In this informal, conversational episode of the Tucson Real Estate Update, hosts Tony Ray Baker and Darren Jones kick off with birthday banter before diving into a series of local weekend recommendations. They promote the Tucson Autobahn indoor go‑kart track, a family‑friendly outing to Apple Annie’s orchard for apple and Asian pear picking, a downtown walk ending at Maynard’s followed by a spicy mac‑and‑cheese recommendation at Hi‑Fi, and a night out at the Sky Bar for jazz and stargazing, including a light‑rail travel tip. The hosts then shift to a detailed promotion of the Pathway to Purchase (P2P) home‑buyer assistance program, noting the remaining $48 million in funds, eligibility for first‑time buyers, up to $20,000 or 10 % of the down payment, and urging listeners to call 520‑631‑8669. They close with Halloween costume shopping advice on 4th Avenue’s vintage thrift stores, encouraging viewers to explore period clothing options. Throughout, they repeatedly direct listeners to seatusanhomes.com for the P2P criteria and a constantly updated “things to do” calendar, and they invite calls for real‑estate questions or party invitations. The episode blends community promotion, real‑estate marketing, and personal camaraderie.
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Hello, I'm Tony Ray Baker with Tierra Antigua Realty, and I'm Darren Jones with Tierra Antigua Realty. Yay!
We're here today, it's Saturday morning, and we're a little late. We apologize, we got locked out. That was awesome. So we're now back in the office.
But today is Tony Ray's birthday, and so before we get started—
No. Oh Lord God.
But look what we got for you.
Fine.
Isn't that fun?
Okay, so on my birthday I get a dunce cap.
Oh, but wait, I think we can do better.
Oh, dude, I don't know if you want to know.
Here, I would hide it from you.
Hey, now.
So anyway, we usually start off the show with things to do, and it just so happens this afternoon we're going to be racing over at the Tucson Autobahn, and that's A-U-T-O-B-A-H-N. It's a great place, and this is not something you can just do in any town USA. These guys are over on 300 South Toole Avenue, and they are open Saturdays from 10 AM to midnight. We're going to shoot over there about 3 o'clock and have a great time. This is awesome. You can actually do like super Grand Prix racing, 14 laps, the whole thing. So, uh, can I win?
Yes. Holy crap.
That's what we're doing this afternoon. Oh, surprise! So get your friends together and head over there. It's a great place.
I don't know that I'm up to this. We're really happy to have that.
With one of the newest events in Tucson.
Do you have to know how to drive a car?
Um, they'll give you a license, don't worry. Thanks.
Okay, uh, that's scary. I'm excited, kind of, and scared at the same time.
Yeah. Okay, so we're heading into fall. What are we gonna do?
Um, okay, so let's talk about things to do. Okay, today, uh, today and tomorrow, if you, uh, need to get out of town, go to Apple Annie's Orchards, which we love, right?
Yeah.
So in the morning, if you look at that So if you go to seatusanhomes.com and you click on the things to do calendar, you'll see Apple Annie's is today and tomorrow. And it's the apple harvest right now, but they also have Asian pears right now.
Oh, nice.
I know, right? So it's a bonus.
Asian pears are awesome.
They have an incredible breakfast thing going on. So you get like these great pancakes with apple stuff on top. And then they have a killer lunch deal where you get burgers with apple-smoked bacon or something. I don't know, I'm making some of this up probably, but go— apple-smoked gouda, we'll go with that. I don't know, but yeah, all right. What did I get, a smiley? Thank you. Anyways, go there this weekend. It's a great place to take kids to and pick apples and Asian pears, and it's a— we've been there and done that with our friends.
Apple Annie's is a great place. It's out in Wilcox, so it's a nice little road trip to get out of town. A little mini vacation.
It's about an hour drive.
Yeah, about an hour, and you can pick your own apples and you can buy your own products right in their store. They have the most amazing apple dumpling. You buy them frozen with the sauce, you take them home, you bake them yourself. Amazing. Grandma will be so jealous.
We have to do— we need a shout out. Happy birthday, Tony Ray Baker, from Tom Heath. And thank you for the fashion advice, Tom Heath. Excellent. Also remind you that if you have any questions about real estate, if you want to know right now, please just type in and we are watching a screen so we can answer your questions. If you have anything you are dying to know about real estate that we can help you with.
Which is why we're really here.
Which is why we are really here. I thought it was for my outfit. All right, so Mondays, I want to remind you the weather's getting cooler. Not to remind you that, but I want to remind you that Mimi at Maynard's is the downtown walk that's really cool and Meet Me at Maynard's is about 5:30 in the afternoon. You meet at Maynard's and you can do the walk with everyone. Now, here's my ulterior motive to this, okay? I think that everyone needs to know that I just discovered this over at Hi-Fi. They have crack mac and cheese, and I'm telling you, crazy. It's got jalapeño, light spice of jalapeño. I talked to the manager over there, CJ, shout out to CJ, and he told me that it's made with like pepper jack cheese. And anyways, I'm not a mac and cheese fan. This is—
but he's addicted.
I'm addicted to this stuff. It's got a jalapeño flavor. It's got grilled chicken on top if you want. It's delicious. You have to go try it. So my thought is, do the walk, Mimi and Maynard's Monday, go over to Hi-Fi, say hi to CJ, tell him we sent you, order all the crack mac and cheese you can get, and carve out, right?
It's worth the carbs.
Yeah, it's worth it. Um, that's Monday at Mimi and Maynard's. Then my next thing for this week, um, The Sky Bar, if you haven't been there, is on 4th Avenue, is amazing. And they do, they have a big, I think it's like a 32-inch telescope and they look at the stars and the universe and maybe we contemplate or I don't know, I haven't done this.
Our place in the universe.
I just discovered they have jazz night there on Tuesday night is jazz night. So here's my thought on that one. I, if it was me, would go over to the Mercado because St. Augustine, or I'm sorry, Augustine's Kitchen at the Mercado is open Tuesday night. For dinner and go there at 5 and say hi to Sally. Hi, Sally. And have dinner there, then jump the light rail and ride it to 4th Avenue, have fun at the Sky Bar. Your car is safe and parked over at Mercado, easy access to the freeway and anywhere you need to go. Then when you're done at Sky Bar, go right back to Mercado on the light rail and voilà, you're home.
That's right.
OK. So that's my things to do idea for this week. Fantastic.
So, uh, why don't we talk about PPP a little bit? Uh, over the last several weeks we've talked about, uh, this Pathway to Purchase program, uh, $98 million that came to Tucson.
Sorry, it's a $48 million. This gets a math— this is the key to success, uh, right now.
It's the key to success, but out of— there's only $48 million left, so call us and get into this PPP program. We have, um, the program Stop the fundings. Every time I hit the table, I use my hands a lot. So, um, they're directing me. Okay, so anyway, the Pathway to Purchase program is good for first-time buyers and people who need a little bit of help with their down payment and/or their closing costs. So you can get up to $20,000 or 10% of your down payment of your purchase price, and it's a great program. Give us a call, 520-631-8669, and we can tell you more about it.
You know, this is really cool stuff, right? Because this is, this is the new bills, this is $100 bills, this would be $10,000 in new $100 bills, and this would be $10,000 in old $100 bills. No, it's not real, it's prop money, and, but it's so real, like, I mean, seriously, it feels, it's right. I mean, that's why we do this. We really want to make the point, P2P is awesome. Program's going great. Hey, here's the other thing about P2P. Nobody knows for sure, but they could actually— they could change that P2P program a little bit. I was just talking to some folks, and in reality, the sellers in other areas that P2P is available are able to actually own another home. So here, our city is the one you cannot. So we had to do a little navigating to help a seller use P2P after they sell. Sell. But they're looking at maybe possibly changing that criteria since it's not that way everywhere else. That's what I heard. That's just one thing. I also heard that they could possibly consider funding more to that program eventually. So who knows?
Stay tuned.
No guarantees. And don't forget, you have to qualify like every time, any time you want a loan. But P2P right now is about half gone, so use it. Call us right now, seller or buyer. Let us talk to you about how to help you what to do with that, right?
We can help you out, right? All right.
Oh, my hat.
So what's coming up?
Thank you. What's up? Okay, I'm gonna stay with the dunce cap. Yeah, I like it. Um, but what else do we have?
He doesn't wear hats.
Oh, so, um, so we talked about P2P and the racetrack. The other last thing I want to talk about is, um, that it's Halloween's gonna be— I know.
I'll be here before you know it, right?
What is today?
August 27th. It's like the end of August.
I should know the date, right? Um, it is my actual birthday today, which is all in honor. Yeah. Oh, hey, watch it. Uh, so in what, 30 days? You got, you got September and October to get your costume together. So I want to recommend getting down there onto 4th Avenue now because, um, so this— and hopefully James will direct me. Can you see that well? So Darren and I, you can see our costumes. Those costumes came from all the thrift stores. We picked up the stuff from the thrift stores and we picked up the two crazy hats at the Gaslight Theater.
Yeah.
So this was a couple years ago. We went to Bisbee. The girls bought their outfits online. You can see ours are coming from thrift stores. I want to tell you, there's so much cool stuff down there on 4th Avenue.
Amazing what you can find.
It is so fun if you get an idea.
4th Avenue.
Yeah, go to 4th Avenue, get down there and start shopping for your costume because it's a blast. There is There's so many cool things.
There's a couple of shops down there that have like vintage and period clothing, especially the Western wear. If you want to be a, I don't know, Victorian showgirl. So okay, it was the Victorian period when the West was settled and they wore the can-can dresses and all that stuff. Yeah, I was a Victorian showgirl. I'm teaching everything.
Yeah, so go down, go have fun, and I'm prompting you right now because I'm hoping that you'll throw a big Halloween bash and we would like to be on the guest list.
See?
Right? Again, 520-631-8669 to call for anything real estate or to invite us to your Halloween party, right?
Yeah, yeah, or Halloween costume advice.
Please visit seatusanhomes.com. That would be where you find out any information about Pathway to Purchase. On the very top of the page, there's a bunch of people with money falling around them. Just click on that. It'll give you all the criteria and what you need to know about Pathway to Purchase, and then we can help answer more questions after that, of course, or call us directly and we'll answer questions. And also on the, uh, c2sunhomes.com website, there is a things to do calendar. Click on that and it'll take you to over 6,000 events have been in, and some of them are past, but, uh, what's going on. And we are loading that every week. We have a person named Terry. Hi, Terry! And she's awesome and she loads that calendar up. So Do we have anything else?
