A report from Lew Sichelman. "If you have a fixed-rate mortgage, your payments will always stay the same, right? Wrong. Maybe you’ve heard the term PITI, which stands for the main components of a typical mortgage payment: principal, interest, taxes and insurance. And while the 'P' and the first 'I' won’t increase in a fixed-rate loan, the 'TI' —your property taxes and homeowner’s insurance — most assuredly will. If you are like the roughly 80% of borrowers who pay all four PITI elements together on a monthly basis, then your monthly payments are almost guaranteed to go up — possibly substantially. Toby Wells of Cornerstone Servicing in Houston says his company fields many inquiries from bewildered customers when their payments rise. 'They’re shocked,' Wells says. 'They ask, ‘What have you guys done?’"

"Local increases can be staggering. One Florida policyholder hunting for a new insurer said he was quoted an annual premium of $7,200 for a policy that currently cost him just $2,200. Actually, the Sunshine State stands as a microcosm of what’s going on elsewhere. Triple-I says the average premium in Florida is now $6,000, whereas the national average is $1,700. Last year, premiums for homeowners in the state jumped 42% on average, and that’s on top of an average 33% boost in 2022."

The Ahwatukee Foothills News in Arizona. "One of the leading analysts of the Valley’s housing market said last week that homesellers’ position is improving but it also indicated they may be facing strong headwinds throughout the year from homebuilders and new home sales. The Cromford Report also said buyers can find a little light in the housing scene with a continuing rise in the number of homes for sale to a total not seen since before the pandemic. 'Supply has been gently increasing since the start of 2024 and has reached comfortably north of 17,000,' it said, reflecting a total for Maricopa and Pinal counties. 'This is still well below the long-term average but is the highest total we have seen in late March since 2019.'"

"But there also is trouble in paradise where sellers are concerned, the Cromford Report indicated. 'Re-sales have been suffering from strong competition from new homes and this source of supply is looking stronger than last year,' it said. 'In February there were 2,810 single-family home permits across Maricopa and Pinal counties – which is the highest number since March 2022 and up 107% compared to February last year. Sellers should expect to be facing increased competition from the new home builders over the coming 12 months.'"

The Los Angeles Times. "It seems only yesterday that California’s population was nearly 40 million. Then more people left the state. Now we’re not even at 39 million. People have been fleeing this once-Golden State. And the exodus accelerated on Gov. Gavin Newsom’s watch. 'The biggest reason we’re losing population is that people are moving out,' says Hans Johnson, a demographer at the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California. 'That has slowed, but we’re still losing hundreds of thousands to other states.' That’s a net loss after factoring in people moving to California. And why are they leaving? Mainly because of California’s high cost of living, particularly housing. That’s the biggest reason movers cite. California loses national political clout as people leave. We’ll probably surrender two more U.S. House seats after the 2030 census. We lost one in 2020 when we were still growing."

From Urban Turf. "The number of cranes in the DC skyline continues to drop. According to Rider Levett Bucknall (RLB), the city has about 18 construction cranes active as of this month, down 20 percent from 2023. In 2020, there were 45 cranes in the sky in DC. 'Activity in Washington, D.C. has slowed, with hospitality, residential, cultural, and mixed-use sector projects nearing completion,' the latest RLB survey said about DC. DC is not alone in seeing its crane numbers drop. Cities with a decrease of more than 20% include Boston, Chicago, Denver, New York City, Portland, and San Francisco."

From Moneywise. "Billionaire Barry Sternlicht is calling out the Federal Reserve for wreaking havoc on the real estate market with aggressive interest rate hikes. Sternlicht, chairman and CEO of global real estate investment firm Starwood Capital Group, thinks the Fed is overstating inflation and hurting real estate, pointing to rent prices that have declined across America. However, he also acknowledged the Fed has no other tool to combat inflation. 'I've been through five or six crises,' he said. 'This one feels the worst to me.' Sternlicht believes the federal government continuing to spend heavily is contributing to the inflation problem."

"'You have one part of the government with their foot on the brake, the Federal Reserve and Powell, and then you have the other part of the government, the legislature, spending as much money as they can,' Sternlicht said. 'What [Powell] really needs to do is walk across the street and tell Congress to stop spending money like drunken sailors.'"

The Kansas Reflector. "Eight months after a bank failure shook this historic and close-knit community, new details are emerging that indicate just how deeply the bank’s collapse was felt in town. It’s a story about the theft of $47 million, which authorities allege the bank’s CEO used to cover his losses in an online cryptocurrency scam, but ultimately it’s a tale about trust and money and what happens when an institution that most of us take for granted collapses. Shan Hanes, the CEO of Heartland Tri-State Bank, is charged in federal district court with embezzling $47.1 million between May and July of last year to purchase cryptocurrency. If convicted, he could be sentenced to the maximum penalty of up to 30 years in prison. Hanes, 52, also faces 29 felony counts in Morton County District Court in connection with the same scheme, for acts officials say he committed between January and July 2023."

"It was the fourth of five bank failures nationwide last year. A February 7 report from the Office of the Inspector General of the Federal Reserve found the Heartland Bank failed because of a 'pig butchering' scheme that entangled Hanes, who used his considerable influence at the bank and in the community to get by for months with illegal wire transfers and other allegedly criminal activity. Pig butchering, as I described in a September column, is a vicious online scam. The 'pigs' to be butchered are victims lured into investing in virtual or foreign currencies by scammers using fake identities with elaborate storylines to gain trust and fatten the stakes. These schemes are often run from Southeast Asia by organized crime gangs that exploit the victims of human trafficking, according to an alert from the federal Financial Crimes Enforcement Network."

"On Tuesday, county prosecutor David A. Thompson held a meeting in Elkhart for those who were swindled. About 30 attended. The sense of betrayal was deep. When Thompson asked what the group of about 30 or so thought an appropriate sentence for Hanes would be, Brian Mitchell said, one response was: 'If he was released one day before he died, that would be too short of a sentence.'"

The Globe and Mail in Canada. "50 Bartlett Ave., Th. 11, Toronto. Asking price: $1,695,000 (February, 2024). Previous asking prices: $1,695,000 (November, 2023); $1,795,000 (October, 2023); $1,795,000 (August, 2023); $1,895,000 (June, 2023). Selling price: $1,592,000 (March, 2024). Previous selling prices: $1,590,000 (May, 2019). This three-storey loft in a former yarn factory on a laneway near Bloor and Dufferin streets was listed in June last year with an asking price of $1,895,000 in the belief that it could do better than the last loft that sold in the building, which traded for $1.59-million in 2022. But visitors were sparse in the summer doldrums and then disappeared altogether, despite two price cuts of $100,000 each over the following months."

"'When we went on [the market], a couple of interest rates hikes had just happened, so that took a lot out of the momentum out of the process,' said agent Christopher Bibby. 'We adjusted to … show the market there was some wiggle room on the price. And the fall market was still very slow for everyone.' In February, the loft was relisted at $1.695-million and managed to attract an offer, though, at $1.592-million, less than they had hoped for. Nonetheless, the seller accepted."

Cornwall Live in the UK. "More people are moving to Cornwall rather than buying holiday homes now the Covid housing bubble has finally burst, it has been claimed. According to housing experts in the county, it is now a buyer's market and house prices are dropping. The drop in house prices, the increased time it takes to sell a house (according to Hamptons estate agent, properties took 77 days to sell on average last year, which is the longest sell time in since 2015), sellers increasingly offering price cuts, all indicate that the Covid market madness is truly over and the property bubble has burst."

"According to some estate agents in the county, the high end market - especially properties along the coast - has suffered the most with the most expensive properties seeing an 8.7 per cent price drop in the year to September 2023, which represents a steeper drop than the average for coastal locations across the UK, at 6.5 per cent. Jonathan Start of Start & Co in Newquay, said that up 15 per cent has already come off asking prices since 2022 and trying to sell any property over £500,000 has become more difficult."

From ABC News in Australia. "With new suburbs being built and major infrastructure projects like light rail underway, Canberra may look like it's in the middle of a building boom. But beneath the surface, millions of dollars of debt is having a financial domino effect throughout the construction industry. 'I might lose everything, including [my] house and cars,' said joiner Chris Nowaczyk, owner of The Works. 'But why? We've done nothing wrong.' This story is a familiar one for subcontractors in Canberra, who are increasingly affected by a crisis that's shaking the foundations of the building industry."

"Aime and Anthony Lloyd run commercial carpentry business Lloyd Constructions and have worked as subcontractors for some of the firms that had collapsed this year. 'We're approximately $440,000 out of pocket since August,' Ms Lloyd said. 'Since these collapses … we do both get a little bit edgy [wondering] is the money actually going to come in?' Large building companies may take several years to fail, but for subcontractors the realisation they won't be getting paid comes suddenly. 'Bang! A builder has collapsed. Bang! There goes $120,000 and it's just gone. That's it,' Ms Lloyd said. 'You lose $120,000 in the blink of a minute, but then you've got three kids to feed.'"