A report from Loudoun Now in Virginia. “It’s anything but a typical housing market in Loudoun County. Ashley Smith, of Atlantic Coast Mortgage, has been in the industry for 18 years and just had her biggest month ever in April, closing $23 million in loans. About 60 percent of her business, she said, has been refinancing. ‘I have a pipeline of years and years of people I’ve put in homes, maybe it’s their first, second, or third time refinancing, or they’re buying another home,’ Smith said.”
The News Leader in Virginia. “Even good news can become bad news. For instance, interest rates are at historic lows. ‘The good news is that interest rates could still head down due to the coronavirus pandemic,’ said Rick Kane, owner of Westhills Realtors in Fishersville. ‘The bad news may be people are refinancing rather than trading up in housing.”
“Kevin Lacey, owner of the Lacey Real Estate Group in Fishersville, admitted that he fears a repeat of the past housing crisis could be on the horizon. In the early 2000s, as the real estate market boomed and prices soared, people were living off the supposed worth of their homes by refinancing them and pocketing the extra cash, he said. When the market went belly up, many were left owing more on their home than it was worth.”
“‘That started up short sales, and I think we’re headed towards that again, where all the unemployment and low interest rates are going to encourage people to refinance. When they refinance, then they’re going to be upside down on their houses,’ Lacey said.”
From Builder Online on New York. “As the pandemic hit New York City, many would-be home sellers avoided the market altogether. In Manhattan, only 2.1% of homes for sale had a price cut in April. However, the 2.1% of sellers that were making price cuts in April were determined to make a sale. The median price cut in Manhattan was a record high 5.9% off the asking price, or a median of $100,241. The highest median price cut previously observed in Manhattan was 5.4%, in January 2016. Manhattan prices continued to drop in April, a trend that has been occurring for the past three years.”
The Eastsider LA in California. “While the number of available homes for sale in the area is down as are the number of buyers, ‘houses are still being bought and sold,’ concurs Mark Mullin with the Tracy Do Real Estate. Fewer potential buyers means fewer bidding wars thus making the process easier in many respects. ‘A hot property these days means it could garner 5-10 offers instead of 20-30. Mullin hasn’t seen big drops in asking price (single digits if anything).”
“Crises can bring a variety of reactions/responses in the housing market, says Kurt Wisner of Courtney + Kurt. ‘In 2008, lots of folks just walked away from their homes and handed us the key,’ he says. ‘They lost any equity in their property.” Wisner describes the ‘Three Fs’ of how homeowners typically deal in a crisis: foreclosure, forbearance and fire sale. ‘Today, homeowners are turning more to forbearance if they are having trouble making mortgage payments. They will still have their homes, hopefully, at the end of the day. We really aren’t seeing any fire sales at this time.’”
The Los Angeles Times in California. “Five years after their separation, singer-songwriter Avril Lavigne and Nickelback frontman Chad Kroeger have sold their marital home. Records show the Sherman Oaks mansion just traded hands for $5 million, or $400,000 less than the pair paid for it shortly before separating in 2015.”
From Moneywise. “Two big trends are making the housing market more attractive for homebuyers and are reeling them in. They’re being drawn to bargain prices for houses. The U.S. Census Bureau reported this week that new homes sold in April at a median price of $309,900, down 8.6% from a year earlier and down 5.2% from the March median selling price of $326,900. ‘A 5% monthly drop in new home prices points to builders eager to make deals,’ says Zillow economist Matthew Speakman.”
From Skift. “As part of its reorganization efforts, Expedia Group is winding down its multifamily building short-term rental business that it began with the 2018 acquisitions of Pillow and ApartmentJet, Skift has learned. An Expedia spokesperson confirmed that the company is ‘winding down’ Pillow and ApartmentJet ‘as part of our drive for simplification.’”
“Reem Ibrahimi, founder of private equity fund Capstron Capital, based in Boston, said Expedia was in the early stages of its efforts in the multifamily sector so the shutdown of that business won’t be extremely impactful. ‘City apartments are the most-impacted because they are driven by travelers coming into cities for work,’ Ibrahimi said. ‘It’s going to take a long time to revive, and that may include a pivot on the owners’s side.’”
“‘With the reset caused by Covid, a lot of these experiments are just getting shut down to focus on the core business,’ said Andrew McConnell, CEO of Rented, referring to forays into the space by large corporations. ‘In some instances this might be a forcing mechanism to exercise discipline in cutting things that really should have been cut anyway. In other instances, it might lead to cutting things that are promising, but just don’t make sense right now.’”