A report from the Marin Independent Journal. “Gloria Othon, 61, poured $115,000 into a year-long project to remodel the bathrooms and kitchen of her San Jose home. Othon and her husband bought the house in the Berryessa neighborhood in 1998 for $350,000. Othon listed the house last week for $1.788 million, hoping offers would pour in. But so far, it’s been crickets. ‘I’m really scared,’ she said. ‘I feel like I might have missed it, and what do I do now?’”
From Go Banking Rates. “As it turns out, a return to normal is probably pretty far off, but racks are starting to emerge in the seller’s market that has defined the real estate industry throughout the pandemic period. ‘The housing market is heading back to sanity in the summer of 2022,’ said Eyal Pasternak, a licensed realtor in Miami. ‘The housing market will not be as expensive as it was last year and buyers will have some leverage this time around. For the next few months, interest rates will rise indefinitely, which will cleanse the market of unnecessary buyers.’”
“It’s starting already. At the end of May, Redfin reported that nearly one in five buyers were lowering their prices, something not seen since October 2019.”
The Royse City Herald Banner on Texas. “Price appreciation in the national and DFW-area real estate market has skyrocketed the past two years, leading to record home prices throughout the North Texas region. According to the report by M&D, home sales spiked two weeks ago in the DFW area with 41% more homes listed for sale than the same time last year as sellers fear they may miss out on the red-hot market. ‘In fact, we saw more homes listed for sale in the area in April 2022 than we have in four years,’ said M&D.”
Just last week, M&D realtors reported seeing other signs of a cooling market, such as open houses with little to no attendance, a slowing pace of offers coming in, and a growing inventory of homes for sale. There were 100 percent more homes on the market for sale this past month in Rockwall County than there was this time last year. In January, there was less than one-month supply of inventory. This month, there is 1.8 months supply, according to NTREIS Trends.”
The Denver Channel. “Colorado homebuyers don’t have to duke it out quite as much to find a home. The state is finally seeing a shift and there are signs it’s becoming a bit more of a competitive market. In May, there were 11,129 new listings in Colorado. That’s a 4 percent increase from April. So, what’s behind the change? We look to the Colorado Association of Realtors for the answer. ‘I’ve been a realtor for 30 years so I’ve been through several ups and downs. I’ve really never seen a market change as quickly as this one did. When the interest rate hike came in April, specifically the week right before Easter, it was a pretty significant rate hike and we saw instantly a real cooling off in buyers.’”
The Bend Bulletin in Oregon. “The median sales price of a single-family home in Bend slipped slightly in Maym and the number of homes on the market increased, indicating a shift in the market, according to monthly real estate report. In Bend the median sales price for a single-family home was $740,000 in May, compared to $770,000 in April. During the same time, the amount of homes for sale grew to about five weeks worth. Since May, Donnie Montagner, owner of Beacon Appraisal Group in Redmond, said he’s seen more price reductions, indicating a softening of the market.”
“And in Sunriver, the median price of a single-family home was $893,000 in May, compared to $1.06 million in April, according to the report.”
From Realtor.com. “Is a buyer out there? David Duchovny is still searching for a sale of his beautiful Manhattan abode. The apartment with Central Park views is back on the market, marked down to $5,995,000. The 61-year-old actor bought it in 2012 for $6,029,700. The upscale Upper West Side unit first became available in May 2021 for a hefty $7.5 million. The price dropped to $6,950,000 before it came off the market in November.”
The Charlotte Business Journal in North Carolina. “Charlotte-based Wyndham Capital Mortgage will lay off nearly 50 employees this summer, according to a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification filed this week. These aren’t the first mortgage-related layoffs to hit Charlotte this year.”
The Globe and Mail. “A wave of layoffs and hiring freezes in the American tech sector is set to hit Canada hard, industry watchers say. They warn that although job cuts have already happened here, bigger reductions lay ahead. ‘The message everyone is receiving is: ‘Protect your capital.’ There will be many more layoffs, no question,’ said Jacques Bernier, managing partner with Montreal ‘fund-of-funds’ firm Teralys Capital.”
“‘It’s going to be a bloodbath,’ said billionaire Vancouver investor and entrepreneur Markus Frind, who owns a majority of online furniture seller Cymax Group Inc. and backs several venture capital firms, all of whom are telling their companies to review their spending plans. ‘It’s going to be way worse than 2008,’ when the credit crisis sparked a recession.”
From CTV News. “As the Bank of Canada continues to hike rates in order to curb inflation, housing prices in Canada could fall 15 per cent from its peak by the end of next year, a new report says. The average price of a home in Canada peaked at just over $790,000 in February 2022, marking a 50 per cent increase over two years. Desjardins says that average price of a home in Canada fell 2.6 per cent month-to-month in March and 3.8 per cent in April.”
“‘If you rent out a property, sometimes, if you don’t collect enough in terms of rent to make up for the mortgage costs or the utility costs, those decisions were still justified by the idea that prices would keep appreciating,’ said Jimmy Jean, chief economist for Desjardins. ‘Now it’s another story.’”
The Australian Financial Review. “A single mother, an AICD-trained board director and owners of small to medium businesses are among hundreds of investors who lost their life savings in the $124 million collapse of property investment firm Remi Capital. Several of the 433 Remi Capital investors owed more than $60 million spoke to The Australian Financial Review to describe their shock, devastation and embarrassment over what one investor told a creditors’ meeting appeared to be a ‘glorified Ponzi scheme.’ All spoke on condition of anonymity.”
“‘It was worse than I ever imagined,’ Rose said. ‘I can’t believe it.’ I pleaded with them,’ Rose said. ‘I begged them. I’m a single mum. Find the humanity. I said don’t worry about the interest rate, just return my money, return my principal. They never responded.’”
“Mental health worker ‘Trudie,’ in her 50s, said that last August she invested the $50,000 in retirement savings she and her husband had amassed after her accountant emailed his client list about the firm’s seminars. ‘Because it came from him, I trusted it and I was, like, it must be legit,’ she said. However, within three months, the firm failed to pay her first return on time. When she asked for a refund she was assured not to worry and it would be paid. It never was.”
“‘I thought I could retire in five years – I can’t now. It’s just devastating. I’m actually just hoping and praying,’ she said. Worse, her daughter, in her 20s, invested all $40,000 of her savings. ‘That was actually for her house. She saved that money from when she was working since 15 years old,’ Trudie said. ‘What really annoys me is they knew how deep in debt they were – how were they still taking other people’s money?’”
“A Brisbane-based franchisee owner who sank $100,000 into the firm in mid-2021 after a relative in Remi’s capital-raising team pitched him said he had lost confidence in investing. ‘At my stage of life, I’m approaching 63, I cannot afford to lose $100,000 as my earning capacity means I no longer can recoup that money. It was a double whammy. It was devastating,’ he said. ‘I lost confidence in ASIC and in the whole financial investment community in Australia. You don’t expect that in a country like Australia. For a company to go on for so long and get away with it.’”
The Daily Mail. “The plunge in cryptocurrency values in recent weeks has sent many spiralling into dark mental health holes – some so bad they even attempted suicide. David Gerard, an author and crypto expert, said a lack of regulation has doomed the industry and said everyday Australians will be the victims of the latest crash. ‘We have to think about the real victims, the mums and dads, the grannies who think their retirement should go into crypto. There’s a real human cost here and that’s the ordinary people who get scammed,’ he told 60 Minutes.”
“‘You can’t get rich for free. You’d think that was obvious, but people keep hoping there’s a way out and that they’ll get ahead, but it’s always a false hope. Some people do great but more people get absolutely wrecked,’ he said. He said anyone who started investing in crypto in the last six months have instead been sold ‘magic beans’. ‘They’re trying to work out how to offload them. A lot of them are just going to have to take the hit and it’s not going to be nice,’ he said.”
“On the sub-Reddit for TerraLuna, the main place of discussion for the self-described ‘LUNAtics’, one terrified investor today asked for advice. ‘My friends who I recommended Luna to all hate me now,’ they wrote. ‘Many angry calls and loud knocking at my door from former friends I told to buy Luna early, I feel like s**t we all lost our life savings and they have kids. What do I do?’”
“The sudden collapse of both Terra and Luna, wiping billions off its value, didn’t just anger investors, it also made many grapple with suicidal thoughts. ‘I lost over $450k USD, I cannot pay the bank. I will lose my home soon. I’ll become homeless. Suicide is the only way out for me,’ one wrote. ‘I’m going through some of the darkest, most severe mental pain of my life. It still doesn’t seem real that I lost $US180,000… When I make it through this, I’ll be stronger then ever,’ another added.”
“‘Bro, my little brother lost his entire net worth £350,000, gone like that. I’ve lent him 5k and he’s moved in with me,’ a third wrote. In another story after the crash, an investor begged people to seek out mental health support after their own friend tried to take their own life. ‘My friend and ex-colleague (my manager for 15 years) tried to commit suicide this morning. He basically moved all of his savings to crypto in 2021 and LUNA was a massive player in his portfolio,’ they wrote. ‘Just wanted to tell you guys – if you feel pain and you think your life is miserable without money, you feel failure and stuff… just come to people you love. Do not be alone, this s**t is getting serious. Do not overestimate the value of money, life has a much higher value. I do not post to Reddit at all, but I considered it important to do it now. Wish you good luck.’”