Good Fall Day and Good News! The home values seem to be stabilizing in our area in Frederick. The number of listings currently on the market are about 1200 which is considered a “normal” selling market. Fairfield, Gettysburg and Littlestown, PA are still experiencing slower sales.
I found the following information at www.clearcapital.com. This article goes into greater depth about the general area market. Read it for more detail.
Micro Markets (Aug. 27, 2008 – Sept. 25, 2009)
This section highlights a single market every month with a deeper dive into how the micro- and macro-markets relate to each other.
Baltimore’s micro markets returned to a positive quarterly gain (0.1%) after seven consecutive quarters of decline, contributing to a 21.0 percent decline in home values since its market peaked in late 2006. As a whole, the Baltimore market performed similar to much of the Northeast and South, returning modest pricing declines compared to the national decline of -31.6 percent since the market peaked. REO saturation rates in Baltimore also remained below the national rate, peaking at only 19.5 percent last spring.
However, a disparity exists within Baltimore’s micro markets, with notable differences between the REO-saturated city limits and the more distant suburbs-particularly those suburbs to the Southwest which are closer to the better performing housing markets of Washington, D.C. Within the city limits of Baltimore, REO saturation peaked last winter at 31.5 percent due to declining non-REO sales amidst growing REO activity. These conditions reflected a -17.7 percent decline in price the last year alone; significantly worse than the more suburban southern counties of Carroll (-11.7%) and Howard (-7.9%), which peaked at less than 19 percent REO saturation.
While its market has not fully recovered, the suburban city of Laurel (ZIP 20723) is proving more resilient to price declines (-0.9%) this past year than the Baltimore market as a whole. Laurel seems well-served by its location between the two metro cores of Baltimore and Washington, D.C. and its proximity to Interstate 95 and the Baltimore-Washington Parkway. Even though Laurel has seen its number of REO sales grow over the past year, in recent months the city has maintained a healthier amount of non-REO sales activity than the city’s core.