I don't usually ask for your comments right in the first sentence, but I have been talking to many clients, friends and neighbors about refinancing their home mortgage these days. And the stories have been fascinating especially since fixed rates are near 4.0% or less. When I originally wrote the post about Virginia's recordation tax exeption Continue Reading
Fire Safety at Home
As I sat reading The Washington Post with my fresh cup of coffee about a dozen years ago, I came across an article about a townhouse fire in Falls Church VA on Dominion Way. It had been the evening before, and I thought about the fact that some of my real estate clients lived on Dominion Way. "Jeepers, I wonder if they saw the fire?" I Continue Reading
Walking4Dads | 2010 National Memory Walk
AN UPDATE: Thank you for all of your support. The walk was fantastic and there were over 2,000 participants. Our little team, Walking4Dads, raised over $2,600 as of 10/8/2010. You can still donate until November 30th to help reach the Alzheimer's Association goal. They are now 50% there! Original post On Saturday October 2nd, 2010 at Continue Reading
Vienna Real Estate is a Top Location
As Northern Virginia continues to become a center for corporations to move their headquarters, relocating employees are confronted with the decision of where to live. The list of concerns includes housing prices, types of homes available, commuting time to work, access to the Metro system, proximity to shopping and recreation, schools, friends and Continue Reading
Replace those brass-toned light fixtures!
Home sellers need to take a close look at the light fixtures in their homes when they are preparing to go on the market. Those brass-tone or gold-tone fixtures that the builder put in the hallways, bathrooms and walk-in closets were probably the cheapest things he could find. Home lighting is very important and can't be overlooked. Those Continue Reading
Another Short Sale Road Block
Yes, even in swanky Vienna, VA there are real estate short-sales. As the process has been allowed to pickle over the last few years, banks have come up with strategies to streamline the process. That sounds like good news but I still have to advise home buyers that these are tricky transactions that will require patience and some hard work. I Continue Reading
Not just another real estate search site
As I was doing some dougfrancis.com performance maintenance over the summer, I started reading through some of the older blog posts deep inside this blog. Part of my effort was to clean up issues that Google Webmaster Tools told me were causing Crawl errors... but, anyway, it forced me to read through some of my older blog posts. This little Continue Reading
A Quote in MSN Money
I was surprised the other day to get a Google Alert that there was a quote attributed to me on the MSN Money site in an article by Marilyn Lewis. Back in May, I wrote a post warning home buyers to refrain from adding new credit lines before they actually "closed" on their new home. Since mortgage lenders are now running a second credit report just Continue Reading
