A report from the Sun Sentinel in Florida. “A townhome development in the process of being approved to be built in Pembroke Pines is causing concern among some residents who want traffic fixed above all else. ‘Developable land is especially scarce in Broward because about half of the county, or approximately 660 square miles, lies in the Everglades. The market also favors townhomes because there is a current oversupply of condos,’ an analysis of the project said.”
From KIRO in Washington. “In the Puget Sound area, housing prices are continuing to go up, says Matthew Gardner, chief economist at Windermere Real Estate. But it seems the prices must hit a ceiling at some point. But there’s something else in the numbers that Gardner pointed out, in the condominium market. ‘You look at condos and the biggest concern is on the urban environment. Well, we still saw a reasonable pick-up in the number of sales occurring, let’s say in downtown Seattle and Queen Anne. However, what we’ve seen already, active listing price is actually dropping,’ he said.”
“For now, Gardner thinks a ceiling needs to be reached on home prices, but he says there is a buying opportunity. ‘There always must be a relationship between home prices and incomes. We broke that relationship a while ago, and we saw a very significant increase in sale prices, quite frankly, because over the course of the last year mortgage rates dropped by a full percentage point,’ he said. ‘So I think that there are some options, but we’re going to start seeing, hopefully, a slowing down in the appreciation of home values through the course of this year. And quite frankly, I’m looking forward to it. Markets aren’t sustainable when values are going up by double digits every year.’”
From KOIN in Oregon. “Former landlord Debra Kay Nemec told KOIN 6 News said she had one rental house in Oregon City before the pandemic hit. She said at first, her tenants started paying rent late. ‘Then they just stopped paying altogether and I took a deferment on my mortgage because I couldn’t pay the mortgage without the rent,’ she said.”
“Eventually, Nemec’s tenants were six months behind and owed her $15,000, not including utilities. She said her only option was to sell the house. ‘It was better than having a year’s worth of mortgage hanging over my head and having my house repossessed because that’s what would’ve happened, I would have had to have a foreclosure,’ said Nemec.”
The New York Post on California. “A London-based brokerage has identified just 20 potential international buyers for the famed ‘Beverly House,’ a mega-mansion once home to William Hearst and used as a filming location for ‘The Godfather’ and several Beyoncé music videos. At $119 million, the pink terracotta stucco house is the most expensive in the US and has been on and off the market for between $95 million and $195 million since 2007.”
“It’s not just the price tag on the 18-bed, 25-bathroom Italian and Spanish-style mega-mansion: Taxes are $68,000 a year, according to Realtor.com. It seems like even the current owner can’t keep up: the Los Angeles County Assessor Portal shows that the owner defaulted on their property taxes in 2019.”
The Bay Area Newsgroup in California. “Migrations out of the region jumped during the health crisis, with a 30 percent increase in people moving out of San Francisco compared to 2019, according to a new study by the California Policy Lab at UC Berkeley and UCLA. During the fourth quarter of 2020, roughly 114,600 people left the Bay Area, up 29.7 percent from the same period in 2019. At the same time, researchers estimated about 267,000 people left California, an increase of 14.9 percent.”
“The study noted that it’s too soon to tell how long-lasting or extensive the exodus might be. But experts warned that the implications could be enormous. ‘The stakes are high,’ the California Policy Lab stated in its report. ‘Significant population shifts could affect the size and composition of regional labor markets as well as rent and home values.’”
From Bloomberg on New York. “TikTok isn’t just a platform for dance videos and investment advice. It’s also a place to hawk Manhattan apartments. New York real estate professionals are turning to the booming social media app to find tenants in a market where units are piling up amid near-record vacancies. Filling Manhattan apartments is especially tough these days, even as rents slide and landlords offer the biggest move-in incentives on record. The pandemic sent many city-dwellers fleeing for the suburbs, and newcomers are finding few reasons to settle down in New York’s costliest borough while nightlife venues are still dark and office towers remain mostly empty.”
From The Real Deal. “Mack Real Estate has gained control of a seven-hotel portfolio for what appears to be a major discount. The developer paid transfer taxes on $315.8 million — or less than 40 percent of the portfolio’s 2016 value of $816.3 million — for the seven properties, all of which are in Manhattan. Earlier this year, the firm initiated UCC foreclosure proceedings against the owners of the properties, a joint venture between Hersha Hospitality Trust and Chinese investment firm Cindat Capital Management. Those firms defaulted on an $85 million mezzanine loan issued in 2018 by Mack Real Estate Credit Strategies.”
“The portfolio hit the auction block on Jan. 21, and Mack was apparently the winner, according to a transfer tax document filed with the city. The hospitality industry has been one of the hardest hit in the pandemic-driven economic downturn, with both smaller and major hotel brands being forced to hand their keys over to lenders. The owner of the Hilton Hotel in Times Square, for example, surrendered the property to one of its mortgage owners.”