First off, this thread will probably be full of so there's your warning.

May 24, 2004: I can't believe it's this far into May already... anyway, since I'm now sure I'll be working for Company A in San Antonio I'm now officially looking for somewhere to live there. Called up a couple of credit unions and the one I'm a member of got back to me about an hour later. I have this "good faith estimate" coming in by email that the realtor I talked to asked for. I'm going to SA later today or tomorrow to go have a look at what they have to offer. I'm also going to finish up their online application in a little bit. They say it takes 30 days to get everything taken care of so it looks like I'll be making the 60 mile/1 hour+ commute from here to there for a couple of weeks... That's like 1200 miles at $2/gallon At least the Toyota gets 30-34 mpg...

Any advice is welcome because I'm sure some of you have been here and I'm completely new at this.

 

Take your time and sike it out dont buy aynthing you dont have a good gut feeling about.

 

i am a mortgage broker, i am only licensed for colorado, but if you want me to i will take a look at your good faith eatimate and make sure you are getting a good deal and they are not adding any extra charges to it.

 

Ok. I'm from A&M and am also active on an A&M board. Another former student is going to look at the numbers as well and he's also a loan guy in Tx. Right now I'm waiting on the estimate which was supposed to have been emailed to me by now, and haven't done the online application yet since it has a $75 charge attached. Looks like you still pay even if you're a member.

 

shop around for the loan, check your bank, credit unions and some indenpendent lenders. do not pay any money up front! if they say it is a credit fee or a application fee,then you should tell them you are going to keep looking around

 

We lived in eight states the first ten years we were married. I would always rent at first until I got to know the location and the market, and then I would buy. I sold every house (five) at a good profit and used profits to buy a bigger, better house each time. This enabled me to pay 40% down on my current house (now paid for) and reduce the monthly payments to a level that allowed me to make additional principal payments. I suggest that you get to know the area, the market and your job prospects before making a decision re purchase. I have made numerous trips to S.A. and it seems to have a lot to offer. Good luck!
Dono

 

Today:

Went to SA with a realtor and looked at some places. Long story short, everything is ruled down to 4 places. All 3 bedroom, 2 bath, 2 car garage (gotta have that part!)
#1 - nothing too out of the ordinary, in a good area, 18 years old and has been very well maintained. The a/c compressor out back looked kind of old and in Texas this is a big thing. 1,335 square feet

#2 - In the middle of a really nice area, 23 years old, seller is really motivated. why? because they're renting it out and right now the people living there have a big white '74 or '75 Cadillac hearse parked out front. The car doesn't appear to be maintained and they don't keep the yard up. Didn't go inside so I don't know what it looks like in there. Might be able to get a good deal on this one. The lot has really nice trees, house is 1,586 square feet.

#3 - 5 years old, in a gated area. This one is at the front of the neighborhood on the corner right near the gate. The key didn't work so we couldn't go inside. This is the most likely to not make the next cut. 1,367 square feet

#4 -7 years old, also in the same gated area #3 was in. This one was open so I could take pictures inside. Good, open floorplan and the stove isn't a cheap model. It's a nice, open layout and has a separate dining area in the front (the others I saw didn't have this). Looks like it'd be a good investment.

I'm trying to get a couple of family members to drive by the 4 and get their opinion on things. Then get back with the realtor on Saturday or Monday.

 

Definitely get some family members in there to take a look around. I found that I took a back seat to everyone elses concerns. The final decision came down to me though.

You say all 4 of those houses have 3 bedroom 2 bathroom, but they all seem to have relatively small square footage. Is the 2 car garage attached? Even if it is, I wouldn't sell myself short. Our house is about 1800 sq. ft. and the living areas seem pretty good, but our 3 bedrooms are a little on the small side. And we park in a car port.

But anyway, congratulations on "stepping up." Home ownership is pretty neat.

 

Considering that I was a structural engineer before changing vocations a few years ago and I lived in San Antonio, let me give you some advise. Avoid any area on the northeast and east side of town. It has to do with the Houston Clay subsoils and the extremely high plastisity index. The higher the worst the conditions for the foundation. The east side of SA is eat up with soils ranging in the 80+ range. PI can be defined as the soils ability to change its physical volume due to water. It's like a sponge, when it's dry- it shrinks, when it gets wet it swells. You can have upwards of 16" of vertical displacement. That means that the house is literally going up and down 16" from the wettest time of the year to the driest. You won't see it as everything is relative and it's going up and down with the house. Note the roads going into the subdivision. Is it rough and bumpy?= high PI. Is the asphalt broke open, lots of repairs?= high PI. And above all, get a certified engineer to evaluate the foundation before signing on the dotted line. It will most likely be the best $300. you ever spent and no, I'm not for hire. FWIW, San Antonio is the worst place in the USA to build a house other than the San Andres fault line per So. Cal University.
Othe points:
A/C- try to buy into a home with gas heat. A heat pump is extreme expensive to run in the SA area. Most heat pump homes also will have electric hot water heaters.
SA has extremely hard water. Life expectancy of an electric H/W unit is 5 years max. They are expensive to replace. Heat coils are usually every other year.
Open the subpanel box (breaker box) that is usually found in the garage. Remove the cover plate, look for aluminum wiring or any double wires going to one breaker- all are NO-NO's.
Look for fresh interior repairs. Usually a sign of folks trying to hide or cover foundation problems. Take a golf ball with you. Drop it gently on the floor- does it run around or stay in one place. If it rolls off- the foundation already has suffered displacement. Look at door openings- are they square or are they canted? If canted, the foundation has moved.

If this is your first NEW home, you may want to consider a new house or building one. You will get current code installs on the house along with a 10 year warranty as propagated by the state of Texas. There are also first time homeowner incentives in the financing end as well. Most builders in SA keep a few spec houses for immediate move-in so look around. And above all, don't look at the political environment in SA- it's why I left.

 

A little clarification - I'm single/no family and since I'm a year out of grad school the parents are around here. I'm showing them around on Saturday.

Yeah, they do seem a little on the small side but they're alright. There were some bigger places but they were either of lower quality, questionable builder, or not in an area you'd want to move to. That's one thing here - there's a builder that's pretty active in this area that's known for taking shortcuts that I'm avoiding.

Flash:
I'm moving over to the west/northwest side. North of 90 and Sea World but south of 10. In between 1604 and 410. We have that same hard water and clay around San Marcos too, well the clay is pretty much east of I-35 and we're a few miles to the west in the hills. Lots of rock out here. There was one place that I saw with some foundation and structural issues. Lots of sagging above the garage on a place that was only 10 years old. The cracks had been filled and were reappearing and it had fallen enough for the garage door rub against the brick in the middle. I'm definitely getting someone to inspect the foundation during the inspection process. Trying to save money on inspection doesn't sound like a good investment to me.

My parents actually switched to a heat pump when they replaced their a/c and had savings over electric resistance heating. Two of the places I'm looking at have gas heating and the others have electric resistance. I hear you on the hot water heater thing - in high school the bottom heating element in our hot water heater burned out and my parents decided to fix it instead of replacing it. I spent a few hours out there with a long screwdriver and shop vac chiseling all the deposits that I could. The bottom couple of inches were more or less solid.

For my price range I really couldn't get a new place except for a house built by the builder I mentioned whose quality is questionable. It'd be nice but from what I've read their warranty process is a nightmare to deal with and a lot of people seem to be going through it for a few common issues.

Anyway, today some more progress was made regarding the loan - I applied at a couple of places, one of which I have a contact at. That's all new ground for me. I understand engineering well, not so much about these matters!

 

Went over to SA to look around some more today. This time with no realtor and with a couple of family members to get their opinions. Yesterday I upped my price range a bit and it looks like it was a good idea.

Appointment set up with the realtor for monday at 9:30 and a family member is coming along. It's always nice to get a second set of eyes out there and another opinion to help out with things!

 

Ok, got the place picked out, sent an offer and got a counter offer, took the counter offer since it was really close to what we'd been hoping for.

Specs on the place: Great location, gated, 3 years old, 112,600, 1,450 square feet, built in entertainment center/bookshelves along one wall. Lots of other details I won't mention. And a garage that looks to be big enough for the F-100 to live in.

Right now I'm trying to deal with the financing. I was pre-approved at 3 places and because rates are low I'm leaning towards a fixed rate (probably 20 years). Two of the 3 places have the lowest rate. One of them may need a pay check stub which I obviously won't have until I've been over there for a couple of weeks. The other, I'm not sure. I'm trying to find out for sure if they'll need one or not since this may become the tiebreaker. Or maybe the underwriters at the first place will decide they don't need one.

Of course after this, there's the inspection, insurance (alreday leaning towards the company I have the car insured with and we know the agent). This is definitely not easy!

 

Most lenders/investors will want to verify income.

Good luck with the move to SA. I grew up there and will be moving back in the next couple years. I absolutely love the quality compared to that of Houston.

 

Luckily I have the offer letter for initial verification. Actually it works out well that closing day will be 2 weeks after the start of the pay period so the paycheck becomes a non-issue.

This has all been a huge learning experience and I consider myself lucky to be able to do this at my age. And also lucky that I'm doing this before starting because it'd be so much harder trying to handle this while on the job!

 

I'm a mortgage banker in N. Carolina. We are licensed in Tx. I'll be glad to look at your (GFE) and beat the deal if I can. Let me know