Karen was amazing. She took down all our preferences and only showed us homes that met that…read morecriteria. She knows the area very well and understands her customers. She made the process very easy!

I do not RECOMMEND this company at all. Karen Reynoso and her husband Fabian Reynoso are scamming…read moreand taking advantage of people (come to find out he's not even a Maryland licensed realtor). Fabian Reynoso has emailed and called my phone for two years to sell my property in Fort Washington, MD. After finally deciding to put my house on the market I contacted Fabian to get the job done on 7/4/18. I was ready to put my house on the market to rent or sell as is! Fabian convinced me to use a few contractors he knew to renovate my property to get it up to date. I told Fabian that my budget was $8,000 no more than $10,000. He understood and agreed. He had his wife come in Karen Reynoso as if she was an interior design person on 7/18/18. She gave good ideas and suggestions as to what should be done with the property. She suggested the laundry room being fully renovated, new flooring, turning two bathrooms into one big bathroom, painting kitchen cabinets and repainting the walls. I agreed as long as they could squeeze all of that within a $8,000 to $10,000 budget. Fabian and his wife Karen agreed with a witness being present. Fabian promised the house would be done within a week. He reassured me the contractor would start the following Wednesday. That never happened. The contractor started work on 9/16/18. I've called Fabian twice between July and September to tell him I no longer wanted his help or services because the over promises was simply costing me money and time. I've lost several possible renters giving Fabian my time and him not executing the plans as he promised on time and in time. Needless to say the contractor did not leave and finish his work until 10/17/18. On 10/17/18 I got a phone call from Fabian telling me his wife will send me a listing agreement contract and a contract for renovations for proceeds to be taken out during settlement. I was surprised that Fabian name wasn't on the listing agreement. After all work was done and no discussion or permission Fabian hits me with a $16,000.00+ bill. I was livid. That's not what we agreed on. I asked for an itemized bill after he told me he had to spend money on unexpected and miscellaneous things. I terminated my relationship with Fabian and Karen Reynoso and explained to them that I rather have an attorney deal with the situation because I felt they were not being upfront and taking advantage of me. Since then these people have proceeded to put a lien on my house. Karen has called me after and I have to explained to her that there was nothing to discuss and that we will settle this matter in court. She rudely told me I will pay her the monies and pay her attorney fees as well. I told Karen to never call me again. Since then Karen Reynoso has modified the original agreement. These people are fraudulent. I have also filed a complaint with Maryland Real Estate License Commission against Fabian for coming off as if he's a licensed Maryland realtor trying to represent me in a real estate transaction just to bait me in and then at the very end throwing me to his wife Karen who I thought was only his assistant and an interior designer. These folks are very tricky, greedy and have I'll intent. No telling how many other folks they have played these games with. So please be careful with this family owned business. This just makes me never want to trust anybody else in the real estate business ever again. Huge lesson learned. I have attached documents please check out where Karen modified the agreement of work that was done to my house for her husband Fabian. None of the things in the agreement was done to my house. Check out the itemized list which is also fraudulent doesn't even match the agreement. The agreement states post construction clean up (no construction was done to my house) laundry room floor renovation (no laundry room floor was renovated), trash pick up (bulk trash picked up)and garage paint (I have no garage). Also attach is text where Fabian is pretending to want to represent me as a real estate agent and is not licensed in Maryland come to find out! These folks are snakes in the grass!!! What's in the dark always come to light. Have a great day!

Christine was very personable, attentive, and tried to get us the best possible financial outcome…read moreprice on our new home. She was helping us find homes in Maryland and took us to show a few places, pointing out all the research she had done on them beforehand. She's very thorough and will catch things you may not see which is super helpful as a new buyer! She follows up on us often to see if we have any issues and are enjoying our new house which is a really great thing. You want to hire Christine and have her on your side, trust me! Thank you for all that you have done for us!! - "the other" Christine.

Christine has been our one and only realtor since we moved to NOVA in 2013. She has guided us with…read morethe successful purchase of our two homes and investment properties. She is a joy to work with! She is always upbeat and has tremendous knowledge about the area so that's a sign of her experience as a Real Estate Professional. We have recommended her to friends and family and they have also purchased their homes successfully. As a family, we recommend Christine 100%, plus she is fun to take house tours with!

I gotta give a shout-out to Kay. She handled my difficult home sale very skillfully. She's very…read morevery smart, has a ton of experience, gets a lot of things done, and is able to skillfully handle complex situations. In this case, she had to: * Deal with getting difficult renters out of my house * Organized low cost contractors to make needed repairs to my house * Made sure house and yard were cleaned up after the renters left it * Dealt with difficult issue with appraiser having valued my house $14k under the actual sale price. She appealed and was able to get him to add $10k back onto the value. Also I should add that her communication is very good. When you take all this into account, there are very few professionals, realtors or in any other field who perform at her level. I'm very glad that I worked with her.

When we were ready to sell our house, we offered the listing to Mark, and had a disappointing…read moreexperience. We had worked with his firm to buy the house and, in retrospect, I think we gave the benefit of the doubt a little too much the first time around. Both times, he was not straightforward with us about pretty fundamental stuff that we'd tried to establish from the beginning. He was also not especially positive to work with, and none of the contractors he recommended were positive either. On the selling end, what we were looking for was a realtor to work with us as teammates in selling our house, allowing us a little bit of input into how the house would be made over for the sale. We were selling a vintage colonial house in MD, so it made sense for it to be presented just a hair differently than a modern high-rise condo in downtown DC, for example. Of the realtors we interviewed, Mark had the most disagreements with us about how to make over the house, but we thought he would be the most straightforward person to work with. So before offering him the listing, we asked how differences of opinion would be settled, and he said he'd ultimately defer to us. After six weeks of waiting on his primary stager, Mark finally brought over another one, Bona Gjoni (who has iffy reviews on Yelp). We wanted to be open-minded, and we agreed to at least 80% of what she said. However, she was very hard to work with; she was cold, rarely spoke to us (she mainly just addressed Mark), and she frankly seemed put off that we were there at all. (Mark later explained that they usually just stage vacant homes.) We suggested that if she told us how strongly she felt about her suggestions on a scale of 1-10, we could use that to inform our decision -- but she rejected this idea out of hand and said she's "a 10 on everything." She wanted us to paint our kitchen a specific shade of light brown (!) because "all [her] clients do that". (Shouldn't design be tailored to the property, not the same for all?) Oddly enough, what was a dealbreaker for Mark was when we disagreed with Bona's directive to paint our whole fireplace a glossy jet black. This seemed way out of character for our parkside country-mouse colonial, and we emailed Mark to ask if we could take a breath before deciding whether to proceed with Bona -- while emphasizing how important it was to us to make sure *he* was comfortable with all the choices made. He said we should leave all these decisions to the professionals, and wrote a long message about how experienced he was. When we said we get it, we just want to be *a* part of the team to some extent, he abruptly emailed us to bow out of the listing because of the fact that we "have your own ideas of how you want to present and market your home." This was a real curveball a month and a half into working with him. We didn't have any particularly zany ideas for our house -- it seemed like the problem was that we wanted any input whatsoever. Then I realized that all 3 of the references I'd called from his recent sales were seniors who had already moved into assisted living and had him handle 100% of the preparation process -- maybe that is his jam. So it seems like Mark prefers to only work with sellers who do not want any input at all; that's fine if that's his choice -- the frustrating thing was that he was not straightforward with us from the beginning, even though we tried to be very straightforward with him. We had shared all our opinions/preferences on the house during the interview stage, so none of it was a surprise. We had even directly asked about how he'd handle differences of opinion. If he had been honest from the beginning about his "my way or the highway" approach, it would have saved us all a lot of wasted time. In the end, the realtor we ended up selling our house with was outstanding: very kind, smart, and straightforward; his stager and most other contractors were excellent (super nice, very responsive, and did quality work); and we were thrilled with the results. So all's well that ends well, but much like in our buying experience, Mark did a bait-and-switch. We told him exactly what we were looking for, he accepted enthusiastically, and then he changed things up on us later in a non-straightforward way. Our hope is that an honest review can be helpful to others trying to choose a realtor that will suit their needs.

Mark Meyerdirk is a rock star, plain and simple. Super organized, on the ball, and extremely…read moreknowledgeable about the DC market. We saw a listing in pre-sale and loved it. Mark went to bat for us and within an hour he'd sent us spreadsheets of comparable homes, pricing trends, and his impressions on what we should offer. He also advised us to write a personal letter to the seller. He surmised correctly from the condition of the house that the owners would likely prefer an early offer so they don't have a parade of people coming in and out of their lovely home. He was so right! The offer price he suggested was higher than the asking but not astronomically high. After reviewing all the data he shared, we followed his advice for the offer price and also spent some time writing a personal letter to the seller. It worked! Even though the sellers had another pre-offer, they accepted ours. Mark was not done. Since we were first time home buyers, Mark walked us through all the steps to closing. He communicated by email and text and answered questions at all times of the day and night, be it 7AM or 11PM. His working style fits right in with the typical DC type-A crowd, who (like me) want things done yesterday. Finally, we closed and then went out for drinks with Mark. He even bought us a surprise house warming gift that was incredibly thoughtful and personal. Mark is such a personable and likable guy. He'll adapt to your working style and roll with the punches. His communication style is straightforward and (thankfully) completely lacking the typical real-estate patronizing tone. I cannot recommend him enough for the DC market! Apart from being our agent, he is now our friend and we look forward to that friendship. Kudos to Mark. Even my angry cat is happy!

I was disappointed in DC Living Real Estate, even though I would say that the price we ultimately…read morereceived for the sale of our house was satisfactory, as were the number of days the house was on the market. In addition, the DC Living brokers worked hard. There were aspects, too, of our sale that would have tried the patience of any broker, and they remained cheerful and positive throughout. Some, and perhaps most, buyers would find the two principal brokers to be a good fit. Despite all of this, I found my relationship with one of the brokers to be among the most problematic I've had with a professional. I would urge anyone considering these brokers to make sure that they are equally comfortable with both, as their styles are quite different. My clear preference for dealing with the one with whom I felt I still had a good relationship was overridden at every turn. I particularly regret having agreed to dual agency. In effect, as soon as I had done so, I no longer felt I could receive reliable advice on the price negotiations, and later on the negotiations over the list of repairs. I'm pretty sure in retrospect that the buyers would have gone through with the purchase without the split-it-down-the-middle approach that dual agency invites. I don't know this for sure, and it is quite possible we would have made the same concessions had we been advised by a broker with no stake in serving the buyer, but with dual agency I couldn't be sure. I don't blame DC Living for having agreed to dual agency, although it wasn't clear until afterwards when I asked that they did not have a prior relationship to the buyers before meeting them at one of our open houses. Later, when the broker with whom I had a problematic relationship described a portion of the commission that they were kicking back to the buyer as having been granted to help make the deal work, it seemed curious. When I inquired, I was advised that the buyers had asked for it during the negotiations to bridge the gap between us, but it was not disclosed at the time it was asked for or granted, but rather later as a heads up in connection with a form that we would see at settlement. It didn't make any difference to the amount of commission we paid, but it dovetailed with the narrative I was developing in which I felt managed and not listened to or treated with genuine respect.

We have used DC Living - specifically Deb and Skip - for three purchases and two sales of houses…read moreacross the last decade. On the sell side, they got us record setting high prices for the block both times. On the sell side, they were incredibly patient with us, introducing us to various neighborhoods, faring stops and starts to our thinking about our readiness to move. In addition, they are real home experts - the best at recommending handymen/painters/floor guys and have excellent ideas on home improvement in general. They are pretty much our go-to house consultants. Couldn't recommend more highly.

I cannot say enough good things about working with Lauren Pillsbury at TTR Sotheby's. This was my…read morefirst ever home purchase, and Lauren was great at walking me through the process and answering the many questions I had. In a very competitive real estate market for buyers, I felt that Lauren had great knowledge of what it takes to make a successful bid, and took a very strategic approach. I was confident that working with Lauren I would end up with a home that I loved. And I did! I also think that it's important to be comfortable with your agent. Lauren is not only very knowledgeable, but is warm and personable. I knew I could talk to Lauren honestly about what I wanted, and what my limitations were, and she took all of that into consideration. She never pushed me to consider things outside my price range, and still came up with great listings. I will definitely use Lauren in the future!

My wife and I ran into Lauren by chance on some property that she was selling in the DC area. We…read morewere not sold on the place, but we were sold on her qualities of a real estate agent. We took a roll of the dice on someone we didn't know to guide us through this jungle that is DC's housing market. Her partner, Tyler Garrison did a great job of selling our current place and Lauren followed up with a 1-2 punch of getting us a perfect house in a perfect timing sequence to enable us to move right from the sale to the new house. Lauren was always on time and knew the house and neighborhood she was showing. She is a DC resident and it shows, not only in her abilty to tell you about each neighborhood, but in the way she can parallel park her car in no time flat. Lauren took the time to get to know our needs/wants and catered her information about new houses to our requests. She was very open to our criticisms and our likes to eliminate things we didn't want to see. When the right house came along, she was right there to get all the details worked out. Her follow ups were nothing less that perfection. She even showed up for the inspection and arranged everthing. The company Lauren keeps is just as stellar as she is. Everything from the inspection to the closing was taken care of with her and the relationships she has with reputable companies. Lauren was instrumental in dealing with our mortgage company (who was not as on-top-of-things as she is). In the end we got 15k knocked off our closing, thanks to lauren and the inspection report... which we never thought possible! THANKS! If you are thinking of getting the best agent possible.. look no further. Don't delay... call Mrs. Pillsbury up. You won't regret it.

As a real estate agent helping my husband and me buy a home in Capitol Hill, Colleen could not have…read moreprovided better service to us. She was patient, insightful, available, well-connected, helpful, not-at-all pushy, generous with her time and she communicated with us just the right amount. She lives in the Capitol Hill area which was the area we were interested in, so her familiarity, wisdom and experience with the market was invaluable to us. She was also incredibly helpful with all the complications and details regarding closing. We can't recommend her highly enough!

Karen was an absolute pleasure to work with and helped us land a home in this crazy market without…read moreany hiccups. We are living out of state and were visiting the area for a week and she cleared her schedule and scheduled as many showings as she could in that time period and drove us around to show us around the area. She was readily available to us the entire time and would schedule last minute showings if something popped up on the internet that we wanted to see. When submitting offers, she was very professional and helped us put in our strongest offer possible as most house we're getting 10+ offers. We ended up not having to settle and landed a house in the exact neighborhood we wanted to be in. We would absolutely recommend Karen for your buying or renting needs as she will go above and beyond to get you into a house.

Karen helped us sell and buy a home in 2017. Our experience was great. Everything went smoothly and…read morefell into place. We enjoyed exploring new neighborhoods with her, and appreciated her knowledge of each of them. Our house sold quickly, and she made sure we got a full-price offer! When we needed to get some work done after the inspection, she organized everything. She also helped us get into our new house and referred us to a great moving company. I highly recommend Karen to anyone looking to buy or sell a home in the Northern VA area. Her knowledge of the area and her connections are amazing. Most importantly, she's professional, hard working, and so friendly. If you are strangers at the beginning of your real estate journey, you will be friends at the end! We highly recommend Karen!!