Today I’m joined by a well-respected broker so he can offer some key insights into the world of mortgage loans.   Selling your home? Get a free home value reportBuying a home? Search all homes for sale on the MLS  Receive your personalized market snapshot Today I’m joined by Jim Evans, a mortgage broker with Potomac Trust Mortgage, to answer a few questions you may have about the world of lending. (Jim Evans, Potomac Trust Mortgage, NMLS 222471 Licensed in VA, MD and DC Office: 703-435-4369)   How will changing interest rates affect your purchasing power in 2017? Rates went up almost a full percentage point in the weeks after the election, but they’ve settled back down since then. They’re currently about 0.625% higher than they were prior to the election. As far as purchasing power goes, that’s a loss of around $32,000 on a $400,000 home. Most experts and bond traders predict rates to continue to increase this year, which means if you’re thinking about buying a home, now is the time to do it. What’s the difference between working with a mortgage broker and working with a bank? Unlike banks, mortgage brokers can offer you a variety of different rates. They also have very little overhead, and they pass those savings onto their customers. The rates at Potomac Trust Mortgage, for example, are in the top 5% for government loans, especially under $636,000. If you’re thinking about buying a home, now is the time to do it. Do you really need 20% down to buy a home? No. For conventional loans, you can go as low as 3% down, depending on your income. It will usually be closer to 5% down, though, and you’ll have to pay mortgage insurance on it. Mortgage insurance protects the lender instead of the borrower, but it’s mandatory if you pay less than 20%. You can also do an FHA loan, which is 3.5% down. If you’re a veteran, you can do a VA loan and put no money down. Jim has been in the business for over 20 years, and his reputation and expertise are unsurpassed. If you want to get in touch in with him, you can call him at 703-435-4369 or email him at [email protected]. If you have any more questions, feel free to give me a call or shoot me an email. I’d be happy to help!  

If you are planning on selling in the spring, when do you need to start preparing? What are the first steps you need to take? We’ll go over everything today.  Selling your home? Get a free home value reportBuying a home? Search all homes for sale on the MLS  Receive your personalized market snapshot If you want to sell in the springtime, what are the first steps that you need to take? When do you need to take them?   The very first thing you need to do is determine when the spring market begins. A lot of people operate under the misconception that the spring market starts in April and continues from there. The reality is that the spring market starts right after the Super Bowl weekend. So after the Redskins win the Super Bowl on February 5th, you want your house to be on the market on February 12th.   Why do you want to be on the market so early? Most people put their house on the market later in the spring, which means you will have a lot of competition. In February, buyers have already started searching. They are looking to buy a house and inventory is low, which puts you in a great position to sell more quickly and for more money. “ Call your Realtor at least a couple months ahead of time. ” Now that you know when the market begins, what do you do? The first thing you should do is call your Realtor. We’ll go through your exact timeline, give you an overview of the process, and figure out what your goals are.   Ideally, we’ll meet two months before you put your home on the market. There are 83 steps in our sales process from the initial phone call to putting your house on the market. We want to start taking you through this process as soon as possible so that it’s not stressful and overwhelming. We want to have a plan in place so that you know exactly what to do and when to do it.   After that initial call, we’ll meet with you, put together a market analysis, and get a stager out to your house. We’ll put together a detailed report of items that need to be addressed before you go on the market. There are things that you can do to maximize your return on the sale of your home. You may need to paint, update the flooring, clean, and declutter in order to get the most money from your home sale.   Once those things have been taken care of, a professional photographer will come in and take photos. We even do a 3-D scan for some of our listings. From there, we will execute our pre-listing marketing program.   If you’re in a crunch, we can get a house on the market in three days. However, we’d rather not do that. We want enough time to do all the steps properly to maximize the amount of money you’ll get for the home, and we want you to have a stress-free experience.   So, if you are thinking of putting your home on the market, give us a call or send us an email. We would be happy to help you get started!

I wanted to take a moment today to step back from real estate and just say thanks. We appreciate your continued support this year! Selling your home? Get a free home value reportBuying a home? Search all homes for sale on the MLS  Receive your personalized market snapshot I just wanted to take a minute to stop and express our sincerest gratitude for the relationship we've developed with you. We greatly appreciated your business and support in 2016 and in years past. As we spend time with our families this season, it's a great time to reflect on the importance of relationships. “ Thank you for your continued support. ” We wish you and your family a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! When it comes to any real estate needs you have, remember, you have a friend in the business!

What is the difference between a home inspection and an appraisal? We’ll go over everything you need to know today.   Selling your home? Get a free home value reportBuying a home? Search all homes for sale on the MLS  Receive your personalized market snapshot What is the difference between a home inspection and an appraisal? Both are crucial elements of the home buying process, but they are not the same thing at all.   First, let’s look at home inspections. When you buy a home, once the contract is ratified, you will order a home inspection. You will pay a professional inspector to go through the home and look for defective items, marginal items, and acceptable items. The inspector will give you a full report of any issues they find in the home, and you then have the opportunity to ask the seller to fix or replace certain items. The home inspection is there to protect the buyer.   Most of the time, buyers get a loan or mortgage through a bank or lender. The lender will order an appraisal in order to make sure that the loan amount lines up with the value of the property. The appraiser will find what the bank considers to be the true market value of the home so that you, the buyer, won’t overpay. “ A home inspection lets the buyer know if there are any issues with the property. ” Sometimes, homes don’t appraise. For example, one of our buyers made an offer of $610,000 and the seller accepted. When the appraisal came back, however, the property was only valued at $600,000. There are a few different things that can happen:   1. The buyer can pay the $10,000 difference out of their own pocket. 2. The seller can reduce the sales price to match the appraisal price. 3. The buyer and seller can meet somewhere in the middle. This is the most common course of action. 4. If neither side can reach an agreement, you can walk away from the transaction.   You won’t lose your deposit by walking away from the transaction. The appraisal is there to protect everyone. You simply won’t close on that property.   That is the difference between a home inspection and a home appraisal. If you have any questions about the buying or selling process, just give us a call or send us an email. We would be happy to help you!

If you are traveling this holiday season, there are a few things you should do to keep your home safe while you’re away. We have the top five home security tips for you today.   Selling your home? Get a free home value reportBuying a home? Search all homes for sale on the MLS  Receive your personalized market snapshot A lot of people travel during the holiday season, so today, we’re here with the top five tips to keep your home safe while you’re away. 1. Implement new technology. WiFi doorbells are becoming more and more popular these days. That’s because they send notifications to your smartphone whenever someone is at your front door. Even if you are lounging at the beach, you will be able to see who is trying to get into your home. Many of these doorbells take video recordings as well. 2. Let your neighbors know that you’ll be gone. Tell some of your trusted neighbors that you’re going out of town so they can keep an eye on your house while you travel.  3. Use exterior lighting. Motion-activated light systems are inexpensive and will make it seem like someone is home. Exterior lighting keeps thieves away from your house because they don’t want to be seen breaking in. “ Make sure you triple check that your doors and windows are locked! ” 4. Put your mail and your newspaper on hold. If your mail starts to pile up and there is a stack of newspapers on your porch, that makes your home an easy target for thieves. Hop online and put your mail on hold or ask a neighbor to collect your papers to protect your property. 5. Lock your doors and windows. This may sound silly, but 30% of break-ins are not forced entry. That means someone left a back door or first-level window open, allowing easy access for thieves. Triple check that you have everything locked up before you leave. If you follow these five tips, your home will be safe this holiday season. If you have any other questions about home security or about the holiday real estate market, just give us a call or send us an email. We would be happy to help you!  

The holidays are a great time to sell your home. Why? There is less inventory to compete against the buyers looking for properties are far more serious about buying. Selling your home? Get a free home value reportBuying a home? Search all homes for sale on the MLS  Receive your personalized market snapshot   Contrary to popular belief, the holidays are a great time to sell your home. Why? A couple of reasons, actually. The first is that if you wait until spring to sell your home, you’ll be competing against a lot of other properties. This reduces the buyer pool. The second reason is that you’ll know that the buyers who are out there looking for homes now are dead serious about buying.   To illustrate this point, I want to tell you a personal story about a house I once sold for a very good friend of mine. We were considering putting this house on the market before Christmas, so that’s what we did—we listed it the very week before. Everybody called us crazy, but I told my friend the same two things I just shared with you. “ In three days, we escalated $27,000 above our asking price. ” When we did our open house that weekend, we got more than 50 groups of people that came through. They were literally tripping over each other’s shoes because it was snowing outside. We ended up getting nine offers on the property. We put the house on the market at $440,000 that Friday. The following Monday, we were ratified at $467,000. We escalated $27,000 above our asking price and ratified the contract on Christmas Eve. So, if you have people telling you you’d be crazy to try and sell during the holidays, remember to speak to a professional first. We’d love to be the ones to speak to you, so if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to reach out to us by phone, text, or email. We look forward to hearing from you!

What is the second most important part of the home selling process? How your home shows online. Here is how to make sure your home has a strong online presence. Selling your home? Get a free home value reportBuying a home? Search all homes for sale on the MLS  Receive your personalized market snapshot   Studies show that 93% of current buyers start their home search online, so your home needs to look great. If you’ve ever looked at houses online, you might have seen some really dark, hard-to-see photos out there. I saw one last week that was so dark, I couldn’t tell what room it was. All I could see was a dirty towel hanging on the wall, so I assumed it was a picture of the bathroom. It’s unbelievable that someone thought it was a good idea to post that photo online. In order to make your home show well online, you should have a home stager come in. If you’re working with a professional Realtor, they should pay for the home stager as part of the marketing expenses. The stager will come in and give you recommendations on how to best set up your home for professional photographs.  “ These days 93% of home buyers begin their search online. ” Hiring a professional photographer is absolutely crucial. At the Elliott Team, we use something called HDR or fusion technology. The camera is placed on a tripod and we take three shots with low, medium, and high exposure. Those photos are then run through a software program that analyzes the shading and coloring of every surface in those photos before pulling them all together to create a perfect photograph. Perfect photographs draw people’s attention. If no one is interested enough to look at your house in person, no one will buy your house. How your home shows online is the most important part of getting people through the door. We also use a Matterport camera to market homes online. The Matterport camera takes a laser scan of the whole house to create an online 3D model of your home. Thanks to Matterport, buyers can take a virtual tour of your home without leaving their sofas. This technology is absolutely incredible; click here to see examples. As you can see, if your home stands out online, you will have a successful selling process. If you have any questions about building your home’s online presence or about real estate in general, give me a call or send me an email. I would be happy to help you!

Are Zillow's Zestimates accurate? I constantly meet with clients who look at the Zestimate as their home's true market value, but unfortunately, these valuations are off a large portion of the time. Selling your home? Get a free home value reportBuying a home? Search all homes for sale on the MLS  Receive your personalized market snapshot Today I wanted to talk about the famous Zillow Zestimate. Are Zestimates accurate? I get this question all the time from clients when I go to meet them and they tell me what the Zestimate is on their home. Unfortunately, a lot of people think that this value is accurate and represents a true value of their home. What I wanted to share today is what the Zestimate really is, how it works, and what your expectations should be about it. A Zestimate is an automated valuation model (AVM), and it's a computer-generated algorithm that pulls in data to give an estimate on the value of your house. Typically, they're very inaccurate, and it's rare that a Zestimate is right. When you're selling your home, pricing it properly and understanding the true market value are two of the most important things. “ A lot of people incorrectly think a Zestimate is their home's true value. ” When it comes to Zestimates, more than 17% of homes sold in the market had a Zestimate that was more than 20% off! If you had a $500,000 house you're selling and the Zestimate is off by 20% or more, we're talking about a $100,000 inaccuracy. That's a huge difference in the true value of your home. The funny thing is, Zillow's CEO sold his home this year for $1,050,000. The Zestimate on his home from his own company was $1,750,000 - more than 40% off from his sale price! Even in Zillow's fine print, they say that if you want a true market value for your home, hire a professional. You can either hire an appraiser or a Realtor who is working with recent comps and doing a CMA for your property. If you have questions about the value of your home - even if you're just curious - give us a call or send us an email. We'd be happy to help you out.

Selling your home? Get a free home value reportBuying a home? Search all homes for sale on the MLS  Receive your personalized market snapshot I’m here with some exciting news. We’ve decided to start a real estate video blog to share our expertise with you, and provide you with a valuable resource. Every month, we’ll send out two emails featuring different tips and tricks on navigating the real estate market, as well as information on local market trends. “ WHAT DO YOU WANT TO KNOW ABOUT REAL ESTATE? ” Instead of guessing what’s on your mind, I want to ask, what questions do you have about real estate? What do you want to know about the market or the buying and selling process? Remember, if you have a question, odds are someone else is wondering the same thing! There’s no such thing as a bad question. Give me a call or send me an email, and I’ll answer your question with a video. I look forward to hearing from you!

Do you know what a real estate agent means when they say “buyer’s market” or “seller’s market?” Do you know the difference? People are always asking what kind of market we are in, but it’s tough to answer for Northern Virginia as a whole. For the most part, we are in a seller’s market, which means we have at least three months of inventory available on the market. In other words, if we stopped putting houses on the market today, it would take about three months to sell all the properties currently on the market. A balanced market has about six months of inventory available, and a buyer’s market has over six months of inventory on the market. It’s also a great time to buy because interest rates are so low. Since we are in a seller’s market, that means it’s a good time to sell your home. Many people think that since we’re in a seller’s market, it’s not a great time to buy, but that’s not true. It’s a great time to buy because interest rates are so low. Your purchasing power is determined more by interest rates than home prices. If you’re interested in specific market data about a certain area, we can provide it for you. Likewise, if you have any questions at all about real estate, please feel free to give me a call or send me an email. I would be happy to help you!