A report from WTMJ in Wisconsin. “Shorewest realtor Essam Elsafy is counseling his clients through this frenzied housing market. He says acting fast is a necessity. He shared a conversation he recently had with house hunters. ‘We saw a house that we liked. They were in the house for 15 minutes and the conversation went like this: ‘You have been here for 15 minutes. You have to decide right now whether you’re going to spend several hundred thousand of dollars and they looked at me and said, ‘Essam, we spend more time picking out a pair of shoes,’ he said.”
The Denver Channel. “Bozeman is experiencing a real estate boom. Many of the locals are trying to make sure they’re not left out in the cold on the real estate run. It’s been an issue for local Sean Hawksford and his wife. ‘$300,000 turns into $400,000, turns into $500,000, turns into $700,000, turns into ordinary looking properties selling for nearly $1 million. The first house that we made an offer on in August has increased in value over $100,000 since we made an offer on it,’ said Hawksford.”
“So, Hawksford got desperate and did something a little different. He made a sign out of cardboard and got on the side of the road and begged anyone to sell him a home.”
From KOIN. “When the pandemic began, the Oregon Employment Department was shocked to see the average wage going up. Soon, they realized that the occupations most impacted by layoffs were low-wage jobs. ‘When you cut low-wage workers out of the calculation for the average wage, it actually artificially boosted the average wage,’ said economist Damon Runberg. Runberg also pointed out that a lot of people received government financial assistance during the pandemic, whether through increased unemployment benefits or stimulus payments, and said that may have allowed people to still be able to afford to buy a home.”
From Fort Myers Florida Weekly. “When Randy Thibaut described the real estate market now emerging from that seemingly otherworldly place people call 2020, he used the word ‘hallucinogenic.’ ‘We have some factors on our side: expect booming tourism for the remainder of the 2021 season,’ Mr. Thibaut said. ‘And we have some great dynamics fueling our real estate market now, particularly fear. COVID fears come from everywhere. Will I get a house? What’s going to happen with taxes?’”
“‘Am I an optimist?’ asks Mr. Thibaut. ‘No, I’m not. I’m a practicalist, if there is such a word (there is, now). I love to be enthusiastic but I’ve also had my teeth kicked in by the (recessionary) downtown. We’re exuberant that we’ve experienced this run. But we’re still cautious about sustainability through 2021, and beyond.’”
From CBS Bay Area in California. “The real estate selling season is off to a hot start this year and the San Francisco condo market has significantly strengthened since last summer. February’s San Francisco condo sales were up about 48% from last year. And year-over-year, the median condo sales price was down 8%, according to Compass. ‘We have never been busier working with people trying to help them find homes. So yes, there’s an exodus but there’s still a very strong number of people moving here and relocating within here,’ said broker Gregg Lynn.”
The San Francisco Examiner in California. “As San Francisco continues to grapple with the lack of affordable housing, Supervisor Dean Preston is putting a spotlight on vacant units. ‘Tens of thousands of units, and we don’t know how many, sit vacant,’ Preston said. ‘How do we activate them?’ Among the questions Preston wants to answer is if the higher vacancy rate is due to landlords being unable to find tenants because people are leaving or if they are ‘unwilling to lower the rents to new market levels.’”
From Bisnow on Georgia. “Atlanta’s second-largest architectural firm is suing the developer of a long-planned Midtown luxury condominium tower for nearly $800K in unpaid work. Perkins&Will filed a lawsuit in Fulton County Superior Court last month against Olympia Heights Management, seeking payment on two separate invoices for its work on No2 Opus Place, a project that would be the tallest residential tower in Atlanta. Last July, OHM obtained a loan for $25.7M with New York-based SKW Funding, refinancing $22M in debt on the property at 98th 14th St. held by The Ardent Cos., the latest in a string of short-term loans taken by OHM on the property. SKW Funding describes itself as a private lending and distressed debt platform.”
From News 1130 in Canada. “Some experts say it’s time for the government to step in and do something about the severe supply constraint on the Lower Mainland as the housing market heats up once again. Some properties in Metro Vancouver are being relisted for hundreds of thousands of dollars more within a short timeframe. In East Vancouver, realtor Kit Sorongon had a house listed at 1.39 million, which sold in days for 1.408 million. Sorongon says the final price was market value, and he didn’t underprice it.”
“‘When people see a 200, 300 thousand sale over asking, that doesn’t mean it went up by 200 in just a month — they priced it a little lower to create a lot of activity and bidding, and realtors know the real value of the market,’ Sorongon explains.”
From Gulf News. “Prime Dubai properties have been snapped up in the past few months by buyers taking advantage of decade-low prices, easy financing and an economy open for business. Still, while prices of high-end villas have stabilised, apartment prices as a whole in the emirate were mostly still falling in February, a price index shows. S&P credit analyst Sapna Jagtiani does not expect Dubai’s real estate market to recover to pre-pandemic levels until some time next year. ‘Prices are down by 40%-50% from the last peak (2014)…this is why we think a recovery in prices to similar levels will be slow and long,’ she said.”
From Saigon Online. “Vietnamese tourism before 2020 was growing by 30 percent in the domestic segment and 15 percent in the foreigner segment year-on-year, leading to rapid construction of resorts, hotels and the birth of new forms of real estate like condotels (a mix between a condo and hotel). Since the world was hit by Covid-19, however, project investors had to deal with massive profit loss, some failing to maintain contract deals with clients and secondary contractors.”
“The tourism segment of real estate is facing an oversupply and a lack of concrete regulations which points towards unsustainable development, according to the chairman of the HCMC Real Estate Association. Specifically, there are no guidelines on the conditions for raising capital, promoting planned projects for sales, nor is there a definitive contract form regarding condotels and other new forms of vacation homes, which could spell legal doom for future buyers. Despite all that, investors since March have decided to resume construction on many coastal projects.”
The Hong Kong Standard. “Thirty three out of 123 units on offer at Grand Victoria phase one in West Kowloon have been sold, the developers say. Five buyers have forfeited deposits of about HK$3.53 million after walking away from the purchases of five flats at LP6 in Tseung Kwan O. The five units, measuring between 307 square feet and 522 sq ft, were offered at between HK$5.56 million and HK$8.7 million.”
From Market Watch. “The recent surge in Australia’s home prices and rising evidence of deterioration in the quality of mortgage lending may force the hand of the country’s banking regulator before the end of the year. ‘We are starting to see some increase in risky lending, albeit from a low base. I’m expecting macro prudential tightening from later this year but given the speed with which lending and the property market is hotting up, it could come earlier,’ said Shane Oliver, chief economist at AMP Capital.”
“Interest-only home loans picked up to a 19.3% share in the fourth quarter from 18.7% in the third quarter, the highest ratio since mid-2019. Felicity Emmett, senior economist at ANZ Bank, said lending standards are definitely on the decline. ‘Given that house prices and finance have continued to rise strongly into the first quarter, I expect that there will be a further rise in the share of these higher risk loans,’ she said.”
The Australian Financial Review. “Tens of thousands of property owners face the risk of a credit crunch as they struggle to hold properties that are worth less than their loan, despite the recent record-breaking rise in house prices in Sydney and other capitals. The most exposed are property owners in inner-city Sydney and Parramatta, areas dominated by high-rise apartments.”
“More than one in six households (18.2 per cent) in the city and inner south are underwater or in negative equity, analysis by Digital Finance Analytics shows. This means that out of 30,076 mortgaged properties, 5414 apartments and 48 houses were valued lower than the current loan amount as of March 9, 2021.”
“Owners of such properties would find it difficult to refinance their loans to take advantage of the ultra-low interest rates, as the lower valuations would limit the amount they could borrow. If they are forced to sell, they might need to tap their other assets to plug the shortfall. ‘High-rise apartments are on the nose, with values falling in many of these areas, thanks to oversupply, flammable cladding, and defects,’ said DFA director Martin North.”
“For apartment investors, negative equity is just one part of the problem. They are also losing thousands of dollars in rents each month amid widespread apartment rental vacancies. Sydney inner-city landlords were the hardest hit, losing an average of $2653 each in February alone. Investors in the Strathfield, Burwood and Ashfield areas lost $2133 each during the month, and each Parramatta apartment landlord lost an average of $1877. Overall, Melbourne city investors lost a total of $11.78 million in rents during February, which works out to an average of $1954 in lost rent for each landlord.”
“‘For individual landlords, if they own a property in one of the areas with a high rental loss index, they are at risk of vacancy and there would likely be downward pressure on rents,’ said MCG managing director Mike Mortlock.”