Pat Kennedy - Your Washington, DC Real Estate Connection

Many years ago, I had my colors done. 

The idea is to figure out which groups and shades of colors make you look terrific, and which ones make you look like an organ donor waiting to happen.  Of course, you want to go with the look-good-feel-good colors that work for you.

They say this approach is also useful when you are working on decor for your home.  You get a good feeling about a room when it's decorated in your colors.

The woman who did my analysis worked for Color Me Beautiful.  They divide people into one of four "seasons".  And people in one season, the "Autumns" like and look good in browns, golds, maroons, olive greens, and unusual shades of other colors.  But the Autumns only make up about three percent of the people on the planet!

So the other day, I showed a house where they had moved out the buyers pretty decent stuff and brought in a stager.  Well, this gal must have been pure Autumn, because it was all the shades that made my buyers (she was a spring and he was a winter) just want to run out the door!  Golden green couch, Chinese rugs with brown and gold patterns, and maroons swags. 

"Wait!" I said.  "You're reacting to the colors."  And once they realized what it was, they were able to see beyond the staging and realize it was a terrific place.  It's on the possible list now.

This made an impression because I am preparing to list a house that has all the wrong colors - out of That 70's Show!  The seller is up for letting us consign his olive green couch to Value Village and bring one in from our staging warehouse.  He's agreed to have the place painted to make the maroon walls in the master bedroom disappear and transform leaf gold dining room into an oasis of cross-season neutrality. 

And to help choose the colors, I'm going to call a favorite colleague who helped me with my own house.  Oh, my friend is a summer, but she's good at picking universal colors that everyone can feel comfortable around.

President Obama is expected to sign the revised home buyer credit some time tomorrow.  And, at the risk of looking a gift horse in the mouth, I'm not sure how I really feel about the whole thing.

With the increased income caps of $125,000 ($225,000 for married couples), more people in the DC area will be able to take advantage of it.  But think about it a minute.  Is the idea to help first time buyers?  Or is it to help sellers?  And who are the sellers? A lot of them are banks selling foreclosed properties.

Um.  Is this one more bank subsidy?

The subsidy is providing an incentive for buyers to go into the market.  With more buyers in the market, home prices are increasing in some areas, and here in Washington, we are starting to see multiple offers in the double digits for well-priced homes.  So the buyer's tax credit may be offset by higher home prices, at least at the lower end of the price spectrum. 

I have to keep in mind that the lower end of our price range in Upper Northwest DC is upper brackets in other parts of the area.  Many neighborhoods east of Rock Creek Park and in other quadrants will benefit.  And the credit will likely benefit condo sellers.  

While this isn't a bad thing for sellers and the buyers who will get the tax credit, remember that a tax credit is $8,000 per transaction being subtracted from the plus side of the

national budget, which is already bursting at the seams.

In the meantime, I will try to do my part to make hay while the credit is in effect.  Hopefully, the credit will benefit Realtors® around the country, and we will pay more in income taxes, unless of course, we make less than the income cap and buy a place.

This mural is on the side of my favorite bookstore, Politics and Prose on Connecticut Avenue.  They have a large collection of both fiction and non-fiction, as well as great historical stuff about Washington, DC's rich history. 

© 2009 Patricia Kennedy. Unless otherwise noted, the content, both written and in pictures, is the property of Patricia Kennedy . If you would like to use this image, please  email me (housepat@mac.com) with your request. I'll almost certianly say yes, and ask only that you provide a link back to my original content as well as an acknowledgment.  The same thing applies to any other material you see posted here on Active Rain or on any of my other blogs.

My parents had this family portait taken when we lived in Williamsburg, Kentucky, a pretty little town on the Cumberland River near the Tennessee boarder.  I was three years old, and my brother, Jack, was not quite two.  The picture now sits in a frame in my mother's house, and it brought back memories of of a very carefree time in life.  We lived in a little white house on the outskirts of town, with a huge cherry tree and a field of daisies next door.  On the other side, there was a chicken farm owned by P.R. Jones - who kept us in baby chicks and fresh eggs.  

Jack is much better looking today.

On my first date with my sweetie, he suggested that we go out to dinner somewhere.  I immediately thought of Yanni's Greek Taverna in Cleveland Park.  It's that kind of a place.

OK, Yanni's isn't really a dive.  It's a no-frills Greek restaurant with tasty food, great Greek wine (at least the white wine) and an owner who looks a bit like a Greek Gerard Depardieu.

And the food is fun. 

They have all the usual appetizers, hummus, tzatziki, taramosalata, grape leaves, or just get the sampler. 

The Greek salad is huge, and my favorite, the Taverna salad (chopped lettuce with lots of fresh dill, feta cheese and dressed with tzatziki) is also big enough to share.

My favorite entrees are the charbroiled squid or octopus, and you're not into eating sea creatures, they have all of the standards as well.

In warm weather, their outdoor cafe is a place where you are sure to see someone you know, either at the next table or walking down Connecticut Avenue. 

Now, the service is a little bit on the flaky side.  A couple of the waiters are known to be occasionally grumpy - no one is going to fawn all over you.  But they do get the food to the table in a reasonable amount of time, and they'll get the order right.  And when it does arrive, I've found it to taste quite wonderful. 

And that's the most important thing, after all.

There will be a neighborhood Halloween party for Crestwood children of all ages this afternoon at "The Point", located at 18th and Shepherd Streets NW. 

It starts at 3 and ends at 4:30.

There will be treats, and contributions of anything with sugar (well, not coffee) from grown neighbors are welcomed.

It could get scary as our little goblins and gouls collect their first candy of the day and check out the woods, that I'm sure will be appropriately decorated for the festivities!  So grab your costume and, if possible, find a child to bring with you. 

It should be fun!

Gary does it again!  This may be the funniest post I've ever seen here.  Read it and make sure you are not drinking anything, or you will spit it all over your computer screen.

When you listen to the news or read the paper, it sounds quite good.  A Senate Committee agreed to extend the $8,000 federal tax credcit beyond the current November 30th deadline. 

Whoo Hoo!  Break out the champagne!

Well, not just yet.

What you are hearing about is just the first of many steps in the process.

• Once it leaves the Senate Committee, it must be approved by the entire Senate - not necessarily a given.
• It must complete a similar process in the House of Representatives, and that hasn't happened yet - and might not.
• It must survive a "Conference Committee" where the House and the Senate get together to iron out any differences between the two bills.
• President Obama must sign it into law.

This isn't a slam dunk.  While our legislators have some concern about the housing market's recovery, this provision will cost the taxpayers a bunch of money.  And even Congress is getting a little bit careful about how they are going to spend.  While many in our business would like to see the tax credit remain, there are many on Capital Hill who view this as an artificial prop that is a very short term fix, and quite expensive.

So, it isn't even close to being adopted. 

It's just the first, and very important, step to what might or might not happen.

Our office email had an interesting thread today.

Blog Buddie Ed Schneider wrote an email note to colleagues about writing an offer on a house in Mount Pleasant in a twelve-way bidding war.  Then my colleagues began to chime in, one after another, telling war stories of being in double-digit multiple contract situations over the past week. 

In these situations, here are some of the things that people are doing to get the winning offer:

• Having the house pre-inspected so they go in without an inspection contingency
• Crossing out the financing contingency
• Crossing out the appraisal contingency
• including a healthy looking financial information sheet
• Including an obscenely high earnest money check
• Settling at the sellers' convenience
• Including an escalator clause agreeing to top competing offers by at least thousands of dollars with a cap way above the asking price.

Is participating in a bidding war a good idea? To get the house, you have to eliminate every way of getting out of the offer.  So if when you wake up in a panic about three days after you are the winner of your dream house wondering what on earth you were thinking, well too bad!  It'll cost you a bundle to get out of the deal - like that obscenely high earnest money check you wrote!

Earlier in the decade, if you wanted to buy a house, you often didn't have a choice.  But today, there may be options.  And when you do participate, you are doing your part to run up the prices in the market where you plan to buy.

When I'm not the listing agent, I hate bidding wars.  Over the years, my clients won their share, but I sometimes felt a little queasy as I represented them.  More often than not, I tried to work with them to avoid these situations.  How?

• Homes that are look fabulous tend to attract multiples.  Why not use your imagination and go for the ugly and poorly staged (and reasonably priced) stepsister who, with a face lift and tummy tuck could become quite a beauty.
• Homes that are priced below market tend to attract multiple offers, often pushing the sales price to way above market.  It might make sense to look at homes that are priced at or a little above their market value.
• I never ruled out the homes that had been on the market for eons.  Often they are a pain to show, have a resident pit bull, or some other issue that isn't related to the price or quality of the property.

In the early years of the decade, it was really hard to avoid bidding wars, and we felt lucky to be writing an offer on a place with only 4 or 5 other buyers.  But today, in most price ranges and DC area neighborhoods, there is a lot to choose from. 

You need to try to avoid getting caught up in the need to win - and the same thing applies to your agent!  Just because 15 other people are going wacko over a house doesn't mean you have to do it, too!