It's Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. "The 'lock-in' effect — current owners being unwilling to move or refinance at higher rates — is showing signs of easing as more sellers begin to put their homes up for sale. Zillow data out Thursday showed new listings of existing homes jumped 20.8% in February compared to the same time in 2023, and climbed 20.3% month-over-month. Not only that, but homeowner surveys suggest an increasing share of homeowners expect to sell in the next three years. Inventories grew the most in Dallas (38.8%), Tampa (30.7%), and Orlando (29.5%), and rose in 33 of the largest 50 US markets."

"The number of new home listings in the Austin metro jumped nearly 45% year-over-year in February, per the Austin Board of Realtors’ Central Texas Housing Report. Across the Austin-Round Rock-Georgetown Metropolitan Statistical Area, new home listings were up 44.9% year-over-year with 3,915 new listings. In Travis County, year-over-year: New home listings were up 42.8% with 1,958 new listings. In Williamson County, year-over-year: New home listings were up 41.7% with 1,172 new listings. In Hays County, year-over-year: New home listings were up 56.4% with 549 new listings. In Bastrop County, year-over-year: New home listings were up 32.2% with 160 new listings. ABoR housing economist Clare Losey said that February’s spike in new home listings was mostly found in more affordable homes, predominantly those under $400,000."

"The number of 'motivated sellers' in Florida has grown in the past two weeks, as more homeowners are trying to offload their properties quickly amidst a worsening of the state's insurance crisis. As of Wednesday morning, 204,833 properties, including single-family and multi-family homes, apartments, condos, townhomes, and lots, were listed for sale on Zillow. Of these, 5,244 were listed by self-described motivated sellers—homeowners and agents willing to accept a lower offer than the price listed on their ads. When Newsweek reported on the issue on February 28, there were 4,928 listings in Florida of properties whose sellers described themselves as motivated sellers out of a total of 202,000."

"According to data shared on ResiClub, Florida's active home-for-sale inventory increased by 45.8 percent year-over-year in February, while Texas's increased by 22.8 percent. According to these estimates, Florida had the biggest shift in active housing inventory for sale compared to any other state. Some homeowners might also be willing to 'cash in' after years of home appreciation, Lawrence Yun, chief economist of research at the National Association of Realtors (NAR), previously told Newsweek. 'Florida had the highest home price appreciation over the past three years, and some people may be cashing out,' he said."

"The saga at the Four Winds, which was built in 1967, offers a window into the labyrinthine process developers must go through to execute a condo buyout in South Florida. Market realities, driven by new maintenance regulations for older residential buildings, have set the stage for a wave of sales. But while motivated sellers exist, developers eyeing prime oceanfront sites are also contending with unit owners fighting to hold on, raising questions about how many buyouts are viable. 'It really comes down to a numbers scenario in which the condo owners have an expectation of paying X, and the developers are willing to pay Y, and they're just not near each other,' Alexandra Eichner, president of Continuum Co. in Florida, said of the failed Four Winds deal and others like it."

"More sales are expected to close this year ahead of the Jan. 1 effective date for the new regulation. 'The people who live in some of these older buildings are faced with a huge economic issue,' said Alan Dimond, an attorney at Greenberg Traurig focused on real estate litigation. 'Now the bill has come due and people are faced with having to write checks or the option to receive checks. A lot of owners have determined that the option to receive checks is a better option for them.'"

"After 25 straight months of declining year-over-year sales, home sales rose 7 percent in January to 10,581 deals, the Orange County Register reported, citing figures from CoreLogic. The volume of January sales still ranked as the third-lowest in records dating back 36 years. The median price of a Southern California home was $705,000 in January, up by more than 5 percent from the year before. Despite the gain, January’s median was down from the previous nine months. January’s median was $45,000 below the all-time high of $750,000 reached in April 2022, right before climbing mortgage rates combined with high prices to slow buyer demand."

"The Port of Bellingham filed a lawsuit against Harcourt Developments, the company responsible for constructing three unfinished multi-million-dollar residential condo buildings along Bellingham's waterfront. The company defaulted on its development contract, known as the Master Development Agreement (MDA), according to port officials. Harcourt then asked for an extension of its development timeline, which the port denied due to the notice of default. Harcourt was originally selected in 2015 as the lead developer for about 19 acres of the Waterfront District but has lost future development rights for additional property there as a result of the defaults. The company was expected to complete its three residential buildings by the end of 2023, but now has no timeline for completion."

"The general contractor for Block 216, the new downtown Portland skyscraper anchored by a Ritz-Carlton hotel, has filed a $26 million construction lien against the project. Howard S. Wright served as the general contractor for Block 216. It filed the lien against the owners of Block 216 LLC. BPM Real Estate Group, led by Portland developer Walt Bowen, led the project. The lien is the latest and most overt sign to date that the developer of the hugely ambitious hotel, condo and office building is struggling to quickly pay bills stemming from the $600 million project. Other companies have filed liens against the Block 216 project."

"Bowen encountered a sea of unexpected problems during construction of the building, including the pandemic, higher construction costs and interest rates, and the rapid deterioration of downtown Portland. Nevertheless, the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in the building opened last fall. The building’s luxury condos have opened as well, though sales have been slow. Construction is still not complete, the developer revealed in its written statement, saying 'minor' finish work is still underway. This is not the first sign of distress in Bowen’s real estate empire. His company lost the Liv Hotel in Anaheim, California, in a foreclosure after a lender said it had defaulted on loan payments."

"A home in Burlington re-listed for sale multiple times and eventually sold at a staggering loss shows just how prices tend to fluctuate in the GTA real estate market. The bungalow, located at 841 Danforth Place in Burlington's affluent LaSalle neighbourhood sold for $2.1 million in February 2022, when home prices reached an all-time peak in the GTA. As interest rates began rapidly driving prices down further into the year, the home failed to sell when it was re-listed for a mind-boggling $3.3 million just a few months later. The home was put back up on the market just above its initial selling price at $2.2 million in April 2023, but failed to sell once again. In November 2023, the home was re-listed at a fraction of its original price at $1.5 million."

"Eventually, the home sold for $1.42 million in March 2024, approximately $700,000 less than it was originally purchased for just two years earlier. Despite this case, the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board (TRREB) found in its latest market report, that selling prices in the GTA actually edged upward in February, driven by 'population growth' and a 'resilient regional economy' that continued to support the overall demand for housing."

"Some buyers are sorting through the Toronto-area condo market and cherry-picking deals in a segment with plenty of inventory to choose from. With the central bank holding interest rates steady for five consecutive meetings, Manu Singh, real estate agent at Right at Home Realty, says the number of properties being sold under power of sale is on the rise. 'The condo side is more well-supplied and there are more investor-owners who are feeling the pinch,' he says. At one point 'months of inventory' – which is a measure of how long it would take to sell the available supply at the current pace of sales – had swelled above seven months."

"In many cases, lenders are selling after an investor has defaulted on mortgage payments, he says, and the properties are often unattractive. They tend to be in rundown buildings and poor locations because such investors often did not have strong finances to begin with. More recently, power of sale properties have been popping up in desirable high-rise buildings. 'We never used to see these,' says Mr. Singh. 'Now we’re evaluating these on a regular basis.'"

"Homeowners in Aberdeen who are set to be forced out of their properties after collapse-risk concrete was found in the roofs are threatening legal action over the council’s handling of the 'complete nightmare.' The group of residents, who purchased their homes after the properties were sold off under the Right to Buy scheme, fear that they too will have to leave. It comes as experts warn that the so-called 'crumbling concrete' could be more widespread in social housing across the UK than first thought. Hannah Chowdhry, a 20-year-old law student, bought her ex-council home on the Balnagask estate for £120,000 only last summer – but says she was not told about the presence of RAAC in the roofs."

"'I’m totally shocked,' she told i. 'It’s really distressing. The whole community is distraught. We don’t want to lose the money we’ve put into our homes. We want to get proper compensation. We’ll be fighting for an outcome that is fair.' Lynn Winstanley, who bought her home on the estate only two years ago, said: 'The stress has been unbelievable. It’s a complete nightmare.'"

"Croatian property prices have been the topic of a lot of conversation of late, with most sky-rocketing beyond belief. For one square metre of a used apartment in Zagreb, an average of 2,987 euros is currently being demanded, which is 11 percent more than the realised average price of a new apartment. The average difference between the requested and realised price on the Croatian property market stands at about 15 percent, and in the City of Zagreb, this disparity is greater than 20 percent. This means that an apartment in Zagreb that is advertised for 200,000 euros ultimately reaches a price of 150 to 160 thousand euros. In the cooling phase of the market, characterised by a drop in demand, sellers are forced to adjust their expectations."

"China’s real-estate market set an unwelcome record last month. The price of secondhand homes in the country’s big cities fell 6.3% in February, the worst monthly decline since the government started releasing data in 2011. That was part of a widespread drop in prices across the country, as China’s painful real-estate slump shows no signs of losing steam. The yearslong property slowdown has dealt huge damage to the economy, reducing business for construction companies and other firms that thrived during the property boom, hitting confidence among nervous homeowners, and exacerbating the debt burden facing local governments which for years relied on land sales as their major source of revenue."

"The government has prodded state banks to increase lending for property developers on a so-called white list, injecting new funds into the ailing property sector. Some in the country are calling for more extreme measures. China should freeze construction of all new projects until the property market recovers, said Mao Zhenhua, co-director of Renmin University’s Institute for Economic Research, at a briefing this week."