It’s Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. “Austin Texas, home-builder Leonard Bullard said he’s reluctant to cut prices more than 10% on a $5 million house. ‘We at least need to break even, right?’ he said. ‘Otherwise, we’re paying to sell houses.’ ‘There’s a glut of projects stacking up,’ said Chester Wilson of Greater Austin Builders, which stopped buying land last year. Mr. Wilson and his partners recently sold a teardown to another builder for a $17,000 loss.”
“Locally, the Raleigh market is ranked second in the nation for pending new home sales. ‘Builders do not want to betray buyers who might have bought at higher prices,’ said Gian Hasbrock, president of Wowism, a firm specializing in residential new construction sales. ‘Builders are reticent about lowering final sales prices, because it makes their whole marketing plan, which is to create a customer for life, a raving fan, self-destruct, because if I just bought a house for $50,000 more than what you’re currently selling homes for, I will feel terrible about my purchase, and there’s no way I would recommend you.’”
“‘We’re really seeing a correction in the whole market,’ said Tim Warren, whose company — The Warren Group — tracks real estate data across Massachusetts. ‘The real estate market was absolutely crazy for two straight years, and now it’s coming back down to earth. When prices go up faster than people’s income goes up, then you’re going to hit a wall someplace, and we’re starting to do that now.’”
“The Bay Area housing rollercoaster continues. Housing prices are finally dropping, in some places by more than $200,000. Mortgage rates hit a two-decade high. ‘That’s the unfortunate thing,’ said Lisa Faria, president of the Santa Clara County Association of Realtors. Faria said higher rates also make it tougher on sellers. ‘You bought your home or re-financed at 2%, and now we’re over seven,’ said Faria.”
“Ian Baker lives in Chandler and has been looking to buy a new home up north near Deer Valley for about a year now. ‘Sellers definitely don’t have the upper hand that they did. If they’re looking to sell just now or in the past 90 days, they definitely missed the mark on where we were at. I think that kind of ended in June and July,’ said Baker’s realtor, Bonnie Kingcannon. ‘I think that as long as the government can kind of settle things down and we don’t continue on this fast pace interest rate, we’re going to be ok. If it continues to hike, we’re going to be in big trouble.’”
“Everyone knows that housing in Black Diamond is booming, but what is happening in Enumclaw and Buckley? In January 2020, the median house sale price was $601,000. By the following year, it was $660,000. And in January 2022, its was $730,000. Since last May, prices have been dropping, from a median of $888,000 (a nearly 14% increase over the previous May) to just over $802,000 in September. ‘I put my crystal ball away, because I don’t think it works anymore. I don’t even take it out of the closet to look at it,’ said Alan Smith, a broker with John L. Scott.”
“The Bank of Canada raised its key interest rate by another 0.5% Oct. 26. ‘With every increase comes more doom and gloom,’ said Terese Cairns, a commercial broker. ‘We have people who are just freaking out about it, even though it’s not the end of the world. They (buyers) are saying: ‘Oh my god, things are going up. We can’t qualify now. Nobody wants to pay retail pricing right now because they think they’re going to be able to pick something up for cheap,’ Cairns said. ‘They’re like sharks that can smell blood in the ocean 10 miles away. They’re thinking some of these guys are not going to be able to complete on some of these deals and we’re going to have some foreclosures and we’re going to get some really good bargains because people are going to be in trouble.’”
“‘On the commercial side, it’s a disaster because nobody wants to do anything,’ she said. ‘Even developers who have cash to purchase properties – they want to leverage it as much as they can and they need construction financing if they want to build anything. They’re looking at 6% or 7% construction financing. With prices coming down, with downward pressure on pricing, it’s going to be difficult for them to see any (profit) margins.’”
“Prospective home buyers could pay $53,000 less for properties after house prices tumbled in one of the fastest ever declines. The latest Domain report shows house prices in Australian capitals fell 4.9 per cent in the last quarter from a peak in March. It was the fastest quarterly fall on record. The median house price is sitting at about $1,022,000, down by $53,000 from the June quarter but still 21.3 per cent higher than the pandemic’s low of $999,000.”
“Apart from Adelaide, house prices in every capital dropped with the Sydney, Melbourne, and Canberra markets seeing the speediest downturns ever recorded. ‘We’re going through housing market conditions that many buyers and sellers have never experienced in their lifetime,’ Domain’s chief economic researcher Nicola Powell said.”
“In a Chinese real estate market where selling not-yet-built homes has been the norm, a plague of unfinished construction projects has turned off buyers and harmed the wider economy. ‘I’d be too scared to buy pre-sale property if I’m going to buy another home,’ said Ma Lin, who lives in the inland city of Zhengzhou. Ma, 24, bought a pre-sale condominium in late 2020 for 1.6 million yuan (US$219,000 at current rates). The transfer had been slated for September 2023, and Ma felt secure because the project was backed by a major real estate developer. But construction work stalled in the autumn of 2021 because the developer ran into funding trouble.”