Most Canadians pay all cash when buying their dream Arizona vacation home. Some folks, however, would prefer to take out a loan to preserve their cash.

That was no problem at all two years ago. Arizona lenders had tons of programs available for Canadian home buyers. Now, it’s a completely different story. It’s really tough now for Canadian vacation home buyers to borrow money for their Arizona holiday home.

That’s why I was happy to get a phone call earlier this week from Chris Wyatt, a Mortgage Consultant at RBC Bank (USA). According to Chris, RBC Bank (USA) has brought back the 30-year fixed rate mortgage for Canadian Citizens!

The program reopens the opportunity for our cross border buyers to use a U.S. mortgage to obtain their dream second home in sunny Arizona.

Details of the RBC Bank (USA) program (February 2010):

• Purchase, Limited Cash-out Refinance
• Second Home / Vacation Home
• Single Family Homes, Warrantable Condos, PUDS
• 70% Loan-To-Value
• No US credit score required
• Use Canadian credit, income and assets to qualify
• No pre-payment penalty
• Available on Arizona homes

This program gives Canadians the option of buying their Arizona winter home without using up all their savings. It’s always nice to have options.

For more information contact;

Chris Wyatt
RBC Bank (USA)
Mortgage Consultant
Canadian Lending Specialist
407-244-6002

I’ve found that Canadian buyers of Arizona winter homes tend to fall into one of two camps.

Single Family Homes on the Outskirts

The first camp, and by far the largest camp, are those folks that just want a place in the sun. They don’t want to spend a lot of money. They prefer newer homes to reduce potential maintenence costs. They don’t care if the home is located on the edge of metropolitan Phoenix because they are coming for the sun… and maybe to play a lot of golf.

The ideal home for those in this first camp would be a home in one of the newer towns like Queen Creek or Maricopa.

Condos in Scottsdale

The second camp want a place in the sun but they would also like to get out and be active when they are on vacation in Arizona. Oftentimes, they would also like to rent out the home for part of the winter to make some money when they’re not using it.

The ideal home for those in this second camp would be a condo in Scottsdale. Scottsdale is the center of winter events in Phoenix. For example, the Barrett-Jackson Classical Car Auction, the Arabian Horse Show, the Phoenix Open Golf Tournament, and a zillion other activities are located in Scottsdale in the winter.

And because Scottsdale is the center of winter activities, it can be easier to rent out Scottsdale condos to winter vacationers.

I brought this all up because recently a few 2-bedroom condos in the Scottsdale area sold for just over $100,000. Some amazing prices right now! And the ones I’ve seen were located in resort like communities. A few even had a garage which is quite unusual indeed for condos in Arizona.

There are complications because the condos I saw at those prices were usually foreclosures or short sales. Foreclosures and short sales and not like normal sales. Here are Scottsdale foreclosure condos and Scottsdale short sale condos currently listed for sale. Call me for more information about these or other Arizona homes for sale.

I wrote this little tutorial to help Canadians see how easy it is to buy Arizona real estate. I hope these pages help you visualize the process of buying a winter home in Arizona, and make it real for you.

The key to a smooth and easy purchase of a home in Arizona is finding an experienced, knowledgeable Realtor you trust. And if you are going to borrow money to buy your Arizona home, an experienced, knowledgeable lender you trust.

I hope I become your Realtor or that I am able to refer you to a Realtor who specializes in your area of interest.

Please help me improve this web site! Email me with your questions and suggestions. Thanks!

Tutorials

1. How to research Arizona homes online
2. How to find an Arizona home loan
3. How to find your Arizona Realtor
4. How to find your future Arizona home
5. How to make an offer to purchase an Arizona home
6. Buyer inspections during escrow
7. How escrow is closed

FAQ’s

• Frequently Asked Questions

Phoenix Homes for Sale

• Phoenix area MLS homes for sale

Next: How to research Arizona homes online

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This website shows the cost of some cheap flights from Edmonton to Phoenix. Not bad prices at all!

Need more convincing that now is the time to buy a holiday home in Arizona, check out the current Scottsdale temperature in the sidebar.

The Cactus League, major league baseball spring training in Arizona, begins on March 3 and goes until April 3.

Are we headed to par?

Well, that has certainly been the direction over the last 12 months.

I’ve made a lot of improvements to this website that I hope will be useful to you.

Highlights

• You can now search all homes listed for sale in metropolitan Phoenix on this website.

 

• I added the graphic in the upper right-hand corner to brag about our new home search capability.

 

• Now you can call me TOLLFREE by clicking on the “Call Me” button. (Google will ring both of our phones at the same time and connect us.)

 

• Your now have a better form to order emails of just listed Phoenix area homes.

 

• You can now find the current Canadian Dollar to U.S. Dollar exchange rate from this website. Click the link in the sidebar.

 

• Also in the sidebar, you can now easily send me a quick question. Try it!

 

• I also updated all the tutorials about how to buy an Arizona home.

The tutorials (see sidebar) are great but, unfortunately, they don’t cover Arizona foreclosures. Now with this blog, I’ll be able to talk about how you can buy Arizona foreclosures and Arizona short sales.

This is an amazing time for Canadians to buy a home in Arizona. Both home prices and the exchange rate are excellent!

I hope this website is able to help you understand the Phoenix area real estate market and our Arizona home buying process. I hope you are able to buy your sunny and warm winter vacation home in Arizona.

I created this website over 2 years ago and it’s been helpful to a ton of Canadians which I’m very happy about.

One problem.  I’m always running across information that would be useful to Canadians considering buying a home in Arizona but without a blog on this website, I really didn’t have a good  way to get the information out.

Viola!  I finally added this blog during the Christmas slowdown and just in time for the high season that began yesterday, January 1.

In addition, I’m going to do a makeover of this website to, I hope, make it even more useful.