Rural, winding Berryville Road can be as difficult to pinpoint as it is to navigate. Just ask lifelong Berryville Road resident Shirley Shields.

Q: I signed a contract a little more than two years ago to purchase a to-be-built condominium unit. I gave the developer a hefty down payment. My sales contract says that settlement must take place within two years. I inspect the building weekly, and it does not look like a lot of work has been done.

Watch out: Home real estate is back in the sights of Capitol Hill tax writers.

This has been a big week for George Washington's Mount Vernon Estate & Gardens, the official name of that extraordinary property overlooking the Potomac River.

Q: DEAR BOB: My house has been on the market for more than 18 months. Despite scores of open houses and showings by agents, no offers. It is a gorgeous five-bedroom, four-bath home with a three-car heated garage. The area is not economically depressed. We can't figure out any ideas to sell it,...

Think cathedral ceilings, marble countertops and a back door that opens to a golf course represent the ultimate in luxury living?

Q Our basement is infested with crickets. For years, they have resisted our efforts to control them with sprays. We are considering trying an ultrasonic device because we do not like to use strong chemicals in the house. Do ultrasonic devices really work? Are there better ways to deal with this...

Phyllis and Ronnie Zweig loved the six-bedroom Bethesda house where they lived for 23 years and raised three children, now ages 25, 24 and 22.

Deborah Rhoad is always pleased with how many people she meets while walking her beagle, Carolina, around Cardinal Forest, on the northwest side of Laurel in Howard County.

In Showtime's cult hit "Weeds," Mary Louise Parker plays a recently widowed housewife who resorts to pot dealing to pay the mortgage in a fictional planned community called Agrestic.

Real estate brochures love to tout "location, location, location." But if they're meant to sell a condominium or town house in Georgetown, the hyperbole might be true. The historic streets and brick sidewalks of D.C.'s oldest neighborhood may well represent the ultimate capital address.

NVR Inc., the region's largest home builder, said yesterday that four out of 10 of its new-home sales in the Washington area were canceled last quarter, making it the latest builder to report that more buyers are backing out of deals.

The real estate ad calls the condo a "charming 1-bedroom in the heart of Dupont." The online review, however, says it "Smells Like Cats." A D.C. rowhouse is being advertised as "newly renovated" and "spacious," but a critic labels it "possibly the most overpriced unit I have seen in Washington."

As Julie Eisenhower tells it, her mother, Patricia Nixon, favored the English Tudor home her family occupied in Wesley Heights over any other -- maybe even the big white one on Pennsylvania Avenue.

Something about scraping the manure off their shoes at a rainy county fair a few years back convinced Rick and Mary Anne Smith that "hobby farming" would suit them.