This will be a more stable year for the local housing market, with pent-up demand for area housing helping the industry get back on its feet, the chief economist for the nation?s largest Realtor group told local agents Monday.
Those buying a home in the last year or so may have experienced some lost value, but those who bought during the boom times have seen their homes retain most of their value, Dr. Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the National Association of Realtors, said at an event organized by the Greater Baltimore Board of Realtors.
“It?s only the recent homebuyers, those who bought a year ago, that may be suffering,” Yun said.
Yun?s positive message will be backed up with a media campaign set to launch next month by the Greater Baltimore Board of Realtors in partnership with similar groups in Anne Arundel, Carroll, Harford and Howard counties.
With the slogan “Now is the time to buy,” the campaign will encourage potential homebuyers to enter the market, GBBR President Cathy Werner said.
“We?ve agreed to work together,” Werner said, “because we?re Maryland, and Maryland is not what the national statistics look like.”
According to National Association of Realtors data, the Baltimore area saw an annual increase of more than 20 percent in home prices during 2004 and 2005, followed by only a slight increase in 2006 and a slight decrease in 2007.
Nationally, home prices slipped last year from 2005, to an average of $217,600 from $219,600. But in the Baltimore area, prices in December increased 1.25 percent from 2006, up to $313,511 from $309,639, according to data released last week by Metropolitan Regional Information Systems Inc., a Realtor-operated information service.
“It is a very difficult time for home builders,” Yun said. “If they build, they lose money. If they don?t build, they don?t make money.” Yun saw fewer housing starts as a stabilizing force that would allow currently empty homes to be bought off the market.
Realtors present Monday said they?ve seen an increase in activity since Christmas.
“We just feel really strongly that this will be a good year,” said David McIlvaine Sr. of Keller Williams Select Realtors in Ellicott City. “At Christmas and New Year?s, we saw people showing properties we never thought they would [at that time].”
