Across the state, homebuilders have scaled back their operations and changed tactics to cope with a weak residential real estate market. But in the stratosphere of custom homes selling for $500,000 or more, builders said they?re hoping to keep their sales on pace.
“The next three to four months may tell the picture,” said Tony Letke, vice president of Mueller Homes, based in Sykesville. “Because we had some product in motion when this [market] started to soften, we may be where we were at last year. If things stay flat, our sales may be off 20 percent. Right now it?s a little bit of a roll of the dice.”
Letke said the company builds between 12 and 15 custom homes per year, with an average sale price in 2007 of about $900,000. Those homes took between eight to 10 months to build in a busy, hot market, he said, but now may take only six or seven months. That?s one potential selling point for a buyer looking to save on interest payments and other costs.
Sales for homes above $500,000 have slowed with the rest of the market, according to statistics compiled by Metropolitan Regional Information Systems, Inc. While the stats don?t separate new and existing home sales, the data shows 136 homes sold for between $500,000 and more than $5 million in Baltimore City and its five surrounding counties in January, down from 248 during the same month a year before.
Buyers for homes at that price level are motivated by other factors much different from the typical suburban home shopper, said Harford County developer Clark Turner.
“They?re comfortable where they are,” he said. “These folks want to get the most out of their [current] home as they can ? they?re slower to move.”
Getting those buyers to move requires some skill on the builders? part, said John Kortecamp, executive vice president and chief executive officer of the Maryland Homebuilders Association.
“They have to be creative as they can,” Kortecamp said. “They?re feeling this market as well.”
