buyer agent

The real estate market catches a hint of Spring 2010

We had a bright and sunny weekend here in Northern Virginia, 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.  Our MLS, actually the Metropolitan Regional Information System (MRIS), is the #1 source and they pump out the data you see on Trulia, Zillow, Frankly MLS, Roost, Redfin or Sawbuck. They have their own “ad-free” site for you called Homesdatabase.com which is excellent.

So I showed some townhomes in Fairfax around $350,000 and the newest listing was swamped with buyer agents and their eager clients. At one house there was a guy with an Alexander Ovechkin jersey who looked like he would fight us for it!

I tried to show a home in Vienna priced at $599,900 in my neighborhood but the agent, who I know well, told me she had two offers on Friday. One offer was so good that it was accepted by the home sellers… before the scheduled open house!

Vienna, VA Home Buyers can’t wait for the Sunday Open House

I also showed a home in Vienna around the corner priced at $699,900 and again I knew that agent well. She was holding an “open house” and there were three families there at the same instant, all looking quietly and wondering if they would be in a bidding war over this classic 1970’s colonial? It seemed like it was the house du jour…

Residential real estate is the ground floor barometer for the economy and, mark my words, the economists will be talking about this in five weeks. Again, I am seeing a frantic home buyer surge as they are trying to find a home, and get a contract accepted to get the $6,500 or $8,000 home buyer credit before the deadline… and lock in a low mortgage interest rate (currently below 5%).

Real estate in Vienna, VA is fueled by the location to employment centers like Tysons Corner or Reston  (some people like the W&OD Bike Trail) and Fairfax is fueled by price where many homes have dipped significantly but have great locations or neighborhoods.

This is the time, home buyers of Northern Virginia, to have a buyer agent or ABR working for you!

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buyer agent

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 have written dissertations on… the desire for a silver bullet or quick fix.

A picture and a paragraph won’t be enough

Buying real estate in Northern Virginia is going to be a complicated task that will require some planning and very hard work:

• You need to figure out how to pay for your home (and adjust if necessary)
• You need to figure out the best location (and adjust if necessary)
• You need to figure out what style of home you want (and adjust if necessary)
• You need to figure out a reasonable sales price (and adjust if necessary)
• You need to do some comparison shopping (and adjust if necessary)

Plus there really are distinct differences between living in Arlington, McLean, Vienna or Oakton, Virginia.

and now for Doug’s words of home buyer wisdom…

Right now, today, I can share some wisdom that is worth passing down and it will require you to do some serious soul searching. Did you ever read “What Color is My Parachute” when you were searching for a job or life purpose? In that book the author has his readers do some serious thinking to help them discover their individual strengths, and then organize and understand the importance of capitalizing on those strengths.

Where do you see yourself in five or ten years? Today you have opportunities to buy into a neighborhood for the long term, rather than starting with a first-timer home and then moving in five years to your “family” home. Today’s long-term mortgage interest rates are low and should be low for a while, and home prices have been knocked down too. I won’t bother you with equations, but as rates go up then your buying power goes down.

Right now, in Fairfax County, Virginia, I am not seeing builders building too many detached homes under $1,000,000. Understanding the basics of supply vs. demand proves that the supply of detached homes under $650,000 will remain unchanged (actually decrease) over the next ten years. And the population forecast is on the upswing too.

So, my buyer’s agent advice or words of a wisdom… this is the time to buy a home with the long-term in mind.

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buyer agent

Stillfield Place in Centreville, Virginia | just bought!

This fantastic four bedroom colonial in the Virginia Run community in Centreville, VA that backs to true parkland, has an oversize screened-in porch and was a really good house to buy for my buyer clients. Turn key and not a short-sale. Doug was the “buyer’s agent” in this transaction.

The home was built in 1993 and featured the expanded floor plan.

Shameless Home Buyer Agent Plug

As my client’s “ buyer agent”, I was able to keep this transaction together even though my clients were in California. Understanding their limited time on the ground here in Northern Virginia, I discovered what they wanted and showed them their options on a few of their cross country house hunting trips. When we discussed mortgages, I was able to uncover a unique solution to dealing with stringent new mortgage lender requirements. And when they decided on this home, put together a strategic offer that beat out a competitive offer.

After all that, there was not an extra fee charged by my company, the Sellers paid the real estate commissions, and my clients bought a great house that they are thrilled with!

If you want to consult with me, then shoot me an e-mail right now…

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buyer agent

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 buyers come prepared often before they look at their first house.

Ten years ago I was one of the first agents to jump at adding Northern Virginia home-search capability to my web site. It was up to date and provided by the people at the MLS, but the photos were few and there were none of the mapping features common today. When I would share with my colleagues that my clients had showed up with five listings that they had already picked and wanted to see, well they would be amazed. Because for years, really, it was the agents who selected that short-list.

And ten years ago when a client told me that they had been pre-qualified online by “Quicken” or BestRate.com it seemed pretty darn exciting. Wow, a pre-approval letter already in hand! Of course we all learned a lesson when those loans occasionally did not arrive on-time or close for a host of reasons (and much finger pointing).

So buying a home should be easier today in 2010 than then, no?

Yes consumers do have more knowledge but with that comes real world application. Because you need to remember that we are still dealing with people, and those people make decisions to act one way or another.

Getting a home ready to sell in the HGTV episode looked pretty easy… de-clutter, some fresh paint, new wall-to-wall carpet, flowering plants, vanilla oil, de-clutter again, clean the windows, and maybe a small kitchen update like granite counter tops.  Yup, all in a neat little half-hour episode.

The funny thing is that the buyers have seen that HGTV episode too and are far too savvy to fall for that superficial hype. Although I agree, any house does look considerably better (but it will take a little more time to finish the staging plan).

You are both using the same home sales “intel”

It’s true. Those home buyers are looking up your home on Google, checking satellite maps, making sure your neighborhood school has good test numbers, calculating how much a high efficiency furnace or new windows may cost, and of course looking at the “Zestimate” or “Walkability Score” of any property of interest.

So what does all this mean? Any active real estate agent will tell you that these consumers are facing house information overload and that the steady hand of a professional real estate agent as the human interface is more essential than ever to get the deal done. It’s just a skill your Google can’t Google.

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