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Both Speculative Investors And Ordinary People Are Walking Away From Their Mortgages

A report from TRNTO in Canada. “According to Toronto Regional Real Estate Board, the number of condo rental units on the market in the second quarter was up 42 per cent compared to the same period last year. Prices in rental condos have gone down by around five per cent in the second quarter compared to last year. Realtor Jamie Dempster expects more units to hit the market since some may have trouble renting out their units during the pandemic due to less demand and a need for lower prices.”

“This was evident in one Yorkville condo that was known for heavy Airbnb activity. The building saw nearly 100 units hit the market either for sale, or for long-term rentals.”

The Vancouver Sun in Canada. “You can be forgiven for feeling perplexed about what’s happening to Metro Vancouver’s real-estate market. The spin coming from the real-estate industry is bewildering — with some realtors saying the numbers are ‘record setting’ and prices are ’20 per cent higher year over year.’ Alas, the hype from certain segments of the industry confirms why polls show the public generally has a low opinion of realtors.”

“Condos in the city core are not selling particularly well. Stephen Punwasi, a prominent Canadian market analys, recently said, ‘Greater Vancouver real-estate sales are returning to pre-pandemic levels, but prices are still falling’ compared to their overall peak a couple of years earlier. Despite the slight June-July upturn in sales of detached homes in Greater Vancouver and the Fraser Valley, the volume of sales is still almost half what it was in 2016. And the average price for a detached home in July in the north of the Fraser parts of Metro was about $1.6 million. That’s below the peak of $1.83 million three and four years ago.”

“The luxury single-family market is not what it was either. In many neighbourhoods of West Vancouver, for instance, where typical home prices of $4 million to $7 million were until recently driven largely by buyers with offshore capital, assessed values have fallen on average by one third in the past two years. Across Metro Vancouver, data shows June and July sales are somewhat higher than last year’s levels. ‘But despite the increase,’ Punwasi said, ‘new listings are hitting the market at such a rapid pace, prices are actually falling further from the peak.'”

From BRNO Daily. “Since the pandemic hit, however, news outlet CT24 reports that real estate agencies and brokerage portals have noticed a fall in rents, mostly in Prague and Central Bohemia. With rents falling by up to 20%, the increasing demand for rental properties seems understandable. Rents have nosedived in particular in locations near popular tourist spots, long dominated by short-term tenants, especially in Prague. CT24 gave the example of a 50m2 apartment in Prague with views of both Tyn Church and St. James Church, which was listed for CZK 20,000, including bills. At the beginning of the year, the rent would probably not have been less than CZK 25,000.”

From News.com.au in Australia. “Property prices across most major Australian cities have plunged for the third month in a row. Newly listed properties are up 46 per cent compared to the lows experienced in early May. According to CoreLogic, rental rates have continued to trend lower, with Hobart, Sydney and Melbourne having the weakest rental conditions.”

“‘Some inner city areas of Melbourne and Sydney have seen rental listings more than double since March due to the combined effect of temporary migrants departing, and overseas arrivals, including foreign students stalling,’ said CoreLogic’s head of research, Tim Lawless. ‘Compounding this weak demand position is the surge in construction activity and investment over previous years, which has added to inner city rental supply.'”

The Wall Street Journal. “Australia’s resilience in past economic crises owed much to an open-door immigration policy that drew skilled workers to its cities, students to its colleges and manual labor to its fields. By forcing the closure of national borders, the coronavirus pandemic has kicked that pillar away. Prime Minister Scott Morrison says Australia could add as few as 36,000 people from net immigration in the 12 months through June 2021—the government’s fiscal year—under arrangements that only allow Australians and permanent residents stranded overseas to return home.”

“That compares with a forecast of 168,000 net immigrants in the year that just ended June 30—itself choked by a period of border shutdown—and 239,600 in the 12 months before that. ‘This is a huge hit,’ said Shane Oliver, chief economist at AMP Capital. If this occurs, the country’s population growth in the 12 months through June 2021 would be just 0.7%, the lowest since 1917, he said.”

“Roman Pazniewski, a 63-year-old home builder and renovator in northern Sydney’s upmarket beachside suburbs, has seen his work pipeline shrivel to just one job, well short of the five to six commitments needed to break even. ‘The outlook is grim,’ said Mr. Pazniewski, who recently laid off half of his staff.”

The New Straight Times on Malaysia. “The current economic landscape presents an opportunity for investors to get good bargains and discounted properties prices under current situation exacerbated by the sellers. MyProperty Data Sdn Bhd (MPD) chief executive officer Thor Joe Hock said it was now biased to buyers’ market as they can put their prices instead of the sellers.”

“‘Currently, this is the buyer’s market as supply exceeds demand, giving buyers an advantage over sellers in price negotiation. Price has been stagnant and falling in the past few years, particularly in the residential segment across the board. However, in prime locations, we do not see price growth and often price fall in the outskirt,’ he said.”

From Reuters. “Some Hong Kong foreclosed homes have been recently sold at steep discounts, adding to signs that the world’s most expensive housing market could be heading for price declines both this year and next. Foreclosures in the Asian financial hub jumped 54% in the first seven months of the year to 675, according to property auctioneer Century 21 Surveyors.”

“Both speculative investors and ordinary people are walking away from their mortgages, financing companies and auctioneers told Reuters. Some warn foreclosures could surge next year to their highest levels since the global financial crisis. Two foreclosed properties belonging to a mainland Chinese investor recently sold at discounts of 25% and 12% to their respective purchase prices of around HK$30 million ($3.9 million) and HK$20 million, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter.”

“Henry Choi, a director at Century 21 Surveyors, also said his company has had three recent cases where banks put auctions on hold after deciding to go back to court to ask for a lower base price. ‘The original valuations were too optimistic and they would be hard to sell now in this market,’ he said.”

“Anticipating lower prices ahead, lenders have also become super keen to offload properties as fast as possible. ‘Normally we’d sell through property agents because transaction prices from auctions are too low, but now we want to get rid of the mess quickly so if agents can’t sell a property in two months, we put it up for auction,’ said the chairman of a finance company, also declining to be identified.”

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This Post Has 59 Comments

  1. ‘The spin coming from the real-estate industry is bewildering…Alas, the hype from certain segments of the industry confirms why polls show the public generally has a low opinion of realtors’

    Ahem…

    1. Nice touch adding Airbnb estimates for rental grosses. Keep it coming disruption 2.020

  4. So no illegals or rapeugees?

    “By forcing the closure of national borders, the coronavirus pandemic has kicked that pillar away.”

  5. Australia’s resilience in past economic crises owed much to an open-door immigration policy that drew skilled workers to its cities, students to its colleges and manual labor to its fields.

    Silly me, I thought it was because Oz was China’s raw materials one stop shop (and the Chicoms liked to buy houses there).

    1. And IIUC, Australia’s immigration policy is anything but open-door. Wasn’t there the story of one guy who had his own job and his own money, but Aus wouldn’t let him in because his autistic son would be a drain on the system?

  6. Breaking news: Downtown Chicago got looted last night, total silence from Real Journalists on this. 4chan, Reddit, and the Chicago Police scanners are reporting the truth that the media won’t.

    “This sucker could go down” — George W. Bush

    1. Update: the looting in Chicago is on the Fox News and the Chicago Tribune websites.

      Chicago Sun Times reports nothing on this. Or CNN. Or the Drudge Report, which since Matt Drudge sold it in recent months has turned into the Huffington Post.

      Note also that the Chicago mayor and police broke up a party on the beach yesterday because of CCP flu, CNN covers this story along with the Sturgis bike rally ‘Rona narrative.

      GET OUT OF AMERICAN CITIES, it is not safe for you to live or work or raise your family there.

      No more property tax or sales tax revenue gibs for you!

      1. This guy refers to the riots in the past tense, but it seems like they are ongoing.

        Two months since the riots, and still no “National Conversation”
        Michael Tracey
        Jul 27 · 18 min read
        A boarded-up Vietnamese restaurant in St. Paul, MN

        We are now approaching the two-month mark since the riots that erupted across the United States in late May and early June. There is a reasonable argument to be made that these riots were unprecedented in U.S. history — or at the very least, since the 1960s. Yet if one surveyed the national media today, you’d barely even know anything happened. Nor would you likely be aware that those who bore the brunt of the destruction — largely minorities whose sensibilities don’t fit into any neatly-delineated ideological category — are still acutely suffering from the fallout.

        Yes, civil unrest has of course occurred before. But the riots of 2020 exhibited features which belie any easy historical parallel. For one thing, consider their enormous geographic scope. While the most extreme riots in cities like New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, and particularly Minneapolis did receive considerable attention — however fleeting, incomplete, and unnecessarily inflected with knee-jerk partisanship — there were also smaller-scale riots in surprisingly far-flung places that you hardly would’ve known about unless you lived in the area, happened to visit, or intentionally sought out what remains of the bare-bones local media coverage. To take just a small sampling: Atlantic City, NJ, Fort Wayne, IN, Green Bay, WI, and Olympia, WA all underwent significant riots, at least per the normal expectations of life in these relatively low-key cities. Did you hear anything about them? Because I hadn’t, and I’m abnormally attuned to daily media coverage. Only because I personally visited did I learn of the damage.
        …

        2. Two months since the riots, and still no “National Conversation”

          By “National Conversation” they mean “We’ll do anything you demand, give you anything you want, just please make it STOP!”

          1. Two months since the riots, and still no “National Conversation”

            The conversation I’m hearing in my circles is pretty much “fawk you.”

          2. The conversation I’m hearing in my circles is pretty much “fawk you.”

            I don’t even know which side you’re on but I can imagine that’s true either way.

          3. I don’t even know which side you’re on but I can imagine that’s true either way.

            I’m with the majority who realize what a sham the whole BLM is, and that the media/globalists are crafting a narrative.

            PS – did anybody else see the recently leaked video of George Floyd before he ended up on the ground? The guy did NOTHING that the cops told him to do, and was freaking out.

          5. The guy did NOTHING that the cops told him to do, and was freaking out.

            I didn’t watch the video but I saw the thumbnail image from it and he looked like Flava Flave on a bad day. Much different than the nice pictures usually shown.

          7. The MSM didn’t show the beginning video footage from the Rodney King beating case when he attempted to evade arrest by speeding 117-mph on the freeway, speeding 80-mph through a residential neighborhood and failed to follow directions lunging at the arresting officers escalating the event.

      2. Nothing in the Washington Post either, but WaPo did have a story about rioters setting fire to the police union HQ in Portland.

        1. The Washington Post must have hit the snooze button this morning, because I have yet to read their article blaming the looting in Chicago on white supremacists.

          1. Oh wait, the WaPo did publish an article at 5:42 am this morning, where it would scroll off the main page before anyone saw it.
            —————–
            Looters smash business windows along Chicago’s Magnificent Mile

            “Hundreds of people smashed windows and looted stores… on Sunday night and into Monday morning…Videos show looters roaming up the street, bashing their way into stores including Neiman Marcus, Nordstrom Rack and Tesla dealership. So cars dropped off more people at the scene…. and at one point, a U-Haul van pulled into the area.”
            ———-

            That headline is pretty funny. It makes it sound as if they just smashed the windows and moved on. And cars dropping off more people at the scene. Looks like the word got out that there was a looting party going on. The U-Haul was probably one of those entrepreneurial groups who waits on the street for looters to come out with their booty, and then pirates the booty for themselves. Fun times.

          2. a U-Haul van pulled into the area

            Do the getting while the getting is good. There’s gonna be some fancy stuff for sale at flea markets in the months ahead,

      3. I can say I am very disappointed in this. We got tons of coverage for the mayor being critical of a beach party featuring 200 males in speedos, but this was overlooked until it was forced.

        To make matters worse, they closed the CTA trains downtown stranding people, mostly African Americans commuting to the South Side on Monday night. This is ridiculous. How hard is it to put a note up in the stations, starting in the morning, of the lack of trains that night?

    2. Published August 7, 2020:

      “Is Chicago’s Magnificent Mile at risk for massive store closures? Ald. Brian Hopkins (2nd) said it is the recent violence and spike in burglaries that is causing real concern now.

      There are existing vacancies, some stores still boarded up, others dealing with plummeting sales, what Hopkins calls a spike in theft, and safety concerns keeping people away.

      “We’re losing tax revenue, and we are losing sales tax on a daily basis,” he said. “If this trend continues, we won’t have a viable downtown. And it’s not going to be that long. We’re talking a few years. Privately they’re telling me they can’t sustain this. They can’t continue at the level they’re at right now, and if it keeps up, we are going to see a rash of business closures in the downtown area.”

      https://chicago.cbslocal.com/2020/08/07/chicagos-magnificent-mile-at-risk-for-massive-store-closures/

      Bed. Made. Lie.

      And not a single cent of federal taxpayer revenue to bail out the bankrupt state of Illinois. NO GIBS FOR YOU!

  7. Corona conundrum?

    The Financial Times
    Coronavirus business update 30 days complimentary
    Opinion FTfm
    There are no easy answers in the low-return era
    Investments providing a good return today might not be replaced by equally attractive products tomorrow
    John Plender
    Central banks such as the Federal Reserve have rushed in to help the markets but the current recovery is not a sign of the sector health
    © Gado/Getty Images
    John Plender yesterday

    Much stock market analysis takes it for granted that there is a clear relationship between economic growth and the return on equity. That is a questionable assumption at the best of times. In the world of Covid-19 it is pure nonsense. The market recovery since the ultra high speed bear market in March owes nothing to rational assessments of the health of the corporate sector and everything to policy.

    The turn in the market reflected investors’ realisation that governments around the world would throw everything fiscally conceivable at the pandemic without troubling themselves with worries about debt sustainability. At the same time central banks rushed in, most notably the Federal Reserve, which loosened policy and rapidly attacked an acute liquidity shortage in the corporate bond market, thereby easing financial conditions. Balance sheet expansion has since been the order of the day.

    These were undoubtedly the right things to do — though getting things right when the debt fuelled recovery is advanced will be a much tougher proposition. And there are snags, not least for pension funds. Against a demographically challenging background they are obliged to increase their exposure to bonds that yield little or no income and offer no reward for taking on interest rate risk. As has been widely remarked, bonds no longer provide diversification in a conventional equity-bond portfolio.

    It remains possible in the deflationary climate induced by the pandemic that bond investors will make capital gains if interest rates fall further. Yet that will never compensate for the size of the potential losses if interest rates rise by anything more than a whisker. So-called safe assets are no longer very safe. And those capital gains would come at the cost of liabilities that soar because they have to be discounted at a lower rate.

    Meantime, paying pensions out of securities that yield no income is going to be expensive, especially for sponsoring companies in sectors hard hit by the virus. Those securities will continue to offer little income because governments and central banks will want to keep interest rates low to secure lower borrowing costs on the soaring debt.
    …

  8. The Financial Times
    The Big Read Banks
    Banks braced as pandemic poses biggest test since financial crisis
    Provisions for loan losses are at the highest in a decade as lenders prepare for large-scale company bankruptcies
    © FT montage
    Stephen Morris and Owen Walker in London and Laura Noonan in Dublin yesterday

    During the depths of the coronavirus crisis in Europe in late March, Sergio Ermotti remembers sitting in his home study in Lugano, reflecting on the latest financial meltdown to engulf his career as a banker.

    “If I go through my last eight years, we had a lot of mini-earthquakes, but never of the magnitude of what we are seeing now,” the 60-year-old UBS chief executive says. “This is a crisis that is driven by fear in a different way . . . this time it’s not just about people losing their assets or savings, it’s about their life, it’s about their families. It’s so profound, so different.”

    Switzerland’s largest bank is weathering the crisis relatively well, considering its share price is down only 10 per cent this year, a more modest fall than any other global lender apart from Wall Street’s Morgan Stanley.

    This is no accident. Both have built wealth management arms that boast more than $2tn of client assets, generating consistent fees from the wealthy and super-rich desperate for advice on how to trade the pandemic.

    The rest of the industry — particularly those focused on bread and butter lending to small businesses and consumers — are facing their toughest test since the financial crisis of 2008, as untold millions of companies face bankruptcy amid unprecedented global lockdowns and travel bans.

    Governments and regulators have unleashed trillions of dollars of support measures to prop up the system, ensuring the flow of credit and functioning of markets, and helping households stay afloat with salary supports and repayment holidays. But many of those schemes are set to be withdrawn.

    Meanwhile, interest rates that were already negative in the eurozone have been slashed to zero in the US and 0.1 per cent in the UK, piling pressure on banks’ already slim lending margins.
    …

  9. This is most of the Toronto websites – it is amazing how they are successfully providing the REIC hype-machine. A lot of the Toronto working class houses built in the 50s/60s were semi-detached. I.e. 2 houses (that look like townhouses) joined by a common wall between them and a common driveway. If these are completely reno’ed, they sell for $1.2M CDN – it is completely unbelievable.

    —
    “You can be forgiven for feeling perplexed about what’s happening to Metro Vancouver’s real-estate market. The spin coming from the real-estate industry is bewildering — with some realtors saying the numbers are ‘record setting’ and prices are ’20 per cent higher year over year.’

  10. ‘

    Dubai: Selling a used car is proving hazardous for owners in the UAE, with values in the secondhand market dented by 5-15 per cent in the second quarter compared with first quarter prices.’

    ‘There were quite a few “distress sales” happening during the April to June period, as owning a car suddenly became a luxury they couldn’t afford for many. Plus, many getting on board the repatriation flights too had disposed off their vehicles at whatever price they could get.’

    ‘But it was not just about individual owners selling – even fleet operators decided to cut down on their numbers of vehicles and which were then put up for sale. All of these cars coming into the pre-owned vehicle market at the same time meant prices too had to drop.’

    ‘Even at these much reduced prices, “The market for secondhand vehicles is still soft and that’s why we will continue to see reduced vehicle valuation levels,” said Avinash Babur, CEO of InsuranceMarket.ae.’ “So, you have lower demand while rent-a-car and fleet companies are selling their inventory as well.”

    ‘It doesn’t matter which price range the model belonged to initially, the pressure on their valuations at the time of disposal remains intense. A Tesla Model X in the secondhand space is 15 per cent lower than what it would have been at the end of lf last year. A brand new model has a starting price of Dh425,000 plus. So, apart from the natural depreciation that the value of any vehicle goes through, now, they have to deal with reduced demand and a market suddenly awash with a flood of options.’

    ‘The Toyota Yaris and Nissan Sunny have seen valuation dips of 11.11 per cent in the secondhand space, while a Mitsubishi Lancer has seen an average 18.64 per cent dip in the year-to-date. (Listed showroom prices for a new Yaris are from Dh43,000, and Dh48,000 for a base model Sunny. The Lancer is from Dh51,000 plus.)’

    “Used car dealers say they have to push their clients to offer a higher discount to buy their vehicles,” said Babur. “These are for bulk consignment sales. The overall impact on vehicle valuation as a direct result of COVID-19 is in the region of 5 to 10 per cent lower. Chances are that prices could dip if more used cars end up in the market between now and mid-October, because that’s when 2021 model year vehicles will reach showrooms.”

    https://gulfnews.com/business/retail/sharp-drop-in-used-car-prices-in-uae-is-it-the-right-time-to-buy-1.1597038738863

    1. ‘It doesn’t matter which price range the model belonged to initially, the pressure on their valuations at the time of disposal remains intense.”

      Just like housing…. Nobody cares you paid too much. The only difference is we’ve got a lot more excess housing than autos.

      Helena, MT Housing Prices Crater 16% YOY As Retirement/Vacancy Property Market Takes A Severe Beating

      https://www.zillow.com/east-helena-mt-59635/home-values/

      *Select price from dropdown menu on first chart

      <em As one noted economist stated, “I can ask $50k for my run down Chevy pickup but where is the buyer at that price? So it is will all depreciating assets like houses and cars.”

    2. Nissan Sunny? I had to look that up. It’s basically a Sentra. Whatever. I dislike Nissan intensely. I had occasion to drive a Versa for a couple days. It was a tin can with a seat that didn’t adjust. I could barely drive it and I felt as if I were going to crash every minute. It turned me off Nissan and Infiniti forever. Any car company which allowed such a POS to leave the drawing board will get no money from me, for any model.

      1. Nissan made great cars in the early to mid 90s. The quality since has fallen far and fast, thanks to globalization and offshoring production from Japan.

        1. They had some serious missteps with their CVTs. From what I have read, their CVT’s are getting better.

      2. I had occasion to drive a Versa for a couple days. It was a tin can

        That is what is known as a “world car”, not really meant for sale in the US, but they offer it to juice their EPA numbers. In the third world a Toyota Corolla is a luxury car. I’ve read some unflattering reviews about the Toyota Yaris, but again, that is a model meant for the 3rd world.

    1. His mother says the police dragged and kicked him, but 30-min of police body-cam doesn’t corroborate her story. They should arrest and charge her for making false claims.

  12. [for Seattle area folks]
    So CHOP/Riots/Protesting had no effect on Belltown, Capitol Hill (where CHOP took place) etc.

    Can this be explained by skew of sales (2br vs 1, or luxury vs regular building? Or is the world just crazy
    —
    The Seattle citywide condo median sales price rose 10.43% year-over-year to $497,475, reflecting a 19-month high. That’s also 9% greater than a month ago.

    By MLS neighborhood areas – downtown/Belltown, Capitol Hill, West Seattle (Alki) and Northeast Seattle realized higher median sale prices compared to last July, while Queen Anne and Northwest Seattle areas experienced a decline in their condo sale prices. See table at bottom of post for full details.
    https://blog.seattlepi.com/seattlecondo/2020/08/09/july-2020-seattle-condo-market-update/

  13. “You can be forgiven for feeling perplexed about what’s happening to Metro Vancouver’s real-estate market.

    What’s there to be perplexed about? It was an unsustainable bubble, and now it’s cratering.

  14. In many neighbourhoods of West Vancouver, for instance, where typical home prices of $4 million to $7 million were until recently driven largely by buyers with offshore capital, assessed values have fallen on average by one third in the past two years.

    Oh dear. The “buy now or be priced out forever lemmings” who levered up on debt for shacks they couldn’t afford are going to be well and truly schlonged.

    1. Actually Boo – a cause of some of the $2M+ houses was laundering. Taking commercial invoices and washing it into unrecognizable ownership (cousins etc)

      —-
      More than $7 billion in dirty money was laundered in B.C. in 2018, hiking the cost of buying a home by about 5%, according to British Columbia’s Expert Panel on Money Laundering in Real Estate.

      “Our housing market should be used for housing people, not for laundering the proceeds of crime,” said Carole James, Minister of Finance. “The amount of money being laundered in B.C. and through real estate is much more than anyone predicted. Our government is tackling the housing crisis head-on and taking action to combat the money laundering that has been allowed to drive up housing costs for British Columbians for far too long.”

      The panel’s report, which was released along with the remaining chapters of Peter German’s review into money laundering in real estate, luxury cars and horse racing, estimates that a total of $7.4 billion was laundered in B.C. in 2018. The panel estimates that $5 billion was laundered through the real estate market.

      German’s report found thousands of specific properties worth billions as “high risk” for potential money laundering, tax evasion or both. He also found that there was no agency or police force with adequate oversight or resources to investigate these suspicious activities. This builds on German’s first report into money laundering in casinos and his work on luxury cars, demonstrating the pervasiveness of dirty money throughout B.C.’s economy.

      https://news.gov.bc.ca/files/Combatting_Money_Laundering_Report.pdf

    2. How many people in Vancouver can afford a $7M house? With even 20% down what would the payments be? I’m estimating $20,000 a month.

  15. ‘But despite the increase,’ Punwasi said, ‘new listings are hitting the market at such a rapid pace, prices are actually falling further from the peak.’”

    Gosh, Punwasi, you seem to have that supply and demand thingy down pat.

  16. “Property prices across most major Australian cities have plunged for the third month in a row. Newly listed properties are up 46 per cent compared to the lows experienced in early May.

    Gosh, what happens if they just keep plunging month after month? I fear there is a real possibility speculators and FBs could get wiped out en masse, along with their lenders. Such a tragedy….

  17. “Australia’s resilience in past economic crises owed much to an open-door immigration policy that drew skilled workers to its cities, students to its colleges and manual labor to its fields.

    I see what you did there, WSJ. Always touting the globalist line on open borders and unrestricted immigration, without a word on the downside.

  19. Marriott reports big loss, stock pops anyway. The disconnect between the real economy and the Fed’s stimulus-juiced Ponzi markets gets more surreal by the day.

  20. You paid too much like millions of others so just walk away from that mortgage…. do it. It’s your only hope.

    Clifton, VA Housing Prices Crater 14% YOY As Fairfax County Slips Deeper Into Foreclosures And Mortgage Defaults

    https://www.zillow.com/clifton-va/home-values/

    *Select price from dropdown menu on first chart

    As one Fairfax County broker lamented, “How can we possibly sell a resale house when builders are selling new houses for 20% and sometimes 30% less?”

  21. I am patiently waiting for prices to drop and inventory to rise in northern California metros like Sacramento, Roseville, and Folsom. Sadly, I may be stuck renting a larger place for a few years.

    2. “Sadly, I may be stuck renting a larger place for a few years.”

      Rent a smaller place and save the difference.

      1. Rent a smaller place

        He’s doing that now but is losing his mind and needs a bigger place to be able to rent for the long haul.

    3. I am patiently waiting

      FTFY :-). I’ve been renting since 2005, didn’t expect the Fed to step in after 2010 and when they did I didn’t expect it to be successful. Doesn’t matter for me anyway, because my life changed so much from 2014-2016 that I couldn’t have kept it even if I had bought at the right time. And then we were back to insanity…

      1. Same here (well, renting since 2008).

        Life circumstances have changed considerably, but would love to be able to buy with confidence in the near future based on those changes. Sadly, it’s still insanity.

      2. Totally feel it…and I’ve got a wife who has perfect “20/20” hindsight….(but at least she admits we were wise not to buy a town house last fall).

  22. Arlington, Va Housing Prices Crater 14% YOY As Double Digit Price Declines And Soaring Mortgage Defaults Envelop Northern Virginia

    https://www.movoto.com/arlington-va/market-trends/

    As one Arlington County broker lamented, “How can we possibly sell a resale house when builders are selling new houses on the same street for 20% and sometimes 30% less?”

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