It's Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. "Despite increasing in November and October, existing home sales are still running below last year’s pace, when they sank to a nearly 30-year low. 'Looks like we won’t match last year in terms of the annual total, so it will be the lowest home sales since 1995,' said Lawrence Yun, the NAR’s chief economist."

"An Idaho couple in their early 30s -- a nurse married to an attorney -- are anxious to sell the tiny two-bedroom rambler they bought before the pandemic. Maya Hyman, an agent for the Compass realty brokerage, doesn’t know the couple in this true story. But she cautions that in the immediate future, sellers could potentially face more headwinds. 'Right now, the overall market is sluggish,' Hyman says. Jiayi Xu, an economist for Realtor.com, notes that the inventory of for-sale homes has increased more than 23% since last year. Lauren Davis, an agent with the Sotheby’s realty company, encourages wannabe sellers to avoid arrogance when they decide on a listing price. 'It can be a good idea to price your place aggressively, maybe even to 10% below its current market value. Because buyers are now very sharp on property values, your house is likely to attract more interest if it is priced realistically, prompting more bidders to come around,' she says."

"No matter when you put your place on the market, Ronald Phipps urges you to avoid the most common home-selling pitfall: pricing based on wishful thinking. 'Buyers are more prepared, more informed and more self-disciplined than ever. You can’t fool them into spending more than your house is worth,' says Phipps, who heads a family-owned realty firm in Rhode Island."

"The Villa Del Sol condos are still boarded up, owners can’t get into their homes. They have been told the repairs could cost millions of dollars. All 73 residents here need to fund those repairs even though only 11 units are evacuated. And with the new year coming up fast, residents are searching for lawyers and moving companies. Villa Del Sol resident Christine Chico has lived in these condos for 5 years. The retired anesthesiologist paid $129,000 for a 600-square-foot unit. But her once affordable condo has been slowly draining her bank account. Villa Del Sol residents were informed by their board that each would have to come up with $30,000 to fund a list of maintenance projects around the property."

"Chico took out a loan so she could comply. She could have never imagined that $30,000 was just the beginning and that was on the cheaper end. But after the milestone inspection, Chico received word that the board had two estimates, ranging from $6 to $9 million. 'Now we’re up to $9 million, which would mean about $178,000 per unit for repairs,' said Chico. 'I, personally, was struggling with the $30,000, if it gets to $178,000 there’s no way I can stay here.' Chico is worried that a potential buyer won’t like the sound of those assessments either."

"If your homeowners insurance renewal has been denied or your premiums have spiked, you’re not alone. Laurie Benner, whose parents live in the Montego Bay subdivision in Ocean City, is already being impacted because insurers now refuse to provide coverage for older manufactured houses and mobile homes in Maryland coastal communities. 'Not only is it an issue for our own personal family ownership of the property, and what that means if there is some type of a loss, some type of a flood, some type of issue in not having insurance, but obviously it’s an issue when we go to sell it.' In Montgomery County, cases of non-renewals jumped nearly 48%, while statewide non-renewals rose by over 62% from 2021 to 2023, the report said."

"In Virginia Beach, Fred Drummond experienced the problem firsthand when his policy was canceled in 2023. 'I don’t think most people are looking at this until it actually happens to them,' he told WVEC reporters. 'You feel very vulnerable because you suddenly realize that if you cannot get insurance or the insurance goes so high you can’t afford it, then the mortgage company is going to call your loan due and it goes into foreclosure—you lose your house, and there’s your life.' Drummond was eventually able to find new insurer but at a significantly higher cost. In Ocean City, however, mobile home owners remain without viable options as 2024 ends."

"In Minnesota, insurance carriers have taken losses in six of the last seven years, largely due to hail. Townhome owners in a Rogers neighborhood are preparing to pay a $16,400 bill from their homeowners’ association for new roofs — just two years after a full roof replacement. Natalie Croaker bought a townhome in the community with her husband in 2022. When they filed a claim for the $16,400 bill from the HOA, they learned they didn’t have the right amount of coverage — their insurance will only cover $1,000, so they are on the hook for more than $15,000. 'We would have to most likely get help from family and friends, because we do not have $15,000 lying around,' Croaker said. 'We have a kid that we have to take care of, and we both work full time, and our kid is in daycare, and just like — life is expensive in general.'"

"A federal judge sentenced a real estate developer to almost 13 years in prison for his role in conspiring to embezzle millions over more than a decade from the failed Washington Federal Bank for Savings in Bridgeport. Park Ridge native Marek Matczuk, received the sentence Monday after being found guilty of illegally pocketing almost $6M from the shuttered bank, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. The judge also ordered Matczuk to pay close to $6M in restitution to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., which still aims to recover $90M lost in the failure of the bank. Matczuk was among its delinquent mortgage customers. 'The amount of loss in this bank collapse is staggering,' U.S. District Chief Judge Virginia Kendall said, according to the Sun-Times."

"Matczuk, alongside Miroslaw Krejza, was convicted last September of conspiring to commit embezzlement and falsify bank records, as well as aiding and abetting embezzlement by bank employees. The conspirators disguised the embezzled money as purported real estate development loan disbursements made to Krejza, Matczuk and others, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois. The recipients weren't made to repay the loans, and they didn't, according to a release."

"The late John F. Gembara, the CEO and majority shareholder of Washington Federal, directed the bank to give Matczuk the money between 2007 and 2017. Gembara died by suicide in the main bedroom of Matczuk’s home on Dec. 3, 2017. 'The evidence at trial showed you had daily contact at the bank with Mr. Gembara. Whatever Mr. Gembara wanted, you would do to make him happy,' Kendall said, according to the Sun-Times. 'You were benefiting from it. It enabled you to go to the casino. It enabled you to go on vacations. Sadly, at the end of his life, he chose to be by the person he trusted the most, which is you.'"

"Once hailed as ‘king,’ condos (in particular, new condos) in Canada’s most major markets have seen a dramatic fall from grace over this past year. Experts agree that a perfect storm of factors is to blame, headline-grabbing interest rates being just one of many, but also acting as the straw that broke the camel’s back. 'The people in the new construction space that are closing on their 2020, 2021 purchases are in quite a bit of pain. The defaults are escalating — not in a huge way, but they are escalating noticeably, for sure — and there are more and more tears, and there are more and more discussions about not closing,' says Mark Morris, Real Estate Lawyer with LegalClosing.ca. 'This was all kind of charted. Everyone was able to tell that this was the case because, in the resale market, we've had, largely, a plateauing of prices. In very particular areas of the market, like ‘dog crate’ condos, we've had a serious decline in value.'"

"Now, 'we are in a depressed market' for new condos, Morris goes on to say. 'Both because the investors have fled and the builders are no longer able to charge prices that are divorced from Canadian income. Before, people would pay anything, because there was a bubble. But now, that bubble is gone.'"

"A woman who says she is unable to sell her flat because of its cladding is now being charged almost £700 a month - to fund a 24-hour fire warden. Lucy Tissington bought her property in Clayewater Court in Bristol in 2017 just months before the Grenfell disaster. The scandal led to changes in building regulations around cladding. The 34-year-old says because of the new rules it then became almost impossible for potential buyers to get a mortgage on flats there. Now Lucy feels trapped in her small two-bedroom flat. She says the issue is not just the cladding but the entire external wall systems being substandard. 'We’ve not been able to sell since that became the regulation. The situation that I’m in is because my building is below 11m. There are zero protections for us as leaseholders.' Lucy purchased her flat as part of a government Help to Buy scheme which was interest-free for five years."

"New Zealand’s abundant supply of rental stock continues with listings up 36 per cent year-on-year according to Trade Me Property’s latest Rental Price Index. Rental listings were up four per cent month-on-month and currently sit at the highest since 2019. Trade Me Property’s Customer Director Gavin Lloyd suggests several reasons for the recent rise in listings. 'Possibly homeowners seeking additional income, an increase in Kiwi moving overseas, or maybe people are simply choosing to not leave the nest and live at home a while longer. As a result of the oversupply, landlords may need to soften price expectations to meet the current market which continues to favour tenants.'"

"The structural cracking calamity that took place on Christmas Eve at Sydney’s Opal Tower four months after its completion in 2018, continues to cast a pall. Six years on, the 392 apartment owners at Sydney Olympic Park are still suffering. The latest loss making sale was a $1.72m four bedroom, three bathroom penthouse that had first sold at $2.1m, down $380,000 reflecting an 18 per cent drop. The biggest loss came in 2023 when a 22nd-floor, three-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment fetched $1.11m after having cost $1.61m off the plan in 2014, so backwards by $500,000 or 31 per cent. There have been 3300 defects reported so far this year in stand-alone houses reported so far this year."

"The number of properties auctioned off due to loan defaults in South Korea is on track to hit its highest level in 11 years, reflecting the combined impact of soaring interest rates and a sluggish real estate market. Data from the Court Registration Information Plaza shows that 129,703 foreclosure applications were filed for voluntary auctions between January and November 2024, already surpassing any full-year total since 2013, which recorded 148,701 cases. Residential properties, particularly apartment complexes, officetels, and multi-family homes, accounted for the majority of cases. From January to November 2024, voluntary auctions for such properties reached 51,853, marking a 48% increase compared to the same period last year."

"The surge is attributed to homeowners who took out significant loans during the housing boom, often at high-interest rates, and are now struggling to meet their repayment obligations as interest costs have skyrocketed. The rise in foreclosures is expected to continue as high-interest rates persist, exacerbating financial strain on heavily leveraged borrowers. 'The number of voluntary auctions typically increases with higher interest rates,' said Lee Joo-hyun, a researcher at real estate auction platform Jiji Auction. 'Many borrowers who turned to high-interest loans during the 2021 housing price surge are now facing mounting repayment pressures.' This trend underscores the lingering challenges in South Korea’s real estate market, with declining property transactions and a wave of unsold homes further compounding the problem."