Tips For Buying A Home in Arizona

Happy Wednesday!  So, as you guys know over the summer Mr. Hungry and I moved.  Yes, we picked the SUMMER to move in Arizona, and I'm so glad we did.  Depending on how long you've been reading, you may or may not realize this is the THIRD home we've bought in Arizona.  Yes, our friends and family think we are insane, but I swear they can't prove it.  Anyways, I won't get into ALL the reasons we moved so many times because I'm sure Mr. Hungry doesn't want every aspect of our lives spread across the internet.  However, since we have been through the home buying process in Arizona so many times I thought it might help to share some tips.  Of course, I am by no means a real estate agent or an expert so I'm sure you can find even better information out there.  I just wanted to share a little bit about what I've learned. For more recipe and health stuff check back tomorrow!

Timing Is Key

Fall/Winter

• This is the best time to sell your home, it is usually a seller's market.
• If you are buying a home you will enjoy a lot more selection at this time.
• Selling/buying a home will be more comfortable.  If you are selling a home you won't have to rush out into the heat when people come knocking on your door for a showing.  Likewise, if you are looking at homes you won't be trucking around in the heat all day.
• You will not be able to check the house for scorpions, see below.

Spring/Summer

• This is likely a buyers market, nobody wants to mess with AZ heat, so you will likely get a slight discount for doing so.
• This is likely a buyers market, so you might not make as much off of your house.
• You can detect scorpions in the late spring and throughout the summer, see below.

Avoiding Scorpions

A little backstory, our first house was on a reserve in Ahwatukee yet, we never saw any.  We saw Javelinas and coyotes on the regular, but never any scorpions.  Mr. Hungry sprayed general bug spray 1-2 times a month.  They were absolutely there, but we didn't have a problem with them.  Then we moved to Scorpion hell, okay, that's not true our house wasn't even that bad.  We would typically find 3-5 per year, but after I found one of those demons in my closet  I FREAKED out.  We were backlighting the bed every single night, I was scared to walk around barefoot, it was hell on wheels.  That led me to hit the house we were about to purchase with a blacklight and we literally found hundreds on the property.  We backed out and had to go into an apartment for 30 days but it was worth it because the lady in our new house lived her 25 years and said she has never seen one.  So, given that information here are my tips:

• Check the scorpion map (google Arizona scorpion map there are several), there are small pockets that randomly don't have any scorpions.  They aren't a guarantee, for example, the area I grew up in called Arcadia never had scorpions when I was growing up and isn't high on the scorpion map.  Nowadays I hear crazy scorpion hell stories from that area, so it isn't guaranteed.
• Buy your damn house in the summer (they hibernate in the winter) and a black light that mofo before you move in.  It doesn't mean you won't buy the house, it just means you will know what you are up against.
• Our friends, who are property valuers Brisbane experts, gave us the advice to look for red flags like overgrown unkept properties with excess leaves and large cricket populations.  This is what tipped us off to go look at that house we were going to buy, sure enough, there were so many it was unbelievable.
• Be careful of houses located along greenbelts, pecan groves, citrus orchards, etc....  (yep that house was also on greenbelt)

You can get rid of them if you have them, there are people who have done it.  Personally, I'd just rather spend the money that I could spend on getting rid of them on something more fun.  

Get A Great Realtor

For each house, we bought/sold we used a different realtor.  The first one we used, well let's just say we called her our "live and learn" experience.  The second one we used was a much better experience, but I didn't realize how much better it could have been.  This time we used a friend of Mr. Hungrys from High School, which initially I was nervous about but it ended up being an amazing experience.  He isn't paying me for this shout out or anything, I just wanted to get his name out there because the experience was so good.  What made it so good?

• He actually used social media to get the word out about selling our house.  We had tons of buyers and the house was rated a hot home on Redfin.
• Our house was on the market less than 24 hours before being under contract and appraised at the higher end thanks to his help!
• Mr. Hungry is extremely detailed oriented and Zach patiently went through every detail with him.
• Zach went scorpion hunting WITH us and 100% supported our decision to back out of the house when we found hundreds on the property.
• He was available literally 24/7 to answer questions and take us to a showing last minute.

In case you need a realtor here is contact info:  Zach Blauvelt reached at Zach@ZLBproperties.com

Those of you who have bought homes here or otherwise, what is your number one piece of advice????