A report from the New York Times. “Ten years ago, Howard and Sheila Konetz bought themselves a Florida dream: an 1,820-square-foot condo in a leafy gated community north of Miami. The $478,500 purchase would usher them into blissful semiretirement, they thought. With enough cash in the bank, the couple didn’t need a mortgage and downsized from their house in Miami Beach. Seven years later, on June 24, 2021, the Champlain Towers South condo building in the nearby town of Surfside partially collapsed. Suddenly, the Konetzes found themselves facing a $224,000 bill — their share of a special assessment to renovate and repair their 36-year-old building. Unable to secure a loan or sell the unit, the couple now fear bankruptcy. ‘I don’t want to end up on the street, but, consequently, that’s what will happen,’ said Howard Konetz, who is in his 70s. ‘All of our money is tied up in this albatross.’”
“In 2009, Thereza Teixeira paid $146,000 for a 1,565-square-foot unit at the waterfront Plaza Del Prado condo in Aventura, just north of Miami. The condo would be a smart investment, she thought: Interest rates were low after the housing bubble had burst. But she hadn’t factored the building’s age into her decision. Last year, the condo board’s new assessment forced Teixeira to come up with an extra $338 a month. Her property maintenance bills, now $1,390 a month, are $500 more than her mortgage payment. She has been forced her to take on extra work in addition to her day job taking care of vacation homes while their owners are gone, and she has slowed down contributions to her retirement account. The condo is ‘like a bad marriage,’ she said. ‘It’s too expensive to divorce your husband.’”
“Two years ago, the Konetzes listed their two-bedroom in the Williams Island master community in Aventura, asking $659,000. Despite dropping the asking price by $160,000, they still haven’t received an offer. ‘I don’t know where we’re going to live,’ Howard Konetz said. ‘Our funds that we had put away to pay everything are dwindling rapidly.’”
WCTV in Florida. “Hope Webb spent the weekend cleaning up her Dekle Beach home after Hurricane Helene hit Thursday night. The Category 4 hurricane destroyed her neighborhood just months after hurricanes Idalia and Debby hit just down the coast, also damaging the beach. She said her insurance claim has been anything but easy. ‘We’re battling insurance from Idalia,’ Webb said. ‘Battling claims that still haven’t been paid out, and now where do we go from here?’ With a third hurricane to hit Taylor County in just over a year, Webb is worried that more insurance companies will drop policies, leaving people to pay for the damage themselves. ‘Many people here were self-insured because you could not just afford to carry insurance and even when you do, you can’t get any money,’ Webb said.”
The New York Post. “For the residents of Carnegie House, a once-sought-after co-op located across from Billionaires’ Row on 57th Street, life is about to get a lot more expensive — and a lot more uncertain. Despite units in the building sometimes going for as low as $99,000, the homeowners could soon be forced out as a looming ground lease renewal threatens to send their monthly costs skyrocketing, Crain’s reported. Barbara and Lou Grumet, both 80 and longtime residents of the building, left their Riverdale home in 2011 for a two-bedroom co-op, drawn to the building’s location near Broadway and top-tier hospitals. But now, they fear being priced out of the place they’ve called home for over a decade.”
“‘We’re not talking about a 10% increase in annual rent; we’re talking about a 6-fold increase that would likely displace the majority of us from our homes,’ Hirsch told The Post. ‘The landowners continue to show us that they are not interested in finding a compromise that keeps residents in their homes; their goal is to force us out of our homes to maximize their profit.’”
Fox 5 in Nevada. “They were told by the City of Henderson they had two weeks to fix their broken pipes or 85 families would have to leave their townhomes. Then the city agreed to step in and make the necessary repairs at Somerset Park Townhomes. As those repairs are now underway, for the first time we are hearing from the new HOA management company that stepped in after the last one disappeared taking the community’s money with them. ‘The previous management company had closed their doors and when we took on the account, we got very little to almost no paperwork, financial paperwork,’ recounted Mozell Williams, Vice-President of Association Services for CAMCO. Williams works directly with Somerset Park. Williams reported when CAMCO took over, there was only $25,000 in the community account and they owed $300,000. ‘They should have $800,000 to $1,000,000 saved up,’ Williams explained.”
“With faulty pipes constantly leaking for years, the average water bill for the community: $20,000 to $30,000 a month. ‘That is almost three to four times more than most associations this size,’ Williams reported. Recognizing the finical crisis, CAMCO stopped landscaping and closed the pool trying to cut costs. ‘Yes, it is unfair, we know it is unfair. The residents are not at fault,’ Williams stated. They say what is happening at Somerset Park could happen to other HOA’s in the Vegas Valley in the future that were also managed by the same prior management company that disappeared. ‘I have talked to other management companies that have taken on accounts from that previous management company, and we are all in the same boat. We all have the same issues. So, there might be more unfortunately,’ Williams revealed.”
From WFAA TV. “Nestled about 16 miles northwest of Fort Worth, sits Haslet, Texas. A place long known for horses and cattle, a small town people moved to to get out of the city. It’s what Georganne Polizzo and her family did more than two decades ago. Back then, it was a quiet, rural escape. But like much of the Metroplex, Haslet and the surrounding area is now experiencing a boom in population growth. ‘The more houses that come, the less calm and country there is,’ Polizzo said. ‘And more traffic.’ At any given time of the day congestion slows traffic to a crawl. If I can’t travel a mile or it takes me 20 or 30 minutes, there’s something wrong with this picture,’ Haslet Mayor Gary Hulsey said. ‘And that is the difficulty that we have now out here.’ Hulsey says it’s a challenge that so far has no real solutions. ‘It’s a matter of funding,’ he said. ‘Where’s that funding come from?’”
The Associated Press on California. “When London Breed was elected as San Francisco’s first Black woman mayor, it was a pinch-me moment for a poor girl from public housing whose ascension showed that no dream was impossible in the progressive, compassionate and equitable city. But the honeymoon was short-lived as a COVID-19 pandemic shuttered stores and tech workers retreated to home offices. Tent encampments surged and so did public drug use. Breed now finds herself in a pricey campaign as she battles for a second term. The moderate Democrat faces four main challengers on the Nov. 5 ballot, all fellow Democrats, who say Breed has squandered her six years in office. They say she allowed San Francisco to descend into chaos and blamed others for her inability to rein in homelessness and erratic street behavior, all while burglarized businesses pleaded for help.”
“Streets have become cleaner and homeless tents much harder to find, but the daytime shooting in September of 49ers rookie Ricky Pearsall in a popular central shopping district reignited the public safety issue. Her closest competitors appear to be Mark Farrell, a former interim mayor and venture capitalist who is the most conservative of the group. He envisions a San Francisco where police feel respected and older residents don’t have to hire private security when the city has a $15 billion annual budget. The Nov. 5 vote in a presidential election year is happening amid a national debate on public safety and a statewide vote on a tough-on-crime proposition that would, if approved, reclassify some misdemeanor theft and drug crimes as felonies.”
CBC News in Canada. “‘If we build it, you will love it,’ boasts Karwood Contracting’s website, the home construction company’s slogan superimposed over a picture of an idyllic cul-de-sac lined with duplexes. But one of the people actually living inside those homes disagrees heartily with that message. The corner of Thomas O’Brien’s Paradise street is marred by mounds of dirt with sharp jutting rocks, blowing yellow tape and a lone piece of heavy machinery that’s been left to sit idle for nearly a month. Residents say it’s the remnants of construction work to build sidewalks and pave driveways — plans that were abruptly abandoned weeks ago. ‘Every day I come home, I leave the house — I’m just immediately aggravated,’ O’Brien told CBC News. While he likes his home, O’Brien cautioned people about his experience with Karwood. ‘If you’re thinking about buying a house with Karwood, make sure you’ve got a big bottle of Tylenol, because you’re going to have some headache,’ he said.”
“”I’m kind of at my wits’ end,’ said O’Brien, adding he’s considering bringing the matter to small claims court. ‘It does impact the enjoyment I even feel coming and going to my house. And everyone always comments on it too,’ he said. ‘They’re like, ‘Why is no one’s lawn done? Why is no one’s driveway done?’ CBC News asked Paradise town council for an interview regarding safety concerns that O’Brien raised. In a statement, spokesperson Diane Keough said while this is an issue between Karwood and its clients, the town is keeping an eye on it.”
From Global News. “Warning lights are flashing in Canada’s ‘economic engine,’ and experts say even a stop from pop music’s biggest superstar Taylor Swift next month might not be enough to keep Toronto’s flagging economy out of a ‘T-cession.’ Like the broad, extended contractions marked by a recession, a T-cession refers to a protracted economic slowdown localized to the Greater Toronto Area, including nearby cities such as Mississauga and Oakville. ‘Toronto is the economic engine of Canada. I know the rest of Canada doesn’t like to hear that, but it’s true,’ says Moshe Lander, an economist with Concordia University. ‘As Toronto goes, essentially, so does Canada.’”
“While the Canadian unemployment rate has risen to 6.6 per cent in recent months as hiring appetite slows and the labour pool expands, Toronto’s unemployment rate stood at 8.0 per cent as of August, behind only Windsor, Ont., and Edmonton. Much of what’s driven Canada’s jobless rate higher is not a wave of layoffs, but the rapid rise in population, with youth and newcomers in particular now struggling to find work. But Toronto is also the first destination for many immigrants arriving in Canada, Lander notes, putting more upward pressure on the unemployment rate. Despite the anticipation from Swifties, Lander says the Eras Tour has a ‘massively overstated’ economic impact. ‘Taylor Swift’s not saving Toronto from this one,’ he says with a laugh. ‘You can say lots of things about her, economic saviour’s not one.’”
Radio New Zealand. “More than 50,000 property investors are losing money on their rentals, Inland Revenue data shows. Information released under the Official Information Act shows that there were 53,350 taxpayers who reported negative rental income – where the rent they received did not cover their expenses – in the 2023 tax year. Their average loss was $9020. That is likely to understate the amount investors are losing though because it is after allowable deductions are claimed from income. In that tax year, they could only claim 75 percent of their interest costs as an expense. A year earlier, 51,740 taxpayers had an average loss of $7450.”
“For many, the situation will have got tougher since the end of the 2023 year, as interest rates increased and the amount of interest that could be deducted dropped. In New Zealand, losses from rental properties are ringfenced so they can only be offset against current or future rental profits – in the past, and in some other countries, they could be used to reduce tax on other income. Interest deductibility is being phased back in, so that investors can claim progressively more of their interest cost to reduce their tax bills.”
“Kelvin Davidson, chief property economist at Corelogic, said recent investors would predominantly be the ones making a loss. ‘If you bought a rental property in the last 12 months or 24 months, it’s pretty unlikely you’re going to be making a profit. But of all the landlords, most didn’t buy in the last year or two. Most have been investors for a long time.’”
News.com.au in Australia. “Homeowners are slashing prices on properties for sale across the country, with buyers bagging discounts of up to $1m in some cases. Home seekers are bagging properties for an average of up to 15 per cent below the list price in pockets of Sydney, with some huge discounts helping buyers save over $1m, with more discounts expected to come as spring listings pile up. Digital Finance Analytics director Martin North said there was evidence of ‘deeper drops’ in asking prices as listings began to rise. ‘Five to eight per cent vendor discounts seem common, and more at the top end of the market — 15 per cent in some cases, which is very different from a year ago,’ Mr North said. ‘We are also seeing more ‘forced’ sales due to mortgage pain/arrears, where vendors have to sell.’”
“Melbourne homebuyers can get discounts as high as 13 per cent, with houses in Safety Beach, Roxburgh Park and Hampton Park recording average price drops of between 13.4 per cent and 9.2 per cent. Those looking for a unit should consider Malvern East, Clayton and Hadfield, where the price being sought initially can drop more than 10 per cent. In Queensland, sellers are reducing asking prices by hundreds of thousands of dollars — or up to 32 per cent in some cases — as spring listings begin to rise. Data provided exclusively by SQM Research reveals the state has more than 1600 distressed listings — the highest in the country, with discounted properties ranging from a house in Shailer Park that has had its price cut by $250,000 to a unit in Airlie Beach that is now $155,000 cheaper.”
South China Morning Post. “To the unsuspecting outsider, Beixiazhu looks like any unremarkable Chinese village. But for years, this was the place to be for ambitious merchants hoping to strike gold in the country’s booming live-streaming e-commerce industry – until the competition simmered to a boil, driving out sellers as quickly as they arrived. The frenzy began around 2019, as live-streaming e-commerce took off on short-video platforms. Beixiazhu, sitting on the outskirts of eastern Zhejiang province’s Yiwu city, the global wholesale capital, became an ideal launch pad for go-getters eager to tap into a growing industry that promised fame and fortune just a live stream away.”
“Today, the legacy from that period still lingers in the 99 houses once occupied by live-streaming sellers in Beixiazhu. Signs advertising ‘super supply chains’ and ‘viral hot-selling live-stream products’ remain displayed on storefronts. On a weathered wall, one can still make out a fading painted slogan: ‘Without dreams, why come to Yiwu?’ But the bustling crowds have vanished. Shop owners, once hurriedly packing orders, have slowed their pace. A business owner, pointing at a narrow path outside his shop, said the place used to be jammed with cars and live streamers. If one product went viral, everyone would jump on it, selling it a lower price to beat each other out. Eventually, it came to a point when no one was making any money, and everything fell apart, he said.”