First Time Home Sellers in Charlottesville – What’s It like to Sell a Home?
Never sold a home in Charlottesville before? We'll get there. Selling is disruptive and invasive by nature — strangers walking through your home, your life scheduled around showings. My job is to represent and guide you through all of it. tl;dr of what follows: We'll…
Nest Seller’s Advantage
Sometimes, you need to make updates to your home before you sell. Sometimes, you might want to use someone else's money to do that. Posting this as a) I think it could be a good option for some, and b) it's often more efficient for…
Sellers’ Anchors to Higher Prices
Sellers naturally think a lot of their houses -- it's their home, where they've made memories, raised kids and/or pets (or themselves). The hard part is telling a seller client that their product is not worth what they thought it was, whether I'm representing the…
Artificial Housing Inventory in Charlottesville
I'm guilty of this, too. For houses that come on the market in Charlottesville and the Charlottesville area, what I'm seeing is this Home is listed as a Coming Soon on Monday/Tuesday so that we Realtors can tee up our buyers. House is activated on…
What Are Buyers Looking For? In Charlottesville
Other than ‘cost’ and ‘school district’ what else are people looking for? Large kitchens? Ground floor living? This answer is through my lens as a reasonably productive* real estate agent representing buyers and sellers in Charlottesville - Albemarle region. I'm answering this initially by reacting…
Home Inspections: Preparing for them, as a Buyer or Seller
RealPodVa continues We've been less consistent than we'd like with the podcast this summer, but that's reasonable. Listen to the podcast here. This was part one of two of a fantastic discussion with my colleague, Deborah Rutter, about home inspections - how to prepare (as…
A Pile of Money, And the Rest of your Life: Buying a Home
"A huge amount of money, and the rest of your (and your kids') lives." I say this to most of my buyer clients at some point of our working relationship, sometimes at the beginning, and sometimes just before we make an offer to purchase on…
Sellers – Pretend You’re Seeing Your House for the First Time
Does your doorbell work? Are you sure? How often do you ring your own doorbell? I remember visiting an unrepresented seller many years ago to discuss marketing her home She was surprised when I noted that she ought to fix her doorbell as it wasn't…
Client Code of Conduct *or* My Commitment to My Client
Helping my clients make good decisions. That's my simple goal every day. That goal requires the right partnership. One of the most important things I do is to manage my clients' expectations, whether that's what to expect when they make a low offer on a…
List Now, or Wait Until Spring?
Buyers looking in Charlottesville already know that they should be starting their homebuying journey. A lot of Charlottesville sellers are asking, "Should I list now, or wait until Spring?" That's a question I'm trying to answer often right now. As with most things in real…