What would you like to know?

In most cases, yes. Since August 17, 2024, agents who use a multiple listing service must have a written agreement with you before touring a home with you, in person or live by video. Asking questions at an open house does not need one.

What your agent is paid is set in your written agreement, as a flat fee, a percentage or an hourly rate, and the agent cannot be paid more than that from any source. The fee is negotiable and not set by law.

A seller may still agree to pay some or all of it, though offers of compensation no longer appear on the MLS. A seller can also offer concessions, such as help with your closing costs.

Less than the names suggest. Both letters say how much a lender is willing to lend you, up to an amount and based on certain assumptions, and lenders use the two terms differently. Neither is a guaranteed loan offer, so ask the lender what it checked before writing yours.

A good-faith deposit you make once the contract is ratified, held in escrow and credited to you at settlement. The amount is yours to offer. The region’s standard contracts leave the days to deliver it blank for you and the seller to fill in, except that the GCAAR contract sets 3 days when the home is in Maryland and a broker holds the deposit.

An inspection happens only if you arrange it, and it is not the appraisal: an appraisal estimates the home’s value for your lender, while an inspection reports on its condition for you. An inspection contingency makes your offer depend on it, for a period you agree in the contract.

For a home built before 1978, you also have 10 days for a lead paint inspection or risk assessment, unless you and the seller agree another period in writing, or you waive it in writing.

The taxes charged when the deed is recorded differ in each place, and the contract can change who pays some of them.

Yes, in both, for a buyer who will live in the home.

Each place has its own disclosure form, due before you sign the contract, and its own remedy if it comes late.

Yes, for a short time after you receive them. How long depends on the place.

Twice. Your lender must deliver or mail a Loan Estimate no later than the third business day after receiving your application. You must then receive the Closing Disclosure, with the final terms and costs, at least three business days before closing.

A new three-day wait starts only if the annual percentage rate becomes inaccurate, the loan product changes, or a prepayment penalty is added.

You can. Federal law bars a seller from requiring you to buy title insurance from a particular company as a condition of the sale. Owner’s title insurance is optional in all three places.

A disclosure on your place’s own form, before the buyer signs. For a home built before 1978, the federal lead paint disclosure applies as well.

Yes. Bright MLS, the listing service agents use across DC, Maryland and Virginia, offers four paths. Registered, added on October 20, 2026, records the listing with no marketing at all, seen only by your agent and their broker. Coming Soon holds it before showings begin. Active can be entered with internet distribution switched off, so it is shared only with other Bright subscribers. An office exclusive is not distributed through the MLS while it is for sale.

Keeping a home from public sites takes your written direction.

As long as you like: Bright sets no time limit. No one may show the home while it is Coming Soon, the listing office included, and the listing must move to Active when showings begin.

Yes. At your direction, your agent can hide individual photos, such as a child’s bedroom, the price history, price details and particular features from public websites. Price changes made while a listing is Registered do not appear when it becomes a standard listing.

A transfer tax in each place, at different rates, and the contract can move some of it to the buyer.

Perhaps not on all of it. If you owned the home and lived in it as your main home for at least two of the five years before the sale, you may exclude up to $250,000 of the gain, or $500,000 on a joint return. Generally you cannot use the exclusion if you used it on another home in the two years before.

A partial exclusion may apply if you sold mainly because of a new job, a health issue or an unforeseeable event. If you receive a Form 1099-S, you report the sale even when the gain is excluded.

If you are a foreign seller, the buyer generally withholds 15% of the amount realized under FIRPTA and pays it to the IRS. When the buyer will live in the home, it is nothing up to $300,000 and 10% up to $1,000,000. You can apply on Form 8288-B for a certificate that reduces or removes it.

Usually not, for a single-family home. DC’s Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act does not apply to a single house, a house with one accessory unit, or a single condominium or co-op unit, unless the tenant was 62 or older or disabled and signed the lease by March 31, 2018.

Either way, you must give the tenant written notice within 3 calendar days of receiving or asking for a written offer.

As long as it says. In all three places it must be in writing, with a definite end date and the broker’s compensation stated.

Within weeks of moving in. Active-duty service members, diplomats and students have rules of their own.

Each place counts differently. A move partway through the year usually means a part-year return.

By the home’s address, in all three. Check the school for an address before you commit to a home.

Sometimes, with the purchase papers. Every school system asks for proof of where you live.

Schools in DC, Maryland and Virginia follow the Interstate Compact on Educational Opportunity for Military Children: they enroll from hand-carried records and give you 30 days for any required immunizations. In Maryland and Virginia, active-duty members and their families may keep driving on a licence from their home state.

In Washington, DC, Maryland and Virginia. Leye Olorunfemi is an associate broker affiliated with Samson Properties, representing buyers and sellers across all three.

Yes: a rental search and lease negotiation across DC, Maryland and Northern Virginia. You can also search the homes for rent yourself.

Yes, with settlement handled remotely. When you can visit, there are area tours and home-finding trips, and we work with your employer’s relocation counselor if you have one.

Request access to off-market and coming-soon homes across DC, Maryland and Virginia, the ones not shown on public sites. Tell us what you are looking for and where.

As a pricing range, from recent comparable sales and the homes yours would compete with. It costs nothing and carries no obligation.

Write to LO@LEYEFEMI.COM, call (202) 386-1652, or use Contact at the top of any page.

In this browser, on this device. The Buyer, Seller Preparation, Relocation and Tour Planners and your comparisons stay here; they are not added to your account, and another browser will not show them. Nothing in them reaches us unless you send it with a form.

Data controls lists everything the site keeps in your browser, and clears each item or all of them at once.

Your saved listings, liked properties and saved searches, on any device you sign in from, and the documents we share once you are under contract.

No. It estimates the monthly cost from the figures you enter: the loan payment, taxes, insurance and any association fee. Only a lender can give you loan terms and confirm whether you qualify.

People and households are from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates, 2019 to 2023. Schools are the public schools whose attendance areas cover each neighborhood, and travel times are measured from the nearest Metro station and to Downtown, Union Station, Reagan National and Dulles.