A report from CNBC. “‘I am seeing homebuyers cancel a contract if their payment is just a little bit higher than what they expected — I’m talking about $100,’ said Al Bingham, a mortgage loan officer at Momentum Loans in Sandy, Utah. ‘Homebuyers are very cautious right now.’”
From Forbes. “New home sales unexpectedly plunged much more than economists projected in July for the second month in a row. Meanwhile, the number of new houses for sale continued to creep up, climbing by 7,000 to an estimated 464,000—meaning it would take about 0.9 months to sell off the current supply of existing homes—the biggest glut since April 2009, notes Pantheon Macro chief economist Ian Shepherdson. New home sales have plunged 39% from a yearly high of 839,000 in January.”
From Newsweek. “‘The pullback in new home sales activity has been significant over a relatively short time frame,’ Alan Ratner, Senior Homebuilding Analyst at Zelman & Associates, told Newsweek. ‘In a matter of eight months, the annualized pace of new home sales activity has plummeted nearly 40 percent, while current activity is down more than 50 percent from the cycle peak set in August 2020,’ he added.”
“According to economist Ian Shepherdson, ‘the worst is yet to come’ for homebuilders and the real estate market. ‘Demand has yet to reach a floor—even though mortgage rates have now stopped rising—and the supply of existing homes likely will rise much further from here,’ he said. ‘No one wants to be the last one to sell in a falling market. Accordingly, we expect a further increase in new home supply and declining sales. Prices will fall substantially, and likely won’t hit bottom until mid-2023.’”
From Marketplace. “A housing recession used to mean foreclosures and underwater mortgages and Ben Bernanke looking like he hadn’t slept in six months. Sabrina Brown, a real estate agent in Fresno, California, has a similar definition. ‘I started in 2006,’ she said. ‘And that was a recession. This right now is just … we are in a reality check.’ She no longer gets 10 bids within 24 hours of listing a home, and, shockingly, prospective buyers actually want to see a house before they strike a deal.”
“‘The home seller, they might say we’re in a recession because they know their neighbor sold six months ago and got $50,000 over,’ she said. ‘And now when they put their house on the market, they’re getting appraised value.’”
From Patch. “The housing market has cooled down significantly across the Golden State, causing anxiety amongst sellers. The median sale price for homes in California dropped from April’s $840,000 to $814,000 in June, according to Redfin.”
The News Herald in Florida. “‘I don’t know if it’s a buyer’s market yet,’ said Debbie Ashbrook, CEO of the Central Panhandle Association of Realtors. ‘We’ll first shift to a normal market, then we might shift to a buyer’s market, (but) we haven’t gotten to a normal market yet.’ While Ashbrook was not convinced Monday the shift to a buyer’s market already has happened, Charlie Commander, manager of CENTURY 21 Commander Realty in Panama City, said he believes it is well under way.”
“‘In my opinion, it has already shifted based on the number of showings that we’re getting for each new listing, (and) the number of listings that are being placed on the market versus the number that are going under contract,’ Commander said. ‘Theoretically, it could end up that (residents) are able to purchase nice homes at a lesser price,’ Commander said. ‘I think it will happen.’”
The Roanoke Star. “While Virginia’s statewide inventory of homes still remains low, in many local housing markets around the commonwealth, the supply of active listings is growing. About half of all counties and independent cities in the state had more active listings at the end of July compared to a year ago. ‘The expanding supply is good news for buyers in the market,’ says Virginia REALTORS® Chief Economist Ryan Price. ‘Buyers’ purchasing power has been impacted by elevated inflation and rising mortgage rates. The slowdown in sales activity we’ve seen in many areas of the state is resulting in a buildup of available homes.’”
ABC 11 on North Carolina. “The latest housing data for Wake County shows the number of closed sales is down to the lower number since February. Compass Realtor Danni Dichito said sellers are experiencing a huge shift in another area of the market. ‘June’s average days on market were six days. July is showing 12 days. So that’s almost doubled, which means buyers are taking a little more than’ a pause,’ said Dichito.”
“A Fuquay-Varina resident noticed the changes in her community. A neighbor had to wait a while for the home to go under contract. ‘She actually had to reduce the price by $10,000,’ said Jimena Martinez. ‘It was sitting for a month, where a year ago there was nothing sitting. Everything was going so quick.’”
The Review Journal. “Last month, Southern Nevada builders sold the fewest homes in at least two years and now, fears of more housing industry layoffs have started to swirl. Builders logged 434 net sales — newly signed purchase contracts minus cancellations — in July, down 61.5 percent from the same month last year, according to figures from Las Vegas-based Home Builders Research. This marked the fourth consecutive monthly sales drop and the lowest tally ‘since the start of the pandemic,’ the firm reported. ‘The slowdown is real and the effects are real,’ Home Builders Research President Andrew Smith wrote in the report.”
“There have been hundreds of layoffs nationally in the housing industry, and ‘word has also started to get out’ in Southern Nevada that builders and contractors are ‘having to come to these difficult decisions,’ according to Smith. Locally, builders’ sales tally last month was ‘unseasonably low,’ and their asking prices ‘have started to plateau,’ Smith, of Home Builders Research, reported. Some builders are still raising prices, ‘but more and more are adjusting in the other direction,’ he wrote.”
From Realtor.com. “An Oklahoma castle featured on HGTV described as a ‘maximalist design’ has proven to be a hard sale, according to realtor.com. The home was listed in late June for $1.5 million with a price reduction in August and now carries a $998,000 price tag. ‘The owners are extensive travelers and have imported items from all over Europe and incorporated them into the house,’ said Lynne Siano with Metro Brokers of Oklahoma in the listing. ‘The castle’s furnishings aren’t included in the sale, but they could be negotiated into a deal. Finding a buyer hasn’t been easy,’ Siano added.”
Community Impact on Texas. “Median home prices in Round Rock, Pflugerville and Hutto decreased for the second month in a row in July, according to data from the Austin Board of Realtors. The ABoR’s monthly report for July shows a median home sale price of $476,458 across the three cities in July, down 5.84% from June’s median price of $506,001. According to the report, home inventory was on the rise in July. Round Rock, Pflugerville and Hutto had a combined 1,201 active listings in July, compared to 933 in June and 543 last July.”
“‘It’s not the intense seller’s market it was a few months ago, and sellers should reset their expectations,’ Ryan Leahy, regional president for Austin mortgage lending company HomeTown Texas, said in the report.”
From CTV News in Canada. “Winnipeg’s red-hot housing market is showing signs of cooling after back-to-back record-breaking years. For realtor Ed Dale, the last two years have been hectic. Fueled by pent-up demand and other pandemic-related issues — 2020 and 2021 were banner years for Winnipeg’s housing market. ‘You know, in certain areas where you couldn’t give a house away all of a sudden, everything got bought up, so it really changed the landscape of resale real estate as we knew it,’ said Dale.”
“But lately, sales haven’t been as easy. Dale said listings are staying on the market far longer and for much less, sometimes even forcing price cuts. ‘But we do see a lot of times people do want to still try and attain the same pricing from two or three months ago, and when that happens, we are having to bring pricing down.’ Market reports from the Winnipeg Regional Real Estate Board show the average cost of a home in Winnipeg skyrocketed to around $450,000 in May and has since made a sharp decline to 400,000.”
In Chronicle on the UK. “Too much student accommodation in Newcastle caused the ultimate collapse of the businesses behind the Glassworks block in Ouseburn. Administrators for three companies in the Hong Kong-based Bricks Capital Group – Newcastle Glassworks Limited, Newcastle Glassworks Management Limited and Bricks K5 Capital Ltd – said the companies owed about £11.6m to a Chinese lender, which had not been paid for several years. The 270-bed block on Coquet Street has now been sold to that lender, CIMC, which also owns the company that provided the novel pre-fabricated containers it is built with.”
“Insolvency specialists at Interpath, who are dealing with the administration of the three firms, suggested oversupply of student accommodation in the city had forced rents down as the Glassworks struggled to attract students. Interpath said it understood that some £17.39m was also owed to other CIMC subsidiaries by the Bricks Group.”
From News.com.au. “Three Sydney suburbs and four Melbourne suburbs have seen average house prices drop below what they were in March 2020, according to REA. To qualify for the list, suburbs had to have a minimum of 10 sales. When looking at unit prices, the number of suburbs dropping to an average price before Covid hit leaps up to 45 around New South Wales and Victoria. In Sydney, Rhodes posted the sharpest decline in housing prices, dropping 21.43 per cent. Beecroft had the biggest change of any suburb, with a 40 per cent drop in unit prices. Changes in Melbourne were less dramatic but still significant with Caulfield East house prices falling by 8.83 per cent, and Albert Park house prices dropping 25.23 per cent.”
“‘If we look at the types of areas where the prices are falling, it’s generally the more expensive markets,’ Director Economic Research at PropTrack, Cameron Kusher, explained to news.com.au. ‘It’s really being driven by the fact interest rates are rising quickly and much sooner than people expected.’”
The Telegraph. “China is tearing down tower blocks and pausing construction on buildings that could house 75m people as Xi Jinping’s government seeks to prop up the country’s stalling property market. Analysts have warned Beijing has adopted a ‘build, pause, demolish, repeat’ strategy as Chinese officials seek to restrict supply to avoid a plunge in house prices and boost economic activity through more construction. Researchers at Fathom Consulting revealed that around 3bn square metres of housing has been put on pause or demolished in recent years, stopping properties reaching the market. It is enough to house 75m people.”
“Joanna Davies, head of China economics at Fathom said:’ A key policy tool to manipulate supply is to order the mothballing of properties during the construction phase of a project. These practices enable the amount of new housing under construction to keep rising – which helps to prop up short-term economic growth and keep a lid on social unrest – without flooding the market and driving down property prices.’”
From Go Banking Rates. “On Sunday, June 12, at 10:20 p.m., George — like thousands of other customers using crypto lending exchange Celsius — received an email reading: ‘Due to extreme market conditions, today we are announcing that Celsius is pausing all withdrawals, Swap and transfers between accounts.’ ‘I knew they had exposure but never thought they would lock up our assets,’ George, who wished to publicly divulge only his first name for reasons of privacy, told GOBankingRates.”
“He now has $22,000 in frozen assets and says that his family has been on an ’emotional roller coaster’ over the past few months. ‘I wish I would have pressed the platforms more on the transparency of who they were dealing with. They would have never revealed that, and I should have said, ‘Well, I’ll go somewhere else.’ Greed kept me there.’”
“Similar stories of loss and pain are flooding the Southern District of New York, where bankruptcy proceedings are already happening. Letters included in the court proceedings show customers pleading for a way to get their money back. For example, 72-year-old Lindsey Derence told the judge in a letter to the court that she’s at risk of losing much of her life savings. ‘It took me four years of buying BTC and ETH in small increments to accrue to 1 Bitcoin, 7ETH that are now locked on Celsius. I planned to hold these assets in a safe crypto ‘bank’ and wait for them to increase in value so I could pay off my mortgage. Only without a mortgage payment will I be able to exist on just social security,’ she wrote.”
“‘When I tried to move my cryptos into a custody account, I was locked out by Celsius. That shows his fraudulent intent prior to bankruptcy. Since that moment, I’ve been in a state of fear, depression, anxiety, helplessness at the prospect of losing this much of my life savings. Small depositors must be made whole again,’ she penned.”