Elizabeth Newlin – Arizona Real Estate Agent

So I’m still on the 10 year reunion committee for my high school (which you totally know if you have any regular contact with me because it’s practically all I talk about) and I’m really enjoying it. I love meeting new people and hearing gossip and it’s just all of that rolled into one.

I’m also learning things I can apply to my business.

We are currently in the process of attempting to find the 800+ people we graduated with/went to school with over the years. It’s a huge task. The committee literally started with a database of about 130 people a couple of months ago. We were all asked to first contact everyone we talk to on a regular basis and get as many addresses and email addresses as we could. Then, we divided up the remaining missing classmates in to chunks of 75 and each tackled a set, any way we knew how. We messaged people on Classmates, Googled them and even looked them up in the county assessor’s records to see if they’d purchased a house. One of the other committee members even found a website we can put peoples’ names into to find out if they have passed away. Morbid, but helpful in a search of such a large crowd (thankfully none of the people on my list were there).

Anyway, we’re still only about halfway there, but we have managed to find a ton of people. Something I’ve found totally frustrating about the experience is that often, even though I’ve found someone on My Space or Classmates or even just googled them and gotten their email address, when I’ve sent them a message, they don’t reply. Even worse, I can tell through the messaging systems that for the most part, they have actually read my message and still just not even responded.

Initially, this just infuriated me. Why on earth was I putting so much time and effort into finding these people when they couldn’t even be bothered to hit the reply button and type in their address? I didn’t try to contact them again, both out of some sort of ridiculously ineffective revenge desire, and because I felt rude sending another message. I’m not sure I could possibly be sillier. I’m trying to get back at them, but also I don’t want them to be mad at me for being pushy.

I have since taken a lesson from our fearless leader, Laura (who some of us lovingly call ‘Paris’ behind her back in reference to the ruthlessly A-type personalitied character from Gilmore Girls… Love you, Laura!). Laura told me she continues to email people several more times if they don’t respond, and many will actually send a reply back by the second or third ‘ping’. When she first told me this, I was amazed. “If they got the message and wanted us to have their info, how come they didn’t just send it back in the first place?” I wondered. But, whatever, apparently people are weird. I have gotten quite a few responses from people I have now contacted multiple times. And I’m getting much better at not holding it against them as well.

So my final point is, I’ve had a small epiphany in regards to this new discovery and my real estate business. I regularly have people give me leads of people they know looking to sell or buy a home, who I contact once and never hear back from. I’d been considering them dead and buried leads, but maybe this is a terrible waste of a client! Maybe these possible clients are actually going to those annoying Realtors who don’t succeed, but try try again!

(And now you’ve learned something new about me: If you want me to leave you alone, RETURN MY CALLS AND I WILL STOP BUGGING YOU!)

Gray has a friend named Catalina who shares his birthday. I vividly remember the day I found out that Catalina’s mom, Debby was pregnant. I had stopped at Target to pick something up after work before I picked Ben up from daycare and I ran into Debby. I was seven or eight weeks pregnant with Gray and she asked me how it was going. I told her I was a bit nauseous, but otherwise, pretty good. And that’s when she let the cat out of the bag (hee! get it? because her name is Catalina? I totally didn’t mean to do that.). She told me they had just found out the day before that she was pregnant too!

I was thrilled for her and Todd, but also totally excited that I would have someone I knew going through the pregnancy with me! Little did I know that baby Cat would decide she needed to see the world a month early and would be born on the exact same day as Gray, about 12 hours after. How fun is that?!

Anyway, last night we had a joint birthday party for the two. I swear, two is seriously my favorite age. They are just so entertained by the littlest things. Gray has always been a serious balloon lover, so I bought 12 for the kids to play with. Throughout the night, the loud party din would be occasionally overtaken by Gray’s shriek of “Bwa-LOON!!!” just for no reason except that he was so overcome with joy at being in the presence of so many balloons all for him.

It was a fabulous party and enjoyed by all. Check out the highlights:

“Oh Good God, Mother. Yes, I’m two, get over it already.”

Tell me that’s not the cutest birthday kiss you ever did see.

Yep, that’s right, today is Gray’s second birthday! Yesterday, I tried to teach him to respond to ‘How old are you?’ I spent half an hour asking him and then bribing him with cheese and M&Ms trying to get him to say “Two!” on cue. This is how it went about 10 times in a row:

Me: Gray, how old are you?
Gray: Um, bebo uda la la?
Ben: You’re 20! Get it, cause 2 times 10 is 20! And I’m almost 60, but I’m still only 50 until July 8…
Gray: Tenty!
Me: No sweetheart, you’re two!
Ben: He’s not two yet, he’s still only one until tomorrow because tomorrow’s his birthday and today he’s still one…
Gray: One!
Me: Ben, walk away, walk away right now, unless you actually want my head to explode…

Until finally I gave up and let them go play for awhile. Later I said to Gray, “What is tomorrow?” He looked at me like this:

And said, “Two!” Technically, I was looking for ‘Birfday’, but hey, I’ll take what I can get!

Happy Birthday, Grayber!

I have a great deal nugget to throw out to you bargain hunters:

There is a condo on 92nd Street and Shea in the Scottsdale Mission Condominium complex that I have on good authority can be purchase for well below list price and market value. It’s just under 1,300 square feet, 2 bedroom, 2 bath, with an attached garage (such a bonus for a condo!). It’s in great shape and was built in 1995.

This is not my personal listing, but my parents-in-law have some interest in getting it sold for the seller and as such, I would love to help in anyway that I can. The seller is in desperate need to sell and though it is listed at $290K (which already comps out as a good deal in general), I believe the seller would take closer to $265K or $270K. This would be a great value. It really can easily be a win/win situation. This is a fabulous North Scottsdale location, great square footage amount and the garage is a total score. The built-in equity would just be the icing on the cake.

The MLS number is: 2492828. Check it out on my search page and then give me a call or email me if you want to see it!

I promise we’ll get back to real estate later in the week, but for now:

So I joined a gym. If you know me, you know this is a big, out of character thing. Like, as in, when the gym chick was giving me my entrance interview and she asked me when the last time I exercised regularly was, I had to have her define both ‘exercise’ and ‘regularly’ and the answer was still never. Um, yeah, I’m not what you’d call ‘athletic’ or ‘in shape’ and I definitely don’t have those things you call ‘muscles’.

Anyway, it seemed appropriate for me to attempt that whole working out thing at this time in my life. I need a stress releaser. I also am getting close to 30 and it would be nice to get rid of my perpetual jelly belly. So I joined the gym, and since I’m intimidated by anything machine-like and related to working out, I also purchased 5 sessions with a personal trainer so I would know what to do when I go to the gym, other than hiding in the locker room (I’m totally good at that).

Tonight was my first actual workout session with my personal trainer. I have to tell you, I have this bizarre bad luck that seems like good luck with masseuses and apparently also trainers. In both occasions I’m forced to kind of let it all hang out in a ridiculously unattractive manner in order to get my money’s worth of the service. Somehow, I’m always cursed with being assigned totally hot men as my servicers. What the heck? Do you know how hard it is to enjoy a massage when you’re lying there with the knowledge that your cute masseuse, Joe, is currently kneading your cottage cheesey, not been shaved in god knows how long thigh? Real real hard. Where the heck is a hairy 50 year old drill Sargent lady, when you need one?!

Thus, tonight, I spent 50 excruciating, sweaty and nauseous minutes being literally tortured by Peter, the 6′4″ Brit cyclist with adorable dimples and a wit to match. Shoot me, shoot me now. I have three more sessions. I’m telling you, the man made me ‘inch-worm’ across the length of the exercise room twice. I can’t decide whether to set him up with my sister, or kick him in the shins.

Jason and I got back yesterday from a weekend trip down to our alma matter. It was a birthday gift from my parents: a weekend at a resort in the foothills of Tucson and babysitting to go with. It was heavenly.

We love Tucson, which I know, isn’t a popular opinion of Phoenicians. Most think it’s ‘that dusty hole down South’, but we totally disagree. Tucson is the quintessential desert town. There are saguaros everywhere and hardly a single grassy lawn to be found. The food is amazing and an artistic sensibility permeates the city. At night even the stars are brighter in Tucson because there are so few street lights to dull the sky. We love Tucson.

Anyway, the highlights of the trip were:

Our trip to the UAMA (University of Arizona Museum of Art), which we used to do all of the time. It’s a little museum, but it has a fabulous permanent collection that includes several amazing works that are worth even just a quick stop in.

They have a gorgeous Rothko:

And this awesome piece by an Israeli artist named Yakov Agam in 1954. It’s a wood, enamel and paint installation/sculpture. This is three views of the same work:

In the downstairs gallery, they have shows that change regularly. This one was Book Art. It was illustrations of different works of literature by different artists. My favorite was an excerpt from Alice in Wonderland illustrated by Salvador Dali (such an appropriate pairing, don’t you think?):

Every time we visit Tucson we always make time for a quick stop by the art department. We love the museums, sure, but it also holds sentimental value for us both. Jason was a Visual Communications major and spent most of his time taking classes in the art building and I was a photography minor, so I spent a fair amount of time there as well. We actually met in a beginning level art class that was a prerequisite for both of our degree programs. And he proposed in the courtyard of the art department.

They planted all of these trees my Junior (Jason’s Senior) year. We remember walking through that courtyard and them being so small they offered no shade at all. We were amazed to go back this time and see them so huge.

So it was a totally enjoyable trip. We even managed to squeeze in a trip to an open house on the ’scenic route’ we took up to our hotel:

I think I could live in Tucson. But then again, after about 24 hours there I missed my kids and my house. So for now we’ll stay in Phoenix and visit Tucson.

Hello, I’m back and feeling good. Today is a positive day. On my list of things to do is: pack for weekend trip with husband (minus kids!), pick up already pretty clean house so it’s beautiful to come home to and figure out where we are going for our date out tonight in Tucson! Life just doesn’t get much better than that.

I am also just feeling more positive just in general. The real estate biz had me a little frustrated and overworked there for awhile. I have, however, taken a couple of steps back, reorganized my house, played with my kids and am now ready to head back in. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been working this entire time. I have a house in escrow that is past the inspection period and looking pretty good to close, and my listings have been showing regularly and I’ve been getting good feedback. I also have another deal starting to take shape and a couple of new clients to do listing presentations for. So I haven’t exactly been taking time off. What I have been doing, though, is staying away from prospecting for new clients. It’s the toughest part of the job for me and what gets me down the most quickly. It’s about 10 doors slammed in your face before you get one yes, and I swear, that kills my soul. I just wasn’t up for it lately. It’s part of the job, and I’m resigned to the fact that it will always be something I need to keep up with if I want to be successful, but I needed a little soul-healing time.

So I’m back in at full capacity and feeling positive. I’m ready to brave the hot Arizona sun and show houses for eight hours. I’m ready for a midnight marathon contract writing session. Bring on the 7 AM calls from frantic agents.

…well, you know, AFTER my weekend away, of course.

I was reading a magazine the other day and they had one of those areas where they define a made up word or term that is supposed to be the new slang or a social commentary. The term of the month was ‘hedonic treadmill’ and it was defined as: the tendency for a person’s economic expectations and desires to increase at the same rate as his or her income, resulting in no net gain in satisfaction or happiness.

(Side note here: I’m fully aware that because I’m using a direct quote I should be referencing the magazine I pulled it from, however, I’m afraid if I did it would cause things to swing wildly off topic into another discussion altogether, so I’m just going to live dangerously here in the Internet abyss and not tell you where I got it from.)

I have to tell you, reading that had a strong impact on me. I am absolutely on a hedonic treadmill. No more than 5 years ago I was a new college graduate, struggling to have enough money to buy groceries even though I was living rent-free in a friend of the family’s house while he was away on business. I can clearly remember being worried that we would run out of diapers before I got paid again and could go buy another pack. Now I own a house, my husband and I have nice, new cars and we have money in the bank. But am I satisfied? Of course not, I’m constantly striving to make more money so we can live at a higher level than we do. Sure, we have HBO and DVR, but I want a housekeeping service and a Coach purse. I want a giant hybrid SUV with a DVD player and satellite radio. I want a house that’s twice as big with lots of closets for all of our stuff..

I can see myself and our family with all of those things in another five years or so. The question is, when we have them, will we be happier? Will life really be easier like it seems it would be? I think probably not. And that’s a big bummer. I don’t want to be like that. I want to enjoy what I have. I want to make the most of the richness that we currently enjoy. So I’m working on it. Do I really need a housekeeper? No, I just need to be more organized on a regular basis. And the little SUV is perfect for now. We all fit and it’s super cute. And the small house is fine, we just have too much stuff we don’t use. I need to work on throwing out or giving out what we don’t need and we will be just fine. And seriously, I don’t even like designer purses that much. My mother in law made me the cutest little clutch for my birthday that I like just as well.

I’m working on it.

Things are somewhat better here in my own personal real estate land, this week. I wrote two offers and one is firmly in escrow. That’s at least something, right?

I have always known that I’m slightly on the A-personality side of life. I’m a first child and pretty known, at least with my family and friends, for having strong opinions. My best girl friends are all equally opinionated, organized, and almost all, first born. I get teased a bit by my family for being ‘bossy’ and ‘controlling’, but in my line of work I have this feeling I would sink like lead if I wasn’t a go-get-em kinda gal.

Anyway, in this biz, I come across too many ‘professionals’ who promise and then don’t deliver, or who just don’t even return my phone calls. It’s utterly amazing to me that people in a service industry would have such poor communication skills.

So, as both a control freak and service provider, here are the bright points of my week:

1. I called a painting company out of the phone book to come do a quote on painting the inside of my vacant listing. I was trying to find a company who would get it done quickly, do a nice, clean job, and take a credit card (which is tougher to find than you might think, many small companies just don’t have the technical capability). The company came out that day to do a quote, agreed immediately to match one of the other quotes I’d gotten. They scheduled and followed through with the job within a week, and even took credit. I went over there today, after they finished work, and it’s gorgeous. They did an awesome job and I’m thrilled. I wish I had called them first. I will definitely use them again. I’m always looking for good, reliable professionals to add to my list. (Just in case you need painters: Repaint Specialists (480) 917-3232.)

2. An agent showed one of my listings yesterday. I called him back today, to get feedback from his buyers on what they thought of the house, and was dismayed to get his voice mail. For the most part, when I’m looking for feedback and I get the voice mail, I won’t get a call back. Many agents won’t waste their time returning phone calls that have no benefit for them or their clients. So, I was thrilled, when he returned my call a few hours later. He actually said, “You know, I was thinking that I want more feedback on my listings, so I decided that I need to start calling other people back.” Awesome, and I told him so.

So there you go. A deal in escrow, a great paint job and even some good feedback. What more can you ask for?