A report from WFLA in Florida.”Floodwater from Hurricane Debby started rising in the Sarasota neighborhood on Monday. People who live there said the water was still rising on Tuesday. Mike Vance said his neighborhood has never flooded for 20 years, until now. He said no one in the neighborhood was prepared for this. ‘This is not a flood zone, never was, and what is sad is that no one bought flood insurance because we never had to,’ Vance said. ‘Yea, it’s really bad, and it shouldn’t have happened,’ Tara Schermerhorn said. She said they had just finished remodeling their dream home. ‘We moved here a little over a year ago,’ she said as she broke down in tears. ‘It was a foreclosure that sat for seven years, and we put our blood, sweat tears and all of our savings into this house and now it’s gone.’”

The Miami Herald in Florida. “Miami-Dade County’s median monthly condo association fee of $900 from April through June this year is up more than 59% from the $567 fee over the same stretch in 2019, according to Redfin. Broward faced a similar wave of condo costs. ‘I don’t know how I’m going to stay here if things keep going up,’ said Ingrid Vassell, who owns a condo in Plantation. ‘Right now, I’m in a very tough spot,’ she said. ‘A lot of my neighbors are selling. I cannot sell right now. I want to keep it as long as I can so when I have to sign for [my kid’s college] school loans, I have something. If I quit now and leave after a year of getting a property, I’m going to lose.’”

“Arkadiy Kats returned as a real estate agent. He had to. Costs kept climbing at his Caribbean Breeze Condominium at 250 180th Dr. in Sunny Isles Beach. Today, he pays $340 a month for a special assessment and $897 a month for monthly condo HOA fees. Starting in January, the association expects him to contribute another $731 a month toward reserves. ‘Everyone agrees to the maintenance, ‘Oh, it’s normal.’ It’s not normal,’ said the 71-year-old Kats. ‘Increase the reserve plus maintenance. It’s not normal.’ This is the most he’s ever paid for his home of 24 years, the same place he bought with his wife to raise their son. He wants to stay, but said he has to make a big sacrifice to do so. ‘I cannot retire, because I have no money for food, car insurance, gas,’ Kats said. ‘All of these payments — HOA, reserves, special assessments — is from my Social Security.’”

“Bill Hughes, an expert at the University of Florida, said he recognizes the ‘painful transition,’ especially in a region with the largest concentration of condominiums and coastal high-rises in the state. ‘What has happened is many of those people who are finding this troublesome have underpaid the cost of where they have been for a long time,’ Hughes said. ‘It’s hard when you establish your life pattern on a cost that is too low, because at some point that catches up.’”

Hawaii News Now. “The crisis came ashore for older high-rise condominiums first, especially those with neglected maintenance or safety issues. Now, townhome owners across the state are being hit with massive premium increases. In just one case, neighbors in Xandria Trent’s subdivision in Mililani Mauka were told in July that their insurance policy premium was going up more than 300% and $4,670 is due September first. ‘A lot of people are just upset,’ she said. ‘One said they’re not going to be able to get that kind of money. I don’t keep it in my checking account. Unfortunately, another person had to take out a loan. And for myself and my husband, we’re going to have to take it out of our 401K.’ The increases are so dramatic and widespread, it’s already impacting resales of condos and townhouses, according to Chad Takesue, Locations LLC, Chief Sales Officer. ‘This insurance piece, is adding to that affordability issue,’ he said. ‘So, we’re seeing that drop in sales.’”

The Columbus Dispatch in Ohio. “Bonnie Mitchell thought there must have been some mistake when she received her new property-tax bill at the start of the year. Her new appraisal for the 1,554-square-foot 1927 family house just south of Nationwide Children’s Hospital that she has lived in since 1970 and inherited from her now-deceased parents was up 343%. Her monthly tax installment payment was going from about $60 to around $365, taking up about 27% of her sole income, Social Security. Her ‘pre-payment’ bill alone was $1,478, just to get her tax escrow balance back to even.”

“‘Honestly, I thought it was a mistake,’ said Mitchell, 65. ‘Then when I realized that it was real, I thought something nefarious was going on. … And I was really in a panic. It’s horrible. I was just panicked to think that I may no longer be able to afford the home that I grew up in, just very frightening. And it still is very frightening. It’s not fair, and there’s nothing fair in this whole situation,’ Mitchell said. ‘What can I say, but it’s unfair, and I don’t understand the law. They’re squeezing blood out of people. They’ve gone beyond squeezing people.’”

The Review Journal in Nevada. “The Las Vegas City Council on Wednesday upheld $55,000 in civil penalties against a homeowner it accused of illegally operating a short-term rental, despite warnings that he was violating the city’s short-term rental ordinance. The daily fines of $500 account for 110 days the city alleges X Management LLC, had rented a house near Oakey Boulevard and Arville Street. ‘$55,000 on top of my mortgage is putting the place into, basically foreclosure,’ owner Jonathon Foulks told the council. ‘It’s way too steep of a fine for what I did.’ Foulks told the council Wednesday that he had stopped renting the property until he established an LLC, which he thought had protected him. ‘It’s off the books, as soon as this all happened it’s done, the property is actually losing a ton of money right now, it’s unrented, can’t find anybody to rent it,’ he said. ‘As soon as I realized that the LLC wasn’t a good idea, I stopped it.’ ‘It’s over the top,’ Foulks said about the $55,000, ‘It’s basically gonna make me bankrupt.’”

“Mayor Carolyn Goodman told Foulks that she understood his financial situation. ‘It’s a sad situation, but it is what it is, and that motion to appeal has been denied,’ she said.”

NBC Chicago in Illinois. “A new lawsuit filed against the lender behind the controversial real estate coaching company ‘iFLIP Chicago’ alleges that the company took advantage of inexperienced Black investors in an effort to seize land near the future home of the Obama Presidential Center on Chicago’s South Side. ‘We are at risk of losing over $200,000,’ Ameera Haamid, an iFLIP Investor who shared her story with us earlier this year said. Haamid is one of at least 20 amateur investors who were recruited by iFLIP Chicago. Under Ramo Bey’s guidance, the investors said they signed up for high-interest commercial loans to purchase investment properties on Chicago’s South Side, and to fund the needed renovations.”

“Here’s where the investors contend things went wrong – in lawsuits, investors said once they had the commercials loans, they were hit with thousands of dollars in unexpected default interest fees, despite making their monthly payments on time. It was enough of a setback to send several investors into foreclosure, like Haamid and local realtor Tatianna Barnett. ‘We’re just stuck in a limbo with properties that we bought, that were unable to finish,’ Barnett said. So where did the money go? ‘We have no idea where the money is. I have lost $169,000,’ Barnett said. ‘I have a lender that’s saying ‘I’m not going to give you this money…your money’s gone.’”

The Real Deal on California. “John Kralik, a real estate investor that the Securities and Exchange Commission alleged misused funds designated for fix-and-flip deals, is now at the center of a federal criminal probe. The U.S. Attorney’s Office is conducting a federal criminal investigation related to the same conduct as the SEC’s allegations, according to court records. ‘Mr. Kralik now faces both this civil action and the looming threat of a criminal indictment,’ his lawyers said in a memo this week. Last month, the SEC charged Newport Beach-based Kralik and his firm JKV Capital for allegedly lying to investors and misappropriating their money. From 2017 through this year, Kralik funneled more than $1.6 million of investor cash into a Mercedes-Benz, paying off his home mortgage and a vacation in Mexico, the SEC alleged in its complaint.”

“That money was supposed to go to buy distressed homes, renovate them and flip them for a profit — a goal Kralik had told potential investors in prospectuses and memos, according to the SEC. Kralik raised money through Regulation D, a securities rule that lets investors fundraise without regulatory oversight. But the SEC dinged Kralik for not doing what he told investors he would. Instead, money allegedly went to his mortgage, a waterfront social club, a vacation in Cabo San Lucas and a nanny for his children.”

London Free Press in Canada. “London’s housing market began the second half of the year the same way it ended the first: on a rather sluggish note. The drop in year-over-year sales for the region, which also includes Strathroy, St. Thomas, and portions of Elgin and Middlesex counties, comes as the average resale price of a home dropped by more than $16,000 last month. July’s average resale price was $654,593, down from June’s $671,309, LSTAR reported. From one that heavily favoured sellers, where properties were regularly selling above asking price, London’s market has moved into more balanced territory.”

“Kathy Amess is chair of the local real estate association. She said the market’s performance may seem especially weak now that the frantic pace has slowed, but the same trends are being seen across the country. ‘I’m not really concerned that the market is in a poor position,’ Amess said. ‘I think that we’re just in a more balanced position, and that’s not somewhere that we’re used to being, because we’ve been in these high periods for a few years. I think there’s some mental adjustment that needs to happen with people’s perception of some of the numbers.’”

CTV News in Canada. “A 37th-floor luxury condo in the heart of Toronto’s entertainment district that sold for a $320,000 loss is an example of a condo market that hasn’t been this tough in decades, Realtors and observers say. The three-bedroom unit, on King Street near the site of the Toronto International Film Festival faced an uphill battle to be sold this week at $1.23 million – and that was after several previous attempts failed, said the listing realtor, Rebecca Romeo. ‘We’re in a buyer’s market all right,’ Romeo said in an interview, pointing out that many other agents in the same building faced the same headwinds, as Realtors felt pressure to up their game to make any sale at all.”

“Her client, she said, was happy with the deal even though it was about 21 per cent less than the $1.55 million he paid for it in 2021, as it allowed him to finally move his equity elsewhere, she said. ‘The client wanted to change that chapter of his life and move on. He was happy with the sale price,’ she said. The glut of condos for sale in the Greater Toronto Area has plenty of other owners unable to sell as a combination of factors allow buyers to be choosier. One factor in the glut is that the builders of newer condos were marketing to investors, rather than to the end user of the building. ‘We’re getting a lot of product at a bad time…some of the people are unfortunately taking losses in the next few months,’ said Pouyan Safapour of Devron Developments.”

Domain News in Australia. “Home sellers are dropping their asking prices as buyers struggle to keep up with sky-high housing costs, pointing to further declines later this year. It comes as Sydney and Melbourne buyers have more homes to choose from after a rise in overall listings in the year to July. Auction clearance rates have dropped below 70 per cent in recent weeks, meaning more than three in 10 homes fail to sell at auction, signalling a more balanced market. ‘Asking prices have been a good leading indicator of actual prices, so our expectation is a fall in housing prices for the September quarter,’ said SQM Research director Louis Christopher. ‘[Asking prices] is a representation of vendor confidence. When vendors lose confidence, they’re willing to negotiate more, that’s fundamentally what’s going on.’”

“He said with the expectation of rate cuts evaporating earlier this year did confidence in the market. ‘Let’s remember when we started the year, there was a great expectation of a rate cut in the March or June quarter. But that never happened. That’s why confidence sapped,’ he said. PRD chief economist Dr Diaswati Mardiasmo said sellers were forced to cut their expectations because of cautious buyers. ‘The buyers are there… Sellers are cottoning on that the prices they were asking for before is getting a look in, but it’s not translating into proper sales,’ Mardiasmo said. ‘That’s why asking prices have dropped because they obviously want their property sold and sold in less time than it currently takes…we’re seeing longer days on market,’ she said, noting discounting was on the rise too.”

“Menck White auctioneer Clarence White said Sydney’s property market has been stagnant for some months. ‘It’s been tricky with buyers. There’s been very low confidence with buyers. It is a market gripped by price caution and buyer uncertainty,’ White said, adding many were waiting for a rate cut. He said many sellers who were going to auction with too high an asking price were failing to get engagement from buyers. ‘There is a strong penalty if they’re not pricing right. That’s sort of forcing agents and vendors to put attractive price guides on properties. Buyers are price cautious, and they’re looking for value.’”