Live Tucson Real Estate with Darren and Tony Ray - Episode 4

Happy Saturday!

Hi, I'm Darren Jones with Tierra Antigua Realty.

I'm Tony Ray Baker with the same company, Tierra Antigua Realty. Don't forget that one, right?

And today we're going to talk about the 3 steps to buying a home. Tony Ray is going to talk to you about money, money, money, the no money down, down payment assistance programs.

Wait, that's 2 things. There's no money down, no money down programs and down payment assistance. I know, there's like so much money coming through this conversation.

I know. And also I'm going to tell you a little bit later about some fun things to do this weekend and throughout month in Tucson and the surrounding areas. And stay tuned, Tony's going to tell you about a really cool app you need to download at the end.

I'm excited about the app. I can't—

it's—

it's— I just can't wait to talk about it. I want to talk about it right now, but we're not. Okay, um, 3 easy steps to buying a home. I know this, um, one of the things that we keep running into is people are a little overwhelmed with the thought process of buying a home. Hey, Dennis Jensen and Tom Heath!

Hello! What's up, guys?

Hey, morning, Dennis! You need to move now. Seattle, come on. Come on, brother. The buying a house, it can seem overwhelming, and we get that. So we want to just tell you there's really 3 easy steps to doing this, and I even wrote them down. So just so I would make sure you get this, 1 is hire the right REALTOR®. Number 2 is hire the right loan officer. And number 3 is we go find a house. See, we take care of everything for you, so it really is easy. We are your guides. We help walk you through the whole process. The key for you to making this happen is just making sure that you have the right REALTOR®, the right lender, and then everything else takes care of itself. Um, does that make sense to you?

Yeah. So how do you pick the right REALTOR®?

Um, okay, so here's what I would do. Full-time only, and I would definitely go for somebody who's had at least 10 years experience, and I'll tell you why. 10 years experience, if you read Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, he discusses this beautifully about the 10,000-hour rule. And any business or anything you do, playing the violin, it takes about 10,000 hours to master what you're doing. So REALTOR®, loan officers, anybody in any type of profession should really have 10,000 hours, which equates to full-time about 10 years. You got that? I would make sure that they are somebody that sells at least 2 homes a month. If they're not selling 2 homes a month, then they're not selling the average. You want somebody who has tons of experience, and selling more than 2 homes a month means dealing with a lot of contracts, a lot of negotiation. Yeah, keeping up with changes, what's happening. And I would also be looking, if it was me hiring a REALTOR® in another city right now, I'd be asking them, give me clients that are happy to talk to me and will tell me about their experience with you. And that's a big deal. And I think we don't do that enough in any industry. We're just as guilty. Do we, you know, someone refers us, do we go out and say, hey, give us give us some people to talk to.

That's right.

I would ask, definitely ask if they have that. The other last thing I would say is they have to answer all your phone calls and emails in a timely manner. And that would be timely being within 24 hours. If it's after 5 or 6 o'clock at night, expect them to call you back the next day. But are, you know, are they responding? And then probably my biggest thing is I go by Instinct, which is another book by Malcolm Gladwell. You want to recall Blink? And Instinct is you got to be with this person, this REALTOR®. You're going to be with them every day for a long time. Time shopping for houses. You're going to be with them in negotiations. I would say make sure you trust them. Just trust your instincts. If you get along, if you can trust them, they're looking out for your best interest. That's your REALTOR® right there, right?

Yes.

So same, uh, for how would you hire the right loan officer? Okay, so by the way, we're going to refer you the right loan officer, but this loan officer should have what qualities? Step 2.

Well, these qualities, um, a lot of the same qualities. Uh, you want to make sure that You know, they also have referrals that are willing to speak with you. 10 years of experience and also good licensure and education.

One of the things that you bring up there is licensing. So I want to tell you that there are, in the state of Arizona, loan officers are licensed loan officers. If you go to a bank that has tellers, they are probably not licensed. And they probably have a very limited portfolio. So we're never going to send you to a bank with tellers. They're not going to process that mortgage as smoothly, most likely. There are some over— maybe there's a couple great loan officers at a bank with a teller. But reality is, is we really want a loan officer that works all day, every day in the business doing loans.

That's a big deal.

Same as us.

Their hands are pretty tied. They work for the bank and they're going to give you a loan from the bank. They're not going to shop for best interest rates.

Right. We're talking about banks with tellers. They have a limited portfolio. They can only do so much. Many of them are not licensed, and that's not a good thing. So, um, it's very important. So again, we'll walk you through that step. So easy. All really all you need to do is hire the right REALTOR® and then it's all done. So it's one step to buying a house now. So step 3, find a house.

Find a house.

Okay, so this should be the fun part, and this is why I say trust your— make sure you trust the REALTOR®. You're going to be in the car with us him, me, one of us. You're going to be in the car with one of us shopping for homes. Say about the last house, not my house, I don't know, right?

Yes.

I need to know what you want to talk about. I need to know what your reactions are to the home. I want to get to know you, your family, what your goals are, and everything. All of that for me, when it comes down at the end of the day, helps me make sure I get you through the process and achieve your goals, not just getting that house.

And I think it's really important too, it's like during that time period is that you're working with your REALTOR® and realizing you are a team. You're a team together. You are not a separate— trying to keep things away from your REALTOR®. The more you share, the better we're able to help you.

Absolutely. So there it is. Easy as 1, 2, 3, but it could be just one. Hire the right REALTOR®, hire the right loan officer, and go shop for a home. All the rest we take care of. Your team, us, and the loan officer and title people, we all take care of it all for you. That's the type of service you deserve, and it's easy to do. And right now there couldn't be a better time to do it because still out there, P2P money is still available.

Show me the money!

Show me the money! Oh, I lost the money. I don't know where it is. Oh, there it is. Here it is. Here you go. Again, there's the money. That's what $10,000 looks like in one little stack. Woo-hoo! That's the money. Up to $20,000 is the PTP program. We have that on our website for you. What that— if you go there, it's at seetucsonhomes.com, and at the top of the website, there's this little group of people. Like waving their hands and money's falling down. So push on that.

Okay, one caveat, okay, this is full, this is empty. We're here, we're over half of it is gone already. So get on that bandwagon, get your free money.

Yeah, it is. And again, it's easy to buy a house, and now is the time not to miss out on a great program because a lot of people, over half that money of $48 million is gone. And so people are taking advantage of it and they're getting homes, and it's proving that if everyone else can do it, so can you. So it's Perfect timing to grab a house, right?

Close.

Right. Now, if you don't want to use the Pathway to Purchase program, there are other programs that are still no money down, like VA and USDA. Those are— those programs are still no money down programs out there. And there's also other down payment assistance programs that we haven't even highlighted yet that are out there as well. Again, great loan officer has all of this information for you, right?

It all comes around full circle.

Yay! All right, any questions, please type in if you have a question. We can talk to you live or If you want to talk to us in person, always call 520-631-8669 or send me an email via through the website at SeaTucsonHomes.com or fill out one of our cute contact forms that James makes. All kinds of ways to find us. Send me a text.

New stuff, lots of fun.

All right, tell us what's happening at MOCA. Oh, I want to talk to you about MOCA because for kids 9 through 13 coming up—

What is MOCA?

MOCA is the Museum of Contemporary Art. We are members. Hello, MOCA friends. Hi guys. MOCA is an amazing museum of art. And the Museum of Contemporary Art actually has really awesome programs like yoga and things like that going on throughout the year. And membership is so inexpensive. And I have to tell you that the— what is the membership? It's less than $100, I think. It's worth— they need— it's just worth the money and it's a great cause.

And also, if you're not familiar with MOCA in Tucson, lots and lots of international recognition for this little contemporary museum.

Right.

Here in Tucson, Arizona, these guys have done a great job. Really catapulting the status of our museum here.

The people running MOCA are an amazing group of people. We should just have them all in here to meet you. They're beautiful people. Hi, Karen! Oh my God, so San Diego in the house. Well, not really San Diego, it's, uh, Karen, where are you? What is the— oh my God, we go— we've been there camping. Hello, um, South Carlsbad Beach. Yes, hello. Okay, I think we got that right. Karen will tell us if we didn't. Uh, I miss Thing. That's her name.

Miss Thing. Miss Thing.

Mocha has art, they're teaching art classes coming up for kids 9 to 13. It is free. So the kids get to go in, there's a September, October, November schedule. They go in after school around 4 to 6 PM. Get them in there. This is the— it's awesome. It's sculpture, painting, drawing. I mean, I seriously, I was thinking about how do I get in.

I want to go.

I want to go to these classes. It sounds so fun. This is a cool thing for free for kids. So I want to talk about that really quick and I'll let you talk about, um, we have some really fun— if you're bored out of your mind this weekend, like we are stuck and we have to be home, we can't go out and we didn't get to vacation, we get to have fun. So there's a lot of fun here going on right now in downtown Tucson.

Hoco Fest is going on, started yesterday, it's going to be going through Monday. And this is at the Hotel Congress. It's Hoco Congress. Hoco. Yeah, they have their own festival, so fantastic. Stuff. Um, but they've got over 40 bands, they've got a fashion show, uh, solar-powered entertainment venues, vendors, and so much more. Starts at 6 o'clock and it's going on tonight, tomorrow, and Monday.

So they're having like a family fair, an eco fair, a fashion show. It's like barbecue, non-stop partying with all these bands and stuff.

Yeah, great stuff.

And it should be nice out. It's usually like, yeah, it'll be nice in the evenings. It's a perfect time to come out and play. That'll be really good.

It's also a great time to go out to Apple Annie's out in Wilcox, and they're having free wagon rides right now, um, all-you-can-eat pancake breakfast from 7:30 to 10:30, apple smoked burger lunch 11:30 to 3. Right now they're having Asian pears, there could be some peaches left. There's homemade pies, uh, the country store, apple picking, and also They'll have their big craft pears.

Big craft pears. So that's a new type of pear that grows on big craft trees.

They're going to have their big craft fair September 18th through the 19th, and crafters from all over Arizona will be there. So you crafters, this is a great place for you. Okay.

I haven't been to that event, but I've heard that event's cool. I mean, we've, we've been down for when they did it. We picked chilies and we've done apples and all kinds of things. We've gone with friends down there. By the way, Chris and Randy were just there, uh, last week and they had a blast. Yeah, they said it was really fun. Uh, the pancakes and the lunch sound really good. I'd be torn. I might show up right at the edge of both so I could get breakfast and lunch.

Yeah. And also, uh, check out the 101st Sonoyta Labor Day Rodeo that's going on this weekend, and it's been dubbed as the best little rodeo in America— in Arizona, I'm sorry. The best little rodeo in Arizona with over 700 entries and $40,000 in cash prizes. There's a steak fry, a free dance on Saturday and Sunday after the rodeo, and they have barrel racing, wild horse races, team roping, mutton busting, and junior events.

I don't think I like that one.

They play with the little kids. It's for the little kids. They play with the little lambs. You gotta watch it. It's cute.

Okay, we'll let you slide on that one. Well, if you're going to go down to Sonoita for a day trip, that's a great place. There's, you know, Patagonia Lake is right there.

Oh yeah, that's a great place for picnics.

You can go do a picnic at Patagonia Lake.

You can bring your kayak.

Yeah, kayak around the lake. Yeah, that's what we should be doing. Kayaking. Also right around there is, they have Sonoita wineries around that area too, but I don't suggest that unless you have a driver. Tasting at that area. So this is about a 45. So Patagonia Lake is probably a 45-minute drive from Tucson in case you're not familiar with Patagonia Lake. It's a cute little lake. Uh, Parker Canyon Lake is right around the curve there too. So you could be in both of those within an hour. And so you could do the rodeo, the lakes, the wineries. There's a lot of fun in that area right there within an hour. Yeah. Right. Apple Annie's is towards, uh, the Benson Wilcox area.

You're going that way past the exit.

Yeah. So that's another hour that way, maybe an hour and 15 minutes. You're going a little, you're going a different direction. So you're going towards New Mexico, right? Texas. Going down. Both. Yeah. Go west. Go west, young man. Go east.

Go west.

Okay, what else did we—

oh, I get—

okay, so are we done? Okay, I want to tell you, I'm going to try to start bringing in my favorite cool techie tips and my favorite apps.

I want you to like us on Facebook.

Wait, I haven't told my cool techies that I have an app. Oh, okay. I wanted to also bring this up. Last week we did Autobahn for my birthday. We did the go-kart. They are officially grand opening. I go, look, this is my little license. I'm officially licensed at the Autobahn. This photograph, you can see— and is that good, James? James is giving me a thumbs up that I can kind of— you can kind of see. Okay, so that's a photograph. I'm going up now. You can see me and the girls, and it looks like I am number 1. Okay, so we took that picture before we even raced. And that was a dream, a pipe dream, that I would be number 1 because somebody named Tom kicked my butt and I did not place number 1. I placed number 2. So really I should be— I should do a step down. Anyways, we had a great time at the Autobahn. These little cars are very fun, and if you get a chance, that's a great thing to do this weekend. It's air-conditioned like crazy in there. Like, there's tons of air. So that's a great place to go. Okay, um, one— so our last thing is I want to tell you about, um, it doesn't seem— maybe it seems boring, but to everybody, because I don't think people know, Google Photos. You download that app, you download it for iPhone or for Android, right? But here's why I love Google Photos. So I didn't think about it because I have plenty of storage. I have the biggest iPhone and I have tons of storage, and I have iCloud, tons of storage. So no problem, right? My photos are backing up and everything's good. But here's the thing that I keep running into. I have 10,000 photos on my phone. We took a trip to Italy, I had 8,000 photos on my phone in one shot, right? So I want to search something, I want to find a dog, a picture of a dog, I want to find Baxter or Keely, and I have to scroll through 8,000 photos and little tiny photos, and you got to scroll through them and try to find them, or you go to your your PC desktop and then you try to find them there. Google Photos, you click a button, it automatically loads everything off your phone right into Google Photos and it's free. Free, free, free, right? And it's HQ, which is high quality. If you want to keep the print-ready size, do keep the print-ready size like on your PC, back them up or whatever, but HQ is plenty for what most of us need on internet. So they give you free space for as many photos as you want HQ. But here's the cool part about this, this is like, okay, this gets like Ah, and this, I'm gonna get, ah, give me the like, okay? Because here's what Google Photos is doing, which is wicked. So I'm in Google Photos, right, okay, Key and everything, woo, okay. Google Photos actually lets you type in the word dog, for example, and I typed in the word dog and every photo in my 10,000 photos with a dog in it popped up in front of me.

What?

What? I popped, I, right, I got that now, right? So I, this kind of threw me off. So I typed in the word mountain and photos of mountains, of my photos, it found mountain photos. Food, you can drink, person, man, woman, it starts identifying and pulling them in. And my understanding is, which I haven't tried yet, but that somehow you can actually, if I picked you and said man and your picture popped up, I can click on it and it would start identifying all the pictures that match him. So it tracks all your photos for you and Last but not least, if you're dealing with iPhone, it's a pain in the butt to get a photo into any other place because iPhone is so proprietary on how to use stuff. Yeah, so it drives me crazy downloading iPhone photos, right? Now they're all on Google. All you have to do is go anywhere on any application and Google Photos has it.

It's great to have all your photos following you.

I love this app, so download it. It's free. What's it called? Google Photos.

Google Photos.

And you can use it on PC, anything you got. It's awesome. Awesome. So here, give me— Google Photos. Google rocks. They do anything they do that's free and it's always amazing. And so that technology will get better, so searching your photos I think will become even easier. You can create albums, they pop up on your phone simply and quickly. It's so amazing, it's not even funny. All right, anything else you want to talk about? It's a holiday weekend, we hope you have some fun. Stay inside, or if you— well, if you're from San Diego area or if you're from Seattle, you're probably enjoying beautiful weather, and I'm not jealous. Bitter, so don't worry about it, Karen and Dennis. But it's hot here today, it's gonna be 100, so stay inside, enjoy the air conditioning for the last weekend. We're hoping that we're gonna start seeing the weather drop.

Yes, right.

Okay, have a fun weekend.

Be safe.

Don't forget to call us at 520-631-8669 or visit us at SeaTucsonHomes.com.

Bye-bye, next week.