AZRuralHomes

  What are you looking at in this photo? That's Brian with Mohave Well Service at the bottom of my 10' tall water tank, cleaning the bottom, and Robin, his wife, is at the top holding the camera and doing the boots-on-the-ground part of the job. This post is from MY house, when Brian and Robin came to clean out the BOTTOM of my water tank. WAIT, WHAT did I just say??? That's right, Brian climbs to the bottom of these 2500 gallon (and up to 10,000 gallons, he told me) water tanks to clean the minerals off the bottom. I had the added pleasure of dead spiders in mine along with the minerals. EEW; I'm drinking that!  So ... if you have no idea what I'm talking about, in our area of NW Arizona, the wells are deep, and fire protection services are far away, so most of us rural homeowners have a 2500 (or more) gallon water tank that sits next to the well as a holding tank. This allows the deep-well pump to only turn on periodically. For examp...

  I had a birthday recently and decided I wanted to go do something fun with my family. I've been knocking about Kingman since 2013 now, but have NEVER been to the Mohave Museum of Art and History, so we went to go see what that's about. It's a very cool museum that contains lots of local history of the area. Did you know Mineral Park was the original County Seat for Mohave County? And that Kingman is named after a railroad survey engineer? The fun photo above refers to the wagon trails through the area; it's funny because we're still a huge off-road adventure community. SO much to learn, I'll certainly be going back. But the best part of the day for me was our ice cream cone at Scoops on 66. We had the good fortune of running into one of the owners while we were there, and she shared some of the history of the building with us as well as some of the interesting aspects of their business. The ice cream shop building dates back to th...

In the photo above, this group of 7 deer is visiting my home daily right now during my morning coffee-time, then heading over to the neighboring parcel to visit them. I guess our weeds are what they're looking for right now! We love seeing them, and our Australian Shepherd, is learning to tolerate their presence on his turf. I've received LOTS of helpful advice from neighbors on how to attract them better so that I can see more of them (which I would love), but alas, I do not have a fenced property and I live in an open range area, so anything I'd put out to attract the deer (water, mineral licks) would ALSO attract the cattle. Since the Rancher uses water to move his cattle from one area to another where he wants them to be grazing, I really don't want to interfere with that, so I'll enjoy the time the deer give me with my weeds.  Have a blessed day, everyone!!

  What is Deed Fraud? It's when a bad actor STEALS YOUR REAL ESTATE PROPERTY. Starting this year, Realtors in Arizona are now required to complete 1 hour covering Deed Fraud per period of continuing education to renew their license. That's how important the Commissioner thinks this problem is. Who's most at risk for Deed Fraud? Vacant Land Owners, first and foremost. Secondly, residential owners who have no mortgage against their property, especially vacation homes or people who travel a lot. These properties are more at risk because there's no lien to release through the deed transfer process. What can property owners do about it? This varies county by county across the nation. My rural Mohave County was a very early adopter with two programs. One is the Address Protection Program with the Assessor's Office (see graphic above). This 'locks' the tax address for the property. A defrauder's first step is usually to change the address so that ...

  I was out photographing a listing yesterday, and passed 4 people on the 2.5 miles of dirt roads north of Kingman, AZ that I traveled to get to the property. ALL 4 waved and smiled! It was a gorgeous day -- temps in the 60's, bright, blue sky, and we were all traveling at a solid mosey with our windows down, just enjoying the day. Then I got back onto the highway, and just for fun I waved at the next 3 cars. I think our closure rate was probably too fast for them to see that I was waving, or maybe they were just concentrating on driving, but nobody waved back on the highway. Enjoy the waves and smiles and the dirt!

  Is this the view you want out your front window? Who do you engage to help you find it? My mechanic buddy who works on classic cars may not be the best person to advise me on a modern hybrid-car purchase. We all know this basic fact -- professionals are not all the same -- but sometimes we forget to act on it. In the exact same vein, not all agents understand the nuances of vacant land. We're called Dirt Road Real Estate for a reason; let me share with you what you'd be missing by working with a residential-in-town specialist to find your perfect rural get-away. The biggest difference, at the end of the day? We help you dream. At our brokerage, we live rurally ourselves. We understand managing long distances to town, dirt roads, and provisioning your own utilities including electricity, well, and septic when the grid doesn't reach that far. We have close connections with homesteaders, hunters, people who just like space, and contractors who wo...