U r b a n T r e k k e r

Harris Teeter Cap Hill + Jenkins Row Opening

GRAND OPENING of the new Harris Teeter grocery store - first for around Capitol Hill on the ground floor of new condo Jenkins Row - is tomorrow, TUESDAY, May 13.

Jenkins Row is new condo out in the east of Eastern Market hood famous for their open markets - flea and farmers market. It is not exactly 'close' to the markets and EM metro station, but, still walking distance. It's rather 'a block?' from Potomac Avenue metro station.

Guess the name Jenkins name comes after this. [via Wiki]

"In the 18th century the hill was called Jenkins Hill or Jenkins Heights by Pierre L'Enfant in 1791 as he began to develop his plan for the new Federal City. He chose to locate the "Congress House" on the crest of the hill, facing the city, a site that L'Enfant characterized as a "pedestal waiting for a superstructure."

This is not a 'green condo' but just regular condos, unfortunately. (I am all for "green" condos!). It features open floor plan, ceramic tile in kitchen and bath, gourmet kitchen with stainless steel appliances, walk in closets, hardwood flooring, garden courtyard, rooftop deck with Capitol views, parking (limited time with 2BR unit purchase). 

Featured condos (their condo specs - come with parking): 1BR $334,900, 1BR+den (w/parking) $429,900, 2BR $464,900 and 2BR+den $499,900. Other floor plans can be viewed here.

Here is the invite (via email).

Weekly Real Estate News Roundup

How to Green Your Lighting
What’s the Big Deal? How we light up the places we live and work makes a big impact on how we feel. It also makes a big impact on the environment. The kind of bulbs, the kind of fixtures, the kind of power, and the habits we keep can all add up to a very significant greening.

Mortgage Crisis Seep to Prime Loans
The first concrete evidence that delinquencies on mortgage bills have spread well beyond those with subpar credit shows that even prime borrowers have increasingly fallen behind on their house payments.

Taxes When You Sell Your Home
IF YOU'RE A HOMEOWNER, then you're probably aware of the incredibly generous tax break available when you sell your home. Play your cards right and you can lock in a profit of up to $250,000 ($500,000 when you file jointly) and owe nothing to the IRS.

Mortgage Credit Losses Could Total $500bln: Goldman
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Goldman Sachs economists expect a total of $500 billion in residential mortgage credit losses, a renewed slowdown in economic activity after the near-term boost from fiscal stimulus, and no monetary policy tightening in 2008 or 2009, according to a research note from the firm.

From Their House to the White House
Like millions of Americans, the three presidential candidates rode the real-estate wave. But for them there's been no hard landing, and well-timed home purchases in prime neighborhoods have left two of them -- Sens. John McCain and Hillary Clinton -- with millions in real-estate gains.

Don't Fall for This Mortgage Pitch
You may have received e-mails touting a system that promises to help you pay off your mortgage early. This mortgage-acceleration package -- which includes a software program -- relies heavily on the use of a home-equity line of credit.

Before the Flood, Make Sure that Your Home is Properly Insured
Many homeowners turn their thoughts to spring cleaning this time of year. But my thoughts are usually drawn toward making sure the contents of our home remain safe and protected. That's because our homeowners insurance policy is up for renewal every June.

Signs of a Housing Bottom?

Map of Misery
SOUNDING more like a cartographer than a central banker, Ben Bernanke this week showed off the Federal Reserve's latest gizmo for tracking America's property bust: a series of maps that colour-code price declines, foreclosures and other gauges of housing distress for every county in the country.

Smart Home: Green + Wired Debuts at MSI
Architect Michelle Kaufmann has made a big splash in Chicago this week during the opening of her Smart Home: Green + Wired exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry.

When You Have a Crooked House
In the nursery rhyme, the crooked man with his crooked cat and mouse didn't mind his crooked house. But outside of children's stories, homes are supposed to have level floors, flat walls and plumb ceilings, so crookedness can be a bit more problematic.

FROM AROUND THE REGION: DC-MD-VA

A Southeast Spot Blossoming with Charm
The fact that Hillcrest is a front-porch-sitting, dog-walking, back-fence-chatting, heavily voting community is not that unusual in this area.

DC Area Governments, Business Plan 400 Building Retrofit
Governments and businesses in and around Washington, D.C., have announced more than 400 buildings in the region plan to undergo energy retrofits.

A House that's Just Right
When Amy and Casey Cooper needed more room, they decided to renovate their former bungalow in northwest Washington. “We bought it in ’98 and lived here for five years before we expanded our family and outgrew it,” Casey says.

Cell Tower Proposed at Pool in Annandale
An application with the county to install a 140-foot-tall cell phone and broadband wireless tower on property belonging to the Holmes Run Acres community pool in Annandale has a few neighbors concerned about the impact on property values as well as on their health.

Virginia New Home: 11 Houses Rise in Alexandria
NVHomes is building 11 single-family homes on quarter-acre homesites at Wilton Hill in Alexandria, near the Cameron Run Regional Park and Landmark Mall.

Fairfax Unemployment Up Slightly in March
The unemployment rate across Fairfax County ticked up slightly in March, but remained below the regional, state and national averages.

Mortgage Delinquency Rates Double in Washington Region
The metro region is feeling the effects of nationwide mortgage troubles, as a new data reveals the number of borrowers with mortgage payments at least 60 days late doubled or almost doubled — and in some cases tripled — in all counties in the region from the fourth quarter of 2006 to the same period in 2007.
 

Friday Cartoon

via Slate

New Homes Special Deals Line Up

Every week I receive builders email solicitation. You can sort of measure builders desperation by looking at the prices. The new home builders can afford to cut prices aggressively more than Joe home seller because to them, each home is just a commodity. Or, number on the balance sheet.

Arts District of Hyattsville

So we know from this email that Busboys and Poets is coming to the hood. And price reduced for this one home (usually a 'spec') from $470k to $399k or a 14.8% price reduction!

Centerpointe in Fairfax

420 Condominiums

Penderbrook Square

This is a serious ding to their condo prices. What a 2BR now under $250? Comstock used to sell the 1BR at high-$200's pushing $300's. They even do FHA now.

Tysons Chase

Even luxury homes cut their prices on their spec homes. Actually there are two spec homes with big discount. One is below and the other one is Carlton model, that comes with over 5900 s.f., 6 BR and 5 1/2 Ba, Chef kitchen with stainless steel appliances, open floor plan for entertaining and brick patio backing to conservation area. (around Tysons Corner, Vienna)

Cameron Station

Prices now off $70,000! It's off $70k probably for the remaining 'few?' units they have available. I love it when they say only a 'few.' My follow up question will be 'how many is few?' The answer determine how far down they're willing to negotiate.

Parker Flats

Capitol Gateway

In addition to the incentives above, they have a couple of spec homes priced from low-$300's to mid-$300's.

Midtown Alexandria Station

Logan Row

Ready for barbeque? The kicker - open house with barbeque for a change here.

I'll keep you posted when I see more deals coming on the pipeline. Here is my disclosure: Prices and incentives subject to change without notice. Got it?

So You're Buying Foreclosure?

Bobby Dempsey nails it.

How good -- or bad -- an idea is it to buy a foreclosure, given the current  housing market?

Besides market supply and demand, the good part of foreclosure is the price. However, the money thing is not as sweet as before given the current underwriting standards. In fact, getting loans are tougher these days. The dilemma facing some first time buyers is this: Foreclosure is the only type of properties available within their price range. Because conditions of the properties sometime in bad shape, you really have to think ahead - whether you have the resources (i.e. funds and energy) or not to work on the property and bring it to a 'habitable' condition - or what they call 'move in condition' while you're (still) working at it.

From the trenches. A bank-owned condo.

While for investors, gotta keep a couple of things in mind: 1) forget flipping, no more quick profits scheme 2) loans are much tougher to get 3) it's a crowded field for investors.

To sum it up, buying foreclosure is 'not' for the faint of heart.

Countrywide HELOC Moment

Countrywide pulls out home equity lines in all of Las Vegas area, Bloomberg reports.

Since January, Countrywide, Bank of America Corp., Washington Mutual Inc. and IndyMac Bancorp Inc. have frozen about 600,000 equity credit lines nationwide, said Michael Kratzer, president of a Bankrate Inc.-owned Web site that's fielding consumer complaints. The lenders are targeting borrowers in cities where property values are falling, including Las Vegas, Chicago and Los Angeles, he said.
....
As many as 15,000 people in Las Vegas, or 5 percent of the total homeowner population, had credit lines suspended by Countrywide and other lenders, said Brad Henderson, president of Henderson, Nevada-based mortgage banker and broker Evofi One.

Wow.

Wash. DC (and N. Va) Housing Turns Around

A measure of market activity shows that when prices decline housing sales sizzles. The observation is based on current market (raw numbers) indicators from MRIS. You'll see below that market shows signs of improvement for Washington DC and Northern Virginia. In other words - sales 'picked up.' [Release of April 'official' housing sales from NVAR and GCAAR won't be available until second week in May].

UNDER CONTRACTS (April 2008)

Let's compare month-over-month sales under contract - in NAR jargon 'pending home sales.' In bracket it shows last year's data.

Washington DC (+21%)
369 homes (conventional)   (303)
17 (foreclosure)
7 (short-sales)

Alexandria City (+15%)
156 homes   (141)
6 (foreclosure)
3 (short-sales)

Arlington  (+14%)
162 homes   (149)
8 (foreclosure)
2 (short-sales)

Fairfax (+14.2%)
1095 homes    (1135)
145 (foreclosure)
57 (short-sales)

Loudoun (+13.5%)
464 homes   (518)
83 (foreclosure)
41 (short-sales)

Prince William  (+23%)
613 homes    (686)
181 (foreclosure)
52 (short-sales)

Based on the data above, you kind of see where the areas with the hardest hit. The analysis of - how sales is better in closer-in neighborhoods (inside the beltway) than in outer burbs (outside the beltway) because of proximity to DC - prove that is the case. Especially now with gas prices on target to reach $4 a gallon? Yeah, commuting can hit pocketbook deep.

For example, Prince William county. Almost 20% of homes under contract is foreclosure. I don't really count short-sales until it closes, because the percentage of short-sales that got sold actually really low. If we take short-sales out (52homes), the turnaround is still 15.7% in April - that is a hell of a come back for Prince William county! Ditto for Loudoun and Fairfax. These hoods show some coming back signs as well.

HOUSING INVENTORIES

Washington DC 8.3 mos.
Alexandria City 5.8 mos.
Arlington 4.9 mos.
Fairfax 8.1 mos.
Loudoun 9 mos.
Prince William 11.1 mos.

[note: 5-6 months is a 'balanced' market. Under 5 months is a sellers market and over 6 months is buyers market.]

You see market is moving fast. Supply of foreclosure homes (bank-owned/REO) might not be around too much longer. Before you know it, they're gone. So you got to hurry up.

::

Check here for the most recent REO listings: Washington DC, Alexandria, Arlington, Fairfax, Falls Church and Fairfax City.

data: MRIS

Regret Later?

An Urban Trekker reader chimes in...

"I am a agent in VA. I have a condo I have to drop to 180k that would have sold for 260k+ a year ago.

Great time for people to buy by if they have the cash and credit. When the market goes back up in couple of years some will regret not making a move now." [emphasis added]

Over at Prince William county, the ground zero for foreclosures,' market heats up according to the Washington Post.

Real estate agents said the Prince William market heating up more quickly than others because it took a bigger hit.

"The housing market is looking much more affordable in Prince William than in other places," said Stephen Fuller, an economist at George Mason University Center for Regional Analysis. "Prices got way too far away from reality across the region. Prince William is adjusting more substantially and will be a much better housing market in the long run because there is a better balance between value and price."

Timing the market? Can't. Because no one knows when 'will' be the best time. You sorta have to use your 'sense and dollars' and take into account a slice of the estimated 'declining value' for the year off the sales price.

Weekly Real Estate News Roundup

Inside the World's First Billion Dollar Home
While visiting New York in 2005, Nita Ambani was in the spa at the Mandarin Oriental New York, overlooking Central Park. The contemporary Asian interiors struck her just so, and prompted her to inquire about the designer.

Pocket Pads
With rising energy costs and the scarcity of raw land, the era of the McMansion may slowly be coming to a close. In 2006 the average U.S. single-family home clocked in around 2,500 square feet, up nearly 50 percent from 28 years ago.

Home Prices Drop in Areas with Long Commute
Economists say home prices are nowhere near hitting bottom. But even in regions that have taken a beating, some neighborhoods remain practically unscathed. And a pattern is emerging as to which neighborhoods those are.

Not All Credit Scores Created Equal
AS THE DIRECTOR of finance at a Spring Hill, Fla.-based Chrysler dealership, Marvin Hedrick has had his fair share of skeptical (and unhappy) clients, especially when he has to turn someone down for an auto loan or break the bad news that they'll have to pay a much higher interest rate than they expected.

Inside the Liar's Loan
Here's the narrative we've heard about the mortgage meltdown: miscalculation and unfounded optimism, clueless investors, cash-strapped home buyers clobbered by rate resets.

Recovery On Hold Until 2009
The latest release of the Leading Indicator for Remodeling Activity has even the most optimistic industry observers down on the market's chances to bounce back soon.

Deconstruction Grows in Popularity, Spawns New Businesses
In her Teardown Diary, Wall Street Journal columnist Nancy Keates forgoes the common practice of demolition and instead opts for "unbuilding."  Usually referred to as deconstruction, unbuilding is when you disassemble an old structure piece by piece and salvage the usable parts.

The 15-minute Tip: The Right Contractor for the Job
Say what you want about today's lousy housing market, one thing is for sure: it's a buyer's market for construction and remodeling services. The downward spiral in home construction has made it easier and cheaper to find a contractor to remodel that bathroom, redo those cabinets or add that second story.

12 Observations on Residential Housing
1) The rating agencies have been running like crazy.  They do that when they are behind the curve.  Whether it is Moody’s on subprime, or S&P on Alt-A lending, the downgrades are coming in packs.

What's the Difference Between a Green Roof and a White Roof?
Question: We need a new roof and want to go green with our renovation, but we are new to this and confused. What is a "white roof," and what is the difference between a "white roof" and a "green roof"? I want to know the advantages and disadvantages, and I also need an expert in my area to help me out! We would like to be able to walk on the structure, if possible.

Kitchen Remodeling Remains a Popular Project
My 84-year-old father told us a joke at the dinner table last Sunday (remember, this is a joke): “A guy cutting down a tree with a chain saw accidentally severs his left pinkie. His wife rushes him to the local hospital, where the emergency-room doctor explains to him, ‘You have two choices.

13,953 REO's Offered for Sale on Countrywide Financial's Website

Can You Refi When You Are Upside Down
Recently Bankrate's Holden Lewis answered common questions about refinancing.

Home Insurance Credits
Homeowners often don't take time to reassess home-insurance coverage when it's time to pay the premium. But with many Americans looking for ways to save a buck these days, examining that paperwork could pay off.

FROM AROUND THE REGION: DC-MD-VA

Home Prices Receding, Sales Rising in Pr. William
Painting, cleaning and remodeling the kitchen are some of the projects self-proclaimed handyman Kevin Garvey is ready to delve into now that he has a home of his own.

Boutique Hotels, Housing Pitched for Mount Vernon Triangle Property
A handful of hip new hotels want to open up in Mount Vernon Triangle, near the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, and D.C. will be choosing which it likes best.

Magic Johnson Bets on Petworth
Magic Johnson's Canyon-Johnson Urban Fund and Donatelli Development have nailed down a $53 million construction loan from Citi Community Capital for an apartment and townhouse development in Petworth.

Taxes Set to Rise in Alexandria
The Alexandria City Council is expected Monday night to raise a slew of taxes on items ranging from meals and hotel stays to real estate.

Updated Dunn Loring Metro Station Plans Presented to Residents
Merrifield residents received an update from a representative of developer Trammell Crow Residential about its plans to build apartments and retail stores adjacent to the Dunn Loring Metro station's south entrance.

A Contemporary Space in Old Town Alexandria
A certain brick building on a corner in Alexandria, VA, features two walls of huge storefront windows. At first, it’s not clear whether this is a commercial or residential space.

Buyers Seminar: Foreclosures, Short-Sales & Financing

My office is hosting a home buyers seminar and talk about "Everything You Wanted to Know About Foreclosures, Short-sales and Financing." Seats are limited. However, last I check we still have few seats available.

SATURDAY, MAY 3, 2008
From 11am - 12pm
Weichert Realtors McLean office
1313 Dolley Madison Blvd. Ste. 100
McLean, VA 22101

RSVP or Got Questions? Email dsoeharjono (AT) mris (DOT) com.
Or call me at 571-213-4019.

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