It’s Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. “‘Broadly speaking, all real estate valuations are likely to come down in the coming months, since there is little doubt that interest rates will continue to rise, perhaps substantially,’ Reveeille Hospitality Chief Investment Officer Marco Roca Jr. said.”
“Redfin noted a ‘nosedive‘ in home-touring activity, which is down 38% since January over the last four weeks, with declining demand that led a near-record share of homeowners to lower their asking prices. ‘The housing market always cools down this time of year, but this year, I expect fall and winter to be especially frigid as sales dry up more than usual,’ Redfin Chief Economist Daryl Fairweather said.”
“The housing market took off like a bottle rocket in 2020 and continued its ascent for two years. Now, it’s coming back to earth. Atlanta’s median home price has fallen from its record high in June. ‘It’s like somebody flipped a switch,’ said Sam Morgan, director of sales for Engel & Volkers Atlanta.”
“Stephanie Eiger, a real estate agent with Coldwell Banker Realty in Oak Park adds that in later summer, a few of her listings have languished. ‘We’ve done price reductions — almost unheard of in April,’ Eiger said. Linda Rooney of Oak Park’s RE/MAX In the Village says that the spring market carried over to closings in June and July but that selling activity then slowed. Rooney said that this fall, she expects to see longer market times and sellers making more concessions to get their properties sold due to increased interest rates. ‘Sellers aren’t in the driver’s seat so much anymore,’ she said.”
“Oahu’s housing market continued its yearlong slowdown in August as sales declined by about a quarter for the second straight month, bidding wars subsided and the median price for condominiums dipped. ‘Following the frenzy we saw last year, sellers are working with their trusted Realtors to reevaluate how to price their homes as the market cools off,’ said Chad Takesue, president of the Honolulu Board of Realtors. ‘Our data indicate that fewer properties are selling at a premium, and price reductions are rising.’”
“Statistics compiled by the Kerrville Board of Realtors, plus comments from local realtors, indicate the local real estate market is beginning to adjust downward. Board of Realtors data shows the median price of a home has dropped from $401,000 in June back to $375,000 in July. The number of active residential listings grew from 113 in June to 137 in July and closed sales dropped slightly from 57 in June to 55 in July. Realtor Rob Irvin agreed that the market is cooling in the Kerrville area and around the state. ‘We are definitely in transition. 60 days ago a house on the market would get multiple offers above the list price,’ Irvin said, ‘but that’s no longer the case.’ Irvin said the realtors are seeing some price reductions already but mostly in homes that were ‘egregiously overpriced in the beginning.’”
“‘Prices are stabilizing, which is attracting more buyers in this segment who are typically less influenced by interest rates,’ said Alida Zwaan, an associate broker with Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Colorado Properties’ Vail/Lionshead office. ‘There are still some sellers who have yet to realize — or accept — that the market is flattening. Homes that are overpriced are sitting on the market. Only the most remodeled properties with the best location and views are selling at premium prices.’”
“It’s not just the Craftsman down the block dropping in price. Home prices across the Puget Sound area continue to trend down. That includes some of the priciest homes on the market. Windermere Chief Economist Matthew Gardner called the local figures ‘eye-opening,’ but argued ‘they are simply indicating the market is trending back to the more normalized conditions that we were seeing before the pandemic.’ Gardner said in a statement he expects prices to continue to drop this fall.”
“Keller Williams agent Nicole Dankworth described the trend as ‘a stalemate market.’ Buyers are holding off to see if the market will cool even further, while sellers are hesitant to let go of their homes for less than the prices they saw a few months ago, Dankworth said. ‘I’ve never really seen anything like this.’ Dankworth worked with one recent buyer who secured a Craftsman home in West Seattle for $185,000 under its list price. She listed an updated four-bedroom in Kenmore for $1.35 million in June that sold for $1.2 million last month. Those trends extend to the luxury market, too, she said. Meanwhile, luxury sellers who have been reluctant to drop their prices are finally ready to go for a huge reduction or accept a low offer, according to Dankworth.”
“In an era when people can work from anywhere, few choose downtown Portland. Now WW has learned that three high-end hotels in the downtown core—including the city’s flagship Hilton—are in foreclosure proceedings with the banks that issued their mortgages. Such proceedings are the first signal that the emptiness of downtown Portland has reached a critical stage. Property owners are irate. Greg Goodman, whose company owns a patchwork of properties downtown, calls the vacancy rate ‘a full-fledged disaster’ and says city leaders ‘are doing nothing about it.’”
“Nathan Sasaki, owner of Apex Real Estate Partners, says their fates show the consequences of a derelict downtown. ‘If we don’t do something with downtown, there will be an amazing amount of properties that will go into foreclosure,’ Sasaki says. ‘We haven’t even started to feel the pain yet. The banks are trying to keep these properties off the foreclosure list, because why would you want to take something back that you know is a bloody mess? But eventually they have to.’”
“‘A three-per-cent increase to prime in such a short period of time has changed the landscape for homebuyers,’ said Frances Dares, a real estate broker in Calgary. She said there has been more balance in the market, which benefits buyers who are able to get proper inspections done or have multiple viewings, something that was not happening in the spring. Sarah Stachiw, a public relations specialist at Bromwich and Smith, reported an increase in the number of people coming through their doors looking for help from insolvency trustees in Calgary.”
“The problem is complicated by those with high debt levels, noting the average Canadian has $1.86 worth of debt for every dollar of disposable income. Insolvencies across Canada were 19.1 per cent higher in July 2022 than the year before. ‘Our clients are scared,’ she said. ‘They don’t know what the future has to hold and they know that they’re in a bad situation when they come to us.’”
“Meriton Managing Director Harry Triguboff, one of Australia’s richest men, has slammed the Reserve Bank for interest rate rises, which he labelled ‘idiotic.’ ‘Raising those interest rates is a complete idiotic thing. We are following the Americans, I don’t know how clever they are … What’s happening is there is not enough workers,’ Mr Triguboff said. ‘People who buy Meriton apartments are definitely more nervous now than they were in the past. Interest rates had to be dropped because of Covid. That was the cleverest thing we ever did, I was really very worried because 80 per cent of my buyers were from China. Everything has to be done in proportion – if we don’t want to ruin the country, interest rates can’t continue to rise.’”
“Knowing we wanted to sell our Lower Hutt home in early 2022, we started house hunting and found our dream home in December 2021. We snapped it up. When we then listed our property on the market in February, we were ill prepared for the sharp decline in house prices. We had bought our new house at the peak of the market, and then listed it at the very start of the drop. We went to market at the beginning of February 2022 with a deadline sale of buyer enquiries over (BEO) $1,085,000.”
“By the time we went unconditional 202 days later, we had already dropped our asking price several times and were down to an asking price of $795,000. We got our first offer at 190 days on the market, which was $80,000 below our then asking price of $839,000. We’ve sold now for $786,000 and moved on, so it is best not to dwell on what could have been if we had only listed our house six weeks earlier. We did extensive renovations and made it a wonderful family home. We tried a deadline sale, multiple large price reductions and changing agents. We had a lot of people through the open homes, but only one offer, which took us six months to get.”
“Finance seemed to be the big factor in buyers’ willingness to offer. We had people enquiring and then learning their pre-approval amounts from the bank were being reduced. We weren’t in a financial position to hold it as a rental, so needed it sold as we had already purchased elsewhere. We are happy the house has now sold and no longer sitting vacant while we pay for staging and two mortgages.”