Anne Arundel County

As popular as neighborhoods with waterfront property have long been in Anne Arundel County, last year the luxury-home market dried up.

The number of home sales fell throughout the county, with neighborhoods in the western portion and those that include waterfront property experiencing some of the largest falloffs from 2006. But that drop in volume did not translate to a significant change in median sales price.

The problem, said Kathy Davis, vice president of the Annapolis branch of Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage, was generally the loss in consumer confidence and, in the case of the luxury market, a falloff in second-home purchases.

In good times, Davis said, "if you want to have a good solid investment, you want to buy waterfront; just because of the scarcity, it's going to go up." But last year, she said, that was reversed. "Luxury homes, second homes, that market [nationwide] went first."

In addition, the subprime-mortgage-market bust prevented many would-be first-time buyers from committing to starter homes, Davis said. That slowdown affected sellers who wanted to move up.

"When we hit the subprime crash, that hurt the lower end of the market. Those [lending] programs were no longer available," Davis said. "Our days on market went from 45 to 95 to 120."

More than 2,000 fewer homes sold in 2007 than in 2006 across the county, a 26 percent drop, according to a Washington Post analysis of state home-sales records. But the median sales price for single-family houses and townhouses dropped by only $1,000.

Among the hardest-hit areas was Riviera Beach, Zip code 21122, where the number of homes sold fell by 22 percent. More than 1,000 homes were sold in 2006, compared with 782 last year. But the drop in volume did not translate to a drop in median sales price, which remained steady from 2006 to 2007 at about $306,000.

In Riva, Zip code 21140, the number of homes sold dropped by 28 percent from 2006 to 2007, with 58 homes sold in 2006 and 42 last year. But the area experienced only a 3 percent drop in median price, to $434,750.

Sales dropped significantly in western portions of the county, as well.

In Crofton, Zip code 21114, the number of home sales dropped by 16 percent, from more than 600 in 2006 to 535 last year. But the median sales price remained relatively unchanged, falling just 2 percent, to $322,500. Sales in Gambrills, Zip code 21054, fell by 31 percent, with the median sales price dropping 14 percent, to $407,500.

"Anne Arundel County has not been immune to the housing slump," said County Executive John R. Leopold (R), even though housing developments are still going up in Hanover and Laurel in the northern part of the county, in anticipation of a population surge with the coming expansion of jobs at Fort Meade. "Even a . . . county with many housing units in the pipeline is not immune from national economic impacts."

Glen Burnie, Zip codes 21060 and 21061, is one of the few areas in the northern portion of the county that experienced a significant slowdown, with the volume of sales down about 28 percent.

"A lot of what drives housing is that people step up [to larger homes]," said John R. Hammond, county budget officer.

"To the extent that that stepping isn't occurring because of economic worry, that has an impact."