Maximizing Your Corporate Relocation Benefits

Looking to buy in the Stafford/Fredericksburg area? Perform a full home search 

Looking to sell in the Stafford/Fredericksburg area? Get a free Home Price Evaluation

For the fifth video in our relocation series, I want to talk about corporate relocation. In the Greater D.C., Fredericksburg, and Stafford areas, we have a ton of clients with great relocation benefits. It’s important that you are able to maximize these benefits. Here are a few things to think about when preparing for a relocation move:

1. There are a lot of moving parts. It’s important the agent you choose knows what those moving parts are. They need to know about possible problems as well, so they can easily guide you through them. This will make you feel a lot more comfortable with your benefits program.

2. Appraisers. The relocation company may give you a list of appraisers to choose from. The evaluation process is a huge part of reaping the benefits of your relocation services, and we want to ensure you get the top value for your home.

3. Marketing. There are times when a relocation company might recommend an agent or company, but you as the homeowner have got to be your first and best advocate. We can market your home in a way that helps you hit required timelines and have the best shot at incentives that may be offered through your relocation program. 

The key here is that your benefits can set you up to be in an awesome position, so make sure you’re not missing out on anything. We would love for you to give us a call or send us an email to help you maximize these benefits. If you have any other questions, don’t hesitate to contact us.

Are You Prepared for the Appraisal Process?

Looking to buy in the Stafford/Fredericksburg area? Perform a full home search 

Looking to sell in the Stafford/Fredericksburg area? Get a free Home Price Evaluation

One of the most crucial aspects of buying or selling your home is the appraisal process. Today, I’d like to define “appraisal” and go over some of the key parts of the process so that you know how it affects you as a buyer or seller. 

What is an appraisal? The short answer is that an appraisal is a valuation of the property at one point in time. The purpose of an appraisal is for the buyer’s lender to determine whether the property is worth the value that the buyer and seller have agreed upon. This way, the lender can base their loan amount and their numbers off of the current market value.

When a buyer and seller go under contract, the lender is going to order an appraisal. The appraiser will reach out to the show contact (in our case it’s our listing agent) who will go out and visit the house. The appraiser is not there to do an inspection. He or she will come to the home to take photos and measurements prior to completing appraisal report in order to ensure that what is pictured online is accurate. This makes it possible for the appraiser to put an accurate value on the house.


Once the appraiser has finished their report, they’ll then submit it to the lender. As long as everything meets value and there aren’t any conditions or repairs that need to be made, the loan will move forward. The exception to this is when the value doesn’t come in at the value that the buyer and seller have agreed upon. In this event, the process will continue.

We want to make sure the buyer is not paying too much for the house to begin with.

To prevent a low appraisal, we have an appraisal package that we send out to the appraiser before they even go out to look at the house. The reason we do this is because we want to make sure that the appraiser has accurate information about the house before they go out and generate their own opinions. This package includes the best comps we can find, in addition to a list of special features about your house that distinguish it from others that have sold recently. This appraisal package, along with the relationships we have with local appraisers, makes it much less likely for there to be issues with the value of your home when the appraisal comes in.

For our buyer clients, we have less influence over the appraiser; however, before our clients submit an offer, we do an analysis on the pricing. This protects the buyer against any appraisal issues down the road and ensures that they are not paying too much for the house to begin with.

Whether you’re getting ready to buy a house, thinking about selling, or simply have questions about how the appraisal process works, reach out and send us an email or give us a call. We’d be happy to make sure you’re well-prepared for your purchase or sale.

How to Help Your Kids with the Relocation Process

Looking to buy in the Stafford/Fredericksburg area? Perform a full home search 

Looking to sell in the Stafford/Fredericksburg area? Get a free Home Price Evaluation

Today marks our fourth video in our relocation series, and this one’s going to be a little bit different.

What I want to focus on today is relocating with kids. We’ve talked about the stresses involved with relocating in general, and a lot of that is housing related. Today let’s talk about some things that can help your kids specifically with the relocation process.

The first thing to do is have them involved. Get them excited about it. Have them prepped for the timeline and when things are going to happen. Give them expectations, just like we talked about with nailing down expectations for your move timeline. If you’ve got older kids, especially if they’re involved in sports and activities at school, a really great thing you can do is to set up an appointment with school administrators and coaches. This can help avoid a huge stressor for your kids. If they’re in 9th or 10th grade and on a sports team, what’s it going to be like? Set that up, and involve them in the process, because it’s a huge part of their life. Meeting with school administrators can help give them a feel for the school and the culture.

Get them excited about it.

Another thing you can do is drive through communities. If you have younger kids - drive through when the buses are coming through to show them how many new friends they will make. Make sure it’s a place that you feel is like home when you’re driving through at 3 p.m. and 5 p.m. when kids are getting home and people are getting home from work. It’s a great way to start feeling connected with the neighborhood.

One other thing is to use a really outstanding agent as a resource. A great agent is going to know the communities and, in a lot of cases, they’re going to know the schools, the administrators, where the best wrestling program is in the county, and so on. All those things are so important to kids, and you can take a lot of that workload off yourself and let us help you with that.

If you have any more questions or comments regarding relocation, please feel free to contact me. I’d love to continue this conversation with you.