‘Hayseed’ Realtors Make Hay While Sun Shines--in La Jolla

Real estate agents Cynthia Nyblade and Patty Luthy are on the telephone with a wealthy La Jolla resident, posing a few questions about a piece of property for sale on his Muirlands-area block.

It’s not just any property--it belongs to hamburger queen Joan Kroc and the asking price is more than $2.25 million. But they’re not just any La Jolla realtors, either. In fact, they’re not from La Jolla at all.

They’re from El Cajon. As in East County, the other side of Interstate 5, a 45-minute freeway ride and what many say is a world away from San Diego County’s coastal jewel.

The man on the line clears his throat. Then he asks a question that these two grandmothers have been hearing a lot since they began scouting La Jolla properties for Mason (Bill) Pinnick Jr., an East County general engineering contractor, and his wife.

“How did a couple of girls from El Cajon get into the market for La Jolla homes in the first place?” he says.

Now, Luthy laughs about the incident. “He was really just being curious,” she said. “But like a lot of people, he wondered what two realtors from the outback were doing asking about such expensive places.”

Recently, Nyblade and Luthy accomplished something that doesn’t happen every day in the relatively small circle of La Jolla real estate. They sold Kroc’s seaside mansion--a high-profile coup considering they’re not members of the La Jolla Real Estate Brokers Assn. (REBA) or privy to all the insider contacts it has to offer.

Indeed, their insights about the town amounted to little more than knowing which exit to take off the freeway.

Call it a tale of two cities with reputations as different as night and day, east and west, sleek Mercedes and rough-and-ready pickup truck, international resort town and a place to get your car fixed.

And as any real estate agent knows, location and ZIP code are everything when it comes to sizing up property. Not just for the buyers and sellers, but for realtors as well.

Just ask Peggy Chodorow, one of La Jolla’s top-selling real estate agents last year. In 1989, the Coldwell Banker realtor sold 68 homes valued at a total of more than $40 million. She’s sold a house a week since 1977, all in the La Jolla area.

Chodorow says that most La Jolla properties are sold by La Jolla agents to move-up buyers from--you guessed it--La Jolla. “About 95% of the homes are sold by local realtors,” she said. “The other 5% come from the outside. And that can be anywhere.”

Anywhere, indeed. Luthy and Nyblade had only sold one La Jolla property--a $175,000 condominium--before the recent Kroc sale. But with at least one new prospective buyer from Los Angeles, they say they’re ready to make their move into the La Jolla market.

“I don’t think they were too happy that we were from the East County and were in town selling properties,” Luthy said about the La Jolla realtors. “But the house was sold. I just don’t know what they expected--a couple of hayseeds with coveralls?”

So are La Jolla realtors looking over their shoulders, asking “Who are those girls?” Maybe.

“There’s some agents who might get unhappy about it, but that’s their problem,” said Betty Gerrodette, an agent for S.M. Simmonds Real Estate in La Jolla. In a town where the median home sells for $770,000, she says, agents from all over the county want to hop on the bandwagon.

“Nothing surprises me anymore,” she said. “Time was, when the La Jolla real estate world used to be a small circle. But it’s opening up.”

Marianne Eddy, owner and broker for Beach & Bay Realtors-Better Homes and Gardens, said, however, that in La Jolla, a $2-million property sale barely registers on the realty Richter scale.

“Let them sell a few $10-million homes or have them start listing properties here,” she said. “Then people might start asking questions.”

The El Cajon real estate team--who call themselves the Golden Girls after the television sitcom--are plain and simple gals who don’t dress in designer clothes or drive Mercedes.

Still, they say they’re not intimidated by La Jolla’s rarefied selling air, despite what they’ve learned about the way of the realty world on the Gold Coast.

“People in La Jolla think El Cajon is still full of cowboys and Indians,” said the 52-year-old Luthy, a grandmother of two. “But there’s properties that are just as elegant and just as expensive out here in the outback. It’s just a different lifestyle than they have on the coast.”

The two have heard all the things said about El Cajon and the East County, even before they ever set foot in La Jolla. They know that the city some San Diegans know as “The Zone” isn’t exactly Arizona, God forbid, but you can almost see it from there.

“My kids used to go to the beach and be ashamed to tell people they came from The Zone,” said Nyblade, 54, a former school secretary and grandmother of three.

Luthy added: “To some people on the coast, it’s almost like El Cajon is in another country, like we needed to get our shots and have our passport stamped before we could gain admission.”

The agents said they began scouring the La Jolla area in August for the buyer, who originally wanted to spend only $800,000 or so. After looking at more than 20 homes, they found Kroc’s 6,500-square-foot house and adjacent lot with the majestic southerly view of San Diego, stretching as far south as Tijuana and beyond.

The property, built in 1981 by Jim Welch, once the husband of actress Raquel Welch, is a four-bedroom, seven-bath house that was on the market for more than a year before Luthy and Nyblade entered the picture.

The odyssey taught them about La Jolla’s real estate idiosyncrasies. First, they say, homes are rarely advertised by “for sale” signs, so they couldn’t just cruise the streets looking for possibilities.

There’s rarely such a thing as “lock-boxes,” which real estate agents use to tour vacant homes at their convenience. In fact, even after passing through elaborate security systems, the listing agent must be present at the showing, they said.

“Unlike other places, you can’t just go wandering through properties in La Jolla, gazing at the expensive artwork, just to pass the time,” Luthy said.

Even when the offer was made on the Kroc property, they didn’t sit across a table from the seller in the way agents customarily close most real estate deals. They dealt strictly with attorneys and financial advisers.

“We were disappointed we didn’t get to meet Mrs. Kroc,” Luthy said. “I mean, we’re both really big Padres’ fans.”

Perhaps the biggest lesson they learned about La Jolla realty, however, came in how each property advertised its ocean view in newspaper ads and multiple listing services. “After awhile,” Nyblade said, “you could really tell which ones had the views and which ones were bluffing.”

“Peak view,” for example, meant you had to go out onto the deck and lean over just to see the ocean, they said. “White-water view,” probably meant a straight shot view to the waves, even if it was through a tiny corridor of other houses.

But whether they’re selling in La Mesa or La Jolla, dealing with millionaires or milkmen, the real estate agents say, people expect the same treatment when hunting for their little piece of the California Dream.

“To be a success, you have to be able to deal with people at both ends of the money scale,” said Luthy, who is building a home in El Cajon.

“It doesn’t make a difference if it’s a seaside mansion that’s worth millions and millions. To me, it’s just a house with more zeroes on the end of it.”