According to the New York Times “New Fed Rule for Mortgage Brokers” article – huge amounts have been paid to the brokers by banks and other lenders through various fees and rebate programs.

What a rip-off! At least in the Real Estate you know exactly how much you’ll pay your agent and the rates are negotiable! Not to mention that there is much more work involved in a real estate transaction.

There is definitely a significant increase in “Closed” transactions in the price range over $700,000. Hopefully this is a new and sustainable trend.

I’ll still keep and expand my Real Estate business, though. Thanks to having support from a team of three well experienced and knowledgeable agents, that I lined up at the beginning of last year, I can concentrate on providing advice and designing the best suited strategies for buyers and sellers.

There is definitely a reason why my clients call me “Tucson’s Smartest Realtor”. Thanks to my financial background and economics knowledge, as well as acquired real estate know-how, I am able to give people an unbiased opinion and “inside information” and bring logic and extensive analysis into emotional decisions.

In the current economic and political chaos, with the wide range of opinions – from deflation to inflation, from recession – to depression – or to significant economic growth, from double-dip to the new heights, people are looking for professional guidance, not just help from a salesperson.

By the way, our real estate team is one of the top-producers with Keller Williams Southern Arizona and my clients receive full real estate services in all price ranges and all areas of town, which I was unable to achieve just by myself.

Relocating to Tucson and diving into the booming Real Estate trend worked well in 2004 when we had a newborn baby and were ready to buy our first house. 6 years and 2 babies later, it feels just right to expand back into what I was really good at – chess and finance.

Opened last summer, Catalina Foothills Chess Academy is showing awesome results. Students with 6 months of experience, not only hold their ground against opponents who have been in chess for 4-5 years, but bring home trophies and medals. A brand new class of 4- & 5-years old has been added last week – GREAT kids!

Meanwhile, I am very excited to be teaching Risk Management & Derivatives class at Eller College of Management. The abundance of Risk Management disasters in the last few years makes it a necessity to teach undergraduate and graduate students to understand and appreciate various risks and have the tools and discipline to deal with them.

PRESENT

The Catalina Foothills Chess Academy is based on the famous “Soviet School” of chess which resulted in 7 of the last 8 undisputed World Chess Champions. Anjelina was fortunate to train under this system growing up as a chess prodigy in the U.S.S.R.

Moreover, the cornerstone of this program comes from Anjelina’s 5 years of study at the Botvinnik – Kasparov Chess Academy (the 6th and 13th World Champions), as well as her own achievements and ideas. It has been developed as a multi-dimensional training that encompasses chess strategy, intuition, logic, memory and imagination. This program was extensively tested in the New York City public schools, where Anjelina taught chess to over 1,000 students for over 5 years and it has been highly successful.

Now enrolling for the summer:

* 10-week program, Saturdays 9:30 – 10:30AM starting June 5th. (2nd class Sunday possible depending on demand)
* Price: $225 for 10 classes ($25 discount) if paid on or before June1st; $250 thereafter.
* Siblings discount – $75 off the 1st child’s payment ($150 or $175, accordingly).
* Spaces are very limited and will be reserved on a first-come, first-served basis.

Please call Anjelina Belakovskaia for availability, to register and with any questions: (520) 370-0700 or e-mail to: Anjelina@gmail.com. For payments please call Gabe Harris: (520) 529-7179.

For registration, please be ready to answer the following questions: o Preferred class time

o Child’s Name o Age o School o Grade o Knowledge of moves o Knowledge of notation o Tournament experience o Rating o Experience of playing with chess clock

About ANJELINA:

TESTIMONIALS

Gail Baptiste (Principal; P.S. #308, Brooklyn) “Anjelina has been working at our school for the past several months, and has done an excellent job teaching chess for us. She is a very professional teacher who has put a lot of thought and effort into the way she presents her lessons, and has very good classroom management technique. Her lessons captivate the students and teachers alike. The lessons and tests Anjelina uses are designed not only to teach the game of chess, but to benefit the students thinking, planning, and strategic skills. We here at P.S. #308 can highly recommend Anjelina to anyone who is interested in starting a chess program in their school.”

Helene Yavneh (2nd grade teacher; P.S. #308, Brooklyn) “If success can be measured by enthusiasm, then judging by the children’s excitement when Ms. Belakovskaia comes to teach chess, and their desire to continue playing when her lesson with them is over, “CHESS PROGRAM FOR CHILDREN” by Anjelina Belakovskaia has, indeed, been very successful.”

Bob Doyle “Ms. Belakovskaia’s presentation was absolutely wonderful. That she was a woman, an intellect, creative and bright, enhances the fact that there is never, ever a substitute for intelligence and style. Whenever we expose children to such competence we do them a great service.”

Dr. Jon Maksik “I was very impressed with Anjelina Belakovskaia’s presentation to our students. Ms. Belakovskaia spoke for nearly an hour to students of varied ages and chess experience. She was vital, compelling and personable; the students were riveted. I would be delighted to have her return to The Community School whenever she is able to do so and I recommend her, without reservation, to other schools.”

CHESS ACCOMPLISHMENTS

* Woman International Grandmaster – the highest title a chess player can attain
* World Student Team Champion (USSR Team) – 1990
* 3-Time United States Women’s Chess Champion -1995, 1996 & 1999
* Leader of the US Olympic Women’s Chess Team – 1994, 1996 & 1998
* Honored by President of Brooklyn, City of New York for superlative skills and outstanding achievement (2000)

UNITED STATES CHESS EXPERIENCE

1991-2000 Professional Chess Player, member of the US Olympic Women’s Chess Team

1998-2000 Chairperson of Women’s Committee of the USCF

1994-2000 Chess Teacher: Public Schools # 217, 193, 208, 238, 251, 288, 308, Brooklyn, NY

1994-2000 Chess Principal, International Children’s Center For Performing Arts Inc

1997-1997 Chess Coach, FIDE World Youth Championship, France

1997-1997 Chess Consultant, IBM and Electric Minds Companies

PRESS COVERAGE

Multiple USSR and Worldwide publications

Sports Illustrated o The New York Times o Chess Life  o Inside Chess

About MATHNASIUM Catalina Foothills: Mathnasium Catalina Foothills is a learning center where students go year-round to boost their math skills. It is located at: 4777 East Sunrise Drive, Suite #127. Tucson, AZ 85718. Phone: (520) 529-7179 Email: catalinafoothills@mathnasium.com

Gabe Harris, Owner/Director: “Our goal is to significantly increase your child’s math skills, understanding of math concepts, and overall school performance, while building confidence and forging a positive attitude toward the subject. We are proud to welcome Anjelina Belakovskaia and the Catalina Foothills Chess Academy, knowing that chess helps to develop and improve math and logic skills at all levels.”

As I mentioned earlier, I didn’t expect much from it. My clients know and trust me, so the change in the company name didn’t matter to any one of them. My transition into team work environment went even better than I expected and I was ready to get back into my reasonably successful daily routine, when I suddenly discovered that…

To my huge surprise, I became a big fan of Keller Williams Realty. From the first day of transition, the new company gave us ton of new and mostly free tools, training, books, resources and ideas. To make sure that we implement and use the resources provided, we got enrolled into BOLD training and competition – a 7 week adventure of reinventing ourselves. Read more at http://www.FoothillsInsider.com/desert-olympians/

This was a beginning of a very interesting chain of events. In the next few weeks, I received a ton of e-mails and phone calls from known and unknown, large and small real estate companies from all over Tucson. I didn’t know half of them existed! Now, I needed to choose from among different cultures, varying commission splits and scattered office locations, etc.

The three main companies to consider were of course the newly established Keller Williams Southern Arizona; Realty Executives International, whose CEO came to Tucson in a heroic effort to save the Realty Executives brand, agents and presence in Tucson; and rapidly expanding low-office-fee Tierra Antigua Realty. Of course, I had no intention of returning to the extremely high split-commission-fee of Long Realty, nor join some unknown realty on the other side of town.

I’ve been in Real Estate long enough to understand that the company matters little, for as long as it doesn’t ruffle the agent’s business. To me, it was an even choice between inconvenience (having to change my business cards, marketing materials, Internet presence, and established connections) and excitement of change (new opportunities, new actions).

Each of the three companies had its own appeal. After three long weeks of deliberation, I finally decided to move to Keller Williams Southern Arizona. Why? Don’t expect me to give you the common BS reply: “Because it will serve better my clients”. I still have no idea how well it will serve both me and you. When I find out how good (or not), I’ll let you know.

The reason I’ve moved to Keller Williams Southern Arizona is … I have joined the Team of Ledford, Clark & Clark, with whom I was working closely in the last year or so. I found it to be a huge advantage to have the reliable agents whom I can trust with my business and who are ready to step up at any time when I get more business than I can handle by myself. So, when I got an offer from Cheryl, Dick and Karen to join their team, my choice boiled down to one question – is Foothills Insider® a lone wolf or a team player? By now, you already know the answer.

Many of these cars aren’t cruising around to provide safety for the residents, but instead hide behind the curves to ticket you on Sunday morning, weekday afternoon or any other time you least expect them. One of the deputies’ favorite locations is Craycroft Road, North of Sunrise. They often hide in the cul-de-sacs on the East side of Craycroft, not-so-long ago developed and abandoned by a home builder.

There are plenty of other spots, some of them indicated on the map above. This map covers mostly Alta Vista, Finisterra, Silverton, Cimarron Foothils Estates, Ventana Canyon Estates and Miramist. If you are going North on Kolb, please make sure that you don’t cut traffic onto Sunrise Dr. through the SE business area. The article in one of the local newspapers indicated that 15 people were fined within one hour with $170 tickets.

Also, don’t expect this situation to get better anytime soon. With a forecast for Arizona to hit a 30 percent budget gap in 2010, many Pima county deputies might find it attractive to “taxate” wealthy citizens.

If you know of any other police traps in the Foothills area, please add it in the comments and I’d be happy to expand the map I created.