Sellers

It's a seller's market -- at least temporarily -- for homes in the region priced between $150,000 and $400,000. For homes $600,000 and up? Buyer's market all the way. That's where things stood in May for the Baltimore metro area, based on a handy calculation that helps show the balance of power with a single number. It's the "months of supply" -- the number of homes on the market divided by the number of homes sold. That answers this question: How long it would take to find buyers for all the listed properties at the pace things are selling?

The couple in search of a car found the sedan they wanted for sale on Craigslist for $4,000. They arranged a meeting Monday night on a street in Bolton Hill lined with 19th-century rowhouses. But Baltimore police said both the seller and the buyer took guns to the transaction. And when one of the men who posted the ad drew his weapon and demanded money from the prospective buyer, police said his female acquaintance pulled her own gun and fired into the air. The gunman dropped his weapon on Bolton Street and the woman gave chase, "firing her weapon numerous times indiscriminately in the air," said city police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi.

Home sales ratcheted up in May even as buying choices continued to shrink in the Baltimore area, leaving sellers with more leverage than they've had in five years — at least for now. The number of homes changing hands in the metro area rose 13 percent compared with a year earlier, according to numbers released Monday by Rockville-based RealEstate Business Intelligence. The increase was driven by transactions with a regular seller, not a bank, thanks to a steep and likely temporary decline in foreclosures for sale.

They've robbed graves and construction sites, churches and schools. They've taken downspouts, statues from bases and ordinary pipes right out of the walls. Even a new state law designed to curb these scrap metal thieves seems to barely slow them down. Copper theft, striking many utilities and other businesses, has been common in Maryland since sharp price increases took the price of copper from about $1.25 per pound in January 2009 to about $4.50 per pound in May 2011. Copper theft reports routinely show up on the Nothern District's weekly crime logs, and were identified as a major problem in Wyman Park Dell and other Baltimore City parks last year, leading the Department of Recreation and Parks to take expensive steps to combat the thefts.

Why did Anne Arundel County's average home prices take a dive in March? What happened to foreclosure-hungry investors in Baltimore, with a lot fewer foreclosures to go around? Where's the balance of power between buyers and sellers in Howard County these days? Ross Mackesey, sales manager of Long & Foster Real Estate's Greenspring office, covered all that ground plus some in his monthly commentary on the housing numbers. Here's a taste: Anne Arundel County : The average sale price slumped 10 percent in March vs. a year earlier, but there was more to the story than just falling values.

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.

It is a truth universally acknowledged (apologies to Jane Austen) that years of falling home prices have left a lot of folks stuck in place, unable or unwilling to sell. But here's a chart that really underscores how much that has affected shorter-term owners. The figures , which come from a National Association of Realtors survey of U.S. sellers who then bought something else, are striking: 25 percent of people in the 2011 survey owned the place they sold for five years or less, compared with an average of more than 40 percent in 2003 through 2009.

You'll be excused if you get the Oscar nominations for Best Picture mixed up with a best-seller list. Most of the nominees drew their inspiration from the printed page, and I hope one of them wins the prize, to reinforce the value of literature. Here's a look at the nominees, and the books they drew on: -- "Hugo," a charmer adapted from "The Invention of Hugo Cabret" by Brian Selznick. -- "Moneyball," adapted from Michael Lewis' book about the impact of statistical analysis on major league baseball.

As the Ravens drove toward the playoffs, Barbra Skarzynski wanted to buy her son a team jersey as a Christmas gift. She searched Google for Lardarius Webb gear, quickly found a site that billed itself as an official store of the Ravens, and bought a jersey for $70. Weeks later, the Baltimore woman received the jersey in a box with Chinese characters on it, from Shanghai. She discovered that parts of it were blue instead of Ravens purple. And worst of all, the cornerback's name on the back of the jersey - which was not licensed by the National Football League - was spelled "EWBB.

Just over 100 rowhouses in the Patterson Park area were auctioned off Tuesday, but the high bidders must wait to see if the selling company will accept their $4.2 million offer. Owner Grady Management Inc. has up to 10 days to decide whether to take the bid, which works out to about $43,000 for each of the 103 homes after the buyer's premium is added in. The suggested opening bid was $3,750,000. The team of men who won the bidding on the Baltimore properties declined to identify themselves, but their offer might not be the final word.