It's Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. "While the two houses of the Florida Legislature passed a bill that buys some condo associations a little more time to meet new inspection and funding mandates, industry insiders say little has been done to avert what many predict will be a crisis in the market. Condo associations dragged their feet on reserves studies — only about 44% of condo owners in Miami-Dade County, 41% in Broward County and 28% in Palm Beach completed the requirements, according to the Miami Association of Realtors. Even if condo associations complete the required work, it doesn’t guarantee value in a saturated market where others are offloading to avoid repairs. 'There’s virtually no good news for anybody in a condo in the state of Florida,' said Peter Zalewski, founder of Miami-based real estate consultancy firm Condo Vultures."

"In Miami, second-home mortgage originations dropped 32.2% year over year in 2024, more than any other major U.S. metro. It’s followed by four other Florida metros: Orlando (-28.4%), Fort Lauderdale (-28%), West Palm Beach (-23.7%) and Tampa (-20.9%). 'Most people aren’t buying vacation homes at all because mortgage rates and insurance costs–especially for waterfront homes and condos–have skyrocketed. Plus, people know they’re unlikely to earn much revenue from listing on Airbnb now that occupancy rates are down,' said Lindsay Garcia, a Redfin Premier agent in Fort Lauderdale, FL. 'While some wealthy cash buyers are still purchasing second homes, they are much more likely to make a low-ball offer or request concessions than they used to be.'"

"Snohomish County’s active inventory jumped 84.8% from a year ago and King County’s rose 71.3%. NWMLS noted that inventory levels are high across the 26 counties, but the pace of sales is relatively slow with spring underway. The number of active listings showed double-digit year-over-year increases in most counties, demonstrating that homeowners are primed and ready to sell, according to a NWMLS news release. 'As the number of sellers continues to outpace buyers, it is not surprising that price growth has slowed,' Steven Bourassa, director of the Washington Center for Real Estate Research, said in a statement."

"A surge in available listings across Flagstaff, the Verde Valley and Prescott is reshaping the residential real estate conversation in Northern Arizona. Flagstaff is usually a seller’s market, but this year it is getting closer to a balanced market, said Gary Nelson, managing broker of Realty Executives of Northern Arizona. With inventory up, buyers have more choices now than they’ve had for the last five years. In Prescott Valley, single-family home listings are up 20% year over year, explained Kayla Stazenski, realtor and president of the Prescott Area Association of Realtors. 'Naturally, you would see as inventory and days on market go up, it would push toward a buyer’s market, but it’s almost like buyers are not jumping in with both feet because they have a lot to look at,' said Carissa Maxwell, designated broker of Glow Realty in the Quad Cities and Verde Valley. Maxwell predicts in the next three months appraisals are going to start coming in lower because there isn’t support for inflated prices."

"Utahns, both local and new, said prices need to change before they start looking for their next home. 'It’s true in Utah,' said realtor Sam Brinton. 'It’s expensive to buy a home here.' He said more people are selling lately. 'We’ve seen a little of that, the market has softened. Sellers are still keeping their prices where they are,' Brinton said. Brinton added that while seller activity is up, sometimes those homes stay on the market longer, or they might not end up selling in the long run."

"Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck’s Beverly Hills mansion has received a sizable price cut. The former couple publicly listed the sprawling 38,000-square-foot estate for $68 million in July 2024. On Tuesday, May 6, the asking price was slashed by $8 million after ten months on the market, bringing the price down to $59,950,000, real estate listings show. Lopez, 55, and Affleck, 52, purchased the property for $60,805,000 in May 2023, almost a year after they wed in July 2022. To sell at the current price would mean a relatively modest $855,000 loss for the pair."

"Josh Schuster, who rose to prominence as a young New York City development hotshot, now faces decades in prison for allegedly defrauding investors in his projects out of more than $10M. Schuster was arrested Wednesday and charged with one count of wire fraud and one count of securities fraud, each of which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, the DOJ announced. According to the federal government's legal filings, Schuster used investor money to fund a lavish lifestyle, including to cover more than $1M in personal credit card payments, tuition at a New York City private school and hundreds of thousands of dollars in gambling losses. Additionally, the funds went toward repaying earlier investors in a 'Ponzi-like fashion' and to cover unrelated business expenses and payroll, according to the DOJ indictment."

"34 Ramblewood Dr., Toronto. Asking price: $1,595,000 (March, 2025). Selling price: $1.46-million (March, 2025). In a buyer’s market and facing stiff competition from other sellers, the owner of this four-bedroom house decided to work with the two underwhelming offers tendered after two weeks testing the waters. The home near Colonel Danforth Park sold for $135,000 below asking. 'We did have competition with more inventory, which obviously affected our negotiations,' said agent Dino Capocci. 'But I did have two offers. Our concern – and why we worked with these offers – is we noticed in that pocket, a lot of houses would go up on the market for sale, don’t sell, get cancelled and relist. When you do that, then the property tends to sit. You can’t trick a buyer.'"

"With the average price of a home in the Greater Toronto Area topping $1 million, the thought of owning a tiny home may be appealing to some buyers instead. One Pickering woman liked the idea of buying a tiny home and saw one advertised on Instagram in the fall of 2023. 'My dream was to live in the country, enjoy the quiet life. That is what I wanted to do,' Janice Smith told CTV News. There were several locations to choose from when purchasing the tiny cottage and Smith said she chose to relocate to Ancaster, a community in Hamilton. The tiny cottage Smith purchased was being sold by Resort HQ for $257,000. The company told her she needed to put down a deposit of $54,750."

"Smith said she was supposed to move in last summer, but in the spring of 2024, she got a call with some bad news. 'The deal didn’t go through and there were conflicts with the municipality,' Smith said. 'They just dropped the deal and didn’t go ahead with it.' Smith was told she would get a full refund of her $54,750 deposit. She received 22 postdated cheques, but they all bounced. 'They are all [non-sufficient funds] cheques, every single one,' said Smith."

"The Bank of Albania has limited the loan that citizens can take to buy a house. This was announced by the Governor of the Bank of Albania, Gent Sejko, at a press conference today, who said that a ceiling was set for the loan that citizens will take to buy a house. The Bank of Albania seems concerned that the housing market may be 'overheating' with very high prices and large loans. If this continues, a 'bubble' could be created, when prices artificially increase and then suddenly fall, as has happened in other countries."

"Realestate.co.nz said the supply of rental properties across New Zealand was at the highest level of any April in almost a decade, last month. There were 5868 new listings on the site in the month, up 24.1 percent year-on-year. The last time the number listed was that high was in April 2016. Auckland had the largest number of new listings followed by Canterbury and Wellington. Spokesperson Vanessa Wiliams said there were a few reasons for the increase in listings. Some were short-term rentals now being offered for longer terms. 'New Zealanders weren't travelling as much, they didn't have as much disposable income, the Airbnbs of the world weren't being used as much so the income of those had declined.'"

"A slower sales market also meant that investors were holding on to their properties. 'When a big in flood of properties happened was about May last year and the reason we put it down to was - the stories around the bright-line test changing and interest deductibility changing, that started happening in January and February last year. What happened was a large portion of investors took their properties out of the rental supply to get them ready for sale and then quite quickly worked out that if they did the maths on it, if they had bought in the last couple of years they had not realised the capital gains they wanted. You saw a bit of a flood coming back into the market as rental stock when it had come off for two to four months.'"