It’s Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. “Some sellers are still getting multiple offers, but not to the point where potential buyers are making offers far in excess of the asking price, said Carla Farley, Greater San Diego Association of Realtors president. ‘You’re starting to see a little bit of negotiating going on,’ Farley said. ‘We’re not seeing people going 40 or 50 grand over (asking price). Maybe you’ll get 10.’”
“The Austin area‘s housing market continued its recent trends in November, as fewer homes changed hands. Wesley Steck, a broker associate, said the market might have found ‘a new floor,’ and that the growth in home sales prices might return to a more typical level. ‘There’s a sense the (pricing) wave has crested a bit for the first time all year,’ Steck said. ‘We might get back to healthy appreciation, compared to what we saw this past year, which was bonkers.’”
“Introducing the biggest losers in real estate’s bull market. Some investors are learning that even supposedly ironclad ‘Swiss bank vault’ Manhattan towers carry big risks. The XI, a massive $2 billion, 236-unit condo project with twisting twin towers is currently rotting along the High Line in Chelsea. Last year, the financial collapse of its developer, HFZ Capital Group, halted construction on the XI. It went into foreclosure, washing away tens of millions in investor capital with it.”
“Investors lost big on other HFZ developments, too. It remains unclear just how many Joe Schmo buyers went down with the ship, but multiple cases involving such deals are currently working their way through the New York court system, and there will likely be additional suits to come, said one source familiar with the dealings, who also requested anonymity.”
“‘They would delay as much as possible,’ said a condo investor, who requested anonymity, of the developer, whose entire portfolio of buildings is being gobbled up by rival real estate sharks who smell blood in the water. ‘They would blame the market or construction or the banks or whatever the reason might be to delay delivering [the units] for as long as humanly possible.’ The investor said that he waited more than five years. Ultimately, ‘We understood that HFZ had no intention of ever closing on our unit.’”
“New analysis shows 16 London neighbourhoods in the 20 top buyers’ markets, where asking prices have dropped and homes are slow to sell. The areasare traditionally among some of the capital’s most sought-after, meaning now could be a good time to bag a ‘bargain’ property while many people continue to abandon city centres during the pandemic. ‘We can’t deny that buyers have had a reasonable amount of choice of property and some of that property has been sensibly priced to make sure it sells so that’s a change in the market that’s definitely taking place,’ said Lee O’Neill, head of sales at Knight Frank Canary Wharf.”
“Real estate agents in Hamilton say sanity is returning to the housing market as banks pull preapprovals. Lodge Real Estate managing director Jeremy O’Rourke says things are changing. O’Rourke says at a recent auction four of the five bidders had their bank preapprovals removed on the day. He also says fewer homes are selling under the hammer, with prices instead being negotiated after failing to reach set reserves. Only one-third of homes at Lodge’s December 8 auction sold under the hammer.”
“It comes after a flurry of changes in recent months which are impacting Kiwis’ ability to get a mortgage. That includes higher interest rates and changes to loan-to-value restrictions meaning fewer buyers will be able to secure a mortgage with less than a 20 percent deposit. In response to the changes, some of the country’s biggest banks started pulling pre-approvals for borrowers with a deposit less than 20 percent. A preapproval is an acknowledgement from a bank someone can borrow an agreed amount.”
“‘There’s still plenty of confidence in the Hamilton real estate market but there is a definite change happening,’ O’Rourke says.”
“If any investor still had hopes then that Evergrande was too big to fail, those are far gone now. The developer’s debt and shares are trading near record lows after the firm failed to honour its obligations. The richest bosses behind the nation’s property firms have lost more than US$46 billion (S$62.7 billion) combined this year, according to Bloomberg. Mr Hui’s wealth alone has plunged by US$17.2 billion, one of the biggest slumps for 2021.”
“About 15 real estate companies have defaulted on their corporate bonds in 2021. Home buyers are left in limbo, without knowing when the houses they’ve already partly paid for will be finished. Some tycoons have even lost their billionaire status: The wealth of the Kwoks behind Kaisa Group Holdings, another defaulter, has slumped by almost 90 per cent this year to about US$160 million. Chairman Zhang Yuanlin of Sinic Holdings Group saw his 75 per cent stake lose almost all of its value in a single day.”
“The offer to take Chinese Estates Holdings private by Hong Kong magnate Joseph Lau Luen-hung’s family has collapsed because of opposition from minority shareholders. Before the meeting, a number of angry shareholders said the offer was too low to accept. ‘I bought these shares at higher prices, of around HK$13 each, a few years ago for collecting dividends,’ said an elderly shareholder who only gave his surname as Choi. Only ‘fools’ would accept the HK$4 offered in the privatisation deal, he added.”
“‘Its investment in China Evergrande was a wrong decision,’ said another elderly shareholder surnamed Au, who has owned the stock for decades after buying it at HK$2.4. He said he bought the shares because of the positive outlook for the company’s high asset value, and that the price offered by the Lau family was too low.”