It’s Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. “Residents are noticing more homes going up for sale around the Fort Wayne area. Scott Pressler, co-owner of Keller Williams Realty Group, told WANE 15 the inventory is up 26% over last year. WANE 15 also spoke with Rachel Blakeman, the Community Research Institute Director at Purdue Fort Wayne. She agrees with Pressler that prices of homes will not be as low as they were four years ago. ‘For people thinking that prices are going to go back to where we were at 2020 we see no evidence in that happening in the near future, or frankly ever,’ said Blakeman.”
“‘If you had a $200,000 house, it was selling for $230,000,’ said Carl Purifoy, Memphis Redfin Agent. ‘It was always selling for over now people are trying to list their homes with those hopes and they are overvaluing.’”
“The Sarasota-Bradenton area real estate market has undergone a ‘market correction,’ with conditions more similar now to those before the COVID-19 pandemic, than the supercharged a buying frenzy that resulted after the health crisis eased, with bidding wars and record prices, according to a report on July sales. In July, Sarasota County property owners sold 642 single-family homes, which was 1.4% more than in July 2023. This indicates that demand for property has not evaporated, although the median price that a single-family home sold for fell 12.1% to $470,000, according to the RASM report. Both Sarasota and Manatee counties saw declining median sales prices in the townhome and condo market. In Sarasota County, 285 multifamily properties were sold with the median sale price coming in at $365,000 — a 6.3% decrease from July 2023. Manatee County had 225 closed sales in July with the median sale’s price on those sales decreasing 6% compared to July 2023.”
“While homeowners have been at the forefront of Louisiana’s ongoing insurance crisis, landlords might be facing an even tougher battle. Drew Remson, president of America’s Mortgage Resource and a landlord with 20 rental properties, said the insurance industry’s increases to cover losses have been harder on the investment side than the residential side. He says the sky-high cost of property insurance is upending virtually every facet of housing in New Orleans. ‘Both the rental market and the sales market are struggling right now because of insurance,’ said Remson.”
“Residents in a San Francisco neighborhood are expressing their concerns and frustrations after a property owner has yet to fix a burned building. Last August, a fire ripped through a 14-condo building project on Octavia Street, but since nothing has been done to the development since then, residents said it is bringing squatters. ‘I think it’s been vacant long enough and people are squatting here and we’ve already had two fires here,’ said Jay Moses of San Francisco. In April, the San Francisco Department of Building Inspection issued an order to the building’s owner requiring them to secure the property. The department said nothing had been done. The building’s owner did not have a working address, email or phone number for NBC Bay Area to request comment. Neighbors said they hope action will be taken so they won’t have to peep at the eyesore anymore.”
“Embattled Sonoma real estate mogul Ken Mattson executed property transactions in which he and his companies were both buyer and seller, artificially inflating their prices, a forensic accountant alleges in court documents. The more interesting revelation, at least to the dozens of worried LeFever Mattson investors and the people who have followed this roller coaster of a case, came in the accountant’s explanation of events preceding the Chapter 11 filing of Windscape Apartments LLC, a holding company with a number of properties in its portfolio.”
“‘Mr. Mattson caused certain LPs and LLCs, including (Windscape Apartments), to purchase properties owned by Mr. Mattson’s own investment companies — by executing the transactions himself on behalf of both buyer and seller,’ Bradley Sharp wrote to U.S. District Court bankruptcy judge Charles Novack on Aug. 14. ‘Some of the Mattson Property Sales were at inflated prices and conveyed properties encumbered by high-interest loans, some of which are now in default. The Mattson Property Sales have clouded title on a significant portion of the LeFever Mattson real estate portfolio.’ That portfolio, built by childhood friends Mattson and LeFever over 20-plus years, includes more than 200 properties and is said to be valued at somewhere around $400 million. Sharp referred to ‘a decade or more of financial misconduct by Mr. Mattson.’”
“Two months ago, news of the Dallas Police and Fire Pension system netting a 2% return over 10 years, one of the poorest performances in the state, rankled most anyone who cared about how public safety officers would fare post-retirement. ‘It just looks to me like private equity and real estate over the past 10 years — whatever they’ve been holding — has not worked out right for them,’ said Jean-Pierre Aubry, with the Center for Retirement Research, adding the private equity and real estate investments were a drag on the system’s performance. Executive Director Kelly Gottschalk said the pension system was still saddled with investments made between 2005 and 2008 that are incredibly hard to exit.”
“An issue with all of these investments is the previous leadership at the pension system, composed mainly of police officers and firefighters, bought real estate and paid far exceeded what the property was actually worth. Not only was the board overpaying, it was buying more. Acres of empty land in rural Idaho and Colorado. A wine resort in California. Luxury homes in Hawaii. Between 2005 and 2008, the fund committed $1.9 billion in the private market. This means the fund promised to pay for projects whose bills could increase years later. In the worst year — 2006 — the fund committed $833 million in various private equity and real estate portfolios. Then, the housing market crashed in 2008. Properties suffered. The system began pouring more dollars to save the investments.”
“At the start of the pandemic, a wave of Torontonians traded their cubicles and cramped condos for remote work and the wide open spaces of cottage country. Now, with many companies mandating a return to the office and the allure of rural isolation having lost its lustre, some urban transplants are eager to move back to the city. The snag: they’re finding themselves priced out of the Toronto real estate market. Here, Laura Garetson, a GTA-based mortgage broker, explains the financial barriers city skippers are facing.”
“‘Demand surged for cottage rentals, and there were tons of social media posts about the revenue some Airbnb hosts were earning. In the most coveted areas like Muskoka, people boasted about making upward of $1,000 a night. Some of my clients bought over market value, believing their rental income would offset their costs. Their decisions made sense, but only in the short term. Outside of the high season, renting out a cottage isn’t anywhere near as lucrative—especially during a mild winter like last year, where activities like skiing and snowmobiling also saw demand plummet. Right now, many of these Airbnb owners are operating at a loss and struggling to sell. There simply aren’t many takers in the market right now for cottages at virtually every price point.’”
“Hundreds of unsecured creditors – including employees and businesses – owed money by the Stewart Milne Group are to receive nothing after the firm collapsed earlier this year. Founded by the former Aberdeen FC Chairman in 1975, the housebuilder went into administration in January, with 217 jobs lost and a number of existing projects scrapped. Hundreds of subcontracts, customers and staff are now facing a £33.4m black hole in retrieving money owed, with 196 claims received from former employees since the collapse. One customer told STV News earlier this year they lost at least £4,000 on their new home and received a generic email that instructed house buyers to make ‘alternative plans.’ The group had its headquarters in Aberdeen with offices in, Edinburgh, Glasgow and other UK bases and had been in significant debt for more than a decade.”
“The State Administrative Tribunal has stepped in to stop embattled residential builder Nicheliving from being deregistered, despite acknowledging the ‘distress’ it would cause customers left with incomplete homes. The decision means 155 customers hoping to unlock home indemnity insurance to pay another builder to complete what Nicheliving started now have to put all their hopes in its ability to finish the job. Client Barbara Day and her partner George Fleith were among those awaiting the decision, having sunk more than $1.5 million of their life savings into a Nicheliving home in 2022.”
“‘We sold up everything when we retired in 2023 to move from Port Macquarie and build our dream home in Perth,’ Day said. ‘It was the collective effort of our lives, what you see [pictured] is $1.6 million worth of investment, and we don’t know where that moneys gone. It definitely hasn’t gone into finishing our home.’ The couple, aged in their late 60s, are paying $45,000 a year for a furnished rental having expected their Como home to be finished at March 2024. George has since returned to full-time work to keep some cash flow. ‘We feel like fools, Nicheliving have made us feel like idiots,’ Day said. I’m a senior-trained ICU nurse and my husband owned a company, and we feel like we’ve just been shoved off and not worried about … too bad. I went to the dentist today and the dentist said ‘Are you alright?’ and I just burst into tears. We’re not alright, this is just killing us.’”