About Annapolis' Riva Trace

The Story Showcases a $1.2 Million Crownsville Waterfront Home We Found a Buyer For in 18 Days

The Annapolis area is fortunate to have a great magazine - What's Up? Annapolis - to keep residents apprised of nearly everything that's going on around here.

And we're fortunate to be featured in the December issue's "Real Time Real Estate" editorial section, highlighting a lovely property we sold in Crownsville a few months ago.

You can read about it in the magazine - or simply click here to see the online version.

I think the key takeaway from the story - at least for sellers - is this quote from my wife/partner, Bev Moss Haedrich: "Instead of chasing the market down with price reduction after price reduction, we strategically positioned this home out front at a fair and reasonable price," thus avoiding a protracted time on market. (Keeping true to what we always tell our sellers right up front: we want our relationship with you to be short and sweet.)

The other takeaway is this: if you're selling a home and you'd like to know how we can get the job done, call me at 410-507-7222. And if you're purchasing a home in the area, and want to take full advantage of this unprecedented buyer's market, we'd love to show you how. Just call Bev at 410-353-2469.

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Buyers Are Still Willing to Pay More, and Faster, for Something They Perceive to be Special. A Story...

This past summer we listed a home that was very nice indeed. Price: $1,200,000. It went under contract in 19 days, and sold a few weeks later for a price that the owners found quite acceptable.

Aside from our usual aggressive marketing, how can we account for such a good offer and fast sale? After all, the home did have a few quirks...some dated features...and wallpaper I wasn't crazy about.

But sell it did, and here's why: the home's uniqueness - its overriding special features. In addition to a very private and nicely landscaped yard, the property had its own tennis court, large in-ground pool, and deep water dock just 5 minutes by boat to the Severn River.

There were other highlights, but the point is this: because the home was a unique package, it could compete in the market on its unique features - features that the buyers knew, or rightly assumed, they'd have difficulty finding in another property. Whether you're selling real estate, art, or antique cast iron mechanical banks, uniqueness motivates buyers to act more quickly for fear of potential loss.

Contrast That With a Home Located in an Annapolis Subdivision...

...say 50 or 100 homes, perhaps 4 or 5 models to choose from, your usual upgrades. Ten or 12 percent of the subdivision is for sale. How will those homes compete with one another? On price. Absent starkly contrasting features or amenities, similar homes - in a market like the one we're in - will almost always compete on price. Fear of potential loss diminishes when buyers perceive that supply is more predictable.

Buyers for such homes are being very patient in this market, watching competing homes leapfrog one another into the best price position before snapping them up. (Word of caution to buyers: if you do fall in love, don't wait to make your play. There's a good chance someone else has fallen in love with it too.)

And if you're a subdivision seller? Your best hedge is to do everything you can to make your property stand out as unique among equals: be the cleanest, most freshly painted, best landscaped, least cluttered, and most inviting. And If you want to hear how we make all of our listings stand out as unique, email me at kenhaedrich@hotmail.com and I'll email back.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 8th, 2008 at 4:06 pm and is filed under Buyers, One Minute Realtor, Sellers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

April Real Estate Market Sales Statistics for Anne Arundel County Will Be Released in 10 Days and We Will Publish the Numbers Here. Until Then, Here's Our Almost Totally Unscientific Market Story and We're Stickin' To It

If the local dining scene is a somewhat reliable barometer of consumer optimism, then our dinner at the Chart House in Annapolis this past Friday would lead one to believe that all the talk of a sagging economy and a housing/mortgage meltdown is falling upon deaf ears.

Indeed, judging by the throngs of diners ordering up $35 steaks, succulent shrimp, good bottles of wine, and $9.00 chocolate lava cakes - our personal favorite - you'd have to say the mood was downright festive, that nobody's much worrying about their wallets, and things are looking decidedly up.

Who knows? Maybe people are just getting a head-start on spending their tax rebate checks, and exercising their civic duty to stimulate the economy according to our President's hopes.

Our Boots-on-the-Ground Perspective of the Annapolis Real Estate Market

Then again, maybe - just maybe - things really are starting to turn around. Word on the street - what we're seeing and our industry colleagues are reporting - is that the local market "feels" like things are beginning to turn around.

I say "feels" because we can't really quantify it yet. But phones are starting to ring and showings are up. Gun-shy buyers are starting to pull the trigger and make solid offers. And sellers are getting real about listing price. Together, these factors are breathing life and hope into the local housing market.

But Could This be a Momentary Seasonal Upswing in the Annapolis Area Market?

Sure it could be. But it could also - as I heard one analyst put it on NPR the other day - be the inevitable beginning of the end of a down-turning real estate market.

It takes a while for people to accept new market conditions. When they do, and when they adjust to the new realities, participation in the market increases. Pent up demand kicks in. Buyers hop off the fence and homes sell.

Whether or not the April market numbers will give an indication of an upswing remains to be seen. There are bound to be bright and not-so-bright spots. Some segments of the market will likely remain soft.

For example: the $800,000 to $975,000 price range is still sluggish. In Annapolis right now there are 67 homes on the market in this price range, and only 4 under contract. Down the scale a bit, with condos and townhomes priced between $250,000 and $450,000, we see 180 listings currently on the market in Annapolis with 24 of them - a far greater and healthy percentage - under contract.

And while it's not surprising to see more activity at the lower end of the housing scale, the numbers indicate that there will continue to be downward pressure on prices at the higher end.

Just What Does All This Mean to Annapolis Area Homebuyers and Sellers?

For buyers, it means that you should start paying very close attention to the selection of homes you've been watching. The better ones are likely to start getting snatched up one by one.

For sellers, it means more showings if your home is in good condition and presents well. And if you're not priced right, be concerned: the spring market is about to kick into high gear. New, better priced homes are coming onto the market daily and this fresh competition is going to leave you lingering on the vine while the ripe fruit is picked off.

Do what you must, then stop worrying about it. Celebrate your future success in advance. Go have dinner at the Chart House.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 30th, 2008 at 3:54 pm and is filed under Buyers, Neighborhood Sales & Stats, Sellers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Confessions of an Un-Geeky Annapolis Real Estate Blogger

April 25th, 2008 Categories: Fun Fridays

If you're a regular reader of this blog - and finally, I think there are a couple of you - then you know that Fridays are for fun. I didn't invent the idea of fun blog Fridays; I stole it from fellow blogger Teresa Boardman. She hasn't sent her lawyers after me yet, so for now I guess I'm okay.

People like confessions so I thought it would be fun today to tell you one of mine: I'm not a geek. That may come as a surprise to some of you, since I do have a blog, but my computer literacy is probably on par with that of your average Golden Retriever.

What knowledge I do have of blogging can be attributed directly to a neat group of actual geeks called The Real Estate Tomato. See that tomato icon in the upper left margin over there? It has the word "graduate" it in, but I can assure you that in my case the designation is applied ever so loosely. I was one of those students they graduated just to prevent a mutiny. I think I was the reason some of the staff left and opened bagel shops in Vermont.

The "tomato guys" have a specialty: taking non-geek Realtors like myself and teaching us how to become bloggers. The training consisted of many once-weekly sessions where I would put on my headset and listen to someone half my age and twice as smart explain why Google would like me if I created something called back links, posted profiles of myself on social networking sites, and didn't stuff by blog articles with too many key words, in which case Google would smite me and banish my blog to the equivalent of blog purgatory. Much remedial training ensued.

The most amazing thing about blogs and all this internet stuff is the way it all talks to one another - or is supposed to, if you're doing it right. What you see here on the finished page, so to speak, is only a gazillioneth of what's really going on. You may think you're just reading an article about buying or selling a home, but the cyber world is positively abuzz about it. It's like one of those ads you see on TV where they show you your kitchen counter-top, then zoom in and you see billions of germs crawling around just under the surface.

Zoom in, and you'd see Google is somehow calculating how much you like this blog, where you came from, what you're reading, and what you ate for breakfast. They do this by means of a mathematical formula called an algorithm, invented by guys with brains the size of cantaloupes who haven't seen the light of day for years. It's one big online popularity contest, the results of which somehow infiltrate the entire cyber universe.

Frankly, if I had to worry about all this and how it works, I wouldn't have a blog. I wouldn't have the time: we're in the business of helping people buy and sell homes, and that keeps us nice and busy, thank you. Writing a blog is fun, for someone who likes to write. But it's primarily a tool, a way to deliver useful information to our constituency, get feedback from you, and build an online community that's accessible to almost everyone.

Just don't ask me how it all works. I haven't a clue.

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This entry was posted on Friday, April 25th, 2008 at 10:00 am and is filed under Fun Fridays. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.