A report from The Street. “‘Housing affordability keeps hitting new lows in the US… first time buyers have been priced out of the market,’ investment community Wall Street Silver posted on its Twitter account. ‘Investors are not likely to stay around when they realize the music had stopped.’”

The Dayton Daily News. “The average rate on the 30-year fixed mortgage just topped 5% for the first time in a decade and experts said future increases could have a halting effect on the home-buying market. ‘For housing, while we’ll see a drop in transactions … what remains is the fact that prices at some point will have to adjust for all these higher mortgages, highest costs,’ said George Ratiu, manager of Economic Research at Realtor.com.”

From Mansion Global. “The number of homes listed in the week through Saturday increased by 8% compared to the same time in 2021 after decreasing in the prior four weeks, according to Realtor.com. Even with ever-growing median listing prices and surging demand, more sellers have been dropping their asking prices. Around one in every 10 listings, or roughly 12% homes currently listed, had a price drop during the four weeks ending Sunday, which was up from 9% at the same time in 2021 and the highest share since early December, according to a separate report released by Redfin.”

From Yahoo Finance. “JULIE HYMAN: So let’s go back to what you said about bidding over ask. What are we going to see on that? I mean, it feels like this latest period was characterized by a lot of bidding wars, right? Multiple offers coming in on hot properties, everyone trying to outbid the next. Is that done? Are we not seeing that so much right now?”

“Redfin Chief Economist Daryl Fairweather: It’s starting to fade. I was talking to one of our real estate agents in Seattle, and she was saying that it used to be that homes would get a dozen offers. And now it’s more like two or three. That’s still multiple offers and still could lead to a situation where the home goes above asking price. But I think as time goes on, it’ll go down to just one or two offers or one or zero offers, and homes will actually start to sit on the market.”

From Bisnow New York. “With 421-a set to expire in June and rental profits under threat, Avison Young Tri-State Investment Sales Group principal James Nelson says developers are hesitating. Exacerbating the slowdown is the tax break’s proposed replacement, a measure called 485-w, which is designed to create deeper levels of housing affordability and is unpopular with developers. ‘This is going to really decrease land value, certainly in prime locations,’ Nelson said. ‘If you run the numbers based on the main requirements and the cost of development, the land value in some places dropped by a third.’”

From ABC 7 in California. “In 1986, Gary R. bought his dream home in Pleasanton. A four bedroom house with a pool and a view of the mountains. 36 years later, his dream home is now an income property, but for the past 26 months he hasn’t made any income. ‘For over two years I have tenants that haven’t paid a single dollar,’ said Gary. ‘It’s over $100.000. It’s a big amount of money.’”

“The East Bay Rental Housing Association says many landlords are on the verge of losing their properties as they wait for the state or county programs for help. As to Gary, he doesn’t know how much longer he can hold on to his property. ‘I’m basically zeroed out at this point. I have $50 in my savings account. I have a big problem. I just paid for my real state taxes and my mortgage payments. I’m clear through April but I’m going to have borrow some money in May,’ said Gary.”

From Toronto Sun in Canada. “For those of us ‘on the ground,’ the lag time between the shifting behaviours and trends we observe in our day-to-day and when we are able to actually see them borne out in the numbers can be lengthy. Quite simply, by the time the data supports what the canaries in the mine have been calling, it’s often past the point of prediction and well into the new reality. At first it was a drop in the number of offer registrations; things were still selling, sure, but the number of buyers fighting for them was in decline. Then it was a sharp increase in the number of listings that were failing to sell on offer night only to be relisted the following day. We were starting to see more properties simply sitting when their pricing strategy was poorly received.”

“Then the investor mania in the condo market served to overshadow the moderation I was certain I was seeing elsewhere. The. Market. Is. Shifting. It was an inevitability that at some point the runaway train was bound to lose steam. It was inevitable that at some point the upward pressure on prices would butt up against the concrete wall of unaffordability and momentum would stall. I am quite certain that we are now witnessing the impact of those record-low preapprovals turning into pumpkins. And with it the FOMO that has driven this market.”

The Sydney Morning Herald. “A 2 percentage point lift in interest rates could knock 15 per cent off the value of Australian homes, the Reserve Bank has warned while telling people who have taken out huge mortgages over recent years to start bracing for an increase in their repayments. ‘It is important that lenders and borrowers consider the potential for falls in housing prices, particularly for loans at high loan-to-value ratios,’ it said.”

From Stuff New Zealand. “There are 2181 homes for sale across the Wellington region, more than at any point in the past seven years.
Economists and real estate agents all have their own jargon: ‘A buyer’s market.’ ‘A shift in momentum.’ ‘The bottom end of the market is sagging.’ ‘The bottom has fallen out.’ Beth Coughlan​ has a phrase of her own: ‘quite disappointing.’”

“At the start of the year, the Coughlans listed their first family home, in the Lower Hutt suburb of Naenae, for enquiries over $859,000. No-one was interested. They dropped the price to $815,000, then $759,000 and, now, earlier this week, $699,000.”

“‘The market did need to change, I think we could all agree on that,’ Coughlan said. ‘But it is really disheartening, as a vendor, to not know how long you’ll be sitting there.’”

“ANZ Bank chief economist Sharon Zollner​ said the family had little to worry about. ‘It’s a more stressful market to sell in, but they’ll get it back when they’re the buyer, and they buy a house that’s been marked down by $250,000,’ she said. ‘The people I feel sorry for are the ones who’ve just stretched themselves to the absolute max for a house that’s now worth 5 per cent less before the ink’s even dried.’”

“Tommy’s Real Estate sales director Nicki Cruickshank​ estimates sellers already face a 10 per cent drop ‘from what their expectations might’ve been,’ and house price reporting would take ‘two or three months’ to catch up to that reality. She attributes falling prices to ‘more supply than demand,’ with frenzied sellers coming late to a dying party. ‘Most people believed they should get on the market quickly – thinking it’s the top of the market – but the top of the market was probably in October,’ Cruickshank said.”

From Bloomberg. “Embattled Zhenro Properties Group Ltd. defaulted for the first time, giving investors in the Chinese property sector a reality check. The developer said it was unable to pay interest on two dollar bonds before a grace period ended Saturday and warned it might not be able to meet three other coupons because of its liquidity woes. China’s offshore corporate-bond defaults have climbed to $8 billion this year, data compiled by Bloomberg showed, including 25 dollar-denominated bonds and one hongkong dollar-denominated bond.”