In a departure from reports historically provided by Zonda Education, the range of possible results represents outcomes the district could face due to a few challenges in the local housing market, consultant Hudson Huff told trustees in a May update.
What you need to know
Just a year prior, Bob Templeton, vice president at Zonda Education, provided a projection for the next decade which saw the district achieving a total enrollment of about 48,000 students in a "best-case scenario."
The difference between the two projections, Huff said, lie in some key housing market trends playing out in the district.
While interest rates remain high, residents of the district are not selling, he said, leading to an overall aging of the district's population. This is offsetting student enrollment growth in RRISD, where many new housing developments may bring families with school-aged children to the area.
How we got here
Home sales within Round Rock ISD have fallen by more than 50% in recent years, Huff said, from 5,937 in 2014 to just 2,940 in 2024. He cited rising inflation and interest rates as the main reasons people are remaining in their homes longer.
The district's marketing of opportunities available to students and expansion of programs like pre-K are helping to drive some of the enrollment growth that is being offset by the aging population of the districts and migration patterns between RRISD and other educational providers, like charter schools.
Despite housing growth in single and multifamily, Huff said high housing prices in the area might make it difficult for young families to buy new builds and existing homes in RRISD, even if interest rates were to come down.
What they're saying
"When you take into consideration the price points, amount of activity and the interest rates that we had back in that 2021 time frame, that really did start to change in March of 2022 when those interest rates started increasing at a very fast pace," Huff said.
What's next?
Huff said the district contains 16 actively building subdivisions with 1,000 lots available to build homes on.
In the future, 10 more subdivisions are planned to add 2,400 more lots within the district's bounds.
