Elizabeth Newlin – Arizona Real Estate Agent

Remember months and months ago when I first mentioned our bathroom remodel plans? Yeah, well it’s still not completed. As usual, our home improvement project is taking eons longer than we had anticipated. I do have some good news, however. The shower is finished and it’s gorgeous. I absolutely love it. I showered in it for the first time yesterday morning and it’s wonderful. I have a zillion photos of the process I’d love to share with you.

Jason ended up doing the demolition and the re-framing of the wall. We hired a tile guy to come in and tile the entire shower (Jason had to remove some of it, though, to re-plumbing of the shower) and we hired people to put in the new shower door. It was a mix of DIY and professional work.

Before and demolition:

Re-framing:

Tiling:

The finished product:

A couple of evenings ago I was feeling the need for a little bit of peace and quiet while I made dinner. It had been a long day of phone calls to tie up a deal and my kids were especially loud and restless. So I agreed to put on a movie for them while I worked in the kitchen.

Me (to Ben, who’s five): You can watch Ice Age, but keep your brother entertained while I’m making dinner, OK?

Ben: Duh, Mom, I don’t have to keep him entertained, the TV will entertain him, that’s what it’s for!

Yeah… quick learner, that one. That was my cue to get that kid out and intellectually stimulated for a day, at least to wake his brain up from the slumber of summer break. So today we took a trip over to the Arizona Science Center in Heritage Square.

I highly recommend it. We had a great time. It was just the two of us because Jason and Gray left this morning to take a trip out to Michigan to visit Jason’s grandfather (Ben starts kindergarten Monday, so we stayed behind). I was glad we didn’t have the baby, because Ben was all over the place and it was fun to be able to devote all of my attention to him. We saw a movie about natural disasters, watched a live demonstration of the dissection of a cow’s eye and ran around in the new Sesame Street themed exhibit, The Body. It was lots of fun. If your kid is between the ages of three and twelve, try it out, you’ll enjoy yourself too!

I made Chinese Chicken Salad for dinner last night. I had a basic idea of ingredients I wanted to use, so I Googled a few recipes and took an inventory of what else I should use. This is what I came up with (we loved it):

Ingredients:

2 boneless skinless chicken breasts
Bag of romaine lettuce
Small can of mandarin oranges
Package of uncooked wonton squares
Sliced almonds (toasted)
Sliced green onions
Vegetable oil (for frying wontons)
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
1 tablespoon sesame oil
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1.5 teaspoons brown sugar
1 teaspoon red pepper
1 teaspoon toasted sesame seeds

Preparation:

Slice wonton squares into thin strips. Heat vegetable oil on stove on high or in an electric fondue pot on high. Fry wonton strips in oil until brown and crispy. Saute chicken breasts until cooked through. Chop chicken into medium sized pieces. Arrange lettuce on two plates. Top lettuce with chicken, wontons, toasted almonds, green onions and oranges. Put remaining ingredients (soy sauce through sesame seeds) in a container with a lid and shake to mix. Split dressing over two salads. Love it!!

Is it wet at your house? My house has been drippy and soggy for days. Like a typical Zonie, I’m loving the uncommon dark clouds looming outside my window. The lower temperatures aren’t bad either (though I could do without the humidity that makes my hair stick straight even after I’ve had it in curlers all morning).

I started out this morning looking to see how this monsoon season has stacked up against past ones, because it has seemed particularly rainy at our house. I was hoping to see that rainfall is a bit above normal (I’ve heard talk that maybe we’re nearing the end of our 10-year drought). Unfortunately, the comparison of average rainfall to rainfall so far this year has eluded me (Google, how could you do me so wrong?). But in my search, I did come across some interesting facts about Monsoons on the National Weather Service site. Here are the ones I found most interesting:

1. CORRECT definition of Monsoon: Any wind that reverses its direction seasonally.

2. In Phoenix, the monsoon is considered to have started when we have three consecutive days when the dew point averages 55 degrees or higher.

3. The average start date of the monsoon in Phoenix is July 7, while the average ending date is September 13.

4. The earliest start date for the monsoon was June 16, 1925…whereas the latest start ever was July 25, 1987.

5. Ancient Indian Proverb: “Rain will occur about a week after locusts begin to sing at night”

6. In Phoenix, normal rainfall during July, August and September is 2.65 inches. The wettest monsoon occurred in 1984 when we had 9.38 inches of rain. The driest was in 1924 with only 0.35 inches.

7. In the last five years, there has been more than $225 million dollars in damage in the Phoenix metro area from severe thunderstorm wind and hail.

Months have gone by, where only words like HOT and frenzied, have been used to describe the housing market here. Our discussions in the sales meetings involved questions like, ‘What can we do to make our offers stronger for our buyers? What contingencies can we waive? How much above asking price should we offer? How do we make our offer stand out among the 10 or 20 others with it on the table?’

For the last few weeks, during the sales meetings at my office, the talk of the market has taken a bit of a turn. My manager has pointed out, in at least the last two weekly meetings, the fact that there are more properties on the market. We have discussed, at length, the fact that properties are taking a bit longer to sell. This is great news for buyers.

When things are less competitive for buyers, it really opens options up. For the last year or so, it has been difficult for someone who needed to finance most of the purchase price of their home to buy. Because so many of the homes weren’t appraising for what they were selling for, it became difficult to obtain financing unless you had a significant amount of cash to put down (and this is of course, assuming you even got the contract without waiving the appraisal contingency). But now this is all beginning to change a bit. People are less willing to stand for buying an overvalued property. The investors have begun to pull out and move on to less expensive areas (I’ve heard Albuquerque is the new frontier). All of this makes for a bit more comfort on the buying end. Hopefully we will again be able to ask for repairs during the 10-day inspection. Maybe soon we will even seen sellers contributing to closing costs again. Wouldn’t that be nice? A bit of a leveled playing field would make the game much more pleasant, I think.

I’m sitting another open house tomorrow (yep, I’m the open house queen lately) that I would like to invite you all to, of course. From noon until 4 PM tomorrow (Sunday, August 7, 2005) I will be holding 1302 W. Glenmere, Chandler, AZ 85224 (come on, you can Mapquest it, I know you can) open for the public to see. It’s a lovely 3 bedroom (PLUS a den/office) in a nice quiet Chandler neighborhood. It’s a total remodel and nice and vacant so you can come and easily imagine your possessions right at home in it. It’s listed at $388,000. Come visit me (so I don’t get lonely)!

All right, so if you’re a Realtor, the post title makes total sense, and when you read it, the voice in your head pronounces it “fizzbow.” If you’re not an agent, it may be a foreign term. It’s an acronym (in case you couldn’t tell by all the capitals) that stands for “For Sale By Owner” and it’s a big part of the marketing plan behind many real estate agents.

In the training programs I’ve been through to begin my real estate career, FSBOs have been highlighted as a good way to generate listings. Apparently, the national statistic on FSBOs is that only 10% of people who start out selling their house for sale by owner, will actually sell it themselves. The remaining 90% will eventually give up and list their home with an agent. Therefore, in theory, as a Realtor, it’s a good idea to get to know the FSBOs in your area so when they decide they’re through with the hassle of trying to sell it themselves, you’re the agent they turn to.

So, because I’m still pretty new, and I don’t have anything really going right now besides seeing my Tempe clients’ deals through, I’ve been trying out a bit of everything. I’ve gone door knocking. I’m sitting open houses for other agents. I’m finding and talking to as many FSBOs as I can.

FSBOs made me really nervous at first. I felt like I was trying to sell them something I know they don’t want. Hello, it’s on a sign directly outside of their house, like, “I don’t want or need a Realtor, I can sell my house without your services.” So why should I bother them, I wondered. But I pushed through and forced myself to introduce myself and give them a hopefully helpful packet of information. I actually felt good about it after I did it. The thing is, no one slammed a door in my face. The took my information and answered my questions about their homes. I took their information home and fed it into my resources to see what I could find out about their houses and what they were asking for them.

The first lady I spoke with, is actually asking about $25K under the market value of her home. So if she listed it with me, I would recommend she ask $25K higher than what she’s got it at and even after paying for Realtor commissions, she would make $10K more than what she will make at what she’s got it with. Plus she would have someone to put together her paperwork and see her through the deal. It may not sound like much, but I can attest to the literally hundreds of phone calls it takes to get through a real estate transaction.

The second family I spoke with is asking a full $50K above anything even close to market value for their house. It has quite a few upgrades, but I’m still pretty doubtful they will be able to sell it on their own for that much.

All of this just goes to prove to me that offering my services to FSBOs is actually a benefit, and not necessarily an annoyance. It’s important to me to feel like I’m actually selling something useful, something people need. After all that I’ve been through, I really do believe it would be difficult, if not nearly impossible to get through a real estate transaction without any major problems, without the assistance of a professional. (Plus, if I ever got the annoyed vibe right off the bat, I would leave that seller alone. Some people have made up their minds and won’t have them changed, and there is that 10% who actually do sell by themselves.) So I will continue to keep in touch with my FSBOs.

Mmm… I made a pork tenderloin roast in the crock pot today for dinner. It was delicious and took about 15 minutes to prepare in the morning. Simple and tasty (the celery is key), try it!

Pork Tenderloin with Veggies

Ingredients:

Pork tenderloin
1.5 cups warm water
4 tablespoons soy sauce
1.5 teaspoons dry sherry
2 bay leaves
1 teaspoon garlic powder
0.5 teaspoon onion powder
Dash of cumin
2 celery stalks, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
4 red potatoes, quartered
0.5 red onion, chopped
2 tablespoons flour

Preparation:

Place pork tenderloin in crock pot. Add celery, carrot, potatoes, onion and bay leaves on top. Mix remaining ingredients (minus the flour) in a large mixing cup. Pour over meat and veggies. Turn crock pot on high for 4 or 5 hours and then low until ready to eat. Remove meat and veggies from crock pot with a slotted spoon. Discard bay leaves. Pour remaining liquid into a sauce pan on medium high. Whisk flour into liquid until it thickens and turns to gravy. Serve meat and veggies with gravy on top.