Buying a Home May Be Cheaper Than Renting One

If you’ve been renting a home, you’ve been paying too much. In Tucson, it’s actually cheaper to buy your own home than to rent one.

There are many great Tucson area homes for sale. Click here to perform a full home search, or if you're thinking of selling your home, click here for a FREE Home Price Evaluation so you know what buyers will pay for your home in today's market. You may also call us at 520-544-5555 for a FREE home buying or selling consultation to answer any of your real estate questions.

Today I want to talk to renters who are considering buying a home. In the past four years, rental rates have gone up at a dramatically higher rate than home values. Rental rates are skyrocketing right now, so we are going to talk you through a few statistics when it comes to renting vs. buying.

The median sale price last month in Tucson was $173,000. If you were to buy that house with 10% down, your monthly payment would be right around $900. If you were to rent that same house today, your payment would be around $1,360 per month.

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It’s a great time to take a serious look at becoming a homeowner.

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As you can see, you are paying a premium for renting. I strongly suggest that renters reach out to a real estate professional or a lending professional and have them explain the details to you. I’m sure you will find that buying is in your best interest.

I suggest you talk to someone soon. Interest rates are still at record lows but housing prices are starting to inch back up as the market recovers. It’s a great time to take a serious look at becoming a homeowner, no matter what your situation.

If you have any questions, give us a call or send us an email. We look forward to hearing from you soon.

How Residential Purchase Contracts Work in Arizona

The residential purchase contract has three contingencies in it to protect buyers and ensure they are buying a home without any surprises.

There are many great Tucson area homes for sale. Click here to perform a full home search, or if you're thinking of selling your home, click here for a FREE Home Price Evaluation so you know what buyers will pay for your home in today's market. You may also call us at 520-544-5555 for a FREE home buying or selling consultation to answer any of your real estate questions.

When you make an offer on a home in Arizona, you will present a home seller with our residential purchase contract. The primary point to that offer is what you are physically offering – the financial side of things. 

This includes your down payment, your earnest money, and your pre-approval if you’re buying with financing. We put all of this together and submit an offer so it’s taken seriously. The purchase contract contains three contingencies, which are in there to protect you as a buyer.

The first contingency is the inspection period, which gives you 10 days to order and complete any inspections on the home that you choose. We then send the inspection report to the seller with a list of items that we want them to repair. If they don’t respond in the way you want or you can’t come to an agreement, you are then free to cancel the contract. At the same time, we use a title company to make sure the home will be easily transferable if you choose to proceed.

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We have never lost a penny of our clients’ earnest money.

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If you and the seller come to an agreement on the repairs, it’s time to move on to the next contingency – the appraisal contingency. Your lender is going to order the appraisal for an appraiser to come up and inspect the property and confirm the property is worth what the offer is. This ensures you don’t overpay.

The final contingency is the loan contingency. Through the entire process, the lender is going to give the seller updates on how the loan is proceeding. If something were to happen in the middle of the transaction that resulted in you not being able to afford the home, you won’t be forced to buy the property. 

If you manage the transaction properly, your earnest money is never at risk. We have never lost a penny of clients’ earnest money in 16 years and we don’t plan on starting now.

If you have any questions for us or would like to take a look at a copy of our purchase contract, give us a call or send us an email. We look forward to hearing from you.

Tips for Buying New Construction and Vacant Lots

There are many great Tucson area homes for sale. Click here to perform a full home search, or if you're thinking of selling your home, click here for a FREE Home Price Evaluation so you know what buyers will pay for your home in today's market. You may also call us at 520-544-5555 for a FREE home buying or selling consultation to answer any of your real estate questions.

If you are considering building a new construction, custom home, there is something you should know.

Lending rules have changed quite a bit in the last four years. The industry has become very conservative about lending for land purchases. Just know that if you are going to buy a piece of land and build a house on it, you probably want to talk to a lender as early into the process as you can.

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Talk to a lender as early in the process as you can.

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We have lenders who specialize in new construction as well as land and construction packages. We can help guide you through that process.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to us. We would be happy to help you!

Why Mortgages Are Taking Longer to Go Through

There are many great Tucson area homes for sale. Click here to perform a full home search, or if you're thinking of selling your home, click here for a FREE Home Price Evaluation so you know what buyers will pay for your home in today's market. You may also call us at 520-544-5555 for a FREE home buying or selling consultation to answer any of your real estate questions.

Last October, the Dodd-Frank ruling finally went into effect and changed a lot of rules for mortgage lending. It doubled, maybe tripled the workload of lenders behind-the-scenes, so lately we’ve run into frequent delayed and extended closings.

Today I just wanted to alert everyone to this problem and remind them that, when you write an offer in this market, it's prudent to be pre-approved. You’ll want to get this up-front before you start looking so you can make an offer right away to get the process moving on quickly.

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Very few lenders have been able to do the standard 30-day close.

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Write your closing date out into the future, around 35-45 days. With the recent changes, very few lenders have been able to do the standard 30-day close with these new rules and regulations.

If you have any questions for me, please reach out and give me a call or send me an email. I would be happy to hear from you.

Why You Should Have an Agent With You Viewing New Construction

There are many great Tucson area homes for sale. Click here to perform a full home search, or if you're thinking of selling your home, click here for a FREE Home Price Evaluation so you know what buyers will pay for your home in today's market. You may also call us at 520-544-5555 for a FREE home buying or selling consultation to answer any of your real estate questions.

It’s been pretty quiet lately in Arizona regarding new construction. A lot of developers are starting to develop subdivisions and large tracts of properties in Tucson. I‘d like to take the opportunity to reach out to buyers and let you know that it doesn’t cost you anything to be represented in a new construction site. If you bring an agent along with you, that agent can represent you and your interests throughout the transaction at no cost to you.

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New construction contracts are different than resale contracts.

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It may not be obvious to everybody, but the person behind the counter you meet when you walk into the sales office is working for the builder and the developer. They’re not working for you. If you want somebody to look after your interests, you should recruit your real estate agent to go in with you and get you registered on your first visit so they can represent you through the whole ordeal. The new construction contract is also quite a bit different than the standard residential resale contract, so you’d be well-advised to have your agent review it and talk you through the nuances.

If you have any more questions, send me an email or give me a call. Make it a great day.

Are You Pre-Qualified in Tucson?

There are many great Tucson area homes for sale. Click here to perform a full home search, or if you're thinking of selling your home, click here for a FREE Home Price Evaluation so you know what buyers will pay for your home in today's market. You may also call us at 520-544-5555 for a FREE home buying or selling consultation to answer any of your real estate questions.

The inventory of available homes in Tucson is shrinking, and this is also occurring on a national level. However, what are you to do if you’re trying to buy a home? That’s what we’ll be discussing today.

One simple thing you can do is speak with a mortgage lender and get pre-qualified for a home loan. When you’re crafting offers to sellers, you need to stand out, and being pre-qualified is one way to push your offer to the top of the pile. In fact, most sellers will not even entertain an offer from a buyer who has not been pre-qualified.

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Sellers won’t even entertain offers from buyers who are not pre-qualified.

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Why let someone purchase your home if you are unsure that they can afford it? That’s what sellers are thinking when you submit an offer without a pre-approval or a pre-qualification. This is why you absolutely have to be approved to buy a home.

You will also need to hire a Realtor in order to craft a more attractive offer to a seller. We can also help you find homes that you might not have found otherwise. We work with other Realtors who have pocket homes that are unavailable to most of the public.

We can help you find your dream home - and we can help you purchase it for a fair price. Please don’t hesitate to contact us!

Transition From a Tucson Tenant to a Homeowner

There are many great Tucson area homes for sale. Click here to perform a full home search, or if you're thinking of selling your home,click here for a FREE Home Price Evaluation so you know what buyers will pay for your home in today's market. You may also call us at 520-544-5555 for a FREE home buying or selling consultation to answer any of your real estate questions.

When you rent a home, you’re essentially paying off your landlord’s mortgage. You could be taking that same monthly payment and instead, be using it towards a home of your own. Now is an opportune time to seriously consider making a move. Here’s why.

Rental rates are rising faster than single-family homes are appreciating. You’re in a situation where rent is increasing and will only continue to do so. You can dodge high payments by locking in a 30-year fixed mortgage.

Interest rates are at record lows. That’s why timing is so crucial. Don’t wait, because these rates are expected to increase. Don’t miss out on locking in a low rate.

Due to the economic crunch we experienced in the last decade, the lending industry tightened up standards. However, since our economy is quickly recovering, standards are becoming loose again. This is yet another advantage to acting now. You can get into a home with as little as 3% down!

Now is a great time if you’ve been seriously considering turning into a homeowner, renters! Reach out to a real estate professional today. If you’re thinking about buying, let’s talk through that idea. Give me a call or send me an email today!

How You Can Be an Informed Buyer

There are many great Tucson area homes for sale. Click here to perform a full home search, or if you're thinking of selling your home, click here for a FREE Home Price Evaluation so you know what buyers will pay for your home in today's market. You may also call us at 520-544-5555 for a FREE home buying or selling consultation to answer any of your real estate questions.

There are a few things almost all buyers resist: coming to meet us in our office so we can figure out the specifics of the property they are looking for, and meeting with a lender at the front end of the process instead of waiting. Today, we explain why doing both of those things are actually beneficial for all parties involved.

Sitting down with a real estate professional will save you time and frustration in the long run. Why? For one, you can save a lot of time by hashing out exactly what you require a home to have and what needs you want met. An agent will show you only homes that satisfy the requirement you laid out, so you don't have to waste time seeing homes you have no interest in buying. The initial interview is crucial if you want to save time and stress.

Talking with a lender is also a crucial part of the process that buyers would rather put off. However, we have had buyers who loved a home they saw, went to get approved by a lender, but were unable to purchase the home once they were approved because someone else had already gotten to it. When you have approval up front, we can act quickly to get the home you like under contract and negotiate a very good deal for you.

As you can see, sitting down with an agent and seeing a lender before jumping headfirst into the buying process can be incredibly beneficial. If you have any further questions on this or any other real estate topic, don't hesitate to reach out to us. We're proud to be your number one source for real estate information here in Southern Arizona!

Are You Making Your Offer Impossible to Accept?

There are many great Tucson area homes for sale. Click here to perform a full home search, or if you're thinking of selling your home, click here for a FREE Home Price Evaluation so you know what buyers will pay for your home in today's market. You may also call us at 520-544-5555 for a FREE home buying or selling consultation to answer any of your real estate questions.

As the market begins to normalize and more people come out to look for homes, you may find yourself competing with several buyers for a single home. If you want your offer to be accepted, take note of the following tips:

• Get Pre-approved: You need to get a pre-approval letter from a lender before you begin your home search. You need to have it ready when you submit your initial offer, or the seller won't take you seriously. We counsel all of our clients to get it done up front, so we can present an offer in a strong manner. 
• Send copy of proof of funds and earnest money checks: Sending these documents will give the seller confidence in you. Many buyers don't go out of their way like this to show how serious they are, so this gesture will make your offer the most attractive. 

These are just a few tips that can be done a day or two before you prepare to make an offer, but they could be the difference between getting your offer accepted and missing out on your dream home. If you would like more buying tips, or have any questions about real estate, give us a call. We would be pleased to assist you in any way possible!