Sellers

There'll be cooking going on, Christmas lights going up, festive ribbons going around gifts. And, perhaps, company going in and out. Potential buyers may see some or all of that if they size up the Bolton Hill home of Drs. Ann Halbower and Rubin Tuder during the holiday season. The couple yearn less for Santa and more for a buyer for their Baltimore house, which has been on the market since September. Although this is the time of year when home buyers are rumored to hibernate before re-emerging when the weather warms, the couple are looking for someone willing to make a change in the cold weather like themselves.

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.

AFTER SEVERAL years of radical tax-cutting, Congress is confronting a policy dilemma over who should -- and shouldn't -- pay federal taxes when they sell their homes.The issue is this: Should the government, which now treats virtually all profits from selling a principal residence as tax-free, continue to squeeze taxes out of the least fortunate sellers -- those who have no profits at all?Should federal tax policy penalize home sellers who sell for such a sizable loss that they can't even pay off their remaining mortgage balance?

A group of current and former employees for Perdue Farms Inc. filed a lawsuit yesterday against the Maryland-based poultry producer, claiming that it did not fully pay them for time worked and cheated them out of retirement benefits.The seven plaintiffs, including an employee at Perdue's Showell plant, requested that the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Delaware be given class action status.If granted, the lawsuit could affect about 14,000 workers at 16 plants, according to Joseph Sellers, an attorney for the workers.

Deciding it was time to turn their hobby into a side income, Leslie and Page Leber were ready to hit the flea market circuit or rent space in a local antique shop when they got a better offer -- one that allowed them to buy and sell their sports and beer memorabilia from the friendly confines of their study.What the Timonium couple discovered was the Internet auction, which transports folks like the Lebers to a huge international marketplace at the click of a mouse."It's been fantastic," says Leslie Leber.

As sales of homes continue to rise in the Baltimore area, so do the prices.According to statistics from the Metropolitan Regional Information System, sales of existing homes in the Baltimore metropolitan area last month rose 13.31 percent over March 1998, and the average sales price grew by 2.5 percent, to $145,685.Sales for the first quarter grew 16.5 percent over 1998. They have risen 56 percent in the past two years."We really and truly are in a sellers' market right now," said Lynn Creager, an agent for Coldwell Banker Grempler Realty Inc. who sells primarily in northern Baltimore County and Harford County.

BERLIN -- Darting into the subway car, a man pulls a stack of tabloid-sized "street magazines" from under his jacket. As the train rolls out of the station, he speaks loudly to avoid being drowned out by the screech of metal on metal.Buying this paper, he explains, offers people down on their luck -- homeless people -- a chance to bootstrap their way to a decent living. Better to work than to beg.Berliners barely look up from their own newspapers, and lucky is the seller who can unload two copies in a single subway car. But the customer always receives a sincere-sounding "thank you."

At the busy crossroads of the old and new years, Richard Carlson urges us to be less bothered by the hullabaloo."Life, although it seems like it, is not an emergency," he said the other day.Carlson, a 36-year-old psychologist, lecturer to corporations and family man, may be the leading self-help instructor on the scene today, having distilled his prescriptions for a calmer and more meaningful life into two simple and extraordinarily successful books this...

Dear Mr. Azrael:My question is in regards to a deposit on a property.I put a $500 deposit down on a home that was contingent on a home inspection. I was worried about water problems in the basement. The inspector made the inspection. He told me and my wife and the agent and the women who lived there that he had bad news: There was water behind the paneling.I told my agent that I did not want to live with the fear of having water in the basement.The sellers said they would correct the water problems themselves by taking off the paneling and putting waterproof paint on it. But I still did not want to buy the house.

Long & Foster Realty Inc. -- the largest realty company in Maryland -- has decided to follow the leads of its two main competitors in the Baltimore market and will begin charging its sellers a documentation fee beginning May 1.But what may be more noticeable to sellers is that, for the first time, Long & Foster listing contracts will come printed with a percent sales commission, replacing the vacant space for commissions that were penned in after being negotiated.Having...

The housing market slump means sellers are agreeing to cover some or all of buyers' closing costs. A big savings for buyers - and a big expense for sellers. Doris Hall-Scheeler, senior vice president at Sage Title Group in Baltimore, sees sellers contributing up to 6 percent of the sales price to buyers in closing-cost assistance. That's $18,000 on a $300,000 house. And it's just part of what homeowners have been paying to move on. Add taxes and real estate commissions, and sellers can end up forgoing more than 12 percent of their sales price, Hall-Scheeler said.

Average home prices in metropolitan Baltimore took their steepest dive in more than a decade in April and plunged below $300,000, a 13.5 percent drop compared with a year earlier, statistics released Friday showed. The average price of a home sold in Baltimore and the five surrounding counties fell to $268,367 last month from $310,237 in April 2008, according to Rockville-based real estate listing service Metropolitan Regional Information Systems Inc. Average home prices had first topped $300,000 in June 2005 amid the housing boom of 2004 and 2005, in which the Baltimore area typically saw double-digit gains in home values.

On March 10, 2009, JOHN EDWARD SELLERS. Friends may visit the family owned MARCH FUNERAL HOME WEST, INC., 4300 Wabash Avenue on Monday after 8:30 A.M where the family will receive friends on Tuesday at 6 P.M. Funeral services will follow at 6:30 P.M.

Skittish homebuyers ran up against sellers unwilling to budge on prices in February, keeping the number of homes sold in metropolitan Baltimore at one of its lowest monthly levels this decade, statistics released yesterday show. Fewer than 1,100 homes sold in the Baltimore area last month, a drop of more than 31 percent compared with a year earlier, real estate tracker Metropolitan Regional Information Systems Inc. said. Prices for homes sold fell 6.5 percent to an average $282,034. Buyers worried about job security or waiting for prices to fall even more were reluctant to bid on homes, real estate experts said.

On December 28, 2008, OSCAR SELLERS, SR. Friends may call at THE CHATMAN-HARRIS FUNERAL HOME, 5240 Reisterstown Rd., Wednesday 1 to 6 P.M. The family will receive friends Friday 11 A.M., at the New St. Mark Baptist Church, 3905 Springdale Avenue. Funeral services will begin at 11:30 A.M. Interment Lorraine Park Cemetery.

In a sign that more homeowners are lowering their expectations to sell in a difficult market, house prices in the Baltimore area fell last month to the lowest level in more than three years. And the drop in home sales, which had been leveling off, accelerated in November, sliding nearly 33 percent on a year-to-year basis, according to numbers released yesterday by Rockville-based Metropolitan Regional Information Systems Inc. Experts said the turmoil in the economy and tighter credit markets over the past few months continue to take a toll on housing values and sales, with rising joblessness adding to buyer anxiety.

Buying and selling on eBay used to be so easy and so much fun. It used to be that the online auction site's biggest strength was the idea that anyone could sell anything there. A box of sports pages from the 1950s, discovered in my father's basement after he died, generated all sorts of interest; two lots of four pages sold for $10 each, and the buyers were plenty happy to get them. A relative once bought a plastic container filled with candy jawbreakers, ate them, then put the empty container on eBay.

Some online retailers are moving away from eBay. Irked by February's changes in fees and the feedback-rating system, merchants who once sold wares exclusively at the online auction site can now be found on a number of smaller alternative sites that have sprung up. With names like Wigix, Silkfair, Etsy and Oodle, these sites aim to offer more hand-holding for sellers - and charge lower fees - than the behemoth eBay. Some of these new sites target niche markets, such as Etsy, which focuses on handmade crafts, where small sellers say their products can stand out better than they do at a soup-to-nuts-to-carburetors site like eBay.

The brick townhouse is a bright eight-year-old end unit with a list of upgrades - $10,000 in plantation shutters alone - and tasteful decor. Outside, it has a deck screened for privacy; inside, it has a big kitchen island. It's also in a convenient location, all likely pluses. However, condos and apartments recently replaced the trees that were behind it and a dozen other townhouses are for sale in this Owings Mills complex, including three end units. All factors likely to limit its appeal.

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.