Harford's housing market, while still in a slump, is doing better than Maryland's and the rest of the country's, Dan Whitehurst, of Clark Turner Development, said Wednesday morning in a presentation to the Economic Development Advisory Board.
Whitehurst said the average sales price for homes in Harford County in August were a little more than $250,000. A decline of nearly 17 percent from peaks in 2006 and 2007 when the average price was more than $300,000.
Resale prices of four-bedroom single-family homes in Harford have dropped to roughly $360,000 in October, or a decrease of 19.5 percent, since its peak in January 2006. Nationally, housing has dropped by 33 percent.
"No doubt realty is in a depression of its own," Whitehurst said about the housing dip.
Three-bedroom townhouses, while slightly better than single-family, have experienced an 18.7 percent decline since 2006, with an average resale price of a little less than $200,000 in October. The peak was about $245,000 in the spring of 2007.
Roughly 1,600 homes were on the market in August in Harford County, which is "off its peak," Whitehurst said. At its highest, 2,200 were classified as active listings in 2008.
A house will spend about 118 days on the market.
"That's not bad," he commented, adding that Cecil County homes spend an average of 200 days on the market.
As for people seeking to purchase a home, it's still a buyers market, Whitehurst explained.
"It's cheaper now to own a house than it was in 2007," Whitehurst reiterated.
Monthly payments for a four-bedroom single-family home were about $1,600 in July, which is $1,000, or 62.5 percent, less than what it was during a recent high in late 2007.
Chairman Eric McLauchlin echoed Whitehurst's findings, saying: "We have a unique situation" with Harford going in a more positive direction than the state or the country.
The master plan
In the other main topic during Wednesday's EDAB meeting, Pete Gutwald, the county's planning and zoning director, went over proposed changes to the Harford County Master Plan that was made public in October.
"It's how we want to grow and where we want to grow," Gutwald said. "This is a future map."
The biggest changes to the plan, Gutwald explained, includes creating areas of agricultural land for low-intensity, densities ranging from one to 3.5 dwelling units per acre and more commercial use and development in Havre de Grace and Fallston.
Land in Forest Hill and Fallston will also be moved from being classified as rural residential to agricultural.
The master plan will also "no longer rezone any new properties as rural residential," he said. Gutwald also mentioned that the plan will "resolve inconsistencies" with the Fallston business corridor that "have come up again and again," though he didn't explain what those inconsistencies were.
The future expansion of Harford Community College west of Thomas Run Road will also be part of the new plan.
The public comment period for the plan closed Thursday. In January, the plan will be introduced to the county council, Gutwald said, with the council holding a public hearing sometime in February.
At the college
Harford Community College President Dennis Golladay appeared before the board asking for letters of support for the college's Towson building project.
The building is a partnership between the college and Towson University and would allow students to earn their bachelor's degree from the university on HCC's campus.
"We need your assistance and we need it now," Golladay said.
He explained that planning for the Towson building has been "in the planning stages for quite some time, but has been delayed at the state level for various reasons."
Golladay said he was looking for letters from the board as a whole and from individual members, as well as letters from other organizations, to Governor Martin O'Malley showing support for HCC and its project.
"It's crucial to the development of this county," Golladay said of the building. "As a community, we need to go out and support this building in a very broad way."
McLauchlin said the board has publicly supported the project "as early as 2006," and made a motion to prepare a mission statement showing its continued support. The board unanimously approved the motion.