Sonia came to us from our web site in mid-April, 2005. Young, unmarried, working very diligently at a job that should have paid better than it did. She was pre-qualified at $115,000, which was a very hard number to hit at that time and would be virtually impossible by now. We were just getting to the real fever of the housing boom, with houses at that end of the price range evaporating in hours. What she wanted was something fairly close to her job in North Central Phoenix. Multi-family was okay, but, obviously, safety was a concern.
This is my kind of problem. We love those $700,000 buyers, where the commission check is the size of a brand-new mid-size sedan. But that’s show-horse job, and it’s the work-horse tasks that put a Realtor to the test. One of the things that I think earns loyalty and respect from my clients is that I deliver the goods. If we’re having trouble finding what we want, I will work the MLS like a Rubik’s Cube until I squeeze the right houses out of it.
This is what we did, me and Sonia and Cathy. I would pump out new results, Sonia would drive by the properties on her way to or from work, then Cathy or I would go with her to look at the least objectionable ones. Nothing was easy. North Central Phoenix is the land of the vanishing middle class, and the neighborhoods that aren’t crawling with millionaires are crawling with things you need a special license to talk about.
Eventually we got very lucky, though. A home turned up in the Phoenix Townhouses, a very nice town-home community in the center of town. The home was underpriced, but we saw why when we got there: One owner in twenty years, zero remodels. Everyone wants a bargain, but no one wants what a bargain implies: Less-than-perfect condition. But Sonia had seen a lot of dumps by then, so she could see the value beneath the ugly, old and very dirty decor.
We fast-talked our way into the house by paying a $500 premium — at a time when people were routinely paying $5,000 or $10,000 over list.
The seller, a very old man, was sticky about everything, and he forgot us every time we left the house, but we were picking up a 1,584sf two-bedroom townhouse way under its market value at a time when absolutely everything was going for way over market value. Yes, it was visually disquieting, but ugly runs no deeper than the carpet padding. The house was hers by the end of May — for $110,500, with Sonia paying her own closing costs.
Good for her! But remember, her job doesn’t pay that well. She came in 100% financed, with one of those nasty, awful, evil adjustable rate mortgages that every nattering ninny and his stuttering nanny will tell you is death on stilts. So what happened? She refinanced in October, retiring her second mortgage, converting the first to a 30-year fixed, retaining 20% equity, and using the rest of the surplus funds to finance her remodeling.
Witness:
Dining Room — before
Dining Room — after
Kitchen — before
Kitchen — after
The most recent sale in that floorplan was $200,800. Truly, Sonia was the right woman in the right place at the right time. But here’s what else is true: Audaces fortuna iuvat — Lady Fortune lends her favor to the audacious…
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