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It’s not all gloom and doom - at least not if you recent Georgetown DC Homes & Townhome sales as your barometer. In a period where some extraordinary homes in the DC Metro area are seeing significant depreciation, first “third” (I missed the first quarter, sorry!) statistics for Georgetown DC homes and townhomes appear, dare I say, encouraging? Georgetown DC Homes & Townhome Sales "First Third 2008" vs "First Third 2009" 2008 2009 Number of Homes Sold 36 25 Median Sold Price* $1... Read Full Post

“U Got Sales?”, an intriguing article in Friday’s Washington Times magazine, discusses the relatively rapid sales of a small condo development in DC. With over “10,000 condos for sale” in the DC Metro area, it’s safe to say that this genre of housing, like in many other cities, has been hit the hardest by an un-forgiving market. Even the finest Bethesda condos have taken double digit depreciation hits over the past year. I’ll go out on a limb and say for the majority of new cond... Read Full Post

The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA), in its annual State of the Industry press briefing, released their 2009 Advocacy Agenda, which included the following recommendations: Permanently Increasing the Government Loan Limits to help unfreeze the housing finance system: “MBA requests Congress to help make mortgage credit more available and affordable by setting the Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Federal Housing Administration standard, nationwide loan limits to $625,500, and up to $729,750 in h... Read Full Post

Yesterday: 24 Competing Offers & Profound Price Escalations In the sellers’ market of yesteryear, the asking price was merely the “base” price on which offers then escalated. At least that’s the way it worked in our Greater Bethesda area market with most properties that were appropriately priced. Today: Expectations, Percentages, & The “One Price Fits All” Theory Today’s market is different. In the vast majority of cases, an asking price reflects the sellers’ hopes, bu... Read Full Post

We snuck out of town over the holidays and I got a chance to catch up on my airline reading. In United’s January Hemisphere Magazine, there’s an article entitled “Light on Its Footprint.” In this very short piece, the author discusses the increasing use of light rail in cities across the United States. He talks about areas that are developing new systems, others that are expanding their systems and even large employers who are moving their headquarters to be closer to public transport... Read Full Post

I said “available” didn’t I? That sounds like something an Agent would have said during the second quarter of 2005. Properties on the market are pretty “available” these days in most parts of the country -- even in the “recession proof” Washington DC area. I also said “endangered species” didn’t I? I’ll get to that in just a moment :-) Despite these trying economic times, there are a few micro-markets that have still fared quite well in areas in or around the Nation's Ca... Read Full Post

What a post Thanksgiving week. Happy Thanksgiving to everyone by the way. I hope all had their fair share of turkey, friends, and family (or any combination there-of). In the spirit of holidays, typically times of reflection, I wanted to share some recent real estate and technology musings -- just some smart ideas, questions, and tools (none of mine of course!) So bear with me... It’s only appropriate to start an REW post with REW-related chatter. Seems like the theme of the week has been t... Read Full Post

Bethesda, Chevy Chase, & Washington DC Luxury Home Report It’s been quite a while since I’ve looked at specific data dealing with the Washington DC luxury home market. Many thanks to those of you who e-mailed to ask me for an update. It’s always interesting to see the trends in a far less predictable price-range, especially against the background of recent economic woes (or perhaps “Whoa!”). For this DC Metro area luxury home market analysis, I define the luxury niche as a prope... Read Full Post

SEO is dead as we know it? Well, if you listen to Bruce Clay, he’d tell you “yes”. A recent WebProNews post, “SEO About to Get Turned On Its Ear?” summarizes a session at PubCon where Bruce Clay outlines the imminent changes in search engine behavior and its effects on SEO as we know it. I encourage you to watch the interview (included in the article) where the principles of “SEO 2.0” are examined in greater depth. But I couldn’t help touching on a couple of key "principles" a... Read Full Post

I attended a seminar last week where Dr. Steven Fuller, of the Center for Regional Analysis, spoke about the current status of and the future projections for the DC area real estate market. He began by stating that the national media’s economic reporting has caused a myriad of problems, and that this is especially true in local markets like Bethesda & Chevy Chase. Some Notable Points: The 10 recessions weve experienced since World War II have not come with as much hype as we’re seeing... Read Full Post