Moving Into a New San Antonio Home? Your Lock & Key Checklist

Here’s the uncomfortable math of a home sale: the sellers had keys, their family had keys, the realtor had a lockbox, the inspector and stagers and contractors came through — and for new construction, every trade on site could open the door for months. You can’t recall any of those copies. You can make them all worthless in an afternoon. Do these in your first week.

The single highest-value move: a whole-home rekey changes the pins in your existing locks so only your brand-new keys work — front, back, garage-entry, and that side door behind the AC unit everyone forgets. Healthy hardware stays; if a lock turns out worn or builder-grade flimsy, that’s when a replacement deadbolt earns its spot. Ask to have everything keyed to one key while you’re at it.

The garage remote clipped to the seller’s visor — and any neighbor’s remote ever paired “just in case” — still opens your garage until you clear the opener’s memory. Wipe the stored remotes (usually the “Learn” button), re-pair your own, and change the wireless keypad PIN. If the opener is ancient, balky, or missing safety sensors, our opener service sorts it in one visit. The garage-to-house door, by the way, counts as an exterior door — rekey it too.

Smart locks, alarm panels, keypad deadbolts, gate codes: assume the old codes are written in someone else’s phone. Factory-reset smart locks (don’t just add your code next to the mystery ones), re-enroll them in your app account, and pick fresh PINs that aren’t the street number.

Mailbox key (your post office can rekey cluster boxes), shed and gate padlocks, window latches on the ground floor, and the sliding patio door — which deserves a proper lock or at least a security bar rather than the factory latch. None of these take long; together they close the gaps people regret later.