The market has turned stats begin to show.

Since September 2011 I have been referring to the "Soggy Bottom" as where our real estate market has been here in Howard County and the surrounding Maryland suburbs and Baltimore City.  Some areas were finding firm footing for housing prices to stabilize and begin to rise.  Enough distressed homes have been renovated and resold or moved into which has brought up home values in some areas and some homes still await that sort of tender loving care(TLC).  Rents have continued to rise, seemingly unaffected by the economy in recent years, so it is still a fabulous time to buy or sell if you have good credit, reasonable debt(according to the lenders) and some money saved to put into the transaction. Check out stats of foreclosures in Maryland below:

http://www.realtytrac.com/MarketTrends/NewsLetter.aspx?guid=4ccf0aed-574c-479c-982c-d0d6e3e05c26

Go to www.sdat.org to check and see if you remembered to apply for the Homestead Tax Credit already.  If not, get with it!  The deadline to apply is December 31, 2012.  After that, no guarantee you can apply.  The purpose is to limit your tax liability should home values rise more than 5% a year in the future.  Right now that doesn't seem like a concern, but I saw recently that in some areas of Baltimore City, home values have risen more than 20% over the previous year. It is a rather safe than sorry proposition and only applies for your primary residence in Maryland. Call me if you have questions about this.

Happy Holidays everyone!