Elizabeth Newlin – Arizona Real Estate Agent

Did you read this today? I have to say, I was flabbergasted when I read it, but I guess it makes sense. It certainly explains the skyrocketing home values in Gilbert and Chandler, and it also makes me feel a bit better about our struggle to find my Tempe clients a 4-bedroom home in Gilbert or Chandler. It should be hard. Everyone else in the nation is trying to find one there too!

Well, I guess we should be proud of our state. She’s all grown up now. Beautiful and popular too!

I have a new appreciation for two things:

1. Insulation: I have to admit, my husband is definitely the handy one in our relationship. I may be creative and thrifty, but he’s the one who really knows the nuts and bolts of… well, nuts and bolts. During our bathroom remodel (which is nearing completion, pics to come!) he had to dismantle the entire glass block wall that separated the shower from the great outdoors and re-frame it. Water had been leaking into the wall for who-knows how long and several supporting beams were rotting away. The pink cotton candy-esque insulation inside the wall had practically disintegrated. We spent two sweltering nights with just a tarp over that wall shielding us from the heat and keeping the air conditioning inside. After that, he had the wall re-framed and sheet-rocked so that Contractor-Ed could begin tiling the shower. I thought we would be back to the usual coolness of our bedroom, but I was wrong. It was a busy next week and he didn’t have time to get to Home Depot to buy materials to finish the outside of the wall. Consequently, our bedroom was at least 10 degrees higher than normal. When he finally got around to putting in the insulation and outer wall piece of wood, it made a world of difference. Last night our room was nice and cool. Who knew that fluffy stuff and a bit of wood made such a difference?

2. The Sewer People: Did you know that if you live in Mesa and you have creatures crawling out of your drains you can call the City of Mesa Roach Hotline (480-644-3550) and they will come right out to check and if necessary, treat, your manholes? We didn’t have roaches (thank God), but we did have slugs regularly crawling out of the drain in our extra bathroom. I know, how gross is that? So I called that number last Friday and yesterday there was a little door hanger on our front door indicating they had checked and treated our manholes. Such service, and free!

We’ve made some progress on finding a new home for my Tempe sellers. Their house is holding strong in escrow and we’ve visited about 15 properties in our search for their next residence.

Last weekend during our quest, we visited two very similar homes on the same street. The first one was a tri-level with five bedrooms and a three-car garage(perfect for a family with four teenagers like the Bennetts) and a not so fabulous backyard:

The second had the exact same square footage as the previous house, but a much larger downstairs rec-room instead of a fifth bedroom. It still had a three-car garage, though, and nicer, updated bathroom and light fixtures, as well as a backyard with a lovely covered patio:

The Bennetts decided that because the houses were exactly the same list price and they are handy enough to construct the fifth bedroom out of part of the rec room, they preferred the second house.

However, they weren’t quite ready to make an offer (it was the beginning of our search and they hadn’t really seen what else was out there yet) and both houses sold too quickly for us to get a foot in the door.

We continued to look and they began to realize just how perfect one of those houses would have been for the family. Saturday when I pulled up listings for us to go see, another property on that same street popped up, same square footage and everything. It had a little hitch, however. This property is currently owned by a Public Trustee because the previous owners defaulted on the loan. It is being sold without any seller warranties or a seller’s property disclosure statement. The MLS report also mentioned that the earnest money would become nonrefundable as soon as the offer was accepted. On the positive side, the house was listed at $25K lower than the other two houses we had seen. So we decided to at least give it a look.

It turned out to be pretty perfect. It has the five bedrooms and a slightly better backyard than the first (though not quite as nice as the second). They felt really good about the lower price, too (of course). They feel like they could use the money they’d save to really make the house what they want. It looks, from the front, more like the first house, but with a little exterior paint, they hope to make it more like the second.

We looked at three more houses yesterday, but it came down to the bankruptcy house. They decided to make an offer. I’m happy to say that I’m feeling pretty optimistic about this house. I thought that there would be bunches of offers in competing with ours, but when I spoke with the Realtor this evening, he said that ours was the only one so far. He has to fax all offers to the Bankruptcy court in Las Vegas tomorrow morning and they will make the final decision. So cross your fingers that they get to the offers before any others come in and that ours is accepted. I think my clients would be very happy with this home.

So today was the day… my littlest turned one! My little Gray-bay is getting so big! I remember a year and 24 hours ago I was being sent home from the hospital. The nurses said, “You’re not in labor yet, dear, go home and get some rest, come back when the contractions are 3 minutes apart.” So I went home and spent the next 6 hours pacing around our house, taking hot showers (THREE!) and moaning in pain, until about 3:30 am, when I just couldn’t deal with it anymore and demanded that I be taken back to the hospital. It turned out to be the right decision, at least for my housekeeping. My water broke about 10 minutes after we were put in a room (I would definitely prefer to have my water break on the hospital floor than on my couch… um, EW). By 6:30 am, my epidural had kicked in and life was much better. Gray Edward Newlin was born at 9:32 am. He peed on the doctor as he was being born. He was chubby even at birth and a sweet little mellow angel.

Tonight, for his birthday I baked him a cake. It was an easy but yummy cake, so I’m going to share the recipe.

Baby-Face Cake

Ingredients:

1 box mix for yellow cake
3 eggs
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 1/4 cups water
Cool whip
Strawberries
Chocolate frosting

Preparation:

Beat cake mix, eggs, vegetable oil and water in an electric mixer for 2 minutes. Preheat oven to 350. Grease 2 round 8-inch cake pans. Pour equal amounts of mixture into the 2 pans. Bake in the oven for 33 minutes or until toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Allow cakes to cool 10 minutes. After they have cooled, turn one upside down to remove from pan and set on cake platter. Using a serrated knife, slice the rounded top of the cake off so that it is level. Spread a layer of cool whip on top of the first cake, then top with a layer of sliced strawberries and finish with another layer of cool whip. Place the second cake on top of the cool whip. Frost entire cake with chocolate frosting.

Serve to baby:

Take away from baby when he decides he’s really full and tired:

Just in case you were afraid that I’m an inflexible Realtor, I have actually visual proof that I’m probably the most flexible Realtor around:

Yes, that’s actually me, last Sunday, doing an aerial in my parents’ backyard. My brother and I got into an argument over who was more athletic (I was a gymnast as a child). I won.

So if you’re looking for a flexible Realtor, call me!

Whew, life has been rolling along at breakneck speed as usual. Here’s just a quick update to life in the Newlin house:

1. I hosted an open house for my Tempe listing on Saturday. It went well and my cookies and tiny little sodas and waters were quite popular this time (probably because it was up-wards of 105 degrees all day). We did end up receiving and offer and accepting it, to the extreme pleasure of both my clients and me. It seems to be currently holding up in escrow (did you know that more than 30% of all homes that go into escrow right now fall out before closing? The lesson there is that if you really love a house that’s pending, go in with a backup offer, you have a good chance at actually getting it!) and I’m hoping it stays that way. Now we just have to find them a house to buy…

2. My youngest son turns ONE this week!! Thursday to be exact. Prepare yourselves for cake-faced baby pictures on Friday; I can guarantee them.

3. Our bathroom remodel has taken over our lives. The first contractor we had in for a quote didn’t return my emails until over a week after I sent them, and in that time we met with another contractor who quoted the price lower and was willing to start immediately. So Jason spent the weekend demo-ing the bathroom and reinstalling the glass block wall. The new contractor started this morning. I have lots of pictures of the process, unfortunately, I seem to have damaged my photo card reader, so you’ll have to wait for those. We are currently in an ugly stage of the bedroom/bathroom. The endless amount of junk we had in our sink cabinets is in boxes, the bathroom wall still goes straight out to the outside and the room smells faintly of sewage because the contractor (Ed, I will from now on refer to him as Ed) removed the toilet today so he can start tiling tomorrow. So it’s not going to be a pleasant sleeping situation tonight, but I’m SO excited for the end result. Plus it’s just kind of fun to leave for work in the morning and come home and have so much stuff done to it!

So that’s life in our house this week. I’m taking lots of classes right now and learning tons of useful things. I am, as ever, ready and willing to serve your home buying/selling needs. Always call or contact me if you have anything I can help you with! And I promise lots of pictures tomorrow.

When we moved into our house almost three years ago, we bought a new, fairly inexpensive dining room set. It has been quite good to us for hundreds of meals, but we always knew that the cushions were going to be a problem. You see, they’re white, and we have kids and cats… so now, after almost three years of use, they look like this:

Yes, you can feel free to say it, EW. So this week, knowing that I’m having family over next week for my youngest’s first birthday, I decided to recover them. It turns out that this is an incredibly easy process. First I went to our closest fabric store and asked them to point me to the upholstery fabric section. I bought two and a half yards of heavy duty dark fabric (for six chairs). It cost me just under $18. Then I went to Home Depot and bought a heavy duty stapler and staples to go with ($21). When I got home I flipped the chairs over and using a small screw driver, removed the three screws holding the bottom of the chair to the frame. I then cut my fabric just large enough to cover the seat and stapled it in place. Finally, I replaced the screw, and Viola:

Practically spill-proof and everything… I’m quite pleased with the results!

I have read, recently, several articles with scary headlines like, “With Market Hot, Buyers Embrace Risky Mortgages” and ” Top cities for risky, interest-only mortgages” about this fairly new phenomenon of interest-only mortgages. I have to admit, that I did not totally understand the theory behind these types of mortgages. I had a fairly solid understanding of a 30-year or a 15-year fixed mortgage, but these bizarre interest-only creatures with ‘arms’ left me mystified, and the news reports kept me terrified.

This was until last week. Last week I took a mortgage class at my real estate office. It’s a class that’s given monthly, and it just happened that this month only two of us chose to attend it (and the other guy there had already been through it once), so I pretty much got to ask all of the questions I’d ever had about mortgages.

My questions:

1. What are these ‘interest-only’ mortgages and why would anyone want them?

Answer: The interest-only mortgage refers to the Adjustable Rate Mortgage (ARM). This type of mortgage is usually a 5 year ARM or 7 year ARM. It basically means that you take out a 30 year mortgage with a fixed interest for the first 5 or 7 years. In a 30 year fixed mortgage you have an interest rate that is fixed over the life of the loan, however, the amount of interest paid in each payment changes. In the beginning, the payments you are making are mostly toward the interest portion of your loan, and there is very little paid toward the principle. As time goes on, your payment stays level, but the amount you’re paying toward interest goes down and the amount toward principle goes up. In an ARM, for the first chunk of time (5 or 7 years) you only have to pay interest, which would be lower than if you had a 30 year, but then after that period, the interest rate can change (go up or down as the market has fluctuated) and your payment will then be fixed, like it is with a 30 year, with you initially paying more toward interest. The benefit is, that if you had a 7 year ARM and paid the same amount of money a month as you would owe in a 30 year fixed, more of that payment would go toward principle and by the time you got to your regular fixed time, you would have a much smaller loan to be dealing with. The problem is when people take out these loans and only pay the minimum amount they are required and possibly end up owing more than the house is worth.

2. What’s the deal with the 80-20 100% financing and PMI?

Answer: I have written before about the evils of PMI and the fabulous shoe-buying power of not having it. In the last year or so, I keep hearing about people getting financing for 100% of their loan, but doing it in two chunks (an 80% loan and a 20% loan) so that they do not have to pay PMI. So I asked our loan guy if this actually works and why I hadn’t done it in the first place to avoid those annoying extra payments. His answer was basically that YES, it absolutely does work and there really aren’t any draw-backs. He said that doing smart things like this with your mortgage is the advantage of having a knowledgeable loan agent and being well-informed from the beginning. Lesson learned here: do your homework!

3. I have heard that having your credit pulled can actually put a small ding in your credit report. So if I apply for a loan pre-approval and you pull my credit, will it do harm to my credit score? What if I want to shop around, will I get dinged with every loan officer I try?

Answer: Having your credit pull will minutely affect your credit score. It is unfortunately a necessary evil. The good news is, the way it is set up, you can have your credit pulled as many times as you want within 14 days and it will only register as one pull. So if you plan on shopping around, get it done in two weeks and it will not be an issue.

So that was the meat of what I learned. I came away with a little more confidence in the mortgage game, I hope you feel the same way.

Well we’ve gotten started… sort of. Last week we had a contractor come out to quote our kitchen and bathroom projects. We talked about what Jason and I are interested in doing and she took measurements. She said she would get a quote back to us in a week or two. My biggest concern with that idea was that we hadn’t even discussed materials. I’m quite aware that the price of things like tile and cabinets and whatnot can vary wildly. So was she just going to base her quote on the middle of the road materials? The cheapest to keep the quote low? But we will see how that problem develops.

She told us to go to Arizona Tile to choose our counter tops, kitchen floor tile and bathroom wall and floor tile. So this morning we took a trip out there. It was a lovely experience.

To begin with, we of course had the boys with us because they pretty much go everywhere with us. This is usually a total hassle on errands like this because Gray is fidgety and is like lugging around an anchor, and Ben gets bored quickly and starts with the whining. This problem was immediately avoided because they have a little staffed childcare area that was windowed and visible from almost every area of the showroom. We checked the boys in and they were quickly immersed in a video and a large collection of toys.

We started off in the Slab Showroom to choose our counter tops. It was a hardhat only area:

Jason and I were totally fascinated by the machine that transported the huge pieces of granite.

We wandered along the rows of beautiful natural stone and, as we usually do, pretty much agreed on which we loved and which we didn’t care for at all. We narrowed it down to four:

It was an interesting shopping experience because the slabs weren’t labeled with anything but their names, so we had no prices to influence us either way. I feel like prices are usually such an influence in so many different ways. We definitely want a deal, and would never decide on the most expensive, but we tend to be prejudiced against the very cheapest too. So when we walked out of the show room, our choices were purely about aesthetics. Of course, when we handed out list to the woman who was helping us, she commented ominously, “Ooo, don’t you have champagne taste?” OY. I mean, I guess it makes sense that the prettiest ones would be the most expensive, but good lord, we had to love the most expensive, didn’t we?

They gave us samples of the counters we liked to take to the tile showroom and find what we liked that matched. It helped us narrow things down even further.

This first combination is the Blue Guagain granite with Slate Grigio tile:

We’re thinking if we chose this combination, we would do maple cabinets with a pewter (light gray) stain.

The second combination we liked was Verde Tunas Classic granite with Gemstone Africa tile:

With this busier and more colorful combination we think we would do again a maple cabinet but with a light natural stain.

Whew. Now we just have to find out how much it’s all going to cost. I’m so excited!

I had a fabulous day yesterday. I cashed in my mother’s day gift, a gift certificate for an entire spa day at my favorite salon in the East Valley, Dolce Salon and Spa. It was an amazing experience. I started with a Swedish hot rock massage, and then a reflexology massage (that’s just for your feet, I think Jason tacked that one on just because he’s tired of my begging for foot rubs), a European facial, then a lovely lunch from PF Chang’s, and finished up with a manicure and pedicure. I felt utterly spoiled.

If you’re a fan of being pampered, like I am, Arizona is definitely the place to be. The desert is a hidden wonderland of beauty treatments. My kids’ Grandma Linda considers The Arizona Biltmore her second home, and she’s not the only one. Crowds flock to stay in their gorgeous rooms, play over-sized chess on manicured lawns where Presidents have played before them, swim in amazing pools with swim-up bars and have treatments done in The Biltmore’s award winning salons. I personally can attest to the fact that their pedicures are far superior to the average salon. My favorite part is when they rub an exfoliant over my calves. It literally gives me the chills. I don’t know why I love it so much, but I really haven’t had that experience duplicated at any other salon. Mmmm….

Ahem, anyway, beyond The Biltmore, Arizona is virtually littered with beautiful and amazing day spas. To name just a few:

Elizabeth Arden Red Door Spa
Loews Ventana Canyon Resort
The Spa at Camelback Inn

I can personally highly recommend them all. (Yes, yes, I’m a day spa junkie. It’s sad, and I admit it.) So if you’re thinking about coming out here to check Arizona out, make one of them a stop. You’ll be hooked too.

(A boy in my college poli-sci class once told me I have cute feet… what kind of weird pick-up line is that?)