This is a sponsored post by Eve Thompson of Reston Real Estate. It does not reflect the opinion of Reston Now.

Is one of your goals for 2016 to reduce your carbon footprint? It’s easier than you may think — and it doesn’t have to be a sacrifice.

There are so many little steps you can take around the house that add up to big environmental benefits. I’ve gathered a list of 12 things you can do right now (or implement one a month for the next year). Have fun being green!

1. Clean your refrigerator coils. This will help the refrigerator run more efficiently, and that saves energy. Cleaning the coils isn’t something you think about much, but it’s not hard. Just pull the refrigerator away from the wall, vacuum the dust out of the coils and wipe with a damp cloth. It will take 10 minutes at most.
2. Keep your freezer full. A full freezer runs more efficiently than an empty one. You don’t have to fill it with ice cubes and frozen dinners. There are a lot of things you can freeze. For example, milk freezes beautifully. So buy a bigger jug of milk, keep what you need and freeze the rest in mason jars. Rice also freezes well. I cook up large batches and then freeze single servings for when I need them.
3. Use cloth napkins instead of paper napkins at dinner. They’re prettier and don’t fill up the landfills. And if you’re a dainty eater, you may get several uses out of one napkin before you need to wash it.
4. Change out your light bulbs to light-emitting diodes (LEDs). They use less energy and last longer. Yes, they are expensive. But they are worth it.
5. Cold this winter? Before you turn up the heat, try layering. An extra sweater or a fuzzy blanket will keep you warm and cozy… and save on your energy bill.
6. If you need to buy a new appliance this year, make it an Energy Star-qualified one. Even if they cost a little more, they’ll save you on your electricity bill in the long run.
7. Stop using disposable roasting and baking pans. Sure they’re convenient, but they’re expensive in the long run and create waste. You can get a nice roasting pan for around $15. And a bonus: they are much sturdier. Taking the turkey out of the oven is much easier!
8. Repair leaky faucets and toilets. It is staggering how much water you waste with a small leak. A friend who let a running toilet run for a few months was a little shocked when her water bill came — it really adds up. Also, it’s a good idea to install water-saving toilets and shower heads.
9. Join Dominion’s Green Power program and use energy from renewable sources to power your home. It costs a little, but more is worth it.
10. Stop using your dryer sheets, which are loaded with toxins. A wool ball with a safety pin in it will stop the static cling.
11. Buy a new houseplant. They really do help keep your air cleaner.
12. Thinking of freshening the paint in your house? Use low or VOC-free paint. Not only is it Earth friendly, it’s wallet friendly too.

Bonus tip: Take your own mug to the Lake Anne Coffee Shop (when we open; or wherever you get your daily fix) — some coffee shops will even give you a discount for bringing your own cup.

See, it’s easy to go green. What other tips do you have for an environmentally friendly home?

This is a sponsored post by Eve Thompson of Reston Real Estate.

Privacy in a townhouse? That doesn’t seem possible. Many people who choose townhouse living do so at the expense of feeling like they have any real privacy.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. Miller & Smith designed Arbor Glen cluster to maximize privacy. The 44 townhouses are arranged in groups of four to six in a “Z” row, which means that each house feels more private.

But the privacy doesn’t stop there. A private, one-way road loops the cluster, adding to the charm of the neighborhood and keeping through traffic out. So while Arbor Glen is right off busy Lake Newport Road, and close to Reston Parkway (only the soccer fields stand between the two), the neighborhood is very quiet.

Built between 1986 and 1988, when the North Point area of Reston was constructed, these spacious townhomes have three or four bedrooms.

While the community is close to North Point Village Center and the bustle of Reston Parkway, it’s nestled in a wooded area that makes it feel more secluded.

Arbor Glnn is less than a five-minute walk to North Point Village Center and Lake Newport Pool (Reston’s only Olympic sized pool). Reston Town Center is less than 2 miles away.

Arbor Glen has all of the pros of a townhome community, including beautiful common areas that you don’t have to maintain! That’s right — you don’t need a lawnmower if you live here.

This is a sponsored post by Eve Thompson of Reston Real Estate.

Property inventory is just beginning to creep back up after a holiday lull that sent the total number of homes for sale in Reston to under 200. That’s the lowest it’s been in most of the previous 12 months.

At our current pace of sales, 88 settled transaction in the past 30 days, this represents just over 2 months of housing inventory. It’s a good start to the year and a good bit of activity given the holiday season.

Here are a few of the houses listed this week.

11106 BURYWOOD LN 4BR 3.5BA. List Price $799,900. Open Sunday

11811 BRETON CT #2B, 2BR ,2.5 BA. List Price $324,900

1333 DASHER LN. 4BR, 4.5BA. List Price $949,900

2316 SAINT BEDES CT 4BR 2.5BA. List Price $629,900. Open Sunday

1830 FOUNTAIN DR #603. 2BR, 2BA. List Price $549,900

This is a sponsored post by Eve Thompson of Reston Real Estate. It does not reflect the opinion of Reston Now.

Winter is here (maybe…this weather is weird). You may want to stay inside, but that doesn’t mean you need to stay at home. Here are three great indoor activities near Reston that you and (in two cases) the family can enjoy all winter.

Visit the Smithsonian

You don’t have to travel into DC to enjoy the Smithsonian museums — the National Air and Space Museum Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center is located just down Route 28 in Chantilly, only about 10 minutes from Reston. This is where all the big, cool aerospace things are, like the Space Shuttle Discovery, the Concord and SR-71 Blackbird. You can also watch planes take off and land from Dulles International Airport from the comfort of the Donald D. Engen Observation Tower. And if that isn’t enough, check out their events calendar for more fun.

Visit Local Historical Sites

Mount Vernon gets most of the glory when it comes to historical homes in Northern Virginia, but it’s not the only one. Founding Father George Mason’s home, Gunston Hall, is also in Fairfax County. It’s a great place to learn about the man who’s writings inspired America’s Bill of Rights.

Closer to home, we have Sully Historic Site in Chantilly (just a few minutes away from the Udvar-Hazy Center) and Colvin Run Mill just down the street, off Route 7.

Sample a Local Brew

Craft breweries are in, and we’ve got several good ones in Fairfax County — Forge Brew Works and Fair Winds Brewing Co. in Lorton, Caboose Brewing Company in Vienna, and Aslin Beer Company in Herndon. And soon, we’ll have one even closer to home in Reston! We can’t wait for the Lake Anne Brew House to open. Perhaps this isn’t for the whole family, but you deserve to have some adult fun! Find yourself a designated driver and enjoy a day of beer tasting.

For more fun, indoor ideas for the winter (and whenever, really), check out this guide from Fairfax County.

This is a sponsored post by Eve Thompson of Reston Real Estate. It does not reflect the opinion of Reston Now.

The real estate market by the numbers in Reston was very strong in 2015. The total volume of transactions was up almost 9 percent, and the average sales price of $473,000 was its highest since 2005.

I think those of us that sell real estate would describe 2015 as a strange year. Days on market was up, traffic in listings was down —  and if you dig into the numbers the growth in value happened at the lower end of the market.

Single family home values were flat over last year, while the average price of a Reston townhouse actually fell from $456K in 2014 to an average of $445K this year. We’ve also seen a steady increase in sellers making a contribution towards the buyer’s closing costs;  this year nearly 60 percent of all transactions included cash towards the buyer’s closing costs.

Industry analysts are expecting a neutral market in 2016 — that means one not favoring either the buyer or the seller. Of course, when applied to the local level that’s not a very meaning concept. At $531 million it’s hard to describe the Reston real estate market as anything but strong, but the flatness at the upper end of the market  ($500k and above) is concerning.

This is a sponsored post by Eve Thompson of Reston Real Estate. It does not reflect the opinion of Reston Now.

Thinking of selling your home in the spring? The time to start getting ready is now.

I don’t typically hold to the notion that one time of year versus another is better for selling your home. For as long as I’ve been selling real estate I have always had at least one transaction around the holidays, but conventional wisdom says that there is something magical about spring.

That being said, as of this writing there are 88 days until Spring, and unless you are a contender for the Martha Stewart award for home organization, the time to start working on your house for a spring listing is now.

When a seller takes seriously the job of preparing their home it takes much, much longer than they imagine. It’s not at all uncommon for the sorting, purging, cleaning, and painting to take up to two months.

So what kinds of things should you be doing to get your home ready?

1. Closets: I recommend that you start with the closets. I think my agent colleagues would agree that a closet that is half-full sends a much better message than one that if stuffed to the gills. Most of us hold on to all kinds of stuff for no better reasonthan we have the room for it, so be ruthless.

2. Pre-packing: For things that you really do want to keep but that you don’t need ready access to, go ahead and pack it up in anticipation of your move.

3. Deep cleaning: I cannot stress to a seller how critical this is. Clean it from the baseboards to the light switches to the light fixtures.

4. Knock off the old “To-do” list: That old light fixture you’ve been meaning to replace since you bought the place — do it now!

A competitive market demands that you make your place stand out from the crowd, so get a jump on it now.

This is a sponsored post from Eve Thompson of Reston Real Estate. It does not represent the opinion of Reston Now.

This holiday season, I’ll be spending most of my time at the Lake Anne Coffee House finishing the renovations on the business I recently purchased (more updates on this soon).

So I’m asking you to go out and do something for me — enjoy the amazing light shows we’re lucky to have in our area. There are three in particular that I think are must-dos. All three run until Jan. 3.

ZooLights

See how more than 500,000 environmentally friendly LED lights transform Washington’s National Zoo into a winter wonderland. That’s a lot of lights!

ZooLights also includes live music, tasty winter treats, and plenty of opportunities for holiday shopping. New this year is a dazzling light show set to music. Best part: it’s free and open to the public.

For FONZ (Friends of the National Zoo) members, every Saturday night of ZooLights the Elephant Community Center is transformed into The Warm Up and Chill Out Lounge. Celebrity Cruises sponsors this exclusive space, and provides complimentary drinks and themed goodies.

Meadowlark’s Winter Walk of Lights

A little closer to home — about a 15-minute drive from Reston to Vienna — we’ve got the Meadowlark Garden’s Winter Walk of Lights. They don’t quite have 500,000 lights, but they’ve got a lot.

Visit fairyland, watch the frog jump over the lily pad, and see your favorite woodland creatures frolic among the trees. And at the end of the short walk through the park, enjoy hot chocolate and s’mores around the fire pit (or enjoy watching the children enjoy them… that alone is worth the price of admission).

You do need to buy tickets in advance (ages 13 and older: $12 | ages 3-12: $7 | ages 2 and younger: Free).

Bull Run Festival of Lights

If you want to enjoy the warmth of your car while looking at the light show, then head out to the Festival of Lights at Bull Run in Manassas. This show is really fun, especially with a car full of children who are captivated by the lights.

Unlike the other two, this light show is open on Christmas and New Year’s Day. The admission fees are per car, so load up. And the Festival of Lights is more than just a light show — after enjoying the two-and-a-half miles of light displays, stop in at the Holiday Village. With bonfires, s’mores, holiday merchandise, and free children’s activities, the Holiday Village is fun for the whole family.

Of course, it’s also always fun to wander over to Reston Town Center and Lake Anne Plaza to enjoy the twinkle lights. Sure, they are not as spectacular as the light shows, but they are charming nonetheless. And if you see me working away in the coffee shop, stop by and say hi.

For more ideas on fun things to do this holiday season, visit the Fairfax County website for ideas.

A new home for the holidays? Better get shopping. Start with these new open house listings this weekend.

There are lots of Open Houses this weekend in Reston — 88! Our market is moving along nicely in spite of the typical slower holiday season. There are currently 257 active listings on the market and another 143 pending settlement.

Year to date, we’ve sold 1,057 houses, which isn’t too far off of our typical market.

Here are some of my top picks for the weekend of Dec. 12 and 13:

1414 Church Hill Place
2 BR, 1.5 BA Condo
$317,900
Open Sunday 1 to 3 p.m.

11400 Washington Plaza
1 BR, 1 BA Condo
$249,000
Open Sunday 1 to 4 p.m.

1505 North Village Road
4 BR, 3 BA SFH
$959,000
Open Sunday 1 to 3 p.m.

2069 Cobblestone Lane
3 BR, 3.5 BA SFH
$559,950
Open Sunday 1 to 4 p.m.

This is a sponsored post by Eve Thompson of Reston Real Estate. It does not reflect the opinion of Reston Now.

Heron House, the original Reston condos built in 1966, are still among the most beautiful condominiums in Reston. Sure, I may be biased because I live in Heron House, but I’ve heard other people say this too.

Heron House — a 15-story tower with 66 condominiums, all with concrete balconies — is Reston’s original high-rise. It is situated on the edge of Lake Anne at the south end of Washington Plaza (which residents simply call Lake Anne).

The condos have one- and two-bedroom units with commanding views of the lake and Reston. Sitting on the balcony sipping a glass of wine and looking at the fountain in the lake is one of my favorite things to do.

The contemporary condos are well designed to maximize every inch of space — even the smaller one-bedroom units feel spacious. Perhaps it is the view, or perhaps it is the well-thought-out floor plans. Whatever the magic combination, it works.

Heron House has stood the test of time. The design is as relevant today as it was 50 years ago. And most of the units have been upgraded with new kitchens and baths.

If you live at Heron House, you never really have to leave the neighborhood. Lake Anne boasts several great restaurants, the farmers market, and festivals year round. It’s a wonderful place to live!

It’s also only a one-mile walk (or a quick drive) along gorgeous trails to Reston Town Center, and it’s close to the Wiehle-Reston East Metro station and Dulles Toll Road. What’s not to love?

This is a sponsored post by Eve Thompson of Reston Real Estate. It does not reflect the opinion of Reston Now.

The holidays are a strange time of year in real estate. Conventional wisdom says it is slow — and yes, it is slower but it never stops.

The past 30 to 60 days have been pretty active. Inventory is much lower than it was through the fall, with just 282 properties on the market.

We have 111 pending sales and 61 properties sold in the past 30 days. What remains stubbornly high is the days on market — which is hovering at 75+; that’s a very long time to have your house ready to show at a moment’s notice.

Here are a few of the recent sales.

11515 LINKS DR. 2 BR, 1.5 BA. List Price: $349,900. Sold Price: $345,000: Seller Subsidy $10,350.

11432 ORCHARD LN. 3 BR, 2 BA. List Price: $509,990. Sold Price: $485,000. Seller Subsidy $3,000.

11406 DROP FORGE LN. 4 BR, 2.5 BA. List Price: $699,900. Sold Price: $700,000. Seller Subsidy: $10,500.

2444 FREETOWN DR. 4 BR, 2.5 BA. List Price: $535,000. Sold Price: $525,000. Seller Subsidy $10,000.

11562 HEMINGWAY DR. 4BR, 3.5 BA. List Price: $850,000. Sold Price: $842,000. Seller Subsidy: $0.

For more information, visit Reston Real Estate.

This is a sponsored post by Eve Thompson of Reston Real Estate. It does not reflect the opinion of Reston Now.

I love fall in Reston. Here in the south, our colors peak in late October/November. This year in mid-November they’re still beautiful. I love walking the paths of Reston when the leaves blanket the ground. The air is extra crisp, and my dog loves all the smells.

It can be hard to capture the beauty of Reston in a photograph or two — especially South Reston with Lake Thoreau, Lake Audubon and the Glade. But you can capture it in a flyover video. On a whim, I decided to search on YouTube to see if any such videos existed…and I had success!

YouTuber pblacklock posted this video that captures the South Lakes area, especially around Lake Thoreau, which is where he launched the camera. Pblacklock has posted several flyover videos in different cities and towns, and I have to admit I got caught up in watching them.

Here are two — one is above Lake Thoreau, and this one is above the Reston National Golf Course.

One bit of advice before you hit play–mute your speaker. The only sound is the propeller of the remote control airplane, but it’s loud. I found I enjoyed the video much more with the sound off.

Does this video make you want to live in South Reston? Learn more about South Reston and the neighborhoods around Lake Thoreau (which is where this video is filmed).

This is a sponsored post by Eve Thompson of Reston Real Estate. It does not reflect the opinion of Reston Now.

On Thanksgiving weekend, it seems like every article is focused on how to cook the perfect turkey (in a paper bag buttered very liberally, FYI) or where to find Black Friday deals.

So I thought I’d share some places to spend Small Business Saturday on Nov 28.

Small Business Saturday, sponsored by American Express, is a day dedicated to supporting locally owned businesses. Since Thanksgiving weekend is one of busiest shopping times of the year, shopping local and small is a way to join millions of Americans in fueling the economy.

Last year, Americans spent $14.3 billion at small, independent businesses on Small Business Saturday. But we can beat that.

The Reston area is home to many small businesses — several of them at Lake Anne (Chesapeake Chocolates, Reston’s Used Book Shop, PetMac and small change consignment). In fact, I suggest stopping by the Lake Anne Coffee Shop and then wandering around the plaza to see what you can find.

Interested in other ways you can support Small Business Saturday? Check out some of the great ideas from people in the community!

This is a sponsored post by Eve Thompson of Reston Real Estate. It does not reflect the opinion of Reston Now.

I remember well the day my husband Rick and I knew it was time to give up our single family home on Buttermilk Lane in Reston. It was right about this time of year — minus this amazing weather we’ve been having. Wewere bagging up our 100+ bag of leaves on a cold blustery November day and I thought “wow. I am so over this.”

Our youngest daughter had left that August for Georgia Tech, so we were rattling around in our house — forever shouting to one another from the upstairs to the downstairs. It wasn’t a huge house, but it was so much more than we needed — and more importantly, so much more than we wanted to maintain. It seemed every weekend was dedicated to house maintenance or other related management. We were both seriously over it!

Our downsizing journey started on that cold afternoon in November. We made a side stop in a lovely townhouse overlooking the Van Gogh Bridge and ultimately landed in our perfectly sized Lake Anne condo. The townhouse was ultimately still too large and too vertical but was probably a necessary step for us in the transition process.

At the time that we decided to sell our Buttermilk Lane house, I was not a Real Estate agent so we engaged an agent with good understanding of the Reston market and scheduled a walk-through of our home to discuss what needed to be done to get it ready to sell. Our place was in pretty good shape — we had a few things to do but the vast majority of our effort was in purging the house of the accumulation of 15-plus years’ worth of junk. I was shocked at how long this step took. We started in November and were listed about 12 weeks later and it took every bit of those 12 weeks to get it ready.

In the end, we had less junk, less to take care, less to worry about and lots more time. We also moved into a great community where a snowy day becomes a reason to host a casual potluck, not a worry over who will shovel the walk.

Here are a few great downsizing options.

Not ready for a condo but want a great walkable community? Check out this great option near Lake Anne Plaza.

Want a more urban experience with tons of dining options? Check out these Reston Town Center options.

This is a sponsored post by Eve Thompson of Reston Real Estate. It does not reflect the opinion of Reston Now.

Sixteen new listings hit the market this week in Reston, so there is a little something for everyone on a home search.

Here are a couple of interesting listings new to the market:

11113 Watermans Drive. 4 BR, 3 BA TH. List Price: $529,900

11150 Turnbridge Lane. 4 BR, 3.5 BA SFH. List Price: $699,900

11615 Stoneview Square. 3 BR, 2 BA Condo. List Price: $185,000

11617 Windbluff Court. 2 BR, 2 BA Condo. List Price: $254,800

2007 Sarazen Place. 4 BR, 3 BA TH. List Price: $475,000

1647 Fieldthorn Drive. 2 BR, 2 BA TH. List Price: $330,000

11748 Great Owl Circle. 3 BR, 3.5 BA TH. $554,900