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Southern California is Ablaze 2007-10-23 11:16:01 Being away on vacation definitely got me out of touch with the “real world” for a few days.  Monday, my first day back in the office, a colleague asked, “How about those fires in San Diego?”  I had no idea what he was talking about.  Do I feel out of touch now, or what? Already, hundreds of homes have burned down in southern California.  This trend appears to be continuing today.  With warm temperatures, high winds, and dry landscape conditions creating the perfect setting for a massive firestorm, the fires are anticipated to spread fast and strong for several days yet to come. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has declared a state of emergency in 7 counties.  President George Bush has called in for support, which will take a few days to arrive.  Here in Arizona we have already sent 12 fire trucks to help out, and we are scrambling to free up more that can be sent.  Somehow, only 1 person has been reported to be killed by the wildfires.  Though tragic ...

Decorating to Sell Your Phoenix Home (Staging): Part 2 2007-10-22 17:52:39 So you’ve listened to my advice from yesterday and your home is depersonalized and de-cluttered.  Is it really decorated to sell?  Probably not.  Here’s where we may need to spend a couple of dollars.  The first thing that we need to address is smell.  If a buyer walks in and thinks the home has a funny smell, they are rarely going to buy the home.  If there’s a bad smell, it will almost always be their first comment about a home.  If the source of the funny smell is your pet (or pets), then we need to seriously think about how we can find a temporary home for that pet during the listing period.  Seriously think about it.  Especially if your home has a lot of carpet.  Of course we need those carpets cleaned and deodorized, but I’ll go back to my first and most important point:  Pets do not do anything to sell the home.  If there’s a way they can be removed, they absolutely should be. If the smell is smoking, we need to stop smoking in the house ...

Decorating to Sell Your Phoenix Home (Staging): Part 2 2007-10-22 17:52:39 So you’ve listened to my advice from yesterday and your home is depersonalized and de-cluttered.  Is it really decorated to sell?  Probably not.  Here’s where we may need to spend a couple of dollars.  The first thing that we need to address is smell.  If a buyer walks in and thinks the home has a funny smell, they are rarely going to buy the home.  If there’s a bad smell, it will almost always be their first comment about a home.  If the source of the funny smell is your pet (or pets), then we need to seriously think about how we can find a temporary home for that pet during the listing period.  Seriously think about it.  Especially if your home has a lot of carpet.  Of course we need those carpets cleaned and deodorized, but I’ll go back to my first and most important point:  Pets do not do anything to sell the home.  If there’s a way they can be removed, they absolutely should be. If the smell is smoking, we need to stop smoking in the house ...

Decorating to Sell Your Phoenix Home (Staging): Part 1 2007-10-21 14:45:13 If there’s one thing that the folks at Disney are doing extremely well, it’s decorating to sell.  Somehow, they’ve made even waiting in line something you can almost look forward to.  For most of the rides in Disneyland, as you meander hither and tither, there’s something to see, something to hear, something that captivates you as you wait to board the next ride.  Indiana Jones is perhaps the best example, although Space Mountain is a close second.  And you can’t ignore the Cars vignette at Autopia.  There’s some funny stuff there.  For me, decorating to sell is a critical element in the selling process.  I prefer to think of it in these terms, rather than “Staging”.  Staging conjures a false or phony notion that I think misses the mark.  Decorating to sell gets us in the correct frame of mind.  As a seller, the goal is to sell the house.  Everything else needs to be secondary.  If we sell the house, we’ve achieved our ...

Just Good Food: Flo’s 2007-10-20 17:34:23 Being in Disney for 4 days sometimes leaves you in awe with how well the parks are run.  In the next couple of days I plan to highlight a couple of the things they are doing very well, and how we can learn from that, but today, I wanted to talk about one thing they do pretty poorly, and the one thing I was desperate to get back home for:  Good Food. I’ve found resort food in general to be below average.  You travel to a big, huge resort, where a couple of thousand people need to be fed, and you can tell how the kitchen cuts corners by the quality of what you eat.  That’s a generalization of course, that gets proven time and again, and to an extent I understand it.  But the folks at Disney aren’t feeding a couple of thousand, they are feeding tens of thousands.  As a result, most of the food is darned near dreadful.  High sugar, high fat, high calerie crud.  Oh, and just to make up for the poor quality, they’ve set the prices really high. At any rate, a ...

Who is Dinger? 2007-10-16 10:59:58 Teaser for what’s to come now that the DBacks have lost, and I owe Denver Steve 3 blogging entries. Copyright &2007 Phoenix Area Real Estate Blog by Steve Belt. This feed is intended for personal, non-commercial use only. Share This ...

I’m going to Dizz-KNEE-land 2007-10-15 02:16:36 Dada released the song Dizz-KNEE-land in 1992 on their album Puzzle (I had to look that up in iTunes.).  It was the only song people can usually remember from Dada…a true one hit wonder band.  I’ve got the whole album, but Dizz-KNEE-land gets 2x the play that the entire album does.  I’m going to Disneyland for fall break with my wife and 2 girls.  In fact, as you read this, I’m in the car driving there now.  I’m also crying over yet another DBacks loss.  And I’m wondering how I’m going to live up to my wager with Denver Steve while in Anaheim. Getting swept by the Rockies wasn’t in the plan. Fall break is a strange thing in Scottsdale, and throughout the Phoenix area.  Some school disctricts have shortened it to an early release on Friday or Thursday, while others have the entire week off.  It can be a hassle for parents to find an answer with what to do with the kids for a week in October.  Two years ago, the Scottsdale sc ...

Phoenix is a BIG city 2007-10-14 21:39:28 Phoenix ranks as the 5th largest city in the nation by population with over 1.5 million people  The greater Phoenix area, including Mesa and Scottsdale accounts for over 4 million people, which ranks 13th among major metropolitans.  Phoenix covers over 515 sq miles of land, making it also 5th largest in the nation by land area.  As state capitals go, Phoenix is the largest state capital in the nation. But as large as Phoenix is now, consider this:  In the next 20 years, experts believe that the greater Phoenix population will DOUBLE.  That’s right.  8 million people.  Over 100,000 people are moving to Phoenix every year, or something like 10,000 people a month.   Everything you see today will have to be built again in just 20 years.  The west side of the White Tank Mountains will look like the east side does today (hopefully without as many for sale signs).  Goodyear will be like today’s Gilbert.  Queen Creek and Florence will run together in a continuous row o ...

Down but not out: Arizona vs Colorado 2007-10-13 20:12:59 If you’ve been reading, you know about my little wager with Steve Scheer from Denver.  If the Colorado Rockies defeat the Arizona Diamondbacks in the NLCS, I’m on the hook to blog for Denver Steve for 3 posts.  And after last night’s second defeat, it’s not looking good for the home team.  The game ended at nearly midnight.  I think I fell asleep at 11:00pm (yes, I’m getting old when 11:00pm is now too late), but the crowd noise, coming through the TV woke me up just in time to see Jose Valverde walk in the game winning run.  Can you say Ugh.  I did. This morning, I woke up late, and tried to pedal myself into a positive frame of wind about the DBacks chances for victory.  I hammered 45 miles along the streets of Scottsdale, Carefree and Cave Creek.  In Cave Creek, a parade welcomed my arrival, though I don’t recall telling anyone I was coming.  That’s happened to me once before, though, so perhaps the new Google Street View maps nee ...

Sign law allows for sale signs in all HOA’s 2007-10-12 12:16:25 Way back on September 19, 2007 (nearly a month ago now) SB 1062 went into effect.  This act changes the limitations HOA’s may hold on homeowners and the placement of real estate for sale signs on their properties.  SB 1062 now allows the placement of one for sale sign on your property, even if the HOA previously did not allow the placement of such signs. I personally live in one of those HOA’s in north Scottsdale.  It hasn’t ever bothered me, because it is a guard gated community, and thus we aren’t likely to have drive by traffic checking out the neighborhood.  Some type of “just listed” marketing is typically used to let the neighborhood know that something is up for sale.  And then, we all know the neighbors to talk to at the local Starbucks to get the skinny on every single one of our neighbors, what they are thinking, where they are moving, etc.  Word travels fast enough, even without a for sale sign in the yard.  That said, a sign woul ...

The new Westworld tent is nearly reskinned 2007-10-11 17:59:18 I’ve been watching the reskinning of the Westworld tent in North Scottsdale closely, and the new skin seems to be completely installed now.  Here’s the after photo I shot yesterday: I would have preferred to see it a bit darker color.  The neighboring buildings in the Westworld area are almost all darker than the tent, and most of them take on a more purple-grey tone, like you see from that bit of the McDowell Mountains in the corner of this photo.  At any rate, it’s a ton better than the old flags.  Not that I’m not patriotic.  But the largest open-air tent in the United States needs to do some things to diminish it’s size, not enhance it. Some people have noticed that at certain times of day, there’s a lot of glare coming off the tent.  Standing next to the tent, it does have a shiny surface, so I can imagine what they are talking about, but I have yet to see it myself.  If I do, I’ll capture a photo. Copyright &2007 Phoenix Area ...

Phoenix vs. Denver: A Real Estate Blogging Wager 2007-10-10 16:02:02 Thursday, the National League Championship Series begins between the Colorado Rockies and the Arizona Diamondbacks.  I’m a reasonably big DBacks fan, and I wanted to demonstrate my loyalty with a simple, but meaningful wager over the outcome of the series.  Normally, a lunch bet would suffice, but in this case I wanted the wager to be with a Denver Area Blogger, which would make buying the other person lunch a bit expensive (what with the flight over, car rental, etc.).  So, how to make a meaningful wager with a real estate blogger in Denver?  And then it came to me:  Guest contributor!  With the help of Jay Thompson, Steve Scheer of the Real Estate in Denver and the Suburbs blog was found, and we agreed to a fun wager:  The loser is obligated to 3 posts on the winners blog as a guest contributor.  The first post must be about how great the winning team is.  Another post will talk about the winning city.  And the third post is open to the topic of the loser’s choi ... Blogging

Phoenix Area Real Estate Blog gets a minor facelift 2007-10-10 02:54:37 In preparation for some new contributors to the Phoenix Area Real Estate Blog, I’ve made a couple of minor changes to the look of the site.  First, you’ll notice that the author of the post is now noted just below the post headline.  I’m not quite ready to announce any of the new contributors just yet, but soon….very soon. Not quite as exciting, but I’ve also created a bookmark icon for the site.  Just in case your eyes aren’t quite sharp enough to pick out all of the details, it’s a cactus in front of Camelback Mountain, with the sun shining at around 2pm. Also, since I was updating my Wordpress theme anyway, I went ahead and successfully upgraded to Wordpress 2.3.  Whew!  Only one minor problem involving my need to increase the cache memory size as a result of the number of plug-ins I have (and let’s not talk any more about our cache memories). Copyright &2007 Phoenix Area Real Estate Blog by Steve Belt. This feed is intend ...