Long-blighted Baltimore has a blooming new future in store.
Thousands of vacant homes within the city, which for years stood as eyesores and scared investors away, are now seeing a stunning moment in the spotlight thanks to big buyer demand and bidding wars, the Wall Street Journal reports. And while not every city neighborhood is seeing such success, the activity is helping Baltimore see a notable vacancy reduction — nearly a third — over the last decade.
Not only are the city and Maryland showering Baltimore with billions of dollars in funding, but nonprofits are also rehabbing full blocks at once — all while violent crime makes historic drops.
Still, the languishing affordability crisis is making Americans in pricier cities have a look at Baltimore. It doesn’t hurt that the city’s median sale price is $235,333, according to Zillow data, well below the $381,333 national median.
Alex Queen, a Baltimore native, left Los Angeles after repeatedly losing out on California homes in bidding wars. She and her family ultimately bought a vacant property that had been rehabbed by Parity Homes, a nonprofit developer.
Similarly, Alex Kovach and Ella Miller purchased a home in East Baltimore’s Johnston Square, where a nonprofit developer, ReBUILD Metro, has made big strides reducing the sum of vacant properties. It’s close to downtown Baltimore and transportation options.
“Johnston Square is at the perfect location,” Kovach told the Journal.
Buyers like these are helping the city mark massive milestones. For many years, the city saw vacant homes hit a stagnant high of 16,000. That number has since lowered to less than 12,000.
“Vacant housing was everywhere,” Baltimore’s mayor, Brandon Scott, told the Journal. “When people see a bunch of vacants, no one wants to live there. No one wants to invest there.”
The recent activity traces its origins to the COVID years, when low interest rates lured in buyers, helping prices grow and renovations become more doable. Then people from pricier areas, namely Washington, DC, began eyeing Baltimore as a more affordable alternative.
Now, more than ever, investors are swooping in. Plumber and part-time investor Chris Waldron had to raise his auction bid to $45,000 for a vacant property with boarded-up windows and a peeling facade — after competitors doubled what he wanted to shell out.
“What did I get myself into?” Waldron told the outlet of his thoughts when he visited the property after winning the sale. But then he figured out his plan — flush it with $130,000 for a five-month renovation before selling it for more than $300,000.
Not every neighborhood benefits currently. For instance, Carrollton Ridge — home to some of the worst homicide rates in Baltimore — has 750 vacant homes, 40 more than it had a decade ago.
Elsewhere, the change is hard to believe, locals said. In Johnston Square, the purchase activity has made a community garden replace a drug market, while formerly vacant blocks are now home to families.
“There was nothing but rows and rows of boarded-up houses,” longtime neighborhood resident Regina Hammond told the Journal. “Now it’s a whole different story.”
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