MoCoRealEstate

Most Expensive Sales in 2011

brucelemieux — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 22:19:03 +0000

The market for luxury homes in Montgomery County rebounded somewhat in 2011. In 2010, we saw one resale at $10M, then the next four highest sales prices were from $3.7M to $4.oM (here’s the full article). So how does that compare with 2011?

Here’s the top 5 sales for 2011:

5215 Edgemoor Lane, Bethesda – $10M. This home didn’t hit the open market and had a tax assessment value of $2M. This is striking example that shows a home’s market value and it’s tax value are often worlds apart.
9121 Burdette Road, Bethesda – $5.8M. Another one that never hit the open market.
5630 Wisconsin Avenue #1701, Chevy Chase – $5M. This penthouse condo in Somerset has over 4,200 square feet of living space. The condo fee alone is over$ 3,300/month.
9000 Burning Tree Road, Bethesda – $4.365M. New construction in Bethesda.
9905 Bentcross Drive, Potomac – $4M. 30,000 square feet of living space with 9 bedrooms, 15 full baths, indoor pool, 6 car garage and more.

Looking at the top five sales in the last three years, 2011 was definitely stronger than 2010 and somewhat comparable to 2009. We’ll see how 2012 plays out.

A Refreshed MoCoRealEstate for a New Year

brucelemieux — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 21:20:44 +0000

This site is a constant work in progress. Our hope is that it gets better, more informative and easier to use with each revision.

The home page has been decluttered and points visitors to featured content on the site. This page will definitely continue to change in the coming months, so expect a new look every few weeks.

More substantive changes have also been made. Primarily, the Schools Pages have hit the books. The main navigation map has been cleaned-up, and an interactive grid with each high school mascot was added for quicker access to schools of interest (how many high school mascots do you know?). We also went through a years’ worth of sales data by school cluster that allow you to quickly select a cluster and see its home pricing trends. Navigation for each school page was improved, and detailed test scores for all schools in all clusters were added. See an example for the Bethesda-Chevy Chase Cluster.

Another improvement was the addition of a comprehensive set of pages to help visitors understand how to find homes in Montgomery County. Check out the interactive zip code map (you gotta know your zip codes when looking for homes), and a comprehensive guide showing all home prices by home type within Montgomery County. We get lots of calls from buyers wanting to understand home prices when starting their search. This resource will hopefully be a great starting point to help buyers quickly zero-in on areas the meet their goals.

We hope you enjoy the changes. Your comments and feedback are always welcome.

Overview of MoCo Home Prices

brucelemieux — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 00:20:57 +0000

Take a tour of Montgomery County and quickly get up to speed on home prices throughout the county.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Understand Home Listing Status

brucelemieux — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 17:55:09 +0000

We often get questions about homes that are under contract. When a home is first introduced to the market, it’s status is “Active”. Once ownership finally transfers, the status is “Sold”. That’s simple enough. In between, however, there are a couple of different ‘Contract’ statuses that can be confusing. Here’s an overview of typical listing status changes.

Active. Home is fully available. Seller may be negotiating a contract with a buyer, but seller can still consider another offer.

Contract – No Kickout. Seller cannot accept another contract. Basic buyer contingencies (home inspection) outstanding.

Contract. Buyer and Seller are locked-in to a contract. Buyer financial contingencies could still be outstanding.

Sold. Title has been transferred from seller to buyer.

Contract with Kickout. Seller can accept a ‘backup’ contract and can ‘kick-out’ existing contract. Typically used with a home sale contingency.

More Extreme Downsizing

brucelemieux — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 13:56:01 +0000

We just helped a client downsize to a cozy (realtor-speak for “small”) brick ranch in Silver Spring. Our buyer has fantastic ideas for renovating the space into something really special.

We like small living spaces since it really forces you prioritize what’s important in a home. A few months ago I added a post on a 320 sq foot single family home that featured exceptionally creative use of space. The video below goes further – even smaller at 260 sq feet, and even more creative inside.

I like the idea, but my my desk sometimes requires close to 260sq feet of space (important papers, PCs, Starbucks cups, beer bottles, etc), so this is too ‘cozy’ for me.

Deal of the Year in Darnestown?

brucelemieux — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 13:14:33 +0000

This bank-owned home in Finegan Farm in Darnestown came on the market in late summer. At the time I said this was a screaming deal at $1.1M. I know that they had an at least one offer over $1M in the summer, but a mix of inflexibility and unresponsiveness killed that deal. I’m sure they had others. It finally closed today with a final price – $955,000. Shockingly low. This price would be understandable if this home was in poor condition, but it wasn’t. Properly marketed and negotiated, this home should have settled for something closer to $1.2M.

Short Sales Under Contract

brucelemieux — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 04:16:29 +0000

This is the last part of three posts looking at short sales in Montgomery County. After summarizing available short sales, short sales that close, let’s take a look at the number of short sales currently under contract.

Just about half of all homes currently under contract is a short sale. I suppose that if a short sale takes three to four times longer to close, and 13% of homes sold are short sales, then about half of all contracts would be short sales at any given time. Does that math work? As with all things related to short sales, the math takes a lot longer to work out.

Your thoughts and comments on short sales, and the real estate market in general, are always welcome.

Modern Colonial with a Stunning Back Yard

brucelemieux — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 17:31:30 +0000

This sparking colonial features bright interior spaces and sits on a spectacular yard. Extensive outdoor entertainment areas are ideal for amazing sunset views. Which is better: this inside or outside? See all the details and take a video tour at www.AutumnCrestRd.com and decide for yourself.

Where Are All the Short Sales?

brucelemieux — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 13:34:27 +0000

We frequently get calls from buyers looking for distress sales in Bethesda or Potomac. With so many home owners in distress, surely one can get a great deal in these areas. For sure, buyers can find distress sales in all price segments and all areas of Montgomery County. But distress sales are still rare in our hottest and most expensive areas. As a followup to an analysis of the number of short sales that actually close, I took a look at current inventory to see where short sales are located, and how are they priced.

The vast majority of short sales are for entry-level homes — homes priced under $400,000. And, as expected, areas in Montgomery with the biggest inventory of entry level homes have the most number of short sales. Still, higher-priced distress sales still come on the market. See all luxury distress sales – short sales and bank owned properties.

How Many Short Sales Actually Close?

brucelemieux — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 01:00:22 +0000

I’ve been waiting on a bank to approve a short sale for months now (one loan, one bank – you would think it would be simple). This made me wonder how many short sales actually close in Montgomery County, and how long do they typically take? And, given the difficulty and frustration involved with a short sale, how many sellers simply give up? I’ll go through my methodology below, but first, here’s the results:

Getting solid, reliable data on short sales may be impossible. To get this summary, I took a look at all closed sales so far in 2011 in our MLS. This data is good, but it’s not perfect. When an agent enters a listing in our MLS, they should note if the listing is a short sale. Many times, they don’t. And, they should accurately indicate a home’s contract and close date. This also doesn’t happen for many listings. Still, this is the best data available and still shows some interesting trends.

How Many Short Sales Close?

A basic review of these home sales was revealing – only around 13% of closed sales were short sales. This number is smaller than I thought it would be. With so many short sales on the market, it seems like more should be closing.

How Long Does it Take?

To find a trend that shows the average time to get a short sale from ‘contract’ to ‘close’, I removed sales with obviously fishy data and those with duplicates, and summarized these sales by the number of months to close. This analysis says that two thirds of all successful short sales takes less than 4 months to close. I’m not so sure that’s right. Based on my experience, I would think that the average time to close would be closer to six months. I would like to see another analysis to sanity check this conclusion.

How Many Sellers Give Up?

Getting this answer was painful. I selected all listings marked as short sales that were withdrawn from the market or expired this year, removed the duplicate listings for the same homes and then checked to see if any relisted (like I said – painful). This left 675 homes. Since 1,035 short sales closed in that same period, this tells us that for every three successful short sales, two sellers can’t get through the process.

I’ll post more metrics on short sales in the next couple of days. If you are interested in finding short sales, see where short sales are located in Montgomery County and the number of short sales under contract. What do you think? Make a comment – I would love to know your thoughts on this.