A report from Mortgage Professional America. “Santander Bank LLC, a Spain-based global banking group with more than 145 million customers in the US, will have laid off more than 50 employees by the first week of April, according to a state regulatory filing. The move comes as Santander has opted to stop its mortgage origination business, according to multiple media reports. The cuts also come at a time when the mortgage industry is bracing for furloughs as the refinancing boom comes to an end in light of rising interest rates.”
“California-based Winnpointe Corp., doing business as Interactive Mortgage, plans to lay off more than 50 employees by April, according to a WARN notice. Zillow Group Inc. continues to lay off workers after the failure of its Zillow Offers home-flipping product, with 55 additional job cuts expected by April. In correspondence to state officials, the company wrote of plans to cut 19 jobs in Tampa, Fla., by April 18, and 36 more in Centennial, Colo., by March 21. Texas-based Stearns Lending LLC alerted officials of plans to lay off 348 employees by the end of January in a move prompted by the closure of its wholesale channel after its acquisition by Guaranteed Rate, one of the nation’s largest retail mortgage lenders.”
“All told, the four companies – Zillow Offers, Interactive Mortgage, Stearns Lending and Santander – collectively have cut 546 jobs since the beginning of the year. And late last year, Better.com unceremoniously cut 900 jobs during an infamous Zoom conference. In addition, Home Point Capital laid off nearly 10% of its workforce.”
A press release. “The number of homes bought and then sold by iBuyers soared to new heights in 2021. The median price of homes sold using an iBuying service dipped to $372,100 in Q4, but remained above the overall U.S. median sale price of $335,060. In 24 of the 33 metro areas for which data is available, the median price of homes sold using an iBuying service was less than the overall median sale price in that metro. Of homes that were bought and sold by an iBuyer in Q4, the median markup – the difference between the purchase price and sale price – was 1.1%. That’s up from a revised 0.7% in Q3, but is the second-lowest figure in any quarter since 2018, when Zillow began tracking this data. The median markup was 7% in Q4 2020 and reached a record high of 8.6% in Q1 2021.”
The San Antonio Express News. “Controversial celebrity house-flipper, Armando Montelongo has taken his $1.2 million Dominion-area mansion off the market after two months without any offers. The home-flipping, reality TV personality-turned-public speaker listed the lavish 6,000-square-foot home in December. The listing was pulled at the end of January. In 2014, Montelongo purchased the five-bedroom 4 and ½ bathroom home for $620,000, property records show. The home was last appraised at $833,480.”
From 5280 in Colorado. “Mark Donaldson called the police at 5:34 a.m. on August 14, 2020. He never saw the person who stole the bicycle, the electric saw, and the gas-powered weed wacker from the backyard of his house in east Denver. He remembers looking out his kitchen window early that morning; he remembers how the first trickle of light was filtering onto his dirt-and-grass lawn, illuminating the chain-link fence, the alleyway, and the broken padlock dangling from the gate. ‘Well, shit,’ he thought to himself.”
The San Francisco Chronicle in California. “Despite empty office buildings and rows of shuttered retail — and open air drug dealing that has become so bad that in December the city declared a state of emergency — residents are moving into the long-troubled heart of San Francisco’s main street. The traffic of potential buyers to the Serif condos at 950 Market St. has doubled since February as COVID cases started to drop. About 50 condos out of 242 have sold there.”
“Signature housing projects at 50 Jones, 1028 Market and 950 Market missed the Mid-Market tech boom, instead opening at a time when the pandemic had left office buildings deserted, foot traffic sparse and storefronts boarded up. ‘So much closed down on Market Street during the pandemic,’ said Simon Bertrang, executive director of the Tenderloin Community Benefit District. ‘It’s not a very active place right now.’”
The Globe and Mail in Canada. “In the Toronto-area market for single family homes, some house hunters have backed away from the heat. ‘When the sellers are humbled a little bit, it restores balance,’ says Christopher Bibby, broker with Re/Max Hallmark Bibby Group Realty. Mr. Bibby says many in the industry are growing concerned that the most eye-watering deals will fall through if the bank asks for an appraisal and the result comes in below the sale price. ‘At the end of the day, it’s the bank that owns the house – not the person putting down 20 or 30 per cent.’”
From News.com.au in Australia. “Actor Guy Peace is selling his Victorian hideaway just 10 months after purchasing it but is expected to make a loss of $50,000. The 54-year-old snapped up the five-bedroom, three bathroom home in the regional town of Beremboke back in April for $1.2 million. The star has listed the property for sale with an asking price between $1.05 million and $1.15 million.”
From Newshub New Zealand. “National property values grew by 0.8 percent in February, marking the lowest monthly gain since September 2020, according to the CoreLogic House Price Index. Analysis of recent sales shows sentiment is ‘changing rapidly,’ with vendors (sellers) ‘unable to achieve the prices of 2021.’ Referring to the sharp drop in the monthly rate of growth as indicating a ‘clear change in trend,’ CoreLogic head of research Nick Goodall said the HPI is expected to dip further over the coming months. ‘Regional differences will also start to appear, as local economies, recent first-home buyers and property investors all react differently to the changing environment,’ Goodall said.”