Baltimore Housing Market Shows Conflicting Data

The Baltimore housing market continued to show improvement and weakness in the last month, with some parts of the region recording strong home price increases even as the average time required to sell a home stretched past three months.

• The average Baltimore-area home sold for about $315,600, up 7.3 percent from February 2006.
• Prices jumped nearly 17 percent in the city and about 13 percent in Anne Arundel County, but they dropped in both Harford and Howard counties - about 3 percent and 1.6 percent, respectively.
• Baltimore County and Carroll prices rose less than 5 percent.

Across the region, properties spend an average of 93 days on market. That’s up sharply from 57 days a year earlier, according to local multiple listing service numbers.

Home sales also declined again last month, as did mortgage rates, after an upturn in January - the first in 16 months.

But the 4 percent drop was significantly less than the double-digit decreases last year. Carroll and Howard counties, meanwhile, both posted increases in homes sold last month.

Another positive sign: The number of homes on the market, which increased rapidly after the housing boom ended in the fall of 2005, has fallen. The active inventory in the metro area dropped below 14,800 last month, down almost 3,000 from the peak in September.

Such conflicting signs, combined with continually low Maryland mortgage rates, make it complicated to predict where the market is headed. But many real estate agents say they’ve seen an improvement in recent weeks.

“I think now we’re just normal - it’s a normal market,” said Katie E. Grove, an agent with Coldwell Banker in Owings Mills.

She attributes the continued appreciation in Baltimore to the lower-than-average prices throughout the metro area - about $190,000 last month. She’s also seeing a stream of buyers from the Washington area.

Sales momentum in the Maryland housing market “appears to be rebounding,” said economist Anirban Basu, CEO of Baltimore-based Sage Policy Group Inc.

January’s increase did come at a time of unseasonably warm weather, but February was snowy and cold, which he believes makes the small drop in sales look pretty good.

After all, low home mortgage rates only go so far when the weather is too bleak for prospective buyers to do some serious house hunting.

But inventory remains high, he warned. Until the number of homes for sale drops significantly, it’s a buyer’s market - and a particular headache for home builders, who have to compete with individual sellers for buyers.

“Nonetheless, the situation has improved markedly in the last six months,” Basu added.

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