A report from the Daily Mail. “Anyone who has tried to sell their home recently knows the property market can be brutal. And it seems that’s true whether you’re selling an apartment in Hampshire or a mega-mansion in Hollywood. There is no shortage of famous faces who have had to slash their asking price to find a buyer – with some yet to succeed. Here, we look at the discount divas – and how low they have had to go.”
The Times-Picayune in Louisiana. “Joshua Bruno, who operates five low-income apartment complexes in New Orleans where tenants complain of grim conditions, filed for bankruptcy on all of the properties, just as an Orleans Parish judge was poised to order a ‘keeper’ to manage them pending foreclosure. Bruno claimed his businesses have lost millions from the pandemic downturn. He also said Fannie Mae duped him into not paying the notes and that it reneged on a promised forbearance. Fannie Mae has dismissed that claim.”
The Cape Cod Times in Massachusetts. “As part of the bankruptcy proceedings of Yarmouth-based Levee Breaks Investment Group LLC, three properties will be abandoned, one property has been sold and four others are up forsale. LBIG used investor money to purchase Cape properties, remodel them and sell them or rent them at profits.”
“U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Frank J. Bailey on Jan. 12 approved trustee David Madoff’s motion for the authority to abandon two houses in Yarmouth and one lot in Dennis Port. ‘There was a lot of money invested and a lot of money not accounted for,’ Madoff said. ‘There have been a lot of suggestions by people as to where the money went, so we will start to look at that.’”
The Kansas City Star. “A new plan aims to jump start the long-troubled Mission Gateway development a month after it missed a critical construction milestone, forcing its developers back to ‘some version of square one’ almost 16 years after the project first began. ‘I have invested a great deal of my life savings in this project,’ said developer Tom Valenti. ‘I would like the chance at least to get back something of it and, if not, then my next priority is to help my partner get back the 10 times as much as he’s invested in this project.’”
The South Florida Business Journal. “An affiliate of investment giant Blackstone sold the Mangrove Bay assisted living facility along the Intracoastal Waterway in Jupiter for $41.23 million, a significant discount from its last trade. BRE Rook SH Mangrove Bay LLC, in care of Blackstone in New York, sold the 155-unit assisted living facility at 110 Mangrove Bay Way. The price equated to $266,000 a unit. Mangrove Bay last traded for $71.9 million in 2017, so it sold for a considerable loss.”
The Marin Independent Journal in California. “The median price of a detached home in Marin was $1.49 million in December, a year-over-year increase of about 6%, according to the county assessor’s office. The price, while a gain, marked a drop-off from the double-digit increases over the summer, when the Marin median swelled as high as $1.8 million. The number of detached home sales in Marin was 170 in December, down 35% from the prior year, according to the county data.”
From Socket Site in California. “Completely remodeled and expanded to 2,400 square feet in 2017, the now three-level, four-bedroom home then sold for $2,250,000, or roughly $938 per square foot, that September. Having returned to the market priced at ‘$2,249,000’ last month, a sale at which would represent no appreciation since the third quarter of 2017, the ‘Miraloma Stunner’ is already in contract.”
From Rappler. “Seoul’s housing market, one of the most unaffordable in the world, has begun to show signs that its red-hot five-year boom could be running out of steam – just in time for the March presidential vote. South Korean residential property transactions plunged 62% in December to 53,774 from a year earlier – the smallest number for the month since 2008 when the market was battered by the global financial crisis.”
“‘Loan restrictions and higher borrowing costs began to really cool the market towards the end of last year and even serious buyers and sellers are waiting for policy changes so we’re in for a quiet market for months to come,’ said Yeo Kyoung-hui, a property market analyst at Real Estate 114. ‘It’s possible that we will see supply outpace demand going forward.’”
The South China Morning Post. “As millions of Chinese headed home last week to celebrate the Lunar New Year, Michael Lin had to break the bad news to his 7-year-old daughter: she would not be seeing her grandparents in Anhui province during the long holiday week. Lin, who runs a painting and heating-insulation company in neighbouring Jiangsu province, had to sell the family’s 2017 Honda SUV last December to keep his small business – and six employees – afloat.”
“He is one of the thousands of suppliers who have had to forgo holidays, tap into rainy-day funds or close their businesses in the past year, as they too came into hard times, following the outsize debts owed by China Evergrande Group, Kaisa Group Holdings and dozens of Chinese developers. ‘No money, no new year,’ said Lin, whose company is owed more than 5 million yuan (US$790 million) in overdue payments by Evergrande.”
From Reuters. “The world’s top central banks are about to embark on ‘the largest quantitative tightening in history,’ analysts at Morgan Stanley said on Friday, estimating that $2.2 trillion worth of support would disappear over the next 12 months. A surge in global inflation is forcing the U.S. Federal Reserve, European Central Bank, Bank of Japan and Bank of England to reel in the support measures used during the coronavirus pandemic. ‘G4 central bank balance sheets will peak in May,’ Morgan Stanley’s analysts said, adding the $2.2 trillion reduction they expected would be 4.5 times larger that in 2018 when the around $500 billion was lost.”
The New York Post. “To follow the market travails of AMC Entertainment, a money-losing movie theater chain, is to come to terms with the phenomenon of how mass psychosis has taken over stock investing. Yes, there have always been manias in the markets, but this one is different. What we have in the AMC imbroglio is a mania fueled by a cult-like conspiracy theory that is causing damage far beyond a few warped souls losing their shirts.”
“Despite all of this, the cult has continued to grow and has kept buying while the stock falters, delaying the inevitable hard landing because of AMC’s continued disastrous fundamentals and the Fed popping the market bubble with higher rates. But people get hurt believing in stuff that defies rational thought, and the AMC cult is and will be no different. Eleanor Terrett of Fox Business listened in on a group call where one of the aforementioned Apes said: ‘To you new Apes … I know you all are red … I get it. I didn’t sell at $77 … I’m not selling now. I’ve lost enough to buy a house with cash.’”