New Braunfels Job Growth: What It Means for Home Prices
What do the new Tesla, Lefko, and AUMOVIO jobs mean for New Braunfels home prices?
Three employers are putting real money into the I-35 corridor at the same time: Lefko with its first U.S. plant and more than 150 full-time jobs over five years at an average wage north of $67,000, AUMOVIO, formerly Continental's automotive division, with $110 million and about 100 new high tech positions on top of the nearly 500 people it already employs here, and Tesla with a 47,000 square foot service center. That is roughly 250 confirmed new jobs, and an independent projection tied to Lefko alone puts the regional ripple past 550 direct and indirect jobs by 2030. The practical takeaway for you is about sequence, not panic: hiring ramps over the next 12 to 36 months, which means the inventory cushion and negotiating leverage buyers have in New Braunfels right now is exactly what that hiring absorbs.
By Drake and Michelle Carter | October 15, 2026
Comal County has spent most of the last decade near the top of the fastest growing county lists in the country. That part is not news to anybody who has sat at the light on Loop 337 lately. Growth has actually cooled since the 2021 peak, from 6.9% in a single year down to about 3.8% in 2025, which dropped us out of the state's top five. We are still adding roughly 7,700 people a year.
What is new is the kind of growth showing up. For a long time the story here was people — families leaving Austin, leaving California, leaving the coast, all chasing the Hill Country lifestyle. That brought rooftops. Rooftops alone do not build a durable economy. What changes the math is when the jobs follow the people, and right now the jobs are following.
Here is who is coming, what the headcounts actually are, and the honest version of what it does to housing.
The three announcements, and what each one really tells you
Start with the one nobody around here has heard of, because it might be the most important of the three.
Lefko is a manufacturer that picked New Braunfels for its very first plant in the United States. The facility at 2625 Goodwin Lane is set to expand past 70,000 square feet with more than $15 million in capital investment going into the ground. They make blow molded plastic parts — fuel tanks, recreational vehicle components, even hospital bed parts. That is the kind of specialized manufacturing that anchors a workforce for decades rather than a few quarters.
The headline is more than 150 new full-time jobs in Comal County over five years, at an average wage above $67,000 a year. The state's Texas Enterprise Fund agreement pins the firm commitment at 149 of those jobs, backed by a $968,500 performance-based grant. And the number that should get your attention is the second order one: an independent analysis projects Lefko's investment will support more than 550 direct and indirect jobs across the greater New Braunfels region and generate more than $640 million in total economic output by 2030. Watch Drake and Michelle break down the Lefko numbers at 1:25.
Tesla is building a 47,000 square foot service center right on I-35, a $10.4 million build on an 11 acre lot at 5309 I-35 South, with completion expected in December 2026. We will be straight with you here, because that is how we do these breakdowns: a service center is not a factory. It is not employing thousands of people.
That is not the point. The point is what it signals. When a company like Tesla looks at a market and decides there are enough vehicles, enough customers, and enough projected growth to justify a permanent service footprint on this stretch of interstate, that tells you how they read the next decade here. Companies do not plant infrastructure where they expect things to shrink. Hear why the signal matters more than the headcount at 2:44.
AUMOVIO, the business that was Continental's automotive division until it spun off on its own in September 2025, is the one that ties it together, because this employer is already here and doubling down. They run a major manufacturing and research facility at 440 Kohlenberg Road, right off I-35, where they have built more than 13 million radar sensors since the plant opened in 2022 and employ close to 500 people. In October of 2025 the city approved an agreement for their next phase: $110 million in new investment, a 65,000 square foot addition that more than doubles their production floor, and around 100 new high tech jobs. Construction is set to begin by the end of June 2026, with the expanded plant at full capacity by August 2027.
Sit with that one. This is not a company testing the water. This is one of our largest existing employers looking at New Braunfels and deciding to put another $110 million in the ground, matching what it spent building the original plant. That is a vote of confidence you cannot fake. Watch the Continental breakdown at 3:32.
Add it up the right way. The hard confirmed jobs are Lefko's 150 plus and AUMOVIO's 100 or so, on top of the roughly 500 already there. Then layer Tesla's footprint and the suppliers, vendors, and service businesses that always follow this kind of growth. The regional impact climbs past 600 along this stretch.
One honest qualifier, because it matters: the 550 figure is a projection, not a guaranteed headcount. Economic impact models are estimates and they are usually generous. But the confirmed numbers underneath the projection are real, and they tell the same story. Real employers are making real long-term bets on this corridor. We have written before about how I-35 corridor growth has been reshaping Hill Country home values, and this is the clearest version of it yet.
Worth remembering too that housing demand does not stop at a city line. People work in San Marcos and live in New Braunfels. They work in Schertz or Cibolo and live up here. The corridor is one connected job market and we sit right in the middle of it, which is the whole argument in our piece on why it is more than just a commute on the I-35 corridor.
Relocating here for one of these jobs, or wondering how close you can live to them? Drake and Michelle map commutes against real price points for relocating buyers every week. Schedule a free meeting with The Carter Team and we will show you which neighborhoods actually fit both your drive and your budget.
Jobs come first, buyers come second
This is the part most people miss, and it is the whole reason we made the video.
It is a sequence, and it plays out the same way almost every time. A company announces. Construction starts. Then over the following 12 to 36 months the actual hiring ramps up — the line workers, the engineers, the managers, the service technicians. They all need somewhere to live. Some rent first and buy later. Some buy right away.
The demand does not arrive all at once. It builds quietly in the background while most people are still reacting to last year's headlines about the market slowing down. Watch this part at 5:23. By the time that demand is obvious in the sale prices, the window where you could have gotten ahead of it has already closed.
Which brings us to why this matters so much right now, and if you are a buyer, this is the good news.
Our market still gives buyers room, and we want to put real numbers on that rather than leave it at a feeling. The median New Braunfels home sold for about $345,000 in the three months through August 2026, up a modest 3% year over year, and homes are closing around 3% under list price. At roughly 69 days on market, they still sit far longer than they did during the frenzy.
Here is the part that should get your attention, though. That 69 days was 85 days a year ago. The leverage is real today, and it is already measurably thinner than it was last fall. This is not a market loosening up. It is a market that has started to tighten while most people are still reading last year's headlines.
Now think about what these announcements do to that picture over the next few years. The inventory cushion you see today is exactly what gets absorbed as the hiring ramps up.
A job-backed buyer is not a spectator. They are not flipping. They need a roof because they have a paycheck attached to this zip code. That is the most stable kind of demand there is, and it is the kind that quietly works through standing inventory and, over time, firms up prices.
What to do with this, whether you own or you are buying
If you own a home here, understand that the equity story in New Braunfels is not running on fumes from the pandemic boom anymore. It is being fueled by real employers making long-term bets on this corridor. That changes how you think about selling, refinancing, or holding. If you have been sitting on a home wondering whether you missed the peak, the demand drivers are still arriving, not leaving.
If you are buying, this is the part we want you to sit with. Right now you have both halves of a good deal at the same time:
Real selection and genuine negotiating leverage today, with homes closing under list.
A wave of new residents with strong incomes being announced in press releases most people will never read.
That combination does not last forever. This is the window where you can still buy with leverage and get ahead of the hiring curve instead of competing against it.
On location, we would be paying the closest attention to the neighborhoods nearest the corridor and the ones with easy I-35 access, because proximity to these jobs is going to matter more every single year. Goodwin Lane and Kohlenberg Road both sit close to the interstate, which puts a lot of New Braunfels within a reasonable drive — but "reasonable" depends on which side of the highway you land on. Our breakdown of east versus west New Braunfels, 78130 or 78132 walks through that tradeoff, and our commute guide to San Antonio and Austin covers the drive times if your job is on either end of the corridor rather than here in town.
This corridor is quietly turning into an economic engine, and the housing market has not fully priced it in yet. That is a rare and temporary thing.
If you want us to break down what this means for your specific neighborhood, or you want to know which areas are positioned best as these jobs land, reach out. That is exactly the kind of conversation we have every week, and we are happy to walk you through it with real numbers for your situation. Schedule a free meeting with The Carter Team and we will do it with your budget, your commute, and your timeline on the table.
About Drake and Michelle Carter Drake and Michelle Carter are licensed Texas real estate agents and the founders of The Carter Team at Keller Williams Heritage in New Braunfels. They specialize in helping buyers and sellers navigate the South and Central Texas Hill Country, serving New Braunfels, San Marcos, Canyon Lake, Seguin, Spring Branch, Bulverde, and North San Antonio. Follow along on their YouTube channel for honest, no fluff advice on living and buying in the Hill Country.
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