Snowbird suspension of internet service? (Tucson, Green Valley: for sale, rental, HOA)

[RichCapeCod]

Hi all. My wife and I will be buying a home in Green Valley shortly. We plan on spending around 7 months in AZ and the remainder on Cape Cod. Anyone know if Cox has a program where one can put their cable service "to sleep" for extended periods of time?


Thanks!

Rich
GV/Cape Cod

[jlawrence01]

Originally Posted by RichCapeCod

Hi all. My wife and I will be buying a home in Green Valley shortly. We plan on spending around 7 months in AZ and the remainder on Cape Cod. Anyone know if Cox has a program where one can put their cable service "to sleep" for extended periods of time?


Thanks!

Rich
GV/Cape Cod

Yes, BUT.

Cox allows you to put the cable/internet on hold ONE TIME per year. If you do the normal snowbird routine of one trip to GV each year, it will work for you. However, it does not work as well for me as I have been in GV two months at a time. You WILL be charged $9.99 for the privilege.

ONE CAVEAT. You LOSE your promotional deals that you sign up for if you use the hold.

ALSO, you can put the sewer charges on hold with the CITY OF TUCSON (yes, they are the sewer authority for GV) which will reduce your sewer expenses from $40/mo to $12/mo.

ALSO, you can put the garbage/recycling with Titan Recycling on hold with no charge.


Do remember that you have minimum charges with Southwest Gas (~$10/month) and Green Valley Water (~$20) even when you are gone.

Also, some HOAs in Green Valley require you to keep your street lights on.

That is probably more than you wanted to know.

[RichCapeCod]

jlawrence01, great info!! No one mentioned any of that stuff to me before.

Thanks,

Rich

[jlawrence01]

Originally Posted by RichCapeCod

jlawrence01, great info!! No one mentioned any of that stuff to me before.

Thanks,

Rich

Well, we went to Green Valley in Jan/Feb.

Purchased home in March.

Major work on place in April.

Spent June/July in GV. Moved household goods in July.

Back in October.

Will return in December for good.

If you have any other questions, let me know. By the way, everything (except cable) came from my neighbors in Desert Hills 3 West.

By the way, all GV Social Centers have free WiFi that is pretty decent if you are there for short periods. Also, Starbucks in the grocery stores and McDonald's.

You also MUST consider your cell service. Most people with T-Mobile get no service in GV. I have a lot of problems with Sprint. My wife has ATT and Verizon and has pretty decent cell service.

[Bummer]

Originally Posted by RichCapeCod

Hi all. My wife and I will be buying a home in Green Valley shortly. We plan on spending around 7 months in AZ and the remainder on Cape Cod. Anyone know if Cox has a program where one can put their cable service "to sleep" for extended periods of time?


Thanks!

Rich
GV/Cape Cod

Just a thought, Rich . . .

Have you researched / considered one of those MiFi Internet Card Systems offered by Sprint, Verizon and probably many others?

[RichCapeCod]

Hi again. Looks like we'll be buying a place in Canoa Seca II. We have Verizon, which works just fine for us here. We'll come and go Spring and Fall, as we live so far away (Cape Cod). To make our lives simplier we'll set up our (yet to be purchased) new home before we leave end of May with whatever it needs to be liveable (internet, etc.). The suspension of services info was most useful.

Rich

[jlawrence01]

Originally Posted by RichCapeCod

Hi again. Looks like we'll be buying a place in Canoa Seca II. We have Verizon, which works just fine for us here. We'll come and go Spring and Fall, as we live so far away (Cape Cod). To make our lives simplier we'll set up our (yet to be purchased) new home before we leave end of May with whatever it needs to be liveable (internet, etc.). The suspension of services info was most useful.

Rich

Sounds like you are in pretty good shape. I will be moving from Sprint (very poor) to an AT&T product and hopefully, that will address my current issues.

One thing to consider is whether you will have someone check your house while you are gone. My neighbor checks the house about once a week to make sure there are no issues. Another neighbor (a contractor), turns the water on and off for me. There is a cottage industry in GV of people who do house checks.

Let me know if you have any questions.

[RichCapeCod]

jlawrence01, thanks for the offer and info. We're getting our ducks lined up, were back at the house with the realtor to look over what furniture we might be interested in buying from the previous owner. Kind of an interesting story on how we wound up buying the place.

This is our third full-time winter in Green Valley (we rent a home 12 mos out of the year here, store two cars in the garage, house full of our "stuff"). My wife really, really wanted to buy our own place here. She wore me down and when we arrived Nov 1st she began to look for a place in earnest. She called her "favorite" realtor about a week ago, told him what she wanted. There was a particular street that she was enamored with, the homes rears facing just about due east (toward the mountains) over a golf course. There was a home for sale there last season (when we weren't looking to buy) that she loved, but it sold by the time we arrived this season. It was a bit too pricey for us anyway.

So, the realtor tells her that he spoke to some folks last season whose mom had been in a house on that street (two houses from her favorite) but when her husband passed away over two years ago she left and hasn't been back since. House has been looked after but unoccupied for all that time. A bit over 2,000 sq feet in size. Realtor got the key (he knows the lady that checks on the house. He sold her the one she was living in!) and with the permission of the current owners we went inside to look around. Place was neat with all the drawers and closets full of the former owners stuff!

Long story shortened; house, not on the market. We made an offer (fairly low). It was accepted. Now it's just the details to work out (home inspections, where are all the keys, the usual stuff).

Anyway, that's the story. We really like GV and hope to spend our winters here and our summers battling tourists on Cape Cod!

Rich

[jlawrence01]

Rich,

Your story sounds very familiar to money. Two months in green Valley led my wife to say "this is the place" and we had a contact on a house by the end of February. The house was on the market but not aggressively marketed. We made a low end offer to the owner and she accepted after a little bickering on any adjustments.

I refused to do the two homes in two locations thing which my wife wanted to consider. It is too stressful to have two different places, two different overheads, mail coordination ... I wanted to settle down and relax. We will be here 12 months; however, we will probably wimp out and head back to the Midwest in May or June.

Some of your comments parallel my experience. If you want to rent or buy in Green Valley, it is better to get to meet the "community leaders" of the area you want to live in. That generally includes long-term 12 month residents who are socially connected and the HOA members. They are a fountain of information (including most of what I have learned) as well as sources of information on properties available for sale or rent that are NOT on the market formally. For example, if I need a rental for a friend, I talk to a could of my neighbors and they can usually connect me with someone who will rent their place out. Sure, you can go to a Realtor, but you will pay more due to the rental fees. Before we bought, we were shown a couple of properties that were "available" but not on the MLS.

I purchased my place from a woman that bought the place in 1994 but had not visited the property since 2005 when her husband died.

If you need any recommendations for contractors, let me know.

[RichCapeCod]

Thanks again for the input.

Rich