The Comfort of a well built home keep sales strong at Blanco’s Rockin’ J Ranch

By Steve Habel,

Sales are still going strong here at Rockin J Ranch, with lot sales rolling and literally hundreds of homes under construction in the community that has become the pacesetter for excellence in the Texas Hill Country.

Where other neighborhoods are still on the drawing board and with home sales across the area slowed by high interest rates and the recession, Rockin J Ranch has bucked the trend. The highly desirable private community five miles south of Blanco continues to be successful where others have been wracked by inflation.

“We have seen little, if any, slowdown for our homesite sales, and we are getting closer and closer to selling out Rockin J Ranch with every day that passes,” said Ryan Brubaker,

Rockin’ J Ranch’s sales manager since nearly Day 1. “People genuinely love and appreciate what we have here.”

Rockin’ J Ranch is a 1,064-acre luxury neighborhood of spectacular Hill Country homes and homesites set amongst rolling fields of flowers and stands of oak and cedar trees. And at its centerpiece is one of the region’s most enjoyable and recognized golf courses –Vaaler Creek Golf Club.

Located less than an hour north of San Antonio and just a half-hour further drive from Austin, the community differentiates itself from the many others in the region. It’s setting is bordered by sprawling, green-grassed ranches and provides a sense of isolation that’s becoming just a bit too scarce these days.

Rockin’ J Ranch has grown up over the 20 years since development began on the spectacular Hill Country neighborhood that was once just rolling fields of flowers and stands of oak and cedar trees. There were 1,800 homesites plated for the community, and all but about 100 have been sold since 2004.

Rockin’ J Ranch was the brainchild of Colonel Lee Roper, an El Paso businessman and 24-year Army veteran who was entranced by the land that would become the community from Day 1 more the three decades ago.

Roper has helped bring families to the region via dozens of successful projects through his company, Rinco of Texas, a firm that has been ultimately responsible for developing more than 30 properties across the Hill Country.

“We’ve developed and sold more than

8,000 tracts of land over the past 30plus years,” Col. Roper said. “I don’t think anybody else has done that.”

Brubaker concurred, saying “the interest in this community and what Colonel Roper envisioned from the start has not waned and continues to grow. Everyone wants a little piece of the heaven we have here, and we try to help them.”

One of the earmarks of Roper’s communities – including Rockin’ J Ranch – is its use of a centralized water and sewer systems rather than the well water and septic fields used in the majority of other Hill Country de- velopments. That matters because water is a precious resource and so scarce in the region, even more so now than when Rockin’ J Ranch first came on line.

The Colonel still offers in-house financing for his lots (“we still make deals on a handshake,” Brubaker said). He continues to live on the same ranch he originally developed, and he still comes into the office to sign checks and have lunch with his team.

Rockin’ J Ranch feels like home – but that was the plan.