The owner of Honey Creek Ranch originally planned to sell the land to developers for 1,600 homes and a few schools, but the Nature Conservancy and the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department are currently seeking to preserve the land.

Rural land sales in Texas continue to soar as buyers rush to purchase property for subdivisions, investments, farming or bucolic retreats, according to the Texas Real Estate Research Center at Texas A&M University.

Sales statewide surged to 9,331 in the third quarter, up 40 percent from a year ago, and the average price per acre jumped nearly 25 percent to $3,717.

The research center divides Texas into regions and grouped Austin, Waco and the Hill Country together. Sales and average prices there were both up more than 30 percent in the three months ended Sept. 30, with more than 160,000 acres sold.

“If you want property in this region, take a number,” research economist Dr. Charles Gilliland said in a statement. “Brokers have buyers lined up.”

Some of the acreage is being broken up into tracts for subdivisions as demand for homes surges, he said. Ranch and crop land is also sought after.

A grassroots activist group called "Save Our Hill Country," opposes a series of massive developments they claim will threaten the way of life in the Hill Country.

Investors and speculators are snapping up chunks, too.

“U.S. buyers are coming from as far away as Alaska and as near as Austin, Houston and Dallas,” Gilliland said. “Meanwhile, investors from India have an insatiable appetite for land near the city of Austin and Williamson County. In many cases, these buyers make offers that exceed asking prices.”

Sales surged in west, northeast and south Texas and along the Gulf Coast in the third quarter. In the Panhandle and South Plains, sales are expected to reach record levels this year.

“With buyers, mostly farmers, flush with cash from both government stimulus payments and strong commodity prices, sales increased dramatically,” said Gilliland.

Concerns about inflation and tax law changes are prompting many of the transactions, he added.

Far west Texas was an outlier. Sales fell about 14.4 percent during the three-month period, which Gilliland attributed in part to the oil and gas industry’s struggles.

“However, with oil prices climbing, oil companies’ activities are increasing,” he said.

Hotel Emma at the Pearl was the sixth highest-earning hotel in the the state in the third quarter.

Hotels across Texas are slowly recovering from pandemic-induced devastation, assisted by a busy summer season as people ventured out again, the latest report from Source Strategies indicates.

Texas hotels generated $3.3 billion in the third quarter, up 77.3 percent from a year earlier and 6 percent from 2019. Hotels statewide filled 59.9 percent of their rooms on average, higher than 46.3 percent in 2020 but lower than 64.7 percent the year prior.

“Many Texas markets have seen impressive rebounds over the second and third quarters of 2021, but some business-dependent markets continue to lag,” Source Strategies president Todd Walker said.

“At this point, new virus variants seem to be having little impact on consumer lodging demand, but we are waiting to see how quickly business travel returns to pre-COVID levels,” he added.

The San Antonio metro area recorded the second-highest occupancy and revenue per available room levels among Texas’ major metros, behind the Austin-Round Rock area.

San Antonio hotels on average filled 62.6 percent of their rooms and revenue per available room, a measure of hotels’ performance, was $76.55. Revenue reached $384 million, up 112.3 percent from 2020 and 5.6 percent from 2019.

Hotel Emma at the Pearl was the sixth highest-earning hotel in the state in the third quarter, with revenue per available room of $290.94.

Across Texas, the number of room nights sold surged 41.5 percent from last year and 4.5 percent from 2019 — an indication of increasing demand as people resume traveling.

“The busy summer tourist/leisure season was a remarkable rebound following a devastating pandemic-curtailed 2020,” San Antonio-based Source Strategies stated in the report. “We expect the fall/winter will see some tempering of demand, but recovering this strong is a positive indicator as we move toward 2022.”

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Madison Iszler covers real estate, retail, economic development, and other business topics for the San Antonio Express-News.

Reach Madison at 210-250-3242, madison.iszler@express-news.net and @madisoniszler.