Real estate search site Trulia says the Baltimore region is seventh on the list of metro areas with the weakest demand among the online search crowd -- specifically, more renters and homeowners looking to move out than in.

For every search on Trulia by someone outside the region checking out places for sale or rent here, there are two (or more specifically 2.2) searches by people in our area looking somewhere else. The company, which ranked the 100 largest metro areas on search demand, says big regions tend to have more people looking to leave than to arrive.

Maryland overall has seen more going than coming in recent years, starting at the height of the housing boom and continuing in a bigger way afterward, according to the state Department of Planning's analysis of IRS migration data.

That doesn't mean the population dropped, though -- it grew. As a planning agency chart in an earlier analysis shows, births outnumber deaths and international migration is also adding to the mix, even as state-to-state migration subtracts.

Trulia says Baltimore-area residents searching online for apartments and homes outside the region are most frequently checking out these places:

1. The Washington area

2. The Bethesda-Rockville-Frederick mini-metro area (usually lumped in with the D.C. area, but not always)

3. The York-Hanover area in Pennsylvania

4. New York City and environs (an area that reaches New Jersey)

5. The Philadelphia area

But what about the people who live elsewhere and are checking us out? Trulia's list made me go "whaa?" -- here's why:

Continue reading "Where Baltimore-area residents would rather be" »

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Housing stats
        

If you're trying to buy a foreclosure in the city and feel like your choices aren't what they were a year ago, it's not your imagination. While there were more short sales on the market last year than in 2010, bank-owned homes for sale (the purple line in the graph below) took a steep drop:

The data comes from Metropolitan Regional Information Systems' stats arm, RealEstate Business Intelligence. Though it probably won't come as a complete shock to anyone following the news about robo-signing, it's a striking chart nonetheless.

Here's the change in actual sales of distress properties:

Continue reading "Having trouble finding a Baltimore foreclosure to buy? Here's why" »

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Distress sales, The foreclosure mess
        

If your home or other Maryland property was recently reassessed, your deadline to appeal is fast approaching.

Paperwork must be in by Feb. 10 for the one-third of property owners whose reassessment notices were mailed in late December. The state Department of Assessments and Taxation lays out a brief how-to here, noting that you can request your assessment worksheet to check it for accuracy and suggesting you find sales of comparable properties to make your case for a different valuation. (Here's the state's property look-up site, which gives you an option to search for sales.)

If you weren't just reassessed but are buying a home in the first six months of this year, you too can appeal to try to change the bill you'll get in July. That's called an "appeal upon purchase," and you have 60 days to file after settlement.

It's too late to appeal for the upcoming tax year if you aren't in one of those two groups. You can send in a "petition for review" anytime between now and Jan. 1 (or the first business day after Jan. 1, generally), but it won't have a chance of affecting your bill until July 1, 2013.

But some Baltimore homeowners might get a lowered bill this July without appealing -- because someone else did it for them.

Rockville-based Property Tax Pros, which offers an online appeal service for owners of houses, townhouses and rowhouses in large Maryland jurisdictions, filed pro-bono, out-of-the-blue appeals of 100 city homes' property assessments in January.

Larry Giammo, the company's co-founder and a former Rockville mayor, said he and his team picked modest homes -- assessed at about $70,000 to $120,000 -- that they believe are far overvalued now, about a year after they were last assessed. (Each property in the state is reassessed once every three years.)

Continue reading "Deadline to appeal new property assessments: Feb. 10" »

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Property taxes
        

Maryland is a high-income state. But it's also got a big share of defaulted mortgages, delinquent loans of all sorts and outsized credit-card debt, according to a new study by the Corporation for Enterprise Development.

What gives? Some of it is probably housing costs. Two-thirds of states have a smaller percentage of "house poor" homeowners, people spending 30 percent or more of their before-tax income on their mortgage, property taxes and other ownership expenses.

But we could probably do better. Sure, if you're between jobs, it's awfully hard to save. And if you've already locked in a high mortgage payment that strains your budget, your options might seem limited. Still, chances are there's something you can do.

Continue reading "Decent income, little savings?" »

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Savings/downpayment, The foreclosure mess
        

The Treasury Department is trying to get more mortgage servicers to reduce the principal of struggling borrowers by tripling the incentive it pays for such a move -- and offering to pay financiers Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, too.

Fannie and Freddie are essentially government-owned. As you can imagine, this new twist strikes some as the equivalent of Uncle Sam tossing money from his left hand to his right.

Of course, calls by Congressional Democrats for more principal reduction have so far had no effect on Fannie and Freddie, never mind their ownership status. Their independent oversight agency insisted shortly before last week's Treasury announcement that "principal reduction never serves the long-term interest of the taxpayer when compared to foreclosure." (The Federal Housing Finance Agency said Friday that it will do another analysis to account for the new payments.)

The deal being offered: For every dollar knocked off a borrower's principal, Treasury will fork over between 18 and 63 cents.

A state task force recently recommended principal reductions in which homeowners, in exchange for no longer being underwater, would agree to share any profits if they sell or refinance during the following nine years. Shortly before Treasury made its announcement, I chatted with a local loan officer who thinks the financial industry will have to move in that direction.

Continue reading "More incentives for principal reduction" »

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Mortgages, The foreclosure mess
        

 
Above: The homes that sold in the Baltimore region in December, organized by how quickly -- or slowly -- they went from listed to under contract.

The breakdowns come from Metropolitan Regional Information Systems' stats arm, RealEstate Business Intelligence, which notes that yes, some homes really do come on the multiple-listing service as already sold -- hence the 34 properties in December in the "zero days" category.

But it's rare that someone had to have the house so badly that they snagged it from the owners before they were even thinking of selling. It more likely was for sale but not on the MLS -- a new home, say, or a for-sale-by-owner -- and an agent entered it into the system afterward.

So let's ignore the zeros. If you add up everything from one day to 30, that's almost 400 homes, close to a quarter of all (non-zero-day) sales that month. That's by far the most common period for a home to sell, comparing just 30-day stretches.

Continue reading "Fast home sales, slow home sales" »

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)
Categories: For sale, Housing stats
        

For those of you with a vested interest in (or just curiosity about) ground rent: The newest twist in the saga is a bill aimed at the registry.

Fourteen state delegates have proposed that owners who don't register their leases with the state can't collect payments on them.

Here's a short piece about the bill, which comes after an appeals court ruling left the registry intact but struck down the penalty for not getting on the state's list by the 2010 deadline -- the ground rent ceased to exist. (That piece of the law was unconstitutional, Maryland's Court of Appeals ruled, and thus the leases popped back to life.) 

Here's the proposal itself.

If you're trying to find out whether a ground rent has been registered on a particular property, go to the state Department of Assessments and Taxation's property look-up site, type in the address and then click on the "ground rent registration" link in the upper right-hand corner. The registry is supposed to provide the owner's name and contact information.

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 6:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)
Categories: Ground rent
        

If you haven't had your recommended daily dose of outrage, here's an upcoming source: The Maryland Consumer Rights Coalition is showing its "Stealing Trust" documentary at the Enoch Pratt Free Library's Central location in downtown Baltimore next Wednesday, Feb. 1.

The group's film focuses on local residents who lost their homes, savings "and even their capacity to trust others" through abusive financial practices. Some fought back.

The free screening, co-sponsored by St. Ambrose Housing Aid Center, the Baltimore Homeownership Preservation Coalition and the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development, will include new details about foreclosure-prevention efforts and offer homeowners a chance to ask questions about the foreclosure crisis.

The event is scheduled for 6 p.m. The library is at 400 Cathedral St.

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Mortgage fraud/scams, The foreclosure mess
        

State attorneys general gathered in Chicago or by conference call Monday to go over possible terms for a deal with large banks over foreclosure wrongdoing, but several states are pursuing their own courses -- to the cheers of liberal groups and consumers who want bankers to be sued rather than settled with.

Here's a quick rundown:

New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman launched his own mortgage probe. In an opinion piece he wrote with Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden in November, the two men said that what was needed is "a more comprehensive investigation before the financial institutions at the heart of the crisis are granted broad releases from liability." It's not just about foreclosures or the housing market, they said, but also about the way mortgages were securitized.

"Any real effort to repair the damage caused by the collapse of the housing bubble must address the injury in both sectors," they wrote in the Politico piece. "Tens of millions of homeowners and millions of investors — including retirees with money in pension and mutual funds — were devastated by this manmade catastrophe."

Biden, the Delaware AG, had just filed suit against the mortgage registrar MERS when the piece appeared. Here's the press release announcing the lawsuit, and here's the complaint itself. MERS contends there's no merit to the suit, which alleges deceptive practices.

Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley, meanwhile, sued five banks in December for "their roles in allegedly pursuing illegal foreclosures." (Complaint here.)

Continue reading "What N.Y., Del. and a few other states are doing about mortgage misconduct" »

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 8:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: The foreclosure mess
        

If you're a dissatisfied homeowner, chances are you're young.

That's the takeaway from real estate search site HomeGain's latest survey, which asked Americans whether they were happy with homeownership.

Least happy are homeowners in the 18-to-25 crowd. That's the only age group where more than half (55 percent) said they're not satisfied with homeownership. The share of satisfied homeowners goes up from there almost in lockstep with age. (Slightly more 26-to-35-year-olds are satisfied than 36-to-45-year-olds, though it rounds to two-thirds in each case.)

Those most likely to be satisfied are 55-plus, people who are also the most likely to have lived in their homes the longest and -- assuming they didn't pull a lot of equity out during the bubble years -- to owe little or nothing on a mortgage. So it makes sense, just as it's understandable that young homeowners who have seen nothing but depreciation aren't wild about the idea.

But here's something surprising:

Continue reading "Youngest homeowners least satisfied with homeownership" »

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Housing stats, Survey says ...
        

Home prices in the Baltimore area fell about 4 percent last year, which is either bad or good, depending on your perspective.

If you take the position that it's bad, chin up -- dozens of metro areas had bigger drops.

But even more regions had smaller losses or actual increases.

That's according to a new report prepared for the U.S. Conference of Mayors and the Council for the New American City, which looked at a variety of vital signs -- including home prices -- in metro areas across the country.

Continue reading "How home prices in the Baltimore area stack up" »

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Housing stats
        

Recommendations from the state's newest foreclosure task force include a form of principal reduction, an expansion to foreclosure mediation and tax incentives for foreclosure purchasers -- among many other suggestions.

Here's the report, and here's my story on the subject. The bottom line is that some of the suggestions are for new laws, but most aren't -- they're "best practice" recommendations that the state hopes to encourage mortgage servicers to follow. (The Maryland Bankers Association, which sat on the task force, says members are interested in giving the ideas a try.)

The task force suggested an option for court-supervised mediation before a foreclosure case is filed — if both the homeowner and servicer agree — because the further behind a borrower gets, the harder it is to work out a loan modification or other foreclosure alternative. Currently, homeowners can require their servicer to show up for mediation, but only after foreclosure proceedings begin.

A "Neighborhood Conservation Tax Credit" recommended by the task force would try to counteract vacancy problems by offering an incentive for people to buy a foreclosure and move in. The task force suggests state legislation that would give local governments the ability to create property tax credits for use in communities that need the assistance.

The principal-reduction idea is on the "best practices" side of the scale, something that wouldn't be mandated by law. The task force suggests reducing mortgage principal for borrowers whose home values have dropped below the amount they owe, but not in a one-fell-swoop way. Here's the suggestion:

Continue reading "Principal reduction among suggestions by state task force" »

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: The foreclosure mess
        

The typical rent for a two-bedroom rental in the Baltimore region rose 5 percent last year, according to real estate search site HotPads.com.

The company, which compared advertised rents for apartments and homes at the beginning and end of 2011, said that's the fifth-biggest increase among the 20 largest metro areas in the country. Collectively, rents for two-bedroom properties rose 3.75 percent, HotPads said.

Typical rent on a two-bedroom in the Baltimore metro area: $1,285.

Another view of the market comes from real estate data firm Delta Associates, which tallies only the upper-end apartment complexes for its rent measure but drills deeper into those numbers. (To get at the actual amount renters are shelling out, Delta accounts for "one month free!" and other specials.)

The company says average effective rent was $1,491 in the Baltimore region at the end of last year, up 2.2 percent from a year earlier.

Continue reading "Report: Rents increased 5% in Baltimore region in 2011" »

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Renting
        

Real estate data firm Clear Capital puts the Baltimore region's price drop last year at 6.2 percent, a figure calculated from repeat sales of homes to try to capture the true gain or loss over time.

The average drop in home prices last year, by contrast, was about 4 percent in the region -- considering everything that sold in 2011 vs. everything that sold in 2010.

It's not unusual for price stats to differ, especially if they're measuring the market differently. That's one of the reasons it can be helpful to look at a variety. Triangulation, if you will.

Clear Capital says Baltimore's price loss in 2011 was 12th largest among big markets, with Atlanta No. 1 for its 18 percent decline.

At the other extreme of its 50-region ranking were metro areas that have seen big declines already and posted gains last year, including Dayton, Ohio (up more than 11 percent), Orlando (up almost 7 percent) and Miami (up 5.6 percent).

Continue reading "Clear Capital: Baltimore-area home prices dropped 6% in 2011" »

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Housing forecasts, Housing stats
        

I'm still sick, so I don't have energy for much except asking a few questions.

What are you hoping to accomplish this year? Pay down debt? Save a down payment? Find an apartment that suits you better? Earn more? Worry less?

Is your home helping you get where you want to be in 2012 or keeping you from getting there? Or is it simply a nice place to spend your free time?

Is the state of the housing market pushing you to do, or not do, something this year? Does it have any bearing on your life?

OK, those are actually a lot of questions. Even when I'm sick, I'm curious.

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)
Categories: Question of the day
        

Moody's Analytics is predicting that home prices in the Baltimore region will climb back to previous peaks in five or six years. Do you think that's likely? What's your own personal prediction?

It's easier, of course, to take a stab at what will happen within the current year. But you'll find plenty of varying forecasts. 

Forty-five percent of the nearly 200 readers who took last week's poll think home values near them will fall in the next six months, 41 percent think values will be unchanged and 14 percent think values will rise. Pretty similar to the results of a HomeGain poll of Maryland homeowners, as it happens.

And that's it for me today -- lousy cold. Hope you're feeling well, and feel free to talk amongst yourselves.

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)
Categories: Housing forecasts, Survey says ...
        

Here's the early look at the 2011 housing market in the Baltimore area:

Carroll, as you can see, was the only jurisdiction to eke out a sales gain in 2011 compared with 2010. Howard managed basically flat prices (the numbers are rounded) but had one of the largest sales drops in the region.

More about 2011 in this story, which also includes the Moody's Analytics forecast for this year and next.

Continue reading "Baltimore-area housing market in 2011" »

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Housing stats
        

City Councilman Carl Stokes' proposal last year to cut the city's property-tax rate in half didn't get anywhere, but he's trying again now. And he said he'll likely launch a signature drive to get the measure on the ballot in November if the rest of the City Council remains opposed to the idea.

Scott Calvert has more in this story, the crux of which is that Stokes wants a charter amendment voted up or down by city residents -- whether the council puts it on the ballot or citizens do. He said he would need 10,000 signatures by May 31 if he goes the petition route.

Like last year, Stokes is pairing the plan to reduce the city's rate from 2.268 percent to 1.1 percent with a proposal to temporarily raise the cap on homeowners' annual increases in property assessments.

The Homestead Property Tax Credit now limits increases on city homeowners to 4 percent a year. Stokes would increase that ceiling to 6 percent, then 8 percent and finally the state maximum of 10 percent, holding it there for five years before dropping it back down to 4 percent. (More on that in a bit.)

Also like last year, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake's administration is saying this change would not be a good idea. The major sticking point is whether a dramatic drop in the city's rate would bring in enough new residents and businesses to avoid cataclysmic cuts to services. You could see why this possibility might keep officials up at night. (The city's finance department said last year that Baltimore would need more than 500,000 new residents to make up for the revenue loss of a 1.1 percent rate, though some lower-rate proponents contended that this overstated things.)

And in the same category of everything old is new again, the owners of the Tremont Plaza Hotel in Baltimore are planning to bring it mostly full circle. William C. Smith + Co. converted the building from apartments to a hotel in the early 1980s and is now proposing to use it as apartments and long-term-stay suites.

Continue reading "Stokes tries again on property taxes, the Tremont tries again with apartments" »

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Property taxes, Renting
        

The typical owner in Baltimore paid a bit over $1,800 in property taxes for the current tax year. Get 190 of them in one room, and together their tab just equals Tom Clancy's.

That's by way of putting the bestselling author's nearly $350,000 bill into perspective, which is of course on a not-at-all-typical property. He owns about 17,000 square feet at the Ritz-Carlton Residences alongside the Inner Harbor.

You can see all 10 of the homes with the biggest bills -- and the top 10 commercial properties as well -- in this photo gallery, if you didn't already check it out over the weekend. (Thanks to editors Liz Pillow and Justine Maki and photographers Kim Hairston and Barbara Haddock Taylor for their work on this time-consuming effort.)

Here's the story that Scott Calvert and I wrote, which includes an interesting discussion with the trustees for the No. 2 home. (We've got a separate gallery just for that expansive place -- thanks once again to Liz, not to mention photographer Amy Davis.)

And the Sun's Adam Marton put together two interactive maps: one for the homes and another for the commercial properties. It's interesting to see how closely most of them are clustered. (Click on the icons for details about each property.)

Our analysis ranked individual properties rather than property owners. It would be pretty interesting to know who has the biggest collective tax bill, accounting for multiple properties, but that's tricky to get at for the same reason that it's not easy to say which private owners have the most vacant homes. A single person or firm might hold a dozen properties in a dozen separate limited liability companies.

Continue reading "Baltimore's biggest property-tax bills" »

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Property taxes, Unusual homes
        

Here's what the people trying to sell homes in the Baltimore region were asking in the month of November the past few years, and how that compared with what buyers paid for the homes that actually changed hands:

Sources: Department of Numbers, Metropolitan Regional Information Systems' RealEstate Business Intelligence

It's interesting to see how different the median asking price and median selling price were in 2006 and how the gap has shrunk since then.

Incidentally, the asking price of the typical home for sale vs. the price of the typical home sold isn't the same as what a typical seller gets compared what he or she asked for. That is decidedly not closer together now than it was in 2006.

RBI tracks the average original list price of homes that ultimately sell. The discount was 5 percent in November 2006 and 11 percent this past November, RBI says. 

What gives? Two things, probably.

The asking prices on the graph above -- for homes actively for sale -- are a snapshot at the time rather than whatever those homes on the market were originally listed at.

And perhaps more importantly, would-be sellers and buyers nowadays have had years to get accustomed to the idea that it's a down market and set their expectations accordingly. In late 2006, that was still a new thought. Sales activity was dropping but prices weren't; they just weren't rising at the fast clip of a year or two earlier.

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Housing stats
        

Forty-three percent of Maryland homeowners surveyed by a real estate search site think home values will drop in the next six months, about the same as the number who believe values will remain the same -- which leaves 15 percent who think (hope?) that values will rise.

That's according to HomeGain, which surveys homeowners and real estate agents every quarter to see what they think.

Maryland agents were less optimistic, with 53 percent predicting value drops in the next six months.

HomeGain said it surveyed 2,000 homeowners and more than 400 people in the real estate biz nationwide, so the Maryland sample was considerably smaller than that.

So: What's your prediction?

Answer order is randomized, in case you're wondering.

Regardless of what you think will happen, what are you hoping to see? Some of you, I know, are rooting for prices to fall and thus be more affordable. Others are hoping prices will rise to the point that their mortgages aren't underwater.

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: Survey says ...
        

A reader named Erich wrote in the other day to defend the Homestead Property Tax Credit, which acts as a cap on spiraling property-tax bills for homeowners but as a side effect leaves neighbors in similar homes with very different bills to pay.

A former Baltimore resident, Erich bought in Pasadena in 2007 and homes values have only fallen since. So he says he isn't a big homestead recipient -- he isn't getting a break from the credit at all. But he likes the idea that his bill will be capped if assessed values ever do go up beyond Anne Arundel County's 2 percent-a-year limit.

Here's what he wrote:

I completely disagree with the argument that there is something wrong with the Homestead credit simply because two neighbors with similar houses pay extremely different tax amounts. So what? When you purchase a house your taxes are listed on the settlement statement, it's not something the state/city surprises you with. The Homestead credit is there to protect homeowners from drastic changes in their tax bills based on the revolving property tax assessments that happen every 3 years. ... So owners that buy at a certain time and lock in the credit should be able to get that smooth curve in their tax bills. ...

In the 'robbing peter to pay paul' example, it's not transferring tax burden from one house to another because the newer neighbor also gets the tax credit, it just happens to be on a higher assessed value. ... As far as 'double dippers' and landlords getting the credit, go after them, they are breaking the law.

Continue reading "In defense of the homestead credit" »

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)
Categories: Homestead Property Tax Credit
        

We know there are thousands of vacant homes in Baltimore, 16,000 by some definitions and more by others. But who owns them -- besides the city -- is much less well-known.

Baltimore software developer Mike Subelsky decided to gather together public data to shed more light on the subject, and perhaps help the Baltimore Slumlord Watch blog find candidates to "feature." The list he compiled -- by scraping state and city websites for vacancy and ownership data -- includes the city (of course) as well as limited liability companies, landlords and nonprofits.

The datasets have limitations -- multiple LLCs obscuring both who owns and whether they own multiple homes, for instance -- but it's an interesting effort. Subelsky says it took a few weeks, mostly to clean up the results of the scraping.

He did a quick Q&A with me to explain the why and the what-next:

Q. What prompted you to invest the time?

A. It was one of several things proposed for my "free software project." I really care about the city and want to make it a nicer place for everyone to live and work, and I've always been involved in some type of public service, so I naturally gravitated to the idea of using my software skills for a public good.

Continue reading "Identifying the big vacant-property owners" »

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)
Categories: Vacancies
        

If you think your property assessment is wrong (and you're not among the one-third of owners who were just reassessed), you'd better get a move on. The deadline to appeal is Jan. 3 -- Tuesday.

Some homeowners are inevitably surprised to hear they can appeal on off-years. But yes, you can appeal every year, not just the one-in-three when assessors revalue your home.

Notices just went out this week for those who have been reassessed this year, and those property owners have until Feb. 10 to decide whether to fight. For everyone else, the clock is rapidly ticking down.

This out-of-cycle appeal is called a "petition for review." Home sale prices haven't stopped their downward trend, so you probably can make a strong case that your value is lower now -- especially if you were last reassessed two years ago. Like any property appeal, you want to arm yourself with sales data showing what people have paid for comparable properties.

Beware of relying on short sales and foreclosures unless they're a substantial part of the market near you. The state Department of Assessments and Taxation says it wants to see "arm's length" transactions in which banks played no role beyond financier, so you'll have to make the case that distress sales are driving your local market if you want the agency to lower your assessment with foreclosures and short sales in mind.

Continue reading "Get your property-assessment appeal in by Tuesday" »

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Homestead Property Tax Credit, Property taxes
        

The stretch between Thanksgiving and New Year's is usually housing-market downtime. Most would-be buyers are busy purchasing other sorts of things at the malls. Would-be sellers sometimes pull their homes off the market entirely to wait for the much brisker spring market.

But this year, some real estate agents are reporting a spike in business.

"I've been really busy over the last month with clients, out either looking for houses or under contract and closing," said John Kantorski, a real estate agent with Cummings & Co. Realtors in Lutherville.

He even got a call about one of his listings that was pulled off for the winter. Buyers wanted to come see it. "That's unusual," he said.

When we chatted last week, Kantorski was about to show another client several homes -- three days before Christmas. "Usually this time of year, I have plenty of free time. Now, not too much," he said.

Continue reading "Homebuying for the holidays" »

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)
Categories: Housing market experiences