Howard County Real Estate Talk
A blog about residential Real Estate in Howard County, Maryland.
Howard County Real Estate Talk

MONEY Magazine ranks Columbia/Ellicott City as 8th BEST PLACE TO LIVE IN THE USA!

And the praise keeps coming.  Add all the great publicity and with BRAC jobs coming thru 2012, this maybe a great time to consider increasing your real estate portfolio in Central Maryland!

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/moneymag/bplive/2008/snapshots/PL2419125.html
...<< MORE >>
Posted by Brian Pakulla at 7/18/2008 5:29 PM | Add Comment

Update on the financial markets.

It has been a tumultuous week for Wall
Street but it seems that calmer heads have prevailed for the last
couple of days - let's all hope that trend continues. There has been a
lot of negative speculation regarding the financial health of any
company associated with the mortgage industry including most banks and
industry giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The failure of IndyMac
seems to have been the catalyst for the latest round of fears. The fear
that Fannie and Freddie are going to fail is, in my opinion, greatly
exaggerated. Unfortunately, once the rumors start, they can start to
become a self-fulfilling prophecy when ...<< MORE >>

Posted by Brian Pakulla at 7/18/2008 5:27 PM | Add Comment

Forbes ranks Howard County as the 17th best place to raise a family in the USA!

Just another good reason to buy in Howard County.  Howard County has been recognized by both Money Magazine and now Forbes as one of the best places to live.  And when there is a good place to live, there is a good place to buy and invest in. 

http://www.forbes.com/2008/06/27/schools-places-family-forbeslife-cx_zg_0630realestate_slide_5.html?thisSpeed=15000
...<< MORE >>
Posted by Brian Pakulla at 7/6/2008 9:19 PM | Add Comment

Central Maryland Homes for Sale

Photo Address Details Price
Amazing Builder's Model Home backs to WOODS! 4829 Attenborough Way
Ellicott City, MD 21043


TourID: 0 		Amazing Builder's Model Home backs to WOODS!
Bedroom: 4
Full Bath: 4
Half Bath: 1
5050 Sq. Ft. 		$899,000
<< MORE >>
Posted by Brian Pakulla at 6/25/2008 3:55 PM | Add Comment

Loans in Maryland will NOW require income documentation

The big news this week is thatas of June 1,
Maryland Senate Bill 363 went into effect, basically eliminating all
lenders from closing any Alt Doc loans (NINA, NO RATIO, STATED Loans)
where income has not been documented to show the borrowers can afford
the monthly payments. I believe Maryland is the 4th State (West
Virginia, Minnesota, Ohio) to pass this type of law. Other States
currently have the same bills out for legislative review and vote. What
this means is that any loan closing in Maryland must have income
documentation in the loan file - pay stubs, W-2s, 1099s, and/or income
tax returns, even in ...

<< MORE >>
Posted by Brian Pakulla at 6/7/2008 4:27 PM | Add Comment

5 new rules for home buyers from Money Magazine

This was an interesting article written in money magazine.  There is a lot of good, sound advice.  However, keep in mind there are some homes in this market priced well.  This is why it is important to use a good Realtor to identify the well priced homes and good deals.

-Brian Pakulla

5 new rules for home buyers



 

<< MORE >>
Posted by Brian Pakulla at 6/4/2008 9:34 AM | Add Comment

End of the down market according to the Wall Street Journal......

It sounds like some in the press may start writing some positive stories.  In order for the market to swing around we'll need the press to start "looking at the glass half full vs half empty".  It is amazing how much the press and psychology has to do with buying a home. 

The Housing Crisis Is Over
By Cyril Moulle-Berteaux 
6 May 2008
The Wall Street Journal 
 
(Copyright (c) 2008, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.)
 
The dire headlines coming fast and furious in the financial and popular press suggest that the housing crisis is intensifying. Yet it is very likely that April 2008 will mark the bottom of the U.S. housing market. Yes, the housing market is bottoming right now.
 
How can this be? For starters, a bottom does not mean that prices are about to return to the heady days of 2005. That probably won't happen for another 15 years. It just means that the trend is no longer getting worse, which is the critical factor.
 
Most people forget that the current housing bust is nearly three years old. Home sales peaked in July 2005. New home sales are down a staggering 63% from peak levels of 1.4 million. Housing starts have fallen more than 50%, and, adjusted for population growth, are back to the trough levels of 1982.
 
Furthermore, residential construction is close to 15-year lows at 3.8% of GDP; by the fourth quarter of this year, it will probably hit the lowest level ever. So what's going to stop the housing decline? Very simply, the same thing that caused the bust: affordability.
 
The boom made housing unaffordable for many American families, especially first-time home buyers. During the 1990s and early 2000s, it took 19% of average monthly income to service a conforming mortgage on the average home purchased. By 2005 and 2006, it was absorbing 25% of monthly income. For first time buyers, it went from 29% of income to 37%. That just proved to be too much.
 
Prices got so high that people who intended to actually live in the houses they purchased (as opposed to speculators) stopped buying. This caused the bubble to burst.
 
Since then, house prices have fallen 10%-15%, while incomes have kept growing (albeit more slowly recently) and mortgage rates have come down 70 basis points from their highs. As a result, it now takes 19% of monthly income for the average home buyer, and 31% of monthly income for the first-time home buyer, to purchase a house. In other words, homes on average are back to being as affordable as during the best of times in the 1990s. Numerous households that had been priced out of the market can now afford to get in.
 
The next question is: Even if home sales pick up, how can home prices stop falling with so many houses vacant and unsold? The flip but true answer: because they always do.
 
In the past five major housing market corrections (and there were some big ones, such as in the early 1980s when home sales also fell by 50%-60% and prices fell 12%-15% in real terms), every time home sales bottomed, the pace of house-price declines halved within one or two months.
 
The explanation is that by the time home sales stop declining, inventories of unsold homes have usually already started falling in absolute terms and begin to peak out in "months of supply" terms. That's the case right now: New home inventories peaked at 598,000 homes in July 2006, and stand at 482,000 homes as of the end of March. This inventory is equivalent to 11 months of supply, a 25-year high — but it is similar to 1974, 1982 and 1991 levels, which saw a subsequent slowing in home-price declines within the next six months.
 
Inventories are declining because construction activity has been falling for such a long time that home completions are now just about undershooting new home sales. In a few months, completions of new homes for sale could be undershooting new home sales by 50,000-100,000 annually.
 
Inventories will drop even faster to 400,000 — or seven months of supply — by the end of 2008. This shift in inventories will have a significant impact on prices, although house prices won't stop falling entirely until inventories reach five months of supply sometime in 2009. A five-month supply has historically signaled tightness in the housing market.
 
Many pundits claim that house prices need to fall another 30% to bring them back in line with where they've been historically. This is usually based on an analysis of house prices adjusted for inflation: Real house prices are 30% above their 40-year, inflation-adjusted average, so they must fall 30%. This simplistic analysis is appealing on the surface, but is flawed for a variety of reasons.
 
Most importantly, it neglects the fact that a great majority of Americans buy their houses with mortgages. And if one buys a house with a mortgage, the most important factor in deciding what to pay for the house is how much of one's income is required to be able to make the mortgage payments on the house. Today the rate on a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage is 5.7%. Back in 1981, the rate hit 18.5%. Comparing today's house prices to the 1970s or 1980s, when mortgage rates were stratospheric, is misguided and misleading.
 
This is all good news for the broader economy. The housing bust has been subtracting a full percentage point from GDP for almost two years now, which is very large for a sector that represents less than 5% of economic activity.
 
When the rate of house-price declines halves, there will be a wholesale shift in markets' perceptions. All of a sudden, the expected value of the collateral (i.e. houses) for much of the lending that went on for the past decade will change. Right now, when valuing the collateral, market participants including banks are extrapolating the current pace of house price declines for another two to three years; this has a significant impact on the amount of delinquencies, foreclosures and credit losses that lenders are expected to face.
 
More home sales and smaller price declines means fewer homeowners will be underwater on their mortgages. They will thus have less incentive to walk away and opt for foreclosure.
 
A milder house-price decline scenario could lead to increases in the market value of a lot of the securitized mortgages that have been responsible for $300 billion of write-downs in the past year. Even if write-backs do not occur, stabilizing collateral values will have a huge impact on the markets' perception of risk related to housing, the financial system, and the economy.
 
We are of course experiencing a serious housing bust, with serious economic consequences that are still unfolding. The odds are that the reverberations will lead to sub-trend growth for a couple of years. Nonetheless, housing led us into this credit crisis and this recession. It is likely to lead us out. And that process is underway, right now.

 del.icio.us  Stumbleupon  Technorati  Digg 

Posted by Brian Pakulla at 5/11/2008 1:40 PM | Add Comment

Are we at the bottom of the market?

I have been telling many of my clients that it feels like we maybe at or close to the bottom of the market.  Buyers are starting to act again, although buyers are still price sensitive.  This means sellers still need to create value and price correctly. 

This is from the "Dow Jones Tomorrow's News Today" Article dated 3/24/08.  This is strong data from the nation.  Our local market typically does better than the national market, so time will tell if in fact we are the bottom.

Demand rose for used homes during February, ...<< MORE >>
Posted by Brian Pakulla at 3/24/2008 9:12 PM | Add Comment

Tax Refund Info - 2008



* Please consult your tax advisor for legal tax advice. *

 

Greetings!

 
I hope you are doing well
and enjoying your home.  The Real Estate market in 2008 appears to be
picking up.  Please let me know if you know of anyone in need of the
professional Real Estate services that we provide. 

 

Our federal government is
hoping to spur additional economic growth and therefore starting in
May, the Treasury will begin sending economic ...
<< MORE >>
Posted by Brian Pakulla at 3/21/2008 12:14 PM | Add Comment

update on mortgage rates

The Fed's action this week (reducing the Fed Funds rate by 3/4%) has brought some more much needed relief to the American homeowner. Anyone with a HELOC tied to Prime (currently 5.25%) is seeing immediate savings. The mortgage market remains extremely volatile however, with most lenders receiving multiple reprices to their rates each day. The rates that are quoted in the morning are very often different by the afternoon. This is largely due to the continued lack of appetite by the end investors for mortgage related debt. Adjustable Rate Mortgages are priced worse than 30 year fixed rates in most cases (although ARMs do seem to be one of the decent options in the Jumbo market).

With the extreme swings in interest rates daily and even intra-day, it is important that you protect your buyers. Encourage them to work with a lender that you are confident will deliver. Have the client call their lender the day they actually make any offer, even if they spoke to their lender the day before. Put deadlines on any offers that you make that force the seller to ratify within a day or two. Once your client is under contract, encourage them to lock in with their lender quickly, before the rate that they are expecting is changed.

As always, I'm available all weekend to assist you and your clients. Happy Easter.

30 year fixed conforming with 0 points…. 5.750%

Pat Sheplee
Loan Officer
FNMC \ A Division of National City Bank
15400 Calhoun Drive Suite 100
Rockville, MD 20855
301-279-4697 Direct
301-580-7709 Cell
301-309-0240 Fax
patrick.sheplee@ncmc.com

 del.icio.us  Stumbleupon  Technorati  Digg 

Posted by Brian Pakulla at 3/21/2008 12:10 PM | Add Comment
Copyright 2007. All rights reserved.