Delta Associates, a real estate information and consulting firm, counts 2,586 unsold units -- enough to last six-and-a-half years at the current pace of sales. And that's not all:

In addition, there are 1,111 units planned with probable sales within the next 36 months. There are an additional 3,200 units in the long-term pipeline in the Baltimore metro area, as well as 6,100 multifamily units planned as either condominiums or rental units.

All told, builders recorded 32 net sales in the Baltimore metro area during the summer, Delta said. The "net" is important -- it accounts for the negative effect of buyers canceling contracts.

Prices in September fell about 7 percent vs. a year earlier across the metro area. The decline is less in the city -- about 5 percent -- and more than 10 percent in the northern suburbs, Delta said.

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Housing stats
        

Sales in the summer were up about 7 percent from a year earlier in the D.C. region, and there were 5.4 months of inventory -- "below the normal, healthy standard of 6 months, signaling that demand is beginning to outpace supply," the report notes. ("Months of inventory" refers to the time it would take homes listed for sale to find buyers at the current pace of transactions.)

In the Baltimore metro area, sales in the summer rose a bit faster -- about 8 percent from a year earlier. But there's more catch-up to do: 8.8 months of inventory.

Homes are sitting longer on the market here as well: 117 days in the Baltimore area compared with 81 in the Washington area.

The market decline hit our southern neighbor first, and it started to recover first, too. D.C.'s job market is one of the strongest in the nation, which doesn't hurt.

The Delta and MRIS report also shone a spotlight on neighborhoods around BWI, a market between Baltimore and Washington. It offered some illuminating statistics about what exactly is selling.

Continue reading "Housing markets: Baltimore vs. Washington (and BWI)" »

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

Prices in August -- the numbers released Tuesday -- were down about 11 percent from a year ago among the 20 large metro areas Case-Shiller tracks (Washington among them, but not Baltimore). Compare that with a 19 percent year-over-year drop in January. And August prices were up slightly compared with the previous month.

Sean Hannon at the Seeking Alpha blog is not impressed. "If artificially low interest rates, home buyer tax credits, and foreclosure moratoriums could not drive prices higher and lead to a boom in home sales, what hope is there for a stimulus-free recovery?" he asks.

David M. Blitzer, chairman of the index committee at S&P, also had words of caution in a statement released with the numbers. He noted the planned expiration of the first-time buyer tax credit after Nov. 30 and "anticipated higher unemployment rates through year-end."

"Both may have a dampening effect on home prices," Blitzer said.

Forget the analyst-speak and macroeconomics for a moment. What do you want to see to convince you -- as a homeowner or renter -- that the housing market has recovered? Prices no longer dropping? Prices increasing a certain amount? Prices back to their 2006-or-so peaks? Or something else altogether?

And are you holding off on doing something -- buying, selling, renovating, job-hunting -- until you see it?

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (24)
Categories: Housing stats
        

Fewer homes coming into the pipeline, more going out -- that's all to the good for would-be sellers.

We're not back to a pre-bubble balance between new contracts and new for-sale listings, though. Here's a graph that tells the tale, showing stats for the month of September throughout the decade:

Continue reading "Home buying and selling in the Baltimore area" »

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Housing stats
        

North Dakota prices were 2.8 percent higher in the spring than they were a year earlier, according to the most recent figures from the Federal Housing Finance Agency. Prices rose fractionally in three other states: Oklahoma, South Dakota and Maine.

This is according to the FHFA's index tracking same-home sales over time.

Maryland prices, by contrast, fell just under 8 percent over the same period. (Thus endeth the break.) Nevada, the state with the fastest-falling prices, registered a 28 percent drop.

At this point, you might be thinking: North Dakota?! But it makes sense.

That state's unemployment rate is best in the nation -- a low 4.3 percent at a time when U.S. joblessness is flirting with 10 percent. And its home-price increase during the housing-frenzy days wasn't nearly as tremendous as in Maryland, Nevada and many other states.

In spring 2005, when year-over-year prices increased more than 20 percent in Maryland and Nevada, North Dakota's gain was a comparatively sedate 7.7 percent.

I wonder if North Dakota residents are feeling smug right now.

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Housing stats
        

About 10 percent fewer homes were for sale in the Baltimore metro area last month than a year earlier. So says real estate brokerage ZipRealty in a new analysis of data on the multiple-listing service.

That's the direction you want things going if you're rooting for a market where the number of homes and interested buyers are more or less equal.

Not-so-good news: Most of the metro areas ZipRealty tracked in September saw bigger drops.

The company looked at 26 large regions, from Austin to Washington, and said inventory decreased more than 10 percent in all but seven. The number of homes for sale is down by 33 percent -- a full third -- in D.C. And Los Angeles has less than half the inventory now that it did a year ago.

UPDATE: Several readers have suggested making it clear that we're talking about homes listed for sale, as opposed to homes that people would really like to sell but haven't listed or have actually pulled off the market. Seems to me it's not truly for sale if you're not telling anyone about it, but no question there's shadow inventory out there.

Another notable stat from ZipRealty's analysis: The average listing in the Baltimore metro area has had two price reductions. I couldn't find an online link to the inventory report, but the price information is here.

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 7:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)
Categories: Housing stats
        

If there's one assumption about homeownership that was pretty universal before this decade, it's that you'll at least equal your purchase price when you sell. Now, though, many aren't managing that.

In the Baltimore metro area, more than a third of homes bought this decade and resold in the first half of this year went for less than the sellers originally paid for the property. That's not counting closing costs at either end, mind you.

I crunched data from the state Department of Assessments and Taxation to put together this analysis of resold homes. You can read the full story about selling at a loss here.

Want to see more statistics? Go here and here.

Did you sell a home for less or buy a home in this category? Share your tale.

Here's one couple's story:

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 8:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Housing market experiences, Housing stats
        

If yesterday's post about September home sales just whetted your appetite, you can read more in today's story. Included: some of the debate about the $8,000 first-time buyer tax credit, and whether to extend/expand it. (Which reminds me: This week's twin polls about the tax credit close at noon, so vote now if you haven't already.)

One thing I couldn't fit into the story is the newest monthly data from real estate search engine Trulia about price reductions. Compared with other large cities, the percentage of would-be sellers who have reduced their asking prices is fifth-highest in Baltimore. Or we're part of a five-way tie for first, depending on how you look at it.

Memphis, Minneapolis, Portland, Indianapolis and Baltimore all have reduced prices on 36 percent of their listings, but I'm guessing that the (hidden) decimal places explain why Trulia ranked these cities first through fifth.

Lowest among the 50 largest cities: Fresno, Calif., where 14 percent of listings have been price-reduced.

The average reduction in Baltimore is 11 percent, Trulia says. And average sellers in Baltimore last month got 13 percent less than they asked for, according to MRIS, so -- ouch.

Or, if you're a buyer, woohoo.

It really does depend which side of the settlement table you're on, doesn't it?

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Housing stats
        

Home sales rose about 10 percent in the Baltimore metro area in September, compared with a year earlier. That's the fourth straight month of year-over-year gains. Industry players credit the credit -- the $8,000 one for first-time buyers -- and price drops, which make homes more affordable for more people.

Speaking of drops: Average prices fell 7 percent in the metro area vs. a year ago. That's the 16th straight month of declines. The average sale price was about $275,000, less than the average seller got in September 2005 but still more than the '04 average.

Pending deals -- contracts written last month -- jumped 32 percent year-over-year. Buyers hoping to get in by the Nov. 30 tax credit deadline, I presume?

Prices fell across the region, and sales rose everywhere except Baltimore. The city's number of home sales dropped 13 percent. (A few more local details in my quick home sales story here, or see the Metropolitan Regional Information Systems data here.)

What are you noticing out there, market watchers?

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 10:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: Housing stats
        

Home prices in the Baltimore metro area were among the weakest in the nation this summer, but there are some hopeful signs for frustrated sellers, according to a new report by a real estate data firm.

Prices rose a tenth of a percent in the metro area in the four months ending Sept. 25 vs. the previous three months, California-based Clear Capital said. That’s lower than all but two other major housing markets — Las Vegas and Tucson, Ariz.

But you'll notice that prices are up, not down. It’s the first break in price declines for the Baltimore area since the summer of 2007, the report said.

Kevin Marshall, president of Clear Capital, thinks earlier increases in other parts of the country had a psychological effect on Baltimore buyers.

Continue reading "Home prices ... up?" »

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 1:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (10)
Categories: Housing stats, The foreclosure mess
        

For instance, Maryland homeowners think their values fell last year. The typical value residents gave was about $341,000, down 5 percent ($19,000) from the year before. (As the Census Bureau points out, "Value is the respondent's estimate of how much the property ... would sell for if it were for sale." It's not necessarily what it would sell for.)

On the other hand, we're still No. 1! For income, that is. The median household in Maryland was bringing in about $70,500 last year, just topping New Jersey (almost $70,400). What? The difference is within the margin of error, you say? Shh, the New Jersey folks might be listening!

And finally, there's not a lot of living near your work going on. Maryland, Brent Jones reports in a story about the American Community Survey, "had the second longest commute time in the nation at 31.5 minutes, just behind New York with 31.6." I'm disappointed in you all. If only you'd taken a measly seven seconds longer on the daily commute last year, we'd be No. 1 on this measure, too. Come on, guys. Try harder next time.

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: Housing stats, We're No. 1! (Or thereabouts)
        

So the housing market is looking brighter for sellers in Howard County, as I mentioned yesterday. At the current pace of sales, it would take 5.3 months to find buyers for all the Howard homes on the market -- a pretty balanced supply and demand. Tilted slightly in sellers' favor, if anything. (The rule of thumb for market equilibrium is roughly six months, with more being good for buyers and less, good for sellers.)

Baltimore, meanwhile, has more than 15 months of supply, according to Sawbuck Realty.

Now, I realize that anyone of the opinion that Howard County is a nicer place to live than Baltimore will think these statistics require no explanation. But both situations look more complex to me than, say, several thousand people trying to sell their homes in the city and move to the county that James Rouse put on the map. At least, that's the impression I got from burrowing into the sales data.

Continue reading "A tale of two jurisdictions' housing markets" »

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 11:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)
Categories: Housing stats
        

But it's not as if location is irrelevant. Overall in the Baltimore region, supply vs. demand is unbalanced in buyers' favor. Very much so in some spots. And yet, that's not true everywhere. In one county, it seems to be balancing out -- maybe even tipping slightly in favor of sellers.

Yeah, I thought that would get your attention. Can you guess which one?

Continue reading "OK, fine, location matters too" »

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: Housing stats
        

If you like to know how we compare with the rest of the nation, the Brookings Institution's Metropolitan Policy Program has just the report for you: It ranks the 100 largest metro areas on economic and housing-market measures of health.

I wrote a story for today's paper about the economic stats -- we're 18th best, for instance, as measured by the recent change in employment. (As in, it's not as bad here as it is in 82 other places. Woohoo!) The Baltimore metro area was in or near the top quarter of metro areas on most of the economic measurements.

But what about the housing stats? Those are a different story.

Our 5.8 percent drop in home prices in the spring, compared with a year earlier, ranked us 73rd out of 100. (With 100 being worst, at least from a homeowner point of view.)

The metro area was 61st out of 100 for its share of bank-owned homes -- 2.84 for every 1,000 mortgageable properties. (The average for all metro areas was higher, but only because some big regions are so hard hit.) These homes, which were foreclosed on and taken back by lenders, are typically called "REOs" for "real estate owned."

Baltimore's worst ranking on the report: Measured by the change in bank-owned properties from the first quarter of the year to the second quarter, it was 83rd out of 100.

Continue reading "How Baltimore stacks up" »

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 9:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)
Categories: Housing stats, The economy, The foreclosure mess
        

Location, schmocation -- the really interesting trend in the housing market today is about price range.

To wit: Half the homes that sold last month in the Baltimore metro area were under $250,000. A year earlier, it was 42 percent. In August 2007, it was 40 percent.

A year ago, the same number of homes sold for less than $150,000 as sold for $500,000 or more. Last month, a change of fortunes: Buyers snapped up 30 percent more under-$150 homes and 8 percent less in the half-mil range.

So, more people are getting less-pricey homes. But how easy is it to sell one?

Continue reading "Price point, price point, price point" »

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (11)
Categories: Housing stats
        

Just over a third of the homes on the market in Baltimore have had at least one drop in the asking price -- one of the largest shares among large cities. That's according to real estate site Trulia, which regularly compares listings to see how many are reduced.

Among the 50 biggest cities, these had the most homes with price cuts:

1. Jacksonville, Fla. (37 percent)

2. Milwaukee (36 percent)

3. Portland (35 percent) -- tied with Memphis, Tenn.

5. Baltimore (34 percent) -- tied with Indianapolis, Minneapolis and Raleigh, N.C. (Here's an example of a reduced-price city home -- $255,000 off!)

Continue reading "A lot of reduced prices in Baltimore" »

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (10)
Categories: Housing stats
        

Home sales are rising in the Baltimore metro area, but the effect is really focused.

Buyers got 23 percent more homes last month in the under-$250,000 range than they did a year ago, but 9 percent fewer homes above that price mark.

That's one of the nuggets in today's housing-market story. You'll also find a prospective seller who shares the downsides -- and one upside -- of relocating out of state in a tricky housing market.

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 8:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Housing stats
        

Baltimore-area home sales in August were up year-over-year for the third straight month, Metropolitan Regional Information Systems said today. The increase was about 5 percent in the metro area, while average sale prices dropped 7 percent.

August's average -- about $295,000 -- is $14,000 lower than what sellers got four years earlier.

"Your mileage may vary" warning: Some sellers who bought at the peak are seeing a much bigger loss of value. An average is just an average, and it also doesn't account for the homes that are sitting on the market unsold.

That unsold group added up to about 18,700 homes last month. That's down 10 percent from a year earlier -- good news for sellers -- but more than double what it was at the peak of the buying craze in 2005.

Sales, meanwhile, are down 54 percent from the level set in August 2005.

On the upside, pending deals that buyers and sellers agreed to last month rose 25 percent from a year ago. I sense a mad rush to close by Nov. 30, when the $8,000 tax credit for first-time buyers is supposed to expire.

More on this in tomorrow's story. Stay tuned.

What are you noticing about the housing market nowadays?

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 5:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)
Categories: Housing stats
        

Still, if $250,000 is your ceiling, you could look at it as a glass-quarter-full sort of deal and check out the one-in-four ZIPs that are in your price range.

Here's the list, which shows sales averages for the first half of the year:

Continue reading "The not-so-expensive 'burbs" »

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 8:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Housing stats
        

Sometimes, though, you just want to know where to find the comparatively inexpensive places. You know, with the homes you might actually be able to afford.

Here's a list for you. Today, city neighborhoods. Tomorrow, the world! (The part of the world that includes the Baltimore suburbs, anyway.)

Continue reading "The not-so-expensive neighborhoods" »

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Housing stats
        

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
        

Yesterday's post highlighted the most expensive ZIP codes in the metro area. But what, you asked, about city neighborhoods? (Some of you asked more nicely than others. Sheesh, folks, you can catch more flies with honey than vinegar. Not, er, that I'm comparing myself to a fly.)

As it happens, I had a city Top 10 all ready to go. So you would have received even if you hadn't asked, but it's nice to know you're chomping at the bit.

Today's story about expensive places has a map showing the five most expensive city neighborhoods on top of the 10 priciest ZIPs. But hey -- I'll throw in five more at no extra charge.

Without further ado, the most expensive Baltimore neighborhoods, ranked by average sale price in the first half of the year:

1. Homeland. Average price: $549,900. (Number of homes sold: 13.)

2. Roland Park. Average price: $487,300. (Number of homes sold: 17.)

3. Guilford. Average price: $471,200. (Number of homes sold: 16.)

4. Inner Harbor. Average price: $423,800. (Number of homes sold: 16.)

5. Otterbein. Average price: $361,700. (Number of homes sold: 10.)

Read on for the rest of the top 10: 

Continue reading "Priciest city neighborhoods" »

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)
Categories: Housing stats
        

Now, I know many of you don't intend to buy an expensive home, but admit it -- you're interested. If only in a "my gosh who can afford such a place" way. So naturally you're curious to know which communities in the Baltimore area are the priciest. 

I have just the Top 10 list for you.

10. Towson in Baltimore County. ZIP code: 21204. Average price: $500,300. (Number of homes sold: 52.)

9. Riva in Anne Arundel County. ZIP code: 21140. Average price: $531,900. (Number of homes sold: 21.)

8. Phoenix in Baltimore County. ZIP code: 21131. Average price: $542,200. (Number of homes sold: 25.)

7. West River in Anne Arundel County. ZIP code: 20778. Average price: $587,100. (Number of homes sold: 8.)

6. Fulton in Howard County. ZIP code: 20759. Average price: $621,800. (Number of homes sold: 19.)

Read on for the top five.

Continue reading "Most expensive communities in the Baltimore area" »

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 7:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (25)
Categories: Housing stats
        

As in, "it'll take six months to sell all the homes now on the market at the current pace of sales."

During the first half of the year, the Baltimore metro area's supply averaged 11.5 months.

"As that number approaches six, we'll start to see stabilization in pricing," said Kenneth Wenhold, director of the Mid-Atlantic region for Metrostudy, a housing-market research firm. "When Northern Virginia broke the six mark, we saw things change very dramatically in a very short period of time. ... They were at about 10.4 months two years ago, and it only took them about nine months to get down to a six months' supply."

Could that happen farther north?

Continue reading "What a balanced housing market looks like" »

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)
Categories: Housing stats
        

I crunched so many numbers, my teeth hurt.

There's lots to see besides the story:

--Maps (showing the change in metro-area sales and prices, and the same for city neighborhoods) by cartographer extraordinaire Christine Schoenberg, who gave up part of her vacation to pull everything together in time.

--A video about recent home buyer Will Cocks, who moved from Bowie to Baltimore. Thanks to multimedia whiz Christopher Assaf for piecing my raw footage into something watchable.

--A photo gallery showing the place Amy Lincoln MacDonald and Paul MacDonald sold in Glen Burnie and the one they bought in Lauraville, along with Cocks moving into his Greenmount West home. Photography by the excellent Kenneth K. Lam and Karl Merton Ferron.

--A nifty online search tool, put together by web guru Lauren Custer, that lets you see how many homes sold in your ZIP code, for how much and how trends changed from a year ago.

--An Excel file showing home-sale trends in city neighborhoods. In that file you'll find worksheets with the neighborhoods ordered alphabetically, by price change and by sales change. (There's also a clickable city map that lets you see which neighborhood is which, put together on short notice by the inestimable Kevin Richardson.)

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: Housing stats
        

If you want to know how many homes have been sold in a particular area, you look at settlements. But if you want to know how many homes will be sold, you've got something better than tea-leaves -- you've got pending deals.

The number of buyers signing contracts last month (with or without contingencies) rose throughout the Baltimore area vs. a year earlier, according to Metropolitan Regional Information Systems. That includes Baltimore, which was still seeing a drop in completed sales last month.

Here's how pending deals stacked up last month compared with July 2008:

Carroll County, up 31 percent

Anne Arundel County, up 26 percent

Howard County, up 22 percent

Harford County, up 16 percent

Baltimore City and Baltimore County, both up 8 percent

Contracts don't always turn into sales -- something could go wrong, like a loan falling through. But they're a clear intention to buy.

I was surprised to see that the counties posting the biggest increases in pending deals were also the most expensive in the region, on average. Much of the action is in first-time-buyer markets, and you'd think that first-time buyers would have an easier time finding affordable homes in the city and Baltimore and Harford counties. 

But maybe buyers are uncovering deals in pricier communities. Of the completed sales in Carroll last month, 36 percent were under $250,000. A year earlier, it was 26 percent.

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (13)
Categories: Housing stats
        

The city ranks 11th for its percentage of homes with reductions, which Trulia calculated by seeing how many current listings -- not including foreclosures -- dropped their prices between Aug. 1, 2008 and Aug. 1 of this year.

The average price drop? Eleven percent.

Some of those individual decreases are steep. This three-bedroom Northwest Baltimore rowhouse that went from $75,000 -- its purchase price in 2006 -- to $30,000, for instance. Or this rehabbed Patterson Place home, down 31 percent to $110,000.

Jacksonville, Fla. topped Trulia's list with asking-price cuts on 38 percent of homes for sale. But sellers' reductions were biggest in economically depressed Detroit, down 22 percent on average.

Price reductions might bring buyers to the table, but that doesn't guarantee that those buyers won't offer still less. Average sellers in Baltimore got 89 percent of their asking price last month, according to Metropolitan Regional Information Systems.

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Housing stats
        

More interesting stats -- and economist forecasts -- in today's story about the Baltimore-area housing market. C'mon, you know you want to read it.

For all you nice folks who've already been there and done that, here are new statistics from Zillow's second-quarter Real Estate Market Report:

Continue reading "July home sales and Zillow's take on the local market" »

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)
Categories: Housing stats
        

This ain't '05, of course. Average prices fell 6.8 percent in July, to just under $298,000. Four years ago, prices were rising at a 20 percent clip.

Prices fell across the Baltimore area in July, from 5.5 percent in Carroll County to almost 11 percent in Harford County.

But what about sales, you say? Buyers closed on 2,240 homes in the city and surrounding counties last month, up nearly 10 percent from a year earlier. That follows a 2 percent increase in June vs. the year before.

The increase wasn't quite universal. Home sales rose in the suburbs, particularly in Howard County (up 27 percent). But 8 percent fewer homes changed hands in the city last month, according to MRIS.

Do you think the federal government's first-time homebuyer tax credit is fueling sales? What will happen when the credit expires Nov. 30 -- assuming it's not extended?

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 10:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)
Categories: Housing stats
        

There's a lot of woohoo-ing over the news that sales of new homes in the U.S. rose 11 percent in June, compared with the month before. "The worst of the housing recession is now behind us," David Resler, chief economist at Nomura Securities, told The Associated Press.

This may be. Certainly there are other hopeful signs, even amidst the dour news of layoffs. But you probably don't want to hang your hat on that 11 percent increase because the federal government estimate comes with a big asterisk: plus or minus 13.2 percent.

That's right: Home sales might have increased 11 percent, or maybe they're up 24.2 percent or down 2.2 percent. As the press release helpfully notes, "The Census Bureau does not have sufficient statistical evidence to conclude that the actual change is different from zero." In wonk-speak, that means the change is not "statistically significant."

The change in new-home sales from a year ago is big enough that the Census Bureau is comfortable that it's not zero. But that estimate is a 21.3 percent drop.

Hmm ... what's the opposite of woohoo? Oh yes.

Doh!

Economists seem to be hanging their hat on the trend, which is positive for the past three months. Not considering the margin of error, of course.

I was hoping for something a bit more hopeful, and also more local, so I turned to new-home permits issued in June. (The federal government tracks that measure of planned construction in our area as well as nationally.) Builders got permits for 442 units in the Baltimore metro area, down 16 percent from a year ago.

Now, I realize that doesn't sound like a woohoo-worthy statistic -- unless you're in favor of less building -- but it's a much smaller drop than the one nationwide. U.S. new-home permits fell 37 percent, according to the government's unadjusted numbers.

And new-home permits in the metro area actually rose a tiny bit in May vs. a year earlier, up by 9 units.

I don't know if it's something to hang your hat on, but it's worth noting.

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

Here are two stats to cheer up would-be home sellers: Sixteen percent more properties were under contract last month in the Baltimore metro area than a year ago, and 10 percent fewer were on the market jostling for buyers' attention.

The biggest increase in pending deals came in Howard and Carroll counties (both up 26 percent), followed by Anne Arundel County (up 23 percent), Baltimore City (up 13 percent), Baltimore County (up 12 percent) and Harford County (up 1 percent). The raw numbers come from Metropolitan Regional Information Systems via the Maryland Association of Realtors.

Howard's inventory of homes for sale dropped 17 percent from a year ago. The decrease ranged from 8 percent to 10 percent in the rest of the metro area.

Many pending deals come with contingencies, so they won't necessarily get to settlement. But the figure is a useful bellwether. The increase in home sales last month was preceded by an increase in pendings.

If this is a sign of the long-awaited "bottom" in home sales, the Maryland side of the Washington metro area is farther along than we are: Add up Frederick, Montgomery and Prince George's counties, and pending deals were up 63 percent last month.

Together, those three counties had fewer pending deals a year ago than the Baltimore metro area. Now they have more -- 2,759 to our 2,723.

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)
Categories: Housing stats
        

The typical household in the Baltimore metro area earns about $71,000. Buyers getting a low-down-payment FHA mortgage can comfortably afford a $250,000 house with today's rates as long as they make at least $65,000, by themselves or as part of a couple.

Some of you took issue with the "comfortably" that's placed oh-so-innocently right before "afford." Reader Jay, noting property taxes and other housing costs, wrote: "Wouldn't a $250K home in Baltimore City end up in monthly payments of 50% plus of a $71K income? Isn't that how the country ended up in the housing crisis that it's in -- people spending way more than they should on their homes?"

No question, Jay, that was a big part of the problem. (Also cash-out refinancing, but that's another story.) More about the "comfortably" in a moment. First, here's how I calculated affordability:

Continue reading "What's 'affordable'?" »

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 12:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (18)
Categories: Housing market experiences, Housing stats
        

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
        

Home sellers have reduced their asking prices on 25 percent of properties for sale in Baltimore, real estate search engine Trulia says. That's the same as the national average, and less than the number of city listings last month that had at least one reduction.

Average price drop: 10 percent, or $28,192. (You can see those listings here.)

Baltimore was noted in Trulia's press release as one of the cities with a "significant" decrease in the percentage of listings with price declines -- last month, it was 30 percent. 

"All real estate is local and we’re seeing glimmers of hope as price stabilization occurs in major cities across the nation, including some of the earliest hit cities that have experienced huge declines in the past few years," said Pete Flint, Trulia co-founder and CEO. "On the flip side, perhaps sellers are pricing their homes more rationally to get them off the market as soon as possible."

Trulia, which crunched other local numbers for me, said the rest of the metro area has a greater share of listings with price reductions than the city. As of last week, it was 26 percent in Howard, 27 percent in Harford, 29 percent in Carroll, 31 percent in Baltimore County and 32 percent in Anne Arundel.

But the average reduction amount was smaller in the counties, Trulia said: 9 percent in both Anne Arundel and Baltimore counties, 8 percent in both Carroll and Howard counties and 7 percent in Harford County.

What really struck me was the pricey end of the market -- $1 million or more -- had a smaller share of reduced listings locally. That's especially true in Carroll, where Trulia found just 5 percent of $1-million-plus homes with slashed asking prices. On the other hand, those pricey-property price reductions really add up. (Average reduction on the million-plus homes in Carroll: 12 percent, or just over $400,000.)

Nationally, the percentage of listings with price reductions was practically the same above and below the $1 million mark, Trulia said.

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (11)
Categories: Housing stats
        

"Prices have more to fall, given the high level of foreclosure, but sales and construction, I think, are at bottom," Zandi said. "And part of it is related to much-improved affordability."

Zandi's not expecting much in the way of sales gains, though. Just the promise of some stability after years of retrenching.

"As long as the job market is sinking, it's hard to imagine home sales taking off to any considerable degree," he said.

 

A smaller drop for our area, then, but Zandi expects it will be over sooner for the U.S.: the third quarter of next year, compared with a first-quarter 2011 bottom in prices for the Baltimore metro area.

Here's what he had to say about our market and its price outlook:

"It's certainly been hit hard, but it's held up much better than I thought it would through this period. It may be that I've been overly pessimistic. The region's economy has actually held up reasonably well given the severity of the national downtown. That may go to the preponderance of health-care activities in the region, which is the one industry nationwide which has continued to do reasonably well.

"It may also suggest, though, that Baltimore house prices don't start rising to any significant degree for longer. Prices didn't come down as much as I thought, so that means affordability hasn't improved as much as I would have hoped for. ... Prices need to fall a bit more to sufficiently restore affordability based on incomes and effective rents in the Baltimore metro area."

What's the magic number? He thinks an affordable median price for the metro area is around $210,000 to $220,000. Right now, as measured by MRIS, it's $250,000.

Thoughts?

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 1:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)
Categories: Housing forecasts, Housing stats
        

Cue the debate on whether this is a blip -- as January '07 was -- or the start of a trend. (I talked to economist Mark Zandi for tomorrow's story, so you'll get to hear his opinion soon.)

Speaking of debate: The folks who run The Baltimore Sun's Twitter account started one -- unintentionally -- when they tweeted my web story with this teaser: "A glimmer of hope: Baltimore-area sales rise for 1st time since Jan. '07. The bad news? Average prices still falling."

Yup, you know what happened. As one person responded, "dont see why its a neg that avg home sale prices are falling."

It's not great news for people underwater on their mortgages, that's for sure, but falling prices make the housing market more affordable for first-time buyers. And when buyers buy, sellers can move on with their lives.

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 11:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (11)
Categories: Housing stats
        

The conclusion: It takes a while to get back to where prices were before they started falling, at least if you're accounting for inflation.

FHFA’s Metropolitan Statistical Area and Division (MSA) indexes suggest that the time from peak to trough tends to be about 3¾ years, whereas the median recovery period (from trough to prior peak) was 6⅔ years.

The agency offers words of caution about trying to apply this to the current situation, noting that differences between the price escalation this decade and previous ones could make for limited "applicability." Take a look at the warning, because it seems to me to imply that this downturn could well be worse:

The economic drivers of price increases during the boom period in the early 2000s differed from the drivers of prior market booms, and the magnitude of recent price increases has generally been larger. Also, ... most of the larger historical downturns were caused by sharp increases in unemployment rates and shocks to personal income.  Although the U.S. economy has experienced such conditions in the last year, those factors were not among the precipitants of the latest downturn, which began in 2006, well before the financial crisis erupted in the third quarter of 2007 and the recession began in the fourth quarter of 2007.

So what were some of the previous boom-busts? Texas offers one example. It benefited richly from the 1970s oil crises. But when oil prices fell, so did Texas employment -- and Texas home prices. And this was no 10-year recovery, either:

Prices peaked in the first quarter of 1982 and then declined steadily.  Prices bottomed out in the first quarter of 1997 after losing 33 percent of their value.  Texas’ real estate prices have yet to fully recover and now are roughly 15 percent below their prior peak.

You read that right: Twenty-seven years after its housing downturn started, Texas prices are lower -- in today's dollars -- than they were in 1982. I'm guessing that helps explain why the state isn't (as of yet) seeing a dramatic decrease in prices in this national downturn.

Thoughts?

A postscript about inflation:

The report -- "A Brief Examination of Previous House Price Declines" -- tries to account for the rising cost of living by adjusting prices for inflation. This acknowledges that a house worth $300,000 today is less valuable than a house worth $300,000 five years ago, since you can't buy as much food, gas, etc. with the $300k nowadays if you convert it into cash. It's good to know how prices have changed in today's dollars if you want to compare housing to other types of investments.

On the other hand, plenty of homeowners just want to know if they can sell their home for at least as much as they bought it for. And if they do sell, they generally plan to convert any extra cash into a down payment for another home.

That's partly why I'm conflicted about adjusting historical home prices to reflect today's dollars. Two other reasons: The Consumer Price Index includes the cost of housing, and not all economists think the CPI accurately measures the rising cost of things.

But this new report uses the CPI-minus-shelter, so it's not (cue sigh of relief) adjusting home prices with a measure that includes home prices.

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 1:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Housing history, Housing stats
        

Mirabella notes this in a story about lead contractor Bovis Lend Lease petitioning for a lien because it says the developer has missed $1.37 million in payments. Subcontractors aren't happy either, as you might imagine. (Developer Midtown Baltimore, in a statement about the Bovis petition, said it is "working closely with them to complete the close-out process and to amicably settle any outstanding matters in a timely manner.")

It's not an easy time to sell expensive homes, and these are definitely upscale for our area, complete with valet attendants and doormen. When the first residents moved into the Ritz condos last summer, the units were priced from the upper $800,000s to $5 million, Mirabella reports.

I took a look at homes in the Baltimore metro area listed for $800,000 or more through Metropolitan Regional Information Systems last month. There were 1,384. Home sales in that price range? Thirty-three. If that pace continues, it would take three-and-a-half years to move all currently for-sale $800,000-plus homes into buyers' hands.

Is this a reflection of difficulties in the jumbo mortgage industry? Of concerns about the economy (including stock portfolios)? Of too few people who can sell their not-quite-so-expensive homes and move up? Or is it just about too few people who have the money to buy upscale, period?

The answer is important for a development like the Ritz. Because the million -- or rather $1.37 million -- question for the developer is this: Will the condos do well when the economy improves, or are they ill-suited for the Baltimore market?

I'm not claiming to know. What do you think?

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 10:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (19)
Categories: Housing stats, New developments
        

Because the stats go back to 1998, you can track pre- and post-bubble activity in the neighborhoods you're most interested in.

Live Baltimore is using property transfer data. That means these figures include sales that weren't on the multiple list and don't get picked up by Metropolitan Regional Information Systems.

See any notable trends? Do share.

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 3:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Housing stats
        

So the good news -- for those of you muttering "come on, market stabilization, come on already" -- is that home sales in the Baltimore metro area didn't fall nearly as much in May as the drops we've become accustomed to seeing.

Sales were down 8.5 percent from a year earlier, one of the smallest decreases since sales started slumping in the fall of 2005, according to real estate listing service Metropolitan Regional Information Systems.

A sign that a bottom in buying is near? Or just a temporary bump from government efforts to inject life into the housing market, including the $8,000 new-buyer tax credit? I'll let you good folks argue it out (though I probably won't be able to put up any of your comments until tonight).

In the meantime, here are some of the things that struck me about local home sales in May:

--The average sales price in the metro area, $280,000, has dropped to what the average buyer paid four years earlier. (For those of you saying, "Yeah, great, but what was it in May 2000": about $157,000.)

--The drop in average price from a year earlier -- 11.4 percent -- is the second-largest on record. The largest? April's 13.5 percent. (Keep in mind that the record, where MRIS figures are concerned, only goes back to the late 1990s.)

--Though the sales slump moderated, the number of deals that closed last month was still unusually low. Buyers picked up 1,930 homes, down from 2,100 and the smallest number on record. From 1999 to 2007, May was consistently a 3,000-plus month for sales.

--Home sales didn't drop everywhere. They rose a tiny bit (three extra homes!) in Anne Arundel County and stayed stable in Carroll County vs. a year earlier. But home sales fell about 4.5 percent in Baltimore County, about 14 percent in both Harford and Howard counties and more than 17 percent in Baltimore City.

Lorraine Mirabella has more in this housing-market story. (One economist calls a near-bottom to the sales slump but expects that prices will continue to slide into next year.)

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 6:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (13)
Categories: Housing stats
        

Real estate search engine Trulia recently analyzed homes for sale to see how many are priced lower now than they were within the last year. Baltimore was one of a dozen cities with asking-price drops on at least 30 percent of listings. (Precisely 30 percent in Baltimore's case. The average reduction here? Ten percent, close to the national average.)

Trulia just sent me stats on the rest of the metro area. Here they are:

Sellers have dropped their asking prices on 34 percent of listings in Anne Arundel and Carroll counties, 32 percent of listings in Baltimore County, 31 percent of listings in Harford County and 30 percent of listings in Howard County.

The average price reduction was 8 percent in all the counties except Anne Arundel, which saw a 10 percent drop. That's not chump change for the sellers: The average decrease in Baltimore County was $33,000, and it was more than $40,000 in pricey Anne Arundel and Howard counties. (Time will tell whether it's enough to interest buyers.)

Some of the price drops are pretty darn large. Trulia offered as one example this home in Towson. The asking price was more than $1.6 million in the middle of April, according to the website, and several drops later is $998,500.

Trulia's analysis does not include foreclosure listings, but there's clearly an impact from those homes. In a press release, the company says:

The national average for price reductions on current home listings is 10.6 percent, but sellers in the areas hardest hit by foreclosures are slashing prices the most. Detroit home owners on average reduce their homes by 23 percent, while Las Vegas sellers reduce their homes by 16 percent and Miami sellers reduce their homes by 15 percent. Phoenix and Mesa are also experiencing deep price reductions with 13 percent slashed off the original listing price. 

Some of these reductions are a bit here, a bit there, a bit more again, etc. It's probably psychologically easier on the homeowners than one big decrease. But is it helpful?

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 8:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (19)
Categories: Housing stats
        

Winter of home sellers' discontent? Maryland's drop in home prices in the months of January through March was sixth-largest in the country, according to new federal figures.

But there is one ray of sunshine there for anyone who sees price drops as bad news.

The 10 percent decline -- compared with the first three months of 2008 -- wasn't as steep an annual decrease as Maryland home prices saw last fall, the Federal Housing Finance Agency says. Prices were down almost 13 percent then. That was the biggest year-over-year drop in Maryland in at least 17 years, as far back as the agency's seasonally adjusted, purchase-only index goes.

FHFA -- the agency whose predecessor was OFHEO -- tracks repeat transactions of the same single-family homes to try to avoid the apples-to-oranges comparisons that can crop up when averaging all sales over time. It's based off Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgages, though, so it doesn't represent the entire market.

Yeah, yeah, you say, enough of the wonk-stuff. Who dropped more than Maryland?

1. Nevada, down 31 percent

2. Florida, down 22.5 percent

3. California, down 22 percent

4. Arizona, down 19.5 percent

5. D.C., down 15 percent

The rest of the country dropped less than 10 percent. Alaska, Oklahoma, North Dakota and South Dakota saw increases. (Alaska's was almost 5 percent, but the rest were tiny.)

Home prices in Nevada, Florida and California -- prime housing-bubble states -- are now below what they were five years ago. Same with economically struggling Michigan and a few other states.

Maryland? It's 22 percent above its five-year-ago mark. Fifteen other states are higher than that; the rest are lower.

The FHFA, which also tracks metros, says prices in the Baltimore area dropped about 8 percent. Again, that's the purchase-only index. Throw in refinancing, and the value drop is about 6.5 percent.

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 10:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)
Categories: Housing stats
        

Analyze same-home sales, on the other hand, and you're getting somewhere.

That's just what The Washington Post has done for D.C.-area jurisdictions, including two that the Baltimore area claims, Anne Arundel and Howard counties. The newspaper found that only 38 percent of home sellers who bought in 2000 or later made a profit in the first three months of this year, vs. almost everyone who sold in 2005.

You can see the graphic here and the story here.

It's not a simple matter to compare same-home sales over an entire metro area, but you can do it with data culled from jurisdictions. Analyzing this for the Baltimore area has been on my to-do list for a while, but a couple of things interceded. The financial meltdown, first of all. Then a baby. (Not that I'm complaining about the baby. She's wonderful.) I'm hoping to make some progress on this to-do item once I'm back at work.

You can help me out: If you've sold a home this year, let me know how it compared with the price you bought it for.

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 1:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Housing stats
        

Kevin over at the Baltimore Housing Bubble blog has new graphs up showing 10 years of housing statistics -- sales, prices and more across the state.

I figured the graph lovers among you might want to check it out.

Comparing all months makes it easier to see that the 1,632 homes sold in the Baltimore metro area last month -- spring, when buyers kick it up a notch -- was a lot like the number of homes sold in January in years before the market frenzy hit here. (January 1999: 1,642 homes sold.) And January is always a low-sales month, usually vying with February for the lowest point of the year.

Maryland as a whole shows a similar pattern.

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 11:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)
Categories: Housing stats
        

Home sales in Maryland are still falling -- they were down 10 percent last month from a year earlier. But buyers had contracts on about 500 more homes than they did a year ago, pending deals that will later turn into sales if all goes well. That's a 9 percent increase, according to the Maryland Association of Realtors.

As was true in March, much of the increased activity is in counties around Washington. Prince George's, Frederick and Montgomery topped the list, all with pending-sale increases of more than 30 percent. (Deals in Prince George's were up 54 percent.)

But some Baltimore-area counties saw a pickup, too. Pending sales rose 14 percent in Howard, 13 percent in Anne Arundel and 2 percent in Carroll. (They fell 1 percent in Harford, 4 percent in Baltimore County and 9 percent in Baltimore City.)

Active inventory -- the number of unsold homes jostling for buyers' attention -- fell 10 percent in the state vs. a year earlier. Again, much of the thinning out came in Washington-area counties. Most of the Baltimore area saw single-digit decreases. But they were decreases, which is better for would-be sellers than the alternative.

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 6:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (14)
Categories: Housing stats
        

Baltimore-area single-family home prices in the first three months of the year were down about 9 percent from a year earlier, which is middle of the pack among U.S. metro areas. That's according to numbers out this morning from the National Association of Realtors.

Most places in (or partially including) Maryland saw bigger decreases. Hagerstown prices declined 13 percent. Washington prices plummeted 25 percent.

But Cumberland -- in mountainous Western Maryland -- topped the nation with a reported gain of 21 percent.

The overall decline in the U.S. was almost 14 percent, the NAR said. The trade group said half the homes sold during the first quarter of the year went to first-time buyers, and nearly half were "deeply discounted" foreclosures or short sales. (I'm guessing there's some overlap between the distress sales and the homes sold to first-timers.)

The NAR, which also released transaction numbers by state, said home sales dropped 12 percent in Maryland from a year earlier. That's better than 32 other states and D.C., a heartening change (from a seller's perspective) from the days when Maryland sales were dropping faster than just about everywhere else.

Still, six states reported sales gains over the year. Most of them are the ones battered by big price drops and foreclosure inventories. Sales in Nevada more than doubled, according to the NAR, while they rose 80 percent in California and 50 percent in Arizona.

Also on the increased-sales list: Florida, Minnesota and Virginia. Our neighbor to the south saw sales rise 12 percent.

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 10:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)
Categories: Housing stats
        

Average home prices really took a beating in the Baltimore metro area last month, or at least that's what new figures from Metropolitan Regional Information Systems suggest. Prices fell more than 13 percent, which as Lorraine Mirabella points out in this story is the biggest year-over-year drop since MRIS began tracking the region in March 1999.

Here's the change in average price and in sales by jurisdiction vs. a year earlier, with figures rounded to spare your eyes:

Anne Arundel Co., down 12 percent in price and down 16 percent in sales

Baltimore City, down 22 percent in price and down 13 percent in sales

Baltimore Co., down 14 percent in price and down 20 percent in sales

Carroll Co., down 16 percent in price and up (yes -- up) 19 percent in sales

Harford Co., down 10 percent in price and down 30 percent in sales

Howard Co., down 9 percent in price and down 13 percent in sales

The city's 22 percent plunge puts the average there at $143,000. That's back to April 2005 levels. (By contrast, Baltimore's average was $183,000 in April of last year.) The drop in city sales is a bit better than in March and a lot better than in February.

Carroll's 16 percent decline in price brings its average down to just under $271,000. That's on par with April 2004 -- five years ago. Its month-of-April price peaked in 2005 at $352,000.

The sizable jump in the percentage of homes sold in Carroll actually works out to just 18 more properties changing hands, which gives you an idea of how far sales have fallen in that county. But a sales increase is a sales increase.

Do last month's statistics suggest a break in the stalemate between sellers who want their asking price and buyers unwilling to pay it? I'm curious to hear whether these changes in average price reflect what you're seeing in your neighborhood or the neighborhoods to which you're paying attention.

The inventory of unsold homes across the metro area is still high -- 18,700, or about 11 places with "For Sale" signs in the yard for every one that changed hands last month. Nearly 4,600 homes hit the market last month while 2,600 deals were pending.

But people trying to sell can take heart that at least we're closer to equilibrium than a year earlier, when the same number of contracts were signed but 1,000 additional homes hit the market.

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 9:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)
Categories: Housing stats
        

Eighteen percent of home sales in the Baltimore metro area in the last year were "distress" transactions -- either foreclosures or short sales. So says a new report from Zillow, the real estate information site. 

That's not helping prices any. Home values in the first three months of the year dropped 11.5 percent vs. the same period in '08, according to Zillow. That's a decline to early '05 levels of about $252,000, though the decreases vary depending on the type of house. Cheaper properties shed 7 percent of value while the priciest homes lost twice as much, the company says.

That matches up with Zillow's estimates of how local jurisdictions fared. Baltimore City home values dropped the least -- about 6 percent vs. a year ago -- while expensive Howard County declined the most (16 percent).

The company relies on its "Zestimates," which means these figures are estimates of all home values, not just the price of recently sold properties.

Home values declined faster nationally than they did in the metro area, dropping about 14 percent, Zillow says.

Other stats:

--Nearly 14 percent of homeowners in the Baltimore metro area are "underwater," their property values having dropped below the amount they owe on their mortgages. That's depressing, but Zillow estimates that the percentage of U.S. homeowners in the same situation is 22 percent.

--As you might guess, people who bought in 2006 and 2007 are the most likely to be underwater. More than half the Baltimore-area homeowners of that vintage -- the ones with mortgages, at least -- owe more on their loans than their properties are worth, according to Zillow.

--Folks who bought in the Baltimore area in 2004 are (as a group) still doing all right. Zillow says the typical '04 buyer has equity of almost $60,000.

--Homes in the metro area are collectively worth $30 billion less than they were a year ago, Zillow says.

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 3:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)
Categories: Housing stats, The foreclosure mess
        

These are the states:

Nevada: -26.65 percent

California: -26.53 percent

Arizona: -21.11 percent

Florida: -19.68 percent

Rhode Island: -19.46 percent

Washington state: -12.66 percent

Illinois: -11.90 percent

Maryland: -11.62 percent

Oregon: -11.15 percent

Massachusetts: -10.26 percent

Virginia: -10.24 percent

The company said in a press release: "Although prices declines are beginning to stabilize for the very high depreciation markets, the price trends among a next tier of states that are experiencing double digit declines is worsening." It includes Maryland in that "next tier."

You can find the price changes mapped here.

In the Baltimore metro area, meanwhile, the company says prices have dropped about 9.7 percent.

"Over one-fifth of U.S. housing wealth has vanished and home prices continue to decline. Decreases are now being driven by rising unemployment and a high volume of distressed home sales. Given that home prices are generally a lagging indicator of market health, we believe the largest declines have already taken place, but we expect home prices to continue to decline into 2010 as economic conditions and excess housing inventories dampen prices," said Mark Fleming, chief economist for First American CoreLogic.

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 9:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Housing stats
        

First interesting number: 11.9 percent. That was the "national mover rate" in the United States last year, a record low. The Census Bureau has tracked the rate since 1948. (The actual number of people moving was 35.2 million, down 3.5 million from the year before "and the smallest number of residents to move since 1962.")

Second interesting number: 34.1 percent. That's the share of people defaulting on Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac loans in January who gave "curtailment of income" as the reason, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency. "Excessive obligations" came in next at 19.8 percent, followed by unemployment (8.1 percent), illness (6.5 percent) and marital problems (3.5 percent). (Those were the most common reasons, but there were others.)

Third interesting number: $16.3 million. That's how much K Bank, an Owings Mills company that a number of rehabbers turned to for loans, lost during the fourth quarter. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said Friday that it has required the bank to "stop issuing construction and development loans and raise more capital," Andrea K. Walker reports today.

Fourth interesting number -- OK, numbers: $360,000, $360,000 and $420,000. That's how much Scots Glen condos sold for at auction yesterday after a lender foreclosed on builder Dale Thompson, according to Realtor Pat Hiban. Hiban says on his blog:

The 420k was the former model with 4 finished levels and an elevator. The model was last listed at 740k and the other two were in the mid 600's. ...

The lots in Highland drew even more bidders. Out of the 7 lots for sale, 4 sold at prices acceptable to the bank. The sale prices on the lots were 250k,255k,290k and 295k. The other 3 got bids of 150-180k and Columbia Bank chose not to accept those. It was quite an experience and it was good to see so many serious buyers there in earnest.

At one point the auctioneer yelled out "These are going for way less than the market!!!" and the guy next to me yelled back "Your looking at the market buddy!!! This is your market, right here right now!!!"

Thanks to David Hobby for pointing out Hiban's post -- I would have missed it otherwise.

Have other interesting housing-related numbers to share? Comment away.

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 10:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)
Categories: Housing stats, New developments, The foreclosure mess
        

In the ongoing debate about housing affordability, people argue about whether prices are out of whack and what normal would look like. It's important to buyers, who want a good deal, and sellers, who would like to sell before the first of never rolls around -- not to mention all the people whose livelihoods depend on real estate, the banks with problem mortgages, the taxpayers bailing out those banks, the folks living next to foreclosed homes ...

Pretty much everyone in the country at this point, eh?

So I figured you'd all be interested in some newly updated measures from John Burns Real Estate Consulting, a real estate consulting firm whose "housing cycle barometer" I wrote about a while back.

The barometer tracks home prices, median household income and mortgage rates in metro areas. If a metro gets a zero on the barometer, it's the least expensive time to buy in that area since 1981. A 10 on the barometer says it's the most expensive time. This is measuring a community against its own history rather than comparing it to other parts of the country.

The Baltimore metro area, which hit 10 in the aftermath of the bubble, is now a 5.9. (It was zero at the end of the '90s, right before the run-up in prices. And, as you can imagine, it was awfully high in the early '80s thanks to double-digit mortgage rates.)

John Burns Real Estate Consulting considers anything between 5 and 7.5 on the barometer to be an area of "affordability concern," and Baltimore is one of nine metros that fall in that range.

But here's something that puts Baltimore's barometer figure into context: Buyers who get a median-priced home and earn the median household income would spend 29.5 percent of their paychecks on mortgage costs. That's only a bit higher than the 28.1 percent historical average for the Baltimore metro area, and a lot lower than the nearly 43 percent required at the beginning of 2006, according to the firm.

(Wonkish aside: The firm assumes a 20 percent down payment but includes one-seventh of that payment as part of the annual housing cost for each of the first seven years. Why? Because the company wants to account for the outlay, and people often remain in a house for seven years.)

I asked the company why the barometer is a 5.9 if housing cost vs. income is very close to average for the Baltimore area. The answer: Because the area's housing-to-income ratio was pretty stable for a long stretch, so small swings make a difference.

What would bring the Baltimore area's barometer down to zero, making it the most affordable time to buy since '81? If that median-income, median-home buyer could spend less than 20 percent of his or her paycheck on the mortgage.

A lot of metro areas are at zero now, including Minneapolis, Reno and Atlanta. The Washington area comes in near zero -- 0.6 -- with median-income, median-home buyers putting 25 percent of their paychecks toward housing.

Here's what the company says in its April newsletter about the national picture:

The monthly cost of homeownership has fallen 43% from the peak in this cycle, with more than half of that due to the decline in price, and the remainder due to the decline in mortgage rates and increase in incomes. The median-income household, which earns $52,800 per year, only needs 25% of their income to buy the median-priced single-family home of $164,600. In July 2006, that ratio was 44%.

Thoughts? Buyers, what percentage of your income do you want to spend on mortgage costs -- or mortgage costs plus property taxes and anything else you think ought to be calculated upfront?

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 6:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)
Categories: Housing stats
        

Here's a bit of good news for folks with a home on the market: Pending sales in Maryland last month were up more than 7 percent from a year earlier, to about 5,600, according to the Maryland Association of Realtors. (The number of homes on the market decreased by about the same percentage, taking the inventory of unsold properties below 45,000.)

Contracts and contingent deals rose most in the Washington suburbs -- up a whopping 56 percent in Prince George's County, 53 percent in Frederick and 32 percent in Montgomery. No idea how much the buyers are intending to pay for those homes, but average prices for deals that closed last month fell nearly 20 percent in all three counties.

In the Baltimore area, pending sales rose in Carroll (13 percent) and Howard (3.5 percent). Pending deals were essentially flat in Anne Arundel. They fell 4.7 percent in Harford, 6.7 percent in Baltimore County and almost 11 percent in Baltimore City.

Do the differences come down to price? Hard to say, without knowing what those pending deals are going for.

In the Baltimore metro area as a whole, at least, asking prices do seem to be down significantly. According to HousingTracker, they've decreased 10 percent from a year ago and 18 percent from two years ago for the median house. That two-year difference is a $60,000 cut.

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 10:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Housing stats
        

Some of the more eye-popping factoids:

--At the pace things are moving right now, the northern suburbs have enough new condos for sale to last buyers through 2022, according to Delta.

--In Baltimore City, contract cancellations in the first three months of the year outnumbered sales. (The same thing happened in Washington's Fairfax/Falls Church area.)

Delta addresses these supply vs. demand issues in the report:

The inventory of condos in the Baltimore metro area is still too high compared to sales velocity, and as a result, more projects have been removed from the pipeline, and this trend will likely continue over the period ahead.

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 1:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Housing stats, New developments
        

The average home sale price in the Baltimore metro area last month was $278,511, a drop of 6.4 percent from a year earlier. (It's also more than the average two years ago -- about $306,600 -- but remains above the $258,900 average of March 2005.)

The number of home sales dropped 18 percent to 1,545.

What sellers got was just under 88 percent of what they'd asked for.

Unsold homes on the market: 18,321.

Lorraine Mirabella sums up the stats by jurisdiction in her web-only housing story:

Home sales fell as much as 27.7 percent in Harford County, where the average sales price was down 7.6 percent, and stayed relatively flat in Howard, where the average price dipped nearly 11 percent.

Sales were down 16.3 percent in Baltimore, where the average price fell 15.4 percent. In Baltimore County, sales fell 24.2 percent, with an average sales price decline of 5 percent. Sales declined 15.8 percent in Anne Arundel, and prices dipped 3 percent, while in Carroll, sales dropped 22.5 percent, and prices fell 9.5 percent.

See anything in the numbers you found particularly interesting? Got any buying or selling stories to tell? Comment away.

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 1:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)
Categories: Housing stats
        

A few of the notable housing-related numbers I've seen in the past few days:

4.61 percent: the average interest rate (not including points) for 30-year fixed mortgages, the Mortgage Bankers Association said today. That's the lowest since the trade group started its survey in 1990. 

31 percent: the decrease in vacation homes sold last year, according to the National Association of Realtors. Sales of investment homes dropped 17 percent and primary-home sales fell 13 percent. The survey includes new as well as previously occupied properties.

40 percent: the portion of all home sales that were for vacation or investment purposes in 2005, the "peak year for home speculation," as the NAR puts it.

30 percent: the portion of all home sales that were for vacation or investment purposes in 2008

$808,500: the winning bid (including buyer's premium) for a 4,400-square-foot Federal Hill home, auctioned off Tuesday to benefit an animal charity.

Seen other interesting numbers?

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 8:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: Housing stats
        

31, 6.6 and 89.

OK, fine, I'll give you more than just the numbers.

The first figure is the percentage drop in sales from a year earlier. About 1,070 homes changed hands, compared with more than 1,500 in February 2008.

The second is the percentage drop in average price, bringing it to about $282,000.

The third is the percentage that sellers got compared with their list price -- that is, 11 percent less than they were asking for.

Metropolitan Regional Information Systems, which released the statistics today, has more home sales numbers (including county by county) here. Lorraine Mirabella has a quick housing story here and is working on a full one for tomorrow.

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 4:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
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For everyone in the second group -- plus the generally curious -- I've put together a list of places where the average sale price was less than $250,000 last year.

The suburban areas are by ZIP code, or more precisely by the parts of ZIP codes in the suburbs. In ZIPs that overlap into the city, only the suburban sales are included. That's because people identify more with neighborhoods in the city than with ZIP codes, so I did a separate list organizing city sales neighborhood by neighborhood. That follows the suburban stats.

The suburban list is pretty short, but the city list includes many neighborhoods. Read on for the lowdown.

Continue reading "Where the under-$250k homes are in the Baltimore area" »

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 7:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (13)
Categories: Housing stats
        

A Chicago Tribune story points out that the median -- median -- price of a Detroit home in December was $7,500. That means half were less expensive. (As the story notes, that's a purchase price you can swing with a credit card.)

Yeah, I wondered if perhaps that wasn't right. So I went to the Michigan Association of Realtors site. The MAR reports averages only, which are generally higher than median home prices, but in December the average Detroit home seller got $17,700. In January, the figure was less than $14,000 -- down 43 percent from January '08.

Sales are up, though.

Thanks to reporter extraordinaire Stephen Kiehl for the heads-up.

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 7:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Housing stats
        

I took a little vacation from maternity leave to help out with today's home sales story, which charts the market in ZIP codes across the metro area and in Baltimore's neighborhoods.

It is mapalicious.

You can see how last year's average prices changed compared with 2007 by ZIP code and also compared with 2005. Why 2005? Because that was the peak of the buying boom. Prices continued to rise for a while after that point, but now they're below 2005 levels in a number of places. City neighborhood price changes vs. 2007 and 2005 are here.

Graphics whiz Christine Fellenz also put together maps showing the change in the number of homes sold by ZIP code — vs. 2007 here, and vs. 2005 here.

If you still want more after all that, you can play with our searchable database of ZIP code home-sale stats, courtesy of programming guru Annie Frank. Or for more detail about home sales in city neighborhoods, download this Excel file.

And there's a video here of a homeowner talking about trying to sell.

As always, what happened on average in one community or neighborhood won't necessarily match up with your individual experience. Got a story to tell? Comment away.

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 8:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Housing stats