It’s Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. “‘We aren’t crashing; we’re leveling out,’ said Becky Enrico-Crum, the president of Boise Regional Realtors. ‘We’re just trying to find out what that level price is. That’s what everybody is trying to figure out.’ Prices in the area dropped 4.4 percent between July and August. Homes now last weeks on the market, as opposed to days. Her clients don’t have to duke it out in fierce bidding wars or scramble to put in all-cash offers. ‘Right now, it’s just a matter of going from this hyper-acceleration to finding our feet again,’ said Phil Crone, executive director of the Dallas Builders Association, ‘which may make for a bumpy six months or so until we find that.’”
“Over the past five months, inventory levels have spiked in bubbly markets like Boise (where inventory is up 298%), Austin (up 435%), Phoenix (up 317%), and Las Vegas (up 192%). Not only are bubbly markets—like Boise, Las Vegas, and Phoenix—shifting fast, they also look like early-inning housing busts. There’s no doubt about it: Opendoor—a national iBuyer of homes—is taking some hefty losses on some of its recent “flips.” The epicenter of those losses could be Las Vegas.An example is this North Las Vegas home that Opendoor bought for $540,800 in May. Just weeks later, Opendoor put the home on the market for $581,000. However, it obviously didn’t get many bites. As of Thursday, the list price was down to just $490,000. That’s 10.4% below what Opendoor paid for the home this spring.”
“Phoenix is once again at the center of a cooling housing market: Between March and August, Phoenix inventory was up 317%. That’s already translating into a sharp home price decline. According to Zillow, Phoenix home values are down 4.4% from their 2022 peak.”
“Since the rate hikes began this past year however, the average sales price of a home in Phoenix has corrected 6%. Listing prices adjusted down 7%. As recently as March, of this year the Cromford Index was calculated at over 400, giving a heavy advantage to sellers in real estate transactions. In September, the Cromford Index hit 105.”
“‘People are waiting to see where the market goes,’ said Hugo Meza, Realtor at eXp Realty in Montclair. ‘Buyers and sellers are sitting on the sidelines.’ Meza works with buyers and sellers primarily in Clifton in Essex County and Wayne in Passaic County. Buyers who qualified for a $500,000 loan six months ago now have to downsize to $400,000. Would-be buyers are canceling signed contracts. Buyers are holding back due to higher borrowing costs and sellers are reluctant to put their homes on the market, fearing they will not realize the prices they sought. Even cash buyers are taking a wait-and-see attitude — realizing they now have the upper hand, North Jersey real estate professionals say.”
“The seasons are changing in South Carolina and so are conditions on the residential real estate market. ‘It’s harder to buy and harder to rent right now than it was last year,’ said John Smith, president of the Central Carolina Realtors Association. ‘That is something we’re seeing in the Midlands and also what we’re hearing from people in Greenville and Charleston as well. The market for sellers is still good, but some sellers are pulling back because the demand has dropped. In many cases, they’re not getting the prices for their home that they got back in March and April of this year.’”
“Analysts at Zillow have for much of 2022 been among the most bullish. But their thinking now is, in the Washington DC area at least, a pricing downturn is not only here, but could be here for a while. Washington, which ranks as the sixth largest metro area in the Zillow ranking, is in good company. The most populous areas – New York City, Los Angeles and Chicago – all are projected to have lower home values a year from now.”
“Last week, there were 16 residences priced at $4 million or more sold in Manhattan, four fewer than the previous week, according to the report. The second priciest deal last week was a condo in Chelsea that was asking $10 million, according to the report. That’s a $3.5 million reduction from its original price of $13.5 million in 2015.”
“The San Antonio housing market continues to show signs of distress as its median asking price declined for a third consecutive month. The median asking price for homes here hit $339,200 in August, according to the San Antonio Board of Realtors. The local median asking price peaked in May at around $348,800. Beyond that, nearly half of the homes on the market in San Antonio this August experienced a price reduction. Only 3,272 single-family homes were sold in and around the Alamo City last month, down from 3,333 in July and a whopping 13% drop from August 2021. At he same time, available inventory continues to climb, according to SABOR’s market reports archive. The city had 9,570 active listings in August, the highest number since at least September 2020.”
“Orange County homebuying cooled this summer. August sales were 31% below a year ago as house hunters were scared off by 47% higher house payments. The median: $984,000 for all homes was down 1.6% in a month while increasing 9% over 12 months. Record O.C. high? $1,054,000 set in May. So, prices are 6.6% off their peak. Builders sold 202 new homes, down 27% in a year. Median of $969,500 was down -4% over 12 months.”
“A Newhallville two-family house that was built a decade ago by a local affordable homeownership nonprofit will soon be owned by the federal government — and then put out for sale again — after no bidders showed up to the property’s foreclosure auction. That bidder-less ’auction’ took place Saturday at noon outside of 132 Newhall St. Because no bidders showed up to try to buy the Newhall Street property Saturday, the Connecticut Housing Finance Authority (CHFA) will take ownership.”
“CHFA is the quasi-public organization that issues low-interest loans to low- and moderate-income Connecticut residents looking for help buying their own homes. According to state court records, First Niagara Bank assigned 132 Newhall St.‘s mortgage to CHFA in 2014. CHFA then moved to foreclose on that mortgage in June 2019 after the previous owner defaulted on his loan payments.”
“According to NHS Executive Director Jim Paley, ’No more than a handful of people have lost homes that they purchased from [NHS] in foreclosure’ across NHS’s many years of work in the city. ‘I was heartbroken to learn of the foreclosure,’ Paley said about 132 Newhall St. ‘I remember vividly during the open house standing with [the owner]’s son in what was to become his bedroom and how proud he was as we looked out the window of his new home and new bedroom.’”
“For Calgary buyers, selection among listings is unlikely to get better over the next several months, a local realtor says. ‘If you think supply will get better this fall — a busier season than summer — it’s not likely going to happen,’ says Richard Fleming, broker/owner of Re/Max Real Estate Mountain View. Still, current market conditions do offer upside for buyers. As well, with prices down 20 per cent from the peak in March, based on September benchmark price data from the Calgary Real Estate Board, buyers now have a window of opportunity. ‘I call it ‘a sale on real estate,’ Fleming says. ‘You’re not having to compete and you can get prices down on offers.’”
“”Around 150 people who shelled out thousands for deposits on off-plan apartments at Salford Quays are still left in limbo four years after they were supposed to be built. Furious investors are rejecting a request from developer Fortis to surrender the leases for which they each paid about £100,000 – 50 percent of the asking price of the apartments – to convert them into loans.”
“None of the investors wanted to be identified, but one said: ‘I bought the apartment off plan and sunk my pension money into it and I’ve got nothing. I wanted it to be a base in the UK for myself and my kids because I love Salford because that’s where I’m from.’ Another said: ‘I invested £156,000 and have seen nothing for it. I have been suffering from ill health for a long time and I was going to use the investment to fund my retirement, but now I’m going to have to sell my house.’ I thought it would be a good investment. They have taken £12 million and all we’ve got are two empty shells of buildings.’”
“A 53-year-old medical doctor said he would have to prolong his career after investing £168,000 in his deposit which he fears he will now lose. ‘I have invested my entire career savings into the property and I am in no other pension scheme,’ he said. ‘I am absolutely devastated. I will now have to continue working long after I would’ve otherwise retired.’”
“Australian Lili Zhang is like many homeowners. While she has a healthy portfolio of properties, she is now facing the biggest threat to her investment, rising interest rates. Zhang, who is in her 40s and works in finance in Sydney, owns her own home worth $3 million Australian dollars (nearly $2 million) and invests in two other apartments in the city’s popular eastern suburbs. To finance that, she has taken out bank loans worth about A$3 million (nearly $2 million).”
“Zhang said her repayments will soon double to about A$16,000 a month and she is worried. Her tenants are on fixed rental agreements and she cannot raise rents to cover her new mortgage outgoings. Neither is she expecting a commensurate pay rise. ‘Not the time to panic, but the feeling of not seeing the end of the tunnel on rising costs is keeping me from sleeping tight at nights,’ Zhang said, adding that the central bank was slow to react to rising costs. ‘I thought we had inflation last year already, yet we didn’t see any steps to curb rising costs.’”
“National house prices have fallen for a fourth straight month as demand for homes start to slide due to higher costs of borrowing, according to Corelogic. The monthly price fall in August was also the largest since 1983, Corelogic said in its most recent Home Value Index Report. ‘Every capital city apart from Darwin is now in a housing downturn, with a similar scenario playing out across the rest-of-state regions, where only regional South Australia recorded an increase in housing values for the month,’ Corelogic said. In Sydney, Australia’s biggest city, home prices have fallen over 7% since prices started unwinding at the start of the year, just before interest rates lifted.”