A report from the Wall Street Journal. “The residential real-estate market is on its biggest tear since 2006, just before the housing bubble burst. ‘It’s the hottest market I’ve ever seen,’ said Sean Chandler, president of the central Texas division at home builder Chesmar Homes. ‘The buyers that come in are like, ‘I just want a home. I don’t care at this point what it costs.’”
“In Phoenix, which boasts some of the fastest home-price appreciation in the country, Pearl and Andrew Kleinhans saved for two years to buy their first home. But even with $200,000 saved for a down payment, they kept losing out last fall in bidding wars with cash buyers. They started with a budget of $600,000, but ended up having to spend $850,000 in January for a four-bedroom home.”
“‘What can you do?’ Ms. Kleinhans said. ‘It was a bit out of our price range, or what I intended to spend. But that’s just what you have to do in order to get your foot in the door.’”
The Canadian Press. “Buyers and sellers in Ottawa are navigating a never-before-seen real estate market. Some people in the city have lucked out, but their stories are rare. Katie Hession – a social media content creator – and her husband, purchased a semi-detached home in Old Ottawa South for less than $500,000 seven years ago. They saw their neighbour get more than $700,000 for their home last fall and decided they would try to sell.”
“In what she calls a ‘complete unicorn situation’ they were the only offer on a property about 10 minutes from their current home and they got it. Their old home sold over asking. Ms. Hession says they have already completed a few renovations on their new home. Despite her agents telling her she could make some ‘serious cash’ if they flipped it, they would still have to try to find a place to live in a market that’s even hotter now than it was at the end of 2020.”
“She says if they had waited even a few months (they closed in September) they wouldn’t have decided to sell. ‘The market, the way it is right now,’ Ms. Hession says with a laugh, ‘scares me.’”
The Bay Area Newsgroup in California. “Bankrupt developer Sanjeev Acharya and his company Silicon Sage Builders have given up the battle to rescue their Bay Area real estate empire, court records show. Acharya had filed a Chap. 11 bankruptcy case in January to reorganize his shattered finances, but that quest has now failed.”
“Issues with Acharya’s Bay Area real estate business came to light in December when the Securities and Exchange Commission filed wide-ranging allegations of fraud against Acharya and Silicon Sage Builders, the company that Acharya heads. The receiver’s actions included Acharya’s termination as principal executive of Silicon Sage Builders.”
“‘The debtors are unemployed,’ Acharya, his wife Mina Acharya, and Silicon Sage stated in court papers in connection with the bankruptcy case conversion. ‘The debtors believe that they are not going to be able to propose a confirmable plan given the total debt in the case and uncertain outcome to the federal receivership overseeing all entities in which they are involved.’”
The Real Deal on New York. “Mountbatten Equities has sold 10 units at its Gramercy Park condominium, Rutherford Place, to an entity that identifies itself as its mezzanine lender. The buyer, a limited liability company called 305 Second Avenue Mezz Lender, bought the units for $18.64 million in early March, property records show. There’s been increasing interest in bulk condo buys among institutional investors, but completed transactions have been few and far between as many developers balk at the deep discounts would-be buyers are seeking.”
“The largest bulk deal to date is Elad Group’s $90 million sale of 70 units at its Hell’s Kitchen condo to Tishman Realty. Those units traded at a 40.5 percent discount compared to ones that are already in contract.”
The Real Deal on Florida. “A group of Miami-Dade County landlords, condo associations and others are pushing to end the moratorium on executing residential writs of possession filed during the pandemic. ‘There are a lot of mom and pop landlords on the brink of bankruptcy,’ said attorney Michael Farrar, who co-filed the suit. ‘and not being able to pay their own rents.’”
From WCAX in Vermont. “Steve Restelli rents out a 100-year-old home on Merchant Street in Barre. Even before the pandemic struck last spring, his tenants had stopped paying rent. Restelli tried to evict them for nonpayment but the eviction moratorium was enacted. Restelli was stuck with his tenants, and the house then became a drug hub.”
“‘When you have tenants that are dealing drugs, you have to prove there’s a crime before you can get them out,’ Restelli said.”
“The tenants were finally arrested on drug charges, and he’s now left on the hook for an estimated $50,000 in damage including a chunk out of the ceiling from a shotgun blast, a broken fence, rotting food, burst pipes that buckled the hardwood floors, broken windows and leftover needles in the bedroom. Restelli plans to clean up the house and keep it on the market, but until then, he wishes there was a way to better mediate landlord-renter issues.”
“‘Most people can solve problems by talking, but when you can’t talk, when there’s an eviction moratorium, when you can’t even present anything as a landlord, you have nothing. You have no rights. You have a house that gets destroyed and you’re helpless,’ Restelli said.”