San Antonio Is the Upcoming Scorching Spot to Acquire Households

Table of Contents

  • Serious-estate buyers glance for spots the place they can get minimal, renovate, then provide significant or rent out.
  • San Antonio’s worth and massive-city benefits make it a attractive area to flip houses, one particular trader said.
  • Flipper and landlord John Crenshaw breaks down why he is focusing on Texas’ 2nd-largest town.

Austin true-estate investor John Crenshaw claimed he only worked for someone else at the time. 

For a temporary spell, when he was 17 several years aged, he worked at a branch of H-E-B, the well-liked Texas grocery retail outlet. After that, he turned his enthusiasm for gaming into a effective resale organization by fixing up and reselling broken Xbox and Playstation consoles.

Now 27, Crenshaw has refocused his attempts from video clip game titles to authentic estate. Last calendar year, the younger investor acquired seven attributes around Austin — mainly in Killeen, a fast-rising northern suburb. He renovated and offered a number of residences for a profit and then held the relaxation as funds-flowing rentals. Crenshaw has obtained plenty of encounter and earned enough return on his investment flipping residences to start off tackling an $800,000 new-property development venture in a close by space named Harker Heights.

Right after a spectacular bull operate all through the pandemic, the Austin sector is lastly setting up to great off. Nevertheless, even with dwelling rates dipping from their 2022 peak, homebuying in the Texas money proceeds to be aggressive and specially hard for buyers on a limited budget. For this cause, Crenshaw sees a good deal of possibility in close by San Antonio for newcomers and knowledgeable investors alike.

In this article are just a couple of factors why he is bullish on Texas’ 2nd-biggest metropolis. 

It is close to Austin

Downtown San Antonio is about a 75-mile, or 90-minute, push from downtown Austin, creating it convenient for Austin-spot serious estate buyers who don’t want to enterprise much too significantly.

The two are poised to grow to be inherently linked, Crenshaw prompt, identical to other twin towns these types of as Dallas-Fort Truly worth, Raleigh-Durham, and Minneapolis-St. Paul.

aerial view of San Antonio, Texas

San Antonio.

Allan Baxter/Getty Photographs



“If you search at the map, each metropolis on the outskirts of Austin and outskirts of San Antonio are little by little starting up to make up and populations are exploding,” Crenshaw said, especially highlighting growth in areas that lie on the freeway concerning the two metropolitan areas like Kyle, Buda, and San Marcos. “I have experienced buyers explain to me about how they acquired land down there for pennies on the greenback, but now these cities have blown up.”

You can acquire residences for fairly cheap 

“A great deal of people have disregarded San Antonio,” Crenshaw stated.

While Austin has gained extra attention from tech and remote workers, he included, San Antonio’s minute is eventually arriving. 

A significant attraction is its relative affordability when compared to Austin. January knowledge from Redfin pegs the median home cost in San Antonio at $255,000, which is less than half of Austin’s $530,000.

Investors can even anticipate to decide up houses for considerably considerably less, Crenshaw reported, incorporating that derelict properties in San Antonio can be acquired for $100,000 or cheaper. Traders who rehab the properties properly can resell them for up to $300,000 or much more, he mentioned.

San Antonio’s downtown is undergoing a renaissance

Crenshaw pointed to San Antonio’s River Wander, a 15-mile waterway that cuts by means of the coronary heart of the city, and the slew of new dining establishments and breweries along it as a significant attract for equally new residents and real-estate traders. 

San Antonio River Walk

River Wander in San Antonio.

CrackerClips / iStock



In unique, the city’s Pearl District — a smaller neighborhood with historic properties and new higher-rises that also serves as an arts and amusement district — is an space well worth observing, Crenshaw explained. 

“The Pearl is not just a hold-out place, but an precise desired destination,” Crenshaw described. “That basic location has doubled — if not tripled — [in price] in the very last five or 6 a long time.”

San Antonio — the speediest-rising big town in the nation amongst 2020 and 2021, gaining nearly 14,000 people, per census facts — remains eye-catching to newcomers. Relocators get affordability in San Antonio, Crenshaw mentioned, devoid of sacrificing interesting nightlife and other large-metropolis sights this kind of as museums and expert sports activities teams like the NBA’s Spurs.

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