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!

Our Easter egg hunt yesterday revealed a bunch of bossy, whiny, spoiled babies who would do anything to win. And that was the adults.

The egg hunt is the big Easter tradition at my parents’ house. It started when we were kids with actual colored eggs, but several years ago, my mother, the Egg Hunt Grand Master, switched to plastic eggs she could put clues and prizes in. This is a positive for me, because before, when the point was really just to find as many eggs as possible, my amazonian and ridiculously athletic brother and sister would basically just knock me down and steal my eggs. Now there’s an element of puzzle solving to the whole thing that evens it out a little bit.

This year, the people who competed were: my sister, my brother, my husband, my brother’s girlfriend, my sister’s friend, Jen and her other friend, Scotty and a family friend who used to be my sister’s swim coach, Todd (oh, and me, of course). It was a 12 egg hunt and we had to find them in order. Each egg found was worth between 1 and 3 points to whoever found it first, and then the person with the most points at the end won. Unfortunately, I don’t have pictures of the event because it was really too violent to put on the Internet. The carnage would shock and horrify even the most worldly eyes.

You have to realize that I come from a competitive family. My sister was a world ranked swimmer through high school and college, my brother also swam competitively and if my dad isn’t playing ultimate Frisbee he’s training for his next biathlon. They used to have regular contests at the dinner table about who had the biggest bicep or the most defined calf muscle.

During the hunt, two small children were knocked over, one spa cover strap was broken, a vase of potpourri was decimated and one contestant had his head dunked in the spa while fully clothed. The balcony from my parent’s bedroom survived, but just barely. I think they’re going to have a structural engineer out today to certify it is still sound.

The final result was a tie between Scotty and Todd. That’s right, my highly competitive family didn’t even place. You can imagine the sour grapes. To break the tie, we divided up into support teams based on the college we attended (there’s a strong UA vs. ASU rivalry in the family) to answer trivia questions about, of course, the only state school none of us had attended: NAU. It was an honestly pathetic showing. There were three questions that each team had to answer on paper. The team who answered the most was the winner. The winning number was ONE.

So tell me, do you know the answer to these?

1. What is the school mascot for NAU?
2. What are the school colors for NAU?
3. What is the female to male ratio at NAU?

Anyway, it was a typically raucous and rowdy holiday at my parent’s house. I hope your Easter was just as fun! Oh, and here’s a little fodder for the Grandparents. This was the much less violent, much more tame children’s egg hunt:

If only we could all be so mature.

Man, it has been a week. Remember my zen attitude about life and real estate? Yeah, I’m feeling less zen these days. I have one of those deals that’s on, then off, then on, then off, then off, then on, then off. I have to admit it’s making me a little crazy. I think it’s making everyone else in my life crazy also with my twice daily calls, “So, I think my deal is falling out of escrow…” and “No wait! Everything’s fine, it’s all back on, everyone’s happy!” and I know it’s making my client crazy. My manager keeps telling me, ‘Take a deep breath, stay calm and don’t get emotionally involved. You are only here to facilitate the deal.’ I’m trying, I’m telling you, I’m trying.

The market is difficult in other areas as well. Things on the selling end have really just made a sharp u-turn into ‘Buyer’s Market’ territory in the last few months. Selling a house right now is looking a bit like our desert landscape, dry and barren with a few prickly buyers here and there (I think most are still feeling a bit bitter over the tough time buyers were given for the last year or so, can’t say I blame them). So my three listings are still holding strong. I’m getting a decent amount of showings, and I feel confident we’ll get them sold in a reasonable amount of time. It’s a little odd, however, not getting a zillion offers in the first week. I’ve got to adjust to the ‘normal’ market.

Other than all of that, life here is as usual. I’m enjoying the warming of the weather and still deciding on my new hybrid car. I’m definitely leaning toward the Highlander. It was gorgeous when we drove it last weekend. Jason’s a bit sticker shocked, though, so I’m waiting until the end of the month when I will (hopefully) have a few deals close.

Yesterday we got our taxes done. I know, I know, we waited a little long. The guy who did our taxes actually said, “If you waited until April 7th to do your taxes, you’re not expecting a refund.” So yes, we weren’t expecting a refund. As a real estate agent, I’m essentially an independent contractor and they don’t take taxes out of my paycheck, so I had a bunch of money in savings earmarked for what I was sure would be a large payment to the IRS. Awesomely, however, because Jason was having the maximum amount of taxes deducted from his paycheck and we have all kinds of kid and mortgage interest deductions, not only did we not owe anything, we got money back! It was definitely a more pleasant experience than I was expecting.

Anyway, not because of this windfall, but you could say, assisted by it, we are going shopping today! And not just any shopping, car shopping for me! I currently drive a 1999 Toyota Corolla, which was a gift from my parents and has been a fabulous little worker horse with minimal problems. However, with our two cute little ‘dependents’ in the back seat, there’s not a lot of room or comfort to cart around my real estate gear, and it makes it tough to show houses. So we have been planning for awhile to get me a new car this year; now, it’s just a touch more comfortable of a purchase.

So here’s what I’m test driving today:

The Toyota Hybrid Highlander

and The Mercury Mariner Hybrid

I knew I needed something larger and have been tossing around the idea of a minivan (which got a thumbs down from Jason) or some sort of an SUV. Last year when they started coming out with the hybrid SUVs it really got my attention. I have always love the concept of a hybrid car. I am absolutely behind the technology for both the money on gas it will save me and the good it does for our planet in general. So when we started getting serious about the idea of a new car, I did my research and decided this is definitely the way to go. Over all, I feel like it’s important for me as a consumer to do my part to support this decision by the automakers to develop the hybrid technology. If we buy them, they will come. And eventually they will make them even better and more fuel efficient. This is the way of the future and I want to be on board.

There are actually four Hybrid SUVs currently on the market. The other two are the Lexus RX 400h and the Ford Escape. I have ruled them out because the Lexus is a good $15K more than the rest and the Ford is very similar but not as nice as the Mariner. So today I’m going to test them out. I’ll let you know how it goes…

Hmm… I read this article this morning, and I’m not sure what to make of it. It’s seems a bit like hysterical journalism. If you’ve been reading this site at all you know that we have scorpions in our house on a regular basis. I have not personally been stung (that’s another thing that irks me about that article, scorpions sting, they don’t bite), but Jason and both the boys have on different occasions. That’s right, both of my boys, Ben when he was four and Gray when he was about 15 months old. Both were totally fine. They cried a bit when it happened, and of course we called poison control, but it really wasn’t a big deal. We watched them, noticed nothing out of the ordinary and moved on.

I’m not saying that scorpion stings are never a bigger issue with young children, but then again, bee stings can be in certain children also, and for that matter, so can peanuts. I just think this article make is sound like scorpions are always a life-threatening menace. We have found that to be just untrue. It also doesn’t mention that the last time someone actually died of a scorpion sting in Arizona was in the 1960s (this is a fact we discovered when we first moved into this house and I was utterly terrified of the creatures). Don’t get me wrong, I still hate the nasty beasts and if I never see one in my house again, it will be too soon, but I think the exaggeration of their danger is totally unnecessary.

We live in the desert. So do they. We’re going to have to deal. Let’s try not to blow it totally out of proportion, OK?

(Remember this guy? He’s the one who got Jason.)

“Woke up, got out of bed, dragged a comb across my head…”

Now that I’m in my second year as a real estate agent, business is starting to pick up and my multitasking skills are really being put to the test. Instead of one client in escrow at a time, I now have several deals going at once, and my goodness is it dramatic.

I learn lessons every single day, but one I’m having to remind myself of over and over again is to not count my chickens. It’s really tough for me not to get a lead and immediately calculate what the possible sale would contribute toward my production and financial goals. It’s doubly difficult for me not to count the deal as done once it’s in escrow. I try to remember, daily, that nothing is for sure until I have my paycheck in hand. Some days, this reminder is really spelled out for me.

Currently, I have two deals in escrow where I’m the buyer’s agent, three house listings and one land listing. This is the drama that took place today (remember, this is just one day):

1. Deal #1 in escrow is set to close next week. I found out this morning there may be problems with the mortgage. It could potentially get less than pretty.

2. I had an appointment to show a condo to a new client this afternoon. She called and canceled this morning. She said she’s putting her plans to buy ‘on hold’ indefinitely.

3. I got a call from the sign on one of my listings about mid-morning. The woman was driving by and wanted to see it. I made an appointment to show her the house at 1pm.

4. I showed up at my listing at 12:50pm (I have a problem, it’s called perpetual earliness and it means I’m destined to spend 25% of my life pacing outside or circling the block). By 1:15pm she hadn’t showed so I called the number back she called me from. She said she had forgotten, but would be there soon. She showed up at 1:30pm. I showed her the house and she said she wants to buy it (she actually said that, I swear). I have to admit, I was a bit flabbergasted because I’ve never had that happen before. But we will see. She isn’t thinking she wants to make a full-priced offer, so we may still be out of luck. The house is well priced at what we’re asking.

5. Deal #2 in escrow is set to close later in the month. I got a call to set up an appointment for the appraisal. I called back and was transfered three times and finally made the appointment to correspond with our already scheduled home inspection appointment Friday at 1pm. Half an hour later they called back to say the lender canceled the appraisal request. No word yet as to why.

6. When I walked in the door at home I had a fax sitting on my home fax machine. It was a termite report for Deal #1 from the title agency and it was labeled ‘dirty.’ Dirty means positive for termite evidence. I pretty much blew a gasket at that and called the termite inspectors (who had informed me two weeks earlier that the report was ‘clean’) and finally the title agency. The report had been misread by the title company. It was clean.

So that was the drama for the day. I have two over-all reactions to it.

#1: There are lots of agents out there who do 10 times the production I do. How on Earth do they cope?

#2: I’m proud of myself because I did not overreact of any of these developments. It’s been very difficult for me not to get too emotionally involved with these transactions. A big part of why I enjoy this business is that I love being a part of such a fun and important transition in people’s lives. This fact makes it easy for me to take on their emotions and stress about the day to day dealings. Ironically, this characteristic, which I believe has the potential to make me a better Realtor, also has the potential to be my ultimate downfall. If I can’t handle the inevitable cracks in deals without falling to pieces I’m going to burn out faster than you can say, “Which way to therapy?” It’s my job to soften the blow and make the ride as smooth as possible. So today was a victory for me. Lots of drama, but I’m not feeling dramatic. I’m feeling a little bit of: “Some will, some won’t, so what!”

You’ve got to be on your game all the time; yes, as a real estate agent, but right now I’m talking about as a parent. Gray’s finally at the age where we don’t have to be in the same room with him at all times. This is kind of nice sometimes, but it has its unfortunate drawbacks:

That is a toilet full of an entire roll of toilet paper. I discovered it this morning when I had laid Gray down for a nap and was getting ready to take a shower. Nice, right?

I’m smart enough to know that if I flush, the results will be disastrous, but not smart enough to have any other ideas as to how to take care of it. So right now I’m just leaving it until Jason gets home. I know, I know, you’re wishing right now you were married to me. Sorry, I’m taken.

I accompanied my parents clients to the La Terraza sale day this morning. To review: this is a brand new condo conversion about half a mile south of the Biltmore Fashion Plaza. The condo conversion is being handled by the same company that did The Montage condo conversion, just north of Kierland Commons at the end of last year. I had another client who purchase a Montage condo and was therefore on the early contact list for La Terraza. I knew my other clients were interested in purchasing a rental property, so I alerted them to this event.

My thoughts on rentals have always been: location, location, location. In general, most people are aware that renting is not exactly the wisest use of money. If you’re paying off a mortgage, that money is actually for the most part going back into your pocket, but if you’re renting, that money is simply going. So generally, people who are looking to rent, are interested in living in area that is too expensive for them to buy in. They want to live close to work, or close to school, or close to the party. This is Phoenix, Tempe and Scottsdale. People buy in Mesa, Gilbert and Chandler, but they rent in Phoenix, Tempe and Scottsdale. The point is, this new condo conversion is in a great rental location. Not only will people working downtown be minutes from the office, but also right down the street from some of the nicest shopping and restaurants in the valley.

Anyway, we did quite a bit of research before attending sale day this time. We got a copy of the HOA CCRs, a copy of the sample contract and even visited another condo complex in the area to see how it measured up. We previewed the models, picked the best one and even checked out which had the best driveways (another big plus to the condo is attached garages with every unit). We were well prepared going in.

That said, it was still a bit of a shock how quickly the sale process moves. We were herded in like cattle through a maze of check ins and registrations all with a ‘circus’ theme. I have to tell you it was a somewhat bizarre backdrop. On one hand I was amused that they embraced and incorporated the craziness and general circus feeling I think we all came away with at the last condo conversion sale day but on the other, the creepy clown on stilts, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (the 1970s version) playing on plasma TVs and that mime who would just not leave us alone, were a bit much (although I kind of enjoyed the deep fried Twinkie tent).

Other than the surreal setup, things went fairly smoothly. We did feel a bit rushed at the moment of decision, and managed to just miss out on the one my mom (sorry, female CLIENT) really wanted, but all in all, it was a success. The floor plan we liked best was the B1 model; a two bedroom, two bathroom ‘flat’. It was the cheapest of the two bedrooms, but felt the roomiest to us, and was the only two bedroom floor plan that didn’t have a steep set of stairs to climb. There weren’t many of these units to be had and we could tell they were going quickly, but we did manage to snag one that’s already rented for my clients through October.

So there you go. We made it through another ‘Sale Day’ alive and one condo richer. I think I may finally be getting the hang of this, which is a good thing. These condo conversions are here to stay, I think, and I for, one, wouldn’t want to go through one as a consumer without an agent. Call me if you think you want to buy one. I’ve been there and can help you through the chaos (except for the mime, I’m not helping with the mime. They freak me out.)