First post for investor in San Antonio

[Chris Bernardo]

Hello BP,

I'm an aspiring real estate investor living in the San Antonio area.  I'm currently a military pilot, transitioning in about 12 months to civilian life.  I've been reading the forum and listening to BP podcasts for a couple years, but have never closed a deal.  This year I aim to change that.

I really liked Kevin Wood's idea from podcast 167, so I'm going to give my rookie perspective into San Antonio investing to get the ball rolling.  I'm really interested to hear what others think of my completely unqualified analysis :)

Single Family Homes:  I've been looking at Redfin or Trulia listings on and off since 2014 and have stumbled upon only a few marginal ~0.8% deals. I'm avoiding the lower income areas/war zones due to my time requirement at work which probably skews my perspective. Regardless, MLS deals that will be sound investments for me seem to be few and far between in SA.  My focus is shifting to driving for dollars, direct mail, or working with wholesalers.  What do you guys think?

Multifamily:  (I'm pretty sure I saw these stats linked in another thread, but for the life of me I can't find it to give credit to the poster.)  According to loopnet, commercial MF median prices are up 22% in the last 3 months and up 35% compared to last year. This is interesting to me due to the NOI/value relationship of commercial MFs. Have rents correspondingly gone up with MF prices in the last year? Or is something propping up land value? Or, most likely, am I misinterpreting this data?

Overall SA Growth:  I consistently see optimistic growth projections for SA.  Just read this article last night, first time I've heard of a need for a new area code.  Projected growth of 1 million people by 2030.  Development plans in the Riverwalk and the Pearl have drawn my attention as well.  Seems like a great time and place to be an investor :)

I'm looking forward to hearing your perspectives.  Thanks for reading.

P.S:  Anyone else having trouble using @mentions in Chrome on an older Mac?  I watched the tutorial and searched the forums for workarounds, but still can't get them to work...