Property For Sale In Alton Tx

Rio Grande Valley Edinburg Real Estate Gaston Properties is an established Full-Service Real Estate firm specializing in all areas of Real Estate in Edinburg Texas, Farms, Ranches, Residential, Development and Commercial Real Estate. Find Edinburg homes for sale, Edinburg real estate agents, and Edinburg home values. Get access to Edinburg real estate listings, including the MLS, Edinburg REALTORS, new homes and foreclosures. Find Edinburg school district information, including elementary, middle and high school test scores, student faculty ratios and other statistics. We also have information on Edinburg home selling, home buying and mortgages and other realty services for anyone looking to sell a home or buy a home in Edinburg, TX.Established in 1980, we currently have a combined experience of 75 years. After a successful first year in business it was found necessary to increase our sales staff to better service our clients in the areas of Edinburg, Mission, McAllen, Pharr, San Juan, Alamo and all the South Texas Rio Grande Valley.

First time home buyer? Looking for homes for sale in Edinburg? If you are buying or selling land, a farm, or would like to develop your property, let our team of experienced agents help you! Whatever your Real Estate needs are, you've found the right place!We are proud members of: Texas Association of Realtors National Association of Realtors Greater McAllen Association of REALTORS Edinburg Chamber of Commerce Texas Real Estate Commission Consumer Protection NoticeTexas Real Estate Commission Information About Brokerage Services Computerized listings, letters, and brochures published in-house Advertising in Local and National print via The McAllen Monitor, Real Estate Source, The Real Estate Locator; The Edinburg Daily Review Marketing listings to an audience of qualified investors and buyers who surf the Internet. Helping people relocate to the Rio Grande Valley through our referral networking service Don't buy if you can't stay put Start by shoring up your credit

Aim for a home you can really afford Buy in a district with good schools Choose carefully between points and rate Before house hunting, get pre-approved Hire a home inspector Disassociate Yourself With Your Home Rearrange Bedroom Closets and Kitchen Cabinets Rent a Storage Unit Make the House Sparkle The two buildings stand next to each other on the cramped, scruffy plot of land. One is a weather-worn shack of rotting wood and decaying paint. The other is a suburban fantasy of blond brick, with newly planted shrubbery along a fresh concrete path and the name Regalado arching over the front door in stained glass. The shack is where the Regalado family used to live, before the accident. The house is where they live now, because of the accident. If the two buildings stood any nearer to each other they would overlap, and their closeness is a wordless testament to what this family, and this entire town, have been through in the last 15 months: lawsuits and settlements, riches and resentments.

The site of that accident, a huge water-filled pit that swallowed a school bus and 21 children, is only a few blocks away.
How To Clean Acrylic Whirlpool TubsThe world paid little attention to Alton before that steamy Rio Grande Valley morning.
Commercial Toilet Seat WipesAnd even the other 4,500 residents of Alton had little to do with this part of town, where the children on the bus lived.
Purple Ikat Drapes These were the poorest children, whose parents did not speak English, whose clothes were shabby and whose houses often had only packed-dirt floors. Among them were Maria Regalado and her sister, Apolonia, whose home was the tiny shack. Then a Coca-Cola delivery truck ran a stop sign and knocked the school bus into the unguarded gravel pit.

The sounds of rescue sirens could be heard in the houses of the families whose children were drowning. Maria was 14 years old. The way to find most of the families of the victims now is to look for the homes that are too rich for the neighborhood, standing as cavernous monuments to the dead. And when Pedro Regalado, the 20-year-old brother of Maria and Apolonia, comes out of the door of the family's new house, which was finished only a few weeks ago, and sees a waiting reporter, he knows from a year of raw experience what she wants. Slowly shaking his head he says: "We don't want to talk anymore. We have nothing else to say. We want it to be over." It was not always that way. Before the emotional scar tissue hardened, Pedro Regalado wanted nothing more than to talk. All of Alton wanted to talk, as if the sharing, crying and gathering in mourning might make it all go away. Last January, nearly three months after the girls died, the Regalados invited the same reporter into their home.

By then their grief had given way to confusion, and they were overwhelmed by the stream of lawyers elbowing one another for their trust and their signatures. Like most of their neighbors, the Regalados are only a generation removed from Mexico, and their traditions are rooted there, a mile away across the border. In that world, friends pass the hat to help with funeral expenses when a child dies, and lawyers do not promise millions to be won in wrongful-death lawsuits. That January night the family wanted to show the reporter pictures of Maria and Apolonia in the gowns they wore for their first communions, to be told how beautiful they were and to wonder aloud if it was wrong to allow the lawyers to sue on their behalf. The lawsuits were filed soon after, by the Regalados, by the other families whose children died and by the families of the 60 other students who were injured. In a first wave of settlements this summer, Coca-Cola offered $4.5 million to compensate for each lost life, meaning a family like the Regalados would eventually receive $9 million.

Just this month most of the injury suits were settled, too, for about $500,000 each. Now the grief and confusion have turned into something else completely. Those who lost and then won are brittle and defensive. Those who did not lose children, who watched and helped but live the same gritty lives as before, are hostile and jealous. "There's some resentment," said Alton's Mayor, Salvador Vela. "The families that received the money don't mingle so much with the other people. They feel guilty about the money -- I can see it in their faces -- but they keep to themselves and they don't share. The neighbors who can't build big houses don't understand why they don't share." The September 1989 accident has become Alton's identity. When residents give directions to outsiders they do not use street names but begin with the instructions, "Go to the caliche pit and turn right." The chain link fence that was installed after the accident has become a shrine, covered with 21 white crosses and overlapping pictures of the dead children.

The base of the fence sags with the weight of the flowers left there each day. A few families have moved away from the memories, but most have stayed nearby. Like the Regalados, they are using their money to build huge houses filled with new carpets and furnishings. The Flores family, who lost 18-year-old Raul in the pit, tore down their old house and built a two-story dwelling so big it is visible across the flat landscape from several blocks away. On a recent afternoon, workmen were painting the shiny black iron fence that surrounds the house. In the old house the door was always unlocked because there was very little to steal. "They don't want to talk to anyone," one of the workmen said after Mrs. Flores waved away the reporter whom she, too, had welcomed less than a year before. "They keep to themselves," the workman said. "All of them do that." In many ways, the houses say what the families will not. The Regalados' shack, for instance, is still standing, perhaps because it was the only home two young girls knew.