John Kelly

The continuing growth of our school district affects almost every decision we make, so I was glad to attend a presentation by a San Antonio company (Metrostudy) titled “New Home Market Analysis” for the Boerne ISD area.

Our school district is geographically quite large, as big as Northside ISD, but it contains about 80,000 fewer students. The portion of our district contained within the city of Boerne and the city of Fair Oaks Ranch is a small part of the district’s land mass.  And our school district’s boundaries dip into Bexar and Comal Counties. Thus enrollment is actually more influenced by what happens outside of our two city boundaries. 

As goes the San Antonio housing market, so goes Boerne ISD.  Our 350 square miles represent about 3 percent of the housing market for the San Antonio area – and this figure has stayed consistent over the years.

People in San Antonio look at Boerne as a “move up” to better schools and the beautiful hill country, but folks can’t easily do so unless they want to pay substantially more. This is because a greater percentage of the cost of a house in Boerne is the price of the land on which it sits and, even in a recession, land value will not greatly diminish here.   

There were 550 housing starts by builders in the Boerne ISD area in the fourth quarter of 2006. But at present, there is an excessive inventory of new houses because of over-heated building in both San Antonio and Boerne during 2006. Indeed, the local new home inventory (unsold houses) is up 157 percent compared to a year ago. 

Looking to the future, the Metrostudy findings identify 8,321 proposed new lots in the Boerne ISD area. Of those, three-fourths are on vacant lots and 600 are expected to be delivered in the next year. Of course, a fewer number will actually have houses built on them – and occupants to live in them immediately thereafter. 

Already-made federal decisions will add a substantial number of military personnel to the San Antonio area in the next few years. The military will outsource housing to off-base locations and are likely to build at least some houses affecting the Boerne ISD area. There will continue to be higher ranking officers looking favorably at Boerne for a home and, thus, the San Antonio military build-up will likely increase our enrollment. 

Over the past two years, housing investors across the United States were told the San Antonio area is the place to invest and thus many of them bought up a lot of houses. But with the national housing slump that has ensued, that investment trend has at least temporarily cooled and the empty house inventory has grown. 

Unlike San Antonio, the vast majority of houses now being built in the Boerne area will sell for $300,000 or more. In the first quarter of 2007, for example, 320 of the 443 houses started in the Boerne area will cost more than $300,000.  

The number of new houses in Boerne ISD is more dependent on market forces outside of Boerne than I realized. Even though the desirability of our schools is a prime attractor, people can’t move here unless they have a substantial income, low mortgage rates, and a good selling price for their previous house in what is now becoming a buyer’s market. 

BISD can continue to expect modest growth for another year or two in our area. This gives us breathing room with regard to future bond elections and other high cost decisions.    

Though there would instantly be an enormous market for more affordable housing, land prices will continue to prevent lower priced housing in most of Boerne. I don’t know the outlook for multi-family housing.

Area private schools have significant enrollment increases, thereby taking some of the enrollment pressure off of Boerne ISD. 

If these trends hold true, we’ll see a larger percentage of new-home buyers who have older kids or are empty nesters with comparatively large incomes.