It’s Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. “Courtney White and her fiancé saw one house after another go under contract before even having a chance to see the property during their house hunt earlier this year. After finally buying a house in Durant, Oklahoma, White says she feels like she settled too soon. Even the pool, which initially attracted them to the house, feels like more of a bother than what it’s worth. ‘It’s nothing I can’t live with,’ she says. But she has ‘a whole list of things I want to remodel, which pretty much adds up to the whole house.’”
“‘I thought if we had a pool … I would be in it every day, it would be used a lot,’ she says. But the pool has turned into more of a headache than anything. White says she’s swam in the pool maybe twice since they bought the house, and it takes time and money to maintain.”
“A bank may preapprove you for more than what you want to pay each month. ‘If their mortgage payment is taking up an unhealthy portion of their income from the get-go, that’s going to put them behind the eight ball,’ says Jeff Arevalo, a housing counselor at a nonprofit. ‘That’s going to … typically cause some problems right from the start, which don’t have to happen.’”
“Homes as investments don’t always pay off. Zillow Offers’ iBuying gambits put the company in the red after it outbid traditional buyers on thousands of homes across the country, in many cases for more than they could be sold even after improvements were made. Being upside down on so many properties resulted in the real estate giant shuttering the department. ‘That’s a market that’s still working itself out,’ said Edward Coulson, a professor at UC Irvine and director of research at the university’s Center for Real Estate.”
“When the market rebounded in 2012, price increases returned to those same levels; however, over the last 12 to 15 months, the increases nationwide have been closer to 8%, Coulson said. ‘People ask me, ‘Is this going to continue?’ Of course not,’ Coulson said. ‘There’s no way we could have that kind of price increase. There’s no way that continues; there just isn’t enough income capacity for that.’”
“A legal, financial and property tug-of-war has erupted over the future of a San Jose site where fraud-linked developer Sanjeev Acharya had proposed a mixed-use residential, retail and restaurant village. The battle over the property also threatens several million dollars that are still owed to Charles Johnisee, an elderly retiree who had sold the property in September 2020 to Acharya in a $9 million deal. ‘It was his retirement nest egg’ and ‘the bulk of his assets,’ according to papers that Johnisee’s attorneys filed with the bankruptcy court.”
“The attorneys for the retiree, however, appear to concede in the court papers that Johnisee and his wife won’t ever see the vast majority of what they are owed. ‘Johnisee will never be made whole,’ his attorneys stated in the court papers.”
“A major development in Aberdeen has been placed into administration following a drop in the value of property. It was ultimately intended to extend to 3,100 homes over 400 acres. An administrator FRP spokesperson told Construction News: ‘The administration was caused by the downturn in the oil and gas sector, a dramatic fall in land and property prices, and the impact of the pandemic.’”
“Private developers in Nigeria have been rushing to build homes over the past decade. But the mix of massive demand, high construction costs and poor market research by developers has resulted in a wave of new two- and three-bedroom houses that few people in Nigeria need or can afford, housing experts say. ‘There are empty houses all over the major urban centres of Nigeria,’ Timothy Nubi, director of the University of Lagos’ Centre for Housing and Sustainable Development told reporters. ‘It is illogical to say we have that housing deficit when (we) have empty houses.’”
“The rush to offload property before Christmas is well and truly on, with another weekend of Super Saturday auctions set to test the market again this weekend. Every capital city except Sydney saw a dip in clearance rates last week. Domain chief of research Nicola Powell said the flood of properties going under the hammer in the lead-up to Christmas indicated sellers were trying to get their deals done while there was still momentum in the market.”
“‘That bumper three weeks in a row really does show sellers are trying to get their deals done before we see market softness. They want to sell while the market is still strong,’ she said. ‘They’re being mindful of what’s possibly on the horizon: interest rate rises, moves from APRA. People want to sell at the peak of the market, they want to get it before prices fall.’”
“China’s property downturn is expected to continue into the first half of 2022, with home prices and sales falling as tight credit policies and a looming property tax dampen demand, a Reuters poll showed. ‘The downward trend in home prices has emerged’ due to tight quotas on home loans, worries about a property tax and weak demand, said Chen Shen, an analyst from Huatai Securities. ‘New homes may see a phased fall in prices and sales by volume’ following the announcement of the list of cities implementing real estate tax testing, said Huang Yu, vice president of China Index Academy, a Beijing-based property research institute.”
“‘That may increase supply and reduce speculative buying, piling downward pressures on home prices,” Huatai Securities’ Chen said.”
“Homeowners in Ireland living in houses built with defective blocks that ‘crumble like Weetabix’ say a compensation scheme unveiled by the government will still leave them with devastating bills of up to €80,000 (£60,000). ‘Just for the contractor alone this is going to cost me €79,000,’ said Angeline Ruddy, acting deputy principal of a school in Carndonagh in Donegal. ‘If I went to the bank looking for that they are going to laugh at me because my collateral is a house full of holes that is crumbling.’”
“‘I am absolutely disgusted,’ she said. ‘I cannot believe that after all these years trying to get redress, that the government has decided to treat us like this. This is shocking behaviour.’ Ruddy said the impact of the mica scandal on the mental health of both parents and children at her school was evident. ‘I had one child come up to me yesterday to say ‘my daddy is in a dark place’. I do not know where we go from here,’ she said.”