April Real Estate Market Sales and Statistics for Annapolis and Anne Arundel County
May 21st, 2008 Categories: Buyers, Neighborhood Sales & Stats, Real Estate News, Sellers
Do the Numbers Reveal an Upturn in the Annapolis Real Estate Market? Plus…Here’s What the NAR (National Assn of Realtors) is Forecasting for the Second Half of 2008
Around the 10th of every month, the local MLS - ours is known as the Metropolitan Regional Information System - publishes real estate market sales statistics for the previous month. Here are some notable statistics for April 2008 for Anne Arundel County:
Average Sold Price: $398,231 - a slight decrease from the April 2007 figure of $398,754.
Median Sold Price: $320,000 - a 7.25% decrease from the April 2007 figure of $345,000.
Total Units Sold: 420 homes, a 30% decrease over the April 2007 figure of 600.
Average Days on Market: 137, an increase of 28.04% over the April 2007 figure of 107 days.
Those numbers may not seem too encouraging, the total units sold does represent an increase over the 331 sold in February 2008 and the 418 sold in March 2008.
Annapolis Real Estate, By The Numbers
Let’s take a closer look at what’s happening in the Annapolis market, and break it down by price range, active listings, under contract, and sold in the last 30 days. Read the rest of this entry »
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Plebes No More
May 16th, 2008 Categories: Fun Fridays, Naval Academy
Hundreds of Sweaty Plebes, Buckets of Lard and a 21′ Tall Monument Make for a Slippery Conclusion to One Tough First Year at the Naval Academy
It has to be one of the smelliest, most spirited rites of passage in Annapolis, if not the entire country: first year Naval Academy students converge en masse on the Academy’s Herndon Monument in a rush to the top. There’s just one catch: the monument is generously greased with 100 pounds of lard.
Traditionally, the plebe who makes the final ascent removes the plebe “dixie cup” hat (below) on top and replaces it with the midshipman’s cover (or hat) - a move symbolizing the plebes’ completion of their first grueling year.
This year’s climb on Thursday morning saw the Midshipmen finish the job in just under 2 hours and 36 minutes - not bad, though not nearly a record breaking time: no fewer than six plebe classes have come in at under an hour.
It’s Fun Friday on this blog, as always, and we thought you’d enjoy a firsthand look at the excitement from this year, below.
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Sometimes, Being in Real Estate in Annapolis is a Real Drain. A Clogged Drain
May 14th, 2008 Categories: Buyers, Sellers, The Realtor's Life
When It Rains in Annapolis, It Pours. And When It Pours, The Moss Haedrich Team of Keller Williams Puts on our Slickers
The rains came to Annapolis this week, biblical rains. Like oil and water, any experienced Realtor will tell you that biblical rains and pending settlements don’t mix well. The combination puts us on high alert.
Which is how I find myself standing barefoot in 4″ of water on a client’s patio, coaxing a sluggish drain. It is 6:00AM and the client - soaking up the sun at her new Arizona condo - is blissfully unaware of my unscheduled visit, long since gone from here in both body and spirit.
They say that a lot of people think agents just drive around in fancy cars and collect big settlement checks. I wish those people could see me now, standing here in drenched jeans, my cup of Dunkin’ Donuts coffee tasting more and more diluted with every passing minute.
Doing What’s Required? Or Doing What Needs to be Done?
We - The Moss Haedrich Team - look great on paper. We have a sheet that describes our Platinum Listing Services in detail, several more that list the 186 transactional items we will take care of for you. But nowhere on any of it will you see ”Stand barefoot on patio in rain and clean clogged drain.” Read the rest of this entry »
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Why Our Annapolis Area Home Sellers Are Opting For Pre-Inspections
May 13th, 2008 Categories: Buyers, Sellers
In This Twitchy, Competitive Real Estate Market, You Need Every Advantage You Can Get. Pre-Inspecting Gives You a Clear Edge
Last night we listed a home in one of the area’s choice subdivisions, the sort of lovely home any agent would be proud to market and sell. The owners have wisely chosen to follow our suggestion and have a pre-inspection done - that is, an inspection prior to getting a contract on the home.
Why now, you may ask. Isn’t that the buyer’s responsibility, once an offer has been accepted?
Indeed, it is. At least that’s the way it’s typically done. But this is no typical market and sellers need to do everything they can, and as early as they can, to pave the way for a smooth settlement. Thus, a pre-inspection.
A Pre-Inspection Identifies Potential Problems Early, Takes Pressure Off the Seller and Reassures a Buyer
A lot of home sales fall apart during the inspection process, especially these days when buyer demands are, well, pretty demanding.
For example: seller accepts what he feels is only a so-so offer - this, after several price reductions already. The buyer orders an inspection and several problems are uncovered. The buyer submits a list of items to the seller that he wants fixed - that, or a $10,000 credit to fix them after the buyer moves in. The buyer needs to settle in 30 days. Read the rest of this entry »
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Hold On To Your Real Estate: The Blue Angels are Coming to Annapolis for Commissioning Week 2008
May 9th, 2008 Categories: Fun Fridays
Buildings Will Shake, Necks Crane, and We’ll All Gather Below the Thundering Skies For One of the Most Awesome Events of the Year
Well, it’s Friday, and you know that Fridays are for fun on this blog. And I can think of very little that’s more fun than watching the Blue Angels every year when they fly into town for Commissioning Week at the Naval Academy.
Commissioning Week runs this year from May 16th through the 23rd and the Blue Angels perform on the 20th and 21st - you can find the schedule by clicking here.
I whoop and holler at only a very few select events, namely Navy football games and the Blue Angels show. Apparently, I get a lot more excited than the guys flying these gorgeous F/A-18 Hornets. Check out the video below. It’s got some great cockpit shots and the pilot looks about as excited as a guy driving his pickup a block down the street on Sunday morning to buy a quart of milk. I love it.
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The Whole World is Waiting for Ourselves
May 6th, 2008 Categories: Buyers, Sellers
In Annapolis, as Elsewhere, the Real Estate Market Has Scared Some of Us Into a Holding Pattern. Maybe It’s Time to Land the Plane
Is it just me, or does it seem like the entire world is on hold lately, waiting. Yesterday I showed a home to a young woman who needs to move soon. Nice house, meets her needs, beautiful neighborhood. Would she be interested in making an offer?
No thanks, I think I’ll wait.
Wait for…?
Prices to drop some more.
How can you be sure they will?
Someone on TV said so.
Perhaps you should consider offering less than asking price. Just think of it as accelerated waiting.
No thanks. I’ll just wait wait.
And so it goes. Buyers are waiting for sellers to lower their prices. Sellers are waiting for buyers to make offers. And agents are waiting for their phones to ring.
Even My Barber is Waiting
Apparently he’s in line somewhere behind the housing waiters. I ask him about business. Not good, he tells me. People are waiting much longer between haircuts.
Really?
Yes, he tells me, especially families. Mom is buying electric clippers and doing it herself. Who’d have imagined that one sign of weak consumer confidence was a nation of kids running around with bad haircuts?
My brother - who manufactures model trains - reports that waiting is alive and well in his industry, too. Track is selling. But people are waiting to buy the expensive stuff like locomotives. Read the rest of this entry »
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One More Reason You Want To Live in Annapolis: The Maryland Maritime Heritage Festival is Here This Weekend
May 2nd, 2008 Categories: Fun Fridays
Searching For a Home in Annapolis This Weekend? Take Time Out To Attend This Festive Celebration of Maryland’s Maritime History
Back in the days before Starbucks and souvenir shops dotted the streets of our fair city, Annapolis harbor was a hub of maritime enterprise. English settlers arrived by boat in 1649, noticed that locals were thriving on crab cakes, oysters and the like and decided - not unlike many of our clients - that this would be a very good place indeed to stay for a spell.
When they weren’t fishing, the settlers grew crops, including tobacco, which they shipped off to England. The vessels returned with an enormous selection of goods for sale, including slaves - one of whom, Kunta Kinte, is immortalized by author Alex Haley in his book Roots.
If this sort of thing fascinates you - or you’re just looking for a good excuse to get out this weekend - by all means come to Annapolis for this celebration of Maryland maritime history. Kudos to Annapolis Mayor Ellen Moyer for creating this event back in 2001.
The festival runs Friday, Saturday and Sunday. You can check out the events schedule at the festival’s official website, but highlights include Watermark Cruises’ Pet Parade, the Phillips Crab Cake Eating Contest, the blessing of the fleet and lots of music, fun and frivolity.
One event we definitely won’t miss is the North American Town Crier Competition, to be held at 1:00PM on Sunday. Apparently, the best of the best town criers from across North America will be competing, in full period dress. We had a sneak preview this morning at a Chamber of Commerce meeting and it was rousing, to say the least. These guys can really belt.
This being Fun Friday on our blog, I couldn’t help digging around to see what I could find in the town crier section of YouTube. Here’s a really stupid one that I loved.
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What Dinner at the Chart House Says To Us About the State of the Annapolis Real Estate Market
April 30th, 2008 Categories: Buyers, Neighborhood Sales & Stats, Sellers
April Real Estate Market Sales Statistics for Anne Arundel County Will Be Released in 10 Days and We Will Publish the Numbers Here. Until Then, Here’s Our Almost Totally Unscientific Market Story and We’re Stickin’ To It
If the local dining scene is a somewhat reliable barometer of consumer optimism, then our dinner at the Chart House in Annapolis this past Friday would lead one to believe that all the talk of a sagging economy and a housing/mortgage meltdown is falling upon deaf ears.
Indeed, judging by the throngs of diners ordering up $35 steaks, succulent shrimp, good bottles of wine, and $9.00 chocolate lava cakes - our personal favorite - you’d have to say the mood was downright festive, that nobody’s much worrying about their wallets, and things are looking decidedly up.
Who knows? Maybe people are just getting a head-start on spending their tax rebate checks, and exercising their civic duty to stimulate the economy according to our President’s hopes.
Our Boots-on-the-Ground Perspective of the Annapolis Real Estate Market
Then again, maybe - just maybe - things really are starting to turn around. Word on the street - what we’re seeing and our industry colleagues are reporting - is that the local market ”feels” like things are beginning to turn around.
I say “feels” because we can’t really quantify it yet. But phones are starting to ring and showings are up. Gun-shy buyers are starting to pull the trigger and make solid offers. And sellers are getting real about listing price. Together, these factors are breathing life and hope into the local housing market.
But Could This be a Momentary Seasonal Upswing in the Annapolis Area Market?
Sure it could be. But it could also - as I heard one analyst put it on NPR the other day - be the inevitable beginning of the end of a down-turning real estate market. Read the rest of this entry »
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Confessions of an Un-Geeky Annapolis Real Estate Blogger
April 25th, 2008 Categories: Fun Fridays
If you’re a regular reader of this blog - and finally, I think there are a couple of you - then you know that Fridays are for fun. I didn’t invent the idea of fun blog Fridays; I stole it from fellow blogger Teresa Boardman. She hasn’t sent her lawyers after me yet, so for now I guess I’m okay.
People like confessions so I thought it would be fun today to tell you one of mine: I’m not a geek. That may come as a surprise to some of you, since I do have a blog, but my computer literacy is probably on par with that of your average Golden Retriever.
What knowledge I do have of blogging can be attributed directly to a neat group of actual geeks called The Real Estate Tomato. See that tomato icon in the upper left margin over there? It has the word “graduate” it in, but I can assure you that in my case the designation is applied ever so loosely. I was one of those students they graduated just to prevent a mutiny. I think I was the reason some of the staff left and opened bagel shops in Vermont.
The ”tomato guys” have a specialty: taking non-geek Realtors like myself and teaching us how to become bloggers. The training consisted of many once-weekly sessions where I would put on my headset and listen to someone half my age and twice as smart explain why Google would like me if I created something called back links, posted profiles of myself on social networking sites, and didn’t stuff by blog articles with too many key words, in which case Google would smite me and banish my blog to the equivalent of blog purgatory. Much remedial training ensued.
The most amazing thing about blogs and all this internet stuff is the way it all talks to one another - or is supposed to, if you’re doing it right. What you see here on the finished page, so to speak, is only a gazillioneth of what’s really going on. You may think you’re just reading an article about buying or selling a home, but the cyber world is positively abuzz about it. It’s like one of those ads you see on TV where they show you your kitchen counter-top, then zoom in and you see billions of germs crawling around just under the surface.
Zoom in, and you’d see Google is somehow calculating how much you like this blog, where you came from, what you’re reading, and what you ate for breakfast. They do this by means of a mathematical formula called an algorithm, invented by guys with brains the size of cantaloupes who haven’t seen the light of day for years. It’s one big online popularity contest, the results of which somehow infiltrate the entire cyber universe.
Frankly, if I had to worry about all this and how it works, I wouldn’t have a blog. I wouldn’t have the time: we’re in the business of helping people buy and sell homes, and that keeps us nice and busy, thank you. Writing a blog is fun, for someone who likes to write. But it’s primarily a tool, a way to deliver useful information to our constituency, get feedback from you, and build an online community that’s accessible to almost everyone.
Just don’t ask me how it all works. I haven’t a clue.
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Is Your Real Estate Agent Trustworthy?
April 23rd, 2008 Categories: Buyers, Sellers, The Realtor's Life
In a 2006 Poll Published by Harris Interactive, Real Estate Agents Really Took It On the Chin. Maybe We Can All Learn a Little Something From the Results.
The poll’s intent was to measure the trustworthiness of various professions; real estate agents came in near the bottom, right up there with lawyers, auto mechanics and stockbrokers.
Unfair? To those of us in the industry who put our hearts, heads and soul into this business, and work diligently for our clients - sure, it seems unfair.
But unexpected? Not really. The fact of the matter is, not all agents are created equal. Some set the professional bar extremely low and when they trip over it they make the whole industry look bad.
Marc Davison, a blogger at www.1000wattblog.com had some interesting thoughts on the subject and those things that set trusted and untrustworthy agents apart.
“Are agents untrustworthy? Some are, some aren’t. But most paint themselves with the brush of mistrust by adhering to modes of marketing, branding and verbiage that fail to set them apart and distinguish one from the other.
Untrustworthy agents hear what their clients say. Trustworthy agents listen.
Untrustworthy agents make deals happen. Trusted agents help people buy and sell homes.
Untrustworthy agents work hard and make a case for it. Trusted agents work smart. They perform magic and do it quietly, with grace.
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