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Real Estate Services by Jon Griffith

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Wanting YOU to Know How It Works

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One evening, while expressing my thoughts in a small group, it was brought to my attention that I take a relatively evangelical approach to life, and I don’t necessarily mean in the religious sense.  This was contrary to my own self-perception.  I had expressed, perhaps hoping to not be branded an “evangelist” due to the negative connotations, that I didn’t believe I was evangelical.  I was corrected.

I think I am, and the evidence is here and in many other places to prove it, else why would I take the time to write, in hopes of influencing people I care about, like you.

Real estate is a constantly shifting landscape that has many variables and can be quite complicated.  It is my goal to help you understand how to make the right decisions at the right times based upon the mountain of information that comes your way every day, and to make sure the information you receive is relevant and up to date.

The following link will take you to one of the best resources that I have at my disposal to measure the market.  It’s an exclusive tool that I pay for that provides you with a chart that will help you make better real estate decisions.  Take a look, play around, and if you need some guidance, let me know and I can help you interpret the information you see.

Days of Inventory

 

I hope you’re having an awesome day!

 

 

 

Seller’s Obligations: Home Owner’s Association has Less than 50 Units

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The Arizona Association of Realtors Residential Purchase Contract is a legal document. When entering into any legally binding agreement, it is the party’s responsibility to read and understand each section of the contract, and know your obligations and how they affect the purchase or sale of a home.

If you are selling your home, and your home is within a homeowners association, you have additional contractual obligations to the buyer.  If your HOA contains less than 50 units, you have more work to do than if it had 50 or more.  You see, if there are 50 or more units, the Title company handling your escrow will ensure the HOA is notified of the contract and the HOA is required by law to provide the information below, which is a very important section of the HOA Addendum.

Line 36 of the H.O.A. Condomimium / Planned Community Addendum [download id=”56703″] clearly states that if your HOA has less than 50 units, no later than ten (10) days after Contract acceptance (a date that can be affected by various contingencies in the contract), the Seller shall provide in writing to the buyer the information described below as required by Arizona law.

So for example, if contract acceptance occurs on the 4th of a given month, the 5th would be day 1 and the end of the 10 day period would be 11:59PM on the 14th.  This creates a contingency for the buyer which gives them an “out” if they don’t like what they see.  They buyer has 5 days after you deliver the required information to them to make that decision.

As time is of the essence, it’s better to get this information to the buyer as quickly as possible once there is a signed contract. Every contingency that is met and lifted during escrow is one step closer to your success as a seller.

Information required to be provided to a Buyer by Arizona Law

  1. A copy of the bylaws and the rules of the association.
  2. A copy of the declaration of Covenants, Conditions and Restrictions (“CC&Rs”).
  3. A dated statement containing:
    1. (a)  The telephone number and address of a principal contact for the association, which may be an association manager, an association management company, an officer of the association or any other person designated by the board of directors.
    2. (b)  The amount of the common expense assessment and the unpaid common expense assessment, special assessment or other assessment, fee or charge currently due and payable from the Seller.
    3. (c)  Astatementastowhetheraportionoftheunitiscoveredbyinsurancemaintainedbytheassociation.
    4. (d)  The total amount of money held by the association as reserves.
    5. (e)  If the statement is being furnished by the association, a statement as to whether the records of the association reflect any alterations or improvements to the unit that violate the declaration. The association is not obligated to provide information regarding alterations or improvements that occurred more than six years before the proposed sale. Seller remains obligated to disclose alterations or improvements to the Premises that violate the declaration. The association may take action against the Buyer for violations apparent at the time of purchase that are not reflected in the association’s records.
    6. (f)  If the statement is being furnished by the Seller, a statement as to whether the Seller has any knowledge of any alterations or improvements to the unit that violate the declaration.
    7. (g)  A statement of case names and case numbers for pending litigation with respect to the Premises or the association, including the amount of any money claimed.
  4. A copy of the current operating budget of the association.
  5. A copy of the most recent annual financial report of the association. If the report is more than ten pages, the association may provide a summary of the report in lieu of the entire report.
  6. A copy of the most recent reserve study of the association, if any.
  7. Any other information required by law.
  8. A statement for Buyer acknowledgment and signature as required by Arizona law.

If this information is NOT provided by the required deadline, the seller will be in a sticky situation and will probably lose the deal, if not end up being sued by the buyer for specific performance.  Please consult with your real estate attorney for any legal matters that may arise.

E-mail and Websites for REALTORS, The Basics

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As a REALTOR, you need to maintain a digital presence.  At minimum, you need an e-mail address.  You could choose to use a free e-mail provider, or you could do it the right way, by registering your own domain name and making up your own e-mail address.  For example, you@yourdomain.com.  The only way you can achieve this is by thinking up and registering your own name.  Do this at Godaddy.com.  Register it for a year, so you don’t over commit to a longer period of time, in case your name doesn’t work out for you, and don’t privately register it.  You don’t need ANY other extras.  Just the name.

Once you have the name, you can do whatever you want with it, but the first thing you’ll need to do is establish your e-mail system.

Your best bet in our current internet climate, is to subscribe to Google Apps for Domains.  You can do this by visiting http://www.google.com/apps.  You get a 30 day trial, and after that, your cost is minimal.  It gives you a platform full of organizational and collaboration tools that are perfect for what you do.  Setup is a breeze, and the web interface works with every computing device and browser that exists, so you don’t need your own computer to manage the information, and the information remains updated, live, across every device you have, inherently.

The second task that is associated with your domain is establishing a website.  Find a hosting provider you trust, create your account there, then tell them that you already have Google Apps for Domains set up.  They’ll need to help you configure an account with them so your mail still goes to Google’s servers and not to theirs.  The last thing you want is a proprietary e-mail system hosted by a web-hosting provider, as they are sub-standard and do not play well with the rest of the online world.

You’ll want to lean towards WordPress as the framework upon which your site is built.  From there, you’ll choose from a host of free site themes, premium (paid) site themes, or custom designed themes.  Then, you’ll have your choice of free plug-ins to enhance your site, and/or paid plug-ins for features such as IDX property searches.

Once you have these two major components of your domain in place, you can forge ahead worrying about little more than providing good quality content regularly.

He Just Doesn’t Get It

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I have a hard time putting together the information that I’m given unless it has a clear end goal. In a real estate transaction, it’s pretty much a 1-2-3 process from start to finish, with many different potential problems that all have common, repetitive solutions. The hardest part of real estate for me, is maintaining relationships.

The hardest part of relationships, particularly romantic, personal relationships, is communicating effectively. That’s what’s hard for me. It may not be for you. I am intuitive, creative, and intelligent, but the way my brain works is different from others. I’m not saying I’m the only one who is like this. What I am saying is that in order for me to understand what it is that the other person is saying, who may not understand the difficulty I face in piecing together their words, I have to slowly process each thought or statement one at a time. When I say slowly, I mean slowly. I am not a debater. If I have knowledge of how something is supposed to work, then I can recall the solution and present it, but if you pose a question in the heat of the moment that requires me to deconstruct the words, interpret their potential meanings, and re-assemble them into a coherent sentence, and you expect me to do it on the spot, I will tend to explode all over you, without meaning to do so. So, processing this information may take me a few minutes, an hour, or it may take much longer. I have been known to understand what someone has said months after they’ve said it.

My learning style is such that I must dig into something, tear it apart, see it work, and then apply it. Without actually experiencing something, I won’t typically understand it. So, communicating with someone who isn’t in that same mind set is a serious challenge for them as much as it is for me.

When I speak, I’m usually thinking out loud because I need to hear myself say it in order to continue to think about it. If you don’t understand this about me, then you may assume a line of thinking in me that actually doesn’t exist yet. In other words, it’s possible that what I say may be taken as rote when in fact it is merely my way of confirming that what I’m thinking is actually successfully being translated into communicable words. By testing those words against another person, I am able to hear them and gauge their response. The problem is when that other person has no clue about the mechanism in my head that drives this process, they just won’t get it. Moreover, they may feel throughout the relationship that I’m the one not getting it.  Actually, it’s both of us that aren’t getting it.

Lewis Black and Olympic Swimming

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Lewis Black has repeatedly made a point about television networks streaming information that’s distracting to the viewer on the bottom of the television screen, which I fully agree with. As a generation X’er, I was around during the days where there were no fancy graphics on the screens and the country was riveted to only 3 TV Stations. It seems that the plethora of news that we are bombarded with IS in fact distracting us. True, the visual effects are quite fantastic, but they certainly aren’t necessary to convey the message. After all, it is the message that we’re looking for.

What does this have to do with the Olympic games?  Well, I’m a swimming fanatic, and I love watching all of the swimming events, naturally.  In swimming, like most other sports, the most important moments are the start and the finish.  I don’t recall what the 2004 Olympic Games coverage was like, so this may be an old argument, but I’m finding that the lane graphics that show the name of the competitor through the entire start is detracting from the dramatic entrance of the athlete into the water.  I really like seeing how well they start the race.

Please, NBC and other stations, STOP cluttering the screen with fancy graphics.  Next thing we know there will be product placement in just the wrong places and nobody will be able to enjoy the raw spectacle they tuned in to see.

Do you agree?  Disagree?  Leave a comment and let me know.

Flex MLS In, Tempo Out

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Arizona Regional Multiple Listing Service is making a huge change this month from the old Tempo system to the new FlexMLS system, finally!  We have been waiting for more robust search capabilities, faster searching, and better statistics reporting for quite some time.

After evaluating the new system, even though it’s not everything I’d hoped, it is a vast improvement over what we’ve been used to.

It’s possible that your agent is not aware that during the transition to FlexMLS, the only information pertinent to you that will be transferred from the old system (Client Gateway) to the new system (Portal) is your contact data.  If you have been used to logging into your custom website to view properties that have been saved, your searches will not transfer to the new system.

This means that your agent will need to recreate those searches to get the valuable information you need back within your reach.  Of course, if that doesn’t happen quickly enough, I’d be happy to create a custom portal for you with the right criteria to get you back on track with your house hunting.