The Housechick Blog

Some of you will remember back in 2006 when voters approved a sales tax that formed the Regional Transportation Authority.  One of their first projects is the widening of Grant Road.

I found a website that will help us understand the schedule, potential impact area, as well as keep track of current status, at www.GrantRoad.info. 

The project in a nutshell:

There’s a five mile section of Grant Road, between Oracle Road and Swan Avenue, in Central Tucson.  The road is currently 2 lanes in either direction, and will be widened to a road that is 3 lanes in either direction.  After talking to a guy on the citizen task force for the project, I’m told there will be wide bike lanes and sidewalks as well.

The thing is, there’s a lot of businesses and homes along Grant Road, and no one is sure yet how the road will be aligned - who will be loosing some property through eminent domain.  That’s one of the big controversies of the project.  The RTA is anticipating having an alignment plan in late 2008 or early 2009.

They’re also considering some different traffic flow patterns, where at the major intersections, vehicles turning left will have to go past the intersection, pull a u-turn, head back, and make a right turn.

Construction is scheduled to begin in 2013, so there’s a while yet until the project will start to impact motorists.  The impact area for this project technically stretches a quarter mile North and South of Grant Road, so if you live in or around the area, you might want to keep an eye on the project.

You can join the mailing list from the RTA Grant Road improvement plan website to stay current on the widening plans.

I’ve been having more discussions than usual with my clients about when to order the appraisal.

Usually, once the lender orders the appraisal, you need to pay for it, somewhere around $350-$400.  That’s only fair, if the person does the work, they get paid for it, whether or not you buy the house.

A couple years ago, we wouldn’t order an appraisal until we were through inspections and repair negotiations - no sense in incurring the appraisal charge until we know if the house is in good shape and we know you’re going to buy it.

In today’s real estate market, however, sometimes appraisals are coming back marked as a declining market, which means you may have to pony up additional down payment.  This is something we might want to know sooner rather than later.

More often than not, my clients are deciding to have the appraisal done during their inspection period.  Yes, the incur that cost without having gone through repair negotiations, but at least they know sooner if the appraisal will come in fine or if it will cause problems.

Just like the cost of inspections, it’s what you pay as a home buyer, basically as risk mitigation.  Better to pay a bit up front and find out for sure if the property is sound and that you can get appropriate financing, then not pay those things and end up with a lemon.

I believe I really infuriated a lender yesterday.  It wasn’t my fault, really.  If my clients bring me a Good Faith Estimate where the lender charges are twice what is typical with an unimpressive interest rate, you’ve got to expect me to challenge that.  And when I send my clients go back to the first lender with a reasonable Good Faith Estimate from one of my lenders, and the first lender refuses to match it and insinuates my lender is going to add hidden fees at the closing table, starts using scare tactics, causing my clients leave the first lender to go to the second one… well, they didn’t like that much.

Too bad.  My duties are first to my client, not to their lender.  Don’t be charging my buyers crazy extra fees.

I’ve got a buyer thinking about making an offer on a short sale property.

Remember, a short sale is where the owner owes more on the house than they can sell it for.  They’re most often incredibly long, frustrating sales, and often, the sales never actually complete.  You have to get the lender to agree to take less than what is owed, and, well, I don’t want to go into a huge short sale discussion now, but know that they’re often ugly transactions. 

On the plus side, if the listing agent deals often with short sales, knows that they’re doing, then you’ve got a better chance of actually purchasing a short sale home.  That’s a better chance, but still no guarantee.

Today, there are 665 single family homes in the Greater Tucson area marked as a short sales in the Tucson MLS.  In the last 6 months, 139 disclosed short sales have actually sold.

Which makes the chances of a short sale closing roughly one in five. 

Last time I ran that calculation back in March, it was one in ten. 

Progress? 

If you read here regularly, you’ll remember I had Lasik done last week.  Given the process involves lasers and my eyeballs, I was more than a little nervous about the whole deal.  I knew I didn’t want to go to one of those huge cattle-call laser eye surgery places, I knew I wanted some personal attention, and I wanted a whole lot of warm-fuzzies from the doctor and the staff before I selected who I would go with.

Just because I was scared of the procedure didn’t mean I wasn’t committed to it.  I just wanted the right person to help me through it all.

Skip to a few days ago when an email arrived in my inbox from a woman looking to buy her first home.  She had a whole list of questions for me, and after a couple of exchanges, she let me know that she firmly believes that buying a home is absolutely the scariest thing she’s ever done.

And when I read that, it made me pause for a bit.  Man, I remember being a first-timer.  I hadn’t a clue what was going on half the time, I didn’t understand the loan stuff, overall, it wasn’t a fabulous experience.

But how awesome is it that this person is taking the time to find an agent that will work in her style, and give her the confidence and knowledge she needs to make good decisions?

So many buyers just end up with some random agent from an open house, or by calling a number on a for sale sign.  I know I did.  More than once.  I wish I had put the same kind of effort into picking my real estate agent that I did picking my Lasik surgeon.

And that first time buyer?  We’re meeting this weekend.  I’ve got a whole bag of warm-fuzzies and lots of questions and answers.  We’re gonna get her through this, making confident, well-informed decisions, with a smile on her face when it comes time to pick up the keys to her new home.

As part of buying a home, you’ll get a big packet of stuff from the Title company, with a preliminary title report. It’s very important that you read through the stuff the title company sends you, as the title report can uncover some interesting things. Such as….

See those words circled in blue?  “Well agreement.”  Ah, what well?  We have no information about a well on the property.

Also this: see that blue arrow pointing to that long rectangle?  That long rectangle is a utility easement, 10 foot wide, where the electric company has the right of way to that strip of land on the parcel, a strip where the owner can’t put a building or a fence or otherwise obstruct the electric company’s access.

Now, I’m no surveyor, but I’m going to give you one guess as to where it appears house is, relative to that easement…