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Do yourself a favor and check out this great info graphic at Washingtonpost.com. What a cool way to add some local flavor to your community pages. All in all, pretty simple to accomplish. A 360 degree panorama with some audio added to bring it alive. Read Full Post

A quick exercise will help you identify the qualities that are most important to you and your child when choosing a school. According to www.greatschools.org finding exactly what you want in a school in no easy task. As a professional Realtor®, each year I watch countless parents try to navigate these uncertain waters. I can see the strain on their faces as they struggle with the decision of where to send their child to school. Let's be honest, deciding where you live and what school your ch... Read Full Post

The President's Deficit Reduction Commission gained quite a bit of attention when it targeted the Mortgage Interest Deduction for tax reform. There are more than a few special interest groups (yours truly included) that oppose the reduction or elimination of this tax deduction. But according to Kenneth Harney: "here's an intriguing twist that has just emerged on Capitol Hill and that might encourage homeowners, realty agents and builders who oppose any cutbacks in tax benefits. According to n... Read Full Post

Kenneth R. Harney published an article on Jauary 15th with the same title. I believe his analysis is right on the money. Traditionally, you would want to discourage flipping houses with high leverage borrowing because it can lead to an artificial housing bubble. However, this market is different than any other market that we've seen in a LONG, LONG, LONG, time. There are really two types of buyers in this market; investors - looking for the lowest possible price, and buyers - looking for the ... Read Full Post

Scott Stratten's book, "Unmarketing: Stop Marketing. Start Engaging," makes a simple but powerful argument that a great deal of all the effort we make to "win" customers turns out to be nothing more than wasted air, paper, electrons, whatever. In short, we're making noise to be heard, but our customer's aren't hearing us because we're not saying anything that matters. Simple? Sure. Powerful? You bet. Scott asks us to ask ourselves a simple question...Why? Why are we creating blogs, creating w... Read Full Post

Time is Running Out to Reorganize Your Home Finances Watching the debate unfold in Washington on how to balance the budget leaves me with one undeniable conclusion when it comes to home ownership in our region -- it's going to become drastically more expensive for high wage earning homeowners. Recently, a bipartisan panel put forth 3 different proposals to what extent to trim the federal budget, and some common threads have emerged, signifying that there is growing consensus forming around th... Read Full Post

I was at a meeting the other day and was asked by a colleague why I thought more buyers were not coming out and purchasing homes. After all, rates are at all time lows, prices have dropped significantly and the prices seem to be stabilizing across the region, and even increasing in some communities. From this Agent's perspective, it was a great time to buy. Everyone should be purchasing a home. Well, it's not that simple. There are two types of buyers that drive housing demand. The first is o... Read Full Post

In Northern Virgina, (Alexandria, Fairfax County, and Arlington County) one of the main issues to consider when buying a home is the High School district. While I'm not qualified to give any specific advice on which school is better for one person or another, I decided it might be helpful to put together a tool that home buyers can use to guide them on their way. Introducing our SAT score home finding tool - click here to see the tool. Keep in mind that SAT scores are just part of the puzzle.... Read Full Post

Question: How does the purchase of Northern Virginia foreclosures affect the value of surrounding properties? Answer: Foreclosure purchase positively affects property values in a neighborhood or city, but it won’t affect them to the point that they will be worth significantly more than homes in surrounding areas. Let’s use Springfield VA real estate as an example. For argument’s sake, let’s say that Springfield has an average value of $400,000 per property. The foreclosure crisis hits... Read Full Post

On September 1, 2010, HUD rolled out its newest program: The National First Look Program. According to HUD, HUD's NSP grantees, which include state and local governments and non-profit organizations, often find themselves competing with private investors for real estate-owned (REO) properties, which can hinder their efforts to stabilize neighborhoods with high foreclosure activity. With today's announcement, HUD and the Stabilization Trust, working with national servicers, Fannie Mae, and Fre... Read Full Post