Searching for Lofts in Scottsdale, Phoenix or Tempe?
If so, we happen to have a few ways to help.
Loft-specific searches for each of the three cities now are live on our new site, Scottsdale Luxury Lofts and Condos.com. Simply click on the city at the top of the site and you’ll be taken to a page containing a map-based search that will look an awful lot like this:
But honestly, that’s not the best feature of the site. As with the Phoenix real estate search on this site, search results on the Scottsdale Luxury Lofts site are available via RSS feed.
(Wait, don’t answer yet … there’s more!)
There also are RSS feeds available for most of the individual lofts and luxury condo complexes in all three cities. Links will be available to them on the site within the next couple of days, but for the time being you can drop me a line and I’ll send over the link.
The point, as always, is to simplify your search for your next property however we can.
This question came from Trulia Voices today, but it’s one that I’ve been asked many times in the past:
“How much less than the list price should I offer on new construction?”
The answer, if you want the house, is zero. Because builders don’t negotiate on list price. Rather, they negotiate with the incentives and/or upgrades that they offer. List price is list price but that doesn’t mean that’s the price you have to pay.
There are several items that often can become negotiable if a builder is motivated to sell a home - lot premiums, upgraded packages, price incentives, etc. This is especially true if you’re looking at an inventory or “spec” home - a completed or nearly-completed home that the builder is holding in its inventory.
Builders’ agents generally are upfront with the incentives currently being offered at any particular point in time. That doesn’t mean that’s all that may be available, though. One of the keys is knowledge of the overall market - incentives that have been offered by the same builder elsewhere, incentives being offered by other builders in the same area, etc.
That knowledge comes with experience, which is one of the several reasons I recommend bringing an agent with you on the first visit to the models. (If you visit the models without an agent on your first trip, you’ve almost certainly lost the right to have personal representation in the transaction and instead will be dealing with an agent who’s first concern is the builders’ best interest.)
Another key is a lack of emotion … keeping a poker face. If a builder’s agent knows you really want the house, they’re less likely to pull out all the stops to sell you the home. If they know you’re willing to walk away, however, that’s a different story. And again, an agent can help here as they can be the unemotional force that’s often needed to help gain the best deal possible.
Buying new construction isn’t like buying resale from an unrepresented seller. You’re often dealing with a builders’ agent with considerable negotiating experience. Having that experience yourself will help but even that will only get you so far if you’re asking the wrong questions from the start.
As Vicki Moore in San Mateo explained the concept of fog to me yesterday, she asked me what exactly the “monsoon” might be.
Arizona’s monsoon season doesn’t compare to the monsoons of Southeast Asia, but for the middle of the desert it’s often an impressive sight. For those who are interested in the technical details, monsoon season begins when the average daily dewpoint reaches 55 degrees.
Throughout July and August (and often a week or two past Labor Day), it’s not uncommon to see thunderheads building to the west, north or south of the Valley. Not all of these storms make it into town. Others do but create nothing but a dust storm … gusting winds kicking up dust from the remaining desert and sending it into town.
(Your average dust storm isn’t much to worry about … in the past I’ve played golf during them, though I don’t necessarily advise it.)
When the thunderstorms hit, though, it’s sometimes a different story. I often say we don’t have real weather in Phoenix but we do - it just comes in isolated, unpredictable bursts for two months out of the year. (Still considerably better than our Gulf Coast friends who are being forced from their homes by yet another hurricane.)
Two nights ago the storms caused some damage in Tempe and Phoenix, mostly due to unusually high winds. Among the casualties was Arizona State’s brand new $8 million football practice bubble.
(photo courtesy of the Arizona Republic)
Last night the storms rolled through again, laying waste to the long-held axiom that the monsoon never hits the same area two nights in a row. The video’s a bit dark (it was 11 p.m. after all) but I think it still works.
As I said, our monsoon doesn’t hold a candle to hurricanes, tornadoes, flooding, ice storms, sleet, blizzards or even fog. (Weather god Jim “Screw the hurricane, I’m standing RIGHT HERE!” Cantore never has done a live remote from the corner of 67th Avenue and Bell.) But it does provide for a little evening drama for a couple of months out of the year.
And so it begins anew tonight at 7 p.m. at Sun Devil Stadium - another year of Arizona State football kicks off with the season opener against Northern Arizona University.
Another year sitting in section 22 next to my parents (though I reduced my ticket allotment from 4 to 2 in realization my wife will never come to a game). Another year of reconnecting with fall friends who enter our lives each September (or August) and are there nearly every week until the season ends in December.
Another year of the Princess serving as the section’s official “high-five” girl thanks to her oversized Arizona State hand. And another year where the time will come where I have to make the drive to Tucson for the annual game against Arizona.
Speaking of which, I’m told the Wildcats are opening their season today as well … except in Tucson, the season opener is known as “46 days until basketball practice starts.”
A couple of years back, Arizona State University hired Lisa Love to be the new athletic director. Love had worked previously at USC and when she came here, the Sun Devils ended up with a schedule fairly heavy on daytime kickoffs. She said at the time she was a big fan of football in the sunlight.
Arizona State football always has been a nighttime affair for one main reason - it’s hotter than hell in full sun in September and into October, and the discomfort isn’t aided by the knowledge we’re sitting in the “House of Heat.” Daytime games (think kickoff at 12:30 or 1:30) only happened in the event of a national television broadcast.
Love reversed field and last year the marketing department jumped all over the chance to highlight post-sundown kickoffs as an ASU tradition.
If so, we happen to have a few ways to help.
