Burnet is the county seat of Burnet County and the inland anchor of the Highland Lakes area — it doesn’t sit directly on a lake the way Marble Falls or Horseshoe Bay do, but it’s about 10 miles from both Inks Lake and Lake Buchanan, and close enough to reach any of the other nine Highland Lakes towns in well under half an hour. If you want small-town Texas without giving up quick access to the water, Burnet is worth a serious look.
A Real Town With Real History
The area was first settled around Fort Croghan, a U.S. Army post established in 1849 to protect frontier settlers. The town itself was founded in 1852 and originally named Hamilton, then renamed in 1858 for David G. Burnet, the first president ad interim of the Republic of Texas. Fort Croghan’s grounds are preserved today as a small museum, one of the few tangible links in the Highland Lakes area back to that frontier period.
In 1981, the Texas Legislature officially designated Burnet the “Bluebonnet Capital of Texas,” and the town leans into it every April with its Bluebonnet Festival — one of the longer-running community festivals in the Hill Country.
What Living in Burnet Actually Looks Like
Burnet runs on Hamilton Creek, which cuts through downtown and feeds the Burnet Riverwalk — a walking path along the creek that’s become the town’s main public gathering space. Downtown itself is small and walkable, built around the historic county courthouse square, with local shops and restaurants rather than chain retail.
Because Burnet isn’t a lake town, home prices and lot sizes tend to run more favorably than the waterfront communities nearby, while still putting you a short drive from Inks Lake State Park, Lake Buchanan, and Lake LBJ on weekends. It’s a common choice for people who want space — acreage properties are common on the outskirts of town — without sacrificing proximity to the lakes.
Neighborhoods on the newer end include Highland Oaks and Delaware Springs, the latter built around the Delaware Springs Golf Course, a public 18-hole course that’s one of the more affordable rounds in the area. The Ranch at Delaware Creek, adjacent to it, is a newer acreage-lot development.
Schools
Burnet is served by Burnet Consolidated Independent School District (Burnet CISD), which covers roughly 700 square miles across six campuses — one of the larger geographic footprints of any district in the area, a reflection of how spread out the surrounding rural population is.
The Current Market
Like most of the Highland Lakes area, Burnet’s housing market has cooled from its 2021–2022 peak — homes are taking longer to sell than they were then, and price reductions on active listings are common. That’s a real shift worth knowing about whether you’re buying (more room to negotiate) or selling (pricing accurately matters more than it did a few years ago).
Homes For Sale by Community
A few Burnet subdivisions have their own dedicated pages with current details:
Work With Someone Who Knows Burnet and the Rest of the Highland Lakes
Robbie English, Broker and REALTOR® with Uncommon Highland Lakes Realty, works across Burnet and the other nine Highland Lakes towns, so if you’re weighing Burnet’s inland acreage against a lakefront property in Kingsland or Horseshoe Bay, you’re talking to someone who can genuinely compare all of them — not just sell you on the one town he knows. Reach out or call 830-953-5571 to talk through whether Burnet fits what you’re looking for.
