• Catonsville: The large Victorian and Colonial homes were originally built by wealthy families from Baltimore, who used the homes to escape the summer heat in the city. The University of Maryland, Baltimore County is here, which has helped it shed its old identity of a bedroom community and commuter school for Baltimore. In fact, because of the growth of UMBC as a research institute, Catonsville has become an attractive location for a lot of high-tech companies, which bring a lot of high-tech jobs.
• Dundalk: Named for Dundalk, Ireland, our Dundalk lies on the water, to the east of Baltimore. The city has a strong sense of community and history. Not only can residents and visitors hear music from the Dundalk 2010 Concerts in the Park series, but you can visit the Eastpoint Mall or Dundalk Village Farmers’ Market on Wednesdays and Saturdays, respectively. The city has also undertaken a major greening effort for the town and its residents. Dundalk has many homes available on the water, as well as farther inland.
• Pikesville: Here’s a bit of trivia for you: Pikesville is the only PikeSville in the U.S. There are plenty of Pikevilles, without the S, but we’re the only one with it. We’re also considered the center of Baltimore County’s Jewish community, with more than 100,000 Jewish people who call Pikesville home. It’s also one of Baltimore County’s 12 commercial revitalization districts, and has been the subject of a multi-million dollar streetscape project, which includes a public plaza, and has brought in more merchants to the town.
• Towson: Towson is Baltimore County’s county seat, and is home to the county’s largest indoor mall, with four stories of shops and a parking garage. Towson University is located in southern Towson, and has nearly 20,000 students, which makes it the second largest school in the University of Maryland System. Goucher College, a small private liberal arts school, is also in Towson, on the north side.
• Owings Mills: Owings Mills was named by CNNMoney.com as #49 in the “100 Best Places to Live and Launch.” It’s home to the Baltimore Ravens headquarters, as well as T. Rowe PRice, Black & Decker, CareFirst, and a Solo Cup Company plant. Maryland Public Television studios are also here in Owings Mills.

Wherever you go in Baltimore County, there is always something special about the place you’ll eventually call home. These are just a few of the places we can show you for your new home.

1) It starts when they see your house. Fill in any bare or brown patches on your lawn, make sure the bushes are trimmed, and leaves are raked. We’ve all heard the term “curb appeal.” Basically, if your home looks unkempt or boring on the outside, potential buyers have already made up their mind about what they’ll see on the inside.

If you’re selling during the winter, make sure the driveway and walkways are shoveled.

2) The carpets need to be spotless. This may mean steam cleaning, this may just mean vacuuming. We recommend steam cleaning to our Baltimore real estate clients, especially if they have pets. It’s important that you eliminate any odors, especially pet odors. While you may not be able to smell it, your potential buyers can sniff it out as soon as they step in the house. You will also want to replace any worn carpeting or stained areas. Carpet professionals can cut out worn and stained patches and replace them, although if your carpet is too old, the patch will show. Consider replacing the entire carpet then.

3) Fix the place up, but fix it up for yourself. If you’re going to redecorate, paint, or repair anything, do it to your satisfaction. Don’t try to predict what someone is going to like, how they’ll use it, or what “the market” likes. Fix it to your satisfaction. But at the same time, don’t fix a problem just so it will last through the sales process. A cover-up “fix” can create bigger problems. In some cases, you may be required to fix a problem if you never really fixed it in the first place, even if the sales is completed.

4) Clean up EVERYTHING. This means, no clutter, no trinkets, no piles of stuff. For one thing, even neat piles of papers and books still looks like clutter to someone who doesn’t understand your organization style. Second, you need to get rid of as many of your personal items as you can. Put them in storage, or pack them up in a box in the garage. You want people to imagine themselves living in your house, and they can’t do that with your photos, art, and collections around the house.

5) Fill, paper, and paint any cracks, peels, and chips. You may have gotten used to seeing the tiny crack in the wall, but home buyers will think “is it structural damage?” Peeling wallpaper may be one of those nuisances you’ve grown accustomed to, but home buyers will see neglect and wonder what else is wrong. Have a friend who will be honest tell you what they would fix. He or she will point out the peeling wall paper, chipped or fading paint, and any cracks that you need to fix. Repaint any outdated colors with a more neutral color like beige or tan.

These are just a few areas that you should take care of. The Yahoo checklist will have everything you want to consider, but these are the five areas to fix before you even consider calling a realtor to sell your Baltimore-area home.

Access to hospitals: The odds of needing a hospital may be fairly remote, but it’s still important to know that there is a good hospital nearby. Ask friends in the area whether it has a good reputation, or is always busy. If the closest hospital is not a decent choice, is there another good one that’s close enough to get to in an emergency?

Access to good grocery stores, restaurants: It takes houses to make a neighborhood, but it takes restaurants to make a community. What kind of restaurants and stores are in your neighborhood? Are they close by and easily accessible? Do you have a wide variety of choices, or are there only the usual chains featuring mediocre food? Find a place that has a number of good choices so you don’t spend 30 minutes in your car just to get to a better one. See where your possible neighbors spend their time, and what they think of local restaurants. Check Yelp.com or Google Local for local restaurants and customer comments.

Traffic: What’s the traffic like in your neighborhood? Is it on a side street or a major thoroughfare? Do cars race by faster than normal, or do they follow the speed limit? You want to make sure you feel safe letting your kids play outside, or let your pet out for its business. Even leaving your driveway should be a consideration. If people drive like they’re at the Indy 500 and you have pets or children, or the street is so busy you can’t even back out, you may want to reconsider.

Distance from work: We would all love to either live as close to work as possible, or have a commute that doesn’t mean you’re spending 30 – 60 minutes just sitting in traffic. Your house should either be close enough that you can easily get to work, or so wildly great that you’re willing to put up with a long commute. To test a commute, one day after work, drive from your workplace to the new house, and see how long it takes. Do it more than once, in case you run into unusual traffic the first time. Then ask yourself, am I willing to go through this every day for this house?

Crime rates: While we don’t like to think about crime, it’s still important to know whether you’re moving to a safe neighborhood or not. There are several websites, and even a Google Map, that can check crime reports in your neighborhood. While it’s impossible to find a neighborhood that doesn’t have any crime, you want to make sure you find one that is relatively safe.

You may find an excellent house, but if you’re not happy with your neighborhood, your dissatisfaction will soon transfer to your home. Save yourself the headache and make sure you find a neighborhood you will enjoy spending many years in.

2) Text Services: A lot of Realtors are joining local text services like ConnectiveMobile and House4Cell as a way to provide information on specific houses. Realtors will list a special message on a For Sale sign — “Text the word ’1234Maple’ to 71813 for information on this listing — and potential buyers will send the text to receive the listing information on their cell phones.

3) Smarter Agent: Five years ago, if you found a neighborhood you wanted to live in, you either had to drive around to see if you could find any homes for sale or rent, or race back to your house, fire up Realtor.com, and then race back with a printout. Smarter Agent is a mobile app that uses the GPS function on your phone to tell you which houses are for sale or rent in your immediate area.

Get Harriett’s listing on your cellphone by texting: HWT to phone number: 87778

4) Twitter: Believe it or not, Twitter can be a useful tool for finding an agent to work with. If you know a realtor who uses Twitter, follow them and see what kinds of things they talk about. Are they promoting their neighborhoods and being positive about their community? Or are they only hawking homes and doing nothing but self-promotion? While a Realtor is supposed to sell homes, they should be more than just a running MLS listing. Connect with the Realtor who truly wants to connect with his or her community.

Follow harriett on twitter here.

5) Flickr or Picasa: Both of these sites are great for sharing photos about a house. Rather than loading photos of a house onto your own server, and then placing them on a website or blog, upload them to Flickr.com (owned by Yahoo) or Picasa.com (owned by Google), and let them worry about storage. They’ll even give you a handy-dandy “embed code” which will allow visitors to see the photos on your site, but they still live on the other site. You can also create slide shows for a particular house, which people can visit from anywhere via their laptop or their cell phone.

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.

If you’re thinking of moving up to a larger home, this is the time to buy. If you’re a first time home buyer, what are you waiting for? It’s time to call a Baltimore Realtor.

The average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage was 4.91 percent in the week ending Nov. 12, the lowest in five weeks. A year ago, 30-year mortgages were averaging 6.14 percent.

A 15-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 4.36 percent in the week ending Nov. 12, remaining below one-year adjustable rate mortgages, which now average 4.46 percent.

“This [mortgage rate decline] comes at a time when house price declines are moderating and consumer demand for prime mortgages at commercial banks has picked up,” said Freddie Mac chief economist Frank Nothaft in a recent Baltimore Business Journal article.

That means these extraordinarily positive conditions for home buyers aren’t likely to last much longer.

There’s yet another reason for Baltimore home buyers to act. The economic stimulus bill that President Obama signed in February funded a $8,000 tax credit for first-time homebuyers through Nov. 30. Largely as a result, first-time buyers accounted for a record 47 percent of all home purchases nationwide so far this year, according to the National Association of Realtors.

This month, the President signed a measure to extend the credit to homes that are under contract by April 30, 2010, and to create a $6,500 tax credit for owners of existing homes who buy a new principal residence. (For details, see my recent blog posts, “Now Current Homeowners and More First-Time Buyers Can Get Tax Credit” and “12 Important Things to Know about the Home Buyers Tax Credit“)

Aided by the home buyer tax credit, the outlook for housing and the economy appears headed for a sustainable recovery, NAR said. Existing-home sales are expected to total 5.01 million in 2009, a gain of 2 percent over last year, and then are forecast to rise 13.6 percent to 5.69 million in 2010, according to NAR.

Don’t wait any longer. The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage will probably average 5.3 percent in the fourth quarter, rising gradually to 5.8 percent by the end of next year, NAR said, adding that its housing affordability index will set a record in 2009, averaging 30 percentage points higher than 2008. Affordability will decline from record highs next year but will remain at historically attractive levels for home buyers.

For first-time home buyers — buyers who haven’t owned principal residences for three years before making the purchase — the tax credit is equivalent to 10 percent of the purchase price of a home, but with a cap of $8,000. Home buyers must have a signed sales contract before May 1, 2010, but they have until the end of June 2010 to actually close the transaction. The original credit applied to those who bought a home on or after Jan. 1 and before Dec. 1, 2009.

Even better, the new law raises the annual income limits to $125,000 from $75,000 for singles and to $225,000 from $150,000 for married couples. With those income limits, it’s hard to imagine any first-time home buyer who would not be eligible for the credit.

That’s the good news. The really great news — at least to this Baltimore Realtor® — is that current homeowners are now eligible for a tax credit of up to $6,500. To claim their credit, current owners must buy a primary residence after living in their current home for five consecutive years over the previous eight years. They can claim the credit on homes purchased between Nov. 7, 2009, and the end of April 2010, which means they need a signed sales contract before May 1, 2010, but they have until the end of June 2010 to close the sale. The income limits for current homeowners are the same as those for first-time home buyers.

Both current homeowners and first-time buyers, the tax-credit program applies only to primary residences purchased for less than $800,000. Buyers who use their new property as their primary residence for three or more years after the purchase won’t have to pay back the credit. And buyers can claim the credit on their 2009 taxes, even if they bought their new home in 2010. They just have to file an amended return.

Home buyers and Realtors should note that the new law requires documentation — such as a copy of the buyers’ HUD-1 Settlement Statement — to prove that the sale has closed. In addition, it also bans anyone younger than 18 years old from claiming the credit (one article I read said a 4-year-old claimed the tax credit under the original program).

To help you get started, here are the 12 things home buyers need to know about the tax credit:

• A first-time home buyer is defined as an individual or married couple who has had no owernship interest in a principal residence in the United States for three years before making the purchase for which they plan to claim the tax credit.
• Existing homeowners are those who have lived in their current home for at least five consecutive years over the previous eight years.
• For first-time buyers, the tax credit is equivalent to 10 percent of the purchase price of a home, up to a maximum of $8,000.
• Current homeowners are eligible for a tax credit of up to $6,500.
• The tax credit applies only to primary residences purchased for less than $800,000.
• For both first-time buyers and current owners, the annual income limits for receiving the full credit are a maximum of $125,000 for singles and $225,000 for married couples. Above those levels, the credit begins to phase out. To calculate the credit for buyers making more than those maximums, subtract the amount of the initial phaseout threshold from total earned income and divide the answer by by $20,000. Then multiply that ratio times the maximum amount of the credit. For instance, an individual who earned $135,000 would get a $4,000 first-time home buyer credit ($135,000 minus $125,000 = $10,000. $10,000 divided by $20,000 = 1/2. $8,000 times 1/2 = $4,000.)
• To claim a credit, both first-time buyers and current owners must have a signed sales contract before May 1, 2010, but they have until the end of June 2010 to actually close the transaction.
• For first-time buyers, the credit applies to purchases made on or after Jan. 1, 2009. For current owners, the purchase must have been made no sooner than Nov. 7, 2009.
• Buyers won’t have to pay back the credit if they use their new property as their primary residence for at least three years after the purchase.
• Buyers can claim the credit on their 2009 taxes, even if they buy their new home in 2010. They just have to file an amended return.
• To help prevent fraud, the legislation requires taxpayers to provide documentation — such as a copy of the buyer’s HUD-1 Settlement Statement — proving that they purchased a home. It also requires taxpayers to be at least 18 years old to claim the credit.
• Members of the military get a later deadline and will be allowed to sell their home without having to repay the credit if they are deployed to another location within three years of purchasing the home.

This may seem complicated at first, but it’s something we’re dealing with every day. If you have any questions, or want some help finding your way through this maze, give us a call, and we’ll be happy to help.

Yes, if….

Yes, if you can resist the temptation to pounce on the low asking price. Yes, if you’re willing to do some additional work. Yes, if you have the patience to wait longer than usual to close the transaction. If you’re willing to work and wait, you can get a great deal by buying a short sale home.

First, ask your Realtor to call the listing agent to find out if home is a short sale. If it is, you should be aware that any offer you make must be accepted by the lender, not just the seller. You should also be aware that the seller need not be in default (i.e., to have stopped making mortgage payments). The lender may consider a short sale if the seller is current but the home’s value has fallen. The seller may owe more than the home is worth. So a discounted price might bring the price into line with market value, not below it.

With that in mind, the next step is research. Ask your agent to find out who is in title, whether a foreclosure notice has been filed, and how much is owed to the lender(s). This will help you to determine how much to offer.

Are there two loans? If so, you could have a problem. The first mortgage lender’s position is protected by the second lender, unless the second lender does not want to foreclose. If a seller owes $160,000 on the first and $40,000 on the second, offering $160,000 leaves nothing for the second. The first will need to give something to the second to gain its cooperation.

You’ll need to work with a real estate agent who has handled short sales before. If neither the listing agent nor your own agent has short sale experience, find one who does. An agent experienced in short sales will help to expedite your transaction and protect your interests.

Before a lender will agree to a short sale, they usually have to be convinced that the seller has no equity and is unable to repay the difference between your sales price and the balance of the existing loan(s). You, your agent and the listing agent need to make sure the seller provides the lender a hardship letter that details how the seller got into this financial bind and makes a plea to the lender to accept less than full payment. If the basis for the seller’s troubles is dishonesty or illegal behavior, the lender is very unlikely to agree to a short sale.

After the seller has accepted your offer, submit the offer and supporting documentation to the lender for approval. You do not have a deal until the lender accepts. Send the lender a copy of your earnest money deposit and a letter from your lender saying you’re preapproved for your loan. Your agent should send a list of comparable sales that support the price you are offering to pay.

Make your offer contingent upon the lender’s acceptance. Give the lender plenty of time to make a decision, but do include a specific deadline after which you will be free to cancel. Some lenders submit short sales to committee. Others can make a decision within three months. Get a name and phone number for the appropriate contact at the lender. Don’t send an offer blindly to a department.

The lender will probably negotiate the commission directly with the listing broker, who will then share the commission with your agent. If you have signed a buyer’s broker agreement with your agent, ask the agent to waive the difference due. Otherwise, you might have to pay it out of your pocket. Some brokers feel it is unfair to penalize the agent.

Remember, the lender is almost certainly losing money on the deal. So don’t expect the lender to pay for items that a seller normally would pay for, such as a home protection plan, buyer credits, and inspections for termites or other pests. You will be purchasing the property “as is,” which means no repairs. So it’s critical that you obtain a home inspection and pay for other types of inspections that may be needed. Do not waive your right to obtain these inspections, and make your offer contingent on approving them.

One reason is that Baltimore home sellers aren’t stupid. They know that most buyers will offer a lower price for a for-sale-by-owner (FSBO) house. In fact, nationally, homes sold with the help of a real estate professional in 2006 sold on average for 32 percent more than FSBO sales.

Another reason is that, unless an owner is willing to turn away prospective buyers who are already working with a real estate agent, the owner is still going to pay the buyer’s agent about 3 percent of the sale price.

So where’s the savings to sellers? The fact is, FSBO sellers can easily come away from a home sale with less money in their pockets simply because they didn’t engage a Realtor.

Here are eight more reasons for a seller of Baltimore-area real estate to work with a Realtor:

1. A Realtor knows the market and what people are paying today for homes similar to yours. He or she will work with you to set a competitive asking price for your home. A home priced too high will stay on the market too long. Priced too low and the seller won’t get what he or she could have.
2. Realtors are experts in marketing and negotiation. They focus on showing homes to qualified buyers. They know how to prepare a home, maximize value and provide broader exposure to the market, which are critical to generating multiple bids.
3. Realtors give the seller access to major online marketing resources such as www.realtor.com and other big Web sites that attract buyers. (All listings on Realtor.com must be listed with a real estate professional.) This exposure speeds the buying process by increasing your chances of finding a buyer who matches your needs and isn’t wasting your time just “window-shopping.”
4. Realtors know that the first few weeks of a home’s listing are crucial. They can set things in motion to sell the home as soon as a suitable buyer is located. They help you to close the deal as efficiently as possible.
5. Realtors bring objectivity to the search and negotiation. They act as mediators between the conflicting interests of seller and buyer, aiming to make both parties as satisfied as possible. Realtors understand that a deal has to be a win-win in order for a sale to close.
6. A Realtor can advise you as to which investigations and inspections of your property are needed. He or she can also help you find qualified, responsible professionals to do most of these investigations and provide you with written reports.
7. A Realtor will guide you through the closing process and make sure everything flows smoothly. He or she can assist with negotiating factors, including but not limited to price, financing, terms, date of possession, and often the inclusion or exclusion of repairs and furnishings or equipment. Realtors are skilled in reading contracts and will be sensitive to any fine print that you might dismiss as unimportant.
8. As members of the National Association of Realtors, Realtors must commit to a strict Code of Ethics to protect consumers.

Real estate transactions are complicated and often stressful. Something unexpected almost always pops up. Realtors are skilled at dealing calmly with the complexity of the transaction and at responding quickly to the unexpected. Those and all the other skills and resources of a Realtor can be critically important when most or all of a seller’s assets are on the line.