Baltimore Real Estate : Two Condos in the City

There are two great condo communities in Baltimore City, Silo Point and Ritz Carlton Residences. 

The Ritz Carlton Residences is at a great location, premium property, right on the banks of the Baltimore Inner Harbor and a walking distance from every prime address in the City - Will make for a great green living, including the prospect of dropping the car for most errands and out of the residence activities.

The Ritz Carlton also benefits from a great franchise, the Ritz Carlton Hotels, now a subsidiary of Marriott Hotels and Properties. Ritz Carlton Hotels and Resorts are known for the high quality services and great decor taste. But This Ritz Carlton Residences in Baltimore is one overpriced property.

The Silo Point on the other hand is also a great concept; a high rise built on a once famous grain warehouse  and right next to a decaying industrial artifact. It features a great panoramic view of the City, including the Baltimore Wharf, the Inner Harbor and a seldom used commodity rail tracks, and a bunch of stagnate shipping docks. Silo Point shares no name with any famous franchise, but has great financial backing and like most modern housing infrastructure in the US little foresight in emergency planning and green alternatives. 

Both residences claim high end finishes, premium living style and oogles of expenses including premium prices and steep condo fees. Both also have something else in common, high vacancy rates  - and you wont know it by talking to the sales people.

A walk through Silo Point reveals a contemporary, garish jumble of hard-rock cement exposed frames, hostel like passage ways with very little taste; but a tastefully designed interior. Its like walking through a prison corridor on your way to your penthouse apartment. Once in the condos, there is a sense of opulence and grandeur, i.e. until you look out at a decaying track and dock view around and if your get to see the Inner Harbor View, you get a sense of some City renaissance. The prices are steep, but the homes are well appointed. With prices starting from the high 200gs to almost 4 million for penthouses that no one has taken yet, the expansively styled Silo Point is far more moderately priced that the aging Ritz Carlton Residences.

Boasting a ton of concierge and service people, an indoor pool and a clean cut garden with a vast amount of balcony space, the Ritz remains an overpriced address with a starting price tag in the mid 500gs for a 1400 sqft one bedroom condo. The prices soon go up for two bed room apartments that start at over 600gs and 5000 sqft 6th floor condors for well over 5 million! Plus the Ritz is less than 30% occupied. A sales man boastfully stated they have sold more than 30 units since the year started - but considering that they have a 60 units (out over over 180) occupancy for a property that has been in the market for almost 4 years,   that statement smack of some hyperbole, to be kind.

One obvious problem with both overpriced communities became apparent as soon as a utility damage quickly brought the highly electronized Silo Point to its feet. True, there was an emergency generator to for elevators and emergency lighting - but what about in home electricity for these overpriced units. The Silo Point boasts hundreds of square foot of flat roof space, but no one has considered the prospect of tapping the vast untapped natural energy sources to address utility emergencies like the one that recently faced the community. The Ritz fared no better either, despite being several hundred hundred gs more overpriced and despite facing a paucity of interested mugus.

But these properties by themselves do not completely tell the story of an overpriced city as apartment homes like the Eden, Zenith and Spinaker Bay all in the East Harbor. The Eden spots one bedrooms that starts from over 2700 per month once you add their parking fees, even if your pretend the first 12 months incentives will remain beyond the first twelve months.

True, Baltimore has seen the expansion of some corporate citizens into the area in recent years; including relocations by Legg Mason and Morgan Stanley (to Harbor East) and the continued growth of local health care giant, John Hopkins. But the story of the expensive city dwellings (residential) seems to cast the city as being far removed from reality. A shrinking City (population shrank in the last decade) with dilapidated infrastructure and climbing tax regimen, Baltimore's growing oasis of excess - while mostly vacant seem to buck the glaring gloom of increasing unemployment and foreclosure after a decade of excess.