We had a bright and sunny weekend here in Northern Virginia (2010), and a surge of home buyers were out looking at the homes for sale that had popped up late Thursday afternoon and Friday morning. A little marketing tip is to put a home into the MLS database Thursday to feed all the IDX sites out there that send e-mails to registered home buyers. Continue Reading
New FHA Home Mortgage Guidelines for April 2010
David Stevens who is the Assistant Secretary for Housing - Federal Housing Commissioner had the FHA issue new guidelines on January 21, 2010 to help reshape the government insured home mortgage agency and how it offers low down payment loans to home buyers. It is a little boring or even dry for Washington D.C., but important if you are planning to Continue Reading
Buying a Home with an Older HVAC Unit?
Considering buying a home with a central air conditioning or a heat pump system now that another Northern Virginia summer is approaching? Well it is essential that you know that as of January 1, 2010, manufacturers aren’t going to build any new systems using R-22 refrigerant or any new spare parts for those existing systems using R-22. And, Continue Reading
Vienna, Virginia | My Buyer’s Agent Advice of the Week
I had a home buyer Tweet me and ask if I had any words of wisdom to pass along. The funny thing is that I love giving advice, but 140 characters weren’t going to cut it because what I do really can’t be distilled down to a sound bite. It also raised an issue that many socialists folks have written dissertations on… the desire for a silver bullet or Continue Reading
Real Estate’s New Strategic Focus | April 30, 2010
Revised to include new 5405 instructions The world of residential real estate in the U.S. is facing an expiration date of historic proportions in 2010 that buyers and sellers need to pay attention to for a variety of reasons. April 30, 2010 is the last day that buyers and sellers can "enter into a binding contract" for a real estate transaction to Continue Reading
Home Buyers on Google overload?
If you are looking to buy or sell a home, I'm sure you have used Google to do most of your research. In a recent conversation with a REALTOR colleague in Falls Church, Virginia, she shared how home buyers walking into her Sunday open-house already knowing the tax assessment, local school scores, neighborhood comparables and much more. They were Continue Reading
The Real Estate Consumer has changed…
Okay consumers… did you know that people buy homes differently today than ten years ago? Today’s real estate consumer has so much information available that is specific, in depth and literally on demand that it has transformed the role of the real estate agent… for the better. The way consumers get mortgage information is better too as home Continue Reading
It’s a Home Buyer’s Market, right?
Well, not really in Northern Virginia! In the grand scheme of things, we should see home buyers having the best of times with this real estate market. The available home buyer tax credits, home prices are the lowest in years, mortgage interest rates are still around 5%, spring is in the air... okay, that's a stretch. As I went over NVAR's end Continue Reading
It’s time to re-connect… my resolution for 2010
Happy New Year! Like most of you, I recently sat down to review the last year and look ahead to 2010. And like any business person, I took a long hard look at my real estate business, the Northern Virginia real estate market as a whole, my relationships with clients, and where I saw the business in the new year. One of my primary thoughts was Continue Reading
The REALTOR’s role as a Buyer’s Agent
The role of a REALTOR changes depending on who the client is, buyer or seller. This list points out some of the typical jobs your buyers agent will perform during the process of buying a home. A typical real estate transaction will involve about twenty people, and a key role of the agent will be to help manage that process. The Buyers Agent Continue Reading