Feature

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 Team Cathell, “Your Orange Line Specialists.”

Generally, our fall market runs strong right up to Thanksgiving and then slows until the first week of January.

It’s unusual for the market to get stronger as it approaches Thanksgiving, although last year the market paid no attention to the holidays. It stayed strong right through to Christmas. It’s looking like this fall might be a repeat.

Perhaps buyers got spooked by rising interest rates this week and decided to ratify on something so they could lock in their rate before it increases further. Early this week rates jumped to 3.875%-4% for a 30-yr fixed rate mortgage, the highest mark in the last three months.

While home buying sentiment runs strong in Arlington, nationally it has waned in the last two months. A new report from Fannie Mae indicates that while still strong, their “home purchase sentiment index” (HPSI) dropped last month by 2.7%. That’s not a big deal, except that its the second month in a row that it’s dropped. There was a 7% decrease in Americans saying it is a good time to buy.

Click to see all the fresh new inventory in MRIS and call Team Cathell (703-975-2500) when you find a home you like.

Arts Focus: Rocking a Partnership with the Local Library — The Grandsons Headline Groovin’ On the Pike

By ARLnow.com Sponsor

This column is written and sponsored by Arlington Arts/Arlington Cultural Affairs, a division of Arlington Economic Development.

Rock out with The Grandsons, the last of the fall edition of the Groovin’ On the Pike: After Hours at the Library, on Friday, December 6 at Columbia Pike Branch Library!

The collaboration between Arlington Cultural Affairs/Arlington Arts and Arlington Public Library features a diverse line-up of musical groups routinely drawing upwards of 200 patrons to dance in the stacks and enjoy a brew from the cash bar on the first Friday of the month at 7 p.m.

Moving and shaking into their 3rd decade in the world of rock and roll, The Grandsons recently released their first ever holiday CD, Christmas with The Grandsons, and headlined at the world famous 930 Club in D.C. The Grandsons have also branched out into the kids’ music scene with the release of One Big Orooni under the name “the grandsons, Jr.” The CD won critical praise from the Washington Post, and one of the songs has been in regular rotation on the SiriusXM show Kids’ Place Live.

Come on out and discover another side to your local library! Click this link for free tickets.

Arlington Pet of the Week: Molly

By ARLnow.com
1/6

Meet Arlington’s newest Pet of the Week Molly, who was rescued as a small puppy and now enjoys nothing more than a game of fetch.

Here is what Molly’s owner has to say about their life together in Arlington:

This is Molly, also known as @adventurousmolly on Instagram! She is a Georgia native that was found in a ditch during a rain storm as a smol puppo, and her life was completely turned around that day thanks to some kind strangers! After several years, she decided to leave her small town behind and take on the big city.

It is widely believed that Molly is a person in a dog disguise. Molly is fluent in the English language and seems to know what you mean, no matter what you say. If you are sad or mad, she will come lay by you, reach her paw out and put it on your arm, and stare up at you with her ears back until you can’t help but forget what was wrong because she is so cute. 10/10 smart girl.

Her favorite game in the whole wide world is fetch. It is her mission, her civic duty, her responsibility, to go rescue that ball and bring it back to you. She can play for hours and never get tired of it. Her second favorite activity is snuggling with her peoples and getting heckin’ good pets. She loves other animals, including her kitty friends. She loves to come everywhere with you, which is why she is very glad that there are so many dog-friendly restaurants in Arlington.

Molly will be turning 9 in January, and we hope there will be 29 more years with her. She is an absolute angel and we love her very much.

Want your pet to be considered for the Arlington Pet of the Week? Email [email protected] with a 2-3 paragraph bio and at least 3-4 horizontally-oriented photos of your pet. Please don’t send vertical photos, they don’t fit in our photo galleries!

Each week’s winner receives a sample of dog or cat treats from our sponsor, Becky’s Pet Care, along with $100 in Becky’s Bucks. Becky’s Pet Care is the winner of eight consecutive Angie’s List Super Service Awards, the National Association of Professional Pet Sitters’ 2013 Business of the Year and a proud supporter of the Arlington County Pawsitively Prepared Campaign.

Becky’s Pet Care provides professional dog walking and pet sitting in Arlington and all of Northern Virginia, as well as PetPrep training courses for Pet Care, CPR and emergency

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.

Before we jump into today’s Just Reduced overview, Monday was Veterans Day.

Our area — including not just Arlington County but our nation’s capital — is steeped in military tradition, spanning picturesque monuments, centuries of history and thousands upon thousands of military families that call these beautiful confines home.

To wonderful veterans and their families: The sincerest thank you to you all… every single day.

On the note of thank yous and kindness, today is World Kindness Day. So, let’s keep the love for our military and each other going strong. In an increasingly wacky world, let’s think about the positive impact we can have on each other, especially locally here in our own community.

On the kindness front and when you’re ready to embark on your real estate journey, the Arlington Realty, Inc. team will always greet you with professionalism, keen local knowledge and a smile. When you’re ready to roll, we are, too.

And now on to this week’s numbers.

As of November 11, there are 150 detached homes, 19 townhouses and 94 condos for sale throughout Arlington County. In total, 19 homes experienced a price reduction in the past week:

Please note that 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.

Ask Eli: How Agents and Agent Teams are Structured

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. Enjoy!

Question: I’m in the process of searching for a real estate agent and having trouble understanding the different organizational structures. Can you explain how it works?

Answer: Most real estate agents operate as independent contractors within their brokerage (office), thus have autonomy to operate their business/service model as they choose. With over 12,000 Realtors in the Northern Virginia Association of Realtors alone, the organizational structures and business models vary widely to suit an agent’s style of business and/or target clientele.

I think it’s almost as important for home buyers and sellers to learn about their prospective agent’s operating model as it is to make sure they know your market. An agent’s operating model will impact your experience and you need to make sure it aligns with your expectations.

I’ll break down some of the organizational structures that are most common today so you have an idea of what to look for.

Brokerage

At the top of the organizational structure is the brokerage, which is best described as the office your agent works for. The brokerage is the legal entity involved in the transaction and when you sign a Buyer Representation or Listing Agreement, it’s actually with the brokerage, with your agent as the assigned representative of the brokerage.

Currently in D.C., most brokerages are made up of multiple agents, often dozens to hundreds, and function like a shared office. An agent cannot operate independently outside of a brokerage, but an individual agent can have their own broker’s license and operate an independent brokerage.

Most agents operate as independent contractors within their brokerage, but there are some models, Redfin being the most popular, where agents are employees.

Agent Models

In most cases agents operate individually or within a team, structured in some common ways:

1. Individual Agent, No Support: Many agents work independently without any sort of support staff. The advantage for clients is that you always know who you’ll be working with and who is handling every detail of your transaction. The main disadvantage is that there is a single point of failure if that person is unavailable.

2. Individual Agent With Administrative Support: Some independent agents hire one or more people to support administrative tasks like scheduling and marketing. Some brokerages also offer this type of administrative support to their agents. This should be an advantage over #1 because the agent has more time for high-value tasks, but it also requires the administrative support to be on top of things and strong communication between agent and admin.

3. Team Partnership: Two or more experienced agents with strong individual businesses may partner to share some administrative support costs and build a stronger brand together. For the client, it has many of the same qualities as #2, but there’s usually an added benefit of knowing that there’s at least one other experienced agent available as back-up in case your agent in unavailable.

4. Team Lead With Coordinators: An individual agent or partnership with a large book of business that uses specialized buyer and seller coordinators to support client activities. An advantage to clients is that the transaction is generally led/directed by an experienced agent and that there is no single point of failure, you’re working with a support team. A disadvantage is that some or many high-value pieces of the transaction are handled by coordinators, not the lead (experienced) agent.

5. Team “CEO” With Junior Agents: An experienced agent who acts more as a CEO, overseeing the operations of a large team of agents, and personally handling very few transactions, if any. Clients should benefit from systems and processes the “CEO” agent used to become successful, imparted on the junior agents. A disadvantage is that these teams often have dozens or more agents and the experience of those agents varies widely and don’t necessarily reflect the talent of the “CEO” agent.

(more…)

Your Beermonger: And a Happy Stoutmas to You

By ARLnow.com Sponsor

This sponsored column is written by Nick Anderson, beermonger at Arrowine (4508 Lee Highway). Sign up for Nick’s email newsletter and also receive exclusive discounts and offers.

It’s a season not unlike the harvest: you can have a feeling for when it’s going to start, but never really know for sure until you’re in it.

The revelry is just as real though, and, quite literally, intoxicating. I’m speaking today of Stoutmas, the nebulous holiday season that my wife and I invented some years back and has kicked off in earnest this week.

You may or may not be surprised to learn that ours isn’t the most religious of houses, but Stoutmas (or #Stoutmas if you’re on social media, because if anything else can get a day, surely we can get a whole season for Stouts) has become one of our few observed high holidays (along with Halloween, Dia del los Muertos, our “leave us alone” Christmas Day wherein we’ve already done our family stuff the day before and stay in being lazy, new Bojack episodes — though I guess we’re gonna have to find something to replace that one…).

It started a few years ago and has become a beloved tradition not just for us, but now for many of our clients at Arrowine.

Stoutmas began during my first stint at Arrowine, as we were heading into the fall rush and holiday season. Occasionally, breweries give buyers like me samples of upcoming releases to try, and periodically, I find my fridge bursting a bit at the seams with beers I haven’t quite gotten to yet for one reason or another.

With an impressive collection of Stouts and Porters built up, and sharing a love of dark beers of all strengths and styles, my wife and I decided to start opening and splitting at least one of them per night. We got to try many things new, either to her or to both of us, and freed up precious refrigerator space for stuff like, you know, food.

Soon enough we realized that as November rolled into December, there were more than enough Stouts coming out that we really could do a different one every night leading into the Christmas holiday. Hence, Stoutmas.

This year’s Stoutmas is kicking off with the release of Hardywood’s Gingerbread Stout, First of Its Name and Hearald of the Vaunted Variant Releases. But, by the time you find this column online, I’ll also have rich, bold, dark Stouts in stock from Union, Oliver, Wicked Weed, Stillwater, Southern Tier, Smartmouth and Schalfly with many more to come. Wicked Weed’s entry is seemingly made for Stoutmas: a 4-pack with one bottle each of four of their fan-favorite Imperial Stouts (Milk & Cookies, French Toast, S’mores and German Chocolate Cake).

Stoutmas is best celebrated with friends and/or family; those Imperials can add up quickly. You can hold off until December 1 and do the advent calendar thing, but I like to think Stoutmas lives in our heart and livers all year round.

There’s truly no wrong way to celebrate the season. So go forth, and indulge that curiosity about that Imperial Stout you’ve always wanted to try, and maybe, just maybe, we’ll find that the real Stoutmas was the friends we made along the way.

Next time: The “interesting” column I promised last time — I hope.

Upcoming tasting events at Arrowine:

Friday, November 8, 5-7 p.m. — Jesse Ploeg of Potter’s Craft Cider
Friday, November 22, 5-7 p.m. — Clayton Daniels of Abita Brewing Company
Saturday, November 23, 1-4 p.m. — Joe Kasper of 3 Stars Brewing Company

Open Houses in Arlington This Weekend

By ARLnow.com Sponsor

Looking for a home? There are plenty of houses and condos open for viewing this weekend.

Check out the Arlington Realty website for a full list of homes for sale and open houses in Arlington. Here are a few highlights:

4611 36th Street N.
6 BD/5 BA, 1 half bath single-family home
Agent: Washington Fine Properties
Listed: $2,699,00
Open: Saturday 2-4 p.m.

 

1236 Oakcrest Road
4 BD/3 BA single-family home
Agent: Re/Max Allegiance
Listed: $1,149,900
Open: Sunday 1-4 p.m.

 

1418 N. Rhodes Street #B102
2 BD/2 BA, 1 half bath condo
Agent: Kw Metro Center
Listed: $919,900
Open: Sunday 1-3 p.m.

 

1034 N. Randolph Street
2 BD/2 BA condo
Agent: Century 21 Redwood Realty
Listed: $839,00
Open: Saturday 1-3 p.m.

 

3604 8th Street S.
3 BD/2 BA, 1 half bath single-family home
Agent: Long & Foster Real Estate, Inc
Listed: $ 699,00
Open: Sunday 1-4 p.m.

 

939 S. Scott Street #1
2 BD/2 BA, 1 half bath condo
Agent: Re/Max Distinctive Real Estate, Inc
Listed: $514,500
Open: Saturday 2-4 p.m.

 

2821 Wakfield Street S. #7-8
2 BD/1 BA condo
Agent: Kw Metro Center
Listed: $407,500
Open: Sunday 1-4 p.m.

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 Team Cathell, “Your Orange Line Specialists.”

The best way to describe Arlington’s fall real estate market is consistent. It’s not particularly exciting, nor is it ever boring. It just keeps plugging along at a steady pace.

This week mirrors last week with 43 new listings and 44 sales. Of those homes that sold, some 17 were gone within seven days, pushing our average days on market (DOM) down to just 20. At that rate of absorption, and with only 244 homes actively available for sale, we have only 1.4 months of inventory.

The average DOM for those 244 homes still actively for sale is 80. So what makes the difference between 20 DOM for those homes that sold this week compared to 80 DOM for those that haven’t sold yet? Well, it’s more than just location, location, location. It boils down to two things: price and condition.

Pricing a home properly can overcome location and other handicaps. Pricing is the most important factor that sellers can control, followed closely by condition. Buyers today are maxing out their purchasing power just to buy the home. They have no cash left for upgrades. So they want homes that are in pristine condition needing nothing else but love from the new owners.

Arlington’s problem with low inventory is the national story as well. The inventory level nationally has dropped 2.7% from last year’s third quarter, according to a new report from the National Association of Realtors.

The report also shows that our DMV area is ranked 14th among 176 major metro areas in the U.S. for the most expensive homes. Of course San Francisco/San Jose/San Diego rank at the top. But those three areas also saw their home prices drop in the third quarter compared to last year by about 3.5% average. If it’s true that trends start in California, then we all need to pay attention in the months ahead.

Click to see all the fresh new inventory in MRIS and call Team Cathell (703-975-2500) when you find a home you like.

Boring Title: 4 Things You Need To Know This Week In Real Estate

By ARLnow.com Sponsor

Title insurance is boring, but Allied Title & Escrow is here to decode the jargon and make it (somewhat) more interesting. This biweekly feature will explore the mundane (but very necessary!) world of title insurance while sharing interesting stories of two friends’ entrepreneurial careers.

This week, Allied Title & Escrow’s CEO, Latane Meade, talks about 4 things you should know about real estate in our area… #3 is VERY EXCITING!

If you have any real estate questions that you would like to ask, comment below!

Have questions related to title insurance? Email Latane and Matt at [email protected]. Want to use Allied Title & Escrow when you buy a home? Tell your agent when you buy a house to write in Allied Title & Escrow as your settlement company!

Arlington Pet of the Week: Rosie

By ARLnow.com
1/5

Meet Arlington’s newest Pet of the Week, Rosie, a 10 year old Golden retriever who loves to explore new places.

Here is what Rosie has to say about her life here in Arlington:

My name is Rosie, and I am a 10 year old golden retriever living in Pentagon City with my mom and cat brother, George. I was born in a little town called Joshua, Texas. When I was 5 years old, I moved to College Station, TX to assist my mom in getting her undergraduate degree. One of my favorite activities was walking around campus and getting pets and treats from stressed out students around the library. My studies have continued here in Virginia at George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government on the Arlington campus. Greeting students and brightening their walk to class is one of the highlights of my day.

Overall, living in a community that is so dog friendly brings me constant joy. I love attention and food more than anything else in the world, and the people of Arlington love to spoil me! My favorite place to go is Sine in Pentagon City where they give me whipped cream for being a good girl. Additionally, I love watching the planes at Gravelly Point, walking on Mt. Vernon Trail, and accompanying mom and all of her friends to lunch. I am constantly wanting to explore new places and meet new people, and Arlington never disappoints!

Want your pet to be considered for the Arlington Pet of the Week? Email [email protected] with a 2-3 paragraph bio and at least 3-4 horizontally-oriented photos of your pet. Please don’t send vertical photos, they don’t fit in our photo galleries!

Each week’s winner receives a sample of dog or cat treats from our sponsor, Becky’s Pet Care, along with $100 in Becky’s Bucks. Becky’s Pet Care is the winner of eight consecutive Angie’s List Super Service Awards, the National Association of Professional Pet Sitters’ 2013 Business of the Year and a proud supporter of the Arlington County Pawsitively Prepared Campaign.

Becky’s Pet Care provides professional dog walking and pet sitting in Arlington and all of Northern Virginia, as well as PetPrep training courses for Pet Care, CPR and emergency preparedness.

Biz Talk: Call for Applications — Arlington’s Fast Four Award

By ARLnow.com Sponsor
Arlington company, Eminent IT, wins a 2018 Fast Four Award

This article was written by Sindy Yeh, Senior Business Ambassador for Arlington Economic Development.

For the fifth year in a row, Arlington is celebrating its fastest growing companies.

The Fast Four Award honors Arlington companies that are growing quickly in a variety of revenue categories. Whether a technology-based or retail business, the Fast Four Award aims to recognize thriving companies across industry sectors. The award is also an opportunity for local companies to showcase their growth while demonstrating Arlington’s business-friendly environment.

To be eligible, companies must be privately held, be based in Arlington, and show continuous revenue growth between 2016 and 2018. To apply, companies must submit an online application and provide income statements to show proof of growth and revenue. The company with the fastest growth rate in each revenue category will be honored as one of Arlington’s fastest growing businesses.

The 2018 award winners were Arlington companies, AM LLC, LiveSafe, Eminent IT, and Mind, Body, Health.

The 2019 Arlington Fast Four winners will be formally announced on December 5 at the Arlington Premiere event to be held at Ballston Quarter. Arlington Premiere is an exclusive event where Arlington’s newest business owners have the opportunity to meet key community and government leaders while learning about the many resources available to them within the County.

We encourage fast-growing companies to apply for the 2019 Fast Four Awards.

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