Neighborhood: Lauraville

Location: northeast Baltimore

Average sales price: $184,000 (January through June)

Notable features: Single-family homes -- some quite large -- on streets with a quiet, off-the-beaten-track atmosphere. Yet the eastern boundary is Harford Road, a major artery. Businesses in the area include a Safeway grocery store and Main Street-style independently owned shops.

Lauraville was mostly built in the 1910s and '20s, but it became a village with a post office just after the Civil War, according to the Lauraville Improvement Association. Much of the neighborhood is on the National Register of Historic Places.

It recently got a nod from This Old House magazine as the "Best Old House Neighborhood" in Maryland. (I pondered whether to disqualify it as a "hidden" gem for that reason, but I think it's still off most folks' radar.)

Here's the clincher: Residents here are super-enthusiastic about their neighborhood. I say that because lots of people put in nominations for Lauraville and the whole "Greater Lauraville" area, which includes the surrounding neighborhoods of Arcadia, Beverly Hills, Hamilton Hills, Mayfield, Moravia-Walther, Morgan Park and Waltherson.

Rob Walshe wrote: "Great new restaurants, pubs, friendly neighbors and a small town feel."

And sean noted in July, "In the past week alone, I've been able to walk a few blocks from my house to get a 3/8" - 1/2" shower adaptor, Harold McGee's book On Food and Cooking, and Sylvan Beach ice cream (honey graham and fudge brownie, no less). We have great neighbors who share food and flowers with one another, and my wife is teaching art lessons to a couple of the neighborhood kids this summer. I've lived in several neighborhoods in Baltimore, but buying our amazing house in Lauraville 6 years ago was the best decision we ever made."

There are more nominations, but you get the idea. You can really feel the love. Now -- take a look at the homes. This one, for instance:

Or this:

Here's an example of a Lauraville street, with a few of the grand old trees bex was talking about:

"I think some of these houses are comparable with what you can get in Guilford," said Mark Tough, executive director of the Neighborhoods of Greater Lauraville, a nonprofit community-development corporation. (Guilford, for you non-Baltimoreans out there, is one of the city's most expensive neighborhoods.)

Stroll through, and you'll find public art celebrating the place:

Greater Lauraville is part of Healthy Neighborhoods, the organization that focuses on "strong but undervalued" sections of Baltimore. That means most residents can get home-improvement loans with below-market interest rates, and home buyers on some blocks -- ones that could use more rehabbing -- qualify for free design advice along with low-interest-rate mortgages.

Do you have personal experience with Lauraville or its environs? Please share.

Want to see all the photos I took, including some in the Greater Lauraville area? Check out the hidden-gem gallery.  

Next up -- on Monday: Loch Raven Village and Knettishall.

(All photographs by Jamie Smith Hopkins / Baltimore Sun)

Neighborhood: Lake Walker

Location: northern Baltimore

Average sales price: $235,000 (January through June)

Notable features: This neighborhood hard against the city-county line is, architecturally speaking, the opposite of the suburban cul-de-sac where every house looks exactly the same. Here you'll find nineteenth-century farmhouses, modest Depression-era homes, bungalows, brick townhouses, stylish Tudor townhouses (pictured above) and even some homes that could participate in a suburban cul-de-sac exchange program without anyone being the wiser.

There's no lake -- the neighborhood is named after two streets. But the tree-lined Lake Avenue looks awfully nice even without water as a draw.

Lake Walker, bounded on the west by York Road, is within walking distance of a Giant grocery store. Because it's just south of Towson, it's not far from malls, colleges and Interstate 695. But never mind that for a moment. See what I mean about the homes:

Bungalows:

White house, black shutters, lots of windows:

A bit of the suburbs inside city lines (there's even traffic-calming speed humps on the street in front of these homes):

And the tree-lined Lake Avenue:

Janet Abramovitz, president of the Lake Walker Community Association, said the variety of styles among the 770 homes allows for upsizing or downsizing without moving out.

"In fact, we're now on our second house in the neighborhood," said Abramovitz, who moved to Lake Walker in 1996 when she married her husband. Their first place was a small house with a small yard, circa 1930. Now they live in a Gothic-style farmhouse built around 1860 with a "very large yard" that appeals to the gardening couple.

It's not just the property that Abramovitz likes. "It's a kid-friendly, dog-friendly, people-friendly neighborhood," she said. "We have an annual block party, which is just for the neighborhood, which is tons of fun and several hundred people come to that."

She added: "It's such a nice neighborhood in every sense of the word 'neighborhood.'"

Have personal experience with Lake Walker? Do share.

Want to see all the photos I took? Check out the hidden-gem gallery.  

Tomorrow: Lauraville.

(All photographs by Jamie Smith Hopkins / Baltimore Sun)

Neighborhood -- or, in this case, community: Havre de Grace

Location: Harford County

Average sales price: $241,000 (January through June)

Notable features: Water, water, everywhere. Havre de Grace's northeastern boundary is the Susquehanna River, and along its southeastern edge flows the Chesapeake Bay. There's a boardwalk promenade along the river and boats galore, plus a quaint downtown on the National Register of Historic Places.

Some of the homes here are historic and stately. Some are just darn cute. Take a look:

Cute:

You'll see lots of porches:

And neat architectural touches:

And, naturally, boats. Lots of boats. (Plus some waterfront condos, too.)

Beyond old-town Havre de Grace, you'll find newer subdivisions in the 21078 ZIP code with the sorts of homes that fans of suburbia are accustomed to seeing:

While in town, I stopped to chat with artist Debra Moffitt. She was painting a Havre de Grace streetscape that caught her eye:

"It's just a charming scene," said Moffitt, an Arbutus resident participating in a painting contest. "It's sort of iconic of Havre de Grace."

About 13,000 people live in the incorporated part of Havre de Grace. Meghan Simmons, manager of economic development there, said she was attracted to the area by the downtown waterfront. She and her husband live in a Victorian house that's big enough for them plus four apartments.

"There's a lot of really neat Victorians that people have invested [in] and turned them into all hardwood, brick-exposed apartments," she said. "Just a lot of really neat places to rent."

Havre de Grace markets itself as a tourist destination. You can rent kayaks in town, visit museums in unique spaces (a lighthouse and a skipjack sailboat), hike on recreational trails, check out the art galleries or simply stroll along the streets and imagine what the town looked like when it was incorporated in 1785. Its name was suggested three years earlier by the Marquis de Lafayette, who crossed the river by ferry and was struck by a resemblance to Le Havre in France. (Locals translate it as "harbor of grace" or "harbor of mercy.")

Outside the historic district is Bulle Rock, a gated community with a golf course that hosted the LPGA Championship for several years.

If you're looking for a short commute to Baltimore, Havre de Grace isn't the place for you. It's a 40-mile drive to downtown. Wilmington, Del. is several miles closer, in fact. But you don't have to rely on back roads to get where you need to go.

"We are right off 95," Simmons said.

Have personal experience with Havre de Grace? Do share.

Want to see all the photos I took? Check out the hidden-gem gallery.  

Tomorrow: Lake Walker.

(All photographs by Jamie Smith Hopkins / Baltimore Sun)

Q: I’m already a homeowner. If I buy a replacement home to use as my principal residence, do I have to sell my home to qualify for the homebuyer tax credit?

A: If you meet all of the requirements for the credit, the law does not require you to sell or otherwise dispose of your current principal residence to qualify for a credit of up to $6,500 when you buy a replacement home to use as your principal residence. You must buy, or enter into a binding contract to buy, a principal residence on or before April 30, 2010 and close on the home by June 30, 2010. Additionally, you must have lived in the same principal residence for any five-consecutive year period during the eight-year period that ended on the date the replacement home is purchased.

I'm still waiting for an answer to the question that many of you have posed: Is a couple eligible for the $6,500 if only one of the spouses meets the five-year ownership requirement?

Looking for more information about the repeat-buyer tax credit? This link will take you everything I've written on the topic. And here's the link for blog posts on the first-time buyer credit.

Neighborhood: Brewers Hill

Location: Southeast Baltimore

Average sales price: $223,000 (January-June). The cheapest home that sold was $157,000; the most expensive, $271,000.

Notable features: Ask people in the region to name a funky Baltimore neighborhood near the water, and they'll probably come up with Canton. Brewers Hill, its small next-door-neighbor to the east, gets a lot less attention. But it has neatly-kept rowhouses, cool beer-brewing history (wave hello to Mr. Boh, pictured above) and easy access to Canton hot spots without the bustling activity.

As reader EL put it when nominating this neighborhood for gem consideration, "We have all the fun of Canton, but none of the parking headaches or intoxicated frat boys."

Some of the blocks look very much like Canton:

Other rowhouses have an older-Baltimore feel to them, with neat little touches. For instance, stained glass:

Back-yard gardens:

Whimsical decorations, part I:

Whimsical decorations, part II:

And even rowhouse art:

The morning I visited to see if Brewers Hill was as nice as advertised, I stopped to chat with Henry and Judith Flores, who lived there for years. They kept their rowhouse when they moved to Baltimore County, and daughter Christina lives across the street in the house her mother grew up in, so the family has a lot of ties to the neighborhood.

Henry Flores calls it the "forgotten" neighborhood because it's so quiet. "For city living, it's an incredible place," he said. "Here we are, standing in the middle of the road!" (We had a long conversation and never got interrupted by a passing car.)

Judith Flores remembers the days when many of the residents worked at the breweries. "You could always smell the beer," she said. Now the buildings where National Bohemian once was made have been redeveloped into offices and shops that play off their brewery roots:

The mix of residents is different nowadays, too. More young professionals. Fewer families with school-aged children.

"When I was growing up, people lived here their whole lives," Judith Flores said. "Now you have a lot of young people moving in."

Former residents tend to come back to visit, though. The gathering place is often the annual summer carnival at Sacred Heart of Jesus Roman Catholic Church on South Conkling Street.

Got personal experience with Brewers Hill? Please share.

Want to see all the photos I took? Check out the hidden-gem gallery.  

Tomorrow: Havre de Grace.

(All photographs by Jamie Smith Hopkins / Baltimore Sun)

First up on the hidden-gem list: Ashburton.

Location: Northwest Baltimore.

Average sales price: $141,000 (January-June).

Notable features: Beautiful single-family homes -- some brick -- and lots of mature trees. An old-money feel without the price tag. Directly to the south is Hanlon Park, with Lake Ashburton.

A 2002 study of city neighborhoods, prepared by Johns Hopkins University graduate students, called Ashburton "a well-defined enclave in northwest Baltimore that has established itself as the home of Baltimore's black elite." In fact, I almost disqualified Ashburton from this list because I thought it was an unhidden gem, a place most people know about. Until I started asking around and got puzzled looks, that is.

Here's the view down Ellamont Road:

And more Ashburton greenery:

Wonk reader Alonzo LaMont Jr. said in his nomination of the neighborhood, "There are PLENTY of big old homes in this area, and it's very close to Loyola, Hopkins, Notre Dame (even Morgan [State University] is a stone's throw away). People are paying all those big bucks to live in Charles Village (upper and lower), Homewood, and Hampden when they could have alot more house in Ashburton."

When I visited to get photos, I chatted with resident Alfred Nkere and heard how he came to live in Ashburton seven years ago: "One day I was driving in this area and it just struck me," said Nkere, who owns an import-export business. He moved to a street lined with big trees, a place so green and suburban that "we have this idea that we're not in the city."

Nkere, a father of six, said the neighborhood is a good place to raise a family. "We can have the kids play in the back without worrying," he said.

Here he mows his lawn while 6-year-old daughter Amini rolls by:

Another thing Nkere likes about the neighborhood: It's just north of Hilton Street, and thus much quicker by car to Interstate 95 than it might appear.

The Johns Hopkins study notes Ashburton's "architecturally diverse houses," and you've probably gotten some idea of that from the pictures. Here's another example:

Do you have personal experiences with Ashburton? Please share.

Want to see all the photos I took? Check out the hidden-gem gallery.

(All photos: Jamie Smith Hopkins / Baltimore Sun)

Here's hoping for another 10 years at least, assuming the newspaper industry still exists at that point.

On that note: Thanks to everyone who subscribes to a newspaper, whichever one it may be. Newspapers' online offerings -- including blogs -- would not be possible without you.

Six percent said not now, but when the economy's doing well.

Just two percent opted for the straight "no."

And one person felt so strongly about this that he or she skipped over the "yes" option to write in an answer: "Hell yes."

People usually like the idea of having less taxes to pay, so that was a pretty easy question for you all to answer. Now I challenge you to tackle a harder one: What cuts or adjustments should the city make to account for the (at least short-term) drop in revenue? What can the city do to avoid counteracting the "come on in" message of lower taxes with the unwelcome-mat of decreasing quality of services?

Proponents of rate reductions say a big cut would bring more residents, increasing the sources of revenue, but let's assume for this exercise that tens of thousands of people won't immediately drop everything to move in. (Also, you'll want to take into account that the city is already grappling with reduced revenues. Mayor Sheila Dixon announced in September that the city would have to "immediately reduce spending" to deal with a $60 million decline in revenue and state aid.)

Extra points to anyone with an idea more specific than "reduce waste." Here are two proposals from commenters to get you started.

1) Crack down on all homestead cheats by collecting back taxes, penalties, and interest for any years in which property owners were wrongfully claiming the homestead credit.

2) Discourage people from cheating on the homestead credit in the future by pursuing perjury charges against the most blatant cheaters (e.g. those who own multiple properties in the city and claim the credit on all of those properties).

3) Follow Washington DC's lead and raise the property tax rate for all vacant properties by 800% or more. With over 30,000 vacant properties throughout the city, this would seem to be a no-brainer.

Property taxes make up roughly half the general fund revenue. Public safety, education, and pensions/retirement plans make up the #'s 1, 2, and 3 expenses.

Roughly speaking you could trim property tax rates by 30% simply by eliminating pension benefits for government workers. We don't get them in the private sector, so why should they?

Dowlut points out that you can find the Citizens' Guide to the Fiscal 2009 budget here.

And here is the Fiscal Year 2010 budget -- the one we're currently in -- along with the mid-year budget-cutting plan.

Ready, set ... go.

Fiscal Haiku is on Twitter, too.

Here's a housing haiku from a San Diego woman:

Home values are down

Foreclosures are plentiful

I still cannot Buy

I see some Maryland submissions, though none from Baltimore. Here's one from a Greenbelt man:

Work'd for fifty years

401(k), zero K

Work for fifty more

And by a D.C. 'burbs guy:

Lament of the wind -

"Don't spend money you don't have."

"You bloody idjits."

Got one? Share!]]> tag:weblogs.baltimoresun.com,2009:/business/realestate/blog//162.221278 2009-11-13T17:10:19Z 2009-11-13T17:12:13Z

So congratulations, bryanintowson! For identifying the twin neighborhoods of Loch Raven Village and Knettishall, you win due praise, a copy of Our Lot: How Real Estate Came to Own Us by Alyssa Katz and a Real Estate Wonk magnet.

Send a mailing address to jamie.smith.hopkins(at)baltsun.com and I'll ship them your way.

Thanks to you all for playing the guessing game. If you other guessers would like a magnet, email me and I'll send you one, too.