thehousingbubble@gmail.com
Blog

It Seems That The Misery Is Far From Over

It’s Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. “Amarillo Association of Realtors Board Member, Cindi Bulla, expressed that the biggest challenge right now in this market, including in Amarillo, is inventory. She continued to explain, ‘By those people who are able to offer a cash price and a quick close and sometimes pay above the asking price or even above the appraisal price to be able to get it because we’re in such short supply that it is not healthy.'”

“Former ‘trophy homes‘ continue to sell at crazy low prices. Sidney Kimmel just sold his full-floor Central Park South spread for $18.6 million. That’s almost $4 million less than the $22.34 million he paid for it back in 2001, according to property records. He and his wife first listed the condo at 50 Central Park South, known as the Ritz-Carlton Residences, for $39.5 million back in 2018.”

“Lynsi Snyder-Ellingson put her Mediterranean-inspired, Los Angeles-area mansion back on the market on Monday with a near-$3 million discount. The California compound, now asking $16.8 million, ‘invites lavish entertaining and luxurious living,’ according to the listing. At that new listing price, Ms. Snyder-Ellingson is set for a loss on the spread, having bought the property for $17.4 million in 2012.”

“Purchased for $1.05 million in December of 2017, the two-bedroom, two-bath unit #504 in the Rowan building at 338 Potrero returned to the market priced at $999,000 two months ago. And the resale has now closed escrow with a contract price of $925,000, down 11.9 percent on an apples-to-apples basis since the fourth quarter of 2017.”

“A Gladwyne mansion has dropped in price for the second time in three months — this time by $2 million — and is co-listed for rent after its owner was once again made offers he couldn’t accept. The house at 100 Maplehill Road is now priced at $11.9 million, 57.5% below its original $28 million listing price. The estate reduced its price by $4 million in January after being on the market for the last five years.”

“Broker Misha Haghani said homeowner Andrew Barroway hasn’t received an offer over $15 million that was without contingencies. Barroway purchased the land in 2006 for $12 million. He spent another $23 million and three years building his dream home, bringing the total investment up to $35 million. ‘The seller is a committed seller,’ Haghani said. ‘He wants to sell, so we reduced the price in order to help that happen faster.'”

“The data from UK rental guarantor service, Housing Hand, has revealed the sharp drop in rents followed average rental values (compared to a year earlier) beginning to decline in June 2020, when rents dropped to 11% below their June 2019 level. Rents have continued to fall in many areas ever since. Unfortunately, it has also left many landlords unable to pay their mortgages. With rents now steadily declining in many areas, according to Housing Hand’s figures, it seems that the misery is far from over for both landlords and letting agents as 2021 unfolds.”

“Terry Mason, Group Operations Director, Housing Hand, comments: ‘As the pandemic continues to push people from city centres to their outskirts, rents in central areas are likely to drop even further. Not only are landlords and letting agents slashing prices in many areas, we’re seeing an increasing number of rental schemes offering one or even two months’ free rent in order to encourage tenants to sign on the dotted line. Again, this is particularly prevalent in city centres. It begs the question: how far will landlords and letting agents go to attract new tenants?'”

“Data released by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas showed,that in the real estate sector in the country’s largest market, the National Capital Region, continued to soften, extending price declines across various categories for the second consecutive quarter. ‘This is the second consecutive quarter that condominium prices declined,’ the central bank said. ‘The decrease in the prices of condominium units in both [Metro Manila] and [provincial areas] may be attributed to the postponement of new launches by developers and lackluster demand for transient dwelling amid the pandemic.'”

“With Covid-19 causing businesses renting townhouses in HCMC to shut shop and switch to online selling in many cases, rents have plummeted and vacancy rates have shot up. A survey by VnExpress found that townhouse rents have been falling since the pandemic first broke out. In the first quarter of 2020 they fell by up to 25 percent as social distancing was in place and businesses renting houses went belly-up. The second outbreak in the second half of 2020 caused another 25-40 percent fall. The third outbreak at the beginning of 2021 drove the rents down another 30-40 percent to their lowest levels ever.”

“Nguyen Hong Hai, chairman of VNO Development and Investment Corporation, a company that converts residential buildings into offices for rent, said the fall in rents is due to oversupply. ‘This is an unprecedented litmus test for townhouses for rent,’ Hai said.”

“Ripple effects from the novel coronavirus pandemic have led to the first drop in land prices across Japan in six years. Zuboraya, with a 100-year history, was a popular fugu restaurant in the area. Though six months have passed since the closure, the building Zuboraya used is still vacant. The site of the building had a land price of 8.05 million yen per square meter in 2020. The figure was a 4.7-fold increase over a seven-year period. But this year, the land price plunged 28 percent, the largest decrease anywhere in Japan. The land price drop was greater in the three major urban areas of Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya compared to other regional areas.”

“Property markets are hot. I was at an auction the other day where the place sold for $375,000 over the top of the advertised range. Aussies are making the most of very low interest rates and buying houses in a frenzy. Bizarrely, the city with the fastest house price growth – Melbourne – is also the one with the most empty homes. As the next graph shows, Melbourne has the country’s worst rental vacancy rate. 28,000 rental properties sit vacant – which is more than Sydney and over 4 per cent of all rentals in Melbourne.”

“Does this make sense? Because population growth is at its lowest level in a very long time. As the next graph shows, the natural increase is pretty stable. That means the ratio of births to deaths is steady. But the rate of net overseas migration has plummeted enough to overcome the rate of births, leaving Australia with less people in it than before.”

“Buyers in the Toronto real estate market are routinely willing to offer a bounty of $500,000 or more in order to beat out rival bidders for a house they want. Many sellers have come to expect it. Robert Hogue, senior economist at Royal Bank of Canada, labels the mindset of buyers in the Canadian housing market as ‘a mix of exuberance and haste.’ Mr. Hogue points out that in Toronto and other markets where supply is tight, competition for the few available properties has not only been fierce but increasingly driven by a sense of urgency or ‘fear of missing out.'”

“Phyllis Henderson of Royal LePage Real Estate Services says that more listings are coming to the market with the arrival of warmer weather. ‘There are definitely a lot of listings coming on every single day,’ she says. Ms. Henderson adds that some buyers are becoming worn down by the relentless competition. Niels Christensen, a broker with Harvey Kalles Real Estate Ltd. also believes that the high-octane market will cause that buyer fatigue to spread eventually. ‘It’s the buyers who will put an end to the silliness. If they all said ‘we’re not doing this,’ this would end.'”

Related Posts
This Post Has 56 Comments

  1. ‘now priced at $11.9 million…purchased the land in 2006 for $12 million. He spent another $23 million and three years building his dream home, bringing the total investment up to $35 million’

    Ouch…

  2. ‘In the first quarter of 2020 they fell by up to 25 percent…The second outbreak in the second half of 2020 caused another 25-40 percent fall. The third outbreak at the beginning of 2021 drove the rents down another 30-40 percent to their lowest levels ever’

    Dang, worser. These Asian tourist countries are getting their a$$es kicked.

      1. For some it’s the place to go to (vainly) recapture their prematurely lost youth and to (hopefully) get rid of some relentlessly haunting ghosts.

  3. ‘And the resale has now closed escrow with a contract price of $925,000, down 11.9 percent on an apples-to-apples basis since the fourth quarter of 2017’

    How can I find so much crater if it’s red hotcakes, UHS?

  4. ‘‘By those people who are able to offer a cash price and a quick close and sometimes pay above the asking price or even above the appraisal price to be able to get it’

    You read that right. The fur is flying out in west Texas. Of course you couldn’t give me a shack there if I had to live in it, but I feel the same way about California.

    ‘It’s the buyers who will put an end to the silliness. If they all said ‘we’re not doing this,’ this would end’

    In a way he’s right. A mania is psychological when you get down to it. I included the Amarillo article just to point out there is nutso crap going on all over the place. But I could have posted many reports of UHS (they’re experts you know) using word like insanity, crazy and “I ain’t never seen anything like this in my 150 years as a Realtor!”

    2. When a speculative real estate frenzy descends upon Amarillo, TX – nah, there’s no signal there.

    3. ‘We’ve never seen it like this’: Housing market causing …
      Gatzemeyer, who works with Nebraska Realty, says inventory is incredibly low, which drives prices up and makes for a very competitive and quick-selling market …
      10 hours ago

      Portland, Maine housing market is a “full-on frenzy”
      Diving into the housing numbers, Davin said Portland’s current absorption rate is 0.98 – meaning agents have less than one month of inventory of residential …
      11 hours ago

      ‘It’s crazy. There is no inventory.’ Housing industry
      veteran …
      CNN — Jeffrey Mezger is a 40-year veteran of the real estate industry. He’s never seen a stronger housing market than this one. “It’s crazy. There is no inventory …
      16 hours ago

      I see this every morning. One article after another. Has it ever been any other way?

      1. Crain’s Chicago Business
        Chicago’s Gold Coast has glut of homes for sale
        Good question. In a city where the real estate market is super tight, Chicago’s ritziest neighborhood has a glut of homes for sale.
        12 hours ago

  5. Where are realtors really saying that there are hotcakes everywhere? Because the only talk I’m hearing is that suburb-or-sparser SFH with yards are as hot as a young thighgap while downtown condos are as cold as the heart of an elderly who.re.

    1. Because they are literally whores who will do anything for a commission check, that’s why.

    2. I read a lot more RE articles than you. Even in little towns that I know first hand are dead, you’ll hear them playing up the boomness.

  6. All the gurus are telling me that the stock market is tracking the bond market. When 10-year goes up and DXY goes up, that means stronger dollar and market is supposed to go down. OK, so this morning, the 10-year is up, the DXY is up, and the market is… up. DaFuq.

  7. “..A Gladwyne mansion has dropped in price…” “…57.5% below its original $28 million listing price…”

    It was a just a few short years ago that the REIConplex insisted that haircuts >>50% were unpossible.

    Now, they have become almost daily routine.

    My take away is that is not only is the REIConplex a gang of liars, they are not even very good liars.

    1. Narratives imply there is no objective reality. Unfortunately narratives are most of what ends up in the media trough these days.

      There are micro stories. For instance, the US mansion bubble peaked in 2016, same year as the super lux condo bubble. Around that time somebody planned a 1 billion dollar shack. Many 100 million dollar condos were started or planned. Now we see that phenomenon cave in on itself regularly. Nobody needs a $50 million shack. The only reason you’d buy or build one is you expect to sell it for $75 million. Greater fool-ism.

      1. Central bankers pumping in Quantitative Easing by the trillions of dollars enable greater foolism to bear fruit.

      2. The only reason you’d buy or build one is you expect to sell it for $75 million.

        Which explains why all these celebrity manses were bought later than 2015. Did the celebrity ever live in these places, or even visit? It’s like a cover just to keep interior designers employed.

        TBH most of them are beautiful houses, and should have some use rather than sitting empty. Maybe they can be regular B&Bs. Or, Shaq could turn his Miami manse into a year-round basketball camp.

      3. Nobody needs a $50 million shack. The only reason you’d buy or build one is you expect to sell it for $75 million. Greater fool-ism.

        FWIW, Larry Ellison paid about $400M for Lanai. Granted, he got 140 square miles of island. He bugged out there last year, and runs Big Red from the island. I doubt he has ever been back to Austin since moving the company’s HQ there.

  8. The King Soopers shooting story hasn’t been memory holed yet, at least not out here. The local media is going to make it fit the narrative, even if they have to use a sledge hammer.

  9. She continued to explain, ‘By those people who are able to offer a cash price and a quick close and sometimes pay above the asking price or even above the appraisal price to be able to get it because we’re in such short supply that it is not healthy.

    Realtors are liars.

  10. ‘The seller is a committed seller,’ Haghani said. ‘He wants to sell, so we reduced the price in order to help that happen faster.’”

    Well reduce it some more, greedheads. Get to sawin’ and slashin’ like you mean it.

  11. ‘It’s the buyers who will put an end to the silliness. If they all said ‘we’re not doing this,’ this would end.’”

    I have zero sympathy for anyone who buys into a speculative housing mania when the inevitable bursting bubble decimates their net worth.

  14. narratives seem to be the rage in the REIC. One of the new ones that seems to be popping up is the old (but newly rejuvenated) idea of multiple properties. This time with a larger country property and smaller (luxury) city property.

    It is amazing – i just noticed this talk a month ago – and it seems to be all over the place now.

    “A lot of people are going to have multiple homes now. It’s not just the uber-wealthy that have their country home, and their city home, and their vacation home.” said Anthony Hitt, CEO of Engel & Völkers Americas. “I think it’s going to become more of a mainstream idea where people maybe will have smaller luxury properties in the city and larger luxury properties in the cottage country.”

    1. It’s enough work keeping the home (rented or owned) clean. Now I’m supposed to keep 2 or more shacks tidy? Not to mention pay a mortgage, taxes and maintenance on them?

      When I want to get away, I’ll book a room in a hotel.

      1. “…Anthony Hitt, CEO of Engel & Völkers Americas….”

        Another smoky character emerging from the REIConplex who obviously doesn’t live in reality world.

        Sure, there a the .01% ultra-wealthy who have multiple homes here, there and everywhere. But that’s been the case for the last 100 years.

    2. Cheer it on! The higher they pump it, the better it is for us bears. It’s worth a little extra wait.

  15. “When I want to get away, I’ll book a room in a hotel.”
    In NH my girlfriend took her grandson to a Hotel for the pool. A nice hotel, I stay there when up in NH. Last time I was there was September 2020.
    Well now, half the hotel is reserved for Homeless and the pool has been closed. They were NOT bothered by the homeless but she/we won’t be staying there anytime soon.
    My guess is the owners must have needed the Govt./non-profit’s money to stay alive.

    1. My guess is the owners must have needed the Govt./non-profit’s money to stay alive.

      Very likely.

      It will be interesting to see if no longer needed office space will be repurposed into homeless housing. It could transform downtown areas into “no go zones”.

      I used to attend the local comic con in downtown Dumver, at the convention center. I stopped going because the wokeness and convergence ruined it. I found out that it folded for good and is being replaced by something called “FanExpo” which is some sort of franchised convention.

      Anyway, even during the last time I went, in 2018, I could see the change in downtown Dumver: the panhandlers and other dregs were everywhere. I can only imagine what it’s like now. Needless to say, I’m not planning on attending FanExpo.

      1. The only time I need to go into central Denver is to go to the electrical supply house. I don’t need to go anywhere near Civic Center, the 16th Street Mall, or Park Ave where all the meth / fentanyl creatures and sidewalk poopers congregate.

    1. When I lived in NYC, my life was threatened twice for being a white boy in the wrong neighborhood. Anderson Cooper has called me for an interview….not.

      1. Oh yeah. I remember having a prolonged argument with a young black guy over a parking space. We were going back and forth and I was waiting for it. Sure enough, he called me a white bitch. I burst out laughing, pointed at him and said “Aha!”

  17. I’m on a short film kick lately to go along with my shrinking attention span. I’m sure many here have already seen it (2009) but this is a much better quality video than previously available on YT. It’s a shame so many kids have commented that they have to watch it or that they didn’t understand it.

    2081 Movie (Harrison Bergeron) ∙ 2009
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfYHXL4p8GA

    Squirrel!

    2. Tamara,
      I really liked the flick.
      When I think about this attempt for equity or sameness, I think about how much it would stifle the creative and how boring It would be to enforce equality.
      It’s really sad that people would be forced to hide their light and creative spirit so that such a concept as equality taken to the extreme plays .
      When you see how the fake news wants one narrative and one narrative only, with a bunch of enforcers running around trying to cancel and punish anything but this bizarre group think, the movie isn’t far fetched.

      2. Housing Wiz 👍🏻 It’s very well done. The push for “equality of outcome” is a terrible overreach.

      3. The real question is how do we keep the lights on if everyone is reduced to a level of mediocrity and incompetence?

    1. Pretty awesome track, haven’t heard it in years thanks for posting.

      I turned eleven in October 0f 71 and was listening to transistor AM radio so Traffic, Steve Winwood, Blind Faith and many of those great bands and artists weren’t on our radar yet. That came when we hit high school and beyond.

      None the less, even given the 2 rotary dial phones in the house, one on the kitchen wall and one downstairs in the family room, the black and white tv it was really a pretty great time to be eleven years old.

      Here’s the number 1 song from fiddy years ago this week, it got a lot of play from Cousin Brucie on WABC 77 although I had to wait a few years before I listened to and appreciated the song that debuted the same week at 98.

      Janis Joplin – Me And Bobby McGee (Audio)
      7,882,964 views

      https://youtu.be/sfjon-ZTqzU

      US Top 40 Singles Week Ending 27th March, 1971

      1 ME AND BOBBY McGEE –•– Janis Joplin (Columbia)-

      DEBUTING THIS WEEK

      98 — LAYLA –•– Derek and the Dominos

  20. Watching Biden is like watching a corpse spewing lies and nonsense while the Press acts like this nonsense is sanity. No way did the Majority vote for this clown Biden .
    Controlling the news and narratives has gone into high gear and this one narrative nonsense is so obviously false and insulting to even common sense.
    It is some kind of power grab that was criminally pulled off by Powers that corrupted Government and Government agencies.
    First these Powers looted the Nation by rigged decks, than they used Monopolies and bribes to gain power over the pawns in Washington DC.
    Very obvious that Communist tactics are being used to divide and conquer and pit populations against each other using race as a major theme, that’s false.
    THIS open attack on the White Race is one of the more bizarre aspects of this insurrection by the Fat Cat Globalist Monopolies.
    The Medical Tyranny by the Medical Monopoly and Big Pharma Vaccine push is frightening and insane.
    This was a contrived Pandemic, with faulty tests to usher in vaccines that couldn’t past normal FHA requirements, with them having no liability for the damage it might cause.
    Do you trust Entities that want to control all information so they can fear monger you into taking the jab on some untested vaccine that alters your DNA.
    I hope for the sake of the people that have taken these vaccines that it wont harm them into the future, or even immediately.

Comments are closed.