A report from the Wilsonville Spokesman in Oregon. “The market already has tapered a bit from its absolute highs a few months ago. ‘We’re seeing more price reduction come across the MLS (multiple listing service) than we’ve seen in over a year’ said Broker Dwight Schwab. ‘That doesn’t mean prices are falling as it does that people need to more accurately price.’ Representatives have seen an unusually high number of Portlanders flock to cities like Lake Oswego, West Linn and Wilsonville.”
“Darren Piper, a real estate broker, noted a seminal moment in the planned Villebois community in Wilsonville: the sale of the first $1 million home. Some homes are spacious, and the inflated market and competitive bidding brought prices to their zenith. Piper said identical homes that five years ago sold for around $250,000 are selling for over $500,000 now.”
“‘I’m done with Oregon.’ I’ve heard that quote so many times,’ Schwab said. Schwab has heard that many Californians are similarly fed up with issues in their own state and are especially motivated to leave. ‘The last few I’ve had, (it was a) ‘We couldn’t take it anymore’ kind of motivated,’ he said.”
The Redmond Spokesman in Washington. “The median sales price of a single-family home in Bend and Redmond may have stabilized in August, while inventory increased. In Bend, the median single-family home price dropped $15,000 to $635,000, according to the report. The median sales price for a single-family home peaked in Bend in April at $651,000, according to the report.”
The San Francisco Business Times in California. “More homes are starting to hit the market in San Francisco. As of Friday, there were 920 active units listed on the MLS for San Francisco, with 201 listed in the ‘coming soon’ feature. By Monday, that number had grown to 1,113 active San Francisco listings with 165 listed as coming soon.”
“Keller Williams agent Jennifer Rosdail told me she’s seen 434 new residential listings in the last seven days in San Francisco compared to 70 the week prior that and 71 the week before that. While some buyers are returning to the city now to hunt real estate, she predicted that the smaller downtown condos — previously useful for someone working full time from an office — are still going to take more time to fully recover, especially in light of several companies deciding to further delay their return-to-office plans. ‘I haven’t see those pied-à-terres become valuable again,’ she said.”
From Mansion Global. “A nearly 13,000-square-foot oceanfront estate in southern California recently sold for just under $33.9 million, about 38% lower than its original asking price. The San Clemente home, was first listed in 2016 for $55 million, according to listing records.”
The New York Post. “A fancy Upper East Side townhouse has entered contract. The home, at 34 E. 62nd St., was last asking $19.75 million — down from its original $32.5 million asking price in 2017.”
From Florida Weekly. “Will BOOM go BUST? One could have heard a proverbial pin drop as the crowd awaited an answer at the Caloosa Sound Convention Center overlooking a Caloosahatchee River sunset, flanked by a bustling downtown Fort Myers. Make no mistake, the experts say, booms come with ‘corrections,’ sometimes a nice word for ‘busts.’ Everybody else knew that, too. We have the makings for cautious, careful optimism, suggested Denny Grimes, who grew up in Fort Myers and has worked in residential real estate for 35 years in the region. ‘The panic (buying) frenzy is over,’ Mr. Grimes noted. ‘The market is slowing. Which is good.’”
“‘Now, things are good — and things are challenging because our labor and supply is so limited. We have ourselves in a situation where we may be hitting the price wall for new housing, because prices have risen so rapidly,’ said Randy Thibaut. Asked for advice for home buyers and home sellers, he replied with characteristic candor: ‘Advice for the buyer? The best time to buy was a year ago. Advice for the seller? You should have started a year ago, and if you still want to, now is the time.’”
The Globe and Mail in Canada. “In Oakville, Ont., the second Monday in September was surprisingly quiet, says broker Adrienne Lake of Sotheby’s International Realty Canada. ‘The sales that I was expecting to see in September have not been as exuberant as I thought,’ she says. Ms. Lake adds that some sellers who have homes languishing on the market at $3-million and up are holding out for prices that the market will not bear.”
“Buyers do submit offers, she says, but some intractable sellers spurn them all. ‘The offers are all very similar so that indicates they’re a little bit pie-in-the-sky,’ she says of the sellers’ ambitions.”
From Vice on China. “A group of high-rise buildings have been sitting unfinished in a Chinese city for seven years. And it took 45 seconds to tear them down. Stunning footage from the demolition last month showed 14 buildings in the southwestern city of Kunming collapse in controlled demolition. The blast failed to destroy a 15th high-rise, which was torn down three days later, local media reported.”
“These partially-built buildings were a side effect of China’s aggressive urban development model that created what critics called ‘ghost cities’ in parts of the country. Local governments had sold land and embarked on massive infrastructure projects to boost economic growth, while developers often took on heavy debt to bet on ever-rising housing prices. Some of the vacant neighborhoods filled up later on, but in some cases, the newly-built, dazzling urban spaces struggled to find occupants or even funding to finish construction projects.”
“Buyers of unfinished projects have staged protests after seeing their life’s savings going up in smoke. Members of the Chinese middle class ofte take on heavy debts themselves to buy these apartments, believing the real estate market to be the safest investment. Some buyers were forced to move into these unfinished buildings, as they continued to pay mortgages, according to Chinese media reports.”
“At another unfinished residential complex in Kunming, with a Chinese name that stands for ‘town of another way of happiness,’ some homeowners had been living without water and electricity. They used solar power and candles, and one man climbed the stairs to his 18th-floor apartment every day.”
The Epoch Times. “Shares of Macau casino operators on Wednesday shed as much as a third of their value, losing about $18 billion, as the government kicked off a regulatory overhaul that could see its officials supervising companies in the world’s largest gambling hub. With Macau’s lucrative casino licences up for rebidding next year, the plan spooked a Hong Kong market already deep in the red after Beijing’s regulatory crackdown on sectors from technology to education and property that sliced hundreds of billions of dollars off asset values.”
“Wynn Macau led the plunge, falling as much as 34 percent to a record low, followed by a 28 percent tumble for Sands China. Peers MGM China, Galaxy Entertainment, SJM, and Melco Entertainment all fell heavily, taking the drop to HK$143 billion ($18 billion). U.S. casino companies also fell for the second straight day, losing as much as $4 billion in market capitalization on Wednesday, with Las Vegas Sands Corp slumping to more than a year low, Wynn Resorts Ltd and MGM Resorts International, dropping 8 percent and 5 percent, respectively.”
“‘Margins will be crushed at the gambling capital of the world and that will drag down all the big casinos,’ said Edward Moya, senior market analyst at OANDA in New York.”