About:
JANET CATERSON PRICE BIOGRAPHY Janet Price, a long-time Alexandria resident, began her career in the real estate industry in 1994, bringing more than twenty years experience in marketing to apply to the fine art of promoting and selling residential properties. With Carlyle Real Estate Services, Janet topped $20 million+ and $25 million+ in ’05 and ’06. She then joined McEnearney Associates in 2007 and earned the coveted NVAR Lifetime Top Producer award in 2007. She has consistently topped $10 million per year even in the trying times of 2007 and 2008! Price hails from a small town in Northeastern Pennsylvania and thrives in taking the best of those traditional, hard working, always-above board roots to serving her clients with the utmost honesty and integrity. She loves the daily challenge of matching the wants and wishes of buyers and sellers, and bringing those often competing objectives to a common ground. With a BS in Food Service and Housing Administration/ Marketing from Penn State University, Janet brings the practical experience of small business ownership (as owner of Albert Caterson Distinctive Caterer) and Business Administration experience from her days managing a mid-sized law firm. This career path has created the perfect storm for her continuously burgeoning real estate practice. Regarding her 15 year real estate career, Price notes “Nothing is more satisfying than being right in the middle of active and aggressive negotiations between parties, and ultimately reaching a compromise at which time both sides come away knowing a “fair deal” was made,” she says in describing her view of her principal professional responsibility. “Sure it’s great to see the properties and help my clients envision and eventually realize their dreams, but the fun part for me is bringing people together, finding that magic formula for them, and watching their faces light up when the deal is struck. It all comes together then, for them, and for me,” Price explains. Price says she would not trade her job, or where she works for anything. “I adore Northern Virginia. Yes, it is part of a major metropolitan center with all the issues life in the big city present, but, particularly in Alexandria, one can bask in a small town atmosphere exhibiting small town values while still taking advantage of what Washington DC has to offer. It’s the best of both worlds. I love the vast array of architecture and the wonderful, lush environment, and above all, the diversity of its citizens. That’s what makes this place and that’s what makes my profession so rewarding, and those are the exact reasons why I live and work right here,” she says. Price’s interests extend well beyond her passion for her work to encompass good literature, especially historical biographies. Her latest “good read” was the autobiography of Mary Gallagher, her friend and neighbor, who wrote her personal account of her life and times as the personal private secretary to the late former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy. Price is an avid student of interior decorating, and second only to applying her craft in making the “deal”, she enjoys helping her clients “stage” their properties for quick, top dollar sales. She loves the movies, and “tivo’s the good stuff on cable television such as ‘The Tudors’, ‘John Adams’, and even a few episodes of ‘Desperate Housewives’.” A great deal of her time is spent volunteering for community causes such as the Belle Haven Women’s Club for whom she co-chaired the 2008 House Tour, Belle Haven Citizens Association where she sat on its Board for 4 years, and at her daughter’s school, Burgundy Farm Country Day School where for 3 years she co-chaired the annual Fall Fair fundraiser. Janet’s leadership abilities become apparent as she gives back to the community that she so greatly appreciates. No one is more optimistic about the advancement of the housing market than Price. She believes that the local residential market has reached the so-called “bottom of the trough” and that buyers have returned and sellers have come “full circle” to realize where their pricing needs to be to move the inventory. “With interest rates remaining low and values beginning to creep back up, now is the time to buy. I am busier now than I was in 2006. Deals take longer to put together, but we seek out the solid ones that go to settlement. “Lenders are shedding the effects of the sub prime drag on the market of 2007, and are looking for good borrowers with good credit, and when they find them, they have plenty of money to lend at historically low rates. With the lenders back, buyers eager and sellers realistic, that’s another perfect storm in a positive sense for steady, sustained recovery. Price resides in the Belle Haven section of Alexandria with her husband Rick and daughter Sara.