Elizabeth Newlin - Arizona Real Estate Agent

I’m going to take a day off from my story about the Montage condo. Don’t worry, I’ll finish it up tomorrow.

So the cold I thought was finally leaving my house made a last minute u-turn to give me one last smack and to really get baby Gray but good. The Dayquil I had been taking fairly religiously stopped making the aches go away Wednesday and my sweet Grayber started to get snotty-nosed that same day.

We both made hearty attempts to shake it off and tough it out (favorite expressions of my Dad) Thursday, but it just wasn’t working for either of us. Gray was awake most of the night last night, utterly inconsolable. This morning when he woke up he looked like someone had punched him in both eyes:

When I saw his sad pink circles, I quickly made an executive decision and called the doctor to make him an appointment. I have to say, one of the generally undiscussed challenges of motherhood (at least undiscussed so far as I have heard) is the challenge of when to drag the kids to the doctor. The thing is, we tend to get a bad rap for jumping the gun. Everyone knows those moms who are constantly sure something is deathly wrong with their children, and I think this is an easy mentality to fall into. When you are totally and completely responsible for the health and wellbeing of another human being, I think it’s easy to question yourself and worry that something will go horribly wrong. But, of course, we all want to look like we’re handling it just fine and that there’s no panicking involved. God forbid we bring them in to the doctor only to have him say that nothing is wrong and we had overreacted to some little imagined symptom. No one wants the reputation of the Mom who cried pneumonia.

Anyway, I ALWAYS struggle with the timing of bringing my boys in to the doctor, but today, I just decided. I looked at those eyes, and even though they weren’t really bloodshot or all that gooey, there was definitely something wrong. And to add to that, it’s Friday of a holiday weekend. So if I didn’t go in today, we wouldn’t be seen except at urgent care, until next Tuesday. So that sealed it for me and we went.

BOY am I glad we did. The doctor confirmed that Gray does have pink eye, and not only that, but nasty ear infections in both ears. Plus, when he woke up from his afternoon nap, his eyes had gotten so bad they were completely glued together. EW.

So today, on the positive side, I am proud of my motherly instincts. Ooo, and Jason brought me home some new cold medicine that is finally making me feel like a human again. Yay for Aleve Cold and Sinus!

When we left off, my clients had just been informed that the ‘condo of their dreams’ was available.

We hightailed it out there and met with a salesman. This is where things got a little sketchy. When I showed up my client was just finishing signing documents. I knew going into this that this transaction wouldn’t be like the residential resales I was used to. I knew they would have their own contract and that the process would be closer to that of a newly built house. I had even tried to get my hands on a copy of the contract before we went to the original sales day, but had been turned down. Regardless of all of this knowledge, I was not prepared for the total lack of information or control we were given. He was handed a contract and given no time to read it. He signed and then we were taken to the unit. They even tried to get him to sign off on a ‘final walkthru’ right then and there, which we successfully diverted by explaining that we would be having a professional inspection done.

Luckily, in all of this, my client could not obtain a cashier’s check for the earnest money that day because of the short notice, so he made an appointment to come back the next day and drop that off and sign the final paperwork. This gave me time to take home the 40 page contract he had just signed, as well as the Public Report (a document release by the county that gives basic information about the property, utilities and the surrounding area) and review it all to see just what we were getting into.

It turned out what we were getting into was a bit disconcerting. I am used to entering into the Arizona approved residential resale contract, which is meticulously balanced for both sides of the transaction. I understand the rights that are covered and what all of the clauses mean. I feel comfortable in using it, that my clients, regardless of whether they are buying or selling, will get a fair shake by the contract. In the Montecito Montage conversion contract, the buyer has little to no rights. There were several things about the public report and the contract that worried me the most:

1. The condo complex is in an official flood zone. This can affect the ability to get a loan as well as insurance prices.

2. The contract specified that if the close of escrow was delayed by the buyer or the buyer’s mortgage company for any reason, Montage has the right to charge the buyer an extra $100 per day.

3. The contract seemed to indicate that if the buyer decided to use his or her own lender as opposed to a ‘preferred lender’ and that lender could not complete the transaction, the earnest money would not be refunded to the buyer

Part III tomorrow…

Remember my condo clients and our day at the Circus Montage? Well it turned out that our roller coaster ride with the Montage condos wasn’t meant to end where we left off.

When we left ’sale day’ on December 3rd, we were told my clients’ names would be put on a backup list for a two bedroom condo and if any of the people who had signed a contract to purchase a two bedroom could not fulfill their end of the deal, they would begin contacting people on the backup list to see if they would want to purchase instead. Because my clients were so interested in this condo complex (we had visited 20 or so other condo complexes in the previous weeks and none of them measured up in location or amenities), we made several calls to the sales office over the next few weeks trying to determine where they stood on the backup list and whether there was still a chance to purchase or not. We even began watching the MLS for the condos that had been purchased to be resold (or ‘flipped’). I was surprised to see that even though none of the condos had officially closed escrow yet, several appeared for sale. I contacted one of the agents on a condo (she also works for Century 21 Arizona Foothills and we had met before) and she explained to me that a property can be sold before it changes hands the first time. The buyer actually purchases the interest the previous buyer had in the property. (Yep, it’s confusing to me, too.)

Anyway, the point is that the condos that were appearing on the MLS were being listed for $50,000 to $75,000 more than what we had been expecting to purchase them at from the Montage sales office. This made it apparent that the only way my clients would be purchasing in this complex would be by original contract, not resale. I could tell my clients were pinning all of their hopes on the possibility of that backup list.

In one of the calls I made to the sales office, I managed to find out that we were number 102 on the backup list. This was not a good sign. They continued to tell us that they would call if they had anything for us. Finally, the week before Christmas I received an excited call from my client that he had called the office that day and it apparently had been the right moment to call, because they had just had a two-bedroom fall out of escrow that was available for my clients to purchase, IF they came right then.

For a bit, that call was a dream come true. As a newbie Realtor (I’ll probably call myself that for 10 years or so) I tend to get more emotionally involved with my clients and their hopes than I probably should. Purchasing and selling a house is such a huge, life changing event. I want them to get everything they want. I knew that my clients had seen what else was out there and that a Montage condo was what they had their hearts set on. I had been very concerned it wasn’t going to happen. So for the moment, I felt like we’d won the lottery.

Stay tuned for Part II…