Where are these rich folks coming from? (Houston, Dallas: transplants, lawyers)

[TexasRoadkill]

Where are all the rich folks coming from in the Hill Country?
Just check out housing prices north of San Antonio...all the way to Llano.


What used to be undeveloped scrubland is now covered in half a million plus homes.
San Antonio is still mostly "service" oriented and Austin high tech jobs can't be making that big of a difference in places like Boerne or Comfort.


Where are these rich folks coming from? And how are they making their money?


It seems anything less than a quarter million is an old house trailer on a small barren lot.


Its like gentrification on steroids!

[ChristieP]

California.

They (or their parents) bought a $25000 bungalow in the 1950s that they sold for $1.5 million! They don't want to pay capital gains tax on the money, so they come here and spend it all on a new house/land.

[Westerner92]

Boerne is practically a bedroom community of San Antonio. It's only 40 minutes to downtown San Antonio and has one of the better settings of any town in Texas. If someone works in an office park along 10, 410, or 1604, Comfort can be as close as 30 minutes from their job. San Antonio is the headquarters or regional center for a ton of Fortune 100 oil and financial services companies, so there's plenty of money there to blow on a hilltop house 40 minutes from your office.

Beyond the wealthy suburbs, my impression has been that it's largely oil bros from all over the state who want weekend hunting lodges and lake houses.

[TexasRoadkill]

Originally Posted by Westerner92

Boerne is practically a bedroom community of San Antonio. It's only 40 minutes to downtown San Antonio and has one of the better settings of any town in Texas. If someone works in an office park along 10, 410, or 1604, Comfort can be as close as 30 minutes from their job. San Antonio is the headquarters or regional center for a ton of Fortune 100 oil and financial services companies, so there's plenty of money there to blow on a hilltop house 40 minutes from your office.

Beyond the wealthy suburbs, my impression has been that it's largely oil bros from all over the state who want weekend hunting lodges and lake houses.

San Antonio has USAA, HEB, Frost Bank, Valero, Rackspace, CPS Energy, Acelity, Frost Bank, Kinetic Concepts, NuStar Energy, SecureLogix, Visionworks, Zachry Group, and Pioneer Energy. All true but nothing compared to Dallas or Houston, however the cost of homes in Hill Country is far greater than the suburbs of those two cities.


Not to mention San Antonio has its share of ultra expensive neighborhoods inside 1604.


I suspect these homes are being sold to folks not making their living in San Antonio.

[Trainwreck20]

My mom and dad retired to F'burg from Austin (really G'town) some 25 years ago or so. Even then, it was not cheap, but they bought some land up north of town 15 miles or so. My dad has now passed, but I go there often to see my mom and she has quite a large circle of friends that are similar in age to her (from 60 to 100, she is right at 80).

Many are from Texas, but all over. They all have money - my mom feels she is about the poorest in town - but they earned it over many years of oil jobs, financial jobs, the 'old' tech jobs (IBM, TI), etc. Some of the people are native to FB but made their money selling land to the newcomers and generally being not extravagant people, it seems.

There are the out-of-staters, too, although I don't think she knows anyone from CA (I'm sure there are some or many in town). Wisconsin, Utah, Australia, and England are all represented that I can think of off-hand. Some were snowbirds from colder climates that eventually settle down here instead of flip-flopping back and forth. Many are widows or widowers now.

FB is, I think, is one of the 'most expensive' towns in Texas now. The tax rate is low, though (1.8%?), which allows a little more money to be sunk into houses.

Edit:
Funny, I just looked up the demographics - it is almost 100% Hispanic or white. There were two black people and three Asian in the last census.

[Westerner92]

Originally Posted by TexasRoadkill

San Antonio has USAA, HEB, Frost Bank, Valero, Rackspace, CPS Energy, Acelity, Frost Bank, Kinetic Concepts, NuStar Energy, SecureLogix, Visionworks, Zachry Group, and Pioneer Energy. All true but nothing compared to Dallas or Houston, however the cost of homes in Hill Country is far greater than the suburbs of those two cities.


Not to mention San Antonio has its share of ultra expensive neighborhoods inside 1604.


I suspect these homes are being sold to folks not making their living in San Antonio.

Boerne and Comfort are prettier, less crowded, and have better commutes to San Antonio than Plano and Katy do to Dallas and Houston, respectively. The parts of Houston and Dallas that do have nice greenery and commutes under 45 minutes are generally more expensive than Boerne and Alamo Heights. The rest of the Hill Country is being bought up by the people who can afford the exclusive neighborhoods in Houston/Dallas and want weekend homes where they can see some vertical relief in the landscape.

The Hill Country is also known for its ranches that stock big and exotic game.

[C24L]

Originally Posted by Westerner92

Boerne is practically a bedroom community of San Antonio. It's only 40 minutes to downtown San Antonio and has one of the better settings of any town in Texas. If someone works in an office park along 10, 410, or 1604, Comfort can be as close as 30 minutes from their job. San Antonio is the headquarters or regional center for a ton of Fortune 100 oil and financial services companies, so there's plenty of money there to blow on a hilltop house 40 minutes from your office.

Beyond the wealthy suburbs, my impression has been that it's largely oil bros from all over the state who want weekend hunting lodges and lake houses.

whats a oil bro,Westerner92?I have never heard that term before.

[supfromthesite]

Oil bros is also a term I'vet yet to here but I can make a good guess. The rich guys that went to school at UT, TCU, SMU, etc and ended up as landmen or petroleum engineers or any other oil/gas career that makes bank. That would be my guess too. I have met many of these people from San Antonio or Austin that have little ranches or weekend houses there. I talked to a 50 year old (pretty much an oil bro though I have no clue what his career was) who told me he has 10 acres near Kerrville and he was going to be growing some marijuana when Texas legalizes.

[Westerner92]

Originally Posted by supfromthesite

Oil bros is also a term I'vet yet to here but I can make a good guess. The rich guys that went to school at UT, TCU, SMU, etc and ended up as landmen or petroleum engineers or any other oil/gas career that makes bank. That would be my guess too. I have met many of these people from San Antonio or Austin that have little ranches or weekend houses there. I talked to a 50 year old (pretty much an oil bro though I have no clue what his career was) who told me he has 10 acres near Kerrville and he was going to be growing some marijuana when Texas legalizes.

Pretty much. Rich kids who don't have any intellectual interests or passions, so they just make the most money possible by going into oil. Generally flashy with their money, generally insecure in their manhood and overcompensating for it (thus the shooting ibex from a helicopter kind of thing that goes on in the Hill Country), and can really only connect with similar people, which serves them well in the oil world where that attitude has always prevailed. Much of the finance world is pretty similar, though at least they don't try to pretend to be blue collar to lend themselves masculinity cred.

[asknow123]

Originally Posted by Westerner92

Pretty much. Rich kids who don't have any intellectual interests or passions, so they just make the most money possible by going into oil. Generally flashy with their money, generally insecure in their manhood and overcompensating for it (thus the shooting ibex from a helicopter kind of thing that goes on in the Hill Country), and can really only connect with similar people, which serves them well in the oil world where that attitude has always prevailed. Much of the finance world is pretty similar, though at least they don't try to pretend to be blue collar to lend themselves masculinity cred.

This is a terribly silly description which made me chuckle but is entirely inaccurate when describing the types of people in the oil and gas industry. You sound like you have never met anyone in the oil and gas industry.


People go into oil industry as engineers, geologists, and landmen often because of the challenges involved and not the money. Many of these workers are natural problem solvers especially the engineers.


The oil industry is extremely diverse with many different perspectives from all over the world-- go to Houston and tell me there is not a huge amount of diversity at the major oil companies.


As far as who is buying these $800,000 - 1.2+ MM homes, I can assure you it really isn't the typical oil industry workers (maybe some CEOs). It is likely doctors, lawyers, and transplants from other states where home prices are high and they sold their homes for a lot, took the equity and spent it here. Most oil industry workers live in the suburbs in their $300-500k home where they raise a family and can send their kids to a good public school.