What if the number on a Horseshoe Bay listing that looks like an HOA fee has almost nothing to do with whether you can play golf, launch a boat, or sit at the Yacht Club pool?
Buyers moving from Austin or Dallas toward Lake LBJ tend to assume Horseshoe Bay works the way most resort towns work: buy the house, get the amenities. That assumption is wrong often enough, and expensive enough when it's wrong, that it deserves its own explanation before anyone writes an offer.
The fee that shows up on every listing
Almost every property inside Horseshoe Bay Proper, North, and South carries an annual Maintenance Fund fee. For 2026 that fee is $360.99, up slightly from $350.50 in 2025. It is billed each October or December for the following year and due by January 1, with a lien and administration charge attached if it goes unpaid past June 30.
This fee is easy to mistake for an amenity fee because it is mandatory and tied to the lot itself, the same way a country club minimum might be. It isn't. Of what the Maintenance Fund collects, 39.5 percent goes straight to the City of Horseshoe Bay for roadway and right-of-way upkeep. The remainder funds the Property Owners' Association's own responsibilities: Quail Point Lodge, the campgrounds, the parks, and the greenbelts. It pays for the roads you drive on and the lodge where the POA holds its bridge club and yoga sessions. It does not touch a golf cart, a boat slip, or a lounge chair at the Yacht Club.
That distinction matters because it sets up the actual question a buyer needs to ask, and it isn't printed on the fee schedule at all.
What the fee doesn't buy
Golf, tennis, the marina, the pools, and the restaurants at Horseshoe Bay Resort all run through a separate organization: The Club at Horseshoe Bay Resort. Membership here is its own paid product, layered with categories. A Summit membership sits at the top and includes play at Summit Rock, the resort's Jack Nicklaus Signature course and its newest addition to the lineup. Below that sit golf, limited golf, and a social-only tier the club calls Society, which grants access to the pools, dining rooms, marina, and beach without any of the recreational categories like golf, tennis, or pickleball.
None of these categories are included by simply owning property inside the Horseshoe Bay city limits. Initiation fees and ongoing dues apply, and the club directs prospective members to contact its membership office directly rather than posting rates publicly. That opacity is itself worth noting: it means the cost of joining is a live number you have to go get, not a fixed line item you can read off a website the way you can read the Maintenance Fund's fee schedule.
Where membership comes bundled with the address
This is the part that actually moves prices and separates otherwise comparable homes. In a handful of Horseshoe Bay's named subdivisions, club membership is tied to ownership itself, meaning the deed effectively carries the membership with it.
Escondido is one. It's a 550-acre private community built around a Tom Fazio-designed golf course, developed under strict architectural standards that produce a consistent look of Mediterranean-style custom homes. Membership there is baked into what you're buying, not an optional add-on you negotiate separately.
Summit Rock is the other clear example, and the new-construction community built around it, Atten Hill, makes the value explicit rather than implicit. Every homesite at Atten Hill comes with a prepaid Summit Rock membership upon approval, a benefit the developer values at more than $210,000. That's not marketing language about lifestyle. It's a specific dollar figure attached to a specific membership tier, bundled into a specific home purchase, and it explains why two houses that look similar on paper can carry a six-figure gap in what you actually get for the price.
Applehead Island sits on the other side of that line. It's the gated, bridge-access island community of custom estates on deep-water canals, where prices run from roughly $3 million to $13 million and up. Despite those prices, membership is not automatically part of the deal there the way it is at Escondido or Summit Rock. Short-term rental rules there also tend to run stricter than in other parts of the city, which is its own layer worth checking separately from the membership question.
Here's how that breaks down across the communities the research turned up:
| Subdivision | Character | Club membership tied to ownership | Rough price signal |
|---|---|---|---|
| Escondido | 550-acre private community, Tom Fazio golf course, Mediterranean-style architecture | Yes | High-end, membership-driven |
| Summit Rock / Atten Hill | Jack Nicklaus Signature course, newer construction | Yes, prepaid membership valued over $210,000 at Atten Hill | New construction, premium |
| Applehead Island | Gated island, bridge access, deep-water canal estates | Not automatic | $3M to $13M+ |
| General resale inventory | Varies by neighborhood and builder | Rarely automatic | Ranges widely |
The pattern across all four rows is the same: the Maintenance Fund fee is flat and small no matter which row you're in. The membership question is where the real variation lives, and it has nothing to do with square footage or lot size.
The question to ask before you write an offer
If you're comparing two Horseshoe Bay properties at similar list prices, the fee schedule won't tell you which one is the better deal. The membership status will. Before an offer goes in, confirm in writing whether a resort club membership transfers with the sale, and if it doesn't, ask the club directly for current initiation costs and dues so you can build them into your real monthly number. A $360.99 annual fee and a five-figure initiation fee are not the same category of expense, and a listing sheet won't distinguish between them for you.
The same logic applies to short-term rental rules, which vary by subdivision rather than by city ordinance alone. If income potential is part of your plan, that's a separate verification step from the membership one, and it needs its own answer before you underwrite anything.
We've written before about how this plays out specifically for condo buyers weighing HOA fees against club access in our guide to buying a resort condo in Horseshoe Bay, which covers financing and total monthly cost planning in more detail. The subdivision-level membership question above is the piece that guide doesn't fully unpack, and it's the one that changes the math most.
A short FAQ
Is the Maintenance Fund fee the same as an HOA fee? Functionally similar in that it's mandatory and billed annually, but it's collected by a separate entity, the Horseshoe Bay Maintenance Fund, and a majority of it is passed through to the city for roadway maintenance rather than kept for private amenities.
Can I find club membership costs online? Not published rates. The club directs inquiries to its membership office, so treat that number as something you request directly rather than something you can budget from a website.
Does combining lots reduce the Maintenance Fund fee? No. Per the fund's own architectural guidance, combining lots does not eliminate the obligation to pay the fee per lot or per dwelling unit on it.
Are short-term rental rules the same across Horseshoe Bay? No. Rules vary by subdivision, with communities like Applehead Island running stricter than others. Confirm this separately from the membership question, since the two aren't linked.
If you're weighing a Horseshoe Bay purchase and want the membership and fee picture spelled out for a specific address before you write an offer, McAlister Realty can walk through it with you. Request a Market Consultation and we'll help you separate what the fee schedule tells you from what it doesn't.
