A report from Bloomberg. “Zillow’s iBuying business loses money, so stopping purchases should help its bottom line, analyst Ygal Arounian said in a note. ‘This feels like they bought way too many homes and they’re trying to work off that excess supply,’ said Jonathan Miller, president of appraisal firm Miller Samuel.”
From CNN Business. “iBuyer share in some cities, like Phoenix, Atlanta or Charlotte, North Carolina, now tops 5%. ‘Zillow just kept barreling down and now they’ve hit this wall,’ said Mike DelPrete, an independent real estate technology strategist. This is not the situation a growth-focused company wants to be in, he said. ‘If you’re trying to be number one in the market, slamming on the brakes is one of the worst things you can do,’ said DelPrete.”
From KLKN on Nebraska. “It was a housing market frenzy just a few months ago with homes getting snatched up within hours and lots of buyers being forced to make some tough and risky decisions. ‘One of the terms that would be tossed out to be more competitive earlier this spring was to waive inspections. So, they were just buying the house as is, not doing an inspection, you just get what you get. That was a little scary,’ Melanie Dawkins, with Red Door Realty, said.”
“The Lincoln housing market has turned the corner and things are looking up for buyers and sellers. Dawkins says it’s technically still a sellers market but things have slowed down substantially and given everyone more time to think about their decisions. ‘Right now, I can say we’re gonna go look at a handful of these. You can think about them overnight, let’s talk about it tomorrow and see what you think of it. That’s a lot better for making such an amazingly huge decision. This is the most expensive purchase you’ll ever make,’ Dawkins said.”
From 2 News Oklahoma. “Tulsa’s housing market could be slowing down after booming last year. Looking at the lists for this year, Tulsa isn’t on there, as signs point to things calming down. ‘This time last year we were seeing 30 plus offers on most homes,’ said Andrew Jones-Brothers, an associate broker for Unique Properties. ‘I mean, it was unlike anything we’ve seen before in our market.’”
“Jones-Brothers said, in 2020 and early 2021, houses were selling for tens of thousands more than their asking price. Many on the market for a short time before being snapped up. And a lot of those buyers were from out of state. But now, that’s starting to slow down. ‘I think we’ll be seeing these higher property evaluations for the foreseeable future,’ he said. ‘But some of the frenzy is really gone.’”
The Austin Business Journal in Texas. “In July, data from the Austin Board of Realtors revealed an important shift: The median home price had declined month over month for the first time since January 2021. Since then, prices have continued to decline in the Austin metro each month, while still setting records. In September, the median sale price in the Austin metro was $450,000. This was $20,000 less than August’s median of $470,000 but still the highest median price for September on record — 28.5% higher than September 2020 — according to ABOR.”
“One catalyst for declining prices is an increase in supply across the region. In September, new listings were up from last year, with 4,136 new homes hitting the market. ‘The single home prices got so out of whack, I’m not surprised that they’re coming down a little bit,” said Amy Barbee, vice president of the Austin Housing Conservancy. ‘We’re not seeing as many offers on homes even in hot areas, so people stand a better chance at winning a house,’ realtor Matt Richard said.”
The Orlando Business Journal. “Central Florida home sales slipped again in September, which the Orlando Regional Realtor Association’s president called a sign of the market ‘leveling off.’ Home supply increased and the median home price took a dive for the first time since September 2020, all signs the local residential real estate sector, while still a strong seller’s market, may have hit its peak.”
“Fewer sales means the region’s home inventory ticked up for the fifth consecutive month. The 3,667 homes on the market last month was a 38% bump up from April, the low point of the year. ‘The market is still heavily in favor of sellers, but it is showing some signs of returning to become more balanced,’ Orlando Regional Realtor Association 2021 President Natalie Arrowsmith said.”
From Bisnow Los Angeles in California. “Hotel developer Adolfo Suaya has sold a recognizable Hollywood Boulevard apartment building for $19.2M, Bisnow has learned. The Hollywood Hillview apartments had gone on the market in 2019, with the seller hoping to fetch $25M. In May 2020, the property returned to market with new representation targeting a sale price of $21M. The property was 75% vacant at the close of escrow, which will make repositioning easier.”
The Globe and Mail in Canada. “Almost 13.5 million square feet of downtown office space now sits unoccupied, roughly enough capacity for 90,000 workers. Calgary’s vacancy rate is almost three times that of Montreal and four times as high as Toronto, and it’s only expected to get worse in the coming years. Calgary is now searching for ways to fix a problem that has left the city’s downtown – which already had a reputation as a lifeless collection of skyscrapers filled with people who clear out at the end of every workday – a shell of its boom-time self.”
“The glut of office space downtown has played havoc with the city’s finances. The vacancy rates sent property values for the city’s most lucrative real estate plunging, with some office towers losing more than half their value in the span of a year. Commercial properties outside the downtown core were left to pick up the slack, and some of them faced tax bills that had more than quadrupled.”
From Scoop Business. “A new study by New Zealand Media and Entertainment’s (NZME) OneRoof has revealed first home buyers in three of the country’s biggest and most expensive cities could save hundreds of thousands of dollars by choosing to buy a newly built home. OneRoof and its data partner found that new homes were cheaper than existing properties in Auckland, Wellington, Tauranga, and Queenstown Lakes – sometimes by as much as $600,000.”
“‘When it comes to the new-build housing market, the numbers point to three things: that new homes are often the cheapest entry points into the market, that they are growing in value and that New Zealand is building more of them – and fast,’ said OneRoof editor Owen Vaughan. ‘In the 24 months to June 2021, the number of consents issued for new residential buildings in New Zealand peaked at just over 80,000. In the first two quarters of this year alone, almost 23,000 consents were issued – that’s 281 per cent more than the total for the first two quarters of 2011.’”
From Channel News Asia. “China’s September new construction starts slumped for a sixth straight month, the longest spate of monthly declines since 2015, as cash-strapped developers put a pause on projects in the wake of tighter regulations on borrowing. New construction starts in September fell 13.54 per cent from a year earlier, the third month of double-digit declines, according to Reuters. ‘All the data are poor,’ said Zhang Dawei, chief analyst with property agency Centaline. ‘Financing is hard, sales are tough, so of course, there has been no enthusiasm to build. For the first time in history, developers are encountering two blockages – blockages in sales and blockages in financing.’”
From Vision News. “The property market has been a major driver of economic growth in communist China. Chinese citizens used to view the property as the safest investment. As of 2019, real estate accounted for 70 percent of household wealth in China. However, all this is changing. Of the developers that saw lower sales in September, Longfor Group holdings reported a 33 percent drop in sales YoY for the month; China Resources Land’s sales fell by nearly 24 percent; China Overseas Land & Investment by 42 percent; and China Vanke Co. by 34 percent.”
“The downward trend in sales could push developers who are in desperate need of funds to repay debts to offer big discounts. This could send housing prices in a downward spiral. Huang Jun, a 25-year-old real-estate agent in Foshan, said that prices for new homes downtown have dropped about 20 percent from a recent peak in March.”
“‘Virtually all developers have offered discounts over the past two months… Just like Evergrande, they must be under pressure to sell more flats [to repay borrowings]… Most of [the customers] want to wait and see if the prices would go down further… In China, most people prefer to buy apartments when prices are rising, not falling,’ Huang said.”