A report from Realtor.com. “As Hurricane Milton forms in the Gulf of Mexico, damage estimates are rolling in from tropical cyclone Helene—and the news is grim for homeowners. In Asheville, NC, and surrounding communities, French Broad River hit flood heights of more than 24 feet, shattering the previous record set more than 100 years ago, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. ‘We’re seeing entire towns essentially flooded up to the first story,’ says Jon Schneyer, director of catastrophe response for CoreLogic. ‘So we’re talking total losses on properties in entire towns.’”
Wall Street Journal. “Hurricane Milton is on a projected path that would inflict a direct strike on Florida’s Tampa Bay, a densely populated and fast-growing area that is one of the most vulnerable in the U.S. to coastal flooding. Tampa Bay is still reeling from Helene, which triggered more than 6 feet of storm surge along its coastline. David Zigler’s home in St. Petersburg took on several feet of water just over a week ago. He said he hasn’t been able to tear out the soggy drywall because of a shortage of workers.”
“Zigler’s insurance adjuster was scheduled to tour his home on Thursday, he said, but with Milton slated to make landfall on Wednesday night, he will have to wait. Once he gets an insurance payout, he said he plans to use the cash to pay off his mortgage and sell the property for land value. ‘I’m probably going to get canceled after this claim,’ said Zigler, who had a $52,000 claim for another flood last year. ‘Every year it’s the same thing, and it’s only getting worse.’”
US News & World Report. “A September report from online real estate firm Redfin noted that housing turnover was just 2.5% of all homes this year , the lowest rate in 30 years and 37 % less than in 2021. But there were wide geographical differences, with a rate of 1.5% in California and 3.8% in Phoenix, although that was down 43% from 2019 levels. ‘What this data tells us is that the housing market in 2024 has been really frozen,’ said Chen Zhao, senior economics manager at Redfin.”
Sillicon Valley in California. “The owner of a San Jose housing tower that is mired in a thicket of lawsuits and legal complaints is now attempting to rent, rather than sell, the units in the highrise. The residential building at 188 West St. James Street in downtown San Jose is one of two highrises in a double-tower housing complex developed by an entity operating as FPP MB. FPP is an affiliate of China-based real estate firm Z&L Properties. By July 2023, the sales of the condos came to a halt, public documents on file with a Santa Clara County court and the County Recorder’s Office show. Since July 2023, no recorded condo sales have been on file with the county property transactions office. Now, the owner’s strategy is to find tenants to rent the approximately 200 remaining units in the western tower. Two months of free rent are being offered to entice people to lease units.”
“Rental rates range from $8,333 to $10,000 a month, according to the Apartments.com website. However, Tripalink states that some units are being offered for up to $12,000 a month. The Tripalink site does note that the $10,000 a month is for a three-bedroom, 2.5-bath unit and that the effective rent per person would be $3,333 a month. All of this is happening at a time when FPP MB, the property owner, is entangled in a web of lawsuits tied to the western tower of the St. James complex. The litigation is far from settled. As many as nine hearings, stretching into the spring of 2025, are scheduled in the case. Another point of legal conflict involves claims by some homeowners that living conditions in the western tower are ‘dangerous’ in some instances, according to a legal filing. The alleged examples include a lack of hot water, heat and air conditioning, along with thefts and poor security, court papers state.”
The Los Angeles Times in California. “L.A. County’s Board of Supervisors took its first major step Tuesday toward buying Gas Company Tower, one of the most prominent office skyscrapers in downtown Los Angeles. The proposed price is a deep discount from the building’s appraised value of $632 million in 2020, underscoring how much downtown office values have fallen in recent years. After selling last year for $110 million, Union Bank Plaza on Figueroa Street sold again recently for just $80 million, or $114 per square foot, according to real estate data provider CoStar. Another downtown high-rise tower at 777 S. Figueroa St. recently sold for $120 million, or $115 per square foot. At $200 million, the county would get the Gas Company Tower for about $137 a square foot, still a bargain by historical standards.”
“‘All these prices are a massive discount from only three years ago, when 915 Wilshire Blvd. traded for over $500 a foot,’ said real estate broker Kevin Shannon of Newmark, who helped arrange the Union Bank Plaza sale to the Southwest Carpenters Pension Trust. ‘The world has changed.’”
KDVR in Colorado. “Dozens of people living in the Arlington Meadows neighborhood in Arvada protested outside of the city of Arvada building ahead of a city council meeting. This comes after they learned about a month ago the city was considering placing a navigation center in the old Early College of Arvada building, which is now vacant. The city said the navigation center would give people experiencing homelessness a hand up, rather than a handout while providing them with tools they need to get back on their feet. But residents said there are already holes in this plan. Lily Allish said she recently bought a home that shares a fence with the vacant building.”
“‘It has already brought a homeless individual right up to my fence, claiming that he’s going to be waiting there until he receives housing,’ Allish said. As a young woman working from home whose partner is gone most of the day, she said she would feel unsafe if this would bring more unhoused individuals around. ‘I’m home alone for 24, sometimes 48 hours at a time. And it’s concerning, they’re wanting to bring homeless people right behind the house,’ Allish said. ‘They’re not taking in any ideas from other people and saying, ‘You know, that’s a great idea. Let’s look into potentially making this into a recreation center. Let’s look into maybe making this into a library or an education center.’ They’re just saying, ‘Well, we’re going to keep pushing forward this navigation center idea,’ said Karen Deaguero, who also lives in the neighborhood.”
Politico on Oregon. “Few American cities faced as much chaos as Portland over the last four years. This proudly liberal city has endured more than 100 days of often-violent protests, a fentanyl and homelessness crisis, a pandemic — and, in arguably the nation’s boldest progressive policy experiment in recent history — decriminalization of all drugs. This November, Portland is undertaking one more chaotic act. In a sign of either hope or desperation, Rose City voters decided to throw out their entire government structure and replace it with a weaker mayor, expanded City Council and ranked choice voting.”
“Mother’s Bar and Bistro has been feeding Portlanders for more than 25 years. But owner and executive chef Lisa Schroeder says her once-profitable business is almost out of money because the workers and tourists who once flooded downtown have not returned. ‘We’re losing money every day,’ Schroeder said, projecting that the restaurant’s revenue this year will be less than half what it was before the pandemic. ‘If you look down the street at nine o’clock on a Friday — I have video — it is empty,’ she said. ‘You’d think they were filming a movie.’”
“Rep. Earl Blumenauer, a retiring Democrat congressman who has represented parts of Portland since 1996 and before that served on both the Multnomah County Commission and the City Council, said parts of downtown look ‘like Dresden in World War II.’ ‘I’ve spent 54 years trying to make Portland the most livable city in the country or in the world,’ said Blumenauer, his voice cracking, in a mid-September interview as he prepared to pack up his Capitol Hill office. ‘No one’s going to describe it like that now.’”
The Globe and Mail in Canada. “The Toronto office of Romspen Investment Corp. has been searched by Quebec’s tax agency during an investigation into one of the private mortgage lender’s borrowers. Revenu Québec collects taxes in its home province and serves as a watchdog for taxation matters to make sure people and companies pay what they owe. Romspen is a private mortgage lender that raises cash from individual investors, then lends it out to real estate companies, often in the form of short-term construction loans. The mortgage lender has faced challenges over the past two years, when the market for real estate development froze as interest rates rose and many companies filed for creditor protection.”
“Romspen halted all investor redemptions in November, 2022, citing some trouble with loan repayments. At the time, the lender had $3.2-billion in assets under management. In the years since, Romspen has cut its monthly distribution multiple times, meaning investors remain trapped in the fund and now earn much less yield. While Revenu Québec could not comment on specifics, it has been probing a set of real estate development companies set up by the Basal family in Montreal for a few years – and the family had borrowed money from Romspen. Quebecor Media’s Journal de Montréal reported in January, 2023, on the financial troubles of real estate developer Ronen Basal, who was behind a dozen major apartment rental complexes in the greater Montreal area. The newspaper said his businesses owed Revenu Québec more than $30-million in unpaid taxes. The Journal reported that it interviewed Mr. Basal, who said he had done nothing wrong. He told the newspaper that his main lender, Romspen, had for all practical purposes seized control of his businesses after his problems began.”
Kelowna Now in Canada. “Sluggish, slack, listless, inactive, quiet, slow or lethargic. Use whatever word you like to describe Kelowna’s lacklustre housing market. Sales are way down from post-COVID 2021 and 2022 when people went on a buying frenzy to get what they wanted where they wanted and forcing prices up to record levels. For single-family that was $1,131,800 in April 2022, for a townhouse $829,000 in May 2022 and a condo $557,700 in April 2022. In September, the benchmark selling price of a typical single-family home in the Central Okanagan was $1,018,000. Last month, the benchmark for a typical townhouse was $725,200.For a typical condo, last month’s benchmark was $505,600.”
“‘There may still be some disconnect between buyers’ and sellers’ expectations,’ said Kaytee Sharun, president of the 2,600-member association. ‘Sellers (are) potentially holding out for a higher payoff while buyers are continuing to take a more cautious approach, which could potentially be contributing to slower decision-making.’”
Cornwall Live in the UK. “There are growing concerns in Truro and across the county about the future of the £160 million Pydar development in the city, which would see 300 new homes, space for 400 students. Many of the buildings on the site have been demolished at a cost of millions with no sign of construction starting, leaving an eyesore within the shadow of Truro Cathedral. Last week, Perranporth councillor Steve Arthur said: ‘We’ve got too many balls in the air. We’ve got Langarth [the £159m garden village development on the outskirts of Truro]. We’ve got Pydar, which we’ve just chucked another £10m at and it’s still a bomb site.’ Cllr Arthur – who resigned from the Tory group last year – added: ‘The poor old airport is getting kicked in the goolies because it’s the fall guy. If we hadn’t made those political choices and bit off more than we could chew, we wouldn’t be so desperate to get rid of the airport.’”
ABC News in Australia. “The boss of an embattled Perth building company has assured hundreds of customers their unfinished homes would be completed with the help of ‘divine intervention.’ About 200 Nicheliving customers, some of whom signed contracts dating back to 2019, are still waiting for their homes to be finished. Company director Ronnie Michel-Elhaj has now said a ‘higher power’ would help get customers into their homes, but would not provide a timeline on when the works would be completed. ‘We’ve been very fortunate. I think I call it divine intervention, right? So I’m a Christian person, and I like to see that there is God assisting the company and our team,’ he told Nine News.”
“Nicheliving customer Kathy Ellis said the comments were of little consolation to her and others with unfinished homes. ‘Obviously Ronnie and I have different gods we pray to, because my God would never allow someone to treat other humans like this,’ she told ABC Radio Perth. Ms Ellis has been living in a campervan with her two children for 20 months. She said she no longer trusts the company. ‘I’ve been fed so many lies over the past four years, even if they wrote to me now, I wouldn’t believe what they tell me,’ Ms Ellis said.”
South China Morning Post. “On Monday, the Lands Department said that in the third quarter, it had approved presale consent for three projects – in Tai Po, Sai Kung and Ap Lei Chau – consisting of 213 units. The developers are Manhattan Realty, Chinachem Group and Tai Cheung Properties. Developers in the city have been selling units in new residential projects at a discount in an effort to offload their reservoir of unsold flats. In the next three to four years, as many as 109,000 new flats are expected to come on the market, according to the housing bureau. A supply glut is one factor keeping home prices in check. The other is high interest rates, which impact the mortgage rates of homebuyers.”
“The number of presale consent approvals in the third quarter was ‘relatively small,’ said Derek Chan, the head of research at Ricacorp Properties. ‘It is believed that following the recent improvement in market sentiment, [the number of new flats] can be gradually absorbed,’ Chan said. ‘The recent acceleration in market sales is expected to help reduce the accumulation of unsold inventory.’”