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We Value your Safety and Ours! in this difficult times we all need to be together and protect our families; however we still have an obligation to you, this is why we have implemented the following steps to keep working for you without putting your health at risk:

1- We Have Gone Virtual! We keep showing and advertising your home by virtual tours, when requested we can also show your home via skype, facetime, facebook messanger or google hang out to name a few.

2- To Avoid the virus and prevent it from spreading we ask our clients before any meeting whether they have experienced any COVID-19 Symptoms before agreeing to meet with them.

3- We limit the number of people that can come to see your home to a max of 2, we encourage our clients to be conscious of the challenges that come with showing a property, specially when the owners are still living in the house.

4- One of top recommendations for combating the virus that we have seen everywhere is washing your hands, so we ask our clients to wash their hands as soon as they enter a house, we also have disinfecting wipes with us at all time, and only we (Realtors) open doors and drawers and use our wipes to do it and disinfect surfaces as we leave the house.

If you have any questions about our virtual or private tours please call us 703-361-5100

Your Guide to the Home Appraisal

You’ve found your dream home and now it’s time to cross all your T’s and dot all your I’s before it’s all your own. And one of the first items on your closing checklist the home appraisal. So, what exactly is that?

The home appraisal is essentially a value assessment of the home and property. It is conducted by a certified third party and is used to determine whether the home is priced appropriately.

During a home appraisal, the appraiser conducts a complete visual inspection of the interior and exterior of the home. He or she factors in a variety of things, including the home’s floor plan functionality, condition, location, school district, fixtures, lot size, and more. An upward adjustment is generally made if the home has a deck, a view, or a large yard. The appraiser will also compare the home to several similar homes that were sold within the last six months in the area.

The final report must include a street map showing the property and the ones’ compared, photographs of the interior and exterior, an explanation on how the square footage was calculated, market sales data, public land records, and more.

After it is complete, the lender uses the information found to ensure that the property is worth the amount they are investing. This is a safe-guard for the lender as the home acts as collateral for the mortgage. If the buyer defaults on the mortgage and goes into foreclosure, the lender generally sells the home to recover the money borrowed.