'Moses Lake is just exploding right now'

Aaxon Realty merges into Alsted Real Estate as city approaches cusp of success

MOSES LAKE — From the moment Susan Alsted left her position at a local real estate office last year, Philip Grosso wanted to work with her.

They had never actually met, but Grosso knew of the longtime Moses Lake real estate agent by reputation. He approached her to come to his office at Aaxon Realty.

"He came knocking on my door the day I left," Alsted recalled.

"She didn't know me from a box of rocks," Grosso said with a laugh.

Alsted ultimately started Alsted Real Estate instead.

However, effective today, Grosso will bring his Aaxon Realty team into Alsted Real Estate. The Aaxon name will go away.

"I just think a lot of Susan and I know that we can do a better job together than separately," Grosso explained.

Alsted said she is excited because Grosso brings a vast amount of experience. He is strong in bringing new developments into Moses Lake, and bringing developers to Moses Lake, while Alsted focuses on commercial property and runs the brokerage for residential real estate and the like.

"Together, we can be a full service real estate office," she said. "My strong points are his weak points, and my weak points are his strong points. We complement each other. Of course, we're not really weak."

Grosso agreed, saying that the office can now deal with commercial, developing, residential, any type of real estate. All along, he was in need of someone to run the brokerage side of his real estate business.

Alsted will continue to work with all three of her daughters and her son-in-law, and Grosso brings with him his Aaxon team. He said there are plans to add on more positions as well.

Grosso, in real estate since 1975, arrived in Moses Lake in 1999, and opened Aaxon Realty in November 2003.

Alsted has been in real estate since 1980, and in Moses Lake the entire time. She came to town in 1970.

"I'm seeing where we're going to be expanding because of these new developments Phil's bringing in, and just the amount of people coming into Moses Lake," she said.

Both say that they are seeing a significant amount of interest in Moses Lake.

"It's incredible, what's happening," Grosso marveled. "Waterfront properties have more than doubled in the last eight months … There's hardly any waterfront left. It's just off the chart."

Alsted said that commercial property had been slow until recently. In just one week, she sold four commercial properties and buildings in the city.

"Moses Lake is just exploding right now," she said.

Grosso attributes the explosion to the arrival of retiring baby boomers, and the generation interest from outside investors who have decided to play real estate rather than play the stock market.

"There's a lot of money coming into real estate now, and it's coming from just really different sources," he said, adding that Moses Lake also has a number of positives, including Grant County International Airport, the lake itself, Interstate 90 and good weather compared to the coast. "Home values and waterfront values are considerably less money than they are on the coast. So they're looking at this thing and saying, 'My goodness, I can buy a waterfront lawn for even $150,000 and over there, it's $1 million. So that's a lot of what's driving this."

Both said that they have a feeling that something is going to happen in Moses Lake very soon.

Alsted said that she thinks all the interest stems from people discovering what the town is all about — the friendly community, the lake, the area's sunsets.

"Everybody that's come into our area has said they have fallen in love with the beauty of Moses Lake," she said. "It's grown into a beautiful, beautiful city."