The Housechick Blog

I work with a lot of home buyers who are relocating to Tucson, and that have purchased homes in other states.  In many of those other states, I’m told, it is customary to have a survey when you buy a house.

Not so in Tucson.

You might get a survey if you buy a parcel of land, certainly, but not usually for residential properties.

This has created some interesting situations in terms of our real estate transactions.

For example, in many older areas of town, people tend to put up fences or sheds where the old fence used to be.  Which may or may not have been within the property line.  I’m willing to bet that there are subdivisions where every single home has a fence or other structure that encroaches on the next persons lot.  And that person’s lot has something that encroaches on the next person’s lot, and so on down the line of homes.

So then one person comes along and gets a survey, and discovers their neighbor’s garage sticks out one foot over the property line.  So then person A goes to neighbor B, and then neighbor B goes and gets a survey and finds out that neighbor C’s shed sticks out 16″ over his property line.  You see where I’m going with this.

There’s something called a prescriptive easement, where - within certain rules - someone else can claim the right to use part of your property, just by using that part openly long enough.  Like, say, having a garage partially over the property line for the last 10 years.  Whether you knew it was or not.

But if you really want to know where your property line is for sure, you better get that survey.  Just know that it isn’t typical around here, and it could take a couple of weeks to have it done, so we’ll need to plan for that.

Photo via Flickr, courtesy of AndyMc73

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? 

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…

I’ve been thinking a lot about trade-offs lately. 

Whether you’re buying or selling a home, there’s always a trade-off.  Price for location.  Condition for price.  Yard size for age of home.  Condition for age of home.  The list goes on.

I think it’s important to make smart trade-off decisions.  If you’re a geek like me, you could make a weighted scoring function to help you decide.  But if that doesn’t float your boat, you could always just sit down and make a list of pros and cons. 

I think learning how to make those trade-off decisions is the hardest part about selecting a home to purchase.  Your picture of the ideal home may change over time as you see what kind of homes are available for your money in Tucson.

It’s a skill that takes a bit of time to develop, and one that I can help you with, but ultimately the decision is always yours.

I’ve got a sweet first-time buyer couple going through this right now.  Not only are they making a decision which home to purchase, but it’s one of their first big decisions as a couple.  Will it be the one with the big garage and back yard with no HOA and the small bedrooms and new paint needed?  Or the move-in ready one with the smaller yard and garage and the HOA?

I had one of my properties re-roofed last week, and the experience really drove home two points for me:

1. If you’re selling a home and it needs a new roof - just put it on now while you have time to gather and compare bids.  It’s expensive, yes, but it takes a potential huge objection away from the Buyer as a negotiating tool.

2. If you’re buying a home and the roof needs to be replaced, make sure the Seller is going to be on the hook for any extra costs that might be incurred when the roof is replaced, for any extra damage that the roofers might find.  Many times, you can’t get on a roofer’s schedule fast enough to have it all done before close of escrow.

My roofer found a layer of insulation we didn’t know existed and huge patches of dry rot and dry wood termites that we had to correct - which came close to doubling the cost to replace the stupid thing.  Can you imagine if you had just bought a house and the roofer bill came in at twice the estimate due to the unexpected damage found underneath old layers of roof?  You better make sure that the Seller is going to pay that bill.

Photo via Flickr, courtesy of marielito

I had a different post planned for today, but thought this would be more interesting.

I’m pricing a home where there have been no solds in the neighborhood for the past 6 months, so I had to go back a little further than I might normally, so that I can extrapolate the current potential market value. 

And I must say, normally sold prices don’t line up so clearly over time.  Guess which two solds are distressed sales?

And granted, this chart doesn’t take into account the condition of the properties - but I’ll throw in that they range from original (from the late 1970’s) to partially updated and the one I’m pricing is completely remodeled.  Of the two active listings, the higher priced one is a partial remodel with 4 poor pictures, while the other one has no interior pictures and a single line description - it’s a relative unknown at this point.

I’ve decided what I think is an acceptable range of values for the property - what say you?

How much is this home worth in today’s market?

Home Buyers always ask me: how much should I offer?

I like to ask them how they prefer to negotiate.  Are you a low-baller?  Or more of a "this is my firm and best offer" sort of person? 

Personally, I like to craft offers that I think are just below their threshold of acceptance, to put something in front of a home seller that is just low enough that they aren’t sure they want to take it, but just high enough that it’s tempting for them to just accept it and have it done with, if you know what I mean.

But - as a person buying a home - you need to negotiate in a style that is most comfortable to you, so that regardless of the outcome of the negotiations, you’re satisfied with the process.  As an agent who’s worked with many buyers and sellers, I’ve seen all kinds of tactics and strategies.  And at one point or another, those strategies have all worked and they’ve all failed.  Everyone’s different.

So - what’s your negotiating style?

No SPDS No CLUE.

Say what?

If you’re looking to buy a home in the Tucson area, I bet you’ve seen that more than once in the listing descriptions.  So what does it mean?

SPDS = Seller Property Disclosure Statement.  This is six pages of questions that a seller answers about their property.

CLUE = Comprehensive Loss Underwriting Exchange report.  A fancy name for an insurance loss history report.

Both are required to be delivered to a Buyer during the home inspection period per our standard Tucson real estate purchase contract.  But with the foreclosures and whatnot, there’s many a bank or seller that will not fill out and deliver those two documents.

So what do you do as the buyer? 

Well, for starters, I’ll give you a blank copy of the SPDS, so you know what a seller *would* have answered.  Maybe it will make you ask questions of the house you may not have thought of, or will prompt you to get that extra inspection NOW that you will have really wished you would’ve had when 2 weeks after close that one thing you didn’t look at or consider breaks/dissolves/lays eggs in your closet/is sucked into a gigantic earth crevasse in your back yard.