This is a sponsored post from Eve Thompson of Reston Real Estate. For a more complete picture of home sales in your neighborhood, contact her on Reston Real Estate.

Inventory is starting to pick up with a jump in housing inventory to 95 homes — 18 of those are in a “coming soon” status and the remaining 77 are active.

Keep in mind if you are not working with an agent you won’t have access to the houses in a coming soon status. Those can only be sent to you from the multiple listing system from a real estate agent.

Hopefully, this bump is a sign of an early spring market to come!

Here are few of the properties that settled in the past 10 days:

11123 Lake Chapel Lane
3 BD/2.5 BA
List Price: $815,000
Sold Price $818,500

 

 

12507 Thunder Chase Drive
4 BD/2.5 BA
List Price: $629,900
Sold Price: $660,000

 

 

11428 Tanbark Drive
4 BD/2.5 BA
List Price: $725,000
Sold Price: $715,000

 

 

1430 Northgate Square #11B
2 BD/2 BA
List Price: $265,000
Sold Price: $260,000

 

 

12000 Market Street #302
3 BD/2 BA
List Price: $570,000
Sold Price: $560,000

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

There were just nine new listings this past week in Reston. Possibly sellers have been distracted with the news, maybe they are waiting for the so-called spring market. Whatever it was, we are left with a tiny pool of properties for buyers to consider. The total number of homes for sale is 82, which breaks down to 71 active listings and 11 in a “coming soon” status.

One interesting dimension of this pool of listings is that 78% of them are condominiums. The condo market in Reston is slightly softer than the market for townhouses and single-family houses. The average days on market for condos is at 65-plus days, while townhouses and single-family homes have averaged 21 days on the market.

As mentioned last week, the limited inventory is constraining a market that would like to boom. If you have a townhouse or single-family house and are ready to downsize, now is the perfect time. You will have the advantage on both sides of the equation — a fast sale and more inventory to choose from on the buy side.

Here is a look at a few of the new listings in Reston:

• 11529 Pine Cone Court — 3 BD/2.5 BA — $499,272
• 1671 Parkcrest Circle #101 — 1 BD/1 BA — $250,000
• 12013 Taliesin Place #35 — 2 BD/2 BA — $365,000
• 11240 Chestnut Grove Square # 260 — 1 BD/1 BA — $210,000

For information on great Reston neighborhood, or if you’d like a free valuation of your home, please feel free to contact me.

This is a sponsored post from Eve Thompson of Reston Real Estate. For a more complete picture of home sales in your neighborhood, contact her on Reston Real Estate.

Extremely low inventory continues to plague the market — there just are not enough houses on the market to meet the demand. In Reston there is currently ONE single-family home on the market. At the current rate of consumption, we have less than one month of housing inventory to meet buyer demand. We expect record low interest rates to continue through 2021, which is a big component of what is driving demand for housing.

The buy-up market is especially active. If you’re thinking of downsizing, especially if you’re considering a move to a condo, now is the time to do it. You will maximize your profit on the selling side and benefit from a slightly softer condo market on the buy side.

In the past 10 days, 30 properties in Reston successfully completed settlement and transferred ownership. Here are some of the recent sales in Reston:

12046 Creekbend Drive
5 BD/3.5 BA
List Price: $1,100,000
Sold Price: $1,100,000

 

 

12130 Purple Sage Court
3 BD/1.5 BA
List Price: $395,000
Sold Price: $400,000

 

 

11428 Tanbark Drive
4 BD/2.5 BA
List Price: $725,000
Sold Price: $715,000

 

 

1313 Headlands Court
2 BD/1.5 BA
List Price: $399,999
Sold Price: $400,000

 

 

1462 Greenmont Court
3 BD/3.5 BA
List Price: $499,500
Sold Price: $532,500

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

With record low interest rates and people clamoring for a little more space, the Reston housing market wants to be soaring… wants to be… but is not. Why?

Well, there is very, very little to sell. There are currently just 73 active listings and only two of those are single-family homes. There are 10 properties listed as coming soon.

If you are thinking about selling, now is the time. This is especially true if you are looking to downsize. People who are ready to shed their large homes for something smaller can cash in on equity and then turn around to buy something smaller. Interest rates are so favorable that mortgages are as low or lower than the cost of a nice rental in Reston.

Here’s a look at a few of the new listings in Reston:

• 1605 Apricot Court — 3 BD/3.5 BA — $650,000
• 1618 Chimney House Road — 2 BD/1 BA — $379,900
• 11586 Woodhollow Court — 3 BD/3.5 BA — $514,900
• 11582 Breton Court — 3 BD/2.5 BA — $419,900

This is a sponsored post from Eve Thompson of Reston Real Estate. For a more complete picture of home sales in your neighborhood, contact her on Reston Real Estate.

It was an interesting year in Reston real estate. When the COVID-19 shutdowns hit, most agents were sure we’d be having a very difficult year. Oddly, after a quiet two or three weeks, most of us found ourselves busier than ever.

Low interest rates created a great buy-up market, and families suddenly faced with living, working and educating in one place found themselves reevaluating their housing needs.

More than 1,341 properties as of this writing have traded hands with another 60-plus scheduled to settle by December 31 — pushing Reston to just over 1,400 transactions with a value of more than $721 million.

Average home prices rose by 7% this year, coming in at $517,000 vs. $479,000 in 2019. Demand has remained strong and housing inventory has been low. If you’re selling a home and are not getting lots of traffic, you need to have a heart-to-heart with your agent. Strong demand doesn’t mean the buyer will buy anything — price and condition are still the most important factors in getting your house sold.

We currently have just 104 properties on the market; 107 homes sold in the past 30 days, and 66 homes are pending.

With interest rates expected to average 3.075% through 2021, the Reston real estate market should continue to be strong. If you’re ready to sell in 2021, you shouldn’t have too much trouble, provided you work with your agent to get your house ready and dig into the numbers to really understand what the market is doing in your neighborhood.

Housing options have been limited, but local agents say the real estate market in Fairfax County is staying active as it continuously adapts to the pandemic

While COVID-19 is having an impact on the market in a variety of ways, housing inventory was already limited in the area before the pandemic.

“It’s really hard to find a single-family home or even townhouse. Many of the homes get multiple offers because inventory is so low,” said Laura Schwartz, a real estate agent with McEnearney Associates, Inc.

Schwartz – whose focus is in Northern Virginia – describes a market in which buyers have to be “willing to get aggressive” in their efforts to win a bid for a home. She also points out that the pursuit of homes has resulted in a fair number of ‘coming soon’ properties receiving pre-market offers, sight unseen.

Preparation has taken a key role in entering a seller’s market. Having a pre-approval in hand, pre-offer inspections, escalation clauses and other ways of making an offer competitive have become crucial necessities.

The buyer’s activity is something echoed by Dave Adams, a realtor for Coldwell Banker Residential Real Estate. Adams, who, along with his wife JoAnne, specializes in northern Virginia and the DC Metro area, continues to see homes coming onto the market without COVID-19 seriously impacting home availability or supply.

Adams has witnessed buyers remain active, as low-interest rates have settled in. As a result of the rates and limited housing supply, Adams said that most listings have seen multiple offers above the list price, as well as many contingencies being waved.

After three months of decreased sales compared to last year in Fairfax County, the county has enjoyed a resurgence of home buying as sales increased in July (+4.52%) and August (+14.55%), according to the Northern Virginia Association of Realtors (NVAR).

“The traditional spring market has been delayed to the summer months, and the pent-up buyer and seller demand that began in in late spring continued full force into July,” NVAR 2020 President Nicholas Lagos said in August.

Supply or buying tactics are not the only affected areas of the market. The methodology of showing homes to prospective buyers has taken on new challenges.

On the seller’s side, there is no general rule of thumb for behavior. Each seller will maintain their own particular reasons and inclinations for how homes are shown, as well as how long the property is listed.

Adams points to the cultivation of a greater digital presence in aiding the home buying process – specifically, increased virtual showings and video conferencing to ensure the safety of all parties.

“The highlight of our year was quickly adapting and setting up our business to thrive in a pandemic,” Adams said.

“We have always embraced state-of-the-art technology; however, the way we used it changed.”

Schwartz highlighted the restrictions of physical showings. Many instructions curtail the list of individuals allowed to tour inside homes to those on a contract and the agent. This has restricted kids or other family members from joining home tours, and has resulted in parents having to take turns touring homes.

Remote learning responsibilities and people working from home have also required a greater bit of flexibility on all parties to allow for homes to be shown to prospective buyers.

“You just need to be prepared to act, be in constant communication, and know your must-haves so you’re comfortable taking action,” Schwartz said.

File Photo

This is a sponsored post from Eve Thompson of Reston Real Estate. For a more complete picture of home sales in your neighborhood, contact her on Reston Real Estate.

Back in March when everything was shutting down I would never have predicted the speed at which the real estate market has continued to move.

Inventory is still very limited, interest rates are insanely low and I think the reality of working from home and home schooling kids may be driving people to reconsider their current living situations.

Currently there are 135 active and coming soon properties listed in Reston. That represents a one month supply of housing inventory. The average number of days it takes a house to sell is 20, with a median of just 6 days.

There’s a lesson in these numbers if you’ve got a house on the market that hasn’t sold. As strong as the market is the buyers are not buying everything and anything a seller puts on the market. Seller’s need to take whatever steps are needed to make sure that their home is the best priced “item” in its category FOR ITS PRICE PONIT. If your home is a fixer and you’ve got it priced like the one that’s “move in ready” down the block, you can expect to sit; these buyers are informed!

Here’s a few that sold in the last week.

11450 Waterview Cluster
4 BD/3.5 BA
List Price: $849,000
Sold Price: $850,000

 

 

11510 Sunder Court
3 BD/3.5 BA
List Price: $525,000
Sold Price: $551,000

 

 

11566 Rolling Green Court #100
2 BD/2 BA
List Price: $299,900
Sold Price: $299,900

 

 

2424 Silver Fox Lane
5 BD/4.5 BA
List Price: $880,000
Sold Price: $880,000

 

 

1559 Regatta Lane
4 BD/4.5 BA
List Price: $1,200,00
Sold Price: $1,200,000

 

 

We spent our shut down time reworking the All Reston Real Estate website. You can check it out here.

Board OKs Split of Child Care Center Property — “The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors approved a special exception amendment Tuesday, allowing the owner of a piece of property along Centreville Road south of the Town of Herndon to adjust the lot lines of his property. The 2.61-acre property, which is situated east of Centreville Road and south of the West Ox Road intersection, consists of two lots.” [Reston Patch]

Hotel Rooms Help Homeless People in Fairfax County — “Fairfax County’s Office to Prevent and End Homelessness and local partners worked to establish a hotel room program to house homeless persons based on need during the coronavirus pandemic. People are referred to hotels by homeless service providers, medical providers such as Health Works of Northern Virginia and Neighborhood Health, and county staff.”[Reston Patch]

Coronavirus Leading to Fall of Urban Village — “‘Relatively better performance of single-family homes in relation to multi-family condominium properties clearly suggest migration from the city centers to the suburbs,” said Lawrence Yun, chief economist of the National Association Realtors, in parsing sales data from May.'” [Inside NOVA]

Photo via vantagehill/Flickr

Sharon Fitzgerald, a former Tishman Speyer executive, has joined Comstock Companies as a managing director of commercial property management.

Fitzgerald previously worked at Tishman Speyer for 14 years as director of property management. She will now oversee the Reston-based companies properties, including several mixed-use projects in Arlington, Fairfax and Loudoun counties.

“I am excited that Ms. Fitzgerald has joined the Comstock team and I am confident that our commercial customer base will benefit from Ms. Fitzgerald’s leadership position within our commercial management group” said Christopher Clemente, Chief Executive Officer of Comstock. “Sharon’s reputation as a skilled manager and her prior experience managing high-quality real estate directly supports Comstock’s best-in-class approach to managing a growing portfolio of stabilized assets and supports our growth plans for the Commercial Property Management Division.” 

Here’s more from Comstock on her appointment:  

Ms. Fitzgerald has extensive experience with management of large-scale portfolios of high-quality, mixed-use properties throughout the Washington, DC market. Prior to joining Comstock, she spent 14 years as Director of Property Management at Tishman Speyer where she was responsible for day-to-day property operations, financial reporting and customer service for properties on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC as well Rosslyn, Tysons and Reston. At Tishman Speyer, Ms. Fitzgerald was responsible for implementing a new tenant services platform that leveraged health and well-being principles to promote work-life balance, which included a collection of services, experiences, and rewards program discounts. Ms. Fitzgerald began her career at The Evans Company, a Washington, DC area development firm, where she was responsible for transitioning newly constructed commercial properties from development to full occupancy. Ms. Fitzgerald graduated with a BS from Virginia Tech and holds the designations of a Certified Property Manager (CPM) and Real Property Administrator (RPA). 

Comstock also noted that Fitzgerald will help implement “stringent environmental security protocols in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Photo via Comstock

This is a sponsored post from Eve Thompson of Reston Real Estate. For a more complete picture of home sales in your neighborhood, contact her on Reston Real Estate.

Like all businesses, real estate has been knocked back on its heels by COVID-19.

While many might see real estate transactions as being non-essential there are life situations that force people to move. Death, divorce, employment changes — things that are beyond an individual’s control that require them to sell or buy property.

So far the impacts of COVID-19 have been on behaviors around real estate processes. Masks, gloves, booties and hand sanitizers at showings and agents wiping down door knobs, light switches and hand rails after showings. Sellers are only allowing their homes to be shown by appointment and only to potential buyers –adults only no kids — that have been well vetted by a reputable lender and are pre-qualified to buy. Open Houses are no longer allowed.

Conventional wisdom would say that sales should be down; but in the Reston market things so far are holding steading. Our current housing inventory is 148 properties which includes 14 coming soon. 51 houses went pending in the last 14 days and more than half of those went pending in the last 7 days.

These numbers are consistent with what our rates of sales have been over the past 12 month period. So for those with no choice about selling or buying, the picture isn’t too bad — for buyers there is inventory and for sellers there are buyers.

Here are few of the properties that sold this week.

1298 Stamford Way
6 BD/4.5 BA
List Price: $1,099,000
Sold Price: $1,080,000

 

 

1355 Garden Wall Circle #712
2 BD/1 BA
List Price: $277,500
Sold Price: $277,500

 

 

11475 Washington Plaza W
3 BD/3 BA
List Price: $700,000
Sold Price: $700,000

 

 

1520 Moorings Drive #1B
2 BD/1.5 BA
List Price: $259,000
Sold Price: $265,000

 

 

11305 Traffail Court
4 BD/3.5 BA
List Price: $750,000
Sold Price: $795,000

 

 

2122 Cartwright Place
4 BD/2.5 BA
List Price: $374,900
Sold Price: $385,000

An empty spot Reston is looking for a new tenant.

Previously a sushi restaurant, the space at 1800 Michael Faraday Drive underwent work from the owner back in 2014, according to county documents, but no changes appear to have been made since then.

Reston Now was not able to find pending work permits in the Fairfax County system at the moment for the location. Employees from surrounding businesses are unsure what lies in store for the empty spot.

Reston Now wants to hear from readers what type of businesses they’d like to take over the spot.

New stores and businesses are preparing to open at Herndon’s latest retail development.

The Elden Corner Center development (902 Alabama Drive) includes space for eight commercial relators, a spokesperson for Capital Realty Advisors said, adding that all of the storefronts — except for one — are already rented out.

According to the spokesperson, tenants will include:

• Bodega El Paisa, a grocery and market
• Paraiso Latino Restaurant and Bakery
• an apparel store
• Serenity Spa, a body massage business
• Boost Mobile
• Madina Pollo Rico

Boost Mobile will be the first business to open in the shopping center, the spokesperson said, adding that it is expected to open by the end of the month.

The last spot available for lease “has been built out for [a] hair salon use,” according to the representative, but can also be used for other retail use.

“Some of the stores are almost ready to open up, while others are just beginning to do their custom build-outs, but everything should be open by the end of this year,” landlord and owner Sanjay Bajaj said in a press release.

Photo courtesy Elden Corner Center

This is a sponsored post from Eve Thompson of Reston Real Estate. For a more complete picture of home sales in your neighborhood, contact her on Reston Real Estate.

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

I don’t typically hold to the notion that one time of year is better for selling your home verses another. 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 today there are 55 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 2 months.

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

• I recommend that you start with the closets. I think my agent collogues 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 reason than we have the room for it, so be ruthless.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.

The housing inventory continues to be painfully low with just 78 active listing and 6 in a “Coming Soon” status. That is just under 1 months’ worth of housing inventory. The good news in those numbers is that pretty much everything that comes on the market is going to get a lot of attention — if you’ve taken the time to get it ready and you’ve priced your property competitively you could very well find yourself in a multiple contract situation.

If you have questions about buying or selling don’t hesitate to contact me.

This is a sponsored post from Eve Thompson of Reston Real Estate. For a more complete picture of home sales in your neighborhood, contact her on Reston Real Estate.

It was an interesting year in Reston real estate.

More than 1,320 properties traded hands accounting for a whopping $632M in volume. The average home prices remained flat this year coming in at $479K vs. $473 in 2018. While home prices were somewhat flat, demand was strong and housing inventory was low, an equation which would typically trend towards a Seller’s Market but intense price sensitivity kept the market fairly balanced with well-informed buyers not being willing to pay more just because there were so few.

What do buyers want?

Buyers are trending strongly towards “move in ready” with a preference for energy efficient and Green features. Commuting time and cost is also sighted as significant factor in determining properties desirability. Sellers have to create motivation in the buyers by presenting the very best option possible in the price category in which they’re competing

We currently have just 82 properties on the market; 93 homes sold in the past 30 days and 83 homes are pending.

With interest rates expected to average 3.6% through 2020 the Reston real estate market should continue to be strong. If you’re ready to sell in 2020 you shouldn’t have too much trouble, provided you work with your agent to get your house ready and dig into the numbers to really understand what the market is doing in your neighborhood.

This is a sponsored post from Eve Thompson of Reston Real Estate. For a more complete picture of home sales in your neighborhood, contact her on Reston Real Estate.

The real estate market in Reston slowed just a bit over the past few weeks.

Buyers are not in a rush and days-on-market has stretched out a bit to an average of 36 days. Low interest rates and constrained inventory should have the impact of shorter days on market and can drive home prices up; but that’s not what we’re experiencing.

Buyers are taking things slowly and seem to know that if they miss out on one house there will be another around the corner and that is not untrue. What is harder to predict is interest rates; what we can say about them that even with a 1 point bump they’re still incredibly favorable.

Here are a few of the properties that have sold in the past several weeks.

2133 Cabots Point Lane
3 BR/2.5 BA
List Price: $974,900
Sold Price $974,900

 

 

1606 Chimney House Road
1 BR/1 BA
List Price: $249,000
Sold Price: $216,900

 

 

11719 Blue Smoke Trail
4 BD/2.5 BA
List Price: $849,900
Sold Price: $850,000

 

 

2224 Cartwright Place
3 BD/2.5 BA
List Price: $349,000
Sold Price: $349,000

 

 

1637 Stowe Road
4 BD/ 4 BA
List Price: $689,000
Sold Price: $675,000