If you're thinking of buying for the first time, you're probably interested in homes priced below $250,000. What are your chances of finding something in that range?

As always, it depends on where you look. The Greater Baltimore Board of Realtors compared homes on the market two weeks ago and found -- to no one's surprise, I'd imagine -- that your odds of finding a place for less than $250k are best in Baltimore. Nearly three-quarters of listings were priced at $250,000 or under in the city.

Baltimore County and Harford County are next on the list for their share of less-pricey homes for sale. Almost half the listings in Baltimore County were $250,000 or under; it was 43 percent in Harford.

It's hardest in Howard County, where 15 percent of sellers were asking $250,000 or less. 

(One asterisk: The Realtors group didn't include homes listed for less than $30,000 in its affordability calculation, figuring there's nothing in that range that's livable as is.) 

Here's a chart I put together with these stats. (Just remember that the percentages don't include the listings under $30,000.)

And here's the under-$200 picture: 

Continue reading "Homes for sale under $250,000: Where are they?" »

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)
Categories: First-time home buyers, Housing stats
        

Live Baltimore's big home-buying fair and tour, Buying Into Baltimore, offers $3,000 as a first-come, first-served incentive to buy a city home. More than 650 have been bought with those sweeteners since the first event in 1998, and they're everywhere -- from Woodberry to Middle East, from Walbrook to Fells Point.

Live Baltimore, a nonprofit that wants folks to take a hint from its name and live in Baltimore, compiled this statistic as it prepares its latest Buying Into Baltimore event, scheduled Sept. 12. (Pre-registration information here.)

The $3,000 -- which can be used toward closing costs or down payment -- is a city loan that turns into a grant after five years. Fifty are up for grabs. Detailed details are here, but in general, buyers qualify by getting homeownership counseling, participating in the event's home tours and buying a place within 90 days afterward. (You don't have to choose one of the 16 homes on the tour, but you do have to buy in the eastern half of Baltimore. The spring fair focuses on the west and the fall fair on the east.)

"Our Buying Into Baltimore program is mostly designed for first-time home buyers," said Anna Custer, executive director of Live Baltimore. "All of those homes we feature ... are under $250."

Many of the participants aren't planning big moves. Nearly three-quarters of the 500 people who showed up for the spring Buying Into Baltimore event were already Baltimore residents.

Some of the out-of-towners were from the Baltimore 'burbs, some from Washington and some from New Jersey. (New Jersey is the home of Fort Monmouth, due to send thousands of jobs to Aberdeen Proving Ground in Harford County as part of base realignment and closure.)

Live Baltimore bused in BRAC relocatees for the spring event. This time, it's got an overnight trip planned with a BRAC-only tour the following day.

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (11)
Categories: First-time home buyers, Housing events
        

Is the price right on homes for sale nowadays? That's a point of great contention, as you'll quickly notice reading the comments on this blog. But one thing's for certain: More and more homes are listed for less than $250,000.

Homes with asking prices below that mark made up 43 percent of the Baltimore metro area's housing market in May, up from 24 percent three years earlier. Total listings in that price range: about 8,150, the highest figure for the month of May since 2001.

More on this in my story today, which you can read here.

What probably won't surprise you is that your under-$250 options are more varied in Baltimore City, Baltimore County and Harford County than in Anne Arundel, Carroll and Howard counties. And there are a lot of foreclosures and short sales in the mix.

Looking to buy (or sell) in the under-$250 range? What trends have you noticed?

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 7:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (28)
Categories: First-time home buyers, Housing stats
        

Local agents say they're seeing a lot of first-time home buyers. This isn't too surprising, since it's an advantage nowadays to not have a home you have to sell first -- plus there's the $8,000 tax credit, an enticement for some first-timers.

But I've been wondering just how much of the Baltimore-area market is made up of prospective homeowners.

When I asked Joseph T. "Jody" Landers III with the Greater Baltimore Board of Realtors, he said: "I've been hearing figures like 50 percent."

That would be high for the metro area. Nationally, the average hovers around 40 percent. And last year, 40 percent of Baltimore County buyers were first-timers, according to National Association of Realtors data that Landers provided to me.

But the city, with its lower prices, always attracts a lot of new buyers: They were 65 percent of the city's housing market last year.

If you're a first-time buyer (or thinking of becoming one), what factors made you decide to make a move? If you've thought about buying and opted against it, what issues turned you off?

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 9:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (33)
Categories: First-time home buyers, Housing stats
        

Have declining home prices and mortgage rates put buying in the reach of more people? Yes, according to a new report -- though the authors say the market downturn hasn't been an affordability bonanza.

Buyers needed a household income of about $79,000 to afford the median-priced home in the Baltimore metro area last year, better than the $88,000 needed in 2007, according to the Center for Housing Policy's Paycheck to Paycheck study. But that still locks out a lot of people in professions that pay less, the center says.

Median household income in the Baltimore metro area was $68,000 in '07, the most recent estimates from the Maryland Department of Planning.

The Paycheck to Paycheck report puts our metro area's median home price at $243,000 last year. Thirty-three metros were pricier, while more than 170 were less expensive. Even though prices fell here last year, we rose in the rankings -- meaning the area is comparatively pricier -- because some metros are shedding value at a much faster pace.

Also, the decrease in income needed to buy a median home is smaller here than in many other parts of the country -- 10.5 percent vs. 14.5 percent nationally. (The report authors assume a 10 percent downpayment and no more than 28 percent of income spent on the mortgage, property taxes and insurance.)

But what about rents? They've gone up in many places. Nationally, rents rose 3.7 percent last year in urban places, the report says.

The HUD-defined "fair market rent" for a two-bedroom unit in the Baltimore area was $1,037 at the end of last year, ranking us 41st among 210 metro areas. First -- and therefore most expensive -- was San Fransisco, at $1,658. The least expensive: Wheeling, W. Va. ($577).

Are rents rising or falling for you renters out there?

And if you're looking to buy, are you noticing any significant change in the types of homes you can afford?

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 10:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)
Categories: First-time home buyers