Ken Montville -- the MD Suburbs of DC

Lately, I've been running a series on real estate market trends for 10 zip codes in the MD Suburbs that I service on a pretty regular basis. So far I've run the charts for:

• Bowie, MD 20720
• Bowie, MD 20715
• Greenbelt, MD 20770

What I've seen so far is not encouraging. Prices are still continuing to decline and Day on Market are continuing to increase. All this tells me is that the foreclosure and short sale market is continuing to be a drag regardless of Government home buyer tax credits.

That being said, so far I've only written the blog posts with the charts and stats tables for towns in Prince George's County, MD. Prince George's has been the hardest hit with the housing downturn in the MD Suburbs. I have a few more Prince George's towns to hit and then it's over to Montgomery County, MD.

I actually did a Contrast and Compare post awhile back between College Park, MD and Bethesda, MD. The towns have some similarities but the difference in the housing market is eye popping considering they're really only about 17 miles apart. It's amazing what a little trip around the Beltway can do for you!

I've posted about Points A, B and C (see above) so far. I'm heading to the others in the days ahead.

A couple of Blog posts ago I put the question out there:Since home buyers love to look at photos on the Internet and many buyers eliminate homes without photos is it appropriate to put photos of homes that need lots and lots of TLC?

The trend of the comments was: Yes, it was a good idea to put photos of the house as it exists in the marketing materials. The concept is to keep from wasting the time of both the potential buyer and the Realtor. Who wants to go to a house that needs a lot of work when the buyer isn't really up to it? The thinking is that if the photos tell the story, the Seller might just get the right buyer earlier rather than later.

So, I took the plunge. I took photos of the interior of a home that needs quite a bit of work. I've seen worse and I've seen lots better. I'm lucky in the sense that the Seller has agreed to price the home aggressively - well below comparable sales in the neighborhood. This should allow puh-lenty of room for someone amenable to a FHA 203(K) type mortgage or even a CASH buyer. The potential is there, the numbers should work. Now, it's just a matter of whether the photos really help eliminate people who really aren't interested and saving them and their Realtors valuable time.

By the way, since the price is so attractive I actually got a couple of calls from Realtors the first day it was in the MLS even though there is over 2 feet of snow on the ground. Since the house is empty, I toodled on out with my snow shovel to clear a path and placed the video on the Maryland Suburban Homes blog. Just wanted to toot my own horn a bit.

Everyone knows that the home buying consumer loves photos. They look at them constantly on the Internet. I doesn't matter if they're the still photos the Realtor took, a Virtaul Tour a professional put together or something done with one of those cute little Flip things.

I've been seeing a lot in the Blogosphere and Twittersphere about how listing agents are really falling down on the job if they don't provide lots of interior and exterior photos. I'm guessing most people mean "regular" houses. I wrote about a different type of house in a piece called: "Are Photos of Homes in Disrepair OK on the Internet".

Here's the gist: Am I doing my Seller client a service by showing his or her trashed out home on the Internet. It doesn't matter if it's a foreclosure, short sale or "plain vanilla". It the place looks horrible. It looks horrible. Gutted kitchens, Holes in the wall, Destroyed hardwood floors, broken windows, plumbing and electrical issues galore.

Would it be ok if I just added a frank but written descritpiton of the property with the requisite front exterior photo? Or should I just go ahead and take all the pictures and throw them up on the Internet for all to see...forever!

I just came away from the second workshop in as many months about the new RESPA guidelines for the "new and improved" Good Faith Estimate and HUD-1. I understand it was devised to make the costs involved in the home buying process clearer, more understandable and more transparent. Puh...leeze!

I tend to lean left when it comes to Government assistance with social programs but this thing is absolutely ridiculous. It is anything but clear, transparent and understandable. Worse, it will, more likely than not, create so much confusion in the marketplace that buyers will be even more frustrated about the costs of buying a home.

I wrote about this at some length on my MD Suburban Homes Blog.Yet, I cannot help but wonder where the hue and cry from the real estate profession was to allow some input into what are two of the most important aspects of the home buying transaction - the mortgage and settlement.

Don't get me wrong. I'm big on consumer choice. I'm big on potential home buyers feeling comfortable with their Realtor, mortgage company and settlement company. I also know that real estate professionals go through these transactions many, many times while the typical home buyer may go through it once every seven years (or longer).

What really irritates me is that as restrictive as the Good Faith Estimate might be, the HUD-1 has morphed into something that is barely understandable without a calculator and math degree. The old saying will change from "Buyer Beware" to "Buyer be Scared". Confusion does that to people.

My only hope is that someone over at HUD wakes up and smells the coffee. Of course, they're not the ones out here.

Here's a confession: I hate short sales. I do my very best to avoid them either on the listing side or the selling side. Yeah. I know. People tell me all the time that "this is the market" and, if I'm going to survive, I have to learn and work with short sales. Bah Humbug.

To be sure, I have not been having as much fun as I had in the early 2000s. There are fewer "plain vanilla" sales out there - sellers with enough equity in their home that there is "NO third party approval needed". However, there are a few and those sellers still need professional Realtors to help out.

What I've been noticing lately is that the "plain vanilla" home is on the rise, at least in my little part of the world. I'm not sure if that's an indication that sellers have finally come to the realization that they need to price their home to compete against the short sales and foreclosed homes or if we baby boomers are finally getting to the point where it doesn't matter if we get hundreds of thousands of dollars from our home sale... as long as we can sell our home!

Whatever the reason, I'm encouraged that there seems to be more homes on the market where a buyer does not have to wait for months and months for some bank to say that it might consider, maybe, an offer if Mars aligns with Jupiter and some clerk doesn't lose the file.