Can I Airbnb This House in Texas? Read the Deed Restrictions First

Yes, you can usually run an Airbnb in a Texas house whose deed restrictions say “residential purposes only.” The Texas Supreme Court settled that on May 25, 2018 in Tarr v. Timberwood Park Owners Association, holding that an owner who rented his San Antonio house short-term had not violated covenants that limited the lots to residential use and single family homes. What actually stops a short-term rental is narrower, it’s restrictions that spell out a minimum lease term or ban short-term rentals by name, including ones your neighbors vote in after you close (and yes, that has already happened in Travis County). So the honest answer to “can I Airbnb this house” is go read what the Texas deed restrictions actually say, right.

That’s not a technicality. In Tarr the court pointed out the Timberwood covenants “fail to address leasing, use as a vacation home, short-term rentals, minimum-occupancy durations, or the like.” Silence went to the owner. Four years later, in JBrice Holdings v. Wilcrest Walk Townhomes Association (April 22, 2022), the same court said it again: commercial and business-use bans “do not, without more, impose a durational limit on leasing.”

Here’s the rule of thumb I give people. Any house on less than 100 acres is likely going to have some sort of deed restriction on it, and even 10 acres can. There are very few ways a Texas deed restriction can actually kill a short-term rental. But there are a couple. Which is exactly why you have to read them instead of guessing.

Quick note before we go further: this is not legal advice. I’m a broker, not a lawyer (and you do not want to watch me argue in front of a judge right). If a deal hangs on a covenant, pay a real estate attorney to read it.

The few ways Texas deed restrictions can stop a short-term rental

Here’s the short list. Three things can do it, and a few things people worry about mostly can’t.

1. The restrictions already say it in plain words

A minimum lease term (“no lease shorter than 30 days,” “12 months minimum”) or an express ban on transient, hotel or vacation rental use. That language works. It’s the thing Tarr said was missing, and Texas courts enforce it as written. If you see it, you have your answer and it’s no.

The wording to hunt for: minimum lease term, transient, vacation rental, hotel, hotel occupancy tax, and any number followed by “days” near the word lease. Older Hill Country restrictions mostly predate Airbnb, so they rarely say “short-term rental” at all.

2. The neighbors vote it in after you buy

This is the one that matters most on a long hold, because the house can be perfectly legal to rent the day you close and not legal a few years later.

In Angelwylde HOA v. Fournier, the Austin Court of Appeals (March 17, 2023) dealt with two Travis County subdivisions where owners had been renting their homes for 30 days or less. In 2020 the members voted to amend the restrictions: a 12 month minimum lease and no “hotel, transient or vacation rental (similar to AirBnb or VRBO)” use. One couple had bought in 2004, the other in 2013. The court held the amendments valid and enforceable against both of them, and the Texas Supreme Court denied review on January 26, 2024.

And here’s the kicker. The original 1995 Angelwylde covenants said “Nothing in this Declaration shall prevent the rental of any Lot and the Improvements thereon by the Owner thereof for residential purposes only.” Express permission to rent. Those covenants didn’t even have their own amendment clause, so the owners amended them under Section 209.0041 of the Property Code. It still stuck.

Same story on the coast. In Swan Point Landing Community Association v. Martin (May 29, 2025) the Corpus Christi-Edinburg court enforced a 2022 amendment banning residential leases of 30 days or less against owners who bought years before it was recorded.

How hard is it to amend? For subdivisions with mandatory HOA membership, Texas Property Code Section 209.0041 sets the default at 67 percent of the total votes, and if the declaration sets a lower percentage, the lower number controls. Older deed-restriction-only subdivisions usually carry their own threshold in the document. So read the amendment clause as carefully as the use clause.

3. An HOA board rule (the weakest of the three, but watch it)

In JBrice, a Harris County townhome association passed board rules banning rentals under 30 days after the owner sued. The Supreme Court threw those rules out, because that neighborhood’s covenants said there would be no restriction on leasing unless the covenants themselves contained it. The court was careful about scope, so I won’t stretch it: a board rule is shaky ground for an STR ban where the covenants limit leasing restrictions like that. In a declaration that gives the board broad rulemaking power, it’s a fight, not a sure thing either way. If the board has been busy recording rules, pay attention.

What usually does not stop an STR

“Residential purposes only.” “Single family residence.” “No business or commercial use.” Those are the clauses people panic about, and after Tarr and JBrice, none of them alone bans a short-term rental. The renters are living in the house while they’re there, that’s residential use.

But two caveats. Tarr drew a line between renting a house and running a business on site, so a wedding venue, a B&B with you serving breakfast, or a party house is a different animal. And nuisance clauses still apply to conduct. JBrice specifically noted the association could still go after a tenant’s nuisance or annoyance. Quiet guests are fine, a 30 person bachelor party every weekend is how you end up in court.

What the Hill Country restriction chains we’ve read actually say

At Neuhaus Realty Group we pull the full recorded chain from the county clerk (the declaration plus every amendment and supplement) and read every instrument before giving an STR answer. Here are the four subdivision chains our deed restriction review has finished, all in Hays County, reviewed between July and September 2026. Subdivision level only, no addresses.

Source: Neuhaus Realty Group deed restriction reviews of the recorded instruments at the Hays County Clerk, completed July 25 to September 17, 2026. Every instrument in each chain was read. A review is a first look, not a title opinion.

Four for four came back with no STR ban. That lines up with what I said up top, there are very few ways to kill an STR with deed restrictions in Texas. But look at the amendment column. Every one of these can be changed by a 75 percent owner vote (counted by acreage at Saddletree Ranch), and three of the four have already cleared that bar for other things: the 1998 Saddletree restatement, a 1989 driveway rule in Sunset Canyon Section 4, and the 1986 livestock ban plus a 1991 setback change in Section V. Poundhouse Hills even has an express rental permission clause, the same kind of language Angelwylde had before its owners voted in a 12 month minimum. So “permits today” is a fact about today. If you’re underwriting ten years of Airbnb income, the amendment clause is part of the deal.

Listing descriptions almost never tell you

Ok, so what about the MLS? Can’t you just read the listing? We ran every residential listing in our MLS data with a 2026 list date (January 1 to September 30) across 15 Hill Country towns and searched the public remarks for three things: the listing pitching short-term rental use, the listing saying STRs are not allowed (or naming a minimum lease), and the listing mentioning deed restrictions at all.

Source: Neuhaus Realty Group analysis of MLS residential listings in our database (houses, condos and townhomes) with list dates January 1 to September 30, 2026, by listing city. Public remarks searched by keyword. This is a remarks proxy: it measures what agents wrote, not what the recorded restrictions say.

So out of 4,409 Hill Country listings, 525 (11.9%) talk up short-term rental use, 19 (0.4%) say no STR or name a minimum lease, and 35 (0.8%) mention deed restrictions at all. That’s a proxy, not a legal finding. A listing that says nothing about STRs has not told you STRs are allowed, it just hasn’t told you anything. And the 525 that pitch STR income are the seller’s agent talking, not the county clerk.

Kahneman’s whole thing in Thinking, Fast and Slow is “what you see is all there is,” your brain builds a confident story out of whatever is in front of it and never asks what’s missing. That’s a listing description. The restriction that matters is the one nobody put in the remarks.

How I check, and why the title commitment is the real deadline

I always try to find the deed restrictions before we put a property under contract. That’s not always possible, and even when we find them, I’m not sure we’ve found everything until the title commitment comes in. That’s really your chance to review them, during the contract period.

Here’s why that window matters so much in Texas. On the standard TREC One to Four Family Residential Contract, paragraph 6A lists “restrictive covenants common to the platted subdivision” as an exception the title policy will not cover. The seller has to deliver the commitment within 20 days after the title company gets the contract, and, at the buyer’s expense, copies of the restrictive covenants and other exception documents behind it. Schedule B is the list of everything the policy will not insure against, and recorded restrictions sit right there by volume and page or document number.

And paragraph 6D has a blank most people skip right past. You can object to title items “which prohibit the following use or activity,” and you write the use in. If short-term rental is the whole reason you’re buying, that blank deserves the words “short-term rental.” Combine that with an option period long enough to cover the commitment showing up, and you’ve given yourself a real exit if Schedule B turns up an amendment nobody mentioned. Not that hard right.

Then, separately, check the city. Covenants are private rules, and a house can be fine under the deed restrictions and still need a city permit (or be capped by an ordinance). Inside Austin, start with our post on the Austin short-term rental rules for 2026, and for other towns the Texas city STR regulations guide. If you want the full walk-through on pulling restrictions from the clerk, we wrote a Texas deed restrictions guide for that.

And once the restrictions clear, the house still has to make money. Run the numbers the way we lay out in how to know if an Austin-area Airbnb will cash flow and how to analyze an Airbnb investment property. If you’re looking at the lake, our Lake Travis Airbnb numbers for 2026 are a good gut check. Or just browse the short-term rental properties we’re tracking around Dripping Springs, Wimberley, Spicewood and Lago Vista.

Lets talk before you write the offer

I’ve been selling homes around Austin and the Hill Country since 2009. If you’ve got a house in mind and the plan is Airbnb, reach out to Ed Neuhaus before you sign anything. Lets look at the restrictions together, and the amendment clause too. Be safe, be good, and be nice to your neighbors (they’re the ones who vote).