BUSINESS
By Jamie Smith Hopkins | jamie.smith.hopkins@baltsun.com | February 11, 2010
More homes were sold last month - and for more money on average - than a year earlier in the Baltimore metro area. About 1,100 homes changed hands in January, up almost 9 percent from the previous year, according to numbers released Wednesday by Metropolitan Regional Information Systems. The average sale price was about $272,000, an increase of just over 2 percent. It's the first time in three years that both sales and average prices were up in the metro area. But it's too soon for home sellers to rejoice.
BUSINESS
By JAY HANCOCK and JAY HANCOCK,jay.hancock@baltsun.com | February 15, 2009
Economists worry about deflation - a persistent, broad decline in consumer prices that sometimes accompanies severe recessions. Deflation can lead to lower wages and other income, which makes it difficult to handle debt. Deflation can also accelerate a recession because consumers postpone buying, knowing prices will be lower next month. But fear not. A trip through the statistics shows that some costs continued to rise in December even as the overall consumer price index plunged. A few industries are still minting money.
BUSINESS
By Kenneth Harney and Kenneth Harney,Earthlink | December 1, 2006
You might have seen the scary news reports just before Thanksgiving: Housing prices fell nationwide last quarter - the first such decline since 1993. Even grimmer, total sales of houses and condominiums plunged 12.7 percent across the country, compared with the third quarter last year. And you might have wondered, is this the long-predicted popping of the housing-boom bubble or the beginning of an extended period of eroding values in American home real estate? How bad could it get in the months ahead?
BUSINESS
By JUNE ARNEY and JUNE ARNEY,SUN REPORTER | March 11, 2006
Baltimore-area home sales dipped again in February, the fifth straight month of decline, amid signs that the market was steadying as it heads into the spring selling season. The 2,439 homes sold in Baltimore and the five surrounding counties was down 9.97 percent, compared with February 2005, according to statistics released yesterday by Metropolitan Regional Information Systems Inc., a Rockville company that tracks homes sold through the multiple-listing service. But the decline was less than in the preceding months, and the average sales price, which has fallen in five of the past seven months, notched upward to $294,105.
NEWS
By JOEL HAVEMANN and JOEL HAVEMANN,LOS ANGELES TIMES | October 15, 2005
WASHINGTON -- Hurricanes Katrina and Rita cut a swath of destruction through the national economy last month, with surging energy costs pushing consumer prices to their highest monthly rise in 25 years, the government said in a flurry of economic statistics yesterday. Other data also weren't pretty, with industrial production dropping to its lowest level in 23 years and a measure of consumer confidence hitting a 13-year low. Retail sales also were relatively weak, and a measure of worker earnings took its worst drop in nearly a decade.
BUSINESS
By Lorraine Mirabella and Lorraine Mirabella,SUN STAFF | September 2, 2005
Low mortgage rates and growing demand for housing caused Maryland home prices to rise nearly 23 percent in the year that ended in June, the largest yearly increase in three decades. The state's one-year increase ranked seventh in the nation, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight said yesterday. It compared with a national average gain of 13.43 percent for the one-year period - the largest increase since the 12 months that ended in June 1979. Maryland joined three other states in reaching the highest level of price appreciation in the 30-year history of the agency's housing index.