Monthly Archives for
May 2005

I have a little Realtor secret for you:

www.maricopa.gov

If you click in the left sidebar on “Assessor/Parcel Information” and then again in the left sidebar on “Parcel Search” you can search for information on almost any property in Maricopa County if you have the address or the street name and last name of the owner. You can find out the exact square footage and year built of your own property if you don’t know it. You can also see what properties were originally purchased for and the taxes paid on them. Play around with it; it can be an interesting and informative site.

You could say Arizona is the swimming pool capital of the free world. It’s as hot as Florida, but with no large bodies of water in sight (Tempe Town Lake doesn’t count). In Phoenix, people use their pools practically year-round. I say this with some authority because when I was eleven, I accidentally cartwheeled into our backyard pool on Christmas day (I was an excellent, but a not-so-accurate cartwheeler as a child). I can attest to the fact that even at the coldest time of year, unheated pools are chilly, but not a polar bear experience. Currently, in the Arizona multiple listing service, 36 percent of the single family dwellings listed as actively for sale have private swimming pools. Many of the ones without have listed as a feature: “Plenty of room to build a pool!” So if you’re searching for a home with an already existing pool, or even thinking of building one in the future, it’s a good idea to have some basic working knowledge of in-ground swimming pools.

Some of the new terms or features of swimming pools that I have encountered recently are:

Pebble Tec: This is the brand name regularly used for a newish type of surface used in pools. Pebble Tec is to a rough pool coating made up of thousands of tiny pebbles, as Kleenex is to tissue. We don’t have a private pool at our home, but the community pool we often swim in was resurfaced this winter with a pebble-type coating. We swam in it this weekend and it’s very nice. It give your feet a nice grip on the bottom of the pool.

Pebble Sheen: This is the upgraded, smoother version of Pebble Tec. They say it’s smoother on your feet, but still gives you a nice grip and is quite durable.

Saltwater Pool: This concept sounded bizarre to me when I first heard about it. Why on earth would you want to have a salt water pool, I wondered? It’s not like a fish tank that you could have different and more colorful fish in. What could possibly be the benefit? Well it turns out there are many benefits. To begin with, they are apparently much easier to take care of. One saltwater pool owner told me, “You just dump a bag of salt in every six months and it’s always clean!” The salt water is also much less concentrated than the ocean (about 1/10th of the salt content) and is more gentle on skin and hair than chlorinated water.

Play Pool: When a lister advertises the pool as a ‘play pool’, what exactly does that mean, you ask? Play pool refers to a more shallow all around pool. The depth of a play pool usually ranges from 3 to 5 feet deep and is not deep enough to dive into.

Katchakid: The Katchakid is a type of pool covering that looks like a net over the pool. It’s used specifically to keep small children safe when the pool is not in use. The web is too small for any child’s head to fit through and the manufacturers advertise that it is strong enough to hold a horse. It tightens into holes drilled around the edges of the pool and is supposed to be easy to use and allow you to keep your scenic views intact. We have friends who live on the water in Dobson Ranch and they have a Katchakid installed on their pool. I have to suppress the urge to climb out onto the middle of it every time I visit their house. My inner child is dying to test the strength of the net and pretend it’s a giant hammock over the water.

The last bit of information I have gleaned recently concerns cost to have a pool put in. As a general figure, I’ve been told a pool just by itself will run you between $18,000 and $25,000. If you want to do a pool and spa together you will be looking up into the $25,000 to $30,000 range.

So dive right in!

My dad reads my site every day. In fact, he often sends me early morning edits involving the homonyms I’m prone to exchanging late at night when I’m posting. Last week one morning he sent me a topic for a post along with his daily rewording advice. He presented the following question to me: “How does a non-owner get on the runaway train that is today’s market?”

He was referring to the fact that in this market, with prices rising steeply, those of us who already own homes are not in too bad of a position. Yes, the prices on houses we want to buy are going up, but so is the equity in our own homes. It’s a fairly parallel equation. The big problem comes for those who don’t yet own anything. For them, what they could have bought 3 years ago for $110,000 is now up closer to $160,000 or so. And heaven help them if they’re thinking up in a higher bracket; the prices just get scarier. I’m sure my dad’s frame of mind for this question comes from my sister and brother, who are both currently non-owners, but will be in the market in the next few years. He hopes for them the same opportunities that I had back when the market was a little more reasonable.

The circumstances may seem depressing to first time buyers, but really, if you look at prices around the country, we are still in a much better position than many. We still have options down at the very low end of the spectrum. You may be down, but don’t worry, you’re definitely not out.
There are several solutions to this dilemma that I think are attractive. My advice to first time buyers who don’t have a rich uncle is:

1. Be flexible – So you work in North Scottsdale and really like the area, but the housing prices are outrageous. Who says you can’t commute a bit? Phoenix has a great system of ever-expanding freeways; take advantage of it and look in an older neighborhood in Chandler.

2. Take advantage of sweat equity – Your first home does not have to be the house you plan to raise your children and then retire in. Think of it as a jumping off point, a way to get your foot in the door. Buy something with ugly carpet, horrible wallpaper and a weedy backyard. Take two or three years and make it into something much more attractive. Install Pergo floors (which are easy and cheap to put in and available at places like IKEA and Costco), rip out that wallpaper and paint the walls a nice neutral color. Reseed the grass in the yard and plant some pretty bushes. All of these things can be done for pennies but will greatly increase the value of the home. Don’t worry that you’re not handy; invest in a good home repair book and take a crack at it. Your first house that you don’t plan to stay forever in is a great place to learn.

3.Start small – If you don’t have a family yet, grab a tiny little place that would only be good for a single. There will always be another single to sell it to and it can give you a chance to gain a bit of equity.

4. Get a roommate – It’s much smarter to buy and get a roommate, than to be the roommate. Remember that every penny they pay you actually goes to help pay off your loan, which, when you sell, goes back into your pocket. So yes, you would have to shoulder the responsibility of major repairs, but in the end, it’s a much better deal for the owner.

5. Start soon – The longer you wait, the higher the prices will rise, so get in as soon as you can!