In Baltimore, homes for $10,000 — and less
Housing prices continue to fall through much of the region, with some of the most striking examples in city neighborhoods
By Jamie Smith Hopkins, The Baltimore Sun
12:25 p.m. EDT, August 20, 2011
Andrew Wells is hoping to buy a Baltimore home for around the cost of an old car: Less than $10,000.
Turns out he's in good company.
One of every 10 city homes sold during the first half of the year — about 275 in all — fell in that price range. Twice as many sold for under $20,000.
Often foreclosures, these properties are usually in bad shape but seem like deals to real estate investors and the occasional hopeful owner-occupier — such as Wells.
"I don't have to worry about trying to get a loan," said Wells, 40, a bill-processing technician who works in Annapolis. "That was the purpose of me searching in that price range. I could buy something, pay cash, and I could live in it and renovate at the same time."
Almost exclusively a city phenomenon — very few homes in Baltimore's suburbs sold for less than $10,000 — it's a market that has expanded rapidly. More city homes sold for less than $10,000 between January and June than in all of 2009 and 2010 combined. Dozens of city neighborhoods had at least one such sale this year.
As very cheap homes change hands, average sale prices in Baltimore have plummeted. Seventy city neighborhoods saw average prices drop more than 20 percent versus a year ago, according to a Baltimore Sun analysis of data from Metropolitan Regional Information Systems. That's half of the neighborhoods with enough sales to allow for comparison.
Full article: http://www.baltimoresun.com/business/bs-bz-baltimore-region-housing-market20110821,0,5171792.story
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