteristics file is dated July 27, 2026). We kept one record per property classified as a one-family residence (state class A1) with a recorded living area and year built, which gives 207,931 houses countywide. Cities are the "situs city" the district records for each property.
| City (as the district records it) | Houses | Built 2020 or later | Built before 2000 | Median year built | Median living area (sq ft) | One-story | Median free-flow minutes to Downtown |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Georgetown | 48,604 | 14,399 (29.6%) | 24.3% | 2014 | 2,177 | 68.3% | 40.5 |
| Round Rock | 48,444 | 4,241 (8.8%) | 41.2% | 2002 | 2,229 | 52.0% | 29.7 |
| Leander | 30,253 | 9,977 (33.0%) | 14.3% | 2016 | 2,241 | 51.7% | 34.9 |
| Cedar Park | 20,166 | 190 (0.9%) | 50.4% | 1999 | 2,231 | 49.5% | 29.4 |
| Hutto | 16,284 | 5,994 (36.8%) | 5.3% | 2015 | 1,950 | 66.2% | 35.5 |
| Austin (Williamson County part) | 16,184 | 160 (1.0%) | 62.5% | 1995 | 2,215 | 46.5% | 25.6 |
| Liberty Hill | 11,592 | 6,609 (57.0%) | 7.9% | 2020 | 2,530 | 52.0% | 42.5 |
| Jarrell | 7,650 | 5,281 (69.0%) | 3.9% | 2021 | 1,650 | 65.1% | 49.1 |
| Taylor | 6,220 | 920 (14.8%) | 62.3% | 1984 | 1,555 | 83.6% | 45.9 |
Percentages, medians and the drive-time column are our arithmetic on the district's records. The county as a whole is 23.2 percent built in 2020 or later, with a median year built of 2007 and a median living area of 2,146 square feet. The newest year on the file is 2025.
What stands out
- Cedar Park and the Williamson County part of Austin have almost no houses from the last six years. Together they have 350 on the file, against more than 12,000 in Hutto and Liberty Hill combined. About half of Cedar Park's houses (50.4 percent), and about 62 percent of the Austin addresses on this side of the county line, were built before 2000.
- Jarrell's houses are small and new. The median is 1,650 square feet and 2021, and just 52 of its 7,650 houses are 3,000 square feet or larger. Liberty Hill sits at the other end of the size column: a median of 2,530 square feet, with 3,212 houses at 3,000 or more.
- Taylor is the oldest stock on the list. The median house was built in 1984 and 83.6 percent are one-story. Its median living area, 1,555 square feet, is the smallest of the nine.
- The newest houses are the longest drives. The three cities with the highest share built since 2020 (Jarrell, Liberty Hill, Hutto) have median free-flow times to Downtown of 49, 43 and 36 minutes. Cedar Park, Round Rock and the Austin addresses sit at 26 to 30.
That last point deserves a plain caveat. The times are free-flow: no traffic, no stoplights backed up, no construction. They come from an OpenStreetMap road snapshot dated October 13, 2026 and are the same measure we used in our pieces on airport and grocery drive times and employer drive times. They are medians over the houses that have a drive-time row in our table, which is a subset of each city: 28,578 of Georgetown's 48,604, for example, and 3,540 of Jarrell's 7,650. A rush-hour trip on I-35 or Highway 183 will be longer than any number in the table.
Why the stock looks like this
The appraisal file records what was built, not why. Population counts give part of the backdrop. The Census Bureau's Vintage 2024 estimates, as reported by Community Impact, put Hutto's population up 9.4 percent between July 2023 and July 2024, the fastest of the Austin-area cities and 13th nationally, and Georgetown's up 4.8 percent to 101,344. A city adding residents that fast is a city adding houses, and the district's year-built counts are what that looks like on a map of records.
We did not pull any Census figure ourselves for this piece, and Vintage 2025 city-level numbers for most of these cities were not available to us, so we do not compare growth rates beyond what that report states.
What this means if you're buying or selling in Williamson County
If you are buying an older house (the majority of Cedar Park and the Austin part of Williamson County, and about two in five in Round Rock): a house built before 2000 has likely had its roof, HVAC or plumbing replaced at least once, or is due. Ask the seller what has been replaced and when, and use your inspection to check, not assume. Ask the city where the house sits how to look up its permit history; our piece on expired permits explains why that check matters, using Austin's rules.
If you are buying a newer house (most of Jarrell, Liberty Hill, Hutto and Leander): the tax bill is where newer subdivisions differ most. Some carry a municipal utility district line, and our MUD piece covers what the notice means and how wide the rates run. The first bill after you buy also depends on the homestead exemption, which in the county's file is active on about three in four houses regardless of age; see our homestead exemption count.
If you are selling: the table shows the houses a buyer in your city will compare yours with. A 1999 house in Cedar Park is competing in a market where houses from the last six years are scarce. A 2021 house in Hutto sits among thousands of similar ones. We do not draw a value conclusion from that, and the file has no prices. A local agent can tell you what it means for a specific street.
If you are choosing between cities: the numbers above describe houses and distance, not people, schools or what a street feels like. School districts do not follow city lines in this county, so check the district's own boundary tool for any address.
How we counted
Austin Local Team analysis of Williamson CAD improvement records for the 2026 roll (loaded into our research database October 7, 2026; property characteristics file dated July 27, 2026). A house is one property with state class A1, a living area above 200 square feet and a year built after 1800; where a property has several improvements we used the one with the largest living area. "City" is the district's situs city. It can differ from city limits, school district and taxing district boundaries, so confirm any address with the appraisal district and the city. Drive times are free-flow minutes from each house to Downtown Austin from our drive-time table, computed on an OpenStreetMap snapshot dated October 13, 2026 (table built October 14, 2026) and are available for a subset of houses per city. Percentages are rounded to one decimal. Our house count differs slightly from the 213,174 in our homestead piece because that count did not require a year built. We use appraisal district records only, never MLS data, and we do not identify owners. Public records are at the Williamson CAD data portal and property search.
If you want the same view for an address you are considering, with its tax line and drive times, our research tool is the place to start, and a local agent can walk you through the first year of ownership.