Time, Complications, Contextual Fears, and Poop in Sinks | Jim’s Note August 2026

This month, I’m touching on time in many of my topics.

“Just” is Relative

Our HVAC went out a few weeks ago. It was hot. Real hot, and naturally it was a Friday. My wife and I lamented that we had just had our new HVAC installed. I checked the invoice email from the HVAC company. “Just” was four years ago.

“Just” is relative when you’re selling your house. That new carpet that you put in when your kids were in middle school? That was 10 years ago. The new roof? Seven years ago. The painting in the kitchen? That was what, 2 years ago? 12?

When you put your home on the market, your “just” needs to be defined.

The solution to the HVAC was annoyingly simple — turn off the breakers for 30 minutes, let the power leave the system, and then turn it back on. I wish I’d done that before Sunday.

P.S. I showed a house recently that said it had a new HVAC that had just been replaced. “Just” was in 2022. It’s 2026.

(For sellers: What’s important? This is the PDF I use to learn what’s important about the house. “Just” becomes real here. 🙂 ) This is a section I’ll be sending to seller clients in the future).

“I asked Copilot/Claude/Gemini …

… and it scared me. Should this scare me?”

I’ve done this before. I’ve seen this before. If I haven’t, we’ll learn about it together. I can help you put context to the concerns.

Whether it scares you or not is a personal question, but you should have the best contextual answers to adequately frame the fears.

That crack might scare you, but not the engineer. The broken sewer line might not concern you if the break is flowing away from your house. The moist crawl space might be a non-issue to you, but not the buyers. Context matters.

Most of my clients are using one of the AIs. My younger one told me that so many of her peers in college are using AI that they are writing like AI, thinking less, and even signing their papers as “Chat.”

It’s relatively easy to find answers but more difficult to get appropriate and accurate context to your particular situation. What I’ve found useful is using AI as a sparring partner: the back and forth dialogue can help sharpen arguments. But it doesn’t have context and background (yet), and from a real estate perspective, does not know the emotions, the fears, the histories and the previous mistakes made. Crucially, AI does not know the competence of those involved.

Anyone can have a conversation with AI and think they have the right answers and context. Actually knowing whether the output is correct is crucial. More words and data do not equal understanding or competence — Experience matters more than ever before.

I know better than most of my clients who the person on the other side is: Are they new? Experienced? New and hungry? Experienced and set in their ways? Do they have a broker leader they can lean on? How are their peers?

How does one evaluate competence? It’s not ratings by consumers who have been part of a real estate transaction once or thrice. It’s not production volume; I tell my clients I’m productive enough to pay my mortgage, and not more and hopefully not less. I am also productive enough to make — and acknowledge and learn from — my mistakes.

It’s Complicated

“When we last bought our house, it didn’t seem so complicated.”

I know, right? And it wasn’t.

In the early days of my parents’ real estate careers, the contracts were a page or two. For 25 years I’ve used pretty much the same contract, until May of this year when the contracts changed substantially for the first time.

The Residential Contract to Purchase actually got two pages shorter, 10 pages to eight, but picked up three or four new addenda along the way. Fewer pages, more paperwork.

Real estate is complicated. I don’t make the rules; I just do my best to interpret them and guide my clients through. 🙂

Harder still: The psychology, the emotions, the suspicion, the second-guessing. “Are we doing the right thing?” “Will we fit in?” None of that fits on a contract page.

Outside looking in

(I’ll be sending the following often to new buyer clients; if you have a friend who might be interested, please share with them!)

“How would you describe the Charlottesville – Albemarle market to someone coming in cold?…because other than a vacation or two there, we will be coming in cold!”

What is “Charlottesville?” The City? The City + Albemarle’s urban ring? Nelson? Greene?

We are a fractured market: the City is the City and the county has at least four distinct “target” areas for buyers. And we are part of an MSA that contains Charlottesville, Albemarle, Greene to the north, Fluvanna to the east, Nelson to the southwest, and Louisa, while not part of the MSA, is part of our market.

I usually start with my relocation map; it’s 12 years old, and still conversationally relevant.

In the County: Do you want to live up 29 North? Crozet to the West? Pantops to the East? Or southeast in the Mill Creek/Wegmans area?

In the City: Near the UVA Medical Center? Downtown? Law School? Kids’ elementary schools? How do you want to move around? Bus, car, bike, foot? In the City and immediate urban ring — think the city boundaries + about an inch into the County on the map — bus, foot, and bike are likely viable, with intention.

If you’re looking for something under 20-25 minutes to things, you are likely looking at one of the four growth areas I identify on the map, or going into the surrounding counties – Fluvanna, Greene, Louisa, and maybe Nelson. And even over Afton Mountain into Waynesboro and Augusta.

Your data points will direct your “where” more than anything else.
(related from 2015: Why Do You Live Where You Do?)

“Charlottesville” might mean “Greene County” or Zion Crossroads, or it might mean North Downtown, five minute from the Downtown Mall. It all depends on who is asking and answering.

Share

Where you live matters.

Charlottesville is a freakishly small town. As we’ve grown, the third places we have take on greater meaning.

I was working at Albemarle Baking Company on West Main recently — sitting in the shade, working, watching people on bicycles — and one of my favorite teachers from high school was walking into ABC so I called out and said hello. We talked for nearly an hour, and I sort of felt like I was in high school again.

Charlottesville being a small town gave me the opportunity to tell a teacher that he had an incredible influence on my life; I’ll call that a small town win.

Goodbye, Artful Lodger building.

I knew this was coming; did you?

• From 2019 in Charlottesville Tomorrow: Developer plans nine-story building on Artful Lodger site
• 2024: A hotel seems more likely at Artful Lodger shopping center

Developments take time: often longer than people’s attention spans.

Scoping Lines

I advise my buyers to have the sewer lines scoped. It’s usually about $350 or so, and as part of the inspection process it is a) yet another cost in the aggregate of costs, b) possibly a perceived waste of money when it’s a simple and clean sewer line, and c) could result in us discovering a $10,000 defect in the sewer line: whether that’s infiltrating roots, a smooshed (technical term) pipe, a broken pipe, or something else.

If that $10,000 cost was a once-every-three years thing, I’d be less forceful in my recommending the scoping. It’s not; I see that sort of thing at least once or twice a year.

And no one wants poop backing up in their kitchen sink. Or their basement. Or anywhere, really.

Disappearing Data – We are witnessing an existential shift in data transparency. “

“(this summer), Bright MLS (the overlapping MLS to our north) will allow its 95,000 subscribers across six mid-Atlantic states and Washington, D.C. to keep their sellers’ list “price, address, photos, days on market and price history off Zillow and other search portals while the listing itself stays fully syndicated,” according to Inman. In other words, “a listing can appear on portals with individual fields flagged for non-display at the seller’s direction.”

Despite some companies’ attack on the MLS, I’m confident that my clients do not care about these threats. They care only about buying or selling their house; I don’t think I’m wrong.

What I’ve Written

• Revisiting the “0 to 5 Buyer is Gone” Post – 15 years later
• What’s Missing in Crozet? (2026 edition)

What I’m Reading

• Cost of car ownership: the million-dollar decision you’re not thinking about
• Please Use AI
• Why affordable housing can’t pay for itself
• Many Owners Cannot Afford to Maintain Aging Homes
• Accidental landlords are on the rise in housing markets where home prices have fallen—one thing they need to know
• The Next Fight for Fair Housing Is Online
• Traffic-related deaths are a problem in American cities—but politicians are slow to embrace fixes
• 3 stages of bad science: A review of Compass’ latest private listing claims
• Patterns
• ‘Climate free fall’: why the biggest risk to our economies is yet to be recognized
• Weather Whiplash Helped Fuel the Wildfires in France and Spain
• A Few Things I’m Pretty Sure About
• How to Last in the Chaos

What I’m Listening To

• A few books via the Libby app; support your local libraries. Libraries Matter in a Fascist Moment.

I think I have the outline almost done for next month’s note. Any topics you’d like me to touch on? Thank you!

— Jim
434-242-7140

I’m a fan of Substack’s AI Scanning