A report from Westword on Colorado. “Over the past year or so, there’s been debate aplenty about whether Denver’s real estate market has finally started to cool off after being red-hot for the past few years. Megan Aller, a sales representative for American Title Insurance Company, is an exceedingly authoritative voice in the discussion. Inventory has increased, and that’s resulted in increased price reductions and concessions, particularly on more expensive properties. Simply put, Aller says, ‘sellers can’t be as aggressive in their pricing strategy because there are fewer people who can afford to make these purchases.’”

“More recently, the appreciation rate has eased and is now in the 5 to 7 percent range, leading to those assertions about Denver becoming a buyer’s market. But Aller thinks such speculation can have negative repercussions: ‘When we start saying that, buyers will offer significantly less than the asking price, thinking we’re headed toward a recession — and that can put them in a poor position, because they’re probably not going to win the home,’ particularly during the prime spring and summer buying seasons, when she expects to see multiple offers being typical once again.”

The Westport News in Connecticut. “A substantial drop in student enrollment this year has left school board members wondering if the numbers are an aberration, or point to a larger trend. Consultant Mike Zuba told the Board of Education that enrollment numbers will steadily decrease over the next decade. ‘As we see in many of our client communities, and Westport’s no different, your student body, your immigration, your school system is driven by the sales of a lot of new or existing single family homes,’ Zuba said. ‘Overall, we’re seeing a large dip this year in housing sales.’”

The Atlanta Voice. “One of the biggest obstacles confronting low- and moderate-income home buyers is coming up with the 20 percent down payment that many financial advisors recommend they have in the bank prior to entering the housing market. Under Fannie Mae’s Home Ready and Freddie Mac’s Home Possible programs, it might be possible to obtain a mortgage with substantially less cash on hand.”

“Among the differences in the two programs, says Terri Sicilia, vice president of underwriting for Residential Mortgage Services, is that the Fannie Mae program allows a buyer to own other properties at the time of closing, while the Freddie Mac program does not. Another difference, she notes, is that Home Possible does not allow the use of a non-occupant co-borrower while Home Ready may.”

“One of borrowers Sicilia worked with was able to obtain a mortgage under Home Ready by documenting that he had 12 months of income from a boarder as a portion of his overall income. ‘This would not have been possible with a traditional, fixed-rate mortgage,’ she said.”

From DS News. “Of the metros studied, the New York-Newark-New Jersey metro had the highest serious delinquency rate of 2.6%. The metro also had the highest overall foreclosure rate at 1.3%. The next highest was Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach, Florida, at 2%. Only once in the past cycle has Manhattan had more foreclosures than in Q3 2019, and that was in Q4 2016. Additionally, pre-foreclosures increased 13% year-over-year in the borough.”

“‘A strong economy and eight-plus years of home price growth have made mortgage foreclosure an infrequent event,’ said Frank Nothaft, Chief Economist at CoreLogic. ‘This backdrop will help the mortgage market limit delinquencies in most of the country whenever a downturn should start.’”

From Douglas Digital. “According to data from the Federal Reserve, U.S. mortgage debt is a whopping $15 trillion. For comparison, the 2017 gross domestic product (GDP) of the United States was $19.3 trillion. Looking at a test case shows that the numbers just don’t work for most households. In the high cost-of-living state of California, the new maximum mortgage amount is $679,650, and the average interest rate is 4.79%. In order to make their monthly mortgage payment of $3,600 to $4,300 without exceeding the recommended 28% of their income, this ‘average’ borrower would have to make at least $185,000 a year.”

“Considering that the median household income in 2018 was only $61,000, it’s reasonable to assume that a lot of these risky, expensive mortgages are being issued to debt-strapped borrowers with very little financial wiggle room.”

From SocketSite in California. “The number of condos listed for sale in San Francisco (610) is now running 1 percent lower than at the same time last year while the number of single-family (320) is now running 2 percent higher, and that’s despite the fact that the number of single-family homes on the market in San Francisco jumped nearly 60 percent from early November 2017 to early November 2018 (versus a 31 percent increase for condos).”

“At the same time, the percentage of active listings which have undergone at least one price reduction has ticked up 3 percentage points to 28 percent, which is 3 percentage points higher than at the same time last year.”

From Homes and Property. “Jennifer Aniston’s happy days of marriage to Brad Pitt were spent in a Beverly Hills mansion that they couldn’t stop upgrading. The five-bedroom house they once loved is now on the market but struggling to find buyers. It was listed in April for £43.4 million by the current owner who has since dropped the price by £8.9 million.”

The Wall Street Journal. “Companies using technology to make rapid cash offers to home sellers are typically paying their customers close to market value, a new study from Mike DelPrete, a scholar in residence on real-estate technology at the University of Colorado at Boulder found. Yet the analysis casts doubt about whether iBuying can thrive longer term with such thin margins, especially if home prices flatten or begin falling in more markets around the country.”

“‘How are they ever going to make money?’ Mr. DelPrete asked.”