"No Owner shall be permitted to lease a room in the Dwelling."
That sentence comes from Section 2.1(B) of the First Amended and Restated Declaration of Covenants, Conditions and Restrictions for Mission Ranch. It was recorded with the Brazos County Clerk on December 22, 2014, as Document 1217499. The community's own marketing site says Kyle Field and shopping are both within five minutes. Its entrance sits on Deacon Drive, just across Holleman Drive. An investor from Houston or Dallas could see that location and price a Mission Ranch patio home the way they would price a student rental. The recorded covenants don't allow that business model, and the 2025 state law that removed College Station's occupancy caps left those covenants alone on purpose.
The useful way to underwrite a Mission Ranch rental starts with the rules that bind it. There are three layers, and the most restrictive one is private.
Layer one: the state lifted the city's caps but kept the HOA's
Senate Bill 1567 took effect September 1, 2025. It bars covered Texas cities from limiting how many people live in a dwelling based on age, familial status, occupation, relationship status or kinship. College Station is covered because the law reaches cities under 250,000 people that host or sit next to a campus with more than 20,000 students. A city can still set a neutral cap of one person per sleeping room of at least 70 square feet, plus one more for every additional 50 square feet in that room. The bill also keeps limits based on specified building, fire and health standards and on affordable-housing program guidelines.
The enrolled text then adds the sentence that matters most in a deed-restricted neighborhood:
"This subchapter does not prohibit a property owner from enforcing rules or deed restrictions imposed by a property owners' association or by other private agreement."
So the state took away the city's power to cap unrelated occupants. It did not touch an HOA's power to limit how a house is leased.
Layer two: College Station moved shared housing into specific zones
The city responded in two steps. On September 11, 2025, it adopted Ordinance 2025-4619, which amended its definition of family. The same day it adopted Ordinance 2025-4620, which stripped the Restricted Occupancy Overlay and High Occupancy Overlay language out of the Unified Development Ordinance. Before that, the city's default was "no more than four unrelated," and an overlay could lower the limit to two.
The second step came on April 23, 2026. As Community Impact reported, council redefined shared housing as a "congregate living facility." New ones are now allowed only in middle housing, multifamily, mixed-use, planned mixed-use, R-4 and R-6 multifamily, and Wolf Pen Creek districts. Each needs at least one off-street parking space per bedroom, and street parking doesn't count toward that. Existing shared housing outside those districts is grandfathered, but it can't expand or be rebuilt as shared housing if the property is redeveloped.
For an investor, the city's question has moved away from who is related to whom. It is now about which district a parcel is zoned in and where everyone parks. Before writing an offer on any home you plan to rent to roommates, confirm its zoning with the city.
Layer three: the Mission Ranch declaration does the real limiting
This is where Mission Ranch differs from a typical College Station address. Section 2.1(B) of the declaration does four things that shape a rental:
- It bans hotel and transient leasing, and defines any lease under six months as transient. That rules out game-weekend and graduation-weekend short-term rentals.
- It prohibits renting out individual rooms. The by-the-bed model used in purpose-built student housing is off the table.
- It requires every lease to provide that the tenant is bound by the declaration. That puts the covenants inside the landlord-tenant relationship.
- It limits use to single-family residential purposes, which the declaration says specifically excludes duplexes, garage apartments and any multi-family use.
The same section bans garage sales, rummage sales, estate sales and moving sales on a lot. It's a small rule, but it comes up at every move-out, so it belongs in your tenant welcome packet.
Here is how the three layers stack for one patio home:
| Question | State: SB 1567 | City: April 2026 UDO update | Mission Ranch declaration |
|---|---|---|---|
| Can occupancy be capped by relationship? | No, for cities like College Station | Family-based wording removed | Single-family residential use only |
| Can rooms be rented separately? | Not addressed | New congregate living only in listed districts | Prohibited |
| Minimum lease term | Not addressed | Not addressed | Under six months counts as transient and is prohibited |
| Can the HOA rule be enforced? | Yes, expressly preserved | Not addressed | Binding on every lease |
The one column with the narrowest answers is the private one.
What that does to the pro forma
When you add the layers up, a Mission Ranch rental is a whole-home lease to one household for six months or longer. That changes several inputs an investor would otherwise copy from a near-campus spreadsheet.
Rent is priced per house. You can't add up bedroom rents, because there are no bedroom leases to add up. The comparable is another whole home in south College Station, not a student bed.
Turnover follows the household, not the semester. The August 1 sprint that sets returns in a by-the-bed community like The Barracks doesn't apply here. A six-month floor allows a mid-year start. In practice, a lease that ends in December or May has to compete with whatever else is listed that month.
Amenity costs come with the house. The community advertises a clubhouse called the Ranch House, a resort-style pool, a resident-only fitness center, pickleball courts, a private lake, Victory Park and hike-and-bike trails. Its marketing site also says basic fiber internet is included in HOA dues. Whether tenants get full access to those amenities, and under what registration process, is a question for the HOA before you list. The master declaration puts lawn and weed upkeep on the owner or occupant of each lot, so don't assume patio-home yard care is covered by dues unless your section's documents say so.
Dues are reset every year. The association's assessment page says the board adopts an annual budget and sets the rate each year. Payments run through CCMC's portal. Any dues figure older than the current budget doesn't belong in your underwriting. A buyer can confirm the current figure by asking for the association's resale certificate before closing. The declaration notes that the association may charge a fee for one.
This is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Have an attorney or other qualified professional review the recorded documents and your lease before you act on them.
The supply arriving next door
The household-lease model looks better or worse depending on what else gets built. Two projects matter here.
The closer one is inside the community. Cadence Creek at Mission Ranch is registered with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation as a $30 million, 246,560-square-foot multifamily project at 770 Deacon Rd. West. The plans include single-family cottages, a four-story wrap building with a ground-floor clubhouse, a fitness and movement studio, and detached garages. The TDLR filing lists a start date of December 1, 2026 and completion on November 30, 2027, with a status of "Review Complete." In an April 6, 2026 roundup, Community Impact also reported a December start and about a year of construction. It's a separate rental product run as one professionally managed property. For an owner of a single patio home, it means another set of leasing signs on Deacon Drive from late 2027 on, if the schedule holds.
The larger one is near campus. Multi-Housing News reported on July 1, 2026 that construction had started on Hub College Station, a 570-unit, 2,201-bed student project in Northgate scheduled to open before the 2028-2029 academic year. Mission Ranch homes can't compete for those student-bed tenants, and that's the point. A whole-home lease in a deed-restricted community serves a different tenant than a by-the-bed tower, so new beds at Northgate don't come straight out of a Mission Ranch owner's tenant pool.
Before you write an offer
- Request the resale certificate and any section-specific supplemental declarations, and read Section 2.1(B) against your business plan.
- Ask the HOA in writing how tenants register for amenities and whether lawn care is included for your section.
- Have your attorney check that your lease form matches what Section 2.1(B) says about lease terms and tenant obligations.
- Price against whole-home rentals in south College Station, not against bedroom rents near campus.
- Mark late 2027 on your calendar as the date Cadence Creek is scheduled to start delivering units nearby.
FAQ
Did SB 1567 override Mission Ranch's leasing rules? No. The enrolled bill says it doesn't stop a property owners' association from enforcing its rules or deed restrictions.
Can I rent a Mission Ranch home for Aggie football weekends? The declaration treats any lease shorter than six months as transient, and it prohibits transient leasing.
Is Cadence Creek under construction? TDLR lists a scheduled start of December 1, 2026. A status of "Review Complete" means the filing has been reviewed, not that construction has started.
If you own a Mission Ranch home or are weighing one, Maurey Bell Group can walk through the resale certificate with you, handle leasing and management on terms that work within the community's recorded rules, and price the home against the whole-home rentals it actually competes with. Request a Free Home Valuation & Property Management Quote, and we'll show you what a whole-house, six-month-plus lease looks like on your address.
