Hello, Texans!

Well, my wife is being posted to the San Antonio Military Medical Center somewhere around June/July 2016 for what they call a "transitional year" in Internal Medicine.  Short story is that she's finishing medical school and is also in the USAF and it's very difficult to match into a residency program in the specialty she wants if she's military.  We'll be there for at least one year and possibly 4 if she opts to stay at SAMMC for her residency (which she'd probably match into following her PGY-1 year).

So, San Antonio Arfcommers (which it looks like there's a bunch of y'all), can you give us a good intel dump on San Antonio?  Ideally we'd like to live somewhat near SAMMC if possible.  What areas should we look at, and what ones should we avoid?

She was there for an Emergency Medicine rotation a couple months ago (she was there for about 30 days), and I visited for a few while we were there.  Some of you may have caught a post in GD that I made a while back about it, but we were really kind of put off by San Antonio - mainly the traffic and it seemed like we ran into more than a few just flat-out rude folks.  We figure that that was just an anomaly though (or just due to the fact that it's because San Antonio is so friggin' big) and we want to make the best of our time living there.  

So, what do we need to know about living in San Antonio?  Good places to shoot?  I'm a USPSA and 3-Gun guy, and it looks like there's some of that happening around the area.  What's the job market like?  I'm shooting to be retired from police work about the time we'd move down there, so in addition to taking care of the dogs, I'd like to find a job doing something - preferably firearms related (I have a bunch of certificates that say I know about that kind of stuff ), but anything would be good.

Anyway, thanks for any advice you can send our way.  Unfortunately "we're full - go home" isn't really an option, since this is Uncle Sugar sending us your way.   Besides - we're God-fearing, gun owning, patriotic, conservatives and we're pretty laid back and (we think) easy to get along with - so we think we ought to get along with y'all down there.

I'm sure we'll host an Arfcom get-together at our place once we get settled.
 



Oh yeah, rules etc...






Wife:










Mountain Curs:











 

Se Habla Espanol?

I live in New Braunfels, lots of nice places between here and SAMMC. Schertz, Live Oak etc. It is not a bad commute from New Braunfels. Most folks would recommend the north or north east side of San Antonio also. Welcome, I'm sure you are going to like it here.

 
Si, pero mi espanol es bastante malo.  Pero, mi esposa vivio dos anos en Peru y habla espanol mejor que yo hablo espanol.




No, ya govoryu po-russki sovershenno horosho.

That's better spanish than most folks who live here. I'm in Dallas, but my son goes to Catholic school that is largely Mexican. I had to laugh when the principal said all 7th and 8th graders would take classes in Spanish, and they would HAVE to learn to READ AND WRITE in Spanish, in addition to speaking it. Yes, there were glances of fear across the room. You'll meet a significant number of Mexicans who never learned to read and write. I have an employee from Mexico, speaks english and spanish, but if I give him any training material to read, he wants it in English because that's what he ended up learning when he came to the US.

There's a lot of nice places to go in SA, but I don't live there. I imagine it's just like everywhere else, there are nice neighborhoods and crappy neighborhoods. You have to find a balance of what you can afford vs where you actually want to live. The metro area is probably largely democrat and the public school system will be a mixed bag of ... well not extremely positive. Suburbs will probably be more conservative with better schools, just like everywhere else.

This.

Avoid living in SA city limits if you possibly can. All of the good areas and suburbs are in the north/north east area for the most part.



 

Casa Rio on the Riverwalk!



Casa Rio

This +1

 

 
Thanks for the input.  So far we're looking at Live Oak and Converse for housing and we've seen a few houses in Converse that look pretty good.  Any issues with Converse we should be aware of?

I would stay away from Converse if I were you. I used to be a teacher for the Judson ISD. The better options would be Schrtz, Cibolo, New Braunfels, Garden Ridge etc. Even Live Oak is going down hill.

Good deal, duly noted.
 

ETA: Was just looking at Garden Ridge and Cibolo.  We don't have a $300ishK budget for a house (not yet anyway).

Oh, something else you will need. A Bigger water bowl!!!

Make sure you account for real estate taxes when you're house shopping.

You may be surprised how high they are. So...  Heads up.


What size town are you used to?

1--when you eat tamales........remember to take off the corn husk first.  

2--practice speaking Texican.....Ya'll, wished, dadgumit  and howdy   will get ya'll started

3--eat Blue Bell Ice Cream as soon as possible.        

There are some kinda nice areas of Converse (and some kinda shitty ones), but as mentioned the school district and the people that attend it are fucking terrible for the most part.

Universal City and Live Oak aren't great either except for the really expensive HOA places. Selma isn't bad, and Cibolo and Schertz both have some pretty nice areas to live. I'd check out those two areas first and make sure it isn't too far of a commute (factor in morning traffic).  



 

 
We're both from the Cincinnati area originally and live in the Dayton area now.  Dayton's a bit smaller than Cincinnati, which I'd call a mediumish sized city.  San Antonio is probably a couple orders of magnitude larger than anything we're used to.

 
We're hip to tamales up here already.


I picked up "y'all", "fixin to", "I reckon" and "howdy" when I was in the Army.  I should probably be ok, the missus may need to work on it.


Man, I'm going to miss Greaters Ice Cream.

You might consider renting when you first get here. That way you can talk to a lot of folks and see what is out there. I paid 140K for my house, it is a garden home and was 5 years old at the time. They are building a lot of homes around here from the 150s. They are right about my old school district. The better schools are on the north part of the district. The drugs, crime etc. seem to be making their way north. Converse was nice around 30 years ago. The same with Live Oak. Now the original owners are moving away because of age etc. The rif raf moves in. In one of the Jr Highs in the southern part of the district. (Kirby JHS) They had girl gangs 20 years ago. I was lucky to be transferred to a school in the very northern part of the district my second year there.

Plenty of muffler shops and burglar bars to go around.

Good advice. I work at SAMMC and I live in Cibolo. It is a pretty easy commute in the off hours 6am and 7pm. Kind of rough during peak hours but manageable. Tons of houses for sale in the area if you are looking to buy or rent. I have my old house up for sale or rent in Schertz. This area is very quiet and easy going.

You DO NOT want to live anywhere close to SAMMC.

Welcome to Texas

Be sure to vote like a Texan while you are  here please.  I have known other Ohio transplants who are socially conservative but feel compelled to vote Liberal for some reason or another.  

We love to visit San Antonio, its the touristy town in Texas.  Lots to see and do with any time off yall have.  Good time to mention this you will hear "yall" and "fixen" a lot, and we drink "cokes" down here (no Pop, no pepsi).  And a DP is a "coke" too such as " hey, I'm fixen to get a coke from the fridge, want one?" ..... "yeah sure"...... "what kind?" ..... "a Dr Pepper!"...."cool"

The stereotype of Ohioans/mid westerners is that they cant handle TexMex food as it is too spicy, so it will be interesting to hear your thoughts.  
We have Applebees here in Texas so you guys can go there when you get to feelin homesick

That said, be sure to find an eat Menudo, sweet bread  and other awesome things at Mi Tierra next to the mercado in western down town.
This may apply in SA too, but here in Houston at least, if you see a bunch of lawn guy trailers outside of a TexMex joint you can be sure it has good affordable food.

Blackhawk gun range is south of town, that is where they host the GSSF matches (IIRC in October now).

There is a skeet range/complex hidden in plain site in one of the parks / drainage retention areas over by Trinity U. IIRC.  

Thank your wife for her service!
Welcome to Texas again, the people here are generally good, friendly,  self reliant  proud people.

Once you get a good handle on Texican language, you can get your Open Carry permit and be a  REAL TEXICAN.

Welcome...Ya'll

East Terrell hills is across the street from the base, pricey but nice city. dont get an apartment if you look there, but a house. alamo heights is high as hell too but nice.

all depends on your budget

and yes the traffic blows huge donkey balls here, not as bad as austin though

Schertz / Cibolo area.
Tons of active and retired military folks.
Couple miles from RAFB and a straight shot down IH35 to her work.
Great school district.

Merry Christmas, y'all.  Thanks for all of the info so far!

+1 on this, many of the good teachers I worked with have switched to the Schertz/Cibolo ISD. I also like to go to Randolph AFB, excellent class 6 store and PX...and they sell firearms at the P...oops air force, BX.

When company comes over ask them if they want a Coke

They answer yes

You ask what kind

Might be a good idea to wait before buying a home...............oil field has cratered and election cycle is driving economy down.   Lots of distress sale items will be available.

Merry Christmas

Hey y'all,



Well, we're getting closer and we're actually getting kind of excited about coming down that way.


Couple more questions:


We've been looking hard at the Schertz and Cibolo areas and seeing some good stuff.  We've also had some houses come up in our searches in Live Oak and Converse.  Good/Bad areas?


We're looking at coming down in April for several days to try and get our housing squared away.


Thanks again!

 

I would never live in Converse but that's me.  There are some decent places in Cibolo and Schertz.  The best advice I can give you is to rent first as someone else mentioned.  Once you get used to the city and start visiting different parts, you will get a better feel where you want to live.  A budget of $150k is not going to get you much in nice areas.  Housing is cheap here but that's on the low side.  If you have kids, don't forget to check the ratings of the schools.

Thanks for the tip.  We're pretty focused on the Cibolo/Schertz area, but thought I'd ask about the others.

Our only issue with renting is finding a place that'll rent to three dogs.  We see ads that say "small/large dogs ok", but does that

include "three 40-60lb dogs"?  Buying would take that issue out of the equation entirely.  Then we're talking about her trying to get posted

to Randolph for her stint as a flight doc or keeping the house as an investment property should Randolph not pan out.


We've also upped our budget to $200k-ish.  We're finding places we  like, it's just a question of what'll be available when we can come down in April.


I appreciate everyone's input!

With the higher budget, a lot of options will open up for you.  People say the housing market is strong here but there are a ton of homes for sale.  They just go quickly and usually for near asking price.

You won't be disappointed in the Cibolo/Schertz area. I love it out this way. $200k will get you a decent home. We had ours listed at $229k and it has a big backyard with plenty of room for the three dogs. We had five.
I currently live in Cibolo and plan on staying here for a good long time. O

Windcrest itself is nice and has a proactive Police Department to help keep it that way. Older community with many military officer retirees from Randolph and Ft Sam, has a Golf Course  etc. The problem is it borders on some very bad areas.

Cibilo / Shertz should be OK other than I-35 traffic.

I would avoid Converse and Universal City.

 

Look in the whole metro area.  Live Oak, Universal City,  etc.  If you are buying, the only factor will be cost and HOA's. Zillow has good site for searching.


Rent property here does pretty well, but most places dont want dogs because they are destructive, and in many cases so are their owners.

 

Thanks, we may need to start checking some other areas.  While we really do like what we've seen in Schertz and Cibolo (we've been using Zillow and Movoto a bunch), the HOA thing is killing us - particularly the "limited to two adult dogs" part.  Are there other areas that are similar to Schertz/Cibolo that maybe have older homes that aren't plagued with HOAs?  We're not giving up any of our 4-legged maniacs.


Are there other areas that are similar to Schertz/Cibolo that maybe have older homes that aren't plagued with HOAs?


Looks like we'll be coming down around the third week of April to do some looking around.  We're in contact with two real estate agents (need to pick just one, but they're both good - tough choice!) who will be able to block time off for us to show us homes while we're there.  Be good to meet up with some of y'all and hang out while we're there too.

There are very few homes available in those areas that aren't HOA. Let your real estate agent know that you prefer to not have HOA and they should be able to filter out the HOA houses. Just be warned, the ones that aren't HOA are older homes that may or may not be well maintained. I looked at one on Indian Blanket Road in Cibolo that wasn't HOA and it was not in the best of shape. It had most everything I was looking for but I could see that there were some major repair/maintenance issues that were going to come up pretty soon.

It depends which HOA you fall under, but our HOA at our old house in Schertz in the Ridge at Carolina Crossing, was fairly easy to work with and were pretty hands off. If we kept the yard mowed and trimmed, they left us pretty much alone. They only dinged us a couple of times for my wife's work trailer. It was parked in the driveway for a couple of weeks due to my son being in the hospital. Once I let them know, they were cool with it.

 

Pretty much any new subdivision here is HOA dictated.  I dont understand the massive proliferation of HOA's in Texas, other than people moving here from other states that are used to other people telling them what to do.


Theres no reason why an HOA should be preventing a homewoner from parking their OWN VEHICLE on the street in front of their house.  Yet I know a guy that lives in one like that. It's amazing.


Anyways theres lots of places without HOA bullshit here.  

I live in New Braunfels and don't have a HOA. When I was looking for a house I told my realtor I did not want one.

 

Thats an option as well of course.  Though commute to anywhere in SATX from there during normal business commute times is getting really bad.

I've only been thru Shertz so can't say anything from first hand experience.  Do remember seeing that Money magazine had it on one of their Best small cities to live in lists.  I will say that I love San Antonio.  Get there when ever I can.

Thanks again for all of y'all's input.  It really has been helpful.

My FIL is a real estate agent and he's hooked us up with an agent down

There who seems like a good dude.  We've set up out search for non-HOA homes,

which has cut out a lot of options, but we've decided that we'll be damned if we buy

a home that's tied to an HOA.


We'll be coming down from 17-21 April to look at houses and put in an offer on a place.

Out agent is going to show us houses for several hours each day (I'm hoping we find a

place on day 1 so that we get an offer in ASAP).


We're excited about moving down that way.  The next couple months are going to move

so slowly.  

 

Good deal.


HOA's are the devil.

So we'll be coming down for sure from April 17th to April 21st.  We'll be staying in New Braunfels while we're there looking at houses.

Anyone up for a meet & greet?

FYI unless your friend is in a gated community he can tell the HOA to fuck off on parking in the street.  That is public property and they cannot say a word about it.

I'd be down!  I live in Austin but work in New Braunfels!

Welcome, and I hope you find a nice house.
If you like your car(s) be on the lookout for a house with a suitable garage.

Please do not bring any Cincinnati Chili with you.  

I live in New Braunfels, let me know when and where.

We're getting in on Sunday evening.  Monday will be a pretty full day of looking at houses and such.  Tuesday or Wednesday would probably be the best days for us to get together.

What's a good place in New Braunfels?

 
One week to go!


Anyone?  Anyone?  Bueller?