New Child Care Center comes to FDA White Oak

Employees at the FDA White Oak Campus will be pleased when the new child day care center operated by Children's Creative Learning Centers begins operation on January 30, 2012. CCLC is a private organization that runs over 100 centers nationwide. CCLC has an excellent reputation and the children's center at FDA/White Oak should be a good match and provide an attractive alternative for employees.

Where are the houses for sale?

A quick look at the listings for sale in the Silver Spring area shows a remarkable shortage of decent homes on the market. Interesting considering that this is considered a "buyers" market. A couple of reasons for this in my opinion. One is that rates are so low that the small amount of buyers out there are snapping up the small amount of decent homes on the market. And two, not only is there pent up demand these days but I think we are seeing a case of pent up supply. That is, with housing prices so depressed these days there simply a lot of potential home sellers who are delaying placing their homes on the market. This would include folks who have opted to retire a little later, thinking of buying up but are waiting for the market to improve, or who just refuse to sell and have placed their properties on the rental market for a year or two while waiting for some good news. There still are good deal of distressed properties on the market but a lot of folks are staying away from these homes because the sale can be problematical and very few of these homes are in what we call "market" condition.

What does this mean? Not really sure. However I think we might see home prices actually start to go up this spring. Not because of the booming economy but because the amazingly low rates combined with this shortage of decent homes might just create a supply problem and have buyers out there in competition with other buyers for a change. That generally means sellers will get better prices. We will just have to see how this plays out.

Montgomery County MD Rapid Transit Busways

Good news today in the Washington Post about the Rapid Transit Busway. This idea has been gaining momentum over the past two or three years as a solution to our traffic woes and alternative to the more expensive light rail systems that have been in play for some time now. After seeing a presentation on the advantages of busways, I personally think that there is very little reason to opt for light rail systems. The busways are cheaper to build and run and less disruptive to the communities that they run through in that they do not require as much construction time and lessen the need to condemn private property. These high speed bus lines will hopefully flow down the major arteries of the county and give commuters an alternative to driving. The attached photo is of the Busway located in Los Vegas so that you can get an idea of what it might look like.