It's Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. "What does the future hold for residential real estate, homebuyers and home sellers? Jordan Levine, senior vice president and chief economist for the California Association of Realtors, had several answers to this question. What question do you wish I really would have asked? Levine: 'The only other thing is just how much different the fundamentals are this time. For people that think prices are too high or that we’re in bubble territory and things like that, these are not sketchy lending practices that drove this. Plus, loan delinquencies and foreclosures are still super low.' In other words, there’s no real estate bubble on the horizon."

"Mansion taxes—shorthand for taxes on high-end real-estate sales, usually in the form of a one-time payment at closing—are becoming more common as cash-strapped local governments look for new funding sources. Take Los Angeles, for instance. Since its new mansion tax, called Measure ULA, went into effect in April 2023. 'In L.A., the luxury home market hit a wall,' said California spec-home developer Simon James. 'A lot if it had to do with ULA.' L.A.’s high-end market is still contending with high interest rates, spiraling fire-insurance costs and a general slowdown in housing sales across the country."

"Among all the debris still left to pick up after Hurricanes Helene and Milton, 'For Sale' signs are popping up across the Tampa Bay area. Owners are selling dozens of properties 'as-is,' wanting cash offers with no contingencies. Some are facing a short sale if they’re underwater on the mortgage. It’s happening in every county where homes flooded, from Sarasota to Pasco, sometimes at prices far below what the owner paid for it. Realtor Phil Rizzo said clients who didn’t flood are also waiting to list because neighborhoods aren’t show-ready right now. 'Somebody's turning around and selling now. From a financial standpoint, it's going to be, it'll wind up being a low [price],' he said. Those with mortgage payments or forced by FEMA’s '50% rule' to raise or rebuild may not be able to afford to wait, even if it means selling for six figures less than the previous sale price. 'Those folks are going to be caught in a tough spot to where the mortgage that they have on it is going to be higher than what their land value is going to be,' Rizzo said. If you are considering a short sale, Rizzo said it’s best to consult with an attorney to go over your options."

"'We're not going to move back into this house, it was a very traumatic, and I don’t want to go through this again,' said Jody Hameroff, a St. Petersburg resident. 'We actually have a contract on a new house, we’re just not going to come back here. No joke, my husband had someone looking for us two days after [Helene].' Right next door, her neighbor in Shore Acres said they're also selling after they rebuild. 'It’s more important for peace of mind for the future to move along and sell the house for what we can get for it,' said Chris Beardslee, a Shore Acres resident."

"Danielle Latona said when Holly Hill homes flooded in 2009, residents were told it was a 100-year storm, and they would never see anything like it again. She said it's why so many people didn't move then. She said many people's homes have been badly damaged or destroyed now. 'The biggest investment in our life is now worth nothing,' she said. Several residents said they're planning to move. One man grew choked up as he said he doesn't want to leave, but he has to 'for the safety of my family.' Those who are staying, including some who don't think they'd ever find a buyer, begged the city for help."

"Soaring condominium fees due to insurance cost hikes are putting owners at risk of foreclosure, and trapping others in properties they can’t sell, according to residents struggling to keep up. Mike Elliott has owned his Aiea condo for decades. But then he and all his neighbors got walloped with a massive hike in condo fees. 'We got this large notification of insurance increase of over 164 percent for coming year, and basically another 100 percent for the following year,' he said. That means what used to cost him around $640 a month is now over $1,830 a month. And he says there’s no end in sight, with projected insurance quotes already just about doubling again for the following year according to a letter from their association. Selling isn’t a magic bullet either. 'They already have their mortgage,' Elliott said. 'Now they have this addition that is going to have to be conveyed to a new potential buyer. And you know, who’s going to buy that? Who’s going to pay for that?'"

"'That trickle up in rates, to right back where we were, just sucked the air out,' said Michael Read, owner of Bridgeway Mortgage & Real Estate Services in Morristown, N.J. Lucy and Graham Schroeder tried buying a house in the suburbs of Madison, Wis., in 2023 and again this past spring, but they got outbid by other buyers. When they re-entered the market this summer, 'it felt like something kind of shifted,' Graham Schroeder said. 'Houses were kind of sitting a little bit.' The couple bought a five-bedroom home in August for $585,000, about 5% below the listing price, and sold their smaller home for $330,000."

"An Otsego homeowners association charged residents more than $18,000 each to replace their roofs, resulting in at least one foreclosure and leading residents to question whether the decision was made in the best interest of the community. They’re especially alarmed that the HOA board steered the roofing work to a contractor that’s a subsidiary of their property manager. Tony Tran bought his home in Villas at Pheasant Ridge, an Otsego neighborhood with a mix of townhomes and single-family homes, in 2019. When he received the approximately $18,600 assessment for the roof replacement, he called his insurance company — but his policy only covered $10,000. He hasn’t been able to pay the remaining balance. Tran’s September HOA bill included more than $2,000 in legal fees for lawyers’ responses to Tran’s questions. 'We get charged for asking questions,' Tran said.'"

"One resident, who has more than 20 years of experience running a roofing company, checked on the status of his roof a few months before the storm and saw no issues. When he learned about the more than $18,000 assessment approved by the HOA board to cover the roof replacement, he went up on the roof again. 'I was up there, I didn’t see any damage, and I was just beside myself that they were filing this insurance claim,' said the resident, who requested anonymity for fear of retaliation against himself and his company. The vinyl siding showed no signs of hail damage either, he added. And he didn’t hear about any hail in the immediate area from his colleagues in the roofing industry. Hail did fall in some areas of central Minnesota that day, according to weather reports, but Roxanne Williams, a resident of Villas at Pheasant Ridge and other residents say their neighborhood wasn’t hit."

"With billions of dollars worth of commercial real estate loans coming due, landlords with struggling properties are increasingly giving the keys to lenders and walking away. The decision amounts to owners trying to wash their hands of an investment gone bad, but many have found out the hard way that it isn’t so simple. These transactions — known as deed-in-lieu-of-foreclosure sales — could wind up saddling them with a large tax bill. Debt forgiveness is taxable income, and any loan amount that exceeds a building’s original value — common among CRE owners who have refinanced a property multiple times — is taxed as a capital gain if the debt is forgiven. The capital gains tax rate can reach 37%. 'It’s tough,' said Brian Granath, a partner with Atlanta-based OA Development. 'When you hand your investors a total loss and then hand them a gain on their K-1, it’s a brutal situation. You hand your investors a phantom gain.'"

"It’s a dream for many Canadians, trying to save up enough money for a down payment on their very first home. That was also the dream for the Esmeralda family, a family of five with two dogs who currently live in a Scarborough apartment building. 'It was my biggest dream to have a home for my family,' Alma Esmeralda told CTV News Toronto. Esmeralda said she was ecstatic to find a house in Peterborough, Ont. for sale that was within her budget and had a huge backyard for the family’s dogs. A friend told Esmeralda she knew someone who could help. Though he failed to show up for the showing of the home – saying he was sick – Esmeralda said he claimed he could help close the sale and arrange a financing plan. Esmeralda said she gave him $38,000 for the deposit and they thought they would get possession of the house in May, but there were delays. 'They kept telling us funds are not ready and the lender is backing out,' said Esmeralda."

"After months went by, she discovered the man she was dealing with wasn’t a real estate agent after all and was given bad news about her deposit. 'I don’t know it’s gone. When I asked him, ‘Oh no, why is the house for sale again?’ I said, ‘Our deal is not even done yet.’ But then he is no longer answering me,' said Esmeralda."

"China’s local governments have long relied on Local Government Financing Vehicles (LGFVs) to raise funds. These quasi-government entities borrow money to build infrastructure such as roads, bridges, and ports, but the investments often fail to generate sufficient income. The problem worsened last year when a wave of debt issued by these financing arms began to go sour. The human toll of these defaults is becoming increasingly visible. Fang, who owns a small trading company, thought she was making a prudent financial decision when she invested 15 million yuan—her entire life savings—into trust products tied to Guizhou province."

"But when the products defaulted last year, Fang was left without a safety net. Faced with possible foreclosure on her apartment due to missed mortgage payments, she has made multiple trips to trust companies and government offices, pleading for repayment along with other frustrated investors. 'My life is a total mess now,' she lamented. 'I was told these were safe. That was a lie.'"

"China’s 1.4 billion consumers once spent with enough abandon to help drive the global economy. Now one of the hottest topics on Chinese social media is how to save money. 'The main thing is just not to starve to death,' one video blogger advised in a post detailing how she subsisted on snack samples and free meals from temples and student canteens. 'Whenever there is uncertainty about the economy, households save more,' said Alicia Garcia-Herrero, chief economist for Asia Pacific at Natixis, a French investment bank. 'Disposable income is not growing. People are losing purchasing power.'"

"It's been said that even China's population of 1.4 billion couldn't fill all the empty homes. Many are high-rise apartments in gleaming new financial districts that initially failed to take off. Others are rotten-tail homes, half-built properties in developments abandoned in the middle of construction – casualties of the nation's property crisis. The strange landscape of empty, expansive parks and sprawling high-rises was often cited as proof that China’s property bubble was a fraudulent ploy to boost its GDP. The scale of the problem today is significant. At the end of 2023, Goldman Sachs estimated that China's saleable housing inventory stood at ¥13.5 trillion ($1.9tn/£1.5tn). This empty housing stock is a crucial factor that contributed to the start of the country's property crisis in 2021. Experts have speculated that China may have between 65 and 80 million empty homes."

"'How many vacant homes are there now? Each expert gives a very different number, with the most extreme believing the current number of vacant homes are enough for three billion people…' said He Keng, the former deputy head of China's National Bureau of Statistics. 'That estimate might be a bit much, but 1.4 billion people probably can't fill them.'"