Phoenix Area Real Estate Blog » Local Business

Justin McHood Has Officially Lost His Mind

Justin McHood — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 15:54:19 +0000

I was having a conversation with one of my peers yesterday and I think I was called out on the carpet when he declared:

“Justin McHood has officially went crazy. No way, did I just hear that come out of your mouth!”

What did I say that made everyone think I was crazy?

I declared that I think friends are more important than money.

Keep in mind – I am in a field where money is everything. The people who I work with think about money, talk about money, try to show how smart they can be about money — anything and everything seems to be all about the money.

If I am in a money-driven, money-obsessed industry and I declare that “friends are more important than money” does it mean that I have “went soft” and am about to become a social worker?

No, it just means that tools like Facebook and Twitter have changed the way that I think about money and friends in the last year.

Now – before I go any further — I am NOT suggesting that having more friends on Facebook or followers on Twitter are more important than money. Not a chance.

But what I am suggesting by saying “friends are more important than money” some PR firms might also call “reputation management”. Translation: value money over friends and try to make an extra buck on someone and there is a good chance that all of your friends — and potential customers will hear about it.

Justin McHood Took My Money!

Justin McHood Is Awesome!

Both of those things can easily be said by people using the various social media tools out there – and both of them last forever, because Google doesn’t forget.

The smartest people in the RE.net space have figured this out – and have built in feedback tools on their sites for people either rant or rave about you.

What does this have to do with mortgages or real estate?

If you are thinking about working with a loan officer or a Realtor – do your homework first — see what their friends think about them.

Target Center in Scottsdale gets a new paint job

Steve Belt — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 19:43:53 +0000

Over the years, I’ve negotiated a few commercial leases. Almost as important as the price/sq ft discussion is the haggling over signage. Signage is naturally a big requirement for most businesses leasing space. Where can a sign be placed? How big can it be? Can the sign be colored and in the companies font? Can it be lit at night? Is it lit with halo lighting or are they colored letters? A great deal of time and effort is placed on signage. So much so, that I was stunned when I saw the recent painting of the buildings at the Target Center at Frank Lloyd Wright and Loop 101 in Scottsdale.

This Target Center is your normal strip mall with Target being the main anchor, followed closely by an Albertson’s grocery store. It used to be painted with some beige colors and was honestly a tad boring. Recently, they have attempted to give the center a face lift with some new desert colors. Sadly, I think they’ve failed miserably. I’ll explain:

Here’s the Blockbuster sign against it’s new yellow background:

That’s right, they painted it yellow, which works miserably with the yellow Blockbuster letters. My Photoshopping skills are probably a little too good, because the contrast here actually makes the sign look readable, but trust me…there are times of the day where all you see is a wall of yellow.

Perhaps you are thinking Blockbuster just got unlucky. Nope: Starbucks was equally affected:

That’s right…green paint for Starbucks. The green paint here matches the Starbucks green very, very well. I’m sure they are equally thrilled. Not to be left out, all of these business have red letter signs, to match perfectly with the new red paint:

It baffles me how the paint colors seem to have been chosen to make all of these business’s signs fade away into nothing. Even more curious, the same colors could have been used, but at different locations, so that none of the (current) businesses were adversely affected. Although, to be honest, red paint is probably always a bad idea in any location where a sign is likely to be used.

They aren’t done painting yet (you can just see a painter touching up the yellow trim on that last photo), but I’m already wondering when a new paint scheme will be arriving.

High Street at City North is Now Open for Business

Steve Belt — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 23:11:12 +0000

It’s been a week now, but High Street at City North in Phoenix opened on November 13, 2008. I walked the High Street from end-to-end on Tuesday and snapped the photos for this post. As I did I made mental notes of the businesses that were open and those coming soon. Among the open stores were Pioneer Electronics, White House/Black Market, Kona Grill, Press Coffee, Ocean Prime, Coldwater Creek, and Ann Taylor Loft. In total, it looked like more than half of the retail locations were currently open, and several were close.

I paid closer attention to restaurants, as it was 1pm and I food on the brain, and other than the coffee shop and a yogurt shop, the other restaurants I found were of the finer dining variety. These weren’t your typical food court locations. Being an almost daily coffee shop visitor, I’m personally interested to stop in at the Coffee Press location. I’m also keen to see what Arizona Coffee thinks of the shop, or heck, maybe the crew that meets on Friday afternoon for coffee can be convinced to come north.

This is a wide shot of the corner of High Street and 52nd Street. This is one of the residence over retail buildings. This end of the building is the portion that they are turning into high end rentals, so all of the units are currently vacant and without window coverings. If memory serves, the end units are the large 3 bedroom units that begin at roughly $1,000,000. I have yet to get a hold of rental rates.

Next Edge Video earns Emmy Nomination

Steve Belt — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 00:19:27 +0000

Practically right next door to my office is Calvis Wyant Luxury Homes. Tony Calvis, like myself, operates a satellite office of Realty Executives, and over the last 2 years, we’ve had a number of occasions to get together and chat about living and doing business in Scottsdale and Paradise Valley. He’s a true ally, and I already owe him far more than I’ll likely ever be able to repay.

Thus it gives me great pride to share that Next Edge Video has just earned an Emmy Nomination for excellence in Photography/Videography in Advanced Media. Next Edge Video and Calvis Wyant worked together to create this video for one of Tony’s listings located in Silverleaf at DC Ranch in North Scottsdale.

Tony gave me a personal tour of this home a few months ago, and while the video is amazing, the property is truly stunning. No expense has been spared anywhere inside or outside the home, and while $9,975,000 may seem like a huge pile of money, this home is indeed worth every penny.

Congratulations to both Calvis Wyant Luxury Homes and Next Edge Video for demonstrating excellence in this field.

New Business Card Supplement/Replacement

Steve Belt — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 16:40:31 +0000

Last Thursday evening I was at the monthly Social Media Club meeting for Phoenix. These meetings discuss various topics related to social networking and social media including: how we use social networking; what’s new; what’s coming soon; etc. I’ve attended these meetings poorly in the past, however they are always on my radar screen, and when I can’t attend, I know I’m missing something I’ll regret later. That said, if you are in the Phoenix area on the second Thursday of the month, I highly recommend you attend. Jobing.com sponsors the meetings in a relaxed atmosphere, and best of all, there’s no cost to attend.

This month, we learned about a relatively new service from TextID.com. The service enables anyone to lease a keyword from the text message number 555-411. When someone sends your keyword to 555-411 they will receive a text message response with whatever message has been configured.

Here’s how it works. First, you choose a keyword that you want to lease. I chose the obvious: “Steve”. Next, you lease the keyword. Plans start at $5/month, and go on up to $30/month for an unlimited number of text message responses. If you are curious, you can sign up for free, see if you like it, and then pick a plan to continue the service, when your free trial runs out.

Then, the only thing you need to do is configure the response to the keyword that you want TextID to send back.

An obvious application of the service is to lease a keyword related to your name or business and then as a response to that keyword, respond with business card like information. For example, I signed up for the keyword Steve. In response, people receive the following message (if you don’t believe me, try it!):

Steve Belt
Realty Executives
steve@teambelt.com
www.realphoenixliving.com
www.teambelt.com
(480)215-9490

Now why and when would someone text my name? For me, it would be the almost 50% of the time I don’t seem to have a business card handy. I can’t count the number of days I run out of cards (I try to start the day with 5 or 6) during the course of the day, but it’s more times than I care to remember. Or, it’s just inconvenient to run out to the stash that’s in my car.

Moreover, as I think about the superior nature of this type of business card, I can imagine using this service as my defacto business card whenever possible. When someone asks for a card, I’ll direct them to text my name, if possible. They will get back all of the information that’s on my card (aside from my office address), after which they have everything about me, right there in their phone, where they won’t be able to lose it, wash it in their pockets, or throw it away at the next trash can they see.

I’m pretty excited about using this new way of getting inside the phone’s of my clients and friends. Am I in your phone?

Ladies and Gentleman Start Your Showers

Steve Belt — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 03:07:53 +0000

Author’s Note: This will be one of the few times I overtly pimp a product. But bear with me, as usual there’s a story behind it, and at the end, I hope you’ll agree the environmental benefits of this product are simply too compelling to overlook.

Last weekend, I participated in the Kona 24 hours in the Old Pueblo mountain bike race down near Tucson, Arizona. Among all of the joys of being snowed on, riding in the mud, and generally having a fun time riding my bike, my team managed an almost respectable 80th place of 135 4-man teams. Nothing to write here about for sure, but along with race I got to do some hanging out with a long time friend of mine that had a crazy cool idea a few years ago to save water. He calls it ShowerStart.

I don’t know how he came up with the idea, but he has quite a knack for coming up with really good ideas. He came up with Amazing Mail, Letter Stream, and Bill Fire. He’s an entrepreneur in the purest sense, willing to risk it all on the expectation that with a good idea there will eventually be a pay off.

I was able to see the first prototype for ShowerStart over 2 years ago. It wasn’t pretty, but it demonstrated the concept. I later got one of the first production versions, and was blown away by the simplicity of how it works, even though what I had still wasn’t the end game product. Now the technology has been integrated inside common shower heads, which I think will change every shower head produced, some time in the near future.

So what is ShowerStart technology? Basically, it’s a fairly simple thermodynamic device that senses when the water coming through has reached a warm temperature. During their research period, they found that people have 3 different ways that they “wait” for the water in the shower to heat up:

Stand there with your hand under the water until it feels warm.
Linger near the shower, periodically testing the water as you attempt to do something else.
Turn on the water, do whatever else you have in mind, knowing that later it will be ready…whether later is 30 seconds, 1 minute, or 5 minutes from now.

User’s of method #1 and #2 don’t waste too much water. They waste their time, but not much water. But those of us in category #3 (of which, I’ll admit I primarily fall), we waste a lot of water. And it’s hot water, so we’re wasting water that has a significant energy cost.

ShowerStart technology slows nearly to a halt the flow of water, once it reaches 95 degrees. You can hear the difference in the flow, so you know when it’s hot. Since the flow is very low, you no longer need to lament about wasted water, if you don’t get back to the shower right when the water turned warm. When you eventually do get back to the shower, all you have to do is flick the button (like starting a car, hence the name), and the water coming out of the shower will be hot and ready for you. Now if Sports Center has my attention an extra 2 minutes I don’t have to feel guilty about not getting into the shower right away.

Where do you get a showerhead with ShowerStart technology? Right now from evolve. They are working on making them available at the big box home improvement centers, but for now, online will have to be your answer. In some cities, there may even be credits that you can get from your water company to install one, though I don’t believe City of Phoenix has agreed to that yet (go figure).

Majerle’s Sports Grill Opens at Chandler Fashion Center

Steve Belt — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 21:41:07 +0000

This morning, Dan Majerle was being interviewed by the guys on 620 KTAR about last night’s Suns game as I was making my morning drive, checking up on listings. The normal banter was going around about the Suns, their win over the Knicks, fan reactions, etc., when Dan gives a shout out that he’s opening up a new Majerle’s in Chandler across from Chandler Fashion Center.

Hmmm, I thought, I think I know where I’m going for lunch.

But first, I feel a bit of disclosure is in order. I’m a pretty big Dan Majerle fan. I probably own at least 75 pieces of sports logo clothing, including shirts, jerseys, shorts, etc., from the various sports teams in Arizona. But I only own 2 jerseys that have someone’s name on them: Dan Majerle and Steve Nash. I’ve run into Dan a few times, always on a lark, and while I really don’t know anything about the man personally, he’s been pure class every time I’ve seen him, willing to say hi, shake your hand, and even sign an autograph (as he did for me years ago, when I saw him at the Phoenix Open).

I arrived at 11am, just as they were opening, to check it out. The new Majerle’s has a great setup for a sports bar and grill in Arizona. It has 2 patios. One on the north side of the building and one on the east side of the building, putting the patios in the best spots for shade year round. The one on the north side is about twice as large, and is adjacent to the bar, which was modified with a number of large windows that can be opened to bring the outdoors inside. This trend toward an indoor/outdoor bar is being seen in many of Phoenix’s newest and best bar/restaurants, and they’ve pulled if off perfectly at the new Majerle’s.

Inside, the bar is large, and there is seating for a good sized crowd. Of course, there are plenty of plasma screens to watch the Suns. There was even a fireplace surrounded by more relaxed, casual seating, creating what looked like a comfortable place to hang out after the game is over. I’m sorry, but without my tripod handy, I couldn’t get any decent shots of the inside, so you’ll just have to go and check it out for yourself.

Even more cool is the bocce ball setup they have adjacent to the north patio.

Snapping pictures as I arrived, Dan himself came over and shook my hand. I took the opportunity to double check that I was indeed looking at bocce ball. That’s a rare enough find, I wanted to be sure. I mentioned the blog, and asked if it was ok to feature his restaurant, and he gave me the go ahead. Unfortunately, he’s not current a reader, but I’m working on it.

Lunch was really good. I had a grilled chicken sandwich, which was surprisingly moist. The staff was all very friendly, and when the opportunities arise, you know I’ll be back again and again.

Just Good Food: Flo’s

Steve Belt — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 22:34:23 +0000

Being in Disney for 4 days sometimes leaves you in awe with how well the parks are run. In the next couple of days I plan to highlight a couple of the things they are doing very well, and how we can learn from that, but today, I wanted to talk about one thing they do pretty poorly, and the one thing I was desperate to get back home for: Good Food.

I’ve found resort food in general to be below average. You travel to a big, huge resort, where a couple of thousand people need to be fed, and you can tell how the kitchen cuts corners by the quality of what you eat. That’s a generalization of course, that gets proven time and again, and to an extent I understand it. But the folks at Disney aren’t feeding a couple of thousand, they are feeding tens of thousands. As a result, most of the food is darned near dreadful. High sugar, high fat, high calerie crud. Oh, and just to make up for the poor quality, they’ve set the prices really high.

At any rate, almost immediately I began day dreaming about my favorite restaraunt in Scottsdale. Even my kids had the same response on Wednesday, when I asked them what they wanted for dinner tonight: Flo’s. That’s right, Flo’s.

There are 4 Flo’s restaraunts in the Valley, but 3 of them are in North Scottsdale. My favorite is Flo’s Chinese Kitchen in the McDowell Mountain Village at Frank Lloyd Wright and Thompson Peak Parkway near AJ’s and Walgreens. Flo herself can often be found there, particularly during the week. Her husband manages the store at DC Ranch. And then there’s the 3rd North Scottsdale store at Scottsdale Road and Frank Lloyd Wright. And finally, Flo has her newest location in terminal 4 of Sky Harber airport. This location is more of a Pei Wei style, with a bit of a quick serve format. Each varies from the other, offering their own menu, or a different twist on the same items.

Flo herself is from Hong Kong. She’s a hands-on business owner that is very attentive to detail, and it shows in the consistency in what is served. I’ve tried nearly every single item on her menu and most can be counted among my favorites. For a lighter lunch however, nothing beats the lemon pepper chicken & shrimp. Add to that the included asian style salad, and perhaps an iced tea, and it makes a great lunch that won’t weigh you down. Old favorites like sweet & sour chicken, mongolian beef, and mandarin (aka kung poa) chicken are also well represented.

For dinner, we like to start with the hot & sour soup, which is the best I’ve ever had. Lettuce wraps, often hit the table as well. And most nights we order the Pad Tai. It’s a noodle dish that’s sort of an asian spaghetti. Yum!

And finally, for desert, or just to treat the folks back in the office, it’s tough to beat the chocolate won tons.

The pricing at lunch is very good, which is perhaps best represented by how many REALTORs frequent Flo’s for lunch. I’ve always known that Flo’s was popular among agents, but one day I took a marketing rep from a title partner to Flo’s for lunch. She hadn’t been before, but noted that nearly every table had an agent (or 2 or 3). Given how cheap REALTORs are as a general rule, you know the combination of quality and affordability has to be there.

I can’t recommend Flo’s enough.

PS- you know where dinner is going to be tonight, now that we’re back in town.

REALTOR Protection and Fun Combined

Steve Belt — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 18:54:28 +0000

Today, Michael Cook over at the Bloodhound Blog wrote an excellent article about the similarities between his weight loss and the current real estate market. It’s truly a must read. I don’t possess Michael’s writing talent, but I certainly recognize it when I see it.

Like Michael, and most of us in the US, given that we are the most obese society on the planet, I struggle with maintaining a healthy weight. Even cycling (road and mountain) as many as 150 miles a week, I haven’t seen under 200 lbs since I was in my mid-20′s. Fortunately, cycling has kept me from exceeding 220 lbs. Still I’d really love to see a 1 as the leading digit in my weight.

A few months back, in a multi-faceted decision, I took up Karate as a mid-week cross-training activity. I realized I was now mostly cycling on the weekends, due to time constraints, and wanted something scheduled during the week. Well, actually not Karate but Ninjitsu, a martial art from Japan. The art is being taught by Master Maui Saito at his dojo in North Scottsdale. I’ll be frank and admit that before I started I knew very, very little about any martial arts. Although I guess you could say I was already curious and interested in learning a martial art, I hadn’t previously researched the various arts in any way, but simply took the referral and recommendation from my primary care physician, and the next day I signed up.

After I signed up, I did do some research and learned a few things that are different about what Master Maui is offering.

First, his students do not spar. That is, they don’t “fight” each other to hit each other, or see who can hit whom first. The art that Master Maui is teaching is intended for self defense, and in his opinion sparring teaches bad habits and limits your attacks to attacks which are considered “legal” in a sparring match. If we are training for self defense, then our training needs to include those things which the sport karate arts would consider illegal. Although the majority of Master Maui’s students are male, I think the lack of sparring in class should appeal strongly to women. And since the majority of REALTORs are women, this would appear to be a good fit for REALTORs in general.

Second, with nearly every practice we do, we prepare for the case that we are attacked by multiple attackers. With training, it will eventually be relatively easy to defeat one attacker. But being ready to defend against a dozen is another story. This is another reason why sparring isn’t used, since that is a 1 on 1 fight.

Third, Master Maui believes in doing things 1 time right, rather than 100 times wrong. He will do his best to teach us to do everything that we are doing as right as possible from the very beginning. Hopefully this means we don’t learn bad habits, which we would later have to unlearn. I really wish my golf game had undergone this kind of instruction.

Finally, at least for now, Master Maui is doing all of the instruction. His dojo in Scottsdale is new. The highest belt ranking for any of his students is yellow belt, which is just above the starting white belt. As such, all of his students are getting very personalized attention. This will be true for years to come, as it will take that long before any student has a high enough ranking to be considered a sensei.

So, will taking up a cross-training activity like Ninjitsu get me below 200 lbs? It can’t hurt. Will I ever use my Ninjitsu skills in the real world? I sure hope not, although a recent run-in with a hot-headed contractor had me wishing I had more skills. Most importantly, will I feel better? Right now, that’s a definite yes.