A report from the Colorado Sun. “If you’re house hunting, there are plenty of homes available in Colorado — nearly 10,000 at the end of March, which is up 41.8% from a year ago. Prices are a bit lower, too. In the largest market, median sale prices fell 12.6% to $650,000 in the city of Denver. ‘It’s like the heavens have opened up and a giant eraser has come down from the sky and is just kind of erasing all of the 2021 and 2022 madness,’ said Matthew Leprino, CEO of Denver-based real estate brokerage Remingo.”
The Gazette Journal. “Reno posted a median home price of $555,000 in March, up from $521,500 in February, according to the latest data from Sierra Nevada Realtors. The numbers are for existing stick-built, single-family homes and do not include condominiums, manufactured housing and new homes. After hitting an all-time high of $635,000 in June, the median home price in Reno has fallen five times in the last eight months in response to rising interest rates.Despite the increase, Reno’s median sales price is down year-over-year by 8% compared to March 2022. ‘We are still seeing the market in a correcting phase as we get further into 2023,’ said Sara Sharkey, co-president of Sierra Nevada Realtors.”
Houston Public Media in Texas. “The Houston Association of Realtors’ latest report on the market showed a more than 18% drop in homes sales last month compared to March of 2022. It is the 12th consecutive month of declining sales after the market turned red-hot during the pandemic. The new twist in this month’s report is declining home prices, something that hasn’t happened since the spring of 2020. The median price of a home in Houston dropped 3% in March, to $325,000. ‘It’s really hard to compare last year’s numbers to this year’s numbers,’ said HAR Chair Cathy Trevino. ‘Those weren’t necessarily sustainable. Those numbers were inflated because of everything that was going on.’”
The Real Deal on Illinois. “Owners of a lakefront Glencoe mansion aren’t willing to play the waiting game defining the North Shore’s high-end housing market, and instead are showing some flexibility with a hefty price cut. The home at 325 Shoreline Court cut its price by $1 million after sitting on the market since November. Originally seeking just under $8 million, the home is now asking $7 million, a 13 percent decrease. The five-bedroom, seven-bathroom modernist home, which has 130 feet of frontage on Lake Michigan, last sold for $5.1 million in 2019.”
“The home is one of many to reduce its asking price in recent months in hopes of attracting a buyer. Chicago’s most expensive listing, a massive mansion in Lincoln Park, underwent a $15 million chop down to $30 million earlier this year. Even the listings in Glencoe that are pricier than the Shoreline Court home have taken price cuts and have yet to identify a buyer. That includes the $12 million home built in 1936 for an executive of the Pabst Brewing Company, and an $11.9 million listing also on Lake Michigan’s shoreline that just chopped its ask this month from nearly $14 million.”
Bay Area Newsgroup. “California’s years of major population growth have ended, and a state forecast suggests that the numbers might peak by as early as 2030 and then start to decline. At the turn of the century, when the population was about 34 million, state forecasters were predicting 45 million by 2020 and 59 million by 2040. That isn’t happening. Instead, California’s population hit 39.5 million in 2020, dipped down to 39.0 million in the first two years of the pandemic and, according to data published by the California Department of Transportation, will max out at about 40.5 million by the end of the decade.”
“While the pandemic applied pressure to the brakes, the slowing in California growth began long before, which raises the question of how forecasters two decades ago so badly missed the mark. While it’s uncertain whether the state will continue to lose population, the days of rapid-growth projections are over. Which means we shouldn’t keep spending money on projects that relied on the forecasts of the past. We can’t continue to build more public projects without recognizing that the need for them and the population base that pays the required taxes will be flattening out. We’re in a new era, and it’s time we started planning accordingly.”
From CBC News. “The number of homes being sold and the prices they’re selling for are still dramatically lower than they were a year ago, but Canada’s housing market is showing signs of rebound this spring with prices and sales volumes inching higher in March compared to February. While prices inched up on a monthly basis, the average was still 13.7 per cent lower than it was in March of 2022. ‘People don’t want to put their houses on the market necessarily when the market is low, said Toronto Realtor John Pankiw. ‘Inventory levels are really low, and they continue to be low. But we’re we’re seeing a definite change in that.’”
“It’s a similar story on the other side of the country in Vancouver, where mortgage broker Simon Bilodeau says there’s a wide gap between buyers and sellers. ‘There’s a lot more clients these days,’ he told CBC News. ‘What we’re missing right now is just the sellers that are still not ready to sell, I guess.’ Robert Kavcic, an economist with BMO, said when the slowdown began last year, he was forecasting a decline of about 20 per cent for average prices. That’s just about what happened, with the average selling price topping out at $816,720 in February of 2022 and seemingly bottoming at $612,204 11 months later — a drop of 25 per cent.”
The Daily Mail. “Many of the country’s two million-plus buy-to-let landlords are reassessing their future plans in response to falling profits.The assault has come from all angles. Buy-to-let mortgage rates have soared since December 2021 as interest rates in the wider economy have risen. Taxation has also become a bigger issue as the Government looks to shore up its badly shot finances. Sarah, a landlord who requested anonymity, has owned a flat in Edinburgh since 2010 that she lets to holidaymakers and short-term tenants. She says many landlords in Scotland are considering holiday lets because new legislation means rent rises in the private rental sector are capped at 3 per cent for at least the next six months.”
“‘Landlords feel they have no rights in Scotland and the rent controls are another blow. I do holiday lets because there is more flexibility and I wouldn’t risk long-term lets,’ she says. ‘There is a glut of flats on the market in Edinburgh because landlords are getting out. Values haven’t gone up in years because of these draconian socialist measures implemented by the Scottish Government.’”
“Buy-to-let investor Neil France hopes that the UK Government will see sense and ease taxes for landlords. But if there is no change within the next 12 months, he will begin selling his properties one by one. He says: ‘I would lose so much money to the Government in tax. But if I don’t sell, I will not be making sufficient for the risk I’m taking. I would be very surprised if anybody today wanted to become an amateur landlord. The maths don’t work any more.’”
ABC News in Australia. “It’s been a few weeks since Anil Kumar Vemula learned the construction firm he contracted to build a dream home for his family had collapsed, but talking about it still causes him to break down. The father of two said he felt at a loss about what do next after being told by liquidators managing the collapse of Porter Davis that his $33,000 deposit had been lost. Mr Vemula spent three years saving up the deposit before signing a contract in September last year.”
“‘We have made a lot of sacrifices,’ he said. ‘They promised to build, but they didn’t do [it], not even a single brick, only on the paper.’ Mr Vemula was among dozens of people who gathered on the steps of the Victorian parliament to draw attention to their predicament and plead with the state government for help on Sunday. The collapse of Porter Davis has left about 1,700 home building projects in limbo, with the majority of those in Victoria and about 200 in Queensland.”
“For Mike Tarno, the hardest part of the Porter Davis collapse was not just the loss of tens of thousands of dollars, but the ‘shattered dreams’ of a project never realised. ‘You picture yourself in this beautiful house, this new place you would live in that you worked 20 plus years of your life to be able to get, and then it’s all gone down the drain, literally, overnight,’ he said. He said he his partner had lost $40,000 and felt like they had ‘wasted’ a year-and-a-half of their lives planning a home.”
Stuff New Zealand. “Listing a property under a mortgagee sale is not something real estate agents are queueing up to do, but then, as one agent says, no-one takes out a mortgage thinking that one day they won’t be able to pay it. ‘Mortgagee sales are problematic,’ says Darrell Paterson of Move Real Estate in New Plymouth, and the reason is there is often no access to the property, so buyers are going into a deal ‘sight unseen.’ ‘The buyer is taking a massive risk. The first time they get to see the property is when they open the door on settlement date.’”
“Paterson says mortgagee sales are not good for anybody – not the homeowners, agents, buyers nor the banks. ‘There’s a lot of pain and loss before anything happens. So, it’s never a happy sale. People are not selling because they’re excited about their future; they’re selling because the banks have told them they have to [have taken over].’”
“Steven Glucina of LJ Hooker in Ponsonby estimates mortgagee sale prices are often around 20% below RVs, depending on the area. Glucina says more recently, since the property downturn, there are lots of developers facing mortgagee sales – developers ‘who have bought a chunk of land and paid $3k a square metre, and they’re now finding they’ll be lucky to get $1500.’”