The winter real estate market thawed out early this year ? but it hopefully won?t melt again in the summer heat.
“The market seemed like it just stopped on the track,” said Cathy Werner, president-elect of the Greater Baltimore Board of Realtors. “It just needs an adjustment period.”
February numbers provided by the Metropolitan Regional Information Systems Inc. show a 7.3 percent increase in the average selling price of properties in Baltimore City and Baltimore, Carroll, Harford, Howard and Anne Arundel counties.
In dollars, this increase saw the average selling price of a piece of real estate go from $294,105 in February of 2006 to $315,578 in 2007.
“Buyers are beginning to have some more confidence,” said Ilene Kessler, president of the Maryland Association of Realtors. “It all has to do with perception and confidence.”
Locally, the largest boosts were seen in Baltimore City and Anne Arundel County.
In Charm City, property saw a nearly 17 percent jump in average selling price from February of 2006. The 2007 average is about $190,347. This increase in city real estate prices means that people are much more interested in finding affordable homes. With housing in the region spending an average of 93 days on the market, this means that buyers are being pickier.
“Affordable housing is in the city and what is selling, not high-priced housing,” said Deborah Ford, director of the real estate and economic development program at the University of Baltimore?s business school. “Things will be on the market longer. Prices won?t fall out of bed, but we will not have the tremendous rates we have had in the past.”
