Can You Actually Invest in a Wimberley, TX Short-Term Rental in 2026?

Thomas Garner
Aug 16
15 min read

Updated: 17 hours ago

Wimberley, Texas is a Hays County city on the Blanco River and Cypress Creek, in the Austin–San Antonio drive market — typical language, not a Saturday door-to-door. It is not Fredericksburg. It is not Dripping Springs. It is not an open CUP town. AirROI's August 8, 2026 file, trailing August 2025 through July 2026, shows 638 active listings, 33.8 percent occupancy, a $335 ADR, named-town AirROI figures as of 2026-07-31 typical annual revenue, and a named-town AirROI figures as of 2026-07-31 median month. Supply is up 10.8 percent year over year. Revenue is up 4.4 percent. Those two growth rates already tell you the bid is tighter than a brochure.

This page is the buy-and-hold read with the CUP and the flood left on. It is not a yield lock. It is not a lender memo. Typical properties generate about named-town AirROI figures as of 2026-07-31 a month. Median occupancy is about 32 percent. Median nightly rate is about $240. Top-quartile months print named-town AirROI figures as of 2026-07-31. Top 10 percent months print named-town AirROI figures as of 2026-07-31 or more. Bottom-quartile months print named-town AirROI figures as of 2026-07-31. Cite the average and the median. Do not pick a winner because one number sounds more investable. A creek-access wedding house and an one-bedroom off the square should not share a pro forma.

cityofwimberley.com/324, opened August 16, 2026, says every short-term rental needs a Conditional Use Permit. AirROI's Low regulation badge is wrong. Existing valid CUPs, the page said, remain in effect indefinitely without renewal. Proposed amendments on that same page would cut new STR 2 CUPs in R-2 and R-3, with a City Council hearing on August 20, 2026. This draft will not invent that vote. Themarket reportis the file. Thepermitpost is the clerk. This page is whether you can actually underwrite the door.

named-town AirROI figures as of 2026-07-31 median is a hard-sell month

Typical properties on the AirROI file generate about named-town AirROI figures as of 2026-07-31 a month. That is the number a marketing retainer, a professional manager, and a note all have to survive. File occupancy is 33.8 percent. Median occupancy is about 32 percent. File ADR is $335. Median ADR is about $240. RevPAR is $117. A buyer who underwrites $335 every night at 33.8 percent is underwriting the average, not the house. A buyer who underwrites named-town AirROI figures as of 2026-07-31 is at least starting at the middle of the file. Starting at the middle is not the same as clearing a debt-service test.

Peak revenue month is March. Lowest is February. Peak-3 is March, June, and May. Soft band is January, February, and September. July ADR in the file is the high nightly rate, not the high occupancy. A model that prices only “Hill Country summer” is missing March and over-trusting July. Lead time is about 54 days. A March weekend is sold in January. If your close is February, you have already missed the first peak unless the seller left a booked calendar you can defend. Theshoulderpost is that month. This page is why a February-close pro forma that assumes June every month is a story, not a bid.

Bottom-quartile months print named-town AirROI figures as of 2026-07-31. That is a cleaning bill, a software stack, and a thin night, not a luxury screen. Top 10 percent months print named-town AirROI figures as of 2026-07-31 or more. AirROI's top table is full of 5-to-8 bedroom river and ranch houses. Those are not the named-town AirROI figures as of 2026-07-31 median. Top-decile months print named-town AirROI figures as of 2026-07-31 or more. If you underwrite the median as if it were the ranch, you are lying to the loan officer. If you underwrite the ranch as if every new CUP will look like it, you are lying to yourself. Thefinancepost is the note. This paragraph is the month the note has to live on.

Cite named-town AirROI figures as of 2026-07-31 and named-town AirROI figures as of 2026-07-31 separately

Average annual revenue on the file is named-town AirROI figures as of 2026-07-31, up 4.4 percent. The median month is named-town AirROI figures as of 2026-07-31. Those are not the same sentence. Twelve times named-town AirROI figures as of 2026-07-31 is named-town AirROI figures as of 2026-07-31. That is not named-town AirROI figures as of 2026-07-31. The average is being pulled by the top of the file. The median is what a typical door printed. A lender who gets only named-town AirROI figures as of 2026-07-31 will think the town is fatter than the middle. A partner who gets only named-town AirROI figures as of 2026-07-31 will think the town cannot work. Cite both. Date both. AirROI updated August 8, 2026. Trailing window is August 2025 through July 2026.

Supply is up 10.8 percent year over year. Revenue is up 4.4 percent. New doors are arriving faster than typical annual dollars. Entire-home share is 89.2 percent. Houses are 53.6 percent. One-bedroom listings are 39 percent. Two-night minimums are 49.7 percent. Thirty-night-or-longer minimums are 29.5 percent. Average stay is about 2.8 nights. Professionally managed share is 40.8 percent. Superhost share is 52.7 percent. Guests are 97.9 percent domestic. Austin and Houston are the named origins. None of those lines is a cap rate. All of them belong in the memo under the two revenue numbers, not instead of them.

Do not divide Hays Free Press's 1.3 million visitor days by 638 listings. Do not divide Texas's $97.5 billion 2024 visitor spend by Wimberley. The February 11, 2026 article, quoting Tourism Director Michele Woods, also named 125 lodging establishments inside the city. That city-official count is not named-town listing counts. Hotels, inns, and CUPs sit in one. Entire-home Airbnbs sit in the other. A buyer who treats 125 as 638, or 638 as 125, is teaching a lender a number nobody published. Thetourism datapost keeps those scales apart. Your offering memorandum should too.

Every city STR needs a CUP

cityofwimberley.com/324, opened this draft: every STR needs a Conditional Use Permit. Not a permitted use by right in residential or commercial categories as the page stood. STR 1 is owner-on-property. STR 2 is owner-not-on-property. The owner applies. City Council has final approval. Planning Department manages. Neighbors within 200 feet are notified. If 20 percent or more of contiguous property owners, by land area, oppose, a 4-of-5 Council supermajority is required. Typical processing is 45 to 60 days. The application fee is non-refundable. The page does not print the dollar. This cluster will not invent one.

On approval: state hotel occupancy tax 6 percent plus city hotel occupancy tax 7 percent, passed through on the guest bill. Also on the page: septic, parking, noise, dark-sky lighting, and any Council conditions such as max occupancy. Failure can revoke a CUP. An approved CUP amends zoning and, the page said, remains on the property indefinitely. AirROI prints “regulation = Low” and finds no licensed listings among those analyzed. That badge is wrong for the City of Wimberley. Do not paste it into a feasibility memo. Do not tell a lender the town is open because a dashboard said Low.

City is not Hays County. Jacob's Well and unincorporated pins are a different desk. Dripping Springs city is a different desk. Comal / Canyon Lake is a different desk. A house advertised as Wimberley that sits outside the city is a different packet. Walk the assessor map before you walk the creek. Build the 45-to-60-day review into the closing, not into a hope that the portal clears overnight. Thestartuppost is the cash stack you can defend after you open the live fee. Walk the 200-foot list before you pay a non-refundable amount nobody printed here.

Existing CUP scarcity vs Aug 20 proposed STR 2 limits

Existing valid CUPs, the city page said on August 16, 2026, remain in full force, continue indefinitely without renewal, and cannot be terminated except by Council zoning amendment. Write that as the live page. Then tell the buyer to re-read it after August 20. That sentence, if it still holds, is the investment hook: a permit that stays on the property. It is also why a listed house with a valid CUP and a listed house that still needs one are not the same asset. Do not underwrite “we will get the CUP after close” as if it were cash.

The same page led with proposed amendments from the STR Subcommittee: remove the ability to obtain an STR 2 (non-owner-occupied) CUP in R-2 and R-3; allow short-term lodging facilities up to 30 units by-right in C1, C2, and C3; changes to STR 1 in accessory dwelling units. Planning and Zoning hearing was August 13, 2026. City Council hearing is August 20, 2026, 6:00 p.m., City Hall, 221 Stillwater. This draft is August 16. P&Z was three days ago. Council is four days away. Do not invent the August 20 vote. Open the live page after that night.

Hays Free Press on March 11, 2026 said Council had extended a temporary moratorium 120 days through July 4, 2026. The brief's “into August 2026” is stale against that article. The live city page this draft opened did not lead with a moratorium headline. It led with the proposed ordinance. Do not write that a moratorium is still in force unless /324 says so the morning you publish. If new STR 2 product in R-2 and R-3 closes, existing CUPs get scarcer and marketing matters more, not less. TheDIYpost is the craft gap against the 167-door booker already in the file.

Flood map is not a Port Aransas post

The Blanco River flood of May 24–25, 2015 killed 12 people. That is why insurance and lodging rules in this corridor are not a joke. It is not a reason to publish a Port Aransas hurricane post on a Wimberley URL. This cluster will not invent a flood-insurance premium. It will tell a buyer to ask a Texas agent about river and creek flood zones before they underwrite a cypress lot. Hydrograph context exists. Premium dollars do not, not on this page. A bid that skips the flood map because the listing photos are pretty is not a bid.

Blue Hole Regional Park is the city swim and trail pin on Cypress Creek. Jacob's Well is a karst spring near Wimberley, a Hays County / park pin, not the city square. Caption them. Do not fuse them. Recheck hours and access. Neither pin is collateral. A guest who brings a cooler to a restricted spring because the listing said “swimming hole nearby” will write the review you designed. A buyer who underwrites “swim access” without opening the park page and the flood map is stacking two lies. Photograph the water you actually have. Caption the flood year with respect, not as a thrill.

Cypress Creek tubing is a demand layer, not an occupancy series. A listing that promises “swim all year” is a listing that will be wrong in February, which is already the file's weakest revenue month. Winter water is not a Gulf second-home pitch. Do not import a beach ADR. Do not import a hurricane deductible. Ask the agent. Put the zone on the memo. Thevisitor guideholds the itinerary. This page holds the underwriting. If the lot is in the water, the note needs a human who has read the 2015 year, not a blog that treated it as color.

Dripping Springs is a caption, not your pro forma

Dripping Springs appears on AirROI's nearby table at 405 listings, named-town AirROI figures as of 2026-07-31 a month, $414 ADR, 30 percent occupancy. That is a neighbor file. It is not tonight's cluster. Caption it. Do not publish a second town. Do not blend named-town AirROI figures as of 2026-07-31 into a Wimberley offer because the drive looks similar on a Saturday map. Wimberley's median month is named-town AirROI figures as of 2026-07-31. Wimberley's file ADR is $335. Wimberley's median ADR is about $240. Those are the numbers that belong to Wimberley. Canyon Lake is a Comal pin. Fredericksburg is leftover 070. Compare as wine-trophy. Do not invent its ADR in this post.

Austin and Houston are the named origin cities. Guests are 97.9 percent domestic. That is a drive market, not a fly-in resort. Typical language: Austin and San Antonio are the metros. Do not promise a Friday door-to-door, and do not underwrite as if every Austin weekend will land on your door. Lead time is about 54 days. Average stay is 2.8 nights. A model that assumes week-long occupancy because the buyer lives in Houston is a model that has not opened the file. Thepersonaspost splits creek couples, wedding blocks, and wine-day guests. Your title should split them before you send the book to a lender.

Visit Wimberley is the itinerary desk, not a spend study opened this pass. This cluster will not invent a Wimberley visitor-spend dollar. Texas statewide 2024 is $97.5 billion and 62 million travelers. State layer only. Woods's 1.3 million visitor days and 125 lodging establishments are a 2025 city-official count in a February 11, 2026 newspaper. They are demand shape. They are not your T12. A buyer who pastes 1.3 million into a rent roll is the buyer a lender should decline.

40.8 percent PM / 167 Premier is the competition

Hill Country Premier Lodging shows 167 listings and $5.73 million gross on the AirROI manager table. That is about 26 percent of the 638-listing file if you treat the snapshot as a share of n. 7A Ranch & Wimberley Inn shows 25. Professionally managed share is 40.8 percent. Superhost share is 52.7 percent. Instant Book sits at 25.2 percent. Simplified pricing sits at 85.4 percent. The 2026-08-04 brief's “less institutional than Fredericksburg” line is a comparison, not “no PM.” Search the live Premier pages the week you bid. This is not a thin independent field.

A new door without a CUP is not competing with 167 URLs yet. It is competing with the clerk. A new door with a CUP is competing with 167 URLs, a 40.8 percent professionally managed field, and a 52.7 percent Superhost bar, inside a file that added 10.8 percent more supply while typical annual dollars rose 4.4 percent. Independent-possible is still true. Independent-easy is not. TheDIYpost is the craft gap. Thehow-to-marketpost is the first sentence. If that sentence works in Fredericksburg, delete it before you send the deck.

Twenty-nine-point-five percent of the file is already a 30-night product. Average stay is 2.8 nights. Those are two calendars. A buyer who underwrites only Saturday creek nights is ignoring almost a third of the competing stock. A buyer who underwrites only desk months is ignoring the product most of the file is built to take. Theremotepost is the longer calendar. Do not advertise a 28-night stay as if the city page had carved out a desk exemption. Ask Planning the three durations. Keep the email.

The creek is not collateral

Blue Hole is a city park. Jacob's Well is a spring. Cypress Creek is a watercourse with a flood year. None of those is a lender exhibit. The collateral is the house, the CUP if it exists, the flood map, the septic, the parking, and a trailing twelve you can defend. A cypress photograph is marketing. Thehow-to-marketpost can use it. A bid cannot. If the lot floods, the note needs an agent and a zone, not a tube-rental URL. If the CUP fails Council, the house is a house. Underwrite it as a house first.

Existing CUP holders, if the live page still says so after August 20, hold a scarce asset: a permit that remains on the property indefinitely without renewal. That is the hook. It is also why you read /324 the morning you go under contract and the morning you close. Proposed R-2 and R-3 STR 2 limits were on the August 20, 2026 agenda as of this draft. Verify the vote. Do not invent it. Do not invent the application-fee dollar. Do not invent a moratorium still in force after the July 4, 2026 news date. Do not invent a Dripping Springs yield. Do not invent a local visitor-spend T12.

What this page will not do: treat named-town AirROI figures as of 2026-07-31 as a named-town AirROI figures as of 2026-07-31 retainer town, treat named-town AirROI figures as of 2026-07-31 as the median, treat 40.8 percent professionally managed as a cottage story, cite AirROI for the CUP, publish a Beryl / Port Aransas flood URL, or send a lender 1.3 million visitor days as income. Thestartuppost is the cash you can defend after you open the live fee and the August 20 outcome. Thefinancepost is the note. If you needed one annual revenue and an “open Hill Country” sentence to feel brave, stop here and open AirROI and cityofwimberley.com/324 yourself.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much do Wimberley STRs actually make?

AirROI's August 8, 2026 file prints named-town AirROI figures as of 2026-07-31 average annual revenue and a named-town AirROI figures as of 2026-07-31 median month across 638 listings. Those are different sentences. Do not send a lender only the average. AirROI's August 8, 2026 file, trailing August 2025 through July 2026, shows 638 active listings, 33.8 percent occupancy, a $335 ADR, named-town AirROI figures as of 2026-07-31 typical annual revenue, and a named-town AirROI figures as of 2026-07-31 median month.

Is every Wimberley short-term rental required to have a CUP?

Yes inside the city, on the page opened August 16, 2026. Neighbors within 200 feet get notice. Twenty percent opposition by land area forces a 4-of-5 supermajority. AirROI's Low badge is wrong. cityofwimberley.com/324, opened August 16, 2026, says every short-term rental needs a Conditional Use Permit. cityofwimberley.com/324, opened this draft: every STR needs a Conditional Use Permit.

What happens to existing CUPs if Council changes the rules?

The city page said existing valid CUPs remain in full force indefinitely without renewal, unless Council amends zoning. Write that as the live page. Re-read it after the August 20, 2026 hearing. This draft will not invent that vote. Existing valid CUPs, the city page said on August 16, 2026, remain in full force, continue indefinitely without renewal, and cannot be terminated except by Council zoning amendment.

Were new STR 2 permits already banned in R-2 and R-3?

Not as of the August 16, 2026 page. That limit was proposed, with a City Council hearing August 20, 2026 at 6:00 p.m., 221 Stillwater. Also proposed: lodging up to 30 units by-right in C1, C2, and C3. Proposed amendments on that same page would cut new STR 2 CUPs in R-2 and R-3, with a City Council hearing on August 20, 2026.

Can I use Dripping Springs numbers on a Wimberley bid?

Dripping Springs is a neighbor caption: 405 listings, named-town AirROI figures as of 2026-07-31 a month, $414 ADR, 30 percent occupancy on AirROI's nearby table. Wimberley's median month is named-town AirROI figures as of 2026-07-31. Dripping Springs appears on AirROI's nearby table at 405 listings, named-town AirROI figures as of 2026-07-31 a month, $414 ADR, 30 percent occupancy.

Is the 2015 flood a reason to skip the bid?

It is a reason to open the flood map. The May 2015 Blanco River flood killed 12 people. Ask a Texas agent about river and creek zones. This cluster will not invent a premium and will not publish a Port Aransas hurricane post. It will tell a buyer to ask a Texas agent about river and creek flood zones before they underwrite a cypress lot.

Is Wimberley a thin independent market?

Professionally managed share is 40.8 percent. Hill Country Premier Lodging shows 167 listings and $5.73 million — about 26 percent of the 638-listing file. Independent-possible is true. Hill Country Premier Lodging shows 167 listings and $5.73 million gross on the AirROI manager table. What this page will not do: treat named-town AirROI figures as of 2026-07-31 as a named-town AirROI figures as of 2026-07-31 retainer town, treat named-town AirROI figures as of 2026-07-31 as the median, treat 40.8 percent professionally managed as a cottage story, cite AirROI for the CUP, publish a Beryl / Port Aransas flood URL, or send a lender 1.3 million visitor days as income.

Is a moratorium still blocking new Wimberley STRs?

Hays Free Press on March 11, 2026 said a temporary moratorium ran through July 4, 2026. The city page this draft opened led with the proposed ordinance, not a moratorium headline. Do not write that a freeze is still on unless /324 says so. Hays Free Press on March 11, 2026 said Council had extended a temporary moratorium 120 days through July 4, 2026.

Keep going on Crest & Cove:the Crest & Cove intro·local SEO keywords that actually book·the five elements of a converting hero·how to compare STR marketing agencies·OTA fees without leftover occupancy lifts·this cluster on named-town facts·Destin against AirROI, not leftover year·the last cluster against named-town facts.

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