A report from the Naples Daily News in Florida. “For Lee County-based Royal Palm Coast Realtor Association, the median closed for houses and condos is only off slightly from $380,000 a year ago to $379,000 now. Sales sank by nearly 3% as its inventory grew by almost 60%, passing the 8,000 mark. ‘Even though it is a slight sellers market, there’s still an advantage for buyers right now,’ said MVP Realty’s Rick Harrison. ‘You have a little more leverage asking for closing costs, making offers a little bit lower.’”
Yahoo Finance. “In the south of Texas, a new housing development in a major boomtown stood frozen in time for a little over two years. The project by developer StoryBuilt, consisting of nearly 100 new homes off North Bluff Drive in Austin, was constructed in three phases. The first two saw about 68 units completed between 2017 and 2018. The third phase broke ground around 2019. But right before the pandemic, the third phase suddenly came to a halt, and homeowners in the surrounding community had no idea why. ‘They basically stopped all construction,’ said Steven Apodaca, who had moved to one of the earlier phases of the development. ‘I’m sure part of it was related to the pandemic, being able to get the manpower to continue construction. But then, even several years after that, everything was just on pause,’ he said.”
“While at least 10 of the units were completed in phase three, according to Apodaca, the rest of the community was littered with debris, exposed wires, and half-built homes, which sat seemingly abandoned from late 2019 until the end of 2023. For the buyers, the worst-case scenario had occurred. Their builder was entrenched in financial turmoil. Now, the struggling Austin developer is facing accusations of having misused funds. ‘It got to the point where unhoused individuals were sleeping in the units because they were partially constructed. Who knows what safety issues there were,’ said Apodaca, who is also part of the neighborhood HOA.”
“Jeremy Knight, a real estate agent and founder of The Knight Group, has followed the company’s travails and visited other unfinished projects in the Austin area. Though North Bluff is on track to wrap up this summer, he has seen other sites still littered with broken glass, vandalized by graffiti, and exposed to the elements. ‘Those homes are just deteriorating,’ said Knight. ‘I mean, they’re going to have to sell off some of these developments.’”
The Real Deal on Texas. “After nearly a year of investor battles, forensic accounting and investigations, the StoryBuilt receivership is starting to wind down. The process of paying back investors in the failed Austin developer will still take years, but in his most recent report, StoryBuilt receiver Mike Bergthold said he is ‘winding down the first phase of the assignment.’ In that stage, the receivership has tried to sell off StoryBuilt’s real estate portfolio — which it once valued at $2 billion — finish building some of the single-family homes in its pipeline, and sort through the company’s books.”
“The receivership still controls a handful of properties and joint-venture stakes. In recent months, it has let some go to foreclosure, not seeing a path to profitability on them, while trying to sell off or finish construction at others. The receivership has begun to wind down after a significant strategy shift this year. After struggling to find full-portfolio or going-concern buyers last year, it determined that the investors and company representatives with whom it met at the start of the process gave it ‘wildly optimistic opinions and information’ about the value of the company and its holdings. Since then, it has been moving to sell off projects individually, as quickly as possible.”
“Once the assets are liquidated, there are still the investigations. The receiver reports cooperating with the following state and federal agencies: the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts, the Texas State Securities Board, the Internal Revenue Service, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the US Department of Labor, the State of Washington Labor and Industries and the Texas Labor Board.”
Market Watch. “Martin-John Rubio had been job hunting for a year when he saw a posting in early 2024 for a role in talent acquisition that was similar to his previous job, which he had left after his contract ended. But instead of the $33 an hour he’d been earning before, the listed pay was $17 an hour. Rubio was flummoxed, so he sent the job poster an email. ‘I said, ‘Hi there. I was just curious — was this a typo? Did you mean to put $27 or $37? Because it says $17. … It’s located in Silicon Valley. There’s no way that anybody would take that job,’ he told MarketWatch. He didn’t get a response. ‘I wasn’t trying to be a smart-ass,’ Rubio said. ‘Because $17 an hour? I mean, Christ, the fast-food people earn more than that nowadays.’ California fast-food workers started earning $20 an hour this year.”
“What’s going on? After a hiring spree in 2021 and 2022, when some companies had to offer higher salaries to fill roles for which workers were in high demand, many of those same companies are now trimming the pay they offer new hires, said Paaras Parker, chief human-resources officer at the human-capital-management platform Paycor. ‘The math would tell you, then, they would have to pay less for other types of roles,’ Parker said. ‘Because there’s just not more money available.’”
NBC San Diego in California. “Spring Valley residents gathered on Jamacha Road to speak out against a proposed plan to build sleeping cabins for homeless people in their community. In 2024, the San Diego County Supervisors approved in a 4-0 vote the construction of sleeping cabins in the Spring Valley community and to develop a recreational vehicle site in an unincorporated area near Lakeside. County Supervisors also voted to accept $10 million in state funding to help pay for the sleeping cabins. ‘There’s a lot of vacant areas, a lot of vacant spots that we can get them moved to. Having them right in a community, right in front of houses and schools, it’s scary for the people that live right in front of them,’ Spring Valley resident Marisela Baldivia said.”
From KXLY. “Smaller Washington cities like Clarkston are increasingly confronting the housing crisis more commonly associated with densely populated, urban areas. That could be a preview of what’s to come, not just in Washington but nationwide, following a U.S. Supreme Court decision expected in June. Justices are considering whether to overturn lower-court rulings in Oregon and Idaho that protect homeless people from being ticketed, charged or arrested for sleeping on public property when there is no shelter available. Howard Belodoff, the Idaho Legal Aid attorney who won the case against Boise, said a reversal would unleash cities to pass and enforce homeless bans. ‘If they reverse it, every podunk town is going to take these ordinances criminalizing the homeless and adopt them,’ said Belodoff. ‘These smaller cities have been trying to fly under the radar, but a reversal, well, they’re going to feel empowered to do it out in the open.’”
“Jennifer Graham, who grew up in Clarkston, said her daughter’s family, who now live there, can no longer enjoy the playground across the street at Foster Park. That’s the half-acre park where residents of ‘camp town’ were forced to move in February after City Council members made it illegal to camp anywhere else. ‘None of the kids in the neighborhood can play in the park because we’re not sure if there are needles lying in the grass,’ Graham said. ‘And the kids that have gone over to try to play, they get hollered at by the homeless people.’”
From PhillyVoice in Pennsylvania. “A man and woman shared food from a styrofoam container Wednesday morning as they sat on the sidewalk of Kensington Avenue, their backs against the metal door of a shuttered storefront. After moving to South Philadelphia from New Jersey, the couple had to leave the apartment where they were living partly because their roommate was using methamphetamine. Now, the couple is homeless and deep in addiction, using fentanyl ‘or whatever they put in the bag. You don’t know. That’s the problem,’ said the 41-year-old woman, who asked that PhillyVoice only use her initials, G.W.”
“Bright orange notices were posted in some storefront windows, and on some of the pillars of the El roaring above Kensington Avenue, announcing a Wednesday, May 8 deadline for removing tents, shelters and belongings in the area. G.W. said she does ‘feel bad for the children and the families’ in the neighborhood who regularly witness drug use and other traumas. When G.W.’s partner, G.M., was asked what he thought those with tents and make-shift shelters along Kensington Avenue were going to do, he said, ‘People are just going to pack their s*** up and move back.’ The pending pressure to move and heightened police presence in the Kensington may be a ‘blessing in disguise,’ increasing the couple’s hope to get help, G.W. added. ‘We’re trying to get into treatment before May 8 because who knows where they (city agencies) will send us,’ G.W. said. ‘We’re not happy being homeless.’”
CBC News in Canada. “Buyers who have been waiting years to move into homes at a pre-construction development north of Toronto are facing more uncertainty and delays, after the project was placed into receivership earlier this year. Operating as Mapleview Developments, Richmond Hill-based Pace Developments was building more than 1,000 condos and townhomes in six phases on 20 hectares of land across from the Barrie South GO station. But the future of the partially-completed Urban North Townhomes project, which first went up for sale in 2018, is now up in the air. ‘I feel betrayed,’ said Melenie Chan, who paid a $25,000 deposit after signing a sales agreement for a two-bedroom unit in September 2018. ‘It’s just sickening that they can take my money … I feel like I can’t do anything.’”
“The project is the latest Ontario residential development to enter receivership. Chan said she and her husband bought the home for their son to move into after he graduated high school. Their sales agreement identified the first possible move-in date as July 2021 and the last possible date as October 2023, although Chan says the closing date has been pushed back multiple times, with the latest being July 2024. ‘We wanted to give generational wealth to our kids,’ Chan said. ‘We wanted to be able to secure something for them so in the future they’re not struggling like how we did, you know, and it’s so upsetting because I feel like we can’t get there.’”
“Anna Mutetwa signed a sales agreement for a condo in August 2019, with an estimated closing date of October 2022. She said it took all of the savings she had to put down the $25,000 deposit. She planned to move in with her kids, but instead she’s still renting. ‘I’ve missed out on the pride of ownership. I’ve missed out on building equity. I’ve missed out on giving a stable home for my children,’ Mutetwa said. ‘I think there should be laws and regulations that regulates these developers, and they should be financially transparent every step of the way.’”
The Globe and Mail in Canada. “Toronto’s condo market appears increasingly out of kilter this spring as listings swell for compact downtown units while aspiring buyers struggle to afford more generous living spaces. In March, the segment for condos in the central 416 area code was the weakest in the Greater Toronto Area as transactions fell 15.5 per cent compared with the same month last year, according to Toronto Regional Real Estate Board data. Christopher Bibby, broker with Re/Max Hallmark Bibby Group Realty, says the majority of listings arriving on the market recently are one-bedroom rental units of 500 square feet or less in downtown neighbourhoods packed with high-rise towers. In many cases, landlords and landladies are unloading units when mortgages come up for renewal at higher interest rates.”
“‘The amount of one-bedroom units that are coming on now is overwhelming,’ Mr. Bibby says, noting that the supply of condo apartments in Toronto spiked 55.3 per cent in March compared with March, 2023. Monthly rents have been softening with increased supply in many buildings, he says, and owners face the burden of hefty carrying costs. ‘It has become a far less attractive option for investors.’ Many of the units in condo towers that developers were selling in preconstruction in past years were purchased by investors who didn’t care about the floor plan, finishes or view because they had no intention of moving in, he adds. ‘They have different street names but inside they feel very repetitive,’ he says. Those are the units that are hardest to sell in today’s market when many buyers are what the industry calls ‘end users.’”
“Sales of condos above $2-million are subdued, he adds, but may pick up as snowbirds return from the south and more downsizers sell their houses in the spring market. Sellers who reach for an ambitious price find out very quickly that buyers have other options, Mr. Bibby says. In some cases, sellers draw more than one offer but the unit still sells below asking. ‘This is the reality – this is the new pricing,’ says Mr. Bibby. During the pandemic, it was hard to find a unit downtown for less than $600,000, he points out. Recently a one-bedroom condo with a terrace at King Street East and Parliament Street changed hands around the $499,000 mark. ‘There are a lot of opportunities out there,’ he says. ‘You have a lot of negotiation leverage as a buyer.’”
The Daily Mail in the UK. “A furious leaseholder has claimed he is unable to sell his home because his developer failed to remove illegal cladding on a giant block of flats before plunging into administration. Geoff Radcliffe, 58, owns one of the 132 flats at the Wharfside development in Wigan, Greater Manchester, where leaseholders say they are now trapped with their properties after housing giant Stewart Milne Homes went bust in January. Stewart Milne, which contracts management company Contour to look after the site, is legally responsible for fixing all life-threatening fire safety defects in the homes – but innocent leaseholders have been left unable to sell, while their home insurance and management fees have soared out of control.”
“Mr Radcliffe, a leaseholder who bought one of the first-ever properties at Wharfside in 2007, told MailOnline: ‘It’s extremely stressful. It’s certainly affected my mental health. The financial consequences are just frightening.’ Mr Radcliffe, who bought his home for £142,000, said he is trapped now, explaining: ‘We’ve got mortgages on these properties and we are just stuck. I was one of the first ones to buy. I’d be lucky if I got £40,000 for it now.’”