Home Sellers

HOW MUCH MONEY have Americans been raking in from home-sale profits, thanks to the boom in property values? Would you believe nearly $200 billion last year alone, and more than $700 billion since 1995? That's a staggering amount of capital gain - and virtually all of it has been tax-free. Roughly 70 percent of it last year was plowed back into the housing market directly, as sellers bought replacement homes. The remaining 30 percent was spent on a wide range of other things - consumer goods, investments, vacations, tuition - or deposited into savings.

A rambler-style four-bedroom home on nearly two acres on the Edgewater waterfront sold in July for $1.7 million after being on the market for a week, according to the home's listing agent. The 4,800-square-foot home at 238 Riverside Road overlooks Warehouse Creek, off the South River, and has its own boathouse on 211 feet of waterfront property. Charlie Buckley, who sold the home for the owners, said the home's main selling points were its privacy and its expansive waterfront property line.

The Baltimore County Council set up a fund last night for voluntary contributions to buy parkland and passed legislation requiring home sellers to instruct buyers to check with county agencies for any development plans before buying into a community.Councilman Vincent Gardina, D-5th, sponsored the bill to require home sellers to warn prospective buyers that they should check with county planning agencies to see what's in store for the neighborhood before signing a contract.The measure, which passed 7-0, will require a seller to advise a prospective buyer in writing that the property "may be affected by provisions of the master plan and that he may wish to review the master plan."

The sharp and likely temporary drop in the number of foreclosed homes for sale in the Baltimore region is making life easier for owners trying to find a buyer. The number of home sales in the metro area that are not distress deals — neither foreclosures nor short sales — jumped about 25 percent in March from a year earlier, according to numbers released Tuesday by Metropolitan Regional Information Systems, a Rockville company that runs the area's multiple-listing service. With far fewer bank-owned homes for sale, March buyers purchased about half as many foreclosures in Baltimore and the surrounding counties as their counterparts a year earlier.

Sellers have dropped their asking prices on one out of every three homes on the market in Baltimore, according to real estate site Trulia. The average drop in price was 11 percent. That adds up to $41 million in cuts, Trulia said. Only 10 other large U.S. cities have a greater percentage of homes with reduced asking prices, the company said. It looked at listings on its site at the beginning of the month to see how many were priced lower than they had been within the previous 12 months.

Home prices in the Baltimore region rose more than 16 percent in May compared with a year earlier, showing continued strength in a housing market that keeps defying predictions of a slowdown. Home sellers routinely are getting multiple offers above the listing price as buyers, encouraged by low mortgage interest rates and flexible financing, compete for houses, area real estate agents and brokers said. Many buyers said they have no choice but to take on larger mortgages so that they can afford the rising prices.

Looking to rent a lovely individual home with the classic picket fence and grassy place where your children can romp? Then look for a home with a "For Sale" sign stuck in the front lawn.Under normal circumstances, most home sellers are reluctant to consider renting. Yet, as a home lingers unsold on a market month after month, the owner's need to get financial help to carry the property can grow intense."Some sellers become exasperated and simply need the income. There are those who just want the alligator off the leg," says Norman D. Flynn, a past president of the National Association of Realtors.

CALL IT A holiday gift for America's home sellers: The IRS has just answered many of the long-pending questions about tax-free capital gains on home sale profits. Tops on the list: What happens if you have to sell a house before the minimum two-year threshold for taking the maximum $250,000 or $500,000 tax-free exclusions? The standard rule allows married, joint-filing home sellers who own and use a property as a principal residence for an aggregate two years out of the five years preceding the sale to exclude up to $500,000 in profits, tax-free.

Roland Park office of OPF/ERA tops in residential sales O'Conor, Piper & Flynn ERA's Roland Park at Stone Mill office won the real estate brokerage firm's top office award for 2000. The Roland Park/Stone Mill office was the No. 1 residential real estate sales leader among all 45 OPF/ERA offices, based on the combination of net income and return on revenue. The award was presented to Carol Bliss, sales manager of the office, at a recent ceremony. The Roland Park/Stone Mill office is at 1340A Smith Ave. News in brief Coldwell Banker Stevens Realtors has opened a White Marsh office at 5020 Campbell Blvd.

Md. HUD insures nearly $100 million in multifamily unitsThe Maryland office of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development insured $95.3 million worth of mortgages and capital grants for multifamily projects through the Federal Housing Administration during the fiscal year that ended June 30.FHA-backed fixed-rate construction loans are attractive to builders because they revert to permanent financing for 40 years. In addition, processing fees, mortgage insurance premiums, title and recording fees, taxes during construction and other fees can be included in the mortgage.

Real estate search engine Trulia, which tracks how many homes listed for sale have had at least one price reduction, said Tuesday that Baltimore continues to have a high share. Higher, in fact, than all but four other big cities. Thirty-one percent of listings in Baltimore are on the market for less than their original asking price. Average price reduction: 12 percent. On a $300,000 house, that's a $36,000 cut. A separate site, HousingTracker.net, has shown a fairly steady drop in typical asking prices in the Baltimore metro area.

Lori and Aaron Travis thought the brick rowhouse in Upper Fells Point was beautiful, so they bought it for $309,000 five years ago. Now - after a job loss and failed negotiations with their lender - they're trying to sell. For $190,000. They have plenty of company. The dramatic change from booming housing market to slump has left an increasing number of homeowners selling at a loss. More than a third of the Baltimore-area homes bought this decade and then resold between January and June changed hands for less than their previous purchase price, according to a Baltimore Sun analysis of state assessment data.

Sellers have dropped their asking prices on one out of every three homes on the market in Baltimore, according to real estate site Trulia. The average drop in price was 11 percent. That adds up to $41 million in cuts, Trulia said. Only 10 other large U.S. cities have a greater percentage of homes with reduced asking prices, the company said. It looked at listings on its site at the beginning of the month to see how many were priced lower than they had been within the previous 12 months.

More than two thirds of home sellers believe their homes should be priced higher than an agent's recommended listing price, while two thirds of buyers believe homes are overpriced, say Maryland real estate agents in a HomeGain poll released Monday. But at the same time, homeowners clearly understand that home values have plummeted, according to a separate survey. A second-quarter survey by real estate Web site HomeGain shows buyers and sellers sharply at odds. The trend in Maryland reflects the poll's national findings, which show that more than two-thirds of home sellers think their home is worth more than the recommended price, and nearly two-thirds of the buyers believe homes are overpriced.

Baltimore area home sellers struggled through a continuing housing slump in August, statistics released yesterday show, but the federal government's recent takeover of mortgage giants Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae offered hope that more favorable loan rates will coax buyers back into the market. Benchmark 30-year mortgage rates dropped from a national average of 6.3 percent Friday to 6 percent yesterday, according to financial publisher HSH Associates, thanks to the weekend announcement of the takeover of Freddie and Fannie.

A year ago, the average price of a home had dropped 3.5 percent nationwide. As we end 2007, the average price of homes has dipped again - a small amount in some markets and by more in others. But the next year (and perhaps the year after that) will be a sellers market that's made for those with strong stomachs. While the National Association of Realtors claims that the housing market is stabilizing, other economists are calling for a turnaround in 2009, 2010 or even 2014. If you want to sell and move, that's not the kind of news you want to hear.

IF YOU SOLD your home for a profit this spring and hoped to pocket the money tax free, the word from Capitol Hill last week was: Sorry. You rolled the dice and lost.That's the upshot of the joint announcement by the chairmen of Congress' two tax-writing committees that they want the effective date for any capital gains cuts they pass this year to be May 7, 1997.Home sellers who had expected to be covered by the Clinton administration's budget proposal to eliminate capital gains taxes for most home sales on or after Jan. 1, 1997, appear to be out of luck if they closed on their sale before May 7.The Clinton plan -- first unveiled at the 1996 Democratic National Convention and quickly matched by Republican presidential opponent Bob Dole -- would allow married home sellers who file taxes jointly to keep up to $500,000 of their profits tax free, and single taxpayers to keep up to $250,000 tax free.

More than two thirds of home sellers believe their homes should be priced higher than an agent's recommended listing price, while two thirds of buyers believe homes are overpriced, say Maryland real estate agents in a HomeGain poll released Monday. But at the same time, homeowners clearly understand that home values have plummeted, according to a separate survey. A second-quarter survey by real estate Web site HomeGain shows buyers and sellers sharply at odds. The trend in Maryland reflects the poll's national findings, which show that more than two-thirds of home sellers think their home is worth more than the recommended price, and nearly two-thirds of the buyers believe homes are overpriced.

When Mark Dickson considered relocating from Washington, D.C., to Baltimore, the trial attorney toured a slew of city neighborhoods and homes. Despite a market full of choices, very few grabbed his attention. "I looked at properties in Canton, Union Square, Roland Park and Reservoir Hill," said Dickson, 48, a Chicago native and longtime district resident. "Some of them had been beautifully renovated. ... But I not only wanted a place where someone had taken great pride in their work, I wanted my dollar to go as far as it could."

For area house hunters seeking to capitalize on today's buyers' market, Dominic Levis has a question: Got plasma? The four-story, 3,000-square-foot home he and a friend are selling in Butchers Hill has seven flat-screen plasma televisions already installed in several rooms, including three 15-inch television-DVD units -- two in bathrooms and one in the kitchen. In Levis' mind, throwing these in as incentives gives his place an edge over the record number of other properties on the market these days.