A report from the Arizona Republic. “The number of February 2023 home sales in metro Phoenix was about 100 higher than February 2024, and the median price was about $28,000 less. ‘If you found February’s sales volume numbers disappointing, you’re really not going to like March,’ said housing analyst Tom Ruff with The Information Market, a division of ARMLS. ‘March’s closing numbers are facing a couple of unfavorable headwinds.’ He said mortgage rates are again hovering around 7%, which is ‘the definitive line perspective homeowners prefer not to cross.’”
KEYE in Texas. “New numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau show that for the first time in two decades more people are leaving Travis County than moving in. What this means is Austin’s flow of people is changing. The last time this happened was in 2002 when the dot-com stock bubble crashed. Melanie and husband Jordan Suber are a real estate power couple with EXP Realty. ‘You can buy homes for below market value because the home is not moving as quickly as it used to back in 2021 and 2022,’ Jordan said.”
New England Cable News. “Steve Rife and his family moved to a home in Winchester, Massachusetts, last November. He bought the house back in October — right when interest rates were nearing a historic 8%. ‘There was a window where the interest rates went up enough that prices started coming down a little bit,’ said Rife. He and his wife decided to take on a higher rate and put in an offer on the home, below asking price. Rife tell us what they’re paying for now is just interest. But he hopes interest rates go down soon, so he can refinance. ‘It’s almost like we’re renting, but we’re getting a little bit of equity,’ said Rife. ‘It’s going to be a long time before we own the equity in this house.’”
The Sun Sentinel. “Prospective homeowners in South Florida face a market rife with high price tags and mortgage interest rates. But with a rise in available listings, they’re also likely to find more choices when buying a home. Palm Beach County leads the way, with more than 5,000 active listings of single-family homes in February 2024, a 26% change from last year when active listings of single-family homes hovered around 4,000. Broward County’s inventory does not fall too far behind, with a 23% increase in single-family-home active listings from last year. The increase in active listings for townhouses and condos was even greater in both counties. Broward saw a jump from 4,547 listings last year to more than 8,000 this past February, a nearly 80% increase. In Palm Beach County, the trend was similar, with townhouse and condo listings rising from 3,973 to 6,242.”
“‘Some of the listings are just too overpriced,’ said Patty Da Silva, a broker with Green Realty Properties in Cooper City. ‘Some of the inventory that you see, the excess inventory is just not sellable.’ Price adjustments, which are essentially just decreases, happen a lot, she said.”
Los Angeles Daily News in California. “Embattled Los Angeles developer Shangri-La Industries, which has left a trail of unpaid debts, unfinished projects and foreclosure threats since it took $114 million from the state to convert motels into housing for the homeless, is now accusing its former chief financial officer of embezzling millions of dollars to fund an extravagant lifestyle. Shangri-La, which is being sued by state housing authorities for breaching the terms of its agreement under Gov. Gavin Newsom’s signature Project Homekey program, alleges in a lawsuit that former CFO Cody Holmes, 29, engaged in bank fraud and check kiting in 2022 and 2023 with Shangri-La’s lenders, banks and brokers.”
“Holmes, according to the lawsuit, allegedly transferred vast sums of company cash and property to bank accounts and shell companies he set up and controlled and to his suspected ex-girlfriend, Madeline Witt, 28, who is a defendant in the lawsuit. He used the money to host extravagant parties, cover $46,000 a month in rent at a leased home in Beverly Hills, travel regularly on private jets, lease exotic cars — including a 2021 Bentley Bentayga and a Ferrari Portofino — and even $12,000 to cover a student loan payment, the lawsuit alleges.”
Colorado Public Radio. “Grand Junction has invested millions in housing efforts in recent years, but city leaders continue to field calls for action to support the city’s unhoused residents and limit the public impacts of the crisis. Tonja Baker, who lives in an RV often parked on Bureau of Land Management land, uses the resource center and said she likes the idea of a safe parking option. ‘I’ve had my generator stolen so I have no electricity. Water is a really hard thing, especially when you have dogs and stuff like that. I think they should have a (sanctioned) camping area that has people who have RVs and pull behind campers that don’t have to worry about it when they leave, if they come back if it’s going to be there, or if someone’s broken into it,’ she said.”
“Stephania Vasconez, executive director of Mutual Aid Partners, said Baker’s thoughts reflect a common sentiment among the people she talks to. ‘I think that anybody listening to that, (who) has a very different perspective would be like, ‘Wait, really? They just want a place to just have running water and electricity and to have a place to park and leave their stuff and come back and it’s not stolen? That seems pretty normal.’”
From Global News. “From a peak of 41.1 per cent of working Canadians working remotely in April 2020, recent Statistics Canada data shows a combined 25 per cent of working Canadians are working either completely remotely or in a hybrid setup. At the same time, a real estate frenzy that peaked with record sales prices across Ontario in 2022 saw prices fall in 2023 and growth slowing since then. The Toronto Regional Real Estate Board shows the average price of a home in the city of Toronto was $884,385 in January 2020. The average price increased by 40 per cent to $1,243,070 in April 2022 and has since fallen 22 per cent to $959,915 as of January 2024.”
“Prices increased in the Hamilton area by about 40 per cent to just under $976,000 from 2020 to 2022, before falling around 10 per cent from record highs last year, according to the Realtors Association of Hamilton-Burlington. Canadian Real Estate Association data shows the price of a home in the Guelph area climbed over 80 per cent between January 2020 and February 2022 to $1.1 million, before falling about 20 per cent from record highs as of January. Data from the London St. Thomas Association of Realtors shows prices in the region climbed 88 per cent between January 2020 and February 2022, to $825,221. As of February, the average sales price is 25 per cent down from the peak.”
“Shannon Murree, team lead of the MovingSimcoe.com team with RE/Max, Hallmark Chay Realty, said as return-to-office policies multiplied, so did the number of people deciding they no longer wanted to accept the commute. ‘Barrie, for example, if you have to go to Toronto and you have to work for 9:00 … if you leave one minute past quarter after 6 or 6:30 – that’s it, you’re done. You’re going to be stuck in traffic,’ she said. ‘I was just talking to somebody that a normal 45-minute drive took him 2.5 hours to come in.’”
Kronen Zeitung. “Years of rising residential property prices have come to an end. According to calculations by Statistics Austria, houses and apartments in Austria cost an average of 2.6 percent less in 2023. Prices for existing housing were 3.7 percent lower than in the previous year, but there was only a slight decrease of 0.1 percent for newly built apartments and houses. According to experts, the sharpest declines were in Upper Austria, Vienna and Lower Austria. A similar picture emerges with regard to house prices (new and existing properties). According to Statistics Austria, Vienna reported the most striking decline at minus 6.7 percent, followed by Lower Austria with minus 4.9 percent and Upper Austria with minus 4.4 percent. In Burgenland and Vorarlberg, house prices fell by 2.2 percent and 1.3 percent respectively.”
“In a European comparison, the Austrian housing market reacted somewhat more strongly to the new market environment than the eurozone (-1.1%) and the European Union as a whole (-0.4%) with an average price decline of 2.8% in the first three quarters of 2023 (the fourth quarter will not be published internationally until April 2024) compared to 2022. Germany recorded the largest price decline in the EU during this period at -8.9 %.”
Domain News in Australia. “The owner of an apartment in the blighted Mascot Towers, who is set to walk away with precisely nothing from the official deal to end the saga, has accused the government of the ‘ultimate betrayal’ by breaking a core election promise. Instead, they’ve set up a deal to sell it to an investor consortium with the aim of allowing most owner-occupiers to walk away debt-free from their homes, which has now been accepted by 75 per cent of owners.”
”This is a completely different solution and one that’s broken our trust and our hearts,’ said Derek Williams. ‘Everyone will have lost so much money, and many of us will now be renting for the rest of our lives. When the Minns government wanted our votes, they promised the voters of NSW an equitable deal to help us. Instead, we’re being bullied into accepting something that ruins us.’”
“Residents in the 131-unit Mascot Towers in south Sydney were evacuated in June 2019 when major cracks opened up, and haven’t been allowed back. The pre-election shadow minister for better regulation and innovation, Courtney Houssos, pledged high-level support for owners. Williams, 62, ploughed his life savings, plus a small inheritance, into a two-bedroom, ninth-floor apartment in Mascot Towers in 2009 after being struck by a car while walking on a footpath and having to move into a unit with a lift because of his injuries.”
“He’ll walk away from his apartment – with a bank valuation of $900,000 – with absolutely nothing. ‘So I’ll have no mortgage but also no property and no money,’ he said. ‘After paying out for all those years, my hopes and dreams and inheritance will have all turned to dust. This is a terrible situation which is wrecking people’s lives. I’m beyond angry. To think the consortium that’s buying the building will be able to remediate it and then make a profit out of people’s suffering is appalling, and to think that someone new will end up living in my apartment instead of me … It’s absolutely gut-wrenching.’”
“Single mum Nicky Elderton, 42, said she bought her one-bedroom apartment in Mascot Towers in 2009 and lived there until she had the first of her three children, now aged 11. She then moved to a bigger unit elsewhere but kept the original as an investment. Two months before the evacuation, the unit was valued at $750,000. After refinancing and drawing downs, she owes $690,000 on the loan and has been offered $167,400 for it. ‘I’m a mum-and-dad investor; I’m not a big corporate investor who can afford things like this,’ Elderton said. ‘I’m now working with Lifeline Australia to try to negotiate with the banks, but it looks like I will lose everything. I’ve cried my eyes out at every meeting, but the government refuses to listen.’”