Still carrying a mortgage on your Horseshoe Bay home? You can still do a reverse mortgage, and most people who get one do exactly this. It pays off your current loan first, which wipes out that monthly payment, and any equity beyond the payoff is yours to use. On a $550K Horseshoe Bay home in Llano County, longtime owners usually have more than enough equity to cover it.
A typical Horseshoe Bay home is worth around $550K on Lake LBJ, and much of that is equity a longtime owner has never touched. A reverse mortgage only fits some situations, and I will say so when it does not. See how Horseshoe Bay compares on my Texas aging-in-place overview.
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On this page
- Local reverse mortgage broker in Horseshoe Bay
- Aging in place in Horseshoe Bay
- What is my Horseshoe Bay home worth?
- Reverse mortgage calculator
- Cost of aging in place
- Is a reverse mortgage right for me?
- Learn how reverse mortgages work
- Reverse mortgage options in Horseshoe Bay
- How much a reverse mortgage costs in Horseshoe Bay
- Condos and HOA
- Reverse mortgage FAQs
Reverse Mortgage Specialist in Horseshoe Bay, TX
Who is a local reverse mortgage broker in Horseshoe Bay, TX? Christopher Gibson (NMLS #1910430) is an independent broker with C2 Financial Corporation (NMLS #135622). He helps Horseshoe Bay homeowners age 55 and older (age 62+ for the government-insured HECM) turn home equity into funds for retirement. Because the funds are loan proceeds rather than income, they are generally not subject to federal income tax.* Call or text 720-449-6622.
Aging in place in Horseshoe Bay, at a glance
The honest pros and cons, every measure I track, sorted by which way it cuts. Full detail below.
| Works in your favor | Neutral or mixed | Plan around it |
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Figures: U.S. Census ACS 2020-2024 5-Year; County Health Rankings 2025 (life expectancy, county level); NOAA 1991-2020 Climate Normals; FEMA National Risk Index (per hazard, not the composite). This product uses the Census Bureau Data API but is not endorsed or certified by the Census Bureau.
Why a reverse mortgage appeals to Horseshoe Bay homeowners 62+ attempting to age in place
Horseshoe Bay is a lake resort community on Lake LBJ in the Highland Lakes, popular with retirees, where the typical home now runs around $550K. For a longtime owner most of that is equity they have never spent, and with no state income tax a reverse mortgage turns part of it into cash flow while they stay on the water.
Horseshoe Bay grew up as a Hill Country resort community on Lake LBJ, and many of its residents are retirees who bought lots and built along the granite shoreline years ago. With typical values well above $800,000 and waterfront demand still strong across Llano and Burnet counties, longtime owners here hold some of the highest home equity in Central Texas. That wealth gives area seniors substantial financial flexibility in retirement.
Horseshoe Bay reverse mortgage facts and figures
Horseshoe Bay values run above the rural Hill Country norm thanks to the lake, and that equity is what a reverse mortgage puts to work. Here are a few numbers worth knowing:
Home values: Zillow, mid-2026. HECM limit: HUD/FHA 2026. Property tax: U.S. Census. Figures change, so ask me for today’s numbers on your home.
What is your Horseshoe Bay home worth today?
Curious what your home could be worth, and how much equity you have to work with? Use my free home-value tool below. Enter your address for an instant Horseshoe Bay estimate you can track over time, at no cost and no obligation.
Reverse Mortgage Calculator
Let’s calculate how much equity you can unlock.
A reverse mortgage is a loan. The balance grows over time and is repaid when the last borrower leaves the home. You keep the title, and you remain responsible for property taxes, homeowners insurance, and upkeep.
Aging in place in Horseshoe Bay with a reverse mortgage: what it really costs
Almost half of Horseshoe Bay is 65 or older, the median home is worth $549,800, and the city grants senior homeowners no additional exemption at all. Ten miles up the lake, Marble Falls grants $50,000 and freezes the bill. The result is that both towns pay about the same property tax on very different houses.
The tax comparison that should decide where you buy
Median real estate taxes paid here are $4,996. In Marble Falls they are $5,020. Statistically the same bill, on a home worth 62% more. That sounds like Horseshoe Bay wins, and on the general homestead it does: the city levies 0.26775, exactly half the Marble Falls rate, and grants a 20% homestead exemption, while Llano County grants 20% as well where Burnet County grants nothing.
The senior layer runs the other way. The City of Horseshoe Bay grants no additional over-65 exemption and I found no city tax ceiling, while Marble Falls grants $50,000 and a freeze. Llano County likewise shows no senior dollar exemption. So the general homeowner does better here and the 65-year-old does better there, which is a strange result in a town where nearly half the residents are seniors. I could not confirm whether Llano County or the city has adopted the optional ceiling, so ask the appraisal district rather than taking my word for it.
The state layer is the same either way: at 65 you shelter $200,000 of appraised value from school tax. One quirk of living here is that which school district you are in depends on which county your lot sits in. The Llano County side is Llano ISD at 0.7843. The Burnet County side is Marble Falls ISD at 0.8855, about ten cents more, but with $63,000 rather than $60,000 on the senior exemption. Check your parcel, not your address.
Llano Central Appraisal District
At these values the government loan often runs out of room
This is the core of the page. The federally insured HECM stops calculating at a 2026 maximum claim amount of $1,249,125, no matter what your home is worth above it. Working from the Census value distribution, roughly one in five owner-occupied homes in Horseshoe Bay exceeds that limit, about a quarter are valued over a million dollars, and better than a third are over $750,000. In Marble Falls it is about one in twenty. Those are estimates from survey bands rather than a parcel count, so treat them as direction rather than precision.
For homeowners above the line, the proprietary and jumbo programs are usually where the real money is, and the difference is not marginal. Shopping the same borrower across wholesale lenders rather than taking one bank’s single product is frequently the difference between a capped draw and one that reflects what the house is actually worth. If you own on Applehead Island or in Summit Rock, start that conversation assuming the HECM is the floor, not the answer.
Your association dues depend on your section, and the range is enormous
This is the number that changes a reverse mortgage file here and it is easy to get wrong. Membership in the property owners association is mandatory under the 1971 declaration, dues are billed per lot annually in advance, and combining two lots does not reduce what you owe. A lien attaches if you have not paid by mid-year.
The 2026 assessments range from $198.54 in The Waters and $360.99 across the Proper, North and South sections, up to $2,334.69 in Summit Rock, $2,416.39 in Siena Creek and $5,125.00 on Applehead Island. That is a spread of more than twenty-five to one inside one small city.
Why it matters: under the federal rules, mandatory association dues are a property charge, the same category as your taxes and insurance. They feed the residual income test and they can trigger a set-aside that carves money off the top of your available principal. Two identical borrowers with identical houses, one on Applehead Island and one in The Waters, do not get the same loan. Tell me your section in the first conversation, and note that the resort club is separately owned and its membership is optional, so that one is not a property charge.
There is no hospital in this city
Horseshoe Bay has no hospital of its own. The nearest are Baylor Scott and White in Marble Falls, about ten miles away, and the medical center in Llano, both designated Level IV, which means stabilize and transfer rather than definitive surgical care. The nearest Level I is Dell Seton Medical Center at UT in Austin, roughly 58 miles east.
In a city where 48.2% of residents are 65 or older and the median age is 64.6, that is the most consequential fact on this page after the money. It does not mean do not retire here. Plenty of people do, happily. It means that if the plan is to stay in this house into your eighties, the drive to definitive care belongs in the plan alongside the view.
A constant-level lake, and what it does and does not protect you from
Lake LBJ is held between roughly 824.4 and 825.0 feet, an operating band under a foot wide, because it is a pass-through lake rather than a water-supply reservoir. Buchanan and Travis absorb the swings; Lake Travis can move more than forty feet. For a waterfront owner that is the whole appeal: the dock stays in the water and the shoreline stays where it is through a drought.
Two things it does not mean. It does not mean no flood risk, because a pass-through lake passes water through, and this is Flash Flood Alley. And it does not mean recurring fees: the river authority charges no permit fee for a residential dock up to 1,500 square feet, so despite what you may be told, dock permitting is not an ongoing property charge on your loan. Marinas pay annual fees. Homeowners do not.
A resort subdivision that became a city thirty-four years later
Horseshoe Bay was platted as a private resort development in 1971 and did not incorporate as a city until 2005. That gap explains almost everything structural about the place, including why the deed restrictions and the assessments sit with the property owners association rather than with the city, and why the dues vary so much by section: they were set development by development, long before there was a municipal government to standardize anything.
Getting around
Horseshoe Bay scores 22 on Walk Score, car-dependent, and there is no downtown grid to soften it. What there is, and it is genuinely good, is CARTS Country Bus, curb-to-curb demand response across Llano and Burnet counties with zone fares of $2, $4 and $6, where riders 60 and older ride free, with an attendant if needed. In a community with this age profile and this little walkability, that service is worth knowing about long before you need it.
And Texas takes nothing off the top
No state income tax, prohibited outright by the constitution since 2019, and no estate or inheritance tax, which matters more here than in most places given the values involved. Be clear-eyed about the other half: no state death tax does not mean no cost to your heirs, since the loan balance still has to be settled from the home or the estate, and the federal estate tax still applies above the federal exemption. Reverse mortgage proceeds are loan advances rather than income, so they are not taxed. For what makes a Texas reverse mortgage different from one anywhere else, see my Texas reverse mortgage rules page.
The measures that decide whether staying works
Cost of living is the one measure I cannot give you locally: the federal index stops at metro areas, and the rural average would mislead here. On the weather, snow is essentially a non-issue, and 88 days reach 90F or hotter, which is the heat-and-utilities side of the same budget, on 301 dry days a year. Life expectancy here is 76.2 years against 77.1 for the US. A real gap, and it changes the advice: drawing earlier makes more sense here. Underneath all of it: a paid-off house still costs a median $996 a month to hold, 12% of typical income at 65 and over.
Sources: U.S. Census ACS 2020-2024 5-Year (B01001, B01002, B25003, B25034, B25035, B25075, B25077, B25103) and S0101, Horseshoe Bay city and Llano County; Llano Central Appraisal District and Burnet Central Appraisal District 2025 adopted tax rates and exemptions; Tex. Tax Code §§11.13, 11.26, 11.261; Tex. Const. art. VIII §1-b(c) as amended November 4, 2025; HUD Mortgagee Letter 2025-22 (2026 HECM maximum claim amount); 24 CFR §206.205; Horseshoe Bay Property Owners Association 2026 fee schedule and 1971 Declaration of Reservations; Lower Colorado River Authority dams and lakes operating information and residential dock permitting; Texas DSHS designated trauma facilities list (the retrieved list carries older expiration dates, so confirm current designation); Texas Almanac on the 2005 incorporation; Capital Area Rural Transportation System fares; Walk Score (address-level, not an official city score). Whether Llano County or the City of Horseshoe Bay has adopted a §11.261 tax ceiling could not be verified and is not stated here. The share of homes above the HECM limit is interpolated from Census value bands and is directional only. Figures are educational, verify your own before relying on them.
Quick guide: is a reverse mortgage right for me?
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My complete guide to reverse mortgages for Texas homeowners, the retirement squeeze, the myths, your options, real client stories, and what it really costs. No email required.
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Reverse mortgage options in Horseshoe Bay: HECM vs. jumbo
Most homes here are covered by the government-insured HECM, while higher-value homes and many condos fit a proprietary jumbo. For the full side-by-side of HECM, jumbo, HELOC, and HEI, see the reverse mortgage comparison table, or the types of reverse mortgages for a plain-English rundown.
For a full side-by-side of every program and how to choose, see the types of reverse mortgages.
Buying a home? Consider a HECM for Purchase (H4P)
A HECM for Purchase lets you buy your next home using a reverse mortgage, so you put down a portion and finance the rest with no required monthly principal-and-interest payment. For a Horseshoe Bay owner leaving a multi-level lake house for a single-level place, it is a clean way to move without taking on a new monthly payment.
How much you can access depends on age, rates, and value. Start your own estimate with the reverse mortgage calculator below.
Full detail, including what you would need to bring at each age, is on the HECM for Purchase page.
How the process works, step by step
Consultation, HUD counseling, application, appraisal, closing, with a three-day right to cancel. Most Llano County files fund in 30 to 45 days. Here is how a reverse mortgage works, step by step.
How much a reverse mortgage costs in Horseshoe Bay
The biggest cost is FHA mortgage insurance: 2% of the home’s value upfront, plus about 0.5% a year on the balance, and that upfront premium funds the FHA guarantee behind the non-recourse protection. On a typical Horseshoe Bay home at $550K that is about $11,000 at closing, and most of it rolls into the loan. Every fee, itemized.
The honest trade-offs (the balance grows, you still cover taxes and insurance, and it rewards a longer stay) are the same anywhere. I lay them all out in the pros and cons of a reverse mortgage.
Why work with a mortgage broker, not a bank
A bank sells you one rate sheet. I shop the same loan across more than 30 wholesale lenders, which also opens up the proprietary and jumbo programs a single bank cannot offer, and at Horseshoe Bay’s $550K median that is often the difference between a HECM and a materially bigger draw. C2 Financial Corporation, NMLS #135622.
What happens to your home and your heirs
You keep the title, and the loan is non-recourse, so you and your heirs can never owe more than the home is worth. Heirs can repay, refinance, or sell and keep the rest, and Texas has no estate or inheritance tax, though the loan payoff itself still has to be settled. Timelines and the 95% rule.
What about condos and HOA approval?
A HECM needs the whole project FHA-approved and plenty of Horseshoe Bay buildings are not. Ask me early if you are in a condo, because the project's approval status decides which programs are even on the table. A proprietary loan can often finance one that is not, so check the building before you assume the answer is no. Start with my HOA checklist. Property and eligibility rules.
The HUD counseling requirement, explained
Federal HUD rules require an independent HUD-approved session before closing, usually low-cost or free, and it has to be finished before I can pull an FHA case number. HUD publishes the approved counselors serving Llano County, so scheduling never has to stall your file. Find counselors through HUD’s HECM program. Texas Department of Savings and Mortgage Lending publishes consumer guidance. What the session actually covers.
Reverse mortgage FAQs for Horseshoe Bay homeowners
Can you get a reverse mortgage in Horseshoe Bay if you still have a mortgage?
Yes, and it is common. The reverse mortgage pays off your existing mortgage first, which ends that monthly payment, and whatever equity remains becomes available to you. You just need enough equity to cover the payoff. Here is how qualifying with an existing mortgage works.
Can I get a reverse mortgage on a Horseshoe Bay condo?
Often, yes. A standard FHA HECM needs the whole condo project to be FHA-approved, and many buildings are not. When that is the case, a proprietary reverse mortgage can usually finance a non-approved or non-warrantable condo. I check your specific building first.
How much can I borrow in Horseshoe Bay?
It depends on the youngest borrower's age, current rates, and your home value. Horseshoe Bay home values are high, so many owners qualify for more than the national average. Higher-value homes may also fit a jumbo program that exceeds the FHA limit.
Is HUD counseling required in Horseshoe Bay?
Yes. You must complete a session with a HUD-approved counselor before closing. It is usually low-cost or free. HUD publishes the approved counselors serving Llano County, so scheduling never has to slow you down.
Do I still pay property tax with a reverse mortgage in Horseshoe Bay?
Yes. With a reverse mortgage you keep title and remain responsible for property taxes, homeowners insurance, and upkeep. Depending on your age and income you may qualify for senior property-tax relief in Texas (the programs vary by state and by county), and you can use reverse-mortgage funds to help cover those ongoing costs.
Have a question about a reverse mortgage in Horseshoe Bay? Call or text me at 720-449-6622. No pressure, just straight answers.
Horseshoe Bay neighborhoods and nearby areas I serve
I work with homeowners across the city and greater Llano County. That includes Horseshoe Bay West, Horseshoe Bay South, Applehead Island, Summit Rock, Trails End, and The Waters. Core ZIP codes include 78657, 78654, 78639, 78611.
In addition, I also help owners in nearby communities such as Marble Falls, Kingsland, Cottonwood Shores, Granite Shoals, Llano, Burnet, Lakeway, Lago Vista, and Fredericksburg, and across Llano, and Burnet counties. See every area I cover on my reverse mortgages across Texas page. Do not see your area? Reach out and ask.
If aging in place is your goal, local resources like Area Agency on Aging of the Capital Area (AAACAP/CAPCOG), and Marble Falls Senior Activity Center can help you plan, and my free Aging-in-Place Home Scorecard lets you score any Horseshoe Bay home in about 15 minutes to see how ready it is to grow old in.
Wondering whether a home is one you could grow old in? Score any home in about 15 minutes, and see how a reverse mortgage can fund the upgrades.
Use the Aging-in-Place ScorecardReverse mortgages in nearby communities
About Christopher Gibson
Christopher Gibson (NMLS #1910430) is an independent mortgage and reverse mortgage broker with C2 Financial Corporation (NMLS #135622), serving homeowners across the states he is licensed in. Serving Horseshoe Bay and nearby communities. Call or text 720-449-6622. More about Christopher.
Read reviews of Reverse Mortgages & Home Loans with Christopher Gibson at C2 Financial
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*This is general information, not tax advice. Reverse mortgage proceeds are loan advances rather than income and are generally not subject to federal income tax. Consult a CPA or tax advisor about your specific situation. Receiving loan proceeds may also affect eligibility for need-based government benefits such as Medicaid or Supplemental Security Income (SSI).