A report from the Coeur d’Alene Press in Idaho. “Rocket Homes reported that the median home price in May in Kootenai County was $521,000, down 30.8% from a month ago. The asking price for one Dalton Gardens, five-bedroom, 2,500-square-foot home was reduced to $949,000 on Friday. Multiple offers are no longer flying fast and furious on every new home on the market. People have stopped buying homes sight unseen, which has caught sellers by surprise.”
“‘If it’s on the market for two weeks and there aren’t any offers, people wonder what’s going on,’ said Chad Oakland with Northwest Realty Group. According to Redfin, 41% of Boise home sellers dropped their prices in April. Many sellers in Coeur d’Alene are doing the same, Oakland said. And inventory is growing.”
“According to the Coeur d’Alene Regional Realtors, there were 160 homes on the market in Kootenai County in January. In February, it was 192. In March, 289, in April, 441. May numbers were not available on Friday. ‘It is impossible to underprice a house,’ Oakland said. ‘It’s super easy to overprice it.’”
The Ahwatukee Foothills News in Arizona. “A leading analyst of the Valley’s housing market says the latest home sale data shows the market is cooling at an ‘astonishing and widespread’ rate. The Cromford Report two weeks ago observed that ‘buyers’ disadvantage in negotiations has dropped dramatically.’ But last week, the Cromford Report struck an even louder alarm, expressing surprise ‘at how quickly the market is cooling’ and declaring: ‘We are not having a good year, despite the incredible strength of the first quarter.’”
“It cited a variety of factors behind that and said, ‘The last time we saw a similar frenzied market cool down very quickly was in April to November 2005. This is a more striking reversal than we experienced that year.’ Those factors include: ‘Supply is growing fast; demand is weakening; sales volumes are in swift decline; more asking prices are being lowered: listing cancellations and expirations are starting to rise.’”
From WFTV. “Charmaine Chapman practically shudders when she thinks about trying to move to Central Florida. On the fifth try, she won out by a mere $1,000. ‘That moment was glory,’ she said. However, Keller Williams real estate agent Ray Lopez said said the glory days are mostly over. ‘People just got used to the new normal, and not to the normal,’ he said. ‘The norm was going up, and now we’re going to get back to a bell-shaped curve.’”
“The return to normal will force an adjustment among homeowners accustomed to watching their investment’s value rise. Instead of 25% gains year over year, Lopez said home values should fall slightly after Labor Day as the market settles into its normal offseason.”
From Business Insider. “The homebuilding sector is increasing its production and welcoming more workers to the industry. According to real estate database Altos Research, inventory of unsold single family homes in the U.S. rose 8.2% last week, to 344,000 homes — an increase of 26,000 more homes. ‘At an absolute level it is not unprecedented for inventory to grow by 25,000 in a week,’ Mike Simonsen, founder of Altos, said in a statement. ‘But since we’re coming off the record lows, as a percentage, that may be the biggest jump we’ve seen. At 344,000 homes we now have 6% more than last year.’”
The Marin Independent Journal in California. “No new vacation rentals will be allowed in West Marin for up to two years under emergency rules adopted Tuesday by the Marin County Board of Supervisors. About 10% of the 5,250 residential properties in the affected West Marin communities are registered with the county as short-term rentals. In Stinson Beach and Marshall, about 20% and 22% of residential properties, respectively, are short-term rentals.”
“The moratorium applies to the bulk of the county, including popular destinations such as Stinson Beach, Bolinas, Marshall, Dillon Beach, Point Reyes Station and Inverness. San Francisco resident Jacqueline Hilger-Rolfe told the board she is building a house on a Dillon Beach property she purchased with the intent to use it as a coastal escape for her family and rent it out to keep up with maintenance. She said she bought the property in good faith with the understanding that she could rent it out to other people to help cover some of the building costs and upkeep.”
“‘I won’t be able to retire because I won’t have the money to be able to support this family on top of my main home, which is in San Francisco where I work full time,’ she told the board.”
From Money Wise. “The housing market in Canada is cooling down. ‘Sellers really have just kind of woken up to the realization that you can’t guarantee a sale,’ says Bradley Watson, a broker and investor in the Greater Toronto Area. ‘We have individuals who have committed to purchasing new construction, purchase properties with confidence of selling, who are now kind of struggling,’ says Watson. ‘And we even see people selling, once again, homes for less than they had paid, probably tied back to this affordability challenge.’”
“Sellers are seeing fewer bids, with nowhere near the above-asking prices. ‘It’s just the adapting to change,’ notes Watson. ‘Recognizing in a balanced market, you don’t see much price growth, right? So where you maybe saw your neighbour selling $100 or $200 [thousand] in some areas higher… you can’t expect that because that was the product of a very, very tight seller’s market, which we’re not in anymore.’”
From Reuters. “After two years of hunting, Volar Yip has put his dream of buying a new home in China’s southeastern city of Foshan on ice, anxious about making a major financial commitment amid a significant slowdown in the world’s second-largest economy. The 32-year-old owns a media studio and many of his clients, which include government departments, are now cutting advertising budgets.”
“‘The more I read the news, the more concerned I got,’ Yip told Reuters. ‘All this news about China — the economy, property market and pandemic. Not much was positive.’”
“‘The Omicron wave and draconian lockdowns in around 40 cities have significantly limited mobility, employment, income and the confidence of Chinese households,’ said Nomura chief China economist Ting Lu. ‘A majority of college graduates this year may not be able to find jobs due to the sharp economic slowdown.’”
“Official data showed the unemployment rate for 16-to-24-year-olds hit a record high at 18.2% in April.”
From Good Returns New Zealand. “Property website realestate.co.nz says the slump in housing sales has pushed stock levels up a whopping 77.6% year-on-year nationally, a level not seen since 2019. At the end of May the website had 26,301 residential properties available for sale. In Wellington, which remained in a buyers’ market for the third consecutive month, stock levels almost tripled, up 187.9%, during May compared to the same month last year.”
“Trade Me property data showed Wellington region properties for sale rose by a staggering 90% in April alone. Realestate.co.nz figures also show year-on-year stock levels also rose 168.2% in central North Island, 148.3% in Hawke’s Bay, 147.9% in Wairarapa and 147.7% in Bay of Plenty. The stock increases have impacted demand in some regions and taken some of the heat out of the market, says realestate.co.nz spokeswoman Vanessa Williams. ‘People are asking whether the demand for property will wane enough to see prices reduce.’”
“Month-on-month prices droppeded in 11 regions and by more than 5% in four regions – Waikato -15.5% to $850,381, Gisborne, -9.2% to $669,979, Hawke’s Bay, -5.9% to $842,245, and Southland, -5.8% to $496,612.”
From News.com.au. “The debt owed by an Australian investment company that collapsed at the end of last month has ballooned from an estimated $70 million to a whopping $124 million, liquidators have revealed. The company called REMI Capital, was placed into voluntary administration on May 25. One of the 433 investors impacted was a Melbourne dad of two, who had been left ‘shocked’ and ‘heartbroken’ after REMI Capital collapsed owing his family $300,000.”
“‘This is heartbreaking. I am going home at the end of day and both my wife and I, we are in tears separately driving back home from work,’ Richard told news.com.au at the time. ‘It’s very emotional, it’s impacting my relationship with my wife. This is torture. We don’t know how long this is going to go on for.’”
“Following the creditor’s meeting, Richard said it was ‘disappointing’ to hear about the level of debt and he still did not know if any of his $300,000 would be returned. His wife was very upset, he added. ‘It’s a lifetime effect with us, it breaks our relationship, I’m not sure how the relationship is going to go with my wife,’ he said. ‘We’ve gone from financial freedom to financial prison. My wife is angry that I could not see this was a (problem), but it was backed by real estate and everything looked legit but now it has collapsed badly … and there is no protection for investors.’”