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Concealed Guns: The Fad You Might Not Have Noticed
The Sterling Foundation plans to install trees and bushes along Sterling Boulevard, from Holly Avenue to Route 7.
(By Erica Garman)
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Greg Wallace, project manager for Poole Landscaping in Frederick, Md., says installation of the trees and plants will begin in early to mid-April and will feature Natchez (white) and Tuskegee (dark pink) crape myrtles, zelkovas, October glory red maples, willow oaks, Kousa dogwoods and Kanzan and Yoshino cherry trees. Ornamental bushes and grasses will be planted as accents.
About 50 trees were recently removed by the landscaping company to make way for the 250 new trees and plants. Wallace says workers will return in the next week or two to grind up the tree stumps that remain.
The project was made possible by a $70,000 matching grant to the Sterling Foundation and $28,500 from corporate and community donations.
The Sterling Foundation was organized in 1989 through the merger of the SterlingFest committee and the Sterling Grasshoppers, who originally maintained the neighborhood.
A Little Help on Loans
This month, regulators made getting a government-backed housing loan a little easier.
Until now, the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could insure mortgages only up to $417,000, sticking many Loudoun County buyers with either conventional loans or complicated "exotic" loans that have higher interest rates.
This year, the average sale price of a single-family home in Loudoun is $470,592. The new mortgage limits for Fannie and Freddie were changed in hopes of boosting the downward real estate market in high-cost areas throughout the country.
Fannie and Freddie set new loan limits at $729,750 in Loudoun and other D.C. areas.
Tony Arko, a consultant with Market Advantage Real Estate, said this increase will help the Loudoun real estate market, but probably a lot less than most people expect.
Arko, who maintains the Loudoun Stats blog, says there is talk that these new loans will create a third loan category with lenders, known as "jumbo lite" loans, which will be priced between current conforming loans and traditional jumbo loans.
"The marketplace for reselling these loans to investors will then set the interest rates for these 'jumbo lite' loans," he said. "Most likely, the interest rate of these loans will be closer to the current jumbo rates than the conforming rates -- consequently, the new jumbo loans will probably have a higher interest rate than the current jumbo loans."
What does this mean? Good news for buyers in the possible "jumbo lite" spectrum, and bad news for buyers looking for mortgages above $729,750 in the jumbo category.
