How Many Homes Will Actually Fit You? Fewer Than You Think.

February 2026

Feb 15, 2026

February. I’ve ridden my bicycle outside three times since 1 January.

We can’t make the snow melt faster; might as well radically accept it.

A lot of what I’ve been thinking about this month comes back to the same thing — connectivity, growth, and the slow, human work that nothing can replace.

One of the best things I’ve done recently

This seems like a little thing, but it was important to my clients. My buyer clients were interested in a neighborhood; I couldn’t give a “lived experience” perspective, as I don’t live there. I have a few clients who live in the neighborhood, so I connected new clients with previous clients, they talked, and my new clients made the right decision for themselves. And they feel better about it, which matters.

Whether they proceeded to contract or not is less important to me than that I gave them access to the information/people who helped them make that decision; that’s my role.

Writing by Hand

My wife gave me a new notebook for Christmas, and I love the ethos:

Writing by hand is thinking on paper.
Thoughts grow into words, sentences and pictures.
Memories become stories. Ideas are transformed into projects. Notes inspire insight. We write and understand, learn, see and think — with the hand.

I love my notebooks. I write. I make lists. I sketch maps for my clients. I draw floorplans. I think in words. There are apps for all of that, but writing is more meaningful. And slower.

Asking better questions

A potential buyer client hired a different agent recently. They did what I have long advocated: they interviewed multiple agents.

After our initial meeting, they chose to work with another agent. And because I am always genuinely trying to get better at what I do, I asked them why.

They kindly answered. It wasn’t about my experience. It wasn’t about my knowledge of the market — they were confident I knew the neighborhoods, the comps, the process. They chose the other agent because of something much harder to quantify: that agent asked questions that helped them see possibilities they hadn’t articulated yet.

The other agent didn’t just listen to what they said they wanted. They dug deeper. They challenged assumptions. They helped this couple discover needs they didn’t know they had — and apparently painted a picture of a future they got excited about.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot. Because here’s the thing: I did ask questions. But I asked the questions I always ask. Baseline questions. Those are good questions. Necessary questions. But they’re not enough.

The questions I missed were the ones that would have uncovered the why beneath the what. Not just “how many bedrooms” but “what does home feel like to you?” Not just “what’s your budget” but “what are you willing to trade off, and what’s non-negotiable in ways you might not have thought about yet?”

So I’m working on this. I’m slowing down in those first conversations. I’m letting my curiosity show — something I do during the process, but have not yet in the first meeting.

Ultimately, you can find your own list of homes to see; part of what I do is help you shape and define the search that leads to the list.

A final reflection (for this segment) — I find that I am more comfortable meeting clients in coffee shops and not in our conference room, and that’s just something about me that I think I’m not going to work to change.

Quebec City real estate listings display

On Silence

I was having dinner with my younger daughter and I showed her something I was thinking about publishing, and noting the possible downsides of expressing this opinion. She read it, looked at me and said, “Dad, you have to post this. You can’t be silent.”

I’ve never hidden my politics or beliefs. And I also don’t remember ever putting a bumper sticker for a politician on my car.

That said, we’re in different times that transcend “parties.” Silence is not an option. This is not a political conversation, it’s one of human rights.

I posted a version of this on RealCrozetVA, the Crozet community blog and a version on RealCentralVA.com.

In response to a FB comment, I posted: (edited for RealCentralVA)

The focus of RealCentralVA remains, and will remain, information about the Charlottesville and Albemarle real estate markets, and tangential things that affect how and where we live. And yet, we’re at a time in history when silence in the face of what we are seeing across the country is no longer acceptable.

This is not “political”: it speaks to fundamental rights of all who inhabit this country, including Charlottesville, Albemarle, and Central Virginia.

We are currently seeing documented events that bypass fundamental constitutional protections — specifically our 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th, and 10th Amendments. See citations below. When federal operations involve the use of lethal force against citizens without due process, including murdering Americans in the streets with no accountability, warrantless entry into private homes, dragging people – citizens and not – out of cars, and the arrest of journalists, we are no longer discussing policy, we are discussing human rights.

Acknowledging these events is a matter of constitutional concern and public safety, which is relevant to us all, regardless of political affiliation.

We see people being assaulted, laid under siege, murdered, and threatened, and this is not okay. As has been said, you might not be a racist, you might not be assaulting humans yourself, but if you’re silent, you’ve concluded that you’re okay with these things.

I’m not okay with any of this. Silence is not an option.

Shifting MLS Culture

It’s never the technology, it’s the people and the politics. The real estate world is entering a new phase with one giant brokerage threatening how we search for — and find — homes for sale. The MLS system is the only unified system in the world and the best one. (Ask my clients who’ve left the States.)

I showed 5 houses recently.

2 are listed in the Cville MLS: easy to show.
1 is listed by an unrepresented seller: not easyto show because I had to hunt for their number and then they said no showings allowed.
1 is listed in the VA Beach MLS: this one was not easy because the number in the MLS was the main office number and no one responded. I had to dig online find the agent’s cell.
1 is listed in the Cville MLS by an out of area agent and they have opted to have the listing not show up publicly: this one was actually under contract and the agent hadn’t changed the status.

All of the listings were found on Zillow.

Add to this the intentional fracturing of the MLS, and we have challenges ahead. I rarely note others’ writings in the body of my note, but Chris’s post, Velvet Ropes vs. Open Doors, warrants such a call out. His comments about dual agency, reduced transparency, and monopolistic data practices are important.

Fun with Data - How Many will Fit?

I do these level-setting exercises with a lot of my buyer and seller clients. Buyers to help understand their market band and Sellers to help them understand their possible competition, which is crucial when pricing your home. The stories are from 2017; the logic remains the same.