All Forum Posts by: Sherylyn Holden

UPDATE!!

The city board of adjustment meeting was held today and we presented our case and explained that we made huge investments into the home to remodel and furnish it with the belief that we would be able to operate it as an STR since we had an approved permit.

The Board denied my request and did not take any responsibility. 

Meeting with a lawyer later this week to see if I have any case here but wanted to provide a brief update in the interim.

Quote from @Mike Hansen:

Hello everyone. Active duty military and New here to BP while still considering myself new to REI. I do have a couple of LTRs between SFH and duplexes but looking to get into STRs and expanding my current portfolio. I believe there's always a deal to be made but one must have the necessary tools and most of the time those tools are Individuals with Experience. Let’s network!!!

 Hey Mike! I’m a local agent and investor with primary focus on STRs. I currently have 5 STRs here in San Antonio, so please let me know if you have any questions regarding the process! 

Quote from @Ashton Rodgers:

The last four years I've been successfully flipping land. I'm looking to expand into RE and couldn't be more excited. I currently live in San Antonio and would love to connect with those near and far. I'm in the process of "building my team" as all the books have recommended doing. Stoked to learn, happy to help anyone I can.   

 Hi Ashton! I am a local agent and investor as well as a native to San Antonio. I primarily deal with single-family homes for investors looking to short-term or long-term rent, while my husband has a property flipping business. Please let me know if there’s any way I can assist you! (:

Quote from @Or Uzi:

Hi everyone, my name is Or and I'm out of state investor from Israel. I'm a cash buyer looking to invest in San Antonio, Texas and would love to connect with agents, wholesalers and contractors. Looking to do fix and flips and rentals as well. 

 Hi Or! You are inspiring investing from Israel! I am an agent and investor here in San Antonio. I have several single-family homes here locally, operating as short-term rentals and long-term rentals. My husband recently began flipping homes as well. Please let me know if there’s any way I can assist you. 

If you’ve already found these connections, I wish you the best of luck in your real estate journey here! (:

Quote from @Rudy Galan:

Im here because I do want to make some investments and grow in real estate. Seeing what bigger pockets is about, how has bigger pockets been to you? I would love to hear from real people

Hi Rudy! BiggerPockets is absolutely everything to me. I listened to the podcast, read the books, and connected with some great people through BiggerPockets. It took me a couple of years to finally take action and start my real estate investing journey, but I continue to use BP as my #1 go-to resource. Now, I have been successfully investing in the San Antonio market since 2019 with 6 rental properties in my portfolio. I primarily deal with short-term rentals and long-term rentals, and my husband recently started flipping. We’ve done the BRRRR strategy and even some creative finance deals. If you have any questions on any of these strategies, I’m always available for a chat! 

Hope this helps! (: 

Quote from @James Keeton:

SA native, new to real estate investing and jumped into the deep end. Purchased and in process of completing full gut rehab on neglected SFR. Not a great deal, but getting my real world education and hoping that will be invaluable going forward. Appreciative to the BP Community and knowledge learned from forums and blogs as well as Podcasts and webinars.

Preparing to list rental after completing lengthy rehab. For SA market, what method have y'all found most beneficial to advertise SFRs? Zillow? Facebook Marketplace? Craigs List? Yard signs/flyers? Military bases?

Thank you, BP fam!

 Hi James! I’m a SA native as well, & I also did my first full gut rehab a few years back. It was a disaster!! However, it was an invaluable lesson, so I can totally relate to you on your journey. 

I honestly get most of my tenants from Zillow, even if I'm posting to the MLS as a realtor. I also get a lot of calls from the yard sign in the front yard of the rental property I'm listing.

Hope this helps! 

As a reminder, the San Antonio City Council approved new STR rules (you can see my post regarding this here!). One of those rules required the STR platforms to remit the San Antonio HOT tax directly rather than having the operators/hosts remit and pay that.

UPDATE: The Hotel Occupancy Tax (HOT) compliance timeline has been moved to now start on February 1, 2025 (this was previously set to start in October)

Any short term rental advertised through a platform remitting the hotel occupancy tax to the State of Texas (such as Airbnb or VRBO) will begin paying the San Antonio HOT directly to the city monthly through the platforms. If your short term rental is advertised on a platform not doing this, then the operator must continue to report and pay HOT directly to the city every month. All operators must still file a monthly tax report through Avenu. (FAQ sheet can be found here)

San Antonio short term rental rules are changing for all us hosts so I hope this helps! 

The table below further summarizes this new timeline of the operator’s responsibility to report and pay HOT for the upcoming months:

Thanks everyone for your feedback and suggestions!

@Collin Hays yes this is in a residential neighborhood

I will definitely try and push back to the city and see if they will honor their previous issuance of the permit without having to go down the path with the Board.

If they say no we'll see what the Board says. If that does not go in my favor I may need to seek legal counsel. In any case, I will definitely post any updates here!

I posted awhile back about the new short term rental rules in San Antonio here: https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/530/topics/1200417-new-...

Wanted to share a brief update on my experience and some other helpful notes:

The city is getting serious about these rules. I had one short term rental that was granted a permit earlier this year and I have been operating it for months now as an STR. The city emailed me not too long ago informing me that there was some "system error" and they approved that permit by mistake. They even sent someone from the city to the house to tell us to stop operating it as a STR. Here is the email received

"An internal audit has been completed for STR permits and our records indicate that your STR permit was issued in error due to exceeding the maximum 12.5% blockface density. Upon further review, there is 1 active Type 2 STR permit on this blockface prior to your STR application submittal, but a system glitch did not capture it on the OneStopMap. Therefore, your request for a Type 2 STR exceeded the maximum 12.5% blockface density and the only way that staff can approve this request is for the Board of Adjustment (BOA) to grant a Special Exception for the rental.

Based on this information your STR permit has been cancelled. If you would like to continue to operate as a short term rental, you will need to submit a new STR application for this property and must go to the Board of Adjustment and be granted a special exception for staff to approve this request for a Type 2 STR Permit.

The Board of Adjustment consists of eleven (11) members; you will have to get a concurring vote from nine (9) out of eleven (11) members in order to be granted the special exception. The fee to submit an application is $600.00. Please note the fee is not refundable, even if the Board denies your application. You will need to compile a convincing case as to why the cities established maximum blockface density should be exceeded in this instance. Please note that if the Board does approve your request for a special exception, you will need to get a new Special Exception every three years when you renew your STR permit."

Needless to say this is no fun. I'm being required to pay another application fee and then $600 application fee to hopefully get this approved by the Board to allow me to continue running the STR that they approved 6+ months ago. 

All this to say they are getting serious about permitting so if you are planning to invest in San Antonio in the short term rental space, MAKE SURE to check that the property is eligible for a short term rental permit given the density limits above and have a Realtor experienced with the San Antonio permitting requirements and rules. 

If you have any questions let me know! 

@Jeremy R. Agreed! Enforcement was definitely lacking in the past. I hope this brings some good for the city. Good luck to you too!