Anyone know the San Antonio, TX area?

Non-investing personal finance issues including insurance, credit, real estate, taxes, employment and legal issues such as trusts and wills.
Post Reply
Topic Author
Gardener
Posts: 698
Joined: Sun Nov 18, 2012 2:03 pm

Anyone know the San Antonio, TX area?

Post by Gardener »

Are there any nice, safe areas to raise a family near Lackland Air Force base in San Antonio? If so, what areas, neighborhoods?

I am a government contractor and have the opportunity to move to San Antonio. Ideally, I would like to live within ten minutes of my work, which would be at Lackland. I would be looking to buy a house in the 250-350k range.

Thanks for any guidance!

Gregg
Hampstead, MD
dhodson
Posts: 4117
Joined: Mon May 24, 2010 3:03 pm

Re: Anyone know the San Antonio, TX area?

Post by dhodson »

I wouldn't recommend living outside lackland.

I'd look near Alamo heights or in the nw corner.

Might need to add 5-10 min to drive.
RobInCT
Posts: 396
Joined: Sun Dec 09, 2012 1:58 pm

Re: Anyone know the San Antonio, TX area?

Post by RobInCT »

No familiarity with that area, but city-data.com is a good place to look for information about these sorts of things:

Link to city-data search on LAB
Topic Author
Gardener
Posts: 698
Joined: Sun Nov 18, 2012 2:03 pm

Re: Anyone know the San Antonio, TX area?

Post by Gardener »

Thank you very much for your responses.

Will look at Alamo Heights.

And just finished reading through the city data forum, which provided some good ideas as well.
alphagaiter
Posts: 1
Joined: Fri Jul 12, 2013 5:42 am

Re: Anyone know the San Antonio, TX area?

Post by alphagaiter »

I currently live in San Antonio, grew up here and moved back in 2006. School districts matter as does traffic. I've noticed in the last couple years that traffic has gotten worse as more people relocated to Texas and San Antonio.

Some points:

-Alamo Ranch is a large new "master planned" area right near Lackland off Loop 1604 and 151. A lot of Lackland employees live in that area. Most price ranges are there and all built within the last few years. Also in Northside ISD which is one of the better school districts.
-Alamo Heights is an older neighborhood near the airport that is pretty popular, but also more expensive. The houses are mostly built in the 60s/70s and you don't get as much house for your money but they have more character. The area is nice, I don't want to go so far as saying its trendy but that is pretty accurate. Some of the homes in the area are in the Alamo Heights ISD which is pretty good as well. Other ones are in Northeast ISD. The commute along Loop 410 to and from Lackland to AH can get ugly.
-The North side is where most people look for houses in that range. That stretches from 151 along 1604 all the way east to I35. There are tons of areas in the I10, 281, I35 corridor. But traffic gets worse the further out you'll go.
-School districts matter, as well as individual school in the district. Northside/Northeast are the two big and popular ones. Other ones are Alamo Heights, Boerne, Comal.
-Since you are out of state, when you are looking to buy a house keep property taxes in mind. We don't have an income tax so property taxes can get high. The bulk of it comes from the school district you live in since that is their main source of funding. When we bought our house I used http://www.bcad.org heavily to see what the taxes are for a given address. In your price range, they could be $6000-$8000 a year depending on where it is. Just something to keep in mind.
Post Reply