Five years ago I talked with my husband about the possibility of moving away from DC because I was…read moreintimidated by the real estate. I didn't think it was for me. Property here is expensive, confusing, and competitive. And then we found Harry. He taught us so much, and gave us the confidence to not only purchase our first property, a condo, but later our forever-home in our dream neighborhood. He truly turned one of my biggest anxieties into one of our proudest accomplishments.
Harry is a seasoned real estate professional who grew up in DC and has worked as a realtor this area since 1994. We worked with Harry for three transactions - purchasing our first condo in McLean Gardens, DC in 2015, then selling that condo and purchasing a standalone home in Kent, DC in 2018.
I can't tell you how many times people have told me my husband and I have "gotten lucky" with real estate. I tell them we didn't get lucky - we hired the right realtor.
Transaction #1 - Condo Purchase in 2015
When my husband and I decided to stop renting and purchase a condo in 2015, we had an initial meeting with Harry to discuss the process, our finances, our goals, and our desires. Harry is smart, organized, a good listener, and a hard worker - everything a buyer wants when they're placing their future in someone's hands. He's not at all pushy or salesy. He set us up to receive email notifications every time a property in our desired neighborhood became available. Often within hours of condos coming on the market, I would email Harry and request time to visit it. On almost every occasion he was with us checking out condos within hours of the listing going live - providing us with a necessary edge in a competitive market.
When we found our dream condo just two months later, we needed to act fast. Harry not only visited the property with us on three occasions in three days, but was able to dedicate a few hours to walking us through the process of placing our first offer and all the necessary paperwork we needed to complete once that offer was accepted. He made sure we didn't miss any deadlines, connected us with a local, reputable lender and home inspector, got us all set up for the appraisal, then taught us about mortgage payments, escrow, and all of the other terms you may not understand the first time you're buying something. There's a lot of paperwork, and he went through every document with us. Closing went smoothly.
Transaction #2 - Home Purchase in 2018
Harry next helped us go under contract for a home the week of our wedding. Which was in Maine. And the house was in DC. I can honestly say I would never have felt comfortable making as big an investment as we did in our current home without having had the previous experience we had working with Harry. We trust him. Upon finding the home, we contacted Harry and asked him to check out the property with us. On a day's notice over a holiday weekend, he was there. We spent a couple hours at the house, and he worked with us for hours that afternoon (this is on a day's notice!) to put in an offer. The offer was accepted and we hit the ground running.
Harry worked with us to get all paperwork and negotiations in order and to conduct a lengthy inspection as we literally began our drive up north to get married. Think you can't buy a house and get married in the same week? Well you can - and Harry made it happen! In addition to helping us negotiate a below-ask offer on our home, he also was able to negotiate a significant closing credit for us since the inspection (with his recommended inspector) was conducted so thoroughly that some otherwise difficult-to-detect structural issues were found. He got quotes from local contractors on costs around these fixes so that when we went back to the sellers to request the credit, they agreed right away. Yet again, closing went smoothly.
Transaction #3 - Condo Sale in 2018
As soon as our offer was accepted on the home we purchased, Harry set up a meeting to go over how we'd like to market our condo and when it should go on the market. Harry created an extremely customized book of information on the neighborhood and historical condo sales based on the size of our unit, layout, updates, etc. We discussed the listing price and time. We discussed staging vs. not staging. He recommended a staging professional to us, a painter, hired a professional photographer for the listing photos, and coordinated everything so it ran smoothly yet on a very specific timeline.
We listed the condo on the market, and it went under contract in just four weeks for $8,000 over asking. We received a single offer at full ask, and Harry strategically called all previously interested parties which resulted in another offer, a bidding war, and a final close price significantly higher than we expected. Harry helped us act quickly, informed us so we could make intelligent decisions, and guided us. We always understood exactly where we were in the process, and closing went smoothly.
