Now my channel. We talk a lot about the best places to live around the Texas Hill Country, including Kerrville, which happens to be on the top 100 of best places to Retire in Texas. But in today's video, we are talking about the neighborhoods you should think about avoiding before moving here. Now, before we get this video started, I am obligated to tell you I'm a licensed real estate agent here in Texas. I've helped out tons of people, moved to the Texas Hill Country from all over the place Nevada, California, Florida, Illinois, and I've helped people find the best neighborhoods that fit them and their families. But I'm restricted on giving you my advice because of fair housing laws on things such as crime, demographics, safety. But at the end of the day, it's not a bad thing because rather than you getting my advice, you're getting hard data from online sources. So the primary topics we'll be discussing today is the median sales price, property taxes, the drive time to things such as the grocery stores, Walmart and other towns. But make sure you drop a comment down below to let me know some of your favorite neighborhoods, or maybe even some neighborhoods that you think people should also avoid. Okay, let's go ahead and get rock and roll in with the number one neighborhood on the list. And that is Southwood Estates. So this neighborhood is located on the west side of Kerrville, just off of Thompson Drive, into the south side of the Guadalupe River, which is actually pretty nice because you're literally jogging distance to the river from the front gate. And while we're talking about gates, this is a gated subdivision which has around 140 homes total. So if you're the type of person that doesn't really like being in a gated subdivision, this may not be the neighborhood for you. So Southwood is located about 7 to 9 minutes from the new H-e-b on Main Street in about 11 minutes from the small hub off of City Baker. You're also about 16 minutes from Interstate ten, which will get you to San Antonio or on your way out to West Texas. And if you're looking to go to Fredericksburg for a day trip to maybe Joy, some wine or a dinner, you're about 38 minutes from downtown Fredericksburg. So the median sales price from 2021 to 2022 increased by about 17%. It sits at $829,000, which is great when you consider the appreciation homeowners have after buying in the neighborhood. But one of the downfalls of having such a high median sales price is when you compare it to the rest of the city of Kerrville, which has a median sales price of 387,000. So ultimately, the affordability rate to get into this neighborhood is going to be a lot lower. There is also a very low turnover rate, which basically means there are not very many houses that come on the market in this neighborhood. Over these past two years, there's only been nine houses that have sold in the neighborhood, and currently there's only four houses on the market. You also may not care for the fact that there is an HOA with HOA fees, and you're governed by an architect general committee. So if you had dreams of that big bright pink house, honestly, it's just not going to fly in this neighborhood. But luckily, those HOA fees really aren't that high. They range from about 500 to $700 per year, but I'd like to end this neighborhood off on a positive note. So the property tax rate for saddle wood is 1.46. If you compare that to Kerrville, which is 2.04, you ultimately saving a lot of property taxes that you're paying back to the county each year. Real quick, let me show you example with the difference that actually makes. If you buy a house for 600,000 in Saddle Wood, you're paying $8,760 per year on property taxes. If you were to buy a house inside the city limits of Kerrville for 600,000, you're paying $12,240 per year. That's a whopping $3,480 difference per year. Okay, let's go ahead and move to number two on the list. And that is the horizon. So this is an absolute gorgeous neighborhood. But I want to go and start off with the negatives. So like saddle wood one of the biggest problems that the horizon has is the turnover rate. There's just not very many houses that come on the market in this neighborhood. Within these last 12 months, we've only seen three houses sell within the neighborhood of about 90 to 100 homes. So for that reason, it's hard to give you an accurate median sales price and how much the property values have increased over these last 12 months. But more than likely it's going to be similar to Saddle Wood, which again was 17%. So the horizon is located just off of Thompson Drive and Shepherd Reese Road. It's about eight minutes from the new hub on Main Street, about nine minutes from the older hub on Sydney Baker and about eight minutes from the Walmart. But if you're planning on taking that day trip to Fredericksburg, you're only about 38 minutes to downtown and you're also within a fairly reasonable distance of the Senate Tony Airport. So if you need to get to the airport fast, you can be there in just over an hour. The horizon also does have a pretty strict homeowner association. So again, using that big bright pink house example, if you want to do that, unfortunately you're just not going to be able to do that in this neighborhood. But another great aspect of this community are the track sizes. They range from about 3 to 20 acres, and the entire subdivision is wildlife exempt, which helps you out tremendously on what you pay back to the county each year for your property taxes. And you might actually not know what that even mean. So let me explain that to you real quick. So if you own a five acre lot, your tax for your homestead, which is the one acre around your house, and then the rest of the four acres will have that wildlife exemption dramatically dropping what you pay for taxes each year. And horizon has a 1.46 tax rate, kind of like saddle wood. So you're ultimately saving on that aspect too. Coupled with having that wildlife exemption, one last thing you might find to be a negative is that it's also in a gated subdivision. So if you find it to be a complete struggle to live within a gated subdivision to get your yard guys in the Amazon, guys, that pizza delivery guy, well, you do have to deal with that. But if you want that sense of security within a gated subdivision, you're going to have that, okay. So let's go ahead and move on to number three on the list. And that is Comanche Trace. But before we get started, make sure you drop a comment down below to let me know what you think number four is going to be. Now, if you're looking for a small, quiet neighborhood that doesn't have a bunch of golf carts, drive around all day long, you might want to stay away from Comanche. So this is an absolutely gorgeous 27 hole championship golf course, which consist of about 500 homes or so. So this will be able to give us a more accurate median sales price and how much the growth has been over these past 12 months. And while we're on the topic, let's go ahead and cover that. So according to the Nar website, the median home value of Comanche Trace was 751,844 the past 12 months, which was a massive 23.6% increase from 2021. One thing we are starting to see is that the quote unquote, inventory levels, the number of houses for sale, is increasing pretty consistently within the neighborhood. In fact, month over month, we've seen a 6% increase in our inventory, which is now at around 4.83 months. But the great thing about that for you as a buyer is there's going to be a lot more choices for you to choose from, but also a lot higher chance of contingencies being accepted within your offer. And just in case you don't know what contingencies are, a quick example is if you're contingent on the sale of your home out in California, or contingent on appraisal or financing, those are all considered contingencies. So Comanches, located on the east side of Kerrville off of Bandera Highway, and it's about ten minutes from the new H-e-b on Main Street, 13 minutes from the Walmart, eight minutes from the older hub and about 11 minutes from the hospital, and just 33 minutes from downtown Fredericksburg. So the overall location of Comanche Trace is pretty great, because you can get to pretty much everything you need to pretty quickly. So in this neighborhood, you can find houses under 2000ft², but you also have custom built houses that go all the way up to about 5000ft². And with that, you have prices that do range from five 600,000 all the way up to about $3 million. I also want to quickly highlight the age ranges of these homes, so you can see houses in the neighborhood that are from the early 2000, when the subdivision originally opened up. And of course, you do have those brand new custom built homes, and they are consistently opening up new phases of this subdivision. So you'll continually see growth and expansion, which could be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on how you view that. Comanche trace also does have a homeowner association with fees, which they do range about $800 per year. But there's also smaller little subdivisions within Comanche Trace that have landscape fees, and those can range up to about $2,000 a year. All right, all right. It's time for number four on the list. And it is River Hill, so similar to Comanche Trace. If you don't want a bunch of golf carts, drive around all day long. And the potential of having a golf ball, stray golf ball go right through your back window. You might want to stay away from River Hill so River Hill is a large 683 home golf course neighborhood located off of Bandera Highway on the east side of Kerrville, and it's roughly six minutes from the hospital or nine minutes from H-e-b, just five minutes from the old H-e-b on Sydney Baker and a quick 35 minutes to downtown Fredricksburg. So I like to think of River Hill is being like the old Comanche trace because it was the original golf course community here in Kerrville. So these houses have a pretty broad age range, you know, ranging from about the 1970s, early 1970s to, of course, the late 2000. You do have a couple new builds in there, but for the most part, most of these houses are going to be older than the 2000, especially the 80s and 90s timeframe. So the median sales price for the neighborhood in the last 12 months is around 497,000. And according to that in our website, the median property value is around 453,000, which is a 19% increase within the last 12 months. River Hills is actually seeing a pretty significant increase in inventory month over month, 19% to be exact, and now has over five and a half months of inventory available. So like Comanche Trace, if you're looking for a home inside a golf course community, you're going to have more choices, more houses to choose from. As we start to see more and more houses come onto the market. River Hill is inside the city limits, just like Comanche Trace. So you have that tax rate of 2.04. So it's going to be higher than subdivisions like Saddle Wood or The Rising. But if you want to be in town closer to everything, the hospitals, grocery stores and with a lot less median sales price, River Hill may be a better fit for you. I want to highlight real quick when you're doing your research before moving to the Texas Hill Country, make sure you check out websites like Niche.com, the Nar website, or Redfin housing data. But you want to take that information with a grain of salt because although they try their best to be as accurate as possible, sometimes the information is is just off. Also, don't forget to check out my video about the top five neighborhoods in Kerrville if you're considering moving this way. If you haven't done so already, subscribe to the channel by Hit the Bell so you get notified anytime I put out videos just like this one. Thanks for watching. See you next time.
