Eddy (00:00):

Glad to be here with you for another edition of Tego and Tracy Venturi. Venturi Real Estate group of Keller Williams Realty. All you have to do is pick up the phone and dial the best real estate experts. (505) 448-8888. That’s (505) 448-8888. Or welcomehomeabq.com. That’s welcomehomeabq.com. They’re the best they look great. And they’ll make your home look right, because it’s all about merchandising. We’re coming out of this one year, literally to the day happy COVID anniversary to these young, to COVID lovebirds. Here you go. Right enough. I find their forever home forever because we’ve been living. We’ve been working, we’ve been doing everything and now look, they can deliver stuff to your home. It’s kind of crazy the things that are happening to you on Tracy. Good morning. How are you?

Tego (00:55):

Good morning, Eddy. Good morning. Good, great to be here. And yes, things you, you think back a year and how we were and what we were thinking about and how we were doing things and now where we are, it’s, it’s a very, very different for sure. And definitely in our world and just by, you know, everybody’s world,

Eddy (01:12):

Of course. And as you, of course know Tego and Tracy, they’re true entrepreneurs. And the nature of entrepreneurship is adapting to the conditions that are out there taking risks and it’s a day by day experience and they care very much about their business, the market, and what’s happening to go as always, if you didn’t know, he’s focused on the stats, Tracy tremendous advisor on a number of different fronts. If you’re rolling out a new home, if you’re gonna need to buy a new home and a buyer’s acquisition or merchandising and selling your home, she’s the expert. As far as that, they’ve got a tremendous team located in the heart of the North Valley, right there off of Alameda, which is the corner of main and main. And they love to talk about real estate, been doing it for more than seven years here in the Kiva. And we appreciate all that. And this week’s edition five major home buying mistakes, five major home buying mistakes inventory, still low, right Tegoor demands, the home owners associations, Oh, the pros and the cons. We have a bunch of new listings and open houses, of course, this weekend for Tegoand Tracy featured community. Volterra, we’ll talk about that. And a national home equity, national home equity report equity has got to be at an all time high. So let’s talk about that as well. Tego, Tracy, take it away.

Tego (02:29):

Thanks Eddy. And that’s really the headline on that equity report trace. I mean, we can kind of leave it there. I mean, obviously I can go into the details, but the thing is that the equity homeowner equity is at an all time high and in the last year for, for New Mexico, for Albuquerque or New Mexico the average homeowner gain $21,000 in equity in the past year in New Mexico. So serious wealth building there, there, there definitely is. And so we don’t have to dwell on that. Tracy, you wanted to talk about Volterra this week as a featured community. And I’m wondering, where do you want to start here? We’ve got so much to cover

Tracy (03:13):

So much as usual. You know, let’s start with Volterra. So for those of you who don’t know Volterra, which a lot of people don’t Tego even a lot of people in the real estate community, you know, Voltaire is probably a 15 year old community or less it’s right next to Kirtland air force base sorta between the air force base and four Hills. So it’s at the very South end of Juan Tabo, South of I 40, if you just dead end on one to Beau you’ll end up in the Volterra neighborhood in Volterra was it was a major structural problem because there’s a huge Arroyo where the land sets and it was basically an inaccessible for many years and a big bridge went in over the Arroyo and made all of that land available for development and a lot of different builders built homes in there.

Tracy (04:11):

There’s Dr. Horton, Rachel Matthews, Twilight, Pulte, LGI, a variety of builders Stillbroke probably anyway. It’s at the very South end of Juan Tabo next to Kirtland air force base. And they are, they are still building new homes there. So it is an opportunity if you’re looking for a new construction, give us a call, we can help you source out what’s available there from the different builders. What’s, what’s interesting. So, you know, a lot of people are moving here and they want to be close to the national labs, all of the affiliates to the air force base that Sandia national labs and all the different businesses, because there are a lot of jobs right there and they want to be close. So Voltaire has been a great option and we see quite a bit of movement there from people coming and going for the air force base.

Tracy (05:05):

What I know is there’s some people who love it because there’s a bike trail where you can kind of get without having to go back out to central. You can take a bike trail if you work on base that you can get there to the Gates. I did not know that that’s cool. Yeah, I haven’t ever seen it, but I’ve had clients who specifically told me that’s how they get to work. So I know you still have to get to a main gate, but they probably go through an Arroyo or something to get over. That way

Tego (05:34):

Is the bigger Royal that comes down, you know, between four Hills and this community and like the, the interstate, right. And or central you will. And that’s a huge Royal. So there’s a bunch of open space over there as well for people to go and explore and walk and do what they want to do.

Tracy (05:51):

Yeah. I’m not sure what’s allowed there to go versus what people do there, but I do see some you’re

Tego (05:58):

Going to couch. So I don’t, I don’t say something, it gets us in trouble. The guys on the radio said, we could go ride motorcycles down there. It’s like, no, we’re not saying that

Tracy (06:06):

It’s not necessarily allowed, but I have seen people with their dogs off leash running and it’s great, you know, which gets the more exercise probably of course. Anyway, so Volterra, so right now there are 23 houses for sale in Boyle Tara, as we speak not all new construction, some are new construction, some are resale homes. And they actually call us this minute. If you’re looking for a $205,000 house in Valterra because one came on the market today and it’ll probably sell for, well over two Oh five, it looks great. It’s a three bedroom, two bath, two car garage. A well done backyard has got a separate area fenced off for like a pet run. It’s got a large covered patio that was obviously added after it was built. But you know, it’s a small house. It’s just over 1100 square feet, but it’s a great, great site.

Tego (07:04):

Well, you know, it’s interesting, you say that that $200,000 price point, I was having a conversation with some people from the association today, and we were just talking about one of the big challenges in our real estate market. And there’s a lot of different challenges right now, but one of them is the price point affordability, not necessarily overall affordability, but just from a price point standpoint. Right? And I looked as of today, there are 36 homes for sale in the greater Albuquerque area $200,000 and below that are available. And, and honestly, half those are not so hot in not great condition. And so it’s, it’s interesting that that $200,000 price point is becoming really a endangered species in our market.

Tracy (07:53):

It’s sort of that purple unicorn. So once we go above that two Oh five, the next price is two 60 and there’s a couple of them, and those are actually attached townhomes, not single family. The two Oh five is a single family home and it’s priced that way because it’s 1100 square feet, 1,135. However, I’m sure it’ll sell for more. If you’re interested, give us a call right away, four, four eight, eight, eight, eight, eight, and we can get you in to see it. They will be allowing showings this weekend and I’m, I’m sure it’ll be off the market on Monday. The other thing that’s interesting Tegois of those 23 homes. The high price is 540,000. So it’s a pretty big spread in Volterra. And what we know is originally there was some estate type lots that are bigger. Custom builders picked up like Rachel Matthews did a lot of them and they had that great floor plan in there.

Tracy (08:48):

They don’t have any right now that I’m aware of, but it was floor plan where they had like a separate Caseta sorta incorporated into that plan. So really nice variety of what you can get involved, Tara. Right now there are 55 homes in pending sale in Volterra. So there’s 23 on the market, 55 in pending sale. The average days on market of those houses was 26 days on market. So we know some of the higher priced homes might have taken a little bit longer. Also what what’s kind of skewing days on market in there is that some of them are new construction that aren’t really done yet. They put them on, they’re not really finished people like to wait and be able to walk through a house. So it it’s skewing it from what are, yeah,

Tego (09:35):

Because they’ll put it in the MLS is, you know, available in the days on market starts counting except the home really isn’t finished yet. So it’s, it’s actually a conversation we’ve had at the MLS on, on how to deal with that. So, you know, overall in our market days on market right now, I think it was 21 days for February. So it’s right in there where we’re what we’re seeing in date. You know, we know Tracy homes are selling very fast in our market, right?

Tracy (09:59):

A lot of them are. So the average sale price in the last of the houses that are in pending sale is 330, 2,600 of the 188 houses that sold in there in the last year. The average was 312,000.

Tego (10:20):

Got it. Okay. Well, it’s interesting. So that was, you know, if you just joined us, we were talking about the Volterra community, which is South of well, South Antoine to bow past the Harris Arroyo and you’re there. And it it, it does back up to the four Hills community, which a lot of people are familiar with

Tracy (10:40):

Four Hills community is on the East side of it. Yeah. And Kirtland air force base on the West. So if you’re interested in knowing more about, Volterra give us a ring, we’d be happy to show you homes.

Tego (10:50):

Great. It’s one of the few places on the East side, East side that you can buy new construction. There’s, you know, it’s getting much more limited East, East of central, for sure. I said central, I meant East of the freeway or really the train, the train tracks. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Tracy (11:07):

There really are a few other neighborhoods that we could highlight that are new construction in the Northeast, technically as in, this is actually Southeast Albuquerque, but there are a few others and we’d be happy to share those with you,

Tego (11:21):

Tracy. I want to talk to buyers right now. And I think this is an important conversation to have because the market is so tight. There’s so few choices for home buyers today that they need to not make any mistakes. If they want to get that home. And we have a list of five things you should not do or mistakes that buyers we’ve seen make that they need to just be aware of so that they can get that dream home, get the home. They always want it. You know, interest rates are great. You gotta lock that, that interest rate in and get that home for the longterm. And in this one, I it’s going to sound very self-serving because we’re real estate agents, but it says

Tracy (12:03):

Don’t hire an inexperienced agent. Yeah. So the average agent, you know, across the industry sells five, 10 houses a year, not a lot, you know, to really hone the craft. I think you have to be in it day in, day out, work with people who are making lots of offers and getting a lot of homes under contract and really knowing what it takes today to write an offer that can be accepted, knowing other agents, knowing that they want to work with you. And when it’s somebody who’s inexperienced, doesn’t really know the ins and outs of how to really structure something so that you can be the one whose offer gets accepted. It’s it’s hard.

Tego (12:44):

Yeah. Th th ex experience does matter. And again, it’s sounds very self-serving, but you do need somebody that is your advocate on your side to get you that home, get you that home that you want. The next thing is the home inspection in this market, people may be tempted to say, you know what, I, I just want the house. I know I’m going to waive the home inspection. So my offer gets picked over any other offer that, that, that seller has, and that would be desirable to a seller, right? Seller says, Oh, well, they’re not going to get a home inspection. Great. We don’t have to worry about, you know, do any repairs for this person. I would never, ever recommend that somebody waive the option to do home inspections.

Tracy (13:30):

So even in our market, our purchase agreement says, you can do any inspections you want, you don’t have to list them if you’re paying for them as a buyer, correct. You only have to list inspections if you want the seller to pay for them. So really there’s a way to structure it and make sure that you still have the opportunity. And sometimes we’ve seen sellers, who’ve done an inspection already. They see here’s the inspection report. And the buyer might say, well, I don’t need any more. I’ll just accept that one. And even then you don’t have to do that. It’d be better just to like,

Tego (14:01):

Think twice about that. You need a home inspector. That’s working for you as a buyer, right? Somebody that you’ve contracted to do the home inspection, not that their job is to go and pick the home apart and farm find all these awful things so that you can negotiate down the price or something. The idea is that, you know what you’re getting into when you’re purchasing this home,

Tracy (14:23):

Right. I was going to say for resale homes, we’re not talking new construction for resale homes, have the opportunity to assess, you know, the, the condition of the home and make sure you’re comfortable with it. Not that you get to change it all or require that the seller do things right. It’s, it’s more for you to understand it. Houses are basically used, right? It’s not like you can expect it to be a new house, but knowing as a buyer, what the conditions are and what major things you might have to budget for in the is really helpful.

Tego (14:52):

Yeah. The next two things here, when we’re, again, we’re talking about, you know, buyer mistakes and mistakes we’ve seen in this, then the next two kind of go together, Tracy, and we’ve seen it. We’ve definitely seen this one. I’ve seen people not get their dream house. Yeah. So they’ve, they’ve, they’ve gone, they’ve talked to their lender, they’ve got a pre-approval from a lender to do their mortgage. They’ve done their credit application. You know, the, the, the, the lender starts working through the whole process to get them approved for the loan. And they go, and they change jobs midway.

Tracy (15:25):

It can happen that you can still buy a house by changing jobs. But if typically, if you change career fields altogether, there’s some sort of waiting period there to make sure that your new career field is, is a winner for you. And oftentimes what we’ve seen T goes, we’re already under contract to buy a house. And the home buyer changes jobs after we’ve already gotten a house under contract, and that’s challenging. That’s when you need the best lenders in town, working for you to figure out how to still make it. So you can buy that house.

Tego (15:58):

You know, if you do anything once, especially once you received your pre-approval, if you do anything around, you know, changing your job, changing your marital status, we’ve seen that one, hon Tracy any of that stuff is going to affect the ability for the loan to get approved. So it’s just something to keep in mind. And then the next one, along with it,

Tracy (16:19):

Right? Making some credit purchases, so opening, maybe a new line of credit. So what happens sometimes is people will get a house under contract. We’re working towards the closing and they go to I’m like, who’s still open, best buy. And they open a credit card with best buy to buy the new washer, dryer, fridge.

Tego (16:40):

They go, they go to the furniture store, they go to American furniture and they open a whole line of credit to get all the furniture for their new house. And, and all of a sudden, you know, their credit hit their credit. Yeah.

Tracy (16:52):

Can change their ability to buy a house. We’ve seen we’ve seen people buy new vehicles,

Tego (16:57):

Vehicles, and the biggest one we’ve seen, right.

Tracy (17:00):

Getting alone for a new vehicle, which all of a sudden changes their monthly available income to put towards the house. And we’ve seen people not be able to close on the house because they bought a vehicle

Tego (17:10):

Debt to income ratios, get, get out of whack because now they have to calculate that new payment that wasn’t there before. And so, yeah, you know, once again, when you’re, when you’re applying for a mortgage, you want to walk very lightly,

Tracy (17:27):

Listen to your lender and really understand what you should or shouldn’t do. And if you want to do something that seems like it might impact your financial status, talk to the lender first.

Tego (17:38):

Well, in another one, let me actually just throw into this. Just a side note is you get a gift from grandma and it’s $10,000 and it hits your bank account. That’s going to be a red flag. They’re going to say, okay, you need to document where that money came from. So again, anything that affects your finances or your financial, you just want to be very cautious and talk to your lender as you’re going through the process, right?

Tracy (18:03):

The last one and there’s others, but this is an interesting one. And it’s don’t necessarily choose the cheapest homeowners insurance for your new house. And really this is one that I think is hard because you really need to understand homeowners insurance and feel like you’ve got great confidence in the provider that they’re going to look at it and not strip out things to make it a more affordable home insurance policy that are going to be very difficult. Should you need a claim, have a claim and you find out, well, you don’t have coverage.

Tego (18:37):

Yeah. It’s a, it’s a pretty important thing to have a good conversation with a trusted, you know, insurance person, you know, obviously their job is to sell insurance and they’re gonna, you know, have they have all these different products and riders and additional things that you can add onto a homeowners policy. You just want to make sure that you’re covered when, you know, again, if something bad happened, you have coverage, you understand what you’re getting and what you’re not getting. And I think along with that, we’re talking about homeowners insurance, or, you know, fire insurance or, or hazard insurance, whatever you want to call it, not a home warranty, which is a different animal that has to do with, you know, if something breaks in the house. And again, that’s another thing that you should seriously look at. It’s, it’s a relatively inexpensive peace of mind especially maybe if you are going to waive some of those repairs on the home or the age of the hot water heater or the age of the furnace or one of those things. Right?

Tracy (19:35):

So Tico, lots of open houses.

Tego (19:38):

We got a lot of homes come in, thank goodness, cause we need them on the market. And there’s a lot of buyers out there waiting for a lot. Yeah.

Tracy (19:45):

We have quite a few houses that are about to hit the market. Call us if you know what you’re looking for, or you want to talk about your home search four, four, eight, eight, eight, eight, eight. And we’d be happy to chat about that. We have a great team of realtors that work with us that are out in the field and know the market really well. So open houses, we have so many, I’m not sure we’re going to list them. All right here. Just call us if you’re wondering if a house is open. We also have on our website,

Tego (20:13):

You say it this way, Rio Rancho in Cabazon paradise West, which is kind of in Tonya area of, in ton of ranch area. We’ve got a Northwest height eight, seven one Oh two zip code, which is colors. Yeah, exactly. The dark area. We’ve got Rio Rancho Heights or corrals Heights, I guess is what it’s called, which is it’s Rio Rancho, but it’s just above Karalyn. We have two in the North Valley one in the North, North Valley and one in the near Valley, if you will. So

Tracy (20:48):

Let’s talk about a couple of these. Let’s talk about, let me just say those are all newly listed

Tego (20:56):

On the market. As of today, as you’re hearing this right now, they’re just under market and open houses this weekend as well.

Tracy (21:06):

So six Oh four or take a road. So that’s six than Ortega in, or take us very close to Paseo Del Norte is a house and a guest house on an acre for five 99. It will be open on Saturday from two to four with Shayna and Tyler holding that open really newer construction considering North Valley. So nice tin roof. The pro panel pitched rough, very Northern New Mexico style. With the house in the guest house is just about 4,000 square feet altogether. The guest house is fabulous. It’s really gorgeous. You know, when I looked at the pictures of it, I’m like, ah, that that’s kind of a freestanding. It’s almost like two homes on one acre,

Tego (21:49):

One trend we’ve been talking about now for a few years, Tracy is this whole multi-generational, you know, housing situation where you’ve got, you know, the, the parents and the, the, the younger family members, all kind of sharing the same property, but yet have their own space. And this would be an ideal situation for, for that,

Tracy (22:08):

Right? So six Oh four or Tayga, it’s active, so you can Google it. And let’s see what, let’s see what you think of that house. There’ll be open and we can get you information on that. If you need more, call us at the four, four eight, eight, eight, eight, eight. The other one is Pella and K in Rio, Rancho 2109. I’m not sure how you say it, but [inaudible] artistic home. Three car garage, large home open this weekend on Saturday and Sunday. Just call us her times or get on our website at welcome home. Abq.Com. This one is 320,000. It’s a four or five bedroom, I believe. So Cabazon community it’s in the Northwest part of Cabazon no HOA in that area. Artistic, you know, was known for building very energy efficient homes. Yeah. So that one yeah, four bedrooms and it’s 20, 2,700 square feet, three car garage for three 20. Another one we know is going to be busy 1307 Sarah way. So Sarah way is that bluff side neighborhood. That’s right. Between Corollas and Rio Rancho kind of right. East of Intel. Well,

Tego (23:26):

A lot of people know where Sarah is in Rio Rancho. And so if you were to go, you know, up just past Intel and take a right and go kind of down, like you’re heading, you’re taking a right. Okay. If you went okay. D okay. East, I guess it depends which way you’re coming from. Okay. So East on Sarah to Trinity estates,

Tracy (23:46):

Just right there, and, you know, a lot of those homes have just phenomenal views back to the mountains and this one has them from the front. So there’s a dining room and a living area that have really great views. The backyard’s nice. It’s all done. It’s very private. Another one, so that one’s three 35 and it’s open this weekend also Saturday one to three. It’s really clean contemporary, lots of big windows

Tego (24:16):

And it’s, you know, low maintenance type.

Tracy (24:20):

Yeah, yeah. Another one going to be hot property on El Faygo in the North Valley. It’s just West of Rio Grande between Griegos and Candalaria just over fourth of four tenths of an acre 0.4, two, it’s a small home and a small, extra building. We can’t really call it a guest house. It’s an extra building with some opportunity. But this is going to be open one to three and three Sunday on Sunday, 325,000 for this one. I believe it even backs to an irrigation ditch, which is pretty special. So yeah, partial, Adobe, I think it was originally an old Adobe that somebody has worked on and done some things with. So there’s others. Lots of, lots of houses.

Tego (25:09):

Yeah. So you can see all of these on our website@welcomehomeabq.com, right on the homepage. It says featured listings, click that, and you can see all of those. And Tracy, we went through on our team meeting. Friday morning, we went through all of the homes that we have in the pipeline with our team, and we do have more. And so if, you know, if you’re out there looking for something, you’re not finding it, reach out to us. It’s Venturi Realty group at Keller Williams Realty four, four, eight, 88, 88 Tracy, one last thing th there was this conversation that came up about homeowners association and, and you’ve had those clients that say, there’s no way I never want to be in a neighborhood with an HOA. And then we also have people that say, Oh, I want a neighborhood with an HOA. Cause they’ll keep the neighborhood nice. And so I wanted to go through the pros and cons at least some of the pros and cons of being in a neighborhood with a homeowner’s association. And

Tracy (26:09):

What, you know,

Tego (26:11):

What jumps out at you about that, Tracy?

Tracy (26:13):

Well, you know, showing a lot of houses around the city over the years, you can usually tell when you’re in an HOA, when, when you’re in a neighborhood where there’s a homeowner’s associations, a lot of the newer developments have homeowners associations. They have rules about parking cars and trash cans and what you can and can’t do with your property. So a lot of people don’t like those rules and then there’s like, you go, well, there’s some look around, you don’t have abandoned cars. You don’t have weeds in people’s front yards next to you. We feel like sometimes the homeowners association rules keep your home value higher.

Tego (26:55):

Yeah. I don’t have any data to back this up. I could figure it out and look at it. But I would say that neighborhoods with homeowners association have better price appreciation and hold their values better than, than, than ones that don’t. And, and, you know, the, the thing with hos is they have a governing body. And for the most part, they keep the neighborhood looking good. There’s some sort of organization that’s in charge in charge, and there’s going to be rules that have to be followed. And, and so the flip side of that is you have people that are very frustrated because they want to park their car out in front of their house and they’re not allowed.

Tracy (27:34):

It depends every, every neighborhood has different rules, right? So one of the things that comes to mind Tegois when people are parking the cars on their front lawn, right. You know, they have three teenage children each with a car and they’re pulling in the driveway and they’re pulling off to the right and they’re parked on the road. You know, what would be a front yard? And, you know, that’s the type of thing when I’m showing a house and I’m looking at the one next door with some buyers, they’re going to notice that and go, huh, this is maybe not what I want. And sometimes people say, I never want to live in an HOA neighborhood. And once we start looking at houses, they change their mind. And they say, I want to live in an HOA. Going back to one of the things you just said, I think are some parts of our town are very different. Like the Valley not having an HOA in the Valley is probably not going to harm your price appreciation, right. Or North Albuquerque acres. Right. We’re talking about neighborhoods. Like we were just talking about the Cabazon house. That’s going to be open this week and Southern Rio Rancho, and Cabazon has an HOA for most neighborhoods within it. But this one corner, the Northwest corner of Cabazon does not have an HOA. Got it. And it was part of the main development, but there’s no HOA, there is a public improvement district, but that’s completely different.

Tego (28:58):

And just to wrap this conversation, Tracy, I think the thing is, is I think people need to not just do blanket. I don’t want an HOA or do blanket. I must have an HOA look at the pros and cons. And each HOA has different rules, has different CCNRs, you know, covenants conditions and restrictions on, you know, what can happen there. The way it’s governed, the way it’s the financing is handled, all of that stuff matters. And that is a contingency in the purchase agreement.

Tracy (29:26):

Right? All of that needs to be disclosed. So you can look at what the HOA is all about and make sure you’re comfortable with it. So, and HOA is around the country. Typically people think of, you know, maybe it includes a country club or a swimming pool or a gated area, but you know, those vary too. So they all vary. So that, that it is there’s 30 minutes. Just like that.