Second Homes in Foothills Club West

A second home in Foothills Club West gets bought for a season and owned for a year. Most of what makes it a good decision or a poor one happens during the months you are not standing in it.

One question decides more than any other, and it is the one most often answered from half the evidence. If there is a chance you will let the house out, whether that means a full winter tenancy or a friend of a friend for three weeks, the answer sits in two documents. The master Club West CC&Rs are the first. Your neighborhood's tract declarations are the second, and the association is explicit that they apply in addition to the master rather than instead of it.

The parcel-level document is the easier one to miss. It is shorter, less widely circulated, and nobody volunteers it. Reading only the master, finding nothing prohibitive and concluding you may lease is the classic error here. Which named neighborhood the home sits in decides which second document applies, and Vistas, Montana Vista, which is gated, Rosewood Canyon Estates, Whistling Rock and Fairway each carry their own.

What you get from me is both documents, in current versions, in front of you before you write an offer rather than after your first tenant asks.

The underlying sequence is the buyer track at how I help you buy. Two parts of it change shape when a house will stand empty for two thirds of the year.

• Describe the house in months. Which months you will be here, whether anyone else uses it, and whether letting it out is a possibility or a plan. The last answer sets how hard the document work has to be before you offer.
• Establish the parcel, then request both documents from 360 Community Management. Not from the seller's folder and not from an old listing attachment. Current versions of both layers, with minimum lease terms the specific clause I go looking for.
• Money settled before we look. Lending on a home you will not live in works differently from lending on one you will, and discovering that at offer stage costs you the property.
• A walkthrough aimed at the empty months. On video, with the hardest look at roof, irrigation, pool equipment and landscaping, because those four are what turn quietly into an expensive problem in an unoccupied house.
• The absence plan, written before closing. Who holds a key, who walks the property, who is called when a monsoon takes down a section of wall, what stays switched on, how mail is handled, and what your insurer expects of a property left vacant. Better on paper during escrow than improvised in August.
• The whole-year number. Dues, insurance, tax, pool and landscape service, and the utilities that keep running with nobody home. You see the total for the specific property, rather than a range.
• Closing from where you are. Signing remotely through escrow and title is ordinary in Arizona, and my transaction coordinator keeps the dates moving.