Investors Who Bought In Pre-Sales Are Finding The Units Are Worth Less Than They Paid

A report from the Wall Street Journal. “It is getting more costly to be in a homeowner’s association or condo. Dues are rising faster than inflation for many of the roughly 76 million residents of communities that keep shared pots to pay for expenses. ‘Buyers are spending much of their monthly payment on things other than the property itself,’ said Joel Berner, senior economist at Realtor.com. Judy Goldstein said her $12,500-a-year HOA dues are another expense to worry about for the upkeep of her roughly 1,800-square-foot, three-bedroom house in Boynton Beach, Fla. Real-estate agents have told her that her dues are high for the area and have deterred some buyers. Goldstein, 82 years old, is hoping to be able to sell before she also has to pay a coming special assessment: about $780 to fund a pickleball court that she has no intention of using. ‘It’s all too much,’ she said.”

“In some parts of Washington state, including the Seattle area, homeowners association dues have more than doubled over the last year on average, according to Realtor.com. Condo association dues are up 6% nationwide this year versus last, and as much as 15% in parts of Florida, according to Redfin. They are generally mandatory and not negotiable. HOAs may foreclose on owners for unpaid dues, which can result in the loss of an owner’s home, said Pierre Debbas, a real estate lawyer in New York City. Associations are meant to help homeowners financially by ensuring property values in their neighborhood don’t go down, said Rick Sharga, CEO of CJ Patrick, a real estate consulting firm. The evidence is mixed on whether HOAs actually support property values. Residents and property managers alike say that a community that never raises dues could fall into disrepair.”

The Denver Post. “‘Insurance providers en masse have decided that if the roof is more than 10 years old we won’t insure it,’ said Matt Metcalf, a managing broker at Mile High Home Pro, which is both a real estate and mortgage brokerage. In the past, the age of a roof usually didn’t become an issue until it topped 20 years. And if there was damage on younger roofs, insurers were willing to accept a repair instead of a full replacement, Metcalf said. But Metcalf has had two recent transactions where the roof had to unexpectedly be replaced, requiring some tough negotiations between the two sides to resolve the issue. Who pays for a replacement roof often comes down to who has more bargaining power, and the inability to obtain insurance coverage has the potential to kill deals, agents report. ‘I have gotten much more aggressive when writing offers,’ Metcalf said. ‘Ask the age of the roof before you write the offer.'”

“‘A lot of homeowners can’t come out of pocket with $8,000 to $10,000 plus their deductible. And this is after they have been paying insurance premiums the whole time,’ said Dustin Pitney, owner of Sky Manor Roofing & Exteriors in Thornton and a board member of the Denver Metro Association of Realtors. What if the buyer wants to go with impact-resistant shingles as the insurance industry advises, seeing it as a way to head off problems in the future? Metcalf said one compromise is to have the seller pay for the standard roof replacement while the buyer pays for the upgraded shingles. That adds another level of haggling to a home sale, which already has plenty. Getting a roof inspection is something that should be done before listing a home, Pitney advises. For starters, if a potential buyer can’t find coverage because of pre-existing damage, it could block a sale, wasting time in a market that continues to shift in favor of buyers.”

From Fortune. “President-elect Donald Trump drew more support from a broad range of voters in the 2024 election compared to 2020, and you can add Americans stuck in tough housing markets to the list. An NBC News analysis of housing and voting data show that the counties where it’s most difficult to buy a home saw the biggest shifts toward Trump. The top 20% with the toughest housing markets saw a 4.2-point shift to the Republican side. That outpaced the nationwide median, which showed a 3.1-point tilt to Trump, according to NBC. ‘Housing prices are a big part of the inflation story, especially the most persistent and severe parts of the inflation story,’ Bernard Fraga, an Emory University professor specializing in voter turnout, told NBC. ‘So you can’t separate out the price of housing from voters’ general concerns about the state of the economy.'”

“Early in the 2024 election season, housing had emerged as a major issue. According to a Redfin-commissioned survey released in March, more than half of homeowners and renters said housing affordability was influencing their vote. And almost two-thirds of homeowners and renters said housing affordability made them feel negatively about the economy. Housing will likely be top of mind as Democrats engage in post-election autopsies and where they need to improve.”

From NBC News. “America’s housing crisis isn’t just reshaping where Americans live — experts say it’s reshaping how some vote. Many of the counties that swung most dramatically toward Donald Trump on Election Day were also among America’s toughest housing markets, according to an analysis of election returns. And it wasn’t just Republican counties voting even more strongly for Republicans. Multiple battleground states — Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina and Pennsylvania — were home to dozens of these struggling markets. ‘This was economics,’ said Robert Shapiro, a political science professor at Columbia University, who added that the financial challenges Americans face could have cost Democrats the election. ‘Voters were feeling economic hardship to an extent that was not fully appreciated by the Democrats, by the administration — the Harris campaign picked up on it, but it was too little, too late,’ Shapiro said. ‘And the price of housing figures into this heavily.'”

KUTV in Utah. “Three cities in Davis County all say no to either homeless shelters or Code Blue warming shelters. Sen. Todd Weiler said there needs to be decisive leadership from Davis County, and the county needs to propose a logical site. ‘It’s been a little bit of a political hot potato,’ said Weiler. Weiler is referring to Davis County and three cities there — North Salt Lake, Fruit Heights and Kaysville — that have said no to proposed homeless shelters and warming centers in their neighborhoods. ‘I’ve talked to some of the mayors, and it seems like there’s a lot of finger-pointing going on around. Nobody wants to, I think, get the wrath of their voters if it ends up in their neighborhood,’ Weiler said.”

ABC 7 in California. “The city of Irvine’s plan to buy two properties on Armstrong Avenue was halted at the last minute in a 3-2 vote by council members earlier this week. ‘It hadn’t been seen by the planning commission. It hadn’t been seen by our finance commission. It hadn’t been seen by our transportation commission,’ council member Michael Carroll said. ‘And most importantly, it had not been seen by the actual residents living right next to this potential facility.’ The Council voted last month in favor of acquiring the buildings for nearly $20 million. Their goal would have been to use the facilities as part of a bridge housing project to address homelessness. However, on Tuesday many people who live near the properties said that decision lacked transparency. ‘Here, they skipped the entire process. They went into voting, securing the real estate piece with a two week closing of escrow transaction,’ Andrea Serrano said.”

“Many of them showed up to an emergency meeting to voice their frustrations but left relieved with the Council’s narrow decision to not move forward with the purchase. ‘I’m extremely happy with the way the vote turned out, and it’s super relieving for us as a community because we are a community built around family, built around business, so I just don’t think this is the place for a shelter like that,’ Maverick Young, an 18-year-old Irvine resident said. Residents are happy their input was taken in consideration. ‘In this case we learned how to speak up,’ Chan Tran said. ‘We learned how to mobilize, and we learned that our voices really matter.'”

From CNN. “Much of the U.S. federal workforce is on edge and bracing itself for the likelihood its ranks will be purged when President-elect Donald Trump takes office. Trump, who has derided civil servants as agents of the ‘deep state,’ promised on the campaign trail to reinstate a 2020 executive order known as Schedule F, giving him the power to commence mass firings of nonpartisan federal employees who might spoil Trump’s partisan plans. ‘I would say there is a general feeling of dread among everyone,’ one Energy Department employee told CNN.”

“Out of the more than 2 million federal employees working in the US and abroad, Schedule F could have a profound impact on the DC-Maryland-Virginia metro area, where nearly 449,000 federal workers live, according to a 2024 report. The District of Columbia itself has the largest individual chunk of federal workers in any state or territory, with more than 162,000. Some federal workers and their unions are also warily eying Trump’s proposal for a government efficiency commission that would be headed by billionaire Elon Musk, who has pushed for such a task force and promised it could slash $2 trillion in government spending. Other former Trump officials have suggested entire federal offices should be slashed in addition to individuals being fired. ‘If there are offices currently in operation that don’t meaningfully contribute to agency missions’ under Trump, ‘those need to go,’ said Mandy Gunasekara, the former EPA chief of staff.”

Bisnow on Georgia. “Atlanta’s hotel market has faced headwinds in 2024 so far, but those have been blowing at a gale force for hoteliers in Central Perimeter. ‘All the hotels are empty. The mall is empty,’ Hunter Hotel Advisors CEO Teague Hunter said onstage at the Grand Hyatt Buckhead. ‘Everything’s empty.’ State Farm, the district’s largest employer with 5,000 workers, switched to a hybrid work model in 2021. It leases a three-building office campus overlooking Interstate 285, and its employee’s infrequent presence at the campus has hammered not only Central Perimeter hotel performance but sales prices as well, Hunter said.”

“‘You can all see and touch and feel a giant billion-dollar new office building. It’s empty. When are they coming back? Who knows?’ Hunter said. ‘I guess if you’re an insurance company, you don’t need people to come back.’ Legacy Ventures CEO David Marvin said performance at the Hyatt Regency Atlanta hotel — the $48M full-service hotel that is part of the Perimeter Summit office park — ‘tanked’ as well because of remote work. The impact on hotel performance is taking a bite out of values, too, Hunter said.”

“An affiliate of Starwood Capital Group paid $50M for the 275-room Le Méridien Atlanta Perimeter upscale hotel across from Perimeter Mall in Dunwoody before the pandemic, then marketed it for sale. Hunter said Starwood received offers for upwards of $58M but decided not to sell. Earlier this year, with a $30M Bank of America loan coming due, Starwood unloaded the hotel for $22M to Ohio-based Whitestone Cos. Le Méridien’s precipitous value decline is a common story in Central Perimeter, Hunter said.”

CBC News in Canada. “John Pasalis, a real estate broker in Toronto, says condo units shrunk in response to affordability concerns as smaller units are cheaper to buy. It was also a way for first-time home buyers to enter the market. But these condos — some as small as 300 square feet — attracted the attention of a different kind of buyer. ‘As investors started to make up a bigger share of the condominium market, they wanted more affordable units. They needed a lower down payment. So one way to make the units less expensive is just to make them smaller,’ said Pasalis, the head of Realosophy.”

“Investors bought the diminutive units in pre-sales, which allowed the developers to reach construction sooner, Pasalis said. He says about two thirds of all micro-condos in Toronto and Vancouver are owned by investors. But as interest rates spiked in recent years, the demand for these tiny condos began to shrink — and a lot of investors put them on the market. Now, thousands of units are up for sale. ‘The condo market basically has a record number of condominiums available for sale, and that’s been going on for the past two or three months — just about 11,000 units for sale, which is the highest for any month in any given year ever,’ Pasalis said. Pasalis says the investors who bought tiny condos in pre-sales are finding the units are worth less than they paid four or five years ago, and he thinks those prices won’t recover any time soon. ‘When they do the math on the rents, it just doesn’t make sense financially,’ Pasalis said.”

From Reuters. “German commercial property prices fell 4.7% in the third quarter from a year earlier but showed continued signs of stabilisation, the VDP banking association said on Monday, as the country’s real estate sector grapples with its worst crisis in decades. It is still too early to sound the all-clear, VDP said. Prices may move sideways in the coming quarters, and further setbacks are possible given a weak economy and geopolitical risks. ‘It’s still too early to talk about the start of a sustainable upturn in the real estate market,’ VDP’s Chief Executive Jens Tolckmitt said.”

From ABC News. “The latest data suggests a shift toward a buyers’ market in Canberra this spring, but only for those who can afford to put a deposit together. CoreLogic Australia’s head of research, Eliza Owen, said Canberra’s housing market could be described as ‘pretty slow and steady,’ but with a little more weakness in recent months. Ms Owen said there had been more sellers than buyers in spring, and part of that may have to do with some people waiting for interest rates to come down. ‘But I do think part of it is that just not as many people can participate in the housing market right now because prices are still very high,’ she said.”

“But Ms Owens said for the Canberrans who could afford to put a deposit together it was a buyers’ market. ‘Sales volumes are a little lower than what we would usually see, competition [is] a little less fierce, and more people [are] looking to sell,’ she said. ‘That’s why fundamentally prices are declining at the moment across Canberra; people are able to negotiate lower purchase prices, and ultimately that lowers the value of the housing market as well.’ She said house values were down about six per cent down from the peak in May 2022. ‘They’re still 30 per cent higher than what they were at the onset of the pandemic, but we’ve certainly seen more of a shift towards a buyers’ market this spring,’ she said.”

South China Morning Post. “‘We expect Hong Kong home prices to be up 5 per cent in 2025,’ said Praveen Choudhary, head of Hong Kong real estate research at Morgan Stanley. ‘This is significant since it would be the first annual price increase in the last five years, during which time property prices have corrected by roughly 25 per cent.’ Headwinds to a more forceful recovery in the city’s residential property sector include various risks posed by Donald Trump returning to the White House, as well as a nagging pool of unsold inventory that is hanging over the market.”

“Mark Leung, a Greater China property research analyst for UBS, said Trump-related downside risks include ‘a potential surge in the unemployment rate due to macro uncertainty, including US tariffs,’ adding that the outlook for interest rates will become more uncertain ‘if US inflation picks up.’ Home prices, however, have yet to bottom out. Prices for the city’s lived-in homes fell by about 1.7 per cent in September to their lowest level since August 2016, according to data from the Rating and Valuation Department on Tuesday. Prices have slumped 28 per cent since hitting an all-time high in 2021 and are down 7.5 per cent this year. Prices will remain soft through the first half of next year as developers continue to clear inventory, said Xavier Lee, an equity analyst at Morningstar.”