Most agents start with showings. You start with the evidence.
This is how I work with buyers in Maryland and Washington, DC, from the first fifteen questions to the keys. Every home you tour has been screened against your written criteria, priced against twelve months of closed sales, and read for condition before you stand in it.
What you say you want and what you will sign for are two different lists.
The gap between them only shows once you have stood in a few houses. My job is to write the first list down, find every home that fits it, and show you the evidence before you offer.
You say three bedrooms and mean three upstairs. You say a fenced yard and mean a fence that holds a sixty-pound dog. You say two-car garage and have not counted the truck on the driveway. Nobody asks, so nobody writes it down, so the search runs against the wrong filter. The fix is not more showings. It is a written list, a screen that tests every listing against it, a range built from what closed, and a loop that says when the list needs to change.
Six steps, in the order they happen.
Each step exists because skipping it costs you something specific. The sections below go deeper on the ones that do the most work.
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01
The survey, not an interview
Before we tour anything, you get a fifteen-question form called Your Home Search. It takes about three minutes on a phone. It asks the things buyers under-state in conversation: how many cars you own, and how many need to be under cover. Whether the fence is for a dog, a child or privacy, because split-rail contains nothing and plenty of listings still call it fenced. Whether a finished basement room counts toward your bedroom minimum. How long you expect to stay, which sets the resale bar. When it comes back, I read your criteria back to you in one line before I run anything. If the line is wrong, we fix it now, not after the third showing.
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02
The written agreement, before we tour
Before the first showing, we sign a written buyer agreement. It spells out what I do for you and how I am paid. Compensation is negotiable and is not set by law. Read it, ask me anything in it, and we start touring once we both understand the terms.
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03
The full-area screen
Every active listing in your area, pulled from Bright MLS with twelve months of closed sales, tested against your hard criteria, then read photo by photo for condition. You get a funnel, not a list: what was cut, at which stage, and why.
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04
A supported price range for every home
Each recommended home gets a range built from matched closed sales, not from asking prices, and a plain-English verdict on where the asking price sits against it.
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05
Tours and the feedback loop
After each round of showings, one card per home: Love it, Maybe or No, and what put you off. The loop compares your answers and proposes changes to the list, with the homes the evidence came from. It proposes. It does not rewrite.
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06
The Buyer Value Analysis
When one home becomes the one, a report for that address alone: the market, the home, how it compares, the competition, an appraisal check, and an offer strategy with three priced scenarios. It is the last thing you read before we write.
Listing remarks are marketing copy. Photographs are evidence.
Four stages, and each removes homes for a stated reason. The closed sales ride along from the start, because they are the only thing that makes the pricing defensible.
| Stage | What happens | What removes a home |
|---|---|---|
| Every active listing | Pulled from Bright MLS for your area and structured field by field, with twelve months of closed sales alongside. | Nothing yet. This is the whole market. |
| Meets the hard criteria | Each listing is tested against the lines from your survey: bedrooms, covered parking, fence type, finished space, commute. | Any hard line it fails. The miss is recorded, so you can see which line did the cutting. |
| Survives the photo review | I read the photographs of every survivor for condition: roof, kitchen age, water signs, grading, staging that hides a wall. | Condition the remarks did not mention. In my experience this changes the verdict on a meaningful share of homes. |
| Recommended | Tiered. A fits your list and the photos hold up. B fits with one question to verify in person. C is a stretch on one line, so you can see what the next step out looks like. | Nothing. These are the homes we tour. |
Three traps the screen is built to avoid
- Square footage disagrees with itself. Bright MLS carries square footage in several fields, and they do not always agree. A finished basement coded in the wrong field can nearly double a home's apparent price per square foot. When the fields conflict, the report prints the conflict. It does not quietly pick one.
- "Unknown" is not zero. A blank parking field does not mean no parking. It is flagged for a question, because a blank read as zero cuts the wrong homes and keeps the wrong ones.
- Three sources, kept separate. The fencing field, the listing remarks and the photographs are three different claims about the same yard. They stay separate all the way to the page, so you can see when they disagree.
The range is the evidence. The loop keeps the list honest.
A price range you cannot trace to closed sales is an opinion. A criteria list that never changes after you have seen twelve homes is a guess. These two steps fix both.
Built from what closed, not what is listed
For every recommended home, I match closed sales from the last twelve months: same town, finished square feet within about fifteen percent, bedrooms within one. The supported range is the 25th to 75th percentile of those sales, the middle half, where an offer can be defended.
When the sample is small, the match widens to nearby towns, and the report marks that it widened. A range built on three sales looks like one built on thirty unless someone tells you. So it tells you.
The chart puts asking price against the supported range, one home per row, with a plain-English verdict under each. One axis, always. When two measures need to sit side by side, they get two small charts, never two scales on one, because a second axis lets a chart say whatever its author wants.
What you rejected, measured against what you loved
After each round of tours, a personalized link with one card per home you saw. Love it, Maybe or No. What put you off. A line of notes. Each address links straight into Zenlist, so the home is one tap away while the tour is fresh.
Your answers are compared against each other. If every No shared a feature and every Love it lacked it, the loop proposes a change to your criteria and shows the homes the evidence came from. Every proposed change, accepted or declined, is kept in a history, so you can always see how the filter moved and why.
Three rules the loop follows
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01It proposes. It does not rewrite.
One home with a six-car garage is not a six-car requirement. Nothing changes your list until you and I have talked it through.
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02I have to be able to say it out loud.
Every change has to survive a sentence like this one: "You told me four cars. You passed on three houses with four. Should we be looking at six?" If I cannot say it plainly, it is not a real pattern.
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03The history is yours.
Criteria changes are versioned. If the search drifts, we can read back to where it drifted and decide whether that was right.
One address. Every page of evidence.
When you are ready to write on a home, you get a landscape report built for that address alone. Six sections, in reading order.
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01
The market
Odds of a sale for homes like this one, contracts by month over the past year, and how long comparable homes took to sell. The context an offer price lives in.
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02
The home
The facts, field by field, and a verify-before-offer box: lower-level bedroom legality and egress, permits for renovations or a second kitchen, water management (sump, walk-out, retaining walls), parking conflicts between the MLS fields and the remarks, and virtual staging.
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03
How it compares
A comp map with one- and two-mile rings. Fair market lines over twelve months for conventional and six months for FHA and VA, measured by total finished square feet and again by above-grade, so a finished basement never hides the truth.
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04
Comp cards
One card per comparable sale: what it had, what it lacked against this home, what it closed for, and how long it took.
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05
The competition and the appraisal check
The active and pending homes a buyer could choose instead, and a check of whether the likely offer price is supported by what an appraiser would see. If not, you learn that before you write.
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06
The offer strategy
Three priced scenarios, below, and the terms that go with each: what justifies the top of the range, what pushes toward the bottom, and what should push you away.
Three offer scenarios, each priced
No competing interest
The home has sat, or the data shows no activity. The price sits toward the bottom of the supported range, with the terms you want: inspection contingency intact, closing on your calendar, concessions where the data supports them.
A fresh listing
The home is in its first two weeks and priced inside the range. The price sits where the comps land, with clean terms and a short inspection window. This is the case to plan for by default.
Multiple offers
Competing offers are confirmed or likely. The card sets a cap you decided on in advance, an appraisal-gap plan that says how much you would cover and from where, and the terms that cost you the least to improve.
Not an appraisal. The last page is an approximation of value on one scale. It is built from Bright MLS and public records and is my analysis as a REALTOR®, not an appraisal. Your lender orders the appraisal. The report exists so the appraisal does not surprise you.
Offer timing, in plain terms.
The age of a listing changes what an offer has to do. This is what the data for Maryland and DC tends to show, not a rule. The Buyer Value Analysis puts the local numbers behind it for the home you want.
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Days 1–7
Competition is likely
A well-priced home in its first week tends to draw the most showings it ever gets. If you want it, the price has to be right and the terms have to be your strongest: a short inspection window, the seller's closing date, a pre-approval the listing agent can call about. Waiting for a price cut in week one usually means watching it go under contract.
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Days 8–14
The first read
Showing traffic slows and the seller starts hearing about it. Terms still matter, but there is usually room to ask for something: a repair credit, a longer inspection period, a closing date on your calendar.
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Days 15–21 and beyond
The seller is counting
By the third week, the listing agent is having a pricing conversation with the seller. The report shows the share of homes in your area that sat fifteen days or more and then sold below original asking. Concessions become more common, and your offer can lead with price and ask for terms. If a home has sat much longer than its neighbors, the verify-before-offer box is built to find out why.
After the offer
The options, and what I choose
A general home inspection is the baseline. Radon, sewer scope, termite, chimney and air quality are each a separate decision with a separate cost. On the Home Inspections page, I lay out what each one finds and which ones I order when I buy.
No hand-offs
No transaction coordinator and no assistant takes over the file. I run the deadlines, the inspection response, the appraisal, title and the walk-through, and you hear from me at each one. The timeline is on From Contract to Keys.
Five kinds of buyers, one process.
The survey changes. The screen, the range and the report do not.
- First-time buyers
- The written list and the one-line read-back come first, because the gap between what you want and what you sign for is widest the first time. The range keeps the first offer defensible. The loop keeps the search from drifting.
- Move-up buyers
- The sale and the purchase run on one calendar, and the survey's length-of-stay question sets the resale bar for the next home. The selling side is on Sell My Home.
- Relocating and PCS buyers
- You cannot stand in a few houses first, so the photo review and the verify-before-offer box do more of the work. For orders to Fort Meade and for VA-financed purchases, the PCS and VA page covers the rest.
- Investors
- The screen adds price per square foot, a rent estimate, construction type and condition, and the report carries the numbers a DSCR lender asks for. The verdict is the spread, not the kitchen.
- Co-op buyers in Greenbelt
- GHI is a co-op, and a co-op does not buy or finance like a house. The membership process, the lenders who work there and the questions to ask are on the Greenbelt co-op page.
Between tours: the Dream Home Finder. A short survey that produces a personalized review of new matches as they list, with a note on how each home's photographs and description fit your criteria and a Zenlist link for each. It is a first read, not a verdict. The screen and the photo review still run before a home is recommended.
Seven questions, answered straight.
How much does it cost to work with you as a buyer?
Buyer agent compensation is negotiable and not set by law. Before we tour, we sign a written buyer agreement that states what I do and how I am paid. Depending on how the offer is written, that may be paid by you, by the seller as a concession, or a mix. Ask about anything in it.
Do I need to be pre-approved first?
You can take the survey and get the first screen without one. Before we tour, yes. A pre-approval sets the price band the screen runs in, and in a multiple-offer situation the listing agent calls your lender. If you do not have one, I can introduce you to lenders I have closed with. The choice is yours.
How many homes will you show me?
As many as survive the screen and the photo review, and as many rounds as the loop needs. In my experience, a tight list tends to mean fewer showings and a faster decision. If the funnel ends at two homes, we see two and then go back to the criteria together.
What if I want a home outside your area?
My core area is Montgomery, Howard, Anne Arundel and Baltimore Counties in Maryland, plus Washington, DC, and I work nearby markets like Greenbelt. Beyond that, I would rather refer you to an agent who knows the area than screen a market I do not. If you are on the edge, ask.
Can you help me buy a co-op?
Yes. Greenbelt Homes, Inc. is the co-op I see most, and it has its own membership process, financing and fee structure. Not every lender works there. The Greenbelt co-op page covers what to expect. The short version: we start earlier and verify more.
How do you handle multiple offers?
Before we write, the Buyer Value Analysis gives you a cap and an appraisal-gap plan, decided while you are calm. The offer is built to that scenario: the strongest terms you can afford, an escalation clause where it helps, and no term you would regret. If the cap is passed, we stop. Losing a bidding war costs nothing. Winning one above your cap can.
What happens after my offer is accepted?
The deadlines go on a calendar you can see: earnest money, inspections, the inspection response, the appraisal, financing and title. I run each one with you, and nobody else takes over the file. The full timeline is on From Contract to Keys.
Fifteen questions. Then the evidence.
Take the survey, read your criteria back with me on a short call, and see the first screen before you tour anything.
Equal Housing Opportunity. Michael Wade, REALTOR®, Samson Properties, licensed in Maryland and Washington, DC. 443-812-9980. The screen, the supported price range and the Buyer Value Analysis are my analysis from Bright MLS and public data, not an appraisal. I am not a lender, inspector, attorney or tax advisor: your lender orders the appraisal and confirms financing, your inspector confirms condition, and the title company and your attorney confirm title and contract terms. Buyer agent compensation is negotiable and not set by law.