Baltimore Home

A 31-year-old woman found dead in her southern Baltimore home was murdered, police said Friday.  Officers were called to a home in the 2600 block of Wegworth Lane, in the Lakeland neighborhood, on Thursday at noon for a report of a person who was not breathing, said Det. Jeremy Silbert, a police spokesman. Inside, they found Rachel Curtis unresponsive and suffering from undisclosed trauma to her body. She was pronounced dead at the scene, according to police. Silbert said detectives consider the killing to be "domestic-related," and said they have a person of interest.

Baltimore-area home sales rose 15 percent in April compared with a year earlier, and newly pending deals soared as buyers kicked the spring housing market into higher gear, according to data released Friday. Prices remained largely unchanged at $238,000 for the typical home in the region — Baltimore and its five suburban counties. That remains well under the region's April peak of $275,000 six years ago, after the housing bubble pushed up prices but before the bust and financial crisis deflated them.

UPDATE (Feb. 23, 4:42 p.m.): Terrel Dishon Taylor, aka Smash, was discovered dead due to congestive heart failure in his Baltimore home 5:30 p.m. Friday, according to a family press release. Funeral arrangements are not yet set, but there will be a vigil on Wednesday, Feb. 27 at City of Gods (1118 Hollins St.) from 6-10 p.m. Donations to the family can be mailed to 8420 Governance Bradford Lane, Ellicott City, Md. 21043. ------------- Baltimore rapper Smash, born Terrel Taylor and also known as T-Mac, died Friday due to heart failure, according to his aunt, Arlette Thomas-Fletcher and long-time manager Swen Brock.

Jamila Ward and Lionel Jennings had been house hunting on and off for two years when their agent pointed the couple in a new direction: a formerly condemned property in a revitalized area of Baltimore. Some city neighborhoods, just years ago marked by abandoned or deteriorating single-family homes, are becoming places of renewal, with nonprofit agencies buying up properties and renovating them for sale to first-time homebuyers. Ward and Jennings, her fiance, qualified for one of these properties in the Johnston Square neighborhood on the city's east side.

The sale price of homes in the Baltimore metro region during August were 1.2 percent higher than a year earlier, according to data released Tuesday by housing market analysis firm CoreLogic. Much of the upward pressure on prices was due to buyers paying higher prices for distressed properties ­ - foreclosures and short sales. Leaving out distressed sales, home prices increased just 0.7 percent in August when compared with August 2011, CoreLogic concluded. The Baltimore region's home price performance in August was weaker than the nation as a whole, the data showed.

A 48-year-old woman was slightly injured Wednesday when an unidentified man fired shots into her home in Baltimore's Hanlon-Longwood neighborhood near Garrison Boulevard. The suspect rang the door bell at the residence in the 3400 block of Carlisle Avenue and demanded to see a person, who was unknown to the woman, police said. The intruder shot several times into the security door to the home, police said. One shot grazed the woman's face. She is being treated at an area hospital, police said.

Baltimore police arrested a 54-year-old man at a home in the 3500 block of Edgewood Road around 9 a.m. Saturday after he refused to talk to investigators following an alleged assault Friday night. Police stood guard outside the home in the Ashburton neighborhood after a woman, who had left the house, reported an assault around 11:30 p.m., according to police spokesman Detective Jeremy Silbert. The woman had non-life threatening injuries, Silbert said. The man, whose identity wasn't immediately released pending formal charges, was arrested Saturday morning on assault and weapon charges, Silbert said.

Andrew Wells is hoping to buy a Baltimore home for around the cost of an old car: Less than $10,000. Turns out he's in good company. One of every 10 city homes sold during the first half of the year - about 275 in all - fell in that price range. Twice as many sold for under $20,000. Often foreclosures, these properties are usually in bad shape but seem like deals to real estate investors and the occasional hopeful owner-occupier - such as Wells. "I don't have to worry about trying to get a loan," said Wells, 40, a bill-processing technician who works in Annapolis.

It might lack the cachet of Long Island Sound, where novelist S. Scott Fitzgerald set "The Great Gatsby. " But anyone with a spare $450,000 can live in a piece of literary history - specifically the 3,600-square-foot Bolton Hill town home where Fitzgerald lived briefly. The four-bedroom, four-bathroom town home at 1307 Park Ave. is listed by Long & Foster Realtors and went on the market last Saturday. A plaque outside the residence indicates that it once housed Fitzgerald, who stayed there from 1933 until 1935 while his mercurial wife, Zelda, was being treated for schizophrenia at the nearby Sheppard Pratt Hospital.

Baltimore's housing market took its hardest hit in months in November, as home sales plummeted 23 percent, the Greater Baltimore Board of Realtors said yesterday.Realtors mostly blamed rising mortgage interest rates, but said higher taxes, loss of defense-related jobs and last year's burst of mortgage refinancing have all hurt the area's sales, which have fallen each month since July.In November, sales fell to 1,299, compared with 1,684 in the same month last year. The fewer sales came as little surprise to those in the industry, who had watched the number of sales contracts signed fall sharply in both September and October.

Firefighters battling a blaze in a small rowhome in West Baltimore on Thursday evening discovered the body of a man in a second-floor bedroom, said Roman Clark, spokesman for the city Fire Department. The man has not yet been identified, and a neighbor said she had never seen anyone go in or out of the home at 615 Claymont Avenue. The homes flanking it were vacant and no other injuries were reported, Clark said. It has not yet been determined whether the man was a resident, and the cause of the fire is under investigation.

Designed by the influential Baltimore architects Edward L. Palmer and William D. Lamdin in 1925 and built in 1928, the home at 101 Witherspoon Road is one of the premier properties in Homeland. This North Baltimore home is built of local stone with a Vermont slate roof, and it has over 7,000 square feet of living space. The property is being offered by Hill & Co. Realtors for $1.25 million. "It's a unique property with one of the largest lots in Homeland," said Mary Lynne Mullican, the listing agent for Hill & Co. "The wrought-iron work on the back loggia is beautiful.

In the past five months, nearly 100 homes in metro Baltimore went under contract in 24 hours or less, according to data complied by real estate brokerage Redfin. “The inventory shortage plaguing real estate markets across the country, paired with extremely high homebuyer demand have caused the pace of the market to accelerate dramatically,” the firm said in a statement. “Already frustrated homebuyers are finding it necessary to move very quickly to keep up with their market's selling velocity.” Metro Baltimore ranks 12th in the nation for the number of homes sold in their first day on the market over that five-month period, according to Redfin's data.

A 31-year-old woman found dead in her southern Baltimore home was murdered, police said Friday.  Officers were called to a home in the 2600 block of Wegworth Lane, in the Lakeland neighborhood, on Thursday at noon for a report of a person who was not breathing, said Det. Jeremy Silbert, a police spokesman. Inside, they found Rachel Curtis unresponsive and suffering from undisclosed trauma to her body. She was pronounced dead at the scene, according to police. Silbert said detectives consider the killing to be "domestic-related," and said they have a person of interest.

The first caller told Norman Breidenbaugh he had won $2.5 million in a foreign sweepstakes, but there was a catch: Breidenbaugh needed to send $2,000 in fees before collecting his earnings. Other calls followed, promising Breidenbaugh millions more - even a Mercedes Benz - as long as he would wire some money to pay taxes on the prizes. He obliged, sending more than $400,000 over about six years, hoping the promised winnings would cover his wife's medical expenses. The prizes never came.

UPDATE (Feb. 23, 4:42 p.m.): Terrel Dishon Taylor, aka Smash, was discovered dead due to congestive heart failure in his Baltimore home 5:30 p.m. Friday, according to a family press release. Funeral arrangements are not yet set, but there will be a vigil on Wednesday, Feb. 27 at City of Gods (1118 Hollins St.) from 6-10 p.m. Donations to the family can be mailed to 8420 Governance Bradford Lane, Ellicott City, Md. 21043. ------------- Baltimore rapper Smash, born Terrel Taylor and also known as T-Mac, died Friday due to heart failure, according to his aunt, Arlette Thomas-Fletcher and long-time manager Swen Brock.

Prospective city homebuyers can tour neighborhoods, view listings and open houses for sale and get advice from more than 40 exhibitors, including real estate agents and mortgage lenders, during the seventh annual Buying Into Baltimore Home-Buying Fair on Saturday. The fair, sponsored by the Live Baltimore Home Center and Baltimore City, will feature eastern neighborhoods, including Ednor Gardens, Hamilton Hills, Belair Edison and Patterson Park. The first 50 participants who close on a house within 90 days of the event will be eligible to receive a $3,000 award from the Baltimore Department of Housing valid toward down payment and closing costs.

A 73-year-old retired Baltimore City police officer was shot late last night outside his home during an apparent robbery attempt.Oliver T. Murdock was getting out of his car in the 2500 block of Riggs Ave. in West Baltimore about 9: 50 p.m. when he was confronted by two males, police said. During a scuffle with the assailants, the retired officer was shot once in the chest.The two men fled in a black pickup truck. Neighbors called police, who rushed the victim to Maryland Shock Trauma Center.

The home on Belfast Road in Timonium was just a foundation when the newly married couple in their mid-20s made an offer on it last summer for $10,000 above the asking price. "This was the first time we were ready to even think about buying," said Tim Shirah, who with his wife, Michele Shirah, submitted a $395,000 bid and beat a handful of other offers for the new home. They wanted to stop "throwing money away on rent," he said. For the Shirahs, the time was right. They had money from their wedding to put more than 20 percent down and interest rates were at extraordinary lows.

As president of Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage's Greater Baltimore operations, Dean Cottrill has gotten to know the real estate markets of a great number of communities — from the heart of Baltimore to Ocean City . "I'm all over the place and I love it," said Cottrill, who started his real estate career more than two decades ago, after a stint as an accountant. He worked as a sales agent for just over seven years before moving into management. In 2007, Cottrill joined Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage as a regional vice president.