Though Dianne Van Volkenburg and her team work with clients in various parts of Northern Virginia, they specialize in helping people buy and sell property in Great Falls, a corner of the Washington, D.C., region that retains a rural character.
“Great Falls is my bread and butter,” Van Volkenburg said of her Fairfax County neighborhood, where the median single-family sales price over the past 12 months was about $1.7 million, according to Homes.com data. She raised her children in Great Falls, and three of the other four agents on her team grew up in the quiet area 17 miles northwest of central Washington.
Van Volkenburg and her colleagues decided recently to leave Long & Foster for Compass. She said she expects her new company to provide access to a wider array of clients and to technology that will make the team’s work more efficient.
“It became very apparent that Compass has the vision, that they’re constantly exploring what is the newest and greatest technology that’s out there to help my Realtors be the best that they can,” she told Homes.com.
As an example of how Compass’ technology will benefit her business, Van Volkenburg said the company can provide her clients with an easy-to-use online dashboard to keep track of key dates and documents.
“They lay it out for the consumer, from A to Z in a transaction, from the date and time for interior photography to closing cost documents,” she said. “Having that is a real time-saver. I don’t need to do that moving forward, because my clients will be able to go into Compass’ portal and pull the documents themselves. It’s small, but when you’re selling 90 houses a year, that’s 90 less emails you’re sending.”
“Dianne’s leadership and market insight, combined with her team’s dedication to client success, perfectly align with Compass’ values and commitment to innovation and excellence,” Holly Worthington, Compass regional vice president, said in a statement Thursday.
An agent who can read a soil map
Aside from her 20-plus years of experience as a real estate agent, Van Volkenburg is well-versed in how local land use rules control what can be built. She served 12 years on the board of the nonprofit Great Falls Citizens Association, which works to maintain the area’s semi-rural character by influencing Fairfax County land use decisions.
Unlike much of the surrounding region, houses in Great Falls are almost all on septic tanks rather than sewer pipelines, limiting residential options to single-family homes. Van Volkenburg uses her knowledge of local zoning rules and how to read a soil map to help clients selling undeveloped land figure out how many houses their land can accommodate. For example, a seller may have a five-acre lot, but they can build only on two because the soil can't handle more than one or two houses.
“Most Realtors don’t understand this and don’t need to because most areas are already developed,” she said. “I know right away what can or cannot be done on a property, which really helps my seller and also creates urgency for buyers because they know what’s possible in advance.”
Van Volkenburg said she anticipates two of her four children may join the team in a few years, and she’ll eventually transition her team’s leadership to them.