A report from KTVB Boise in Idaho. “Jeffree Nice put his home on the market last month. ‘I think it’s been a little over 30 days, which is somewhat normal in these times. I guess I just missed the window,’ Nice said. While Nice loves the Treasure Valley, he’s trying to sell his home so he can move to Texas to be with his kids and grandkids. ‘I listed it originally for $430,000 which was well within the you know, the comparable home rate at the time,’ Nice said. ‘I did lower it about two weeks ago to $415,000. He told KTVB, he might have to lower it again. ‘It’s kind of stressful a little bit,’ Nice said.”
The Denver Gazette. “The median single-family housing price in the seven-county Denver area dropped for a fourth straight month, now at $620,000, according to the August Market Trends Housing report from the Colorado Association of Realtors. ‘You see a good sign, and then there’s a thousand-point drop in the stock market,’ said Deviree Vallejo, top-selling agent with LIV Sotheby’s International in Denver, noting that agents are struggling to get their feet planted in the shifting scene. ‘It’s an abrupt change from wild, intense market to ‘What are we going to do to get showings?’”
From Maui News in Hawaii. “The median price of a home in Maui County dipped below $1 million for the first time in nearly a year, as the housing market ‘continues to shift in a more buyer-friendly direction,’ according to the latest report from the Realtors Association of Maui. The median sales price of $983,575 for a single-family home in August was a 5.9 percent decrease from the median price of $1,045,000 in August 2021. Over the summer, Maui County set a new record for median home prices at $1,252,500 in June.”
The Orlando Sentinel in Florida. “Orlando home prices declined for the second month in a row in August and inventory continued rising. ‘This last month has been refreshing,’ said Juliette Nieves of Fidelity Property Brokers in Kissimmee. ‘The prices have shifted in a way that you can get a client a home with equity rather than having to overbid in order to even been looked at.’ Nieves said she’s seen more listings coming on the market each month, while homes for sale are sticking around longer. ‘I see a balance happening,’ Nieves said. ‘We’re getting more listings, but we’re not getting more sales.’”
From Clay Today. “In most areas of Northeast Florida, the August housing market reflected a slight drop in median prices while the number of days homes sat on the market has gradually continued to climb. Buyers can relish the good news that, for single-family homes, the percent closed-over list price went down 27.7%. In Clay County, the median price of single-family homes dropped to $366,250 in August, a nearly 5% decline since July. ‘While still an 18% increase year over year, the median price in our six-county market has shown mild fluctuations month to month of between $350,000 and $365,000 since March. This indicates that the dramatic increases that were seen during the pandemic are coming to an end. Closed and pending sales have leveled off in the 2,300 to 2,500 range over the past several months and are now well below the 3,000 to 3,500 peak a little more than a year ago,’ said NEFAR 2022 President Mark Rosener.”
“St. Johns County remains the most expensive area to live with a median single-family home price of $555,000 and a Home Affordability Index number of 49. Yet the August median days on the market for single-family homes leaped up 34.6% to 35 days.”
Portland Monthly in Oregon. “Realtors say the market typically picks up again in September and October, so by the end of the year, we’ll know whether Portland is truly becoming more favorable to buyers, after years of a sustained sellers’ market. In the meantime, in August, throughout the metro area, average and median sale prices continued a three-month slide. In every quadrant of Portland, and in every suburb, without exception, there are fewer pending sales so far this year than there were at the same time in 2021; year-over-year sales are down more than 40 percent in Hillsboro and Forest Grove, nearly 38 percent in Milwaukie and Clackamas, and almost 30 percent in Southeast Portland.”
“In the meantime, here’s a quick look at where prices fell the most last month for neighborhoods in Portland and in its suburbs, plus two places where it ticked up.”
The News and Observer in North Carolina. “Florida investors plan to build a 141-home subdivision in Bahama after a permit and site plan cleared the Durham County Board of Commissioners on Monday night. The land was initially planned for Wetrock Farm, a housing subdivision of the same size with a working organic farm at its core. Commissioners gave that project the go-ahead in 2015 and construction kicked off in 2019, The News & Observer previously reported, before stalling as cash dried up.”
“‘The concept failed. Nobody showed up to buy any lots or any houses. It was an idea whose time has not yet come,’ Patrick Byker, the attorney for the new developer, told the commissioners Monday.”
Times of San Diego in California. “The median price of a single-family home in San Diego County plunged by 5.0% in August to $910,000, but the number of sales increased, the Greater San Diego Association of Realtors reported Wednesday. Prices have fallen since the peak of $1 million in April. ‘The market is shifting in a more buyer-friendly direction with more inventory of homes on the market for a longer amount of time,’ said Chris Anderson, president of the local Realtors association.”
Vancouver is Awesome. “Monthly home sales in B.C. have dropped 40.8 per cent since this time last year, as repeated interest rate hikes continue to drive the market from feverish activity to more stable and ‘balanced’ conditions, according to the B.C. Real Estate Association. The average residential price in B.C. was $918,378 in August, down 17 per cent, from $1,109,000 in January. The higher interest rates are ‘weighing down’ the housing market, according to Royal Bank of Canada. ‘This process is most visible in the suburbs and exurbs of Toronto and Vancouver where price drops have been most significant to date,’ stated a September 7 RBC report.”
“The areas surrounding Vancouver and Toronto, Canada’s least affordable markets, face the most risk because affordability has gotten out of control, especially after ‘outsized price gains during the pandemic,’ the report stated. The Fraser Valley is particularly volatile: Pitt Meadows (-11.3%), Maple Ridge (-10.9%), Port Coquitlam (-10.4%), Cloverdale (-12.4%) and Mission (-15.2%) have recorded the largest price declines over the past three months in Metro Vancouver, noted RBC.”
The Sydney Morning Herald. “The power of rising interest rates to push down house prices has been laid bare in a new graph that shows property values fell within weeks of the first hike to hit Australia in a decade. Property values were still rising across the combined capital cities in the first months of this year, CoreLogic’s daily home value index showed, albeit at a modest pace as the pandemic property boom petered out. Sydney’s house value falls led the country, down 7.6 per cent between May and September, while Melbourne’s dropped 4.9 per cent over the same time. Brisbane, where values were still rising as other capital cities started to fall, is now showing a sharp drop in values, down 2.9 per cent over the past two months.”
“Mortgage broker Andrew Wheatley said the calls for refinancing or renegotiating loans have become more desperate from clients over the past few months.Though many had been getting in touch before the rate rises to try and get a better deal, the messages he was receiving were becoming more urgent. ‘There’s a lot of people just getting in touch saying ‘my mortgage payments are getting out of control and I need to talk to someone,’ Wheatley said.”
The South China Morning Post. “Many homeowners who bought flats in Hong Kong over the past five years are looking at a loss if they decide to sell now, as the housing market enters a downward cycle. In fact, some owners who bought high have been forced to sell low recently, turning paper losses into real losses – in one case to the tune of HK$5.85 million (US$745,334). The person decided to ‘sell as soon as possible and leave the market, as Hong Kong is about to enter the interest rate upcycle,’ said Jason Lam, chief district sales director at Centaline.”
“In Sai Kung, a seller lost HK$3.85 million on a three-bedroom, 1,108 sq ft flat with a garden at Mount Pavilia, which changed hands for HK$17.8 million, 18 per cent below the original price in 2018, according to Century 21 Goodwin. The district in August saw at least four recent loss-making deals at developments completed in the past few years, said Frankie Liu, sales director for Sai Kung area at Century 21 Goodwin.”
From Market Place. “Chinese folksinger and songwriter Chen Peng bought a presale condo in the central Chinese city of Zhengzhou seven years ago. Today, his two-bedroom is still under construction. Chen’s condo is among the Qifu City development’s 6,000 units. ‘All the buildings have roofs except for two. But only the building frames are complete,’ Chen said, adding that construction stopped in 2019. ‘Some people say the developer squandered the money in Southeast Asia. That’s the rumor,’ Chen said. ‘I used to think a home mortgage was like a business loan. You have to pay the bank back whether everything works out or not. But now, when I think about it, the banks are just dumping all the risks on the homebuyers.’”
“The housing bubble was sustained because — collectively — property developers, Chinese banks and citizens had faith that home prices only went up. ‘A few years ago, when a new project came on the market, it would be sold out immediately. Homebuyers felt they had to buy right away because prices might keep going up,’ said first-time homebuyer Daisy Wang. In October, she and her husband paid a premium for a presale condo in a Zhengzhou city development called Xitang because it was near good schools. Construction stopped two months later due to lack of funds. ‘I was shocked,’ Wang said.”
“Entrepreneur Shane Wu in Beijing defaulted on his home loans a few years ago, when his business ventures went bad. He’s now on a so-called discredited or “deadbeats” list, which bars people from luxury spending, such as riding bullet trains, flying or sending their children to private school. ‘I am like a socially dead person. Debt-collecting agencies keep calling me, my friends, my family and everyone on my contact list,’ Wu said. ‘They all know I went bankrupt, which makes it hard to restart my life again.’”
“Local governments — including Zhengzhou’s — have ordered developers to resume construction on unfinished homes in the coming weeks. ‘My life in the past few years has felt like I’ve been living in a swamp. I did not have a good income, and yet I still needed to pay the mortgage,’ Chen said, adding that he will only start repaying the loan once construction resumes on his condo. ‘Until then, everything is just empty talk,’ he said.”