March 26, 2009 by Donna Anderson.

Hermosillo’s Cima Hermosillo Hospital, which is located just south of Nogales off of Route 15 (about 70 miles south of Nogales in Sonora, Mexico) has International Accreditation, and has a contract with Blue Cross and Blue Shield. As a result, its new coveted status will bring many Tusconians there for much less expensive treatments.

This “World Class” hospital  is one of the first hospitals in Mexico to get this acclaimation. To its credit, it is one of 20 hospitals in the world to get this high recognition.

Estimated reduction in health care treatment prices are 60% less than in the US.  If you have Blue Cross and Blue Shield, you may want to contact them to see if the procedure you want is one of the dozen or so procedures it covers. Some of the procedures covered include gynecologic, orthopedic and cardiologic surgeries.   Or if you do not have insurance, or have a very high deductible, you may want to consider exploring having your surgery done here. Currently the hospital accommodates 60 patients. There is bi-lingual staff to help those who do not speak Spanish and most doctors are trained in the U.S.  The hospital offers assistance to those who need trip coordination from the U.S. to  the hospital in Hermosillo,Mexico.

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March 17, 2009 by Donna Anderson.

In the past week I have noticed more higher-end Tucson Foothills homes have gone under contract. Previously homes above $700,000 - 1 million were seeing very limited sales activity. In fact, for a few months it was easier to sell a home priced over a million that it was for homes priced between $700,000 and 1 million. Perhaps the stock market appearing to possibly have bottomed out, and that it is now going up, has instigated this positive change in Tucson Foothills Luxury Homes Activity.

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March 17, 2009 by Donna Anderson.

By April 3rd, you will need to appeal your property tax if you do not agree with the assessment that was sent to you by the Pima County Assessor’s Office.  You should have received your notice of value for 2010 within the last few months. Remember that if you appealed last year, and as a result, your property tax went down, you will need to appeal again this year,  since last year’s lowering of taxes is frozen for another year.  If your assessment was lowered last year, appeal again since there is no doubt that the values went down all over Pima County. The telephone number for the Office of the Pima County Assessor’s office is 740-8630 - call if you misplaced your assessment and need the appeal form; you can mail or fax your appeal to 792-9825.  I have successfully appealed my taxes three times, and, unfortunately, will have to do it again since values have declined.  It is important to note that Arizona law calls for any lowering of assessment as a result of appeal will freeze the assessment for the following year and therefore be ready to appeal again next year, since the values have declined. The comparables they use for the tax year are a year or two behind so there should be declining values for tax year 2011. Keep in mind I am not an appraiser and I am only going by my personal experience and also informing my readers of what I have learned through phone calls with the Pima County Property Assessor’s office.

It truly is not difficult to appeal. You look on the internet at the Pima County Assessor’s site for neighbor’s homes assessed values that are homes similar to your’s and if they are assessed less, you site this in your appeal; also if your assessment was lowered last year you should also site this is a reason for your appeal, since the Assessor’s office is more than aware that the law works against you when you appeal and then in a following year  the values decline, and will keep this in mind when relooking at the 2010 value they sent you. When the not too foward-thinking law- makers made this law they never foresaw that values would decline. They should have known that in any real estate market that has a rapid ascend in values, there will later be a descend.

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