The whole South half of San Antonio (Plano, Mission: cul-de-sac, apartment)

[TULSA2ABQ]

I feel like the South half of San Antonio is invisible. I don't know much of anything about it.

Is this the more blue collar working class hoods? Or is this a war zone?

Our main consideration is in purchasing a bi-level that has been made into two residences, or a house with a mother-in-law apartment. Is the south area generally where to find these?

Because we are empty nesters, schools are not a consideration. What are some of the nicer areas to look for there. Nice as in treed, relatively upkept houses. Isn't it more affordable to live there then the North half of SA?

Oh, do people put bars on their windows like in Albuquerque. I LOVE the idea of bars on windows because I love fresh air but I always have closed up at night, but bars makes it oh so safe to leave a window(s) open. Ah, fresh air.

Thank you

[Sally_Sparrow]

I like the Southeast side, nearer to downtown (Highland Hills). We looked for a house over there and almost bought one. I personally know quite a few people who love that area.

When we were house hunting we found a great older home (early 1900's) with a fully converted attic AND a MIL apartment in back. It was roomy and charming. Unfortunately for us, the older owner changed her mind and took it off the market.

In the end, we didn't find anything that fit our price range AND size requirements in an ideal way but I would definitely recommend that section of town.

As for bars on the windows, to me that's always been a sign of an "iffy" neighborhood but that's just my perception.

[Chaka]

We have bars on our windows and many in our Southtown neighborhood do. They're a holdover from when this neighborhood was very ghetto. I wanted to take them down, my husband didn't. Neither of us like alarm systems and since the bars were already there, we left them (well, took them down, painted and rehung when we redid the windows). They're inside the screens so not so obvious. Not a big deal now, but as they're large (8ftx3ft), it was nice when we were gone all day to be able to leave the windows open to keep the house cool (more an issue in our old house when we didn't have a/c).

About the Southside, it is varied. it's older, less developed, and in some places very poor. Generally blue collar but I know a number of professionals that live in the Southside. Other places are quite nice though. The Riverside neighborhood has some spectacular properties and now with the redevelopment of the Mission Reach of the Riverwalk, it's amazing. Pricey too though.

Highland Hills and Highland Park (just south of I-90/10) is a fun neighborhood. Older homes, but mostly owner occupied. This means mostly clean nice neighborhoods with friendly people who've lived there all their lives. There are some pockets here and there across the southside that are pretty neat, others much less so. Yes you're more likely to find dual residences there.

I am distinguishing "Southside" as south of I-10/Hwy 90 from Southtown, which is the area directly south of downtown and includes a number of historic/under revival neighborhoods. All great as well, and that's where I live.

[Merovee]

Highland Park will have more bi-levels than Highland Hills although the homes will be older which make them more charming in my opinion and less cookie-cutter.

In Highland Hills a small pocket of homes near Golf View are quite ritzy. A few on Kilarney have nice views.

Doctors used to live in Pecan Valley Estates on the other side of Southcross from the old hospital, nice spread out ranch homes which are of course single story.

We are in Highland Hills, no bars on our windows but we do have them on our doors.

The detached garage was converted into an apartment but we since converted it back into a garage. Our neighbors are selling, they added a room or two upstairs since their home used to be a single story as well, but they are asking quite a lot for this side of town in hopes of recouping their conversion costs.

We have a mix of a couple of long-time owners who have been here since the homes were new, us whose parents came in the '70s and we grew up in the area, newer Mexican immigrants, and others. Some own, some rent.

Chances are if you buy something down here it will have been flipped or need to be fixed up. Flipping is not something I know anything about regarding how good of a job they do.

The homes that are well taken care of down here are mostly by owners, renters are horrid, and those will be harder to find on the market since they are well taken care by owners who do not plan to sell. So again something flipped or something you will have to fix up is what you might be looking at in the SE side.

There are of course two others parts to the Southside, the main Southside and the SW side.

If you have never lived down here there are a few basic rules I would follow. Don't stare at others, try not to stop window-to-window at stop lights with other cars, don't honk at people especially at night, and the H-E-B on SE Military has less chusma than the one on at McCreless.

[smuboy86]

Frankly I'd skip it. There are very few shopping choices and an overall lack of services. More than likely you'd spend alot of time commuting to the northside for dinning, stores, doctor visits ect... There is a reason why you have bars on the windows in neighborhoods in San Antonio, you need them! While violent crime isn't much of an issue, property crime is, thus bars on the windows. Also bars on windows are notorious fire traps.

[Merovee]

Bars are indeed firetraps which is why we only have them on doors.

We also commute plenty enough to the Northside for retail shopping and dining, so right again.

It sounds as if the OP understands one could buy more land and less traffic out here.

Since it is a well and long time integrated section of the city it will have any infrastructure you would require that could be lacking in other sides of town. I prefer open streets connected through a normal grid for instance than having to drive through the curves and cul-de-sacs of suburbia.

Alamo Heights of course shares this feature which I prefer. That would be the ideal location for the OP if they could buy into that area but if that was the case this thread would likely not have been posted.

[rynetwo]

The area around Brooks City Base has exploded with City Base Landing and I don’t think frequent trips to the North side would be needed. If you are a foodie you might trek up to DT or Southtown for a bit.

[Merovee]

Originally Posted by rynetwo

The area around Brooks City Base has exploded with City Base Landing and I don’t think frequent trips to the North side would be needed. If you are a foodie you might trek up to DT or Southtown for a bit.

We are missing places to buy clothes, books (new or used), bicycle parts/gear, and Chipotle.

We visit the Quarry and Alamo Heights area most of all then North Star then other places far and wide.

Driving to the Northside is quite necessary. There are other reasons as well including work!

In fact while the OP stated the Southside might seem invisible to some, to Southsiders there is no side of town we have not been in and are familiar with due to work and the need to shop.

[Chaka]

Originally Posted by rynetwo

The area around Brooks City Base has exploded with City Base Landing and I don’t think frequent trips to the North side would be needed. If you are a foodie you might trek up to DT or Southtown for a bit.

Right, for all the usual stuff, Southside has it. What it's lacking are the few individual things like Whole Foods, REI, etc. Oh, and book stores, but even those are getting harder to find on the northside (and one need only go as far north as the Pearl to find one).

But if you're used to all the typical shopping chains, southside has them, with the SE stores being newer than SW or S/Central

[samvp]

Originally Posted by smuboy86

Frankly I'd skip it. There are very few shopping choices and an overall lack of services. More than likely you'd spend alot of time commuting to the northside for dinning, stores, doctor visits ect... There is a reason why you have bars on the windows in neighborhoods in San Antonio, you need them! While violent crime isn't much of an issue, property crime is, thus bars on the windows. Also bars on windows are notorious fire traps.

Yeah, I'm going to have to respectfully disagree with the person from Plano trying to tell someone from out of state about the areas south of downtown. Sorry.

Bars on windows can indicate a home is in a high crime area but a lot of the times it doesn't. Most of the time they're products of a bygone period when they were very popular even if necessary or unnecessary. Like alarm systems. Nice homes in nice neighborhoods have them, doesn't mean anything other than our eras home security. Older homes in older neighborhoods still have reminiscent of their eras home security.

There are plenty of shopping and eating options south of downtown. McCreless Market, City Base Landing, City Base West, South Park Mall. Eventually south of 410 is going to see its share of housing, dining and shopping options. It's underway now.