It’s Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. “As of Sept. 9, there were 2,699 single-family homes listed for sale with the Multiple Listing Service of Colorado Springs, broker Harry Salzman said. ‘That’s five times where we were six months ago,’ he said. Ann Kidd, chairperson of the Pikes Peak Association of Realtors, calls the current situation an adjustment. ‘Things have come into balance, is how I would describe it, down from the frenzied pace a year go,’ she said. ‘I’m not kidding when I say you could stick a sign in the yard and the house would be sold in hours. What we’re seeing now is going back more to business as usual.’”
“Three weeks ago, Tracie Marsh was set to sell her home for a price significantly higher than expected. Last night she went under contract again, with a lower offer. ‘A lot of that was due to interest rates climbing so much in those three weeks, we were a little more concerned about the housing market going down a little more, and if we waited too long to accept an offer, then maybe we would lose out,’ Marsh said. Marsh was on both sides of the aisle, a buyer looking for a home in Statesville and a seller 50 miles away in Vale.”
“For Lynnea Miller, principal broker at Bend Premier Real Estate, declining home prices were nothing to be afraid of. Unlike the last housing bubble, she expects this price decline will even the playing field between buyers and sellers. ‘It used to be that the asking price was the floor of what would be the agreed to sales price. Now the asking price may be the ceiling,’ says Miller.”
“The median closed sale price for a home in Pierce County was $555,000 in August, down from $575,000 in July. NWMLS data shows Pierce County’s housing inventory has grown over 112% since this time last year. ‘We have more inventory now than we’ve had in three and a half years,’ Gorden said. ‘We’ve really seen that in all the price ranges,’ explained Regina Madiera-Gorden, a managing broker of Windermere Abode Lakewood.”
“After more than two years of hot housing market conditions in the D.C. region, there is a noticeable cooling trend. Would-be sellers do need to adjust their price expectations. There is evidence that sellers are already making adjustments, as more than 40 percent of all properties on the market at the end of August in the Washington area have dropped in price.”
“Houston home sales fell for the fifth consecutive month. Single-family home sales slid 16.9 percent in August from the same month a year earlier, according to the Houston Association of Realtors. But prices continue to rise. The median sales price increased nearly 11 percent over the year to $341,950, but remains below the record $354,440 reached in June. ‘For the past two years, Houston housing has been like a runaway train, and what we’ve been seeing most recently is an engineer, finally at the throttle, applying the brakes so the train can pull safely into the next station,’ said HAR Chair Jennifer Wauhob.”
“Los Angeles County will move forward with a plan to lift its pandemic-era eviction moratorium and other renter protections by the end of the year. ‘Hopefully many owners now hanging on by the skin of their teeth will have a chance to survive and avoid foreclosure,’ said Dan Yukelson, chief executive of the Apartment Assn. of Los Angeles. ‘Unfortunately for far too many it is far too late. I have spoken to too many owners who have been compelled to sell their properties at discounts or while in foreclosure.’”
“At last week’s 30-year rate of 5.89%, the buyer of a median-priced home is looking at a monthly payment of $2,100, a 66% jump from last year, according to Realtor.com. ‘The record low interest rates that we’ve seen over the last two and a half years have really allowed home price growth to outpace income growth,’ Andy Walden, recently told Yahoo Money. ‘In this affordability landscape it would take a combination of a 40% rise in incomes, roughly a three percentage point decline in 30-year rates, or a 30% pullback in home prices.’”
“The Toronto-area fall real estate market appears to be off to a slow start. Elise Stern, broker with Harvey Kalles Real Estate Ltd., says some homeowners have decided they won’t sell for a diminished price. ‘The buyers want a deal and the sellers are not in a rush to sell,’ Ms. Stern says. ‘If sellers don’t have to sell, they’re waiting for their number.’ And while sellers are holding out for a return to strong price gains, many buyers today are strenuously arguing for a markdown. ‘We’re getting offers but they’re definitely bottom feeders.’”
“The average price of a Canadian home sold in August was $637,673, a number that has fallen by more than 20 per cent since February. ‘The standoff between sellers who need to come to the reality that early-2022 prices don’t exist anymore and buyers who simply can’t pay as much will continue,’ said economist Robert Kavcic with Bank of Montreal.”
“The latest figures released by industry tracker Glenigan reveal that the value of work commencing on site fell 35 per cent during the three months to the end of August to stand 30 per cent lower than the same period a year ago. Across the board, construction orders increased to the lowest extent last month since the lockdown of June 2020, according to the latest S&P Global/CIPS UK Construction Purchasing Managers’ Index, with cost pressures cited as a factor. 3D Reid managing director Graham Hickson-Smith said recent construction figures suggested that the ‘post-Covid bubble’ was ‘unravelling’, he said: ‘We all hoped that would last longer than it did.’”
“Housing has fallen in price by 30-50%, and home-buyers can mainly thank the Armed Forces of Ukraine for this. In April, Russian media outlet Lenta.ru counted 19,000 ads for the sale of apartments in the Crimea in the database of the Mir Kvartir (World of Apartments) real estate agency. Currently, there are 33,200 of them, according to a study by NV Business. These are declared prices, the real ones can be twice as low, says Serhiy Stepenko, managing partner of SV Development consulting company. ‘It’s obvious that no one wants to buy housing on the peninsula,’ he says. ‘Who will buy an apartment in the Crimea now?’”
“Experts are warning New Zealand is riding the house building boom into another fiasco with echoes of the leaky building saga. A first-time home buyer couple, who asked not to be named while they sought legal advice, were this week meant to be settling on a Lower Hutt townhouse. ‘We expected small touch-ups might be needed but were shocked and gutted at what we found,’ he said. ‘[The developer] said it would fix the issues but there was no timeframe or apology. We worked really hard to reach the milestone of buying our first home and now we feel completely let down.’”
“Thailand’s Real Estate Information Center (REIC) in its September 2022 report indicates what everyone knows: there are a lot of unsold condominium units in Pattaya. Several future developments could well transform prospects, including the return of the Chinese who already own half the foreign-owned condominium units in all major Thai cities. A major problem with the condo market is a glut of studio apartments, those 30 sqm apartments in which a cat cannot be swung around.”
“Meanwhile the government has controversially relaxed the ruling that foreigners cannot own freehold property under their own name. Those who are willing to invest 40 million baht, about one million pounds, in property, security or funds over a three-year period can qualify for one rai or 1,600 sqm in Thailand, not a particularly generous upper limit. Many social media critics say only rich idiots would contemplate such an offer in Sin City.”
“Guangzhou has permitted developers to slash sale prices of homes by as much as 20 per cent, the first among China’s four top-tier cities to be allowed such dramatic discounting, as tepid demand plagues even the country’s economically most vibrant cities. Guangzhou, a city of nearly 19 million people, widened developers’ permissible discounting in home sale prices to a maximum of 20 per cent from 6 per cent, financial news outlet Yicai reported on Thursday.”
“Among the tier-one cities, average home prices in Guangzhou were the weakest in August at 25,000 yuan ($3,580) per square metre versus Shenzhen’s 55,000 yuan, according to China Index Academy. S&P Global Ratings said on Thursday that the sector needs up to 800 billion yuan to ensure distressed developers can finish presold homes. ‘If falling sales tip more developers into distressed territory, things will get worse,’ S&P said. ‘In our downside scenario, that number could rise as high as 1.8 trillion yuan to 2 trillion yuan.’”