Association Of Realtors

Therese Easley fought off nine other bidders to buy her house in Sandtown last year, the first home for the 40-year-old single woman who grew up in a public housing development in East Baltimore. Ann Anderson, at 26, recently closed on her three-bedroom Federal Hill rowhouse, paying for it with 100 percent financing. And Kelly Mulligan, 29, moved into her one-bedroom condominium in Bolton Hill last month, where her mortgage is no more than the rent on her former apartment in Fells Point.

Marc Witman and Mary Antoun are giddy about the mountain they have conquered. They are inhaling the rarefied air of success.For Witman, president of the Greater Baltimore Board of Realtors, it was a crusade.For Antoun, executive vice president of the Maryland Association of Realtors, it was the end of 15 years of frustration.For Maryland homeowners with escrow accounts, it means they'll share in a one-time refund totaling nearly half a billion dollars. Yes, that's half a billion. And if they act quickly, they can get the money sooner than later.

Realtors, HUD develop multicultural courseThe Greater Baltimore Board of Realtors, with the help of the National Association of Realtors and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, has developed a course to help its members work with the growing number of multicultural and minority homebuyers.The one-day course, "At Home With Diversity," will teach Realtors how to work with buyers of various cultures and ethnic backgrounds and to encourage more minorities to enter the real estate industry.

The Maryland Association of Realtors elected its officers for 2000 at its 47th annual meeting held recently in Ocean City.William J. Armstrong III, associate broker and vice president of Long & Foster Real Estate Inc., was elected president. Armstrong has been in the industry since 1983.O'Conor, Piper & Flynn ERA Vice President Adam Cockey was named president-elect. A 24-year real estate veteran, he was the Maryland State Realtor of the Year in 1996. He has also served on the National Association of Realtors Board of directors since 1996.

Event to honor top Realtors from Washington regionThe Greater Capital Area Association of Realtors will recognize the region's top real estate sales leaders at its Achievement Awards Luncheon March 3 at the Marriott Wardman Hotel in Washington.Realtors will be recognized in five categories, including the top producer overall and the top producer among Realtors in their first year.Information: 301-590-8764.News in BriefLong & Foster Real Estate Inc. announced the top producers for sales and listings for December:In Anne Arundel County: Barbara Stammer, Annapolis, $1.9 million; Lorie Scheibel, Crofton, $1.13 million; Bill Whitman, Deale, $804,275; Theresa Stevens, Fort Meade/Odenton, $576,900; Gail Lincoln, Pasadena, $794,000; Peggy Stancavage, $962,929.

Their numbers are dwindling.As the 46th annual Maryland Association of Realtors Conference returns this week to Ocean City -- after two years in Atlantic City, N.J. -- Realtors may be noticing that their association is becoming a leaner outfit.According to MAR statistics, membership has dropped significantly, from about 29,000 at the beginning of the decade to less than 17,000, a drop of approximately 40 percent.That drop mirrors the overall decline in state licensees in the real estate field.

Technology conference Friday in GaithersburgMetropolitan Regional Information Systems Inc. and Clareity Consulting Inc. will offer a conference on new technology, improved automation and the Internet from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday at the Washingtonian Marriott in Gaithersburg.The conference will also include a panel discussion on the state of the real estate industry and a presentation by John Featherston, publisher of National Real Estate and Relocation.The cost for the conference is $295 per person.

Skilled volunteers sought to fix up homes for the elderlyComprehensive Housing Assistance Inc. is seeking professional contractors and craftsmen to provide minor repairs and maintenance for its ninth annual Senior Home Repair Day next Sunday.Last year, CHAI volunteers helped 40 low-income elderly homeowners with work ranging from grab bar installation to roof repairs.Companies providing assistance in 1997 included Caplan Glass, Environmental Maintenance, SD Kitchens, Frank J. Klein & Sons, C&S Ornamental, Business Flooring, Finglass Construction, Mount Royal Management and Harold Rosinsky Plumbing & Electric.

Home sales and construction should not be affected despite an expected slower economy in 1999, according to the National Association of Realtors.The NAR is projecting 4.39 million existing-home sales in 1999, second only to the expected record of 4.75 million this year. The new-home market is also expected to do well. NAR is projecting the 831,000 units will be sold in 1999, slightly down from the record 881,000 units expected to be sold this year.While housing starts are expected to be at the highest level for housing construction since 1987 (1.6 million units)

Richardson, Myers & Donofrio, the Baltimore advertising agency, said yesterday that it will share a $32.4 million account to create a nationwide advertising campaign for the National Association of Realtors.The account will be one of the largest ever for the agency, said Chuck Donofrio, president of RM&D.RM&D will share the three-year account with Townsend & O'Leary, a Laguna Hills, Calif., advertising group which handled a successful media campaign for the California Association of Realtors last year.

Edna J. Wolf, who worked in real estate sales for 30 years, died of cancer Aug. 29 at a daughter's Pikesville home. She was 77. Edna Jacobs was born and raised in Norfolk, Va., and moved to Washington in 1952. She attended Wheaton College in Norton, Mass., and earned a bachelor's degree in psychology from George Washington University in the 1970s. Since 1980, Ms. Jacobs had worked in real estate sales for Long & Foster in Washington. She had been honored by the Washington, D.C., Association of Realtors for her work and was an active member of the Greater Capital Area Association of Realtors.

It's one of the biggest unknowns bugging would-be buyers of houses and condos this summer: Will Congress let the $8,000 nonrepayable tax credit for first-time purchasers expire as scheduled about three months from now? Or will the credit get a second life and be extended for six to 12 months, taking pressure off buyers, real estate agents and settlement companies? That's an especially urgent matter if you're a buyer just starting to shop and you see entry-level prices bottoming out or rebounding.

Maryland was posting some of the steepest drops in home sales nationwide not long ago, but now it's among the gainers. Home sales from April to June were up 4.4 percent compared with a year ago, the ninth-biggest increase in the country, the National Association of Realtors said Wednesday. The trade group said sales increased about 15 percent from the previous three months, topping all but six other states and Washington, D.C. The numbers are adjusted to try to account for typical variations in buying from one season to the next.

Home sales declined sharply last month, and housing prices posted their deepest decline in four decades as a rapidly slowing economy discouraged many potential buyers from tip-toeing into the market. Sales of existing homes declined 8.6 percent last month, to a seasonally adjusted rate of 4.49 million, according to the National Association of Realtors, a trade association. The median price of a home fell 13 percent in November, to $181,300 from $208,000 a year ago. That was the lowest price since February 2004.

It is the rare homebuyer who hasn't done preliminary house-hunting online, whether to peruse what's for sale, check out neighborhoods or get an idea of what prices homes have fetched in the past few months. A recent National Association of Realtors survey says that 84 percent of all homebuyers and sellers turned to the Internet. That's up from 71 percent in 2003. "They can sit and surf that Net and come up with a lot of data," said Carol Bliss, branch vice president of Coldwell Banker's Roland Park-Cross Keys office, noting that buyers and sellers tell agents they site-hop.

If you don't absolutely, positively have to sell a home at the moment, how do you figure out if you really, honestly want to? Once you get past the financials - how much do you owe, how much could you get - you might consider how many homes in your neck of the woods are selling and how many are sitting. If you're a would-be buyer, you'll probably want to know that, too. The more homes sitting on the market, the harder it is for homeowners to sell and the easier it is for buyers to make a deal, all else being equal.

Home sales fell faster in Maryland than in any other state in the nation in the first three months of the year, dropping more than even in hard-hit spots of the country such as California, a Realtors group said yesterday. Sales in January through March dropped nearly 39 percent in Maryland compared with the same months last year, the National Association of Realtors said. Close behind were Washington, D.C., where sales were down almost 35 percent; Utah, down almost 34 percent; and California, down about 33 percent.

Maryland's housing market took a beating in the spring selling season, recording one of the biggest drops in sales in the nation. Homeowners in the state sold 21.1 percent fewer homes during the second quarter than they did a year earlier, the National Association of Realtors said yesterday. That was nearly double the 10.8 percent drop for the nation as a whole. The numbers, which track existing homes, are annualized and adjusted for seasonal variations. Despite the steep sales decline, pricing in the Baltimore metropolitan area held up. The median price of a single-family home gained 3 percent in the April-June quarter over the same three months a year earlier, according to the association.

Therese Easley fought off nine other bidders to buy her house in Sandtown last year, the first home for the 40-year-old single woman who grew up in a public housing development in East Baltimore. Ann Anderson, at 26, recently closed on her three-bedroom Federal Hill rowhouse, paying for it with 100 percent financing. And Kelly Mulligan, 29, moved into her one-bedroom condominium in Bolton Hill last month, where her mortgage is no more than the rent on her former apartment in Fells Point.

With all the conflicting reports on housing prices and the direction of the market, you might ask: What's really going on out there? If, as the National Association of Realtors reported last month, the median price of an existing home nationwide fell by 3.1 percent in 2006, does that mean that your house lost value as well? Or do you focus instead on the more upbeat numbers released last Friday by the federal agency that tracks value shifts in the country's largest database of existing dwellings?