Realtor Janice Kirkner of Eldersburg is optimistic about home sales in Carroll County.
Written By David Greisman
In large part, the real estate market in Carroll County still reflects that of the last few years. Home sales are still down. Houses are still selling for less, and they are still sitting on the market longer before finding buyers.
And those who follow the business closely do not agree about what they see.
Some say the clouds aren’t as dark as they once were; that a silver lining is now easier to find.
“Things have definitely picked up,” said Janice Kirkner, a longtime realtor based in Eldersburg and a former president of the Carroll County Association of Realtors. “I think we’re going to see a good turnaround.”
Others, meanwhile, say that the real estate market is not getting much better and could actually decline again.
“The housing market isn’t improving too much,” said Dan Strickler, a salesman with Long & Foster in Westminster. “And it could take another dip.”
Statistics from the past five years provide a window into where things stand:
Those who are able to sell their homes are getting less money for them than they could have before.
The median sale price for homes in Carroll County was $265,000 in 2010, down from the previous year and representative of a continued drop ever since the economic downturn. That number was $270,000 in 2009, $299,000 in 2008, $335,000 in 2007, and $330,000 in 2006, according to reports from Real Estate Business Intelligence.
Fewer people are buying houses.
In 2010, 1,267 homes were sold in Carroll County, down from 1,371 in 2009 and close to the 1,241 sold in 2008. But in 2007 that number was 1,696, and in 2006 it was 2,013.
And the time it takes to sell a house is much longer than it used to be.
In 2010, a Carroll County home was on the market for an average of 116 days, which was actually down from the average of 137 days seen in 2009 and the 147 days it took, on average, in 2008. And while the average in 2007 was 114 days, it was just 73 days in 2006 and, going back even further, a mere 44 days in 2005.
Put simply: The market favors buyers right now.
Although both new and previously owned homes are selling, buyers are currently attracted to foreclosures and short sales, Kirkner said.
“Things like that, buyers tend to view as more of a deal,” she said. “Price sells.”
Strickler recalls one Carroll County home that sold for $269,000 three years ago. It wasn’t long before it was back on the market, and a few months ago it sold for $165,000, he said.
“Houses, whether they were old or new, doubled in price the last 10 years, and then they lost at least 30 percent,” said Strickler. “They’re still ahead. If you bought a house 10 years ago, you’re still up quite a bit. On the other hand, if you bought a house three years agoÉ”
The bursting of the real-estate bubble means that those who want to sell might have to get less than they paid for their house – or settle for less than they originally wanted to get in return for their investment.
“Four years ago you could get more than you were ever asking for your house in two or three offers,” said Strickler.
The difficulty, then, is convincing sellers that they can still use the market to their advantage, he said.
“If you’re moving up in price to a bigger home, it doesn’t matter if you want to get a nickel for your old house – as long as you can buy better for six cents,” he said. “But [sellers] don’t want to hear that they’re going to get a nickel for their house.”
And so some homeowners are putting their houses on the rental market and waiting for things to improve. Strickler said the rental market is not as good as one would think.
“You’d think a lot of people losing their houses would be looking for a rental property,” Strickler said. “A lot of people who would be renters bought houses. Now a lot of those, because they bought at the peak, are being displaced by foreclosures. They’re not going back to rental. The trend now is to move in with their relatives, to put two families into a property that you’d originally put one into.”
Kirkner, however, does see a change in the housing market for the better.
“People are feeling that they have cash,” she said. “They do have some job stability now, and they’re saying they can’t invest in anything else such as CDs or the stock market because of interest rates, because everything is so volatile. They’re feeling like going back to real estate is a better investment for them.”
Both she and Strickler say that banks are lending to prospective buyers, although their attitude is not as cavalier as it was when people were being approved for mortgages that they never would be able to afford.
Now? “It depends entirely on your credit,” Strickler said. “If you’ve got a very bad credit score, if you do get a loan, it’s going to be at a higher interest rate.”
Said Kirkner: “It’s honestly going back to where it was in the Ô80s, when people had to really qualify for loans and had to have good credit.”
As for new homes being built, there was an uptick in 2010 after a low in 2009 – although last year’s figures definitely do not approach where they were earlier in the last decade.
The county government issued 240 building permits in fiscal 2010, up from 183 in 2009. But that number was 268 in 2008, 379 in 2007, 800 in 2006 and 1,066 in fiscal 2005, according to government figures.
“To do a subdivision requires a large sum of money,” said Clayton Black, chief of the Carroll County government’s bureau of development review. “If banks are being more cautious, that might lead to why we’re not processing as many permits as we were in the past.”
Strickler does see some new construction, such as that at the northern end of Westminster near the intersection of Route 140 and Route 31.
Kirkner noted that some builders are still constructing new homes, and that where development is going on, houses are being bought.
“Their profit margins are not where they once were,” she said.
Said Strickler: “There are some new homes with the big builders. Some of the small builders aren’t doing well at all. It’s more than countywide. It goes all the way into D.C. In general, the further away from D.C. you get, the more the housing market is suffering.”
Currently, he said, the closer one gets to Washington, the better the real estate market gets.
“Where there’s big government and military bases, and where people have steady government jobs,” said Strickler, “it’s a lot better.”
Kirkner concurred: “The surrounding areas are kind of protected because we have so much going on with BRAC [Base Realignment and Closure] and the government. Baltimore and Howard counties are definitely kind of flourishing. Carroll is probably a little less on the market, but people come here more for a way of life, away from the hustle and bustle, but still with good commutes.”
