How Buyers Are Protected in Our Market

When helping you buy a home, we always want to be sure you’re protected. Here are a few ways we do that.

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A buyer of any commodity obviously has to be aware of what they’re buying, but when it comes to real estate in D.C. and Maryland, there are already a lot of protections in place for buyers. As your representative, we want to go above and beyond to make sure you are fully protected throughout the process.

In both the D.C. metro and Maryland, there is a required property condition disclosure. The seller fills it out, giving their assessment of the condition of the home. At the bottom of that form, it asks the seller if there are any defects that they would like to point out. The seller typically doesn’t put anything down, then signs. If you find out down the line that something is wrong with the home and they knew about it, having their signature on that disclosure is key.

Sellers are required to disclose any known defects up-front.

When we write an offer for you, the first thing we do is show you these disclosures so we can work what the sellers have to say about the condition of their own homes. We also have disclosures for lead-based paint and radon. We can get you the information on property taxes and utility costs as well. We will also add extra protection to the contract including an inspection contingency and an appraisal contingency.

These are just some of the additional protections we put in the contract for you. All in all, always be aware that we are taking care of you to the full extent of the law and our expertise. If you have any questions about this topic or anything else relating to real estate, give me a call or send me an email. I would love to hear from you.

Where the Home Buying Process Truly Begins

What all goes into the mortgage pre-approval process? I'm joined today by lender Kevin Walsh to help me explain.

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I'm joined today by Kevin Walsh of First Home Mortgage to help me talk about why mortgage pre-approvals are so important here in the Washington D.C. real estate market.

The process of a new homebuyer getting pre-approved typically starts with a real estate agent referring them to a lender for a one-on-one conversation that eventually leads to the buyer giving the lender the documents they need. The lender will go through your income and liabilities and quickly be able to tell you what kind of purchase price you can look at.

The pre-approval process usually only takes a few days, or as long as it takes to fill out the application and get the required financial documents.

When it comes to actually buying a home, the question of what will happen with interest rates in 2017 is a popular one. As Kevin says, rates have ticked up recently and the Federal Reserve has announced that they will likely go up again this year.

The pre-approval process usually only takes a few days.

I want to thank Kevin for joining me today. If you have any mortgage questions or you're interested in getting pre-approved for a mortgage, you can reach him at (301) 448-5151.

If you have any questions about real estate or you're thinking about buying or selling a home in the D.C. area, you can always give me a call or send me an email. I'm here to help.

Does Staging Really Help Homes Sell?

Home staging is essential if you want to sell for top dollar. This is what staging does for your home sale.

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Why would someone bother to stage their home? To put it simply, it gets results. We recently talked to Patricia Ebrahimi with Show Smart Staging about home staging and its effect on real estate transactions.

The main purpose of staging a home is to facilitate the fastest and most profitable sale of your home. The first step to getting your home staged begins at an initial consultation, where a stager will determine your home’s advantages and disadvantages. Every home has both.

Home staging is not the same as interior decorating. Interior decorating is more personal and done to your personal tastes and liking because you're going to live in it. Conversely, home staging is about appealing to the broadest array of potential buyers in your target market to make them fall in love with the home.

Staging works by focusing on the home’s advantages and focusing away from its disadvantages. If a home is vacant, only key rooms like the first floor and master suite need to be staged.

Staging helps produce an emotional connection with buyers.

The return on investment for staging is huge. It’s the strongest marketing tool in real estate, according to Patricia. It produces the emotional connection with buyers that a vacant or unstaged home simply can’t.

The whole process only takes a few days from the initial consultation to the full staging. The bottom line is that if you want the most profit from your sale in the shortest amount of time, staging is a must.

If you have any questions for Patricia about staging your home or you’d like to have a consultation with her team, give her a call at (757) 619-9789. If you have any other questions about real estate, you can always give us a call or send us an email. We look forward to hearing from you soon.