It’s Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. “Cooling real estate market trends continued into December 2022, according to reports from the Northern Virginia Association of Realtors and Virginia Realtors. The median sold price for a home also decreased slightly from November 2022, matching December 2021 at a price of $599,000. ‘I think prices will decline slightly, in my opinion. Prices have already declined, I think you’ll see further decline, but it’ll be slight,’ said Gary Bare, an area realtor.”
“Numbers point to a slowdown in the Rockwall and Hunt counties housing markets. ‘Last year, we were getting an average of 104% over asking price on homes. As a buyer, you don’t want to pay 6% interest rate and high prices. … So, the difference now, is you are getting 92% of list price in Rockwall County. So, you are 10% or more off list price in all of these counties,’ said M&D Real Estate’s Managing Director Danny Perez. Meanwhile, home prices overall are falling, said Perez. ‘Have they fallen enough is the big question? I don’t think they have quite fallen enough. They are getting closer.’”
“Out past where the blacktop ends in unincorporated Maricopa County, many of the secluded homes in the Rio Verde Foothills have attractive desert views on sprawling spaces. But there’s a major caveat with all these homes – there’s no guaranteed water supply. Cody Reim can’t help but notice his home value start to slide. He estimates it’s anywhere from $50-$60 thousand less than when he bought it a few years ago. We asked a realtor who lives in the Rio Verde Foothills and who sells 80% of her homes in the area about her recent open house. ‘Oh I had one last week, I had one person come through,’ said realtor Rebecca Schwegler. ‘A lot of sellers are still hoping to get price money for their listings, or what the other thing, they’re not selling.’”
“2022 was the 12 months of the ‘large shift’ for Southern San Bernardino’s housing market, abruptly freezing up amid hovering rates of interest. The value on the midpoint of all gross sales — fell from the month earlier than for the seventh time in a row, dropping to $686,000 from a peak of $760,000 final spring. It was dangerous information for Leonard Leichnitz, 60, a Newport Seashore actual property investor whose flip went flop through the market’s large shift. Leichnitz believed he may double the value of a three-bedroom Riverside home he purchased in 2021. It took 5 months and a $40,000 value minimize to discover a purchaser. He needed to shell out an extra $30,000 for repairs and purchaser’s closing prices. Considering his bills, he made lower than $10,000 on the deal, if that. ‘Folks say actual property is all about location, location, location,’ he stated. ‘I believe it’s timing, timing, timing.’”
“Manteca’s year-to-year median single home sales price dropped two thirds less than in the Bay Area. Based on Metrolist data, the Manteca median sales price in December of 2022 was $582,500. That’s down 3.8 percent from December of 2021 when it was at $615,000. That compares to the Bay Area where prices were off 11.5 percent going from a median of $1.2 million in December 2021 to $1,084,500 last month. In the region, Manteca prices fared slightly better than Tracy that dropped 0.1 percent more in year to year comparisons. Year-to-year drops in Modesto was 12 percent and 6 percent in Stockton. San Joaquin County was down 4.5 percent, Stanislaus County down 4.8 percent, Sacramento County down 5.3 percent, and Alameda County down 11.7 percent.”
“The credit that flowed so easily from private and alternative lenders when the Canadian real estate market was climbing is scarce, expensive and sometimes unobtainable when property values fall. Mark Morris, Toronto-based real estate lawyer with LegalClosing.ca has a growing sense of foreboding as more problem files land on his desk. ‘The stars are aligned for a bloodletting,’ he says. Some of those who borrowed heavily against the equity in their homes are struggling to make ongoing payments. He’s already seeing more homes listed under power of sale as lenders foreclose. ‘People are hurting,’ he says. ‘The truth is, it’s going to get worse.’”
“Mr. Morris sees the darkest storm clouds brewing in outlying communities where real estate prices spiked during the pandemic. Many of those areas are now facing the steepest declines in average price, and debt-laden homeowners are running into trouble. ‘They just grabbed on to whatever they could get. They are in a world of hurt,’ Mr. Morris says of those who bought near the peak.”
“Amongst the homeowners seeking advice from Mr. Morris, those who purchased in 2021 or early 2022 in areas of Ontario such as Barrie, Brampton, Caledon and Stouffville are feeling the greatest pressure. Many who bought with a typical 20-per-cent down payment and a mortgage for the other 80 per cent have seen the value of their property slide more than 30 per cent, which puts the mortgage underwater Mr. Morris points out. He has especially deep concern for people who took out a second mortgage from a private lender at a high rate of interest and are now finding that they are not able to renew.”
“‘Now, if they want to renew, they can’t. Even if they can, the rates are atrocious,’ he says, citing a recent example of 13 per cent interest plus another 2 per cent in fees. Lenders are calling loans in tertiary markets because house prices have fallen more than 30 per cent in some cases and they are unwilling to renew for another term. ‘There is no replacement for that money – that was already money of last resort,’ Mr. Morris says. Mr. Morris points to the example of a client in a location he calls ‘Boonieville.’ The homeowner owes $300,000 on a second mortgage with private lenders. Now, at the end of the one-year term, the lender is calling the money, and the house has fallen in value from about $900,000 in April to $700,000 today.”
“Samantha Brookes, chief executive of Mortgages of Canada, points to the example of one elderly Ontario homeowner who borrowed against the equity in the property with a private lender. The loan is up for renewal and the elderly owner faces exorbitant fees. Ms. Brookes says the senior faces losing the house because she doesn’t have the ability to repay the loan. ‘There’s no equity left,’ Ms. Brookes says. ‘It’s getting very, very tricky.’”
“Australia’s property market has been so savaged by multiple back-to-back interest rate rises that new home sales have dropped by an eye-watering 42 per cent. In fact, one out of five people are ditching their contract as costs skyrocket, according to the latest report from the Housing Industry Association. As it stands, average national home prices are down by eight per cent from their high and fell 5.3 per cent in 2022.”
“Come September, national house prices will have fallen 20 per cent below their peak April 2022, warned Shane Oliver, chief economist at AMP. And not only that, it’s likely that price plunges will ‘re-accelerate’ in the lead up to the September quarter as cash-strapped mortgage holders take to ‘distressed selling’ on the housing market.”
“Li Feng, 37, who lives with her 75-year-old mother in the city of Suzhou located just west of Shanghai, has made it a priority this year to sell one of the two flats she owns. ‘I don’t think there will be enough demand supporting the bubbly property market,’ said Li, a bank manager. ‘I’ll live alone after my mother passes away. There’s no need to keep a two-bedroom apartment,’ Li said, explaining that she is single and has no intention of getting married nor having kids.”
“Zheng Xiao, a 22-year-old university student in Shenzhen, said his parents, both of whom are private entrepreneurs, just sold a large 360-sq-m (3,875-square-foot) piece of housing for 18 million yuan in the city. ‘My parents spent several months to finally close the deal, with a price far lower than what they had expected,’ Zheng said. ‘Young buyers don’t seem to be interested in large homes because they come with considerable stress in paying the high mortgages, with high property taxes but low usage for small families.’”
“Generation Z believes that striking a work-life balance is more important than accumulating wealth, Zheng said. ‘Perhaps in the future we will see a lot of foreign labourers in China’s services market,’ he said, noting how a similar situation has unfolded in Japan because of its ageing population. Meanwhile, much of the money that Chinese people have invested into homes could become unrecoverable. ‘Many houses will become sunk costs, deserted in places where there are fewer and fewer young people,’ he predicted.