It's Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. "Brian Glendenning, a Realtor with Edina Realty, says even for those move-up buyers who are having success, sometimes they find themselves in unexpected predicaments. Maybe they have the money for their new larger house payment, but other necessities can leave them stretched thin. 'A million dollars used to be an amazing amount of money where you could get these grand houses and it just doesn't stretch as far right now,' says Glendenning."

"Ada and Canyon counties both had heightened numbers of home sales in September 2024 compared to the same month last year. In Ada County, the median home had a sales price of $534,900, which was 97.3% of the original listing price. There, median prices have declined $35,000 since June. 'People are still interested in moving into the Treasure Valley,' realtor Jodi Harada of The Agency said. 'Our market is a little bit more balanced than it used to be, and so we are able to have more negotiation and be on the market a little bit longer.'"

"Scripps heir Sam Logan has taken a $2 million hit on the sale of his Miami Beach home. The stunning modern residence just sold for $11 million, Gimme can reveal. Logan, 33, bought the house for $13 million in an all-cash deal a little over a year ago. Known as Villa Una, it was featured in Season 5 of the MTV reality show 'Siesta Key.' In a frightening incident, Logan and his friends were robbed at gunpoint in the home — after an extravagant night out in Magic City."

"An area along Florida’s west coast including affluent Sarasota is seeing the worst home price declines since the aftermath of the Great Recession. Metro areas in once-hot Florida and the Southeast dominate the short list of places where they are actually falling from a year ago in data from 226 metro areas compiled by the National Association of Realtors. The Punta Gorda metro area had the biggest quarterly decline since 2011, with the median price falling 6.5% over the year to $350,000 in the third quarter, NAR data show. Fifty miles north, prices in the North Port-Sarasota-Bradenton area fell 5.8% over the year to $485,000, also the biggest decline since 2011. And in the nearby Cape Coral-Fort Myers area, prices fell 3.7%, although it saw a bigger drop earlier this year."

"Other metros seeing year-over-year drops last quarter were San Antonio-New Braunfels, Texas, and Durham-Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Both areas saw huge annual gains of more than 20% two years ago, NAR data show."

"Some homeowners in South Jordan's Daybreak community are about to pay hundreds of dollars more a month in HOA fees. This comes after years of fighting and legal drama over their damaged homes. Starting Jan. 1, homeowners of the nearly 400 units in the Daybreak Townhomes 1 Owners Association will have to pay $240 more a month. In a recent letter to homeowners, the HOA board acknowledged the painful size of the increase. After the problems surfaced, the HOA went after the builders in court but lost. Now, homeowners are stuck paying for the repairs to the tune of an additional $240 a month over 20 years. Josh Lewis already pays around $440 a month for his townhome master and sub-homeowners associations. With the increase, Lewis will soon be paying nearly $700 a month in total HOA fees – unless he opts to pay a one-time lump sum for the repairs of nearly $31,000. 'It is a lot,' Lewis said. 'And it's hard to swallow.'"

"The Gas Company Tower, in receivership after a Brookfield entity turned the keys back to its lenders last year, will have a new owner: the County of Los Angeles. The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted Wednesday to approve the purchase of the Gas Company Tower for $200M, a more than 68% discount from the $632M the tower was appraised for in 2020, the Los Angeles Times reported. It's also a drop from the $270M the tower was appraised at in summer 2023. The Gas Company Tower has lost a number of larger tenants, including its namesake, which announced it will move into nearly 200K SF at Two California Plaza on Bunker Hill."

"Vornado Realty Trust reported lower cash flow and a nearly $20M net loss in the third quarter, and while its executives were able to soothe investor concerns on its earnings call Tuesday, there are still problem spots in its portfolio. 'We do still have a handful of assets that are overleveraged,' Chief Financial Officer Michael Franco said. 'Most of these assets do not contribute to our [funds from operations] right now and have little to no equity value.' The REIT, one of New York's largest office owners, signaled it is prepared to lose those buildings, which it didn't identify, to its lenders. Foreclosure activity in New York is up significantly this year, with lenders expressing less patience for large, well-capitalized landlords seeking extensions and modifications on their loans. 'Unless these loans are restructured on terms that allow us to put the assets on sound footing … we will not invest any more capital,' Franco said. 'The nonrecourse nature of these loans provides us with this option.'"

"A former Barrie landlord says she been scammed by a woman recently charged by provincial police with posing as a nurse after allegedly falsifying her credentials to work in long-term care homes. Paris Moradian says Hailey Roberts left the four-bedroom south Barrie rental property she was squatting in for a full year starting in September of 2019 and left the home in disarray with garbage and dog feces everywhere. 'She has stolen so much things from my house. The house was furnished. 11 TVs were stolen from the house,' says Moradian who tells CTV News her home with a walkout basement had a hot tub which was seriously damaged."

"'We’ve been through hell. Especially with all the LTB (Landlord Tenant Board) delays and all of this it took me over a year…I lost a lot,' she says. Moradian went to Barrie Police and claims they did very little to help her charge Roberts or at least remove her from the home. 'To try to take her out and I said, ‘She’s a squatter, She’s not my tenant.’ Unfortunately, Barrie Police didn’t help.' Moradian says she eventually ended up selling the home and lost $300,000 on the investment. She believes Hailey Roberts scammed her and wants her to be charged criminally for it. Moradian says she will not rest until justice is served and she gets back the money she is owed."

"A mysterious real estate listing in the Sault has surfaced over the past couple of weeks, advertising a home in the city’s downtown core — without a civic address — for just $1. Joshua Persaud, a salesperson for HomeLife Hearts Realty Inc. in Mississauga Ont., says the downtown property isn’t actually being sold for a buck. 'I did this before in another small town, and it literally was the talk of the town,' Persaud told SooToday. In reality, the vague real estate listing has been deployed as more of a sales tactic in a housing market where there’s 'not much movement,' despite a drop in interest rates. Persaud feels Toronto-based real estate agents 'get a lot of hate' from agents in smaller towns throughout the province, including the north. He’s had his real estate signs ripped down, while others were vandalized with moustaches drawn on signs with his face on them. 'I’ve had realtors want to shoot me — and you can put that on record,' he said."

"Frustrated residents are calling for action on a stalled housing scheme which they have branded an 'eyesore'. People living in Hart Street in Newsome, Huddersfield, say building work on a 22-home development ground to a halt several weeks ago and they fear it could be spring before work resumes. The Newsome Ponds development has been hit by two company insolvencies, according to the developer, Yorkshire Housing. It says a stone supplier and also its construction partner both became insolvent and ceased trading. Les Farrow says the development appeared to be only 20% completed, with the houses in 'different stages of construction.' 'It's just an eyesore,' said Les. "It's got to the stage where we just want it finished. It has been at a complete halt for at least ten weeks.' Sue, who also lives on Hart Street, said: 'It is an eyesore and has been like that since August. It is dangerous due to two missing pavements.' She called on the developer to 'either finish it off or pull it down and flatten it' and is fearful work won't restart until the spring."

"When Cristian Coccia agreed to buy a three-bedroom flat off-plan for 600,000 euros ($650,000), the 51-year-old businessman hoped to move his family swiftly into the swanky high-rise overlooking an artificial lake in Milan's western suburbs. After prosecutors seized the three-tower development in July, his dream of a new home turned into a nightmare. It is one of more than 100 active or planned building sites that have stalled since Milan prosecutors started investigating alleged abuses in the fast-tracking of building permits in Italy's financial capital, according to industry executives. 'We're at the sharp end of all this chaos,' said Coccia."

"South Africans are enduring the effects of a sustained period of rising costs and increased debt payments which in turn have put them under severe financial pressure, for many homeowners, this pressure has seen them being unable to keep up with their monthly home loan repayments. According to credit bureau TransUnion, as many as 7.2% of homeowners are three months or more in arrears on their home loan repayments, with this number having increased by 20% year on year during the first quarter of this year. Aside from rising costs such as fuel and food, the real squeeze has come from the 67% increase in interest rates, from 7% in October 2021 to the current 11.5%."

"For a homeowner with an R1 million home loan, the monthly repayments have increased from approximately R7,753 to R10,837 per month, an increase of over R3,000 in after-tax money. For an R2 million home loan, the monthly increase in payments is R6,100. For the most part, salary increases have not kept pace with these increases in repayments and homeowners are feeling the pressure. 'It’s not just entry-level homeowners that are struggling to balance the increased cost of debt in the current environment,' said Herschel Jawitz, CEO of Jawitz Properties. 'We’ve increasingly listed homes to be sold by distressed sellers in more affluent areas which have typically been immune to this kind of re-payment shock.'"

"'Homeowners who are experiencing financial stress should do everything they possibly can to control their costs and manage their debt commitments so that they can avoid having to sell their properties in the current market,' Jawitz said. 'Property prices in most parts of the country are under pressure, which means it’s not a great time to sell if you are under pressure to sell in a short period.'"

"The RBA must act now to save Christmas and cut the cash rate before the end of the year. It might go some of the way to helping mortgage holders out of a bind that it contributed to, when it implied in 2021 that the 0.1 per cent cash rate would not begin to rise until at least 2024. We were free to borrow and we were also free to do as the government suggested and spend, spend, spend our money to help the economy emerge from the pandemic. By the RBA’s reckoning back then, the many Aussies who went out and borrowed with confidence would now be dealing with a cash rate between 0.1 per cent and 0.6 per cent. Instead, we’re at 4.35 per cent. Mortgage holders are paying more than three times the interest we were three years ago."

"And who is to blame? Why we are of course! We shouldn’t have gone and borrowed and spent all that money. What were we thinking? Alarming research by Finder has revealed nearly half of younger mortgage holders believe they overstretched when borrowing to buy a home. Now, one in four are skipping paying other expenses to make mortgage payments. Ten per cent of respondents to Finder’s consumer sentiment survey even said they had missed meals to do so. ‘But’, the mortgage holders protest, ‘we don’t spend on rent. That’s the renters. And doesn’t raising rates actually cause rent to increase? Because landlords hike rent to cover their higher loan repayments?’"

"That’s not how economics works. Now if you need to come up with extra mortgage money, try bringing your lunch to work. Or maybe skip that morning latte. ‘We’re already skipping entire meals and never buy coffee from cafes.’ OK well maybe you shouldn’t have borrowed so much in the first place … tisk tisk, so foolish. Monty Python couldn’t make this stuff up. Do you know any 'average' Aussies who could seamlessly absorb almost $30,000 more in household expenses each year? Canstar data insights director Sally Tindall said that 'after 12 months with a cash rate at 4.35 per cent, borrowers may have now reached their limit.' Meanwhile, 110,000 callers to Lifeline’s suicide prevention hotline this year identified financial trouble as the main cause of their distress. Three more months of hanging on by their fingertips will prove too much for many struggling families. The RBA must cut this year or, for many, it will be too late."