Charm City Baltimore Real Estate: Baltimore, Maryland Real Estate & Homes

Since the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) Commission released its recommendations in late 2005, most informed Marylanders have been told that the roughly 60,000 jobs that are being relocated here will be a boon to the economy, but an enormous challenge to utility, transportation and education infrastructure, and a shot in the arm to the flagging real estate market.

Will it? A recent poll of affected workers at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey indicated that only about 40% were planning to move when their jobs moved. Because of that, the SUN ran a story last week that said the DoD was hiring Maryland workers for new job openings, so that they wouldn’t lose 60% of their workforce all at once when the move takes place. So, although the economic impact will seem to be guaranteed, with Maryland workers getting 60% of these jobs and up to 24,000 new households, the initial indicators are that the majority of the jobs will be taken by people who already live here.

So, is the state of Maryland planning for a big party that will be relatively small? If there really are only 24,000 new households relocating to the state, spread over localities from Anne Arundel, Howard, Harford and Cecil Counties to the City of Baltimore, should the state plan for twice that number?

The decision over these improvements will be made in a very tight budget environment, and the decision must be made fairly quickly in order for the work to be funded and put on the roughly 10 year plan the state maintains. Roads and schools take a while to plan, engineer and construct. The O’Malley Administration needs to look carefully at what needs to be done and avoid over expenditure. And localities and the real estate industry — builders and brokers — need to temper their expectations. The golden egg might just turn out to be a lump of coal.

Last month, the Baltimore SUN did a series of articles detailing some of the excesses that have taken root in Maryland’s archaic, feudal ground rent tradition in the years of the real estate boom. And there are excesses. Its stupid that someone can take away your house for an unpaid ground rent of $24 per year, as happened to one of the unhappy homeowners in the newspaper’s series. Several specific real estate agents took a lot of heat in the articles because acting as renovators and developers, they actually created new ground rents in the last few years. And the industry as a whole was portrayed in vaguely unflattering terms as looking out for the interests of the evil, greedy ground rent holders.

The SUN *loves* to create black and white dramas, filled with Snydely Whiplash-style villians and Polly Purebread-style victims. And as usual, the truth is more nuanced.

The real estate industry is normally slow to jump onto reform bandwagons where the rights of property owners is at stake. And whether or not you like the ground rent system, these people have legally bought the rights to collect this money and its been a part of the legal legacy of Maryland for close to 300 years. This is a good thing, since property rights are one of the mainstays of the American Constitution, right up there within the civic holy trinity of Life, Liberty and Property. (Only Jefferson added that ‘Pursuit of Happiness’ business… the rest of the Founders were more pragmatic. Property can be measured. Happiness can’t.)

Ground rent holders also came in for the waxed moustache treatment, and certainly there are a bunch of sleazy ones. But there are also normal, good people who looked at ground rents as a secure method of funding their retirements, and several large charities in the Baltimore area who, through the largesse of their supporters over the years, have had the title to ground rents donated to them and collect quite a bit of money every year from them. Only a handful of the professional sleaze buckets decided this was a legal way to rob people of their homes, but they are the ones ruining it for everyone.

Personally, I wish they would abolish the entire system. Many of the earliest ground rents cannot be traced to a specific holder anymore, and so all they do is create another legal and financial situation that buyers and sellers have to confront at settlement. Mortgage lenders who are based outside of Maryland just don’t ‘get’ ground rent, and can screw up the transfer of a property by deciding at the last minute that they don’t like what they are getting into.

The Maryland Legislature, now back in session and just brimming with infinite wisdom, has decided that ground rent reform is a top priority. The SUN is smelling Pulitzer. And the rest of us, who deal with ground rents regularly, just hope they don’t screw it up any further than it already is. Anyone care to make a wager?

When it comes to a real estate transaction or working with an agent, some otherwise smart people make some pretty dumb assumptions.

Would you call five lawyers, and tell each of them that you will pay the first one that writes up an acceptable Will, based on the criteria you provide? Or, to move it to the other end of the trust spectrum, would you call up five car dealers and tell each one that you’ll buy your car from the first one that brings you a special order at your price with your list of features?

If you did, you probably wouldn’t hear from either the lawyers or the car dealers again.

I got a call from a successful area businessman today who basically asked me to do the same thing. Once it was clear none of my current listings suited his needs, he wanted me to keep an eye out for him. That was fine, until he declined coming to see me or hiring me as his buyer agent. Seems he has a friend who also is an agent, and he just couldn’t become a client of someone else. So, he basically thinks that I will work my butt off looking for properties that meet his criteria — with no promise of loyalty on his part to make sure that eventually I am compensated for my work. Its clear he also expects his friend to do that too… and who knows how many other listing agents he’s called and asked to do the same thing, once he discovers their listings also don’t meet his needs.

Does he think that he’s savvy and has five agents working their collective butts off for him?

In the end, real estate is about trust and loyalty between agent and buyer, or agent and seller. You might get a newbie, a raw hungry rookie, to do something like this once or twice until they had gotten tired of working for free, but no seasoned agent will bite on this kind of one-sided offer. We’ve all been burned by the potential buyer who won’t declare loyalty, work with you and reward your efforts.

So, think about this when you think its easy to get five agents to work for you at the same time. Fact is, they aren’t. If you want an agent to work their butt off for you, deal with them fairly and exclusively. Then you’ll find what you want.