Author: ARLnow.com Sponsor

Just Reduced Properties in Arlington

By ARLnow.com Sponsor

Each week, “Just Reduced” spotlights properties in Arlington County whose price have been cut over the previous week. The market summary is crafted by Arlington Realty, Inc. Maximize your real estate investment with the team by visiting www.arlingtonrealtyinc.com or calling 703-836-6000 today!

Please note: While Arlington Realty, Inc. provides this information for the community, it may not be the listing company of these homes.

Beyond Thanksgiving and Christmas, do you see that looming in the distance?

Yes, it’s 2022 just ahead!

Believe it or not, another year is around the corner. Just as it’s not too late to check off your 2021 goals, it’s certainly not too early to start thinking about what you’d like to accomplish in the New Year.

In the world of real estate, these goals can encompass home upgrades, buying, selling, relocating, becoming a landlord, seeking a new rental and everything in between. So, as you finalize your list for Santa, don’t forget to set aside some time for your real estate desires for the months (and year!) ahead.

When it comes time to put your goals into action, the time-tested team at Arlington Realty Inc. is here to advocate on your behalf. Until then, here are this week’s Just Reduced numbers.

As of November 15, there are 136 detached homes, 59 townhouses and 284 condos for sale throughout Arlington County. In total, 32 homes experienced a price reduction in the past week:

4240 35th Street S. #A1

Please note this is solely a selection of Just Reduced properties available in Arlington County. For a complete list of properties within your target budget and specifications, contact Arlington Realty, Inc.

RSVP Catering: Making holiday gatherings easy with home delivery of festive feasts

By ARLnow.com Sponsor

Hanukkah gatherings and Christmas parties are right around the corner. For many of us, it’s been a while since we’ve hosted holiday affairs at home or the office, so it’s understandable if we’re a bit out of practice when it comes to creating a menu, laying in provisions, looking up recipes and cooking a meal for more than the usual number around the table.

RSVP Catering, one of the region’s premier catering services, is here to help with all of that by not only gathering the grub and cooking it but also delivering it to your door.

Family, friends and colleagues at work will appreciate the effort you made (ha!) by ordering an elegant and tradition-bound Hanukkah Prix Fixe dinner or a festive and warming meal from RSVP’s Christmas Prix Fixe menu.

Let’s start with Hanukkah: The meal begins with matzo ball soup and continues with caramelized onion brisket, surrounded by potato and scallion latkes, and maple-sherry glazed carrots and roasted brussels. Not enough? Let’s add cinnamon and golden noodle kugel, a not-too-sweet traditional dish of egg noodles and golden raisins that you never were going to get around to making.

The RSVP Hanukkah prix fixe dinner for six is $220. Traditional Hanukkah deserts, including chocolate gelt thumbprint cookies and Nutella rugelach, among others, are delivered by the dozen at an additional $28.

As for Christmas, having an entire meal for six delivered is as easy as filling out the online form and waiting for the doorbell to ring. Offerings include a seasonal surf-and-turf of roasted tenderloin with spicy dill mustard and horseradish aioli and lump crab cakes with a smoked onion remoulade. Those are paired with a crisp winter green bean salad, maple-sherry glazed carrots, garlic mashed potatoes, and homemade challah and sweet potato biscuits.

A Christmas dinner for six is $300. Optional desserts include a traditional Yule log in chocolate or gingerbread and a half pound of pretzel and peppermint bark.

Get those orders in, December’s holidays — and all that entails — are coming up fast!

Order your Hanukkah Prix Fixe dinner or Christmas Prix Fixe dinner online, email [email protected] or call 703-573-8700 for more information.

Ask Eli: How much are condo fees in Arlington?

By ARLnow.com Sponsor

This regularly scheduled sponsored Q&A column is written by Eli Tucker, Arlington-based Realtor and Arlington resident. Please submit your questions to him via email for response in future columns. Video summaries of some articles can be found on YouTube on the Ask Eli, Live With Jean playlist. Enjoy!

Question: We are finalizing our condo budget for 2022 and wondering if you can share information on what condo fees are elsewhere in Arlington.

Answer: For those unfamiliar with how condo fees are set, they’re a calculation of the next years projected budget (operating costs, savings contributions, etc) divided by each unit based on a pre-determined ownership percentage (usually based on square footage or bedroom count). The budget is set by the Board, which is made up of condo owners, not by the property management company.

Many condo owners/potential owners have a hard time wrapping their head around paying condo fees and see it as a loss compared to other property types, but it’s important to understand some of the benefits of condo fees, which I wrote about here in 2018. With that said, condo fees that climb too high have a negative impact on property values, which I detailed here in 2017.

So let’s take a look at what average condo fees look like around Arlington! Please note the following about the data:

  • I don’t include amenities in these numbers because there isn’t a reliable source for amenities in each building and the data that’s in the MLS suffers from a lot of human error (missing or incorrect info).
  • The source for the condo fees is property sales data in the MLS so it is limited to what has been sold/offered for sale, not published condo fee data from each building (that doesn’t exist). While this isn’t a 100% accurate picture, it’s a big enough sample size that we can consider these numbers pretty close.
  • I limited the data set to one and two bedroom condos and also did not include cooperatives.
  • My reference to “buildings” in the 2nd and 3rd cross-sections refers to condo buildings with 5+ floors and “low rise” refers to buildings with four or fewer floors.
  • In some cases you will see a year-to-year decrease in condo fees. It’s unlikely that condo fees dropped in Arlington in those years, rather it’s a result of shifts within the data (more sales of condos with lower fees or fewer sales of condos with high fees).

Fee/SqFt refers to the average monthly condo fee divided by the finished square footage of the unit. It’s a good way to compare the relative value of a building’s fees.

Hopefully these numbers help Boards and condo owners understand where they fall relative to the rest of the market. Keep in mind that there are several factors that cause buildings to be above or below average including amenities, staffing, historical management of reserves, unit mix (buildings with larger units have fewer owners to spread costs across) and many more.

It’s important for each Board to understand how their fees compare to comparable buildings and take a good look at each budget line-item to ensure smart spending with proper savings (primarily driven by the Reserve Study). The budget drives fees, fees should not drive the budget.

If you’d like to discuss buying, selling, investing, or renting, don’t hesitate to reach out to me at [email protected].

If you’d like a question answered in my weekly column or to discuss buying, selling, renting, or investing, please send an email to [email protected]. To read any of my older posts, visit the blog section of my website at EliResidential.com. Call me directly at 703-539-2529.

Video summaries of some articles can be found on YouTube on the Ask Eli, Live With Jean playlist.

Eli Tucker is a licensed Realtor in Virginia, Washington DC, and Maryland with RLAH Real Estate, 4040 N Fairfax Dr #10C Arlington VA 22203. 703-390-9460.

Legal Insider: Arlington County employees move towards unionization

By ARLnow.com Sponsor

This is a sponsored column by attorneys John Berry and Kimberly Berry of Berry & Berry, PLLC, an employment and labor law firm located in Northern Virginia that specializes in federal employee, security clearance, retirement and private sector employee matters.

By John V. Berry, Esq.

Earlier this year, on July 17, the Arlington County Board approved the process for collective bargaining for a significant number of Arlington county employees.

Many Northern Virginia communities have begun the process of implementing collective bargaining following Virginia’s repeal of the ban on such agreements in 2020. In the ordinance, Arlington County authorized potential unions for Police employees, Fire and Emergency Services employees, Service Labor, Office and Technical employees and Professional Employees. A number of senior-level and other employees are not eligible to join a union.

Typically, in order to start the collective bargaining process, a government needs to appoint a manager or board to carry out the job of impartially carrying out the applicable labor law. According to the new ordinance, the job of running elections and certifying individual unions was given to a new Labor Relations Administrator whose job will involve many of the same types of duties held by the National Labor Relations Board for private companies. Employees covered will have many of the traditional rights given to other unionized workforces and have the ability to take disputes to binding arbitration.

Strikes remain barred under the new ordinance and can lead to termination of employment. In addition, traditional unfair labor practice charges, labeled in the ordinance as “prohibited practice charges,” would be available.

Some of the most important aspects of unionization for eligible employees generally include:

  • A level playing field for union officials and management to discuss employment issues as equals without fear of retaliation
  • The ability of unions to negotiate binding solutions with officially recognized unions
  • Employee protections from interference by management in labor matters through the complaint process (similar to the unfair labor practice complaint process)
  • Binding arbitration for violations of collective bargaining agreements and appeals of disciplinary actions by independent arbitrators not employed by the County

It appears as if a majority or two-thirds of county employees will be eligible to join a union. According to news accounts, and our experience in representing unions before other entities, it will likely take at least two years before any collective bargaining agreements are effective. From recent ad postings, it appears that the Arlington Labor Relations Administrator’s office is still in the process of hiring personnel for the upcoming collective bargaining process.

In addition, a petition has already been filed for recognition by the Arlington Firefighters & Paramedics Association. Other unions may have also filed such petitions but are unknown at this time. It will take time for the labor unions to become officially recognized and for collective bargaining agreements to be negotiated, but the process is fully underway and will lead to better employee rights for Arlington County employees.

If you are in need of advice regarding noncompete agreements or clauses, please contact our office at 703-668-0070 or through our contact page to schedule a consultation. Please also visit and like us on Facebook or Twitter.

Statutes of Liberty: Another day, another class action lawsuit

By ARLnow.com Sponsor

This sponsored column is by Law Office of James Montana PLLC. All questions about it should be directed to James Montana, Esq., Doran Shemin, Esq., and Laura Lorenzo, Esq., practicing attorneys at The Law Office of James Montana PLLC, an immigration-focused law firm located in Arlington, Virginia. The legal information given here is general in nature. If you want legal advice, contact us for an appointment.

If you are a loyal reader of our columns, you know that there are always new federal lawsuits popping up against various federal government agencies. Well, this week is no exception.

On November, 8, 2021, the American Immigration Lawyers Association, along with four other attorneys in private practice, filed a class action lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. There are 49 plaintiffs and four defendants: the Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”), Alejandro Mayorkas, the Secretary of DHS, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (“USCIS”), and Ur Jaddou, the Director of USCIS.

The lawsuit alleges that USCIS, a sub-agency within DHS, is failing to meet its obligation to issue employment authorization documents (AKA work permits) for certain immigrants who are entitled to them. In particular, the lawsuit alleges that USCIS is processing two categories of work permit applications too slowly: applications based on pending green card applications, and applications for immigrant investors known as E-2 non-immigrants. Notably, many applicants pay a processing fee to the government when they file their applications.

Previously, USCIS was required by regulation to adjudicate work permit applications within 90 days; if the agency took longer than 90 days, it was required to provide an interim employment authorization document valid for no longer than 240 days. In 2015, however, DHS published a new rule for public comment that proposed to eliminate the 90-day processing rule.

Many commenters suggested to DHS that the elimination of the 90-day processing timeline would result in lackadaisical processing of work permit applications and a large backlog. DHS publicly responded to these comments by stating that eliminating the 90-day rule would not lead to inflated processing times except in rare circumstances. The rule eliminating the 90-day processing requirement became final in 2017.

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Just Listed in Arlington

By ARLnow.com Sponsor

Just Listed highlights Arlington properties that just came on the market within the past week. This feature is written and sponsored by Andors Real Estate Group.

I want to take some time to thank our veterans this morning and use my column here as a platform to do so. Here in Arlington (and the DMV region), we have an especially large number of current and former military personnel around us daily.

To be honest, one day just isn’t enough to adequately recognize these heroes for the contributions and sacrifices, they have made. They sacrifice years or decades of their lives in service and all of us enjoy the fruits of that labor daily, but we only recognize it once a year. Some of them make the ultimate sacrifice by giving their life to defend our freedom.

I can’t express enough how thankful I am for our veterans, and to thank those who are current or active duty for their service and sacrifice to our great country, I’m going to run a substantial incentive to work with the Andors Real Estate Group for your 2022 real estate needs. Contact me at (703) 203-1117 to talk about your real estate plans, our Military Appreciation Program, and know that you’ll be working with a seasoned Arlington native and expert appreciative of you, your service and sacrifice.

The Andors Real Estate Group is proud to have JUST LISTED 1000 26th Street S., Arlington, VA 22202 — $1,198,000

1000 26th Street S.

Welcome home to this gorgeous, expanded three-level Cape Cod overlooking the neighborhood with wintertime skyline views. With four bedrooms, three full bathrooms, including a main level owner’s suite and second upstairs owner’s suite, this home has room to grow!

At approximately 2,500sf, this home can accommodate many needs, including work from home or homeschooling. Gleaming hardwood floors throughout, dual wood-burning fireplaces, open-concept kitchen and a lovely backyard with extensive landscaping and hardscape for fantastic entertaining and enjoyment. Rear alley access, including parking for two large vehicles.

Find me and my team here this weekend, Saturday and Sunday from 1-4 p.m. for public open houses.

Although this column is coming out at the normal day/time, our schedule is different this week as a result of Veterans Day. I’ll cover numbers and trends briefly below, but I don’t have week over week data as I’m writing this a day early. We’ll resume that next week.

Inventory continues to fall in Arlington — we now have 456 available properties for sale. Just two months ago, there were 555 properties to choose from. Ratified contracts have kept pace with new listings closely, resulting in steadily declining inventory. A reminder, some properties go off the market and are no longer available without resulting in a sale.

As of this week, the average list price of homes currently for sale is $802,033, and the median is $575,000. Average days on market (DOM) is 65, and the median is 41. Homes of all types range in price from $99,900 all the way up to $4,250,000!

Last year during the same week, Arlington had 555 properties available for sale, there were 63 new listings and 58 ratified contacts.

Click here to search currently available Arlington real estate. If you see a home that you’re interested in purchasing, give us a call!

Call the Andors Real Estate Group today at (703) 203-1117 to talk more about buying or selling Arlington real estate. Below are eight new listings that I think you might like to check out.

Thanksgiving emergency? RSVP Catering is here to help

By ARLnow.com Sponsor

Maybe you’ve got the Thanksgiving turkey down to a science but those pesky side dishes bedevil you, or a small army of family members suddenly remembered to accept your invitation to Thanksgiving dinner but you only planned for half that number.

Don’t sweat it: RSVP Catering, one of the region’s premier catering services, will bring whatever you need in whatever quantity to your door.

RSVP Catering’s Thanksgiving 2021 home delivery program is designed for the full holiday dinner, but not everyone needs everything to make the day special for everyone at the table. That’s why RSVP Catering is making things easy: You can order online from the menu á la carte to create a customized meal plan.

RSVP Catering’s renowned chefs provide a choice of turkey methods — traditional herb roasted or Cajun-fried (and if you’ve never had the opportunity, you might want to take a chance) — in family style meals that can feed five or 10. The smaller option is $150 and the large meal is $280, and includes four delicious side dishes, homemade challah, and sweet potato biscuits.

When ordering á la carte, you can have delivered as much or as little as you need. Choose from creamy mashed potatoes, sage and turkey sausage cornbread stuffing, crisp winter green bean salad, maple-sherry roasted carrots, cavatappi pasta and gruyere mac and cheese, grilled sweet potatoes, charred brussels, and fall harvest salad. Many of the options are gluten free, as are both turkey dishes.

Optional dessert offerings, which feed eight to 10 guests, brings to the table apple crisp cheesecake, bourbon pecan praline pie, marshmallow pumpkin pie and pear cranberry crisp.

Browse the full Thanksgiving dinner details and remember to place your order by Monday, November 22.

Place your order online, email RSVP Catering at [email protected], or call 703-573-8700.

Biz Talk: Virginia Values Veterans (V3) Program

By ARLnow.com Sponsor

This article was written by Arlington Economic Development. In honoring our veterans this week, we would like to share a wonderful program the Commonwealth of Virginia sponsors in support of those leaving the military seeking employment.

Did you know the Commonwealth of Virginia is one of the most veteran-friendly states in the nation?

Virginia is comprised of the most veteran-owned small businesses in the country. Not so surprising considering Virginia is home to the Pentagon in Arlington and the world’s largest naval base in Norfolk. There are hundreds of thousands of active-duty service members serving within the Commonwealth’s borders and many have chosen to call Virginia home upon leaving the military.

With more than 750,000 veterans located in Virginia, the Commonwealth has had the fastest growing veteran labor force over the past 5 years and is projected to continue to have the fastest growing veteran population over the next few years.

With such a highly skilled and adaptable workforce living here, Virginia recognizes the opportunity to promote veteran talent to the civilian workforce and to help businesses become more successful by focusing on hiring the right people for the job.

One such initiative, the Virginia Values Veterans (V3) Program, provides education, training and connectivity resources to assist companies to implement nationally recognized best practices in recruiting, hiring and retaining veterans. Virginia companies who have completed all V3 training requirements and have submitted a veteran hiring plan will be recognized as an official “V3-Certified Company.”

Furthermore, V3 qualified companies with fewer than 300 employees may qualify for up to $10,000 in grants, with $1,000 being awarded per eligible veteran that is hired and retained for at least one year.

There are more than 70 Arlington organizations participating in the V3 Program, from large companies like Nestlé, Boeing and Lockheed Martin to mid- and small-size companies like Ideal Innovations, Millennium Corporation, Lunarline and Cydecor.

We encourage Arlington companies to consider becoming V3 certified to seize the opportunity to find the workforce they need within the veteran community

Just Reduced Properties in Arlington

By ARLnow.com Sponsor

Each week, “Just Reduced” spotlights properties in Arlington County whose price have been cut over the previous week. The market summary is crafted by Arlington Realty, Inc. Maximize your real estate investment with the team by visiting www.arlingtonrealtyinc.com or calling 703-836-6000 today!

Please note: While Arlington Realty, Inc. provides this information for the community, it may not be the listing company of these homes.

Tomorrow is a very special day: Veterans Day.

Wherever your day may guide you, take a moment to thank those in your life who have selflessly served in the United States armed forces. With D.C. at our doorstep and bases galore throughout the broader region, odds are you won’t have to look too far to find plenty of our heroes to thank.

From the bottom of our hearts, the team at Arlington Realty, Inc. salutes our amazing vets.

And, to our veterans and military families out there, we’re here for you just as you have been there for us. From relocating to settling into a forever home, we’ve helped countless military families seal their real estate deals throughout the years. When and where we can help, you can count on us.

Until then, a happy Veterans Day and here are this week’s Just Reduced numbers.

As of November 8, there are 141 detached homes, 63 townhouses and 295 condos for sale throughout Arlington County. In total, 46 homes experienced a price reduction in the past week:

1116 N. Taylor Street N. #C

Please note this is solely a selection of Just Reduced properties available in Arlington County. For a complete list of properties within your target budget and specifications, contact Arlington Realty, Inc.

You’re invited: Master’s and certificate virtual open house

By ARLnow.com Sponsor

Ready to advance your career at your own pace? The Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University offers flexible part-time or full-time options for graduate certificate and master’s degree programs designed to teach applicable, real-world knowledge for in-demand careers.

Join our upcoming Master’s and Certificate Virtual Open House for prospective students on November 16. The online session will provide an overview of the Schar School’s top-ranked master’s degree programs and graduate certificate programs, student services and admissions requirements.

Plus, prospective master’s and graduate certificate students who attend an upcoming virtual Schar School admissions event will be provided with an application fee waiver for the Spring 2022 graduate application.

Register today:

Master’s and Certificate Virtual Open House
Tuesday, November 16
6:30 p.m.

Graduate Certificate Programs (just five courses each)

  • Biodefense, Certificate
  • Emergency Management and Homeland Security
  • Global Health and Security
  • National Security and Public Policy
  • Nonprofit Management
  • Public Management
  • Science, Technology, and Security
  • Strategic Trade
  • Terrorism and Homeland Security

Master’s Degree Programs

  • Biodefense, MS
  • International Commerce and Policy, MA
  • International Security, MA
  • Organization Development and Knowledge Management, MS
  • Political Science, MA
  • Public Administration, MPA
  • Public Policy, MPP

To learn more about graduate programs at the Schar School, register for the November virtual open house or fill out our inquiry form.

Ask Eli: Zillow shutters their home buying/selling business

By ARLnow.com Sponsor

This regularly scheduled sponsored Q&A column is written by Eli Tucker, Arlington-based Realtor and Arlington resident. Please submit your questions to him via email for response in future columns. Video summaries of some articles can be found on YouTube on the Ask Eli, Live With Jean playlist. Enjoy!

Last week I wrote about breaking news in the real estate industry that Zillow was underwater on their home buying/selling business, Zillow Offers. Hours after I published my article, to the surprise of many, Zillow announced it was shutting down Zillow Offers and reducing their workforce by 25% as a result.

The purpose of last week’s article was to discuss what Zillow’s problems meant for the real estate market and Zillow. For those who didn’t read and don’t intend to, the bottom line was that Zillow’s issues are not an indicator of trouble in the broader real estate market or for Zillow’s business overall, they’re simply a bad bet by Zillow that will cost them about $1B since they started Zillow offers in 2018.

However, ARLnow Commenter “Arlington Robin” made a great point that while Zillow’s issues may not be indicative of trouble in the nationwide/D.C. area real estate market, it will likely create problems in local markets like Phoenix where Zillow will be selling a lot of homes, likely with a priority on selling quickly vs extracting top dollar.

Background

Zillow entered the iBuying business in April 2018 (launched in Phoenix) with a home buying program called Zillow Offers in which they’d quickly purchase homes using their internal pricing algorithm (built off the Zestimates algorithm) directly from homeowners for cash. The incentive structure is simple: fast, cash, reliable, no list prep. In 2019 I wrote a column on iBuying and discussed the approach, pros and cons.

Since 2018, Zillow Offers expanded to over 20 markets around the country (mostly in the south and out west) and bought tens of thousands of homes. Three weeks ago, Zillow announced it was freezing home buying through 2021 to focus on selling ~7,000 homes they had accumulated and last week an analyst at KeyBanc found that 2/3 are selling for less than their purchase price at an average discount of 4.5%.

Soon after these reports surfaced and hours after I wrote my article about it, Zillow announced they were shutting down their iBuying program completely (although they still have thousands of homes to sell).

Zillow vs iBuying Competitors

Zillow wasn’t the only one in the business of large scale iBuying. Opendoor and Offerpad both operate in this space with better margins and, at least for now, do not seem to be heading for the same fate as Zillow. Although, based on my reading of their earnings statements, they’re both operating at a loss, like many tech start-ups.

Even though Zillow has access to more resources and data, there are a few good reasons why Zillow has tapped out.

Setting the right offer price (high enough to buy homes at scale, low enough to make money) and forecasting the market 3-6 months out are critical to the success of an iBuying business. Zestimates, Zillow’s market valuation tool that drives these buying/forecasting decisions, was designed to attract and engage consumers, not to drive a massive home buying and selling business. Companies built around iBuying designed their pricing algorithms specifically for the purpose of maximizing margins in buying/selling real estate at scale.

Furthermore, Zillow needs to protect its core business from the high volatility of iBuying at scale ($1B in losses in 3.5 years). Zillow investors likely have less of an appetite for the risks associated with large scale iBuying, but the investors in iBuying focused businesses like Opendoor and Offerpad know exactly what they’re signing up for and are likely more willing to accept early losses.

As a large publicly traded company, Zillow couldn’t just ask itself whether they could make it in iBuying, but whether the payoff in making it in the iBuying business was worth the risk of compromising its core business and brand. Clearly, Zillow leadership decided that it was not worth it.

Opendoor and Offerpad both have earnings calls scheduled for this Wednesday, November 10 so it’ll be very interesting to see how their numbers compare to Zillow’s and what they have to say about Zillow’s exit from their business.

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