Arizona Relocation Adventure #2

Last Updated: 25-NOV-2018

Arizona Relocation Adventure #2 - SEP 2017

Saturday SEP 23rd

HOUSE SEARCH DAY - 1

We had four houses to look at today and two on Sunday. Looking at the map below we are at the rental house and house 1-6 are listed by location on the map.

The red areas above are where we are looking and could possibly live. The blue X is the area we really like when considering density, crime, remoteness, and close to what we want. The west side has some interesting properties but we are not sure as its further from where we want to be and closer to higher density developments as well as crime.

Here is my Zillow search with the harts marking properties that we are interested in.

10790 E. Placita De Pascua, Tucson, AZ 85730 -- 5 bed - 5 baths - 3,487 sqft -- $750,000 at visit (Off Market - They gave up on JUN 26 2018)

The first house we went to was a burnt Adobe built in 1981. Mary did not like the kitchen and it had low ceilings but it really wasn't that bad and the location near the entrance Saguaro National Park East was nice as you could walk to it. One this that it has was a casita (standalone apartment) which is really something that we are not sure what we're going to do with at this time. The current owners used it as a office but I would not want the security situation of a external building. Also, it was too close to the other houses and it only had a 2 car garage.

These photos are from Zillow. High end house with an old dated kitchen counter-tops

Casita

2851 S. Quail Trail, Tucson, AZ 85730 -- 5 beds - 7 baths - 4,890 sq. ft. -- $799,900 at visit (SOLD - 07-NOV-2018 for $705,000)

The second house we went to was a 5 bedroom 7 bath with a 5 car garage. This is an amazing home that if we were ready to buy we probably would have bought it. We met one of the owners and had the reason that they were selling. The have invested a considerable amount into the house like an amazing pool, all new cement floors It had a huge kitchen although it was electric not gas (we want gas but can go both ways if we have to). It has a sophisticated temperature control systems, enough bedrooms that we could have hobby rooms train rooms and have multiple guests at the same time with their own bathrooms and their own bedrooms. It also had a casita the property but was attached so not external like house #1. The location was about a mile from the Saguaro National Park East so you could actually walk there.

Again this house was just truly amazing and it was probably worth well over a million. If the house is available in mid-2019 it will be considered.

5 car garage so I would bring the big tractor and RTV. I think you could have a RV here with no issues. The driveway was dirt across a wash so the big tractor would have a use.

The only bad thing about this house is that it really has no views of the city but it has mountain views. Also it had a low Saguaro count.

The casita. Space for a kitchen but not installed.

Hall that separates the main house from the casita. Very heavy security gates on each end. This could be a cat play area so they could be outside but safe.

One of the 2 car garages was turned into a rec-room.

Outside / Patio photos (fake grass / kid toys would have to go)

Lots of roof space for solar panels as well as pool heater coils

4301 S. Melpomene Way, Tucson, AZ 85730 -- 4 bed - 4 bath - 4,008 sq. ft. -- $699,900 at visit (Sold on 2/28/18 asking $679,500)

The third house we went and looked at was quite nice although the road to and then goes byond the the house is right next to it. Presently this road serves 1 house but that could possibly expand as a number of empty lots are located in this area. This property had a amazing outbuilding which brought the total up to a five-car garage.

Ok view off to the South and West.

Mary said that it had the nicest kitchen of the four houses that we looked at. It also had a huge garage unattached that had lifts and an RV parking and it had its own HVAC system and the beginning of a kitchen and a conference room. it almost was too much also I don't like detached garages anymore. It's not far from Saguaro so it wasn't in that bad of a location.

A huge oven taking up way to much space. Would have to rip that out.

Large outbuilding with lift, kitchen space and a conference room. I could have weekly meetings discussing Mary's performance.

Useable small pool but the wall blocks the view. Poor planning as I would have to fix that too.

10698 E Sky High Drive, Tucson, AZ 85730 -- 4 bed -- 2 Full/1 Three-Qtr. baths, 2,796 sq. ft. -- $512,500 (sold on 30-OCT for 499,000)

The fourth and final house we went to was one of the houses we looked at on the first relocation trip out here in 2016 and quickly was purchased in OCT-2016 for $480,000. It then went back on the market in early 2017. This is a nice simple house that does need some improvements.

One bad thing about this house is the two car garage and I don't think you could ever without great expense expand it to a three or four car garage due to property grade.

The house is in a interesting location although it's a little close to a very busy road which in the next 10 years could become a divided highway because they're expanding the road from one lane in each Direction up to three lanes in each Direction so it's something I don't think we really would want to live by.

The house just had no you know Pizzazz it did not jump out but at this price point we could easily buy it before we sell our current house.

Photos were from 2016 as the latest listing had only 4 photos. And this house quickly sold in late OCT 2016 for $480,000 as I expected it would.

Sunday SEP 24th

HOUSE SEARCH DAY - 2

3916 N Camino Ojo De Agua, Tucson, AZ 85749 -- 4 beds - 4 baths - 4,175 sq. ft. -- $880,000 (Still for sale on 7/16/18 asking $824,000)

This house is in a gated area so we have to meet the realtor and he rode with us. I've looked at this house for darn near a year but I was always turned off about the amount of tile in it. We spent a great deal of money removing the tile from our current house and don't want to go thru that adventure again. Some of the Mexican tile is interesting so seeing the tile in person was better that we figured but nope, I still don't like most of it and we saw some major current maintenance issues with grout lines.

This house had a has a really nice library room and it has an amazing views which is probably $200K or $300K of value but it is on multiple levels so to go from the lowest room to the highest room you probably have to walk up six steps. Another major issue is that it has a two car garage which you could never expand. The roads getting to the house was so narrow that you could never even drive an RV up to the house. The rental Tahoe was actually pretty tight on some of the roads. The circle in front of the house was quite tight where I even had to back SUV up so I'm sure Mary would wreck on that driveway in no time at all.

I'm actually surprised by the roads because I don't know how you would get a fire truck up into those areas. It'll be interesting to see how long it takes to sell but it's not in the running.

Nice looking house with an amazing view and a great pool

Brick dining room ceiling - Cool but is it really worth it ?

Library & rest of house

Small bar off of living room. This tile was ok

Arizona room

Only ONE photo of the kitchen which was strange. It was very dated for the price point on this house

Roads in the neighborhood.

12751 E. Camino Ancho, Tucson, AZ 85749 -- 5 beds - 4 baths -- 3,900 sq. ft. -- $899,999 (Still for sale on 7/16/18 asking $885,900)

The second house we went to on Sunday was quite impressive and we actually looked at it on Friday from the driveway. It was listed at 1.1 million last year and it's been on and off market for a long time. Because of what I had to do to my current house I feel that I am very good at sizing up these homes and this house had really no maintenance issues at all. It has a three car garage, a beautiful pool with backyard fountains even a grass area for Orange and Tucson the cats. Possible issue is that apparently the HOA does not allow you to park RVs in your yard so this could be good and bad. The area looks very good and I saw only a few issues like no city views, no sink on island in kitchen and not in a gated area but it's up in a dark corner of the Tucson valley. It has city water, gas and a septic tank.

Out of the six homes we looked at this one and the S. Quail Trail (Home #2 from yesterday) fit exactly what we are looking for. These two homes bring different features to consider. This one has a HOA and its 100% finished. The Quail Trail would require some landscaping but I could have a RV on the property. So, we have lots to figure out but good to have options.

The 20 acres behind the house has a semi-underground water storage facility. I have some questions about that like? Can it be expanded ? Pump noise ?