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“U Got Sales?”, an intriguing article in Friday’s Washington Times magazine, discusses the relatively rapid sales of a small condo development in DC. With over “10,000 condos for sale” in the DC Metro area, it’s safe to say that this genre of housing, like in many other cities, has been hit the hardest by an un-forgiving market. Even the finest Bethesda condos have taken double digit depreciation hits over the past year. I’ll go out on a limb and say for the majority of new condos in Northwest Washington DC, you can subtract 15% (give or take). But combine a resilient area, a “brandable” subdivision, and a few other variables, and “u got sales”!

U Street Corridor in NW Washington DC, home to many historic Jazz clubs and Ben's Chili Bowl (already famous…

The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA), in its annual State of the Industry press briefing, released their 2009 Advocacy Agenda, which included the following recommendations:

• Permanently Increasing the Government Loan Limits to help unfreeze the housing finance system:   “MBA requests Congress to help make mortgage credit more available and affordable by setting the Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Federal Housing Administration standard, nationwide loan limits to $625,500, and up to $729,750 in high-cost areas on a permanent basis.” In the Washington, D.C. area, this would mean a permanent return to the $729,750 loan limit which went into effect on a temporary basis for part of 2008, but which was reduced to the $625,500 limit beginning in 2009. The…

Yesterday: 24 Competing Offers & Profound Price Escalations

In the sellers’ market of yesteryear, the asking price was merely the “base” price on which offers then escalated. At least that’s the way it worked in our Greater Bethesda area market with most properties that were appropriately priced.

Today: Expectations, Percentages, & The “One Price Fits All” Theory

Today’s market is different. In the vast majority of cases, an asking price reflects the sellers’ hopes, but today’s buyers inwardly laugh at that price and try to decide how low they can go. It always interests me when buyers come into the process with preconceived ideas about what percentage of the asking price they should offer. The reason this “one size fits all” theory doesn’t…

We snuck out of town over the holidays and I got a chance to catch up on my airline reading. In United’s January Hemisphere Magazine, there’s an article entitled “Light on Its Footprint.” In this very short piece, the author discusses the increasing use of light rail in cities across the United States. He talks about areas that are developing new systems, others that are expanding their systems and even large employers who are moving their headquarters to be closer to public transportation. The subtitle, “Residents of U.S. cities are flocking to live and work along new rail lines” tells it all – and also acknowledges what D.C. area residents have practiced for years.

Our Metro Rail system is definitely a draw and has consistently driven up prices of…

I said “available” didn’t I? That sounds like something an Agent would have said during the second quarter of 2005. Properties on the market are pretty “available” these days in most parts of the country -- even in the “recession proof” Washington DC area. I also said “endangered species” didn’t I? I’ll get to that in just a moment :-)

Despite these trying economic times, there are a few micro-markets that have still fared quite well in areas in or around the Nation's Capitol – the downtown Bethesda townhome is one such niche.

From 1997-2000, when the downtown Bethesda corridor began it’s transformation from sleepy town to “it” destination, two small townhome developments sprouted up. “The Villages of Bethesda” and “The City Homes of Edgemoor” ---…

What a post Thanksgiving week. Happy Thanksgiving to everyone by the way. I hope all had their fair share of turkey, friends, and family (or any combination there-of).

In the spirit of holidays, typically times of reflection, I wanted to share some recent real estate and technology musings -- just some smart ideas, questions, and tools (none of mine of course!) So bear with me...

It’s only appropriate to start an REW post with REW-related chatter. Seems like the theme of the week has been the importance of making a seductive website :-) Get your minds out of the gutter and hear me out. I’m referring to the importance of designing a website you can “sell with senses”. The venerable Eric Blackwell hits on this topic in a recent EricOnSearch post…

Bethesda, Chevy Chase, & Washington DC Luxury Home Report

It’s been quite a while since I’ve looked at specific data dealing with the Washington DC luxury home market.  Many thanks to those of you who e-mailed to ask me for an update. It’s always interesting to see the trends in a far less predictable price-range, especially against the background of recent economic woes (or perhaps “Whoa!”). For this DC Metro area luxury home market analysis, I define the luxury niche as a property with a sales price of over $2.5M. This market report centers on data from zip codes 20016, 20015, 20008, the upper Northwest corridor of of Northwest Washington DC --west of Rock Creek Park. A few of the notable areas in this region include Kalorama, Cleveland Park, and…

SEO is dead as we know it?  Well, if you listen to Bruce Clay, he’d tell you “yes”. 

A recent WebProNews post, “SEO About to Get Turned On Its Ear?” summarizes a session at PubCon where Bruce Clay outlines the imminent changes in search engine behavior and its effects on SEO as we know it.  I encourage you to watch the interview (included in the article) where the principles of “SEO 2.0” are examined in greater depth.  But I couldn’t help touching on a couple of key "principles" as I understood them.

100 people in a room who search the same key phrase will all receive different SE results? 

This is kinda the next step in “Behavior Based Search” -- a principle that says SEs track your search behavior and render results based on your search history. …