Baltimore housing: Hey, could be worse
The Baltimore area's housing market -- flat recorded housing prices and sales drop of 30 percent in October -- doesn't look so bad compared with the other coast. The California Association of Realtors said this week that median prices fell about 10 percent while sales plummeted 40 percent.
At the current pace of sales, it would take 16 months to move all the unsold single-family homes in California, the association said. Yes. Nearly a year and a half. That's up from six months this time in 2006.
From the association's press release:
“Financing issues have dogged entry-level buyers since early 2007, but they spilled over into the middle and upper-tier markets in the last few months,” said C.A.R. President William E. Brown. “The decline in sales at the upper end of the market contributed to a significant decline in the statewide median price as even well-qualified borrowers had difficulty securing financing.”
Comments
Using just the MLS data ASKING prices are -8.3 so far this year. That's NOT SELLING which is more than 10% lower. Factor in the closing helps and kickbacks it is more. http://www.housingtracker.net/askingprices/Maryland/Baltimore-Towson/
The wave has not totally hit here yet from the west coast. I really believe that Baltimore is a year behind what the west coast is experiencing now. The foreclosures are not being firesaled yet at auction but going on the MLS. Eventually the banks will have get them off the books and that's when we will have another round of double digit declines.
Posted by: Adam | November 30, 2007 1:49 PM