Holistic Homes in Northern VA

My Place Today

noreply@blogger.com (Stacia) — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 02:26:00 +0000

Holistic Homes is moving from real estate into real estate INVESTING! Chalk it up to my listening to the Rich Dad, Poor Dad series and really getting it this time around (It's only taken 3-4 times of listening to the audio CDs to understand the processes behind it all.)

As such, Nick and I are looking to buy houses in Northern Va. We will pay ALL CASH, settle in 3 days and PAY ALL CLOSING COSTS. This year, we're just looking for TWO homes to work with! Not a big goal, but a goal. (And yes, if you still want to SEE houses, I can be persuaded, IF you're serious and want to do a lot of pre-work before we even go OUT to look at places in person. I'd really rather work on the marketing aspect of selling your home since my background is more in marketing and getting them listed! ;) But, we can work around it if you twist my arm.)

As everyone has been talking about, home values in our area have greatly decreased. There are a ton of homes on the market and some of them need repair. If you:
Are in foreclosure.
Have bad tenants
Need to relocate.
Owe liens.
Are 100% financed.
Are behind on payments.
Are getting divorced.
Need to hold an Estate Sale.
Have a vacant house.
Have a house in need of repairs.
Have an expired listing.
Or, are making 2 house payments.

Then, please, call us. These are common problems that can happen to anyone. What can you do?
Here's a solution, sell your property to us! We buy houses from people in situations just like yours in almost any area, condition or price range. We specialize in finding creative solutions to real estate problems that others won't touch.

We can pay all cash, take over your payments or lease-purchase your house immediately!We will handle all of the paperwork, make all the arrangements and close within a few days if necessary. You'll get a quick sale with no hassles, so you can put your worries behind you.

Regardless of your situation, if your house qualifies, and you are flexible on price and terms, We Can Buy Your House in 3 Days or Less! How is this possible? It's really easy when we work together to create a win-win sale that will work for everyone. You'll get your home sold fast and we'll continue to buy more houses and provide quality homes to our customers.

If you'd like more information, please email me at: stacia@myplacetoday.com or stacia@holistic-homes.com. You can also call me at 703.596.0339. That's my direct number! If I don't answer right away, I will call you back before the end of the day!

~Stacia

Busy, Busy...

noreply@blogger.com (Stacia) — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 17:36:00 +0000

It's been a few days. Who knew October was going to hit with a vengeance??? Not only did I manage to help some friends find a wonderful town-home in Springfield (the one they loved on our first day out looking) we managed to get a ratified contract and sold their DC condo in 19 days! Wow. So, I've been a flurry of activity on negotiating and getting all the little details taken care of. Once the contract was ratified, we had a 3 hour home inspection to get done in 7 days. For the record, we did it in two ;) Our wonderful inspector, Mike Linebaugh, with HomePro Inspections did the best job I've ever seen. He even left them with a complete binder full of information on how to read the forms he filled out and how to deal with any issues that come up in the house while they're living in it.

I'm ready to have him come do my house just to get the details!

While scrambling for the town-house, I then spent the last part of the week working on commercial space for another friend. She's opening a new business in the Ashburn area. And, like before, we found the right place for her on our first trip out. Currently, we working on getting information from the listing agent so we can work on moving forward to having her up and running by the beginning of Dec.

This weekend in the lovely October heat, we did our Adopt-a-Highway clean up for our neighborhood. I managed to put a small newsletter on every mailbox we passed letting the neighbors know who had been out cleaning up and why. I also added in all the information about the listings in our neighborhood along with some statistics. I know I'm curious about the houses...so I know the other neighbors have to be as well!

This week, it's the PWAR Fall Conference and working on getting my site as up to date as possible while hoping to find some new people to work with buying or selling their homes. I'm also working on a Home Buyer Compatibility test. This way, I get to know a person's preferences before we go out looking, and I can match spouse preferences together when I'm researching and talking with other agents. I think it will make the process of finding a new home for buyers much easier on everyone involved.

Namaste

CatKlaw, Inc. & Lou-Evil Psycles present The 2nd Annual 'Bottles & Throttles' Charity Event

noreply@blogger.com (Stacia) — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 03:08:00 +0000

On October 20th, the 2nd Annual Bottles and Throttles (formerly Caring for Kids) Benefit will be held in Vienna, VA. This is a benefit to raise money and awareness for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

The NCMEC is most commonly identified with their initiatives to protect and educate children and parents against the threats and dangers that exist in our world today. The Center has been responsible for development of many major child safety measures, including the Amber Alert system. Their site, www.missingkids.com includes a vast amount of literature and online education to help children and parents stay educated and safe.

The center is headquartered locally at The Charles B Wang International Building, located at 699 Prince Street in Alexandria, VA. Parties can contact the Center by phone at 1-800-THE-LOST.

CatKlaw, Inc. and the Lou-Evil Psycles motorcycle club are excited to have the opportunity to benefit the National Center through this unique event. On October 20th, the event will begin with a Charity Motorcycle Ride, ending at Jammin' Java in Vienna, VA. Food and drinks will be available at the hall, which will host the remainder of the day’s events.

Friday night, October 19th, there will be an unofficial Meet n' Greet at The Queen's Gambit, located on Black Forest Drive in Manassas, VA from 9pm - ???.

Motorcycle staging witll take place at Motorcycle Factory, Inc in Woodbridge, VA. Bikes will stage there from 9am-11am on Saturday, Oct 20th. From there, the motorcyclists will follow a route among some of the scenic western Prince William and Fairfax counties.

From 12- 4pm, there will be presenters, and a matinee' concert featuring Just Wanna Play. There will be photographers, vendors and other entertainment provided during the afternoon events. During the events, a raffle will be held to raise money for the Center, and to give away prizes donated by interested parties.

Throughout the event, cash and check donations will be accepted on behalf of the National Center.

The event coordinators are currently seeking donations. 100% of cash and check donations will go directly to the NCMEC. We are also looking for prizes for the raffle.

NCMEC is exempt from federal taxes under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code and has received a ruling that it is a publicly supported organization as described in sections 509(a)(1) and 170(b)(1)(A)(vi) of the Internal Revenue Code. All donations are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law.

Our Goal:$3000 to benefit the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children

More details, flyers and donations can be found at: www.catklaw.com/charity

And the Day Moves On....

noreply@blogger.com (Stacia) — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 03:47:00 +0000

Contract negoitations are still in progress....arrrgh. :) On the flip side, I managed to get some marketing pieces done tonight. What do you think?

I've spent the last few hours of my evening, other than trying to get a toddler to sleep on his own, working on a newsletter for our local neighborhood.

We're doing our Adopt-A-Highway road clean up on Sunday this weekend and I wanted to put a mini newsletter out to our neighbors letting them know why we were doing this and how to get in contact for future events. Plus, a little bit of marketing never hurts. I added in the 4 houses listed in our neighborhood too. I would really love to take care of our neighborhood for listings, but there is a scattering of agents here.

Either way...it is the journey of creation and keeping my neighbors informed that is the purpose. If it nets me some work, great. If it doesn't, then at least, they know some of the information.

I should be working on networking, but I figure, this IS networking, in my immediate neighborhood! Plus, my business cards came in today! Shew. Now I have official ones to leave out for people.

One Step Closer!!!!!

noreply@blogger.com (Stacia) — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 04:24:00 +0000

Well, I'm not in my office this week, technology, or so the way I have it set up, never lets you know where I am, as I can always answer the phone, fax and email, I am just THAT connected to my clients! I did it that way on purpose. I hate being unconnected and unreachable. It's just rude this day in age. I am there for my clients, and by there, I really mean easily accessible and working.

So go figure...I'm not IN my office, and I've got contracts to negotiate and forms to get signed and faxed hither and yon, yes, I said hither and yon ;) Deal. It's the author in me.

My client's got a full price offer on their condo in the District. The Universe aligned and went with them. Now, I've just got to get the Home Sale Contingency removed for the offer on the house they want to buy, and we're probably going to get to move forward! WHOOOOOO! What a week!

Stay tuned as I take you through the process of getting the contract to Closing!
Namaste

Contract Written....

noreply@blogger.com (Stacia) — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 20:31:00 +0000

Ok, everyone, cross your fingers and your toes, we've gotten the contract completely written...so tonight it's a special trip downtown for signatures and then faxing off to the Listing Agent! I think it's a total of 26 pages.

Now, I know I'm a little nit-picky about the signatures, thus the special trip downtown to get them. Could I have just emailed the contract over to my clients? Well, yes,...and I did, but I want the cleanest copy possible going to the seller's so there won't be any misunderstandings and thus make the process go smoother. Since I'm a technology diva, I prefer to have my clients sign ON the computer, then I can just fax directly from my laptop and email a copy to both my clients and the other agent. This reduces the number of trees we kill and keeps the files neat and legible. And, if you've seen a document after a few times of faxing it back and forth...you know why I'm doing this.

I did the research. I know the current sales prices and subsidy offerings...I know the area, so there shouldn't be much going back and forth on this...either they like it...or they say no thank you.

We want them to like it! ;)

After that, tomorrow is a meeting to look at commercial rentals! That'll be an interesting trip :)

My Head is Spinning!

noreply@blogger.com (Stacia) — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 17:27:00 +0000

After a sleepless night, due to one small child with a cough that never wanted to go away, I raced off to a PWAR meeting at Old Hickory Golf Club. (And while the morning drive over was cloudy and gray, the afternoon drive home was all sunshine and balmy weather, of course, my camera was home on my desk.)

I spent four hours learning about ALL the planned changes for Prince William County, West to East and wow, I'm almost on information overload. Even more so if I think about how things were when I was growing up here with horse farms, airports, roller rinks and not much else.

Now, I know where the roads are going, where they should have been going, what restaurants are tentatively scheduled to go in on what corners and why. I know about who has approvals to continue to build, who's stalled on their projects, where the VRE stations are planned to go and that our Marine Museum has their land, but needs state funding and some private investors to keep moving forward.

I've seen which intersections are going to be worked on, which ones are nearing completion and WHICH year they were approved. The road improvements approved by voters in 1998, are just being completed NOW. That should tell you a lot about the cycle between approval and completion on such large and involved projects.

Anyway, it's a wealth of information to absorb and I can only share a portion of it, mostly because, well things change and even though there's a long lead time on projects such as these, who knows what next year will hold. I can only speak to what was shared today. I do know that I'll be visiting a few of the places over the next week or so just to get a feel for the projects and the housing nearby and those things, I'll share as I do them!

If you have any questions about your area or potential area you're looking, just ask and I'll share what I know!

Namaste

Please Join Us...

noreply@blogger.com (Stacia) — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 19:40:00 +0000

Local Branding Company, CatKlaw, Inc. and Motorcycle MC, Lou-Evil Psycles are co-hosting their annual Bottles & Throttles Charity Event to benefit the National Center for Missing and Exploited Kids. Join us for the motorcycle ride and/or the Family Fun Concert!

Namaste

Buyer's Agent Day

noreply@blogger.com (Stacia D. Kelly) — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 22:14:00 +0000

Today was the way a home search is supposed to go for my clients! Our goal: see 4-5 homes in the target area of Springfield, VA. Requirements:

Close to Metro or major road to make commuting easier,
Few steps leading into the house to make entry easier for elderly guests (and those of us who's hips just hate us ;))
Minimal fixing up to make house liveable

From the lists I sent for them to choose from, which I'd already narrowed down (no home too close to the train tracks, too loud and could potentially wake a new born) - no obvious foreclosures, etc., they narrowed the lists down even further. I spent about an hour or two last night, pulling up the information, pictures and tax records, and then mapped out our route from the center point. An hour before heading out, I called and made sure each home on our travel route would be available about the time we wanted to see them.

Off we went to see four homes on our list. The first was a bust. Obviously a foreclosure once we were on the property. The directions on the listing were inaccurate and the listing itself inaccurate. While disappointed with our first selection, off we went to the second.

And that one we ALL fell in love with. Everything they needed, a few items to fix, but all in all, even the paint schemes were liveable.

We continued on, saw a random Open House around the corner from the Lovely House, and chatted with a nice agent who was happy to show us around. Then off to the last two...which we quickly ALL crossed off the list.

Results: Keep the Lovely House on the list, make plans to see 4 homes in Alexandria, near the metro as well.

This just illustrates to me what a good agent does for a client: Preparation, understanding the market AND their needs. On average, those buyers using an agent, travel out to see actual houses only 2x, often finding the house they really love in the first trip. You just know the minute you walk in. Sure, there are things that need to be fixed, things you can overlook, but you really do just KNOW when you walk into the house.

*wink* I'll keep you posted on our progress!

New Horizons....

noreply@blogger.com (Stacia D. Kelly) — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 03:18:00 +0000

Changes afoot....stay posted to see what's up and where we're going ;)

Oh, and what do you think???

Open House This Saturday in Woodbridge, VA on Jenny Lane

noreply@blogger.com (Peggy) — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 17:27:00 +0000

This house is gorgeous. It's a minute from I95 (especially if the traffic lights cooperate). It's just as close to Potomac Mills and yet the quiet of the neighborhood and the 28 acres of parkland behind the house give it a secluded feeling.

Come join us this weekend and check out all the upgrades AND the reduced price!

If you scroll down a few messages here, you can see the video as well.
Just follow the Bassette Real Estate Group's signs to come visit with us from 12pm -3pm on Saturday.

Look! Look!

noreply@blogger.com (Peggy) — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 01:52:00 +0000

Now, you can chat with me live online! AND, you can see what I've been up to during the day (if I remember to send at quick IM). I'm learning more and more about online tools and finding ways to stay in contact with my clients, family and friends.

Technology. It has its pros AND cons ;)

The sun should be out tomorrow, so expect some pictures of a nearby historic site!

Goal Tomorrow...

noreply@blogger.com (Peggy) — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 03:38:00 +0000

My goal tomorrow is to get out and about if the sun is shining and snag a few pictures of our local area to share with you. It's been wet and raining all week, sorely needed, but it severely hinders the picture taking plans I had.

For now, I'll just share one I took from my office window last Spring as the butterfly bush was in full bloom and living up to its name.

Oh, and if you haven't subscribed to Natural Home, my most recent copy showed up today...and now I have way too many ideas bouncing around my head for things to do to our house. I'm sure my husband will agree, since I've gone on a cleaning spree during my spare time, and managing to make small changes in decor as I go. (The small Zen space on the kitchen counter just makes me smile when I'm making a meal for us...a wonder since cooking is not one of my favorite past times!)

If continues to rain, I'll see if I can't find some beautiful greenery to be artistic with for you!

Mental Note

noreply@blogger.com (Peggy) — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 17:07:00 +0000

One should not allow me to watch a DVD on "Staging Your Home" while it is going to help me benefit my clients with their homes, I am also now itching to go on a clutter clearing effort in MY house.

ACK!

Adapting...

noreply@blogger.com (Peggy) — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 15:20:00 +0000

Yes, if you look around, you see some changes here ;) I hope to have it all done soon so you can come in and play and find out all about the places I find in Prince William County to share with you.

Please, ask questions, offer up your favorite places, restaurants and locals! The more content to share, the better off we all are!

What do you think of the site so far?

Addition:
Wow! For some reason, this both amazes me and makes me want to shout for joy!

Green Home Construction up 50 Percent

Almost 100,000 new green homes have been built under model guidelines developed by the National Association of Home Builders. That’s up from slightly more than 60,000 that NAHB identified when it surveyed its members in 2004, the year it developed its guidelines. To NAHB, green building includes, among other factors, construction techniques that minimize waste and emphasize the use of sustainable materials.
~From Realtor Magazine Online

If you're interested in making your current home more "green" - Natural Home Magazine is a great resource!

I love all the great ideas it has, as well as oooh and ahhh over all the ones I'll never be able to get to ;)

An experiment...

noreply@blogger.com (Peggy) — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 01:31:00 +0000

I'm settling in for an experiment. Old school vs. new school. Sometimes, there's a lesson to be had for both, so I'm going to test it as I would ANY good theory.

First challenge: Blogging - it is a open, yet personal endeavor, even when done in the name of politics, team efforts, or anything else, anyone else have thoughts on this? People like to read about other people...their triumphs, their challenges and everything in between.

Second challenge: Adapting to a new market. In moving from tech to Real Estate, there really is a culture shift. Even more so when I'm trying to bring the TECH to Real Estate. ;) Are there things you see as working more now than in the past?

Those are my first two thoughts/challenges so far. I'll keep you posted as others come up. ;)
~S