Baltimore City

Office of Homeownership

It's a pefect time to buy a home in Baltimore City; America's greatest city. Housing values in Baltimore have been rising faster than in surrounding counties, interest rates are still relatively low, and home prices in most Baltimore neighborhoods are affordable.

To assist you, Baltimore Housing's Homeownership Office centralizes all programs and services in one place. Our staff can advise you on which program might be best for you and help get you connected to local realtors and lenders.

Baltimore City Homeownership Incentive Programs
Buying Into Baltimore Fairs Trolley Tours
Baltimore City Employee Homeownership Program
Baltimore City Live Near Your Work Program

Additional Homeownership Incentives
State Mortgage Programs and Homeownership Assistance
Federal Mortgage Programs and Homeownership Assistance
Baltimore City Tax Incentives

Resources
Homeownership Counseling Agencies
Homeownership Resources on the Web
Maximizing Your Homebuying Experience
Office of Homeownership Policies and Procedures
Homeownership Glossary of Terms .

Baltimore Neighborhoods

Because there is also a Baltimore County surrounding (but not including) the city, it is sometimes referred to as Baltimore City when a clear distinction is desired, Abell, Allendale, Arcadia, Arlington, Ashburton, Barclay, Beechfield, Bel Air, Berea, Better Waverly, Beverly Hills, Bolton Hill, Brewer's Hill, Brooklyn, Butchers Hill, Canton, Cedarcroft, Cedmont, Cedonia, Charles Village, Cherry Hill, Cheswolde, Chinquapin Park, Christopher, Cockeysville, Cold Spring, Columbia, Cross Keys, Curtis Bay, Cylburn, Dickeyville, Dorchester, Dunbar, Dundalk, Evergreen, Evergreen Lawn, Fairfield, Fairmount, Fallstaff, Federal Hill, Fells Point, Fort McHenry, Frankford, Garwyn Oaks, Gay Street, Glen, Greek Town, Greenmount West, Greenspring, Guilford, Gwyenn's Falls, Hampden, Hanlon Longwood, Harwood, Hillen, Hoes Heights, Hollander Ridge, Homeland, Hopkins Bayview, Howard Park, Hunting Ridge, Idlewood, Inner Harbor, Irvington, Jessup, Johnson Square, Jonestown, Joseph Lee, Kernewood, Keswick, Kresson, Langston Hughes, Latrobe Park, Lauraville, Levindale, Lexington, Little Italy, Loch Raven, Locust Point, Lutherville Timonium, Madison, Medfield,Mill Hill, Millersville, Mondawmin, Mosher, North Harford Road, Oakenshawe, O'Donnell Heights, Oliver, Orangeville, Otterbein, Overlea, Owings Mills, Parkside, Patterson Place, Pen Lucy, Penn North, Perkins Homes, Perring Loch, Pigtown, Pikesville, Pimlico, Poppleton, Pratt Monroe, Purnell, Ramblewood, Randallstown, Reisterstown, Remington, Reservoir Hill, Richnor Springs, Ridgely's Delight, Risterstown Station, Riverdale, Riverside, Rosebank, Rosemont, Rosemont Avenue, Sabina Mattefeldt, Saint Agnes, Saint Helena, Saint Joseph's, Saint Paul, Seton Hill, Sharp Leadenhall, Shipley Hill, Shoreline, Sparks Glencoe, Sparrows Point, Taylor Heights, Ten Hills, The Orchards, Towson, Tremont, Union Square, Uplands, Upper Fells Point, Upton, Violetville, Wagners Point, Wakefield, Walbrook, Waltherson, Washington Hill, Waverly, Westfield, Westgate, Westport, White Marsh, Winchester, Windsor Hills, Woodberry, Woodbrook, Woodmere, Woodring, Wyman Park, Wyndhurst, Yale Heights.

Culture

Baltimore culture can be equally interesting and baffling. The city's geography and history as a working value port town has given it a very extraordinary social flavor. The best prominent example is the city's association with blue crabs. The Chesapeake Bay for years was the East Coast's major source of blue crabs, and Baltimore became the central hub of the crab industry.

In the tourist district (between Harborplace and Fells Point), it is almost impossible to realize a shop or restaurant that does not serve crabs or crabcakes, or sell some sort of crab related merchandise. Maryland's extraordinary way of eating crabs is often not understood by outsiders. Customarily, crabs are steamed in rock salt and Old Bay Seasoning, a favored local all-spice manufactured in Baltimore for decades. They are eaten on tables spread with newspaper with the use of only a wooden mallet, a knife, and one's hands. Cold beer is also said to be a must.. More about: Post-Katrina hoax puts HUD on defensive

Rowhouses

Marble steps settle along the streets of Baltimore are like much a part of the city's culture as crabs and baseball games. The use of marble for steps is due to the presence of high condition white marble in Cockeysville, a town 17 miles north of Baltimore seaport by highway. Indeed, the marble found there is so attractive, stone was hauled all the way from this northern Maryland town to the nation’s new capital, instead of local Potomac marble quarries, for use in decorative crafting just about Washington, D.C., including the Washington Monument, and 108 columns of the capitol building.

During the crafting phase of the Washington Monument, that is through the middle of the 19th century, the marble gained in popularity as a decorative stone and was used omnipresently for the steps of rowhouses surrounding Baltimore harbor and in Fells Point. Baltimoreans take pride in the fact that their insipid doorsteps are shaped from the alike beautiful white marble used for the construction of the famous Washington Monument. Scrubbing marble steps has turn into a tradition in Baltimore. The ritual includes scrubbing the marble with Bon Ami powder and pumice stone.

Hon

Maybe the better intriguing part of Baltimore's culture are the people themselves. Though nowadays the city is notably culturally diverse, the lasting image of Baltimoreans seems to be the "Hon" culture exemplified top markedly by the longer confirmed families and residents of the Highlandtown, Canton, Locust Point and Hampden neighborhoods. Between the 1950s and 70s, it wasn't uncommon to recognize working first-rate local women dressing in bright, gaudy dresses with tacky glasses and beehive hairdos. Men were time and again dressed casually, in any event with a general factory or dock worker look, like many in town did indeed have such jobs.

The name of the culture comes from the usually parodied Baltimore accent and slang. "Hon" was a down-to-earth informal name for someone else, properly pronounced "hohn", with emphasis on the vowel. Baltimore’s accent exemplifies a dialectal continuum between Tidewater American English and Deleware Valley American English, loosely possessing the vowel shifts of the preceding and general pronunciation of the latter. For instance "Baltimore" is pronounced "Bawlamer" or after all "Balmer," and "Maryland" change intos "Murland" or "Murlan." Unlike common pronunciations include "ool," "amblance," "wooder," "warsh,","sharr","dug" (oil, ambulance, water, wash,shower and "dog", respectively).

John Waters parodies the Hon culture, like well as Baltimore itself, extensively in his movies. For a somewhat precise representation of Baltimorese, one can ask for to Waters' narration spots in his 1974 movie Pink Flamingos. Waters himself used a local commercial for Mr Ray's Hair Weaves as his primary inspiration. The commercial was famous just about town for Mr. Ray's extreme Baltimore accent. "Cawl todaey, for your freee hame showink..." was the highest memorable line from that commercial, translating as "Call today, or for your free home showing..."