New Property Listing in Abingdon, MD

  

Here's your chance to buy a well maintained home for a great price. This home is short sale listing needing bank approval. This town home has it all. Fenced yard, huge deck, granite kitchen counters and more.





Bright, natural light flood large, open rooms in this ready to own Townhouse in Constant Friendship. 3 bedrooms, 2 1/2 baths and fully finished basement make this home an easy choice. Updated kitchen appliances, a full width front porch and ceiling fans throughout further enhance the value of this "bargain".

Constant Friendship is a convenient community located in Abingdon, Maryland. Situated close to I-95, via route 24 in Harford County, Constant Friendship offers quick access to shopping, schools, recreation and entertainment.

Click here for a full, up to date list of Listed Properties in Constant Friendship, Harford County.

For more info on this home, call Tim Montoya @ 443-463-3592.

Visit www.allhomes4me.com for full access to all listed properties and information about buying and selling real estate.

allhomes4me.com Harford County Real Estate

When will be a good time to begin investing in real estate again? Part 1 of 2

   I've talked to several agents, friends and clients and they have either asked this questions or have discussed it with others. So, when will be a safe/good time to begin investing in real estate again? The answer to this depends on your idea of investing and how much capital you have. Do you plan to rent the property and hold onto it? Do you plan to rehab the property and sell it for a quick profit?  I will first discuss the goal of buying with a quick sale, or "flip" in mind.

                                              "Flipping"

   When investing to "flip" a home, or sell it quickly after repairs/improvements are made, the first thing to do is to look at the sales statistics in the neighborhood or area you are interested in. The stats to the left are the April sales statistics for the Baltimore Metro area. The most important stats are obviously "Avg Sold Price", but also the "Avg Days on Market" and "Avg Sold to Orig List Ratio". The sales price for the homes in the area, comparable(comps), will tell you what the upper and lower prices homes are selling for. You must determine what budget you have for purchasing the home, improving it, carrying it while you attempt to sell it and closing costs(Realtor fees, transfer and recordation taxes and any seller concessions). Once you figure your budget You are now ready to determine a good purchase price. THIS IS WHERE YOUR PROFIT IS MADE! If you pay too much for a property, your profit will be where you lose. Purchasing a home at the right price is the most important part of real estate investing. If you buy a home at an appropriate price, you will have two things on your side:

1. You will have flex room built into the transaction to address surprises in the construction/rehab process.
2. You will have $$$ available to accommodate a buyer's request for cash contributions towards their closing costs or $$$ available for a price adjustment, if needed. 

   So, you made a smart purchase and now you're ready to rip out some walls and slap down some granite counters. Hold on there, cowboy. Let's make sure you are choosing the right improvements and upgrades. Consult your Realtor to find out how many baths the surrounding homes have, what types of kitchens are int he houses around you, how many bedrooms the other homes have and do they have a finished basement. You'll want to choose things that will set your property apart from the others in the area. If everyone else has 1 1/2 baths, then turn the 1/2 bath you have into a full bath with a shower. If the other kitchens are small "galley" type kitchens, then open up a wall and combine the kitchen and dining room to make an open feeling and better flow. If you indeed did buy the property at a good price, then these slight improvements should be within budget and will net you more dollars and possibly a quicker sale when the property is listed.


   Another area that lots of investors forget to take into account are the taxes due from any profit. Make sure to consult a tax professional to see how you will report your earnings and what will be the ramifications of your flip. Take the info you gain from your research into account when calculating your return on the transaction.

   Here is a newly released article by CNN Money. It actually gives some credit to my conclusion.

   Well, to answer the question as to "When will be a good time to invest in real estate again?" , actually, for a flip project, now is a very good time. On a scale of 1-10, I would give the current market an 8 for flipping. Labor costs are down, property prices are down and there is a lack of good, well priced homes ready for occupancy. A lot of the homes available are in need of work due to the fact that they are foreclosures, short sales or the owners have not had the means to keep up with them.


   Here is a USA Today article from a few years ago, but it is still very relevant.

   INVESTORS!!! Here are links to custom search results for properties under $100,000. If anything interests you, give me a call.

• Baltimore City

• Baltimore County

• Harford County

   Next week I will discuss the mentality of investing with the goal of having rental income.

Who are you to believe?

   I am sure everyone is hearing the new of the recovering economy, right? I see articles written on a daily basis stating that "Housing prices on the rise!", or "Housing market rebounding!". So where is all the evidence of the improvement in the housing market? Well, here is just one article that actually gives some statistics. There have been some encouraging signs of a potential improvement, but what constitutes a "recovery"? Are increasing prices the only thing that indicate a recovery? Here is a sample of the performance in Baltimore County. The numbers are encouraging, but like the early season success of the Baltimore Orioles, I am optomistically cautious to say that the clouds are lifting and the sun is once again shining on the real estate market in Maryland.



   If you would like complete statistics for all areas of Maryland, visit my website, www.allhomes4me.com, or follow my Facebook page, www.facebook.com/timmontoyarealtor.

Are Home Inspections Necessary?

     I recently came across this article in the Washington Times regarding home inspections in the DC real estate market. I was not surprised to hear that more and more transactions are dealing with listings being sold "as-is". The majority of foreclosures and short sales are listed as an "as-is" sale, and for good reason. Most banks will not make repairs to a property. They are already losing money and normally the buyer is getting the property far below market value. There are exceptions to this, so it is always worth a try to get the bank to commit funds for a repair or to have the issue corrected.

     As far as the title of this blog is concerned, I have never and will never recommend to my clients to forgo a property inspection. I think to do so would be dangerous for me as a professional and may lead someone to have a false sense of security in a property that may or may not be founded.


     I think nothing bad can come from a licensed home inspector examining a home you are preparing to purchase, even new construction! I'm not saying that an inspector will find every last defect in a property or that he can see through walls, but a second or third set of eyes can always be beneficial. Also, an inspection report can come in handy if you need to renegotiate some aspects of the purchase or use it as an excuse to back out of the deal.


    What do you think? Have you purchased a home with or without getting an inspection? Would you do it differently the next time? Visit my website, www.allhomes4me.com, for buyer and seller tips and access to my resource of recommended inspectors and other professionals.

Housing Prices Up!!!!

Well, looks like we are in the clear! Housing prices are on the rise so all should be good, right? Are you as skeptical as I am about all of the local reports of "Housing prices up 5% in June" or "Home sales on the rise!"? Being a Realtor, I feel like the public perception of the current state of our economy, and more specific the real estate market, is like an empty bottle out at sea. It gets tossed back and forth and if a good sized wave comes along, it goes under, only to resurface and bob around a little more. As professionals, Realtors need to be honest and direct with those we come in contact with. The media plays up or down current events, or doesn't cover them at all.



How can the general public know what to make of buying or selling a property at any given time? My suggestion is to contact someone who sees homes being bought and sold everyday.



The reports of home values being "up" are fine if you report the facts. The fact is, unless you compare what a specific house sold for 4 years ago to that same home selling now, then you can't really claim that values are up. Just like the loved term "median sales price". What does that mean, median? Who cares what the median sales price is? All median sales price refers to is the price of the house that is between the higher and lower half of homes that sold. So, if 3 homes sold ( $25,000 , $200,000 and $800,000), then $200,000 would be the median price. What does that tell you? The average sales price would have been $341,xxx. The median sales price really doesn't convey anything other than the price of a house that sold in the middle of a group or other sales.



I get frustrated when I hear polarizing information in the news about the economy. Why is there need to toy with the public perception? Why not report that home sales were rolling right along until the home buyer's tax credit expired, then they slowed down slightly? Also, consider that were are in the middle of the prime selling/buying time period in our market. I anticipate new contracts of sale to settle down in mid-September and crawl to a snails pace by November, but guess what, this happens every year. September will probably be a good month for property closings, so be prepared to hear the media report high property sale numbers at that time.





If you'd like a complete list of current sales in your neighborhood, city or county, feel free to contact me and I would be happy to send it to you.