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 [...]

Home Buying Tips | Low Mortgage Rates

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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” [...]

House Hunting Fiction?

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I have joked for years with home buyer clients about watching too many episodes of HGTV’s House Hunters, and that our home search isn’t going to include a film crew (read an actual client comment). Most of them recall an episode or two, or how they seem to look at three homes and buy one [...]

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 [...]

Oil Tank Concerns | Vienna Home Buyers

Pollard Environmental

Some homes in Vienna VA were built with underground oil tanks to store heating oil, but have been converted over to natural gas heating systems. In cases like this, home buyers need to know if the old oil tank was removed from the property or just abandon in place. An abandon tank will have some [...]