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

Navigating the 2021 Bidding Wars   

June 28, 2021

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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The Graying of Washington Neighborhoods

The Graying of Washington Neighborhoods My own house is typical of many Washington row houses built around 1915. It’s boxy with a front porch across the facade, and it’s built of bricks that are a sort of German dark mustard yellow.  During the several decades I’ve lived here, I’ve been ...

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Escalator Clauses: Risky Business When Buying a House or Condo

OK, I have nothing against escalators, at least not the ones that get you from Ladies Handbags to Housewares at Bloomingdales. But when you are planning a strategy that will win a bidding war, so called “escalator clauses” are tool that’s a necessary evil to win your next home. In ...

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How Much Is Your Home Worth?

If you want to find out the value of your automobile, there is an app for that.  Just pull up Kelley Blue Book’s web site, and you can get a very close estimate of what the value is for any model in any condition, whether you plan to trade it in ...

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