No agent is the best for all three places, because each one sets a different test. In the Energy Corridor the test is the reservoirs and the relocation calendar. In Memorial it is knowing which of seven city governments a house actually sits under. In Katy it is the builder’s contract and the utility district behind the subdivision. The best agent for you is the one who can pass the test your house sets, and most of that can be checked on public records in about fifteen minutes, before the first call.

This guide is written by Energy Realty, a west Houston brokerage with offices on Eldridge Parkway in the Energy Corridor and on Grand Circle Boulevard in Katy. We are not going to tell you we are the best agent in any of these places. We know of no independent ranking that says that about anyone here, and the lists that use the word measure different things. So this guide does four things instead: it explains what those lists measure, sets out the test each area sets, shows how to check any agent yourself, and then answers the same checks about us.

What the “best agent” lists actually measure

Search for the best real estate agent in Katy or the best realtor in the Energy Corridor and the answers are assembled from a small set of directories, rankings, review programs and awards. They are useful. They are also not the same kind of thing: some are editorial selections, some are public votes, some rank production that firms submit, and some are referral services that earn a fee from the agent when a client they sent closes. Here is how each one describes itself, in its own words.

Sources: HAR.com, Client Experience Rating pages (how it works, service criteria and FAQ); Expertise.com, Houston real estate agents (last updated September 14, 2026) and Our Selection Process; HomeLight, top real estate agents in Houston (September 2026); Agent Pronto, Memorial page and How It Works; FastExpert, top agents in Katy (2026); Best of Katy, event information and rules (2026 cycle); Houston Agent Magazine, 2025 Houston Agents’ Choice winners, October 6, 2025; HousingWire, RealTrends Verified 2026 brokerage rankings; Five Star Professional, program page and 2021 research methodology; Top Agent Magazine, Occasionally Asked Questions; U.S. News & World Report, Katy and Houston top-agent pages (archived copies of June 2025 and March 2024); EffectiveAgents, How We Rank Agents; Houston Chronicle, Best of the Best program page. Retrieved September 15, 2026.

None of these measures the thing that decides whether an agent is right for a particular house: whether they know what that address will demand of them. That depends on where the house is.

The Energy Corridor test: the reservoirs and the relocation calendar

The Energy Corridor sits beside the Addicks and Barker reservoirs, two dry dams on Houston’s west side that hold back stormwater in a large storm. When they fill, the pool can reach beyond the land the federal government owns and onto private property. During Hurricane Harvey the pools crested at record elevations of 109.1 feet in Addicks and 101.6 feet in Barker on August 30, 2017, according to the facts recorded in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims’ December 2019 opinion in the upstream Addicks and Barker flooding case.

So the first test for an Energy Corridor agent is flood literacy at the level of a single lot. The Texas seller’s disclosure asks the seller specifically whether they are aware of previous flooding due to a failure or breach of a reservoir or a controlled or emergency release of water from a reservoir. An agent who works here should be able to find that line on the form, explain what a yes means, and show you how to look up the FEMA zone for the address. Our flood-zone guide covers how.

The second test is the calendar. Many buyers here arrive on an assignment, and for a two- or three-year assignment our usual advice is to lease first: the commute, the school assignment and a parcel’s flood and tax exposure are only knowable from a specific office and a specific address. An agent who pushes a purchase in the first month without asking how long the assignment is has not heard the most important fact in the file. Our relocation guide sets out the sequence.

Sources: U.S. Court of Federal Claims, upstream Addicks and Barker reservoirs liability opinion, December 17, 2019; Texas Property Code Section 5.008, as amended by SB 339 (effective September 1, 2019). Retrieved August 24, 2026.

The Memorial test: which of seven city governments

Memorial is not one place. The six Memorial Villages, Hunters Creek, Piney Point, Bunker Hill, Hedwig, Hilshire and Spring Valley, are separate incorporated cities that were created in 1954 and 1955 and have stayed independent ever since. West of them, the Memorial area of subdivisions such as Nottingham Forest, Wilchester and Memorial Thicket is inside the City of Houston. A house with a Memorial address can therefore sit under any one of seven city governments, and the differences are practical: which police department answers the call, which city’s ordinances apply, and which city tax rate appears on the bill.

The tax rate alone shows why it matters. For 2025, the city’s own rate was about 20.5 cents per $100 of taxable value in Hunters Creek Village and 27.1 cents in Bunker Hill Village, according to the Harris Central Appraisal District’s jurisdiction list, before the school district, the county and other units are added. Three of the Villages, Bunker Hill, Piney Point and Hunters Creek, share the Memorial Villages Police Department; Hedwig Village runs its own, and Spring Valley Village’s department also serves Hilshire Village by contract.

The test for a Memorial agent is to answer, for a house you like and before you ask: which city it is in, which police department serves it, which school district serves it, and what the combined tax rate is. A specialist answers from memory. Everyone else answers with the neighborhood name a portal assigned. Our Memorial guide walks through all six Villages and Memorial West.

Sources: Village Fire Department; official sites of Bunker Hill Village, Hunters Creek Village, Piney Point Village, Hilshire Village and Spring Valley Village; Texas State Historical Association, Handbook of Texas, Hedwig Village; Memorial Villages Police Department; Harris Central Appraisal District, jurisdiction list, 2025 rates. Retrieved August 24, 2026.

The Katy test: the builder and the utility district

Katy is two places as well: the small incorporated City of Katy, and the much larger Katy area of master-planned communities, most of them in unincorporated Harris and Fort Bend County. Buying there tests an agent in two specific ways.

The first is new construction. The sales representative in the model home works for the builder, not for you. If you walk in without your own agent, no one in the transaction represents your side on the price, the incentives, the utility district notice, the flood disclosure, the inspection schedule or the warranty. Bring your own agent to the first visit, and ask the builder for its agent-registration policy in writing; a builder may decline to recognize representation added afterward. The test is simple: will this agent come to the sales office with you, and can they read a builder’s contract?

The second is the utility district. Much of the Katy area is served by municipal utility districts, local governments that finance water, sewer and drainage with bonds repaid by their own property tax. Texas Water Code Section 49.452 provides that “a person who proposes to sell or convey real property located in a district must give to the purchaser the written notice” describing it. A new district still paying off its construction bonds can carry a much higher rate than a mature one, and the same Katy address can sit on the Harris County or the Fort Bend County side of the line, which changes the appraisal district and the county rate. A Katy agent should be able to name the district for a subdivision and tell you roughly where its rate stands before you fall for the kitchen. Our MUD and property-tax guide and our Katy guide cover both.

Katy ISD adds a third layer. Katy ISD’s 2025-26 boundary page cites approximately 2,000 new students projected to enroll each year, which is why attendance boundaries are modified regularly. The campus for any address should be confirmed with the district, and an agent who promises a particular school from a listing sheet is guessing.

Sources: Texas Water Code Section 49.452 and Chapter 54; Katy ISD, 2025-26 attendance boundary modifications. Retrieved August 24, 2026.

Check any agent in fifteen minutes

You do not need a referral site to check an agent. Five checks, all of them public, answer most of what matters.

1. Look up the license, and the broker behind it. The Texas Real Estate Commission’s consumer protection notice tells consumers they can check the status of any license holder at trec.texas.gov and send a complaint there. Every sales agent must be sponsored by a broker, and the broker “is responsible for all brokerage activities, including acts performed by sales agents sponsored by the broker,” so look up both. The Commission also administers a Real Estate Recovery Trust Account that may be used to satisfy a civil court judgment against a license holder if certain requirements are met.
2. Find the Information About Brokerage Services notice. With limited exceptions, such as an open house, Texas requires an agent to give it to you at the first substantive communication about a specific property, and the Commission’s rules require brokers to link it from their website’s homepage. It sets out the broker’s minimum duties, beginning with “Put the interests of the client above all others, including the broker’s own interests” and “Inform the client of any material information about the property or transaction received by the broker.”
3. Read the HAR record the right way. HAR says its Client Experience Rating survey must be sent after every transaction and that agents cannot pick which ratings display, though they can choose not to publish them at all, can invite clients from earlier transactions, and must be Platinum subscribers to take part. Read the survey count next to the average: an average built on hundreds of surveys tells you more than a perfect score built on a few. A missing rating is not a bad sign on its own.
4. Ask for addresses, not adjectives. Ask for the addresses of homes the agent has helped a buyer or seller close in your subdivision or price range in the last year, then look them up. A specific list is checkable. “I sell a lot in this area” is not.
5. Read the letters after the name for what they require. Some designations require closed business, some require coursework, and one is a membership mark. The table below uses each issuer’s own terms.

Sources: Texas Real Estate Commission, Consumer Protection Notice (CN 1-5) and Information About Brokerage Services (IABS 1-2, effective January 1, 2026); Texas Occupations Code Section 1101.558; 22 Texas Administrative Code Section 531.20; HAR.com Client Experience Rating pages; National Association of REALTORS, Code of Ethics and ABR designation pages; Residential Real Estate Council; The Institute for Luxury Home Marketing; Texas REALTORS, GRI; Worldwide ERC, CRP. Retrieved September 15, 2026.

The agreement you will sign before the first showing

One more thing has changed, and it changes the first conversation. Since January 1, 2026, Texas law requires a license holder who works for a buyer of residential property to sign a written agreement with that buyer before showing any home (Texas Occupations Code Section 1101.563, added by Senate Bill 1968). The agreement must state the services, the termination date, whether it is exclusive or non-exclusive, the representation, and the amount or rate of compensation and how it will be determined, with notice that compensation is not set by law and is fully negotiable. The state’s brokerage notice puts it plainly: “A buyer/tenant’s agent fees are not set by law and are fully negotiable.” If you only want someone to open a door, a showing agreement without representation “may not be exclusive and must be limited to no more than 14 days.” Our companion piece on questions to ask an agent before you hire one goes through the agreement line by line.

Sources: Texas Legislature, SB 1968 (89th Legislature), enrolled bill, effective January 1, 2026; Texas Real Estate Commission, article on 2026 buyer and tenant representation changes (January 7, 2026) and IABS 1-2. Retrieved September 15, 2026.

How Energy Realty answers the same checks

Here are our answers to the checks above. Each one is something you can confirm yourself.

• License. Energy Realty is the business name of Sherry Campbell & Associates I, TREC broker license 9007682. Our founder and designated broker, Sherry Campbell, holds Texas broker license 405210.
• Brokerage notice. Our Information About Brokerage Services notice is on the Commission’s current form, dated 11-03-2025.
• HAR. When we checked on August 24, 2026, our office record showed a Client Experience Rating of 4.98 out of 5 from 677 completed surveys, with 978 sold and 1,056 rented listings on the record. Sherry’s own HAR profile lists her as a Platinum agent with the GRI and CLHMS designations.
• Zillow. On the same date, Sherry’s Zillow profile showed a 5.0 rating from 51 reviews and 171 sales.
• Profiles. Houston Agent Magazine has profiled Sherry in its Who’s Who issue in 2015 and in every year from 2020 through 2026.
• Where we work. Our Houston office is at 1111 Eldridge Parkway, Suite 200, inside the Energy Corridor, and our Katy office is at 23033 Grand Circle Boulevard, Suite 150-B. Our relocation program is led by Renée Eads, whose profile lists the CRP, GMS, GRP and S-GDS designations.

Sources: Texas Real Estate Commission license records (via TREC mirror, retrieved August 24, 2026); Energy Realty, Information About Brokerage Services (dated 11-03-2025); HAR.com office and agent records and Zillow agent profile, checked August 24, 2026; Houston Agent Magazine, Who’s Who profiles 2015 and 2020 through 2026 (retrieved August 24 and September 15, 2026); energy-realty.com, Renée Eads profile (retrieved August 24, 2026).

Frequently Asked Questions