Geography Bee

My real estate reality for today is your geography bee. See if you can picture where all these places are in your head or if you need a map.

I will leave my house in Bethesda, Montgomery County, Maryland, to drive to the McEnearney Associates office in Leesburg, Loudoun County, Virginia, to meet my clients (who live in that town now) in order to write an offer on a house in Knoxville, MD, (the Washington County part), which is listed by a brokerage in Lutherville, Baltimore County, MD.

Bonus points if you know the other county in Maryland where some Knoxville residents live.  I'm happy I drive a hybrid because afterwards, I'll head to the Eastern Shore to our house in St. Michaels, Talbot County, MD. Love living in the #dmv.

 

Black Toilets

When renovating your home, please resist the urge to install anything but a white toilet. Thank you.

Pocketful of Tudors: Woodhaven

Welcome to my new regular feature, Pocketful of Tudors.  I adore this particular architectural style and will spotlight neighborhoods in the DMV that have a strong concentration of Tudor homes. One particularly cool thing that happened when my family and I bought a Tudor in the Woodhaven neighborhood of Bethesda, Maryland, was that both my father and my father-in-law both said, upon seeing the photos while we were still under contract, that they had really wanted to buy a Tudor home years in the past. It felt like a special family history. Tudors are not nearly as popular in our area as say a Colonial or a Cape Cod style house, so to me they feel special.  They also evoke feelings of European charm, as I have noted in a different blog written while I was in Europe.

So I shall begin my journey through Tudor places in my home neighborhood, Woodhaven. Our neighborhood was established between 1936 and 1941, with approximately 127 homes, 56 of which are Tudor homes built by Peter Dein. The homes in the neighborhood share some common floor plans with the expected additions and modifications that over three-quarters of a century bring. The typical features of Tudors include angled roof lines, fretwork, stucco, stone, and brick.  The unique character of Woodhaven includes the heavy tree cover true to our name. on the outside mirror charming details such as arched doorways, exposed wooden beams, and massive stone or granite fireplaces inside.

Interior details that I've noticed while visiting neighbors' homes include arched doorways, exposed wooden beams, and massive stone or granite fireplaces some say were built from stones quarried right here in one of our blocks.  Many homes have living rooms with a step down to create volume ceilings above, built in garages, narrow slat hardwood floors, and charming alcoves and niches. Some homeowners over the years have replaced light fixtures but a few have remained.

One of the most charming elements of Woodhaven is the concentration and consistency of Tudor styles.  Of course other home styles were built over the years, but the majority of homes lined up along the few streets are Tudors.  Be sure to drive through Woodhaven and Whittier Boulevards, Poe and Alcott Roads, and Thoreau and Bryant Drives in the spring when we have our secret little azalea show.

The Real Estate Triangle

I have a tool, adapted from my Project Management toolkit, that I use to help explain real estate choices and decisions to clients. I decided to share it in a blog post after receiving a lot of terrific feedback about it from colleagues at my brokerage, McEnearney Associates.  This is the Real Estate Triangle of Triple Constraints. Of course it is just a model, but I believe it is an important one that reflects realistic constraints and relationships between different home purchase (or sale) factors.

For any given price range, or maximum purchase price, there are three main factors at play: Location, Condition, and Size & Features.  There are physical and market forces that limit the houses available in any given location, and this triangle of factors must be in balance for a given price.  It just is not possible to want a bigger house in better condition and located in a more desirable (or popular) neighborhood for a given price, if perhaps you've seen everything in your price range in a given area.

Another way to think about this triangle is: sometimes you need to sacrifice the condition (maybe everything was not upgraded last week) of a house to get the size and features you want (number of bedrooms, size of yard, finishes in the kitchen); or vice versa (condition is key, so the house may be smaller).  Also, a buyer should share with their agent what is their driving, priority factor in their search.  Sometimes a buyer might want to stay in their current school cluster, or they want to walk to the Metro or to shopping and recreation, so Location is their priority "leg" on the triangle. To get that priority feature, they may need to sacrifice on size depending on their price range.

I also use this tool to demonstrate to sellers how potential buyers will perceive their home based on comparables in their area, price, condition or size. If their house is a larger home compared to others in the same area and in similar condition, they may sell at a higher price. But if their home's condition and features (finishes and upgrades for example) are lagging behind others on the market, the price will be affected.

I am always happy to meet with buyers and sellers for an initial consultation about their situation and this is just one example of the tools and topics I share.

The Not Spring

I was going to write about spring springing forth this week.  Here are my daffodils, seen peeking through the soil on Saturday, March 15, 2014.

  

And here was my backyard this morning.  Happy St. Patrick's Day.  I guess our spring market will need to wait, or be put on haitus, for a few days. The silver lining: if you were thinking about selling your house this spring, you have a couple more weeks to talk to an excellent Realtor, like me, about getting your house ready to put on the market.  You'll still get a jump start on others if you get started today!

QOTD: Flooring

Today's Quote of the Day comes from my almost 14 year old daughter, Lucy. We were touring houses this past weekend to see comps for an upcoming listing I have in the works and she made a very interesting observation.

The floors really say a lot about a house.

She went on to explain that one house, which had beautifully refinished hardwood floors really shined and she thought better about the house overall because the sellers had taken such good care to present the floors well.  Another house had hardwood floors which were not only very dirty but uneven in places, paint-stained, and overall very scuffed.  She thought that house did not show well.

I've written before about some guidance for open house preparations which did highlight cleanliness.  I'm working now on a new seller checklist for Open House Prep (I have my own Open House Preparations Checklist, but this new one will be to give to my seller clients).  I'm happy to share with my seller clients in the future.

I just thought it was an interesting observation that Lucy had.  What stands out for you about houses and how do those things reflect on your overall impression of the home?