Good realtors in NOVA? (Alexandria, Reston: for sale, real estate market, foreclosure)

[novamom]

I'm new to the forum, and hope that asking this is ok. We are planning on listing our condo for sale in the next few weeks. We listed it over the summer and had a horrible experience with our realtor, and decided to de-list for a few months. Now we're ready to relist, but are having a hard time knowing how to find a great realtor. Any info that anyone can give me would be greatly appreciated. We are in the West End of Alexandria, selling a 3 bedroom/1 1/2 bath condo and are looking for someone who will aggressively market our home in this tough real estate market and is familiar with this area.

Thanks in advance!

[goldenmom7500]

Hi,

I've been sending a few people to a Fairfax realtor who comes highly recommended. I also know a bunch of realtors in different pockets of Northern Virginia. I just don't know anyone in Alexandria, per se. You could check realtor.com for listings in your area and see who is there a lot, who has done an enthusiastic job of marketing homes. If you know of a good realtor somewhere else, like Reston or McLean or Haymarket, call him/her and ask them to help you find someone. They have financial and professional incentives, apparently.

[goldenmom7500]

Hi,

OK, one other thought is to try "Angie's List" (Welcome to Angie's List: The Best Source for Local Home Improvement Contractors!). It is sort of an effort to compile "word of mouth" suggestions for service companies, city by city. I just moved out of VA and my chapter is free for one year because it is just getting going; I assume the DC chapter isn't free. Anyhow, it's good stuff and has realtors. It's good, person to person, information about what it is like to work with people (roofers, realtors, movers, etc., etc., etc.).

[Flamingo13]

Sent you a message Novamom.

I don't trust just Realtor.com, for example a listing in my neighborhood has a big error, it says a different neighborhood (one that is pricier) than the neighborhood it is actually in. I find that to be a misrepresentation. I do like to look at Realtor.com but I wouldn't pick a realtor from just that, we found several we liked by going to local open houses and meeting with them, then doing some checking. JMO

[goldenmom7500]

Flamingo - I actually completely agree. I just moved out of VA this summer. I was scouting two cities. For one, I found a realtor on realtor.com; for the next I let my mother contact her cousin realtor in another state altogether and he found a realtor (I was rolling my eyes thinking "oh, this will be good...") Well, the first, the one from realtor.com showed us a few houses and then blew us off, stopped returning calls. The second went all out in a huge way, even though she is one of the top realtors in the state. I learned afterwards that realtors like to be contacted by other realtors - or referred in some other way - and the beauty is that it works best if everyone is happy. If it doesn't work, there is a cascading negative effect. Apparently.

[codysmama]

I can highly recommend Karen Kruschka. She and her husband were my parents' realtors for years, and she has been helping my husband and myself recently. Fairfax County Real Estate - Northern Virginia and Fairfax County Real Estate - Karen Kruschka

I don't know if he works outside of PWC, but stay away from Alan Burrell Realty. We had Burrell himself as our realtor when we bought our current house, and he was horrible. Very unprofessional and about as unhelpful as he could possibly be.

[irisheyes13]

I just sent you a PM on a great realotr we used this summer.

[mollyanna]

Natalie McArtor of Long & Foster is AWESOME. She got us top dollar on our home sale a couple of years ago and is extremely professional. I don't have her number off the top of my head, but call one of the Alexandria offices of L&F and I'm sure they can give it to you. I can't say enough about our experience with her.

[cav fan]

Our realtor is really great. She helped us buy our last two houses, and she helped us get a really great deal on our most recent one. She is Phyllis Maier at Jobin Realty.

[wickednoodle]

We're in the process of a buying a home and our realtor is through i-agent.com, where you receive 2% cash back on the value of your home at closing. You have to do more legwork yourself, such as searching for homes and providing a list to your realtor of those you'd like to see (but we do this anyway), but otherwise haven't found any glaring differences. We do have to follow up a bit more with our particular realtor and make sure he's doing what he needs to, but this could also be because we're purchasing a foreclosure and we're attempting to close in under 30 days...yikes! But so far we're on track, and the money after closing will come in very handy!