It’s Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. “Total home sales fell more than 4% in March, the National Association of Realtors said Thursday. Lawrence Yun, the association’s chief economist, said in the report rising job numbers suggest there are more aspiring home buyers in the market now than when compared to pre-Covid highs, but total unsold inventory at the end of March (1.11 million homes) was up 4.7% from the month before and 14.4% from one year ago. ‘Home sales are essentially stuck,’ Yun told reporters.”
“US foreclosure filings in the first quarter climbed 22% from a year ago, and repossessions rose by 6%, according to ATTOM. Foreclosure activity has increased for 23 consecutive months after a federal moratorium was lifted, reaching 95,712 filings last quarter. Repossessions high a three-year high. A separate report from Redfin on Wednesday pointed to other signs of weakness in the housing market. Median home prices in March dropped 3.3% annually, the biggest decline since 2012. Pandemic boomtowns and the San Francisco Bay Area led the price declines.”
“Buyers in Bradenton and Sarasota had a lot more options in March with the inventory of existing single-family homes up sharply from a year ago. In the Bradenton area, there were 2,581 active listings, a 51% increase from the 1,706 listings last March. Even though there was more inventory, sales dropped. ‘The real estate market in 2024 has been one of adjustment and realignment,’ Realtor association president Tony Barrett said in the news release. ‘Particularly, buyers have more options and leverage, while sellers might need to adjust expectations regarding pricing and time on market.’”
“Redfin said 70.3% of Florida homeowners have been affected by rising homeowners insurance costs, well ahead of the nationwide figure of 44.6%. ‘I would think that 70% seems low,’ Gregory Buck, from National Risk Experts in Palm Beach Gardens, said. Buck said seniors living in condos are feeling it the worst since they are on fixed incomes. ‘The bottom line is our people are saying we have to look,’ Buck said. ‘We have to move. We don’t have a choice, and they’re not going to move down the street. They’re going to have to move to north Florida and up.’”
“The devastation wrought by the Oregon Road fire near Elk and the Gray fire near Medical Lake last summer, burned a combined 21,000 acres and destroyed 366 homes. Spokane County estimated the loss at $166 million of assessed value. Some eight months after the fire, even those victims who had insurance are discovering what companies offer as settlements are not coming close to making them whole. Some insurance companies are dropping clients, telling others they won’t be renewed or, even in cases of homeowners who avoided damage, are raising monthly rates to levels they can’t afford, several sources told The Spokesman-Review. Elk resident Kelcene Dodd has filed several rounds of paperwork with FEMA and said both she and her father have received some assistance. But, she mostly received frustration. ‘They asked, ‘Do you have receipts?’ Are you serious?’ Dodd said. She told the FEMA representative ‘give me an envelope and I’ll give you some ashes, and there’s your receipt.’”
“As housing insurance companies continue leaving California, it’s having an impact on the San Diego real estate market. ‘Every single morning when I wake up, I fear that there’s going to be an email in my inbox that a certain insurance company is no longer going to be writing new business in California,’ said Kiyoma Yoshizumi, an insurance broker based in San Diego. ‘Just a couple of weeks ago, we had a client who was slated to purchase a home in Escondido. They got their offer accepted, the lender reached out to me and said, hey, is this going to be a difficult one to insure because it is in Escondido, and we were able to find a quote, no problem for this client. But the problem was the client wasn’t anticipating that high of an insurance premium,’ said Yoshizumi. That client pulled out of the deal.”
“In 2022, state Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara announced he would force companies to offer discounts to people who take specific steps to protect their homes from wildfires. It was part of an effort, he said at the time, to ‘reward the hard work that California consumers do’ to make their properties, families and communities safer. But based on what companies have put forward, the cost of qualifying for them will dwarf the savings for many homeowners. Farmers estimated the average policyholder in an area with a high fire risk would save about $42 to $75 a year for taking the specific mitigation steps, according to a document obtained by The Sacramento Bee. ‘That’s a drop in the bucket,’ said Hans Shillinger, who lives near Nevada City. Shillinger said he pays about $7,200 a year for his home insurance with Farmers.”
“What’s more, the company wants Shillinger and other policyholders to pay for an inspection to determine what, if any, discounts they are eligible for, another document shows. The company said the evaluations would need to be renewed every three years. It costs $125 to apply for the review. That means the savings could roughly equal what a homeowner has to pay to even qualify for the discount.”
“Trudy Allen has buyers’ remorse after dealing with what she describes as ‘issue after issue.’ The trombone player sold her home in 2020 and moved to the Sunridge Villas condominium on Westpark Drive in Southwest Houston. ‘It’s been very far from an oasis. I just stay in my house,’ Allen said. ‘I regret [the] purchase of this property.’ Allen said it’s hard to avoid the issues, especially when she’s trying to watch television because outside her window: overgrown weeds. Allen said she and other people in the condominium pay $350 a month. ‘What’s going on? Why can’t I get information on how the money is spent? Where is it going? Why can’t the HOAs agree on anything? Do something,’ Allen said. ‘Something needs to be done around here. This place is going straight down the toilet.’”
“The Four Seasons Hotel and Private Residences at the foot of Canal Street is facing financial struggles nearly three years after opening as New Orleans’ premier luxury hotel and condominium complex, forcing its owners to seek additional investor cash in an effort to avoid having to sell the property. In October, a group of wealthy foreign investors who, collectively, invested more than $50 million in the project, were notified that the Four Seasons project had been ‘adversely affected by conditions currently affecting the real estate industry nationally and worldwide’ and that, ‘the developer has been unable to improve net operating income of the hotel or sell enough residential condo units.’”
“Currently, 33 units — including seven of the penthouses and many of the larger, three-bedroom units remain unsold. Together, their square footage represents more than 82,000 square feet — about half the total residential space in the building. According to documents sent to investors in February, Massachusetts-based Carpenter & Co., the main developer of the project, is in default of a loan agreement with its mortgage lender. The developer has been instructed by its senior lender, New York-based Madison Realty Capital, to look for new funding from investors or prepare to sell. The letter, sent from Pathways EB-5, a Florida company that raises money from foreign investors, went on to say that ‘the developer claims it is facing serious financial challenges with respect to the project and limited options to improve its short-term finances.’”
“Home sales in Philadelphia declined nearly 40% last year compared to the prior year, according to a new report from the Pew Charitable Trusts. In 2023, a total of 15,617 homes were sold — nearly 10,000 fewer than 2022, a banner year for home sales in Philadelphia. Maria Quattrone, owner of RE/MAX@HOME, said she spends a lot more time reaching out to buyers and sellers with hopes of making a sale happen. ‘You have to do more to get the same result. And if you want a better result you have to do two or three times as much,’ said Quattrone. ‘It reminds me of the Great Recession,’ she said.”
“According to an Edge Realty report, in February, provincial real estate markets experienced varied trends, while Canada overall continued to face affordability challenges. Nationally, house prices in February were still 14% below peak levels, translating to a real, inflation-adjusted, decline of 22%. This emphasizes the significance of this real estate correction in Canadian history, even if it is experienced to different degrees across the different regions.”
“Late last year, celebrities packed a party thrown at Fatima and Eskandar Maleki’s luxury mansion in London’s Mayfair neighborhood. The occasion, in part, was meant to showcase the sprawling townhouse the hosts had been trying to sell for quite some time without much success. A few months after the bash, the art collector-oil tycoon couple eventually found a buyer from the Middle East, but only after agreeing to a hefty discount: 33% below the property’s original asking price of £40 million ($50 million). It took three years, a series of price cuts and a champagne-soaked soiree to push the deal over the line for a home that otherwise might’ve been snapped up within weeks during the heyday of London’s luxury housing boom about a decade ago. The £27 million discounted transaction offered a peek into signs of things to come as a slump gripped the high-end market.”
“Many other wealthy home sellers in London have also been resorting to price cuts to secure deals as property valuations tumble from their peak. Earlier this year, a mansion on one of Kensington’s most expensive streets reached a sale deal for about £30 million, 17% below its original listed price. Nestled between Holland Park and Kensington Gardens, the house was listed for £36 million by broker Knight Frank in March 2023, before being reduced to £32 million in a separate listing. Later, that price had to be slashed further.”
“News agency Der Speigel notes that the collapse in the housing market, now in its third year, is the most severe in decades. Andreas Mattner, the president of the German Property Federation, called on state governments to cut a property sales tax to stem the decline. ‘Housing construction is in a downward spiral. It can’t go on like this. It must be stopped at all costs,’ he said.”
“Dan Golin, who has undertaken more than 8,000 building and pest inspections during his 18 years in the industry, said there was a heightened risk of buying defective or damaged homes as Queensland’s property market continued to boom. ‘I have seen a lot of heartache in this field and I can’t see it going away in a hurry,’ Mr Golin said. ‘They have got no equity. There is no spare money to spend, so when they realise there is structural damage and it’s not just thousands, it’s tens of thousands, it’s heartbreaking.’ Mr Golin said termites were ‘everywhere’ and estimated he found two or three homes each year in south-east Queensland that were a complete write-off.”
“Mr Golin was the man called in to help Zara and Shaun Sarson, whose Gold Coast home was so badly riddled with termites it had to be demolished within months of their family moving in. The couple bought the house after having it checked by a different building and pest inspector, who told them it was fine. The Sarsons said the real estate agent who sold the property knew it had termites, but did not tell them. They believed the damage was deliberately concealed. But Mr Golin said to a trained eye, the termite damage was not difficult to spot. He advised buyers to check for ‘cover-ups’ such as new skirting boards or architraves that looked like they had been replaced, or did not match the paint on the walls. ‘That’s a bit of a giveaway,’ Mr Golin said. ‘It’s a hard one to control because sellers always lie when it comes to termites and agents don’t want to know about it — they don’t ask, because they would rather not know.’”
“While the Sarsons did everything right by paying for an independent inspection, Mr Golin said engaging an inspector recommended by the sales agent or trusting a report provided by the seller was a recipe for disaster. ‘Because [the real estate agent] gives [the inspector] the majority of their work, they let things slip that you usually wouldn’t,’ he said. ‘In a way, they are paid to let things slip.’”