A report from the Dallas Morning News in Texas. “Things are changing ever so slightly in the Dallas-Fort Worth housing market. Year-over-year prices fell for the second straight month. A national real estate group estimates the price drop is one of the most substantial in the nation. This comes after months of increasing inventory. Active listings hit 29,300, up nearly 49% from last year. Months of housing inventory was 4 months — the highest since October 2012. ‘I think the power has kind of changed a little bit,’ said Todd Luong, an agent with RE/MAX DFW Associates. ‘Every offer I’ve seen is below listing price right now. …Some parts of town (have) 50% to 60% more inventory. I think that’s hurt sellers a lot.’”
From WTOP News. “The number of homes for sale in the D.C. metro continues to rise, which is good news for prospective buyers, but the biggest increase in listings is condominiums. Condo inventory was up 42%, and condo listings in the District and Arlington County and Alexandria, Virginia, are now nearly double the number of condos on the market in July 2019, before the pandemic. The biggest year-over-year increase in condos on the market is in Fairfax County, up 88% from July 2023. ‘Sellers have to be prepared to have buyers come and negotiate on price and concessions,’ said Lisa Sturtevant, chief economist at Bright MLS.”
WVUE in Louisiana. “Hundreds of homes are flooding Metairie’s housing market during a time when high interest rates and higher insurance premiums can be crippling for both buyers and sellers. Joel Picolo with Godwyn Realty said that equates to a nine-month supply of homes. ‘That is a dramatic, dramatic increase,’ Picolo said. ‘The most that we’ve seen in years. Even before COVID.’ But why are so many homes sitting on the market? ‘A buyer finds a perfect home, they get ready to write up an offer and they go get an insurance quote. And they go, ‘Wait a minute, what’s going to happen to my house note? I didn’t know that. We can’t afford that,’ said Real estate analyst Arthur Sterbcow.”
“Real estate agents and analysts alike advise those struggling to sell their home to consider a price reduction or renovations and repairs. ‘I hate to say this, but really, it’s greed,’ Picolo said. ‘There are a lot of sellers out there who have a lot of equity, yet they still want to make even more money.’ Picolo said he was shocked by what a realtor recently told him in reference to a high-end property that sat on the Metairie market for a while. ‘She said, ‘The sellers do not want to lower the price, because it will look bad. Make a low-ball offer,’ Picolo said.”
From CBS News. “South Florida faces a condo crisis as thousands of units flood the market, leading condo owners to sell due to rising costs. Last summer, the people living at Mariners Bay Condos made a difficult decision to eventually leave their homes on the water in North Miami to avoid paying over $100,000 each in dues and assessments to stay. ‘I would get calls from some unit owners who were just in tears,’ shared association president Laura Galeano. She said the board knew in 2022, they were in trouble. ‘Insurance went up 800%, and that’s insurmountable,’ explained Galeano, along with other expenses.”
“Older condos, like the ones at Mariners Bay, have recently flooded the real estate market. ‘I’ve never seen this before; close to 18,000 of them on the market right now,’ said Craig Studnicky, ISG World’s CEO. He provided us with research from his firm looking at condos available in Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach that are 30 years or older. He shared that there is over 24 months of inventory on the market and that those condos are plummeting in value, down 19% from last year. ‘No buyer wants to take the risk of walking into a black hole in space,’ said Studnicky. ‘That’s what a special assessment seems like at the moment, and the mortgage lenders feel exactly the same way.’”
The Sacramento Bee in California. “As a retired nurse and single woman living alone, Jan Truelock said she did not know how to navigate the process of adding a 450-square-foot accessory dwelling unit to the backyard of her Roseville home. She found Fair Oaks-based company Anchored Tiny Homes in January 2023 — which advertised that it handles everything, including permits. She quickly signed a contract. Truelock, 65, was told her project would be completed in 12 months. Instead, she said she found herself in early 2024 out more than $40,000 with an empty backyard. Truelock is one of about 800 members who have joined the Facebook group ‘Scammed By Anchored Tiny Homes’ since late last month. In the group, former customers, contractors, employees and franchise owners have gathered to share their stories, launch complaints and warn others about a company they once trusted.”
“As of Friday, two lawsuits had been filed against the company in Sacramento County. ‘There are people in that group who have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for absolutely nothing,’ Truelock said. ‘And they probably will never see that money.’ In the last few weeks, many have been unable to reach anyone at the company. Recently, franchisees’ emails and phone numbers were disconnected as well. Many clients are left with half-constructed units in their backyard. Contractors said they are missing thousands of dollars in labor and materials. Employees said they lost their jobs and two weeks pay. Franchisee owners are left with a brand that may soon be bankrupt.”
“In November 2023, Chris Pace was hired as the vice president of operations for Anchored Tiny Homes. After four months, he was promoted to Chief Officer of Operations. Three months later, he handed in his resignation letter. ‘At the core of all of this, you got three really malevolent bad people, and then around all of that, you have wonderful subcontractors, awesome clients, great employees,’ Pace said, ‘and everybody just got screwed.’”
From Bisnow. “As Class-B and C offices empty out, owners are getting increasingly nervous. Most dream of giving their buildings a new life by converting them to apartments, especially in a city like New York, where residential vacancy is at a 50-year low. Others are wrestling with the wrecking ball. ‘A pretty high percentage of those buildings won’t have a future,’ said Peter Bafitis, managing principal at architecture firm RKTB. ‘[Pre-World War II] buildings lend themselves better to residential, but you’re going to have quite a few of the massive floor plate buildings after World War II. What do you do with them?’”
“Approximately 20% of Manhattan office space was available at the end of last quarter, according to Avison Young. However, that percentage is less than other parts of the country like San Francisco, where vacancy has exceeded 30%. ‘The cities where you will see some knockdowns because they have more glass, modern, fatter and taller buildings are the cities where the office market is not coming back at all because they have really strong suburban office or people have bigger homes and are deciding to work from home, and the delta between the residential and the office rent isn’t that great,’ HR&A Advisors partner Kate Wittels said. ‘A place like Charlotte, they have a lot of new buildings, and the resi market isn’t that much more valuable than the cost to create residential.’ In those cities, wrecking balls are already coming out.”
“In Wilmington, North Carolina, city officials have put out a request for proposals to demolish three downtown office buildings. ‘Market analysis shows there was no interest in re-using the existing structure, which is old and would require substantial repair,’ city spokesperson Dylan Lee told the Wilmington Business Journal. Similarly, officials have given up on the dream of rehabilitating the Capital One Tower in Lake Charles, Louisiana. Since a hurricane damaged the city’s tallest building in August 2020, officials have attempted to find a developer to restore the tower. However, those efforts were fruitless. ‘It’s time to move on,’ Lake Charles Mayor Nic Hunter told residents in May. ‘We’ve been looking at this tower for almost four years. I know that there’s a lot of us that wanted to see it saved, but four years is long enough for us to stare at this eyesore in our community.’”
Lakeland Today in Canada. “Mortgage lender UMC Financial is suing a company that started construction on a luxury hotel in St. Albert and that cross-guaranteed the repayment of a $65 million loan for Careadon Village, a seniors apartment complex whose original owner went bankrupt. UMC Financial has also been granted a receivership order. The Chalton Hotel near Century Casino broke ground in June 2018. It was billed as a state-of-the-art, seven-storey luxury hotel, with digital kiosks for check-in, 141 suites, a large convention room, a swimming pool and an exercise room.”
“The expected completion date of the 4.5 star hotel was 2019. By September 2019, the construction site had been serviced and over 100 piles drilled into the ground, but the bones of the structure had not materialized. Last November, Careadon Corp. was declared bankrupt. UMC took control of Careadon and received seven offers for the property, but deemed the offers too low and decided to purchase and complete the building itself. Each of the companies listed in the statement of claim failed to pay the money owed to UMC by the Sept. 30, 2023 deadline, UMC alleges. The claim lists as potential remedies the foreclosure of each of the companies’ properties and the appointment of a receiver.”
The National Post. “The Liberals have piloted the Canadian immigration system for nearly a decade, and they’ve only abused their time in the cockpit. Turns out, it’s pretty easy to drive the machine into the ground in just nine years. The Liberals have decided to run by a standard operating procedure that throws responsible immigration out the window. It goes like this. Crank the intake numbers and detour much of the new inflow around our once-prized points system . Ignore warnings that the housing supply might suffer. Rattle on about a mysterious labour shortage as youth and new arrivals struggle to find jobs.”
“For greater effect, tell the world that illegal entry may soon be rewarded with permanent status, allow migration highways to remain open for years and shrug when criminals and terrorists find their way into the country. Make sure to strip away citizenship revocation powers while you’re at it, and expand passport eligibility to generations born abroad. To finish it all off with a good nose-rub in the dirt, spend millions of dollars on newcomer wage subsidies and migrant housing as homelessness spikes , while continuing to allow newcomer-specific criminal sentence discounts. And, if people begin to notice that it’s getting crowded, and that GDP per capita is gliding steadily downward , gaslight, gaslight, gaslight.”
Somerset Live in the UK. “St Ives, the picturesque Cornish town famed for its surfing beaches and vibrant art scene, is grappling with a second home crisis that eclipses many other towns in Cornwall. The idyllic locale attracts approximately 540,000 day visitors and 220,000 overnight guests annually. However, it’s the proliferation of second homes, snapped up by affluent individuals seeking their slice of paradise, that’s causing consternation among locals. Reports suggest that these wealthy part-time residents are displacing the local population, with some even parking their luxury cars in spots designated for working tradespeople.”
“One resident was forced to move into a van after her flat became an Airbnb rental. Upon seeking help from the council, she claims she was directed to a homeless shelter instead. Lizzy, a St Ives local, expressed her frustration to The Guardian: ‘Why would you buy a house just to come and use it for a short amount of time? Why wouldn’t you just come down and, you know, stay in a hotel?’”
“The sentiment is echoed across the community, with many St Ives natives feeling disenchanted by the transformation of their hometown. A fellow resident lamented, ‘It’s just a rich man’s playground down here now,’ reports Cornwall Live. While bustling in summer, St Ives turns eerily quiet during the off-season. Phyllis Rashleigh, a long-term inhabitant, previously commented: ‘Local people don’t own St Ives any more. It’s all speculative. No lights on anywhere, nothing. All shut up this time of year, it’s just dead, for sale.’”
South China Morning Post. “The number of new-home buyers who have forfeited their deposits has jumped by nearly a fifth in the first half compared with the whole of last year amid a persistent slump in property prices, according to Centaline Properties Research. The 308 cases in the first half of the year have already exceeded last year’s total of 261. The numbers swelled after billionaire Li Ka-shing family’s flagship developer CK Asset asked the buyers of units at its #Lyos housing project, who did not go ahead with their purchases, to pay the price difference after reselling the flats at discounts of as much as 32 per cent, according to local media reports.”
“‘The original buyers chose stage payment plan and bought the flats when the market was at its peak in 2021,’ said Roen Yeung Ming-yee, senior associate director at Centaline. These buyers may have forfeited the deposit with the idea of repurchasing the same flat now as prices have dropped considerably over the past few years, she added. Buyers who use the stage payment plan only start mortgage repayments after the property is handed over to them. Developers usually take an upfront deposit of up to 15 per cent of the purchase price. Yeung said buyers may have to tread more carefully in cancelling transactions as developers are chasing down buyers to cover the difference in sale prices.”