I had the best experience buying my arlington townhouse with Steve! His network and connections in…read morethe industry made every part of buying and selling a home a piece of cake! The fact that he pulled off this amazing sell and buy during a pandemic is a testament to his sheer talent and hard work. You cannot possibly find a better real estate agent in this area. it is just not possible.

I would not recommend this company. Using Redfin would of been a better choice. I was very annoyed…read morewith the entire process, even-though the home selling and purchasing experience should of been a smooth and enjoyable process. 1. I had picked out my lot and options on my own before contacting Evan to make an offer with the builder. 2. I negotiated with Evan to receive a refund of 1% from the purchase of my new home, since I have already selected the options and the lot before contacting him. After the negotiations were complete he informed me he could not honor our agreement, since the builder provided a 2% sales commission instead of a 3% commission. 3. Evan had the sales manager of the new property negotiate with me directly, instead of going through him. 4. On the sales of my condo I was told I could get full price, if not multiple offers. Evan had a two hour window for my open house and sent an associate, instead of holding the open house himself. I only had three showings that day. 5. I had originally had a 4.5% total commission to be shared by the seller and buyer agent. Two days before listing of my condo Evan asked me to increase the commission to 5% as his market research had found that buying agents were not willing to show a property for a 2% commission as Compass was receiving a 2.5% sales commission. This should of been brought up before the listing of my apartment when I signed the listing agreement a month ahead of time. 6. I was offered an opening offer by a Redfin buyer $5,000 below asking prior to my open house and I felt Evan was working for the buyer instead of representing me as the seller. 7. At the closing of my condo Evan was not present and his assistant had sent the wrong closing time to the title lawyer, so I waited around an hour past my scheduled closing to sign the closing documents. 8. Evan never showed up to my final walk-through for my new property and blamed a scheduling error. 9. Two business days before closing I had already transferred all closing costs and down payment to the title company. The title company notified me that Evan had emailed them to include admin fees for Compass after I had wired my funds. I had to contact him that this was shady business practices and to remove the admin fees. 10. Evan never showed up to my closing day for my new property and just collected his commission. Horrible business practices.

When we were ready to sell our house, we offered the listing to Mark, and had a disappointing…read moreexperience. We had worked with his firm to buy the house and, in retrospect, I think we gave the benefit of the doubt a little too much the first time around. Both times, he was not straightforward with us about pretty fundamental stuff that we'd tried to establish from the beginning. He was also not especially positive to work with, and none of the contractors he recommended were positive either. On the selling end, what we were looking for was a realtor to work with us as teammates in selling our house, allowing us a little bit of input into how the house would be made over for the sale. We were selling a vintage colonial house in MD, so it made sense for it to be presented just a hair differently than a modern high-rise condo in downtown DC, for example. Of the realtors we interviewed, Mark had the most disagreements with us about how to make over the house, but we thought he would be the most straightforward person to work with. So before offering him the listing, we asked how differences of opinion would be settled, and he said he'd ultimately defer to us. After six weeks of waiting on his primary stager, Mark finally brought over another one, Bona Gjoni (who has iffy reviews on Yelp). We wanted to be open-minded, and we agreed to at least 80% of what she said. However, she was very hard to work with; she was cold, rarely spoke to us (she mainly just addressed Mark), and she frankly seemed put off that we were there at all. (Mark later explained that they usually just stage vacant homes.) We suggested that if she told us how strongly she felt about her suggestions on a scale of 1-10, we could use that to inform our decision -- but she rejected this idea out of hand and said she's "a 10 on everything." She wanted us to paint our kitchen a specific shade of light brown (!) because "all [her] clients do that". (Shouldn't design be tailored to the property, not the same for all?) Oddly enough, what was a dealbreaker for Mark was when we disagreed with Bona's directive to paint our whole fireplace a glossy jet black. This seemed way out of character for our parkside country-mouse colonial, and we emailed Mark to ask if we could take a breath before deciding whether to proceed with Bona -- while emphasizing how important it was to us to make sure *he* was comfortable with all the choices made. He said we should leave all these decisions to the professionals, and wrote a long message about how experienced he was. When we said we get it, we just want to be *a* part of the team to some extent, he abruptly emailed us to bow out of the listing because of the fact that we "have your own ideas of how you want to present and market your home." This was a real curveball a month and a half into working with him. We didn't have any particularly zany ideas for our house -- it seemed like the problem was that we wanted any input whatsoever. Then I realized that all 3 of the references I'd called from his recent sales were seniors who had already moved into assisted living and had him handle 100% of the preparation process -- maybe that is his jam. So it seems like Mark prefers to only work with sellers who do not want any input at all; that's fine if that's his choice -- the frustrating thing was that he was not straightforward with us from the beginning, even though we tried to be very straightforward with him. We had shared all our opinions/preferences on the house during the interview stage, so none of it was a surprise. We had even directly asked about how he'd handle differences of opinion. If he had been honest from the beginning about his "my way or the highway" approach, it would have saved us all a lot of wasted time. In the end, the realtor we ended up selling our house with was outstanding: very kind, smart, and straightforward; his stager and most other contractors were excellent (super nice, very responsive, and did quality work); and we were thrilled with the results. So all's well that ends well, but much like in our buying experience, Mark did a bait-and-switch. We told him exactly what we were looking for, he accepted enthusiastically, and then he changed things up on us later in a non-straightforward way. Our hope is that an honest review can be helpful to others trying to choose a realtor that will suit their needs.

Mark Meyerdirk is a rock star, plain and simple. Super organized, on the ball, and extremely…read moreknowledgeable about the DC market. We saw a listing in pre-sale and loved it. Mark went to bat for us and within an hour he'd sent us spreadsheets of comparable homes, pricing trends, and his impressions on what we should offer. He also advised us to write a personal letter to the seller. He surmised correctly from the condition of the house that the owners would likely prefer an early offer so they don't have a parade of people coming in and out of their lovely home. He was so right! The offer price he suggested was higher than the asking but not astronomically high. After reviewing all the data he shared, we followed his advice for the offer price and also spent some time writing a personal letter to the seller. It worked! Even though the sellers had another pre-offer, they accepted ours. Mark was not done. Since we were first time home buyers, Mark walked us through all the steps to closing. He communicated by email and text and answered questions at all times of the day and night, be it 7AM or 11PM. His working style fits right in with the typical DC type-A crowd, who (like me) want things done yesterday. Finally, we closed and then went out for drinks with Mark. He even bought us a surprise house warming gift that was incredibly thoughtful and personal. Mark is such a personable and likable guy. He'll adapt to your working style and roll with the punches. His communication style is straightforward and (thankfully) completely lacking the typical real-estate patronizing tone. I cannot recommend him enough for the DC market! Apart from being our agent, he is now our friend and we look forward to that friendship. Kudos to Mark. Even my angry cat is happy!

If you are looking for a dedicated, hardworking, knowledgeable, and enthusiastic real estate agent…read morewith a great sense of humor, look no further than Zach Lipson of the Jason Martin Group. We worked Zach to purchase our first house in 2018, and six years later we didn't hesitate to call him again to help us find a new house and sell our first house. As before, buying a home with Zach was painless and low stress; he constantly kept us updated on the process and gave us a lot of advice to help us secure our dream home. Additionally, the process of selling our home with Zach was one of the easiest things I've ever done; Zach gave us a lot of wonderful advice on repairs we should make to help us get top dollar for our house (which we did) and was extremely communicative about what was happening and forms we needed to sign while we waited to close. We would highly recommend Zach for both buying and selling a house and are so grateful that Zach is not only our wonderful real estate agent but also a good friend.

Zach was great! Friendly, knowledgeable, good sense of humor. We liked that he was from the DC area…read moreand thus had a lot of experience and knew the real estate market very well. He put a lot of effort into finding us properties that suited our criteria. Given his background in construction and property management, he helpfully flagged potential problems for us in the houses we toured. He walked us through the whole process of buying our first home and advised us diligently, and was extremely responsive and communicative the entire time we worked with him, particularly in the critical hours we were putting in our offer on our new place. We love our condo -- it's in an ideal location, great condition and within our budget -- and we love that Zach helped us find this place! Would highly recommend!

Nick has helped me both with purchasing and selling my home in norther VA. He made the whole…read moreprocess smooth through coordinating everything for me and assisting with inspections and everything else necessary for me to make the sale happen while being halfway across the country. He is a great agent to work with and very punctual both in response time and making sure everything falls into place without complications.

Nick has helped me out on house hunting for buying as well as finding a rental house over the past…read more3 years. He has been extremely helpful and responsive. I always feel he has my best interests in mind. I have gone through changes in my housing plans several times since I have been working with Nick and he has always remained completely patient and he has never been the slightest bit frustrated or pushy, which is refreshing. I would recommend Nick to my family and friends without hesitation.

We bought one place with Jake as our realtor and sold another. He makes the process smooth and…read moreeasy, and I had been thinking it was all going to be totally stressful. He found us the perfect condo downtown and got a great buyer for our uptown townhouse. He also greatly helped our neighbor sell her house when she was at a loss as to how to even deal with tenants, some wall damage and other problems. He knows people who can help! I've known other realtors and none as friendly as Jake!

We used Justin Tanner with Faison Real Estate to buy our house on Capitol Hill in 2017 and sell in…read more2022. We can't recommend The Faison Team any more highly. Justin and Kendall took care of everything from prepping the home to sell, staging, pricing/negotiating, and all the closing details. Both the buying and selling were seamless and low stress. The recommendations they made for small upgrades to the house allowed us to sell for significantly over ask! Justin is an expert on Washington DC and Capitol Hill. If you are buying or selling on Capitol Hill, you should leverage his expertise!

Tom Faison and his team are the exemplar of how a real estate company should operate. Cumulatively,…read morewe have purchased 6 properties. We bought our last home from Tom in 2014. We were so impressed with him that he was an automatic "go to" when it came to who would represent us in the sale of our house in 2020. We recommend Tom and his team with the utmost confidence.

Jeff helped us buy our new home and sell our former home in Alexandria. He is an honest, patient,…read morecommunicative realtor who has great follow through. His expertise is much appreciated and it made the process so much easier!

We had a wonderful experience working with Jeff Jacobs. This is actually the second home we've…read morepurchased with Jeff, and once again he was fantastic throughout the entire process. He really listens to what we're looking for and takes the time to help find homes that truly match our needs and preferences. Jeff was incredibly attentive, responsive, and helpful every step of the way. Buying a home can be stressful, but his guidance and communication made the process feel smooth and manageable. We're so grateful for his support and would highly recommend Jeff to anyone looking to buy or sell a home.

Alex was fabulous!!! She gave me great advice. The $1,000 flat fee was an outstanding value! She…read morewas really helpful with the price negotiations.

I have used Cottage Street Realty twice in selling houses and with excellent results both times…read more Cottage Street Realty is a fixed fee brokerage meaning that the seller pays a fixed dollar fee upfront in order to get the house formally listed for sale and onto the multiple listing service. You're paying for that service and not a lot of hand holding during the selling process. If you're confident with reviewing and negotiating a contract, this is definitely the way to go. You'll save a bundle of money on listing fees. I just went to closing on a $900,000 house yesterday. Multiply that number by the typical listing percentage fee and you can see I saved thousands of dollars. Specifically ask to work with Alex Hodges.