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College Park, MD Real Estate News

By Ken Montville, The MD Suburbs of DC
(RE/MAX United Real Estate)
I was watching the Nightly Business Report last night and there was one segment in particular that caught my attention -- FHA's No Money Down Loan Program Here is how the program currently works: Let's say you qualify to make the monthly mortgage payment on a $350,000 house based on your credit score, debt-to-income ration and some other factors. However, you don't really have enough money saved up to meet the down payment and closing costs requirements of an FHA loan (3% or, in this case, $10,500). Currently, there are a number of non-profit, down payment assistance programs like the Nehemiah Program or Ameridream that will give - that's right, give - you the money to make your down payment. However, the money these programs receive in order to give to you come from the Seller of the h...
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College Park, Maryland Real Estate Market Update Here's what's happening in the College Park, Maryland real estate market: DETACHED HOMES Active: 97 Average Days on Market: 106 Average List Price: $346,325 Pending: 19 Average Days on Market: 95 Average List Price: $308,984 NON-DETACHED HOMES Active: 7 Average Days on Market: 114 Average List Price: $303,402 Pending: 6 Average Days on Market: 183 Average List Price: $215,483 MARCH SALES Detached Homes: 4 Average Days on Market: 83 Average List Price: $377,725 Average Sales Price*: $384,850 Non-Detached Homes: 2 Average Days on Market: 51 Average List Price: $223,950 Average Sales Price*: $213,925 *Sales Price does not include any seller contribution. Seller contributions are considered when evaluating a listing price as well as an offic...
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By Ken Montville, The MD Suburbs of DC
(RE/MAX United Real Estate)
A lot of the time Realtors tend to harp on price.  "At the right price everything will sell", goes the saying.  The lesson here is that if your home isn't selling or if you are currently contemplating putting you home on the market that it would behoove you to set a low price. Let's look at price from a different angle - value. Value is really not as connected to price as one might think. A million dollar home in the right location in the right condition may be a very good value. Value and what people perceive as a good value is more tied up in the emotional aspects of the sale rather than strictly price.  For example, I recently had the pleasure of listing a home in College Park that had been owned by the original occupants for over 50 years. Unfortunately, they died and it was left to...
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By Ken Montville, The MD Suburbs of DC
(RE/MAX United Real Estate)
When you put your home on the market one of the most important things you can do is allow people - potential buyers - to come into your house and look around.  It is the rare buyer who, because of circumstances beyond their control, might buy a house sight unseen. I have actually had a couple of clients in my career buy a house without stepping inside but it was due to them being overseas.  I took plenty of photos of the inside and made a full report of what I found.  Luckily they trusted my judgment and they got a nice house.  But the point is that someone - me, in these cases - went inside the house prior to making an offer to purchase. The vast majority of the buyers that are in the market to purchase a home want to come in and look around.  It makes sense. Here is the real challenge...
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College Park, Maryland Real Estate Market Update Here's what's happening in the College Park, Maryland real estate market: DETACHED HOMES Active: 97 Average Days on Market: 106 Average List Price: $346,153 Pending: 19 Average Days on Market: 94 Average List Price: $309,984 NON-DETACHED HOMES Active: 97 Average Days on Market: 106 Average List Price: $346,153 Pending: 5 Average Days on Market: 156 Average List Price: $241,964 MARCH SALES Detached Homes: 4 Average Days on Market: 83 Average List Price: $377,725 Average Sales Price*: $384,850 Non-Detached Homes: 2 Average Days on Market: 51 Average List Price: $223,950 Average Sales Price*: $213,925 *Sales Price does not include any seller contribution. Seller contributions are considered when evaluating a listing price as well as an offi...
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By Ken Montville, The MD Suburbs of DC
(RE/MAX United Real Estate)
Part of the deal with owning your own home is that you sometimes get a little surprise that is, well, a surprise. A couple of nights ago a fairly big windstorm/thunderstorm came up in the middle of the night. In fact, it was so windy that it woke me up (I'm kind of a light sleeper anyway). I looked outside but didn't see anything unusual so I went back to bed. The next morning, I went out the front door of my house to get the Sunday paper. I made a cup of coffee and sat down to start a nice, leisurely Sunday morning. When my wife got up, she looked out to the backyard and screamed. This nice, 30+ foot pear tree had been blown over. Luckily it didn't hit the garage that is right next to the tree. It missed the garage (with my car inside it) by about 10 feet. If the wind had been blowing ...
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By Ken Montville, The MD Suburbs of DC
(RE/MAX United Real Estate)
I attended a meeting at my office yesterday and listened while a highly experienced loan officer gave us an update on the current mortgage situation.  It was a mixed bag, really, and the bottom line message was that being able to obtain a mortgage to buy a house isn't that easy anymore. Because of the downturn in the housing market mortgage insurers are no longer insuring 100% mortgages which means that lenders will no longer offer them. This means that home buyers will need a minimum of 5% down and, more likely, 10% down in order to qualify for a mortgage. So, for a modest $300,000 home in the Hollywood section of College Park you'll need somewhere between $15,000 and $30,000 in order to buy the house. The alternative is FHA financing which only requires 3% (which is still $9,000).  Th...
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By Ken Montville, The MD Suburbs of DC
(RE/MAX United Real Estate)
I'm not a real big fan of Open Houses.  One of two things usually occur:Nobody shows up regardless of the advertising or,The neighbors show up to see how your house compares to their home and to get decorating tips.There are other things as well:Monitoring an Open House alone can be dangerous for the Realtor, especially if they're aloneYour things can get STOLEN! Here is an article in today's Washington Post about a woman in Loudoun County, VA who went around to Open Houses and took prescription drugs, credit cards, electronics and anything else she could get her hands on.  She also managed to rummage through homes not on the market.Luckily, this person was caught.  There are probably plenty of others that do nothing but visit Open Houses looking for good stuff they can have for the tak...
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By Ken Montville, The MD Suburbs of DC
(RE/MAX United Real Estate)
Recently, I was asked by Realtor colleague from the Houston area if I would assist with the sale of the family home in College Park.  She had a sister in the area who was the Personal Representative for the Estate who would handle all the details with her husband, my colleague's brother-in-law. After taking a look at the interior of the house, it was obvious that it needed a lot of repair.  Most of the repair was cosmetic in nature.  The hardwood floors needed to be refinished, the unfinished basement has some issues, the roof was old, it needed painting. However, in this market most people want a house they can move right into without making any repairs. There are lots of foreclosures and "short sales" to compete against. After some discussion and a review of the data for comparable ho...
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By Ken Montville, The MD Suburbs of DC
(RE/MAX United Real Estate)
  12 Months 6 Months 3 Months Number of Homes SOLD in the past 182 53 27 Average # Homes Sold Per Month 15.16666667 8.833333333 9 Number of Homes Currently For Sale 146 146 146         Months Supply on Market 9.626373626 16.52830189 16.22222222 The numbers in the table above show how many months it would take to sell any home in College Park or Berwyn Heights if no other homes came on the market.  It appears that there are an average of about 9 homes selling per month with about 16 months supply available right now. What does this mean to the person wanting to sell their home?  It means that if you would like your home to be one of the 9 that sell this month your home needs to be priced competitively and look like Martha Stewart just came to visit. If you can't make your home look spect...
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By Ken Montville, The MD Suburbs of DC
(RE/MAX United Real Estate)
The Spring has always been the "busy" season for real estate.  I think it has something to do with the combination of Daylight Savings Time, flowers blooming and the coming end of the school year. Whatever the real reason is I'm glad that Spring is upon us.  I've actually seen a pick up in the number of showings my listings are getting which is a god thing.  It means that there are some buyers out there looking for a new home. A couple of things are helping the planets come into alignment: higher loan limits for FHA loans -- it used to be $369,000 and change. It's now  $729,750 in our area,lower Fed rates -- this really has more to do with short term rates (and mortgages are long term) but it does have a trickle down effect,dramatic Fed action in the credit markets -- this will have mor...
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By Ken Montville, The MD Suburbs of DC
(RE/MAX United Real Estate)
There has been a big hullabaloo about the Federal Reserve stepping in to save Bear Stearns, the big investment bank, and providing more liquidity to the financial markets by becoming the "lender of last resort" for many of the investment banks that hold all the mortgage backed securities that have been going bad, bad, bad. The good news for you and me is that mortgage rates went down to between 5.5% and 5.875% for a conventional, conforming 30 year fixed mortgage.  Depending on your credit, the amount financed (or re-financed) and the exact type of loan you want, your interest rate may be different. The 30 year fixed rate is a good benchmark, though, and if it holds it is great news for the housing market.
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By Ken Montville, The MD Suburbs of DC
(RE/MAX United Real Estate)
This may be old news by now but it bears repeating: The housing boom of 2000-2005 is over.  More to the point: It ain't comin' back.This article in a recent issue to The Gazette the weekly paper distributed for free by the same people who bring you The Washington Post indicate a deepening downward trend in home sales. I can attribute this to two things: 1. the mortgage crisis has made obtaining a mortgage a lot more difficult that it used to be. Nowadays, the mortgage folks need you to be able to do more than fog a mirror to obtain the loan you need to buy a house.  You need a job, verifiable income and some type of proof that you'll repay the loan.  That usually means a FICO score that has assessed the risk of lending you money, and 2.  high house prices. Believe it or not, I'm repres...
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By Ken Montville, The MD Suburbs of DC
(RE/MAX United Real Estate)
My good mortgage buddy -- Rob Mercer of First Home Mortgage -- just sent me an e-mail telling my that new loan limits for FHA mortgages have been approved.  It's a HUGE jump for the MD Suburbs of DC with the limits in Prince George's County and Montgomery County going to $729,750, Anne Arundel is going to $560,00 (poor Annapolis and Davidsonville - what were they thinking!?!).Guidelines haven't been passed down to the lenders yet but it shouldn't be long.What does this mean?  It means that for most home buyers the cost of borrowing just went down and the strict guidelines for borrowing just got a little bit more flexible.  Since FHA is a government backed mortgage program designed to help further the vision of home ownership more lenders will be able to lend money to people that may not...
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By Ken Montville, The MD Suburbs of DC
(RE/MAX United Real Estate)
A great loan office friend of mine -- Rob Mercer of First Home Mortgage --  recently sent me the good news that the courts have ruled in favor of Down Payment Assistance program like the Nehemiah Program.  This program has been a godsend to people who want to buy a house but need assistance to make their down payment. Typically, the Seller will make a donation to the Nehemiah Program which, in turn, will provide the buyer with the needed funds to meed down payment requirements from lenders. To learn more about this important court decision - Click Here.
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By Ken Montville, The MD Suburbs of DC
(RE/MAX United Real Estate)
Here is another in a series of great, quick tips on how to make you home more inviting.  As you may have heard, the housing market is not is a good a shape as it could be.  That's why it's more important than ever that your house look its best when you're trying to attract someone to buy it! The best part about these tips is that you really don't have to be selling your home to put them to work.  Taking advantage of some of this advice will help your home look nice and feel nice even if it's just you enjoying it! To download and print a copy of the one page flyer -- Click Here
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By Ken Montville, The MD Suburbs of DC
(RE/MAX United Real Estate)
Every so often an article or, in this instance, an OpEd piece in The Washington Post decries the aggregation of data that we, ourselves, put online.  It doesn't matter if it's a profile on Amazon in order to be able to buy books or stuff you bank wants to know.  It's an apocalyptic invasion of privacy (don't forget we're the ones that  put it there). Here is an  Opd piece in today's Washington Post about what Facebook does  (or doesn't)  do with information you add to your Facebook profile.  Just Click Here to read the article. Full disclosure -- I'm on Facebook and I can be found here.
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By Ken Montville, The MD Suburbs of DC
(RE/MAX United Real Estate)
A great friend of mine, Doyle Neimann, who also happens to be a State Delegate for Maryland's 47th District alerted me to this program designed to provide some relief for low to moderate income homeowners.  The program was originally designed to benefit elderly homeowners on fixed incomes but applies to anyone who meets the qualification guidelines. If you happen to be interested to see if you meet the guideline for the Homeowners' Property Tax Credit Program -- Click Here.
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By Ken Montville, The MD Suburbs of DC
(RE/MAX United Real Estate)
Most of the time on Active Rain I see the word Consumer used to mean Home Buyer and/or Home Seller or, perhaps, Borrower.  Sometimes we forget that the "consumer" of real estate services is unlike, say, a consumer of food at the grocery store, clothes at the department store or automobiles at the car dealership.This was bought home to me recently when I, a super duper Realtor, went into the refinancing marketplace.  You see, way back in 2003 when I bought my current home I, like most everyone else, was looking for the lowest rate wit the lowest payment.  I guess that made me a "consumer".  So I bought into the 5/1 ARM. Since this is now 5 years later, I am looking forward (not) to my rate re-setting in September.  Yikes!Rates have been low of late so I thought NOW would be the time to r...
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By Ken Montville, The MD Suburbs of DC
(RE/MAX United Real Estate)
A great loan officer friend of mine -- Rob Mercer of First Home Mortgage --  recently sent out a little bit of information about the new Economic Stimulus Package.  Now, everyone knows they'll be getting a check in the mail but what does it have to do with mortgages? Currently, the "conforming" loan amount for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -  the two huge secondary mortgage "quasi-governmental" entities - is $417,000.  You really can't buy a lot of home for $417,000 in this area. What happens, though, when the price of the home falls at or below $417,000 you get a better rate - currently hovering around 5.57% to 6.00%.  If the home costs more than that or you need to get a loan for more than that your interest rate is likely to be almost 1% higher. With the new limits, rates for homes that...
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