A report from the Capital Times in Wisconsin. “‘I do believe landlords are preparing and I expect a huge increase once the moratorium is lifted,’ said Laura Nachazel, a court manager in the Dane County Clerk of Courts office. ‘I am sure many people are using the stay to live rent-free and abuse the system, but that is only my guess. I do get calls from unhappy landlords asking how they are to pay their mortgage and how one-sided this all is.’”
“Chris Mokler, a lobbyist with the Wisconsin Apartment Association, said landlords with tenants who are not paying rent are, in turn, squeezed on their own bills, mortgage payments and property taxes in an increasingly uncertain economy. He pointed out that landlords who fall behind on mortgage payments could see banks foreclose on their properties. ‘What are the landlords gonna do?’ Mokler said. ‘If landlords can’t make their payments, the renters are going to lose their homes. If you have 10 properties and you’re only receiving payments on eight, you’re probably hurting.’”
From KATU in Oregon. “While state lawmakers extended Oregon’s eviction moratorium for an additional six months, they didn’t do the same for foreclosure protections. ‘I don’t understand how our Legislature can differentiate the effect of eviction based on ownership of the property,” said a Multnomah County homeowner who reached out to KATU News. She did not want to share her name.”
“The homeowner said she is in the 30% of homeowners without a federally backed loan. ‘Through no fault of my own, I’m in a situation where I could lose my home that I’ve had for years and all the equity in it,’ said the homeowner.”
The Real Deal on New York. “Just because Manhattan’s deal volume is improving, doesn’t mean all is well. Price discounts have reached their highest levels in a decade, according to a fourth quarter report from Ryan Serhant’s new brokerage, Serhant. The report is based on market-wide data. Across the borough, the average discount on closed sales from initial asking price was 10.4 percent. For new development condos, the average discount was 8.7 percent.”
“For higher-priced units, the gap gets wider. The discount for homes listed over $10 million was 23 percent, while for new development condos it was 25 percent. Then there’s the vast supply of condos and co-ops for sale in Manhattan. That total has also reached the highest level in a decade, with about 9,550 homes listed for sale. That’s 28 percent above the number from a year ago, according to Serhant’s head of research Garrett Derderian. (There are 18,000 unsold units when taking into account shadow inventory — units that aren’t officially listed on the market.)”
“Derderian said that at the current sales pace, it would take 6.6 years for the units to be sold. ‘There’s a lot of inventory out there,’ he said.”
From Bisnow Washington DC. “The D.C. office market finished its difficult year with another weak quarter in Q4, as the pandemic-induced drop in demand brought vacancy to another record high. The District experienced 620K SF of negative net absorption in Q4, bringing its total 2020 occupancy loss to 1.4M SF, according to CBRE’s year-end market report. The report pegged D.C.’s vacancy rate at a record-high 15.9%, up from 15.4% in Q3.”
“CBRE Associate Director of Mid-Atlantic Research Wei Xie said Q4 was the worst quarter of the year for the D.C. market. During previous quarters, some deals that were initiated before the coronavirus pandemic had closed, but those had largely disappeared by October, adding that sublease availability also rose in the quarter. ‘Q4 was really a catch-all from a negative sense. We’re in the eye of the storm when it comes to office market real estate demand.’”
From Bisnow on Texas. “A coronavirus surge and lingering fears about indoor disease transmission caused huge year-over-year traffic declines at DFW-area shopping malls during the hallmark Christmas shopping days of Dec. 22 through 24, according to new data. Indoor malls suffered traffic reductions ranging from 30% to more than 50% in that time frame. ‘We had a feeling this holiday season may be a lot better than many expected, and then obviously the tremendous resurgence of COVID cases and the continuity of ‘anything that can go wrong will go wrong’ in 2020,’ said spokesperson Ethan Chernofsky.”
The Wall Street Journal. “Hotel owners are bracing for a difficult 2021, as the sector continues to reel from a historic drop in bookings caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. Even though the industry’s worst year in living memory ended with a glimmer of hope, many in the industry expect the celebrations to be short lived. Some lenders are starting to lose patience, brokers and investors say, which could lead to an increase in foreclosures and distressed-property sales in the first half of 2021.”
“Nayan Patel, who owns seven hotels in the Washington, D.C., area, including the Georgetown Inn, said his revenues are down around 80% compared with a year ago. Business travelers, formerly an important source of revenue, have virtually disappeared. ‘If you look at our numbers, they’re abysmal,’ he said. ‘I don’t try to look at them every day, because it’s too depressing. If you look at the calendar for next year for the convention center for D.C., it’s virtually empty. That’s a major problem.’”
“Mark Schoenholtz, a vice chairman at real-estate services firm Newmark, said he expects an increase in distressed-hotel sales in early 2021 as new spikes in infections lead to property closures. ‘That’s going to force the hand of both owners and lenders in bringing things to market,’ he said.”
From SF Weekly in California. “It’s a story that never gets old: San Francisco rents keep falling. Over the course of the year, the rent declines have been so substantial that the median two-bedroom apartment in the city is now renting for what the median one-bedroom was going for a year ago. In December, rents for one-bedroom apartments in San Francisco fell another 1.5 percent, to $2,660, down 24 percent year over year, according to Zumper. One-bedroom rents are now down 28.5 percent from a June 2019 peak of $3,720. Rents for two-bedroom apartments in the city fell 2 percent in December, to $3,500, and are now 22 percent lower than a year ago.”
“These declines are mirrored in Silicon Valley cities like Mountain View, Menlo Park, and Redwood City, providing further evidence for the so-called ‘tech exodus’ to places like Utah and Texas. Oakland has also seen a dramatic, 22 percent year-over-year decrease in median one-bedroom rents. One-bedroom rents in San Jose are down about 15 percent. Price declines for two-bedroom apartments have generally been lower than for one-bedrooms, as people seek more spacious digs.”
From Socket Site in California. “The average asking rent for an apartment in Oakland has ticked down another 1.4 percent over the past two months to $2,300, which is down 19 percent on a year-over-year basis and nearly 23 percent below a 2016-era peak of closer to $3,000 a month, with the average asking rent for a one-bedroom in the city having dropped to under $2,000 a month versus closer to $2,500 at peak.”
“At the same time, listing activity for available apartments in Oakland, which had remained relatively stable through the second quarter of 2020, has doubled versus the same time last year.”
The Los Angeles Times in California. “Southern California’s historic year of luxury real estate ended with a bang just before Christmas, as Owlwood — a Holmby Hills mansion that once listed for $180 million — sold for $88 million. The massive off-market deal, which sold as three separate parcels, closed Dec. 23, The Times has confirmed.”
“In 2009, it was acquired by a more controversial figure: Robert Shapiro, a real estate developer who a decade later was sentenced to 25 years in prison for running a $1.3-billion Ponzi scheme. He paid $90 million for the property through his firm, Woodbridge Group of Companies, and tried to double his money in 2017, listing it for $180 million before trimming the price a year later to $115 million after Woodbridge filed for bankruptcy. The estate was sold as part of the bankruptcy agreement.”