Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Whats so good about taylor?

I'm also curious by posters are sometimes set on one particular Arlington elementary school (surely most all of them are fine). Perhaps they are looking to be zoned with friends/family?

I’m just curious why Taylor seems more expensive than Jamestown or Discovery, which are arguably as nice or nicer schools.

Taylor is in N Arlington location closest to DC. It is also more walkable than most areas in Jamestown and Discovery.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP we learned our lesson about how impt it is to have a good realtor. We were working with a realtor walking thru a house and this other realtor (the good one) was the listing agent. He sent his clients in to look at it while we were in there and then called our realtor saying theyre making an offer and wed have to beat them in order to get it. We lost obviously. So some time went on and we stopped workinng with the realtor bc nothing was working out. We got a call from the other realtor (yes the one that burned us previously) who asked if we were still looking. He told us about a house that was not listed yet. We saw it and made an offer before it was listed. This was a Thursday/Friday. Sunday he still held an open house as he had told the seller he would (we thought he was going to burn us again but by the time open house was over, seller had accepted our offer and the deal was made. It just showed how getting in ahead of the game makes such a difference.

This listing and is hopeful agent literally fell in your lap, for current buyers what do you recommend we do? We have been looking for a year, so I don’t think we’re going to have just one call us up out of the blue.

This is actually a huge red flag. If the listing agent was also the selling agent, then this is a dual agency situation, which is very unethical. It's done here, but several states have outlawed the practice because the agent has conflicting loyalties--trying at the same time to get the best selling price for the seller and buying price for the buyer.

Also, buying a house before it's listed also has potential problems such as not seeing how the market will price the house.

I'm glad it worked out for you in the end, but the overall message is that desperate buyers are resorting to measure that would not be acceptable in a "normal" real estate market.

So many red flags and also, if the open house was Sunday, the house WAS on the market when you saw it on Th/Fr. They probably listed it with the open on Tuesday. It's normal for people to come through before the Open House and not abnormal for someone to make an offer early contingent on you canceling the Open House to try to avoid a bidding war. Your seller may have accepted your offer because they didn't get the sense more/better were coming in. Otherwise they probably would set a deadline like Monday PM or Tuesday AM for offers and choose then.

Even if the open house wasn't on the MLS for some reason (I doubt it because why would have a secret open house?), it was about to be. That's definitely not an "off-market" sale and it's barely or not at all "pre-market."

Anonymous wrote:I don't know about Arlington, but we're trying to buy a house in Capitol Hill at the moment and our agent has already clued us in to 3 different pre-market flash sales. Two were done by the same group; it seems to be their MO. We had no idea these things existed when we bought our current house 7 years ago w/ Redfin.

That sounds like just marketing. Telling a bunch of agents about a "pre-market flash sale" is not the same as Great Aunt Betty selling her house to the person who knocks on her door and tells she can leave all the stuff in the attic and he'll never change the powder room wallpaper as long as he lives.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Whats so good about taylor?

I'm also curious by posters are sometimes set on one particular Arlington elementary school (surely most all of them are fine). Perhaps they are looking to be zoned with friends/family?

I’m just curious why Taylor seems more expensive than Jamestown or Discovery, which are arguably as nice or nicer schools.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Whats so good about taylor?

I'm also curious by posters are sometimes set on one particular Arlington elementary school (surely most all of them are fine). Perhaps they are looking to be zoned with friends/family?

I think this particular poster’s kid already attends Taylor and they don’t want to switch. If we were looking now we would definitely prefer to stay at our school (not Taylor), I get it.

Yes the poster has said their child is doing well at Taylor and for various reasons they don’t want to rock that boat. It makes sense.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Whats so good about taylor?

I'm also curious by posters are sometimes set on one particular Arlington elementary school (surely most all of them are fine). Perhaps they are looking to be zoned with friends/family?

I think this particular poster’s kid already attends Taylor and they don’t want to switch. If we were looking now we would definitely prefer to stay at our school (not Taylor), I get it.

Anonymous wrote:Whats so good about taylor?

I'm also curious by posters are sometimes set on one particular Arlington elementary school (surely most all of them are fine). Perhaps they are looking to be zoned with friends/family?

Whats so good about taylor?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What about 4123 27th st? Although I think I remember you wanted all 4 bedrooms on one floor which I don’t think this has.

This looks interesting, but is one of the bedrooms in the basement?

This is why you will never get a house in the Taylor zone for the price you want to pay. You need to buy for the location and make it work until you can reconfigure the interiors.

I'm the pp who posted about 4123 27th. Yes it does look to me like it might be in the basement. I don't know - honestly was just perusing redfin, saw it and thought of the dcum poster, and didn't see it listed on this thread.

I agree with the other poster that you are probably going to have to find some wiggle room if you want such a specific (and competitive) location. It's just the price of living in Arlington in my opinion. We live in a tiny house with one less bedroom then we wanted/kind of need (but that's all relative) in what is our ideal location in Arlington (not taylor zone). It's been worth it for me, but I completely completely understand why it's not for others!

As others have said, I would think your realtor should be letting you know about things like this posting, I mean it's on redfin as coming soon it's not a secret so at a minimum you probably wanted to get in there this weekend or today. Good luck!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What about 4123 27th st? Although I think I remember you wanted all 4 bedrooms on one floor which I don’t think this has.

This looks interesting, but is one of the bedrooms in the basement?

This is why you will never get a house in the Taylor zone for the price you want to pay. You need to buy for the location and make it work until you can reconfigure the interiors.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP we learned our lesson about how impt it is to have a good realtor. We were working with a realtor walking thru a house and this other realtor (the good one) was the listing agent. He sent his clients in to look at it while we were in there and then called our realtor saying theyre making an offer and wed have to beat them in order to get it. We lost obviously. So some time went on and we stopped workinng with the realtor bc nothing was working out. We got a call from the other realtor (yes the one that burned us previously) who asked if we were still looking. He told us about a house that was not listed yet. We saw it and made an offer before it was listed. This was a Thursday/Friday. Sunday he still held an open house as he had told the seller he would (we thought he was going to burn us again but by the time open house was over, seller had accepted our offer and the deal was made. It just showed how getting in ahead of the game makes such a difference.

This listing and is hopeful agent literally fell in your lap, for current buyers what do you recommend we do? We have been looking for a year, so I don’t think we’re going to have just one call us up out of the blue.

This is actually a huge red flag. If the listing agent was also the selling agent, then this is a dual agency situation, which is very unethical. It's done here, but several states have outlawed the practice because the agent has conflicting loyalties--trying at the same time to get the best selling price for the seller and buying price for the buyer.

Also, buying a house before it's listed also has potential problems such as not seeing how the market will price the house.

I'm glad it worked out for you in the end, but the overall message is that desperate buyers are resorting to measure that would not be acceptable in a "normal" real estate market.