I don’t know what is with me but whenever I leave town all hell breaks loose back at the office. I have working on a pretty complicated transaction since Thanksgiving that all of the sudden has a new sense of urgency.
I’m thinking I should leave town more often.
Needless to say my discretionary writing time is extremely limited. This is further complicated by the fact that I have to go to the local Starbucks to get online. Thankfully Peanut likes to sleep late so I get up early, hop on a bike and ride about a mile down the road to grab a few minutes to answer emails and check the latest HoCo news.
The best thing I read this morning was this post about the local residential real estate market from the real estate blog of Jamie Smith Hopkins in The Sun.
“If you're trying to buy in Howard County, you might be feeling a bit grumpy. Between the inventory drop and a 20 percent increase in sales, the months of supply there is the lowest in the state -- tied with also-affluent Montgomery. At the rate of sales in February, normally a slow time of year for the market, sellers in both counties would all find buyers within eight months.”
Like I said, I should leave town more often.
We bought in Howard County in October and can attest to this... from beginning to end was about seven months for us.
ReplyDeleteJust eyeballing it as I drive around the Western part of the county it looks to me like an awful lot of existing homes for sale as well as new ones. Price action for March and April should be interesting.
ReplyDeleteThe sales volume is in the $600K and below ranges. Things are getting much more difficult for buyers in that range looking around Columbia, Ellicott City and Elkridge. Buyers who thought they could just sit on the sidelines until it bottomed out have missed the bottom and now need to both compete with other buyers and pick through the homes that have already been sold. The homes in the west are more expensive and will languish for another year or two.
ReplyDeleteMy fiance and I just bought our first house in Hickory Ridge, and we thought we'd be buying at the the bottom. Not so, we found we had to move very quickly in putting in our offer and the inventory we had to choose from was just not what we expected it to be. As first time homebuyers, we were looking for something under 300K. Things would go on the market, and within 10 days be under contract. It certainly didn't feel like the down market I expected.
ReplyDeleteAs a potential homeseller in the future I am delighted to hear of your difficulties. Sorry but mine is a different perspective....seller.
ReplyDeleteHH