​​Welcome back to another episode of the Boomtown podcast. I'm your host, Cameron Walker, the broker and owner of Cameron Walker Realty. Today, we're going to do the "I wish I knew" review. We're discussing the things that people who have moved to the Huntsville area would have done differently and the advice they would give to someone moving here. And, of course, I have my fabulous co-host here, Megan Hines, one of the agent extraordinaires at the brokerage. How are you doing today, Megan? "I'm doing great. Thanks." All right, glad to hear it. So, let's kick this off. When we talk real estate, the old adage is location, location, location. When we think about that, I always think of the first location as the big map. If we're looking at it from the sky down, where are we? What quadrant of Huntsville are we in? What suburb are we in? What county? Keeping that in mind, a constant complaint—and one that I suffer from personally—is living on the west side of the city and driving into the sun both ways on your commute. "Yeah. No, I hear that. That is not something I suffer from because I live the opposite way." Yes, but the glare can be pretty intense. This is something to think about if it would really bother you, especially if you have very sensitive eyes. I've seen parts of town where, depending on the time of year and time of day, you might crest a mountain looking directly into the sun. That's a big challenge for many drivers. What I've noticed—putting a little salt on the wound here—is that the worst times of year are the spring and the fall. That just happens to be when the sun on the horizon is at the worst possible place for somebody driving on a flat road. It's also when we have the time change. "Yeah. So, just about the time you'd be getting out of that, boom, you're right back in it." And 565 takes you directly toward the sun. I can testify to that. We've had a lot of road work out that way recently, both ongoing and some that's been finished. There are new merge lanes and different traffic patterns, and that can be really difficult if you're used to one thing and now you have all these new lanes merging in. In my case, that's where we were going to live and that's the commute we have. So, we need to talk about solutions. A big advantage to the type of work we do, even with my wife's work on the Arsenal, is having some flexibility in our schedule. I wouldn't consider the sun a deal-breaker for living out there. Just get a visor and be aware that it's going to happen. If you love the house in Athens, you should get it. "Yeah, I think so. If you have the opportunity to do remote work, or if you can massage your commute so you're not driving into the sun both ways, that would be great, too. A lot of people do their after-work activity immediately. Go to the gym, do the grocery shopping, whatever it is. That way, they're not driving directly into the sun." I saw a lot of people talking about this online, too. If they can't move their work time, their second solution is to do those after-work things where you're not driving for 30 minutes into the sun. The third suggestion was just living at an angle. To your point about 565 going directly into the sun, there are many places in Madison, Athens, and Decatur where you don't have to drive 565 for 20 minutes. Those are your alternatives—take something that veers northwest or northeast. Next on our list is something I've preached for years, but I've run into it three times back-to-back recently: the Huntsville market. It is atypical to get a fridge with your house. Builders don't include them. When people move into their new build, they take their old fridge with them. In many markets, people leave the fridge, the washer, and the dryer, but here, those are not built-in appliances in our contract. If you bought a house with a Sub-Zero or Wolf refrigerator that is built into the cabinets, that would convey, but your typical 6-foot-tall, 3-foot-wide fridge is not going to convey automatically. We have to write it in. "Usually, if it's a resale home, this is something that could be negotiated, but you have to be prepared to negotiate for it. If you're coming in at your lowest possible offer and being as aggressive as possible, you might not get the fridge." I have a client buying another house across town. We listed hers and got it under contract. The house she's buying, they're leaving the fridge, but it's barely good enough to be a garage fridge. My client is taking her fridge with her, and the buyer of her old house wanted the fridge and closing cost assistance. We told them, "Pick one." My client has to buy a new fridge, and those aren't free. There is a dollar amount my client wants to net. You can add $2,000 to the price of the house and ask for the fridge, or discount the closing cost. If you're in a really strong buying position, we can write those things in. "With resale homes, you often end up with it, but especially with new construction, you aren't getting one unless you choose it as an incentive. And when you do that, you have to choose it over something else you might want more." I have a client looking for a house in South Madison, and one of the builder's promotions is either a fridge or blinds. We've had clients where we got both. It comes down to the strength of your position as a buyer. In a hot market, it's harder to get things thrown in by the builder. In a slower market or near the end of the fiscal year, you can typically negotiate better. Some builders won't negotiate a penny, and some will work with you. Knowing which is which makes a big difference. Also, a lot of people don't realize we have a Lowe's overstock, scratch-and-dent location where you can get a great fridge if you don't need it to be pristine. "They're really inexpensive. Just about everybody I know buying fridges right now is going there." There's one for Home Depot, too, but it's all the way out in Scottsboro. By the time you get there, you've spent the price difference on gas. If you haven't solved your fridge situation by move-in day, you're eating out until it gets there. I had one family that had coolers stacked up where the fridge should have been. The trickiness is that while most of our deals close on time, there are many moving pieces: moving companies, mortgage companies, title companies, holidays, and wire transfers. I'm always hesitant to tell people to have something delivered the day of closing. If there is a delay, your truck is here with your refrigerator for a house you don't own yet. Have a plan in place. If your refrigerator is delayed, don't plan on going to Publix the day you move in. Next on our list is something misleading. If you're looking at websites like Zillow, Realtor.com, Trulia, or even some of our websites as agents, the school zone you see on the listing is often not the actual school zone for that home. Zillow historically looked at whatever the closest schools were and assumed those were the zones. This is a buyer-beware state; you need to independently verify the school district. It is really important. "I actually saw a house recently that said it was zoned for the Bob Jones School District, and I looked at it and knew it wasn't. It was in Columbia. I called the agent because I was searching Bob Jones. They just chose the closest school. This is something that can absolutely ruin your move." It's not like you can move in and a month later move out without "losing your shirt." The MLS advertising is not a guarantee. The good news is there are resources. I'm on the tail end of a huge project: a Madison City school zone selector. Madison City Schools are going through rezoning. What you see in the MLS might be accurate today, but not for next year. Huntsville is also building new schools and consolidating older ones. Each of the major school districts has a website to find out where your home is zoned. Madison and Huntsville have systems where you can type in an address. Madison's doesn't tell you what it will be zoned for next year through the rezoning, so you need a tool like ours. Madison County has legacy maps, but you want to call the school district and confirm because they don't have that address selection tool. If you're moving here from Oregon, you don't know the difference between Madison, Triana, and Harvest. Don't guess. Call the school district. Next, let's talk about commutes and the "left-hand turn out of a neighborhood." In California and Oregon, there are a lot of overpasses. Here, you often have to cross a busy two-lane road and then make the left-hand turn. The first time I did it, I was horrified. I'd rather take three right turns than a left in some cases. It's not just the left-hand turns; it's also construction and school traffic. If you're commuting between 7:00 and 8:00 a.m. in Madison, you might pass three different schools. Winchester Road is very slow. It is a bottleneck. They've built a lot out there and the infrastructure isn't there yet. They are expanding that road, but until it's finished, people are stuck. The return-to-work orders last year made a huge impact on that. Understanding different ways to get places will shave 20 minutes off your commute. Finding that house and driving the commute—maybe in the morning and evening at different times of day—is the real solution. Google Maps has a feature where you can put in a "depart at" or "arrive by" time and pick the day of the week. That will give you a spread of expected commute times. Also, know the school hours. Elementary schools typically start and finish first, then middle and high school. That hour difference might help your commute. Another challenge people face is tornado shelters. The number one question I get asked by people moving to the Huntsville area is, "What about tornadoes?" Yes, we have them. Yes, they are in the area at least once or twice a year. A lot of people have anxiety about that. The advice online is to buy a house that already has one. You can get them after, but if you get them in the garage, they take up garage space. If you get them outside, you have to run through a rainstorm to get in. If you put it in a closet, that takes up closet space. If you aren't able to buy a home that has one, see if you can get it delivered or installed the week after you close and move in after that. Also, most of the time, an interior room in your home with no windows, toward the center of the house, is sufficient. It is a rare event when you would need the storm shelter. I've never had one; I have a central room, and during storm season, we leave tennis shoes in there for everyone. Lower price-point builders aren't going to include shelters. The larger, higher-end custom builders will work with you to find a solution—a safe room, a closet, an above-ground shelter bolted to the foundation, or one cut into the slab in the garage. You have more luxury of choice in those scenarios. One of the biggest things I was worried about when I moved here was high-speed internet. This is Rocket City; it's almost everywhere because both AT&T and Google provide it to a lot of neighborhoods. I have a house under contract in an isolated spot in Woodville, and it has Google Fiber. Google has made a huge play here over the last five or six years. I have AT&T; it's lightning fast. However, if you're looking for something rural, you need to verify. Sometimes builders get the house up before the utility providers are ready for them. Since internet is not a requirement for an occupancy permit, you might go to closing and be a month out from getting internet. It's a rare occurrence, but it happens. If you're going to take somebody's word for it, take the word of the person that's actually going to do the work, not the person getting the commission check. One of the biggest complaints I see online is about noise. We named this podcast "Boomtown" for a reason. You have explosive growth off the Arsenal, and the closer you are to the Arsenal, the more that sound will hit you. We do rocket testing, and we also have the FBI and ATF bomb range. Windows shake. The original purpose of Redstone Arsenal was a munitions testing center, and we have missile defense here. If you are a veteran with PTSD issues, you might want to think about whether you want to be close to the Arsenal. I live relatively close to the airport. A couple of times a month, C-130s come in and do what they call "touch and goes." It's loud, but some of my clients who are military love the sound. The Arsenal does put out a map of the decibel range, and there's a map of all the tornado sirens. Those would be two things I would look at to triangulate where the sounds are. Lastly, the type of foundation in your home is a major point of consideration. If you are from the North, you're used to basements or crawl spaces. If you're from the South, you're used to slabs. Both have pros and cons. We have radon in the Southeast, and it tends to build up more in basements. Older homes often don't have passive mediation systems, so if I were buying a home with a basement, a radon test would be number one on my list. With crawl spaces, because we are in a humid climate, they can build up moisture, causing mold, mildew, and wood rot. With slabs, they are difficult to do work on because your plumbing and utilities come in from underground. If you have a plumbing issue, you have to jackhammer the foundation. However, slabs have pros: everything is insulated underground, you don't have moisture issues, and they are less likely to build up radon. New homes usually have a passive remediation system with a PVC pipe. If you're buying a fixer-upper and want to do a lot of work, a crawl space or basement is better because it's much easier to move or add plumbing. A basement gives you storage, an area you can finish, or even use as a storm shelter. There's nothing wrong with any of the three; it's just a matter of preference and future-proofing. That's all the time we have today. I hope this gives everybody an idea of the things to look out for. Don't say nobody ever told you, because we told you. Thank you for watching or listening. You can always catch us on audio wherever you get your podcasts, be it Spotify or Apple, or you can watch our video on YouTube. We really appreciate you being here. 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