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!

Okay, all you historic homes buffs: take a look at the picture on the left.

Where would you think this is? In the US? Holland? Poland? Some place in the Baltic? And when do you think the houses were built? In the 19th century? Or the 17th?

Well, try again. How about 2008, brand-new construction in the Washington, DC suburbs?

Yes, you read that correctly. The National Park Seminary in close-in Silver Spring is the quirkiest new development in our ‘burbs, an eclectic mix of townhouses and condos that are sleek and contemporary inside and feature facades in Tudor, Colonial and whatever-period stucco style.

(Okay, I admit, tinting my picture in sepia was a little misleading.  To make up, I show you a "real" one on the right.  That's the old town market square of Wroclaw in Polen, formerly Breslau, Germany.  The oldest building dates from the 14th century. :-)

In any case, the pleasant weirdness has tradition at this location. The site was once the campus of one of Americas finest “finishing schools” for wealthy girls, then a Seminary, and finally owned by the US military for many decades before most of its buildings started their decay into a silent, slow death. The ruins of the school’s gymnasium with its then state-of-the-art heated indoor pool and of a magnificent multi-story ballroom (check out the history and old pictures on the developers’ website) are being restored, and so are some of the castle-like dormitory or a pagoda-look-alike office building.

There is park land all around, there are some replicas of ancient statues and a lot of other fun stuff. There’s a newly paved road going through the whole thing, and even a new access path to the Rock-Creek Hiker-Biker trail is about to be opened.

So, it’s great fun. Just one thing seems truly out-of-whack, at least to me, the city girl. It’s such an urban picture: townhouses, side walks, tiny yards, roof decks. And it is indeed little more than a mile from the DC city limits. But where is the infrastructure? Where are the urban amenities to go with the images? Where are the cafes, the bakeries, the newspaper stands? Hmm.

I love the place, and I have been trying so hard to come up with buyers to show those homes to. But it seems, they’re always either-or. Either they want the suburbs, a detached house and a big yard and the neighborhood pool. Or they want the city, the noise, the stores, the metro, the minimal commute, fast pace.

This is a little neither-nor.

Times have changed in the mortgage industry, haven't they?

There used to be a time when I actively discouraged my clients from a) the use of online mortgage services, and b) independent mortgage brokers.  This is why:

Right in my first year of business one of my buyers insisted on working with a broker from somewhere in southern Virginia.  Of course, he was the warmly recommended cousin of a friend of a colleague.  Or something like that.  The guy had given them a nice pre-approval letter, so who was I to question that.  We had a couple of strange phone conversations, but I chucked the funny feeling off to the fact that they probably did business differently down there in Richmond or whereever he was from.

You guessed it.  The loan never materialized.  We didn't find out until two days before settlement, when I was desperately trying to get some figures.  The young couple, first-time buyers, were in default.  Only with a lot of begging and the swift rescue operation by a large national lender could the transaction be saved.

(Oh, and needless to say, the buyers blamed me.)

So for years, pretty much all of my buyers had to go to direct local lenders or national lenders with a local presence.  No more brokers, please!  I felt this was safer, and I didn't know any better.

Until a couple of years ago, when one of my clients, who moved to DC from New York, brought Seth into the picture.  Seth Opert of Royal Mortgage was who he would use for his loan.  No discussion.  I tried not to roll my eyes.

It turned out that Seth, in the business for himself, was one of the most impressive mortgage people I'd met.  He delivered exactly what he promised; he held everybody's hands through every little crisis along the way; he had the appraisal approved on time; he had the money at the settlement company a couple of days before settlement; he distributed HUD-1's several days early; he showed up for each closing.

Right now, however, I feel a special need to celebrate Seth (licensed in DC, VA, MD, NY) because he just gloriously saved a transaction that a large national bank/lender had dropped for obscure reasons. 

In short, Seth not only changed my mind, but I also have recommended him ever since.

It occurs to me that the changing mortgage market has created a new, special stage for independent mortgage brokers.  With increasingly limited (and daily changing) underwriting guidelines for most lenders, a broker might have a lot more flexibility and options in finding the right loan for you.
What do you think?

This could have been an easy and sweet success story from beginning to end.  After he had been looking for different things in different neighborhoods, my buyer finally walked into the place that had it all: the right kind of building, the right floor plan, the right types of amenities, a convenient urban location in walking distance to his downtown power office.

The price was quickly agreed upon, the rest of the conditions as well.

A review of the condo doc revealed that the board of the 3-year-old, 97-unit building was taking the builder to court for some counts of sloppy craftsmanship or failure to fulfill warranty repairs.

We took an inspector with construction background to check out the list of alleged problems and violations. He explained that none of it was unusual or grounds for serious concern. So we weren’t worried, especially when we learned that the associated special assessment (most likely for legal fees and reserves) would be paid in full by the sellers.

The loan had been pre-approved, the appraisal came in fine. All contingencies could be removed.

Then, a few weeks later, totally out of the blue, a call from the upset listing agent.  Another unit in the building couldn’t settle. The lender, a big national bank and incidentally the same lender as ours, didn’t approve the condo because of the pending litigation.

Our loan officer didn’t think it would be a problem. My buyer was strong and likely had better guidelines.
Another two weeks, 20 faxes and 200 phone calls later, the same lender decided for good that my client wouldn’t get a loan, either. Sorry. Just like that.

Never mind that the suit might very well get thrown out. Never mind that most of the alleged “safety violations” had been repaired. Never mind that it wasn’t a suit against the building, but rather the building, or some forceful representatives thereof, trying to take care of itself.  A surely well-intentioned effort, but now it backfires.  Will nobody be able to sell their units here if they want to?

And, is my buyer in default?  Is he risking his earnest money (in this area is a substantial sum)?

No, said the title attorneys, because in the narrower sense, this can be seen as a title problem. (After all, it’s not the buyer’s fault, or anything we could have reasonably expected.)  They will have to let him go.

But—he doesn’t want to go. He wants the place! And the sellers want to sell it to him!

While a couple of loan officers from other lenders have offered to just try and submit the loan (and hope no questions will be ask), my favorite local mortgage broker wanted the cards on the table. He submitted as much information to his lenders as he could, talked to the condo board and their legal counsel, collected every part of the puzzle we could find. My buyer – an attorney himself -- found this to be a more comfortable approach.

19 days before closing, we’re keeping our fingers crossed.  God willing, there will be a way.

Anybody been in this situation?

Update on 6/24/2008.   The transaction closed yesterday.  For the new lender, no problem whatsoever.  In the end, the only negative was all the heartache we had over this, and maybe the fact that the rates for the buyer had slightly gone up since the first lock.