A lifelong Warrenton resident, April Shaver knew as a child that her hometown presented her with a one-of-a-kind opportunity.
“After church, my dad would always drive us through town and through the neighboring communities, and I developed an appreciation for the Piedmont and for the architecture at a very young age. I always knew that I would love to be involved in some way,” Shaver said in a recent interview. A licensed agent since 2004, the longtime equestrian came to Ross Real Estate in 2021 as just the latest Realtor with a background from the Northern Piedmont region to arrive at the small brokerage.
“I started as a receptionist at a local real estate office and gradually worked my way up. After getting married and having a child, I decided to go ahead and give it a shot on my own,” she said, after spending years selling at a larger firm. “I chose Ross Real Estate because of the grounding here in the community. It just feels like a hometown brokerage.”
Part of that hometown appeal for Shaver stems from her favorite pastime of horseback riding. A competitive equestrian, she has appeared at multiple shows around the area and takes an immense amount of pride in something that has become more of a craft than a hobby. “It started at a young age. Our back fence adjoined a horse farm and the horses used to come to the fence and I would feed them apples,” she said. “I know the market very well, I’m familiar with the different neighborhoods and what they have to offer. The fact that I have horses and have grown up riding in this community, I’m also very knowledgeable on what that offers as far as being the heart of horse country.”
Sellers still have advantages in this market, but not quite as pronounced as they were 12-18 months ago. “We had a crazy few years, and now we’re seeing things normalize some,” Shaver said. “Which can be a challenge to try to explain to your sellers, that we can’t push the prices necessarily so high, and that we really need to focus on presentation. But we are seeing that a well-priced and beautifully presented home is still selling quickly with multiple offers. So that’s the message I’m trying to relay to my clients: spend the time on the front end getting your house ready, and it’s going to save you time and money on the back end.”
And when that work is done and it comes time to list your home or you decide it’s time to buy, why choose Ross Real Estate over the competition? “We live here, we work here, our kids go to the schools and we participate in the community events.”
“We’re selling a lifestyle.”