It’s Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. “‘The phone’s barely ringing,’ said real estate agent John Silva of John Silva Realty & Associates in Orlando. ‘Those high, skyrocketing prices we saw months ago, they aren’t moving anymore. They’re just sitting on the shelves.’ Silva said his sellers have had to drop their prices. He said one who was asking $750,000 for her house was accepting an offer for $620,000. However, Silva said that it’s not impossible to move a house. ‘Anything that’s listed in good condition at the right price, it sells,’ he said. ‘But it’s a buyer’s market now.’”
“Nearly 4,500 North Carolina homes were flipped — or resold within 12 months of purchase — in the third quarter of 2022. The new data doesn’t deter Alyssa Upchurch and her husband, who are known as The Cash Offer Couple. ‘We’ve been in it awhile. We knew the market shift was coming,’ she said. ‘What used to be say $80,000 profit, $40,000 profit is now $20,000 or $40,000 profit.’ The Cash Offer Couple are still in business, even if fairytale profits are a thing of the past. She and her husband are holding on to some of the homes they bought and renting them out instead.”
“Through the end of November, Eagle County’s real estate sales have slowed somewhat from the frantic pace set in 2021. That’s probably a good thing. ‘Properties that are priced close to the market are still seeing good absorption,’ said Matt Fitzgerald, president of Slifer Smith & Frampton’s Vail Valley operations. ‘An aspirationally priced unit… those are going to sit.’”
“A new Houston Association of Realtors report shows sales in every housing segment suffered in November. Many home sellers are also taking their homes off the market or lowering their asking price as the local market continues to slump. ‘When you put that next to what their home was worth one or two years ago, they’re still really happy with what they can get, even if it is a tad bit less than what their neighbor got three months ago,’ HAR Chair Jennifer Wauhob said. ‘We are still one of the more affordable cities to live in. The fact that we didn’t see the same price escalation as for example Austin. They had such an influx of people from high-priced states that really drove their home prices up and now they’re really seeing their home prices come back down.’”
“Just over 9% of recent Sacramento homebuyers would be underwater with a 4% price drop, the highest share of the metros in this analysis. ‘Home prices have dropped quickly and substantially after skyrocketing during the pandemic. It has been a shock to the system for homeowners and sellers, though they’re getting used to the new reality,’ said Sacramento Redfin agent Alison Williams. ‘In a way, a correction like this was inevitable; prices can’t keep going up by double digits forever.’”
“It’s been a wild year for Bay Area real estate — and not in the way we’ve grown accustomed to. ‘There is more choice and less competition than there has been for many years, which means greater opportunities for buyers,’ Compass Chief Market Analyst Patrick Carlisle said. ‘Pay less attention to, or even ignore, what sellers are asking for and make offers at the price you want to pay. Some beautiful homes, luxury and ultra-luxury houses and condos, are selling at large discounts off asking prices. A buyer who can close the deal currently holds the balance of power.’”
“Canadian home prices fell for a ninth straight month. The benchmark price for a home fell 1.4% to C$744,000 ($546,880) in November, the Canadian Real Estate Association said. That brings the cumulative price drop from February’s peak to 11.5%, on a seasonally-adjusted basis. ‘November’s housing data from across Canada came in as expected — still pretty quiet — and that is unlikely to improve this winter with the Bank of Canada raising rates again last week,’ said Shaun Cathcart, the real estate board’s senior economist. ‘It will be interesting to see what buyers do when listings start to come out in big numbers in the spring.’”
“In a separate release Thursday, Canada Mortgage & Housing Corp. said builders started work on an annualized 264,159 units in November. Total housing starts remain elevated compared to historical levels, pushed higher by multifamily construction.”
“Trade Me Property has recorded its biggest year-on-year drop in house prices in five years. Wellington’s average asking price was down 9% in November compared to the same month in 2021, at $879,600. Auckland’s average price dropped 7% to $1.161 million. The biggest increase in the number of homes for sale was in Nelson/Tasman, up 77%. That was followed by Waikato, up 56% and Northland up 54%.”
“‘These supply and demand changes really show us how the market has been flipped on its head,’ said Trade Me Property sales director Gavin Lloyd. ‘After years of seeing supply failing to keep up with sky-high demand, we’re now seeing the total opposite. Demand has fallen off while supply is skyrocketing, and prices are tumbling as a result. It appears buyers are waiting to see how far prices will fall, before they make a move.’”
“As the tide goes out on an easy money era that inflated Europe’s real estate market, some of the world’s most-feared short sellers have turned their attention to the region’s landlords. Vivion Investments this week became at least the fifth European real estate company publicly lambasted by short sellers in little over a year after Muddy Waters published a critical report. The company, which owns hotels and offices in Germany and the UK, joins a list that also includes Germany’s Adler Group SA, UK-based Civitas Social Housing Plc and Home REIT Plc as well as Swedish landlord Samhallsbyggnadsbolaget i Norden AB, or SBB.”
“The scrutiny comes just as rapidly rising interest rates are hitting property values and threatening landlords who need to refinance mountains of cheap debt. Much of that debt was issued through bond markets that had been distorted by the European Central Bank’s asset purchasing programs that kept borrowing costs down and boosted demand for riskier issuers. ‘This sector was almost nonexistent in the credit index 10 years ago,’ said Benoit Soler, a high yield fund manager at Keren Finance. ‘Then we had quantitative easing which allowed the sector not only to exist but then balloon in size.’”
“After a crypto-driven building boom, the rapid decline of digital currencies has operators of bitcoin-mining data centers scrambling to find new uses for their increasingly distressed real estate. ‘In this environment, a lot of landlords are probably thinking about alternate uses for those spaces. It will probably be just like malls where you’re going to have to come up with alternate use cases for some of that data center space,’ said Barry Kupferberg, managing partner at Barkers Point Capital Advisors. ‘Potentially there’s a lot of space that will have to be repurposed.’”
“Experts predict contraction and consolidation across the bitcoin mining sector, with a wave of bankruptcies and liquidations looming in the near future. The casualty count has already started.”