Obamanomics in Action: Houses in Baltimore Selling for Less Than $10,000

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Hundreds of urban homes have sold for rock-bottom prices:

One of every 10 city homes sold during the first half of the year — about 275 in all — fell in that price range [below $10,000]. Twice as many sold for under $20,000. …
More city homes sold for less than $10,000 between January and June than in all of 2009 and 2010 combined. Dozens of city neighborhoods had at least one such sale this year.
As very cheap homes change hands, average sale prices in Baltimore have plummeted. Seventy city neighborhoods saw average prices drop more than 20 percent versus a year ago.

New York Times headline: “Confidence in Obama, and in the Economy, Declines.” Gee, ya think so?

UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers!


43 comments

  1. Not entirely-random item from Baltimore’s Wikipedia page:

    “Three of the state’s eight congressional districts include portions of Baltimore: the 2nd, represented by Dutch Ruppersberger; the 3rd, represented by John Sarbanes; and the 7th, represented by Elijah Cummings. All three are Democrats; a Republican has not represented a significant portion of Baltimore in Congress since John Boynton Philip Clayton Hill represented the 3rd District in 1927, and has not represented any of Baltimore since the Eastern Shore-based 1st District lost its share of Baltimore after the 2000 census; it was represented by Republican Wayne Gilchrest at the time.”

  2. Democratic governance tends to devour the seed corn – they tax and spend with the assumption growth cannot end and businesses and people cannot go elsewhere.  Once the businesses and the people see where the city is headed, they pack up and leave, and the Democrats have only their parasitic constituencies and a decaying infrastructure left – and a massive public payroll which will suck all the resources which might be used to repair the place and change its future.

    Detroit was selling houses for $100 for a while, but then figured the low response meant they would collect less in taxes than it would cost to service the new homeowners in blighted areas, so they just bulldozed whole neighborhoods instead.  Call it a new take on Democratic “revitalization:  it was a preview of what Obama has in mind for America.

  3. Kansas City and it’s suburbs won’t be far behind. There is a house on my walking route that’s been unoccupied for three years.

  5. Baltimore is one of those cities suffering from government interference. What needs to happen is a drop in the housing supply, because the bubble  created a surplus in construction that has dropped housing values through the floor.

    In short, we’re going through a construction  depression caused by an oversupply that needs to be corrected before housing can rebound.

  6. Baltimore isn’t that far from the DC metro area, their suburbs overlap. DC metro is one of the least worst housing markets in the nation.
    Amazingly a world class aquarium does not a vibrant, prosperous city make.

  9. I wouldn’t live in Baltimore if they gave me a house, paid me, and provided me with cars, a private jet and a bevy of beauties to keep me company.

    I’d put the beauties in one of the cars, drive to the airport, and fly the private jet to someplace else where they’d be unable to extradite me and enforce the contract.

  11. They raised taxes in Baltimore some years back to renovate the dock areas to make it more attractive to business. I guess now the docks have a bunch of empty stores, restaurants, nightclubs and boutique shops. And they’ll probably be sitting empty for a while. They were probably better off with the empty warehouses and rats.

  15. Wow, unaffordable houses must be good?  It might have been a lot better if the house bubble hadn’t made it seem that unaffordable housing was good.

  16. If government interference is the problem, changing the housing supply isn’t a solution. The solution will need to involve changing the level of government interference.

  19. Why isn’t Buffett buying propertry here, and bulldosing the houses. Then rebuild them and sell them or give them to the poor and help Baltimore out. That will help the country (not to mention Baltimore) and not make the goverment raise everyone else’s taxes. And if he was good at it, make money to boot.

  22. Baltimore has a lot of beautiful old row houses that are most probably trashed inside. The facades are fantastic though and it’s a loss to architecture in general these homes were left to rot. But, you know, ghettos are real and it’s important for minorities to keep it real.

  24. I can’t understand why anyone paying rent in Baltimore wouldn’t buy a $10,000 house five minutes ago.  If you get a 10yr fixed at 10% (ridiculous rate for a house) with 2% property tax and 1% PMI, you’re still looking at a house payment of $150 a month.  With your leftover money, you can outfit the house with steel shutters, dig a moat, put up a machine gun turret, and still have a crapload of money left over.  And if you’re already in the neighborhood, you’re not even looking at an increased crime rate.

  26. Not only is Obamanomics at work, but MOManomics is now calling for new taxes. Democrat President, Governor, and Mayor, three (3) strikes and Bodymore, Murderland is what it is – out.

  28. Ya ever seen Baltimore?  It’s a close second only to Detroit.  Hmmm, now what do these run down urban cities have in common?  What could it be….

    How’s that Hopey Changey thing working out for ya, guys?  lol

  29. NastyNazi Pelousi’s mafia connectted daddy robbed & misgoverned the democorrupt fiefdom of Baltimore for donkey’s years. Any wonder Baltimore is now a disaster zone.

  30. Politics aside, the houses are cheap because everyone who can is leaving. People are tired of in-your-face crime and violence. Baltimore suffers from the same maladay all the major East Coast cities and there’s no work for the ones who want to.

  32. For what it’s worth, the money spent on the Inner Harbor seems to have paid off; the bars and restaurants down there do plenty of business, and not just when the O’s and Ravens are in town.

  33. More interesting is that a lot of the abandoned properties have had to be bricked up to keep the transient population from accidentally setting them on fire, using them as crack houses, and other activities that lower already-low property values.

  34. Oh, like you’d actually be able to get a permit for an M240, much less an M60 or an M2, in the “Free State”. Don’t make me laugh.

  35. When I lived in Baltimore, a decade ago, there were a large number of homes that could be purchased  for that price. They were typically part of a set of row houses, many of which were boarded up, held in surplus by Baltimore’s notoriously race-focused city government. Property values were, naturally, pathetic. There were groups that sought to purchase entire blocks to reclaim them from their imposed decrepitude. They were denied. The reason? They were white, and those houses were being kept off the market to make sure that blacks could have affordable housing when they needed it.

  36. Thanks for mentioning Nancy Pelosi.  She’s one of the many from outside California who came here from the other 49 states and ruined this one.

  37. In the toney town of Charleston, SC the house across the street from me went up for auction. I saw the sign on the door and decided to read the details: bids start at $1,000. 

    Granted, I don’t live in the swankest part of town, but this is a cinder-block little home with a fenced yard and a storage shed on a quiet street in an established lower-class neighborhood– where many folks are moving to just to be able to afford a roof over their heads.

  39. If it’s such a goldmine, why expend taxpayers dollars to fund it?  It would seem to me that investors would flock to such a golden opportunity?  Same thing with the financing of stadiums.

    One reason I think the gummit gets involved: kickbacks.

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