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College Park, MD Real Estate News

By Dr. Stacey-Ann Baugh, A doctor who makes house calls.
(Century 21 New Millennium)
Yesterday my daughter and I volunteered at the College Park Community Food Bank.  The College Park Community Food Bank is headquartered at the College Park Church of the Nazarene and delivers food to local families on the 3rd Saturday of every month.  There is no cost to the families to receive the food.  This month, 85 families (family sizes that I saw ranged from 1-8 members) received food from the food bank. The food bank accepts donations of food, money, and grocery store gift cards.  In addition, other donations (clothes, toys, household items) are accepted and made available to the participating families. My daughter had expressed an interest in volunteering and this was a wonderful experience for her.  She felt very proud that she was able to help pack the produce and cereal in t...
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By Dr. Stacey-Ann Baugh, A doctor who makes house calls.
(Century 21 New Millennium)
The Work & Live College Park Program provides eligible home-buyers with up to 10% of the value of a home purchase up to $35,000 to use as a downpayment on a foreclosed home in College Park. To be eligible: Prospective purchase home must be located in College Park and the home-buyer must also work in College Park. Must be a foreclosed home. Must be a first-time home-buyer using this as their primary residence. Purchaser must have a minimum $2000 to contribute to the process. Must be a 30 year fixed rate loan. Purchaser must meet the Program's income requirements. The Work & Live College Park Program is a 10 year 0% interest loan.  The amount required to be repaid depends on the length of time that the home-owner resides in the home. If you would like information about the Work & Live Col...
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By Ken Montville, The MD Suburbs of DC
(RE/MAX United Real Estate)
Everyone knows that the home buying consumer loves photos.  They look at them constantly on the Internet.  I doesn't matter if they're the still photos the Realtor took, a Virtaul Tour a professional put together or something done with one of those cute little Flip things. I've been seeing a lot in the Blogosphere and Twittersphere about how listing agents are really falling down on the job if they don't provide lots of interior and exterior photos. I'm guessing most people mean "regular" houses. I wrote about a different type of house in a piece called: "Are Photos of Homes in Disrepair OK on the Internet". Here's the gist: Am I doing my Seller client a service by showing his or her trashed out home on the Internet.  It doesn't matter if it's a foreclosure, short sale or "plain vanilla...
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By Ken Montville, The MD Suburbs of DC
(RE/MAX United Real Estate)
I just came away from the second workshop in as many months about the new RESPA guidelines for the "new and improved" Good Faith Estimate and HUD-1. I understand it was devised to make the costs involved in the home buying process clearer, more understandable and more transparent.   Puh...leeze! I tend to lean left when it comes to Government assistance with social programs but this thing is absolutely ridiculous.  It is anything but clear, transparent and understandable.  Worse, it will, more likely than not, create so much confusion in the marketplace that buyers will be even more frustrated about the costs of buying a home. I wrote about this at some length on my MD Suburban Homes Blog.Yet, I cannot help but wonder where the hue and cry from the real estate profession was to allow so...
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By Ken Montville, The MD Suburbs of DC
(RE/MAX United Real Estate)
Here's a confession:  I hate short sales.  I do my very best to avoid them either on the listing side or the selling side.  Yeah. I know.  People tell me all the time  that "this is the market" and, if I'm going to survive, I have to learn and work with short sales.  Bah Humbug. To be sure, I have not been having as much fun as I had in the early 2000s. There are fewer "plain vanilla" sales out there - sellers with enough equity in their home that there is "NO third party approval needed".  However, there are a few and those sellers still need professional Realtors to help out. What I've been noticing lately is that the "plain vanilla" home is on the rise, at least in my little part of the world.  I'm not sure if that's an indication that sellers have finally come to the realization tha...
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By Ken Montville, The MD Suburbs of DC
(RE/MAX United Real Estate)
Healthy Eating Tips -- 1. Avoid carrot sticks. Anyone who puts carrots on a holiday buffet table knows nothing of the Christmas spirit. In fact, if you see carrots, leave immediately. Go next door, where they’re serving rum balls. 2. Drink as much eggnog as you can. And quickly. It’s rare…You cannot find it any other time of year but now. So drink up! Who cares that it has 10,000 calories in every sip? It’s not as if you’re going to turn into an eggnog-alcoholic or something. It’s a treat. Enjoy it. Have one for me. Have two. It’s Christmas! 3. If something comes with gravy, use it. That’s the whole point of gravy. Gravy does not stand alone. Pour it on. Make a volcano out of your mashed potatoes. Fill it with gravy. Eat the volcano. Repeat. 4. As for mashed potatoes, always ask if they...
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By Margaret Woda, Maryland Real Estate & Military Relocation
(Long & Foster Real Estate, Inc.)
About 35% of the 3300 sophomores now living on campus at University of Maryland will be forced to move off campus next fall, according to an article in today's campus newspaper, The Diamondback. What a GREAT opportunity this is for real estate investors, especially given the lower prices and record-low interest rates we're seeing today.  There are 118 homes for sale in College Park right now under $600,000 (not to mention those in nearby Adelphi, Hyattsville, and Riverdale).  Click on this link to view all residential real estate for sale in the 20740 zipcode, including address, price and features. With its location on a Metro line just outside of Washington, D.C., College Park real estate will always be in demand (for sale or rent) - even if the University housing does someday catch u...
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By Ken Montville, The MD Suburbs of DC
(RE/MAX United Real Estate)
Just a short blog post today to remember and honor all the men and women in our Armed Forces.  These men and women voluntarily sacrifice time away from their family and friends to defend our country.  All too often they are put into harm’s way and are wounded or killed.  The recent tragedy at Ft. Hood, TX is but one reminder that danger is not reserved to foreign lands. My heart and thoughts go out to all the families of the fallen and wounded.  My gratitude goes out to those who serve now or have committed their service and reti
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By Ken Montville, The MD Suburbs of DC
(RE/MAX United Real Estate)
OK.  For whatever reason you decided you want to put your house on the market.  If someone comes along with the right price and the planets are in alignment, you'll accept the offer.  In the meantime, people who may want to take a look at your house can do so "by appointment only" with no lockbox.  This means: you need to be home when anyone comes by and hardly anyone will want to come by Yeah, I know.  There used to be a time when there were no lock boxes and agents had to jump through all kinds of hoops to show homes to their buyer clients.  Those days are gone, though. The old saw about location, location, location is really only partially true.  You can have the best location in the world and if no one can see the inside of your house, live and in person, it probably won't sell.  Ye...
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By Ken Montville, The MD Suburbs of DC
(RE/MAX United Real Estate)
I was writing a blog post on my Outside Blog about an article in today's Washington Post about a "father/son" team that went to a bunch of Open Houses and pilfered the home owner's jewelry and took it to local pawn shops to unload it.  Due to some good police work and getting the word out within the local Realtor community, the Open House thieves have been caught.  The Alexandria (VA) police are still seeking additional victims of the Open House thefts in order to wrap this case up.  You can find the phone number of the Detective on the case here. This really brings to mind the dangers of Open Houses in the Internet Age. Most people can find all the information they want about a house on numerous websites complete with Virtual Tours. On top of that, a good buyer's agent can provide you ...
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By Ken Montville, The MD Suburbs of DC
(RE/MAX United Real Estate)
Scenario:  Mr. Seller is very eager to sell his house.  He just "happens to be home" when a lot of the buyers and their agents pop by for a visit. Mt. Seller likes to be the tour guide highlighting all the parts of the house he [the Seller] likes about his house. Mr. Seller also likes to talk money. Yes, that's right.  Stuff like "I can do this with closing help or I can do that with less closing help or....."  Get the point? So I get the call from the agent with a low ball offer.  I present to the Seller.  The Seller tells me, "I told Ms. Agent what I could do and not do and yadda, yadda, yadda.  I thought she was on board."  Or I get feedback about how awkward the agent felt or that the buyer really didn't like the main feature of the house the Seller was so proud of. No matter how ma...
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By Ken Montville, The MD Suburbs of DC
(RE/MAX United Real Estate)
I saw the URL to this video on Twitter (where else, huh?). It's just boggles the mind how quickly social media has taken off and how far reaching it is. You should really toggle this to full screen to get the full effect...and it's only a tad over 4 minutes.If you've been thinking if all this Active Rain, Facebook, Twitter, etc. stuff is a waste of time (you know who you are!) you may change your thinking after the next 4 minutes....
Comments 9
By Ken Montville, The MD Suburbs of DC
(RE/MAX United Real Estate)
During the recent downturn in the real estate market it became commonplace - at least in my little part of the world - for Sellers to kick some money toward the Buyer's closing costs.  So, as it turns out, if the Buyer could scrape together the 3.5% for a down payment (assuming an FHA mortgage), the other costs like State and County transfer and recordation fees, lender fees, title company fees, hazard insurance premiums, prepaids like interest and the like would be paid for out of the Seller's proceeds at settlement. This is wonderful news for the Buyers because it means that they really have very little in the way of out-of-pocket expenses and, if the qualify for a VA mortgage (zero down payment) it's possible they could buy the house for close to zero out-of-pocket money. However, no...
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By Ken Montville, The MD Suburbs of DC
(RE/MAX United Real Estate)
In the last couple of days there have been rumblings about "the bottom" and even a cover story in Newsweek entitled The Recession is Over * (note: the asterisk).  If you watch CNBC at all and you happen to catch a little of it before you tuned in Oprah on Friday you would have heard all manner of people getting all giddy about the stock market rally, and, most notably, about the fact that the economy didn't shrink as much as expected. That bears repeating -- the economy did not shrink as much as expected. It did not grow/expand. It just was less shrinkage? Whooooooa, Nelly.  Hold the bus! Just because things are not getting as bad as rapidly as they have been during the past year does not mean things are good!  In fact, President Obama tried to manage expectations by admonishing Newswee...
Comments 9
By Ken Montville, The MD Suburbs of DC
(RE/MAX United Real Estate)
Maybe I'm a little slow and maybe I don't quite understand this whole SEO marketing thing.  I'm really not a big super geek or anything and I'll grant that there are a lot of people who know a whole lot more about this than I do.  Maybe someone can help me out with a marketing approach from some SEO marketing companies:   I have this neat-o website   and on this neat-o website I have a little form for people to fill out if they want me to get back in touch with them about anything that's on their mind   Now, here's the part I don't understand -- a SEO marketing guy finds my website and fills out the form and in the "comments" section he tells me about how he can put me on Google's first page search results, yadda, yadda, yadda. OK, great.  How did you find my website, Mr. SEO Marketer? ...
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By Ken Montville, The MD Suburbs of DC
(RE/MAX United Real Estate)
OK.  I'm not selling anything here.  No virtual tour companies. No DIY virtual tour companies.  I've been noticing this trend, fed by the SEO industry, of Realtors becoming videographer wannabes.  Now, this isn't so bad, if you're standing in front of a camera talking about the neighborhood or subdivision and there's a nice park or a subdivision sign behind you.  It's not so bad when you're at your desk and talking about this or that.  I'm good with that.  What I'm starting to see and getting disturbed about are th DIY listing shows. That's right.  Shaky, blurry, terrrible videos with terrible audio of people's homes Realtors want to sell.  Worse are the still photos that Realtors take. I mean, I understand the Internet Empowered Consumer wants to see photos but --- toilets with the lid...
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By Ken Montville, The MD Suburbs of DC
(RE/MAX United Real Estate)
I recently signed on with a great real estate market research company - Altos Research - that provides real time real estate market data for ten zip codes I know pretty well. The real beauty of this is that both potential home sellers and home buyers can use this data to answer the question; "How is the market doing?" The data is presented in easy-to-understand graphs and a great sidebar explaining what the graphs mean. Anyone can sign up to have the reports e-mailed directly to them at absolutely ZERO cost.  So, you don't have to take my word for it (or your cousin's brother-in-law who used to sell real estate). Get the data directly from the pros -- Beltsville, MD - 20705 Bethesda, MD - 20817 Bowie, MD - 20715 Bowie, MD - 20720 Burtonsville, MD - 20866 College Park, MD - 20740 Greenbe...
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By Ken Montville, The MD Suburbs of DC
(RE/MAX United Real Estate)
I mentioned here before that I try to pay attention to my little micro-niche -- Sellers with Equity.  These are the folks who are current on their mortgage payment and may have even put a little money down on their home when they bought it.  Alternately, they bought their home way before 2000 and, even after recent price declines, they have enough equity in their home to be able to sell it. I've run across a few clients, recently, that aren't so lucky. They bought their home sometime during the 2000-2006 frenzy and now, because of the short sales and REOs and general price declines, they don't have enough equity in their home to be able to sell it.  It's a real shame.  These folks are current with their mortgage and have relatively low debt or zero debt other then their mortgage.  They ...
Comments 8
By Ken Montville, The MD Suburbs of DC
(RE/MAX United Real Estate)
I keep hearing that the market is picking up.  my fellow Realtors are crowing about the multiple offers their listings are getting within days of putting the home on the market.  my fellow Realtors are complaining that they are coming up against multiple offers on properties their buyer clients want to purchase.  can't get mortgage underwriters to move fast enought to get to settlement, homes inspectors can't get out to inspect properties fast enough, appraisers taking forever to come out to the home and then send in the appraisal report to the mortgage company. All I can say is:, "Huh?" I have four listings on the market (three single family homes and one condo) and they are all under $300,000 (a price range right in the "sweet spot" in the MD Suburbs of DC) they are all in "move-in" c...
Comments 11
By Ursula Gray
(Ursula Gray Realty)
Raleigh, NC has been named by Forbes Magazine as the #1 Place people are relocating!
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