Selling Through a Life Change in Ahwatukee Custom Estates

Something outside real estate is driving this. Retirement, health, a household reorganizing itself around a parent, a role that moves somebody out of state. The sale is a consequence rather than a plan.

What makes selling through a life change in Ahwatukee Custom Estates its own problem is the housing stock. These are custom-built houses on larger land rather than a builder's floor plan repeated down a street, so condition and finish vary far more here than in a tract community. Nobody can tell you what this property is worth by looking at an address, and nobody can hand you a generic list of things to fix.

The work therefore starts with a walk instead of a spreadsheet. I go through the house and the land with you and separate three piles: what genuinely changes a buyer's read, what an inspector will write up whether or not you touch it, and what is simply not worth your money right now. In a season when your attention is elsewhere, the third pile is the useful one.

From there you have one person to call, trades who are already booked, and a schedule that gives way when something else has to come first.

The method itself is at how I sell a home. These are the parts that behave differently on an acre with a one-off house on it.

• Condition is surveyed, not assumed. Because nothing here was built to a repeated plan, there is no baseline to compare against. Roof, systems, hardscape and irrigation get looked at individually before anybody talks about price.
• More trades, arranged in sequence. Land brings its own list: irrigation, planting, gates, surfaces, outbuildings. I book them in an order that does not have a painter waiting on a landscaper. Preparation is step one.
• Contents handled in stages. Years of accumulation in a large house is not a weekend. Some of it moves before photography because it affects the photographs, and the rest can wait, sometimes until after closing by agreement.
• Marketing aimed at a specific buyer. The person who wants this is choosing individuality and land over newness. The video and the photography have to show the land, not only the rooms, which is exactly what drone footage is for.
• Two sets of association paperwork, and you should read both. Ahwatukee Custom Estates is a sub-association of the Ahwatukee Board of Management, so a home here carries the ACE documents and the ABM ones. During a hard month that is worth naming.
• Legal and tax questions go to your own people. I work alongside your attorney or accountant rather than in place of them. This page describes how I generally work and is not legal, tax or lending advice.