Pouring With Heart buys San Antonio’s Three Star Bar
The Three Star Bar was founded by local mixologist Jeret Pena, and its grand opening was October 8, 2021. Not even a year later, the bar has been bought by a California based company, Pouring with Heart, that aims to “cultivate communities and careers through thoughtful bar ventures.” The bar is known for being a laid-back spot with unique cocktails, deli-inspired food, and “dad vibes.” The bar served food from chef Josh Calderon such as meatball sandwiches, a grilled cheese on jalapeno cheddar bread, burgers, and tater tots. There has not been any word on if Chef Calderon will continue to be the chef or if they will hire someone else to take his place. It has only been around for a year, but it has become a staple in the Pearl-area because of the casual feel and the quality experience. The new owners don’t plan on making any significant changes and will preserve much of the same vibe with minimal changes to the cocktail menu. According to the San Antonio Current, the bar is still open, but they will temporarily close in November to train the staff on new operating systems. The company owns other bars in Austin, California, and Colorado, and the customers seem to love what they are doing according to reviews left on Google Review and Yelp. In the upcoming months we will witness the changes of Three Star Bar and hopefully they are all for the better of the establishment. Three Star Bar 521 E Grayson St, San Antonio, TX 78215 Hours: Friday 3PM–2AM Saturday 12PM–2AM Sunday 12PM–2AM Monday 3PM–2AM Tuesday 3PM–2AM Wednesday 3PM–2AM Thursday 3PM–2AM
The End of San Antonio’s Hot Housing Market: What to Expect in the Upcoming Months
The San Antonio housing market crash may be at our front doors sooner rather than later. According to the San Antonio Business Journal, home builders are preparing for price cuts and they’re going to “discount the heck out of them.” By the end of this article, you will know which home builders are planning to have discounts and where the best deals are going to be. New Braunfels, the hottest market in the 35 corridor, has slowed down on a 1,900-acre ranch that they had planned on developing. This is insane news because that was the hottest market, according to the New York Times. Even apartment investors are looking to slow down their purchases and construction because the demand for them is not what it used to be. “Demand for apartments plummeted in the national apartment market in the third quarter, coming off what had been several quarters of strong run-up in demand and rent growth for the national multifamily market.” Earlier this year, single-family homes were seeing an increase in the amount of homes for rent. In July, rents averaged $1,908, and in August the average rent was $1,888. It did not decrease by a substantial amount, but we should have seen an increase in rents because of the high spike in property taxes and house prices. On the other hand, builders are discounting homes and apartment complexes that are not renting. An obvious factor in the slowdown is the increase of interest rates. Rates are now ticking above 7% for a 30-year fixed loan, which is affecting people’s affordability. Not to mention inflation, groceries, and going out. Compared to other Texas cities, San Antonio remains one of the most affordable Texas cities to purchase a home. That is no surprise because I mention it in all my videos, but let’s look at the numbers. The median home price in the last two weeks, in San Antonio, went from $335,00 to $355,000, even with interest rates between 5% - 7%. Even the average sold prices of homes have gone from $393,000 to $438,000. So now you have this perfect storm of affordability, more homes, and new construction homes. KSAT published a great article with a map of San Antonio, plus the suburbs, with the average home value based on zip codes. Based on the factual statistics of what people are buying and selling, San Antonio still has a very strong market. One of the hidden gems in San Antonio is the Southside. San Antonio developers are building VIDA in the Southside, which is a huge housing neighborhood that will have over a thousand homes all around Brook City Base. First American Home is undeterred by the slowing market, and they plan on plowing ahead with their plans to deliver 500 homes per year. This Houston-based company is planning to deliver 500 homes per year, and they just broke ground last month. Chris Hill of First America Homes said, “We are not concerned about rising interest rates impacting us. We believe more people will seek us out as we offer a quality home at a reasonable price.” This is a good takeaway because other builders are willing to buy down rates, pay your loan fees, close early, and take reduced prices to move their inventory. Most home builders like First American Homes, KB Homes, Lennar, DR Horton, and Chesmar own their own mortgage companies so they can offer much more incentives than your traditional bank. Something to beware of is builders telling you that they have given you an incentive but they’re really up ticking the price to make it a wash. That is why I highly recommend having a realtor with you to look over those agreements and to compare rates. Be careful when you see those signs that say “$200k and up” because that will typically be the bare minimum of a home, and it is often priced that way so it can seem comparable to other homes in the neighborhood. That’s why it’s important to know the difference between the bait price and the actual price. The San Antonio Business Journal reported that, “homebuilders [are] growing nervous about inventory collecting dust on the shelf rather than flying off it are beginning to ramp up measures to incentivize home buying.” Sean Chandler, the president of Chesmar Homes’ Central Texas Division, said that, “most homebuilders I’ve spoken to have said they want to close out their inventory by year-end.” He also added that the best time to buy a home will be in the next three months, giving the current circumstances. Median home prices are starting to creep up, and these last 3 months are very important and a great opportunity for you and your family to get a home.
Is San Antonio Overpopulated?
San Antonio is heavily populated, but it may be overpopulated and overcrowded. In this article we are going to dive into what areas are the most overcrowded, and this will help you assess if it is worth moving here. San Antonio has seen a huge population increase because of COVID-19. People were moving here prior but the catalyst for the fast influx of people was due to the pandemic. Before, San Antonio was a nice little secret where the city didn’t have a lot of developments and had a lot of militaries. People like to stay here because everything is a little bit cheaper, it’s affordable, and there’s a lot of places that are family oriented. This area is also a web-based design so you can get anywhere in the city within about 20 minutes. Harlan High School is a very popular school in San Antonio that got a lot of attention because of how overcrowded it seemed. Pictures of the crowded hallways were shared online, and a lot of parents expressed their concerns about their children’s safety and wellbeing. Unfortunately, NISD officials say that there’s little that can be done about the overcrowding concerns at Harlan HS. Just recently, there was a vote for Northside ISD to receive a $992 million bond to improve and expand schools in the district. That is good news, but the big spike in home sales will contribute to more parents needing to enroll their children in schools. The main highway from San Antonio to Austin, IH-35, is getting a road expansion that will cost billions of dollars. This expansion is really going to help alleviate some of the traffic, but by the time it’s completed who knows how many more developments there will be. Austin has seen a huge spike in house prices so families that were on the I-35 corridor (Buda, Kyle, Schertz, and New Braunfels) are now moving toward San Antonio because of its affordability. Let’s say a ranch owner sells its hundred acres to an investor for whatever amount of money. That developer is going to divide the land, with city approval, and build track homes, which is why these clustered communities are far away from the downtown San Antonio area. It’s not like it is in the east coast where the houses have been there for over a hundred of years and they’re mapped out prior to building. If you look at new construction homes on the northeast side, which is probably where a lot of the crowding is happening, there are not that many. On the other hand, the far west side has way more developments and the communities are very affordable. That is problematic because the infrastructure changes don't seem to be catching up with the developments that are happening. There are already established communities within the loop of 1604 and 410, and the people in those communities need resources, and there are only so many grocery stores. According to KSAT.com, the most crowded H-E-B is on I-35 in San Antonio. Thankfully, they are developing more amenities, grocery stores, and restaurants to accommodate for the influx of people moving to that area. When I show houses in that area it is very crowded and some of our clients will be deterred by the amount of traffic there is. Another article recently displayed how farmers and ranchers have been impacted by the new housing developments. The housing developments are affecting their ability to produce food for different distributors and make a living for themselves. There are more commercial improvements that are happening like multi-unit apartment complexes that are being built downtown, the east side, and the far west side. When there are a lot of multi-family developments it often time results in the development of more amenities. However, it does seem to drive the price of single-family homes higher because there’s more of an influx of people, jobs, schools. Another important thing to consider is that the Edwards Aquifer is low! The Edwards Aquifer supplies over 2 million people with drinking water in the San Antonio area. In this article, it states that the Aquifer is the lowest it has been in four years, which is really scary to think about. Hopefully, something is done because the population growth hasn’t shown any signs of slowing down.
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