Hello to all those of you who have been wondering about my missing-in-action staus here:  I'm back!  After two amazing months in Germany -- courtesy of the American Academy in Berlin -- we're all settling back into our old routines, schools, jobs. The kids went to school in Berlin, and surprisingly, they actually loved it!

Nothing is more surprising, touching, shocking, endearing and alienating than an expatriate's visit to her hometown.  I will draw from the experience for many months to come and likely refer to it here as well, but for now, let me start with a little real estate.  The house we lived in was one of the gate houses (the "Chauffeur's House") of the enormous late 19th century villa by Lake Wannsee that is home to the Academy. 

Oh, in case you're wondering in what church I might have taken the second picture, it's the upstairs bathroom.

Oh, boy.  The question hasn't actually been asked yet in this case, but I immediately pictured a wild scene at the final walk-through.  Railings and bannisters clearly are "fixtures" in a house, meaning they must stay put for the buyer.  But what if the basement stair railing was fashioned from, ehm, a gun?

That's what my buyers -- both Europeans who couldn't believe what they saw -- and I came across in Potomac, a well-to-do DC suburb, yesterday.  There was a lot more interesting about this rather unusual house that needed work but sat on a 4 acre lot with a smashing view that included hills, woods and a large pond.  But just this one feature might raise all kinds of legal questions.

"Of course, I had to extend the barrel a bit," explained the proud homeowner, an elderly widower who confessed to a love of shotguns.  Two brackets hold the weapon in place.  None of us felt a great desire to try, but it looked pretty solid.

There was a clever balcony high up off the family room that streched between three major areas of the house.  You had a nice view of the valley with the pond from there. 

I really wouldn't want to be a deer stepping out of the woods on this property.

Unlike many of our friends, I hadn’t actually known anybody in person who was on one of the planes, or in one of the buildings. Strangely, the closest I ever got to a victim was through real estate.

But this is Washington, and here you’re always in the middle of the news. My husband covered Flight 93 for the Washington Post, and our house near downtown Washington was only a few miles away from the Pentagon. (Yes, I admit it, I went there as soon as I could and as close I could get.) The shock, the pain and the anger have not been forgotten. They have changed the lives of many of us, and first of all those of the people who lost loved ones on that day.

In the big snow storm of 2003, I had clients who fell in love with a comfortable, charming old house in a great part of town. There was something magic to that house, and even though there were no pictures on the listing and DC’s streets weren’t maneuverable that week, several others were instantly bidding on the house as well.

We won, but we never got to meet the seller, a single guy who had fled town and moved to another city. He would only communicate through his lawyer--an unusual situation in a jurisdiction without mandatory attorney review.

There was the name of a woman on the public record as well, and the smallest bedroom had hand-painted Peter Rabbit murals all over. A divorce, we figured.

We were wrong, very wrong. The day before the closing —I was in the hospital having a baby--we learned that the wife had been on the plane that crashed into the Pentagon. Later, we saw her name on a local memorial list. The thought that she might have been pregnant with their first child made me sob.

The husband could not bear to come back.

My own baby died two days after the closing, and even though a more rational person might object, there was a symbolism to that which I couldn’t escape. The house, 9/11 and my son’s death are weirdly connected in my mind. The only picture anybody ever took of me during that pregnancy (after all, he was our third) was taken during the home inspection in that house. I still have it.

For complicated reasons, my then-clients and now friends never ended up living in the house. When we put it on the market again last year, I had the nursery painted in a neutral color, rationalizing that this would appeal to a wider range of buyers. And it did –the home was under contract before the first open house.

Secretely, though, I also wanted to cover up my feelings.

I am always fascinated with historic homes (and the history of homes).  In a way, this Washington house is a historic home now, even though the tragic story of its one-time owners might get lost down the road.

This week, it has been 7 years since the Towers. I will say a prayer for the many people whose lives have been changed (or ended) on that day.

I'm sitting at my desk, talking on the phone and looking out of the window.  The large, pretty dear in the driveway is unimpressed by first a car, then a man with a dog who are passing by.  It barely looks up.  My weed-ridden lawn must be yummy, although I'm sure it's not the weeds the animal targets.

After we moved from a more urban DC neighborhood out to Rock Creek Forest on the District line, the first thing our kids got excited about was the daily deer in our yard.  Visitors from the woods elegantly leaped over the fence and started munching on their favorite greens, no matter if someone was watching or not. They let us come shockingly close.

As we have long learned now, there are downsides to the spectacle. My hostas bloom for only a day, several other plants regularly get chewed down to the ground. At least twice, my car’s bumper got within inches of a deer that had popped out of nowhere. (About 2,000 actual “deer-vehicle collisions” are reported in the county each year.) Last summer, I caught Lyme disease from a deer tick; luckily, it was diagnosed early.

Almost worse, the forest suffers from the Bambi boom as well. Montgomery Parks Senior Natural Resources Specialist Roy Butler told me that there are about 200 deer per square mile of parkland in the county (they measure this from airplanes, with nifty infrared cameras). The ecological optimum for forest health, however, is 10-20 deer per square mile!

Everywhere, forest understory and groundcovers—the park’s future--have been hurt by the tremendous growth of the deer population.  That’s why since the 1990s, regular deer management plans have been developed by the Park Service.

Presently, “management” mainly means reducing the deer by a certain number each winter.  In the larger parks, controlled hunts are conducted on designated dates (you can apply if you have a license).  In stretches closer to residential areas, such as our Rock Creek Valley, Park Police sharpshooters will do the job.  The “harvested” animals (845 last year) are donated to food banks.

For the future, we can expect friendlier methods. The biggest deer birth control experiments (with hormone injections) in the US are conducted right here in Montgomery County: in Wheaton and Gaithersburg.  Ironically, it’s us, the people, or better, the good greens in our suburban yards that caused the deer to super-breed in the first place.   But, who wants tall nets in their front yard…

(Photo courtesy of Roy Butler, MCPS)

The lives of realtors in metropolitan areas are at a turning point.  And I'm NOT talking about a slowing market here.  What I'm talking about are our clients' criteria, needs and desires.  More and more buyers are weary of the suburbs now, at least the ones that aren't really "close-in."  Read on and you'll see what I mean.

A hundred years ago, a "suburb" was a green place to live that could be reached in 15 minutes on a streetcar.  Today, make that 1 hour and 15 minutes, and forget about the streetcars -- you're more likely to spend that time in a traffic jam or on a six lane highway.

If that frustation wasn't enough to reverse a trend, the $4+ a gallon might.  Anecdotally, we've already seen that many of our buyers rather go for the smaller, older and less handsome home if it puts them closer to where they want to be: work, shopping, and their social life.

The Washington Post picked this up in a remarkable cover story today (click on the headline):

Gas Prices Apply Brakes To Suburban Migration

 

Washington, DC, of course has consistently starred as one of the worst rush hour failures in multi-city studies across the US.  But it's also full of smart policy makers.  The heated commentaries and debate in the online version of the article attest to the fact that it was right on the money.

As realtors, we will be effected by new trends in housing choices more than anybody else.  I'd love to hear what my colleagues from other parts of the country think.  

We all know that trees, shrubs and ornamental plants can beautify a house and certainly increase its curb appeal. Usually, that is. There are some, however, that don’t help, like when they’ve grown to completely obscure an attractive façade, or when their roots have started to invade the foundation of the home like a malicious tumor, bringing in moisture and threatening the substance of the whole structure.

The "tree" in the chimney here, right at the front of a house I just showed, is probably not a serious threat.  But it's on a beautiful old house on a beautiful block in a great neighborhood.  It’s an expensive house as well, with gracious proportions and a top dollar asking price. When we looked at old pictures from a previous sale of the same property a couple of years ago, my buyer immediately discovered the same plant crowning up there– just a little smaller at the time.

Most good agents will have a thorough walk-through with their sellers before a house goes on the market. They will explain how prospective buyers will see the place, what kind of features appeal to a wide range of buyers, and what will be a red flag for many of them. Part of the staging process—no matter how much money the seller is willing or able to spend—should always be a critical look at maintenance issues. Weeds in the gutters, cracked window panes or a little rotten wood on a deck might be harmless in the specific home, but they will have a buyer wonder what other, invisible problems have not been taken care of. Or they will outright be scary and make the buyer run.

That said, of course it's up to the sellers to take their agent's advice or to ignore it.

Recently, I wrote about the importance of regular fireplace and chimney maintenance....  Well, let’s not go there. Let’s just say, some trees clearly take away from the beauty of a property.

Dear Vered and Allan and girls,

as promised, I'm keeping an eye on the renovation/construction of your home while you're overseas for the summer.   You've had enough time to witness the "demolition" and even more time to study what was left while waiting for permits from the DC bureaucracy, so let's see how it's all going to come back together in the next few months!

ActiveRain (thank you, guys!) rewarded us for our participation in the inspiring Makeover2Takeover contest with this amazing little flip video camera.  I have been playing with it for a few weeks now.  So much cooler than the little mini videos from my phone or photo camera!  Now the trick is to figure out the editing, and while i've been trying hard to master that as well, you'll see it's, ehm, in the early stages...

Hope you enjoy the movie anyway!  Stay tuned for more in August!