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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.

Good morning, Arlington, and welcome to Just Listed!

I hope you’re looking ahead to Thanksgiving next week as much as I am. Gathering with family, friends or both over a meal is a wonderful thing and I wish we could do it on the Thanksgiving scale more each year.

There is an amazing part of a Thanksgiving meal that doesn’t show up on the table, or in the hard work that goes into the preparation of the food, or the beautiful decorations. It’s the house that entertains and welcomes the guests. Our homes are so important to our lives daily, and the opportunities to welcome others into them can be very rewarding.

Conversations about home ownership are ongoing for many, but they usually start to ramp up surrounding the holidays. If you have a dream of hosting Thanksgiving dinner or other holiday gatherings in a new, or larger home next year, I would love to chat with you about how my team can help you achieve that goal!

Activity in Arlington real estate continues to chug along, but it’s quite evident we’re closing in on the end of the year. Inventory is declining and days on market are still climbing. I’ll dig into the numbers a bit more below.

This week, there are 425 listed homes available for sale in Arlington, down 26 from last week. There are 98 detached homes for sale, 61 townhomes/semi-detached properties, and 266 condominiums on the market.

As of this week, the average list price of homes currently for sale is $789,322, and the median is $565,000. Average days on market (DOM) is 71, and the median is 43. Homes of all types range in price from $99,900 all the way up to $4,250,000!

This same week last year, there were 566 available homes for sale in Arlington, sellers listed 81 new listings and buyers ratified 65 contracts.

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.

4019 16th Street S.

Black Friday BOGO gift cards at Copperwood Tavern and the Pinemoor are back

By ARLnow.com Sponsor

Black Friday never tasted so good.

The annual Black Friday Buy One, Get One Free sale — BOGO, for short — of gift cards at Arlington sister restaurants Copperwood Tavern and the Pinemoor kicks off on Friday, November 26.

Although the restaurants are open for lunch, dinner and weekend brunch, they are opening their doors on Black Friday at 9 a.m. in anticipation of a flurry of foodies who want to take advantage of this once-a-year meal deal.

You do the math: If you buy a $25 gift card for, say, a loved one, you get another $25 gift card for free to give to someone else — or use it yourself (we would). If you buy a $50 gift card, you get another $50 gift card for free.

And if you buy a $100 gift card, you get a second $100 gift card for FREE. That’s $100 you can use for the purchase of anything in either restaurant.

At Copperwood Tavern, the locally sourced proteins are the draw at this farm-to-table establishment, with an array of meats, seafood and produce provided by local farmers who take pride in their efforts. A bar with 20 fresh Virginia draft beers, 30 small-batch whiskeys, and a vast local wine selection tops off the ambitious menu at this “woodsy retreat” in the heart of Shirlington. Find out more about the gift card sale at their blog.

At the Southern-style Pinemoor, a menu of down-home staples such as fried chicken, pulled pork bbq, fried green tomatoes, and grilled red meat is rounded out with crowd pleasers including oysters Rockefeller, Duck Two Ways (moulard and confit, in case you were wondering), crab stuff flounder, and an assortment of salads and sides. While you are there enjoy the craft cocktails, the expansive wine offerings and the Southern hospitality.

Copperwood Tavern is at 4021 Campbell Avenue; call 703-552-8010; [email protected]. The Pinemoor is at 1101 N. Highland Street; call 571-970-2592; [email protected].

Boring Title: 3 reasons why you should consider buying (with Kyle Toomey)

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.

For this week’s edition of Boring Title, we sit down with Compass real estate agent, Kyle Toomey, to talk about three reasons why you should not wait until the end of the winter market to look at purchasing a home.

Many people think that the spring market is best, but here are some reasons why you should reconsider.

Have questions for Kyle? Make sure to shoot him a call or send him a DM on Instagram!

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! 

Get Starry Comet: Internet-only service for communities 10 units and up

By ARLnow.com Sponsor

Starry, Northern Virginia’s premier internet-only service provider, can now service apartment and condo communities as small as 10 units! If you refer Starry to your building manager, they’ll give you a $25 Amazon gift card just to say thanks! They’ll also give you the first 3 months of service free when the building gets installed.

For just $50 a month (every month — no price hikes!), Starry gives you ultra fast speeds (up to 200Mbps), free WiFi router and installation, up to $200 reimbursement for your old provider’s early termination fees, unlimited data — no data caps or overage fees, and friendly, reliable 24/7 customer support from a locally based team of experts.

Starry is currently available in large parts of Arlington and Alexandra, and continues to expand their local network every day.

Residents, Building Property Managers and Owners who want to bring Starry to their community can apply through their website or email [email protected] to inquire about bringing in Starry at absolutely no cost to the building.

Why wait? Bring a transformative new internet option into your community today.

Happy Interneting!

Arts Focus: Arlington Reads, Author Nathaniel Rich in conversation with Diane Kresh

By ARLnow.com Sponsor

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

The New York Times Magazine devoted an entire issue to Losing Earth: A Recent History, Nathaniel Rich’s groundbreaking chronicle which became an instant journalistic phenomenon — the subject of international news coverage and editorials.

Arlington Public Library invites you to join an online conversation between the novelist and essayist and Library Director Diane Kresh.

The event is supported by EcoAction Arlington, a County program which also has been a community partner for Arlington Art Truck projects rooted in issues of sustainability, will share tips and resources during the YouTube premiere.

About the Book

By 1979, we knew nearly everything we understand today about climate change — including how to stop it. Over the next decade, a handful of scientists, politicians and strategists, led by two unlikely heroes, risked their careers in a desperate, escalating campaign to convince the world to act before it was too late. Losing Earth is their story, and ours. In its emphasis on the lives of the people who grappled with the great existential threat of our age, it made vivid the moral dimensions of our shared plight. Now expanded into book form, Losing Earth tells the human story of climate change in even richer, more intimate terms.

About the Author

Nathaniel Rich is the author of Losing Earth: A Recent History (MCD/Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2019), a finalist for the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Award, and a winner of awards from the Society of Environmental Journalists and the American Institute of Physics. He is also the author of the novels King Zeno (MCD/FSG, 2018); Odds Against Tomorrow (FSG, 2013); and The Mayor’s Tongue (Riverhead, 2008). Rich’s short fiction has been published by McSweeney’s, Esquire, Vice, the Virginia Quarterly Review, and the American Scholar; he was awarded the 2017 Emily Clark Balch Prize for Fiction and is a two-time finalist for the National Magazine Award for Fiction.

Rich is a writer-at-large for The New York Times Magazine and a regular contributor to The Atlantic, Harper’s, and The New York Review of Books. His reported pieces have appeared in various anthologies, including the Best American Nonrequired Reading and the Best American Science and Nature Writing.

Register here to watch on Arlington Public Library’s Youtube channel, where you can enter to win a free copy of Rich’s book!

Arlington Pet of the Week: Lily and Daisy

By ARLnow.com
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Say hi to Lily and Daisy, Arlington’s latest Pet of the Week duo. These two fashionable ladies are Pugs who were rescued from the Great Salt Lake and now call Arlington their home.

Here’s what their owner had to say about the sisters:

These sisters have traded their hiking boots for bespoke couture as they enjoy a packed social calendar filled with brunches with “the girls” at various Arlington eateries, play dates at the Pug Meet Up, goat yoga and shopping trips to Dogma Pet Bakery.

A little shy with strangers, Lily needs some time before she jumps in your lap to give some kisses. Daisy has never met a stranger and will eagerly dance around you and offer huge licks from her tongue.

After a busy day sipping pawseccos and browsing Etsy, Lily likes to enjoy a “cigar” (her Petstages Deerhorn bone) with her evening watermelon. Daisy can be found cuddling her elephant stuffy and loves nothing more than curling up in a lap to snooze.

Welcome to these darling western ladies!

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!

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.

(more…)

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