I took a buyer out last Saturday in the North Scottsdale/Desert Ridge area. My client has been renting in the McDowell Mountain Ranch area (or ‘The MMR’ if you’re a cool kid and hang out there a lot) and she would really prefer to buy in that area. Unfortunately, she also really likes new builds. She told me a few weeks back that if she could just build new in The MMR, that would be PERFECT! I told her they should probably just bulldoze off the top of the McDowells, and put a community up there, don’t you think? It probably wouldn’t hack off the environmentalists or anything. The HOA, though, you don’t want to get in trouble with them. They get cranky if you paint the house the wrong shade of Desert Sand; they probably would write a REALLY mean letter if you removed the scenic mountain views. We can’t have that. Thus the quandry: Resale and probably needing work in The MMR, or New and Fabulous but at Desert Ridge.

We did, however, find several decent candidates in both categories, and we reaffirmed my understanding that well-priced houses in all price ranges are going fast. For example:

1. This cutie on Rockingham:

Is a new build by Del Webb (a division of Pulte) at Fireside at Desert Ridge. We orginally saw it back in December when it fell out of escrow with the buyer who had been building it. The original buyer had ordered a bunch of fancy upgrades like hammered plank hardwood floors, plantation shutters and travertine everywhere (there wasn’t carpet anywhere in the house). When we saw it they wanted $475,000 for it. It came on to the MLS last week at $434,990. By the time we got out to see it it had been snatched up. They do, however, still have several nicely upgraded specs at really fabulous prices (AND, apparently if you’re really nice and look totally trustworthy they might even let you drive the golf cart to go see the specs! Completely worth the trip just for that).

2. This MMR single-level on Caribbean:

Is not super upgraded (laminate counters, older appliances, needs paint) but pretty move-in ready and exceedingly well-priced at $330,000 (I’m not even going to tell you what another client of mine paid for exactly the same model 2 years ago). It had been on the market 8 days when we saw it and the Realtor Remarks on the listing said to hold all offers until Monday because the seller was out of town. Monday I checked in to see if we could see it one more time and they had 3 offers and a bidding war going.

3. The last fabulous deal we saw wasn’t right at all for my buyer because the yard is 90% pool and it has some traffic noise issues (backs to 105th and MMR Road) and needs paint, carpet, appliances and nicer counters, but priced at $307,900 for more than 1900 square feet, 3 bedrooms plus an office and with a pool in McDowell Mountain Ranch, I think it was the best of the bunch, investment-wise:

Yes, it would need some money into it to get going, but in these times of recession, I can see this as an excellent rental property. It’s still showing as ‘Active’ in the MLS, but I would be surprised if it doesn’t have any offers on it currently.

Clearly deals AND buyers are still out there, so if you see something you like, jump on it!

It’s your basic older starter home in a central location. I have to warn you that it is a short sale. I know, I know, it’s a touch ironic (or is it just unfortunate?) that I’ve been extolling the woes of short sales this week only to list one like 3.5 minutes later. That’s right, have a good chuckle.

So no, it’s not going to be as easy to purchase as a normal sale, or probably even as smooth-sailing as a foreclosure, but I can promise you that I’ve actually closed a few short sales before AND that I’m going to make well sure my clients and their attorney are happy with the approval letter before we let the buyer know it is time to have the house inspected and appraised.

This house has been moderately remodeled. It has a new in 2007 kitchen with a stone back-splash and stainless steel appliances. It has a nice big laundry room with a counter and cabinet and a huge walk-in pantry. It has 4 decent sized bedrooms and a nice big backyard.

Yes, the house is in Mesa. You’d be surprised how many clients I have worked with who just don’t like the idea of Mesa. Mesa doesn’t have the hip reputation of Tempe or Scottsdale and it’s not generally thought to be as new and upcoming family destination like Chandler and Gilbert. It’s kind of the red-headed stepchild of the East Valley. I, however, am a born and raised Mesonite (yep, just totally made that word up) and I understand the true, unappreciated, undervalued fabulousness that is Mesa.

I grew up just along the inside of Mesa border where it sits against Tempe and Chandler. I had all the benefits of a central lifestyle, without the higher taxes and price tag of either. No really, check it out:

The circles are Tempe’s average monthly price per square foot and the triangles are Mesa’s. Look at how much crazy-pants lower Mesa it! Gotta love that!

So in these dollar-conscious recessional times of ours, how can you not love the value that Mesa-almost-practically-Tempe gets you? That’s all I’m saying! Come check out my new listing. Now. Cause I said so.

CSE (Certified Sparkle Examiner)
ELC (Expert-Level Cartwheeler)
MIATM (Master In All Things Mothering)

That’s right, my full title is: Elizabeth Newlin, REALTOR, CSE, ELC, MIATM. It’s kind of long, though, so you can just call me Certified Expert Master. That’s the important part.

To be a real estate agent in Arizona, I had to take 90 hours of education and pass both a school and state test. This got me my license, but little knowledge about how to actually successfully navigate the world of real estate. I walked away from the Scottsdale School of Real Estate about a grand poorer with an official-looking paper with a pretty seal and without a clue about how to actually find a house on the Multiple Listing System or even how to open a lockbox if I did find a house to show. Sure, I knew the definition of the word ‘easement’ and how to calculate tax prorations (which is actually title’s job, not mine), but no idea whatsoever how to write a contract and protect my client.

I have to take 24 hours of continuing education classes every two years to keep my license, and I’ve found these classes to be roughly as useful. Yes, I glean knowledge of a new legal issue every now and then, but by and large, my understanding and expertise in the business of real estate has come from actually working the job and collaborating with my peers. The real estate market is a constantly evolving animal. What is important to know today is obsolete tomorrow. This makes it tough to develop useful curriculum to teach on a large scale. I’ve found it’s much more useful to keep my eyes open and my ear to the ground.

There are a bunch of classes a Realtor can take that will earn them a ‘designation’, which is basically a certificate and an acronym after their name. GRI (Graduate Realtor Institute), ABR (Accredited Buyer’s Representative) and GREEN (the NAR official, “I’m a giant hippie long-haired tree hugging Realtor” designation) are just a few offered. The designations come down to varying amounts of hours of classes and fees. GRI is a pretty hefty commitment of classes, while GREEN is like a 3 hour class.

A newish designation that has become very popular lately is CDPE, or Certified Distressed Property Expert. This set of classes is supposed to teach a Realtor how to deal with short sales and foreclosures.

I’ve closed my fair share of short sales (as listing agent and buyer’s agent) and foreclosures and I tend to be wary of agents with a laundry list of acronyms after their names (in real estate, those who ‘talk big’ are usually over compensating for a lack of action, if you know what I mean) so I haven’t actually taken the class, but I have it on good authority that it’s a two day event costing anywhere from $400 to $1000.

I recently had a buyer I’ve been working with for quite awhile walk into an open house. She informed the agent who was holding the house open that she was already working with an agent, but that she’d like to see the house. This was acceptable to the agent, so they got a tour, and a basic rundown of the situation of the house from the agent. They called me later to write an offer on the property (which was a short sale) and told me all about how this was going to be a fast short sale because the agent is an expert in short sales and she says it will be smooth.

When I contacted the agent to work out the details of the offer, I was also immediately informed that she was a CDPE and that this would all go smoothly. She also asked me for a laundry list of things to get the offer submitted, including my client’s full earnest money to be deposited with title immediately (this is practically unheard of in a short sale, because the transaction is so up in the air until approval from the lender is received, earnest is almost always deposited after approval is obtained). As we continued to discuss things and I pried further, it quickly came out that this was the very first short sale she had EVER been a part of. She was an ‘expert’ with no experience whatsoever. The CDPE class had told her to have earnest money deposited immediately AND to have the buyer start inspections and appraisal as soon as possible as well, which is in direct contradiction with the Short Sale Addendum of the Arizona Approved Contract and utterly ludicrous (as you would know if you read my last post).

Here’s the sucky thing about all of this: Yes, I pretty much want to create a class and call it the “Designations Are As Important In RE As A Coach Purse To My 18 Year Old Cat” and label it the DAAIIREAACPTMEYOC designation in protest of all of this, BUT, I am quite aware that real estate is about 75% perception. A client to believe you know what you’re talking about is almost as important as actually knowing what you’re talking about. So I have a class on the schedule for March 12. It’s not an actual designation, and I’ve been warned by people who’ve taken it that I won’t learn a single thing, but then apparently if I’m ever sued over a short sale issue I can say, “What? I took a class! I’m totally an expert!”

Girl Scout Cookies I Consumed While Stress-Eating During All of This: 5*

For a long time in 2008 and the beginning of 2009 I did everything I could to warn my clients about getting involved in short sales. I had a brochure on the evils of short sales, I had a prepared speech, I even had a waiver I made them sign if they really wanted to get involved in one (That said: “I, Dumbass, Non-listening-to-my-Realtor’s-perfectly-sound-advice Client, will hold harmless and totally not sue my Real Estate agent, or her brokerage for any drama, horror, or even paper cuts I get from dealing with this whole short sale debacle, because PUH-LEASE, she tried everything she could think of to talk me out of this and I am just a ridiculous, stubborn buyer who doesn’t know what’s good for me. I promise to only think sweet and nice thoughts about how much I love my Realtor, even when I’m pouring all of my time, money, hopes and dreams down a black hole labeled ‘Short Sale’. Because it’s not her fault. At all.” It’s possible I paraphrased that.)

About mid-2009, however, short sales began to become so prevalent they were literally half the pool of available houses. It was almost impossible to avoid them and still have reasonable houses to look at in many price ranges. Also, the banks started to get a clue, hire more personnel to deal with the short sale situations and move the process forward a bit more quickly. I began to see and experience short sales that were actually successful, if not relatively pain-free. We all started to get the hang of things a bit more and the industry made strides in systematizing and automating the process.

So I shorted up my ‘SHORT SALES WILL MAKE YOU DIE’ speech, stopped telling some of the worst stories I heard and showed more short sales (and not even under duress anymore!). I developed a false sense of security about short sales.

Let tell you, this little security blanket was abruptly ripped from my snuggled down and napping body last week, on the scheduled day of close of escrow for my buyer because the Idiot (and when I say ‘idiot’ I mean ‘Alleged Idiot’) Seller of the house at the last minute decided (as recommended by his alleged imbecile of a lawyer) it might not be in his best interest to sign to sell.

Basically, here’s what went down (broken down into Seven Steps of Misery):

1. My client saw the house in late October and loved it. We wrote a contract that was accepted in first position by the seller. He signed to accept that contract pending approval with acceptable terms by the lien holder (the bank who loaned him the money to buy the house).

2. The listing agent’s ’short sale team’ let me know just after Christmas that the bank and the seller were close to coming to agreement on the terms of the short sale. She said they were going back and forth, but that it was a productive negotiation and wouldn’t affect our contract.

3. On January 28, 2010 I got an email from the short sale team letting us know that we had an official approval and that we should pull the trigger on inspections and appraisals. This email constitutes a ‘Notice of Agreement’. At this point, the sale morphs into a traditional sale. We have approval by all parties; we move forward.

4. My buyer had an inspection done to the tune of $275, a termite inspection at $55 and an appraisal at $450. Minor things were found, but value on the appraisal came back good and my buyer was comfortable going through with the purchase.

5. The loan was completed and the paperwork was sent to the title company on Thursday, February 18. The buyer went in to sign her portion early on the 19th and the goal was to fund and record by Tuesday the 23rd. She even brought a cashier’s check in for her down payment (more than $5,000).

6. Tuesday morning I was informed, for the first time, by the title company that the seller had not returned the signed paperwork. I called the listing agent (this time I bypassed the ‘team’ and called the man himself). He told me that his client had a lawyer advising him the wording of the approval letter from the bank would leave him open to being sued at some time in the future for the deficiency of the loan. The listing agent told me he was 90% sure he could get his client to sign, and that he would call to let me know by 11am.

7. By Thursday, when we still weren’t hearing anything definitive or positive back from the listing agent or seller, we put in for a cancellation and refund of deposited funds due to non-performance by the seller. My client received her earnest money and the money she’d brought to title for her down payment back. She did not, however, get any kind of reimbursement for the $780 she spent on inspections and appraisal (which is, in some ways, the least of her investment into all of this. We spent an hour on Saturday before the supposed Close of Escrow matching paint chips to various walls in the house, for heaven’s sake).

My client plans to pursue damages from the seller in mediation and arbitration. The seller had a chance to negotiate his issues with the lender, and he said he was finished. We were told all parties were in agreement. I’m not an attorney, but I believe she has a strong case. Let me tell you, though, she will never be a winner in all of this, even if she is awarded damages. To begin with, getting money from a seller already in default on his mortgage seems a bit like trying to squeeze blood from a stone. If it’s not there, how can you get it? And secondly, vindication in court won’t get her a place to live. She had put notice on her apartment and found out yesterday they have rented it out to someone else. She has to be out by April 12. We’re doing our best, but I don’t feel particularly confident that we will find her an acceptable house that can close by then in the next week.

So for now, I’m wary of the shark infested waters of the short sale, and believe you, me, this is a story I will be telling to all of my clients who want to look at short sales in the future.

*Units of measurement are in boxes.

I have a new buyer I’ve been working with the last couple of weeks. He’s a very nice guy and an engineer, which is always entertaining. Engineer’s do funny super analytical things like record the noise in the backyard of a house that backs to a major road on their Iphones to get a decibel reading of just how disturbing the traffic would be. I’m looking forward to meeting his girlfriend, the doctor, who just got back into town. We’ve had a couple of conversations about what he thinks she will and will not like and it’s always fun to see how those things actually line up (OK, maybe I’m easily entertained).

We saw nine houses this weekend and two were of note.

The first house is in a great Chandler neighborhood and probably would have been a really nice house if it hadn’t been abandoned and we hadn’t had that massive rainstorm a few weeks back which allowed several defects to surface:

Well that's not pretty, is it?

Ah yes, water leaking in through the electrical socket... that looks safe!

I'm just not understanding the concept behind this cesspool of rotting fruit and bacteria at all.

Well, and then there’s this:

Yes, that's the 202. What does your Iphone have to say about this one?

That house wasn’t going to win any beauty contests. The final house we saw, however, did have some former beauty contest winners displayed within it.

I was utterly fascinated by this last house of the day, I have to admit. I think it’s pretty obvious that I’m intrigued by people, their lives and especially their eccentricities. Really, a big part of why I love my job is that I get to learn all about people and what they do and what they’re into, etc. I feel a little bit like a therapist sometimes. We get into the car and I ask them questions and eventually their life story comes out. And yes, I love to hear it.

So the point is, this house was like a candy store and I’m the kid. I think I would literally pay money to meet the man who owns and resides in this house in person.

No, I don’t have any photos of the inside of this house. Basically, I couldn’t post them even if I had taken any unless I want to end up on a list with XXX after my name (REALTORS GONE WILD). The house was meticulous, the backyard was stunning, the layout was great, but the interior walls were covered in large framed posters (some photographs, some paintings) of naked women. We are talking roughly 30 images of women in wet t-shirts, posed as nude mermaids, standing nude in a dark hazy background that if you stood far enough away looked like a portrait of Abraham Lincoln; you get the idea.

And then there was the huge painting over the fireplace of a grey-bearded man steering a viking ship, who I’m assuming (due to the fact that most of the small framed photos in the house contained a grey-bearded man and the display of a vanity license plate that said ‘Da Viking’) is the home-owner. I’m not even sure how to process that.

Almost the weirdest thing about this house was just how deliberate, unabashed and organized the house was. There was not a hint of self-consciousness in the display of any of these pictures. They weren’t hidden away in the bedroom or office. Sure, they were there too, but they were also in the kitchen and the entry way and along the stair walls. He had 5 collections of magazines neatly lined up on a table in the family room. They were (in order): Popular Science, Playboy, Esquire, Maxim, and National Geographic.

OK, and I just Googled the Abraham Lincoln painting and it’s actually a famous Salvadore Dali painting called, Gala Contemplating the Mediterranean Sea which at Twenty Meters becomes a Portrait of Abraham Lincoln:

And it was alongside a framed and signed nude poster of Traci Lords. Mr. Viking? You are a dichotomy. I’m officially fascinated.

So you may not have heard, but Arizona’s going through a pretty significant cave-in of our housing market. (I just tried three times to write a sentence jokingly comparing it to that mine collapse tragedy a few years ago and realized it was in really poor taste and deleted it. Housing values have tanked. It hasn’t actually killed anyone. Except that one guy who totally ended up in a standoff with the police over the foreclosure of his house. And now we’re back in poor-taste-joke territory.)

OK, you probably know something about the current state of the housing market here. You’d really have to live under a rock not to. You probably also have an opinion about who is at fault in this situation. It’s human nature to find a scapegoat. If something bad has happened (a fender-bender on the freeway, a ball dropped at the office, that time I ate so much steak and Gruyere mashed potatoes I almost threw up), it was someone else’s fault (the other driver, a coworker, my husband for making such a delicious, large meal knowing full well that I am like a goldfish and if you feed me too much I will keep eating until I die).

Part of my own personal nature is that my default setting is ‘Guilt’. If something bad or disastrous has happened that is in any way related to me, I automatically assume that I’ve done something incorrectly that has caused this problem. I’m a master of self-flagellation. It’s actually probably insanely arrogant to think that I had anything to do with the crashing down of the entire national housing market, but I would be lying if I said every time a client who bought in the last five years with me has called and asked me about the value of his or her property I don’t feel at fault for the fact the property is now worth less than he or she paid for it. OMG, if only I was a better Realtor, I would be able to see the future and would have told all of my clients, family and friends to sell all of their properties in mid-2005 and then rent until now when they could buy again. Also I should have been a good enough Realtor to see the future and tell myself this.

I even have a couple of friends/potential clients who didn’t use me to buy their first property, but when they call me to ask about the value of their houses, I still feel somehow responsible for the deficit. So I’ve decided I need to just rip the band-aid off and just get it all over with at once. So here we go:

ATTENTION PROPERTY OWNERS OF ARIZONA….

Your house isn’t worth what you paid for it, or what you owe on it. It also isn’t worth what you hope it is (which is less than you paid for it, but still more than you could actually sell it for right now). Even if you bought in 1995 you most likely refinanced and pulled some or all of your equity out to remodel your kitchen or buy a boat in 2005 (I remember when we did that [kitchen, not boat] and the day they told me I could get a check for $20,000 and my mortgage payment WOULD GO DOWN because my interest rate was lower and I was so blissfully amazed with how awesome the world of home ownership was… ah, yes, the happy days before I realized I was the cause of all economic downturn). Even if I’m wrong, and your house IS worth more than you paid for it because you bought in 1972 and paid off your mortgage and own it outright, you still think it’s worth way more than it is because you remember hearing what your neighbors sold for in 2005 and that’s the number you are convinced you can get now. But you won’t.

I know, I sound harsh. But like I said, I’m ripping the band-aid off. I’m like the lady with the waxing strips; she does it fast and all at once (or the nurses at the pediatrician with the four shots, they get two nurses and stab those chubby little thighs two at a time real quick, I could go on and on with these metaphors). The point is, knowledge is power. No, it’s not what you want or hope for, but it is what it is, and you should know.

Here’s a graphical illustration that will maybe help:

Graph is from The Cromford Report.

So this is just Gilbert, but bear in mind that most metro-Phoenix cities are very similar. Take a look at that light green line that represents average sales price in 2005. See how it looks like the hill that Jack and Jill went up? And 2006 (in red) is still going that direction? And then 2007 (blue) is levelish until it hits 2008 (muddy green) and Jack falls down the hill (Jill comes tumbling after in the brown 2009). Take note of where that tiny little 2010 teal colored line sits. It’s down below 2005. I know, Dear, go ahead and poor yourself a glass of wine and take a seat. It’s not pretty, but it’s the truth.

My clients from the new build stalker chicken incident, The Cowans, closed on their new house last week!

Some clients I’ve had have been anxious to see every available property that would potentially meet their needs before they make a choice to put an offer on a house. In fact, I would say this mentality is the norm, rather than the occasion. And this makes sense. You generally want to feel like you’ve covered all of your options before making your largest purchase in approximately five years.

The Cowans are a different breed. We spent one long weekend checking out a handful of resales and stopped off at one new build community before they were ready to pull the trigger. I think what it came down to is that Amanda was really, a lot, a whole bunch, ready to move out of their itty bitty, ludicrously expensive apartment in California and back to Arizona near her kids’ cousins; and she wanted to do it before Baby #3 makes her glorious appearance. Chris, on the other hand, is just kind of a guy who knows what he wants (and isn’t real interested in shopping unless it involves electronics or biking gear). Together they created the perfect storm of decisive, motivated buyers. I actually had a couple more new build communities lined up for us to see and Chris said to me, “Uh, no. We’re done. We’re going to think about the houses we saw in this community tonight and make our decision.” I was fairly flabbergasted at this statement. Usually it’s the agent who’s ready to make a choice before the buyer is.

Regardless of how quickly they made their decision, I think the Cowans made the right pick. I know that I really shouldn’t have an opinion about whether a house is ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ for my clients (it’s my job to merely facilitate what my client wants), but it’s really tough for me to abstain. I was born opinionated and I’ll hopefully die a wrinkly, old, bossy, opinionated (yet still fashionable) lady. Plus, it’s even tougher to remove my allegiance from the situation when the people I’m representing are good friends.

The point is, I think the Cowans are going to love their house that could fit the apartment they were living in, in California, three times over. I think their girls will adore their bedrooms and the giant play loft upstairs. I think they will right at home in Gilbert and so close to their cousins. And I think we will get to hang out with them lots more often.

And yes, they do have a view of the San Tans from the laundry room!

One of the things I love most about helping people buy a home is that we often end up spending so much time together we become like family. I’m happy when we find their perfect house and happier still when we successfully navigate the escrow process and they come out on the other side owning their dream house, but part of me is a little sad to be done riding around town with them hearing about their lives. This is especially true of Ed and Cheri:

We had so much fun looking at amazing properties together. The houses were gorgeous, the views were stunning, the kitchens were to die for and the company was unbeatable. Sure, there were some rocky points, but nothing super memorable, I think.

Except the time I managed to drop the key to the front door of a 6000 square foot house somewhere in the house without realizing it until we went to move on to the next house, and it was nowhere to be found. We spent 20 minutes scouring the property before Ed magically plucked it out of the grass in the middle of the backyard, about 30 seconds before I was just going to abandon the $1.4 million dollar house open to vandals and thieves and make a dash for the Mexican border to live out the rest of my life in humilation in Cholla Bay. He still makes fun of me for that one. And it remains possibly the most horrifying 20 minutes of my career to date. I blame it on low-blood sugar. It was really close to lunchtime.

Also not a bright spot in this particular home search was the time we made an offer on a house they thought might be The One, and spent several days waiting for a response only to discover the listing agent had been lying to us about the fact that the sellers just needed another day to make the decision. They actually had another buyer in the wings and they used our offer to leverage a better deal out of those people and cut us right out of the equation. We all left the incident feeling like discarded tissues someone had blown their nose in and abandoned. It wasn’t pretty or particularly morale building for anyone. The silver lining I can garner from hindsight is that this house was not actually The One. It was a bit on the small side compared to what they ended up with and the backyard really wasn’t that fabulous.

I could go on for days with Ed and Cheri stories, but suffice it to say that despite the low points in our journey I truly enjoyed our time together and I will miss those days, packed with almonds, diet cokes and peanut butter granola bars, critiquing the residential architecture of Fountain Hills, Cave Creek (oh geez, and then there was the time my GPS malfunctioned and we ended up driving literally through the actual namesake creek of Cave Creek; that was another dicey moment I will have to deal with in therapy someday), and finally, Troon.

My gals, Tekla, the super-hot, hyper-organized, a touch OCD, but completely (and sometimes possibly unintentionally) hilarious Wells Fargo Mortgage Consultant:

Lizzie, my gorgeous, tree-hugging, yoga-loving, maintainer of my sanity and partnering Realtor:

and I are hosting a Real Estate In A Recession seminar in a couple of weeks. You are so lucky because you’re totally invited. We’re going to talk about all things real estate related (Short Sales, Investing, Financing, Tax Credits, Etc) and we will be available to answer any and all questions (but please, people, keep it real estate related, if you want to ask about how we manage to be so pretty and awesome, you’re going to have to send us an email later. Or buy us a cocktail after the seminar).

So come! We’ll try to keep the geeky power-pointing to a minimum and the information easy to digest. Send me a quick email if you plan to attend!

Event: Real Estate In A Recession Seminar
Date: 2/10/2010
Time: 6-7PM
Place: 3930 E. Chandler Blvd., Suite 2, Phoenix, AZ 85048

So I like totally helped build a house today. No, really. I hammered nails and constructed and sweated and got dirt under my fingernails and everything. Swear. I’m like practically a professional builder. You could pretty much call me and say, “Hello, I would like a house,” and BAM! I could show up and build you one.

OK, maybe not quite. But I did work a Habitat for Humanity home build project today. If you haven’t ever heard of Habitat for Humanity (you clearly live under a rock) check out their website for the details. Basically it’s a non-profit organization that uses volunteers and donations to construct homes for people who need them. I don’t know how a someone goes about qualifying to own one of these homes, but I did learn today that the ‘Future Homeowner’ will actually have a mortgage after the home is complete. The mortgage will not, however, include interest (which I find, punnily enough, interesting).

Another real estate agent I know through my father (Realtor Ken!) puts together a group of volunteers every year who spend a Saturday helping to build a house. This was the first year I got wind of it (through Facebook, of course. Gotta love FB.) and because the build date was far enough out that my schedule was not yet devoured by the gods of chaos, I decided to put my name on the list. It’s obviously a really great charity, but I also thought it could potentially be fun and informative for my work. I was not wrong.

This is the South Phoenix house I worked on today. It’s in that transitional area West of the I-10 along the Baseline corridor. It has stunning views of South Mountain at the end of the street:

Each crew has a general task they are assigned to. My Realtor Ken crew was slated to roof. Which…. was pretty awesome. We are talking about climbing up scaffolding to get to the top roof (which was plywood when we got there) of a two-story house and like pretty much learning from A to Z how a shingle roof is put on a house.

At 7:30 AM we nervously scaled the scaffolding to perch shakily on the roof and just marveled at the planes taking off at Sky Harbor, the domey baseball stadium and the rolling mountains. It didn’t take us long to get used to the height, but I don’t think anyone got bored with the view.

I basically showed up at the build site with negative amounts of construction skills. We were given hard hats, tool aprons and a hammer, and told to have at it. It wasn’t until the first time I attempted to hammer in a nail today that I realized I haven’t ever hammered a nail into anything but drywall before; which I now know is vastly different from nailing metal L-flashing to the corner of a roof.

So the first thing I learned was how to hammer a nail. Apparently, as my dad said several times today, you should ’swing the hammer like you’re not going to miss the nail’; which means with some force behind it. I tended, however, to ’swing the hammer like I just saw that woman miss the nail and hit her finger so hard it caused the tip to split and blood to spray everywhere’, which, you know, is less effective and takes considerably longer. Eventually, though, after probably 100 or 200 nails today, I actually kind of get it. You sort of have to take a breath before you swing the hammer, shoot for straight on and just let it all go. The guy who was helping me compared it to swinging golf club and shooting a gun (neither of which I’ve done) before giving up on the analogies.

I really did learn a lot. I would absolutely go back. I will also recommend to all of my first time buyers that they do this at least once. I feel like it did an equal job of comfortingly demystifying the home construction process and at the same time showing how disturbingly imperfect the whole thing is. As a home owner, I think it helps to get that your house is not flawless, but when a problem with it does eventually occur, it can be fixed with some general knowledge of how it was put together in the first place.

Specific examples of the demystification:

1. Roof shingles hang over the edge of the actual roof the amount of one width of a construction pencil. As-in they actually carry around a construction pencil simply for measuring how much it should hang over.

2. L-flashing on a roof needs to be two shingle thicknesses off of the roof. So when you are installing it, you stack up two shingles and stuff them underneath and then nail it to the side of the roof.

3. There are tin-snips call mickey mouse shears. Because they have giant round handles that look like Mickey’s ears.

Examples of scary imperfection that makes me wonder what my house looks like underneath all the prettification of the exterior:

1. Before we started shingles we stood on the roof we were working on and looked to the right and saw a house with a pretty, straight roof shingle pattern and looked to the left and saw a house with a wavy, yucky, terrible roof shingle pattern and our team leader said, ‘We’re going for the house to the right.’

2. At 2pm when we were standing in the blindingly hot sun, exhausted and shaky from exertion our team leader realized that we should not nail the L-flashing to the bottom of the roof, just to the side…. AFTER we’d nailed half of it to the roof (BY HAND. The nail gun was being used elsewhere. Which is roughly 13 times harder, by the way), so we just removed the nails and he said it was cool that it had all those holes in it.

But yes, all in all it was a great experience and it really feels like a worthwhile cause. The big, giant bummer of the day was at lunch when they too us down to the end of the street and showed us the two houses that were burned down a few days before Christmas. The fire department hasn’t finished their investigation but the theory is arson by vandals.

These were some of the Brownies who brought us lunch (a Chandler troop who not only provided some topnotch sandwiches, but also sang to us while we ate) getting their first look at the wreckage. We tied green ribbons to the fence to symbolize hope. The two houses are a total loss and will have to be completely torn down and newly constructed. Even the port-a-potty that had been left to service the site was burnt to nothing but a pile of blue dust. I have no doubt these houses will rise again out of the ash the like the namesake of their city, but it’s hard for me to wrap my mind around the cruelty someone has to possess to commit an act like this.

And just to end on a less sour note, doesn’t my dad look like a real construction worker in his outfit?