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This column is written by Marcus Correll, the Marketing Coordinator at RLAH Real Estate. He is not a licensed agent, nor intends to be portrayed as such, but he is entrenched in the industry helping approximately 200 agents with their marketing.

Every year I hear the friendly debates in our offices amongst the agents and sometimes with their clients on whether the holidays are a good time to list a property.

After some research, I found that there are dozens of articles conflicting with each other to best serve their own sales and brokerage interests. While we won’t try to sway you one way or the other, we thought we’d share the pros and cons along with some tips should you decide that now is the best time for you to list.

Cons of Listing Your Home During the Holidays:

• Many people out of town or focused on holidays
• Winter is cold and dark, meaning nighttime showings and lack of landscape appeal
• Those “Holiday” days/weekends add on to the property’s “days on market”
• Making time/keeping home clean for showings is difficult if you’re hosting gatherings
• The different parties involved to facilitate a real estate transaction can be “out of office”
• Animals growing in their winter coats are more likely to shed
• Boxes of presents, wrapping paper and other gift items are often hard to hide
• Contractors and condo boards could be difficult to reach for questions
• Some buyers biases and prejudices could infringe on their decision with overly religious decorations

Pros of Listing Your Home During the Holidays (more…)

The holidays are upon us, PoPville readers!

Everyone wants to make sure their homes are set to “WOW” mode, but we all know how difficult it is to coordinate a remodeling project before or during the holidays.

We don’t want you to sweat it.

That’s why if you book a project with remodelmate before December 31, we’ll give you $500 off your order and a free Nest or Ring camera — your choice! — to monitor your remodeling project from anywhere in the world.

You can start your project whenever you want, before or after the holidays. All you have to do is book it with us by December 31.

Start 2019 off with an amazing new kitchen or bathroom, or get those windows or floors looking spiffy for next year’s holiday season.

The best part? With remodelmate, you pay as you go. Our metered payment system only pays contractors when work is complete. Say goodbye to throwing up 30-50% just to get a contractor to show up. This means you have more money for holiday presents! Woohoo!

But hurry — our community of contractors are getting busy, so book them now!

Visit remodelmate.com and enter code HOLIDAYS when you book your free virtual consultation.

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This year, So Others Might Eat (SOME) hosts its 17th annual Trot for Hunger 5k in downtown D.C. on Freedom Plaza.

A time honored tradition, the Trot for Hunger brings together up to 10,000 participants from across the D.C. metropolitan area and the country. This fundraiser helps SOME provide critical services such as food, clothing, shelter and medical care to thousands of men, women and children struggling with poverty, hunger and homelessness.

It’s a meaningful way to remember people in need this Thanksgiving, while also getting in that pre-Thanksgiving meal workout. Registration ends November 20th, so hurry and save your spot for D.C.’s one and only Turkey Trot!

This column is written by Metro DC Houses, a local real estate team serving DC, MD, VA made up of Colin Johnson, the immediate past President for the D.C. Association of Realtors and Christopher Suranna, the current President for the D.C. Association of Realtors.

This last week we had the privilege to talk with Jeff Speck, notable city planner and lecturer, in an intimate group of real estate professionals throughout the country at the National Association of Realtors (NAR) conference in Boston.

If you are not familiar with Mr. Speck check out his TED talk on walkable cities — it has over 1 million views and is pretty great.

The NAR published data from a survey on community preferences that shows 47% of the US population would prefer to live in a city or a suburban neighborhood with a mix of houses, shops and business while only 12% would prefer to live in a suburban neighborhood with only houses.

Subsequently, in a white paper published in 2009, CEO’s for Cities found that properties in more walkable neighborhoods market for $2,000 more per square foot than non-walkable neighborhoods. All of this seems very obvious or is it?

There is only one company currently publishing walkable factors, WalkScore, a company now owned by Redfin, which as we know is a real estate brokerage; which makes its money on real estate commissions.

WalkScore, currently operates their algorithm by issuing a score for a location or address as a crow flies meaning it creates concentric circles to produce a number based on factors such as transit, entertainment and groceries.

Most cities are designed with corridors and commuting as the significant influence on zoning and thus the further one’s address is from streets like H Street, U Street or 14th Street for example, in theory the lower your walk score.

However, since 2006 we have many disrupters like Airbnb, bikeshare, scooters and carshares all beginning to shift the consumer’s concept of not only micro-commuting, but also property right and use. To get a better idea, check out DC’s master plan, updated in 2006 and amended in 2011.

Another kink to ponder: Walkable as a term could be considered a Fair Housing Violation.

What?!!!! That’s right and not necessarily because of obvious concerns like individuals with disabilities, but because classifying neighborhoods as anything other than a fact could be considered blockbusting or steering or redlining. Why does this matter?

Well, if sellers can’t market the very thing that makes their property unique compared to their neighbors has the consumer really taken it into consideration?

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