Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all!
Enjoy this rocking Video!!!
Serving all of your Ashburn, Leesburg, Mclean and Loudoun County area Real Estate needs!
Take care,
Chuck
12/13/2009
12/01/2009
11/29/2009
Top Ten Tiger Woods One Liners Written on Twitter (because we all need a little comedy first thing Monday morning;0))
1. 1. Headline: “ Angry Wife Chases Tiger into the Woods”
2. 2. I didn’t know a 4 Iron can be used as the Jaws of life
3. 3. Mrs. Tiger Woods just did her Tweet Cloud for past four days. Most popular words are Kill, Castrate and 50%.
4. 4. Tiger Woods must have been fading when he hit that tree and fire hydrant!
5. 5. Lucky for Tiger Woods, his wife has a hook in her swing and not a slice.
6. 6. The new EA Game Tiger Woods will involve dodging the angry wife in nightdress swinging at you? Must avoid the fire hydrants and trees while driving backwards.
7. 7. First time Tiger couldn’t drive 300 yards.
8. 8. Difference between Tiger Woods hitting a wedge and driving an Escalade? He can back up the wedge....
9. 9. Breaking News: Tiger Woods has just signed on to be spokesman for Safelite Auto Glass...
10 10. Cadillac brings out the black in Tiger, Asian in him caused him to hit the tree--- Wanda Sykes
Bonus ( We all need a little bonus every now and then)
I Insert your Joke HERE"................................."
Enjoy!
Chuck
11/06/2009
What's in the New Home Buyer and Jobless Bill for ME!
So, what’s in the new Home Buyer and Jobless Bill for you! Here are some quick facts everyone should know about the bill;
- The total cost of the bill is estimated to be $24 billion. The Bill will cover both unemployment benefits and housing.
- Unemployment benefits will be extended for an additional 14 extra weeks. If your state has unemployment above 8.5% you will get 6 more additional weeks for a total of 99 weeks of unemployment. The average unemployment check is $300 per week.
- The housing buyer credit will be extended until June 30th. This means (very important) that you must be under contract by April 30th and close by June 30th . Very important!!!!
- There is a new $6,500 buyer’s credit for repeat buyers. You Must have lived/owned your principle home for the last 5 years to qualify for this credit.
Here is a quick break down of the differences between the old and new bills:
Need more info on the tax credit?
- Boston Globe
- Bloomberg
- National Association of Realtors FAQ Most commonly asked questions!!!
- Download Extended tax credit Cheat sheet
Take care,
Chuck
Serving all of your Ashburn, Leesburg, Mclean and Loudoun County area Real Estate needs!
10/31/2009
Why is it important to get rid of the new “Home Valuation Code of Conduct” or HVCC?
Why is important to get rid of HVCC? We’ll let’s start at
the beginning shall we…? A long, long time a ago in a distant parallel universe
someone got the idea that loaning money to unqualified buyers and then
reselling the loans as investment vehicles was a great IDEA! So good in fact,
that if you could fog up a mirror and one of the three blind mice could vouch
for the properties value that you were buying than you could get a loan. And
not just any loan I mind you! I loan that is guaranteed to self destruct the minute
you walk off the closing table! But hey, this is a parallel universe were
Bankers with MBA’s and Greenspan rule all the dark forces around us. And
everyone knows that home values never go down! Crazy Talk!
Okay, fast forward to today and our reality. Our new bosses have to now prove to the world that they are not asleep at the wheel like the old bosses (does everyone know this song... In with the new boss... Same as the old boss… love that song okay back to the story). So, rules started flying off the shelves. Now you need to give fluid samples and swear a triple swear pinkie shake before a bank will even look at you. Our new bosses also imposed new appraisal rules just to make sure there is no funny business with home values. This brings me to the HVCC program. Did I lose you? Are you wondering what appraisals had to do with banks giving out bad loans and then reselling them? Fear not, so did everyone else in the Real Estate business!
So, you are probably thinking “what’s the Big Deal with strengthening appraisal rules?” I say nothing! Having one of the three blind mice vouch for the value of a half million dollar home is probably not a good idea. However, sending an appraiser from another county or another state to determine the value of a home in an area that he or she is unfamiliar with is not a well thought-out plan. And hence comes the rub. The new HVCC rules prohibit banks from directly hiring appraisers. This means that if you are a bank and you have a qualified applicant that has both given you fluids and promised you his first born you must then call a third party vendor who is located somewhere around Pluto to do the appraisals. This vendor then sends out a bid request for anyone willing to appraise your house. The bids are granted based on…drum roll please…… LOWEST BID. Shocker right! Now you’re probably thinking this should at least drop the cost of appraisal right? Wrong! The average appraisal price has increased by as much as 100%. Well, then I bet appraisal’s get done twice as fast as they used to… Wrong again, it’s taking an average 14-20 business day to get appraisals done (Pluto is very far away you know). I used to see appraisals get done in 3-5 days!
So, it gives my heart joy to know that our dear bosses are thinking of scrapping the HVCC system. May I also add that if our Dear Bosses need suggestions on how to fix our parallel universe problems that they just pick up a phone and speak to someone that does this for a living? Those MBA Wall Street banker guy’s are great at golf but suck at just about everything else that happens in the Real World.
The End
Take care,
Chuck
Serving all of your Ashburn, Leesburg, Mclean and Loudoun County area Real Estate needs!
10/12/2009
Neighborhood Spotlight: Belmont Country Club Ashburn, Va
Belmont Country Club is one of only a handful of exclusive gated communities in the
Like most gated communities of this type Belmont Country Club boosts a full array of amenities such as a club house, tennis courts, pool, volleyball pit and of course what country club would be complete without the 72-par Arnold Palmer Signature golf course!
History of
Belmont Country Club was named after the Manor that sits near the gated community. Belmont Manor traces its origin back to the early 1800’s as a plantation house and home to many notable residents. The Belmont Manor and its grounds are listed on the National Registry as a Historic place and is maintained by the Park Service. This should preserve the manor and the majority of the open space around the manor for future generations!
The Developer
Belmont Country Club was brought by Toll Brother from IBM in early 1995. Toll Brother built and designed the community as a high-end exclusive gated community. The single family homes start in the mid $900’s and can go up to $1.5 million. The townhouses (when they are available) are priced in the low $400’s with a few foreclosures selling in the $300’s recently. Overall Toll Brother’s threw in every possible amenity to make Belmont Country Club its signature high-end home development. You might notice when you first enter the neighborhood that all the lawns are just about prefect. This is no accident; Toll Brothers actually cuts and treats your lawn. No more worries about the one neighbor who can’t seem to take care of their yard. Also included in the HOA fees are high speed internet, basic phone service, walking trails and community activities.
What homes are available in Belmont Country Club now??
Current Availability (as of 10/09) 0(YES THAT IS ZERO)
Under Contract 14
Sold (6/09- 10/09) 16
So, are you ready to get a jump on the next home available in Belmont Country Club? Contact me now and I will put you on my Exclusive Neighborhood watch database. Don’t miss your dream home… EVER!
Serving all of your Ashburn, Leesburg, Mclean and Loudoun County area Real Estate needs! Take care, Chuck
10/10/2009
10/07/2009
The Washington Post Gets It Wrong On the $8,000 Buyers Tax Credit
I know shocker right; I’m downing the Washington Post again???
It looks like the Post this time outsourced its latest Real Estate related
article to writer Martha White who writes for the Slate Group on a variety of financial matters including Real Estate. Although, I read Slate regularly and find there
content refreshing I found Martha’s latest article “Prolonging Home
Buyers Tax Credit Will Prolong Recovery” simply uninformed and filled with funny
math strung along by the thinnest of strings.
One of the numbers Martha quoted off of a blog site she states in her article is that the actual cost of the $8,000 Tax Credit program is $43,000 per buyer because some buyers would have brought anyway. All I can say is; Wow really! There is actually a mathematical formula on a website that will tell me exactly what buyers intend to do before and after they buy? Is this like Nostradamus stuff? You know, after everything is said and done some "expert" will come out and says “you see this was predicted 500 years ago…duh”? Great, where were these experts say 2 years ago when the markets melted down? Can I use that same formula in Vegas? Or how’s about predicting what my 7 year old will do next on a soccer field?
Here’s the bottom line, buyers and especially first time home buyers are moved by emotions and perceived opportunities. Physiology plays a huge part in the purchase of a home. Buyers want to know that the market is moving in the right direction and that they are not going rouge by buying to early( unlike Palin of course). It has also been my experience that one of the biggest barriers to home ownership is the down payment. This $8,000 tax credit gives those buyers on the fence an option and a carrot to jump in. So, I think saying that they would have signed on the dotted line regardless of the Tax Credit is a bit of a stretch and would require at least a call to a Psychic hot-line. Btw, is Clara still in business? I need lotto numbers for this week.
Martha continued to throw out just about every number she could think of throughout her article in hopes that the reader will simply give up and take her word for it that the $8,000 Buyers Tax credit must be bad to have this many numbers against it. The fact of the matter is that this program is great for buyers and our economy for many reasons.
- It targets those who need it the most! First Time home buyers and those making less then $75,000 a year (which is below average household income for Loudoun County)
- The buyers are either buying foreclosed homes (which are shrinking inventory levels) or are buying lower priced townhouses and condos which are allowing sellers to move up or move out. How many stories have we heard about people that are turning down jobs because they can’t sell their home?
- As the
article pointed out over 1.8 million buyers have used this program to buy
homes. That’s 1.8 million homes that are no longer on the market! I would
further add that this number would be higher if it wasn’t for the lack of lower
priced inventory in our region. As a matter of fact we currently are at 3
year lows for most of the Loudoun,
I think we can all agree that the Real Estate market in
What do you think?
Take care,
Chuck
Serving all of your Ashburn, Leesburg, Mclean and Loudoun County area Real Estate needs!
10/04/2009
Update Neighborhood Spotlight: Exeter
Just a quick update on a neighborhood spotlight I did on our very own Exeter in Leesburg a few weeks ago. The Washington Post just publish Exeter in the Where We Live Real Estate section. I think its a well deserved honor since this neighborhood has been a local secret for many years.
Enjoy!
Chuck
Serving all of your Ashburn, Leesburg, Mclean and Loudoun County area Real Estate needs!
09/29/2009
Gone Fishing!
Enjoy a little comic relief while I'm gone.... I sure did!
Take care, Chuck Serving all of your Ashburn, Leesburg, Mclean and Loudoun County area Real Estate needs!Blogging Real Estate in NoVa
Entrepreneur, avid runner, father, husband and technology geek!
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