It’s Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. “Redfin economists expect the 30-year fixed mortgage rate to continue to rise steadily to 3.9% over the course of the year. For the four-week period ending January 30, the monthly mortgage payment on the median asking price was up 23% from a year earlier to an all-time high of $1,877.”
“‘A shift to an equity-centric market is already underway, and as of the third quarter of last year, borrowers were pulling more cash out of their homes than they had in 14 years,’ said Andy Walden, vice president of strategy with Black Knight.”
“For new homes in December, there was six months of supply and inventory was up 34.8%.”
“Nearly 70% of homes sold in Ada County were going over asking in May, with an average of $44,075 over the listing price. The amount over listing had dropped by December, with houses on average going for $16,487 over asking. Boise Regional Realtors noted that house sales appear to be slowing down in Ada County – and more homes are now on the market. At the end of December, there were 582 homes available, more than 75% more than in December 2020. A total of 10,855 home sales were recorded last year, an 11.8% drop from 2020 and the lowest number of total annual home sales for Ada County since 2017.”
“Now listed for $100 million: Great Island, a roughly 60-acre private spread in Connecticut. Great Island originally listed for $175 million in 2016.”
“Purchased for $915,000 in November of 2016, the one-bedroom cottage at 4353 17th Street, which sits above the Castro in Corona Heights, returned to the market priced at $998,000 in October of 2020. And the re-sale of 4353 17th Street has now closed escrow with a contract price of $858,000, which is officially ‘over asking!’ according to all industry stats and aggregate reports but 6.2 percent below its 2016 value on an apples-to-apples basis.”
“A recent study by San Francisco city government researchers found 1 in 10 of the city’s condos and homes are sitting empty. For example, at the corner of Third Avenue and Lincoln Way, an entire building sits empty. It’s been boarded up for quite a while, enough time for neighbors to wonder what’s ever going to be done with it. San Francisco Supervisor Dean Preston said it’s a prime example of a persistent problem in the city. ‘We see in a lot of neighborhoods, buildings that have just been abandoned,’ he said. ‘They sit vacant not just for a year or two years, sometimes five, ten years or more.’”
“Landlords in New York City lodged 895 eviction filings the week of Jan. 16, the first week after the moratorium lifted. Clarence Hamer said he is owed tens of thousands of dollars that he will never get back. Hamer lives upstate and bought the Brownsville property as his first-ever real estate investment, but now he plans to sell. ‘I’m not going to be a landlord in the city of New York. I can’t. I’m just defeated,’ he said. ‘The plan was to give it to my kids, but I’m so far behind in mortgage payments that I’m forced to sell in order to recoup any type of loss.’”
“Canada’s federal banking regulator described the housing market as being in the late stages of a ‘speculative fever,’ and warned that prices could plunge by as much as 20 per cent in some markets. A ‘herd mentality’ kicked in as prices steadily rose; and the Bank of Canada dropped its benchmark lending rate to effectively zero. As those forces recede, housing markets will cool, and some might even correct, Peter Routledge said. ‘In some markets where you had a really rapid increase in prices, you could see a fall of 10 (per cent), 20 per cent, even,’ Routledge said. ‘But that will just be a return back to a little bit more sanity after a sudden buildup in prices.’”
“Toronto and Vancouver, the country’s priciest markets, have weathered similar declines before. ‘You’re talking peak-to-trough declines of 20 per cent,’ in those cities between 2015 and 2017, he said. ‘So we can absorb that volatility.’ The frenzy has caused Toronto-like price increases in places such as Ottawa, Montreal, and Moncton, New Brunswick. However, investors’ interest in the housing market likely is about to decline. ‘With rates going up, with the general recognition that, ‘Boy, housing is pretty fully valued,’ I’m not sure your expected return in the housing sector … I think a smart investor would think twice and maybe look at other outlets,’ he said.”
“Selling prices and sales volumes for Auckland residential properties dropped last month. ‘New listings for the month at 1135 were strong, and we ended the month with 3827 properties on our books, giving buyers a level of choice not seen for 15 months,’ added Barfoot & Thompson managing director Peter Thompson.”
“The median house price in New South Wales’ capital city is now $1.5 million, according to the latest figures. Just one year earlier, in December 2020, the median price was $1 million. Skyrocketing values have meant the deposit required to buy (with a 20 per cent deposit) has jumped from $209,500, to $304,000. Some may prefer to ‘sit and hold’ and mortgage broker Aaron Christie-David said this was an option but it wasn’t a strategy because it was not guaranteed. ‘We are still expecting to see property prices grow 10 to 12 per cent in some markets,’ he said. Even if prices did start to fall, the market would have peaked anyway and any fall will come off higher prices anyway.”
“China Evergrande Group will continue with efforts to sell a plot of undeveloped land in Hong Kong even after the appointment of a receiver by a creditor, a person with direct knowledge of the matter said. The developer has been struggling to repay creditors, suppliers and investors in wealth management products. Nearly $20 billion of its international bonds are now deemed to be in default.”
“Negative yields might be a thing of the past if ever-bolder market bets on monetary policy normalization pay out. The world’s enormous pool of negative-yielding debt shrank by a record 20% in just a day. Sizzling inflation is pushing central banks to scrap extreme measures. ‘Every single central bank last year resisted the notion that inflation was anything other than fleetingly transitory, and now one by one they are being forced to try and play catch up,’ said Stephen Miller, an investment consultant at GSFM, a unit of Canada’s CI Financial Corp. ‘They underestimated what pedal-to-the-metal stimulus can do to inflation and now bond markets are paying the price.’”
“Lynn Worton is petrified she will be unable to pay her bills and that she will be driven out of her home. The part-time supermarket worker, whose monthly wage is less than the energy price hike, said the Chancellor’s support for families in the face of rising energy bills was not enough. ‘Money needs to go up same as everything else, wages, benefits,’ said Ms Worton, from Worthing in West Sussex. ‘It needs to rise to what people are paying out. It’s not just the energy bills, is it? It’s petrol, it’s food, it’s everything.’”
“Ms Worton has recently moved into a new home from temporary accommodation after her landlord sold her previous property. Upon hearing annual bills for a typical household will go up by £693, Ms Worton said: ‘Well, it’s a joke. I work part-time and I get between £500 and £600 a month. It’s obviously worrying. I’ve had to choose between eating and heating [before], same as a lot of people. Do you put the heating on or do you eat? There’s not enough money to do both.’ To cope in cold weather, she relies on ‘lots of blankets, lots of layers, lots of socks.’”