What is the New Build Board?
The New Build Board is a map and a set of cards covering every ground-up apartment community we track in the San Antonio metro. On Oct 25, 2026 that was 111 communities across Bexar, Comal, Guadalupe, and Kendall counties. You can scan it by area, by stage, or by the number that matters most to you: what you’ll actually pay each month.
Each card is built from feed tokens, not typed-in text. The feed is pulled every morning, and the pull time sits on the board so you always know how fresh a number is. Prices can change by lunch. If something’s gone when you call, just tell us and we’ll send what’s actually open, the same day.
What does each card show?
Every card carries the same nine things, in the same order, so two buildings always compare on the same terms:
- Who can rent here. A label for 55+, income-restricted, or PFC units, with its source and date, sitting above the price.
- Base rent. The contract rent before any special.
- The special and its end date. Weeks free, a lower base, or a credit, with the date it ends.
- Net effective rent. The free weeks and credits spread across every month of the lease term.
- Required fees. Trash, tech, pest, package, and admin charges you can’t opt out of.
- True monthly cost. Net effective plus required fees, plus electric, water, and parking where they apply.
- Year two. The renewal price, usually priced from base rent, at 0% and +3%.
- Utility provider. CPS Energy, NBU, a co-op, or another provider, by address.
- Lease-up stage. Pre-leasing, lease-up, or stabilizing, plus the San Antonio New Build Score.
Net effective by floor plan shows where the feed carries it, from studios and one-bedrooms to two-bedrooms and townhomes. Available units and the special lease term show on the card too, because a special that only applies to a 15-month term or to “select units” isn’t the same deal as one that applies to every unit.
How do we calculate the numbers?
The math is the same on every card, and it’s published so you can check it:
- Net effective = (base x term - base x 12 / 52 x weeks free - credits) / term
- True monthly = net effective + required fees (+ electric, water, parking)
- Year two = base x (1 + change) + fees, shown at 0% and +3%
Here’s the worked illustration from Far Northwest, with values as of Oct 25, 2026. At Prose On The Range, $1,215 base with up to 10 weeks free on a 12-month lease comes to $14,580 minus $2,803.85, or $11,776.15 over 12 months. That’s $981.35 net effective. Add $52.38 in required fees and true monthly is $1,033.73. Year two at a flat renewal is $1,267.38, a $233.65 jump.
That last number is the one most searches miss. It’s not a reason to skip a deep special. It’s a reason to plan for month 13 before you sign, and it’s why we check in at month 10 with a Renewal Check.
How does the San Antonio New Build Score work?
The score runs from 0 to 100 and weighs six things: deal depth (30), price against nearby new builds (20), year-two risk (15), lease-up stage (15), fee disclosure (10), and how complete the build is (10). It never scores location, schools, distance to a base, reviews, or people. Those are your choices, and we show them as facts instead.
Nobody pays for a score or a placement, and commission data never reaches the score or the sort order. The full method lives in our guide on how the New Build Score works.
What we leave off the board, and why
We track ground-up new construction only, with first move-ins from 2023 to 2027. Conversions such as Tower Life and The Whitney, renovations, and renamed older buildings stay off. A property’s own site can also remove it if the data doesn’t match.
A few board flags we handle by hand: St. Mary’s Flats and Elmira Flats share one leasing site and listing data, so we flag both and count them once. Los Cielos at Brooks is on the South Side, not Downtown. When we find a mistake, we fix it within one business day and log it on our corrections page.
Where do utilities and schools fit in?
No board address has retail electric choice. On Oct 25, 2026, CPS Energy served 84 board addresses and NBU served 19, with GVEC, Seguin Electric, PEC, and Bandera EC serving a handful. School district is a fact of the address, such as Northside ISD in the Far Northwest, and we list it with a lookup link. We never rate or rank schools on a card.
How to use the board with us
Save the buildings you like, compare up to four side by side, and send the list to the team. We’ll call each leasing office the same day, confirm the unit, the special, and the fee sheet, and send back year-two and 24-month math. If a building is still finishing, we confirm in writing what’s done, from the Certificate of Occupancy to the pool, before you sign.
Start with the specials if price is your main filter, the lease-ups if you want the deepest discounts, or opening soon if your move date is a few months out.
