Baltimore Housing Market Showing Signs of Recovery

by on July 23, 2010 in Baltimore, Real Estate Advice

We’re beginning to see the Baltimore housing market show signs of recovery, when you look at home sales from last year. Many of my fellow real estate professionals attribute this to the $8,000 first-time home buyers federal tax credit. The tax credit expired on April 30 of this year, but was recently extended to September 30 (with restrictions; see below). The credit also carried us into a strong home sales season, starting with May, which is traditionally our strongest month.


However, as most of us expected, we saw a drop in the number of pending sales of previously-owned homes by 32 percent from April (nationally, we saw a 16 percent drop around the U.S.). But because of the backlog of signed contracts, the number of existing homes sold in May rose by 10 percent.

I was reading an article on Gazette.net about how, despite the drop, the Maryland housing market is improving. Kenneth Wenhold, director of the division of national housing data and consulting firm Metrostudy, said that Maryland has one of the healthier housing markets. It also helps that we have a lower than average unemployment rate than the rest of the U.S., and a low level of housing inventory and vacant lots. Plus, mortgage interest rates are staying very low for the time being, which means owning a home is still very affordable.

In year-over-year sales in Baltimore, May 2010 sales was up by 26 percent from the same time last year.

This is all happening because despite the high foreclosure rate across the nation, this is definitely a buyer’s market. Because of the economy, we’re only seeing people who are serious about buying a house, people who have good credit, and people who are willing to wait patiently for the house they truly want.

It will also help that President Obama extended the housing tax credit for people who had signed their contracts by April 30, but didn’t close before the June 30 deadline. The new deadline is September 30. However, this extension only applies to people who signed a contract before April 30. It does not apply to new home buyers. The deadline ends on June 30, 2011 for active members of the U.S. military.