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

Who says you have to be depressed during the greatest economic catastrophe since the Great Depression?

Three international researchers recently announced that they have used a mixture of economic, industrial and Gallup poll data to rank the individual US states by happiness level. Their resulting study, which will be published in the December issue of the Journal of Research in Personality, crowns Utah as the happiest state in the Union. And you wondered why all those gleaming smiles were wandering around the Great Salt Lake! The most unhappy of our nifty fifty is West Virginia. Perhaps it has something to do with all those incest jokes at their expense.

The study measures physical and emotional health, overall satisfaction with the respondents personal and professional lives, and how they view the possibilities of the future. Their findings discovered a direct correlation between higher happiness scores and more concrete measurements of education, wealth, diversity and a larger proportion of creative occupations — you know, the giddy artsy types like artists, architects, writers, teachers, engineers, scientists, and so on.

You know… I don’t think I would ever have defined an engineer or a scientist as one of the artsy occupations. Lets hope they start to buy houses soon and make the rest of us even happier.

Anyway, where is Maryland on the list? Actually higher than you think! Maryland ranks as number 6, the highest ranking of any east coast state. The top five are all in the west or midwest, and we beat the pants off of all of our neighbors — not just the Mountaineers. Virginia is closest to us at number 15; Pennsylvania is way down at number 32; Delaware moans its way to number 36.

So, the next time you find yourself thinking that the grass is greener on the other side of the … border — any border, just pick one — smile and remember the value of all those wild and crazy mechanical engineers, and all the joy they bring to your life.

Most real estate and mortgage professionals I’m acquainted with have had a disappointing autumn, at least as far as first-time homebuyers are concerned. When Labor Day had passed, we all felt that the Fall Market would bring a crush of new buyers who would be eagerly cramming our hallways to get a look at homes so that they could settle in time to qualify for the government’s tax credit. And in the first two weeks of September it started out that way.

And then something happened. No one is sure exactly why, but the enthusiasm waned. Interested buyers decided to postpone their search, or just disappeared altogether. Then in October the statistics — which always lag the event — started to shed some light: consumer confidence was starting to drop again. What was the reason?

The economy was continuing to shed jobs in numbers that, although declining, were still worrysome. But that had been the case throughout the summer, when the numbers were much bigger, and the buyers were out in force then.

September was colder and wetter than normal, and put everyone in a wintertime huddled pose on the street. But would chilly days be enough to keep interested people from getting money back from Uncle Sam?

Controversy erupted over whether or not the tax credit would be extended into next year, or even broadened. But would that cause people to postpone, or to hurry up and make sure they got theirs — just in case it went away completely?

Or, was it something even more personal? Was it the fear that began to seep into people’s minds as epidemic reports started to fill the news, and more untimely swine flu deaths caught the attention of the media? Certainly, most first-time homebuyers are going to be in the age group that has been identified as the most susceptible to this particular flu bug.

Its unlikely that we will ever have really clear data. But I’m putting my money on the pigs.

It’s time for me to take a position on a controversial discussion beginning to take place around our offices, and in Washington.

Congress should act quickly to not just extend the Homebuyer Tax Credit, but it should also be expanded to cover more transactions and move beyond first-time homebuyers. Our marketplace is still very fragile. The real estate market, admittedly, was the starting point of this severe recession and needs to be supported so that the “tender green shoots” of recovery continue to grow and spread into next year. We will have new foreclosures entering the market, new short sales, and continuing economic distress long after the current expiration date of November 30. Its likely, in my opinion, that the housing market will shrink in the new year without this stimulus — which could jeopardize the health of the economy. The reasons for extension are perfectly clear.

The argument for expansion is equally compelling. First, the existing first-time buyer credit has jump started the under $250,000 segment of the marketplace, but in our area it has not had a similar effect on ‘move-up’ homes or ‘downsizing’ condominiums. To begin to spread the wealth, and help struggling homeowners out of economic distress, or the growing family feeling the pinch in a terrible economy, expansion of the tax credit to those segments would have an incredible effect on associated businesses and communities. There’s very little stimulus that would have the same impact for each dollar invested, not only in actual capital investments but also consumer sentiment, arresting the slide of home values and shoring them up against further upheaval.

In order to make the distribution of these monies is equitable, the eligible properties could be defined as those falling under the regionally adjusted FHA loan guidelines. That would effectively exclude investors and the very wealthy whose properties would require non-FHA ‘jumbo’ loans. This is an idea whose time is right now.

The dog days are done. All of us who make a living in real estate are anticipating the Fall Market, and hoping that there will be one. We’ve had a nice run of very positive sales figures in the last few weeks. How much of that will continue into the Fall? How much of the activity we have seen is due to the Obama Administration’s $8,000 tax credit for first time buyers? There are many unanswered questions as we look toward the end of the year.

Most writers and colleagues are unanimous that the tax credit should be at least extended past its current expiration date at the end of November. Some go so far as to advocate for broadening it to all buyers, not just first timers.

For Baltimore, a recent trade article regarding commercial property was ominous. Baltimore was listed as one of the ten most likely markets to see a second meltdown in commercial real estate because of rising vacancy rates and more inventory, without a pickup in accompanying economic activity. As September arrives, we have many questions and concerns for Autumn. Let’s cross our fingers and hope that things go better than the doomsayers expect.

Recent economic statistics and recent opinion polls are showing a peculiar dissonance in the public mind.

On one hand, economic news lately has been predominantly positive. Unemployment, while bad, has not risen as fast as had been predicted and there is even some evidence that its slowing and may be in the process of turning around. Housing news has been (and I feel will continue to be) positive, as residential resales and new home construction have both increased at surprising rates this spring. Even media outlets that tend to look on the dark side all the time (are you listening, Baltimore SUN?) have written headline stories on the positive trends that are developing. It would seem that economic stimulus, an increase in positive consumer sentiment, and other factors are turning this recession faster than had been predicted just six months ago. Great news, right?

Then how can the news be explained that a growing number of people are dissatisfied with the performance of the new administration and are losing confidence that the stimulus and the new government spending, regulation and other initiatives aimed at the recession will work? It would seem that the evidence is all around them, that it will — and is working — right now.

I have a couple of theories. First is simply that as a nation our ability to wait for good things has been severely diminished over the last 30 years. If its hard, if it takes awhile, and if it requires personal sacrifice, we don’t like it. We lose patience quickly, and blame the very people whose policies and principles are necessary to achieve the goal. Second, as a body politic, we have not yet managed to shake the poisonous habit of the last decade of shouting doom and gloom and twisting reality simply to fashion a hammer with which to beat up the other side. This has begun to achieve Orwellian dimensions… no matter the reality, no matter the truth… simply say the lie often enough and some people will believe it. And as more people join the Falsehood Chorus, more people believe. Passionately.

In my own personal life, I’ve seen friends who I have always credited with being smart, reasonable people become raving lunatics by repeating things that they have heard that are simply ridiculous. And believing them.

This gives me unease, both for the future of the efforts to curb this recession and return us to economic health, and for the future of the country. But as long as the public rewards the liars, the lunatics, the hatemongers, the loud and bombastic over the truth seekers and the reasonable explainers… we will be condemned to travel the wrong paths.

The old geometrical truth is undisputed: the shortest distance between two points is a straight line.

How I wish the firming of the housing market and its path to recovery were following the same truth. In the last eight months, I’ve seen many signs that the market in Baltimore was beginning to recover, and at about the time when my cautious optimism seemed about to be rewarded, there would be some economic event or trend emerge which would send it back downward.

Remember that the data reported in the press with great fanfare is backward-looking. They report what HAS been happening. What I look for is activity… what people are doing now, which won’t be reflected in the data for one or two months. And I’m seeing promising levels of interest and activity.

So, keep the faith. We’re recovering, zig-zag style.