BRRRR in San Antonio: Where the Numbers Still Pencil in 2025

BRRRR still works in San Antonio, but the margin is thinner and the submarkets have shifted. The deals that pencil today are on the east side, the near south side, and pockets of the west — not the north-central zips where investors kept losing bidding wars to owner-occupants. If you're buying right, budgeting rehab honestly, and underwriting the refinance appraisal (not the zestimate), you can still pull most or all of your cash out on a 1,000–1,400 sqft post-war bungalow inside Loop 410.

What's changed since the 2020–2022 run isn't the strategy. It's that you can no longer assume 15% YoY appreciation will bail out a sloppy rehab budget, and the cash-out refi rate is no longer a 4-handle. The deal has to work on the rent, and the ARV has to be defensible with three recent closed comps — not just your optimism.

What the deal has to hit

For a single-family BRRRR in Bexar County to actually recycle your capital, run these numbers before you make an offer:

• All-in basis ≤ 75% of ARV. Purchase + rehab + holding + closing should land at or below 75% of a conservative after-repair value. Conventional non-owner-occupied cash-out refi tops out at 75% LTV for a 1-unit with most lenders; 70% is more common on 2–4 unit. If your all-in is 80%, you're leaving 5–10% of ARV in the deal.
• Rent ≥ 1% of ARV monthly, minimum. A $220K ARV house should rent for $2,200. In 78207, 78211, 78220, and parts of 78228 this is achievable. In 78209, 78258, or 78023 it is not, and those aren't BRRRR zips — they're appreciation plays with different math.
• DSCR ≥ 1.20 at refi. If you're using a DSCR loan instead of a conventional Fannie product, the lender is underwriting the property's rent-to-PITIA ratio, not your W-2. Rates are typically 150–250 bps over conventional. Build that into the pro forma from day one.
• Six-month seasoning, realistically. Most conventional lenders require 6 months of title seasoning before they'll lend on the new appraised value rather than your purchase price. A handful of DSCR lenders will do 3 months or even day-one, but at worse terms. Plan for six.

Submarkets where BRRRR still pencils

Submarket	Typical purchase (distressed)	ARV range	Rent range	Why it works
East side (78202, 78208, 78220)	$110K–$160K	$200K–$260K	$1,800–$2,300	Proximity to downtown, Fort Sam, Pearl; comps rising but still trail north side
Near south (78210, 78214, 78223)	$130K–$180K	$220K–$290K	$1,900–$2,400	Southtown spillover, VIA access, NEISD-adjacent school reshuffling
Inner west (78207, 78228)	$100K–$145K	$175K–$230K	$1,600–$2,050	Lowest entry in the city; rehab-heavy stock; appraisal risk is real
Converse / 78109 (Judson ISD)	$180K–$230K	$260K–$310K	$2,000–$2,350	Randolph AFB proximity; newer stock; lighter rehab, thinner margin
South (78211, 78221, 78224)	$140K–$185K	$230K–$280K	$1,850–$2,200	Toyota/Navistar employment base; steady blue-collar tenant pool

Stone Oak (78258), Alamo Heights (78209), and most of 78023/Boerne are not on this list on purpose. Owner-occupant demand compresses the buy side, and rent-to-price ratios sit well below 1%. They can make sense as buy-and-hold appreciation plays or short-term rentals, but not as BRRRRs that recycle capital.

Rehab budgets that aren't fiction

Bexar County's older housing stock — a lot of it 1940s–1960s frame on pier-and-beam — carries specific cost traps that out-of-state investors consistently miss:

• Foundation. Clay soil moves. Budget $4K–$12K for partial pier work on anything pre-1970 that shows sloping floors or stair-step brick cracks. Get a structural engineer's letter, not just a foundation company's quote.
• Sewer lines. Cast iron under slab in homes built before ~1975 is frequently cracked or belly-dropped. A scope is $200–$400; a full replacement can run $6K–$15K. SAWS will not sign off on certain permits if the lateral is collapsed.
• Electrical. Federal Pacific and Zinsco panels are common in 78207, 78201, 78228. Full panel replacement plus service upgrade: $2,500–$4,500. Required for insurance in many cases.
• HVAC. Texas summers kill undersized units. A full system replacement for a 1,200 sqft house runs $7K–$10K installed.
• Permits. The City of San Antonio Development Services has tightened inspections since 2022. Plan for permit timelines on electrical, plumbing, and roofing, and build 2–3 weeks of inspection lag into the holding cost.

A safe rule of thumb for a cosmetic-plus-systems rehab on a 1,100 sqft 3/1 east side bungalow: $45K–$75K, not the $25K you see on YouTube.

The Texas refi trap

This is where most BRRRR deals die in San Antonio.

Texas has unusually protective cash-out refi rules under Article XVI § 50(a)(6) of the state constitution — but those rules apply to homestead properties. An investment (non-owner-occupied) property is not homestead, so you're on standard Fannie/Freddie or DSCR guidelines. The catch is the appraisal.

In 78207, 78228, and parts of the east side, appraisers struggle to find three recent arm's-length comps within a mile that support a fully renovated ARV. A house you could list on MLS for $240K may appraise at $215K because the 1/4-mile radius is full of un-renovated sales at $170K. That $25K gap is your trapped capital.

Mitigations that actually work:

• Pull your own BCAD and MLS comps before you buy. SABOR access through a licensed agent is the only reliable source; public aggregators miss pocket listings and misreport closed prices.
• Order the appraisal with a full rehab scope PDF, permit receipts, and a comp packet. Appraisers can consider comps outside the standard radius if you document why.
• Avoid being the first renovated sale on the block. If nothing within six blocks has closed above $200K in the last 12 months, the appraiser has no anchor.

What most people get wrong

• Underwriting to gross rent, not net. A $2,100 rent with $380 in taxes (before homestead, which doesn't apply), $140 insurance, 8% management, 8% vacancy, and 10% maintenance/capex leaves you around $1,100 to cover debt service. Model it that way from the start.
• Assuming BCAD's assessed value equals market value. BCAD's number drives your property tax (protest it via Form 50-132 by May 15 or 30 days after notice), but it's not what the lender's appraiser will use for refi.
• Forgetting the Texas Property Code § 92.052 repair duty applies from day one of the lease. If you rent it out before finishing systems work, the tenant has statutory remedies and you have a habitability problem. Finish the rehab, then lease.
• Using an out-of-state title company. Texas is an attorney-adjacent title state with specific rules. Use a Bexar County title company that closes investor deals weekly — Alamo Title, Independence Title, or Texas National, among others.
• Treating 78109 (Converse) and 78108 (Cibolo) as interchangeable. They're in different school districts (Judson ISD vs. SCUCISD), different cities, different tax rates. Cibolo's total effective rate often runs 50–80 bps higher.
• Ignoring the military clause. Tenants on PCS orders can terminate under SCRA § 3955 with 30 days' notice after the next rent date. In JBSA-heavy submarkets — east side, Converse, Universal City, Schertz — underwrite 10–12 month average tenancies, not 24.

Scaling past deal three

Conventional Fannie guidelines cap you at 10 financed properties, and most lenders get skittish past four. The realistic scaling path in San Antonio:

1. Deals 1–4: conventional 30-year non-owner-occupied at 75% LTV cash-out.
2. Deals 5–10: DSCR loans, portfolio lenders, or local community banks. Broadway Bank, Frost, and Jefferson Bank all do investor lending with actual humans.
3. Deal 10+: commercial blanket loans across 5–20 doors, typically 5-year balloon with 25-year am. Lose the residential loan count limit, gain prepayment penalties.

The investors who scale past 20 doors in Bexar County almost always do it by adding small multifamily (5–20 unit) around year three or four, not by buying their 25th single-family.

If you want to see what's currently renting in the submarkets above — and what renovated comps are actually leasing for — browse live listings on RentInSA's rentals page. If you're ready to dispose of a stabilized BRRRR without paying a full listing commission, you can list it FSBO at /list-your-home, or find an investor-friendly agent at /agents.