Happy Birthday to Chef DoloresToday, July 10th, is the birthday of my wife, Dolores Kelley, https://www.facebook.com/doloreskelley. We have celebrated 61 of her birthdays during our marriage. I am very lucky to have the best wife in the world.My sister, Wynne Roos, and her husband, Dave Roos, invited us for a birthday lunch at Bonefish Grill in Kentlands, our home community in Gaithersburg, Maryland.  07/10/2026

Would You Go Shopping Without Your Wallet?I have a question for you.Would you fill your grocery cart with steaks, ice cream, fresh fruit, cookies, flowers, and everything else that catches your eye... if you knew you left your wallet at home? Of course not. You'd probably check your purse before you even grabbed a shopping cart.So why do so many home buyers spend weeks looking at houses before finding out what they can actually afford? It's the same thing. You fall in love with the "gourmet kitchen" house. You picture Thanksgiving around the dining room table.  Then... reality checks out before you do. "Oops... you're approved for less." Talk about putting all the groceries back on the shelf.Getting pre-approved isn't the boring part of buying a home, no, it's the smart part. It tells y... 07/08/2026

What My Mom Taught Me About Alzheimer’s… and What Every Real Estate Professional Should Know I had planned to participate in the Zoom roundtable discussion about Alzheimer’s today. Unfortunately, technology had other plans. My internet was down due to a power outage and kept dropping; my phone kept disconnecting, and I never made it into the conversation.So instead, I decided to write the post I wish I could have shared.  This isn’t written by a medical expert. It’s written as a daughter. Looking back, I realize that my family was probably among the last to recognize that something was changing with my mom. Maybe we didn’t want to believe it. Maybe the changes were so gradual that they seemed easy to explain away. Today, I can look back and smile at some of the memories. At the time, ho... 07/07/2026

The Perfect House… Until One Signature Changed Everything After nearly a year of searching, my buyer finally found the perfect home, only to lose it because of one signature she’d made months earlier.She owned her own business and needed a private entrance where clients could come without walking through her home. She wanted a garage, a lower level, some land, a location that wasn’t too close to neighbors, and a road that would always be accessible, even in bad weather. At the same time, I was working with a rehabber.Without saying anything about my buyer, I kept making suggestions during the renovation.“What if we add a door from the garage that leads to the backyard?” “What if that deck connects to stairs down to the lower level?” “What if the lower level has a full bath, a studio, an... 07/10/2026