Where We Are Not the Best Buyer
On designated property inside the city, a rehabber who works within the preservation review routinely will usually pay more than we can.
The reason is structural rather than modest. Review is a cost to us and a routine to them. They know what the commission supports, they have relationships with the preservation office, and they price a restoration rather than pricing around a demolition they may not obtain. On a landmark or a contributing property with a sound structure, that advantage is real and it shows up in their number.
So Why Buy in the Historic Districts at All?
Where We Are Useful
On property that most buyers find awkward: unincorporated parcels with no permit history, houses where the slab is an open question, and files where the owner wants certainty rather than the highest theoretical number.
Those are not glamorous positions and they are where a principal buyer with our own funds is genuinely worth having. We do not need a lender to be comfortable with an unpermitted rebuild, and we do not need a certificate of occupancy to exist.
What We Buy
Fire-damaged residential property across the county, in any condition from smoke to bare slab. Inside San Antonio, in the suburban cities and in unincorporated territory. Designated and not. Claims open, settled, denied and uninsured. Owner-occupied, tenanted, vacant and inherited.
Where we decline it is geography. Beyond Bexar County and its immediate edges the rules change again and we are the wrong buyer.
How the Number Is Built
Finished value of a house on that site, less the cost of getting there under whichever regime applies, less carrying cost, less margin. Texas levies no transfer tax, so nothing comes off as a percentage of the price.
What makes San Antonio offers differ is which regulatory world the buyer thinks they are in. A buyer who has not established the designation status is pricing a project they may not be permitted to do. A buyer who has not established the jurisdiction may be assuming a permit process that does not exist.
Why Do Offers Vary So Much Here?
Where Our Interests Diverge From Yours
We are the buyer. Not an adviser, not neutral. We benefit if you accept less and decide quickly.
On the second point our interests genuinely align here, which is worth explaining rather than asserting. On designated property the code contemplates a sequence of notices leading to a possible hazard demolition and a five year permit bar. Reaching a decision within weeks rather than months protects you from that sequence, and it would be true if we did not exist.
Everything else is checkable: the Unified Development Code through the city's published version, the Office of Historic Preservation for designation, Bexar County for its permitting position, the county clerk for what we have actually bought.
We are also not brokers, not public adjusters, not contractors, not contract assigners and not lawyers.
When Somebody Else Is Right
A preservation rehabber, on designated property. The commonest case where we should lose, and we say so.
A county builder, on an outlying parcel. Somebody who works in unincorporated territory routinely prices the practicalities better than a city buyer does.
Nobody — repair it. Where the repair sits below finished value, restoring keeps the margin, and on designated property it is frequently the route the review supports anyway.
Why Point Me Away From a Sale?
Reaching Us
Send an address through any form on this site. Before you deal with us, place the property using the lookups on our page about how the process actually runs, and read the questions on our page about how to tell local cash buyers apart.