New home buying (or renting) direction... (San Antonio, Alamo: apartments, renters, condos)

[k2rider]

So I previously posted about buying a KB home over in the NE side of town for my daughter to live in and received a lot of great advice about why that might not be a greta idea. Fast forward a few months and my daughter tells me she and her roommate want to look closer to downtown but still have an easy commute to BAMC (now SAMMC from what I hear). Anyway, as a retired police officer who worked many years in downtown San Diego, "downtown" usually means a sketchier environment.

Aside from trips to the Riverwalk and Alamo, I haven't spent a lot of time in downtown San Antonio. I also have no idea what they mean when they say "closer to downtown" as they are currently in a gated apartment community out in Live Oak. I guess me question would be twofold:

1) First and foremost, how close to the downtown area would you consider "reasonably safe" for (2) 23 year old military nurses. They have a dog that will have to be walked/ran as well so they will need to be out walking around at various times of the morning and evening as their shifts are 7am-7pm or 7pm-7am.

2) From a "buying" perspective, would it be worthwhile to purchase a home towards the downtown area considering that when my daughter leaves San Antonio, we may have to look for renters or consider selling. I don't want to lose a lot of money but I'm not too concerned about making money either (if we do decide to sell it). The bigger issue for me is finding and knowing responsible people (renters) want to live in whatever we buy in.

Thanks for any help you can throw my way as we're going into this half blind from our end. We will be coming back out in later June to look at some of the areas they are interested in.

[ashbeeigh]

There are a few places in downtown that you would want to avoid (78207, 78202 and 78203 to be specific). Downtown is turning into a pretty nice place to live. Search through the forum for "Pearl," "Lavaca", King William," Tobin Hill" and "Southtown" for downtown specific areas. Areas just north of downtown such as "Alta Vista", "Monte Vista", "Woodlawn" and "Olmos Park" are also good choices. I cannot remember specifically what your budget was, however, these are primarily historic areas that has fixed up homes that go from 200k up to the millions. You will find some smaller homes that are closer to the 100s, but many of those are either very small or need lots of work. In regards to renting after your daughter leaves, these areas are all very popular and renting in these areas is a good options. Many younger people and students live in these areas. Most of them are near highways and an easy commute to the Fort Sam area.

[ShaneSA]

There are several new apartments and condos just north of downtown. The condos will be a good investment for rentals at a later date.
Also, check the housing department of fort Sam. they can tell you the areas that are near the hospital and safe. They usually check the areas and the rentals avaiable. That will give you a good idea of where to look for a house.
Don't forget Mahncke Park.

[Chaka]

Is there a reason the two 23 yr old nurses can't look themselves? They're already living here, right? Makes much more sense to have them search neighborhoods and identify those with which they feel most comfortable, then go from there.

Do their schedules mean they don't have time to come downtown? I'm guessing they must do so if they want to live in the area. I live "downtown" - Southtown more specifically, and loads of families, many from Rackspace and BAMC docs live here as well. Great area. There are many neighborhoods surrounding downtown which are great, but they run a range of housing styles, so the best bet is to have the women who will actually be living in the place find which area/style they like best.

You're not blind, you have four eyes already here to do the work.

[TexasRedneck]

23 year-olds are going to be looking from a different perspective - and if it's daddy's money, well......

[Chaka]

Originally Posted by TexasRedneck

23 year-olds are going to be looking from a different perspective - and if it's daddy's money, well......

But it's not like they're blind (well, they COULD be blind, but I mean that figuratively, since he said he was working blind). What's the point of buying a house the adults in question don't want to live in? Presumably Daddy wants to make an investment and help out his kid at the same time.

FWIW - when I was 21 in college and my dad wanted to invest some money and buy a house that I could rent to roommates (note he wasn't paying for anything at that point, but he had sold some other property and wanted to reinvest and felt this would help me out), I did all the house hunting and narrowed it down to a handful of places. In the end, prices were too high to be a valuable investment, but it would have been stupid for him to search from afar with no local knowledge when I was perfectly capable of doing it.

They're 23, not 13.

[TexasRedneck]

I get all that......but very few 23 year olds understand how to look at a roof to see if it's starting to sag, evaluate an a/c system, or whether it's got foundation/pier issues, just to name a few. My point is that it's fine to have the girls look, but other local eyes can also provide good input.

[sshurgot]

Dignowity Hill is a great neighborhood (it happens to be in the 78202 zip code someone warned about in a previous post). We have a lot of new young single homeowners and renters as well. I think we're up to a dozen architects but we also have MD's, veterinarians, a couple of lawyers, teachers, university professors, chefs. We're a pretty vibrant neighborhood about a 7 minute drive from BAMC. You definitely should check out this neighborhood full of beautiful historic homes still reasonably priced, for now anyway.

[k2rider]

Thanks for the replies. I won't get out there until late July at the earliest myself and at this point, I'm still hoping they find a rental that fits their needs. It doesn't help that one of them wants to be in a townhouse/condo type environment while the other absolutely wants a house with a yard....which makes 100% sense since they adopted a 2 year old lab.