Austin is just getting too expensive and a huge bidding war on purchasing properties so I am interested in learning more about the San Antonio area which looks promising.

I'd bid the job on thumbtack.com or homeadvisor.com.

For the tankless system that I would need (I want an outdoor unit in order to re-claim as much closet space as possible inside) I have received 4 bids ranging from just a hair over 2k all the way to 3.5k.  

I'm acquiring bids from several local GC's and should have those within a week or so.

When I got both their bids, they were in the same ballpark and within my budget, which was around $50K ish.

First, you get bids and verify licenses.

The aren't going to pick which city until next year.Here is an article about the cities bidding .

There has been a time push out, the realitor was asighed to me, I made a bid 20,000 less than asking, my question is there is a Credit on the closing cost, I have not questioned it yet, I'm thinking it is the reality lady foisting the repair costs at the last minute on to the closing, in the contract I signed this is the sellers responsibilitie , I have to make a discussion, should I question the financial woman on who , why and how much the credit is.

I thought about filling in a pool once and figured it would be a couple dump trucks of fill and a bobcat for the afternoon, but the bid came back over $10k.

After words, he came back with a bid that was about $18K more than I have budgeted.