Buying in Cooke County, Texas

Cooke County at a glance

Cooke County is one of 254 counties and county-equivalents in Texas. Its county seat is Gainesville. County government publishes its offices and parcel tools online. Official county website. Its 2024 Census Bureau population estimate is 44,258 across 875 square miles of land — about 51 people per square mile. In the FBI's 2024 reported-crime file, agencies here reported 422 offenses — 9.53 per 1,000 residents; the breakdown is below.

Records to check before you buy in Cooke County

• Property record card — the Cooke County assessor / appraisal office. Pull the parcel's assessed-value history, exemption status, and last sale. This is the file your future tax bill is calculated from, and it shows whether the current owner is enjoying exemptions you will not inherit. County government sits in Gainesville; the official county website is the reliable route to the parcel search and the office directory.
• Deeds & liens — the Cooke County recorder / land-records office. Read the deed chain, open liens, easements, and plat maps — the file a listing never mentions.
• Official flood determination. Check the exact parcel on FEMA's National Flood Hazard Layer — not the listing site's licensed model. Zone boundaries cut through streets; the house next door can be in a different zone. Cooke County is the primary county for 8 ZIP codes in the Census Bureau's ZIP-to-county crosswalk — and zone lines ignore every one of them.
• The county's reported-crime record. In the FBI's 2024 file, agencies in Cooke County reported 422 offenses — 9.53 per 1,000 residents; the largest single category was larceny-theft (270). The crime section below sets that beside the Texas county median.
• Registry check. Run the address through Texas Public Sex Offender Website (Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS), Crime Records) and note the counts within a mile — then check again the week you close.
• Permits & code history — the Cooke building department. Open permits, expired permits, and code cases tell you whether the renovation in the photos was ever inspected. County permitting is run out of Gainesville.
• School assignment — the district office, not the listing. Only the district's own boundary lookup confirms which school an address is actually zoned for.

County list, land area and population: U.S. Census Bureau (population: 2024 PEP estimate). County seat and official website: Wikidata (CC0), checked 2026-11-04. Flood determinations: FEMA. Registry: Texas.

Reported crime in Cooke County — FBI 2024

Reported crime in Cooke County in 2024 was overwhelmingly property crime: agencies logged 422 offenses, of which 373 were property offenses and 49 violent. The total rate is 9.53 per 1,000 residents (violent 110.7, property 842.8 per 100,000).

Inside Texas, the median county in the same file recorded a violent-crime rate of 195 per 100,000 and a property-crime rate of 858 per 100,000 (medians computed from the FBI 2024 county file across 254 counties).

The largest reported categories were larceny-theft (270), burglary (55) and motor vehicle theft (48).

Coverage: 6 of 6 law-enforcement agencies assigned to this county reported at least one month of 2024 offense data to the FBI; 4 reported all 12 months. Counts are reported offenses only (FBI Return A / Arson master files), assigned whole to each agency's primary county; they are not adjusted for non-reporting agencies.

These are offenses reported to law enforcement — not convictions, and not a verdict on any street or address. A CurbFacts report pairs this county record with the ZIP-level picture for the specific address you are buying.

Source: FBI Crime Data Explorer, UCR Return A + Arson master files, data year 2024 (pulled 2026-11-04).

ZIP guides in Cooke County

Registry counts and county crime records for the 5 ZIP codes whose primary county is Cooke County.

The Texas rules that apply in Cooke County

Traps researched for Texas buyers: MUD and PID districts add a second tax layer; Your first protest window comes fast.

Read the full Texas guide — disclosure standard, tax math, registry and flood

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