A report from King 5 in Washington. “High mortgage rates are outpacing how much buyers can afford, which is leading to homes staying on the market for longer and sellers slashing prices. It’s something house flipper Diana Roger is seeing, too. Roger has been buying, remodeling and selling homes in the Seattle area for about eight years. She said her latest investment, a classic Pacific Northwest split level in Brier would have been sold within five days last year. Roger said within a year she went from getting multiple offers above the asking price before an open house to the Brier home being on the market for five weeks with no offers. ‘People are pickier and really looking for value for their money and waiting for a home that is maybe 9/10 or 10/10,’ explained Roger, who is considering taking the home off the market while hoping rates improve by spring.”
The American Press. “Amanda Cox, REL, SRES, CRS, RENE, ABR, Latter & Blum, put the current state of the Southwest Louisiana real estate industry in perspective. She described the last couple of years of the industry as riding in a car speeding down the highway at 120 miles per hour. ‘A home goes on the market, it’s shown multiple times in a matter of days, and sometimes the seller receives multiple offers in that brief period to choose from,’ she said. ‘Today, sellers are no longer solidly in the driver’s seat, a big change from the last few years. The market is neutral.’”
“‘Buyers now have a chance to think about their choices, make sure the numbers work for them and go into this major decision clear-minded,’ Cox said. ‘In months and years past, the frenzy of multiple offers raised everyone’s anxiety level to an unhealthy level. Appraisers are beginning to be questioned by lending institutions, so it is obvious to me that the underwriters are more risk-averse now than they have been for a very long time.’”
From KSL in Utah. “Housing market whiplash is setting in across the Beehive State as last year’s buying frenzy has given way to a slowdown and signs of a recession. The most recent report from the Utah Association of Realtors showed home sales in August were down nearly 24% compared to a year before. At the same time, the number of homes on the market jumped by 80%. St. George area realtor Blair Frei said the market shift has changed the dynamic for potential buyers who recently had no bargaining power.”
“‘Sellers were basically getting whatever they wanted,’ Frei said. ‘We saw offers as crazy as people offering to deliver cookies monthly and mow people’s lawns. It was crazy.’ Now, he says, it’s the builders who are starting to offer incentives. ‘We’ve had multiple builders reaching out to all of us realtors with some pretty cool incentives for buyers,’ Frei said. During one transaction, he helped a family get $12,000 of their closing costs paid. ‘We were able to go in with no other competition on a home that they loved in an area they loved and make an offer and get the sellers to cover all of their closing costs,’ Frei said.”
From Wired. “Opendoor is taking a pounding. Forty-two percent of the homes it sold in August made a loss, according to YipitData. In places like Phoenix, Arizona, where cookie-cutter houses have attracted so-called iBuyers en masse, the numbers are even worse. Here, three out of every four homes Opendoor sold in August lost money. The company blames its current struggles on ‘the most rapid change in residential real estate fundamentals in 40 years.’ It’s a change that’s hitting Opendoor and its competitors hard right now—and it could be coming for millions of homeowners next.”
“The early signs of torpor in the cookie-cutter houses Opendoor, Zillow, and their competitors make money on are likely to spread. ‘It’s supply and demand,’ says Mike DelPrete, an iBuying market analyst—and not just in Phoenix. With mortgage rates rising, buyers aren’t buying, and among the first properties to lose value are the identikit ones iBuyers rely on. And that leaves a slush pile of unwanted, expensive homes.”
The Daily Mail. “New York City’s real estate crisis may not just be limited to office buildings, as apartment sales fell by double digits in the third quarter. Miller Samuel CEO Jonathan Miller told CNBC that ‘the boom in Manhattan has been interrupted. The biggest declines come from some of the most expensive properties, with pre-war apartments along Park and Fifth Avenues, as well as Central Park West, going unsold for months, even years. Miller said, ‘Between the volatility in financial markets and rising rates, we’re seeing the higher end disappoint.’”
“It’s similar to the crisis in selling office buildings in the Big Apple, as those purchases have been hurt by working from home. The NBER study was done by NYU and Columbia researchers and their findings show that not only are many workers not coming back, but companies that are bringing employees back are also looking for higher-quality spaces. It suggests that New York City will be responsible for 10 percent of the nearly $456billion in value lost of offices across the United States.”
From Nerd Wallet. “Disgruntled Airbnb guests are taking to Twitter and TikTok to vent about everything from cleaning fees to misleading listings. But they aren’t the only ones with complaints: Airbnb hosts themselves have become increasingly disillusioned with the platform and its disrespectful guests. Emily Muskin Rathner, a digital marketing professional living in Cleveland, began renting her house on Airbnb in August 2021. She says that hosting has been a pleasant and profitable enterprise overall, but a few guests have caused major problems, including a family that rented the house this June.”
“‘They left the house a mess,’ she says. ‘There was human feces on our laundry. They sprayed Silly String all over the place. I don’t care about Silly String, but can you pick it up? It left stains, oddly.’ Rathner received reimbursement from Airbnb for most of her claims. But some damage, such as nail polish smeared on the bathroom tile, didn’t qualify for reimbursement because she wasn’t able to provid documentation for the cost of the tile. And then there was the smell. ‘It really, really stunk. The air conditioning had been left off for a week — in June.’”
KSWB in California. “For rental hosts looking to use their property as short-term rental in the city of San Diego can now apply for a license to offer stays of less than a month, although it’s not guaranteed for all who apply. Nancy Kramer has been renting her San Diego beach front property at Capri by the Sea out short term since 2002. Twenty years later, she says her business could reach a screeching halt. ‘I feel like all of a sudden they’re pulling the rug out from under me…Now I don’t even know if I’m going to be able to do it anymore in a few months,’ Kramer said.”
“Greg Ross works with Kramer and manages more than 80 properties throughout the city. ‘My owners are really really stressing out. I get calls every day, we’re helping them out with the application process, we’re finding a lot of property management companies are not helping their owners out,’ Ross said.”
The Monterey Herald in California. “In an attempt to generate more revenue for affordable housing and other aspirational city projects, a nontraditional funding source is up for the Pacific Grove City Council’s consideration: taxing empty homes. ‘I live in Pacific Grove, and there’s a lot of dark houses all the time,’ said Pacific Grove Council Member Jenny McAdams, who Is bringing the empty homes tax forward at Wednesday’s meeting. ‘When you have so many empty homes in your neighborhood, you lose a part of the community. Over time, we’re becoming a second, third, fourth house playground.’”
The Globe and Mail in Canada. “Real estate markets in Toronto and Vancouver fell in September, with sales and home prices down in both the cities. The home price index, which excludes sales of extremely expensive homes, fell for the sixth straight month in the Toronto region, down 1.2 per cent from August and 19.3 per cent from the market peak in March. The typical price in September was $1,110,700. Since the market peak in March, home prices in the Toronto region have fallen substantially, with homes in Peel down 18.7 per cent, in Durham down by 18.6 per cent and in the City of Toronto down by 19.2 per cent.”
“In the Vancouver area, the composite benchmark price for all residential properties in September was $1,155,300. This is up by 3.9 per cent compared with last September, but down 2.1 per cent from August and 8.5 per cent over the past six months. Prices have fallen over the past six months across the Vancouver region, with the largest declines in Maple Ridge – where the home price index is down 16.5 per cent – and Pitt Meadows, which is down 15 per cent. Prices in Greater Vancouver are down 8.5 per cent since March.”
Wales Online in the UK. “Soaring interest rates are seeing house sales fall through after panic hit the property market earlier this week, according to one Welsh estate agent. Property prices are expected to plummet as millions of existing owners try to sell up after no longer being able to afford their payments. ‘I have never seen it like this,’ said Ian Wyn-Jones, an estate agent in north Wales whose had 20 sales fall through since the Government’s mini-budget a week ago. ‘That’s 20 households who have had their life turned upside down in a matter of days.’”
“Jamie Lennox, of broker Dimora Mortgages, said one lender had this week down valued a property by £40,000 – equivalent to 12pc of the proposed sale price. He said: ‘We may see more in the weeks to come. Clients are also becoming more concerned about a looming recession and the impact of potentially buying a house at the peak of the market.’”
From Domain News in Australia. “Close to one in five properties in apartment-heavy neighbourhoods such as Ryde and Strathfield in Sydney and the Melbourne CBD and Stonnington are selling at a loss, new figures show.Nervous investors and first home buyers have been turning away from cookie-cutter high-rise towers and choosing boutique unit blocks where possible, mindful of the high-profile cracking Opal Tower and the desire for open space through the pandemic. A wave of new apartment supply in these areas in recent years is leaving some sellers with little choice but to accept less than what they paid.”
“Buyer’s advocate Zaki Ameer has noticed an oversupply of units in suburbs such as Homebush and Homebush West in the Strathfield LGA, as well as further west in Sydney. ‘There was quite a bit sold off the plan that is settling this year and there are valuation shortfalls on those units now compared to what people would have paid at the peak, because banks are pulling back on valuations.’”