Whitehall Ranch takes $8M price cut amid softening rural demand

A modern ranch and residential compound with a regulation polo field and striking landscape architecture just took an $8 million price cut as demand for rural luxury softens.

The 656-acre Whitehall Ranch is asking $34.8 million, the Houston Business Journal reported. That’s $53,000 per acre and the latest price adjustment for the property, about an hour’s drive northwest of Houston in Grimes County.

In October 2020, the ranch was listed for $21.6 million by Hall and Hall and Robertson Real Estate, but it didn’t sell. Nan & Company, which launched a farm and ranch division last summer, relisted it late last year for $42.8 million.

The owner wanted an aggressive price cut to get the ranch sold, said Nancy Almodovar, president and CEO of Nan and Co.

“The seller just decided that he’s ready to move, and he’s ready to receive some offers,” she said.

Almodovar declined to identify the seller, but public records reveal that it is William H. Lane Jr., the outlet reported.

The ranch, at 3896 County Road 305, has a pond pier for fishing, a skeet and trap range, massive horse stables and seven houses. 

The 4,300-square-foot main house has two bedrooms and two-and-a-half bathrooms, and a 1,600-square-foot guest house has two bedrooms and two bathrooms. But in case your party is bigger, there are three 960-square-foot cottages with two bedrooms and one bathroom each. And for the horsemen, there is a 1,600-square-foot bunk house with four bedrooms and four bathrooms.

The owner and their guests could drop in on the place, via its FAA-regulation helipad, to enjoy the spa area with a heated outdoor saltwater pool, a sauna, and an exercise and massage room, when not on the polo pitch.

It benefits from a wildlife exemption that reduces its property tax bill, the outlet reported.

The owner lives on the ranch and has had all of the structures built since buying it in 2011. He previously owned a ranch in Montana, Almodovar told the outlet.

After interest in rural Texas land peaked at the height of the pandemic, demand has cooled since mid-2022, largely because of higher interest rates, Lynn Krebs, research economist at Texas A&M University’s Texas Real Estate Research Center told the outlet.

Demand remained strong in the luxury ranch market until recently, Krebs said.

“There’s just not as many interested buyers as there were before,” he said. “I think a lot of market participants have looked at what’s happened over the last year in comparable sales, and they’re starting to see that the market is not moving like it had the two or three years prior.”

—Rachel Stone