A report from AZ Business Magazine. “August home sales dropped 3.5% from July’s total – and the Median Sale Price slipped 1.2% to $335,000. ‘Although we appear to be past the blistering summer peak, the market is still very active,’ says Nick Bailey, President, RE/MAX, LLC. ‘In fact, the drop in home prices might signal to potential sellers that it’s time to get off the fence in case they fall further.’”
The Dallas Business Journal in Texas. “The median home sale price in Dallas-Fort Worth dropped month-over-month for the first time this year in August — another sign that the peak of the housing market boom may be in the rear-view window, at least for now. Michael Coburn, owner of RE/MAX Town and Country, said some homes on the market are still getting multiple offers, but there’s been a definite cool-down from early in the year. ‘Now, if a house goes on the market and does not receive multiple offers within the first weekend and stays on the market over a week, buyers will not offer over asking price and, in some cases, will come in with an offer lower than list price,’ he said.”
“In short, buyers have reached their limit, causing prices to start leveling off, Coburn said. ‘We are not in a bubble that’s about to pop,’ he said. ‘However, prices are at all-time highs and with inflation on the rise, we are reaching a point where buyers just can’t afford to continue to pay more and more.‘”
The Norman Transcript in Oklahoma. “Those considering purchasing a home in Norman before the end of the year should remain prepared for bidding wars despite recent signs of slowed market activity, local experts say. Rob Schaerer, broker and associate of Dillard Group Real Estate, said the appreciation rate for homes is likely normalizing. He said stories of bidding wars resulting in paying over list price has intimidated some buyers, resulting in pull backs until the market becomes more attractive to them.”
“In April, a house might get 10 to 15 offers, but in recent weeks it might get four to five, Schaerer said. ‘I know I’ve had a couple buyers drop off that were just wanting to sit and watch the roller coaster instead of ride it for a little while,’ he said.”
From Fredericksburg Today on Virginia. “While it’s not a buyer’s market yet, the Fredericksburg-area housing market continues to show indications of normalizing. August still posted very robust market numbers, but that is tempered by rising supply and slight reductions in future demand. It was common during the most intense months of buyer demand to see waiving of home inspections and agreements to bring cash when appraisals came in low. Those practices seem to be ebbing with the slowing market.”
“There is good news on supply to report with active listings up nearly 40% from the scant offerings to be found last August. ‘While the market continues to be positive for sellers, I’m seeing more homes staying on the market longer and appraisals falling short,’ states FAAR Board of Director Donna Schmidt. ‘I am noticing sellers offering concessions and home warranties, which is a plus.’”
From Go Banking Rates. “In Fairfield, Connecticut, associate real estate broker Glen Pizzolorusso said the market remains hot for turnkey properties, but buyers willing to tackle a project might have a chance to find a property. ‘The insanity has subsided a bit. Several months ago, most inventory was receiving multiple offers,’ he said. ‘Over the last 90 days we have seen houses that are not priced accurately, homes that need some updating/repairs, or homes with strange features, all sitting on the market for much longer than they were.’”
From Mortgage Professional America. “A whopping 67% of homeowners who have bought a home within the past five years have regrets about their purchase, according to NerdWallet. The survey suggested that a ‘win-at-all-costs attitude’ among homebuyers, coupled with the scarcity of inventory and a bidding war for homes, may have contributed to the sense of regret. In light of some of the replies, NerdWallet data analyst Elizabeth Renter was asked if brokers should shoulder greater responsibility and provide more down-to-earth advice to borrowers, who in the heat of a deal may not consider possible downsides.”
“She said: ‘I really look at mortgage professionals and real estate agents as sort of an anchor to buyers and to provide a dose of realism. When buyers get caught up in the excitement, mortgage professionals really need to be the level-headed ones, not only (to say) what that mortgage payment will look like, but also to point out how that mortgage payment might change if their insurance changes, or taxes change, and then also to remind borrowers of all of the additional costs of homeownership.’”
The New York Post. “It seems like Joe and Melissa Gorga are working to get their finances in order. The ‘Real Housewives of New Jersey’ stars are selling three New Jersey homes they own after downgrading to a $950,000 Franklin Lakes pad, The Post can report. Meanwhile, the listings come months after the duo were accused of owing thousands of dollars to several employees who had worked for them.”
“The Gorgas first purchased this vacation getaway home — made up of three bedrooms and two bathrooms — in 2005 for $450,000. Although they’ve been trying to get rid of it for nearly a decade, they haven’t had any luck. In 2011, they attempted to sell the home for $520,000. But because they took out so many loans against the property, they would’ve still owed the bank about $1.5 million after interest during that period, records show.”
From Fox Business. “Although sellers are still pricing their homes ‘very high,’ buyers aren’t biting. ‘A lot of buyers have had enough and are no longer willing to pay the huge premiums they were six months ago,’ Nicole Dege, a Redfin agent in Orlando, Florida, said. Rather than 25 to 30 offers on move-in ready homes in the area, Dege is seeing five to seven.”
“‘Buyers are getting a bit more selective,’ she said. ‘I have one seller who recently put his four-bedroom single-family pool house on the market, but the roof was shot. He had to lower his asking price to $423,000 from $427,000 and agree to spend around $7,000 to replace the roof in order to attract bidders.’ This is a far cry from about six months ago, when the seller ‘would have easily been able to sell that home as-is without dropping the price,’ Dege added.”
A press release on California. “With this high demand and low inventory, there might be some changes and alterations in the value of homes as well? Certainly, there have been some fluctuations. As of April 2021, according to reports, it was estimated that the median sale prices for the houses sold in Cupertino have gone up by 16.28%, that too in just the previous 12 weeks. Inventory is slowly and gradually rising, giving hope to potential buyers. In the last month, reports from 31/05/2021 indicate that there have been 131 new homes listed and 75 homes sold. The number of homes available for sale in Cupertino has risen by 92.31%, which is a great increase for the supply that was lacking.”
The Chatham Voice in Canada. “Chatham-Kent’s housing market slowed down in August, as inventory levels continued to rise. The number of new listings saw a substantial gain of 31.6 per cent from August 2020. There were 229 new residential listings in August 2021. This was the largest number of new listings added in the month of August in more than a decade. New listings were 26.8 per cent above the five-year average and 28.9 per cent above the 10-year average for the month of August.”
The Business Standard in Bangladesh. “Speaking to The Business Standard, a number of sellers said they were forced to sell their plots to save their businesses or to bear family expenses in the wake of income losses induced by the pandemic. Take for example Hasan Sumon, a US-returnee Bangladeshi expatriate who bought a 5-katha plot in the Uttara Housing Project (third phase) in 2011 when he was in the United States. Hasan said he had a lot of debt too and no money in hand to pay some previous arrears of construction material and equipment purchase. ‘I could not collect my due bills from the government. I applied for a bank loan but did not get any. At last, I was forced to sell the plot,’ he added.”
“Land owners and officials of housing projects say since there are not enough buyers amid economic slowdown from the pandemic, the owners are selling their land at prices much lower than the market price, even, in some cases, incurring losses. Thus the same pandemic that has become a bane for the sellers has turned into a boon to potential buyers as they see it as an opportunity to buy land at bargain prices.”
From Outlook India. “Evergrande is the largest property company in China. It owns more than 1,300 projects in 280 cities holding around 2% of the Chinese real estate market. As per various media reports over 1.5 million people are waiting for their homes to be completed by Evergrande who isn’t even paying its employees and suppliers for the past many months. It is estimated that over $1 trillion worth of unfinished homes are stuck due to the financial woes of the company.”
“Evergrande’s deteriorating financials are the result of a slowdown in the property market. China’s residential property slowdown deepened in August when home sales by value slumped by 20% from a year earlier according to Bloomberg calculations based on National Bureau of Statistics data. As per various media reports, 60- 65 million units are currently lying vacant in China.”
The New York Times. “When the troubled Chinese property giant Evergrande was starved for cash earlier this year, it turned to its own employees with a strong-arm pitch: Those who wanted to keep their bonuses would have to give Evergrande a short-term loan. Some workers tapped their friends and family for money to lend to the company. Others borrowed from the bank. Then, this month, Evergrande suddenly stopped paying back the loans, which had been packaged as high-interest investments.”
“Now hundreds of employees have joined panicked homebuyers in demanding their money back from Evergrande, gathering outside the company’s offices across China to protest last week. Evergrande is on the hook to buyers for nearly 1.6 million apartments, according to one estimate, and it may owe money to tens of thousands of its workers. ‘There isn’t much time left for us,’ said Jin Cheng, a 28-year-old employee in the eastern city of Hefei who said he put US$62,000 of his own money into Evergrande Wealth, the company’s investment arm, at the request of senior management.”
“Things were not always this way. For more than two decades, Evergrande was China’s largest developer, minting money from a property boom on a scale the world had never seen. With each success, Evergrande expanded into new areas – bottled water, professional sports, electric vehicles. Banks and investors happily threw in money, making a bet on China’s growing middle class and its appetite for homes and other properties. More recently, real estate has come under scrutiny from Chinese regulators who want to end the go-go years of the boom and have forced the industry to start paying off debt.”
“The idea was to reduce Chinese banks’ exposure to the property sector. But in the process, the regulators took away the money that developers such as Evergrande needed to finish building houses, leaving families without the homes for which they had already paid. But Evergrande’s funding channels started drying up well before las week. According to interviews with employees, state media reports and corporate documents seen by The New York Times, the company started forcing staff members to help bail it out as early as April, when it began peddling the short-term loans.”
“Wesley Zhang and his family are among the hundreds of thousands of families who are still waiting for their apartments, and they hope the company will be able to deliver. Mr. Zhang, 33, joined the other homebuyers who protested in Hefei last week after he learned that Evergrande also owed money to its employees. ‘Everyone is anxious. We are a bit like ants on a hot pan, having no idea what to do,’ Mr. Zhang said, using a Chinese expression to describe the distress of watching a US$124,000 investment potentially vanish.”