The hottest ticket in real estate

May 28, 2003

They brought a cooler full of munchies and sodas, plopped down their sleeping bags and hung out through the night, so they could be first in line when the gates opened the next morning.

Tickets for a hot rock concert? An infield spot at the Kentucky Derby? A nosebleed seat at the NBA playoffs?

Not quite.

How about a chance to buy some of the priciest, loveliest and most-wanted real estate in the Catalina Foothills?

You got it.

"It was first come, first served, so we decided to go for it," said John Ingenthron, who, with two camping buddies, was indeed first in line when the lots at Villages at La Paloma went on sale at 6 a.m. on a recent Saturday. Each of them scored a prized lot.

"It was like we were trying to get in to the Grateful Dead or a Beatles concert. It was just an adventure - just one of those things where a few of us were sitting around and we decided to go for it, give it the old college try. So off we went," Ingenthron said.

"It was fun - it was a beautiful night."

Is this an odd way to sell real estate - with grown-ups lining up before dawn, as nearly 40 did at La Paloma, like kids hankering for a glimpse of Britney Spears?

Yes, but not entirely unheard of. One-day, first-come-first-served real estate sales are not that uncommon in the San Diego area, for example, where lines of cars have stretched five or 10 miles long on a weekend morning, as people tried to buy into the newest chi-chi development.

"It is kind of unusual to do it this way," said Traci Fontaine, sales and marketing representative for A.F. Sterling Ltd., the Tucson-based company marketing and developing Villages at La Paloma.

"But we had more than 400 inquiries about these lots, and the total rationale was to be fair, to give everybody an equal chance.

"So we sent out notices to anyone who had inquired and left a name and address. All we wanted to do that day is set up a priority schedule for people to come in and pick a lot."

Only 15 of 71 lots in Villages at La Paloma - many of them on the golf course at the Westin La Paloma Resort & Spa - were put up for grabs at this first one-day sale on April 26. All of them sold, and a second batch of lots, higher up the hill at the 24-acre site south of Sunrise Drive and east of Campbell Avenue, will soon be sold the same way.

"The lots will be released in phases," said Fontaine. "Once we've sold our quota this way, then the rest of the lots will be sold in the conventional way.

"But I have to tell you, the last thing we need is any publicity on this. We're already working on a waiting list for the next sale. I just don't want to give the false impression that anyone who wants a lot is going to be able to get one."

With prices for a 1,826-square-foot home starting at $270,999 and for a 3,085-square-foot home starting at $350,999, these were not your average blissed-out hippies camping out to get a good spot in line.

"I got up at 4 a.m. and got there by 5, and already there were 18 other people in line," said Don Luria, co-owner with his wife, Donna Nordin, of the nearby upscale Cafe Terra Cotta restaurant. "We were too late to get one of the lots we wanted, but now we're ninth in line for the next sale.

"This is extremely attractive land," said Luria, who offered one buyer ahead of him $25,000 over the the price of the lot, but the offer was declined.

What Sterling is doing seems to work for the company, he said with a laugh. "I wish we could do it in the restaurant business."

Those who plan to build homes at the Villages at La Paloma will choose from four Sterling floor plans for one- and two-story houses, with strict design and construction guidelines to follow. Fontaine said she did not know when the site would be completely developed.

"But clearly, it's a great location," she said.

Ingenthron and his wife, Mary Anne - who is executive director of the Tucson-Pima Arts Council, now spearheading the "Ponies del Pueblo" project to raise money for the city's nonprofit organizations - are gearing up to build their new home in the Villages, John Ingenthron said.

"You just had to show a certain level of energy and interest to get in there," he said.