Susan Flores, a Realtor with Keller Williams Realty, left, speaks with El Pasoans Jazmine Herrera, 33, and Jorge Garcia, 35, who are finalizing the purchase of their home in Santa Teresa, New Mexico.

Thousands of El Paso residents are moving across the state line into New Mexico, where lower property taxes, new housing developments and competitive home prices are attracting buyers who still want to live near the city.

The trend reflects a growing shift in the Borderland housing market as more people choose to live beyond the city limits in surrounding neighborhoods, to the east and west of El Paso.

For homebuilders, Realtors and an increasing number of homebuyers, New Mexico is a new beacon of development, offering an alternative to El Paso’s more expensive housing market.

“The state line is just an imaginary line in the sand,” said Enrique Lazcano, a home adviser for Hakes Brothers, the largest homebuilder based in New Mexico.

IRS data that tracks the addresses of tax filers shows thousands of El Paso households have moved to New Mexico.

The most recent IRS county-to-county migration data, compiled by Alex Hoffman, a researcher on population movements, indicates about 8,800 El Paso households switched addresses from El Paso to New Mexico between 2019 and 2023, with neighboring Doña Ana County accounting for most of the movement.

Meanwhile, U.S. Census estimates show the city of El Paso lost about 2,000 residents between 2024 and 2025. City and county leaders say those residents generally are not leaving the region. Instead, they are relocating to communities just outside the city.

The trend is continuing, said one New Mexico Realtor who is seeing growing interest from El Paso homebuyers. Areas such as Santa Teresa and Sunland Park are especially attractive because they offer new homes in new neighborhoods while remaining close to El Paso’s amenities.

“We’re seeing it more now. There’s more development happening over here in Santa Teresa, in Sunland Park. It’s been like that for the last few years because there are more options now in comparison to years ago,” said Susan Flores, a Realtor with Keller Williams Realty.

Flores started her real estate career in Dallas 21 years ago. When she arrived in El Paso in 2013, she encountered a familiar challenge: buyers wanting homes that were out of their price range.

Licensed in both Texas and New Mexico, Flores soon learned that some costs were lower in New Mexico, including property taxes, giving her the opportunity to sell homes at a more affordable overall cost.

“It was really an eye-opener. There is a lot of opportunity here,” she said, standing in a Santa Teresa home she recently sold to an El Paso couple. “We’re seeing that more and more. People are coming because they can get a brand-new home, and still be comfortable in their monthly payment, while being in New Mexico.”

The property taxes in El Paso and Doña Ana counties are not an apples-to-apples comparison.

El Paso County’s property tax rate, like the rest of Texas, is calculated per $100 valuation, while New Mexico’s are based on a “mill rate” – the tax owed per every $1,000 of a property’s assessed value.

Further complicating the comparison are the myriad overlapping taxing entities and different exemptions available in each state.

Considering all 44 taxing entities in El Paso, property taxes historically range between 1.8% and 2.5% of a property’s appraised value. In Las Cruces, it tends to hover near 1%.

Multiple regional real estate blogs have posted home price comparisons between Las Cruces and El Paso that show annual property taxes on a $300,000 home are sometimes nearly three times higher in El Paso.

Real estate agents emphasize that the final costs of a mortgage, taxes and insurance are highly specific to every homebuyer. Lower New Mexico property taxes can be offset by other factors, including the state’s income tax. New Mexico has an income tax while Texas does not.

Still, the buzz of lower property taxes in New Mexico has been circulating for years.

A 2024 report by the New Mexico Legislative Finance Committee confirmed its state’s lower property taxes, reporting that “New Mexico’s property taxes rank among the lowest in the country” across several measures.

The Tax Foundation reported an effective property tax rate of 0.64% for Doña Ana County in 2024.

Multiple studies have consistently found that El Paso has some of the highest property tax rates among Texas counties and cities. Data from the Tax Foundation in 2026 showed El Paso County had the state’s highest effective property tax rate, at 1.8%.

Austin’s Travis County had a property tax rate of 1%, San Antonio’s Bexar County was at 1.55%, Houston’s Harris County was at 1.5%, and Dallas County was at 1.45%.

Even so, the actual property tax burden – the amount of money each El Pasoan pays on their property tax bills – is generally lower in El Paso than other major Texas cities because home values are lower here.

Julian Paredes, a tax consultant with Property Tax Associates Inc., an El Paso tax advisor company, said it is “definitely accurate” that many El Paso homebuyers are looking to New Mexico for lower monthly mortgage and tax bills.

Too expensive

That was the case for Jorge Garcia, 35, who owns a remodeling company, and his partner, Jazmine Herrera, 33, who is pursuing an engineering degree.

Originally from California, Herrera said she had given up hope of buying a house in her home state. She moved to El Paso seeking a more affordable place to live.

“The prices in California, they’re just so high, even for mobile homes,” she said.

When she met Garcia, they were renting separate spaces in El Paso and New Mexico. They decided their goal was to purchase a home together on El Paso’s Westside.

“The Westside of El Paso went out the window pretty quick because it’s so expensive, plus the taxes,” Herrera said. “It didn’t make sense for us.”

The couple began comparing El Paso and Santa Teresa. The next step became clear: They’d be crossing state lines to buy their home.

“Santa Teresa was the best spot, and it’s near the Westside,” Garcia said. “We get to enjoy the luxury of being close to that part of town, but we have the lower price tag on the home, and the lower price tag on the taxes. Once we saw that, it was a fast decision. It was like, ‘Let’s stay in New Mexico.’”

Behind the complex maze of tax rates, deductions and mortgage expenses are people like Herrera and Garcia trying to plan their lives within their budget. As development continues along the state line, more El Pasoans are finding opportunities to buy affordable homes near their hometown by utilizing lower costs in New Mexico. Others are finding opportunities east of El Paso in surrounding communities such as Horizon City.

It’s a wave that is just beginning, said Lazcano, the home advisor for Hakes Brothers.

“All this is going to grow,” he said, referring to the New Mexican land surrounding the company’s new subdivisions. “It is all going to connect eventually, the homes in Texas and New Mexico, all the way to Las Cruces. People will commute back and forth, like it’s just one city, one entity.”

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Lower taxes, new homes draw El Paso families to neighboring New Mexico