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SATURDAY, JULY 24, 2010
D.C. area housing rebound seen
housing continued from E1
likely to continue to benefit from these strong sectors. Of the 126 metropolitan areas
that Zillow tracks, Washington is one of 17 where home values im- proved in May, compared with a year earlier. Values didn’t change from May to May in 12 areas, and the rest experienced price de- clines.
According to the Zillow Home PHOTOS BY BILL O’LEARY/THE WASHINGTON POST The dining room of the Naughten-Talley home in Silver Spring. The 1957 Henredon dining-room set is one of the family’s favorite touches. Home’s decor straight out of AMC show mad men continued from E1
“It was kismet,” she added. Among their favorite furnish- ings are the 1957 Henredon din- ing-room set in blond mahogany with blue stencils, handed down from Christopher Naughten’s par- ents. Naughten said they had al- ways been drawn to the style. “Mid-century modern — we dis- covered we were enthusiasts without really knowing it,” he said. When they found that house, he said he realized, “Wow, this is where it all belongs.” Talley added: “You do get a real emotional feeling when you see this house. It looks like our child- hoods.” Runner-up in the Mad Men
Look contest is Michael Shapiro of Bethesda, known online as “midcenturymike.” Post judges were taken with his mix of vintage and new furnishings, particularly the vintage white Eames pedestal table and dining chairs in white and chartreuse, topped with a newGeorge Nelson bubble lamp. Shapiro, 37, and his wife, Elissa, 36, live in a 1956 brick split-level with a carport. “It’s not the ultra- modern that I want, but we’ll get
Value Index, the median price for Washington area homes was $331,200 in May, up 2.6 percent from a year earlier. “We don’t get really hyper real fast and then drop real fast” in Washington, Donna Evers, owner-broker at Evers & Co. Real Estate in the District, said in an interview. “It’s more of a steady climb.” She said that when there is an economic crisis, the government gets big- ger, which helps buffer Washing- ton real estate. It also helps that not many people are moving out of the area and putting their homes on the market. Nor are builders creat- ing much in the way of new sup- ply, she said. That keeps the sup- ply down and bolsters prices. Evers said there is about a four- month supply, on average, in lo- cal markets, excluding Prince William and Prince George’s counties, which were hit hardest
by foreclosures. That inventory is down from the 4.6-month supply typical of 2009. In 2008, there was about 6.7 months’ worth of housing on the market. The rest of the country isn’t so
lucky. Humphries told the Cham- ber of Commerce gathering that he expects home values to con- tinue falling nationwide until at least the third quarter of this year. People are struggling with unemployment, and their homes are selling for less than they paid for them. Many communities still have an excess supply of homes for sale. And the govern- ment’s home buyer tax-credit program expired at the end of April. Nationally, inflation-adjusted
home values might not appreci- ate for three to five years, Hum- phries said. Even so, analysts don’t expect values to plummet again as they did between 2005 and late 2008. On a national level, existing- home sales have slowed recently. The National Association of Re- altors said Thursday that exist- ing-home sales in June were at an annual pace of 5.37 million units, down from a 5.66 million pace in May. Despite the monthly drop, sales handily beat the 4.89 million-unit annual pace set in June 2009.
rysts@washpost.com
harney from E1 THE NATION’S HOUSING
The previous owners “never destroyed the original character of the house,” Melissa Talley said.
there someday,” he said. What draws him to these styles? “It’s very simple: clean lines. To me, that’s perfection,” he said. Shapiro’s primary occupation is doing communications work for a nonprofit, but he has also gotten a
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real estate license. A Long & Fos- ter agent, he specializes in mid- century modern houses and neighborhoods. One of his pet peeves is that real estate agents are quick to say there’s not a lot of mid-century modern housing in the D.C. area. “There actually is a lot of this type of housing stock here if you look for it.” His Web site is
www.moderncapitaldc. com. Third place goes to Kathy Smith, who lives in Hollin Hills, an enclave of mid-century mod- ern architecture in Fairfax Coun- ty, just south of Alexandria. Un- like the Talley-Naughten family, which found the perfect house to complement their furniture, Smith and her husband, Robert, both 36, searched for the furni- ture after moving into the mid- century modern neighborhood. Judges particularly liked their wire Bertoia chairs, which the couple bought used and had refin- ished with a new powder coating. “A lot of those items we got for really good prices on eBay,” Smith said.
®
Finally, Post judges created a special Don Draper Award for one entrant, Paul Delmerico of Win- chester, Va. His photo showed him dressed in Draperesque white shirt and skinny tie, hold- ing the requisite cocktail and posed in front of a vintage 1950s
The family has collected plenty of mid-century modern pieces.
Philco Predicta television. The kicker: The black-and-white cath- ode-ray tube displayed an old TV commercial used to sell the sets back in the day. Delmerico has the commercial on DVD. He said he’s an aficionado of in- dustrial and product design in general, and he collects vintage television sets. “Those are old electronic pieces of art, as far as I’m concerned,” he said. Delmer- ico, born in 1954, said he’s a “huge fan” of the “Mad Men” series. “I guess it kind of takes me back a bit,” he said. The show’s new season starts
Sunday night at 10 p.m. on AMC.
razzie@washpost.com
used FICO score, says there has been a deterioration in millions of Americans’ scores during the past two years. More than 25 per- cent of consumers who have ac- tive credit files — roughly 43 mil- lion people — have FICO scores of 599 and below. On Fair Isaac’s scale, which runs from 300 (high- est risk) to 850 (lowest risk), a 599 score is considered unaccept- able by most lenders. In fact, since the housing boom went bust, lenders prefer to see scores well into the 700s. Fannie Mae, for instance, gives its best combinations of rates and fees to applicants with 740 FICOs or higher. How can buyers deal with the tougher rules on such things as minimum scores to debt-to-in- come ratios? Be aware that there are workarounds and creative so- lutions to some of the road- blocks. Say your credit scores ap- pear too low to qualify for the mortgage you need to buy a house. Ignore the online and junk-mail “credit repair” come- ons that promise miraculous FI- CO score improvements over- night. They are often rip-offs and might not even be legal in some instances. However, an experienced
mortgage broker or retail loan of- ficer can get your credit file into a “rapid rescoring” program that might get you the legitimate lift you need to qualify. Rapid rescor- ings performed by independent credit-reporting agencies — most of them members of the National Credit Reporting Association — use procedures approved by the three national credit bureaus to make direct changes to the infor- mation contained in credit files. If there are documented errors
in the file, or omissions that are dragging down your scores be- hind your back, the rescorers connect you, your creditors and
the national bureaus — Equifax, Experian and TransUnion — to get the problems fixed. In some cases, rescorers can spot steps you can take, such as cutting your utilization percentage on a particular account, that will boost your score immediately. Marty Flynn, president of Credit Communications in San Ramon, Calif., a credit reporting firm, says most rescorings take three to five days and cost an average of $30 per “tradeline” or credit account per borrower. A typical rescoring costs from $90 to $200. Although extensive re- scorings can push FICOs up dra- matically, Flynn said the average increase is more like 25 to 32 points. If you’ve been an irre- sponsible deadbeat, of course, re- scoring your files won’t help much or at all. Dale Di Gennaro, president of Custom Lending Group, a mort- gage brokerage in Napa, Calif., says he uses rapid rescorings to help clients raise their scores enough “to get them into the loan program that’s best for them.” In one recent case, he said, home buyers whose scores had been in the mid-600s boosted them into the 700s when rescorers helped eliminate a late payment dispute on their three bureau files. Steve Stamets, a loan officer
with Union Mortgage Group in Rockville, said rapid rescoring can rack up transaction costs — and even pinch loan officers’ rev- enue — when an applicant’s scores are being depressed by is- sues in multiple accounts. One recent applicant had problems with three separate credit trade- lines, throwing the mortgage ap- plication into jeopardy. Straight- ening them out cost $270. “We got [the client] above the 620 FICO he needed” to be ap- proved for the mortgage, Stamets said, “but believe me, it took some work.”
kenharney@earthlink.net
300+
AUCTION STARTS: JULY 31ST &25TH
TEXT ALERT! Text Auction 52 to 878787 to be notified of important auction updates and late additions!
ONLINE BIDDING AVAILABLE OPEN HOUSE: JULY 24TH
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Subject to Auction Terms and Conditions. Real Estate Disposition, LLC, 1 Mauchly, Irvine, CA 92618. CT RE Brkr Mary C. Quella REB.0788534; DC Real Estate Disposition Corporation RE Brkr CO98368218; DE RE BrkrR2-0003407; Auctioneer 2010100856;MD RE Brkr Mary Claire Quella 632690; Anne Arundel CountyAuctioneer Mark Buleziuk A000288, Jeffrey JohnstonA000287; MAReal Estate Disposition Corporation RE Brkr 7990, Auctioneer Michael E. Carr 2888, Mark Buleziuk 2788; Jeffrey Johnston 2789; NH RE
Brkr Dwight Keeler 001194; NJ Real Estate Disposition CorporationREBrkr 0894621, MarkBuleziuk 0787053, Jeffrey Johnston 0788545;NYReal Estate Disposition Corporation RE Brkr 109901870, Mark Buleziuk 41BU1172378; Auctioneer Michael E. Carr 1310812; Mark Buleziuk 1182103; NY Real Estate Disposition Corporation RE Brkr 109901870, Mark Buleziuk 41BU1172378; Auctioneer Michael E. Carr 1310812; Mark Buleziuk 1182103; VA Real Estate Disposition Corporation RE Brkr 0226 020092, Auctioneer Mark Buleziuk 2907003422, Michael E. Carr 2907003599, Jeffrey Johnston 2907003428,WayneWheat 2907003002;
Bank of America, N.A., Member FDIC. Equal Housing Lender. Credit and collateral are subject to approval. Terms and conditions apply. This is not a commitment to lend. Programs, rates, terms and conditions are subject to change without notice. © 2010 Bank of America Corporation. ARHOU352
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