It’s Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. “Markets like Phoenix and Las Vegas, which saw a boom in sales during the pandemic, are now experiencing a glut of homes for sale, said Jeff Tucker, senior economist at Zillow. ‘There are a lot of homes on the market, and that does put downward pressure on prices,’ he noted. ‘For sellers, the reality is that the prices that they were hoping to get based on the last few years are simply no longer there,’ explained George Ratiu, manager of economic research at Realtor.com. ‘For buyers, prices have shot up so high in the last two years that even a 10% to 20% discount is not going to get them a bargain.’”
“A year ago, business was booming for Touchstone Living Inc. The Nevada builder had a list of 639 qualified buyers who wanted homes in its development about 15 miles north of the Las Vegas Strip. Today, that list has shriveled to about 30. Owner Tom McCormick said, ‘I’ve never seen it change this fast,’ referring to the rapid decline in sales.”
“The median price of a home in San Diego county has dropped by 10% according to CoreLogic. In November, the median home price in the county was $765,000, just a few months earlier in May, the median home price was $850,000. Coldwell Banker realtor Matt Sorensen showed CBS 8 a 3,900 square foot home in Encinitas that recently had to drop it’s price by $100,000. ‘Look if you want to sell you’re going to have to come down and that’s the bottom line. The most motivated sellers are going to drop their prices until they find the right buyer,’ Sorensen said.”
“It’s been a hard sell because just two years ago we saw a housing boom. ‘They look at their neighbors and go, wait a minute, you’re saying I can only get $800,000 for mine, when six months ago my neighbor got $1 million down the street and it’s the same model match,’ Frank Powell, Incoming president San Diego Association of Realtors said.”
“Tim Yee, president of REMAX Gold Bay Area, has 40 years of experience in California real estate. He described the market over the last few years as, ‘a wild and crazy ride.’ ‘Sellers have to be realistic. Pricing, pricing, pricing. Location will always sell,’ he said. ‘They can’t look a year ago and say my neighbor got this and I want this. They need to see what the most current comparables in the market are.’”
“All of the new homes popping up along Interstate 75 north of Palmetto, along Moccasin Wallow Road in Parrish, and in Lakewood Ranch offer proof that Manatee County’s explosion of growth has not yet run its course. Even so, 2022 may be remembered as the time when growth in the Bradenton area went from a rolling boil to a rapid simmer. In October, existing homes were taking longer to sell, sellers were not always getting their asking price, and there were more homes on the market. ‘We recognize the COVID bump was really an anomalous period,’ said Laura Cole, senior vice president of LWR Communities.”
“The median price of a home sold in Fauquier County as of November 2022 was approximately 14% lower than in November 2021, and the number of homes sold declined 43% from the prior year, according to the Greater Piedmont Realtors. Compared with the prior November, the median home sales price in Fauquier has declined about $77,000, from $539,000 to $462,000. Greater Piedmont Realtors President Kelly Thornton noted that the housing market across the region, including Culpeper, Fauquier, Madison and Rappahannock counties, ‘continued to regress in November, with sales falling over 30% or 55 homes compared to November 2021, to just 122 sales area wide.’ But she noted that on average interest rates have fallen, inventory has increased and median sales prices have fallen over ‘12% to $400,500, setting the table for what we believe will be a strong new year.’”
“Families across Maui County have been priced out of homes, as median home sales prices continued to surpass $1 million this year and high borrowing rates discouraged many buyers. As a result, the housing market has weakened significantly and faces the possibility of a sharper downturn, the report said. Price tags on homes in Maui have already fallen 13 percent since May.”
“Closed home sales plummeted more than 30 percent in Fort Worth and Tarrant County during November compared to a year ago, even as prices continue to decline. The median home price in Fort Worth slid to $333,009, a price level not seen since February, and well below May’s median price peak of $367,000. Similar patterns occurred in Parker and Johnson counties. In Parker County, price declines during November resulted in a median sales price of $431,950, a drop from an April high of $481,800. Johnson County’s median sales price in November was $364,750, down from a June peak of $381,250.”
“Following an announcement last week from the National Association of Realtors that existing home sales in the U.S. declined for the tenth straight month in November, comparisons were drawn between the trajectory of the current market and the market in the lead-up to the last housing bubble. ‘Following the same pattern as last housing bubble: Affordability collapses -> Sales plummet -> Prices decline…,’ Charlie Bilello, CEO of Compound Capital Advisors, tweeted on December 21.”
“In March 2022, the monthly average price for a home in Windsor-Essex peaked at $723,739, but that has sunk back down to $511,275 for November, according to data from the Windsor-Essex County Association of Realtors. That average price was about 10 per cent less than the same time the year before. ‘[The market] was not healthy the last few years at all, but we are definitely seeing a more balanced market right now and as I said in the beginning, the buyers have the upper hand. And I believe that they will continue to have the upper hand going into 2023,’ said Mohamed Heddad, a representative with LC Platinum Realty. ‘The climate at the moment is very favourable toward the buyers, not as much for the sellers.’”
“Home sales and prices have fallen in 2022 as the Bank of Canada raised its policy interest rate. ‘I’ve seen people who buy homes maxed out and they can’t afford furniture when they move in,’ said John Pasalis, president of Realosophy Realty. ‘You don’t want to put yourself in that position where you’re just stretching so much that you’re sleeping on the floor because you can’t afford a bed.’”
“Romania’s housing market is slowing dramatically, amidst slowing demand. On a quarterly basis, Romanian real house prices dropped 4.06% during the latest quarter.”
“Joseph Tsang, Chairman of JLL Hong Kong said, ‘A high level of inventory will intensify the competition between developers in launching new projects. Developers will offer deeper discounts to boost sales. The first launched prices of recently launched projects are already 7% to 13% lower than the average price of secondary projects in the same precinct.’”
“China’s housing affordability problem is so entrenched that the massive crackdown on the once-frothy real estate sector has made little difference for residents such as Qian, a teacher in the high-tech centre of Shenzhen. For nine years, she’s been sharing a two-room school dorm while saving to buy an apartment in one of China’s most expensive cities. Although prices came down about 10 per cent after the recent market crash, her salary has been cut by 9 per cent. She needs to save for a few more decades to afford her own place. ‘I was frightened by home prices when I came to Shenzhen, and all the big policy changes didn’t give me any hope,’ says Qian, 31, who declined to give her full name discussing a sensitive topic. ‘The idea that I might stay as a dorm dweller until retirement terrifies me.’”
“Surging prices and stagnant wages over the last few decades have pushed real estate out of reach for young buyers from Sydney to Stockholm. For 19 countries in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, the average price-to-rent and price-to-income ratios are higher now than before the 2008 financial crisis. Home prices in Beijing and Shanghai have jumped tenfold and twelvefold, respectively, this century, according to government statistics, after the economic opening prompted more people to park their life savings in real estate rather than in stocks or other investments. The ratio of median home prices to income surged to more than 25 at the end of 2021 in Beijing, compared with about 20 in Hong Kong and just seven in the US, according to research from Nordea Bank Abp.”
“Tran Minh Hoang, deputy general secretary of the Vietnam Association of Realtors, assessed the difficulty of the market in 2023 will remain if interest rates have not been reduced. ‘Real estate prices will be far from reaching the high levels reported before the fever, especially in the context of many fluctuations. If investors hold up well, they can still overcome the difficult period,’ Hoang said. ‘But if their financial capacity is tight, they are forced to reduce the expected price to cut losses. Besides that, with fear that real estate prices will drop without stopping, investors can tell themselves to sell quickly to cut their losses.’”
“At least hundreds of customers burned by the collapses of FTX, Celsius Network LLC and Voyager Digital Ltd. are seeking to sell their cryptocurrency claims at deep discounts so they do not have to wait months or even years to see what they might recover as the platforms move through Chapter 11. Customers and other creditors, holding roughly $1 billion in FTX claims and about $100 million in Celsius claims, have expressed interest in selling them through an online market run by Cherokee Acquisition, a bankruptcy claims broker and buyer, the firm said. ‘[Bankruptcy] takes more time than people can deal with,’ said Vladimir Jelisavcic, founder of Cherokee Acquisition. ‘Some people need or want money now.’”
“Some customers decided to hold on to their accounts. Josh Ragusa, a Voyager customer in California, said, ‘[I’d] rather take my chances with my holdings in the hope that I will be able to recoup my portfolio and that digital currency will again have its day. Hope is a powerful drug.’”
“But for others, the venture into crypto has been a costly, yet valuable, lesson. One customer who sold his claims to Serrur’s fund was Dylan Jones. The California resident collected 16.5 cents on the dollar on his $165,205 Celsius claim through Xclaim. Jones said he opened his account because Celsius promised high returns that he thought ‘were unmatched anywhere else.’ He said he has some regrets ‘about not listening to my inner conscience when the market got rocky. It was a life lesson learned in that there are very few opportunities to rapidly gain wealth without massive risk,’ he said.”