Nick Bastian - Tempe, AZ Real Estate Agent

I was really glad to have been invited to the ribbon cutting to celebrate Fidelity National Title's relocation to the Hayden Ferry Lakeside building. This is one of the most impressive spaces around and they occupy the entire 11th floor of this gorgeous building. As you cross the Mill Avenue Bridge or pass by on the freeway on the North side of the lake, you can't help but look at these beautiful buildings. Basically, you have the commercial space closer to the bridge and the residential towers of Bridgeview and Edgewater directly to the East. Talk about a cool lifestyle! Imagine working in one of these buildings and living in the residential towers? This is some of Arizona's finest urban design and is located just north of the Mill Avenue District's light rail stop at 3rd St/Mill Avenue.

Mayor Hallman spoke and truly seemed to love having Fidelity move their corporate offices from the 24th St and Camelback location. I have talked to several Fidelity employees and they seem to love the new building and the location. I spoke with marketing representative Jennifer Weller about how fun it will be to take the light rail to a baseball or basketball game while not having to fight traffic or find parking.

Overall, it was a great night with some nice people, some really good food and a lot of celebrating.

The upcoming Light Rail system in Arizona will bring some very significant changes to the areas along the line. I have been following these areas very closely for the past two years and am looking forward to the opening of light rail this December. One of the more popular Tempe areas near the new light rail system is the Mill Avenue District. With a light rail stop at Mill Avenue / 3rd Street, the homes near by will be easily accessible to downtown Phoenix for employment and entertainment reasons. I am enclosing a sample of some of the "affordable" homes in that area priced between $200k - $500k. Obviously, this is just a sample of the homes in the area and we would be glad to send you information on other areas and price ranges. You can always visit www.NickBastian.com to use our FREE MLS search tools. For more light rail information, check out the RailLife.com blog at www.RailLife.com/blog. Just click on the map below for more info on the individual homes.

update: looks like the map function isn't always working correctly on this post. If that is the case, try refreshing your browser or viewing the Homes Near Light Rail post on the Rail Life blog.

Nick Bastian - Realty Executives, Tempe AZ.

After 16 years in the real estate business, I feel more proud of my job and enthusiastic of my future than ever before. Recently, after a long process, I made a decision to join what I feel is the best fit of a real estate company (for me) in Arizona. That firm is Realty Executives. Over the past couple of months, I have weighed my options very carefully and have met formally and informally with several brokers, large and small. My desire to stay in Tempe where I live and where I enjoy being a part of the community played a large part in my decision. While my normal business practices will not change much, I believe the corporate structure, the ability to continue to "run my own business" along with the convenience of many valley wide offices will help me to serve my clients even better in the future. Realty Executives was the clear leader in allowing me to do everything I want with my business. My phone number, email address and web site address will all remain the same and this will be a VERY smooth transition for myself and for my clients.

I have not been blogging here on Active Rain much recently as I have been planning our next move, implementing new systems and utilizing new technologies that will be a benefit to myself and to my clients. The real estate market has changed and I have decided to embrace change while growing my business. Thanks for being a part of it.

Nick Bastian - Realty Executives, Tempe AZ.

The new AZ light rail system opening in December looks pretty easy to use. Much of the 20 mile route contains 2 sets of tracks where the cars will pass each other. At each station, you simply board a train heading in your desired direction. For instance, most stations are built in the middle of the street. If you are in Tempe and want to ride to downtown Phoenix for work or for a sporting event, it is a pretty short trip and you have several options. Let's use boarding a train at one of the four Apache Boulevard stations as an example. You will enter the station and the west bound train will pick you up on the north side of the station while the east bound trains allow passengers to board at the south side of the station. 

Now, let's use a baseball game as an example: I have talked to a ton of sports fans that are looking forward to taking light rail to a Suns game or to see the Diamodbacks play at Chase. There is a stop at 3rd St/Jefferson near Chase Field but most people probably don't yet realize that this is an east bound train. Not to worry, you just need to know your way around. If coming from Tempe, you will NOT arrive right outside of the ballpark at 3rd/Jefferson. You will want to exit the stop at 3rd St/Washington  and walk about a block and a half to the stadium. By clicking on this pic of the 3rd St/Washington station, you might get a better idea of what I am talking about. However, when the game is over, you simply board the station at 3rd St/Jefferson (right outside the stadium) and head back to Tempe. Light rail will definitely be a benefit to the businesses close to the stadiums. To help you navigate and better understand these areas, our friends at RailLife.com have a light rail map that allows you to see the location of the stations and to zoom in/out to see views of the areas and stops. This map is a work in progress and they will be "tweaking it" for a while to make it even more user friendly.

For anyone that LOVES Tempe as much as we do and for people that might want to see what types of housing is available (visit our FREE MLS search) along or near the light rail corridor, "Just Call Nick!" and we can give you the scoop on these dynamic and ever changing neighborhoods.

You can also click the box below to see homes for sale near the Mill Avenue district priced from $200k - $500k. Of course, we can create any custom search you would like... Just let us know! Nick Bastian - Realty Executives, Tempe AZ.