Roundup: Montgomery County Has Highest Graduation Rate in the Country

• June 10th 2010

by UrbanTurf Staff

Here’s a quick rundown of interesting real estate stories making headlines this week:

• In our big profile of Bethesda yesterday, we reported that one of the things residents are most enthusiastic about is the school system. Today, The Washington Post reports hard numbers to support that enthusiasm: Montgomery County has the highest graduation rate — 83.1 percent — of the country’s 50 largest school systems. (Fairfax County has the second highest rate at 82.5 percent.)
   
• WMATA is making its real-time transit data available via an API. Translation: Sometime in the year ahead we will likely see iPhone and Android apps cropping up that allow passengers to see bus and train positions, arrival times, outages and disruptions, etc. The decision to make this data publicly available to programmers was the result of lobbying from the folks at Greater Greater Washington, who reported the development.
   
• Faltering economic indicators led mortgage rates down again this week; the 30-year fixed-rate average was 4.81 percent, within spitting distance of the record low. The Wall Street Journal points out that, counter-intuitively, the recent rate decline has not led to an increase in mortgage and refinance applications. (Typically, applications go up when rates go down, and vice versa.) WSJ postulates that much of the demand for mortgages was drained by the federal tax credit that expired at the end of April, while many people who would be refinancing now to take advantage of the low rates already did so when rates bottomed last year.
   
• Buyers who took advantage of the federal tax credit must close by June 30th or risk losing the money. Online brokerage Redfin warns that there may be a surge in work for lenders over the next couple weeks, which could slow their processing time and cause buyers at the back of the line to miss the deadline. Redfin has put together a handy list of 8 tips that buyers should follow to avoid such a fate.
   
• Loudoun County, which was hit early and hard by the real estate decline, has seen inventory drop low enough that new home builders are swinging back into action. LoCo Musings says that Pulte, a staple of the suburban real estate market pre-2007, is hosting openings at two communities this weekend, complete with refreshments and giveaways.
   
• Don’t forget that UrbanTurf is on Twitter. Follow us here.

Finally, here are UrbanTurf’s three most popular posts of the last week in case you missed them:

1. Deal of the Week: A Logan Circle Steal in More Ways Than One
2. What $675K Buys You: 2,700 Square-Foot Loft in Shaw
3. Jaleo and minibar Restaurateur Lists Foxhall Mansion

This article originally published at https://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/roundup_montgomery_county_has_highest_graduation_rate_in_the_country/2156.