Archive for October, 2010
Say it Ain’t So… Christmas Stuff in October
We’re not even done with Halloween, and I just had my first Christmas sighting. Seems so abrupt.
-Bethesda Safeway, October 27, 2010.
HAPPY HAPPY HALLOWEEN!
East Bethesda- Homes for Sale 10/29/2010
All the homes in this article are currently for sale within East Bethesda. The top of the list features the newest listings, while the bottom showcases those that have been on the market for quite some time. I’ll be updating this post every Friday, so be sure to check back to see what’s new, what’s gone, & what might be coming (and check out the date up top… if it’s not current, neither is this information!). I’ve lived in East Bethesda for over 15 years. I’ve sold real estate in East Bethesda for over 11 years. I know it like the back of my hand. While all of this information is available to you on the various search engines, I’ve taken the time to inject my opinion on the condition, pricing, and likelihood of each property selling… or not. I hope you’ll give me a call if you have any questions. I have loved living here over the years, and I want to share it with other enthusiastic people!
If you would like to receive a weekly e-mail update about new listings & weekend open houses within East Bethesda, please let me know via the comment section below, or send me an e-mail, and I’ll get it set up.
This week we have had one house go under contract, and one more with a price reduction.
7915 Kentbury Drive, $899,000
Expanded and renovated home with 6BR and 4FB. This house has a lot of rooms. None of them are terribly large, but there are a bunch of ‘em. And it looks pretty- handsome paint colors, granite counters, etc. But cracks in the grout on the first floor bath and gaps in the doorway to the deck make me wonder about attention to detail. It backs to the proposed Purple Line, which is another potential problem. Days on Market: 16
4400 Chestnut Street, $1,795,000
Lovely house with lots of Texas charm. Pretty front porch, perched up high so you can sit back and watch the world go by. Corner lot. 6 bedrooms and 5.5 baths. 2-car garage. Fenced yard. Radiant heated floors in master bath. Very fancy. Days on Market: 21
4608 Harling Lane, $749,000
Pretty little cape cod on a pretty little block, steps from downtown Bethesda. Needs a lot of updating. Has a separate 2-story garage with office space (and a bathroom) on the second level. Large basement. The asking price might be a touch ambitious, but there’s plenty of potential. Days on Market: 31 Read the rest of this entry »
Foreclosures & Short Sales in Bethesda, Chevy Chase & DC
It’s hard to peruse the news these days without hearing about the foreclosure crisis. While some parts of the country are gripped in an unfolding foreclosure nightmare (think Florida & Las Vegas), other parts of the country are doing alright. Because I haven’t seen a whole lot of first-hand foreclosure/short sale activity, I figured it was time to crunch some numbers to see how our close-in DC market is doing. The graph below spells out activity in this particular arena dating from 2008.
In 2008, there was little or no activity in most zip codes. Come 2009 we had some activity. The numbers almost doubled in 2010. Heading into the end of 2010, we appear to have a market made up of 4.5% foreclosure and short sales, or about 1 out of 22 transactions. Not bad compared to other markets. Get outside of the beltway and the numbers are dramatically different. In Germantown, MD (zip 20874), foreclosures and short sales numbered 348 for all of 2010 (through October 28). Total sales in 20874 for 2010 numbered 694. An astonishing 50% of all 2010 transactions involved a bank. Rockville, MD (zip 20850) fares better with a total of 73 foreclosure and short sale transactions for 2010. With the total # of sales for 2010 at 397, the number of bank sales is at 18.3%. These are sobering figures. Really, when you get right down to it, the 4.5% rate of foreclosure/short sale for Bethesda/Chevy Chase and parts of DC seems just shy of a miracle.
If you are interested in learning more about local market trends, give me a call.
Fall Home Maintenance Tips
My husband and I were pretty excited when we bought our first house in December 1995. And being thrifty new homeowners, it seemed perfectly reasonable to turn off the heat during our 5-day holiday trek out of town. When we got back into town it was maybe 35° outside, and 48° inside, if we were lucky. We cranked the heat, but it took at least a day before the house was comfortable again. When I went to work the next day, people reacted to my story with their jaws dropped (smug homeowners). There is a learning curve to owning a home. I’ve learned the hard way in some instances. I’ve also attended a multitude of home inspections and picked up some good tips. Here’s hoping you don’t see your breath in your house the next time you return from a winter vacation:
Forced Air Furnace: You should change your filter at least once a month. Make sure it is the right kind of filter for your furnace. I once bought a really expensive, highly rated filter, only to be told by the service guy that I was starving my furnace of air. Turns out the cheap filter was the way to go. Who knew, and yahoo! It’s also a good idea to install a programmable thermostat. That way you can turn the heat down to acceptable levels during your vacations, and program the gizmo to have your place warm and toasty just as you return. Ain’t technology great!
Clothes Dryers: Clean the lint filter. Yup, after each load. If you don’t, you may notice that it takes a really long time for your clothes to dry. You might also notice your machine on fire. Read the rest of this entry »
BCCDC’s Greatest Hits
OK-
In lieu of creating something original and fresh, I’m going to look back over my many posts and suggest a few that may have become buried or hard to find. So, without much further fanfare (drum-roll, please), my greatest hits:
Love Thy Neighbor? 5 Tips to Help You Find a Good One! Practical steps you can take to end up with good neighbors, and hopefully a good neighborhood.
The Fine Art of Pricing Your Home. Hint #1- it’s not determined by what you need to get out of it.
The Top 10 Reasons to Fire Your Real Estate Agent. If it isn’t working, it isn’t working. Know when to move on.
The Most Expensive House on the Block. Might be good for your ego, but not always the wisest long-term move for your wallet.
6 Great Ways to Pay Off Your Mortgage Faster. I like a good bargain, and all of these ideas appeal to the penny pincher in me.
First Time Home Buyers – Closing Costs. It’s always a good idea to know your costs up front. Most people I know don’t take kindly to financial surprises… especially at the settlement table.
Madonna of the Trail. What good is a real estate website without a little local history?
I hope you enjoy these posts. Again.
5 Home Buyer Mistakes- and How to Avoid Them/Part 5
According to statistics, over 4-million homes will sell in 2010. First time buyers will be buying up a lot of this inventory, and sellers will love them for being un-encumbered with homes to sell themselves. Couple this with record-low mortgage rates, and a rising stock market, and now just might be the ideal time to buy.
New home buyers, in particular, are prone to making mistakes. In this series, we’ll explore 5 common mistakes buyers can make:
Buyer Mistake #5: Making Arbitrary Offers
This is a tough market. On a national level, we’ve got a foreclosure crisis. Home values have plummeted, in some areas up to 60%. The job market is lousy with 9+% of Americans unemployed. And the stock market can’t decide if it’ll recover or not. These are volatile times.
As an agent, I do my best to understand the market. I study comps like crazy. I get into as many neighboring houses as possible, so I’m quick with a comparison. I crunch numbers, I consult colleagues, & I analyze the variables. In the end, I like to think I can zoom in on a decent range of pricing. So, when a house I am listing receives a low-ball offer, it doesn’t make me feel so good. Read the rest of this entry »
5 Home Buyer Mistakes- and How to Avoid Them/Part 4
According to statistics, over 4-million homes will sell in 2010. First time buyers will be buying up a lot of this inventory, and sellers will love them for being un-encumbered with homes to sell themselves. Couple this with record-low mortgage rates, and a rising stock market, and now just might be the ideal time to buy.
New home buyers, in particular, are prone to making mistakes. In this series, we’ll explore 5 common mistakes buyers can make:
Buyer Mistake #4: Focus on the house, but not the neighborhood
I don’t mean to complain, really I don’t. Because I absolutely adore my neighborhood. But if I could change one thing about it, it would be the neighborhood pool… or lack there of. Just about every neighborhood in town has a small swim club at their disposal. I managed to land in the one community without one. Read the rest of this entry »
Absorption Rates @ Bethesda/DC
Sometimes when I talk about real estate, you might hear me say “we have a 4.5 month of supply of homes”, which might leave you scratching your head. Simply put, I’m referring to the absorption rate, or the calculation of how long it will take for all the homes currently on the market to sell at the present rate of sales. It is not an exact science. But it does help to predict market trends. For all of you math geeks, here’s how it’s done. Find the number of listings currently on the market. Determine how many listings sold last month. Multiply that number by 12 (months). Divide that number by the current number of listings, and that’ll give you the number of units that would sell each week. Then divide the number of units that should sell each week by the current inventory… and voila: You’ve found your absorption rate.
There are a bunch of zip codes that I track on a regular basis. The following absorption rates were calculated on October 22, 2010:
20814 (downtown Bethesda) 3.88 months (20814 September Market Trends)
20815 (Chevy Chase, MD) Read the rest of this entry »
5 Home Buyer Mistakes- and How to Avoid Them/Part 3
According to statistics, over 4-million homes will sell in 2010. First time buyers will be buying up a lot of this inventory, and sellers will love them for being un-encumbered with homes to sell themselves. Couple this with record-low mortgage rates, and a rising stock market, and now just might be the ideal time to buy.
New home buyers, in particular, are prone to making mistakes. In this series, we’ll explore 5 common mistakes buyers can make:
Buyer Mistake #3: Falling in love and wearing those rose colored glasses…
You’ve heard that old saying “Love is Blind.” Well, it’s best to have your eyes wide open during a real estate transaction. It’s also a good idea not to let charm cloud your judgement. Sometimes buyers talk themselves into situations best to be Read the rest of this entry »
East Bethesda- Homes for Sale 10/22/2010
All the homes in this article are currently for sale within East Bethesda. The top of the list features the newest listings, while the bottom showcases those that have been on the market for quite some time. I’ll be updating this post every Friday, so be sure to check back to see what’s new, what’s gone, & what might be coming (and check out the date up top… if it’s not current, neither is this information!). I’ve lived in East Bethesda for over 15 years. I’ve sold real estate in East Bethesda for over 11 years. I know it like the back of my hand. While all of this information is available to you on the various search engines, I’ve taken the time to inject my opinion on the condition, pricing, and likelihood of each property selling… or not. I hope you’ll give me a call if you have any questions. I have loved living here over the years, and I want to share it with other enthusiastic people!
If you would like to receive a weekly e-mail update about new listings & weekend open houses within East Bethesda, please let me know via the comment section below, or send me an e-mail, and I’ll get it set up.
This week we have had two houses go under contract, and two more with price reductions.
7915 Kentbury Drive, $899,000
Expanded and renovated home with 6BR and 4FB. This house has a lot of rooms. None of them are terribly large, but there are a bunch of ‘em. And it looks pretty- handsome paint colors, granite counters, etc. But cracks in the grout on the first floor bath and gaps in the doorway to the deck make me wonder about attention to detail. It backs to the proposed Purple Line, which is another potential problem. Days on Market: 9
4400 Chestnut Street, $1,795,000
Lovely house with lots of Texas charm. Pretty front porch, perched up high so you can sit back and watch the world go by. Corner lot. 6 bedrooms and 5.5 baths. 2-car garage. Fenced yard. Radiant heated floors in master bath. Very fancy. Days on Market: 14
4617 Windsor Lane, $1,349,000
New construction. Still time to select carpet. 5BR/4FB/1HB. 2-car garage. 2 fireplaces. Nice block with a mix of new and old homes. Days on Market: 21 Read the rest of this entry »
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