Elizabeth Newlin - Arizona Real Estate Agent

I saw the title on a license plate the other night when I was driving home late. When we both stopped at the red light up ahead I wanted to get out, knock on his window, give the guy a hug and say, “Me too, Dude, me too.”

It’s been a crazy couple of weeks. I heartily apologize for my lack of posting. This is officially the longest I’ve gone without a post since I began this website over a year ago. I swear the universe has converged in a plot to keep me from getting it done. I actually wrote and spell-checked this entire post last Thursday, but it was eaten by the Internet monster before I could send it. (Don’t you think if there is an Internet monster it’s a spider? Sorry, topic, right.)

Anyway, the run down is this: in the last week I had two closings (including one no one was confident would actually make it to the recorded stage) and two other new clients purchase houses. It’s the most activity I’ve ever had going on at once. I’m not complaining about the surge in business, but it all happened to fall on a week where I had already agreed to both attend a ‘viewing party’ for the show The Apprentice, which my friend from High School, Roxanne Wilson is currently on (she flew in for the party and our sixth grade teacher was there too, it was a fun night) and volunteer at a Luxury Home Tour fund raiser for the public health organization, Esperanca, that my friend Kelli organized. Of course, just to add to the fun, my son’s Grandma Linda was also in town to visit with the kids, and we decided to buy a new car.

So basically there has been little time among all of this for basic necessities like eating, sleeping and posting. Most of the nutritional value in my diet over the last week has come from free party Chardonnay (Rebecca knows what I’m talking about, she was there too).

However, the utterly fabulous news to come out of all of this is:

1. All of my deals set to close actually closed and I will be receiving three checks next week (one is for a referral I made to someone up in Surprise).

2. I now have two new deals in escrow; one of which is for the most expensive house I’ve ever been a part of buying or selling and it’s looking good to close June 1.

3. I have a super cute new car! And we got a screaming deal on it. At the last minute, my mother sent me some information on the Subaru Forester because it has such awesome safety and performance ratings. I looked into it further and though it’s not a hybrid, like I wanted, it gets decent gas mileage and is priced about $10K under the Toyota Hybrid Highlander (the other car we were considering). We drove it, loved it and ultimately decided to start with a smaller, cheaper SUV and pay it off in the next couple of years. Then, hopefully, there will be more hybrid options at better prices and we can upgrade into something larger and hybrid. The screaming part of the deal is where we went to buy on the second to last day of the month and they offered it to us at invoice price with a 0% APR loan. So much awesomeness.

And here’s the visual:

Fabulous, right?

OK, and one more thing. Tomorrow is RELAUNCH DAY! So if you’re logging on at work Monday morning, you will see a pretty new face to this site. Feel free to send compliments to the webmaster: Jason@3twenty3.com.

I don’t think I’ve mentioned it yet, but I have a new manager at my office. Her name is Jesi Wolnik and she’s been a very successful Realtor for the last 6 or 7 years. Last year she achieved Centurion status, which meant she brought in more than $190,000 in gross closed commissions last year. She has tons of energy and experience and I am learning tons.

Anyway, I wanted to bring her up because yesterday at our weekly sales meeting she schooled us in the basics of a program I think will be very useful in the future. It’s called Ameridream and it allows first time buyers with no cash for a down payment, to obtain funding through government insured loans (FHA loans). An FHA loan can be much easier for people with little or no credit to qualify for, but it requires a 3% down payment from the buyer. This down payment, however, may be ‘gifted’ to the buyer. In comes Ameridream. Ameridream is a nonprofit organization that acts as a filter for these ‘gifts’ of down payments. If a buyer finds a house he wants to buy for $200K, but doesn’t have the $6K to put down, he can offer the seller $200K and ask that the seller make a $6K donation to Ameridream in his name. Ameridream will then ‘gift’ that $6K back to the buyer so he can make the down payment to buy the house and obtain the FHA loan. Yes, the seller will really be getting $194K for the house, but in this buyer’s market we’re currently experiencing, many sellers are willing to lower their price or help out with closing costs. It can easily be a win/win situation.

Obviously this program isn’t perfect for everyone, but it is something to keep in mind for new buyers. The current cap on FHA loans is $254,400, so if you’re short on cash and looking to buy under this number, keep Ameridream in mind.

Since my last post was so heated and controversial, I thought I’d transition to something calming to everyone: quiche (right? No one has any blood boiling opinions on eggs and crust, do they?).

I made a quiche last weekend for Easter brunch and I thought it turned out well. I was thinking of posting the recipe, but I realized that it’s less of a recipe and more of a map of how to get from A to Quiche. Really, quiche is four parts, and as long as you have those four parts, it’s tough to screw it up. The four parts are: Crust, Filling, Cheese and Eggs. You can interpret these in many different ways and it will still come out yummy. Mine went like this:

Crust - Pillsbury Crescent Rolls dough pressed into a greased pie tin.

Filling - Asparagus, onion and red potato chopped and sauteed in olive oil until tender.

Cheese - Ideally grated Gruyere (a cup or so), but a nice swiss works almost as well.

Eggs - 5 eggs beaten with about 1/4 cup of heavy cream and a 1/4 cup of skim milk.

I put the filling into the pie tin filled with crescent roll dough, top with cheese and then pour the egg over top until it’s full. I don’t always use all of all of the ingredients. Then I bake it at 375ish until the middle isn’t liquid anymore (jiggle it to tell). The top will be a bit brown.

You could do a zillion variations on this. Make it southwestern by using green chilies, red peppers and sausage as the filling and a pepper jack cheese. Maybe toss in a blue cheese and add ham for the filling. You could also use a premade pie crust or make one from scratch. Or if you like your quiche eggier (my version’s on the creamy and cheesy side) omit some of the cheese and cream and add a few more eggs.

Try out a quiche. I find them classic, creative and perfect for brunch!