San Antonio Mortgage Broker: Home Loans Across Bexar, Comal, and Guadalupe Counties

Key Takeaways

• San Antonio posted the strongest June sales growth of any major Texas metro at 16.3% year over year, while inventory and months’ supply both rose — an unusual combination that favors prepared buyers.
• Prices are still softening, with annual declines approaching 2%, and roughly 65% of 2025 San Antonio closings landed at least 3% under the seller’s initial asking price.
• Property tax is the single biggest variable in this metro. The same $325,000 house carries about $474 a month in tax in New Braunfels and about $661 in a San Antonio ISD neighborhood — a difference of roughly $187 every month, before you compare a single interest rate.
• Joint Base San Antonio supports 74,713 direct employees, which makes VA lending, PCS timing, and BAH-as-income routine here rather than exceptional.
• Texas prohibits VA and FHA cash-out refinancing on a homestead under Section 50(a)(6). Veterans wanting cash out get routed to a conventional structure — a detail that surprises people every week.

What Does the San Antonio Market Look Like Right Now?

San Antonio is doing something the other big Texas metros are not. Sales are accelerating and supply is growing at the same time.

From the Texas Real Estate Research Center’s Texas Housing Insight, published August 20, 2026 and covering June 2026 MLS activity: San Antonio recorded the highest year-over-year sales growth of the major Texas metros at 16.3%. At the same time, active listings and months’ supply were both higher than a year earlier — the only other metro in that position was Houston. Austin and Dallas-Fort Worth both had less inventory than a year ago.

Prices are still correcting. San Antonio annual price declines were approaching 2% in June, second only to Austin statewide. Across Texas, the median seller price cut held at $12,000, or 3.3% of the initial asking price, and month-end active inventory sat at a 5.4-month supply.

The number that matters most to a buyer writing an offer here comes from the Center’s Summer 2026 housing column: by 2025, 65% of San Antonio closed sales went at a price at least 3% below the seller’s initial ask — up from 60% two years earlier. Through the first four months of 2026, the typical San Antonio price reduction reached 5.6% off the original asking price, the second largest concession in the state.

What Does Joint Base San Antonio Mean for Your Loan?

San Antonio is not a market with a base nearby. It is a market built around one. According to the Texas Comptroller’s 2025 military installation analysis, Joint Base San Antonio supports 74,713 direct employees, including 33,256 active-duty personnel, and contributes an estimated $53.5 billion in output to the Texas economy. Counting indirect employment, the figure reaches 223,349 jobs.

JBSA is three installations, and which one you report to shapes where you shop for a house:

• Fort Sam Houston — one of the oldest posts in the Army, dating to 1845, and home to Brooke Army Medical Center with roughly 8,500 staff. Medical professionals and long-tenured civilians concentrate on the northeast side.
• Lackland — site of the 37th Training Wing, the largest in the Air Force, graduating over 79,000 students a year, plus the 16th Air Force information warfare command. Heavy transient population, high turnover, and the southwest side of the city.
• Randolph — headquarters of Air Education and Training Command and the Air Force Personnel Center. This is the anchor for the northeast corridor: Schertz, Cibolo, Universal City, Converse.

Three financing consequences follow, and they come up constantly:

BAH counts as qualifying income. Basic Allowance for Housing is non-taxable, and lenders treat it as effective income when qualifying you. Some programs allow it to be grossed up, which stretches it further than the equivalent taxable wage. What your specific rate is depends on pay grade, dependency status, and your military housing area — pull it from the DTMO rate lookup rather than a third-party table, because the third-party numbers circulating for San Antonio in 2026 disagree with each other significantly. If you were already drawing BAH here in 2025, individual rate protection generally preserves the higher rate until your status changes.

PCS timing drives the calendar, not the market. Report dates do not wait for a smooth underwriting file. The practical answer is to start the conversation months before orders finalize, so that entitlement, Certificate of Eligibility, and any existing VA loan on a prior duty station are already sorted. If you still owe on a home elsewhere, you may have partial entitlement rather than none — that calculation is worth doing early, not at contract.

Texas blocks VA cash-out on a homestead. Under Section 50(a)(6) of the Texas Constitution, VA and FHA cash-out refinancing is not available on a Texas homestead. Veterans who want to access equity here get routed into a conventional cash-out or a home equity structure instead. Rate-and-term refinancing is unaffected, and the VA IRRRL streamline remains fully available. Full detail on the Texas VA home loan page.

Which San Antonio-Area Community Fits Your Situation?

Greater San Antonio is really four financing markets wearing one metro name. Each community page below goes deeper on local conditions and the questions that come up most often there.

The Randolph corridor — Schertz and Cibolo

Northeast of the city, straddling Guadalupe and Bexar counties, and the most military-concentrated housing in the metro. Schertz-Cibolo-Universal City ISD is the draw, and Randolph is a short commute. Because BAH compresses sharply above the mid-enlisted grades, mid-career and senior enlisted families end up competing for the same tier of housing here — which makes payment structure, not purchase price, the thing that separates a winning offer from a losing one. Schertz page → · Cibolo page →

The I-35 growth corridor — New Braunfels

Comal County, halfway to Austin, and the fastest-growing piece of the San Antonio metro. This is a new-construction market first, which means most buyers here are choosing between a builder’s preferred lender and an outside one. Builder incentives are real, but so is the loan attached to them — the only way to know which actually wins is to price both. New Braunfels also carries the lowest composite tax rate of any community in this metro, which is a bigger monthly advantage than most buyers realize. New Braunfels page →

East value corridor — Seguin

Further east on I-10 in Guadalupe County, and the most affordable entry point in the metro that still puts you inside a reasonable Randolph commute. Older housing stock mixes with newer subdivisions, which means appraisals here turn on condition more than on comparable subdivisions — a distinction that matters on FHA files in particular. Seguin page →

Inside Loop 410 — San Antonio proper

The city itself spans an enormous range, from the Medical Center employment corridor to Alamo Heights to the far northwest. What unites it: Bexar County carries countywide college, hospital district, and river authority levies that the surrounding counties do not, so the tax line runs higher almost everywhere inside it. Established neighborhoods also mean equity, which is why refinance and home equity files outnumber purchase files in parts of the city. See VA home loans in San Antonio, refinancing in San Antonio, and San Antonio home equity loans.

Why Does the Same House Cost More in Bexar Than in Comal?

This is the most under-appreciated number in San Antonio home buying, and it is the reason two identical houses at the same price can carry payments $187 a month apart.

Texas has no state income tax, and it funds local government through property tax instead. Your bill is the sum of every taxing unit whose boundary covers your lot: county, city, school district, and then whatever college, hospital, water, or emergency service districts happen to overlap. Bexar County has three countywide levies — Alamo Colleges, University Health System, and the San Antonio River Authority — that Comal and Guadalupe do not.

Composite rates below use 2025 adopted rates published by the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts, summing county, city, school district, and the applicable countywide districts. Annual figures assume a $325,000 taxable value with no exemptions applied.

Source: Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts, 2025 Tax Rates and Levies (county, city, school district, and special district files). Composite = county + city + ISD + applicable countywide districts. Excludes MUD and PID assessments and assumes no exemptions.

Two practical consequences. First, if you qualify for a payment and not a purchase price — which is how most buyers actually shop — crossing a county line can buy you meaningfully more house. Second, apply for your homestead exemption. It is not automatic, it materially reduces the school district portion, and Texas disabled veterans may qualify for an additional exemption that can reach a full exemption at a 100% disability rating.

One trap worth naming: newer subdivisions in Comal and Guadalupe frequently sit inside a MUD or PID that adds an assessment on top of everything above, sometimes enough to erase the county advantage entirely. Always confirm before you fall in love with a lot. You can model any of this in the mortgage calculator.

Which Loan Programs Do San Antonio Buyers Use?

Also available in this market: first-time buyer programs, rate-and-term refinancing, Texas home equity loans, cash-out refinancing, and reverse mortgages. Rates are not published here because they vary by lender, by day, and by file — which is precisely why shopping several of them matters.

How Does the Process Work?

1. Conversation first, no credit pull. We talk through where you are looking, what you earn and how, and what you are trying to accomplish. Nothing hits your credit at this stage.
2. Structure and strategy. Before choosing a program we look at which county you are buying in, whether BAH or self-employment income is in play, and whether a buydown or a larger down payment does more for you.
3. Shop the file. Your loan goes to multiple wholesale lenders who compete on rate and terms. You see the comparison, including anything a builder’s preferred lender has offered.
4. Pre-approval. Now the credit report runs and documentation gets verified, so your offer carries real weight with a listing agent.
5. Contract to closing. Appraisal, underwriting, and title, with a dedicated processor who stays on your file from start to finish rather than handing it off.
6. Annual review afterward. Rates, values, and mortgage insurance all move. We look at your loan once a year for as long as you own the home.

San Antonio Mortgage Questions

San Antonio-Area Community Pages

Local market conditions and the financing questions that come up most often in each community:

• Schertz — the Randolph corridor and SCUC ISD
• Cibolo — fast-growing and military-heavy
• New Braunfels — new construction and the lowest tax rate in the metro
• Seguin — the east value corridor on I-10

Loan-specific San Antonio pages: VA home loans · refinancing · home equity

Adam Bartling | Texas Mortgage Broker · Loan Officer NMLS# 2213358 · Serving Texas · Equal Housing Lender