A report from Realtor.com. “Median home prices fell in July, marking the first-ever seasonal decline in a month that’s typically a peak time for home sales. The national median list price dipped from $445,000 in June to $439,950 in July, according to a new monthly housing report by Realtor.com®. This hesitancy among buyers likely also contributed to prices being slashed on 18.9% of listings in July, up from 15.5% a year ago. ‘Sellers are becoming more grounded with patience and price expectations,’ says Realtor.com senior economist Ralph McLaughlin in his analysis. Indeed, the share of listings with price cuts is the highest since 2022. The total number of homes for sale in July was 36.6% higher than the year prior, marking the ninth consecutive month of growth. Metros that saw the largest increases in the number of homes for sale included Tampa, FL, at 94.9%; Orlando, FL, at 78.7%; and San Diego at 77.7%.”
Community Impact in Texas. “A rise in housing options and interest rates has led to an increased number of houses available to potential buyers in Bastrop and Cedar Creek. The population in Bastrop County was 106,000 as of 2022, a 20% increase from 2019, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau. In the same timeframe, the number of housing units in the county increased by over 27% from 31,085 to 39,539. In Bastrop and Cedar Creek, the number of active listings increased from 2019-2023 by 151.75% and 74.06%, respectively, according to Austin Board of Realtors data. Jamie Ehresman, co-owner of the Bastrop-based J&S Real Estate Team, said it is currently a buyer’s market because housing inventory is at the highest it has ever been in Bastrop. ‘There’s enough selection out there right now that buyers have the ability to actually negotiate, and they haven’t before,’ Ehresman said.”
The Washington Post. “When Vickie Franzen and her husband, Jon Crenshaw, bought their first house in Roseville, Calif., in 2018, they never expected they would still be there in 2024. Last October, Franzen considered upsizing to a larger home, but once she and her husband took a look at the market, they quickly retreated. Prices in their area, a suburb of Sacramento, had shot up more than 35 percent since they had last house-hunted. Add in higher interest rates, Franzen says, and ‘we couldn’t afford our current home now,’ let alone a bigger one.”
“These days, a lot of homeowners are having those debates. Heather Devoto, vice president of the McLean, Va., branch of First Home Mortgage, describes many of her consultations with clients lately as ‘therapy calls.’ ‘I spend more time on the phone now with people, listening and trying to help them, and [doing] a lot of hand-holding,’ she says. ‘They’re just like, ‘We’re just stuck.’ Tim Haugh, who bought a three-bedroom house in San Jose in 2020, also doesn’t see how his family could move. ‘We’re locked in,’ he says. He and his wife have a 3 percent mortgage rate. Even if they could pay the same price for their house today, Haugh says, ‘with the interest rates, I think [it would be] more than double the mortgage payment, which is just insane.’”
From Local 10. “Florida’s public not-for-profit property insurer of last resort is pushing for double-digit rate increases. Tim Cerio, the president of Citizens Property Insurance Corporation recently presented the 14% increase proposal to regulators. ‘If we keep Citizens rates extremely low, then at the end of the day the taxpayers … get stuck holding the bag,’ said Florida Rep. Daniel Perez.”
The News Press in Florida. “Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different outcomes is a useful definition of ‘insanity.’ That’s why FEMA’s National Flood Insurance Program underwrites the insanity of rebuilding a house that gets flooded out again and again because of its location on that same location, or building a new house in on ground that gets flooded out over and over. Engineers live by the maxim ‘good planning is preparation for the inevitable.’ The government subsidized National Flood Insurance Program is at cross-purposes with this. The reason private insurers do not write home flood insurance policies is because it is considered a ‘bad bet’ for the insurer. In the end, it’s a lot more than about money. It’s about good planning for an inevitable future versus subsidizing disasters that can be anticipated and mitigated now.”
Richmond Bizsense in Virginia. “A local banker will serve more than four years in prison for a long-running, multimillion-dollar lending fraud. James Stevens, who for 15 years orchestrated what prosecutors described as a ‘Ponzi loan scheme’ at Henrico-based Primis Bank and its predecessors, was sentenced Thursday to serve 51 months in a federal facility. The 47-year-old lifelong Northern Neck resident was a commercial lender and branch manager at Primis and its previous incarnations Sonabank, EVB and Southside Bank from 2000 to 2023. He pleaded guilty in February to one count of bank fraud and admitted to a scam that ran from 2008 through June 2023. It involved issuing numerous fraudulent loans in the names of both witting and unwitting Primis customers.The scam, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, came to an end when Stevens was hospitalized last year and unable to maintain payments on fraudulently obtained loans.”
The Real Deal. “Jonathan Gould was already making money on traditional investments, but it wasn’t enough. As the New Jerseyan, now 67, looked to juice his returns, he stumbled upon an advertisement in the Wall Street Journal for a hard-money mortgage lending conference in Las Vegas. He went, and met a partner who brought him in on some small deals. In short order, he caught the bug. It all changed when he met Rob Buchanan. Buchanan was the founder of Pride of Austin, a hard-money lender playing in residential, commercial and construction projects. Gould would go on to invest more than a half million dollars with Buchanan, and for a decade, it all seemed to be on the up. But come 2023, disbursements stopped. Investors swarmed to recover their money, and lawsuits piled up as an outside analysis turned up startling evidence of an alleged Ponzi scheme.”
“The fund is now in receivership, with its carcass being picked apart. For a livestream of a recent hearing, dozens of spurned investors like Gould tuned in, hoping to understand how $60 million of their life savings and retirement nest eggs had dissolved into thin air. A group of investors has banded together to institute order and fight for their money — or at least what’s left of it. ‘It’s like a different Rob emerged,’ Gould said. Last year, distributions stopped altogether. Gould revealed that he’s totally wiped out and applying for welfare. ‘If I had money, I would be doing deals,’ he said. After investing with Buchanan for a decade, Gould doesn’t know where all the money went. ‘I’d like to think the money is sitting somewhere,’ he said.”
The Globe and Mail in Canada. “On June 27 a political gathering took place at the Trent Lakes Municipal Office near Bobcaygeon, Ont. These town halls in cottage-country community centres have become thorny battlegrounds defining the future of these idyllic regions. The agenda of this particular meeting, for instance, included a potential licensing scheme for short-term rentals (STR), a bit of profanity in paradise. The short-term rental boom has also driven up property values, as cottages become seen as assets more than homes, and brought a revolving door of tenants that’s anathema to these close-knit communities.”
“‘I understand, from all the residents here, how tough this is, but I don’t think you understand how drastically different the real estate world has changed,’ said one late-30s cottage owner who operates an STR, and whose family has lived in the area for more than 50 years. ‘There’s no way any younger generation can come in and buy real estate here without renting it out. And quite frankly, we are going to be the ones that buy your cottages at the end. I can’t afford to own this on my own.’”
“‘Commodification takes an imagery – the cottage at the lake with the wharf, the water, the relaxation, and getting away from the stresses of urban living – and turns that into a commodity that’s bought and sold,’ Dr. said University of Northern British Columbia’s Greg Halseth. ‘Then you start having the rental of cottage properties. It had always been there, but now it was being turned not into something that could help you just pay for the cottage over the year, but it was being turned into a business.’”
From DPA International. “The sun sparkles over San Sebastián’s bay and harbour. But residents here and in an increasing number of Spanish cities are growing annoyed by the crowds, noise and housing shortages associated with mass tourism. The transformation of apartments into tourist quarters is also controversial, reducing the living space available to locals and driving up prices. Currently, flyers stuck to old town houses in Pamplona are calling for protest meetings, saying, ‘A neighbourhood lives here. How to prevent tourist apartments in your building.’ Over the summer, tens of thousands of locals have taken to the streets in Spanish cities from the Mallorcan capital of Palma to Barcelona, Málaga and the Canary Islands. Mallorca protesters carried signs saying Your luxury, our misery and We don’t want to be the pioneers of rising housing costs.’”
Worcester News in the UK. “Liberal Democrat councillors say several housing developments have stalled. Concerns have been raised in the Pershore area after houses have been left half built, some completed homes have been unsold and several sites are incomplete. Dan Boatright-Greene, group leader for Wychavon Liberal Democrats and a county councillor for Pershore, said: ‘The whole housing situation is a mess. We have thousands of residents struggling to find affordable rents and mortgages. Social housing not keeping pace with need. Yet hundreds of houses have been built. The sites focused on social and affordable housing, however, have stalled and we now have sites with half-finished buildings. Week after week I have residents getting in contact because they cannot afford to live here. But any attempt to build homes for residents results in the estate becoming unviable.’”
The Herald Sun. “Victorian home values may be falling but the size of the state’s typical loan has risen about $15,000 compared to a year ago. Australian Bureau of Statistics figures show the average loan size of owner-occupier dwellings was $604,343 as of June 2024, in comparison to $589,073 a year prior. Victorian agents said investors were exiting the market due to high interest rates and the introduction of land taxes – resulting in an oversupply of units and townhouses. A two-bedroom, one-bathroom unit at 1/47 Morwell Ave, Watsonia, passed in for a vendor bid of $350,000.”
“Ray White Macleod’s Kaylah Guerra said the home would have previously been hot property for an investor, but the unit’s $360,000-$390,000 asking price only garnered some interest from owner occupiers. Ms Gurerra said the mass investor exodus was due to the uncertainty caused by interest rates and the state governments land tax amendments which came into effect on January 1 this year. ‘We are selling so many properties off our rental roll,’ she said. ‘The cost of running an investment property is not stacking up, while rent is going up it’s not matching mortgage repayments. Interest rates need to go down and stability in the Victorian market needs to happen if we want investors to return.’”
From SBS News. “When Sid Prakash decided to build a family home in 2018, he did not expect that six years on, it would still be incomplete. Like many Australians, Sid dreamed of a place to call his own. But what started off as a positive experience turned sour as the months passed. ‘It was a dream that’s kind of subsequently turned into a nightmare,’ Sid told Insight. Eighteen months after Sid signed the contract to build with Pinnacle Builders, the company folded in 2020 and left the Melbourne family an unfinished build with several defects. For the family of four, the delayed build has meant they’ve had to live with Sid’s parents for the past six years. ‘I can’t even think to imagine what would have occurred if this wasn’t an option,’ he added.”
“Data from the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) shows almost 3,000 building and construction companies (or eight per day) went under over the past financial year — that’s more businesses collapsing than in any other industry in the country. Amie and Anthony Lloyd, who own a small carpentry business in Canberra, were also hit hard by Rork Projects collapse — though it wasn’t the first insolvency they’d been caught up in. Collectively, the collapses have put them out of pocket almost half a million dollars. Amie believes many construction companies ‘rack up millions of dollars of debt, and they just walk away. It’s just another kick in the guts,’ Amie said.”
“Professor Jason Harris, a professor of corporate law at the University of Sydney says that the issue of insolvent trading in the building and construction sector is rife and it is not being properly policed by ASIC, the federal government’s corporate watchdog. ‘It’s the watchdog that nobody fears because it’s not bringing enough of these cases,’ he said. ‘The bad guys know that they’re highly unlikely to get caught, which is why they keep doing it. People have turned this into a business model.’”
“Sid says he would never choose to build his own home if he had his time again. ‘Anybody who wants to build a home at the moment, they’re really up for a lot of pain,’ he said. ‘Consumer protection is lacking, it’s a difficult situation out there.’ Sid’s family do not know when their home build will be finished.”
South China Morning Post. “Retiree Amy Ng* bought a 230 sq ft flat six years ago in a 60-year-old building in Sham Shui Po, one of Hong Kong’s poorest districts. Looking for a regular source of income in retirement, she split the space into two subdivided flats of 100 sq ft and 130 sq ft to rent. She figured if the building was acquired for redevelopment, the compensation would be a windfall. Ng, aged around 60, said she spent HK$200,000 (US$25,607) on the renovations. With the Hong Kong government considering proposals to regulate the design of subdivided homes and eliminate ‘improper’ ones, Ng and other landlords like her are anxious about the new rules, and the time and cost of meeting them.”
“All this has left Ng unsure about the future. ‘It depends on the exact requirements and how much I need to spend to fulfil them,’ she said. ‘If I have to spend another HK$100,000, I will not consider it.’ Engaging professionals to prove her flats met the standards could also be costly. ‘I’ll just leave my property vacant and wait for developers to acquire it. It is not worth it,’ she said.”