A report from the Wood County Monitor in Texas. “A zoning change requested by developer Peter Woolford for Park Central Subdivision in south Mineola gained approval from the Mineola City Council. Woolford said that the original plan is no longer feasible, and if the changes are not granted, the project would be dead. ‘There is a glut of unaffordable housing in Lindale,’ he said. ‘New home construction is coming to a screeching halt.’”
WFTV in Florida. “For months, Orlando’s housing market has been red hot. Now in the last few months real estate agents have seen a seismic shift. Real estate agents like Ray Lopez said they noticed the shift in the market back in May. ‘As realtors, we started getting calls from builders saying ‘hey, we have inventory again’. It no longer put your name on a list and we were ‘call you next year’ Lopez said.”
From WWLP Springfield. “Analysts said shifting economic conditions have ‘rapidly cooled’ the Massachusetts housing market. Compared to September, new listings for single-family homes decreased by 18 percent and 28 percent for condominiums. The median sale price for a single-family home in Massachusetts decreased in that span by more than 4 percent to $547,000.”
The Seattle Times in Washington. “With tech layoffs mounting by the week — including as many as 10,000 at Amazon, according to one media report — Seattle area workers and employers face a loaded economic question.Do the cuts represent a temporary adjustment to a post-pandemic slowdown? Or has an industry that almost single-handedly fueled the Seattle area’s economic boom over the last decade finally peaked? In either case, the layoffs have punctured the Seattle-area tech sector’s image as unstoppable.”
“Some tech companies have blamed the cooling housing market for cuts. Seattle-based Redfin announced this month it would lay off 862 employees nationwide, including 75 in Washington, and shut down its house-flipping business. That followed an earlier cut of 470 jobs nationwide in June. Redfin employed roughly 6,500 workers late last year. ‘It’s not necessarily surprising that some of that demand has diminished and wasn’t necessarily sustainable in the long run,’ said Anneliese Vance-Sherman, an Employment Security Department regional economist who covers the Seattle-area job market. ‘And here we are.’”
Bisnow Los Angeles in California. “A planned sale of the beleaguered Broadway Trade Center to an investor group led by Capri Capital’s Quentin Primo has fallen through. Court documents filed in the bankruptcy proceedings surrounding the building show that co-owner Joel Schreiber entered into an agreement in late October to sell the 1M SF Downtown building to Primo’s Capri Investor LLC for $325M. But several deadlines to provide a $9.5M deposit passed without any funds being deposited.”
“‘There is no viable sale with respect to this specific purchaser,’ attorneys for Starwood Capital-controlled Museum Building Holdings LLC wrote in a Nov. 10 letter to the bankruptcy judge overseeing the case. Without the sale, the risk of foreclosure on the property is very real, The Real Deal reported.”
From My News LA. “Sales of existing homes and median prices in Orange County fell last month, dovetailing with statewide trends, the California Association of Realtors said Wednesday. In October, home sales countywide were down 17.6% compared to September and were 39% lower compared to a year ago, according to CAR. ‘Homes are still selling relatively quickly at 23 days on the market, one in four homes is selling above list price due to limited inventory, and with median price growth remaining positive in four of the five price segments, home prices are holding up reasonably well,’ CAR President Jennifer Branchini said.”
“The median home price countywide in October was $1.16 million, compared to $1.2 million in September, a 2.9% decline, according to CAR. Statewide, the median price last month was $801,190, compared to $821,680 in September — down 2.5%.”
WOWT in Nebraska. “Encouraging news when it comes to a major product affected by supply chain issues: The price of lumber is dropping. Tim Ferguson, vice president of Christensen Lumber in the Omaha area, tells 6 News there are two key factors: inflation plus higher mortgage rates are pushing down demand for new home construction. As a result, lumber is more readily available. Ferguson said that for a 1,700-square-foot ranch-style home in June 2021, the lumber framing cost was $67,700. That cost has now dropped to $38,500 — a savings of 43%. ‘A lot of the hardwoods, the favorite woods — oak, cherry, and all of that — they are really starting to stabilize and come down,’ said Terry Zuck, who manages Woodcraft of Omaha.”
The Baltimore Banner in Maryland. “ABC Capital, a Philadelphia-based company that is facing mounting lawsuits from foreign and other investors who were sold properties in distressed Baltimore neighborhoods, filed for bankruptcy Tuesday morning. Mary Jayson says she was an Israeli investor with ABC, and is part of a 200-person email thread of investors trying to figure out how to get relief. Like others who spoke with The Banner, she doesn’t understand why American authorities haven’t stepped in.”
“‘People in Israel took out their money from pensions, borrowed money from banks, and lost hard-earned savings,’ Jayson said. ‘For some of us like myself who lost 200,000 USD of hard-earned money and bank loans I am still paying, it meant starting over in life.’”
Hawaii Business. “The number of statewide residential mortgage loans from banks, mortgage companies, credit unions, finance companies and government sources totaled 2,491 in October, a drop of 55.6% from 5,616 mortgages in October 2021, according to the monthly report from Title Guaranty Hawaii. The numbers include new and refinanced first and second mortgages. ‘How is everyone adjusting to this new normal? That answer is cutbacks and layoffs,’ says Pete Castillejos, past president of the Mortgage Bankers Association of Hawaii. ‘There are layoffs and cutbacks and there is a lot of movement in the industry – people are hoping the grass is greener elsewhere or they have been laid off and are looking for something.’”
From Blog TO in Canada. “For one faction of the market, the worst may be yet to come. In Move Smartly’s latest Toronto Area Real Estate Market Report, John Pasalis, President of Realosophy Realty, highlights the ‘red flags’ lurking in the city’s pre-construction condo market. Between declining condo values and rising interest rates, thousands of investors across the city are in distress. And private lenders – the ‘traditional fallback plan’ for those struggling to get a mortgage – have increasingly stepped away from financing new mortgages, too.”
“Pasalis says there could be a ‘ripple effect in the broader resale housing market,’ since the majority of investors are also homeowners. According to the report, the average price of a condo in Toronto hit $739,099 in October, a 12 per cent decline from the peak seen in March. Sales have suffered a worse fate, dropping a staggering 53 per cent on a yearly basis. New listings were down 16 per cent year-over-year. At $1,309,055, the average price of a Toronto home has fallen 22 per cent from the peak seen in early 2022. Year-over-year, sales were down 47 per cent and new listings by 10 per cent.”
The Globe and Mail in Canada. “In the volatile Toronto-area real estate market, parties on both sides of a sale are often searching for innovative ways to cement a deal. One retro strategy making a comeback is the vendor take-back mortgage (VTBs). Essentially the seller of a property takes on the role of a bank and lends a chunk of money to the buyer to complete the sale. Andre Kutyan, broker with Harvey Kalles Real Estate, points to a house for sale with an asking price in the $6-million range in north Toronto, with ‘interest-free mortgage available’ leading off the remarks for prospective buyers. The odd twist, says Mr. Kutyan, is that the sellers are trying to sell the house at a higher price than they paid for it in March.”
“‘They are hoping to sell it for more when in reality it’s worth 10-per-cent less,’ Mr. Kutyan says of the drop in value from the market’s peak. ‘They’re not going to overpay for a house just to get free money for a short time. That party’s going to end. We could be in this for the long haul.’”
“A little farther north, Mr. Kutyan took a client to view a property on the market under power of sale. The first lender in line is offering a vendor take-back mortgage in order to facilitate a deal, Mr. Kutyan says. Builders purchased side-by-side properties in 2017 and 2018, he says, then went through the lengthy planning and approval process in preparation for building a row of townhouses. Today the original buildings are boarded up and construction has yet to begin. ‘It sounds like they lost their shirts and they don’t have a shovel in the ground.’”
“The owners tried to sell the combined property for about $9-million in 2020. More recently, the court-appointed receiver had taken over and the asking price had dropped to below $8-million before the listing expired. The first mortgagee provided $6.2-million in financing to the owners but the project is worth less than $6-million, in Mr. Kutyan’s opinion. ‘I don’t know if they’re going to get their equity out of the property. They’re hoping to save their skin.’ The lenders who provided second and third mortgages are unlikely to recover any funds, he adds.”
Yahoo Finance. “Aussies who took the pandemic as an opportunity to dip their toes into the regional property market may be regretting their decision now as prices slide. The COVID-19-induced boom for regional housing has burst, according to new data from Corelogic. The report found house values in six of the most popular lifestyle markets recorded falls of 6 per cent or more last quarter. These included Richmond-Tweed (down 11.7 per cent), Southern Highlands and Shoalhaven (down 7.1 per cent), Sunshine Coast (down 7.1 per cent), Gold Coast (down 6.4 per cent), Illawarra (down 6.1 per cent) and Newcastle and Lake Macquarie (down 6 per cent).”
From Bloomberg. “Property agents in Hong Kong are resorting to increasingly wry advertising slogans to attract potential buyers during the city’s worst housing slump in years. ‘Born in the Wrong Time,’ ‘No Tears Left to Cry,’ ‘The Cut Is Deep, The Love Is Real.’ These are just some of the catch lines being used on home listing ads, underscoring the desperation of agents and owners. On one level, it has worked: Social-media sites are now flooded with these over-the-top descriptions. But sellers are still finding it hard to offload properties.”
“The number of unsold new homes in Hong Kong increased to the highest in more than 15 years in the third quarter. Ms Ada Chan, a 42-year-old human resource manager, recently had to stomach a loss of HK$5.4 million (S$947,000) to sell her three-bedroom apartment near the University of Hong Kong for HK$13.3 million. She said it was her biggest loss on property investments. Even with multiple price cuts, it took Ms Chan more than a year and a half to find a buyer for the 500 sq ft (46 sq m) flat.”
“Prices of used homes have declined 11 per cent since the beginning of 2022. Goldman Sachs Group is expecting values to plummet 30 per cent through 2023 from 2021’s levels. ‘I’m not optimistic about the long-term development of Hong Kong,’ said Ms Chan. ‘This is no longer a place where investing in real estate can get you high returns.’”
From Quartz. “Sam Bankman-Fried has quickly become a persona non grata everywhere, including in Africa. Crypto enthusiasts who traded different coins on FTX-linked platforms have been unable to withdraw their investments while crypto startups are facing their own losses. Lucky Uwakwe, one of the pioneers of Africa’s blockchain revolution and CEO of Lagos-based tech firm SaBi Groups, tells Quartz the crypto losses from Bankman-Fried’s fraudulent schemes have been enormous. ‘Many crypto investors are broken-hearted and angry. Some just lost their entire fortunes.’”