A report from the Colorado Springs Gazette. “The supply of Colorado Springs-area homes for sale swelled to a nearly nine-year high last month, an increase possibly driven, in part, by investors who are dumping properties on the market because of tighter government regulations on the rental industry, one local housing official says. A new state law, enacted during this year’s session of the General Assembly and signed by Gov. Jared Polis, requires landlords to show cause before they can evict residential tenants. Gordon Dean, board chairman of the Pikes Peak Association of Realtors, said he’s selling his own investment properties because of some of those rules and the high cost to own townhomes and condominiums. ‘You can’t just say, ‘the lease is over’ any more,’ he said of rental properties. ‘That’s considered an eviction now, which blows my mind. … The pressure on landlords has finally made them say, ‘we’re done with this, we’ll just liquidate and see what we can do with our money,’ versus this.’”
From CNET Money. “As more homebuyers pause while waiting for prices and mortgage rates to cool, some sellers are having to drop their asking prices. Highly motivated sellers have become more flexible on asking prices in order to attract buyers, especially in areas where property insurance has skyrocketed, like Florida, said Erin Sykes, chief economist at Nest Seekers International. ‘Home prices have become more negotiable over the last few months,’ Sykes said. Coastal markets in Florida and New Jersey are already showing 5-10% more negotiability on list prices, she added.”
From WFLA. “Tampa Bay-area real estate agents and Florida’s CFO are sounding the alarm about solar panels impacting the state’s real estate market. They say the panels are having an unexpected consequence on home sellers — and home buyers — who many not qualify to buy the home because of the panels. Florida Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis said solar panel popularity has skyrocketed and works out for some, but that when some homeowners need to sell their houses, they are in for an unpleasant surprise. ‘Now you’re telling somebody on a fixed income that now they want to downsize, maybe they want to move into something that’s assisted living, now this investment that sounded great five years ago is going to wipe out your entire savings because you got to pay it off in order to move out of your house,’ Patronis said.”
The Reno Gazette Journal in Nevada. “On Aug. 17, the National Association of Realtors will implement changes that its members must follow as part of a sweeping $418 million settlement over its practices. Stephen Brobeck, a senior fellow at the Consumer Federation of America, cited the new contracts from the California Association of Realtors, which were done in response to NAR requiring agents to obtain buyer signatures on buyer representation contracts starting in August. In addition to being written in a way that is hard to understand, the changes being initiated by CAR essentially obligate the buyer to pay the buyer agent, Brobeck said. Even the changes that NAR is pushing as consumer-focused still benefit the industry more, the CFA claimed. ‘Everything is loaded in the industry’s favor in the contracts,’ Brobeck said. ‘They’re terrible and we’re recommending consumers not sign them.’”
“One thing that all sides agree on is that changes from the settlement could potentially shake the industry, particularly when it comes to the number of agents. Beau Keenan, owner of Dickson Realty, a real estate company that operates in Northern Nevada and Northern California, pointed to the Reno-Sparks real estate sector as an example. ‘A third of the transactions went away,’ Keenan said. It is an issue occurring not just in Reno but across the country as well. Last year, just over 4 million homes were sold in the United States — the lowest since 1995, according to NAR. Meanwhile, the total number of real estate agents is more than 1.5 million, according to the association.”
“Assuming each sale has one seller agent and one buyer agent, that averages out to 5 home sale transactions available per agent. Brobeck remembers once surveying 2,000 agents who worked for big companies. Half of them had either one sale or no sales at all in the last year. ‘There’s a huge glut of agents,’ Brobeck said. ‘They’re desperate for clients and sales.’”
From WEMU. “Randee Noggle bought her house in Michigan for $151,000 in 2018. She paid cash, with inheritance left by her grandmother. During the pandemic, her family fell on hard times. Her husband’s income working in the restaurant industry dropped, and Noggle was dealing with health issues. Her disability benefits and leftover inheritance weren’t enough to cover their bills. Facing credit card debt, student loans, car payments and overdue property taxes, the Noggles were in trouble. Bad credit kept them from getting a home equity loan. Then Noggle found a company called EasyKnock, offering a ‘sale-leaseback’ deal. She would sell them the house and get a portion of the equity up front as cash, then she’d rent the house and have the option to repurchase it, which she planned to do. ‘It sounded too good to be true,’ she said. ‘But at the same time, we were just desperate.’”
“Noggle is now suing EasyKnock in federal court, along with three other families in Michigan, alleging that the sale-leaseback deal was really a loan. Hers is among dozens of lawsuits around the country making similar claims. EasyKnock says they ‘take great care and time’ to ensure consumers understand the transaction. As for Noggle, she thought EasyKnock would help her family stabilize their finances. ‘In my mind, I’m like, okay, we get this money, we get ourselves out of this hole. We get ourselves caught up,’ she said. ‘We’re worse off than we were before EasyKnock, let’s just put it that way.’”
The Tribune Democrat in Pennsylvania. “Two people have been indicted by a federal grand jury in Johnstown for allegedly defrauding rental property investors. The two-count indictment named Paul Andrew Gulbronson, 58, and Kelly Jurado Bonilla, 35, both former residents of Hudson, Florida, who later lived in Panama. They conspired to commit mail fraud and wire fraud, and committed wire fraud, from May 2017 to June 2019, according to the indictment. Gulbronson and Bonilla owned and operated Citrona Homes LLC, which had offices in Holiday, Florida, and Johnstown.”
“Citrona’s purported business plan, as represented to some investors, was to purchase low-value, distressed or vacant properties; renovate them; ensure they complied with applicable building codes; rent the properties; and sell the properties to investors at or under market value, according to a U.S. Attorney’s Office press release. But the indictment alleges that Gulbronson and Bonilla instead used Citrona to enrich themselves – defrauding investors into purchasing unrenovated properties at prices far above fair market value, through false pretenses, representations and promises. They also allegedly made payments to investors that were supposedly rental income, when the money actually came from the sale of other Citrona properties, and falsely informed investors that property repairs and rentals were being made.”
KTHV in Arkansas. “The former owner of a troubled Little Rock apartment complex—Big Country Chateau—pleaded guilty on June 17 to engaging in an extensive, multi-year conspiracy to fraudulently obtain over $54.7 million in loans and to acquire multifamily and commercial properties. 53-year-old Aron Puretz and his Apex Equity Group reached a deal with federal prosecutors, admitting to a scheme that inflated the sale price of the Colonel Glenn complex and other properties. While Puretz used Big Country Chateau as part of his scheme, the apartments became dilapidated and dangerous. The City of Little Rock has since worked to relocate tenants after a judge forced the property into receivership.”
“In July 2019, Puretz and his conspirators acquired Big Country Chateau under a hidden identity. The Office of the United States Attorney District of New Jersey said Puretz knew the lender, Freddie Mac, would not approve him as an owner, so he used the identity of an associate instead of his own. Court documents show that Puretz’s mortgage fraud conspiracy dates back to 2016 and includes providing fraudulent purchase and sale contracts in Lakewood, N.J., and falsifying statements to the City of Eureka, Ill., to receive a property tax exemption.”
KUOW in Washington. “The market price for a place to attempt to concentrate on your work while colleagues talk loudly near your desk is dropping significantly. It’s especially bad in downtown Seattle, but honestly, it’s bad everywhere. That means office tenants can ask for a lot from their landlords. And the King County Assessor says: They’ll probably get it. Nowhere is this trend stronger than in downtown Seattle, specifically the Central Business District, Pioneer Square, and South Lake Union neighborhood, home to Amazon. The value of office towers in those places are dropping 35-40%. The sound of prices dropping like overripe plums from a tree is giving office tenants the edge in negotiations when their leases come up for renewal.”
“‘Landlords right now are scared to death of letting somebody out of a lease because they figure I’m not going to be able to get that amount from the next tenant, says King County Assessor John Wilson. And so, he says big downtown law firms and tech companies are telling their landlords: ‘I don’t need as much space, I don’t need as long a lease, and I’m sure not going to pay $45-50 a square foot. So here’s what I want: I want to pay $30 a square foot,’ Wilson says. ‘I don’t want a seven-year lease. I want a three-year lease and I want X million dollars’ worth of tenant improvements and I want it now. And you give it to me now, or I go elsewhere.’”
CTV News in Canada. “Charges have been stayed in a $7.8-million Ponzi scheme with victims in Edmonton, B.C., the U.S. and Australia. Curtis Gordon Quigley and Kathleen Treadgold were jointly charged with 80 counts of fraud over $5,000 and one count of laundering proceeds of a crime last August. The Edmonton Police Service alleges the duo was promising investors a return on investment from a real estate flipping scheme between 2008 and 2020 under the company name Group Venture Inc., but most people never saw any money. On Friday, the Alberta Crown Prosecution Service confirmed the charges against Quigley, 56, were stayed after his death in British Columbia on June 20. CTV News Edmonton has not been able to confirm Quigley’s cause of death, but the B.C. Coroners Service has confirmed it is investigating his death.”
The Paris Star. “The Bank of Canada’s decision to cut interest rates last month had little effect on the local housing market, new figures show. So far in 2024, 3,839 homes have been sold in the London area market that includes Strathroy, St. Thomas and portions of Elgin and Middlesex counties. That’s only 63 more homes than at this time last year, which ended up being the year with the fewest home sales the local market has seen since 2000. The average price for a home last month was $671,309, about $4,600 lower than a year ago. The low sales figures come as little surprise to Londoner Mario Kanoun, who said he saw little interest from buyers in the family home he’s trying to sell in the city’s Fox Hollow neighbourhood.”
“Kanoun said he bought the two-storey property bout two years ago for about $870,000. The asking price for the property was $1.1 million, but after being for sale for more than a month, Kanoun is considering pulling it from the market. ‘I had a couple of people come visit, but there were no offers,’ he said. ‘Honestly, there hasn’t been a lot of interest. Maybe it is too expensive. I think the high interest rates may be the problem.’”
“The current market conditions may be hard to swallow for people who have only been in the market during the last decade and ‘have never experienced anything but an upward trend,’ said London realtor Paula Hodgson. ‘But it’s not really a slow market,’ said Hodgson, who’s been involved in real estate for nearly 30 years. ‘You just can’t stretch for the stars with pricing right now.’ Part of the equation is the number of homes available for sale, which has been steadily increasing during the past months. In June, there were 1,510 new listings, LSTAR reported. ‘Buyers, today, they don’t want to feel they’re overpaying,’ Hodgson said. ‘So, if they’re looking at a home, and they feel like it is overpriced, they have no problem waiting and looking at other properties; there’s no urgency.’”
Mansion Global. “As the French escape to the Mediterranean to beat the heat this summer, something else is cooling off along the Côte d’Azur—luxury home prices. That has opened an opportunity for buyers looking to get good deals in a French region that’s seen as a safe long-term bet. Prices along the French Riviera dipped slightly in 2023 from the year before dipping by 7% around Cannes and 5% in St. Jean Cap Ferrat. ‘We’re seeing prices coming down a small amount,’ said Jack Harris, an agent with Knight Frank. ‘It’s by virtue of the fact that we’ve seen such growth over the last few years—it’s that wind coming out of the sails.’”
“An overheated market? Probably, argues Stephen Moroukian, head of product and proposition for real estate financing at Barclays Private Bank. ‘During the pandemic, we saw a once-in-a-generation uplift in prices,’ he said. ‘It’s right that some of that should come off proportionate to the increases that we saw.’ Despite the price deflation, buyers shouldn’t expect to get away with major price reductions—most agents are seeing the ability to negotiate 5% or 10% off the sales price, Harris said. ‘A lot of people hear ‘softening market,’ and they think they can offer half the price and they’ll get a house,’ he added. ‘Sellers don’t need to sell right now—it’s a question of selling at the right price, rather than desperation.’”
Radio New Zealand. “The subdued housing market has experienced its largest monthly drop in values in a year. CoreLogic’s House Price Index fell 0.5 percent in June – the largest month-on-month decline since June 2023. Property prices are down in most parts of the country with a quarterly drop of 0.8 percent continuing a trend of minor falls seen in recent months. Each of the main centres recorded flat to falling prices over the month, with both Christchurch and Dunedin experiencing no change in June, the best performers. CoreLogic head of research Nick Goodall said the last 12 months could be described as a dead cat bounce, with confidence perhaps misjudging the trajectory for mortgage interest rates. ‘That previous momentum stalled as high mortgage interest rates continue to restrict housing credit demand,’ he said.”
“The fall in prices experienced in our biggest city for the past month and quarter came as a surprise with Auckland values falling 1.2 percent in June to take the quarterly change to -2.6 percent. Prices in Auckland were 17 percent off the peak, with Wellington prices 19 percent off the top of the market.”
South China Morning Post. “Hong Kong home transactions plummeted more than 30 per cent in June, according to the latest official figures. And the lacklustre sales are weighing on prices, with recent new-unit launches selling poorly despite decade-low prices and prices of lived-in flats skidding to a nearly eight-year low, according to JLL. Several new developments have hit the market with prices more than 10 per cent below those of similar projects in 2015, the property consultancy said in its latest report. Worse yet, sell-through rates have failed to impress despite the discounts. ‘Hong Kong home prices have been on a race to the bottom in the last four to eight weeks,’ said Cathie Chung, senior director of research at JLL in Hong Kong.”
“In May, the average price of a new class A unit, defined as a flat with a size of less than 431 sq ft, in Yau Ma Tei was HK$20,346 (US$2,605) per square foot, a 10.6 per cent decrease from HK$22,768 in 2015. Henderson Land’s The Haddon in Hung Hom, for example, only sold a fifth of the 63 units it put on offer on the first day of sales last month. Also late last month, not one of 30 units put on sale at Continental’s Amber Place in Cheung Sha Wan sold during the launch weekend. Meanwhile, secondary home prices are also suffering, with the official price index from the Rating and Valuation Department reverting to a declining trend in May after registering a small increase in April. JLL added that more ‘supportive demand-side policies’ were needed to restore demand-supply balance and cushion the downward spiral of home prices.”
“‘Clearly, owner-occupiers are experiencing dwindling confidence in the market,’ JLL said in the report. ‘Factors such as job security and wage growth, which were once stable and reliable, have now become significant concerns.’”