Patrick Turner can tell when a prospective home buyer is probably not a Silo Point buyer.
Sometimes, it's the questions the buyer asks. Turner, developer of the industrial grain elevator-turned high-rise condos in Locust Point, recalls the woman who observed the gritty and imposing exposed concrete columns in one luxury unit and asked, "Will these be painted?"
Turner believes he achieved his goal of building an ultra-hip residential tower on the water's edge that would preserve vestiges of the industrial past - the original 1923 structure once stored and weighed tons of grain. Still he admits his vision of loft-living in the sky isn't for everyone. And he acknowledges it's not a particularly optimal time to be opening.
"This is one of the worst economies to be selling residential real estate - unless you're selling at the right price," said Turner, president of Baltimore-based Turner Development Group.
Once bloated housing prices may finally have fallen enough to start pulling buyers back into a sluggish market. Some economists say the market has reached bottom, with plummeting prices making homes more affordable. Now, experts are seeing some improvement in sales of new condos as well.
From April through June, 35 new condos sold in Baltimore, compared with just nine in the second quarter of last year, according to Delta Associates, which tracks regional condo sales. The latest figures also show an improvement from the first quarter of this year, when contract cancellations in the city outpaced sales.
In the Baltimore region, including the city and Baltimore, Harford, Anne Arundel and Howard counties, sales of new condos rose to 162 from 59 a year earlier, Delta said in second-quarter numbers released July 2. The second quarter's sales were the most for any single quarter in the past two years, said William Rich, a Delta vice president.
At the 228-unit Silo Point, Turner says he has 75 contracts, including 46 buyers who have settled and moved in. He says his strategy of setting prices as the condos are completed, rather than selling pre-construction, has preserved sales that otherwise might have been lost if buyers backed out of contracts after values declined. Last month, Turner opened sales in the final section of the now-completed project, where units feature huge windows, soaring ceilings, granite kitchens and exposed concrete columns.
