A report from WINK in Florida. “‘People are still trying to get the price their neighbor got in maybe March. And they’re not getting it. But they’re still listing it as if that’s the market,’ said broker Jason Jakus. ‘Where there was a frenzy in multiple offers. We’re not seeing as many multiple offers as we’re seeing in March April and May.’ Jakus told WINK News the supply in Cape Coral has also improved. In April they saw a low of six weeks of inventory. As of Wednesday, it has improved to four months of inventory.”
From CNBC. “Some homeowners are losing wealth as high mortgage rates weigh on home values, at least on paper. Roughly 85% of major markets have seen prices come off peaks through July, with one-third coming down more than 1% and about 1 in 10 falling by 4% or more. From April through July, San Jose, California, lost 20% of its tappable equity, followed by Seattle (-18%), San Diego (-14%), San Francisco (-14%) and Los Angeles (-10%).”
The New York Post. “‘Some of the nation’s most equity-rich markets have seen significant pullbacks, most notably among key West Coast metros,’ said Ben Graboske, president of Black Knight Data & Analytics. ‘Keep in mind that of the roughly 275K borrowers who would fall underwater from a 5% price decline, more than 80% purchased their homes in the first six months of 2022 – right at what appears to have been the top of the market,’ Graboske added.”
From Fortune. “Nearly three in four Americans have at least one regret about their new home or the homebuying process, according to a new survey. ‘I had people that would tour houses, and on the first day they would write offers because they didn’t want to miss out,’ says Joey Jewell, a Wisconsin-based realtor. ‘Given the period of time that we were in, I think [having at least one regret] was sort of almost unavoidable. But it’s not that you were necessarily making a mistake. It was whether you wanted to buy or hold off, and a lot of people chose to buy.’”
The Salinas Californian. “A typical Monterey County home listed for $959,500 in August, up 1.1% from the previous month’s $949,000, an analysis of data from Realtor.com shows. The median list home price in August was down about 19.3% from August 2021. Monterey County’s median home was 1,817 square feet for a listed price of $586 per square foot. Across all of California, median home prices were $725,000, falling 3.2% from a month earlier. The median California home for sale had 1,756 square feet at list price of $431 per square foot. Across the United States, median home prices were $435,050, down 3.1% from a month earlier. The median American home for sale had 1,890 square feet, listed at $222 per square foot.”
Colorado Biz Magazine. “Buyers looking for homes in Eagle County have newfound hope with the recent summer-selling season market shift. Active residential listings have more than doubled over the past two months, from 150 to 376, with 75 new listings coming to market during a recent one-week period. We are still a little too close to know for certain, but there are indicators that the top of the market was in March or April, so sellers must be careful about their pricing.”
“Shooting for the moon on pricing right now may cost sellers time and money in the long run. Yes, special and unique properties will always garner the highest prices, even in this changing market. However, if the property is similar to the one down the street, the idea of pricing the subject home 10% higher than the last sale may get sellers in trouble. Gone are the days of ‘it doesn’t matter what condition your home is in, it will sell.’ If there are deferred maintenance items with your home, it’s important these get addressed. They will come up in inspections and with more options available, buyers have more negotiating power.”
“The smart seller will work with their broker to price it right and let the buyers dictate the top market value. If there are multiple price reductions within a given segment of the market, buyers are more likely to wait and watch sellers negotiate against themselves with price reductions.”
The Las Vegas Sun. “Home prices in Southern Nevada retreated for a third consecutive month in August, according to a report. The median price for a home in the Las Vegas Valley last month was $450,000, down about 3% from July, the Las Vegas Realtors trade group reported. The August figure was down from a record median price of $482,000 in May. At the end of last month, Las Vegas Realtors reported just under 8,000 single-family homes for sale without any type of offer. That was up 146% from August 2021. It has been three years since the valley has had so many homes on the market, said Brandon Roberts, president of the trade group. About 2,600 homes, condos and townhomes sold in Southern Nevada in August.”
From Fox News on Oregon. “As Portland residents have started speaking out against far-left politicians over the homeless crisis and crime surge fueling an exodus from the city, a local real estate broker is describing the difficulty of offloading these for-sale properties. ‘We have people all around us that are making the decision to turn around and leave,’ Portland’s The Fields Bar & Grill owner, Jim Rice continued. ‘They’re selling their places literally at a loss just to be able to get out of Portland. They’ve lost faith in the local government.’”
From WFAA TV. “The North Texas housing market is starting cool. ‘Consumers are basically saying, ‘You know what? I don’t want this mortgage loan any longer because I can’t afford that monthly payment.’ And then, of course, when you start tacking on things like escrows for property taxes and escrows for homeowners insurance, that monthly payment is going to be considerably higher than it was last year at this time,’ says credit expert John Ulzheimer.”
“Ulzheimer is hearing from more buyers who want to back out of their mortgage. ‘If you back out at that point, then you’re going to go through the foreclosure process, the lender is going to take the home away from you, they’re going to sell it, it’s just a mess,’ Ulzheimer explains. ‘You can list the house and sell it and hopefully you can sell it for enough to cover the amount that you borrowed. Or you can ask the lender for forbearance or some sort of loan modification.’ Because once you sign the dotted line, there’s no going back.”
The Dallas Morning News in Texas. “One of the nation’s largest mortgage lenders is cutting over 500 jobs at its Farmers Branch office, adding to a flurry of industry layoffs after a huge drop in demand for home loans. Ann Arbor, Mich.-based Home Point Financial Corp., also known as Homepoint, plans to lay off 526 employees beginning Nov. 1, according to a notice filed with the Texas Workforce Commission. Other major mortgage lenders have made drastic changes to their workforces in response, including Plano-based First Guaranty Mortgage Corp., which cut more than 400 jobs this summer, and Coppell-based Mr.Cooper Group Inc., which has laid off almost 700 people since the start of the year.”
Canadian Budget Binder. “Today I’ll guide a financially strapped couple after buying an overpriced pandemic home. Dear Mr. CBB, Unfortunately, this isn’t going to be a happy email, and I’m saddened to seek out help for my family. My name is Tony, and I’m married to my wife, Rina, to whom we have a 3-year-old son. Recently we purchased a home after struggling to win a bid, so we took whatever we could get.”
“Unfortunately, we already feel the financial pressure of owning our 1000-square-foot bungalow. We bid on the house because we couldn’t find anything else and needed somewhere to live. Sadly, like most home buyers during this mess, a seller’s market had no conditions meaning no home inspection. Looking back, we made a big mistake, but we can’t go back, but we can move forward.”
The Sydney Morning Herald in Australia. “Serehnonn and Dominic Lowe bought their first home during the property boom last year to lock in some certainty after six years of renting in Sydney and in the hopes of starting a family. That was upended when the Lowes’ mortgage repayments went up less than six months after taking out a home loan with a rate they expected to hold steady after Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe said he did not expect rates to rise before 2024.”
“Since they bought in December, the cash rate has gone up five months in a row, including another increase of 50 basis points on Tuesday to 2.35 per cent. The couple borrowed less than the bank suggested and bought in their home town of Newcastle – where housing was cheaper than Sydney, which wasn’t even an option – but they are still feeling the pinch. ‘We definitely didn’t expect it to be raised so quickly,’ Serehnonn said. ‘It’s just already such an expensive time buying a home and to have that thrown on top, that is definitely tough.’”
“Now their plans of starting a family have been put on hold as rapidly rising rates affect their savings buffer. ‘We bought thinking we needed to get into the property market. We were so scared we were going to miss out,’ she said.”
The South China Morning Post. “The debt crisis in China’s property industry is spiralling deeper into the abyss, as interim results from the country’s biggest developers showed most of them struggling to generate enough cash to service their loans amid a slowing economy. ‘It is a tough overall situation right now. The developers have much less cash to pay their debt, and are unable to get financing offshore and onshore,’ said Raymond Cheng, property analyst at CGS-CIMB Securities.”