Author: Mau Sanchez, Chief Investment Officer

When Sarah and I first stood on our five-acre lot just outside of Boerne, we didn’t see the challenges. We saw the sunset. We saw the way the light hit the ancient live oaks and how the breeze moved through the high grass. We saw our retirement. We had spent thirty years in the corporate…

For years, the screensaver on my office computer was a photo of the Guadalupe River at dawn, mist rising off the water, cypress trees standing like ancient sentinels. My wife, Sarah, and I spent a decade "vacation-planning" our retirement. We knew every winery on Highway 290, we’d scoped out the luxury acreage in Boerne, and…

"You're moving where? Good luck joining a Zoom call." That was the common refrain from my colleagues and friends when I told them we were looking at acreage between Fredericksburg and Kerrville. To them, the Texas Hill Country was a digital wasteland: a place where you went to disconnect, sure, but also a place where…

When my husband and I first pulled the trigger on our move to the Texas Hill Country, we had a very specific vision. It involved long, slow mornings on the porch with a view of the limestone ridges, Saturday afternoon wine tastings in Fredericksburg, and finally having the time to join that hiking group in…

There is a specific kind of magic that happens during your first week living in the Texas Hill Country. You wake up, pour a cup of coffee, and step out onto your porch in Boerne or Wimberley, and there they are. A dozen white-tailed deer, frozen like statues in the morning mist, staring back at…

For as long as Sarah and I have talked about retiring to the Texas Hill Country, the image was always the same: ten acres outside of Fredericksburg, a long gravel driveway, and enough space between us and our nearest neighbor that we could watch the sunset in total silence. We wanted the "Ranch Life." We…

For thirty years, my identity was tied to a title on a business card and a high-rise office in downtown Houston. My mornings were a blur of caffeine and conference calls, and my weekends were spent recovering from the week. Then, at 62, I did what I had dreamed of doing for a decade: I…

They say you don't truly "own" a home in the Texas Hill Country until you’ve survived your first August. As a Texas native, I’ve seen my fair share of folks move to Boerne or Wimberley in the middle of a stunning, bluebonnet-filled April, only to look at me with wide-eyed terror come July. The heat…

Three years ago, my husband and I stood in the middle of our 3,500-square-foot suburban home outside of Dallas and realized we were living in a museum. We had a formal dining room that saw action exactly twice a year. We had a guest wing that remained perfectly preserved, like a time capsule, between holiday…

We spent three years planning the move. We had the spreadsheets, the Zillow alerts, and the vision board. By the time we finally backed the moving truck into the limestone-lined driveway of our new home outside of Boerne, we thought we had accounted for everything. We knew the property taxes, the best spot for the…