DROdio Real Estate

Home Search Tools

BirdsEyeSearch.com Search for homes using Google Maps.

TheBestHomeSearchEver.com Advanced home search, including listing notes keyword search (like "Metro").

Expert Advice - Most Popular:

How To Buy A Home For A Penny at Closing We've found a way, using FHA loans, seller credits, and buyer assistance programs, for you to bring just one penny to closing.
Learn how you can do it.

What housing & retail development is coming to the area? 7 questions every buyer should ask a Realtor What happens once I ratify a contract? Our “Buyer’s Bill of Rights” (why don’t all Realtors have this?!) How can I find a condo close to the Metro? What is a Plat? How do you get paid? What to expect at closing Why do you suggest not closing on a Friday or a Monay? What does a ratified contract look like? I’m not sure I need a Realtor. What would you say to that? How does the Homestead Deduction work? Transfer tax rates What exactly is a “Good Faith Estimate”? (Also called a GFE) Can I buy a foreclosure home? What happens at Closing / Settlement? How does the home inspection work? Searching DC is tough - how do I search by neighborhood? How can I find out how much a property is worth? DC Tenant Rights - an introduction How exactly do you use technology to help home buyers? What’s the difference between walkthrough items and home inspection items?

Video Tutorials

How to buy Foreclosure homes. How to use BirdsEyeSearch.com. How to use TheBestHomeSearchEver.com. Making a lowball offer on a home. How Realtor commissions are paid. Investor cash flow tool. How to buy a house like a Realtor would

Real Estate Search by City

Virginia Real Estate:
Alexandria Annandale Arlington Ashburn Bristow Burke Centreville Chantilly Clifton Dale City Dulles Fairfax Fairfax Station Falls Church Gainesville Great Falls Hamilton Haymarket Herndon Lake Ridge Leesburg Lorton Manassas McLean Middleburg Montclair Oakton Occoquan Purcellville Quantico Reston South Riding Springfield Sterling Vienna Woodbridge

Maryland Real Estate:
Annapolis Baltimore Beltsville Bethesda Bowie Burtonsville Chevy Chase Clarksburg Clinton Colesville Crofton Damascus Darnestown Edgewater Ellicott City Gaithersburg Fort Washington Germantown Greenbelt Kensington Landover Laurel Laytonsville Odenton Olney Oxon Hill Potomac Rockville Silver Spring Sandy Spring Upper Marlboro Waldorf

Washington, D.C. Real Estate:
Adams Morgan Anacostia Baseball Stadium Capitol Hill Chevy Chase Chinatown Cleveland Park DuPont Circle Eckington Foggy Bottom Georgetown Glover Park Logan Circle Mt. Pleasant Mt. Vernon Square Navy Yard Penn Quarter Petworth Shaw Southwest Waterfront Takoma U Street Corridor

A Note from our Owner: How We Can Help You

If you're wondering exactly how a Realtor can help you find a home, you will probably enjoy learning about how we approach real estate.

I was wondering the exact same thing when I bought a home (before I was involved in real estate) from Pulte. What I found was that many Realtors were more interested in getting paid their commission than in giving me expert advice and guiding me to make the best decision. Furthermore, I had no idea how they were even paid. I thought we could do a better job, so I decided to start a real estate company to change the way buyers & sellers purchase & sell homes.

The first thing I did was apply my background (in technology) to make the search process as easy & transparent as possible for buyers. Many Realtors try to restrict access to the MLS because they want control over the process. Our approach is entirely different.

We give you access to as much information as possible. We created a Google Maps based home search tool, BirdsEyeSearch.com (all links open in new windows) that searches the MLS, and we include the address of the homes, so you can drive by yourself. In fact, we'll even help you help yourself, with our free GPS loaner so you don't get lost. Our philosophy is this: If we let you do your own research at your own pace, then we believe you'll contact us when you're ready for an expert.

Everyone wants some hand holding at a different part of their search process. That's why we're always available, 24x7, for phone calls. In fact you can call me, the owner, at 202-250-3846 anytime you have a question (and yes, I take midnight phone calls all the time, so feel free). Some buyers want us to show them homes at the beginning of their search, and other buyers want to drive themselves around until they've narrowed their choices to a few homes or a few neighborhoods. The point is, we're here when you need us, and we won't bother you until you're ready for us to help.

We think that most Realtors have a fundamental misunderstanding of what their role should be in the home buying process. Most Realtors think they have to "control" the process, and they think that by driving you around to certain homes, you'll buy one of the ones they show you. We call this the "taxi driving syndrome." But we don't think our value lies in being a taxi driver. Our agents are expert negotiators and don't mind making lowball offers, all of it with the goal of serving your best interests. We'd rather enable you with the ability to see homes, with addresses, through our search tools, and let you take your time, and then be the expert to guide you through the process when you're ready. To that end, we have a series of buyer tutorials, including "How to make a lowball offer" and "How to buy a home as a Realtor would", which you can access, for free, at DROdio.com/video. We even work more efficiently than any other firm I know of, allowing you to digitally sign documents instead of running around looking for fax machines.

But that's not all. In our quest to empower you with information, we've even automated some of the more tedious parts of the home search process. By signing up at ListingNotice.com, you can have our servers check the MLS for you, once an hour, for any homes that match your criteria. If you want to be alerted when a 4 BR home in a certain neighborhood is for sale, no problem, we'll email you the second any homes that match come on the market. And yes, we give you the street address so you can drive by yourself to see if you're interested.

We've also had many buyers wondering if they could search for certain keywords, like "backs to woods" or "close to Metro" so we created a search tool for that too, called TheBestHomeSearchEver.com, which lets you do exactly that, and much more, like searching for homes that have dropped by a certain amount in price, or have been listed for a certain number of days or more. Even Realtors don't have the ability to search by keywords in their super-duper MLS search tool, so they use our site too!

Many people ask me if I'm worried that people will just use our free tools but never contact us. I know a certain percentage of buyers will do that, but I figure that by putting the tools out there, buyers will recognize that our approach is a better one, and for every buyer that takes advantage of these tools without contacting us, there will be several other buyers that do want our help. And that's just fine with us, because we really do think we've come up with a better way to help you buy a home.

Best regards, and good house hunting. We're here when you need us.

Daniel R. Odio
Owner & Principal Broker
DROdio Real Estate, Inc.

P.S. - if you'd like to learn more about me and my philosophies, I invite you to visit my blog, at DanielOdio.com/blog.

P.P.S. - Others must think what we're doing is pretty neat too, as we've been featured in multiple publications for our progressive use of technology in the real estate world, including The Discovery Channel, CNN, CNBC, The Washington Business Journal, Forbes.com, CNN Money, The Washington Post, The Washington Times, and many others.