A Small Desire For Profit Has Turned Into A Big Loss

A report from WESH in Florida. “Orlando is expected to be one of the top markets to see home prices drop in the months ahead. ‘Our housing market is very much like the amusement parks, I like to tell people, we have a lot of roller coaster rides,’ said Rose Kemp, the president of the Orlando Regional Realtor Association. ‘It’s a healthy cooling, it had to happen. We can’t keep going up and up, as our inventory increases. This absolutely softens the market and makes it more an equal field and we want fairness.’ The data also shows the beginning of declines from peak values. Orlando, Deltona, and Ocala’s percentages are all in the negative.”

WOAI in Texas. “This summer real estate experts say there’s a shakeup in the San Antonio housing market. Historically, house sales and prices spike up during the summer, but that doesn’t seem to be the case in 2024. ‘You cannot overprice in this market right now, because houses are staying on the market longer. There’s a lot more inventory on the market, and you’re competing with a lot more,’ said Spencer Skubik, Associate Broker for Becker Properties. ‘A lot of people have been holding off to buy because they’re waiting for a lower interest rate, and unfortunately, they keep on pushing it back, and now it looks like they’re not even going to drop it as many times as they said they were.'”

The Coeur d’Alene Press in Idaho. “While Shoshone County housing sales were up through May, the median home price was down. Sixty homes sold in the first five months of this year in Shoshone County, an increase of 3.4% over the same time frame last year. The median sales price was $281,000, down 7.2% from the same time last year, according to the Coeur d’Alene Regional Realtors website. About 20% of the 113 single-family homes currently on the market in the Silver Valley have pending sales. Shoshone County homes are taking longer to sell, with an average of 107 days on the market, up 12.6% from May 2023. One issue more specific to real estate in Shoshone County is the flood plain insurance required for some properties in Kellogg, Smelterville and Pinehurst.”

CNBC on New York. “Manhattan is becoming a buyer’s market as apartment prices fell and inventory rose in the second quarter of 2024, according to new reports. The average real estate sales price in Manhattan fell 3% to just more than $2 million, according to a report from Douglas Elliman and Miller Samuel. The median price fell 2% to $1.2 million, and prices for luxury apartments fell for the first time in more than a year, according to the report. The price declines are a result of rising inventory of apartments for sale, which are also taking longer to sell. There are now more than 8,000 apartments for sale in Manhattan, which is higher than the 10-year average of about 7,000, according to Jonathan Miller, CEO of Miller Samuel, the appraisal and research firm. Manhattan now has a 9.8 month supply of apartments for sale.”

“While prices fell for all segments of the Manhattan real estate market, the high end is among the weakest, as the wealthy hold off on purchases until after the uncertainty of the elections. The median sale prices in the luxury segment — or the top 10% of the market — fell 11% in the second quarter, according to Miller Samuel. Listing inventory of luxury apartments surged 22%.”

Fox News on California. “Just because ‘Million Dollar Listing: Los Angeles’ stars Josh and Heather Altman are on television doesn’t mean they aren’t also wrestling with a complicated housing market. ‘The main difference that most of the viewers are going to recognize is just the fact that we’re not in a crazy market where everything’s selling like that. I think that’s probably going to be the most obvious difference on season 15,’ Josh told Fox News Digital. In 2022, Los Angeles voters passed Measure ULA, a transfer tax nicknamed the ‘mansion tax,’ in 2022. ‘And trust me, it trickles down big time. It’s not just rich people who have to deal with it. It’s going to affect everything,’ Josh said. It’s going to affect the bottom line with developments, flips, investments. And that will trickle all the way down… to people who work on homes. They’re going to be affected because it can be less money to pay. People who saved money their whole life [who are] getting ready to sell the house and retire now might not be able to.'”

“Heather added, ‘It also affects the values of every property from every price range, because the people that are [in the] 5 to 5 and a half [million range] are trying to figure out how to avoid paying the taxes. So, they’re reducing the price of their home, also, because the buyers are going to have to eventually pay that tax whenever they go to sell….And everyone’s going to have to end up paying part of that one way or another.'”

The Boston Globe in Massachusetts. “In the not-too-distant past, the three rental properties Christine Peterson and her husband manage in Brewster and Barnstable would be booked for the prime summer weeks by February. But last summer, their Cape-style home in Brewster sat empty for an entire week in July, the first time in 15 years that had happened. ‘It was unlike anything before,’ she said. And as June draws to a close, the four-bedroom dwelling, a few miles from Linnell Landing Beach, still has a week open in July.”

“As summer settles in, the vacation rental market is providing a reality check for those who hoped last season’s downturn was a blip after three pandemic-fueled boom years. The message from real estate professionals and local officials: Those days are over. ‘Owners need to readjust their expectations,’ said Ryan Castle, CEO of the Cape Cod and Islands Association of Realtors. ‘You cannot compare numbers for what we saw in 2021 and 2022 to the future. Those numbers were inflated because of the pent-up demand of the pandemic, and we’re never going to get back to those numbers.'”

Bisnow Washington DC. “The vacancy crisis in the D.C. office market is accelerating. More than 920K SF of office space was emptied out by tenants in the first half of 2024, nearly reaching the full-year totals from 2022 and 2023. By the end of June, the average vacancy rate in District offices was 22.4%, according too CBRE, a new record high. Even emptier offices come as the federal government is more aggressively giving up space, D.C.’s law firms are contracting, and some tenants, including nonprofit groups, are ‘totally walking away from office space,’ Savills Vice Chairman Tom Fulcher told Bisnow. ‘People are like, ‘We’re not coming in. We don’t need it anymore,’ he said.”

“‘It’s like a bowling ball rolling down. We’re just hearing the rumble, rumble, rumble, and it’s just continuing to rumble and make things more difficult for landlords in the city,’ Fulcher said. ‘Instead of a bowling ball with pins at the end, it’s more like a bowling ball going through a forest and knocking down trees. More and more trees are getting knocked down.'”

From Market Place. “Remember how early in the pandemic, nearly everything home-related shot up in price? Now, with folks out and about again and interest rates high and supply chains smoothed out, those lumber prices have fallen back to Earth. Back in 2021, with demand soaring and supply chains a mess, the price peaked at $1,600 per 1,000 board feet, said Paul Jannke at Forest Economic Advisors. ‘Prices currently stand at about $355, so lumber prices are extremely weak right now,’ Jannke said. ‘Those record-high prices that we saw in the second half of 2020 through the first half of 2022 led to extensive investment, mills investing in existing capacity, new capacity.'”

Global News in Canada. “A chronic shortage of qualified people to run new condo buildings threatens to drive up costs for homeowners even as new units finally come online. On top of historic mortgage rates and years of inflation, the situation is squeezing homeowners in a cost of living crisis, said Eric Plant, president of the Association of Condo Managers of Ontario. ‘It’s hitting people very hard; it’s not helping the affordability crisis,’ he said. ‘The worst thing you can hear when your mortgage has just gone up and you’ve gone from two per cent to seven per cent is to get a letter from your condo manager saying we’re going up six per cent this year, 10 more per cent. It’s a lot to swallow.'”

“The condo industry saw some of its first major regulation at the end of 2017, when the then-Liberal government passed Condominium Management Services Act, which introduced regulations for condo managers for the first time. ‘The industry had had a lot of problems, there were some major, major cases of fraud and other things that made the news and sort of prompted this,’ Plant said. ‘So, no one in the industry was upset this happened.'”

ABC News in Australia. “When Cindy Richardson signed up Perth home builder Nicheliving to build a new home in the Perth suburb of Tapping more than three and a half years ago it was meant to be a fresh start. The project by the troubled builder still has no roof or second floor and is long past the scheduled completion date. Ms Richardson, a single mother, is now working two jobs while struggling to pay rent as well as the mortgage and rates on the unfinished house. ‘My rent has to be paid straight away, I’ve got my mortgage to pay, rates, my daughter needs to go to the dentist, which I can’t afford,’ she told Michelle Stanley on ABC Radio Perth. ‘I can’t seem to get in front.'”

“Ms Richardson’s most recent mortgage payment was due two days ago. ‘I’ve got to ring the bank and let them know that I can’t make the payment,’ she said. There’s a chance that the bank will go no more and I’ll just lose everything — everything. And then what do I do? Where do I start from now?’ Ms Richardson said she recently tried to access her superannuation on hardship grounds, but was rejected because she was not receiving unemployment benefits. She is planning to reapply on compassionate grounds and says if that is unsuccessful she may be facing bankruptcy. ‘I’ve just got to keep trying because I’ve got nothing else,’ Ms Richardson said. ‘Otherwise, I’ll end up losing everything.'”

South China Morning Post. “A growing number of frustrated creditors are filing winding-up petitions against Chinese developers, with an unprecedented four cases coming before the Hong Kong courts last week. The surge in litigation is partly down to a strategic move by creditors to use the threat of liquidation to secure a better deal and recover more of what they are owed in a deteriorating market, according to restructuring advisors and lawyers. ‘A trend we’ve observed is that almost all the restructuring terms are worse than they were three years ago, from debt-exchange offers, debt-to-equity swaps and issuances of new bonds, to direct haircuts [a reduction in the debt to be repaid],’ said Glen Ho, national turnaround and restructuring leader at Deloitte, who is advising on several cases involving property firms. The current recovery rate [of a liquidation] is alarmingly low, often in the single digits and sometimes as dismal as 3 to 5 percent. We expect there to be a second wave of debt restructurings from 2025 onwards [as there will be] no significant improvement in sales or the confidence of home buyers.'”

The Daily Times in Pakistan. “As billions of rupees real estate industry is in shambles, small investors have desired from the government to introduce consumers oriented policies for their one-time bailout to save their hard earned money. Thousands of small investors had invested in real estate with hopes to earn some profit for their families, but in spite of earning any profit now even their principle amount is in danger due to prolonged recession in the industry. Already suffering from price hike and increasing cost of living, these investors are badly wedged in this downturn especially those who thought this small term investment, a panacea to their sufferings never knowing, these plots files could also haunt them.”

“‘Situation is too worrisome for us. We had purchased files to earn some profit but recession in industry has pushed us to wall,’ said a small investor Rashid Mahmood, who had booked a flat in Bahria Town, Rawalpindi. ‘I was swayed by boom in real estate and thought I could add to my little saving by investing in real estate. But, soon I got truck up like thousands others, due to abrupt recession.’ He revealed that after paying down payment and couple of installments, he dried up of finances and fear cancellation of his booking. ‘This may result in loss of my hard earned money. I had never expected such a recession where there would be no way out to dispose of my property. It is now almost two years or so that people are in serious trouble due to property prices going down by 50% to 70%. On the other hand the societies’ owners are pushing people for payments threatening them to cancel their files.'”

“These poor investors are now between the devil and the deep sea with no immediate ray of hope with some compelled to sell their ornaments or other valuables to pay societies installments. ‘I was not a billionaire. My aim was not to pile up wealth. I had just invested to earn some money for education and marriages of my children,’ remarked Abdul Rauf, another small investor. ‘But situation has completely changed and a small desire for profit has turned into a big loss. Neither, I have more money to pay nor my property has proper market value to sell out.'”

“Real estate agents are also in a fix due to prevailing situation as they had got invested billions of rupees of their clients with hopes of short term return and profit for them. ‘We had never expected such a recession when we advised our clients to invest. At that time there was a boom. But, now they are trapped and we also do not find any way out for them,’ said Aamir Chaudhry, a real estate agent. ‘Now, we have nothing to offer them instead of sheer hope of good days ahead. Those having solid property can hold it for some time. But, those invested in files are facing the dilemma of paying installments and other charges even when the value of property is continuously downing.'”

“As the real estate industry is facing turmoil like many other sectors of economy, an overall strategy was direly needed to save our middle class and small investors whose lives are getting miserable with every passing day.”