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Bette Zerba is uniquely qualified to assist  in selecting from the varied luxury communities and life-styles available in the Phoenix metro luxury home market. Bette's knowledge of the Phoenix luxury home market, townhouses and condos helps her represent both Buyers and Sellers through the complex real estate negotiations  and insures that each sale is successful and at the best price. Using both online technology and high-end print media, Bette Zerba will provide all your full luxury home solutions.

Paradise Valley and Scottsdale used to be metropolitan Phoenix's million-dollar home hot spots but big-dollar buyers are beginning to spread the wealth.

These days, it's more common to see sales of houses costing $1 million, or more, sprinkled in Mesa, Ahwatukee, Chandler and central Phoenix. Buyers are back in the million-dollar market and they're discovering that the house of their dreams might be on a Mesa golf course rather than at the foot of Mummy Mountain.

Five years ago, real estate agents wouldn't have believed a house in Ahwatukee would sell for seven figures. But last year a few did.

North Central Avenue and Arcadia ranch houses are going the way of Biltmore homes with prices climbing above $1 million on many streets. Some analysts say it's only a matter of time before there's a $1 million deal in a central Phoenix historic district.

Who's buying? The same business executives, out-of-staters scouting for second or third homes, wealthy jocks and rank-and-file doctors and dentists who write big checks for pricey digs in more established luxury enclaves.

Bob and Christine Zamora of Lodi, Calif., paid about $2 million for a 5,300-square-foot house at Superstition Mountain, a golf enclave east of Mesa that takes its names from the nearby mountain range. The couple shopped in such other pricey spots as Desert Mountain, Desert Highlands and Mirabel before settling in the far East Valley near the Superstition Mountains.

They bought the house completely furnished for a quick move-in. Its location will give him a quick drive to the Honda car dealership he's opening with a partner near Superstition Springs Center in Mesa, their 19th dealership in the West.

When the Loop 202 connects to U.S. 60, the Superstition Mountain house will give the Zamoras access to their favorite Scottsdale restaurants. Besides their Lodi house, the couple owns a place in Carmel Valley, Calif., and they have a house and a vacant lot in Oro Valley north of Tucson where they expected to settle before he secured the dealership in Mesa.
 

Median resale price in Paradise Valley Here are the basic rules that may allow you to shelter taxes on home-sale profits: 2003: $897,500 2002: $830,000 2001: $825,000 2000: $815,000 1999: $675,000 1998: $569,000

Bob figures he has bought and sold 15 houses and always looks at their investment potential. He said a similar house in California would cost 20 percent more but the couple still enjoys such amenities as quick access to golf, a dry-cleaning system in the laundry room, fireplaces in nearly every room and a guest house with a minibar and kitchenette.

"I think there's plenty of upside," he said. "Frankly, I'm a businessman. Business people, we tend to look at leisure properties first with a business eye and then with an eye on the amenities."

Sales of houses that cost at least $1 million have climbed steadily in the Valley even as the economy has struggled. There were 570 such sales last year, compared with 433 in 2002 and 380 the previous year.

The million-dollar market tanked after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks when people such as heads of corporations stopped traveling. Now, the market is rebounding with more sales though prices have stayed somewhat flat with increases of 2 to 4 percent.

What's driving the market? people selling ski properties so they can buy a place on a golf course, lots of second-home buyers but few investors.

It's a strong niche market, million-dollar sales, pointing out that the northeast Valley still dominates but predicting that more big deals will crop up in places such as Mesa.

Realtors. specializes in high-dollar properties, have noticed more big deals outside the northeast Valley luxury nexus. Extended freeways are opening more areas to big houses and big deals.

Some big buyers insist on the prestige address of Paradise Valley and Scottsdale. Others shop the million-dollar market like a couple looking for the best bang for their buck on a starter home in suburbia.

Elite handful earns millions brokering high-end deals

Those multimillion-dollar homes in the Valley's elite neighborhoods don't sell themselves.

It takes a certain kind of person with a certain set of skills to broker those deals and make a living at it.

It helps, too, that Phoenix's luxury-housing market is thriving, even as the rest is stumbling. The number of million-dollar properties sold since 2000 has spiked, and so has the number of deals for $3 million, $5 million and much higher, a signal that the Valley is moving into the big leagues of luxury homes.

So who are the big hitters making those big deals?

They are members of one of the most exclusive clubs in metropolitan Phoenix. Of more than 95,000 real estate licensees in Arizona, maybe a dozen are players when it comes to putting together deals for the elite properties in Paradise Valley, north Scottsdale, the Biltmore and other parts of the Valley.

For these agents, the financial stakes are higher than they are for their mainstream counterparts. And their clients can be unusually demanding. Even the social milieu - what they drive, how they look - can make or break a deal.

After all, their clients often include big-time athletes, business executives and entertainment figures.

The agents are lesser known outside of their field, but they are in a supercompetitive business that can deliver the sort of financial rewards that let them live in the same neighborhoods as their clients.

"The people who do this are highly intelligent. They're independent. They're Type A personalities," said Nick Antonicello of Unique Homes, a national luxury-home magazine. "A lot of them are single. It is a 24-hour job. They don't get paid unless something sells. Agents who sell in the superhigh end can make from $500,000 to $5 million in commissions a year."

They head to listing appointments in Beamers, Benzes and Bentleys and play golf at expensive courses. The casual Friday look doesn't cut it. Think tailored.

"If you were going to go look at a $5 million house over in Paradise Valley, the person showing it would be stepping out of a luxury vehicle, a Mercedes of some sort," Antonicello said. "She'll probably be wearing a Chanel suit, have a $200 haircut. She's got a $10,000 diamond ring on her hand and a Rolex and a $2,000 Gucci bag. She looks the part."

The luxury-home market in Phoenix has stayed strong while housing in general across the region has slumped. There were 440 sales of homes priced at $1 million or more in the Valley in 2000. The figure hit 687 in 2003 and rose to 2,413 last year, according to the Information Market, a property-records research firm.

Experts say baby boomers are helping drive the trend as they accumulate and inherit wealth and look to buy a statement home.

The Phoenix-area record home sale is $11.4 million for a new home in Paradise Valley. That deal closed in 2005. A resale home in Scottsdale sold for $10 million last year. At the end of last week, there were more than 20 homes going for $10 million or more on the Arizona Regional Multiple Listing Service. And that doesn't include homes owned by very private people that are sold discreetly through the agent network, without the typical publicity.

If you're thinking you could retire off the sale of one $10 million home, forget it.

Agents say the commission system is similar to the rest of the market. Although negotiable, the standard is 6 percent of the sale price. A $10 million sale would generate a $600,000 commission.

But the listing agent splits the commission with the buyer's agent, unless one of them represents the buyer and the seller. The broker for each agent gets a split.

In "100 percent" firms, the agent keeps the entire commission and pays the company a monthly fee for office space, cost of processing paperwork, even office supplies.

Agents who don't work in 100 percent companies are responsible for all of their expenses, including the national and international marketing that elite properties receive.

So that $600,000 commission? It goes pretty fast.