Wind Down – The "Prescott Pickle Lady"

Doggie Redux

Having just made a couple of sweet additions to our little family, we thought we'd revisit one of our favorite topics: Pups!  In this episode, we introduce our two new puppies and talk about the joy of having dogs in our little town.

Having Fun With Your Dog in Prescott...

Tour of Prescott's Fabulous Dog Parks...

Video Transcript

hello hello hello peeps welcome back to another version of the wind down that’s good pickle ladies one day yeah coming back at you here Diane and Randall bro here in Prescott happy to talk to you about our favorite thing puppy dog the dogs this is called doggie Redux that’s right we’re gonna talk about it again that’s right because we just love dogs yeah we’ve had a number of episodes in the past about dogs at dog park and bringing your dog to different places around town uh but uh you know dogs keep coming back so dogs keep coming back they’re uh in our hearts um you know you’ll see a lot of them and sadly back in November we lost one of our favorite pups and it was very traumatic terrible experience I did very unexpected totally young yeah totally unexpected so instead uh to recover from all that what did we do we went and adopted two two dogs two dogs sisters who look exactly like her and another dog we had that’s right prior to that so now we’ve got two dogs that duplicated the original two we had and we just named them the same thing you might hear from them in a second they may bark or wine which one of them is doing right now he wants to be part of the part of the recording but we wanted to stress again if you are a dog lover Prescott is the place Prescott’s a great place for it everybody loves their dogs here it’s a great way to meet people especially right yeah the dog parks yeah so when when dog uh when Frankie uh passed yeah you know Diane would take the dog out walking all the time and it’s amazing how quickly people started asking I haven’t seen you out with Frankie I know we had quite a little community in the early morning the early morning Walkers yeah um and after she passed I had people I hadn’t even met before but apparently they would have their morning coffee and watch me and Frankie walk by and they’re like oh we missed that beautiful black dog I said oh I’m so yeah it was sad but so interesting yeah we’re still training the new dogs and we’re trying to car train them as well Frankie uh was a big fan of car rides so at least once a day more like twice a day she would jump in the back of my car and I’d roll the windows windows down four and we’d go through town or whatever and people got used to seeing the big black dog that held the window and you’re gonna see a lot of those cars too A lot of people drive by with their dogs lots of dogs out uh it’s just a really uh warm and welcoming community Unity for pups especially restaurants love them restaurants welcome them people walk around the square people go to the parks and bring their chairs and meet other people so it is a great way if you’re new here to meet new people who also love dogs as well but it’s just good to have a dog it’s just good to have too it’s absolutely Although our hounds of hell I don’t know right now they’re trying my patience yeah they’re they’re puppies and we’re training them so uh they haven’t been to the dog park yet they just got their shots yeah uh they’re not crazy about car rides but they’re getting bigger I think probably within the next couple of months you’ll see me driving around with two dogs two dogs and they go get their pup cups and their whipped cream and they love it yeah so life is good life is good so if you have pups life is good is even better here in Prescott if you have pups you’ll love it and uh you’ll see how welcoming our town is to puppies I put some links in the bottom of this episode that will take you to other videos about dogs in the dog park and all that for your reference that’s right uh just another tip if you’re coming to Prescott you’re into dogs you’re in the right place you got it uh if you’re into tips the place to go is pickle411.com that is our free information site whether you are a buyer seller somewhere in between there is information waiting for you that will Astound amaze and entertain you to no end we try to deliver people we really try to deliver absolutely all right so that’s our tip for the day we’ll show you maybe some footage of our new pups yeah absolutely they’re so cute yeah I’ll interspace them some dog footage in you’ll see you’ll see what we’re what we’re dealing with that’s right okay so we welcome you and your pups that’s right come on into uh Prescott another tip too is sometimes you have people who bring their doggies they’re welcome to come on the house hunt with you oh that’s right yeah that’s right come on in our van yeah we we make room for your pup and uh they’re welcome to join in the house hunt as well that’s right so anyway just want to throw that out too because we welcome your animals yeah we welcome your problem yeah all right have a great day and we hope to hear from you soon bye cheers

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Altitude

One of the things that helps make Prescott special is we're all high here - that is, we are a mile above sea level.  Prospective buyers are often curious about the positive and negative effects this situation has on the people who live here, so we thought we'd explore that a bit in this latest episode.

Video Transcript

what up we’re up buttercup hello hello hello this is Randall and I am Diane bro coming to you from Prescott Arizona we are your local top real estate agents uh we love to work together as a team not always sometimes not always it’s not always loving it not always we always do it we always want it sometimes we get into it yeah usually we love it sometimes we aggravate each other yeah but part of the deal it’s part of the deal part of the charm oh the charm yeah is it speaking of being up today we want to talk to you about altitude so we do have people asking us questions about altitude first off altitude is what makes Prescott Prescott uh the reason why we are 20 degrees cooler than uh Phoenix is that we’re a mile high they’re not that’s right we’re just like Denver we are a mile high we’re about 5300 feet up which enables us to have this beauty four weathers for for weathers Four Seasons yeah you know um and that’s why we we’re not super hot in the summer yeah we’re not super cold it’s just like the perfect climate yeah the weather’s not that the air is nice and clean we’re watching the top clean yeah so something to keep in mind and we get this a lot some people have trouble with high altitude if you travel to Denver and you’ve had no issues you’ll probably be fine here but you should know we came from below sea level so when we came here you know we were used to oh I’m walking up the stairs holding my breath can’t do that here yeah you tend that you’ll get light-headed fast yeah you probably have never noticed this if you lived uh um at sea level your whole life like we did before but when people go upstairs they tend to hold their breath yeah or they’re doing any kind of physical yeah yeah you tend to hold your breath uh so if you do that here and you’re not used to the altitude you’ll be out of breath when you get to the top of the stairs and that’s it can be a little disconcerting uh you kind of have to teach yourself to keep breathing when you’re going upstairs uh if you’re doing breathe through it like you’re having a baby yeah breathe through it and just breathe keep breathing breathing don’t hold your breath yes and that will take care of most of the issues you have with breathlessness yeah and altitude I find and the other thing is um as you get here your lungs will acclimate yes and it’ll the breathing will it’ll get easier and easier you won’t even think about it anymore and when I first came here sometimes I would get lightheaded I’d get a little headache the other thing too with the altitude you can get dehydrated very quickly here so drink water all day long take your time breathing breathe through whatever activity you’re doing and you’ll be fine and then all of a sudden you’ll realize your lungs have kind of expanded a bit and it’s no problem yeah just um just the dry the dry weather the the dry climate kind of um tends to make you uh lose uh fluid and you don’t know it so if you’re in Louisiana and you’re hot you’re sweating you’re dripping wet you know you’re losing fluid right here you don’t you stay comfortable so you can dehydrate without realizing it the trick is if you start to get a little bit of a headache kind of a hangover headache yeah uh that’s pretty hard for us to tell sometimes yeah normally so if you uh if you feel that kind of coming on uh you drink a bottle of water suddenly you feel great again so that’s dehydration dehydration and altitude if you do have lung issues uh you you want to look for that um you know come visit and try it out see how you do and see how you do see if you’re comfortable if you’re having real issues that’s something to take into consideration yeah because the altitude is not going away here yeah it’s not going to go um it’s not going away so if you can come and it’s fine and you’re functioning good signs all good signs most people adapt pretty quickly yeah people come here that no absolutely so we just want to throw that out there that we’re pretty up here we’re very unique in the state of Arizona and it’s just beautiful here so if you want to enjoy four beautiful Seasons none that are extreme this is the place for you place the checkout we love it yeah we’re digging life here we’re digging life here I love it I love altitude you love altitude yeah he’s high on life I’m high on altitude I’m not going to live at sea level again yeah [Music] so anyway that’s our little tip of the day for those of you so a lot of people ask us about altitude and pressure and you know being able to breathe and all that and it’s really not a problem it’ll adjust and you’ll love it and um so we just wanted to pass that on to you yep and thank you for listening and we hope that you have the most amazing wonderful day absolutely right Cheers Cheers

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Post Possession

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.

Video Transcript

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

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Prescott by the Numbers – February 2023

Is negative appreciation something we should be worried about? In this episode, we share our thoughts…

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Event Calendar – March 2023

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Utilties & Our Free Concierge Service

People are always asking us about utilities, so we thought we would do an update on the cost (and availability!) of water, power, gas... and all the rest.

Also, we are delighted to announce a new, full-service, human-powered concierge service we offer to our clients for getting utilities disconnected where you're coming from and reconnected where you're going to... all completely free.

Previous Episode: Typical Utility Costs - Month by Month

Video Transcript

hello hello hello hello peeps excuse me I got a little tickled excuse me welcome welcome this is Diane and Randall we’re in Prescott Arizona coming to you live recording recording live we’re recording everyone records live yeah that’s pretty much because that’s redundant to say because yeah yeah it’s always live it’s a recording it’s not a recording we are here we get a lot of questions about this to our new folks who are buying and moving in yeah all about utilities here utilities so a couple things I want to say before we get into some of the the meat of this utilities here because a lot of people question especially coming out from California water is very reasonable electricity is very reasonable gas is very reasonable so you’re not going to be paying the high high utilities some of the bills that you see maybe in other areas of the country so we get a lot of concerned about that will there be enough water is there water rationing I just want to say real quick before we get into the other stuff no no we don’t have any water restrictions there are no water issues here they’re not predicting any water issues here any major development that goes in has to prove it has a 100 Year water plan and if they can’t they’re not building yeah they have to find another area so also not a big agricultural place here uh you know everything is zeriescape so as they say so people aren’t watering their lawns and all that so never think I had more water restrictions in Texas oh yeah we had water restrictions pretty pretty regular all the time I don’t run your water from this to this doesn’t have never happened so anyway and I just want to let you know utilities are not Uber expensive here never happen and don’t predict that they will be in the future a while ago I put together a schedule of our utilities month by month which is on our relocation Center if you go to our website prescottpicklelady.com you look for the relocation Center or you can go to Prescott relocationcenter.com and look up utilities um you’ll find our schedule there so don’t worry about that and of course ours is a little higher because I run it cold in the summer yeah yeah um but if you’re a person yeah and our house is a little over 3 000 square feet yeah so it’s a lot to AC it’s smaller so yeah so but I mean if you’re like most normal people who run their air on 75 you’ll be just fine don’t so don’t look at us as the best example the worst case I mean we’ll give you the worst case but something we were excited about and this will tie in now to utilities when you’re moving here and signing up we have a program through our brokerage that allows you just to go online and enter in your home that you’re in now and the new home that you’re going in and it will hook you up and disconnect so you don’t have to get on the phone like I did for 30 minutes and give all the information and this that and the other it makes it a lot easier yeah so the the program is called utility connect uh and it’s it’s driven by a very sophisticated technology called a human being something you contact them and they will assign you a human being who will do all that stuff for you uh the service is free yes uh they will help you schedule the disconnect of where you’re coming from and they will help you schedule the the connection on where you’re going to uh now some utility companies do not play with the utility connect people yeah uh well you know whether it’s in Prescott or you know maybe your utility company may not do that either if that’s the case then the concierge person uh will give you the contact information and tell you what you need to do so they’ll say hey whatever they won’t play with us but I’m going to give you the information and then you’ll have to do it the old-fashioned way but um it sure is nice to have them help you with the disconnection yeah on the other end as well it’s a great great product and we’re really excited and we’ve had a couple of clients use it and say wow it was so much easier yeah and faster now we have all the utility numbers to call here in Prescott obviously we won’t have the numbers where you’re coming from uh those numbers can do it all we can’t do it all uh the but the utility connected will yeah um the numbers change we try to keep them up to date but that information changes and it’s different depending on what area you’re moving into the utility connect people will help you negotiate all that stuff make it as easy as they possibly can absolutely they’ll also do um your your phone your mail uh they’ll do uh I like the mail that’s good too yeah your internet connections and stuff like that that can do all that stuff for you so it’s a pretty cool product cool product yeah so anyway if you call us and we find you the home of your dreams we’re going to connect you to utility connect that’s right and uh just make one more piece of this move easy for you that’s right and that’s what we are all about as your real estate team of Prescott yeah that’s us that’s us the pickle lady oh so that’s our tip of the day tip of the tips good place to go is pickle411.com whether you are a buyer seller somewhere in between there is something there waiting for you that will amaze and Astound you yes whether it’s real to stay places to eat things to do uh it’s all there it’s all fun and it’s all amen hallelujah brother amen good job yeah okay okay hope to see you soon give us a call bye bye

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Vacation Buddies & Splitter (Splittr)

One of the joys of retirement is travel, and there's no place you'll find more fun people to travel with than Prescott.  

In this episode, we share stories of the great trips we've recently made with our buddy groups... plus a cool app that makes paying bills for large groups a snap.

Video Transcript

Gemma Bell Randall this is Diana Randall bro here in Prescott Arizona we are your local hopefully favorite Realtors yes we sure have a lot of fun yeah we do meeting everybody new and old and uh having friendships after we sell we’ve met some great people but uh in fact some of these people have become such good friends we are now traveling yeah so traveling groups is a big thing here yeah people make friends they end up forming little groups the groups get bigger yep uh so uh we’re we’re about to head out uh on a little jaunt yes uh with eight of our friends including us so six of our friends yes yeah uh we just got back from uh another one early in December we went to Key West yeah another eight people for 10 days yeah so it’s real big here I guess because most folks are retired unlike us but that’s okay yeah we try to schlep in there anyway get in there and have fun with all the retired folk but uh so yeah they’ll reach out and say hey I’d like to get a couple of airbnbs nearby who wants to join us I want to get a condo I want to get this I want to go I want we want to go on a cruise does anybody want to join us and we’ve been invited to several of those so much fun yeah now we haven’t been on vacations before friends family and honestly um it’s a mixed bag you know if you don’t quite gel with the other people on the trip you know it’s gonna it’s gonna keep nagging you the whole time we’ve had really good luck we’ve had a great time yeah everyone seems to be of the same mind and uh we we’ve had really good luck with with uh with our vacations with our friend groups absolutely and you know once you have one you know they kind of roll over then you do another trip yeah you know you kind of have the uh the draft you know where one one couple gets traded off to the other and you get you can’t quite make it but you have somebody else that’s in the group that could fill the Slime substitute absolutely yeah but we all get along great yeah um and so we went to Costa Rica we’ve done Key West we’re going to do New Orleans I mean it just gets more and more fun yeah and we’ve just had the time of our lives that’s all I can say and so when you come to Prescott and you make some of these great friendships you know you’ll see a lot of this going on people love to travel together and I guess you know it’s fun because you don’t have the baggage Family or all your friends you know you can just go with you know everybody’s kind of new to the game here so maybe we’re all on best behavior I don’t know the best behavior well yeah we do yeah we do hit it hard yeah we do hit it hard but uh it’s it’s been uh one of the nice perks about living here is meeting people especially we’re you know we haven’t really traveled too too much but these folks have so they can set it all up yeah they can tell you oh this is great this is great we’re gonna do this and I just tag along and I have the time of my life yeah so the the mechanics of this thing is you plan a trip you’re going to plan it you know months in advance uh you know you have a group that wants to get together generally you’ll have you know some dinner meetings where you talk about where you want to go what do you want to do once you pick the place who’s in you know who’s definitely in and then once that’s settled out you have another meeting all with drinks so that’s also part of the fun it’s part of the function yeah so here are all the excursions that are available who wants to do this who wants to do that and then you go on your on your launch day you know and it’s uh so that’s one of the beautiful things about living in Prescott is it is a retirement kind of community and so people are free and available to you know make these great trips yeah and if you’re lucky enough and they include you you say yes and you go and then you have a great time yeah that’s kind of one of the perks about living in a retirement kind of town it’s it’s lovely the other great thing we discovered and well shout out to Charlie bomberger and Bob swelgin you know who you are good friends uh it’s a little program that they introduced this to called Splitter Splitter so this is our other tip to you guys yeah so it’s split like splitter but but no e it’s special s-p-l-i-t-t-r yeah splitter it’s a German app you can put it on your phone so your your credit card may not like it at first so you might have to uh tell them oh yeah it’s it’s uh it’s a validate it’s not very much uh well I think it’s free it is a free app you can get it you can get the premium version but we did not we did not Yeah so basically it’s about splitting costs of things yeah so when you’re with a group of people or your family yeah every time you say I’ll pick up for the whole group it goes on to the splitter app and at the end of the year at the end of the trip I should say it splits up what everyone paid what everyone owed and tells you who owes whom what yeah and it’s a lot of fun it kind of becomes a competition yeah uh oh I’m ahead of the game so you know somebody else needs to and and everybody starts buying a vine to pay for the meal yeah and so at the end everybody basically pays the you know it it it washes out it all washes out what’s really cool about the app I mean obviously if it’s just splitting everything four ways let’s say uh the arithmetic on that is pretty straightforward but uh like when we were in uh Key West I uh I uh paid for a few Ubers but not everyone could fit in the car so I’m thinking well I’m just gonna I’m just gonna pay for the Ubers and I will put it through splitter because not everyone was in the car oh no you can you can make a subgroup and say okay I paid for an Uber and this couple and this couple were the only ones in the car and it will just divide that expense among those two couples so it’s really nice it’s really really cool yeah so you can you know divide it up any way you need to yeah you go to a big meal and you’ve got a table of eight little bills for each single person some restaurants won’t allow you to do that well somebody picks it up and then you put it on splitter yeah and then you know it washes out somebody else will pick up another meal so it’s uh it’s kind of fun and it kind of became a little competition I got it I got it I got this bill I got this bill it’s a lot of fun especially if you know if you’re if you’re drinking it because yeah yeah really quite funny well you know I always kind of think that when you do things that everyone’s kind of splitting things and taking terms of Spain that you end up being pretty even and you do uh you know but the splitter’s nice because it makes sure that everything’s Fair yeah nice and clean super clean and easy you don’t have to do the addition subtraction yeah it does it for you so anyway that was a lot of fun to learn on our last trip so we had a lot of fun with that and we will continue to use splitter in the future for sure absolutely so if you’re looking uh you’re thinking about Prescott get on over here oh my gosh there’s so many great people to meet and then maybe you can take future trips yeah and you can get the splitter app yeah one day we might be on splitter we might be yeah we might be splitting bills with you on Twitter we hope so that might be fun anyway so that’s just our tip of the day and we just were talking about our past vacation we just took and how much fun it was and how nice it was to just go with a new group of friends and just have the time of our lives and isn’t that what it’s about no it is exactly getting ready to retire get on over here and have some fun with all the other retired folks that’s it all right that’s our tip of the day if you’re in the tips the place to go it’s pickle411.com that is our free information site whether you are a buy or seller or somewhere in between there is something atrocious and wonderful not atrocious not atrocious entertaining yeah formative all free all right so give us a call we’d love to show you around our beautiful town and look at some great houses and help you get over here as soon as you can all right take care have a great evening bye

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