A report from the Seattle Business Journal in Washington. “Rising mortgage rates are expected to put a damper on double-digit home price increases in the next 12 months, especially in the Bremerton-Silverdale area, which was singled out as having one of the most overpriced markets in the country in a Corelogic report. It said the Kitsap County metro is one of the five markets most likely to see housing price stagnation or decline in 2022. Home prices in the Bremerton-Silverdale area surged 17.2% year over year as of January, but the increase doesn’t align with the area’s income level.”
“‘With prices high relative to resident income, the area appears to potentially be overvalued, heightening the risk of stagnant or possibly declining values in the next 12 months,’ said Frank Nothaft, chief economist at CoreLogic. Lake Havasu and Prescott, Arizona, and Norwalk and Hartford, Connecticut, also made ‘overvalued’ list.”
The Darian Times in Connecticut. “Currently on the market for $7.5 million the Victorian home on 1111 Sasco Hill Road in Fairfield was put on the market in July 2020 for $9.5 million, marking the first time it was for sale since 2006. By February 2021, the home was briefly taken off the market and relisted six days later for $8.395 million, according to the Realtor.com property details. Two months later, the price dropped to $7.999 million before the listing was removed in February 2022 to make way for a nearly $500,000 price drop.”
The San Francisco Examiner in California. “There’s no more vivid image of San Francisco’s inequality: thousands sleep on the streets each night, while thousands of luxury condos sit empty above them. Now, this progressive rallying cry has led to a concrete policy proposal, as a signature-gathering effort gets underway to put an ’empty homes tax’ on the November ballot. Sarah Karlinsky, a housing policy analyst for SPUR called the sold but not occupied category the ‘weirdest’ part of the BLA report, noting that vacancies in that category grew ten-fold between 2012 and 2019. ‘You would think a foreign princess is just buying them and storing her international capital there, but then you look at where they are… If there are hundreds of units that are in those neighborhoods that are used as investment properties, it just doesn’t seem right to me.’”
“‘We look at the problem and see it overwhelmingly in larger condo buildings and smaller apartment buildings,’ said Supervisor Dean Preston . ‘One only needs to walk around some of the new construction South of Market and downtown and you just see so many vacant units.””
From SocketSite. “The number of homes on the market in San Francisco, net of all new sales, either pending or closed, climbed another 8 percent over the past week to 850, representing an 85 percent increase in inventory since the start of the year, which is an even bigger, not smaller, increase in inventory than historic seasonality alone would predict.”
“At the same time, listed inventory levels are still 12 percent lower than at the same time last year, but the year-over-year deficit has been on the decline since mid-November (when it measured over 40 percent) and there are now 20 percent more homes on the market in San Francisco than there were prior to the pandemic, over twice as many as they were in 2015, and the second most homes on the market at the end of February in over a decade.”
From Radio Canada. “Over the past several months, mortgage agent Rasha Ingratta has fielded a flood of queries from clients worried about how rising interest rates will impact their mortgage payment. ‘People are in a panic,’ said Ingratta, who works with Mortgage Intelligence in Windsor, Ont.’ They’re thinking, ‘Oh my God, what is the interest rate going to go up to?’”
“Roy Graham of Shrewsbury, Ont., said he’s worried about the impact of rising rates on his $150,000 variable-rate home equity line of credit. Graham, a 66-year-old retired emergency response worker who lives on a fixed income, is concerned how higher debt payments will affect his already stretched budget. ‘Your hydro is going up, your water bills are going up, your taxation is going up, so it just compounds everything. It’s just — it’s like the straw that broke the camel’s back.’”
“Toronto-based bankruptcy specialist Doug Hoyes said he’s concerned about potential consecutive rate hikes. ‘If it is the start of a series of increases, that’s where it becomes a problem,’ said Hoyes. ‘You could be in for a big shock to your monthly budget.’”
From Domain News. “This time last year, Australia was in the early days of an unprecedented property boom that would touch just about every corner of the nation. Twelve months on, the advent of autumn reveals a patchwork of property markets; some have lost all momentum as the threat of interest rate rises, price rise fatigue, and the balance of supply and demand shifts in favour of buyers. ‘This year, they’ll have much greater choice in terms of the property available for sale, and they’ll be transacting in a market with less pace. That red-hot urgency that was there this time last year isn’t there this autumn,’ said Domain’s head of research and economics Nicola Powell.”
“No other capital city has had the volume of new property hit the market that Melbourne has – the number of new listings has grown by 29 per cent within the space of one week. That choice has taken the heat out of the market, says local buyer advocate Mal James. ‘That fear of missing out that we had last year has disappeared. The urgency we saw from buyers has come out of the market. That comes from seeing more stock,’ he said. ‘Buyers are now more cautious, and price is a significant button-pusher. Unless they perceive they are getting a bargain, buyers are not performing with the same urgency that they were last year.’”
From Stuff New Zealand. “One of the last property information companies reporting house price increases now says prices are falling, and the market is weakening quickly. CoreLogic’s House Price Index predicted the downward trend would persist, largely due to homes being generally unaffordable and buyers having more choice as a glut of properties appeared on the market. A standoff seemed to be developing between sellers, who expected the kind of prices paid last year, and buyers, who were unwilling to pay so much as interest rates increased and confidence fell, said head of research Nick Goodall.”
“In the short term, it looked like buyers were going to win the standoff, with supply likely to continue to lift and demand likely to stay low due to stricter lending conditions cutting many hopeful buyers off from a home loan, Goodall said. Sellers may need to adjust their expectations, or resign themselves to staying put for a longer period, he said.”
“Goodall said the groups that should be most concerned about price falls were those who bought recently with the hope of snapping up short-term capital gains, and anyone who had bought a new home but failed to sell their existing property. ‘If you’re buying to hold long-term there’s really no need to panic,’ he said.”