Thanks to everyone who came out to our open house in Fredericksburg to see the results of all our hard work. We received many compliments on all the design changes made to the house, which made it bright, open and modern.

We also got a lot of positive feedback about the benefits of doing a preview open house instead of a traditional open house. With a preview event, all major work has been completed but the finishing touches–such as paint colors, carpet colors, and appliance models– are undone, which gives potential buyers the ability to customize their home so they don’t have to change anything after moving in. And one lucky family is doing just that!

Here are some photos from the open house:

We’ll be holding a special preview/open house at 225 Colebrook Road in Fredericksburg, VA  for those who’ve expressed early interest in this great property.

Saturday 9/19 from 1-4 pm
Sunday 9/20 from 1-4 pm

If you would like to be a part of this special event and be one of the few to get a sneak preview at this fantastic fully-renovated brick rambler, email us at deals@prsproperties.com.

Thanks, and we look forward to seeing you there!

Front Walkway and Entry

As I have written in the past, the lure of buying a junker bank-owned property and fixing it up yourself to save money can be both exhilarating and crushing–sometimes all at the same time!

Here is an example of how easy it is to entangle yourself in all the many elements of a renovation. These are all changes we’ve made to one of our current properties. No doubt the future buyer will be ecstatic about all of the lovely changes and updates we’ve made…but before you buy a fixer upper, ask yourself whether this is something you can handle on your own. If so, more power to ya! If not, why don’t you give us a call to see what already-renovated properties we might have available.

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The joy of riding a train from Connecticut to Washington, DC is that I have time to write. I only wish my fingers could go as fast as Amtrack on those those straightaways!

I have a little more to share about a challenge we faced during one of our current renovations. Whether you are looking to buy a home or you are renovating an older home yourself, you are likely to run into something like this.

The Oddities of Prior Renovations

Many houses are renovated little by little over the years–an addition here, closing in a porch there, knocking out walls to combine rooms or building walls to divide them, another addition years later…often resulting in an odd, higgeldy-piggeldy layout. We ran into just such a challenge with this renovation, and it nearly had me pulling out what is left of my hair! Hopefully you can benefit from our experience.

The home had an original carport that had been enclosed many years ago. Unfortunately, when they built the floor at that time, they dropped it lower than the rest of the house’s floor level.

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Hey everyone, it’s been a while since last writing. We’ve been working so hard, taking care of business, that I almost forgot to take care of the real business — YOU.

Recently we’ve invested in three properties that need various amounts of renovation. The one I want to speak  about now is our Fredericksburg single family home on one acre. This place was owned by a man who had many difficulties keeping the place up. After he passed away, his son inherited the property and realized that he had neither the time, the resources, nor the energy to tackle the renovation needed to either live in the property or to sell it conventionally. And this guy is even in the building trades, so you can imagine the amount of work we were up against when we got the call to consider purchasing the property!

A careful assessment was completed and a renovation budget was prepared. The potential of this property is awesome, but we knew we would have to roll up our sleeves to tackle this baby! Even with our many years of experience, this one posed a couple of challenges:

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Here are some in-progress pictures of the house at 255 Colebrook Road in Fredericksburg, VA. We’ve finished the demolition phase, have fixed and updated the plumbing and electrical as needed, and have begun rebuilding the interior spaces. It’s amazing how much better it looks just from being cleared out and cleaned up!

The renovation of 14111 Mount Pleasant Drive in Woodbridge is complete and we will be hosting an Open House this weekend: Saturday, Feb. 21st and Sunday, Feb. 22nd from 1-4 pm both days.

A mortgage lender will be on site to offer guidance and answer your questions about the best way to get financing, and help will be available for both English and Spanish speakers.

The house is looking really good!! I will post the final pictures tomorrow. In the meantime, check out the flow of everything from the floor plans below, and feel free to drive by to take a look at the house for yourself.

I hope to see you this weekend!