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A One-Way Ticket To The Poor House

A report from Bloomberg on Canada. “After a three-year non-stop party, Toronto’s condo market is likely to settle down in 2019, some of the city’s biggest developers say. Shamez Virani, president at CentreCourt, added: ‘There is, for the first time in a little while, at least in the last 24 months, signs of resistance, signs of certain projects not being able to break barriers on pricing.'”

From Better Dwelling in Canada. “Greater Vancouver condo prices are cooling down in a big way. Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver (REBGV) numbers show price appreciation has fallen to a multi-year low in November. The slowing growth was accompanied by plummeting sales, and soaring inventory.”

“The sharp monthly decline and tapering annual gains are worth paying attention to. The $15,700 monthly decline is the largest single month dollar decline the condo benchmark has ever seen.”

The Richmond News in Canada. “The most expensive condo on Canada’s MLS – and second-priciest home listing in the nation, after this $39.9 million West Vancouver house – was re-listed December 12 at an $8 million discount off its original January price.”

“It was listed in January 2018 for $38 million – and was for a while the most expensive home for sale in Canada – before being reduced mid-year to $34,995,000.”

The Sunday Telegraph on Australia. “Almost one in 10 home sellers made a loss on their properties over the September quarter in apartment construction hubs Ryde, Canterbury and the Bankstown area. The average loss was $55,000-$77,000, according to the new data in a CoreLogic Pain and Gain report.”

“Housing experts said these sellers were making losses because they purchased their homes at inflated prices during the most recent market peak, only for the market to cool in the years after. Their difficulties selling were exacerbated by the sudden release of a glut of new units at a time when many buyers were struggling to get loans from banks, forcing the sellers to cut their prices.”

“Recent Ryde sales included a one-bedroom apartment at 4 Devlin St, which sold for $565,000 — $115,000 less than what the seller paid in 2014. More apartments are set to come with close to 4100 new units projected to be completed in the Ryde region over the next two years, increasing the supply of apartments by 15 per cent.”

“Sellers in the Greater Parramatta area were in a similar situation with median home price falls of 11.1 per cent over the past year and a pipeline of about 5700 new units set to be completed by 2020. Recent sales included a unit at 42-44 MacArthur St in the Parramatta CBD, which changed hands for $90,000 below the 2017 purchase price of $589,000.”

The Australian Financial Review. “Developers and off-the-plan purchasers are being squeezed as lenders double down on credit by intensifying scrutiny of borrowers coming up for final loan assessments, despite having received conditional approval.”

“Conditions are tightening as homes bought off the plan at the peak of the real estate boom two or three years ago are coming up for completion in a market where values and rentals are falling in major cities. Tough new lending conditions and falling property values mean more deals are being knocked back, forcing borrowers to find other lenders or face legal action and loss of deposits paid to developers.”

“‘Some property marketers who in the past were easily able to shift a large number of off-the-plan units in high-risk areas with a large concentration of new apartments are struggling to do so now,’ said Doron Peleg, chief executive of RiskWise, which provides property risk assessments.”

“Separate analysis by CoreLogic, which monitors market prices, warns an apartment glut, falling prices and slowing demand has almost tripled the number of off-the-plan Sydney apartments valued at less than the purchase price.”

From ABC News in Australia. “Across the country, almost 1,700 construction businesses went broke last financial year, with most in New South Wales and Victoria. ‘Will we see more collapses? Yes, we will,’ business commentator Tim Treadgold said.”

“‘We’ve seen one big fall in RCR and you’d have to assume other companies are under similar pressures, caused by mismanagement basically — not getting their costs right, not getting their skill mix right and messing up contracts,’ Mr Treadgold said. ‘So next year could be a bad year for corporate failures.'”

“‘Those contracts were bought at a price which was too low and then they reach a point where they can’t complete the projects, and that causes a hell of problem for everyone involved. The company itself goes belly up and the subcontractors are the meat in the sandwich, they don’t get paid,’ he said.”

“‘I think you’re going to see developers struggle to sell the units or the property they’ve developed; you’re going to see heavy duty discounts just to shift assets off their books; you may well see companies selling things for less than they cost to build and that’s a one-way ticket to the poor house,’ Treadgold added.”

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This Post Has 20 Comments

  1. The ABC News report shows what they are up against. Who could have imagined we’d see this chart title in 2018?

    ‘Sydney and Melbourne’s looming housing crash is set to eclipse Perth’s collapse in its severity’

    Next thing Sydney will be worse than Darwin…

    1. Other than what I read here, I don’t follow the world wide RE market. Looking at the graphs shown in that article one can only imagine the mess they are in. Has it EVER been that bad in AUS? Wow!

  2. ‘After a three-year non-stop party, Toronto’s condo market is likely to settle down in 2019, some of the city’s biggest developers say’

    And Vancouver’s condos are swirling the bowl. Oh those days not long ago the REIC told us how invincible those condo markets were, even though single family had already cracked hard.

  4. Housing crash equals pension funds disappear

    The lost Cunnuk
    Published on Dec 16, 2018

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZEZZ9fIbz0

    A comment:

    “This mess was created by hubris Harpercrites terrible financial policies during the GFC… housing should have corrected the same as in the us, instead the 40 year zero down mortgage and a policy of “tapping equity” created a giant gas bag of debt built on a foundation of sand. The omnibus budget of 10th June 2013 put the final nail in the people’s coffin when the too big to fail systemically important banks received the gift of theft through bail ins… any mutual fund, savings account or checking account owner ceased to be a customer and became a creditor instead. The people who decried this legislation were mostly ignored although Harper DID issue verbal assurances that this event was most unlikely and bank creditors (all of us) would be free to sell our bank shares (of course, at a huge loss… and now, here we are)… Times are changing all those Realtors who used to cry “buy now or be priced out forever” are about to be replaced by millions of canadian homeowners crying about how they are “priced in forever” because they will never recoup the losses on their real estate… Free mortgage for a year, you say??? Death throes of a developer about to go belly up…”

    1. “Times are changing all those Realtors who used to cry “buy now or be priced out forever” are about to be replaced by millions of canadian homeowners crying about how they are “priced in forever”

      A universal quote from realtors everywhere on the planet.

    2. It’s not surprising that the Oligopoly media has shut down most comment sections, as a growing number of readers see right through the Real Journalist lies and propaganda and are calling out policymakers and central bankers on their role in creating housing bubbles in the U.S. and elsewhere. These same truth-tellers are also skewering REIC dissembling that lured the gullible and stupid into signing on the dotted line for insanely overpriced housing.

  8. “Housing experts said these sellers were making losses because they purchased their homes at inflated prices during the most recent market peak, only for the market to cool in the years after. Their difficulties selling were exacerbated by the sudden release of a glut of new units at a time when many buyers were struggling to get loans from banks, forcing the sellers to cut their prices.”

    The shape of things to come. Rising inventory and plunging prices as creditworthy buyers all but vanish from the market, interest rates rise, and banks belatedly begin reverting to stringent lending criteria after getting burned by millions of jingle-mail FBs.

  9. Same problems from Canada and Australia can definitely repeat here. I would anticipate it. They are bit father on the curve.

          1. Yeah, I was going to add that. No more friends of scouting fundraising drives in LDS wards (e.g. congregations)!

  11. No complaints here. I’m an Eagle Scout but after years of adult scout leadership experience I’m fine with shutting it down. As the USA balkanizes you can’t be everything to all people as they were trying to do.

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