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Here's my Real Estate Secret for finding the perfect location for your Southwestern Dream Home.Find how to locate the best property for your Southwestern Dream Home. Here's my Real Estate Secret.
Tom and I visited Tucson for the expressed purpose of purchasing the ideal propertyfor us to build our Southwestern Dream Home. We set aside two weeks to find something, and werehopeful that would be sufficient. The Real Estate market has been tight in Tucson, with homesselling within days of listing and prices sometimes exceeding the list price. As with any investment, it's not advisable to purchase during a bubble. The reason is that when the market slows you'll be left with a property that could drop in value and you'll still have a huge mortgage.If you were to decide to sell while prices are lower than when you purchased the property, you may not be ableto sell for as much as your original purchase price.
 Enter, Tom and Cheryl, hunters of dream property for our Southwestern Dream Home. We had done our homework, and were aware of the above phenomenon. We didn't, however, plan to sell in the near future. This was to beour retirement, so it was safe to purchase property that may be a bit inflated in price. We had scouted the Tucson area and pinned down a few of the surrounding communities that looked like good choicesfor us. The criteria: far enough from congested city area so we could have space to roam and not have someone"watching us barbeque in the back yard", and close enough to town that it didn't take a "day trip" to buy a loaf of bread. My major concern, however, was to have high speed internet to feed my addiction to the web. We looked up several promising offerings on the local MLS and began our hunt. We were not particularly pleased at the end of the day, however. Our only likely candidate was a hilltopsite that would have hit us for a chunk of change in the range of a quarter million dollars. The view was exceptional, but the road was primitive and the hill so steep we would have to buy a four-wheel-drivevehicle to get up the driveway!
Real Estate Secret ahead, stay tuned... Day Two. From stage right, the voice of Jacob, our friendly local Realtor. This is the man that showed us our special Real Estate Secret. It was Sunday, and Jacob was on phone duty. This meant he was not able to come out and show us property. Jacob simply gave us a list of four properties that may match our criteria and let us go view them on our own. But he let us in on his little Real Estate Secret so we could find our perfect Southwestern Dream Home property. So we set off. The first property was a ways outside of town, so we traveled ten minutes or so andturned off Ajo Highway onto a dirt road. The road deteriorated as we traveled further from civilization,and the surface turned to a dry powder. The powder dust clung to everything, and breathing was difficult.Soon the dust was several inches thick on the road and I became nervous. I lived twenty years in Tucson, and this type of road could become a problem. I knew this. The addresses slowly crept upward, nearing the 12432 address we were searching for. At the same time, the road softenedand became a bit sandy. The truck slowed as it struggled to traverse the difficult surface. There is was! A gem of a property, with no native vegetation except scrub grass and that lovely powder dust. It was at a tee in the road, and Tom turned right. His idea was to get out quickly by heading up to the nextroad and turn right to go back out. WRONG! I was fidgeting in my seat as the sand replaced dust and our tires sunk into six-inch-deep sand. We fish-tailed a bit and I asked Tom to please turn around. Nope, he found the road and turned right. Or tried. We sunk in two feet of sand and came to a dead stop, wheels spinning furiously. Needless to say, an hour later when we were again on our way, we had decided this was NOT IT!! The next offering was about two miles up the road. Same type of roads, same dust. We passed the turnoff at 70 miles an hour. Third choice was in Sahuarita, down highway 19. Great, the map made it simple to find our turnoff. Five milesup the road, we turned onto Mission Road and we were intriqued. A turn or two more, several miles up a gently sloping hillside, and we were still on pavement. The area had great cactus, paved roads, and homes were sparsely scattered. After 8 miles of pavement, we turned onto the first dirt road. It was county maintained and very easily traversed. Soon we were to see Jacob's Real Estate Secret in action. Another mile and a half and there it was! This was my idea of dream home location, and within thirty minutes of walking the property and admiring the local cactus growth and the awesome view, we called Jacob to tell him we wanted to make an offer.
 The property has a 1999 mobile home on it! We can live in it while we build the house, and watch the progress.Tom can make sure they put in the right number of studs and nails, and I can shop for all those great Southwestern items for the house. Let me be a little more direct here. Jacob was kind enough to explain his Real Estate Secret to us. It's a good idea to stoplooking for vacant land (think hundreds of thousands of dollars), and check out properties that may be "distressed." Nobody wants to buy a mobile home, so the properties can be inexpensive. He told us simply, "Buy the land and move the mobile home off". Bingo! Savings, who knows?
 So there you have it! My Real Estate Secret to get your dream property at a fraction of the price.
In addition to my favorite Real Estate Secret, I've found a couple of good sites for you to visit for your Real Estate needs. If you're looking for property in Arizona, visit Arizona Real Estate . And if you want to find something in New Mexico, go to this New Mexico Real Estate site. . I have also located an article to help you understand the responsibilitiesa Real Estate agent has to you, the client. Look this over so you have anidea what he/she can or can't do. Visit
agent disclosures for another great Real Estate Secret.
 
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