About Cochise County, AZ

If you really want to sell you home, it really needs to be ready to be sold. Therefore, I have put together a list, based on properties I have shown so far this week, to let you know when your home is NOT ready.

If you own three cars and two of them are broke down in the middle of your front yard...maybe your home is not ready to sell.

If to save money you decided to paint the exterior of your house yourself...but that was three years and two paint color changes ago and it still is not finished...maybe your home is not ready to sell.

Same thing with painting the interior of your home.

If your collection of dead animals and hunting trophies are proudly shown off on every single wall and table in your home...perhaps, just perhaps, your home is not ready to sell.

If your swimming pool is doubling as a fishing hole (no kidding...catfish and everything)...maybe your home is not ready to sell.

If your are saving money by converting those third and fourth bedrooms in your home into a storage facility...maybe your home is not ready for the market

Finally, if the rain gutter, various roof shingles and the privacy fence that were blown down during that windstorm...four years ago...are still in your backyard...maybe your home is not quite ready for the market.

Sellers, please, this is a difficult market for all of us. Especially those of us who make our livings in this industry. Please, please, do us all, and yourselves, a favor and make sure your property is ready to sell before trying to put it on the market. You will save yourselves, and all of us, a whole lot of grief. Thanks.

Yes, this is a picture of a frog. But, this is not just any frog...

this is the frog that "sold" a property this afternoon. I know, I know, it sounds "fishy"...but this little frog did, indeed "seal the deal." My buyers today came to look at property very tentatively, see, they thought ALL of southern Arizona is desert. The husband had mentioned on the phone that he has a job opportunity in the area and needed to reassure his wife that he was not bringing her out to the desert. She grew up not far from where they currently live in the south, so she is used to trees, a green landscape etc. He went on to mention that she is particularly fond of frogs, so if I knew of a property that had a pond that would be great.

Being fond of frogs myself, I already knew exactly what property would fit the bill. So, late this morning we met and went off on our quest. I did not show this property first as we would pass right by another one that could have been suitable. Alas, the pond on that property was almost dry and did not contain frogs...or anything else for that matter.

So, I told them about the property I thought they would really like as we drove onward. We drove down the driveway and stopped just before the house, where I knew there was a very large bird nest in one of the tall cottonwoods. The husband said "wow honey, this looks pretty good." She just shrugged. We went on to and through the house, and I quickly realized this lady was really more interested in the property itself than the house. So, out the back door we went to take a look around at some more of the property. She seemed duly unimpressed and I was starting to worry...after all, I had really talked this place up. Then it started to sprinkle...I really was starting to feel like this just was not going very well.

Just as I said "we should probably get out of the rain" she said "look, look, look...a frog" followed immediately by "this place is just paradise...not what I expected. I could live here." And just like that, this little frog sold the property.

I took this picture right after it had rained and just before the sun went down last evening. Since I've been out today taking listing pictures I had not had a chance to really look at it until now. It just came out so nice I just had to share it.

I've been on AR for a while now, and have really learned a lot. That was actually my primary reason for joining AR and I've already felt this venture was quite successful for me.

This morning at 5:23...yes that would be A.M. my cell phone rings. Since I run a farm in addition to working in real estate, I had already been up for some time. Still, my cell normally does not ring quite that early. The call was from a lovely sounding gentleman from the east coast who has apparently been reading my blog posts on AR. He has wanted to purchase land in Arizona for some time, but not knowing the "lay of the land" he has been doing research. He said my posts about my area is what made him decide he needed to make the trip out and see what this particular area is like and meet me.

After talking for a while I emailed him some property information and he has actually decided to make an offer on one property, contingent, of course, on his being able to "view and approve" prior to closing the deal. He has just called me back to say he has made plane reservations and will be here in 15 days!

I'm so excited I can hardly stand it...so I had to share this experience with all of you. Of couse, I've been reading others' posts about the clients they've gotten through AR, I just figured since I'm in a very rural area...well, it just wasn't very likely. Apparently I've been wrong.

So, thanks Active Rain!

Have a wonderful day everyone...thanks for reading!

Recently we had an "tour" of people from a distant land come through the area I live and work in. They were looking for "real estate bargains" and certainly were serious buyers. Lucky enough to have been selected to travel along with them, I got to know some of these investors and some of the cultural differences that exist between our lands.

One example was when a particular investor did find a property he especially liked...he wanted to pay for it right there, on the spot. The concept of first writing an offer, then waiting for a response etc. was just a difficult concept for him to understand. After all, the property's owner wants to sell, he wants to buy...let's get this show on the road! It took several minutes to get him to understand we actually had to write up the offer and several minutes more to grasp that we then had to submit the offer and wait for a response. I won't even go into how the concept of opening an escrow, inspections etc. went over.

Another investor was really confused by the entire concept of dealing with a real estate agent who did not own the property, they really thought they should be dealing directly with the seller. Yet another person thought a handshake was good enough to consumate a deal, no negotiating, no writing anything down and certainly no signatures involved. He wanted to pay cash and be done with things.

My whole point here is that every day people from all over the world are coming into the United States and looking at property. Not all of these people are sophisticated investors, even in their own countries. Most of them have never been to the US before. While my experience with this particular group was extremely enjoyable, some of the stories they told me about other states and even other areas of my state were really horrible by my standards. These people encountered some very rude people during their travels, some of them were even real estate professionals. How very sad.

Dealing with clients with customs drastically different from our own requires a level of patience and understanding and just plain courtesy that should really be second-nature to us as real estate professionals. I don't know about you, but I'm often part psychiatrist in my practice...people are often nervous, anxious and just plain scared to death over real estate transactions even when they are somewhat comfortable with the general businesses practices they encompass. Now, take that anxiety and multiply it by, oh I don't know, about 1000? That probably comes pretty close to how people from other cultures probably feel.

Right now, people from countries that have never really enabled individuals to amass enough money to invest anywhere are coming to the United States to invest some of that new-found wealth here. Instead of the obvious "I might get a sale out of this" shouldn't we be thinking "how can I make this person's visit to my country as welcoming and wonderful as possible?" Isn't real estate STILL about building relationships with people?

Hopefully these people will return home feeling that at least most of the people they encountered here were friendly, helpful and worth spending time with. I know that I feel that way about them.