New Member in San Antonio

[Peter Hightower]

This is my first post after signing up about a year ago. Peter from San Antonio. I work on the border in Del Rio, so I split my time between cities. Wife and I are getting ready to make first major purchase and I wanted to share something that happened.

After many months, I finally convinced my wife that the road to success will require us to downsize from our nice $250,000 single-family home in North Central San Antonio into something more modest, like preferably a live-in duplex or four-plex. Problem is they are hard to come by in San Antonio in a desirable neighborhood for a reasonable price. Seems like there's just not many small multi-family available period.

Yesterday, we came across what appeared to be the perfect property on the MLS. A 1980's four-plex not too far from our current neighborhood, close to good schools, combined monthly rents of $3,400 for an asking price of $320,000. It wasn't anywhere near the magic ratio of 1.5 rents/purchase price but with a slight bump in rents and if they accepted a lower offer, we might get the ratio pretty close to 1.25 which I was ecstatic about in this market. Plus there would be room to grow the value through improvements and updates.

It had only been on the market for 2 days so I told my wife to call first thing in the morning to schedule a showing and maybe we could get it under contract before too many other people saw it. (Yeah, right. LOL)

By the time the listing agent called her back in the early afternoon, THEY ALREADY HAD TWELVE OFFERS SUBMITTED!!! I guess that's the kind of market we are in right now. It's a little discouraging for a newbie but we're gonna keep looking. I missed the webinar last night about investing in small multi-family but I hope to get it in the archive soon. Did they address anything about investing in an overheated market? And is San Antonio considered "overheated" right now? Anyone else have thoughts on it?

[Seth Teel]

@Peter Hightower Are you working with a Realtor? It's 99% likely that those 12 offers were submitted by clients that have an active buyer's agent. Regardless of the date the property hits the MLS or shows up on Realtor.com, good agents are constantly networking to source the properties their clients want. In this competitive market, it's a real "leg up" to have an active agent that can source deals before they hit the MLS, as well as pocket listings, and other non-MLS properties. If you are working with an agent, why were there 12 offers before you even got to see the property? When priced right, listings are selling quickly in San Antonio. Working with someone that can get you out ahead of the pack is a necessity.

Best of luck with your search!