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Hi, I'm Ella Gurfinkel, your host of the AskElla Show and senior loan officer at Fairway Independent Mortgage. On my podcast, I cut through the noise to bring you honest conversations about real estate, mortgages, and financial planning.
I interview industry experts to tackle everything from homebuying basics to complex topics like reverse mortgages, trusts, and market trends. With decades of experience, I'm passionate about dispelling myths and providing clear, actionable advice.
Whether you're buying your first home, refinancing, or planning for retirement, I'm here to help you make informed decisions. Join me for straightforward talk about real estate and beyond!
It's bmed and the commercial real estate has boomed and it's one of the like most moved to and most livable cities in the United States now. Close to a million, just over a million. Let's say one and a4 million and it's going to be literally an estate. Yeah. 500,000 for an incredible home. That's 2500 ft. Blew my socks off. Crazy. Crazy. 100 bucks for a $40 mirror. 50 bucks for a $10 light bulb or fixture. Absolutely not. It's shiny. It's beautiful. They won't ever be able to sell that home. Chandler, Mesa, Gilbert, you can find amazing, beautiful homes. But guess what? Over a Miltown house, the property taxes were less than $1,000 a year. He had an acre lot. Property taxes were 27,000 uh a year. In my opinion, resale is the best investment when it comes to buying a home. Would you agree to that?
Welcome to another installment of the Ask Ella Show. And today I have another local guest here with me in Phoenix. And we are talking real estate. We're talking local market in Phoenix. Henson Hood. Not quite a social media celebrity just yet, but we're working on it. So consider this one of the first steps. Yeah. And Hson, tell everybody a little bit about yourself, your team. Yeah. And what do you love about real estate? Absolutely. Well, I appreciate you guys having me on. Thank you so much. My pleasure. It was great meeting you a couple months ago. We live in the same neighborhood, which is which is funny. So, um, I've been in the business real estate. My my Well, I'll back up. My father has been investing in real estate for quite a long time. So, out of college, I was like, "All right, what do I do? I don't want to get a normal 9 toive job. I like to kind of control my own business type of thing. Um, a friend of mine got me into real estate really. He was like, "Hey, go get your license. Jump on my team." This is back maybe 12 or 13 years ago. I was working at Chipotle, fresh out of college. So, I was like, "All right, I want to get out of here, do something actually that's fun." Um, so 12, 13 years I've been in the business. I was born and raised in Paradise Valley. And, uh, so you're one of those rarer locals who are actually native. Yes. Yes. Uh, my whole family's here. My wife's family is here. and figured stay here and and do what I know, which is real estate. My family, like I said, has been in it. Um, so my friend pushed me to to be on his team. It's a friend from high school and, uh, we did great. Uh, but eventually I was like, "All right, I want to create my own brand. I want to figure out something that I can own myself." So, I have a family-owned business and we've had it maybe four or five years now. Thank you. It's called the hoods real estate team and uh we primarily focus the hood. Yes, exact. Well, our our motto is uh the hoods are in your hood. So, we like to do local um advertising within our neighborhood as you know. That's how I met you. Uh so, we mail to the local neighborhoods, different neighborhoods in Paradise Valley. I live in North Scottsdale and um so Scottsdale and Pave are kind of our primary areas and uh we focus more in the million-doll plus range, but we've done deals all around the valley, West Valley, East Valley. So, uh we like to help people anywhere that they are. Awesome. So, if somebody is not exactly local or not fully local like myself, for example, you know, granted I've been coming here for four years now and now I'm firmly on the ground. Yeah. Where does one go to find a home to get the best deal? Yeah. Because it's so varied. Right. Right. Right. I always ask um it's not just about the home that you're buying, but it's the neighborhood and the commercial real estate around it. Right. So, so you have someone from out of state, which a lot of buyers that come to Arizona are out of state, such as yourself, that you want a winter style home that you know, you get out of the snow if you're on the East Coast, Midwest, um, Northwest. Northwest. Yes. So, um, I the first question I always ask is, what do you like to do, right? Do you like to be in a more quiet, secluded area? Do you want the views? Do you want to be close to uh other commercial real estate within the city, close to restaurants, shopping, whatever it may be? Um, and then of course, you know, price range does play a big factor. Um, the type of home that you want. Do you want a newer built home, something on the outskirts that might be brand new in a track home community? Do you want a customuilt home? I just helped someone move. I'm drawing a blank on the state, but they're moving uh to have a winter home here, and they wanted an acre lot, and they had a certain budget, and they said, "Okay, I've got some friends that lived in this area. What can you find me?" We found him in acre lot custom builder and they are creating plans right now figuring out their budget. So um definitely commercial real estate is very important when you're asking someone what they want to buy the amenities what's nearby. Exactly. The the the the neighborhood the amenities um close to being you know close to freeways schools stuff like that kind of like where we're at. Exactly. You know access to freeways what 3 minutes away. Yeah. DC Market DC Ranch Marketplace is another three minutes away. Yeah. And it's just that little tiny piece of land got what 10 restaurants that are to die for. Exactly. Yeah. What else can we ask for? Yeah. When my uh wife and I were moving from We lived in Oldtown, we enjoyed being in the party scene for a while when we were younger and then uh we were like, "Okay, we want to start a family, get married, where do we go?" Uh we like uh views, mountain views. So we decided North Scottsdale, Ironwood Village, right next to DC uh ranch over there because it's a great community to build a family and that's what we're doing. Yeah. Our our daughter's going to be uh one years old on Sunday. So Wow. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. Absolutely. So one of the things that I've noticed coming here and spending more time on the ground obviously is that if you want a deal, you can still find a deal. Yes. And the price ranges vary like there is no tomorrow, right? You can still buy essentially an estate for close to a million, just over a million, let's say one and a quarter million, and it's going to be literally an estate. Yeah. Or you can buy actually a very nice home, let's say in Poria for 400 and change, right? Upwards of 2,000 square feet. Yeah. Which is where, let's say, where I come from, the Pacific Northwest, is pretty much unheard of. Yeah. So tell me more about that. Tell me about the areas. Tell me and the viewers of course more about where would somebody go and what is realistic to expect if you're coming into the area brand freaking new. Right. Right. So definitely price range plays a huge factor. Right. So Scottdale and Paradise Valley and then an area of Phoenix considered Arcadia 85018. Those are kind of the the high ticket places. Now, in Scottsdale specifically, there's very different areas of Scottsdale with very different price ranges. There's town homes, condos, and Scottsdale is just so stretched out that it's just it varies so much just from the part that's closest to the Oldtown. Right. Right. To the part where we're at in North Scottsdale. Exactly. And it's literally worlds apart. We're talking, you know, smaller, older, much older homes closer to Oldtown, right? Versus where we're at with the views of the Mcdow Mountains, right? Still not huge properties, but yeah. And a lot of it has to do with because in Scottsdale, you have a lot of homes that are built in the 80s, 90s. Of course, you have newer homes in the mid 2000s, give or take, but a lot of it has to do with the age of the home, but then also what has been done to the inside of the home, right? So, for example, in our neighborhood, there's quite a few homes being remodeled right now. So, you can get a a decent price for the home, maybe 800 800, 900,000, give or take, that might not be remodeled, 2,200 to maybe 2,800 ft². Um, but then that remodel value, I mean, it significantly increases the price, right? And that's what I think a lot of people are looking for nowadays, unless you're an investor. Um, when someone moves from out of state, a Winterbird, they want a second home, right? They want something that's turnkey, ready to go. Um, in our neighborhood, those price ranges look anywhere from maybe 1.2 to million, 1.2 million to I think the highest one that just sold was like 1.85 million. Wow. Which was 3200 ft. Amazing. Bigger. Yeah. Mcdow Mountain Views, brand new, everything, right? So, um, and then if you shift into Paradise Valley, which you get so many custom homes over there, you have two types of buyers. you have someone that is an investor that wants to scrape the home or you have someone that wants to buy new construction and those prices can go you know anywhere from 3 million to 15 20 million it just depends on how much land and square footage that you have right so um but like you said someone like in that's going to poria or maybe Chandler Mesa Gilbert you can find amazing beautiful homes and it's kind of like a name brand thing right so Scottdale PV they got the name brand right um east valley west probably maybe not so much, but you can find amazing brand new homes for a million dollars or or much less. 500,000 for an incredible home that's 2500 ft or, you know, not a fan, but you know, dear Horton, right? 600K range, single level, beautiful homes, decent square footage. Exactly. So, there's a wide variety. There is a huge variety. Exactly. And that is something that I'm not seeing like again in the Pacific Northwest where I'm from, where I'm used to the lay of the land, right? I'm not seeing that much of a spread in home prices and home values. Yeah. Based on location, the pricing is a little more uniform, right? So, you pretty much know what you're getting per square foot for a smaller home, right? But here, it is just so varied. So, if somebody's looking at the lower price ranges, not the million plus. Yeah. If somebody's looking in the four to5 to $600,000 range, where do they go? What do they look at? What are considered the better places to look at? Like, is it Chandler? Is it Poria? Is it Glendale? Or, you know, is it something else? Yeah. Um, so if you want a single family home, absolutely you can go to East Valley, West Valley, uh, Chandler, Gilbert, Mesa, Queen Creek. I mean, one of the very first deals I did, I it might have been my very first deal was I sold my um, my cousin a home in Queen Creek. So I think back 10 12 years ago it was maybe 300,000 give or take. What is that home worth now? Sorry. Almost seven. And we resold it for just under 600 and that was a few years ago. So probably the the the run up in prices here. That's another thing that blows my mind, right? Total segue, but we'll come back to it. And that well that actually ties in with what we're talking about because so many Arizona was gosh maybe number one or number two for a few years as a move in state with new residents population raising and the reason being is because there's such a wide variety of areas to live and wide variety of price ranges. Right. For the longest time the average price range was maybe 250,000 that would sell in Arizona which is crazy. Yeah. It it's closer to 500 now. I think it's 480 give or take. Um but yeah, Queen Creek is one of them where it's, you know, back 10 years ago there wasn't much going on over there, but it's bmed and the commercial real estate has boomed and it's one of the like most moved to and most livable cities in the United States now. And the average price over there is maybe I have to look at the numbers, but so don't quote me on this, but maybe four, five, 600,000. But then again, in Queen Creek, you can get amazing homes for five or six million that are like absurd. They're they're mansions. they'd be $15 million homes in in Paradise Valley, you know what I mean? And and something that I've very quickly discovered to absolute shock, a good shock, not dismay, is that the property taxes on the existing homes Yes. are ridiculously low, right? Yep. Again, coming from the deep blue Pacific Northwest, right, where our property taxes on a condo far exceed property taxes on a home here. Oh, yeah. Is just something mind-blowing. Yeah. Because I hear a lot of people talk about, the reason I bring it up is that a lot of people talk about moving to Texas because it has no income tax, because the properties are inexpensive. But what a lot of people don't realize is that in Texas, property taxes are ridiculous, right? And then of course there's the cost of insurance. Whereas here the property taxes are just stupid low. Yeah. Yeah. I had a buyer move from Seattle, Washington. Um just outside Seattle. He had an acre lot. Um the property taxes were 27,000 uh a year. Uh he bought a condo uh in Scottsdale and about a $700,000 condo. The property taxes were at that time, this was about five, six years ago, um like 4,500 a year. So 4,500 compared to 27,000. That is definitely a big reason why people move to Arizona is to get away more. Yeah, exactly. For the same monthly payment, you can afford more, the same carrying cost, which is absolutely insane. And the reason I say, you know, my home proper, well, yes, my home property taxes here are lower than the condo my husband owns still in the suburb of Portland, right? And we're talking home condo. Exactly. And it's not an expensive condo to boot. It's It's so It's crazy. It is completely just stupid low. Yeah. Which I'm not complaining about. Right. It's It's great. And I hope it stays that way. You know, granted the values of the homes, yes, they've gone up and the buying power maybe isn't as substantial as it used to be because the values, but still property taxes being low is amazing. It is amazing because really when you look at the property value, let's say even at a million and your property taxes, you know, a million-doll property in Portland, um not even in Multma County, which is stupid crazy expensive, but in the out, let's say in the outline counties, Yeah. would run easy 20k, right? Easy, right? You come in here and the property taxes are what, five, six, maybe give or take. Maybe even less, right? Yeah. I mean, that's easy. $1,000 a month payment. It's a whole It's almost a whole another mortgage in a way. Exactly. It's It's almost like you're renting the property as well for Yeah. And then And the And the tough thing is in value, sorry. It's like almost immaterial because you end up paying less for Exactly. Yeah. And the the reason I think that makes a big difference especially in Arizona or like North Scottdale where you have a lot of winter birds is you have a lot of retirees that maybe want to pay cash for the property. Right. They don't want that monthly mortgage payment. So they pay cash for the property but then when they have to pay if they were to have to pay an absurd uh uh property tax property tax then it it almost wouldn't make sense, right? If you're paying3 or $4,000 a month in property tax, it wouldn't be as interesting to move here, I think. Exactly. I mean, it's kind of why one of the reasons why Florida is talking about eliminating property tax because Dant is correctly pointed out. You may own your home outright, right? But you're still renting it from the state. Exactly. Paying property taxes. Exactly. Yeah, I agree. So, uh, yeah, I I forget the original question, but yes. I mean, I I would say, oh, the original question was is affordability in different areas. Without a doubt, I think one of the the key leading factors why Arizona is so attractive is because it's not like California where every even starter home is a million bucks. You know what I mean? Don't get me started, please. Yeah. So, you've got a wide variety. And the great thing is is a lot of those cities that are affordable in Arizona, Poria, Lechfield Park, uh, Gilbert, Chandler Mesa, they're all great neighborhoods. They're all And a lot of them are newer homes, too. Exactly. You know, so yeah, I think it's a great uh there's definitely a wide variety of price ranges, which is nice. So awesome. What do you see rather how do you see the market? There's a lot of properties on the market now. The inventory has definitely increased dramatically in the last I would say year, year and a half. Yeah. Because about two years ago there was nothing on the market, right? And now it's kind of on the up trajectory, right? Is that slowing down and is that slowing down the pace of buyers or is that actually helping the buyers? Yeah. Uh so the trend is definitely increased inventory. Um the rates have finally dropped into the very very low sixes, high fives in some cases, which is great. So, the buyers are are flooding back into the market, not like they were back in 21 or uh you know, 2020 or 2021, but um the the market is interesting because it's not it's it's definitely in more favor of the buyer um but not in the way that we think, right? So inventory, yes, is going up. And a lot of that has to do with the fact that sellers are kind of still in that 2020 and 2021 mindset where, oh my gosh, I could sell my home for 50,000 over asking price and let me price it at this when it really should be this and it just doesn't happen anymore, right? So homes are sitting on the market longer. There's more price reductions which in turn favors buyers because buyers have uh more negotiation ability, right? So, a lot of times it was I can offer, you know, 50 to 100,000 over asking price and I'll maybe get it because I got I'm competing with 15 or 20 other buyers, which happened to me many times. I had one buyer we had to write, I swear like 20 offers on 20 different properties before we got accepted and we were um I've had buyers like that back in 2021 during co it was insane. It was offer offer after offer. I think the highest I've seen somebody go over ask was 110K which was mind-blowing. And it was not in the million price range either. It was in the normal right 400 500 price point. Yeah. And it caused issues with appraisals and it was it was a big fiasco. But since interest rates rose, um, and a recent rec recent article came out, uh, last year and it said that there's 500,000 less buyers than there are sellers in the market, which typically means that when a buyer does come to the market, those sellers are going to be desperate and they're going to do whatever they can to help that incentivize. Exactly. Incentivize and help that buyer purchase that property. So, um, inventory is going up, rates are dropping, but the biggest determining factor right now, without a doubt, more than anything, is price. Because if you've got, I always make this this goofy analogy. If you've got, go to the grocery store, right? And you got two or three apples right in front of you and they're all the same apple, but one's $1.99 a pound, $2.99 a pound, 3.99 a pound, they're all the same quality, you're going to go for the one that's $1.99 a pound. You know, without a doubt. It's just buyers don't have the buying power that they used to. Prices are still significantly higher than they were in 2018, 2019. Um, so price is a huge determining factor right now. Absolutely. Where do you see the market going? Uh, we are cautiously optimistic. I like to say, right? Um, all of us. Yes. We're cautiously optimistic that it's going to move in a more positive direction and that typically means lower rates. Um because if buyers can't qualify, right, especially at these still significantly higher prices, um people can't buy homes, you know what I mean? Now granted, in that 3 to4 to 5 million range and up, uh a lot of times you get cash buyers and they don't have to worry about the interest rates. I was just going to say those are usually cash buyers. Yeah. which is unreal to the majority of people. Exactly. But it seems like the higher you go on the price scale, right, the more likely it is to be a cash deal, right, versus an actual finance deal, right? Exly. And the lower on the price scale you you run, the less likely it is to be a cash deal, unless it's an investor, right? And even then, a lot of times it's a game of leverage. Yeah. Exactly. Okay. Now, you do have retirees that because Arizona is a big second home state, um you know, they sold their business or they retired and they want to pay cash again like we discussed earlier where they don't want that mortgage. Um and that happens and a lot of those retirees are buying in that 500 to maybe 800 range. Um, but yes, I would say, you know, regardless of the price range, price still, like for example, in Paradise Valley, there's a decent amount of in inventory in PV right now. And if you've got a $5 million home versus a $6 million home, and they're very, very similar, five is going to sell before the Exactly. You know, and and pricing makes a big difference in PV because they are custom homes. It's not a track home communities. They're gorgeous. Yeah. But when you don't have three of the same floor plans, it's hard to comp it out, right? So, definitely pricing makes a a big difference. And then, of course, um the home itself, it needs to be presentable. It needs to be smell good, look good type of thing. Um so, yeah, I I I would say price is a is a big determining factor right now. and uh and I think it will continue to be a big determining factor assuming that our interest rates stay in that 5% range which we hope. What else makes you feel cautiously optimistic about 2026?
I don't know. There's so many
our business is doing great. Our team is doing great which is also congratulations good for us personally. Um, but I would say
gosh, it's there's a lot of things to be cautiously optimistic about. Um, let's say the interest rates stay the same. Yeah. Let's take the rate out of the the equation. Yeah. What's the next factor that drives the buyers? Um, I'm not trying to put you on the spot. No, no, no. I'm I'm trying to think because whenever I have a listing appointment, I talk to a seller about putting their home on the market, um price is definitely one of the biggest things that we do talk about just because the inventory is high. You know, they're competing with 10 or 12 different sellers in that neighborhood. I would say, you know, hey, if you're not you're not really motivated to sell, we can price it higher, but you're going to sit on the market for 90 to 120 days. Um, but one other thing that makes me very optimistic, I would say, because I do work in Paradise Valley, um, is the amount of homes that are being torn down and rebuilt, right? So, I've got a decent Yeah. Uh, PV, you've got a lot of 70s, '8s homes, right? Um, and something that we've been working on over the last year is really kind of getting our foot into the door with investors and potential buyers that are um, going to tear down those homes, rebuild sell it as a $10 million home. And that's very something very exciting to us. So, I would say um the fact that there are a very large amount of sellers in Paradise Valley that are ready to do that, it makes it so that there's a lot more options and there there's a little bit more competitive pricing, which is good for buyers and investors that I have. So, that is something that I guess on a more personal note that I'm optimistic about in Paradise Valley. Um, in Scottdale, kind of the same thing is happening. You're getting a lot of sellers that want to sell it as is to an investor that wants to remodel it. Same thing that's happening in Ironwood Village. And it allows for more opportunity uh to work with these investors that have kind of been on the side on the sidelines because the prices have been so high over the last couple of years. You know what I mean? Um, so I guess that's something else I'm optimistic about. What about areas like uh Cave Creek and Trun? Uh because the scenery is amazing. Yeah. And in Trun there's so much new construction going up. Yeah. But it's uh what I've seen at least personally so far has been the really high-end new construction. Yes. Uh what about And Cave Creek has kind of has gone through the roof in price as well. Yeah. Yeah. Cave Creek is kind of the new North Scottsdale. I Damn. Yeah. It's you get a decent amount of land in Cave Creek. Yep. Um in areas like DC Ranch or Ironwood or Greyhawk, uh these beautiful track home communities, you don't get a lot of land, right? You know, our our lots are 8 to 12,000 square foot lots. So, Trune, uh a little bit kind of anywhere north, well, we're north of the 101, but I would say north of Pinnacle Peak area, you get um a decent amount of land. And and we do have, again, most of those are out of state buyers that move into these properties or maybe they sold their home and they wanted to be away from the traffic and the noise. Um, a little quieter. Yeah. Yeah. Cave Creek I it's moving. It's kind of like the new north. I mean, I just interviewed for one that was, you know, maybe four or five years ago would have been under a million, but now is 1.5 give or take. I sat at an open house with an agent in Cave Creek last year and it was a townhouse for over a mill. Yeah, that was mind-blowing. Yeah. But guess what? Over a mill townhouse, the property taxes were less than $1,000 a year. Blew my socks off. Crazy. Crazy. Um, so talk about affordability once again. Right. Right. I think too there's not as much there's not as much new construction as as there was. So, because there's more land out there, there's more opportunity for new construction, right? So, when you're closer into the city, um you don't have the land, everything is already built out, right? Those are a lot of those homes are newer homes, right? So, um there's a lot of opportunity for new construction, which is why I think it's becoming so popular and the values are going up because there's kind of nowhere else to go. You know, you can't find spread out. Exactly. You have to go on the outskirts. Um, and as time goes on, I think those values are going to increase even more because commercial real estate will develop more. Commercial and residential always play uh handinhand with each other. Um, I'm sure one of these days they'll build some sort of freeway or bigger road so that it's easier to get to the freeway. I just think there's a lot of value gain over there, you know. And then one other location I love right now is that I'm seeing a lot of action is is Desert Ridge. Um, Desert Ridge is kind of the Totally forgot about that one. Yeah, I love it over there because it's well not Scottsdale, it's North Phoenix, but it's definitely up and coming because the homes we're looking at in Desert Ridge originally, they were still running in the 600K range and they were just absolutely amazingly gorgeous homes. Exactly. I mean, 80s, 90s built. Yes. Yeah. But still built well, right? I' I've been known to say that older homes have better bones. Yeah. New construction is not as high quality. Depends on the builder. Yes, very much so. I always say get an inspection no matter what. Same. Yes. Done done that twice on new builds myself and found issues. Yeah. So, huge fan of doing that. But it's just again it doesn't have the Scottsdale, right, zip code or Scottsdale in the address. So, you get an immediate discount in the price effectively, but they're still damn good homes. Oh, absolutely. Uh my wife and I almost bought there. We almost built new. Um it was called I don't know, gosh, I can't remember the name now, but we looked in Sky Crossing, Avano. Um what's the other one? Fireside. There's a lot of different neighborhoods over there and a lot of great town houses. But I love Desert Ridge because like you said, it's right next to Scottsdale. Yep. You're 8 minutes off the freeway. There's amazing restaurants and commercial. We were just there a couple days ago doing a uh as you wish uh birthday thing for my daughter and uh it's like a birthday plate that we created and it's just a few minutes down the road. You get every type of shopping that you can imagine. Um and yeah, you get that discount, you know, and a lot of those homes are new and they're going up in value. Exactly. When we almost built ours, it was maybe in this I think it was like 775 give or take. It it'd go for a million easy now, you know. So, I think that areas like that that are maybe hidden gems, um, not that Desert Ridge hasn't been around for a while, but I think people are realizing more and more that it's kind of a hidden gem because it's so close to Scottsdale. It's a good place to be, but it has great prices, you know, so it's Yeah, I love that area. We go there quite often, actually. So, amazing. Yeah. I'm going to switch gears a little bit. And I know I didn't throw that question at you ahead of time. So, I'm excited. Go for it. All right. How do you feel about the track builders? The the track track builders. The track builders. Like track home builders. Um, like I said, always getting an inspection. Okay. Um, I did help a decent amount of buyers buy track homes back maybe four or five years ago. It was a little bit more popular. Um, there's not as much building going on now, but there's still a decent amount. Um, it's a lovehate relationship, right? So, I'm glad you're seeing it that way. Yes. It It's exciting to get a new home. No, nobody's ever car smell as I refer to it. Great. Exactly. You know, nobody's ever lived in it. It's your home. It's it's nobody's stepped foot in there before. Um, that's exciting. But the thing is is Yeah. They they try to cut corners. And I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that, you know, the, for example, lumber the cost of lumber for a while was pretty darn expensive. There was uh I had a a buyer that was going to build something and he got quoted like 24 months when it should have been 16 months. And the reason being is because lumber was hard to get and it was more expensive and it was so lovehate relationship definitely. I I think that um you have to be cautious about it. Uh who you're having build your home. Um, the one in North Phoenix, I think I was telling you about this. Um, they earlier in this podcast, they were coming from out of state. Um, they wanted to buy an acre lot in North Phoenix or maybe I told you a different time. And it was either go with a track home builder, and I'm not going to name names, of course, or go with a custom home builder. And we got really lucky. We walked onto this property that was a custom home builder um right next to the uh track home uh builder and they fell in love with him. He did a great job. We walked into maybe four or five different properties that he had built, went to a brand new neighborhood. You could just tell the quality was great, you know what I mean? Um still get an inspection of course, but just be cautious about who's building your home. Yeah. Always I've always cautioned people know who your builder is. Exactly. And with the track, the materials, the materials that they're using, the materials, the quality of labor, that's important, too, right? It may be great material, but somebody can still screw it up in the process. That's exly. Exactly. And I always tell, you know, here's the thing. Buying a new home is easy, right? You you walk into the office, they're like, "Okay, these are your four or five different options. This is what the price is for each each option. Let me know and we'll build it. Sign the check. Give them over, you know, $5 $10,000, whatever it is for the down payment." 12 months later, you got a new home, right? A lot of people think that they don't need a real estate agent. You can use you can use whoever you you don't have to use a real estate agent. Correct. But wrong at the same time because you you don't have the protections when you're not using your own agents. Right. Right. Because builder contracts, whether they're in this state or any other state, and I'm licensed in multiple states, so lucky me. I've seen them in multiple states. builder contracts are not your standard document, not the standard state adopted forms, and they're always heavily heavily heavily skewed to the builder side with basically no buyer protections. Exactly. Like earnest money is protected everywhere else, but not within your build. Exactly. So, it's a huge risk. And it's very important to have someone who you especially when you walk into a new build, right? You're going to say, "Oh my gosh, this is beautiful. It's brand new." Right. But when you have an agent or you have the inspector, they're looking for things that you're not looking for, which is important because, you know, 3 or 4 months down the road and you've got I literally I have a friend who uh bought a remodeled propert. It was remodeled. It was a little bit of a different situation, but remodeled property in a different state. Beautiful remodel, right? Looks great cosmetically. Four months later, they ended up with black mold, which is not good. Of course, when I bought my home in Ironwood Village, um the guy was investing in and remodeling two or three homes at the same time, and it was right when 2022 happened and the interest rates went way up. He started foreclosing. He used some janky stuff and um about 6 months into it, we realized that there was a a big white bubble on the bottom of our baseboard right behind our um our shower. And we pulled out the baseboard, the entire wall was covered in black mold. O. So, we opened up the wall. There was like a plastic piece holding the two valves together or whatever. It was a few years ago, but um yeah, I mean, you got to look out for stuff like that, you know. There's a guy I follow on Instagram and I forget what his name is off the top of my head, but he does a lot of inspections on new builds and he he'll find 15 20 different things that are, you know, terrible that will cause issues down the road, you know. Absolutely. I mean, I've um the other contention point, again, air quotes, especially with new builds, there's a reason I kind of took the conversation that direction is um the upgrades that the builders sell, right? Because there's always a fine line y between the value and the price. Yeah. Or vice versa, right? You may be they they're so good at the builder sales offices on upselling you on upgrade. It's kind of like car upgrades, right? 100%. But they don't add to the value, right? And yeah, it's shiny. It's beautiful. But when you're paying a hundred bucks for a $40 mirror Yeah. and 50 bucks for a $10 light bulb or fixture, right, that doesn't mean your home is worth that much more money. Oh, 100%. Right. And it takes way the hell longer to actually appreciate, right? So, you just bought a depreciating asset basically. Yeah. Yeah. And a lot of times those upgrades are just cosmetic, too. Exactly. They're not actual quality upgrades. You know, you'll get So, they'll offer and and what they do on the MLS is they'll put it, let's say the home is 500,000, right? They put it on the home as 500,000, but that does not include any sort of landscaping. Of course, not a pool. Sometimes no fence. Exactly. So they and then they add add and then that $500,000 home is actually 650, right? You know, but they catch your eye by saying homes as low as 500, right? But is that home really worth the 650 though by the end of the day? Oh, absolutely not. And the reason being again is because a lot of it is is cosmetic, right? So the the quality So the cosmetic might be you've got kind of the old sonor and orange or brown that you know isn't so trendy nowadays. Um and that's a certain price. But if you want the same exact material but a white or a gray that's more trendy nowadays, you're paying a premium when in reality the actual value ad isn't there because the quality isn't there. You know what I mean? Um so yes, you're 100% right about that. And unfortunately that practice goes back decades. It's nothing new. Yeah. And that's again circling back to do you really need an agent when you go buy a new home? Right. Technically, eh, I guess you could say not really. But the reality is when you have a professional like yourself with you at the new build sales office, they will stop you from making a very costly mistake. Yes. And spending thousands, if not tens of thousands, right, on those upgrades that actually do not add value to the home, but you end up paying for them. And when you think you made a great investment, because a home after all is an investment, right? It's your generational wealth. Now, you bought a home that is already overpriced for the current market. So, it's going to take it forever to catch up. Yeah. To the actual market value. So, we're looking at not just two to five years, for example, to actually break even on the home if you needed to sell it, god forbid, right? Maybe even longer depending on how overboard you got oversold. Yeah. On on the improvements, on the the upgrades. Yeah. I mean, so I I did a deal last year in uh it's called Homestead of Marley Park. Uh Homestead at Marley Park. It's in the West Valley and um it's in Surprise. And they the couple bought the model home. They never really lived in it. Uh they were out of state. I forget. I think they were in Boston, but anyways. Um they decided they wanted to sell. The price I think was 560 that they bought the home for if I remember correctly. So it was the model home. all the upgrades, the price increases, model home more expensive, right? Always. Um unless you're buying it at the very end of the project when they're willing to wheel and deal. Yes, that's true, too. That's true. But they bought it overpriced. The average home in that neighborhood with probably the same upgrades um is in the 499 to 500 range. Okay? So, they way overpaid. And this was back in 21 or 22 that they bought the home at the height of the market, right? So, they asked me to help them sell it. They wanted to sell for $599 um because they wanted to break even after commissions and fees, closing costs, break even, right around that 560 range. Couldn't get it done. Now, the values are closer to the 530 to 520 range for a model home such as theirs. They won't ever be able to sell that home. They're essentially upside down the gate. Exactly. So, um I think buying newer homes and when the when the height of the market in 21 and 22 was very, you know, buyer frenzy buyer crazy, very hyped up, um you do get a lot of buyers like this that don't want to sell cuz they're not going to make any money on the property or maybe they've got that 2, you know, whatever percent interest rate. Um so now they're actually landlocked into their home. Exactly. Forever in a day. Yeah. And it's tough to bite the bullet on a 6% rate or a 5.99% rate. Especially if you can't break even on a home or if you're walking away from what you thought was equity. Exactly. Or the money you put into it as a down payment and now you have to basically kiss a goodbye. Right. So that's something to be careful about with new builds is there's the reason I was asking. Yeah. Don't don't uh don't get excited about the shiny object, right? Because it's not necessarily positive. They can be absolutely, but just be smart about it, you know. And use an agent if you and that's my whole point. Use professional. Don't do Don't go it yourself. You don't go to court by yourself. Exactly. They're going to point you in the right direction. You're making the biggest investment of your life, whether it's the first home or the 21st home. Exactly. Why not use Exactly. Why not use a professional to represent you? And yes, agents are worth money. Okay. There is commissions involved, but come on. You pay an attorney, you pay a doctor, you don't operate on yourself just because you saw it on YouTube. Exactly. It's not worth it to lose. And here's the thing. As a buyer, money, right? Well, it's I'm being sarcastic. No, no, no. It But you're right, you know, because as a buyer when you're purchasing home, typically, and obviously there's certain situations and there's been some changes uh in the contracts, but typically it's the seller that is paying that commission, right? So, use your agent as a buyer and understand that that buyer's agent is there to represent you and get the best deal for you. And if you're not looking at the fine line, the details, you could be losing money. And a lot of in in a lot of cases like buying a new build or even going as an unrepresented buyer, um I have an unrepresented buyer that's uh purchasing a home of mine right now. And I told them, "Listen, my contract is with the seller. Are you sure you don't want to? Oh, we don't need one. And like, okay, that's fine. You know, I'm going to look up over the contract with you, but I can't negotiate on your behalf. I can't Your fiduciary is to the seller. To the seller buyer. Exactly. So, and it's going great and and but knock on wood. Yeah. Knock on wood. But I always want to make sure that buyer is taken care of. And that's that's very important. The analogy I've used over the years, and it was actually one of the very first videos I ever made about three years ago, was about buyers wanting to, or rather not wanting to use an agent. Yeah. Or rather, why buyers should use an agent, right? And the analogy is pretty much very simple. You don't want the same attorney represent both sides in court. Exactly. So, why would you want Yes. to not get represented, right, when it's again the biggest purchase of your life. Exactly. We're talking a lot of money here. Yeah. And you're either leaving money on the table. Yeah. Or you're overpaying. Mhm. Or you can make a very costly mistake along the way, right? And still end up in court. Exactly. Yeah. It's It just doesn't make sense not to use an agent, right? Exactly. If you need an inspection, are you going to go on Google and try to find the best person? Yeah, you could to to do, you know, your pool inspection or roof inspection or whatever. or that agent that's been working in that area for the last however many years, 10 years. Um, use someone that they trust and that you know is going to do the job correctly. I just doesn't make sense to not use an agent. Now, when you're selling a home, there's certain aspects like we sell a lot off market, right? And a lot of times those sellers don't need an agent to sell their property because the buyer or the investor, they know what they want. They're buying asis. They're going That's a different story. Different story. But as a buyer, especially with new builds, you need someone there to kind of point you in the right direction, especially with the contracts. Yeah. Being what, usually this thick, there's Yes. There's more pages. There's more pages now than there was 5 years ago. So, it's a book. It's a veritable book. And unless you know what you're looking at, right? What are you signing exactly? And a lot of times I'll send the signatures for a buyer that I'm representing and I'll say, "Okay, give me a call. Let's review. it's whatever and they just click click click click and they're done. And sometimes, and I'll be honest, sometimes I make mistakes. I'll put a wrong letter for the name or I'll mess up the date or something. We're not saints, but a lot of times they just don't review. So, even without or with an agent, a lot of times buyers aren't going through the contract the correct way, you know. So, it's important because contracts change all the time. Yep. And it's a legal binding contract. It it's the the law is set. So do it the right way. That's what I say. Absolutely. There is a right way and there is a right way. Exactly. Exactly. So to sum it all up, Mhm. I know we're all cautiously optimistic about 2026. Yes. In my opinion, resale is the best investment when it comes to buying a home. Would you agree to that? In most cases, yes. Okay. It And again, every market's different, right? So, um I think it depends on who you are as a buyer and what your goals are. Correct. So, uh but generally speaking, yes. I wasn't looking for a full agreement. Yeah. Um yeah, you know, I I think that uh what your goals are is the most important question because, you know, our team does work with investors in places like Paradise Valley. We work with out of state buyers. Um, but yes, I mean resale is is that's the biggest part of the market is resale. Yes. What is the most important thing for an out ofstate buyer coming in? Mhm. To ask an agent here on the ground. Yeah. Um, it's a good question.
It goes back to I'm not trying to trip you up. No, no, no, no. Because there's so many different answers I could give, of course. Um, give them all. when an out ofstate buyer. So, I've got an out out ofstate buyer that wants to purchase an Airbnb property. Okay? It's a very popular thing, especially in central Scottsdale, South Scottsdale, you've got a a decent price range, 600 to a million, give or take. Um, they wanted to purchase uh site unseen, which typically isn't a great idea. It happens a lot with investors. They're in another state. They don't want to come in. They just want to buy something and start collecting money, right? Um, we ended up pulling out of a deal that we were offering on because the numbers maybe didn't line up the best way. Um, but for someone like that who's purchasing from out of state in Airbnb, they have very, very specific things that they want. They want to make sure they're in the best location for an Airbnb, meaning what activities, commercial real estate, everything else, what is around that property. And how can they avoid spending any money on that property so that it's an income producing positive return property, right? Not a money drain. Exactly. They want to either break even and write it off or make money on it. Um, so I still go back to when we spoke earlier, uh, an out ofstate buyer. I think it's very important to know where you are, uh, not only in your actual neighborhood that you're purchasing, but the surrounding areas. You can buy amazing, beautiful homes in North Scottdale, but are you okay driving 25 minutes to get to your closest grocery store? Sometimes people aren't okay with that. So Trun, for example, it will take you about 20 minutes to get to a nearest grocery store. Exactly. Or in our example, my husband was originally looking at Fountain Hills and yeah, you can buy I wouldn't say only cheap, but a lot cheaper than our Scottdale. Beautiful homes in Fountain Hills. Absolutely. They were just stunners. Amazing views, but it's so far off from everything, right? And it's fairly secluded, too. Yeah. So, it's not like a suburb where you just move from one part of town to another, right? And it's kind of like a one way in, one way out type of thing. Obviously there's other roads in, but Sheay is the big road in. Um, but yeah, like for example, when my wife and I were moving up to North Scottsdale, we loved that area because it is a little bit further from things. Um, but it's close enough to the freeway. Yep. You get Market Market Street, AJ's, Safeway, it's all close, but it feels more secluded, you know? So, that's the thing is if an out ofstate buyer is moving to Arizona, I say, "What kind of lifestyle do you like?" You know, that's a good question to ask. Yeah. What's what's what's your favorite thing to do? Oh, I like to I want horse property. Okay. Well, these are your locations of horse property. Are you okay being x amount of minutes from closest freeway, whatever it may be. Yes, no problem. I'm on the property most days anyways. I mean, I got people that have moved to Rio Verde and they're like, "Yeah, I'm 50 minutes away from the airport, but it's okay because I never have to leave Rio Verde." Um, and Rio Verde is a uh 55 and older typically community. And um amazing golf community, beautiful homes. Oh, it's gorgeous. Yeah. Um there there's a lot of potential for remodel over there. And um we get a lot of older couples that want to move there. They don't care that it's far away cuz they don't have to they don't have to leave. They you got you got the restaurant at the community center over there. I mean they love it. You know all their friends are there. So that's what's your lifestyle I think is my number one question I would ask them. That is a good question. Yeah that is actually not necessarily something that I would have asked personally. Yeah. But it definitely if you asked me when I was moving it would have gotten me to think. Right. Right. And it wasn't the question that was asked of me. Right. What was the question that was asked if you don't mind let me ask? I don't think there was one. Yeah. It was kind of like what's your price range? Okay, here are your three different options. I'm not knocking the agent. I didn't say that. I never would. No, of course. Of course. But it was mostly I mean we did define the area somewhat loosely. Yeah. And it was more price point driven. Right. And it just so happened that we landed where we did. Right. Even though law of attraction was definitely in play there. Right. Right. But with my husband, like I said, looking at the Forest Hills or sorry, Forest Hills, mixing up my That's okay. Fountain Hills. Yeah. Yeah. No, I got We actually have Forest Heights over by where we lived in Portland. Yeah. So, mixing up the Forest Hills and uh or Forest Heights and Fountain Hills, right meshing into one. Looking at Fountain Hills, price points were great. Yeah. But again, the location, the lifestyle, right, definitely did not right come together. I think that's why getting specific is important um with things like lifestyle or location because like our conversation earlier there's so many different areas that have uh you know the the more median price ranges like for example if you said okay my price is 500,000 I could say well you could be in the west valley parkia surprise or you could be in the east valley all these and they're very very far away from each They're really different though. And very different. Yes. Um so asking, you know, what's the price point? Same thing with North Scottsdale or anywhere in Scottsdale. If you're in the million- dollar price range, you could be way up here or you could be way down here, right? You know, do you want to be far away? Do you want to be close to commercial? Okay, you get more town homes and community uh condo communities over here, more single family homes with maybe a little bit more land. So definitely lifestyle to determine maybe where that type of home is that you want to be. You know, I love that. Yeah, I actually absolutely love that. Yeah. I mean, one of the questions I ask the buyers uh when they first reach out to me to get qualified is why now, right? That's a very good question because timeline is extremely important and the reasons. Yeah. Yeah. What's driving the whole desire? Exactly. Yeah. And do they need to sell a home before? Yep. Are can they, you know, are you qualified without selling? Because a lot of that, um, I think a lot of buyers and sellers don't understand that the process is actually typically much longer than what they think it is. And I always tell anyone of uh the agents that I ever have spoken to, friends or anybody on my team, is that uh when you talk to somebody, a buyer or a seller, typically their timeline is about 18 months, right? Um, now of of course you get lucky and sometimes you get somebody right away. Doesn't happen all the time, but I've talked to buyers and sellers that are, you know, five from five years ago. Um, a lot of times they can't find the right house, life changes, family members get sick or whatever it may be. Um, life happens. Life happens, right? So timeline, that's a very, very important one as well. Yes. Why are you moving? What what and what is your timeline with? Right. Exactly. But like I said, I've I've never heard lifestyle as one of the main questions. So, I'm loving that actually. So, if nothing else, this is a great tidbit to think about when you're moving, whether you're moving to Arizona, to the Phoenix area, where you're moving anywhere, period. What is your lifestyle? How does that tie into where you're going and the locations you're looking at? That's a great question to consider. And with that, Hston, thank you so very much for this conversation. Thank you for having me. I hope you enjoyed as much as I have. I hope I did okay. This is my first time doing this. So, I was like trying not to say too much, but I hope I did okay. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you so much. And I definitely uh and I definitely would love to hear more about your business. Absolutely. And we'll be talking a lot more. Yeah, we live in the same neighborhood. Sure do. Which is awesome. Yeah. I'll see you in the next one. Make sure to subscribe. We'll be talking