The Little Realtor

 If you have looked at homes in the Philly suburbs at all (honestly, any part of the Philly suburbs) you've seen several split levels.  Via Zillow  A split level home, to be clear, is a home where you enter into the main floor, with living/dining and kitchen, generally, but the next level, generally bedroom level, is only half a level up, not a full story, and below that bedroom level is a lower "den" level. There are variations on this, but I am not talking about a bi-level home (one where there is no main level - the front door leads immediately to stairs where you have to go upstairs or down immediately). Just to be clear since the nomenclature is often confusing!  But why am I talking about such a confusing floorplan? Because they are all over the greater Philadelphia area and make up a huge amount of inventory.  The split level design became popular in the 50s during the big housing boom. Here in rocky PA, they made sense to build into the terrain.  But as time went

I'll be the first to admit, I am surprised I am writing this post as part of my introduction to my new brokerage, Compass.  Previously, my business has been an island.  Yes, I had support from my brokerage.  Yes, I learned from my local board and ongoing training.  Yes, I connected with other agents, especially learning during transactions.  But ultimately, thats where things stopped. There was no workplace culture outside of my one-on-one relationships with my clients.  And that was completely fine. I was 100% happy with that.  But then I started at Compass and it became clear VERY quickly that there was a culture at Compass, both nationally and locally. One that valued integrity, high levels of professionalism, creativity and progress, and collaboration.  And a month in, I'm surprised that my island-loving-self is very into it.  --- Here are  Compass's Principals :  For a quick run down of what these mean, you can visit Robert Reffkin (our founder and CEO)'s Master C

 If you are one of the many homeowners who have been thinking of taking advantage of the soaring home prices and insane buyer demand, then you might be wondering what that looks like for you.  While thoughts might immediately jump to taking care of that landscaping project you've been putting off and whether or not you should put a fresh coat of paint on the front door, its important to also take a look at the financial considerations of selling.  Home Value - Of course, one of the main things you should look into is whether or not you can get as much as you think. Just because 6 months ago the house 3 doors down got $650,000 doesn't mean you can get the same, or higher. If you are counting on the $650,000+ to sell, then you absolutely need to make checking your home's fair market value a top priority. Your trusted real estate agent can take care of creating a Comparative Market Analysis to get you the info you need.  Cost - Selling a home isn't cheap. Those high sale