Gayle Harvey Real Estate – Page 11 – Charlottesville VA Real Estate & Luxury Home Living

Buying Charlottesville Va Real Estate

Buying a Home: The Dos and Don’ts

Buying real estate is a unique and singular experience. You trust a house with the essential task of containing everything you hold dear…from your physical belongings to the people you love to your intangible experiences and everything in between. It’s difficult to look at your home like a material possession; it honestly has more in common with commitments like getting married or having children. And like both of these institutions, there are all kinds of implications wrapped up in buying a home. While we can’t claim to be marriage counselors or child psychologists, we do know a bit about Charlottesville Va real estate, so we’d like to present our list of dos and don’ts on the subject of buying a home.

Do scope out the neighborhood. If you’re interested in, say a cattle or horse farm in central Virginia, chances are you’ll be sitting on a fair amount of acres…but neighbors aren’t the only consideration. Try doing your daily commute. If you’re looking at farms in Madison County and you have to be in Charlottesville a few times a week, see how far your potential property is down Rt. 29. After all, once you get the house, you’ll be making the drive regularly. Got kids? How far is the nearest school? What about things like soccer practice or piano lessons? How far is the nearest grocery store, hospital, Tastee Freeze, etc? The schools matter whether or not you have children…good schools are good for property values. Things like rankings and surrounding attractions are also worth attention. Both Charlottesville and Virginia have received accolades, contending that they are among the best places to live. So for someone looking at homes in Albemarle County or any property in the Greater Charlottesville area, this is a very good thing to know.

Don’t make any big financial moves when you’re looking into buying a place. Honestly, for the first six months before and after you buy your new place, we recommend keeping your assets as liquid as possible. Beforehand, you don’t want anything to interfere with your credit profile should you be obtaining a mortgage. The lenders want to see that you’re reliable, rock-steady. They want to see your paper trail. This makes it easier to get a loan. As far as after you buy the home…you never know what kind of unexpected expenses will crop up and how big a dent they’ll make in your budget. Sleeper costs are difficult to plan for; when we buy a home we tend to focus on the mortgage. But we’re talking about things like property taxes, utilities, homeowner association dues, repairs, maintenance, etc. You may eventually see the need for more permanent repairs, especially if you’re trying to get some use out of your property. Landscaping is not cheap, and once you get to know the land, you’ll better understand what it needs. Until then, try and keep your money where it is.

Do get pre-approved for your home loan if you’re planning to obtain one. This is much more involved than simply getting pre-qualified. Pre-qualification comes after you give a bank or lender your financial information. They’ll give you a rough idea of what you can expect out of the housing market based on your assets, income, debt, etc. It’s a quick procedure, often done over the phone or online, and that should be an indication of how much (or how little) weight it carries. Getting pre-approved is far more involved. It requires an extensive application (and an application fee) and a thorough financial background check. After this, a lender can give you the specific mortgage amount for which you qualify. After pre-approval, you get a conditional commitment amount which allows you to shop for a house at or below that price point. It’s good for you and for prospective sellers; you don’t have to waste your time looking at homes beyond your means, and they don’t have to waste time waiting for you to actually obtain financial backing. It simply gives you a leg up over other potential buyers who have to go to a bank/lender after they find the house of their dreams.

Don’t try to time the market. We get it…if you’re on this website, it obviously means you’re looking at Charlottesville Va real estate, but it also means you’re are doing your homework. But even for us professionals, it’s pretty difficult to predict market flux, especially within a year’s time. But some things never change. You know what you want out of a house and you know when it feels right. If it’s in your price range, just go for it. Holding out for a better deal or more favorable market conditions may work out for you, but it could also backfire if something unexpected happens. Either way you could drive yourself crazy trying to find the perfect time to buy. A hint: the perfect time is as soon you have your ducks in a row and you’ve found a house that perfectly matches your personality, financial situation, and needs. It just feels right. Act now.

Do get a survey done on the land, before you buy. You want to know exactly where the property lines are, and you want to be able to point to them on a map. This is important for several reasons. If you’re looking at say, a home in Albemarle County, chances are your neighbors have been there a while. You want to stay cordial with them and make sure both parties have a good grasp of boundaries and are aware of any easements. Also, quite often title insurance companies will require a current survey in order to insure the property lines.

Don’t become attached to a house for the wrong reasons. Don’t go for the biggest house on the block or the farmland with the most acres (unless you’re going to use ‘em!). These mega-properties only appeal to a limited number of potential buyers, and you don’t want to limit your pool of applicants come resale time. If you’ve paid one and a half million for your property, and the surrounding landowners have paid $750,000, the potential appreciation on your own property is limited. This next part may go without saying, but you want to make sure every step in your decision-making process is grounded in reason and logic. You want to think critically about everything and resist the urge to act on emotion. We’re not saying you should ignore your instincts; those are probably what put you in the enviable position of potential homeownership in the first place. Instincts are important, but if we can attempt to separate the idea of instinct from the idea of impulse, we’ll have come a long way. Don’t fall in love with a coat of paint or the way a landscaping job looks. These items are not really unique to the property, it just happens to be presented in the right way. You can apply that coat of paint to that other house you were looking at…you know, the home in Albemarle County just minutes away from the place where you go horseback riding four times a week. The one that’s a third of the price. Okay, that place doesn’t have a hanging row of begonias lining the facade, or the awesome man cave that you fell in love with. But with the money you save, it sure could.

Skyline Drive

Beauty is beauty no matter where you’re from. Spanning a transcendent 105 miles, Skyline Drive is the crown jewel of the Shenandoah National Park.

For most of the drive, it follows the ridges of the surrounding mountains east of the Shenandoah River. The views are majestic year-round, but Skyline Drive is especially inspiring during the fall, when the leaves are changing. A smattering of bright orange and rusty red hues tumble down from the boughs as if meandering drops of rain, coloring the Blue Ridge terrain in kaleidoscopic visages. The sight is like something out of a Walt Whitman poem.

The road boasts over 70 different outlooks, through which you can soak in awe-inspiring views of the encircling valleys. There are entry points to numerous trails including the Appalachian Trail. It’s a great place for an extended bicycle jaunt or for some horseback riding.

Far from simply some of the most beautiful land in central Virginia, it’s one of the most gorgeous spots in the country. It attracts over 2 million people a year and has been designated as a National Scenic Byway, merely a testament to its sweeping effulgence.

Visit www.visitskylinedrive.org to find an interactive map and recommendations for popular stops and places to stay!

Brew Ridge Trail

When almost two hundred and fifty years ago our third president cast eye and hand upon the land of his new central Virginia property, among the rugged, rolling shapes and verdant hues of the land in the Greater Charlottesville area, he envisioned many things, certainly. A university, to serve the community’s intellectual needs, Palladian architecture for grace and, of course…a 40-mile beer-fueled drive through the scenic byways of land in central Virginia, from the ridges of Nelson through Albemarle County and into historic Charlottesville.

If that last one seems odd to you, you’re probably not hip to the Brew Ridge Trail, an informal, “self-guided” brewery tour that spans some of the hottest beer makers in Virginia (they may be offering official tours by now). If this is the Age of the Craft Brew, this stretch of land through central Virginia is your local Mecca. The area, long celebrated for its vineyards, has a burgeoning microbrew scene. Note: We at Gayle Harvey Real Estate DO NOT in any way condone or encourage the operation of an automobile after consumption of alcohol. Designated drivers are your friends. Here is a list of drivers in the area.

You can start at either end or in the middle, but for simplicity’s sake, we’re going to start in Charlottesville proper with the newly-renovated South Street Brewery, on Water Street. This brewery, just footsteps away from the Mall, is sitting on some prime Charlottesville real estate. It’s a brewery with a full bar! Since being purchased by Blue Mountain Brewery last year, South Street has cultivated more of a sports bar vibe with its vast array of television screens. Their flagship beer is the Satan’s Pony, a solid amber ale with a dark red color, a sweet smell of toasted malt and caramel. It’s fairly well-balanced between malt and hops, perhaps a little on the sweeter side. Perhaps their most interesting beer at the moment is a Russian Imperial Stout called Anastasia’s Chocolate Fantasy, which has a big taste to match the name. This beer is quite dark as expected, with a couple reddish-brown glimmers and a sandy-colored head. Aroma-wise, it smells of dark fruits, chocolate, and a hint of roasted coffee. At a whopping 10%, it may be a one-and-done if you are to continue the tour. Fitting in with the sports bar atmosphere, South Street has typical bar fare…wings, burgers, club sandwiches etc. They also have quite a few incarnations of mac-and-cheese. $2 Tuesdays

Next up, we get to the Starr Hill Brewery out in Crozet. It’s a pleasant jaunt on Rt. 250, and as you pass through various pieces of property in Albemarle County, you ditch the city feel and start to grasp at the beauty of the surrounding areas. We’re not even in Nelson yet. Starr Hill is a straightforward brewery with a tasting bar. Their tours are more frequent than South Street, and they don’t serve food. However there are usually food trucks parked outside, most of them quite good. They will sometimes get a live band (there have been some killin’ jazz trios) but beer is what’s on the menu: it’s a bottling/packing plant with a couple beers on draft. The Northern Lights is probably the most consistent beer and it’s a solid little IPA. Smells of pine, maybe flowers. Pours a dark golden brown with suggestive hints of grapefruit and other citrus. Very drinkable if you’re not a huge fan of IPAs, but if you are, we’d go with the Double Platinum, an Imperial IPA. Considering the fact that it comes in at 8.6%, its flavor yields a pretty even blend of citrus and hops, and the smell is quite subtle. The Love is a Hefeweizen which, like the other two is offered year-round. It’s a cloudy, wheaty brew, brimming with coriander and banana. If it were a little lighter it’d make a great session beer, but either way it’s pretty easy on the load. Pick up a sixer while you’re here and hit the road (with a sober driver, of course).

The trail takes us next into the scenic byways of Nelson, one of the most beautiful places in the state. Nestled in the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains, the sweeping views can’t be beat, and with your beer goggles on, you’re in a great position to enjoy the effulgence of land in Nelson County. Blue Mountain Brewery is arguably the powerhouse of the Brew Ridge, serving up the most consistently delicious beer in the most picturesque location. Their commitment runs so deep that they farm their own hops on two fields in Afton and small yard in Arrington. They’ve also got a second, newer location where they work with special, more time-intensive beers: the Blue Mountain Barrel House is technically a part of the tour but we may skip it…for functionality purposes. Blue Mountain’s undisputed flagship beer is the Full Nelson, a golden American Pale Ale, slightly cloudy hoppier than you’d expect. Its aroma gives out notes of citrus, toasted grain and definitely some caramel, but again it’s far less sweet than you have reason to believe. Taste-wise, the citrus comes on at first, with a bitter finish almost like grapefruit rind. Almost tastes more like a watered-down IPA than a pale ale, but it’s delicious nonetheless. The Kolsch 151 is an impressive contribution, if for no other reason than the fact that it’s impressive for an American brewery to pull this one off. It is pale yellow, with a light and unobtrusive bread smell…crisp and clean, very German. All their food is also made from scratch; they’re known for their specialty pizzas and a gluten-free menu that’s pretty good considering their main export is beer.

A casual couple of miles, past some breathtaking vistas and altogether idyllic rolling hills, and we’re at Wild Wolf Brewery. It’s a great spot for sure, and their heated auxiliary tent structure makes it a viable option at different points in the year. It’s more of a restaurant than a brewery; they prize the farm-to-fork ideology, and it really works for them. Their pulled pork nachos (appetizer) and tacos (main course) are two fun, creative dishes that really highlight the local fare. The shrimp and grits dish is absurdly good, and the grits are quite local (from the nearby Woodson’s Mill). But this is the BREW Ridge Trail. The Blonde Hunny is an interesting brew indeed. It’s almost polyamorphous…the “blonde” and “honey” aspects are readily apparent. If you like wheat beers you’ll probably dig this…it comes out golden amber, slightly cloudy as wheat beers are, and its smell is unassuming. But the full body and 6.8% ABV make it a formidable winter companion as well.

And our last stop…Devil’s Backbone. Like Wild Wolf, this gives off a “restaurant-turned-brewery” vibe. Most, if not all of these breweries have a seasonal pumpkin offering, but the Pumpkin Hunter from Devil’s Backbone is worth mentioning. It doesn’t overdo the pumpkin thing, and the smells are aromatic without being overwhelming. You get the bread, the warm malt flavors and of course pumpkin, vanilla, a little clove and cinnamon. Taste-wise, the vanilla and pumpkin waft up through the toasty bread vibes and balance everything out. Truly a pumpkin beer worth checking out. And of course you can’t mention a brewing company without mentioning one of its year-round beers. The Vienna Lager was a big hit for Devil’s Backbone and it still delivers. Its dark, amber-colored appearance belies the toasted caramel flavor. There are hints of bitterness, nuttiness, suspended between the fruity finishes and slight caramel bite.

So there you have it…by now the only drink we’re contemplating is a tall glass of Alka-Seltzer. But throughout the course of human history, there have been graver sacrifices made in the name of research. So we would do it all again…for science.

Yet Another Reason to Move to Charlottesville

sidewalk-cafe-53318_1280 Charlottesville is on the list of countless “Best Small Towns in America” lists due its beautiful landscape, university community, and cultural scene. Why not add yet another great reason to the list? This summer, Charlottesville joined the elite group of US Gigabit Cities. Now what in the world does that mean?

“Gigabit Internet service refers to data uploads and downloads of up to a gigabit (or 1,000 megabits) per second. For those without an engineering degree, that is very, very fast. It puts Charlottesville on par with other pioneering US cities like Chattanooga, Tennessee and Lafayette, Louisiana, along with world-leading cities like Seoul, Stockholm and Tokyo. It creates a huge competitive advantage for Charlottesville businesses. It allows every member of a Charlottesville household to be streaming, gaming, video conferencing and browsing at the same time. It facilitates healthcare and fosters education.” Ting.com

The service is provided by Ting, a subsidiary of Tucows Inc. If you live in the Charlottesville area, you can enter your address on Ting’s local website to see if your neighborhood or street has received service.

This map posted in September 2015 shows the current areas and future roll-out plans for the city:

Ting anticipates to have coverage for the entire city of Charlottesville by the end of 2016.

What excites us most at Gayle Harvey Real Estate is the link between Gigabit service and home values. Having homes (and an entire city with the infastructure) installed with the fastest internet available in the world is sure to increase property values!

The installation fee is approximately $400 but sure to be an upgrade to your property with a high ROI.

We are excited to see how quickly the service expands to service the neighboring counties.

Bodo’s Bagels

Quite possibly the supreme realization of Jeffersonian ideology, Bodo’s is a veritable mecca for the bagel enthusiast, an oasis for those expatriates full-logo_1353423595_BodosQRSiteLogo who maybe once called New York City home. Founded in 1988, the franchise has three locations: near downtown Charlottesville on Preston Avenue, on the Corner near right across from UVA Grounds, and on Emmet Street. Open at 6:30 am during the week, Bodo’s is known for schlepping an incredible amount of coffee and bagels of all different varieties. They feature authentic, NY-style “water bagels,” which are boiled just before baking to make them moist and delicious. These bagels are made several times daily, completely from scratch. Despite the incredible taste and texture, Bodo’s does not use fats or preservatives. Their flour is always unbleached and unbromated, for health and taste reasons. Their wheat bagels will make you feel better about your choices, and they actually taste great. This quick, fast-casual restaurant boasts many offerings, from breakfast fare to cold cut sandwiches, soups, salads, and dinner omelettes. Grab a pastrami and onion bagel and some cold lemonade for lunch, or a bacon, egg and cheddar and a cup of joe if you’re racing off to work in the morning. Morning Bodo’s and coffee is almost synonymous with Charlottesville life. The bagels are $0.70 for any flavor: plain, sesame, poppy, onion, everything, garlic, salt, 100% whole wheat, everything (also available as whole wheat everything) and cinnamon-raisin. There is seriously some delicious meal for every time of day/year. And they pay their employees around or over $9 an hour, well above the state’s $7.25 minimum wage.

Favorite sandwiches: #1 Cinnamon-raisin bagel with butter and cinnamon sugar (under $2!) #2 Turkey, muenster, tomato and veggie cream cheese

Thursday Nights at Miller’s

John D’earth is a local jazz trumpeter and UVa professor. He plays at 11pm every Thursday night at Miller’s on the downtown mall in Charlottesville, usually with a quintet including tenor saxophone, electric piano, upright bass and drums. The quintet plays beautiful, truly innovative originals and inspired interpretations of standards. Staples of the Charlottesville music. The great thing about watching musicians who play together every week is that you can feel the ways in which they interact as one unit, how they feed off of contributions from the other members and how that feeds into their own statements. Drummer Devonne hears pianist Butch play a certain pattern or two-bar phrase and grabs on to it; together they roll out a rhythmic carpet for John, or exploratory tenor saxman J.C. Kuhl (sometimes replaced by local powerhouse Charles Owens) to float over. These guys exhibit tremendous range, bouncing between somber, earnest ballads to unrestrained, avant-garde arrangements at the drop of a hat. D’earth’s piercing trumpet lines slice through the shroud of $2 bourbon drinks and chili-cheese nachos, finding you in your high or low places. This is a collection of some of the finest musicians in Virginia playing some of the most beautiful music ever written. Their timing and intuition are supremely next-level, and they play this music at Miller’s which is probably the most authentic dive bar in Charlottesville. If you’re up late on the Mall, drop by to hear this must-see quintet. Did we mention it’s free?

Favorite tunes: “Sarah’s Bracelet” (D’earth original) and “Softly, as in a Morning Sunrise” (by Sigmund Romberg and Oscar Hammerstein II).

La Michocana

“> LaMichoana Oh, so you’ve eaten at Chipotle, eh? You like the way they throw some cilantro in with the rice? You like the different salsas with their varying spice levels? Very good. If you ever find yourself in Charlottesvile–heck, if you ever find yourself in the Greater Charlottesville area, do you yourself a favor and stop into La Michocana on East High Street. This is true, authentic Mexican cuisine. It’s a real family joint, run by folks who hail from Michocán in Western Mexico. The food is amazing. Most of it is cooked to order, and they offer a bunch of delicious options. You can walk in there and spend as little as $5, or you can sit, stay and enjoy a feast of house-made corn tortillas, carne asada, marinated chicken, chorizo, pureed pinto beans, guacamole, al pastor, lingua (yes, that’s beef tongue), and so many other delicious options. The “sauce bar” by the counter has tomatillo salsa, pico de gallo, guacamole, and a pretty hot blend of pickled carrots and onions. Though there is a handful of booths and a few places to sit down outside, the place seats around 40-50 people. I’d never encountered the torta before eating here; it’s essentially a Mexican sandwich with avocado, sour cream, cheese and thinly-sliced marinated meats. It’s pretty quick though, great for takeout. I’d never encountered the torta before eating here; it’s essentially a Mexican sandwich with avocado, sour cream, cheese and thinly-sliced marinated meats. Wash it down with a real Mexicola, a bottle of cold Coke with real cane sugar.

Favorite orders: #1 Tacos al pastor – Mexican style #2 the burrito michoacana

Walnut Creek Park

walnut-creek-web This outdoor paradise will appeal to the nature enthusiast in anyone, even you jaded city dwellers with your widely accessible public transportation and your skyscrapers. Located in Albemarle County just outside Charlottesville, Walnut Creek sits on a sprawling 525 acres of bucolic splendor. 45 of these are water acres, where any U.S. Coast Guard-approved boat is welcome. There’s also plenty of fishing to be done, with catfish, sunfish, and largemouth bass in healthy supply. Enjoy some lazy swimming or some adventurous jumps…the cold blue waters are perfect on a hot summer day. The picnic shelters provide ample accommodations for you and all your friends to chow down (although no grills are provided). There are stunning views of the water and the air is fresh and clean. There are also 15 miles of vigorous bike and hiking trails, giving you the chance to immerse yourself in the beauty that land in Albemarle County has to offer. Walnut Creek also boasts one of maybe two disc golf courses in the area, and it’s a legitimate one. It’s got 18 holes, some uphill, some downhill and some wooded. It’s actually a fairly difficult course, with water in play on some of the holes.

Fridays After Five

Fridays After Five is a late spring/summer concert series hosted by the Sprint Pavilion (formerly the Charlottesville Pavilion). It’s held–you guessed it–on Fridays at or after 5:30pm, so everyone has time to get off of work and stash that tie somewhere until Monday morning rolls around. It’s also free of charge, which makes it a popular destination for younger people. Normally, the Pavilion is a popular attraction for nationally-touring acts like the Avett Brothers, Modest Mouse, and Crosby, Stills, and Nash. But on Fridays, local and regional bands ascend the stage, taking advantage of the top-notch tech crew and wide, diverse turn out to expand their listening base. There is a breadth of attendees at this event: disaffected high schoolers enjoying the weekend; middle-aged folks gettin’ down to the music, glass of wine in hand; wide-eyed toddlers soaking in their formative live music experiences; to attentive 20-somethings scoping out some local Charlottesville music. In addition to great tunes by some great regional acts, there are also several different vendors and carts. The Pie Guy serves up Australian interpretations of some of your favorite sweet and savory pies. Or grab some quick, tasty tacos from the Morsel Compass food truck…fish tacos with beer-battered cod, or Jamaican jerk chicken with mango salsa and black beans…yum. Not to mention Carpe Donut, with its potato bread doughnuts and refreshing lemonade. There is also a plethora of beer and wine vendors, most notably Starr Hill (the big local), Goose Island, and Fat Tire. This is a great way to kick off a weekend in Charlottesville. The event is on the Mall so you’ll be able to meet some friendly people and get a jump on your Friday night festivities, all while enjoying some great tunes in a breezy open-air environment.

Favorite act: Gina Sobel & the Mighty Fine
Favorite snack: Carpe Donut’s “The Frodo”: a heaping scoop of frozen yogurt sandwiched between two halves of a delicious cinnamon doughnut.

Charlottesville Farmers’ Market

No town is complete without a quality farmer’s market. And Charlottesville, with its proximity to the open pastures of central Virginia, has a fine one every Saturday morning from 7 am to noon. It’s at the right downtown, a few blocks off the mall in the Water Street parking lot. It’s a great way to start your morning, browsing crisp, ripe produce and fresh, healthy meat from around the Greater Charlottesville area. Local favorites include The Rock Barn, a butcherie located in outside Cville in Nelson County. They source their pork from Timbercreek Farm (located five miles from the Barracks Road Shopping Center in Albemarle County) which means it was raised without hormones, synthetic fertilizers, or pesticides… and you can taste it. Get you some bone-in pork belly or Mexican Chorizo fresh off the pig. Ivy Provisions serves up some of the best sandwiches around. Some of the produce offerings are unbeatable, like the wares from Bellair Farm, a sprawling 853-acre farm in Albemarle County. They have a huge collection; anything from basil and cilantro to bell peppers, heirloom tomatoes, fennel, kale, watermelon…really whatever is in season. What’s more, the farm has been around since the 17th century! Many of these vendors are pretty enthusiastic about community-supported agriculture; the Rock Barn has a pork share and Bellair has a great weekly produce pick-up that operates for at least 22 weeks out of the year and keeps locals well-stocked with fruits and veggies for well below market price. There’s a bunch more at the farmers’ market, with over a hundred different vendors. Hungry Hill’s 100% raw honey is delicious when they make the occasional appearance. Artisans bring a variety of handmade crafts; Hawksbill Pottery with their intricately embossed stoneware, is a personal favorite of this author. If you’re doing more than just visiting the area, it’s also a great way to get to know some hardworking local business people. Information from as far back as 2012 indicates that gross sales from all vendors was over 2 million dollars!