Real estate agency, Real estate developer in Washington, DC
EXQ Real Estate is a boutique residential real estate firm based in Washington, DC, founded and led by April Contee, Founder and Principal Broker. April launched the company in 2015 with, in her words, "a clear vision: to deliver an intentional, client-centered approach where your goals guide every move." She has been a licensed REALTOR® since 2007, holds active licenses in both DC and Maryland, and brings more than 15 years of real estate experience to the firm, having guided clients through over $52 million in total transaction value. EXQ works with buyers, sellers, investors, and developers across residential real estate, luxury homes, divorce sales, probate transactions, and military relocations throughout Washington, DC and Maryland. The firm's approach emphasizes integrity, clarity, and high-touch service, with April drawing on her market expertise to help clients navigate transactions of every kind, from first-time home purchases to complex investment deals. Beyond her brokerage work, April is active in real estate industry leadership and advocacy: she serves as an Education Leader for the Maryland/DC Region of the Residential Real Estate Council, sits on the Board of the District of Columbia Association of REALTORS® for a second term, contributes to the Montgomery County Public Policy Committee, and represents her market on the National Association of REALTORS® Broker Engagement Council. She is also a member of the National Association of Real Estate Brokers (NAREB), the historic association of Black real estate professionals, and a founding member of the Within Reach Development Collective (WRDC), an organization focused on sustainable development in underserved DC-area neighborhoods. That combination of brokerage work and community-equity advocacy is central to EXQ's identity: April describes her mission as pairing real estate expertise with a commitment to equitable development, extending her client-centered philosophy into the broader neighborhoods where EXQ does business.
Ouley Hair Gallery opened its doors on W Virginia Ave NE and quietly became one of the go-to braiding houses in Northeast DC. The story most stylists here will tell you starts the same way every Black hair story in this city starts: someone's auntie, someone's cousin, someone who used to do hair in her kitchen on Saturdays before the lines got too long for the living room. Ouley grew out of that same tradition, scaled up into a real storefront with real chairs and a real wait list. Walk in on a Friday afternoon and the place hums — clippers in one corner, the low murmur of gossip and gospel radio, kids doing homework on the bench by the window while their mothers get micro braids that'll last two months if they're lucky. The stylists here trained the old way, hands-on, apprenticed under women who learned from women before them, which is why the parting is always so clean and the tension always so even. Locs, twists, weaves, cornrows tight enough to survive a DC summer — this is a shop that has seen trends come and go and just kept doing the fundamentals well. It's wheelchair accessible, walk-ins are welcome, and the second location on Upshur Street NW means the wait, while still real, is a little more bearable. Ouley Hair Gallery isn't chasing Instagram virality. It's chasing Saturday appointments, repeat clients, and the particular kind of trust that only comes from someone doing your hair for the fifteenth time and still asking how your mother's doing.

