PG County Real Estate

For the last couple years, it’s been a buyer’s market in housing, which has been bad news for sellers. Some homes in Prince Georges County have moved, but usually at a price much lower than the seller expected and over a longer time period.  In the 3^rd Quarter of 2009, the market is stabilizing so that sellers have reason to be happier.

Prices Have Dropped, But Appear to Have Stopped

Prices in PG have dipped 21% in the past year, but prices have dropped off by only .5% since last quarter.  Sellers can expect to receive a price nearer to their asking price than they could a year ago, though the average concession in the area is still nearly 7%.  Average days on the market has dropped in the county to 86 days from 97 last quarter and 101 a year ago, so sellers can busy themselves with buying their next home with reasonable expectation that their old one will not be on their hands so long.  With buyer activity brisker than in the past, the number of homes on the market is declining which has restored some of the power to sellers in the transaction.

The DC Economy Means Faster, Higher Selling Prices

Sellers also gain some other advantages, too, from the improving economic climate.  Generally, the economy of the DC region is better than elsewhere in the country so buyers are more willing to put their economic lives on the line for a house.  Projections for 2010 show jobs in the region increasing as unemployment continues to drop; most home buyers with higher incomes will find that their own jobs are solid.  If they want to move to a bigger, better place, apartments are harder to get as vacancy rates are low, so they may look toward buying a home.

Consumer Confidence in Housing is Up. Great Time to Sell!

As sellers reap the benefits of continued consumer confidence, they can expect swifter sales and firmer prices.  The only known cloud on this horizon is the climate of stricter credit conditions, as banks put more constraints on would-be buyers.  That’s why savvy sellers work with Express Realty Services, the fourth largest Keller-Williams agency worldwide.  We bring sellers together with qualified buyers in less time.  Our motto is We Sell Your Home Fast. Contact us today to make our resources work for you. Ask us about our Guaranteed2Sell program when you call.

If you seek proximity to the District but long for a more suburban feel and a lower price tag, Prince Georges County, MD could be your new address.  With average prices about $80,000 less than in the core city, you can maximize your housing dollar in this area just outside DC.

Current prices in PG County average $395,463, down 21% from last year.  The drop is the most substantial in the area, but the fall off between the second and third quarter of 2009 has only been .5%.  As prices level off, potential buyers looking for the bottom of the housing market may be looking at it.

Those who waver about whether to buy now or not can take courage from a few positive signs in the local economy:

• Employment in the DC metro is stable. The 6% unemployment rate is lower than the national average of 10.2%, and significant job growth is in anticipated in 2010.  Though nothing is certain in life, you, as a potential buyer, can bask in the aura of DC Metro-area consumer confidence as you make your way to the bank.
• Interest rates are low, often attainable for well under 5% for buyers with very good credit.  Over the course of a fixed-rate loan, these lows rate can mean a savings of tens of thousands of dollars in interest alone.  Immediately, the low rates enable you to purchase more home for the same monthly payment.  This extra buying power is expected to disappear by spring, as the government backs off from buying mortgage-based securities.  When the Fedsend their shopping spree, market forces are expected to send interest rates back up.
• Just a week ago, the first-time home buyer tax credit was taken off life support and extended another five months. The program was also expanded to allow current homeowners who qualify to receive $6,500 if they buy another primary residence.  Since a broader group of home buyers now share incentives, first-time home buyers will have more choices available as some current homeowners put their houses on the market in hopes of moving to their next home.  Income-level requirements were raised to $125,000 for singles and $225,000 for couples so those who earn more can apply the credit too.  Some PG County buyers can also benefit from local programs in conjunction with the Federal program.

There are many good home values in Prince Georges County.  At Express Realty Services, you can stretch your dollar even further by buying one of our renovated, remodeled, and refurbished homes, renovated from our sister company Express Homebuyers.   We can even help you find a lender from our extensive base of contacts.  Contact us today to make your home buying dreams come true. we’ll sell your house fast, too.

Even in this Internet age, there’s nothing like a good realtor by your side when you are looking for your perfect home in Prince Georges County. This is true even these days when nearly 90% of home buyers and sellers rely on the Internet at some point in their transaction.  There’s a lot of helpful information online that both educates and misleads real estate shoppers.  A good agent can help set you straight.

If you want to buy a home, you may browse the Internet to see what’s out there, but there will come a day when you can’t find a home fast enough.  You see lots of homes with lots of pictures on line but when you are ready, will you complete your transaction on online?  Will you want to make call after call about different properties you see on line?  Are you seeing all the properties available in your desired area in Prince Georges County?   Are there homes you might be overlooking? When it is time to get serious, you will want a REALTOR® to answer all your questions and provide some continuity to your search.

Once you have a realtor, you will quickly learn that not all properties are listed online; many that are aren’t as they appeared when you walk through the home.  Once the Realtor® sees what you like, she may quickly come up with a few choices you didn’t even know you had.

Your agent will prove valuable in the whole area of evaluating pricing, making an offer, and negotiating your deal when you get to that point.  Many times sellers overprice their homes for the market, based on what they paid, what they put in it, and what an online assessment said.  If they have an agent, they may have refused to listen to advice about setting a reasonable price.  Your agent will show you the most recent statistics on what homes in the particular neighborhoods of Prince Georges County have sold for and will be able to tell you why similar homes might have sold for different prices.

As is true in all sales situations, you want to buy low and your seller wants the best price given the market.  You may have heard that because this is a buyer’s market, you will be able to call the shots when you make an offer.  Your agent will help arrive at a fair offer, not only based on the facts but based on what she knows about the seller’s motivation to sell.

If you’re considering either buying or selling a home, here are some statistics and graphics from the month of April that may help you make a decision.

The first graphics we’ve included are pretty self-explanatory, they feature side-by-side comparisons of the average period of time our homes spend on the market with that of all other homes sold within the DC and PG County areas.  We take pride in how quickly our homes sell, as we feel it reflects the fact that they are quality products whose prices are set reasonably.  Take a look at how we stack up:

Our next series of images shows the trend in units sold per month from 2006 – Present in the Northern VA, PG County and DC areas.  The first thing you’ll probably notice (and this shouldn’t come as a surprise) is that sales have fallen off considerably with each year; there’s no escaping it, we’re caught in an economic downturn, and when companies (and in this case, people) are bleeding money, major purchases like homes and cars are not at the top of their list.  Still, there’s something of a silver lining here.  If you compare the 2008 numbers to those of 2009, an argument can be made that home sales are on the rise; without going so far as to say that the worst of the recession is behind us, these numbers should be at least somewhat encouraging to professionals within the industry as well as homebuyers such as yourselves.

Let’s take a closer look at the trend graphics, first at the  PG County stats.  Although January 2009’s 306 units sold is 79 less than the 385 that were sold in the final month of 2008, all 4 of the years listed here started slowly; in fact, January tended to be a weak month across the board, and the same can be said for February.  March and April of 2009 featured more home sales respectively than the same months in 2008, which bodes well for the rest of the year.

As was the case in PG County, 2009 began poorly in DC; January and February’s 253 and 253 units sold were markedly less than the 318 and 369 units that moved in the first two months of 2008.  However, the ship appears to have been righted in March and April, as the unit sales in each of these months eclipsed their 2008 levels.

Here are the statistics:

We want to assure you that, by showing you these numbers, we’re not trying to give you false hope, or trivialize how terribly current economic conditions are affecting everyone.  What we would like you to take from these statistics is the realization that 2009 has the potential to be better than 2008, and that if more people are starting to buy homes than they did at this same time last year, it means either they have more money to spend, or home prices are becoming increasingly affordable.  EITHER WAY, this is good news for you.

Although our focus is on buying and selling homes, we understand that a lot more goes into the decision to purchase than the property itself.  Here are some factors to keep in mind as you consider whether or not to move on a house of your own.

Safety first

Although the two-story walkup with the great view that you’ve had your eye on for months may have all the amenities you’re looking for, and while it may be well within your budget, it won’t be a viable option if every other house on the block is boarded up or covered in graffiti.  Take a good luck at the surrounding area when you first visit the home, and make sure it’s in an area you’d feel safe walking through every day on your way to work.

Getting to work

Assuming you’re choosing a home based on its proximity to your work place, be sure to scout out the transportation situation.  If you’re carless, do you live within walking distance of a bus stop or metro station?  If you’re bringing a car with you, is the commute manageable, and does the house have a parking spot?  If not, is street parking an option, and will it require new license plates?

Family factors

If you have a family (or are planning on having one well before you move on to a new location), know what kind of school district you’re moving into.  If you’d prefer to enroll your kid(s) in private school, is there a good one in the area?  Is there a school bus route nearby, or should you factor drop-off and pick-up into your daily routine?  It goes without saying, but having a family will push neighborhood safety even higher up on your list of priorities.

Running errands

If your home is on the outskirts of the city, do you have important resources close by?  Is there a town center of some sort where you can pick up groceries for dinner, hardware supplies for repairs or rent a movie on a night in?  If fitness is a big part of your life, are there fields or courts nearby, and if you’re not a fan of the Bowflex, do you have easy access to a gym?  Is there a hospital nearby in case of accidents?

Most of the items on this checklist are pretty intuitive, and are all probably things you’ve thought of well before you reached the buying stage, but it never hurts to keep a similar checklist when weighing the pros and cons of moving to a new area.

If you’re wondering whether it’s the right time to buy property, we’ve found a recent article by the Inman Group that goes over some of the concerns people have about the process.  The data they discuss was collected by the Century 21 Group for a March 2009 survey of 1000 potential first-time homebuyers.   The link to the document is at the bottom of this page, but here is a quick summary of some of the article’s main points and findings, along with some suggestions on our part:

Almost 50% of the people surveyed were unaware of the $8000 tax credit provided by the economic stimulus package (for more details, see our March 20th DC Real Estate Blog posting).   If you’re looking for some money to put toward a down payment, it’s worth looking into the tax credit and learning more about the qualifications for the tax credit.

42% of the people who took the survey claimed they would consider buying a home in the present economy, while another 48% are holding out for market conditions to improve.  69% of current renters worry that prices may rise if they don’t act soon, while 68% of those who took the survey believe that rates are better now than they were 6 months ago.  Most of these people seem to agree that the time to act is now.

Almost 60% of the homebuyers who took the survey admit to a limited understanding the real estate market, and more people use real estate listings for research than websites.  The trick with the internet is knowing where to look, and avoiding fake sites and scammers as you search for quality homes.  We take pride in selling homes quickly; according to MRIS Research’s “Local Market Updates for the month of March, the homes we offer in the PG County area sit on the market an average of 32 days before they are sold, compared to 166 days for all other homes sold in the area.  We feel this reflects the fact that we provide a quality product at an affordable price.

Overall, most participants feel that now could be a great time to pull the trigger on a new home, but are worried about the economy and the possibility of losing their jobs while they’re saddled with a new mortgage to pay off.  It’s important to know the risks involved in becoming a homeowner, and weighing them against the reasons for buying property now before you make a decision.  Remember, we’re always happy to answer any questions you may have.

To read the Inman News article, please use the following link: http://www.inman.com/news/2009/03/27/first-timers-worry-about-jobs-credit

Last time we took a pretty hard look at the statistics for the end of the year, and they told a pretty compelling story about how the real estate market looks for PG county, today. simply stated, it’s a pretty good time to buy. Dso, does it still make sense to rent?

Rent-vs.-Buy Break Even Analysis – the Simple Way.
Here’s a simple way to find out. If you live in PG county, and your rent is more than $600-700 a month, you should probably consider buying a home. Here’s why:

1. With interest rates on home mortgages hovering in the 4% range, the mortgage payment without taxes and insurance on a $150,000 house would be in the range of $500-600. realistically, you have to add in a couple of hundred dollars a month for taxes and insurance, so your payment might be as high as $650 to $750 a month.
2. Now, give yourself a tax break. Because your interest on a house is deductible, you can lower the deduction on your paycheck, you’ll see $200 to $250 a month in additional cash that’s no longer being deducted.
3. If you subtract that additional cash from the new payment, you’re left with somewhere between $450 and $500 net payment for the house.
4. Here’s the big advantage – YOU ARE A HOMEOWNER!
5. Keep in mind that the house should increase in value an average of 4% a year (based on the economic history of US home values including today’s market drop). When you go to sell, that increase in value will be yours to take to the bank!

Here’s Another good Reason to Buy.
History shows prices on homes stop dropping and hit the floor when rent covers the mortgage. Remember that a rental property is a business, and the owner, your landlord, is in it to make money. At the end of the day a home’s value comes from its ability to produce that income. Prices have gotten so out of whack recently that they had to drop, otherwise, no one could afford to pay rent either. It’s no different from any other business. Right now, because rent is often more than the monthly payment on many homes, it’s the perfect time to buy.

Now that real estate has dropped because the rents were so much lower than landlords could afford to charge, you can rally benefit from buying at these all-time low prices. In PG County, this is particularly true because the average price of a three bedroom home is now well with the reach of the average PG Country wage earner.

That’s you.

So Buy Now. Before Prices Start to Climb.

Contact us for the best value in a new home: www.ExpressRS.com. We sell many affordable homes including fully-renovated homes in PG County at fair market prices and guarantee our homes are the best in the neighborhood.

Welcome to our blog on how to buy a home in Prince Georges County, Maryland. Since many of the homes we sell are located in the County, we thought you might enjoy having a place to go where you can have your questions answered honestly.

Sure, We’d Like You to Buy One of Our Houses…
But we’ve been in this business long enough to know that, even if you don’t, you’d like to have access to the kind on information that can help you make a wise choice no matter what or where you buy.

But What About This Economy?
Right now, if you’ve got the means, this economy is the absolute best time to buy a home in PG County. Consider this from November 2008. These are the actual prices people in PG County are paying now compared to last year:

PG COUNTY HOME SALES:

Prices continue to drop, and days on the market continues to decrease – houses are selling faster, a sign of a strengthening market. November and December of 2008 were also months where seller-assisted down payment assistance (DPA) was not available. When DPA returns – which in our opinion will happen early in 2009, you will see tons of buyers jumping off the sidelines. Especially when interest rates hit 4%, the lowest in memory.

So Why Pay Rent?
With rates in the 4% range, it will not make sense for you to rent unless your credit is an absolute disaster or you are looking for short-term (under 2 year) housing. . The mortgage payment without taxes and insurance on a $150,000 house would be as low as $500-600. Add a few hundred dollars for taxes and insurance and you’re paying 600-750 a month.

Get Ready To Buy!
It’s a pretty intriguing time. If you have held off buying, we don’t think prices are going to drop much more. Get your financing approved, and start looking for homes. If you want help, call us, of course. But no matter what you do, beat the rush. Get started today.