Ethical Homes» alexandria

Easily Contact Hypothermia Shelters in the DC area

sweth — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 11:35:38 +0000

As we prepare in the DC area for what’s expected to be our first big snowfall of the season, many of the area’s homeless population will find themselves without adequate shelter; here are some phone numbers that every local resident should keep handy so that they can request assistance for anyone they see who might need it during the upcoming weeks.

DC’s hypothermia hotline is the model that all other local jurisdictions should seek to emulate; if you see a homeless person in need of assistance inside the District, just call their hotline and they will send someone out to provide them with blankets, gloves, etc., as well as transportation to the nearest shelter if needed.

DC Hypothermia Hotline: 800-535-7252

Unfortunately, most Northern Virginia jurisdictions appear to rely solely on individual (often privately-run) shelters to assist with hypothermia during the winter and do not have any sort of specific centralized hotline that you can call. In our experience, however, calls in those jurisdictions to the local non-emergency police numbers will usually result in an officer at least checking on the person in need of assistance and often assisting in getting them to shelter. Those non-emergency police numbers are:

Alexandria Non-Emergency Police: 703-838-4444
Arlington County Non-Emergency Police: 240-777-4000
Fairfax County Non-Emergency Police: 703-691-2131
Falls Church Non-Emergency Police: 703-241-5053

Local Maryland jurisdictions do have centralized hotlines, but the staffs at those hotlines often can’t assist in the pickup of people in need, so we are providing the numbers for both the hotlines and the local non-emergency police dispatchers:

Montgomery County Community Crisis Center: 240-777-4000
Montgomery County Non-Emergency Police: 301-279-8000
Prince George’s County Homeless Hotline: 888-731-0999
Prince George’s County Non-Emergency Police: 301-333-4000

(These are the contact numbers for the jurisdictions closest to Washington DC; if you know of the appropriate contact info for other jurisdictions in the Metro DC area, please let us know and we would be glad to add them to this page.)

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Foreclosure Listings Temporarily On Hold

sweth — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 13:54:16 +0000

Due to some technical issues that we’re currently trying to resolve, we’ve had to put the public foreclosure listings on hold temporarily; in the interim, if you’re interested in seeing the foreclosure listings for a specific area, please contact us and let us know what area you’re interested in and we can send you those listings directly or set you up with an automatic search to email them to you regularly.

For those who are interested, the specific problem is that MRIS, the local multiple listing company through whom we were posting those foreclosure listings, recently added some features to their software, including the ability for users to tag properties that they might be interested in. The problem is that for public listings like these, that “feature” was more of a bug, since there is no way for their software to distinguish between the hundreds of different anonymous visitors who were reviewing the listings; as a result, everyone’s “favorite” properties were all mixed together, so that everyone could see each others’ listings and there was no way to know which ones were yours.

Unfortunately, there’s currently no simple way to turn those features off, and the confusion among the people who were contacting us after they saw other people’s listings in “their” list was just too much to deal with, so for now we’ve had to suspend the public listings. It’s a perfect example of unintended consequences–MRIS had simply never thought about the possibility that more than one person would be viewing a particular posted set of listings–and we’re busy working with them to get this resolved in a way that will let us resume those postings, hopefully this week.

Again, if you’re interested in seeing the foreclosure listings for a specific area, please contact us and let us know what area you’re interested in.

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Bank-Owned Foreclosure Inventory in Alexandria (Week of 8/2/09)

sweth — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 16:13:36 +0000

As a public service for buyers, Ethical Homes is glad to publish a list of all of the available bank-owned foreclosure properties in Alexandria, VA for the week of 8/2/09.

Basic information for each new or changed bank-owned property from the last week is provided in that list, as well as pictures and virtual tours (if available); we also include the address, so if you are potentially interested, you can feel free to drive by the property to take a look from the outside on your own.

(If you’re new to our bank-owned inventory lists, be sure to check the archives for any listings from previous weeks that might still be available.)

If you would like more details about any of these properties or would like to explore your opportunities for purchasing one of them, let us know.

We also have a weekly tours of the available inventory in Alexandria; if you would be interested in participating in one of those tours, please contact us and we’d be glad to let you know how to sign up.

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Bank-Owned Foreclosure Inventory in Alexandria (Week of 7/26/09)

sweth — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 11:40:24 +0000

As a public service for buyers, Ethical Homes is glad to publish a list of all of the available bank-owned foreclosure properties in Alexandria, VA for the week of 7/26.

(If you’re new to our bank-owned inventory lists, be sure to check the archives for any listings from previous weeks that might still be available.)

If you would like more details about any of these properties or would like to explore your opportunities for purchasing one of them, let us know.

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Bank-Owned Foreclosure Inventory in Alexandria (Week of 7/19/09)

sweth — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 12:25:16 +0000

As a public service for buyers, Ethical Homes is glad to publish a list of all of the available bank-owned foreclosure properties in Alexandria, VA.

Basic information for each property is provided in that list, as well as pictures and virtual tours (if available); we also include the address, so if you are potentially interested, you can feel free to drive by the property to take a look from the outside on your own. If you would like more details about any of these properties or would like to explore your opportunities for purchasing one of them, let us know.

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Bank-Owned Foreclosure Inventory in Alexandria (Week of 7/12/09)

sweth — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 12:45:11 +0000

As a public service for buyers, Ethical Homes is glad to publish a list of all of the available bank-owned foreclosure properties in Alexandria, VA.

We also have a weekly tour of the available inventory in Alexandria every Tuesday at 1pm; if you would be interested in participating in one of those tours, please contact us and we’d be glad to let you know how to sign up.

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June 2009 NoVa Housing Statistics

sweth — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 12:17:30 +0000

The June 2009 statistics are in for the Northern Virginia housing market.

Here are the initial NVAR/MRIS statistics for June 2009 home sales activity for Fairfax and Arlington counties, the cities of Alexandria, Fairfax and Falls Church and the towns of Vienna, Herndon and Clifton.

A total of 2,169 homes sold in June 2009, a 14.16 percent increase above June 2008 home sales of 1,900.
Active listings decreased by 27 percent from last year, with 7,617 active listings in June, compared with 10,440 homes available in June 2008. The average days on market (DOM) for homes in June 2009 decreased by 14.46 percent to 71 days, compared with 83 days in June 2008.
Sales prices continue to remain lower than those realized last year. The average sales price in June fell by 7.42 percent from June 2008, to $451,354, compared with last June’s average of $487,549.
The median price of homes sold in Northern Virginia in June was $392,367, which is a decline of 5.68 percent compared with June 2008′s median price of $416,000.
The number of pending home sales in Northern Virginia in June shows an increase of 17.12 percent at 2,463 compared to 2,103 in June 2008.

Sales activity in Greater Northern Virginia (the above jurisdictions plus Prince William, Loudoun and the Greater Piedmont counties) for June 2009 shows a very slight increase from June 2008.

The number of Greater Northern Virginia region homes sold in June was 3,657, a 2 percent increase from June 2008′s total of 3,586 sales.
Along with the increase in home sales for June, there was also an increase in the number of pending home sales, from June 2008′s 4,054 to 4,465 pending sales in June 2009, a 10.14 percent climb.
The average sales price of $382,980 in June 2009 continues to lag behind the 2008 average by only 6.91 percent. The June 2008 average sales price was $411,388.
Across Greater Northern Virginia, the number of listings showed a decrease from 2008 numbers, with 14,730 listings active, which is 34.54 percent less than this time last year, when 22,501 homes were available.
The average DOM for a home sold in June 2009 was 75 compared with last year’s 99 DOM, a decrease of 23.88 percent.

These numbers reflect a summary of a wide variety of areas; market trends in individual area within the larger market can vary significantly from the summary values, sometimes by as much as 50% or more. Here are links to the statistics for individual jurisdictions within Northern Virginia:

If you would like to see the statistics for other specific cities or counties, or for a specific zip code or neighborhood, let us know and we’d be glad to send them to you.

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Our HomeFirst Mortgage Corp office in Old Town Alexandria

sweth — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 17:25:54 +0000

We sometimes meet clients at HomeFirst Mortgage Corp’s Old Town Alexandria office; if you are meeting us at that location or need to go there to drop off/pick up documents, here are directions, office hours, and tips on how to get there via public transit.

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The Old Town Alexandria office of HomeFirst Mortgage Corp is located at 207 S Alfred St, on the west side of the street just south of where Alfred meets Prince.

Hours

A receptionist is usually at this office Monday through Friday from 9am till 5pm. If you are arriving for an appointment outside of those hours, make sure you have our phone number handy so that you can give us a call when you arrive, as the front door may be locked. If you need to drop off documents outside of those core hours, there is a mail slot in the door where you can leave them; however, if you do leave documents there, please call us to let us know so that we can make sure to collect them as soon as possible.

Mass Transit

If you are taking public transportation to the KW Old Town Alexandria office, the nearest Metrorail stop is the King Street station on the Blue and Yellow lines (about 9 blocks away).

A variety of bus lines also run near the office, including the WMATA 29K and 29N lines along Duke St, the WMATA AT-2,3,5,7 lines along King St, and the WMATA 10A, 10B, 11Y, and 11P lines along Washington St.

Parking

Street parking is usually available on Alfred St and the surrounding area.

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Our Keller Williams Realty office in Old Town Alexandria

sweth — Tue, 28 Mar 2006 13:20:06 +0000

We often meet clients at Keller Williams Realty’s Old Town Alexandria office; if you are meeting us at that location or need to go there to drop off/pick up documents, here are directions, office hours, and tips on how to get there via public transit.

View Larger Map in New Window

The Old Town Alexandria office of Keller Williams Realty is located at 607 S Washington St (which becomes the George Washington Parkway to the north of Old Town), on the west side of the street just south of where Washington meets Gibbon.

Hours

A receptionist is usually at this office Monday through Friday from 9am till 5pm. If you are arriving for an appointment outside of those hours, make sure you have our phone number handy so that you can give us a call when you arrive, as the front door may be locked. If you need to drop off documents outside of those core hours, there is a mailbox to the left of the door where you can leave them; however, if you do leave documents there, please call us to let us know so that we can make sure to collect them as soon as possible.

Mass Transit

If you are taking public transportation to the KW Old Town Alexandria office, the nearest Metrorail stop is the King Street station on the Blue and Yellow lines; it is about a 16 block walk from the King Street station to the KW Old Town Alexandria office. For much of the day, however, you can also take the free King Street Trolley from the King Street station to the intersection of King St and Columbus St; from that point, it is only a 6 block walk to the KW Old Town Alexandria office.

Parking

We have about a dozen parking spaces in our lot (on the south side of the building, with an entrance from S. Washington St), and there is often street parking available on the surrounding streets as well. Please make sure not to park on Washington St or on the south side of Gibbon St between 4pm and 6pm, however–during those hours, the parking lanes become HOV lanes to reduce rush hour traffic, and any cars parked in those lanes are quickly towed. Also, even though our building does extend to Gibbon St and we have signage on Gibbon, please do NOT park in the lot next to our building on Gibbon Street–that lot is not ours, and your car may be towed if you park there.

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Critique from A. C.

sweth — Sat, 04 Mar 2006 14:13:12 +0000

To date, we’ve only had one negative review from a client. In the spirit of full disclosure and constructive criticism, we’re publishing that critique in addition to the many testimonials that we’ve received.

A. C. was a buyer who wasn’t as thrilled as she could have been with her buying experience:

I felt that I was doing more of the legwork myself. Sweth only found one property that I had not found on my own–and that one was way outside the neighborhoods I was interested in… He did help in the contract phase, but I just felt I did more work to find my place than he did.

A. C. was right–she did do a lot more work to find her new home than I did; in retrospect, however, the real problem was that I didn’t do a good enough job of explaining to her that for most buyers, modern real estate agents usually don’t find the homes that their clients ended up in, and making it clearer to her just what it was that I was doing to help her get into a new home.

In years past, real estate agents earned their commission by controlling information–they were the only ones with the access to the MLS, so they were the gateway to the lists of available homes, and thus just the act of providing that information to consumers and then showing the properties to prospective buyers was enough to warrant their getting paid. The Internet has changed all of that, however; now, information on which homes have recently come on the market is available to any consumer who wants it.

A good agent in the Internet era thus provides access to all of the relevant listings to their clients, and lets those clients choose the ones that are most interesting (which also removes one of the traditional complaints that consumers have had about real estate agents–that they only show clients their “preferred” listings, such as the agent’s own listings or properties whose owners are offering higher commissions). It’s only occasionally, when the agent feels that the buyer has overlooked a property or as a test to see if the buyer might be well-served by expanding their search to cast a wider net, that they will suggest other, specific, properties.

For some buyers, of course, an agent does need to be more proactive about suggesting properties; in A. C.’s case, though, the exact opposite appeared to be the case–where our automated searches were emailing her information on the latest listings once a day, she admitted that she was checking the listing databases online multiple times an hour throughout the day, and emailing us about new properties that she was interested in sometimes within minutes of those properties going on the market. As such a diligent searcher, of course, A. C. quickly noticed every listing that appeared in the areas that she knew that she was most interested in, so there was only one property that I suggested to her, and almost by definition it was outside her area of core interest, since I suggested it to see if she might want to expand her search to other areas.

As A. C. noted, then, the real value that I was providing came after she had identified homes that she was interested in. A. C. was buying during the height of the 2005 sellers’ market in DC, and many other buyers during that period were putting in dozens of offers before getting one accepted; more often than not, the offers from buyers that were getting accepted were dangerously weighted to favor the sellers, with no inspections, no protection for the buyer if the home under-appraised or their loan fell through, and escalations in price tens of thousands of dollars above the asking price. With my guidance on how to draft her offers and my assistance in negotiating the terms, on the other hand, A. C. managed to get her third offer accepted, complete with home inspection, appraisal contingency, and lender contingency, and all at only $1 over list price.

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