Image by wallyg via Flickr Almost every real estate sale involves an appraisal contingency designed to protect the home buyer and mortgage lender from paying too much for the property. Appraisals are generated by licensed appraisers who are contracted to generate a third party's opinion, using established criteria, to determine and document Continue Reading
Will Your Real Estate Offer Make the Cut?
Every home buyer tries to figure out what it will take to buy the home that they have decided to make an offer on. Determining the right price, or how much wiggle room there is, is the bottom line here for everyone from the first time buyer to the savvy investor. If you are sitting at your kitchen table pondering this question, then it is time Continue Reading
Loan Limits for Northern Virginia
UPDATE Loan limits for Northern Virginia in 2022 ~ Original Article: Relocation home buyers are typically surprised to learn that Northern Virginia has maximum conforming mortgage loan limits that are higher than most regions of the United States. Northern Virginia real estate ranks as "expensive" considering the region has some of the wealthiest Continue Reading
Warning: If You Skip this Home Buyer Tip, You Pretty Much Want a Headache
Did you think there wasn't a top must do? This isn't a tip exclusively for first-time home buyers, so please don't think that you are too savvy to begin with a review of your credit report. The credit report and the resulting FICO Score hold the proverbial keys to your next castle, but can also be the stealthy iceberg that sinks the ship. Why Continue Reading
Building the Metro to Dulles
UPDATE: Watch the Silver Line run in Tysons ~ Vienna real estate values increase Yes, back in 2010 I was giving my clients advice that the Metro was going to add significant value to their homes especially in Vienna and Reston. The number of properties being torn down and replaced with homes now (in 2014) priced above $1.3 million is evidence of Continue Reading
Just bought a house
Image by OZinOH via Flickr Once you buy your home and the deed is recorded at the county courthouse in the public record, you are going to start getting some interesting mail. Some of it will be normal like from furniture stores or from house painters (I send my Northern Virginia real estate clients coupons from Lowes), but please read through Continue Reading
Estimating Title Insurance Costs
When I review estimated closing costs with home buyers, we always spend time looking at Title Insurance because it is typically one of the largest expenses on the worksheet. Since most people buying real estate are going to have a mortgage, title insurance is going to be a requirement of the lender if you want them to provide the loan. Title Continue Reading
Real Estate Apps meet the Mobile Web
Having a real estate “app” on your Smartphone has become a great tool for house hunters. The mobile web has arrived like a storm for Northern Virginia real estate and properties need to be easily found... and mobile ready (that especially means photos, darn it). Here is an example: Using myself as the guinea pig… a current listing is a condo in Continue Reading
Things You Should Know Before Moving to Northern Virginia
Relocating here? Well, when I started Things You Should Know Before Moving to Northern Virginia (updated in 2019), I had to force myself to stop at fourteen "things". Over the years I have heard myself giving these tips over and over to clients who are relocating here, so, I thought that I should put down my observations for the world to Continue Reading
Home Buying Tips | Low Mortgage Rates
Image by DougFrancis via Flickr It seems like every week there is an announcement that home mortgage rates are at an "all-time low", but this weekly headline is starting to get a little stale for most home buyers who are locking-in the mortgages as late as possible before going to closing. The "rate float option" gives home buyers the option of Continue Reading
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