729 W 34th Street is officially sold & off the market! If you’re interested in seeing other properties in Hampden, give me a call.
ORIGINAL POST
I am very happy to present to you 729 W 34th Street in Hampden! Yes, that 34th Street. The sellers really have done a great job with the renovation. It is a 3 bed, 1 bath end of group with off street parking. It has all of the features buyers are looking for from hardwood floors to stainless steel appliances. The roof, furnace, hot water heater, CAC unit, & electrical panel are all under two years old as well.
Take a quick peak at the photos below and then click here for more information and two video tours:
I was showing a few listings in the Middle River/Essex are over the weekend. There was one really interesting townhome with a water view. It seems like it could be a good way to buy into the neighborhood you want without having to pay more for a SFH. I could also see your pool of buyers being limited though when you want to sell. My buyers are weighing their options, any input?
Zillow estimates are far from a reliable indicator of your home’s worth. I know that. You know that. But it is still depressing getting an email from them every month saying my home has lost value. My house wasn’t worth anywhere near $240k in January and it’s probably worth a little more than the $168k it’s at now.
Here is my previous entry from January when my Zestimate was at it’s peak. Note that the embedded chart is dynamic and updates itself every month.
I have a new phone number! After months of being on the waiting list for a Google Voice account, they finally sent my invite over the weekend. I’m still playing around with all of the features, but check out my first voicemail:
OK, so I was manning the booth for band Baltimoresun.com, but it was still cool to be a part of the event. It was a beautiful day, the turnout was great, and we had the best booth there. There were hundreds of excited first time buyers there and it made me feel pretty optimistic about the Baltimore housing market stabilizing pretty soon. To find out when your next chance is to get $3k from the City towards buying a home in the City, check out Live Baltimore’s website or just shoot me an email.
On a side note, the event was held at Poly (on the corner of Coldspring and Falls Rd) and it was kind of weird to be back in the school I graduated from back in 2000. Not much has changed; I even recognized a couple of the names on the classrooms.
The owner of the Green Pig building on Washington Blvd also had big plans to renovate an entire block of Reinhardt Street. The Green Pig building itself was supposed to become a vegan restaurant with a yoga studio above it. Both projects were supposed to be examples for green rehabs in the City, at least according to the owner and this article in the Urbanite.
None of this really worked out. The Green Pig has sat untouched since this article came out. It was sold in September of ‘08 and although I’ve seen workers there a few times, I’m not sure what the new owner’s plans are yet.
The block of Reinhardt Street met a similar fate. I believe a few of the houses were actually completed but had trouble selling. The rest were just recently auctioned off by AJ Billig. All five were sold in a lot for $190,000, results here.
There’s a lot more I’d like to say about this, but since this is my professional blog I should probably keep my mouth shut. It’s not my place to say what businesses should or shouldn’t come to the neighborhood. I also can’t really weigh in on how much gentrification is a good thing. But if I see any of you at the Pigtown happy hour next Friday, we can talk then. Cheers!
Long & Foster Real Estate Inc. has rolled out a program designed to help pay a buyer’s mortgage for up to six months if the homeowner loses a job.
Click on the title to read the whole article. It was really just a matter of time until someone borrowed this idea from the auto industry.
That new Saturn commercial seems like a low blow doesn’t it? Hyundai comes out first and says that if you buy one of their cars and lose your job, they will buy the car back at full price. Not a bad deal. Then Saturn comes out with a program where if you buy a new Saturn and lose your job, they will cover your payments for six months. Even better deal. But did Saturn really have to trash the Hyundai offer? The Saturn commercial mentions the Hyundai deal and says something like, “You lose your job and then you have to give back your car? Sounds like the worst day ever.” Come on, Hyundai isn’t the bad guy here. If you just lost your job, you probably shouldn’t be paying on a new car. Maybe someone should start a program where you bring your new car back and get a free year lease on a ‘94 Jetta.
There was a huge fire Monday morning at Carroll Park in Pigtown. Luckily, it wasn’t the Carroll Mansion as some people initially thought. Turns out it was the bath house. This is still a substantial loss for local little league teams. They were supposed to start up soon, but instead lost their offices and equipment in the blaze. I wonder if the City will rebuild. I love the park and during the season play softball there every week. I used to play basketball there frequently too. Two years ago they added four more hoops and last year the football field was improved as well. But the park still has all of the problems of the city in general. If you look closely, it’s not hard to find needles, condoms, vials, etc. Not to mention guys on dirtbikes and homeless guys passed out on the bleachers. Hopefully the City will keep investing in the park and we will see continued improvement.
I’m going to try to stop by the park this week, maybe tonight on my way to check out a house in Morrell Park that’s up for auction. In the meantime, check out WJZ for video of the fire and aftermath:
The rumors are flying over on the Midnight Sun’s blog this week about a well known Baltimore bar owner opening up a new spot in Pigtown. Here is the first post that got it all started. 90 comments later, the mystery man identified himself (Jason Zink of No Idea Tavern fame) and laid out a few more details in this post. I guess he just couldn’t ignore the groundswell of support.
I’ve put in my two cents. If you want Jason to open a bar in Pigtown, make sure to comment on the Midnight Sun’s blog. Let him know what you would want to eat, drink, pay, listen to, etc. It seems like Jason is using the Midnight Sun’s audience as some sort of focus group, so let’s show him that Pigtown would support his efforts.
If you’ve never been to his other bars, check them out:
