About Bristow's Braemar

Bramear Property Values are in for the months of July and August 2009 for the Courtyard Series homes. What's a Courtyard home? A Courtyard homes is one with nearly a zero lot line. They are five to a pipe stem, fully detached and have two car garges. They are often referred to as "executive" homes as they are ideal for folks that have no time, or want, for yardwork. Courtyard homes come in three models: Arlington, Clarendon and Ballston.

The Braemar Property Values for Courtyard homes are calculated by averaging the sales within the last two months. In July and August, only two Courtyard homes sold...they were both Clarendon models. The average Property Value for Braemar Courtyard homes this report (July-Agusut 2009) is $289,650. That's over a 1.5% increase since last reports' (May-June 2009) average Property Value of $285,000.

If you are thinking of selling your Braemar Courtyard home, you can expect to have your home under contract in less than two weeks if it is priced to current market conditions. You can also expect to pay an average of nearly 4% of the sales price in closing cost assistance. (If you have a good Realtor they will counsel you that buyers' closing costs average about 3% of the sales price.)

The next Braemar Property Value Report for Courtyard homes will be out in November. Until then, you can find average sale prices online by going to my website: www.nvarealestate.net. Simply click the link at the left for Braemar Property Value Report Online and scorll down to Courtyard Series. This is what you will see:

If you are thinking of buying or selling a Braemar home, please give me a call. No one knows Braemar better!

Chris Ann Cleland, Realtor, Licensed in VA, Long & Foster

703-402-0037, chrisann@LNF.com

Braemar Property Values for July-August 2009 have just been calculated for the Carriage Series homes. What's a Carriage Series home? That's easy. These are single family homes with detached garages. You can still be a Carriage home without a detached garage. The models that make up the Carriage Series homes are: Maplewood, Norwood, Oakdale and Parkdale.

Braemar Property Values for the Carriage Series this report (July-August 2009) are an average of the past two months sales. In July and August there were only two sales. One Norwood and one Parkdale model. This gives us a mix of smaller and larger Carriage Homes.

The average Property Value for a Braemar Carriage home is $293,000 this report. That's a 1.6% increase in value in two months time. Last report (May-June 2009) the average property value as $288,380.

If you are thinking of selling your Braemar Carriage Home, you can expect to have it under contract in less than one month if it is priced to match current market conditions. You can also expect to have a buyer ask for an average of 1.5% of the sales price in closing cost assistance. Not so bad considering this closing cost assistance was #% of the sales price earlier in the year.

The next Braemar Property Value Report will be out in November. Until then, you can check back into average sale prices dating back to 2005 on my website: www.nvarealestate.net. Click the link on the left for Braemar Property Value Report Online and scroll down until you see the heading Carriage Series. The page will look like this:

Braemar Carriage homes are always in demand as they are great alternative to townhouses for first time buyers. If you'd like to put yours on the market, give me a call. No one knows Braemar better!

Chris Ann Cleland, Realtor, Licensed in VA, Long & Foster

703-402-0037, chrisann@LNF.com

Braemar Proerty Values for July-August 2009 have just been tabulated for the Arista Series. The Arista Series consists of the large, single family homes built by Brookfield Homes and will be one of three models: Allister, Buckingham or Canterbury. If you have one of these models, this Braemar Property Value Report pertains to you.

Braemar Property Values were impacted by two resales in the Arista Series this report (July-August 2009). Those two resales were both Canterbury models, the most popular floor plan of the Arista Series. Braemar's average property value for Arista homes is now $403,250, down from $420,475 last report (May-June 2009). That's a 4% loss in average property value in two month's time and lowest average property value since January-February 2009.

Braemar Property Values continue to be impacted by foreclosures and short sales, and will be for the foreseeable future. Anyone who tells you otherwise is not familiar with our local market.

If you are selling a large Braemar home like a Canterbury, Allister or Buckingham model, you an expect to have your home under contract in about one week's time if it is priced with current market conditions. There is still a lack of inventory for the number of buyers that are searching for homes in our area. You can also expect to be asked for some closing cost assistance by your buyer. The average closing cost paid by a Braemar Arista Series owner is 0.6% of the sales price. Not bad considering this number had been very close to a full 3% of the sales price earlier in the year.

The next Braemar Property Value Report will be out in early November. Until then, if you would like to view average sale prices for Breamear homes dating back to 2005, you can visit my website: www.nvarealestate.net. Click the link for Braemar Property Value Report Online and the Arista Series numbers will be the first you see. It will look like this:

If you are thinking of selling your Braemar home, please give me a call. No one knows Braemar better!

Chris Ann Cleland, Realtor, Licensed in VA, Long & Foster

703-402-0037, chrisann@LNF.com

New to the neighborhood and wondering what days of the week are Braemar's Trash Days? That's easy.

• Monday: Trash AND Recyclables are picked up.
• Thursday: Trash only is picked up.

Leave your trash and/or recycle out on the curb the night before a pick up.

Braemar's Trash Days always have me scratching my head. The trash can in this picture may not look so big, but it is GINORMOUS. The wheels alone are one foot in diameter! It stands 43 inches tall (45.5 inches if you count the puffy lid), is 27.5 inches across and 30 inches deep. That's enough for over 20 cubic feet of trash.

By comparision, the recycle bin that you see to the left is 13.5 inches tall, 25 inches across and 18 inches deep. That leaves a little over 4 cubic feet of recycle. I don't know about you, but once my household started recycling everything that we could, the trash can was just TOO BIG and the recycle bin needed to be at least TRIPLE ITS SIZE.

Seems odd that in such an environmentally aware time in our society that the trash can provided Braemar residents is literally 5 times bigger than the recycle bin.

AAA handles the trash and recycle removal for Braemar. If you need a new can, or additional recycle bins, you can reach them at 703-818-8222. If you're like me and would like to suggest a smaller trash can and larger recycle bin, give them a shout.

I found this neat site that lets you share your books with others who love to read.

About BookCrossing

The idea for BookCrossing came to Ron Hornbaker back in March of 2001, as he and his wife Kaori were admiring the PhotoTag.org site, which tracks disposable cameras loosed into the wild. He already knew about the popularity of WheresGeorge.com (which tracks U.S. currency by serial number), and that got him thinking: what other physical object might people enjoy tracking? A few minutes later, after a glance at his full bookshelf, the idea of tracking books occurred to him. After two hours of research on the Internet, Ron realized, to his surprise, that nothing like BookCrossing had been done on any significant scale. And so they went to work. By 3 A.M. that morning, they had decided on the name (zero hits for "bookcrossing" on Google), registered the domain, and Kaori had sketched the running book logo on a crossing sign. The rest was merely execution.

With the backing of his partners, Heather and Bruce Pedersen, Ron went to work programming the site from scratch the next day, and about four mostly sleepless weeks later, on April 17, 2001, www.bookcrossing.com was launched. Members trickled in at the rate of 100 or so per month until March of 2002 when the Book magazine article was published. Since then, BookCrossing has been the focus of countless TV, radio, and newspaper features around the world, gets about 300 new members every day, has its own category in the human-edited Google Directory, in Wikipedia, and has been added to the Concise Oxford English Dictionary as a new word. Over the past 7 years, BookCrossing has continued to grow, and move closer to making the whole world a library. It has captured the passion and imagination of over (740,000) people worldwide who to help spread the bounty of books through www.bookcrossing.com. Read and Release!

SO, in a nutshell, you sign up for an account, register your books, find a site near you or even add your office-what a great way to get some walk-in traffic- and Release Your Books Into the Wild.

If you register use my name as a referral...kimsyourrealtor