Is this a good time to buy a house in San Antonio (West: real estate, insurance)

[pmodugula]

Hi All,

I am a first time home buyer. My husband is moving down to San Antonio from New Jersy (No kids yet !!). I work here in San Antonio. We saw a house which is located in West Over Valley (Ryland Homes) off of I-151 and we really liked it which is costing us approx. $230K
I have few questions before we make a big time commitment
1. Is this a good time to buy a house at all?

2.With the model we liked (4 bedroom, 2.5 bath) we are looking at a monthly payment of around $2000.
Is this reasonable..oh I know you will be thinking this will depend on my annual income. It will be a little burden till my husband finds a job here but thought we can manage. But is this right time to make this big decision???

3. More over we have friends in the same community so we wanted to move there too. There are only few homes left in that community so we dont know if we have to postpone our idea of buying it or not?

Thank you in avance,
I appreciate your thoughts!
Pmodugula

[NullMind]

I'm just a bit confused, .. 2000 / mo on a 230k mortgage ? I assume you taking other things in account, right, not just the mortgage payment, it should be close to half of that on a 30 year.

[SanAntonianByChoice]

I can only comment on the area. My sister had a house built @ Westover Woods also a Ryland home. Its a small gated community, she loves the area. Great neighbors, quiet, convenient to 410 and 1604...good luck

[apies1819]

I have 2 friends who just built a home in that area. They love the area because we all work across the street I know they didn't pay that much for their home though. One paid 170 the other 180. One has a 4 bd rm and the other a 3. Did you also look at the ryland in Silver Oaks.

[pmodugula]

Hi,

Yes it is 2000/month (Including taxes+PMI+insurance ,mortgage@ 6.25% rate) even I thought it is too much but that is how it is coming up to when we approximately calculated. But however we calculate the payment is minimum $1800. It is not making much difference even if we put 10% or 5% down.

Yes I have been to Silver Oaks and it looked a bit dry (not many trees). This place is likely to develop more in coming days I guess. We liked the West Over Valley the best among what we saw and more over friends are in the same community

West Over Hills area is developing fast and it comes under North Side International School district which is a decent school district.

Yes, my friends bought a house there 3yrs back and got it for 170K too. Now I dont see those prices anymore for a good 4bedroom house.

Coming to my first question again --- IS THIS RIGHT TIME TO BUY here?

Please advice,
Pmodugula

[hello13685]

I personally don't think it's a good idea to buy anywhere at the moment given unstable econmic factors. If I were in your situation, I would wait until your husband has work here--in other words until it won't be a "burden" as you put it.

[pmodugula]

Thank you for your thoughts. We were thinking a lot from the time we saw that house and also only thing is there are very few houses left and we wanted in that community.

Yes I think it will be good for us to wait for somemore time. If buying a house is not a burden otherwise..will the appreciation be good in next coming years? Cann't say really is it?

[hello13685]

Well, real estate professionals in any city will never ever say it's a bad time to buy. Because people aren't completely clueless, they try to come across more realistically by saying "The market's soft but it's still a good time to buy IF _______ ." This is another way of their saying forget the greater market, it is still probably a great time to buy for YOU. Just be careful and think for yourself.

As for only a few houses being left in your preferred neighborhood, I have the feeling that, given the way things are going, there will probably be more than a few of them coming back on the market in time, so I wouldn't worry about that. I would just be patient. Besides, depending on where your husband gets a job, you may change your minds about where you want to live in SA.

[pmodugula]

Thank you so much for your input !

[kevcrawford]

Trying to judge the market is impossible. It's a little slower now, but that means that buyers have a little more pull right now. Bottom line is that if it's right for your family, it's right for your family. Don't try and time the market. People are still buying and selling houses in every market. As long as you don't overbuy for your income, you'll be fine.

And be weary of taking advice from certain posters saying it's not a good time to buy, when they're currently posting in the "real estate" CD forum asking for advice because they're considering buying a house.