Water Everywhere, and Yet Home Prices Shrink

A pier and boat, in this case on the Little Magothy River, turn some thoughts to Chesapeake water-privileged property. Demand is still high, but real estate agents say prices have taken a hit. (By Mary Hensel Lehman For The Washington Post)

That makes home-price statistics tough to use as gauges for boat-oriented real estate. Even breaking them down by Zip code won't reflect different values for waterfront, water view and water access for homes that may lie within a few hundred yards of each other.

Foreclosure and defaults (serious lateness on mortgage payments) are lower in Maryland's prime boating areas along the western shore of the Chesapeake. RealtyTrac, a company that sells leads on foreclosed homes to investors, reports that Anne Arundel, Calvert and Howard counties all have default/foreclosure activity in the range of one per every 525 to 578 households. That's better than the rate for the nation (one per 519 households) and for Maryland (one per 380).

While there may not be a fire sale on water-oriented homes, buyers willing to hunt can find better opportunities than they could two years ago.

Leigh Lawson-Everstine, owner of the Metro Bay Realty brokerage in Edgewater, helped Green and Masser negotiate their purchase. She said values "obviously have taken a hit, but there's still a high demand for these water-privileged areas."

She said she has seen "significant drops," especially in waterfront homes. She described one 1940s cottage near Pasadena with water deep enough to accommodate a sailboat's keel. It's now listed at $650,000, though she said it probably would have had an asking price above $1 million just a year ago. "A lot of homes were significantly overvalued," Lawson-Everstine said.

Boaters don't necessarily need to own the shoreline to have a home on the water. In some respects, the boat itself fills the need. "A lot of people, instead of getting a home, they'll live on their boats for the weekend," Lawson-Everstine said.

By the way, if it has a galley, berth and a head (that is, kitchen, bed and bathroom), a boat counts as a second home as far as the Internal Revenue Service is concerned. Interest paid on a boat loan may be tax-deductible.

With fuel costs pushing the price to fill up some motorboats beyond $1,500, more boaters will enjoy their weekends dockside this summer.

For many area boaters, convenient access to the water translates to easy access to Route 50, so they can cut out of work early on a Wednesday or Thursday evening and get to Annapolis in time for weekly sailboat races.

Bobby Frey, president of the Chesapeake Bay Yacht Racing Association, said most of the sailors who own or crew boats in the weeknight races live within 30 miles of the bay. Two of their member clubs are based in the Washington Sailing Marina, just south of Reagan National Airport.

Considering the area's close commute to the waters of the Chesapeake, Potomac and the Occoquan River, good "water access" could mean a landlocked Tysons Corner address -- as long as it's not far from a Beltway on-ramp. But this summer, with gas prices at $4 a gallon or more, fuel costs will affect even sailors, who ride the wind for free.

Given the price declines near the water, this could be the time to replace the drive with a dockside address.

E-mail Elizabeth Razzi atrazzie@washpost.com.