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It’s Getting Harder And Harder To Sell

A report from CTV Regina in Canada. “It’s a buyer’s market in Regina right now as house prices across the city continue to drop. Realtor Craig Adam has been showing more homes lately, since it’s getting more difficult to sell a home in the Queen City. ‘There is a lot of inventory and the time on the market for houses to sell (is) taking a lot longer than (it) used to,’ Adam told CTV News.”

“Buyers have more choices as prices continue to drop and sellers aren’t getting what they paid when they originally bought the home. According to Adam, sellers only received 70 per cent of the assessed value on 72 per cent of the homes sold in the last 30 days.”

“‘When the assessments were done in 2015, that was certainly at a high point in the market,’ Adam said. ‘Now that our market has declined, a lot of houses are selling less than what the assessed value is.'”

The Daily Telegraph in Australia. “Rents are dropping across Sydney because more rental properties are sitting vacant than at any time in the last 13 years. Figures released by SQM Research this week revealed 19,114 rental properties in the Harbour City were without a tenant — 2.8 per cent of city rental stock.”

“This was well up the 1.9 per cent vacancy rate at this time last year and was the highest since SQM began records in 2005. SQM Research director Louis Christopher said vacancies increased in Sydney due to an oversupply of rental properties.”

“‘Sydney is increasingly becoming a tenant’s market,’ Mr Christopher said. ‘We expect to see further falls.'”

“Data from the Real Estate Institute of NSW showed vacancies were rising in middle and inner suburbs where developers have released large quantities of new housing stock. Institute president Leanne Pilkington said properties were staying on the market longer than usual.”

“‘We have seen a steady and relatively consistent rise in vacancy rates across Sydney as a string of developments reach completion creating an oversupply,’ Ms Pilkington said.”

From Domain News in Australia. “While renters in southern capitals such as Sydney and Melbourne worry about how to pay each week – let alone how to save a home deposit – Brisbane tenants can affordably rent within cooee of the city. Domain Group data shows that there are 14 suburbs in the Brisbane City Council area with median rental prices of just $400 per week.”

“‘Developers were so intent on letting out their properties because they had rental guarantees … that incentives came into the rental market for residential property for the first time in as long as I can remember,’ said Ray White New Farm’s Haesley Cush. ‘That put downward pressure on mum and dad investors with older units to compete with a brand-new unit where the developer not only has a better product in a lot of ways, but they were also offering incentives.'”

“Mr Cush said the new competition resulted in rents falling by about 30 per cent in New Farm.”

From Stuff New Zealand. “There’s one real estate agent per 1.2 square kilometres in Auckland. The Auckland residential housing market has slowed down and with it, so has the number of jobs for agents. According to online job site Seek, the real estate sector of the jobs market shrank by 27 per cent in the second quarter of 2018 and there was a 30 per cent increase in the availability of candidates for advertised jobs.”

“Former agent Leilani Sell said when she left the industry in 2017, it was already clear where things were heading. ‘There are way too many agents for the greater Auckland area,’ she said. ‘It’s getting harder and harder to sell and I just thought there were better things I could do with my time.'”

From Daily News Egypt. “Chairperson of the Presidential Advisory Council for Economic Development at the Egyptian Centre for Economic Studies (ECES), Abla Abdel Latif said that there are some indicators that refer to an imminent real estate bubble. In addition, she added that developers are currently providing substantial facilities to their clients, and that these facilities are excessive.”

“Abdel Latif statement came during a seminar held in ECES named ‘Is Egypt approaching a real estate bubble,’ where she elaborated that the New Urban Communities Authority has turned into a land trader through offering highly priced lands.”

“Furthermore, she noted that the government has launched more than 20 new cities’ projects where their target population is much higher than Egypt’s actual population increase. In addition, Egypt’s resources are limited so launching such similar expensive projects is taxing the country’s resources.”

“Hussein Sabbour, founder and chairperson of Al Ahly for Real Estate Development said, ‘the government is a dealer in the market and I see that it can’t be a competitor but should be a supervisor. I confirm that a real estate bubble is imminent and God help us.'”

This Post Has 15 Comments
  1. ‘sellers only received 70 per cent of the assessed value on 72 per cent of the homes sold in the last 30 days’

    Oh dear…

    1. I’m going to go out on a limb and assess that the assessed values don’t correspond to market realities. And that the wailing and lamentations of the schlonged will soon be reverberating off an indifferent Cosmos.

  2. ‘Developers were so intent on letting out their properties because they had rental guarantees … that incentives came into the rental market for residential property for the first time in as long as I can remember,’ said Ray White New Farm’s Haesley Cush. ‘That put downward pressure on mum and dad investors with older units to compete with a brand-new unit where the developer not only has a better product in a lot of ways, but they were also offering incentives.’

    ‘Mr Cush said the new competition resulted in rents falling by about 30 per cent in New Farm.’

    These rental guarantees were handed out to draw in suckers. In the process they fooked the existing landlords. As Brian Lamb said, “everybody got burned.”

  3. “Buyers have more choices as prices continue to drop and sellers aren’t getting what they paid when they originally bought the home. According to Adam, sellers only received 70 per cent of the assessed value on 72 per cent of the homes sold in the lasT 30 days.”

    Oof! That’s a haircut! 😳

  4. “‘When the assessments were done in 2015, that was certainly at a high point in the market,’ Adam said. ‘Now that our market has declined, a lot of houses are selling less than what the assessed value is.’”

    Wait down since 2015??? Ebola!!!!!

  5. Have always loved realtor descriptions, beating around the bush, when it come to market decline. How about a top 20 notable quotes/explanations taken from the pages of the blog. L.Yun would probably have a couple entries. Some of them just kill me with their articulation of artful avoidance. Remember in The Big Short it was “A Gully”. Love your new term “Eee bola”. Not heard that one before but seems to be catching on.

    Thanks for your work in lifting the veil. Cycles repeat and more importantly human nature and behaviour repeats. This is why the outcome is predictable. Slope of curve goes up, then levels, and we know what next step is. Only a question of when. May be on the precipice.

    Regards.

    1. i had forgotten about the gully.

      This is what has confused me about the current bubble. In the movie, you see the clear corruption – empty houses, aligators in the swimming pool (literally).

      This time it was not (at least to me) apparent by the eye. You had to collect stories/articles (like this blog does) – to get a intrinsic sense of the bubble.

  6. Oh no, not a bug in a scam currency!

    INDYNews
    Bitcoin on brink of collapse after ‘very scary bug’ discovered in code
    Related video: What is Bitcoin and why is its price so high?

    ‘We urge all network participants to upgrade to [the new software] as soon as possible,’ said the cryptocurrency developer who discovered the bug.

    The bitcoin network was at risk of completely collapsing, after a major flaw was spotted with its underlying software.

    Developers issued a fix before hackers could exploit the bug, which was only revealed publicly after a solution had been found.

    According to the bitcoin developers, anyone mining the cryptocurrency would have been able to carry out the attack on the network, though it would have cost 12.5 bitcoins – roughly $80,000 (£60,000) – to perform successfully.

    https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/bitcoin-collapse-blockchain-network-code-ddos-attack-cryptocurrency-double-spend-a8546911.html

  7. Oh my…I thought everyone wanted to live there.

    No foreign money anymore…housing priced to unaffordable levels…massive new supply coming online…

    +++++

    NYC Home Sellers Are Slashing Prices “Like It’s 2009”
    ZeroHedge – 09/21/2018

    The crumbling New York City real estate market has continued apace during the third quarter, after more than half of homes sold in Manhattan during the second quarter closed below asking price – the worst Q2 tally since 2009. And while real-estate brokers had hoped that the seasonal shift during Q3 would help lift sales as a flood of higher-quality offers hit the market, it appears canny buyers – wary of being left holding the bag after nearly a decade of asset appreciation – are refusing to indulge sellers’ lofty asks.

    To wit, NYC home sellers slashed prices on almost 800 listings during a single week this month, the largest wave of discounts in at least 12 years, per Bloomberg.

    With another post-Labor Day wave of listings expected, sellers are experiencing a “gut check” as they realize they must lower prices to the point of demand, because the days of foreign (mostly Chinese) buyers willing to pay the “Chinese premium” are over.

    Sellers with older listings are adjusting expectations just as a wave of newer properties hits the market – customary in New York after Labor Day. In that same September week, Manhattan got 662 additional listings, the third-highest total for any week in StreetEasy’s data.

  8. Higher interest rates + DJT New Tax Laws + The Great QE Unwind + Mel Watt Retiring (or jail) = Pop

    ++++

    Mortgage Rates Head to 6%, 10-Year Yield to 4%, Yield Curve Fails to “Invert,” and Fed Keeps Hiking
    Wolf Richter • Sep 19, 2018

    And it’s impacting mortgage rates – which move roughly in parallel with the 10-year Treasury yield. The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) reported this morning that the average interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages with conforming loan balances ($453,100 or less) and a 20% down-payment rose to 4.88% for the week ending September 14, 2018, the highest since April 2011.

    And this doesn’t even include the 9-basis-point uptick of the 10-year Treasury yield since the end of the reporting week on September 14, from 2.99% to 3.08% (chart via Investing.com; red marks added):

    And more rate hikes will continue to drive short-term yields higher, even as long-term yields for now are having trouble keeping up. And these higher rates are getting baked in. Since the end of August, the market has been seeing a 100% chance that the Fed, at its September 25-26 meeting, will raise its target for the federal funds rate by a quarter point to a range between 2.0% and 2.25%, according to CME 30-day fed fund futures prices. It will be the 3rd rate hike in 2018.

    And the market now sees an 81% chance that the Fed will announced a 4th rate hike for 2018 after the FOMC meeting in December

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