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Fairfax County Real Estate: How much is the perfect home?

January 15 by Marina Brito

Most statistics quote average prices of Fairfax County Real Estate. But, do we know how much it would cost to buy the “Perfect Home”?

The perfect home is a matter of personal taste

The Perfect Home is a matter of personal taste…

While The Perfect Home is definitely a matter of personal taste, there seems to be a trend on the most popular homes among buyers of homes in Northern Virginia.

“Everybody has their own idea of heaven…
My heaven is a wood frame house with a great big porch goin’ all the way around
Sittin’ on the swing listenin’ to the sound of the birds singin’…
While we’re eatin’ watermelon
That’s my heaven”

– My Heaven by Trace Adkins

Let’s see which homes are the most heavenly (according to buyers) in Fairfax County Continue Reading…

The Top 4 Readers’ Choice Articles of 2012

December 28 by Marina Brito

Well, folks, it’s the end of 2012 and we thought of doing a quick re-cap of the articles that were most interesting to you, our readers.

Here are the top 4 “most liked” articles (by number of page views). You might want to enjoy them again, so here they are:

The Top 5 Styles of Single Family Homes

House Prices: What $500K buys where

Best Elementary Schools

Best High Schools

Best wishes for the New Year

Thank you for a great 2012 and wishing you a New Year filled with health and happiness.

P.S. If you are planning on buying a home in 2013, please reserve your preferred timing with us so that we can be sure to be available to help you.

Fairfax County Real Estate – When is the best time to buy ?

December 14 by Marina Brito

Should you wait to buy Fairfax County Real Estate until the Spring, or do you think “Time is of the Essence” (as you often find in real estate contracts)?

Time is of the Essence: NOW is the right time to buy Fairfax County Real Estate

A couple friends of mine have been on the fence about buying a home. They have been wondering whether they should wait until the Spring to start looking, or if they should start looking now, in the Winter months, in case interest rates start to go up.

To help them figure out when the best time is to buy a home, we reviewed the home sales statistics for the previous five years.

The Fairfax County Real Estate market has been stable for 3 years

First, we reviewed the overall trend of the Fairfax County Real Estate market*, and we determined that it has been stable for the past three years:

The average sold price has stayed stable, and
The number of sales (demand) has been keeping up with the number of listings (supply)

But, is it time to buy NOW, in the Winter months?

Is it time to buy NOW as in: “Let’s buy a new home before the end of 2012”, or “My 2013 New Year’s resolution is to buy a home”?

If the market has been stable for the past three years, why would there be an incentive to buy a home sooner rather than later (other than the fact that interest rates are at their historic lowest)?

Let’s look at the graphs of home sales to see if they could help us figure out if the time is NOW: Continue Reading…

Fairfax County Real Estate – How is the market?

December 6 by Marina Brito

How is the Fairfax County Real Estate market?

Local fruit is fresh - like Real Estate news should be: fresh and local

Local fruit is fresh. Like the Fairfax County Real Estate stats are: local and fresh

The other day, I was chatting with a Realtor® friend of mine who lives on the West Coast, and we were talking about each of our housing markets. As expected, our markets are very different, but it’s hard to really know what’s going on in each market from what the national media reports.

Without our chat, I would have not known that her market was up significantly from last year and that it was well on its way to recover from the housing bubble of a few years back.

Real Estate is local

As they say, real estate is a very local matter, and unless we review the local statistics, it’s difficult to get the real picture. Even reading the “Washington area real estate news” is not local enough. As you know, the Washington DC area is comprised of a few counties in Maryland, a few counties in Virginia, plus Washington, D.C. – so it’s not quite local enough for getting an accurate picture.

So, when my Realtor ® friend asked me: Has the Fairfax County Real Estate Market recovered from the housing bubble of a few years back? I chose to answer her question with this article.

Let’s analyze the local stats (i.e. just the Fairfax County Real Estate market).

On this analysis, we’ll focus on the previous 5 years of activity in the Fairfax County Real Estate Market, and we’ll look at:

Average sold prices,
Average Days on Market, and
Inventory vs. Closed Sales

Let’s get started: Continue Reading…

No Buyer Agent? “Squish like grape”

November 8 by Marina Brito

One of my favorite movies from when I was growing up is “The Karate Kid”. And my favorite scene is when Mr. Miyagi says to Daniel-san:

Walk on road, hm?

Walk left side, safe.

Walk right side, safe.

Walk middle, sooner or later [makes squish gesture] get squish just like grape.

Stay safe with a Buyer Agent

When you want to buy a home, you have a couple of choices: you can have your own Buyer Agent working on your side (safe); or you can fend for yourself while the agent works against you (not so safe)… or something in between (squish like grape).

But before we get into the details, let’s figure out what does “Agency Representation” mean.

Representation is about protecting your interests

In this case, it’s about protecting your interests as a buyer. As a buyer, what kind of interests might you have? For example, your interests as a buyer are usually along these lines: Continue Reading…

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