Limejuicer Rated Properties in Germantown 20 March 2009

I have changed the weekly update to include all properties which have been rated and have rendered our recommendation based upon the "Limejuicer Rating System". Please contact me if you would like a more detailed analysis for any of the homes listed below. Team Limejuicer and I have previewed over 3000 homes in the past year. We rate new listings and and re-rate existing listings on a weekly basis. The "Limejuicer Rating System" allows us to not only keep our seller clients informed but competitive in any market, while allowing us to find the best valued property for our buyer clients.

Eagles Nest Court, Waters Edge Condo $200,000 Scored 29 out of 40
Good Condition Limejuicer Highly Recommends

Eagles Nest Court, Waters Edge Condo $195,000 Scored 29 out of 40
Good Condition Limejuicer Highly Recommends

Hickory Tree Way, Gunners View Condo $109,900 Scored 28 out of 40
Good Value, Poor Condition Limejuicer Recommends

Treebranch Terr, Germantown View Townhome $260,000 Scored 28 out of 40
Par Rating Limejuicer Recommends

Laurel Grove Terrace, Gunners Lake Townhome $235,000 Scored 26 out of 40
Poor Condition

Willow Spring Court, Gunners Lake Townhome $239,000 Scored 26 out of 40
Poor Value

Partridge Wood Dr, Gunners Lake Townhome $225,000 Scored 26 out of 40
Great Location, Poor Condition

Partridge Wood Dr, Gunners Lake Townhome $175,000 Scored 28 out of 40
Great Value, Poor Condition Limejuicer Recommends

Grotto Lane, Germantown View Townhome $237,900 Scored 26 out of 40
Good Value, Bad Condition

Cross Ridge Court, Gunners Lake Townhome $144,900 Scored 27 out of 40
Great Value, Bad Condition

Timber Hollow Place, Gunners Lake Townhome $195,000 Scored 27 out of 40
Poor Value

Cross Ridge Court, Gunners Lake Townhome $159,900 Scored 27 out of 40
Great Value, Poor Condition

Summer Oak Court, Gunners Lake Townhome $274,900 Scored 27 out of 40
Poor Condition

Ridgecrest Drive, Gunners View Single Family $389,900 Scored 29 out of 40
Great Condition Limejuicer Highly Recommends

Hopefully you found this information useful, if you would like to learn more about the Limejuicer Rating system please feel free to contact me directly. Team Limejuicer is waiting to serve your real estate needs and always welcomes referrals! Thank you for your time.


Lawrence Evans (aka "The Limejuicer")
Real Estate Consultant
Re/Max Town Center
Germantown. Maryland
(301) 540-2232 ext. 125
(301) 922-2156 cell

Germantown Maryland Sees Homesales Double as Temperatures Rise

We started off this year with an average of 1.5 homes going under contract on a daily basis. Home Inventory numbers going into the New Year were hovering around 685 homes. It has never been more apparent to me that we were a community that had a glut of inventory.

Move to the present day and we have seen a decline of housing inventory by 38% to today's number 426 homes on the market. Total homes under contract and pending settlement is an astonishing 200 on the nose. To put this into perspective that is more than was sold in March 2004 (close to the height of the boom market). Should this trend continue at this pace we should anticipate a stable local real estate market by the beginning of the 3rd quarter.

Breakdown of the 200 pending settlement properties is as follows and the results it provides:

86 Short sales are under contract - This could potentially put a burden of the local rental market which currently only has 110 available rentals (not including apartments). The keeper investor may find it quite easy to rent their investment properties.

52 Owner Occupied homes under contract - These folks generally buy another home and may well be taking advantage of the lower move up prices and low interest rates. If they are purchasing another home we can anticipate further reduction to our inventory numbers and the best properties being sold in the next 30 days.

The remaining 62 properties were bank owned and were predominately in the lower price range i.e. Less than $300,000.

I will keep you posted if I see any additional changes to the housing supply, but as I mentioned in the past the ship is in port and we can assume it will be leaving sooner rather than later.

Check out my blogpost 9 December 2008 http://limejuicerrealestate.blogspot.com/2008/12/who-are-jones-anyway.html

This week's top rated properties from Team Limejuicer 6 March 2009

The properties below are this week's top rated properties in Germantown:

Location: Shore Harbour, Germantown

Status: Regular Sale

Priced: $250,000

Built in 1992

Value: 5 (Overpriced, should be no more than $230,000)

Condition: 8 (Superior condition and staged beautifully)

Location: 10 (This is why this home has rated so well - panoramic views of the Lake)

Motivation: 7 (Average motivation)

Total Rated Score: 30 - If this condo were to be priced at market it would score a 32 (4 points higher than the average home in Germantown), question the buyer could have is do I want to pay an extra $3 a day for a view?

Location: Laurel Hill Way, Churchill Town, Germantown

Status: Regular Sale (Vacant)

Priced: $248,750

Built in 1984

Value: 7 (Market Value for the square footage)

Condition: 7 (Expected condition, new appliances, good windows, but poor front appeal)

Location: 8 (Backing to parkland, partial view of the lake from the deck)

Motivation: 7

Investor Score: 18.5

Total Rated Score: 29 (With some upgrading to the curb appeal, this is a keeper)

Location: Staffordshire Place, Waters Landing, Germantown

Status: Foreclosure

Priced: $209,900

Built in 1990 by Ryland Homes

Value: 10 (Very well priced - won't last long)

Condition: 7 (Newer appliances, fresh paint - appears to be in the process of addition TLC)Location: 7 (Average location backs to storm water pond)

Motivation: 7 (Corporate Owned)

Investor Rating: 20.5 (Great rental property, potentially flippable)

Total Rated Score: 31 (Highest rated foreclosure/home on the market in Germantown - will be sold by the end of the week)

The above properties have either lowered their price (increased value) and/or added to their condition - they can now be considered good buys. For your information Team Limejuicer and I have previewed over 3,000 homes in the past year and a half. We rate and rerate if necessary, homes on a daily basis - this system allows us to not only keep our seller clients informed as to their competition, but also allows us to find the best valued property for our buyer clients.

Hopefully you found this information useful, if you would like to learn more about the Limejuicer Rating system please feel free to contact me directly. Team Limejuicer is waiting to serve your real estate needs and always welcomes referrals! Thank you for your time.

Lawrence Evans, P.C. - Real Estate Consultant

http://www.limejuicer.com/

Re/Max Town Center
Cell: (301) 922-2156

Office: (301) 540-2232 Ext 125

E-mail Lawrence@LimeJuicer.com

Blog: http://limejuicerrealestate.blogspot.com/

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/3/52b/65b

Germantown Housing Inventory Numbers Plummet with Increasing Home Sales

Is Germantown seeing the market changing? Yes - a drop of almost 40% of inventory since the beginning of the year.

Want some good news for a change? There are currently 191 homes under contract in Germantown, during the same period in 2004 there were only 149 homes under contract. These are incredible numbers considering all that has been going on lately, however, admittedly a very large number of these are foreclosed homes.

What you can take from this is the following, call/email all the folks you know that don't currently own a home and tell them that the market is getting much better and the boat could be leaving port soon (in passing you could also mention the rates are only 5% fixed and they only need to have 3 1/2% total cash to buy).

If you have followed my rating system (aka the Limejuicer Rating System) explained in past blogs it is now serving a purpose for which it wasn't originally intended. In brief the system analyses all properties on the market according to value, seller motivation, location, and condition providing both the consumer and the realtor a more accurate assessment of available properties. Well during the lengthy process of development, data entry, thousands of house previews/ratings, tweaking, learning and re-learning a number of unforeseen happenings occured. In future blogs I will explain them all, but for now one of these happenings is the system's uncanny ability to predict within a 7 day period a properties time on the market. At first I wasn't necessary sure what I was seeing, but the more I tested, retested and retested the numbers came together.

So a seller no longer needs to be concerned as to time on the market, the systems knows it and the buyer now also knows all the best properties on the market...Period....