Welcome

Thank you for checking out HousePat.com. This is a new website for me, and it’s a work in progress, with the goal of creating a place where you can come for information and advice for living in Washington, DC

Washington is our nation’s capital, a place people around the country see on the news every night. There are monuments to presidents, war heroes, and other people who made a huge difference. And it is also a city of neighborhoods with their own unique homes, many with a history. It’s where I work as a matchmaker, putting people and homes together.

So I’ll be adding information on neighborhoods, condo developments, architecture. And I’m putting together links for what you need to know about the amenities that different parts of the city offer, how to find great schools, and navigating the area’s public transportation.

And if you need a Realtor to help you form and realize your vision for how and where you want to live, I hope you’ll contact me for help.

For Sellers: here is a good place to start for help in turning the place you live into buyer bait!

For Buyers: start here for the information you’ll need to create a vision for your new place, and get it without doing anything crazy.



Latest News

Noisy Neighbors!

June 28, 2021

People who are considering a home in the DC Metro area have many types of properties from which to choose, and in the city, most of them involve living in pretty close quarters with your neighbors.  And high density living can also mean high decibels. A lot of our housing stock ...

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Water Hazards

At settlements, there is a document that the title company orders, the floodplain certification.  This tells you that someone checked to see if your new place is located on an area where the Potomac River or some other nearby stream or creek, is statistically likely to visit your house anytime during ...

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There are Fixer Uppers, and There are Real Fixer Uppers!

Over the past few years, real estate professionals have been spoiling our buyers.  When a house goes on the market today, it’s almost always gone through a pre-listing transformation that’s turned it into true buyer bait.  And homes that are listed looking like normal human beings live in them?  They ...

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Navigating the 2021 Bidding Wars   

It started early this year, and so far, there is no letup.  Ugh! Recently, I listed a pretty house in my neighborhood.  Within five minutes of going live, my iPhone started to dance around my desk. And over the next few days, people were lined up waiting to get in. ...

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Will “Open Concept” Become the Next Avocado Green and Harvest Gold for Kitchens?

When my parents moved to the Washington area sometime around 1970, their newly build house had the latest in the fashion of the day – a kitchen theme with avocado green and harvest gold in the appliances and wallpaper.  It was about as chic and trendy as one could get, until ...

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Hardwood Floors?  Really?

A lot of the condominiums for sale in the District are in buildings erected after 1940 that have wood parquet floors.  And when they go on the market, the sellers have often buried the parquet under new floors that look like wood. And in some newly constructed and renovated houses and ...

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