We show that ground state phase competition significantly decreases the critical cooling rate required for the kinetic avoidance of a first-order phase transition and thus facilitates the creation of metastable electronic states. This principle is revealed for the phase transition between antiferromagnetic charge-orbital-ordered insulating and ferromagnetic metallic states in the so-called colossal magnetoresistive manganite ${\mathrm{Nd}}_{0.5}{\mathrm{Sr}}_{0.5}{\mathrm{MnO}}_3$. In a phase competition situation, we achieve reversible and nonvolatile control of bulk magnetization by $1{\mu }_{\mathrm{B}}/\mathrm{f}.\mathrm{u}.$ and resistivity by $\sim 1000\%$ by applying electric pulses to exploit electric heating and subsequent rapid cooling.

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• First order phase transitions
• Phase transitions
• Ferromagnets
• Manganites
• Magnetization measurements
• Resistivity measurements