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New Listings Keep Popping Up, The Market As Whole Seems To Be Slowing Down

A report from CNBC. “Homebuilders and buyers alike are pulling back, even as mortgage rates fall to multiyear lows. Just 12% of adults said they plan to buy a home in the next year, according to the National Association of Home Builders. That is down from 14% in 2018. ‘The drop marks the third consecutive year-over-year decline in the share of adults thinking about buying a home, providing further evidence of a slowdown in the housing market, as potential buyers are held back by the lowest levels of affordability in a decade,’ wrote Rose Quint, NAHB’s assistant vice president for survey research.”

The Daily Camera in Colorado. “The Boulder County housing market is slowing down, according to the latest data for the month of July from the Colorado Association of Realtors. New listings keep popping up, but sales are hovering at the same numbers as last year and prices haven’t moved much, said Kelly Moye, former president of the Boulder Area Realtor Association.”

“‘July and August also are our slowest months in general,’ she said. The market as whole seems to be slowing down, she said. The market for high-end homes, costing about $1.5 million to $1.8 million, has been sluggish for a year or two, she said. ‘We are in a plateau phase.’ This provides more room for negotiations between sellers and buyers, and possibility of a small reduction in the listed price, Moye said.”

“The median sales price of single-family homes in Boulder County dropped 2% to $598,000 last month from $610,000 in July 2018. The market is reverting back to being normal, said Barry Remington, a Boulder-based realtor with WK Real Estate. It’s taking a little longer to sell. This trend became more pronounced since the beginning of the year, both in the upper end single family home and condo market, he said.”

The Wall Street Journal on California. “Los Angeles’ priciest-ever real estate listing, a 157-acre Beverly Hills parcel known as ‘The Mountain,’ is scheduled to be sold at auction Thursday. The vacant parcel with sprawling views of the L.A. basin, also known as ‘The Vineyard,’ was listed for $1 billion last year, but the price has since been lowered to $650 million.”

“A U.S. bankruptcy judge in Los Angeles dismissed the company’s petition last month, seeking to put an end to years of litigation and setting the stage for a foreclosure. Hamid R. Rafatjoo of Raines Feldman, a lawyer for unsecured creditors, such as attorneys and consultants who have worked on the property, said his clients are also unhappy about an auction, since it could result in a lower price for the property and they may not be repaid.”

“Secured Capital filed for bankruptcy protection in May. ‘It’s messy,’ said Adam Stein-Sapir, a portfolio manager at Pioneer Funding Group who specializes in analyzing bankruptcy cases. ‘This is maybe one of the most valuable properties in the U.S.'”

The Long Island City Post in New York. “The supply of condos in Long Island City has reached a record high and it could take years before the market absorbs them all, according to a new study released by a local real estate consultant. More than 1,100 new-development condos are currently for sale in Long Island City and hundreds more will become available over the next year, according to the study. The number is particularly large considering that approximately 2,500 condos were built in Long Island City between 2006 and 2018.”

“The booming supply means there are a lot of buildings for buyers to choose from. Most of the units in these buildings are currently in construction. ‘This is a great opportunity for buyers because there is a wide selection of floor plans, price points and locations available,’ said Patrick W. Smith, a real estate consultant and broker who has tracked the Long Island City condo market since its inception and conducted the study.”

“Historically new condos have sold at a pace of about 20 units per month, according to Smith’s analysis based on city and public records. In 2018, 283 condos sold in Long Island City, with 191 of these being new development, according to Smith’s findings based on transactions recorded with the city. The number of new development sales equated to 16 per month, while the resale market came in at eight per month.”

From Houston Agent Magazine in Texas. “A constellation of factors point to a possible recession in the coming months or years, but the housing market will be neither the cause of it, nor the hardest-hit part of the economy. That was the take-home message in a presentation on the health of the economy and the housing market by Metrostudy Chief Economist Mark Boud.”

“Boud was careful to emphasize the differences in the makeup of the housing market and larger economy in 2019 as compared to 2008, when the last recession began. Oversupply in the housing market came together with loose lending standards to help create a situation in which housing was a leading element in a larger economic malaise and, ultimately, a deep recession.”

“‘Demand is high, and what this means is that prices probably won’t go down much [as they did during the last recession],’ Boud said.”

“Boud described most U.S. markets as ‘top-heavy’—busy and well-supplied at the higher price points, but severely lacking in supply that’s affordable for first-time and lower-income homebuyers. Boud also cautioned that years of prosperity and steady population growth in Texas could become unsustainable in the coming years.”

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This Post Has 80 Comments

  1. FYI, next Tuesday we are going to try to set up the ad system that caused the log in problems recently. Of course if it recurs I’ll shut it down and probably stop comments for a while as I did before. But I’d like to say again that there is no reason to use your real email address to log in. I only look at it to see that it’s consistent which keeps others from hijacking your user name. So everybody has time to restate their hopefully phony email addresses in case any info is accidentally displayed.

  2. ‘More than 1,100 new-development condos are currently for sale in Long Island City and hundreds more will become available over the next year’

    ‘Historically new condos have sold at a pace of about 20 units per month…The number of new development sales equated to 16 per month, while the resale market came in at eight per month’

    Oh dear…

  4. ‘This is maybe one of the most valuable properties in the U.S’

    And it’s gonna be foreclosed tomorrow. Are we there yet?

  6. “‘Demand is high, and what this means is that prices probably won’t go down much [as they did during the last recession],’ Boud said.”

    STAMP EM FEET

    1. What happen to the SHIFT talk?

      So GOT IT…. won’t go down as much … so I will just WAIT! THANKS for advice!

  8. “Boud also cautioned that years of pro$perity and steady population growth in Texas could become unsustainable in the coming years”

    Uh oh, Texas red.state.gubermint workers is gonna have to revise their forward looking projections

    The Texas Demographic Center, the official state demographer, projects that 70% of the state’s population growth through 2050 will settle in just 10 large metropolitan counties.

    From 2010 through 2018, the US Census Bureau found, non-Hispanic whites accounted for only 14% of Texas’ population growth; Asian-American growth roughly equaled whites’, African Americans slightly exceeded both and Hispanics dwarfed all three — they accounted for over 55% of Texas’ population growth in that period.

    2. I had 2 vehicles hit and run by illegal immigrants with no licence, no insurance and under the influence in that time frame.

      “From 2010 through 2018”

      “Hispanics dwarfed all three — they accounted for over 55% of Texas’ population growth in that period.”

      [STUDY] Texas Fourth of July Drunk Driving Statistics

      Analysis of drunk driving crash data from 2010 to 2017 reveals that, during the Fourth of July:

      Crashes increase by +28.50%;
      Fatalities increase by +34.55%;
      Incapacitating injuries increase by +29.00% and;
      Injuries increase by +30.65%.

      https://www.sutliffstout.com/research/fourth-july-drunk-driving-problem-texas/

  9. A report from CNBC. “Homebuilders and buyers alike are pulling back, even as mortgage rates fall to multiyear lows. Just 12% of adults said they plan to buy a home in the next year, according to the National Association of Home Builders. That is down from 14% in 2018. ‘The drop marks the third consecutive year-over-year decline in the share of adults thinking about buying a home, providing further evidence of a slowdown in the housing market, as potential buyers are held back by the lowest levels of affordability in a decade,’ wrote Rose Quint, NAHB’s assistant vice president for survey research.”

    – Apparently many are unfamiliar with the concept (fact and reality) of markets being cyclical. This is esp. true for housing, but no less so for stocks and bonds. Further compounded and exacerbated by Fed/CB interventions, which have again blown ginormous asset bubbles (across virtually all asset classes). Throw in the coming recession and the lesson that prices also go DOWN will be relearned. Again. I wouldn’t touch housing or stock markets with a ten foot pole. Best of luck to dip-buyers and knife-catchers. End the Fed.

  10. ‘WeWork’s parent company unveiled the papers for its initial public offering Wednesday, depicting a firm whose revenue growth is steep but whose losses have grown substantially as well.’

    ‘The filing gives the most detailed financials to date of We Co., which was known as WeWork Cos. until recently. From 2016 to 2018, the company more than quadrupled its revenue to $1.82 billion. But its loss also mounted to $1.61 billion.’

    ‘In the first six months of 2019, We generated $1.54 billion in revenue and posted a net loss of $689.7 million.’

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/wework-ipo-filing-reveals-huge-revenue-and-losses-11565783212

    WeWork to stack up huge piles of cash and set it on fire.

      1. Yeah, middle-man office space. Not really needed. Not profitable. But they say it’s (was) worth $74 billions.

        I’ve said it before: is it a coincidence we’re seeing this huge number of useless, cash-hemorrhaging puddle-watching companies after the largest artificial creation of money in history?

        1. I’ve said it before: is it a coincidence we’re seeing this huge number of useless, cash-hemorrhaging puddle-watching companies after the largest artificial creation of money in history?

          No, and I’d say it’s especially not a coincidence that they are trying to cash out right at this moment in history. Which one will be the next Pets.com?

          1. ‘Online pet retailers are not all created equal. Just ask Ryan Cohen. The founder and former CEO of this year’s hot IPO, Chewy, takes issue with hedge fund manager David Einhorn’s recent comparison of the company he founded in 2011 with Pets.com, the poster-child of the dot-com bubble in 2000.’

            ‘While Chewy may be growing in the face of increased competition from Amazon, Einhorn points to Chewy’s current debt and market value as reasons for concern. “Over its life, Pets.com chewed through just over $200 million of investor capital,” Einhorn wrote. “CHWY has burned $1.6 billion and counting.”

            https://finance.yahoo.com/news/chewy-founder-dont-compare-us-to-petscom-154110825.html

  11. $anta Ana home sale$ tumble$ 16% in Orange County’s wor$t first half since 2011

    Jonathan Lansner| OC Register | 8/14/19

    Here is how price$ and $ales moved in $anta Ana …

    4. Santa Ana 92701: $380,000 median, up 12.6% over 12 months. Price rank? 82nd of 83 Orange County ZIPs. Sales of 101 vs. 126 a year earlier, a decline of 19.8% in a year.

    5. Santa Ana 92703: $493,000 median, down 6.2% over 12 months. Price rank? 78th of 83 Orange County ZIPs. Sales of 101 vs. 161 a year earlier, a decline of 37.3% in a year.

    6. Santa Ana 92704: $510,000 median, down 1.4% over 12 months. Price rank? 76th of 83 Orange County ZIPs. Sales of 168 vs. 210 a year earlier, a decline of 20.0% in a year.

    7. Santa Ana 92705: $930,000 median, down 6.1% over 12 months. Price rank? 18th of 83 Orange County ZIPs. Sales of 232 vs. 194 a year earlier, up 19.6% in a year.

    8. Santa Ana 92706: $650,000 median, down 0.5% over 12 months. Price rank? 56th of 83 Orange County ZIPs. Sales of 105 vs. 112 a year earlier, a decline of 6.3% in a year.

    9. Santa Ana 92707: $500,000 median, up 9% over 12 months. Price rank? 77th of 83 Orange County ZIPs. Sales of 111 vs. 167 a year earlier, a

    10. Single-family-home resales: 9,912 Orange County sales vs. 10,833 a year earlier, a decline of 8.5% in the period. Median: $780,000 — a dip of 2.4% in the period.

    11. Condo resales: 4,308 sales vs. 4,813 a year earlier, a decline of 10.5% in 12 months. Median: $499,500 — a dip of 0.9% in 12 months.

    12. New homes: Builders sold 1,572 residences vs. 2,396 a year earlier, a decline of 34.4% in 12 months. Median: $1,013,750 — a rise of 5.9% in a year.

        1. Since I guess we can make up fake quotes and pointless data, how about Mafia Blocks (aka Mortgage Watch) admits “I’ve been dreaming I can afford a beach house in California for $150,000, so I post all kinds of BS and fake quotes hoping to cause market panic.”

          2. I guess we can make up fake quotes

            I’ll bet you’re the life of the party at those open houses.

          3. “I’ve been dreaming I can afford a beach house in California for $150,000, so I post all kinds of BS and fake quotes hoping to cause market panic.”

            I think anybody looking to widely influence public opinion for their own gain would take their schtick to an arena where there were a lot more people who were more easily influenced. It’s a small tough crowd here.

  13. Ben saved the best one for last. Let’s see housing will not be the cause or the highest casualty of a recession.

    Hmm……

    Wonder what group this guy was talking to?

    Put him on the clown cart with Thornberg, Yun, Olick and a few others. They should definitely carpool together.

  14. “…said his clients are also unhappy about an auction, since it could result in a lower price for the property and they may not be repaid….”

    Gonna be really interesting to see where this one goes.

    An excellent litmus [futures] test for the rest of the hyper-inflated high end markets.

    “Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.” – Aldous Huxley

        1. Wow, I had not heard about this. Yet another boondoggle by democrats and the taxpayers get buggered once again. Funny how the audit by repubs is seen as “politically motivated”, but the fraud which led to the audit isnt, even though the fraudsters got no bid contracts in exchange for campaign contributions. Lots of people should be getting the Whitey Bulger treatment in jail!

  15. Oh Mr.banker, more “dotted.line$” $ignatories is a headed yer way!

    Federal agency wants to make it ea$ier to get mortgage$ on condo$

    The Federal Housing Administration is changing mortgage regulations for first-time condo buyers

    WASHINGTON (AP) — The Federal Housing Administration is changing regulations to make it easier for more first-time condo buyers to receive mortgages.

    The federal agency released new guidelines Wednesday for the types of mortgages it will insure at condominiums. Just 6.5% of the 150,000 condominium developments in the United States were previously eligible for FHA-backed mortgages. But the FHA will start backing mortgages for individual units and will have greater flexibility to react to changes in market conditions.

    Brian Montgomery, the FHA commissioner and acting deputy secretary of the Housing and Urban Development Department, said the changes would make it ea$ier for fir$t-time buyer$, retirees and minorities to become homeowner$. Unlike conventional mortgages that require 20% down, the FHA backs loans that require 3.5% down payments.

    As regulations tightened after the housing crash, the number of FHA mortgages for condos fell from 72,900 in 2010 to 16,200 last year. The rule change is expected to increase the number of FHA mortgages for condos by 20,000 to 60,000 units.

    Wider availability of mortgages could increase construction by 7,000 condos, according to an analysis last

  16. Dow.n (-800.49)

    dtRumpsis slam$ Fed and defends tariff$ as market$ $ink

    MarketWatch | Robert Schroeder | 8/14/19

    President Donald Trump on Wednesday bashed the Federal Reserve over interest-rate policy and defended tariffs, as U.S. stocks fell across the board. In a pair of tweets, Trump said the Fed was “very, very late” in cutting interest rates, repeating his $teady critici$m of the central bank. He also approvingly quoted a Fox Business News host who said tariff$ hadn’t hurt the economy, and added “And we are taking in $Billions!”I

    Okie.donkey, whose gonna bee 1$t?: “yer fired!”

    Powell
    Kudlow
    Navarro
    Ha$$et
    Mnuchin
    Ro$$
    Xi

      2. I give it a .0005% chance he killed himself.

        I give it a 20% chance. But I agree with your odds that he did with no encouragement from someone else standing right there saying “we can do this the easy way or the hard way”.

          3. Plot twist. They switched him out, the patsy got necked sooo – no “insurance policy” release.
            bit.ly/2KzYtz3

            Glad I got that out of my system 😉 We’ll never speak of it again.

          4. Giuliani is a very interesting player in all of this: mayor on 9-11; HRC opponent for Senate seat until he withdrew for “health reasons;” and, IIRC, Comey’s boss for a period of time.

          5. Wouldn’t Rudy Giuliani know about this network?
            RR
            I think all of them know exactly what goes on and a frightening percentage participate. Maybe Rudy wants to live a little longer.

          6. The plot thickens. Ghee-lane posted a review for the book she was photographed reading today. Very Kevin Spacey and his royal mug-like. Looks real, reviews date from 2012.
            G. Maxwell
            G. Maxwell
            5.0 out of 5 stars
            A comforting read after a personal tragedy
            August 15, 2019
            Format: Kindle Edition
            A good friend of mine died recently under very tragic circumstances. Some of us saw it coming for quite a while but it was still a huge shock when it finally happened. I picked up this book at the advice of a friend and absolutely couldn’t put it down. I’d read it walking the dog, getting fast food, or even just lounging around the house. It helped me realized that my friend really believed in something, and that giving your life for the CIA, NSA, FBI, Mossad, or other intelligence agency is truly a higher calling and not something to mourn. A wholehearted recommendation.

            If it weren’t for the kids, this would be very entertaining.

  19. God I love this blog. Sorry Ben as I only post once per year or so. But I read it all the time. You and your commentariat are awesome.

    I’m one of the many savers, hoping for a crash. Powell’s reversal is very frustrating. Though it seems now, with the foreign money having either been forced to stay home or having dried up, American labor doesn’t feel like paying bs prices for housing. We’ll see who they scrounge up now with interest rates at “historic lows!” again. Hopefully more will refrain and let some price discovery ensue, but TPTB are dead set against it.

    1. It’s crashing against the backdrop of historically low rates, which are projected to go lower. And don’t look now, but the Treasury yield curve is a hair’s breadth away from inverting out to 30 years.

      With the Fed’s controlled 2% annual inflation target priced in, the real yield on the 30-year Treasury sits squarely on the nonexistent zero bound.

      1. Boo! … (Tomorrow = < 77 day$ 'till Brexit$!)

        Don't cry for me Argentina …

        1. The bond market is much larger than the $tock market. … According to some estimate$, the global bond market has more than tripled in size in the past 15 years and now exceeds $100 trillion. By contrast, S&P Dow Jones Indices put the value of the global stock market at around $64 trillion.

  24. The housing situation in this country is the worst it’s ever been, by far. Soviet housing would be an improvement given the absurd prices. We may get something like that, because I’m starting to think Trump is one and done. I don’t think he can hold the eCONomy together, and his trade war is accelerating the collapse.

    1. Let’s see…

      area not gentrified yet, check.
      1/8th acre lot on busy and unsafe street corner, check.
      smaller than most 2 bedroom apartments, check
      been recently used as a crack house, check
      boarded up, trashed, stripped and needing complete, total rehab, check
      high crime neighborhood, check
      unable to get certificate of occupancy, check
      asking more than twice as much per sq ft as Spiffy’s Mercer Island private wooded retreat, check.

      Makes sense to me… NOT check.

      (testing fake email)

    1. That snowflake @00:31 with stringy hair and thick glasses says Detroit has only 25% living at the middle-class level. I thought it was lower than that at least within city limits.

  28. ‘We are in a plateau phase.’ This provides more room for negotiations between sellers and buyers, and possibility of a small reduction in the listed price, Moye said.”

    No, Moye, we’re in a bursting housing bubble phase. The only negotiation going on should be along these lines:

    Buyer: I’m prepared to offer you 50% of your list price.
    Seller: Don’t insult me with lowball offers.
    Buyer: Fine. I’ll wait for the foreclosure auction and buy it then. Have a nice day.

    1. Holy ***t. $1.8M for that? 1/7th acre – cram it in to the max design. Ok, it’s new construction. clearly they bought the previous house in 2016 or so and leveled it and replaced with it a post modern size maximizing box (if you can call 3300 sq ft). And yes, the garage sucks.

      looking further – the previous house sold for $300k on 8/12/16. So $1.5M for the build + profit. I would think (very old memories) there are spots in Bloomfield Hills where people have that sort of money, but Birmingham? really?

      1. Every once in a great, great while one of these luxury flips sells, but most of them sit on the market for years until they do.

        Birmingham has the trendy, “mini-Manhattan” downtown that Bloomfield Hills doesn’t, which is why I think there’s more speculation going on in the former.

        1. Yeah, I see this one sitting for a looong while. It’s way out of line for the area. 3 units directly across from the back yard on Pine St. sold recently for $575k-654K Nothing else for blocks shows even close to $1M, and the couple that did just barely touch 1M are a good deal bigger. It’s price is sooo out of line.

          When I was a teen, I remember going to Bloomfield Hills a few times and thinking that’s where the ‘rich folk’ liked to live.

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