The other day I talked at length with Jason Warick, a reporter with the Saskatoon (Canada) Star Phoenix newspaper. He was working on a story about Canadian buyers for real estate in Arizona.
In the article – Saskatoon Residents Find Arizona Opportunity — Jason (a heck of a nice guy by the way) talked to people ranging from agents such as myself and Jonathan Dalton, to some Saskatoon residents who’d bought homes in Phoenix.
For the record, I did not say we had, “found houses for scores of western Canadian buyers”. We have had many Canadian clients, but “scores” implies a number that lies between 40 and infinity. I’d say we’re closer to 0.75 score of Canadian clients this year.
I did indeed however say, “if it wasn’t for Canadian buyers, we’d be starving.” That was a bit tongue-in-cheek (though if you’ve ever seen a 16 year old boy eat….). You’d think I’d have learned by now you can’t be tongue-in-cheek with mainstream media reporters. All food aside, we absolutely adore all our Canadian clients. Without exception they have all been super people to work with.
As Jonathan pointed out, the most disheartening part of the article was a quote from Glenn Williamson, CEO of the locally based Canada Arizona Business Council:
You can get brand-new houses here for nothing. Nice three-, four-bedroom places for $200,000. There is a real opportunity,” said Glenn Williamson, CEO of the Phoenix-based Canada Arizona Business Council.
Sigh. We fight this battle all the time with buyers from Canada, (and locally, and from across the US). Yes, there are some brand-new houses available in the 200K range — if you’re willing to live on the outskirts (or beyond) of the Phoenix metro area. And there is nothing wrong with buying in these areas, just do your due diligence and understand exactly what all that entails. One good idea is to make the commute (in rush hour) between where you’re looking for a home and where you will be working. It’s far better to discover before you purchase your home if the commute is something you can tolerate (and afford)
There are many opportunities for homes of all shapes and sizes across the Valley. But to imply we’re giving away new homes everywhere is simply incorrect.
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I recently used Craigslist, of all places, to attract a Canadian buyer for a $2.4 million Palm Springs estate where the owner will finance the property @ 7%. This guy has been flying all over the place buying up property . . . gotta love ‘em!
Dawn – Craigslist never ceases to amaze me. But people need to be careful with it too. Just last week we had some folks coming in from out of state to look at homes. They rented a condo from Craigslist. When they go here, the condo didn’t exist…
I’d be VERy careful with Craigslist. There are some shady people on there and the scary bit is they get away with it, just like with what Jay said.