Every January my phone does the same thing.

Someone calls from Chicago, or Seattle, or somewhere in California, and they tell me they have decided. They are moving to Phoenix. They would like to be in a house by February.

I love these calls. I also know something they don’t know yet, which is that they are about four months late to the version of this that goes well.

Not too late to move. People move on short timelines all the time and it works out. But the version where they get the neighborhood they actually want, at a price that makes sense, without making the decision under pressure, is the version that starts in September.

So if you are reading this in September and Phoenix is somewhere in your head for next year, here is the calendar. Work backward from February 1.

Now through October: sort your list

You are not going to find a house with everything on it. That is not a Phoenix thing, it is a house thing, and holding out for the whole list is the single most common reason good people look for a year and end up with nothing.

So sort it into two piles.

• Fixable: paint, flooring, counters, cabinets, fixtures, a wall that needs to come down, a yard that has been ignored for a decade.
• Not fixable: where the house sits, what is across the street, the drive to the people you want to see, the lot, the light, and whether the things you will do every single week are close enough that you actually do them.

September and October are for the second pile. That is the work, and almost none of it can be done from a laptop in another state.

October and November: come here

This is the part I will push you on, and it is the part that decides everything else.

October and November are the reward for our summer. The weather turns, and you can walk a neighborhood at four in the afternoon and actually learn something about it. Come out. Not for a weekend of showings. For a few days of driving around.

Drive the commute at the hour you would really drive it, not at ten in the morning when the freeway is empty. Go to the grocery store you would use. Sit outside somewhere in the evening. Notice which parts of town make you feel like yourself and which ones feel like a listing photo.

You are not shopping for a house yet. You are eliminating half the map, which is the thing that makes January fast instead of frantic.

November: talk to a lender, all the way through

Not a rate quote. A full pre-approval with documents actually reviewed.

An out-of-state buyer without one is not competitive here, and finding out in January that something in your file needs three weeks to sort out is how a February date turns into an April date. Everything is fixable. It just takes time you will not have later.

December: watch

December is the month most people write off, and it is often the best one.

Inventory thins out because casual sellers pull their listings for the holidays. The ones who stay listed are the ones who need to move. There is less competition standing next to you, and there is more room to negotiate than there will be in eight weeks.

If you did the October work, you already know which neighborhoods count. December is when you start watching what comes up in them.

January: write the offer

By now you know the map, your financing is real, and you have been watching actual inventory for a month. When the right house shows up you are not deciding whether you like Arcadia. You already know. You are just deciding about the house.

Thirty to forty-five days to close puts you in the door for February, which happens to be one of the best months of the year to be new in this town.

What you actually get

Here is the trade. Five months of unremarkable steps, and in exchange you get to skip the thing I watch people do every single year, which is arrive in February, rent something for twelve months because they ran out of runway, and start the whole search over in a market with more competition and less patience.

You also get to make the biggest call of the whole process, which neighborhood, in the season when this city is at its absolute best, instead of in the middle of a scramble.

And if you cannot get out here this fall, tell me. We will build a different plan, and I will be honest with you about what it costs you. The plan I will not help you build is the one that skips the visit entirely and hopes.

My Relocation Guide has the neighborhood breakdowns and the full timeline if you want to start sorting your two piles: jennjenkins.com

Whenever you’re ready, I’m here.

Joyful real estate that feels like home.

WITH JOY,

P.S. What’s Jennuine Living, again?

We’re a gaggle of REALTORS(R), Lenders, and Creatives that makes joyful real estate feel like home.

We bring creativity, peace of mind, and a sense of delight into one of life’s biggest transitions, so that our clients’ experience:

-> More joy, less stress and fewer “oh crap” moments.

-> No guesswork, no surprises, just honest communication.

-> Connection first, here, you are family.

We love new friends, so visit our website, see a bit of our good work for our community, or follow us on the ‘Gram to join the family.