Housing Costs

Once part of a rural Catonsville estate that featured an elegant nine-bedroom mansion, the weathered caretaker's house - now a historical landmark - is in dire need of attention. A recent inspection showed that its stone walls are cracked and bowed. The roof, rafters, downspouts and gutters must be replaced, as must the interior woodwork, which has been gnawed away by termites and beetles. The work is expected to cost about $150,000 - money that will likely come out of the Baltimore County Board of Education's budget.

In the first criminal prosecutions since a wave of property flipping began to sweep across Baltimore four years ago, a federal grand jury indicted five men yesterday in an alleged mortgage fraud scheme where houses were bought and quickly resold at inflated prices. Charged with 14 counts of mail and wire fraud were Robert L. Beeman, a Wilmington Del., resident who flipped more than 100 Baltimore houses in recent years; G. Samson Ugorji, a real estate appraiser who has acknowledged doing 39 appraisals for Beeman; Michael M. Fishman and Scott R. Shinskie, principals in Macallan Funding Inc., which brokered the loans for many Beeman deals; and Robert C. Ness, an Owings Mills lawyer whose firm handled many Beeman settlements.

The loan limit for Federal Housing Administration insured loans for single-family homes in the Baltimore metropolitan area has been raised from $171,475 to $178,600, a 4.2 percent increase. The Department of Housing and Urban Development, which administers loans insured by the FHA, said loan limits nationwide for single-family homes would range from $121,296 where community housing costs are low to $219,849 in areas with high housing costs. That's an increase from last year when single-family loan limits ranged from $115,200 to $208,800.

WASHINGTON -- In another effort to boost military recruiting and retention, the Pentagon plans to spend $3 billion during the next five years to boost the housing allowance for personnel who live in off-base housing, defense officials said yesterday. The proposal would affect about 750,000 personnel -- more than half the active duty force of 1.4 million -- who pay an average of 19 percent of their housing costs out of their own pockets to live off base, while the government pays the remaining rental cost.

From her kitchen window in East Baltimore, Darlene Glover watched the junkies line up in the alley from dawn until well past dark to buy crack cocaine.Her son watched, too. He was 9 years old.Desperate to buy a home in a safer neighborhood but lacking good credit, the 42-year-old advertising assistant became a victim of real estate flipping -- an increasingly common practice in which speculators buy shoddy homes and then rapidly sell them to naive purchasers for inflated prices.Glover paid $60,000 -- twice the amount she thought she was paying -- for a problem-ridden house at 819 N. Kenwood Ave. that a speculator had purchased six months earlier for $8,000, according to city records.

Dormitory charges at the nine residential schools in the University System of Maryland are set to increase from 2.5 to 5.9 percent next school year, according to figures approved by a committee of the Board of Regents yesterday.Meeting at Towson University, the regents' finance committee also increased meal plan costs up to 5.4 percent above this year's price.These jumps come on top of tuition increases of up to 4 percent that were approved by the Regents in August. Smaller mandatory fees paid by students to support nonacademic buildings, services and sports are also set to rise, by as much as 16.5 percent.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development wants to raise the maximum FHA loan limit, which -- if approved by Congress -- would allow more homebuyers to take advantage of the program and create more competition in the mortgage marketplace.HUD Secretary Andrew M. Cuomo said last week that the Clinton administration would place in its 1998 budget a proposal to raise the Federal Housing Administration maximum to $227,150.That figure would put it on a par with conventional limits made by giant mortgage lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.Current FHA loan maximums vary depending on metropolitan areas, with the ceiling on the highest possible loans in high-cost areas set at 75 percent of the maximum conforming rate.

The City Council president eyed the proposals -- $1 million to renovate six houses in Sandtown Winchester, another $1.6 million for nine nearby on Gilmor Street -- and blinked.From his seat at the city Board of Estimates, Lawrence A. Bell III wondered if it all made financial sense."At what point," he asked early last year, "do we say we could construct twice as many houses with the same amount of money as we are spending to renovate them?"But as on other days at City Hall, as with other questions about the high price of Baltimore's low-cost housing, the answers came in words, not action.

The cost of living in the Baltimore area is the fifth- lowest among 25 large U.S. metropolitan areas, according to a survey released by the BWI Business Partnership Inc.Baltimore prices for products and services such as housing, health care and entertainment were 1.3 percent below the national average in the first quarter of 1997.The favorable ranking positions Baltimore as an ideal place to live and work, said Neil M. Shpritz, executive director of the BWI Business Partnership, a nonprofit economic development agency.

Low- and moderate-income Howard County residents seeking more affordable housing now have a new financial assistance service offering counseling and arranging loans to help them purchase their own homes.The Affordable Housing Alliance Inc., a nonprofit Columbia-based organization, will hold its official grand opening Thursday. The organization, which incorporated a year ago, works with public and private agencies throughout the country to offer more affordable housing."We think it is important for people to own their own homes," said alliance Chairman William Ross Sr., a resident of Columbia's Wilde Lake village and founder of the all-volunteer group, which opened in March.