It Is Crickets, Buyers Have Checked Out, Nothing Happening

A report from the Coeur d’Alene Press in Idaho. “Meet Nick Shriner, who is originally from the scenic landscapes of Wyoming — yes, it’s a real state — and made his way to Coeur d’Alene in 2010. His dedication to the real estate realm was further exemplified when he joined the Coeur d’Alene Regional Realtors board in 2021. What is shaking in our local real estate world these days? In 2024, our local real estate market has eased up a bit, marking a healthy shift from the fast-paced sellers’ market of recent years toward a more balanced environment. Buyers now have the opportunity to explore more homes thoughtfully. Additionally, new construction is up 20% from last year, expanding the range of options available to buyers. There are now approximately 2,200 Realtors in Kootenai County, most of whom joined within the last five years. I’d bet that everyone reading this knows at least a couple of Realtors! But the biggest change by far has been home values. When I first started, the median home price was around $200,000, and today, it stands at about $530,000.”

From Willamette Week. “Last week, Portland’s only Cinnabon, which operated in the Lloyd Center Mall, closed up shop. That is a sufficient explanation for why Oregonians are moving to other states. Nonetheless, people continue to search for other ways to explain the population loss. Here’s what our readers had to say: Appropriate-Owl7025, via Reddit: ‘Oregon is more expensive than the jobs that pay to work here. It’s pretty simple. It’s a high-cost outdoor recreation state now.’ Mobile-Effective-988, via Reddit: ‘Jobs are sparse, pay is god awful, housing is overpriced, groceries are just as bad. Pay raises amount to pay cuts ‘cause they don’t rise to match the rate of inflation. I love this state, but I feel like this state doesn’t want me to live here.'”

“David Visse, via wweek.com: ‘I highly suspect the reality of those leaving; lower costs is more of a bonus than the reason. The reason is crime, homeless, riots, failing Portland public schools, rampant open drug use, public (and I mean very public) restrooms, among others. Add extremely high taxation on top of it, and you get ‘Goodbye!’ In addition, no one in their right mind will move here to start business, horrible environment for that.’ Roberta Nopson, via Twitter: ‘Moving to Free States and away from Oregon leadership that has sunk the state financially and education.'”

The Colorado Sun. “Now that the election is over, the Colorado housing market seems primed for buyers this winter. ‘Affordability is a challenge and is at its highest level of concern in the past couple of decades,’ said Cooper Thayer, a Denver-area Realtor at The Thayer Group. ‘One of my specific concerns is the condo market, which has really struggled.’ In Denver, median condo sale prices dropped 6.5% to $402,000 while the number of sales fell 12.9%. Statewide, condo prices fell 4.5% and sales dropped 5.1%. But what doesn’t show up in Denver County’s numbers could be a good sign for house hunters who’ve been priced out. The county had a 37.6% increase in home sales in October and 55% of the closed transactions had some sort of seller concession, Thayer said. The average was $8,760, which can be anything from a rate buydown or the seller covering closing costs or the cost to fix items after an inspection.”

“Concessions don’t always affect the sale price and don’t show up in the monthly data. ‘Being that half of the transactions had a concession,’ Thayer said, ‘when you reframe how you’re thinking about pricing and put it into a net number, it may actually be a little bit lower than the prices that are being reported.’ Sellers were negotiating ‘and dropping their prices to get their places sold before the snow flies,’ according to Dana Cottrell, a Realtor in Summit County. Inventory for Summit, Park and Lake counties was up 30% while median prices were down 13%. Jay Gupta, a Colorado Springs Realtor, noted that 44.2% of active homes for sale reduced the price in El Paso County last month, while Teller County saw 30.7% cut prices. ‘Buyers currently have excellent opportunities due to high inventory levels, motivated sellers, and dropping interest rates,’ Gupta said.”

“Affordability is still one of the biggest issues in the area, said Patrick Muldoon, head of Muldoon Associates in Colorado Springs. ‘On my side, it is crickets. Part of it may be the mental side of the election. But I believe it is still affordability and the economy. Buyers have checked out,’ Muldoon said in an email, adding that showings have slowed as a result. ‘I don’t think I have ever seen stagnation in the housing market like this. Nothing happening.'”

The Miami Herald. “The cost of living in South Florida usually heads in one direction: Up. But apartment hunters have reason to rejoice. Rents have been on the decline for the past two years. You read that right. In the land of soaring real estate prices — the cost of a house, the soaring association fees for condo owners — rents are down in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach. What’s behind the fall in rents? Developers keep building, surpassing the level of demand, said Daryl Fairweather, chief economist at Redfin. ‘Florida benefited from remote work during the pandemic because of the lifestyle, but then with all of those people rents went up,’ Fairweather said. ‘Development increased to meet demand, which brought up inventory and mitigates rent increases.'”

From NBC Miami. “District 37 runs from Sunny Isles Beach up to the Palm Beach County line. It is one of the Florida senate districts with the highest concentration of condo units. ‘We’re a truck full of condos,’ said State Senator Jason Pizzo, a Democrat who represents district 37 in Tallahassee. Pizzo also lives in a condo and says he hears from concerned condo constituents every day. ‘We saw for an entire generation people were waiving reserves, which was allowed by law, and really just sort of passing the buck, kicking the can, deferring maintenance,’ Pizzo said. ‘The reality is you can’t slow down father time and mother nature is undefeated, right? So whatever we do up in a chamber in Tallahassee is not gonna slow down or stop the aging of a roof or other structural components.'”

“South Florida real estate company ISG World showed in the third quarter of 2024, there were 20,080 active condo listings in Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties. Of those listings, 85% (17,041) were for condos in buildings that were older than 30 years. ‘The 30-year plus, that is very, very difficult to sell right now because of the fear of special assessments,’ said Craig Studnicky, CEO of ISG World. ‘I think the state of Florida is gonna have to help these condominium associations finance these special assessments.’ Pizzo said that is not likely to happen. ‘There’s no state bailout coming,’ Pizzo said. ‘There’s no financing coming from the state. It’s just, the numbers are not there. The resources aren’t there.'”

From Hey Socal. “A grand jury in Los Angeles has indicted 14 people accused of perpetrating a more than $3 million mortgage fraud scheme in five Southern California counties and the Sacramento area, state Attorney General Rob Bonta announced Friday. The unsealed grand jury indictment is against the owners of three mortgage brokerage firms and 11 affiliates allegedly involved in using fraudulent applications and financial documentation to obtain eight loans totaling $3.69 million. Unsuspecting borrowers then used fraudulent loans to buy properties in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego and Sacramento counties.”

“State prosecutors allege the brokers submitted loan applications that contained inaccurate information about their clients’ income, employment details and in some cases divorce documentation. The firms provided lenders with falsified documents, including pay stubs, W-2 forms, alimony checks and child support payments, ‘in an effort to mislead lending institutions into approving and issuing mortgage loans,’ according to Bonta’s office. ‘Clients placed their trust in the defendants to secure a home loan, only to find themselves burdened with unexpectedly high mortgage payments and inaccurate documentation,’ according to the AG’s office.”

The Globe and Mail in Canada. “Toronto realtor Scott Ingram tracks membership at the largest real estate board in the country, the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board. The drop at peak renewal time – from December, 2023 to January, 2024 – was 8 per cent (to about 69,000 from the December peak of 75,496), making it the steepest fall since 1991. The reality is that a huge volume of TRREB agents aren’t doing much actual home selling. ‘According to my research through a third-party company that tracks transactions, just over 43,000 agents were credited with one or more transactions in the past 12 months,’ said David Fleming, a broker with Bosley Toronto Realty Group Inc. ‘Over 14,000 agents were credited with exactly one transaction.’ By process of elimination, that means almost 30,000 TRREB agents did no transactions at all.”

Global News in Canada. “Ontario’s financial watchdog is pouring fresh cold water on the Ford government’s ambitious plan to build 1.5 million new homes by 2031, with a new report signalling construction continues to stall and the number of new single-family homes is at its lowest in almost 70 years. ‘Construction of single detached homes has been weak so far in 2024 and is on track for the lowest level of annual starts on record back to 1955,’ the Financial Accountability Office of Ontario’s report said.”

The BBC on Wales. “Buying a home on a brand new estate is meant to offer peace of mind, free from the potential pitfalls of older homes. But people living on Fern Meadow in Wrexham have been plagued by issues including unfinished roads and pavements, flooding, and loose sockets and holes in their ceilings. The 360-home development was built in 2020, but most of the estate’s roads and pavements are yet to be surfaced. For James Evans and Melissa Brimer, who moved in just over 18 months ago, it is the look of the estate that is a big concern, with unfinished roads and makeshift ramps. Mr Evans said the ‘lack of communication’ and ‘poor after-sale care’ was frustrating.”

“Another resident, who did not want to give their name, said he and his partner commissioned their own independent engineering report after persistent flooding in their garage, driveway, and garden. They also notified the National House Building Council about issues inside including a sinking kitchen floor and a gas leak which left them with no heating, but said developers seem ‘not to be answerable to anyone’ ‘You are left in a wilderness. You would have better consumer protection if you were buying a pair of shoes,’ they added.”

Radio New Zealand. “Wellington’s average rate of home value decline slowed to 2.3 percent from 3.2 percent in the previous three-month period. ‘Heightened job insecurity is being more keenly felt in the capital. Otherwise, most of New Zealand’s other main centres appear to be bouncing along the bottom now,’ QV operations manager James Wilson said. ‘Prospective buyers have to weigh up the benefits of falling interest rates and having a smorgasbord of properties to choose from, versus rising unemployment and increased job insecurity.'”

The Herald Sun in Australia. “Six of the 10 areas with the best performing home values since the last federal poll are held by Coalition politicians, according to CPA Advisory analysis. By contrast, typical prices in the seat of Goldstein held by Teal independent Zoe Daniel have plunged more than $330,000 – the biggest drop of any federal electorate in the state, and the third worst in the country. The next poorest performing area was Melbourne, the seat held by Greens leader Adam Bandt — down almost $170,000. Property Investors Council of Australia director Ben Kingsley said with most people linking the federal government with the economy’s performance – and property values the method by which most homeowning voters would use to rate their elected representatives – Victoria’s broad decline in prices was likely to ‘show up in ballot boxes.’ ‘We saw what happened with the Trump rebirth: do people feel better off or worse off under the current leadership?’ Mr Kingsley said.”

“He added that the coming election would also test how much people are willing to accept home values falling as a social good while they are paying potentially seven figures in interest to their bank over a 30-year loan. ‘At some stage there’s a tipping point of just how much they will accept,’ Mr Kingsley said. ‘I think you will see that they won’t tolerate it — as long as they are aware of it. And if they aren’t aware in this election cycle, they will be in the next federal electoral cycle.'”