Category: Making the Move

Hello Hello peeps Diana Randall Bro here I am the pickle lady She is indeed Are your friendly husband and wife realtor team coming to you from Prescat Arizona. Um we wanted to talk to you about something interesting We learned about it a few years ago but have recently gotten re-educated and so we wanted to share it with you Something you may not know Um there are different types of hot water heaters that can be installed in a home Um one is your traditional open flame hot water heater Um that we all know and are used to from mom and dad’s house all the way to present homes There’s also something called a Fiverr. Yes FIVR FIVR And I lost my note but as I recall it stands for fully integrated variable resistance Resistance So backing up a little bit um I don’t know if any of you saw there was a a Mythbusters episode where they launched a hot water heater into uh it it they built a house around a hot water heater and got it to explode Yeah And it uh it launched like a rocket I mean it was unbelievable the power You’re talking about 50 gallons of water that are being overheated You’re talking about a very dangerous kind of thing Yes So hot water safety has always been important And this fiverr thing has uh is kind of the latest iteration of improvements of improvement Also you have your tankless hot water heater Yeah the tankless hot water heater There are three different types So it’s not very often that you see a fiverr Um but we kind of wanted to talk about it and explain why it is safer than most other units So the So one of the things about it that makes it well first of all it’s a lot more efficient Uh it doesn’t use as much uh energy and uh and all that but it’s the thing that we wanted to focus on is really safety issues right so uh it it does have a tank I mean it is a traditional water tank just like we’re used to seeing Just like you’re used to seeing So it’s not tankless but the uh combustion elements of it are fully contained Self-contained Self-contained So unlike the traditional hot water heater where you see that little flame blow and you see it sitting on a on a on a Yeah And the pilot Yeah And the pilot light and all of that sitting up above ground This is not Yeah this is not So most uh uh hot water heaters now are uh kept in the garage Uh they used to be kept in the roof and then when they leak they would destroy things So eventually they made their way into garages Most garage hot water heaters you’ll see are mounted a couple of feet off the ground Used to be 18 in 18 in That’s the That’s the minimum Say it’s 12 to 16 Yeah But it used to be 18 It had to be 18 in above the ground And the reason why Yeah. The reason why is you have fumes in a garage So you’ve got automobiles in there Uh there’s gasoline you know and any number of other things Well those those fumes from gasoline and the like they tend to hug the ground Yes So the idea was let’s let’s raise the height of the hot water heater and the combustion elements therein so that it does not ignite these fumes accidentally Correct Accidentally and and that’s why it’s Yeah And that’s why it’s off the ground Absolutely When it’s a traditional hot water heater Yeah It’s off the ground It should always be off the ground for that reason But now now we we ran into at least one hot water heater that’s mounted on the ground uh completely up the code Took us a while to to uh research it Uh when we first saw it it was I think a brand new technology or at least I had never even heard of it Yeah we had not Uh now we’re starting to see more in some of the newer homes Uh but uh the the the combustion unit is completely self-contained There’s no open flame So there is no way that it can ignite fumes In addition it has fume detection technology so that when it Yeah that’s pretty cool If it even even fumes that you can’t smell that might be flammable it will shut down the unit if that is the case Um so it it’s a first ran across this we have an uh an extraordinarily great and very thorough home inspector Matt Gormer Hats off to you Shout out to Matt National National Inspection National Inspection Yeah We just call him Matt We just call him Matt He’s great Yeah And so when we ran across this he’s like “Hm I want to investigate this further.” So he did And that’s when we learned all about the Fiverr unit He goes “Actually this is okay.” And it’s pretty cool Yeah It’s like Randall was saying it’s self-contained It has an automatic shut off if it does detect fumes Um pretty cool Yeah um it seems to be a little more advanced than your traditional hot water heater So he said it’s fine He checked city permits It was all okay It was permitted The city said okay So we felt really good about it But for some of you out there who were like “Why isn’t it off the ground why doesn’t it have this what it doesn’t have?” Yeah You’ll have plumbers even licensed plumbers who’ve been in the business for decades they’ll come in take one look at it and say “Oh that needs to be raised.”Uh so evidently they’re they’re not people don’t know that much about them. Maybe maybe in some areas of the country they’re more common right uh obviously they’re they’re going to be a lot more common in new construction than existing construction that’s like 20 years old So you won’t see it probably in a home that’s you know you know yeah 20 years old You’re not going to see it You’re not going to see it Now that being said if if you’re building a house you might want to might want to consider one a lot safer a lot more efficient and you don’t have this thing standing up you know that that 2 feet off the ground I think it’s pretty cool that even though it’s self-contained it can still sense bad fumes and shut the unit off Yeah that’s pretty cool That’s pretty amazing Now the only the only thing is if you uh if you have a hot water heater in your garage it’s 2 feet off the ground So if you if you don’t break in time and you hit you know you go forward too far you’re going to probably hit the two-foot uh uh platform Yeah Uh rather than the uh the hot water heater itself With a hot water heater on the ground you’re going to hit the hot water heater and that’s dangerous So if you do have a hot water heater that’s mounted on the ground you’re going to need a parking stop If you have a fiber also you will not be allowed a permit or a certificate of occupancy unless you have that bolster that ballard whatever to prevent a car you know car from going from going into it So it’s a safety thing Um you’re not going to get okay to move into the house until that’s in place That’s in place So no big deal but it’s there and it protects you It protects your car It protects you from running into it Um so yeah it’s pretty cool Yeah So uh just want to tell you when you’re looking at homes and there are three different types Your old traditional that’s off the ground Your more advanced Fiverr FIVR yeah that will be on the ground. That’s okay Don’t panic Don’t freak out It’s all good And then of course there’s your tankless Tankless Now we we do not have any experience with tankless personally Uh those are pretty common out there A lot of you probably do use tankless We’d be interested in hearing from you on what you think of your tankless hot water heater We’re thinking about getting one here just because somebody I know takes uh long hot baths and those baths tend to take all the hot water for a couple hours So we’ve been kind of talking about a tankless hot water heater but I know they’re a lot more expensive Yeah more expensive And uh I just I I just been interested in hearing people’s reaction to what they think want to hear the best Is the water piping hot or you know and that kind of thing Yeah Yeah So let us know Just wanted to kind of give you guys an education on the Fiverr Fiverr hot water heater Yeah Don’t panic if you’re going into a home that’s newer construction and you see that you think they did that wrong It’s not installed right It is Yes And I can guarantee you any city willnever give you a certificate ofoccupancy or pass a permit on a home that was not safe and did not allow a Fiverr unit New Orleans might I don’t know There might be some cities out there New Orleans maybe True But um if you get the inspector drunk he might give it to you I don’t know That’s But anyway most cities uh are not going to permit your home and allow you to even move in especially if you’re building the home Yeah Unless everything is checked off and confirmed with the city So if you see one on the ground don’t panic Don’t freak out Do some homework on it Uh contact Chad GPTShe’ll tell you all about it in a lovely. British accent Yes which is optional If you don’t like British accents you don’t have to have British It’s all good You can do whatever you want Yes All right my friends That is our little educational section about the Fiverr hot water heater Hope you guys are doing well and having a fabulous day And uh now you have another little tidbit to file away in that noggin All right take are Have a good day Bye bye

good afternoon hello peeps oh yes wow right in my ear hello peeps okay very good she’s pickle lady I am I’m her sidekick we’re here in presca Arizona that’s right she’s the presc pickle Lady this is our video and so now we all know where we are here we are here we are so we are happy to come to you today and talk about cash discounts cash discounts so if you pay cash you can expect a discount yep that’s most people know that already understand cash is King cash is King people always like cash cash deal will beat a similar deal that (00:37) doesn’t have cash that’s right uh so because of that sometimes you can get the house for a bit less uh you can certainly get it less uh than if you had to take a loan uh if you’re putting a lot down that’s kind of cash equivalent sort of the same thing uh but if you have a loan sort of minimum down well there’s a risk that the financing is not going to go through the will lose time on Market you know all that kind of stuff and you know the cash allows you to go faster you know so sellers like cash and because of that they might be (01:13) willing to lower uh but not as much as you might think that’s right you know people come through waving their cash you know sometimes literally no that’s not true open up a briefcase full of $750,000 I don’t think so but uh they do they do sort of wave their cash around and expect big discounts 50,000 100,000 it’s not going to happen that’s not going to happen not in this market not in prescot’s Market I should say let’s clarify other states that may be happening but in preset our values are pretty holding yeah pretty holding (01:49) pretty St stable most buyers who come through presc are pretty well qualified absolutely so I mean look at it from the point of view of the seller I like this cash offer because there’s no question there’s going to be they’re going to qualify the it’ll go faster because there’s no underwriting or any of that so it’ll be a quick appraisal no appraisal so I don’t have to risk whether the it’s going to appraise or not so there’s a lowering of risk there is a speed up of the process and there’s sort of security uh you know if you save a month (02:27) on Market the equivalent would be you know let’s say $4 $5,000 maybe if you’re talking about uh you know a million and a half home uh you know somebody might rent that for $4,000 $5,000 a month so if you push it up a a month you can think well there’s probably value for or $5,000 not $100,000 no not1 so you know typically what we find we just had a cash deal out in Prescot Valley I believe the home was listed for 650 cash deal so they came in at 6 40 they grabbed it and ran with it they’re not going to say oh I’ll get it for 625 or (03:05) 600 it’s just not going to happen now if the if the seller has had a sale fall through or maybe a couple of sales fall through instead of 10 you might be looking at 20 maybe if the wind’s blowing right to 30 maybe not very often you’re starting to push it even at home at a million dollars you’re starting to push the value of the cash offer that’s right so just we like to when people come in town we like to kind of set your expectations so if you’re coming in with a cash deal even though your state California Texas any of the other states (03:40) around oh well we’re coming in you know we get 30% it’s really not happening here I mean in other areas like Texas might be a good example where they have a lot of buyers who will not qualify you know the deal will fall out uh if it’s um you know if if they’re not qualified and there’s a good chance they won’t be qualified preset doesn’t have that most of the buyers are pretty firm right so yeah in a market where it’s very common for buyers to come in and not qualify cash looks really really good but it’s not as valuable here because we don’t (04:16) have that situation we have very qualified in fact overqualified buyers so um anyway so we we like to kind of share this with people to kind of set your expectation uh when you’re coming in especially if you’re getting ready to make an offer we will guide you in the best way possible uh we will not make you overpay but we just have to let you know you’re not going to come in here and and get you know 40% 30% off it’s just not it’s just not going to happen I’m sorry I wish I could but uh you you’ll have a rejected offer is what will (04:47) happen and we don’t want that to happen hopefully a counter yeah so or definitely a counter for sure so keep that in mind when you’re coming to this Market just see kind of know how we operate here and uh it’s important to know what you’re stepping into and what you can expect during the process y absolutely so we hope this is a a helpful little tip yep if you want more tips place to go pickle 411. (05:12) com that’s our free information site whether you’re a buyer seller somewhere in between there’ll be something there waiting for you that will Amaze Astound entertain and inform hopefully all for nothing all for nothing all for nothing all for nothing so we hope to hear from you soon and uh please enjoy a beautiful day bye bye 

hello peeps hello or he says hello peeps hello peeps di Rand bro Here I Am the pickle lady I’m the sidekick he’s the sidekick we are here to talk to you about some real estate things that we think might be helpful to you yep uh something we’ve learned and it’s very important um especially if you’re buying an older home yes so any home you know gosh earlier than the 90s I would highly recommend that you have with something something that’s called a sewer scope Sewer Scope it’s not sexy it’s not fun it is not sexy um it’s nothing to do with you personally they don’t they won’t scope you okay yeah you’re not getting scoped you you won’t get personally scoped so they basically they find uh uh they find the wash out for the sewer it connects your your home to the city sewer yes and they put a well they put a camera and a snake camera with a camera and they check the uh how well the pipes are doing um if they’re functioning they check to see a lot of these homes especially homes in the 40s and 50s are with galvanized pipes or pipes that have eroded because they’re very old old which uh a lot of people don’t know if you buy an older home and the pipes are corroded and filled with rust um they stop performing Y and then it can come back up into your house and then you call the city and say hey my pipes aren’t working you got to come fix this well guess what it’s on you nope um they do not come replace pipes in your front yard to the city sewer they don’t they’re just resp responsibity they’re responsible from the hookup on that’s right but you are responsible for getting your your to to their pipe so if your pipes aren’t working then they’re going to have to be fixed and it is very expensive it can be very expensive because they even have to do Street repair yeah you got to jack it all up sidewalks streets curve all that stuff has to be jacked up and then um and then replaced and then it can be very bad very very costly could be 30 to 40,000 so anytime we sell a home that’s exceptionally you before 1980 we always have a sewer scope go out because particularly if there’s a lot of mature Landscaping there’ll be a lot of trees and bushes well you also will get root intrusion and so those will go right through those Rusty pipes they’ll find a little opening and keep digging the way into there and then all of a sudden you’re clogged with rust and Roots yeah so nothing can pass out into the city sewer and then oh god that hurt something happened I had some root I think I had root intrusion myself root intrusion that was weird that was so weird one one thing I’ll point out we looked at some warranties that are available um home warranties home warranties that might cover that and there are some that are out there but usually they exclude rust and they exclude root Ro which are the two things that are going to kill you so if you buy an older home we always recommend um ask the seller uh go ahead and and mitigate these root intrusion and you can get it reamed out it’s not the end of the world yeah it’s just something that you should definitely investigate before you buy that home because you don’t want to find out five years down the line you’ve got a $40,000 pipe repair and maybe warranty will cover it maybe it won’t so I would always thing that’s bad about that to at least in this market is if a home is older generally it’s more uh less expensive so you might be paying $40,000 for a sewer repair uh a sewer pipe repair on a home that cost $400,000 yeah you know that’s that kind of hurts yeah and so you want to especially if you buy an older home have the Sewer Scope see what’s going on they could be perfectly fine they could indicate some root intrusion have it reamed out yeah and once you and remove those bushes remove those trees so it won’t happen again then your pipes will continue to perform so it’s not the end all like oh everything has to be replaced that’s not necessarily true it’s just things to mitigate that so your pipes continue to perform at top you know top top capacity one thing to know if you do have an older home uh you like once a month you can flush down what is it that’s right it’s called copper sulfate copper sulfate so if you’re in an older home right now it’s simple simple simple and you’ve got a lot of trees and maybe you don’t want to cut them down have the pipes ringed out and have those roots chopped out of there then every month after that to prevent further root intrusion uh you get a half a cup of copper sulfate and all you do is pour it in your potty pour it in your toilet only your toilet nothing else not your sink not the bathtub just the toilet flush flush flush that copper sulfate will get in there and dissolve any future Roots yeah the roots the the the trees don’t like it so yeah trees don’t like it so so you that it’s if you’re going to get if you get your pipes reamed you want to start doing that if you haven’t had your pipes reamed yet uh you might want to just start doing it because that’s cheap the reaming is not that expensive at the very least just start with the copper sulfate and uh you might prevent some problems yeah I do believe to have your pipes red out I think it’s like 175 175 an hour okay so if you’ve got extensive extend you know I mean you’ve got long pipes I mean that could be a little but it’s well worth it particularly if you’re buying a beautiful older home in the historic district or something like that it’s an easy fix yeah but it’s something you should be aware of most people don’t aren’t aware yeah yeah so yeah get your pipes reamed out yeah it doesn’t sound right but you know what I mean picol lady really knows her uh really knows her that’s our tip of the day if you like tips place to go is pickle 411.com that is our free information site whether you buy or sell or somewhere in between there’ll be something there waiting for you that will amaze us down educate inform and Mesmerize there you go and it’s all absolutely free that’s right and we’re happy to share our wealth of knowledge and every day and our Shenanigans and our Shenanigans mostly Shenanigans mostly shenan every day I learn something new sometimes I don’t want to learn but hey that’s life yeah living and learning and learning that’s what we say every day all right my friends hope this is helpful to you particularly if you’re looking at a Charming older Cottage we know the people to get your sewer scoped and we’re happy to recommend all right take care and have a beautiful beautiful day bye

Sometimes the simplest solutions are not the best.  That's especially true when it comes to moving out of a home you just sold.  You'd think it would be no big deal to leave a few things in the home after you close - especially if the buyers don't mind.

In this episode we explain why that's not a good idea.

good evening good evening people hello hello hello hello hello this is uh Randall and Diane bro here in the beautiful city of Prescott Arizona we are your number one top team in terms of service connections helping you find the right place uh and we would love if you’re coming to visit and you find a great place if you want to talk about something that could happen and you might think about and we’re going to tell you why it’s not always the best thing not always the best idea that is post possession post possession so post possession sounds like a technical term basically what that means is if you are selling your house and your house is closed it’s no longer your house right but you want to keep some of your stuff in the house after you’ve closed that is post possession and it’s kind of a it’s kind of a bad idea um just in terms of lawsuits so there are millions of homes that are bought and sold every year uh you know when you’ve got that much going on everything happens at some point and people have just found that in transactions where there was post-possession it could lead to some crazy lawsuits it can be pretty scary so a lot of people are like oh we really like the seller and the seller really likes the buyer it’s a great idea would you mind you know or sometimes the seller says I’d like to stay in the house for two months after you buy and some sellers even will say I won’t even charge you you know rent right yeah but I still want to stay here yes um and some people are fine with that I and my broker not a good idea it’s uh can work it it can be very very scary and even the Best Buy or seller relationship can go sour fast and then if that seller is still keeping all of their things in the house or you’re keeping your things in the house and you’re like I could have sworn I left that jewelry box yeah where is it now where is it now yeah you would be surprised or God forbid there’s uh Mother Nature comes along and the roof starts leaking and your beautiful artwork that you had left stored there gets damaged I mean it just opens a whole can of worms that can be really really bad and you know sometimes we try to explain this to clients they don’t want to hear it they’re like but they’re friendly we’re good we’re good we have a good working relationship yeah yeah you’d be surprised how fast that can go south yeah well if if you have a seller that let’s say we want to close and the seller wants to stay there a month or two months you can fix that right so that is essentially a short-term lease you can do an official lease it is a legal document and that it and they’re the only people who are in the house only their possessions are in the house uh and so and you’ve got a legal document that is a contract by the way you need to have some consideration not a good practice Yeah and the reason why is it’s not a valid contract if there’s no consideration so that’s just a technical even if you just put a hundred dollars not even a hundred dollars and you come to terms that’s fine there has to be some consideration for the contract to be valid uh you’ve got a contract in place uh there’s only one party in the house there’s only one party’s possessions in the house that’s workable yeah we can do that even if it’s just a week or a few days you can do a very short-term lease and you can make that work uh maybe not so good is the buyer moves in and you still have possessions of the seller there you can never go buy a handshake we’re good friends right this was a good transaction let’s just shake hands we would never as professionals uh and is one of the top Professionals in the city yeah not a good practice not a good practice you know I always have something illegal in place yeah you leave something you spill coffee on it or or you know um technically from a a legal standpoint anything that is left in the house after close becomes the virus you know if you don’t move it it’s theirs um so as a seller you should understand that um as a as a buyer you know they if they you have their possessions in your house and something happens to it uh you may see them in court you know you’d be surprised uh so you know when we kind of say hey I wouldn’t do that I am not comfortable with that I’ve never heard of a zero free rent back for two months it’s not that we don’t want to help you I mean we will we’ll make it happen but please take our advice we’ve seen things go really really bad and we’re trying to help you legally and you know that’s what you need to do you need to make it above board and you know shaking someone’s hand and saying I promise I’ll be good yeah uh can sometimes backfire yeah a lot of what we do for you is prevention you know just trying to keep bad things from happening and if they don’t that’s fine you know but precautions are always a good idea always we’re looking out for your best interest and we always want to protect you that’s that’s what our job is yeah so anyway when you’re thinking about post-possession we’ll try to get you a nice contract written up for a lease back where everything’s good and it’s all above board and you’re legal and you don’t have to worry God forbid if something bad should happen exactly so keep all that in mind when you’re looking and you want post possession and oh they said it’s okay listen to Mom and Dad Mom and Dad are here to help you we know we can go back we’ve done hundreds of transactions hundreds and hundreds believe me we know so that’s our little so for the day so if you want to talk about post-possession we’ll make it happen but do it in a way that protects you protects both parties that’s our tip of the day if you want more tips a place to go is pickle411.com that is our free information site whether you’re a buyer or seller or somewhere in between there’s something waiting for you that will amaze and Astound you and tickle your funny bone there you go all free all free take care great rest of your day bye

Need to adjust to your new downsized lifestyle?  Or maybe you've got some special items that just won't make the transition, and you'd like to see them find a good home.  One great option is holding a moving sale.  In this episode, we discuss how we can help you with that.

hello hello hello this is Diane and Randall bro Randall who said it best Diane and Randall bro you don’t know my name yet I said Randall it just came out weird about it I like the way that came out but anyway that’s right very sexy yeah my former life has come out I am reincarnated reincarnated that’s what the fortune teller said I believe it I don’t know why I just believe it there are days here to talk about moving sales today this is my new favorite thing we love doing this something as a full service concierge yes real estate team yes that we provide and we love doing it it’s a great time yeah when you sell your house it’s not just about selling your house obviously you go to a realtor to help you sell your house but selling your house is just part of a process they got a lot of stuff that has to happen yep all part of that and one of them besides crying as you’re packing up yeah all the packing and everything is you may have some things that you want to donate you may have some things you want to sell yes so a lot of our sellers they like to have a moving sale they like to see some of their favorite pieces go to people they know in the neighborhood or just just somebody nice so moving sales is something to make a little extra money you just make sure that some of those special things that you’re not going to have room for anymore go to someone I mean as you know when you move especially if you’ve been somewhere a while you are probably downsizing and you need to divest divest the best of your belongings what do you do what do you do so we as part of our service we like to help you uh set up a moving sale yes so we will come over we like to work on the porch or wherever your garage uh help you the day of the sale we will promote it on all of our websites we will promote it to you directly to Realtors we will uh put it on all the signage uh we will promote the hell out of it yeah we do we do and uh arrange for so we started doing this a while it’s just so so successful so much fun and uh our sellers really appreciated the neighbors really appreciate it yes yeah it’s just a very positive experience so it’s become just part of our stick now it is just a matter of course we ask people do you want a moving sale we’re help we we bring our own we have large conference tables yeah that we bring over we share with you we help you set it up uh when it’s all said and done we uh try to help if you’re ready to load it up and go donate it for anything you’re not taking with you that maybe hasn’t sold I mean we do it all we’ve even had to rent a U-Haul truck for some some yeah and uh load it up and take it over to Goodwill yeah we did some some things that we were left with we brought over a lot of people yeah so we listen people what basically what we’re saying is this is full service this is full service we don’t just put a sign in your yard and say see ya and we’ll let you know when you get a contract yeah there’s a lot we know we get that and we’re going to help you with everything we possibly and it’s really just speaking from our own experience when we moved from Texas oh my gosh we had so much stuff we didn’t even know where to start and what to do and how to handle it and so a lot of our what we offer to our clients is just from our own personal experience and so we find the moving sales very effective of course I always have my pickles that I hand out yep and you never know who might come to your moving sale right and a lot of people come from Vehicles well they do but you know I didn’t end up buying something so it’s that’s fine then they end up you know either buying your stuff or they’re like uh you know maybe they might even be interested in your house you never know another quid pro quo here is that the pick lady and I have first dibs on your stuff yes thank you we basically purchases we get some good swag some good stuff lovely lovely and we’re like yeah can we could I buy this instead sure so yeah it’s a lot of fun and you know we just kind of sit on the porch and you really get to become good friends with your sellers and we it’s just a good find something good bonding so anyway if you are looking about listing look thinking about listing or selling uh keep that in mind we’re happy to help you with everything sale or whatever help you may need I mean we are truly Hands-On so moving sales is a good tip well if you’re looking for other good tips place to go is pickle411.com our free information site uh in particular you might want to check out if you’re a seller you might want to check out our seller’s Corner which is all the stuff that we have that’s specifically for sellers so I hope to hear from you soon and uh always stop by our moving sale I’ll have pickles for you for you all right take care have a wonderful evening bye

You may have heard that weirdness prevails in the real estate market these days, and nowhere is that more true than with lenders.  In short, lenders are struggling right now... big time.  In this episode, we discuss some of the major lender fumbles we've seen recently and how you can avoid the nightmare scenarios that have become all too commonplace in real estate transactions because of them.

hello friends this is diana randall bro your local friendly husband and wife realtor team located in prescott arizona she’s depressed pickle lady that’s right i am her sidekick in arms that’s right sidekick have arms i’m not sure i’ll get some water i’ll get some more or at least some tools sidekick but yeah you probably do but tough topic too yeah a tough topic it’s something that um i try and try again some people listen and some people how shall i say i think they know better than mama and that is using an out of state lender so we’ve been having a lot of trouble with lenders um and that’s just i mean the lending process the lending process you know we’re going the whole covet thing and logistic problems and i i don’t know what but we’re finding it very hard to match our buyers with lenders who can close in a timely manner well yeah and this is my biggest pet peeve lately particularly if you use an out of state london oh i have a relationship with them i’ve been with wells fargo for 25 years it doesn’t mean a thing okay you are assuming that when you hand off this loan to somebody to start processing it that you’re going to have your particular banker every step of the way sadly my first month that’s not what happens they’ll have a separate team for that they have a separate team for that so the first person who sells you that loan they’re out of the picture they get their commission and they go off and go sell another loan yeah and then your loan is sold you know it’s passed on to another team and it goes into underwriting well every underwriter they pass on to another person to another person so when you run into a glitch and you call your original person they’re like oh that’s not me anymore now it’s joe and kathy and susie so then you may be hunting down these people who they’ve passed it on to somebody else you never get the same person so consequently um when we have a closing date which by the way is a contractual obligation you’re obligated to close on that date and lenders don’t seem to understand that it’s a contractual obligation and so this is what i tell some of these lenders hello it wasn’t a suggested closing date it’s like underground it’s like under contract this is a legal thing yeah if we’re supposed to close march first you’re supposed to have it all done march first so we’ll get a call from the we’ll get a call from the lender oh good news we got the appraisal scheduled for the fifth like okay we gotta close on the first we’re closing on the first that doesn’t help me yeah so a lot of times you know that’s very frustrating so from the get-go i call these out of state lenders and i say order your appraisal today don’t order it two weeks from now because we’re never going to close on time because a lot this is another thing you should you should know out-of-state lenders have to contact an appraisal uh company of their own in-house and then they that in-house appraisal company says let me get you an appraiser i don’t know who i don’t know anybody in that area but i’ll get one from phoenix what a nightmare because the phoenix appraiser comes up here he looks at it he doesn’t know the press get back i don’t know the market they don’t understand i understand the market to do a decent appraisal that’s correct and i’m sure the same is true you can’t get prescott appraisers and go down right really i mean you gotta know you need to have somebody familiar with it yeah you need to have somebody local who really understands the market understands that that side street is really not a major highway which we’ve gotten that’s not a major highway um so you don’t have to you know detract you know at deduct a hundred thousand dollars that’s not a major yeah we’ve had one it was uh oh well the the comp was uh it’s a good comp but the comp has a view of the golf course and the subject property doesn’t okay the subject property overlooks granite mountain it’s a much better view so you know we try to advise of course we can’t tell you i mean that’s absolutely one hundred percent yeah he should pick the land and you’re right that’s your right to do that but when we gently try to guide you try to find a local lender there’s a reason for that we want you to close on time we don’t want you to arrive in prescott and your house has enclosed and your stuff is in transit in a truck and you have no place to move in yeah and it has happened it has it has happened and then suddenly you’re in a hotel for two weeks while you’re waiting for it to get out of underwriting because they didn’t go into underwriting until five days before your closing date yeah nobody’s going to get you out of underwriting in five days and get the appraisal done in five days it’s just not happening you’ve got sellers that are selling in the seller’s market that may or may not be that’s right uh they may not appreciate your situation yeah they want to close because they’re moving on to their next chapter so when we gently suggest please try a local lender preferably a mortgage banker not a bank like wells fargo or you know one of those uh yeah don’t go with a mortgage broker go with a mortgage lender a mortgage banker they will hold your hand all the way to the end because they don’t get their commission until you close so they are invested they are committed because they would like to get their commission and so keep that in mind it’s not to mind your business or tell you what to do and you know i appreciate you know every person i know who thought they had a great relationship finds out maybe not so much yeah and just to be clear most of the clients that we deal with um they are of retirement age yes and uh they’ve region reached a certain level of success most of them do have personal bankers yes so we’re not oh you know i have a personal banker your other clients probably didn’t know they all have a personal thing and it’s not the personal banker’s fault yeah they’re it’s just their process when you’re with the national bank they set you up they do the initial paperwork and then their process is to pass it on to the other parties and it’s not that they’re bad people yeah or you know well they’re dealing with their process it’s a very it’s a very tough situation at this at this particular moment uh some areas like the california banks are really struggling the northeast banks are really struggling uh we had a we had a broker in the midwest so we figured oh that’s okay she sourced it to a bank in california that was a disaster it’s it’s uh it’s a bad situation right now we try to ride shotgun with the lenders for our transactions for our buyers we don’t know all the ins and outs we’re not lenders we’re not right now we don’t do that for a living i mean we try uh the local people we use here they know how to run rough shot they know how to do it they know how to get it done and it’s best to absolutely let them do that you know your bank may or may not respond to a stupid realtor from prescott arizona yeah i can call my local lender and say hey we gotta is there hold up can you tell me what’s going on what can we help to facilitate so we can close on time and i can get that person right away we can communicate clearly effectively and get the job done whereas if it’s an out of state lender they don’t know me from a hole in the ground and they’re like oh i don’t do that anymore it’s passed on to this person and they can’t really we don’t have that kind of relationship so keep that in mind it’s not to mind your business it’s not to tell you what to do it’s just if you have a particular date in mind that you want to close you want to close and uh local lenders are the way to do it they really try hard and they try to make it happen they know the right and they know the ropes and they also know local appraisers that they can get in and get it done so i’d all share this recently we just had one and we were supposed to close on a friday and they called the day before and said can’t close on friday because that is actually lincoln’s birthday not president’s day the 21st lincoln’s real birthday was february 18th so in california we celebrate uh lincoln’s birthday so we can’t send out any wires yes evidently they only figured this out the the day before the day before on the 17th uh i don’t know if that was really the story or not that declared the holidays so it’s weird things like that weird things out of state lenders will have weird rules i don’t know california’s rule about lincoln’s birthday but apparently on february 18th they don’t send out wires in the state of california and they’re allowed to do that so yeah every day i learned something new and another good example is uh ordering out the appraisals it is a matter of course that uh lenders will order out the appraisal kind of when it’s clear that the home’s gonna inspect yep you know that it’s gonna get get past the inspection period that’s when they’ll do it too late you can’t do that now you can you got to order it right away and if you if that means the lender is going to have to eat the appraisal fee yeah that’s just the cost of it but here’s the thing they don’t eat the appraisal fee they passed on to you they said oh we can’t get the appraiser out so i hope you don’t mind instead of paying six or seven hundred dollars for your appraisal you now have to pay the expedited fee yeah twelve hundred dollars fifteen [Music] they can get it done overnight yeah but you’re gonna pay extra for that so try to go local we have everything local in-house we can get it done it’s nice and smooth and you know typically we close on time about 98 of the time uh out of state um it’s been i can’t promise you it’s been rough lately it’s been rough that’s all we can do is just tell you our experiences with this in the end the your lender choice that you that’s your choice 100 it’s your choice whoever you choose we will do our best to make sure that you close on time uh but we just wanted to share some of our experiences with you some other considerations you may want to yeah just be aware you may not necessarily close on time if you’re going out of state we can do as much as we can try may not happen for you we sure will try i love to nag it’s my favorite thing to do i call every day hey it’s the pickle lady again heard anything yeah heard anything heard anything remember the closing date is not a suggested date yeah we want to close on this day we’ve been struggling with this for the last several months so yeah so we want to share and you should know too because you know we don’t always buy houses every other year sometimes it’s been 20 years and you kind of forget so this is our knowledge we want to share with you absolutely take take away from it whatever you wish but we hope you listen to us [Laughter] more information you can check us out at pickle411.com that is our information site whether you are buy or seller somewhere in between information about lenders and all that kind of stuff about real estate i also got best restaurants to go to and press get things done i’ll love it i’ll live all of it’s there all of it we love to talk about a whole bunch of stuff yeah not all of it’s complaining about linda no that’s right very strong very small just a small percentage all right my friends you guys have a great evening and thanks for listening hope we taught you something new take care bye

Charming, loving family homes are very personalized - and often very hard to sell.  In our continuing series on home staging, we explain why that is and what you should do about it to capture top value for your home.  Check it out!

yeah we gotta make sure we’re recording these sometimes that happens folks yeah we just we do uh some of our best episodes one of our best episodes we’re not recorded and then he comes upstairs oh my god by the way uh we weren’t recording yeah hello hello you’re seeing a little behind the scenes behind the scenes stuff she’s the pickle lady that’s right i am her partner in crime and uh we are here in prescott arizona real estate agents uh extraordinaire correct yeah i am diane this is randall grove we are happy to uh help you guys out when you come visit if you’re looking for a home happy to help you list if you’re ready to do that yeah so we’re doing we’re we’re doing seller tips we have a series of seller tips and we wanted to focus on staging yeah uh and staging tips when you’re trying to sell your home as i’ve said before uh professional staging is not that big a deal here in prescott there’s not a lot of that going on there’s some yeah not a lot of that for the most part the sellers themselves or their agents are responsible for staging the home but just because no one’s paying money to have it professionally done does not mean it is not important it is vitally so it is and it’s necessary absolutely so this little staging tip is all about depersonalization depersonalization yes when people come in they don’t want to see i have pictures i know uh pictures of your family your children your daughters your wedding you and your wedding dress this that and the other i am so guilty of this yes i consider my daughters my own works of art yes so i’ve got beautiful portraits of them when they were four beautiful portraits of them when they were 18 it goes on and on and on i am the biggest one guilty of this but when i go to sell it’s all coming down when we go over to someone’s house uh just you know socially and their house isn’t personalized it’s kind of creepy yeah i don’t like you go in you don’t see any pictures of them or i think that’s with their children it’s like this person must be in witness protection yeah something i’m a little suspicious a little suspicious so we like homes that are warm and personalized and that the personal touch with all the pictures there’s nothing to say there’s anything wrong with decorating decorating your home in a personalized way it’s just when it comes time to sell that can get involved some of that needs to come down not all of it you keep a cute little picture tucked here and there yeah that still gives the warmth of hey this is a nice family home yeah we’ve had a good time here we’ve got good memories it gives good juju yeah but if it’s too too much of it yeah then people can’t see past my family moving in here this is where i could hang my portraits yes this is where i could hang my grandchildren’s pictures yes so if you’re covered with all of your stuff and it’s too much of it they can’t see past it and they can’t see themselves we want them to get an emotional connection to your home i’ve got to live here my family would be so happy here so a couple of points there first of all uh the reason why you do this is that uh the reason why stage in general is that people do not make rational decisions in buying a home they make emotional decisions they do and buying a home and you may say oh they can look past all my stuff where they could you know they could go home and photoshop it all out you know or they could you know do it in their own minds but what we’re telling you is they don’t in practice they don’t that’s not how they make decisions uh most people unlike investors most people most buyers will make an emotional gut decision in connecting with a home and if your personalized stuff doesn’t connect with them it’s going to get in the way of that process and they’re not going to connect with your home and they’re not going to want to move forward that’s true the other thing to kind of de-personalize is besides you know family photos or you know is anything that of religious nature that’s if you are overtly you know if you’ve got a lot of religious or even i hate to say it patriotic yes um which i don’t agree with but um yeah i mean we have religious stuff in our home we have oh you know that’s how we personalize our home right some people it could be that they are not religious correct it could be that they have a religion that is different than yours right and it’s not like they say oh you know i would say i’m jewish and all these crosses are around or vice versa and they say well you know i don’t i don’t like all these crosses i don’t like this house they won’t even be able to articulate it correct they just won’t connect with the house they won’t even be able to explain why there was something about the house that just didn’t feel right right you know and that’s what we’re trying to avoid absolutely i mean i have all of that i love it all i have buddhas i have catholic things i have dude jewish thing yeah i like to cover my bases i have it all i i want to make sure i got i have crystals you name it yeah i have a very eclectic home yeah i will say it’s very clever but that may not connect with a lot of people and it won’t they may be like what does she have some weird stuff weird stuff that was a weird house and i’ll be the first one to open it it is so i agree you know so when i do go to sell i will remove some of those items just because again we want it to be a clean slate yeah that people can see you know their special things coming in their special photos right uh portraits and things like that a quick rule of thumb when it comes to family pictures so if you go to a place like say michael’s and you buy picture frames most of the picture frames will have pictures in them yep you know showing you you know this is where you would put your family but they’re kind of sort of generic looking family photos if you don’t have a lot of family photos and it just looks like a family there’s nothing particularly different like it it could be the picture that they put in the frames at michael’s and sell the to sell the frame if that’s the case then it’s probably not so personalized that you need to get rid of it but if it’s you know like uh halloween costumes or something just kind of strange that you wouldn’t see at michael’s then you probably need to yeah yeah that is just keep it light keep it simple keep it not too crazy like my house and you’ll do just fine but the most important thing out of all of this is when your agent is nicely suggesting hey you know you might want to remove this you might don’t not argue but don’t get defensive don’t be insulted it’s not meant in that way at all it’s just having done this thousands of times and helping people find their place and the feedback we get back we know what your house will be tagged about it’ll be like oh gosh did you see that that was terrible and so just listen to us ahead of time and save yourself a lot of heartache yeah and it may not be fun to hear and it may be i’m not really comfortable i understand i mean i get tagged myself so it’s a it’s a pain but we’re telling you it will put money in your pocket it will put money in your pocket and it will save you uh you know have the house sold pretty quickly so it’s all in your best interest too personal absolutely in your best interest so depersonalize depersonalize depersonalize and when someone suggested like we suggested to you just take it with a good heart and say okay thanks all right good points here if you look for more good points you might want to go to pickle411.com yep that is our information center everything there is free highly entertaining and insightful yep it’s one awards no it hasn’t won awards not yet we’re waiting for an award i feel like it’s coming yeah the pickle i just have a pickle or something it’s coming yeah we feel it i think it’s coming i feel it yeah all right and if you’re watching this we want to wish you a happy new year happy new year to you because uh 2022 i think it’s just going to be amazing for everybody we’re going to turn this around turn this ship around and everybody’s going to be the ship chip oh i thought you said something else no okay no you could turn that other thing around too well yeah i’m done with that yeah it has been pretty good yeah so i would agree but we’re going to turn that ship around 2022 is going to be amazing yep i just feel it it’s going to be a good start for all of us so here’s to a happy healthy and prosperous 2022 and give us a call to sell your home and we’ll give you some more tips in person that’s right all right take care bye