I’m Going To Take My Losses Now And Get Out With Whatever I Can

It’s Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. “The Austin housing market has seen a drastic change in the last five years. It is now balancing itself out after homes were selling at an unsustainable rate just a few years ago. Homeowner Mark Mata has lived in his home with his family for eight years. He says selling right now has come with its challenges, like trying to please potential buyers. ‘They (the buyers) can ask for more things than they could have a year ago.’ He said he is selling for less than he would have liked. ‘If we would have sold a year ago, it would have been like 100 to 120 more than what’s on the market now,’ he said.”

“An Eagle homebuilder was sentenced on a felony forgery charge. Kerry Angelos, 62, pleaded guilty at an Aug. 6 hearing to forging the signatures of two Eagle residents, his clients at the time, without their knowledge to obtain a construction loan to build their dream home. He pursued the loan despite previously indicating to them that he didn’t want to work with a bank or get a traditional construction loan. On Tuesday, 4th District Judge Cynthia Yee-Wallace in Boise ordered Angelos to pay $400,000 in restitution to Jay and Julene Quinlan as part of a plea deal. Jay Quinlan said in a statement before the court that Angelos’ actions caused the family to lose its lifelong savings, and resulted in lost time with their children and emotional distress. ‘The defendant’s actions were not just a financial crime — they shattered our sense of security and trust in others,’ Quinlan said.”

“Mounds of sand swallowing their homes? That’s the reality for some after Hurricanes Helene and Milton clobbered Florida’s Gulf Coast with back-to-back hits in less than two weeks. Ron and Jean Dyer said the storms blew about 3 feet (0.9 meters) of sand up against their condo building on Venice Island. ‘The beach just moved over everything,’ Ron Dyer said. Storm recovery contractor Larry West estimates that his team will do about $300,000 worth of work just to clean up all the sand and debris left behind at one of the condo buildings he’s restoring in Manasota Key. He expects many property owners, especially those who don’t have flood insurance, will have to pay out of pocket for this kind of cleanup. ‘The poor homeowner who’s going to have to spend $150,000 cleaning up, that’s going to hurt them hard,’ West said.”

“A bill aimed at freeing up unused housing space on Oahu is getting closer to becoming law. Bill 46 would add a 3% tax for every vacant dwelling unit on a residential property. ‘Our dream was to purchase a second home in Mokuleia to use and to leave a legacy property for our children and grandchildren for future enjoyment,’ said one Oahu resident. ‘We will now have to pay $100,000 per year to keep the home.'”

“Squatters have taken over a home in an Atlanta suburb on a property owned by a rent-to-own real estate company. Mykah Richard, a member of the homeowners association at the Villas at Camp Creek in South Fulton, told Fox Atlanta the squatters moved into a home and have disrupted the quality of life in the area. ‘We’ve had very aggressive fights in the middle of the night. We’ve had large parties, liquor bottles and trash being left in our community,’ Richard said. Residents told authorities the squatters have occupied the home for the past year and a half, police said. In May, authorities evicted squatters who had been living in the home since October 2023, the report states. There was another eviction last summer, and the most recent group of squatters reportedly moved in in late August. ‘It’s a problem, and it’s at this same location,’ Richard said.”

“Logan Browne thought he already experienced sticker shock from his Bushwick condo building’s insurance rate tripling last year. Then, this summer, the insurance company dropped the building, citing a ‘loss ratio’ that Browne, the condo board president, said related to water damage claims in 2020 and 2023 after heavy rainfall flooded the basement. As a result of insurance costs alone, each apartment’s common charges nearly doubled this year. ‘We’re getting to the point where we’re having to make assessments for the building every few months just to keep up the funding,’ Browne said. ‘I hope it doesn’t come to a point where someone can’t afford the assessment.'”

“Home sales slowed in September in San Diego County and across the state, the California Association of Realtors announced Thursday. ‘The inventory of homes for sale has steadily improved in recent months as the market moves into the typical off-peak home-buying season,’ the association’s President Melanie Barker said in a statement. ‘With home prices likely to moderate further in the coming months, the fourth quarter could offer an opportunity for potential buyers who have been waiting to re-enter the market, especially as interest rates gradually return to historical averages.'”

“The Philadelphia Housing Authority has been ramping up a campaign to get more voucher holders into higher income areas of the city. Why are developers suddenly interested in vouchers? ‘We are seeing a significant shift,’ said Kelvin Jeremiah, PHA’s president. ‘The [abundant] supply is one factor. But I think the primary factor has been that PHA is paying a market-rate rent.’ ‘A lot of owners are having a hard time depending on where they’re located, especially in Fishtown or Kensington,’ said Harrison Finberg, principal with Fairhill Property Group, who began courting voucher holders in 2022. ‘I know people who have buildings in those areas whose business plan probably wouldn’t have worked if they were only relying on market tenants last year, because of the COVID glut of units. There’s a big difference between conceivably accepting someone who comes to you, versus actively marketing to that segment of the market — which is what’s happening now.'”

“Brandywine Realty Trust is looking for the exits on its 4.5M SF D.C.-area office portfolio. The Philadelphia-based REIT plans to offload its properties, except for some land, in the area over the next few years, the Philadelphia Business Journal reported. Brandywine CEO Jerry Sweeney said the market, once Brandywine’s biggest, has been bitten by the the federal workforce’s stalled return to office, calling the lack of progress a ‘killer.’ ‘Our capital costs combined with net effective rents just made me conclude we got to get out of the market,’ Sweeney said.”

“Bawelaya Isho is ready to end his foray into real estate investing. The 28-year-old car mechanic became a landlord two years ago, paying C$600,000 ($436,000) for a two-bedroom condo in the small but fast-growing city of Barrie, about an hour north of where he lives in Toronto’s suburbs. It’s been costing him about C$1,600 every month because his mortgage payments spiked with higher interest rates, outpacing what he can charge in rent. ‘I was in the red pretty deep, but I was trying to focus on, ‘Let’s hold on to this place and maybe in a couple of years I can make some money and flip it,’ Isho said. But though rates are finally falling, he’s had enough of bleeding cash every month. He plans to list the property this month for about C$80,000 less than he paid. ‘I’m going to take my losses now and get out with whatever I can,’ he said.”

“Smaller landlords have come to account for nearly a third of all mortgaged purchases, and lower rents make it harder for these owners to hold on. ‘The tenants really have the power,’ said Danielle Levy, a Toronto-area real estate broker who is currently working with five renter clients looking to move in search of better deals. ‘Right now people are trying to move out from those places from last year to get cheaper rents.'”

“‘Investors are looking to sell,’ said Shaun Hildebrand, Urbanation’s president. ‘You have all this supply coming in, most of it is investor-owned, and it’s hitting the market all at once.’ Tegiola Xhemalaj and her brother have been renting through their property company. They bought the home in the city of Mississauga, Ontario with a plan to knock it down and replace it with something new. But skyrocketing interest rates made that impossible, and even renting out the property left the siblings almost C$3,400 in the hole each month. So when their tenant moved out earlier this year, they decided to sell. ‘We couldn’t justify financially to lose that much money every month,’ Xhemalaj said. ‘It made a lot more sense for us to get rid of this property.'”

“The daily newsletter I get from a stock market analyst reported that ‘According to Leechiu Property Consultants (LPC), there is now an oversupply of 29 months’ worth of condominium units in Metro Manila.’ LPC said ‘there are currently 67,600 units across 510 actively selling buildings in Metro Manila, the highest since the COVID-19 pandemic. Quezon City has the biggest number of available units with 18,500; followed by Ortigas with 13,500; the Bay Area in Pasay with 10,500; Manila with 8,500; and Caloocan with 8,100.’ I assume the inventory will be higher after December 31, the day POGOs are supposed to close according to BBM’s order.”

“A condo glut is inevitable. Property developers remind me of the ‘hot pandesal’ craze when I was growing up. When someone puts up a hot pandesal business in a neighborhood, two or three more will do the same. Property developers are not thinking of an end user occupying those units when they build them. Condos are being built and sold as a place to park excess cash. The current oversupply being reported by Leechiu is not surprising. The spam messages I keep getting from property sales agents trying to sell me a condo unit sound desperate. I had Sunday lunch at Estancia at Capitol Commons in Pasig and sales agents were trying hard to interest me in ‘investing’ in Ortigas condo units across the street.”

“As we were driving around the Bay area last Saturday for lunch at the Hyatt in City of Dreams, I was astounded by the large number of residential condo units being built but with construction seemingly at a standstill. Who is going to buy all of those units once completed? I am reminded of the ghost cities of China created by property developers who built similar condo buildings with no regard to who will buy them and live there.”

“One of Australia‘s most high-profile strata management firms, Netstrata, has been quietly dumping years of past insurance invoices into its clients’ online portals. For the first time, apartment owners can see how much they have paid in brokerage fees to Netstrata’s insurance arm. In some cases the fees are as high as six times the typical industry rate. Kerrie Hutchinson’s Sutherland unit block was previously charged a brokerage fee of 148 per cent of the base insurance premium. A typical ‘fee for service’ brokerage fee equates to 20 to 25 per cent of the base premium, according to industry experts. ‘My jaw was hanging off. I couldn’t believe it,’ she said.”

“Alison Steele’s Camperdown complex paid brokerage fees as high as 115 per cent of the base premium. Ms Steele, who is the treasurer of her strata committee, said it felt like a ‘real betrayal of trust.’ ‘These people are meant to be managing for us, not ripping us off,’ she said.”

“China’s home prices fell by the most in nine years in September, extending a decline for the 16th consecutive month and underscoring the challenges to revive the sector despite a top government official saying that the market has started to ‘bottom out’ following a slew of supportive measures. New home prices dropped 6.1 per cent across 70 mainland cities from a year earlier, the biggest decline since May 2015. The decline expanded from a 5.7 per cent slump in August, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Friday. ‘The housing market is experiencing a deep adjustment, as a ‘bottom’ is being formed gradually through three years of overcorrection,’ said Yan Yuejin, vice-president of Shanghai-based E-House China Real Estate Research Institute.”

“Sales at the nation’s top 100 home builders in the first nine months of the year fell 38.8 per cent from a year earlier, according to data published this month by the China Index Academy.”