For Paul and Michele Shultz, it all happened so fast.
In March, the Howard County couple stuck a "for sale" sign in the front yard of their Columbia split-level. Within hours they had a buyer and three days later a ratified contract.
And last week -- just in time for their daughter's third birthday -- they moved into their new four-bedroom home in Clark's Glen in Clarksville, one of the hottest selling single-family home communities.
The Shultzes' experience is typical of the phenomenon that has helped fuel the housing boom in the Baltimore metropolitan region: Buyers purchase existing homes, allowing those homeowners to move up to new, more expensive homes and prompting builders to increase production.
With Baltimore's resale market experiencing one of its best six-month periods in recent memory -- up 24 percent over the first half of 1997 -- new-home sales are enjoying similar success, showing a 26.4 percent increase, according to midyear figures released by Meyers Housing Data Reports.
"It's always a nice story when the metro Baltimore market is about 26 percent ahead of last year, which translates to more than 1,000 additional units that have been sold compared to last year as of the end of June," said Ken Sugarman, national #F operations director for Meyers, a Washington publication that tracks and analyzes new-home sales.
"What is also nice is that all product types -- singles, townhouses and condos -- are outpacing last year's performance, which is unusual [but] a nice change of pace," Sugarman added.
Of the hottest selling communities in the region, Clark's Glen, developed by Pulte Homes Corp., had the most activity for detached single-family homes in the first half of the year with 34 sales.
Annapolis Overlook, a townhouse community built by PCS Homes, was the area's top seller with 54.
Next with 46 sales was Fairway Courtyards, a condominium project being built by Chateau Builders in Howard County's Waverly Woods development.
Overall, builders reported sales of 5,168 units for the first six months of 1998, compared with 4,088 for the same period last year. And most new homebuyers gravitated to Howard and Anne Arundel counties.
New-home sales in Howard were up 37.5 percent over last year and Anne Arundel showed a 36.5 percent increase in the first six months. Baltimore County had a 23.6 percent increase, Carroll County was up 18.4 percent and Harford County showed a slight, 3 percent increase.
And within Howard and Anne Arundel, the most sought-after areas were the U.S. 29/Ellicott City corridor (up 102 percent) and along the Baltimore-Washington Parkway and Route 3 market (up 53.1 percent).
Nearly quadrupled
In fact, the townhouse market in that area of Howard County -- which features Washington Homes' Howard's Ridge, Ryan Homes' Ellicott Overlook and Ryland Homes' Hollifield Station, among others -- was so strong in the first six months that it almost quadrupled its 1997 sales for the same period, from 46 to 165.
The difference from last year's sluggish sales to this year's activity, according to Sugarman, is the continuation of low mortgage rates, high consumer confidence and the strength of the resale market.
"There is no magic wand waved over the market; it's just a consistent, sound development approach going on," Sugarman said.
"What we are seeing is that not only is the volume up, but the sales price that they are getting is up," he said, adding that the average price of a single-family home is running 3 percent ahead of last year's level at $231,873. "It's not huge jumps, but they are getting everything they can get."
Sugarman said average single-family home prices in Baltimore and Carroll counties were 5 percent higher than a year ago. In Baltimore County, the base price of a new single-family home was $213,700, and in Carroll it was up to $206,122. The average base price in Harford was $187,817, unchanged, and Anne Arundel was up 2 percent to $249,213.
But Howard County was by far the most pricey, with the average single-family home at a base price of $273,592, a 1.8 percent increase over the same period in 1997.
"But what I think is more interesting is that condo prices have climbed significantly over last year, up 11.4 percent," Sugarman said, adding that the average base price for a condominium was $115,640. For townhouses, it was $128,182, up 2.1 percent.
At Brookside at Kendall Ridge in Columbia, prices at the townhouse community have risen $10,000 since the beginning of the year, according to Lawrence I. Rosenberg, president of Mark Building Co.
The community, which opened in October 1995, had 42 sales in the first six months of the year, including 14 in May alone, making it one of the area's top-selling townhouse communities.
Rosenberg is no stranger to buying frenzies. In 1990, his company sold 48 homes in five days at Worthington Glen in Owings Mills. But he doesn't liken this year's market to the buying "euphoria" of the late 1980s, saying today's homebuyers are more prudent.
"Buyers are very smart, and although times are good, they are still shopping for value and what's even better since we have started this job some of the resales have sold higher than the new ones, so we are seeing appreciation as well."
But can the pace continue?
"I wish I had a crystal ball to tell you how long this can continue, but we're cautiously optimistic," Rosenberg said.
Clark's Glen
Paul and Michele Shultz are still unpacking boxes, having just moved into their new home, the Ashton model, a four-bedroom Colonial in what has become Pulte Homes' hottest selling single-family community.
"The community on average probably has more activity than any other single-family community that we have," said Paul Kotsher, vice president for sales and marketing for Pulte Homes. "It's constantly busy we've had to add staff out here to accommodate the traffic that we have."
Kotsher said Pulte has sold as many houses in the first half of this year in Clark's Glen as it had in all of 1997.
Paul Shultz, 38, and his wife, Michele, 35, didn't consider buying a new home at first, thinking it would be out of their financial reach. Instead, they looked at existing homes. But the lure of new construction and the desire to purchase in the area brought them back to the models at Clark's Glen.
"We left a home that was about 20 years old, and the homes that we were looking at being resold were in the 10-year range it was still that same kind of home style, heat pump, all electric 8-foot ceilings," said Mr. Shultz, an electrical engineer.
"These have much higher ceilings, I think 9-foot, and a much more open airy feeling," added Mr. Shultz, who said that with the aid of $14,000 in incentives the final cost of their home came to $281,470.
According to Kotsher, the community, which opened in February 1996, was designed "to give consumers the look and feeling of a custom home.
"One of the things that we did was to have the vast majority of the homes with side-loaded garages that was one thing we knew that would distinguish us from everybody else.
"The other thing was each home out here comes with different texture elevations. We don't have any homes out here that are just all vinyl, we don't have any. Some have brick, some have stone, some have stucco, some have a combination. So if you go down the streetscapes in the community almost every house looks different," Kotsher said.
Annapolis Overlook
Rick Vanemburgh and Sharon Shilling, who are getting married this month, didn't know where they wanted to live -- or even if they wanted to buy. He works as a structural engineer in Baltimore and she was graduating from law school in Richmond, Va.
Their travels around Baltimore included visits to Perry Hall and Bel Air, then down to Columbia and over to Millersville. But when they passed the townhouses at Annapolis Overlook, the would-be renters became would-be buyers.
"We came in one day and it took off from there we weren't even looking for this place," Shilling said.
"We kind of of knew what we were going to spend in rent, and when we found that the mortgage would be about the same that we would have spent in rent anyway and with the tax break, it was a bonus."
Moderate prices are the key to the townhouses that PCS Homes is building at Annapolis Overlook. The back-to-back homes -- which have only a front entrance -- carry a base price of $110,990, with the average sales price coming in at $122,000, according to Shawn Fortney, the sales manager.
"We went home and crunched some numbers and figured out which building we would like if we did do it, and to get into that building we would have to make a decision quick," Shilling said. "We were kind of surprised how quick we decided."
The final price of their townhouse was $117,000, and the fact that there is no back yard to walk out to didn't seem to faze them.
"We really liked the layout of the homes, there was a big master suite, full Jacuzzi bath and walk-in closet and it's a huge room -- 20-by-20," said Shilling, who got a job in Easton.
"We knew that interest rates were dropping and we knew it would be a great time to buy instead of waiting."
Waverly Woods
Joan and Barry Fee, who are about to become "empty nesters," wanted a smaller residence but one that also offered outdoor amenities. The Fees bought a condominium in Chateau Builders' Fairway Courtyards section of the Waverly Woods development.
"Basically we are downsizing," Mrs. Fee said. "We are coming from a home that is on 3 acres [in Marriottsville], and my son will be off to college next year.
"We like to travel and to do different things, so it will be a lot less responsibility for us.
"We love this area in western Howard County, and I was just so shocked to learn that condos were going up in this area, because I had no desire to move out of this area," she said. "Actually, it came a year earlier than we would have planned on it. Still, it is a good time" to buy.
The units have become the most popular condominium development in Maryland, with 46 units sold since January.
The Fees purchased the Augusta model -- the best seller at Fairway Courtyards -- and are scheduled to settle in December. Mr. Fee is a retired police officer and Mrs. Fee is a nurse at St. Agnes HealthCare. They also have a condominium in Ocean City, and at one point considered leaving the area for Florida.
"Once we went up there and saw the place, we really liked it. It has a lot to offer -- golf, swimming pool, everything," Mr. Fee said.
"It was a very spontaneous decision," Mrs. Fee added.
Pub Date: 8/09/98