Loves at first sights

Darlings, Today (April 7) is National Beer Day, a day celebrating the repeal of prohibition for beer signed into law by FDR in 1933. The night before was called “New Beer’s Eve” because on that night back in 1933 millions of Americans lined up waiting for the stroke of midnight. Babies, you can find me right now at Rowley’s Farmhouse Ales lifting my frothy mug in celebration of this very special day. (I love celebrations.)

Cupcakes, I bet Bob Ortega is celebrating his newjob as mortgage operations manager at Del Norte Credit Union. In fact, he’s probably at the Second Street Brewery’s Taproom on Rufina right now quaffing a Rufina Amber with his right-hand people Marco Padilla (real-estate lending manager) and Mary Louise Encinias (senior mortgage underwriter).

New to DelNorte CU but not to mortgage lending, Bob has been in the real estate biz in one formor another for years, starting with his first gig at the Santa Fe Agency as a Realtor in 1979 (fresh out of high school). In fact, Bob was with his Santa Fe Agency pals, Bobby Lee Trujillo and Robert Frank, having a drink at the Bull Ring in 1985 when he met his future wife, JoAnn (nee Garcia). Kittens, it was love at first sight. They married the following year, and they’ve both had successful careers in the Santa Fe real-estate industry: JoAnn in the title business (retired president of the SF division of First American Title); and Bob in the mortgage and building industries (RB Ortega Construction).

Bumble Bees, here’s a second love-atfirst-sight story. Kristin Sargent (Santa Fe Properties) was having a drink with her pal, Candy Brenton (marketing consultant) at Rio Chama. When the bartender served her her first martini, she looked up and their eyes met— love at first sight. That was 11 years ago, when her future husband, Justin Svetnicka, was a bartender and she was a teacher. Today, Justin is vice president of Santa Fe Dining, and Kristin is an associate broker at SF Props. Love Bugs, today I suppose most of these love-at-first-sight stories happen over a cup of coffee after meeting on Match.com, instead of a chance meeting in a bar.

I think Kristin’s real estate story is similar to her dad’s. Dearest Readers, as we all know, Wally Sargent (founder and pres. emeritus of SF Props) started out as a teacher and a very good one at that, as several of his former students fondly recall. One summer, between the school years, Wally worked as a Realtor. As the story, now legendary, goes (this is not fake news, Pumpkins) he made so much more money in those three months than in his whole year’s salary as a teacher, that he quit teaching and never looked back. It can still happen, Kristin!

Another family story is about Martha Reits (senior VP mortgage warehouse lending, Legacy Texas Bank) and her daughter, Sara Del Cuore (loan originator, Cherry Creek Mortgage Company). Martha has been in the mortgage biz for 35 years. Since she can work from home wherever home might be, she and her husband moved from Denver a couple of years ago and she set up her new home office right here in Santa Fe. Buttercups, I never understood warehouse lending until a recent breakfast with Martha and Sara. A warehouse lender gives a bank or similar institution a way to provide funds to a borrower (the buyer) without using its own capital. So... a bank/similar institution (like Cherry Creek Mortgage Co.) takes the buyer’s application and handles the loan, but obtains the funds from a warehouse lender. Then, when the loan is sold on the secondary market, the borrowing institution repays the warehouse lender.

Sara, who moved here from Denver last year, explained this very succinctly to me, because she is a loan originator for Cherry CreekMortgage Co., a client of warehouse lending. Chickadees, she is also a financial educator/consultant, so I felt very fortunate to be tutored by such a clever young woman.

While I’m on the trail of clever progeny, Susan Kline (Sotheby’s) is on her way to visit her very clever granddaughter, Astrid Slavin (a business student on full scholarship at U of Colorado Boulder), who is spending this semester abroad, as they say, in Berlin, Copenhagen, and London. Susan and her daughter (Astrid’s mother), Dia Kline, aremeeting up with Astrid in London for a couple of weeks. Cleverness runs in the family, I guess, becauseDia (a self-employed, entrepreneurial, single mother) writes an entertaining and informative blog called ezyolife.com. Ezyo, pronounced “es yo,” is Hungarian for “you good.” These three women are the progeny of Hungarian/ Romanian immigrants, and we, Doll Babies, are lucky they made their way here.

Inwinding down on this National Beer Day, Snookums, here are your Local Authors Book Club picks for April. Michael French (author of 23 books and counting, and co-owner with his wife, Pat, of the now defunct but unforgettable French & French Fine Properties) recently published his latest young adult piece of fiction, The Beginner’s Guide toWinning an Election. Michael deftly crafts a compelling tale, with a message (Michael always has a message in his books) worthy of thoughtful discussions, whether you’re a young adult or an older one like me. As one reviewerwrote, this book “… examines America’s broken political system through the lens of a student body presidential election.” That’s what I’m talking about, Buttercups: worthy of discussion.

The next pick for April reading— A Studio Year— is by another Santa Fean, Douglas Atwill (author, artist, designer/builder). The book is filled with photographs of all the paintings Doug created in 2018 coupled with his commentary of each. Muffins, this is impressive, considering that during this time, Doug has also been designing and overseeing the construction of his next home, something we always eagerly anticipate.

So long, Sweetpeas. Until next time, Oakley