There is a common misconception about Recordation and Transfer taxes in the District of Columbia, and if you aren’t careful, it’ll cost you a lot of money.  When real property is bought or sold in the District of Columbia, the Recorder of Deeds charges two hefty taxes, the Transfer Tax and Recordation Tax.  The taxes are calculated on a percentage of the sale price and easily run into thousands of dollars.  I’ve noticed that there is a misconception in the industry that there is a law requiring the Seller to pay the Transfer Tax and the Buyer to pay the Recordation Tax.  I’m here to tell you, there is no such law.  The split of the taxes is customary, but they are entirely negotiable.  And if you aren’t careful, you can end up paying both and it’ll cost a ton.  Let’s do some math:

On an $800K sale, the Transfer Tax is $11,600.  The Recordation Tax is $11,600.  If you don’t negotiate a split, you’ll ...

What are HUD Homes?

“HUD Homes” refer to property owned by The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) that are offered for sale to the general public.  You can search for HUD homes for sale at the HUD website: http://www.hudhomestore.com/Home/Index.aspx 

Per my previous blog post, there isn’t a special or secret list for HUD Homes.  They are freely available to the public (see above link).  However, there are many website purporting to have special lists of HUD Homes.  They don’t.  They just want you to sign up and give them your personal information.

How can I buy a HUD Home? 

You will need a HUD-certified broker to submit your offer on the HUD website.  Not all brokers are HUD-certified!  In fact, only about a hundred in Washington, DC are certified to make an offer on a HUD Home. 

Rest assured, Lawyers Realty Group is HUD-certified.  Should the home you want to buy just happen to be owned ...

A friend passed this along.  I knew there were a lot of lawyers in Washington, but dang!  As always, take the stats with a grain of salt.  Even if you aren't a lawyer, there is a good chance your buyer or seller could be.  Buy Smart.  Live Well.

Most Lawyers by State

Below are the states (& DC) ranked by the number of lawyers per capita. Not surprisingly, DC ranks as the most densely concentrated population of lawyers having 1,356% more lawyers per captia than New York. North Dakota ranks last in per capita lawyers with a mere 4.4 per 10,000 residents.

Statistics and Salt: Liars, Dang Liars, and Statistics.

Please take the use of statistics in real estate with a grain of salt. They can be a piece of evidence, but rarely do they provide the whole story. Printed numbers can be especially convincing, but don’t take them as fact. Let’s look at two examples of how statistics can be misleading.

Big Picture Housing Data. Numerous news outlets and lobbying groups love to cite median home prices as evidence of the state of the housing market. This can be useful for analyzing general, big picture trends, but it isn’t very helpful when consumers are deciding whether to buy or sell a house. Why? Real estate is hyper-local. This means that on a block-to-block basis, factors such as property condition, seasonal adjustments, and personal tastes can all play a part in determining value. So the next time you read or hear that home prices in the Mid-Atlantic region are rising or falling, feel free to take that as a big-picture trend. ...

           A few days ago I received a phone call from someone about potentially listing their home for sale.  They poked around my website and decided to give me a call.  The caller had one big question – whether I list homes for sale priced less than a million dollars.  The caller was pretty sure their house was “only” in the half-a-million dollar range.  I immediately responded in the affirmative.   Yes, I list lots of homes for a less than a million dollars and we set up a time to meet in person.  After I was done with the phone call, I had to consider what type of image my brokerage is projecting.  And I had a little chuckle because at the time I took the phone call I was manually hauling trash to a dumpster.  Well, I think this caller was the exception to the majority of folks, but just to be clear, I help people buy and sell homes in all price ranges.  And ...