Associate Broker, Long & Foster Real Estate
Many have opted to sit out the process of buying a home in 2023 and 2024 due to higher mortgage interest rates, the thought being that they will enter the market when rates come down. What those buyers are not considering is the other buyers that will also be entering the market when, and if, Read More ...
Selling a home can be a stressful process. How we live is not how we sell. Home owners usually know their properties need polishing, but may not know how much. From the moment I meet future sellers I help them evaluate the projects they should be taking on prior to listing, and just as importantly, Read More ...
Just in Time to Close Another Deal in 2022 Selling a home after a death in the family can be difficult. Emotions can run high when the loss is recent or if the property being sold was a family home where the heirs to the estate were raised. In the case of 2519 Belleview Avenue Read More …
Some Sellers Have a Hard Time Letting Go Listing a home for sale involves a lot of preparation. When I go into a seller’s home, it is not unusual to be met with some resistance to suggested listing preparation tasks like de-cluttering, re-organizing, painting, etc. My best advice is that, in addition to putting your Read More …
December Settlements Feel Extra Special In mid-October, I was contacted by a couple who were referred to me by friends who had purchased their home with me in June 2021. If you click that link, you will hear the tale of an entirely different buyer experience than what my most recent buyers experienced. Things can Read More …
Why Are So Many Sellers Lowering Their List Prices? Summer 2022 saw a shift in buyer behavior, brought on by sharply increasing mortgage interest rates. We had started the year about 3.5% and by late summer, rates had more than doubled. The frenzy to jump into a multiple offer scrum and make above list price Read More …
A Critical Skill for Listing Agents The Northern Virginia real estate market has been so overly seller favored for long enough that it seems there were two misconceptions in the late summer marketplace. 1) Sellers believe that the frenzied buyer behavior of the past two and a half years is a given and that their Read More …
Trading Suburbia for a More Rural Property In late July I was contacted by former clients that had sold a townhouse and moved into a single family home in a Bristow HOA community in 2016. The reason for the move back in 2016 was to get more space for a growing family. The prevailing sentiment Read More …
“Was Anyone Ever Murdered or Did Anyone Die Here?” With Halloween coming up and skeletons seemingly around every corner in October, it is a great time to address a rather macabre subject that ocassionally comes up with buyers as they narrow down their home selection. It happened just this afternoon that a buyer asked, “Was Read More …
Selling a Property With Boundary Issues Having been a licensed real estate agent since 2005, I can tell you that there is a lesson in every transaction. Lessons that can be passed on to other sellers, buyers or even other real estate agents. The sale that closed today on my listing in Manassas is another Read More …
There is More to Consider Than SOLDS The fall real estate market in Northern Virginia is changing, just like leaves on our deciduous trees are undergoing a transformation. Many had become used to the frenzied pace of extreme buyer demand that stormed in during 2020 and lasted through 2021, that had sellers setting record high Read More …
Contract to Close in Six and a Half Months It is always an honor to help someone who has known me my entire life buy or sell a home. In the case of my buyers who just purchased a brand new home in Carter’s Mill in Haymarket, one of them was actually my fill-in babysitter Read More …