A report from NBC News. “Today’s housing market has two competing realities: a cost crunch that shows no signs of stopping, and a stretch of rising inventories and slowing competition that could offer relief — for those who can afford it. The decrease in competition is reflected in the time homes stay on the market, which has increased to near pre-pandemic levels. And the share of homes that sell within two weeks, 36%, is among the lowest it has been in the past five years. ‘Inventory has certainly increased [nationwide], but sales have yet to really get going,’ said Lawrence Yun, chief economist with the National Association of Realtors. ‘So if inventory lingers for longer, that’s when we’ll really start to see price reductions.’ Yun said he sees hope ahead. With inventory increases across the country, homeowners are less tethered to the home they own, what he called a ‘golden handcuffs situation.’ ‘With each passing month, the strength of golden handcuffs is beginning to weaken.’”
Banker & Tradesman in Massachusetts. “In Boston’s Back Bay, two single-family homes on Commonwealth Avenue were recently listed for nearly $30 million each. Not to be outdone, another Back Bay property was offered (off the MLS) with an asking price of ‘$60-$70 million.’ According to MLS records, the highest price ever paid for a Back Bay single-family currently stands at $13 million. In the past 12 months, MLS PIN indicates that zero single family properties have sold in Back Bay proper. Yes, we know that there was a non-MLS sale, but this is clearly a highly illiquid market. It’s been my view that limited inventory has been masking weak underlying demand. The inventory of available condominiums in Boston’s Back Bay is currently 37 percent higher when compared with the pre-pandemic trailing five-year average. In Wellesley, single family home inventory is still 60 percent below pre-pandemic levels, but it’s now 54 percent above the post-pandemic three-year average.”
“By April 2023, 18.6 percent of conventional mortgage originations by dollar volume were ARMs. No doubt homeowners with these adjustable-rate mortgages bought into the Realtor sales pitch of ‘marry the property, date the rate.’ Many high-end transactions are financed with mortgages, and in recent years they’re mostly ARMs. A penthouse condominium unit in the Seaport District recently sold for $8.5 million. The purchase was financed with a $6.37 million mortgage – not unusual. What is noteworthy is the structure of the mortgage which has an initial 10-year interest-only period.”
“In the wake of the financial crisis, these types of loans were viewed as the ugly cousin of the ‘liar loan’ – apparently IO’s are back in vogue. Valuations feel a little frothy, inventory is piling up, interest rate resets are on the horizon, and the cost of home ownership is skyrocketing in the form of property taxes, insurance and other expenses. Is the real estate market whistling past the graveyard?”
Northwest Florida Daily News. “Newly released data from Realtor.com for March shows that potential buyers and sellers in Okaloosa County saw houses sell for lower than the previous month’s median sales price of $364,000. The median home sold for $325,000, an analysis of data from Realtor.com shows. Compared to March 2023, the median home sales price was down 7.1% at $325,000 compared to $350,000. Condominiums and townhomes decreased by 29.7% in sales price during March to a median of $320,000 from $455,000 in February. Compared to March 2023, the sales price of condominiums and townhomes was down 24.7% from $425,000. In March, the number of recorded sales in Okaloosa County dropped by 30.1% since March 2023 from 505 to 353.”
The Star Telegram in Texas. “Fort Worth’s red-hot home market seems to have cooled just in time for summer. The city’s housing inventory climbed to 3.2 months this past May, according to the Greater Fort Worth Association of Realtors latest market analysis. Cowtown’s housing inventory — a measurement of how long it would take to sell off the city’s existing supply of homes — hasn’t surpassed the three month mark since 2013. ‘The increased demand that was created by the pandemic and a drop in mortgage rates really highlighted an overall shortage of housing in the area,’ Blake Barry, the president of the Greater Fort Worth Association of Realtors, said in a statement. ‘There were many more eager buyers than available homes for sale. Things feel very different now, and buyers have more options than they’ve seen in years.’”
From KVVU. “Hundreds of thousands of people have moved to Nevada since the pandemic, and a class has helped Northern California residents make informed decisions before the leap to relocate to the Silver State. The class is titled ‘Exit Strategies for Leaving the Bay Area,’ offered in San Jose. Realtor Punam Navalgund created the class in 2019 and tells FOX5 that the concept was born out of necessity: clients needed direction for how to leave California, what state or city to choose, and what to expect from a major move. Brian Cronin, 35, said he weighed the pros and cons on paper before a move from San Francisco to Henderson in 2020.”
“‘The cost of living in my [San Francisco] apartment was $2,600 a month for a small studio,’ Cronin said. Homelessness and needles on sidewalks were conditions he also described as ‘depressing.’ ‘When I moved here, I got $1,000 off my rent. I completely eliminated all my personal income tax. So I basically gave myself like a 15 to 20% raise,’ he said.”
CBS Sacramento. “FBI agents conducted an early-morning raid on the home of Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao Thursday morning, one of several federal raids on other properties in the city. Agents served warrants at Thao’s house on Maiden Lane in the city’s Lincoln Highlands neighborhood at around 5:30 a.m. Federal agents also served warrants at a nearby home on Viewcrest Court in the city’s Ridgemont neighborhood and at the Embarcadero offices shared by the Vietnamese American Business Association (VABA) and California Waste Solutions which manages the city’s curbside recycling program. The San Francisco Chronicle reported another search at the Skyline Boulevard home of VABA chairman David Duong, who is also CEO of California Waste Solutions.”
“California Waste Solutions has previously been investigated over campaign contributions to Oakland city officials, including Thao when she was a city councilmember, according to Oaklandside. The raids come two days after the Alameda County Registrar of Voters announced there were enough signatures on a petition to recall Thao from office to move the process forward. Supporters of a recall blame the mayor for not doing enough to fight crime which has led many businesses to close down in the city. They also blame Thao for the city’s failure to apply for millions of dollars in state money to fight retail crime.”
“Thao was also criticized for firing former police chief LeRonne Armstrong and not hiring a replacement for more than a year. On Thursday, Armstrong called the FBI raids ‘a sad day for the City of Oakland’ in a prepared statement. ‘Oakland is a city in crisis. Crime, violence, shootings, uncontrolled homelessness, unmitigated encampments, the budget deficit and more,’ said Armstrong. ‘The biggest obstacle to overcoming these crises are the failures of leadership in City Hall. Even before today’s news, some city leaders have done nothing to help–and much to hurt—our city.’”
El Nuevo Dia in Puerto Rico. “Residents of the San Ignacio condominium in San Juan experienced this year an increase of almost double in the cost of their insurance policy, an issue that is replicated throughout the island, according to Myrna Vélez, administrative assistant of the residential complex. According to Vélez, who is also a resident of the condominium, the master insurance payment for a three-bedroom apartment increased from $600 to more than $1,200 annually, which is divided and added to the mortgage payment. Those numbers do not take into account the private insurance, which has also increased. ‘It is very difficult, and since 2020 it has been worse, because many things have changed and nobody wants condominiums anymore, honestly,’ said Vélez, referring to the insurance companies that are not willing to insure condominiums.”
“The situation worsened after the impact of the natural disasters that affected Puerto Rico in 2017 and 2020, and worsened when some insurers opted not to assume the risk of condominiums, particularly, those on the coasts, Velez explained. ‘It’s going to continue to drive up the cost of insurance. They are drowning us,’ said Vélez. ‘It’s not just us, it’s all the condominiums.””
St Thomas Times Journal in Canada. “Alan Kats had angry words for two people he came looking for at a low-rise office building in Toronto on Monday afternoon — a witness heard arguing before the gunshots — but he also had much more in mind. He came to kill them, and then kill himself. Kats, 46, left his wife a note before setting off to the North York office, where he found Arash Missaghi, described by a judge as a ‘predatory fraudster,’ and Samira Yousefi, a pushy mortgage agent, who he blamed for defrauding the couple of their home and savings through an investment swindle that Missaghi had unrelentingly pulled on many people over many years, according to victims and police allegations.”
“Kats’ note says his death is on the hands of four people, and then lists the two people he killed as well as two lawyers who allegedly facilitated the transactions. ‘Stop these criminals from destroying peoples lifes,’ says his note, handwritten with misspellings in blue ink on a folded sheet of paper. What’s more, Kats and Pogorelovsky learned they were not the first people Missaghi had swindled, and were convinced they wouldn’t be the last. He seemed incorrigible and unstoppable, not by police, the courts, or investor complaints. Despite criminal charges, police probes, and lawsuits in Canada and the United States, Missaghi kept on swindling.”
From Metro UK. “The day before she was due to exchange contracts, the people buying Katharine Storr’s family home slashed their offer by £30,000. ‘They were bringing up all kinds of things which were in the survey, but weren’t issues at all,’ said the mum, 38, who lives in Tooting with her husband Matt and their kids. ‘They had us over a barrel and knew it, as we have three children and were moving house for schools.’ Like many selling a property in the current market, Katharine had been gazundered – when a buyer reduces their offer at a late stage of negotiations to pressure the seller into accepting less money. According to research by House Buyer Bureau, 31% of UK home sellers over the last six months of 2023 were victims of gazundering, with a third saying it happened within a week of their exchange date.”
“‘We were so upset and angry,’ writer Katharine told Metro.co.uk. ‘It felt awful, everything had gone so smoothly until that point and then it felt like they were inventing issues that weren’t there to try to get money off.’ But the tactic worked for the buyer and, backed into a corner, they accepted £15,000 less than the original offer. Three quarters of sellers who’ve been gazundered reported that they also gave into the pressure and accepted, with reasons including believing the lower offer was still fair, not wanting to jeopardise their onward sale, and not wanting to waste more time finding another buyer.”
“This was the case for Evie Richards, 25, who was keen to sell the house she shared with her boyfriend after they broke up, so she could move on with her life. The deputy SEO editor from South London and her ex put the property on the market in February last year but didn’t accept an offer until June. ‘The offer was already around £20,000 below asking,’ she told Metro.co.uk. ‘But it was at the bottom end of what the house was valued at and we weren’t making a loss (breaking more-or-less even) so reluctantly agreed – knowing that this is just how the market is, and we both wanted out of our current situation.’”
“By September, they were ready to sign on the dotted line when Evie got a call from her solicitor while she was at work. The buyer claimed that unless they were willing to accept an offer £30,000 less than agreed, he’d ‘walk away’ completely. She recalled: ‘My world shattered, and it took me a while to compose myself and get back to work. He said unfortunately this is common practice we’re seeing more and more, where buyers prey on desperation and time pressure and make ridiculous requests like this that you can’t afford to turn down.’”
“After a lot of back and forth, they were able to negotiate the price to £7,000 less than originally offered, along with amenities such as the brand new fridge and garden furniture thrown in. Yet Evie remembers the nerve-wracking ordeal as ‘a waste of time and money’ that left her ‘terrified that the buyer would pull out.’”
From YLE. “At the end of last year, Helsinki City Housing Company (Heka), Finland’s largest landlord, made news for raising rents by an average of 12 percent. Today more than 1,000 Heka flats sit empty. Heka has some 1,500 vacant apartments. At the same time, 10,500 housing applications await processing. Helsingin Sanomat has reported that the vacant rental apartments mean million-euro monthly losses for Heka, which had to increase rents last year due to financial difficulties. Heka houses more than 90,000 of the capital’s residents. These apartments are allocated by the City of Helsinki’s housing services, with priority given to the homeless and other applicants of limited means and low income.”
“Heka CEO Jaana Närö meanwhile said the current market situation means that people have more choice than a year ago. ‘There are apartments available in Helsinki, so residents can choose. When we make an offer, they may have already found housing elsewhere,’ she said.”
DPA News Agency. “Germany’s Federal Statistics Office released figures on Friday that showed domestic property prices slipping further in the first three months of 2024. The country’s property market has declined since mid-2022 — a phenomenon largely attributed to a steep rise in interest rates. Prices fell by 5.7% year-on-year. The biggest declines compared to the same quarter last year were seen for single and two-family homes in Germany’s seven largest cities (Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Cologne, Frankfurt am Main, Stuttgart and Düsseldorf), at -9.5%. Plummeting prices have been largely attributed to reduced demand as the cost of borrowing increased, making buying less attractive for private buyers and large investors.”
South China Morning Post. “Singapore’s cooling property market suffered a blow after a housing site put up for sale by the government failed to attract any interest from developers for the first time in more than two decades. The Upper Thomson Road site was one of two earmarked for construction of some apartments requiring a minimum three-month stay, up from the current seven-day requirement. Tepid foreigner demand and economic uncertainty are making developers think twice, according to CBRE Group Inc., which added that this was the first time such a site saw no bids in more than 20 years. The other pilot site for long-term serviced apartments on the fringe of the city centre drew only one bid, which was accepted in April. ‘Market sentiment is weak, and caution rules the day’ for developers, said Nicholas Mak, the chief research officer at Mogul.sg, a property portal.”