Last week I submitted an offer on a short sale on behalf of one of my clients. In absolute terms the offer would not be a short sale - at least not if there were no escrow fees, no commissions, no attorneys fees for the foreclosure paperwork that already has begun. With all of that included, however, a short sale it would be if ultimately accepted by the bank.

One option I’ve been mulling is whether to suggest to my client that they raise their offer price so it’s no longer a short sale. To do so, however, would involve my client paying the commission for both me and the listing agent; the seller’s not seeing a dime and the bank would not be dipping into their proceeds.

This may be the exception that proves the rule for some; to my mind, given very narrow strictures where the seller is netting zero regardless of offer price and where the bank is not losing any of their cash, the buyer would be paying everything.

(As an aside, the main reason I haven’t made the suggestion is we were the second offer in the door … a distinction irrelevant to the person at the bank considering the offers but of note given the backup position in the real estate “real world.”)

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I guess that’s not technically correct. There are a couple of thousand people here. And when the official attendance is announced, reflective not of butts in the seats but tickets sold, the crowd will be closer to 10,000. But right now there are about 4,000 or so people sitting in an arena built for 17,000 watching the Phoenix Coyotes play the Dallas Stars.

At this moment, a few miles to the south, there likely are an equal number of people asleep in their motor homes on or near the infield at Phoenix International Raceway in advance of this weekend’s NASCAR race, the penultimate event in the Chase for the Cup season championship.

Perhaps the Coyotes’ 6-7-0 record is part of the cause. Maybe it’s the fact they haven’t won a home game since opening night, chalking up six consecutive losses in Glendale over the past month. Maybe people still are stuck on Interstate 10 trying to make their way over here.

Who knows?

All I know is could use some company … I wonder what the Pack dancers are going to do now that they don’t have anyone to dance for?

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Every day we receive information requests for retirement real estate, whether it be Westbrook Village, Ventana Lakes, Arizona Traditions or another active adult community here in the Phoenix area. And almost like clockwork, one of those five requests specifically will be foreclosure properties in these areas.

My response usually follows a pair of occasionally convergent paths. First, a foreclosure property often is not what your average buyer envisions. Most realize some cosmetic work will need to be done in nearly all cases but few can imagine the condition these homes often are in - missing appliances, smoke detectors, toilets, ceiling fans, outlet covers are some of the more common signs. That doesn’t begin to cover the actual cosmetic needs.

Quite often, foreclosure homes require a considerable amount of work as owners facing a crisis take their frustrations with the bank and their circumstances out on the home. It’s not a universal truth but it happens enough to suffice as a generality.

Second, the generally are not a lot of foreclosed properties in retirement communities for the simple reason that many owners either pay cash or used solid financing complete with significant down payments and fixed terms. Again, there are some exceptions but for the most part those folks heading toward retirement didn’t get to that point by accident.

For all that, however, there are a handful of foreclosure properties in the active adult communities of the Northwest Valley:

• Westbrook Village - 3
• Corte Bella - 5
• Sun City - 55
• Sun City West - 9
• Sun City Grand - 2
• Ventana Lakes - 2
• Arizona Traditions - 4

If you’re thinking about purchasing a property in foreclosure there are two routes you can go: 1) appear on the courthouse steps with a $10,000 non-refundable deposit and pay the rest the following day if you have the high bid. 2) try to buy the home before the trustee’s sale takes place.

It’s not necessarily a cut-and-dried process; I have one client now going on a week to hear back on whether a contract placed on a short sale (a home where the client owes more than the home is worth) and it may be another week.

Still, if you want to give it a shot, give me a call and I can give you more information.

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Below are the October home sales for Arrowhead Ranch in Glendale (as well as two close enough to count).

As always, click on any of the markers for the details on any given sale. Also as always, all data is provided by the Arizona Regional MLS and is deemed reliable but not guaranteed.

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Hopefully Trulia’s press release hit the wires on time because the embargo ended 15 minutes ago. This morning, Trulia released a more robust advertising offering for real estate agents that could rival Realtor.Com’s enhanced listings.

Why compare to Realtor.Com? Because that’s where a lot of the new features on Trulia already can be found though the pricing on Trulia - $60 a month - is a fair bit better than Realtor.Com’s escalating blackmail ad rates

Here’s what’s new:

• Photo and contact info will be added to Trulia listings as well as direct e-mail when someone was a question about a listing.
• An enhanced property details page
• Listings featured in top three search results
• Weekly traffic reports for viewings and visitors who moved on to your web page

According to Trulia’s research, agents who participated in the beta for the program received four times more traffic to featured listings than to their non-featured listings.

The trick for Trulia will be selling the value proposition given that Realtor.Com has more daily visitors and remains the primary destination for many buyers. Additionally, Trulia still needs a more complete set of listings to truly challenge the monolith that is R.Com.

If, however, Trulia is able to cut into Realtor.Com’s viewing numbers, add to its listing base and offer a similar product for a far more competitive price, then it wouldn’t be surprising at all to see a migration moving away from Move.Com’s beast. Especially when fewer and fewer agents believe R.Com is worth the cost.

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