Marin Real Estate asks: Are We There Yet?
The Lawrence Yun Watch makes #1 on Google when searching for 'Lawrence Yun'. Take that Yun, you discredited paid spinner.
Single Family Housing Starts Lowest Since Jan 1991 at Calculated Risk. Excellent.
Flickr: Realtor - Images of Realtor Stuff.
Baltimore: February 2008 Housing Data . Using Google Docs. Note to self: figure out how to embed a Google Doc into this blog.
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thanks for the link
ReplyDeleteGot a real chuckle out of this flickr photo tagged realtor.
ReplyDelete"This is my wife, trying to drum up business . . . "
Times must be tough indeed.
Hey David, Haven't commented in a while I just bought my first place. I appreciate this blog, and the dissending voices. There was a lot of good information and opinins shared here. I purchased my house having done all my research. It felt so good to be fully informed and make sure that this was a sound decision. In my opinion there are some good deals to be made..even WITHIN the DC itels or, for those of you that prefer the "burbs", inside the beltway.
ReplyDeleteNativeDCer
Congratulations NativeDCer! It sounds like you did your homework and have ended up making a researched purchase that you can afford. What a smart move!
ReplyDeleteLance - Thank you!
ReplyDeleteSorry for all the typos.
And just as a personal anecdote. I am also noticing that some areas within DC are picking up or have multiple bids. The home I just purchased was the TENTH contract I offered..which was ok..but still interesting given the market condictions. I believe it was mostly because I was in the lower priced market below 275K. I believe my pricepoint is well below what some others who have visited this blog are willing to pay. However, even when I look at the desirable areas within DC and areas inside the beltway..homes that are priced properly have multiple bids on them.
Now, I am not sure where most of you want to live. I've noticed that since I'm a native of a working class DC neighborhood my idea of an acceptable neighborhood may differ from a lot of other folks on this board. I'm not telling people to lower their standards nor am I calling them snobs, but if you're seriously looking and your finances are stable..you don't need to sell a home you're currently in..it may not hurt for you to venture and look at what's out there. I was able to negotiate 25% less than the sellers asking price because they wanted to move the home. I still think a SFH for under 275K in a decent neighborhood is pretty good for the city.
But hey..it's just my opinion which means no more than anyone elses.
Good luck to all! Investors, Buyers, Owners, and Bubbleheads alike.
NativeDCer
nativedcer said.....you don't need to sell a home you're currently in..
ReplyDeletethis just outted you as a troll.
becasue you said this eralier....homes that are priced properly have multiple bids on them.
and if the later is true then why say the former?
5 bucks says you're lance.
Anonymous, I'm not Lance and I'm sorry if I can't follow your logic. I guess what I meant was if you are a first time buyer or if you are currently not a homeowner then you won't have to go through the hassle of selling your current home in order to purchase. I'm not trolling or telling people to make a purchase. I am simply giving some anecdotal evidence. There are some decent priced homes out there.
ReplyDeletenativeDCer
Suburbs, decline and poverty
ReplyDelete1. From "The suburbs' grim future," in the Toronto Star:
Poverty is one thing in the city, quite another in the suburbs. Historically, cities enabled the poor to work their way up the socio-economic ladder. But what happens when low-income families are concentrated in post-war suburban communities where they are isolated and kept apart?
The prospects don't look good. "If you were poor in Cabbagetown you had access to an enormous number of services," says David Hulchanski of the University of Toronto Centre for Urban and Community Studies. "If you're poor in the suburbs, it's a constant struggle just to survive."
2. A good way to understand this is to read the chapter on the use value of place, in Urban Fortunes: Toward a Political Economy of Place. From the chapter:
Types of Use Values
Daily Round: The place of residence is a focal point for the wider routine in which one's concrete daily needs are satisfied.
Informal Support Networks: Place of residence is the potential support of an information network of people who provide life-sustaining products and services.
Security and Trust: A neighborhood also provides a sense of physical and psychic security that comes with a familiar and dependable environment.
Identity: A neighborhood provides its residents with an important source of identity, both for themselves and for others. Neighborhoods offer a resident not only spatial demarcations but social demarcations as well.
Agglomeration Benefits: A shared interest in overlapping use values (identity, security, and so on) in a single area is a useful way to define neighborhood.
Ethnicity: Not infrequently, these benefits are encapsulated in a shared enthnicity... When this occurs, ethnicity serves as a summary characterization of all the overlapping benefits of neighborhood life.
Agglomeration benefits (critical mass) of social and organizational services is the advantage of living in larger places, ranging from transit to libraries to employment services.
3. There's also "N.Va. Foreclosures Form 'Ring of Fire'," from the Post, about the number of foreclosures in the outer suburbs.
4. And Christopher Leinberger's piece about the "Option of Urbanism" in Atlantic Magazine, "The Next Slum?"
5. Plus the talk about consolidation of small towns, or at least the provision of services, in New Jersey. My sense is that there is something to be said for smaller towns. There is a greater sense of accountability in places like Hyattsville, Mount Rainier, Rockville, or Takoma Park, Maryland, whereas a bigger city like Washington, DC, it takes days to get the snow plowed, and for the most part the Mayor and the City Council are disconnected from democracy.
See "Tiny Towns in N.J. May Have to Merge," from the Post.