What home sellers want
Q. What are sellers asking for?
A. To sell, of course.
Q. Besides that, you nincompoop.
A. I'm not the nincompoop asking foolish questions.
Q. That's not an answer. You have to answer -- it's your raison d'être.
A. That's not a question. J'accuse.
Q. What did I do to deserve this?
A. Oh -- you know. And to answer your poorly worded earlier question, sellers are asking for less than they used to.
Q. Now we're getting somewhere. How much less?
A. Well, the median house on the market in the Baltimore metro area this month is priced at $296,000, according to HousingTracker.net. That's down 9 percent from a year ago, when the median asking price was about $325,000. And it's down 15 percent from July 2006, when the median asking price was almost $350,000.
Q. What's the median? And why should I care?
A. The median is the midpoint, which means half the asking prices are cheaper and half more expensive. And I have no idea why you should care, as you don't technically exist and are therefore not likely to qualify for a mortgage. ... Nowadays, at least.
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Comments
Sorry, but it's still not enough.
A mere 6 years ago, in June 2002, the median price in Baltimore City was $69,900 and the median for Baltimore County was $140,000.
There is still a long way to go!
Posted by: anon | July 16, 2008 10:43 AM
Oh, I wasn't trying to make a statement one way or the other. I just wanted to make you laugh.
Posted by: Jamie Smith Hopkins | July 16, 2008 10:48 AM
Anon is very close to the mark, our government's socialist intervention in the mortgage market notwithstanding.
Posted by: John | July 16, 2008 11:17 AM
Jamie,
We know. Nincompoop is not a word used in serious discourse. But, I still had to point that out.
Posted by: anon | July 16, 2008 12:53 PM
Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were created by US government using seed money from US tax payers.
The US government also sets loan purchase amount limits for both companies. The government has always played a significant role in the mortgage industry.
Oddly enough both Freddie Mac, and Fannie Mae most likely have the cleanest loan portfilios in the industry, because they did not significantly change underwriting standards, and the Bush administration capped their growth in order for the companies to clean up account issues that were discovered in 2003 (Bush also hated the former Clinton people running the companies.)
The problem for the companies has more to due with doubts about private mortgage insurance companies ablity to pay claims, and it's more difficult to minimize loan loss due to the chaos in real estate pricing.
Low profits, and losses for some quarters, but I don't think we will see a bailout. The housing bailout bill effectively put Freddie, and Fannie center stage to bailout the rest of the mortgage industry. The companies will most likely grow from 5 to 7 trillion over the course of cleaning up the mess.
Posted by: H | July 16, 2008 1:38 PM
Maryland house prices are hardly the Dreyfus affair, but I laughed.
Any rate, you should stop talking to yourself. A week in Ocean City, perhaps? You could check out Eastern Shore real estate…
Posted by: Cheap Jim | July 17, 2008 12:05 AM
Alas, Cheap Jim, I'm not likely to get much time off anytime soon. But it's a nice suggestion!
Posted by: Jamie Smith Hopkins | July 17, 2008 6:28 AM