80 flights per week between Canada and Phoenix

I went to a recent presentation from Bryant Andrus of Keats, Connelly and Associates, LLC discussing issues involved with Canadians buying homes in Arizona. Keats, Connelly specializes in advising Canadians regarding their U.S. activities.

Arizona-Canada Factoids

• 100,000 Canadians live the Phoenix area



• 80 per week from Canada to Phoenix (including 2 new weekly flights from Montreal)

Arizona home buying - Quick reference guide of timelines and procedures

The quick reference guide below is from Joe Bartley, Branch Manager/Escrow Officer at Magnus Title Agency. It's a great little summary!

The following is a quick reference of the timelines and procedures of a Real Estate Closing in Arizona.

Prior to submitting a contract to purchase a property you will want to have your financing secured and documented.

If you are obtaining new financing an LSR and/or bank approval letter should accompany the purchase contract. If you are securing financing otherwise and purchasing the property cash then a Proof of Funds letter should accompany the contract.

Unless the terms of the contract specify differently –

Once the contract is accepted Earnest Money, ranging from $1000 - $5,000 depending on the sales price, is deposited to the Escrow Company. This can be done by wire* or check.

The 1st 10 days after contract acceptance is the inspection period. Before the end of your inspection period you will submit a request for repairs (if any) to the Seller or notify the Seller of items you disapprove of, cancel the contract and retain your earnest money. The document used during the inspection period is called the BINSR (Buyers Inspection Notice and Sellers Response). Once you submit the BINSR to the Seller with the list of repairs you are requesting, the Seller then has 5 days to respond to your request. You will then have 5 days to approve or disapprove their response. In the event you disapprove their response you may cancel the contract and retain your earnest money. Please note there is only one submission of the BINSR so you will want to make sure all of your inspections are done prior to sending your request to the Seller.

Upon opening escrow, the Title Company will send a copy of the preliminary title report for your review (usually sent within the 1st week of escrow). You have 5 days to review and cancel if there are items disapproved.

If the property is in a subdivision with a Homeowners Association, the Escrow Company will request the Association's Management Company to send their disclosure package to you for your review. This may be in the form of a booklet or CD/DVD. Per the contract you have 5 days after receipt of this information to cancel if there is an item that you reasonable disapprove of.

Once in a position to do so, the Escrow Company will send docs to you to have signed, this is usually within a week of Close of Escrow but varies depending on circumstances. There may be documents to have notarized. This will include the closing statement with the breakdown of the closing costs and the amount the Escrow Company will need from you to close and record.

Funds for closing should be deposited with the escrow company in enough time to allow escrow to close. If Funds are being wired* it is usually suggested to have the wire send a day or two before close of escrow to cover any delay due to processing.

* When sending a wire from a Canadian Account it is usually suggested to add an additional $50-$100 to cover any conversion fees that may apply. Any overages deposited in the transaction will be refunded to you at close of escrow.

The two most common types of Canadian buyers

I've found that Canadian buyers of Arizona winter homes tend to fall into one of two camps.

Single Family Homes on the Outskirts

The first camp, and by far the largest camp, are those folks that just want a place in the sun. They don't want to spend a lot of money. They prefer newer homes to reduce potential maintenence costs. They don't care if the home is located on the edge of metropolitan Phoenix because they are coming for the sun... and maybe to play a lot of golf.

The ideal home for those in this first camp would be a home in one of the newer towns like Queen Creek or Maricopa.

Condos in Scottsdale

The second camp want a place in the sun but they would also like to get out and be active when they are on vacation in Arizona. Oftentimes, they would also like to rent out the home for part of the winter to make some money when they're not using it.

The ideal home for those in this second camp would be a condo in Scottsdale. Scottsdale is the center of winter events in Phoenix. For example, the Barrett-Jackson Classical Car Auction, the Arabian Horse Show, the Phoenix Open Golf Tournament, and a zillion other activities are located in Scottsdale in the winter.

And because Scottsdale is the center of winter activities, it can be easier to rent out Scottsdale condos to winter vacationers.

I brought this all up because recently a few 2-bedroom condos in the Scottsdale area sold for just over $100,000. Some amazing prices right now! And the ones I've seen were located in resort like communities. A few even had a garage which is quite unusual indeed for condos in Arizona.

There are complications because the condos I saw at those prices were usually foreclosures or short sales. Foreclosures and short sales and not like normal sales. Here are Scottsdale foreclosure condos and Scottsdale short sale condos currently listed for sale. Call me for more information about these or other Arizona homes for sale.

Planning a house hunting trip to Arizona?

This website shows the cost of some cheap flights from Edmonton to Phoenix. Not bad prices at all!



Need more convincing that now is the time to buy a holiday home in Arizona, check out the current Scottsdale temperature in the sidebar.

Canadian Dollar above 96 cents today

Are we headed to par?

Well, that has certainly been the direction over the last 12 months.

Makeover complete!

I've made a lot of improvements to this website that I hope will be useful to you.

Highlights

• You can now search all homes listed for sale in metropolitan Phoenix on this website.
 

• I added the graphic in the upper right-hand corner to brag about our new home search capability.
 

• Now you can call me TOLLFREE by clicking on the "Call Me" button. (Google will ring both of our phones at the same time and connect us.)

 
• Your now have a better form to order emails of just listed Phoenix area homes.

 
• You can now find the current Canadian Dollar to U.S. Dollar exchange rate from this website. Click the link in the sidebar.

 
• Also in the sidebar, you can now easily send me a quick question. Try it!

 
• I also updated all the tutorials about how to buy an Arizona home.

The tutorials (see sidebar) are great but, unfortunately, they don't cover Arizona foreclosures. Now with this blog, I'll be able to talk about how you can buy Arizona foreclosures and Arizona short sales.

This is an amazing time for Canadians to buy a home in Arizona. Both home prices and the exchange rate are excellent!

I hope this website is able to help you understand the Phoenix area real estate market and our Arizona home buying process. I hope you are able to buy your sunny and warm winter vacation home in Arizona.

New! Blog Added to "How To Buy Arizona Real Estate"

I created this website over 2 years ago and it's been helpful to a ton of Canadians which I'm very happy about.

One problem.  I'm always running across information that would be useful to Canadians considering buying a home in Arizona but without a blog on this website, I really didn't have a good  way to get the information out.

Viola!  I finally added this blog during the Christmas slowdown and just in time for the high season that began yesterday, January 1.

In addition, I'm going to do a makeover of this website to, I hope, make it even more useful.