If you were a real estate agent in a down market, such as the one here in Phoenix, and there’s an agent calling to say he wants to write an offer for a buyer but just wants to make sure there’s nothing else happening on the home … wouldn’t that be a call you ought to take?

And if you’re too busy to take the call, don’t you think it might be worth your time to return the call sometime within the next four or five hours?

Yeah, me too.

(sigh)

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We left the Phoenix area yesterday around noon in search of woods - more specifically, the woods surrounding the summer camp to which we may be sending our son in July. One of the oft-unheralded features of Phoenix and Arizona is the incredible change in topography and vegetation that takes place in a relatively short amount of time.

Less than an hour outside Phoenix you start to wind through the mountains as you rise a couple of thousand feet in elevation.

As you get closer to the top of the climb, the many mesas between Phoenix and northern Arizona begin to become visible. (Mesa, incidentally, is so named because it’s elevated from the land to the north. Drive north on Country Club Drive from Loop 202 and you’ll see what I mean.)

At the rest area formerly known as Sunset Point (closed for renovations, of course), you plateau and the landscape ahead flattens out …

Off on Route 69 west through Prescott Valley and then into Prescott, which looks mostly non-descript until you reach the corner of Montezuma and Gurley - site of the Yavapai County Courthouse and historic Whiskey Row.

Whiskey Row’s been in existence since the mid- to late-1800s but the buildings you see today are closer to 90 years old, as fire wiped away the originals.

A few miles later, down a winding road and a dirt path, you reach the camp in the woods. And it’s here you discover the creek that normally isn’t … all of the counselors maintained they never had seen water in this dry creek bed until yesterday.

Total time of the trip, including dinner at The Palace Saloon (where the Earp brothers and Doc Holiday played poker 130 years ago) … six hours door-to-door.

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This isn’t to say north Scottsdale isn’t a beautiful area. My Canadian buyers inevitably ask about Scottsdale first, even though I’ve not seen a great many Canadian buyers actually purchasing there.

Since it’s the first area most out-of-town buyers inquire about, primarily because they’ve heard about it from friends and on television, a little enlightenment on the area’s realities is in order:

1. Scottsdale is expensive. From the real estate, which is among the priciest in the Phoenix real estate market, to the local gas pumps where fuel is a dime or more higher per gallon than elsewhere, Scottsdale will separate you from your wallet.
2. Mountains are mountains, except Scottsdale’s are pricier. Views of the McDowell Mountains are great, I do admit. Living in the foothills also is enjoyable. But for a couple of hundred thousand less, I can show you incredible views of the Hedgpeth Hills … or even get you living in the foothills of them … in Arrowhead Ranch.
3. Scottsdale is plastic. This applies mostly to the surgery performed, but I digress.
4. All the hot spots are filled with 22-year-olds, incredibly loud music and amazingly overpriced drinks. (See #3 for further reference.)
5. Golf is everywhere in the Valley and we also have freeways. No need to live next to the TPC Scottsdale to play a round there, assuming you don’t opt instead for another of the dozen or more high-quality courses around.
6. Traffic is a bear. That’s true in many places but Scottsdale has exactly one freeway - Loop 101 - that runs through it. The next closest is miles away.
7. Photo-radar on Loop 101.
8. Not all of Scottsdale is alike. South Scottsdale’s significantly older than the northern portion, yet that’s where the prices are lower - attracting the eyes of buyers who dream of mountains and instead get basic city.

This list is somewhat light-hearted in nature but the overall message is not. If you want to live in Scottsdale, do it. Just know you’re paying a surcharge to do so, both in the cost of your home and in your everyday cost of living.

Scottsdale as a whole has not been immune to the market downturn. It is not an island onto itself, as much as the residents may believe it to be so. So feel free to take a look. But don’t lose sleep if you discover the price tag is too much to bear. There are alternatives across the Phoenix real estate market.

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I’ve been mulling a question I received last night from one of my Canadian buyers. And Murray, if you read this first, know I’m working on the answer as I go.

The question basically dealt with my thoughts on Gilbert or Queen Creek versus Glendale or Peoria. The basis was Glendale and Peoria are more of the heart of the city, while Gilbert and Queen Creek are “bedroom” communities.

Ask anyone who complains about driving to Glendale for a Cardinals or Coyotes game and I think they’ll disagree with the notion that Glendale/Peoria is in the heart of the Phoenix area. In my own mind I hold this area a bit apart from the rest of the Valley, but that’s the perspective that comes after living here most of the last 17 years.

Gilbert to my mind is much apart of the metro area than Glendale/Peoria, but that also comes from a distance of 40 miles. Gilbert seems to stretch forever, there’s the same traffic as you have here, the amenities are about the same.

Queen Creek’s the odd man out, as much of anything because it’s in Pinal County. The taxes are higher, Pinal County’s infrastructure is historically thinner and it’s a long ways to get to anything else in the Valley. But the prices are extremely low, and for those who don’t care about a commute it might be a viable option.

I’m not sure what my final answer’s going to be on this one. Can Glendale or Peoria or Gilbert really qualify as a bedroom community in a place like the Phoenix real estate market?

Something to continue mulling on today’s drive to Prescott …

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Termites happen here in Valley. Some areas are more prone to the little buggers than others, but virtually any home here in the Phoenix real estate market is going to be a candidate for a termite condo at some stage.

I have folks buying a home in Ventana Lakes, right on the water on the Peoria side of the community. Absolutely beautiful house. But there were termites once upon a time, which was disclosed. And as we discovered yesterday, there’s a yet-undiscovered termite tube in the master bedroom.

Is it an active tube? Hard to say. The room’s been painted and tube’s the same color as the paint so it appears it was there before the redecorating took place. A termite tube usually is the color of mud or dirt, the primary ingredients in the tube’s walls.

Fortunately for the seller, there was a termite warranty put in place when the previous treatment was done. And fortunately for the buyer, that warranty is going to last for the first 18 months that they own the home.

As I told the buyer, there’s definitely something to the creepiness factor but as Arizona goes, termites are some of the less creepy creatures that you’re going to run into. (I tend to vote scorpions at the top of the creepiness scale, but that’s just me.)

For all the real estate development here in Phoenix, we’re still in the middle of the desert. Bugs happen. Termites happen. If your house doesn’t have them, congratulations. But keep a weather eye open for the tubes as the years go by.

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