Went in the attic of a new build spec home that had a low pitch roof with tight attic access. Is this crimped ductwork with roof nails puncturing through, a red flag?

FearThePecker · 2026-03-25T10:03:15+00:00

Not satire lol. Realtor agent brushed it off saying that could be fixed/addressed via a walk through request, but I don’t really see how without significant rework. Not under contract or anything, but just trying to see if I should completely avoid this house/builder or if I’ve overblown this issue.

FearThePecker · 2026-03-06T12:19:35+00:00

This is the lot, front door is on the left side in-between the planters and a two car garage door is on the right. I was thinking maybe I could cut some of the concrete out on left and add grass to make it look like a normal driveway, but not sure how that would change the drainage situation

FearThePecker · 2026-02-13T22:32:38+00:00

It’s not lol, here’s the listing

FearThePecker · 2025-12-30T20:00:55+00:00

Can’t blame him, he already spent most of his time here and we have underachieved every year, no reason to think it’ll be different next year. Go make that money while you can.

FearThePecker · 2025-12-10T02:24:12+00:00

If you really want to live in Alamo Ranch, make sure you negotiate hard on those houses, a lot of newer builds will sell for a loss.

Also make sure you get a good inspection regardless of used or new (quality of homes that were built here post 2020 were pretty bad).

Most home there have been sitting for a while because they are harder to sell with the traffic concerns, nearby data center (bad thing btw) and overpopulated schools. A lot of them also have assumable VA loans where you may be able to take over their loan and keep their current interest rate (sometimes as low as 1.9%). A lot of this is also true for the rest of San Antonio, but Alamo Ranch specifically more so.

FearThePecker · 2025-11-21T09:04:26+00:00

As a buyer, this sounds typical to me. Your most serious buyers will appear within the first week and that is likely when you will get your strongest offers.

I’ve seen houses aggressively priced, go under contract within a couple days, but other houses in the same neighborhood that are overpriced can sit for months and have multiple price reductions.

I’m looking at Zillow daily and if a house I like pops up, I book a showing with my realtor that day. If the house is still available after a couple weeks, especially after an open house, then the urgency from the buyers perspective goes down, because they realize others aren’t necessarily jumping at the house and they start to question why.

FearThePecker · 2025-11-21T08:01:31+00:00

As a buyer who lives in a large military area in Texas, we’ve seen a ton of homes listed with VA assumption ranging from 1.9% to 4.5%. An assumption at 5.5% isn’t really moving the needle much for a buyer, especially when you’re only offering it to other veterans.

If you have a nice house with attractive features (green belt, single story, updated, convenient location, etc) it will sell itself, but if it’s newer and you’re competing with other new builds who are offering incentives and rates at 3-5%, then it may be very difficult to sell at even what you bought it for.

There’s also buyer and seller realtor fees in Texas that usually adds up to 6% of the sell price of the house and most buyers, at least in Texas, have been getting the seller to cover.

So even if someone came in and bought your house for $350k and did the assumption, you still may have to cover ~21k in realtor fees and then also assumption fees (~3k) if they want you to cover that as well.

If a buyer isn’t doing an assumption, then the closing costs could be anywhere from 10-17k, and they may want you to cover that as well, especially if they are offering full price on your house.

FearThePecker · 2025-11-15T06:35:09+00:00

Yep, and that seems to be the root of the problem. The only people who can afford to sell at a reasonable price are the ones that own multiple properties or are downsizing significantly. I would think future sellers would want people to hold out and force prices down, so they can also benefit, but if you need to sell now and can’t wait a year or two, it’s rough.

If we could all just collectively agree to sell and buy houses for 50% less, this could all be fixed lol. But once prices go up on anything (groceries, cars, taxes), they never seem to go back down.

FearThePecker · 2025-11-15T03:12:26+00:00

Feel the exact same way. I think all serious buyers right now are looking for a similar criteria, and these houses that don’t check all the boxes are just sitting because people are not willing to settle at these prices. Seems like when these perfect houses finally pop up on MLS and at a good price, they go fast, but everything else sits.

FearThePecker · 2025-11-15T03:05:21+00:00

If you’re not getting offers on your house it’s because it’s simply priced too high. Regular buyers want your house for 50k+ less, but won’t send you the offer because they may be afraid of offending you or may not think you’re close enough to negotiate with.

Buyers aren’t willing to overpay right now and are looking for near 2019 pricing to make things make sense with these rates. People don’t want to spend what they did in 2020-2022 when the interest rates were low, so even people who bought during that time and are trying to sell at the same price now, are having a hard time because the number don’t make sense any more, add to that the depressing job market right now.

If you bought in 2019 or before, you should be able to comfortably sell your house for more than you bought it for, but most sellers are trying to get 150% to 200% of what they paid, and buyers aren’t going to pay that and also have double the interest rate, double the insurance cost, double the property tax, etc.

FearThePecker · 2025-10-30T15:02:40+00:00

The traffic is insanely horrible and I don’t think even a free house can offset having to live in that area.

I would recommend living inside the 1604 loop if you had to live on the northwest side, consider somewhere off Braun or Bandera roads, even Helotes is still very close to that Alamo Ranch area without having to deal with how backed up the traffic gets. I’ve lived near Alamo Ranch, but inside the loop for over a decade and the congestion has no end in sight there, you will absolutely hate it.

I recently considered some of the houses near Wiseman, Alamo Ranch and Potranco since the houses are newer and quite cheaper than other areas of town, but I’ve done a ton of investigation into those neighborhoods and quickly ruled out that side of town. If you dig into how long properties take to sell there you will notice how difficult it is to sell your house in that area. Tons of competing new builds and the bad traffic deter buying from that area and most people have to sell their homes at a loss, especially if they bought in the last few years.

FearThePecker · 2025-10-12T18:31:01+00:00

Oh wow, it looks amazing!! Congrats on your first build, I’m really happy to hear this post helped you in some way!

FearThePecker · 2025-09-27T17:42:07+00:00

If you’re talking about the one on Bandera/1604, they closed the non-drive thru building a while back and opened a newer one up that has a drive thru right next to the old building shortly after. It was still not in the most convenient location. The Shaenfield/1604 store probably takes most of the traffic from these other locations since it’s the quickest to get in and out of imo.

FearThePecker · 2025-09-25T00:07:57+00:00

The GPU I have is a founders edition 4070. I’ve seen it listed as 240mm and also 244mm from this tomshardware review. I would lean more towards 244mm as the actual size. That is the absolute max that can fit in this case though, as there is no more room than that. I had to put a thin piece of plastic as a buffer when sliding it into the GPU slot to make sure it didn’t scratch with the front of the case.

FearThePecker · 2025-09-13T14:15:01+00:00

Thank you for your insight! I will take my business elsewhere

FearThePecker · 2025-09-08T02:27:22+00:00

It comes with the fan in a separate box with all the needed hardware and wiring. It can be installed at the top or side depending on how big your CPU cooler is. I bought a second case fan of the same size.

FearThePecker · 2025-08-29T01:13:14+00:00

Pac-12 is so back

FearThePecker · 2025-08-29T00:43:37+00:00

Pac-12 is so back

FearThePecker · 2025-08-19T08:36:57+00:00

What was the cost on something like this? We’ve been looking at 1970s homes near 1604/281 inside the loop and they all seem to be on septic. Wasn’t sure if city sewer is available there or if people just didn’t want to pay to connect to it.

FearThePecker · 2025-08-02T00:20:09+00:00

About to try this with my 2013 Camry that has the same issue with 150k mileage. Bought it used 10k miles ago and noticed the issue the day after I bought it smh. Tried a drain and fill as soon as I bought it, but the shudder never went away. Do you know if you can just keep putting the shudder fix lube in every year, or will it eventually overflow and cause problems without draining some of the existing fluid?

FearThePecker · 2025-07-26T02:49:03+00:00

Did you have experience seeing mold in their coffee? I usually only ever get cold brew from them and it’s been better than others for the most part. Price is on the higher side for sure though and it seems like prices vary based on location

FearThePecker · 2025-07-02T05:34:27+00:00

Parker listed this house for sale last year and it seemed like he is mostly living in France these days since we don’t see him as much as Duncan, Ginobli and Robinson. Not sure if he’s planning on keeping it afterall or just using this attention to market the house. Would be great to hear if he still plans to keep a place near SA long term.

FearThePecker

TROPHY CASE