Your first home in San Angelo, step by step.

Buying a first house is the same everywhere in the broad strokes and different everywhere in the forms. In Texas the forms are written by the state, the closing happens at a title company, the seller has to hand you a disclosure, and the tax break you file afterward is worth real money. This page goes in the order things actually happen in San Angelo, with a source for every claim and a plain answer to what each piece of paper is.

Market figures: Texas REALTORS 2025 Texas Real Estate Year in Review, San Angelo MSA. Exemption amount: Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts.

Step 1: know your number

Before you look at a single listing, talk to a lender and get pre-approved. Pre-approval tells you what you can borrow, and it tells a seller you are serious. Ask the lender for a Loan Estimate, the standard federal form that lays out the interest rate, the monthly payment, and the closing costs for a specific loan. Get one from more than one lender if you can; the differences show up on that form.

The loan programs a first-time buyer in San Angelo is most likely to hear about:

• FHA. Insured by the Federal Housing Administration. The down payment can be as low as 3.5 percent of the purchase price.
• Conventional 3 percent down. Fannie Mae's HomeReady and Freddie Mac's Home Possible both allow 3 percent down for borrowers whose qualifying income is at or below 80 percent of the area median income.
• VA. For eligible veterans, service members, and some surviving spouses: no down payment when the price does not exceed the appraised value, no private mortgage insurance, and a one-time funding fee. The Goodfellow PCS guide covers it in detail.
• USDA. The Rural Development guaranteed loan allows no down payment for buyers at or below 115 percent of the area median household income who buy a primary residence in an eligible rural area. The city of San Angelo itself is not rural, but eligibility is set address by address on USDA's own map, so check the specific property rather than the town.

One number that helps the whole budget: Texas has no state income tax, and the state constitution forbids one. What you pay instead is property tax, which is why the homestead exemption at the end of this page matters.

Step 2: the forms you will see first

Texas real estate is regulated by the Texas Real Estate Commission, TREC, and the first two documents you get from any agent are TREC's, not the brokerage's.

Information About Brokerage Services (IABS). A one-page notice that every license holder must give you at the first substantive communication about a specific property. It explains the kinds of license holders, when a written representation agreement is required, and that non-representation is an option for a showing. It is not a contract and does not obligate you to anything. TREC updated the form effective January 1, 2026 (IABS 1-2); Chase's form on file is posted here and is updated when a newer version is completed. Chase's form: Information About Brokerage Services (PDF).

Consumer Protection Notice. A TREC notice that tells you the Commission regulates license holders and how to file a complaint. License holders have to make it available, and it is linked from this site's home page too. The copy is here: Consumer Protection Notice (PDF).

What a broker is. In Texas a broker is the license holder responsible for all brokerage activity, including the work of any sales agents the broker sponsors; a sales agent must work under a broker. Chase Bruton is a broker, so when you work with him you are working with the person who holds the responsibility, not an agent under someone else. If you want him to represent you as a buyer's agent, that is done with a written representation agreement, and the IABS explains what that relationship means before you sign one.

Step 3: the search

San Angelo is an affordable market by Texas standards and a slow-moving one, which is good news for a first-time buyer. In 2025 the median sale price was $263,745, homes took a median of 60 days to sell, and about 34 percent of sales landed between $200,000 and $300,000, with another 23 percent between $100,000 and $200,000. Homes sold at about 95 percent of original list price on average, so there is room to negotiate.

Start with the live MLS search to see what your pre-approval actually buys, then read the neighborhood guides to narrow the map: eight areas of the city and county, each with the house types, price context, and school district on one page. The relocation guide has the property tax rates and drive times if you are coming from out of town. When you have three or four you want to see, call Chase and see them in one trip.

Step 4: the offer

Almost every resale house in Texas sells on the same contract: the TREC-promulgated One to Four Family Residential Contract (Resale), form 20-19, currently the version dated May 2026. Agents fill in the blanks; they do not write the terms. That standardization is a real protection for a first-time buyer, because the parts below work the same in every deal.

Earnest money. A deposit that shows the seller you mean it. Under the contract you deliver it to the escrow agent, which in practice is the title company, within three days after the contract's effective date. It is credited to you at closing and refunded if you terminate under one of the contract's exit rights.

Option fee and option period. This is the Texas feature people from other states have not seen. For a negotiated fee paid to the seller, the seller grants you "the unrestricted right to terminate this contract" within a negotiated number of days after the effective date. If you terminate inside that window, the option fee is not refunded but your earnest money is. The option fee is credited to the sales price at closing if you go through. Notices are due by 5 p.m. local time on the last day. Amounts and lengths are negotiated deal by deal, and what is customary moves with the market, so ask Chase what is landing right now before you set yours.

Seller's Disclosure Notice. Texas Property Code Section 5.008 requires the seller of a single-family home to give the buyer a written notice of the property's condition, on or before the contract's effective date. If you get it after the contract is signed, the contract gives you seven days from receipt, or until closing if sooner, to terminate for any reason with your earnest money refunded. Read every line of it.

Your offer will also say who pays for the title policy and the survey, whether you are buying the home "as is" or with specific repairs, and, through the Third Party Financing Addendum, what happens if your loan falls through. Chase walks through each of these before you sign; do not let anyone rush that.

Step 5: inspection and appraisal

The contract lets you have the property inspected by inspectors licensed by TREC, and it requires the seller to keep the utilities on so the inspector can test things. Texas inspectors must follow TREC's Standards of Practice and report on the state's Property Inspection Report form, REI 7-6. The inspection is visual and not exhaustive; the inspector does not move appliances or open walls. You can verify any inspector's license with TREC's license holder search. Schedule the inspection early in the option period so you have time to negotiate repairs or walk away.

The appraisal is for the lender, not for you. An appraiser estimates the home's market value so the lender knows the collateral is worth the loan. If the appraisal comes in under the contract price, the Third Party Financing Addendum and your lender's rules govern what happens next, and it is a moment to call Chase before you decide anything. Lender-required repairs, including any wood-destroying insect treatment, are not automatically the seller's cost; the contract says who pays only if the parties agree in writing.

Step 6: title and closing

In Texas the closing happens at a title company, which also serves as the escrow agent holding your earnest money. The contract calls for an owner's policy of title insurance in the amount of the sales price, issued at or after closing, and the parties check a box for whether the seller or the buyer pays for it. Title insurance protects you against defects in the ownership history that a search did not catch. Your lender will require its own policy as well.

Closing costs are the fees and prepaid items on top of the down payment: lender charges, the title and escrow fees, prepaid property taxes and homeowner's insurance, and recording fees, among others. How much that adds up to depends on your loan, your lender, and what the seller agreed to pay, so this page will not give you a percentage. Your Loan Estimate shows the projection up front, and a Closing Disclosure shows the final numbers before you sign.

What you bring to closing: a government photo ID and your funds for the down payment and closing costs, usually as a wire or cashier's check per the title company's instructions. Confirm wiring instructions by phone with the title company at a number you looked up yourself; wire fraud targeting home buyers is common and the money does not come back. After you sign and the loan funds, the deed is recorded with Tom Green County and you get the keys.

After you close: file your homestead exemption

This is the one step first-time buyers most often forget. If the house is your primary residence, file an Application for Residence Homestead Exemption, Form 50-114, with the Tom Green Central Appraisal District. School districts must exempt $140,000 of your home's value from their taxes. Homeowners 65 or older or disabled get an additional $60,000 school exemption, and any taxing unit can adopt its own local-option exemption of up to 20 percent of value. The general filing deadline is before May 1 of the tax year.

The exemption also caps your appraisal. Once the homestead exemption is in place, the appraised value used for your taxes cannot rise more than 10 percent a year, plus the value of any new improvements, regardless of what the market does. For a sense of scale, the combined 2025 city, county, and San Angelo ISD rate for a home inside the city limits was about $2.34 per $100 of taxable value before exemptions. The Comptroller's exemptions page has the rules; the appraisal district has the form and makes the decision.

Texas first-time buyer assistance

Two state entities run programs a San Angelo first-time buyer can use through a participating lender. The Texas State Affordable Housing Corporation, TSAHC, offers the Homes for Texas Heroes program for teachers, police, firefighters, EMS, veterans, corrections officers, and nursing faculty, and the Home Sweet Texas program for everyone else. Both provide down payment assistance as either a grant or a deferred forgivable second lien, and first-time buyers may also qualify for a Mortgage Credit Certificate, a federal tax credit on mortgage interest. There are income and sales price limits. Details are at tsahc.org.

The Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs, TDHCA, runs My First Texas Home, which pairs a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage with down payment and closing cost assistance for first-time buyers, with exceptions for qualified veterans and targeted areas, and requires a homebuyer education course. Its My Choice Texas Home program does the same without the first-time requirement, and the Texas Mortgage Credit Certificate is available with either or on its own. See welcomehome.tdhca.texas.gov. Income and price limits for Tom Green County change, so check the current tables rather than a number on a web page, and ask your lender whether they participate before you assume you can use either program.

None of this is legal or financial advice, and every deal has a wrinkle this page did not cover. Your lender, the title company, and the appraisal district are the final word on their pieces. For the rest, call Chase, tell him it is your first house, and he will start at step one with you.

Questions people ask