20264 N. 70th Drive - Glendale Arizona
Sierra Verde at Arrowhead Ranch - $275,000

Let’s talk about the things that matter most - highly performing schools, convenience, quiet neighborhoods, quality.

Let’s talk about an area close but not to close to all the retail options someone could want, a handful of blocks from a local elementary school in an acclaimed school district and with easy access to the Loop 101 that will take you almost anywhere you want to go in the Phoenix metropolitan area.

Let’s talk about those warm summer days when your body longs for a soothing dip into a sparkling swimming pool. And let’s say you can answer your body’s yearnings just out your own back door. Maybe you’d rather take a walk by a lake and feed some ducks. Or we could talk about golf on a championship-length golf course that winds it way through most of the area.

Talk about all of these things, and you’re talking about this 3-bedroom, 2-bath beauty in Fulton Homes’ Sierra Verde section of Arrowhead Ranch:

• Sparkling, fenced and private play pool
• A few short blocks from Sierra Verde Elementary School
• Minutes from Arrowhead Towne Center
• Easy access to Loop 101

From the bright open kitchen with a convenient island/breakfast bar and pantry to the spacious family room with built-in media niche to the large living room with included dining area to the well-sized bedrooms, the master suite with a separate backyard exit and the indoor laundry, this move-in ready home speaks of convenience and quality within easy reach of the amenities that matter most to you.

Best of all, especially here in the Phoenix real estate market, this home is neither bank owned nor a short sale. It’s a well-priced house owned by an actual owner who can provide you with actual answers. No waiting days to hear from a bank’s asset manager, no nights spent wondering whether the home you love really can become yours.

To schedule your personal viewing of this home, please call me at 602-502-9693 or e-mail me at Jonathan@DaltonsAZHomes.com.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ABOUT 20264 N. 70th Drive:

Floor plans (not available)

Zestimate from Zillow

Sierra Verde School - Deer Valley School District

Mountain Ridge High School - Deer Valley School District

Popularity: 11% [?]

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Of all the little side debates that take place among authors of real estate blogs, one of my favorites is whether a real estate blogger should write a post about a new listing.

Dustin Luther, one of the most-respected names in the real estate blogging world, has said for some time that real estate agents shouldn’t feature their listings in blog posts lest the overall flow of the blog’s conversation be interrupted.

I disagree in as much as I see “don’t blog listings” as a rule and rules not only are meant to be broken but should be broken, at least in limited doses.

The anti-post group offer an exception to their rule - if there’s a particularly gripping story about a given property, then perhaps a post is appropriate. I argue that all of my listings have a story - my sellers want to sell, I’ve been hired to market the home, and the search engines absolutely love fresh content whether it’s a single post or a static page.

And so tomorrow, when my new listing in Arrowhead Ranch reaches the market, you’ll see a post forthcoming - both for the search engines and to call attention to the new sub-page under the Featured Homes umbrella.

Speaking of “featured homes,” that’s another no-no. And this one I’ll attack by changing the name to something really creative, like “My Listings.” Again, I’ll take the aesthetic risk in the name of doing what it is I’ve been hired to do - marketing and selling a home.

I’m not trying to fool anyone with this blog. If you’re reading this and are unclear that my job is to help buyers and sellers acquire real estate, I’m failing miserably.

There’s a running joke among some of us about one of our brethren. You always can tell when he takes a new listing because there are 37 posts that follow, discussing the signs and the video and the photographs and the proper color of the grass and all the rest. Basically, the home’s being marketed without the home being marketed.

Maybe that’s a better way of doing it (unless everyone figures out that such a flurry denotes those occasional moments when a new listing has been acquired.) For me, I’ll stick to the one post and the permanent page. It’s worked well so far. I see no reason to change.

Technorati Tags: Phoenix real estate, real estate marketing

Popularity: 10% [?]

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Reading the newspapers and listening to the television it may not seem readily apparent that homes are still selling. But they are.  It sometimes may seem you are the only party interested in a property. You’re probably not.

Another of my buyers had a house bought out from under them; they’re the fourth in the past month to six weeks to have this happen. The builder dropped their prices on Friday. By Monday, the house they were focusing on already had been sold.

If you’re looking to buy real estate here in Phoenix, you need to know there are others who are looking as well. When there’s a reduction in price the natural assumption is there will be more. And there just may be. But there also may be buyers waiting for the price point reached, not the next one in line.

Technorati Tags: Phoenix real estate, Phoenix new builds

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Some builders are allowing their new construction to be purchased by investors. Some are prohibiting investors but allowing “second home” buyers. Some only will see to someone using a home as their primary residence.

Incentives vary not only from builder to builder but between communities under construction by the same builder. Cabrillo Point, Pulte’s 69-unit development to the southeast of Arrowhead Mall, opened this weekend. The incentives, compared not only to other Pulte communities but to other builders, are minimal at best - $10,000 toward the closing costs with a loan through Pulte Mortgage, an additional $10,000 toward options and half off the lot premium (all but three of the available lots have premiums.)

Contrast that to other Pulte communities where buyers of new homes - not specs, but to-be-built from dirt homes - received $50,000 plus the $10,000 from Pulte Mortgage.

How does someone a thousand or so miles away in Canada keep track of what’s what and where they’re actually able to buy? Help’s an e-mail away.

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Popularity: 8% [?]

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Wouldn’t pictures go better with this post, Jonathan

Of course they would, my friends, but I don’t want to be accused of advertising (or anti-advertising) anyone’s listing. Oh, and I didn’t have my camera and this is a post in lieu of Monday morning writer’s block.

On Saturday, aside from the new build communities in Surprise Farm, my client and I also toured three bank-owned homes in Litchfield Greens. One of my mantras has been to wait for a short sale to revert to the bank because that’s when the banks are motivated - list prices are competitive (and legitimate), response times are shorter, etc.

But there’s also a risk to that strategy - the risk that the soon-to-be former owners take out their wrath on the home itself.

We visited three homes - two priced around $270,000 and the third around $250,000. All were the same floor plan, just over 3,500 square feet.

With one house, it was clear that the owners had lived hard over their two years in the property - carpets were stained, there were some dings in the paint on the walls, counters were scratched.  With the next, the full wrath was on display - a microwave torn roughly from the wall leaving gaping holes, a missing stove, faucets, apparent water damage down one wall, multiple holes on the wall - all as if it were the house’s fault.

The third house was the most shocking of all - fresh paint, new carpet, appliances intact and apparently in working condition - in short, move-in ready with only some backyard landscaping needed.

And the biggest shock? It was the lowest price of the three.

I’m often asked if bank owned homes are a good deal. Like most everything else, the answer really is: it depends. In the case of this third house, absolutely. In the case of the others, where the bank hasn’t placed a realistic list price on the home and thousands of dollars of work is needed just to make it inhabitable, not so much.

I’d still lean toward new construction, specifically a spec home, if it’s available in the same area in most cases … but that also is not an absolute.

Technorati Tags: Phoenix real estate, bank owned homes

Popularity: 7% [?]

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