A weekend topic starting with the Charlotte Agenda in North Carolina. “Jonathan Osman points to a one-story, brick house in Camp Greene. A little more than a decade ago, the home sold for $38,500. Now, it’s listed by another Realtor for $369,000. Osman shakes his head, then pulls up a nearby listing on Morton Street: $335,000 for a similar house, one-story, brick, renovated. ‘I get it, it’s close to Uptown,’ he says. ‘But two-bedroom, one-bathroom?’”
“Buyers and sellers can feel the difference. It’s looking at a house in Madison Park that sold in 2016 for $220,000 now listed for almost $630,000. It’s constant house-flipping ads on the radio, promising seminars that teach you how to make money without spending your own. ‘Everybody is scared of buying at the top of the market,’ Osman says. ‘The hard thing is, you don’t know when the top is gonna be.’”
From Cambridge Day in Massachusetts. “A friend and I were talking about Cambridge’s housing problem. Like me, he’s a proponent of increasing affordable housing. But as our conversation went on, he became increasingly frustrated with my comments about the impacts of density and growth. Finally, he blurted out, ‘Haven’t you ever heard of the law of supply and demand?’”
“‘I hate to tell you this,’ I replied, ‘but any marketing professional will tell you that in reality, there’s no law of supply and demand.’”
“Realtors and developers are ecstatic. It’s like a gold rush; any real estate agent who can get a seller to sign with them is guaranteed a minimum of $30,000 to 50,000 per home sale. Competent agents are making $500,000 a year and more. Developers are also experiencing happy days … just one luxury home can bring in $200,000 profit.”
From Crested Butte News in Colorado. “The conversation can be heard everywhere—Crested Butte is changing fast. Many of the concerns revolve around the dark neighborhoods of part-time second homeowners who are driving up property taxes and contributing to the housing shortage, rising business fees, unsustainable rents for both business and residential tenants, different ‘cultural values’ seeping in, and long time community-invested businesses closing their doors.”
“A year ago last spring, after nine years in business in Crested Butte, Mountain Oven packed up their baking operation and moved to Paonia, where owner Chris Sullivan was able to purchase a home on five acres with a small orchard for considerably less than the price of buying a small condo on the mountain. Sullivan also rented an affordable large space in downtown Paonia where he built a kitchen facility for his baking production.”
“Sullivan didn’t want to leave Crested Butte, even though there’s been a noticeable migration of Buttians to Paonia. ‘Crested Butte is a really special place and the exceptional community of long-term residents, who are committed to each other, are trying to protect this place. But I see the people who are moving here, buying property here, and they’re not my people.’”
The San Jose Spotlight in California. “All throughout California, everyone is talking about how we need to create cheaper housing for people who are homeless. As homelessness increases throughout the state, and millions and millions of taxpayer dollars have been invested in homeless services and housing, the people who paid those taxes are losing their patience.”
“The media has picked up on what most of us are seeing. Earlier this month, USA Today published a story titled ‘Some of Los Angeles’ homeless could get apartments that cost more than private homes.’ The story was written after an L.A. City Controller audited the city’s investment in building housing for people who are homeless. He found that the average cost of a supportive housing unit was $531,373, while the median price of a market-rate condo was $546,000.”
“Years ago, after we had finished building a supportive housing development in downtown San Diego, I opened my Redfin real estate app on my iPhone only to find that market-rate condos were selling for cheaper than the cost of our apartments.”
“You want cheaper housing? Build it forty years ago. In 1980, the average price of a home was $47,200. In 2000, it was $119,600.”
From NBC Bay Area in California. “A strong economy, low unemployment, and a booming stock market. So this next statement may surprise you: There is new evidence that the demand for Bay Area homes is cooling and prices keep falling. The median sales price for new homes dropped 7.1% In addition, previously sold homes saw a price drop of 4.7% compared to last year.”
“San Jose-based realtor Holly Barr said she has seen prices sliding for more than a year now. ‘If you look at the trend over the last two years, it’s definitely come down,’ Barr said. In her market of Willow Glen, Holly’s gotten less ‘all cash’ buyers and seen clients’ homes sit on the market for an average of 25 days before a sale. A couple years ago your home would likely sell in less than 10 days and you would get several hundred-thousand dollars over asking price.”
“In September this year, CoreLogic reports the median sale price for all homes in the Bay Area was about $778,000 — down from $815,000 last year. Another study may offer another reason why prices are sliding. A San Francisco city survey reports that 35% of residents want to leave the city in the next three years.”