It’s All About Selling And Buying In The Market You’re In, Not An Imaginary Or A Fictional Market That You Want It To Be

A report from the Palm Springs Post in California. “The latest Desert Housing Report for October 2024 presents a mixed view of the Palm Springs housing market, reflecting broader regional trends of decreasing home prices and sales, despite a slight improvement in inventory levels. The Coachella Valley saw a decrease in the median price of detached homes, with Palm Springs experiencing a notable 8.7% year-over-year decline, bringing the average size home price down to approximately $1.13 million. This trend is part of a six-month decrease across the region, with the overall median price for detached homes in the Coachella Valley falling to $634,990.”

“Palm Springs recorded 91 sales over the past three months. The city still maintains robust activity compared to most neighboring areas, only surpassed by Palm Desert. As of Nov. 1, Coachella Valley’s inventory was 2,824 units. Palm Springs itself saw an increase in available homes — 652 were available, compared to 543 on Nov. 1 last year — suggesting a shift towards greater supply that could influence future pricing. Homes in Palm Springs are spending an average of 46 days on the market.”

Sarasota Magazine in Florida. “The housing market in Sarasota and Manatee counties continued its cooldown in October, with notable declines in sales, extended transaction times and increased inventory across property types, according to the Realtor Association of Sarasota and Manatee (RASM). In Sarasota County, the median sales price, while steady month-to-month at $490,000, marked a 5.8 percent decrease from last year. Inventory in Sarasota County rose significantly, with 2,952 active listings, a 21.8 percent increase from October 2023. In Manatee County, condo and townhouse sales fell by 24.7 percent, with 162 units sold. Median prices declined 11.4 percent, to $327,990. Inventory jumped by nearly 40 percent, with 1,285 active listings and a six-month supply.”

“David Crawford, broker/owner of Catalist Realty in Sarasota, notes that properties previously unavailable are now entering the market as some owners face financial constraints tied to rising insurance premiums, property taxes, and the high costs of rebuilding to current standards post-hurricane damage. As the Sarasota market recalibrates, Crawford emphasizes adaptability for both buyers and sellers, especially on the barrier islands. ‘We’re serving as sounding boards, helping clients navigate these unprecedented times calmly and methodically,’ he says.”

The Philadelphia Inquirer in Pennsylvania. “Four months after Philadelphia Sheriff Rochelle Bilal’s office pledged to take ‘corrective action’ to resolve widespread delays in recording deeds after property auctions, the process remains broken. For some buyers, it’s gotten even worse. Banks, real estate attorneys, construction financiers, real estate agents, and individual buyers tell The Inquirer they are having to wait for up to a year after sheriff sales to take possession of buildings and land. ‘It’s keeping new owners from doing anything with the properties,’ said Mary Jo Potts, a foreclosure specialist at Elfant Wissahickon Realtors who resells properties on behalf of banks. ‘They’re sitting there and failing apart. It’s causing a lot of blight in Philadelphia.'”

“‘I feel like I’ve been robbed,’ said one woman who purchased an investment property in March and has yet to receive the deed. ‘This was from our savings.’ ‘I’m taking a hit on this. I used a home equity line of credit, and I’m paying for that,’ Dave Brown, who purchased a rowhouse at a sheriff sale as a first-time renovation project, told The Inquirer in June. He was supposed to get the deed within 60 to 90 days. It ended up taking seven months. ‘I’ve lost a lot of sales,’ said Helene Lazarus, a real estate agent who has been hired to resell foreclosed properties. ‘People are just not waiting. They’re dropping out.'”

The Denver Gazette in Colorado. “There’s a classic saying that the City of Boulder is 25 square miles surrounded by reality. After years spent on the ever-intensifying frontlines of homelessness, Jen Livovich has a saying of her own. ‘Reality has come to Boulder.’ She blames the recent warp-speed availability of fentanyl and methamphetamine for the blight and the increase in aggressiveness among Boulder’s transient community. On Aug. 16, police and firefighters rushed to the Walgreens at 2870 28th St. on a life threatening overdose. ‘It looks like four doses of Narcan were administered and the party is now awake,’ advised dispatch. A first responder’s exhausted response from the ground spoke volumes: ‘The party is now upset with firefighters. He stood up. He’s walking away.'”

“Livovich insisted that housing is not enough to end homelessness and until the country changes that mindset, nothing will change. ‘Housing is not an intervention for mental health and addiction,’ she said. ‘Treatment and recovery is.'”

From CBS Colorado. “Fear has reached its tipping point for a former case manager at one of Denver’s homeless shelters. ‘I’ve never experienced anything like this,’ she said. ‘And I’ve worked in low-income facilities.’ What was even more concerning to her and the clients she worked with was how much they feared for their safety within the facility. ‘We’ve been experiencing a lot of domestic violence and there’s a lot of people that threaten us and say, ‘Well, we’re going to do things to your car,’ she said. ‘We had an individual that her husband kept her in a room and was beating her up and she had from head-to-toe bruises.'”

Fox 5 in Nevada. “A growing homeless encampment is causing problems for apartments right by UNLV, and workers and managers want solutions from Clark County leaders. Managers from two surrounding complexes tell FOX5, they battle dumpster-diving, trash from drugs and human waste, car break-ins and repeated apartment break-ins from squatters targeting vacant units. ‘We’re all sympathetic for the homeless, but the current homeless [people in the area]- there’s a criminal element there, and they do not want to take services. They don’t want to come off the street,’ said Commission Chair Tick Segerblom.”

The Morning Sentinel in Maine. “Gregg Perkins has experienced so many problems at his professional building on College Avenue that he has had to make costly upgrades to his lighting system and install security cameras outside. ‘Tenants have dealt with panhandling,’ Perkins said. ‘There’s been soliciting. I got solicited from a person asking if I was looking for a girl. I’ve had people sleeping in my building. I’ve had drug use in my building. Tenants have found needles there.'”

“Perkins, a real estate broker, owns and manages 32 College Ave., adjacent to the Waterville Area Soup Kitchen. His tenants include doctors, counselors and social service agencies. He is one of several downtown business owners who say customers, tenants and employees have been frightened when accosted and asked for money as they enter and leave their workplaces. City Manager Bryan Kaenrath said there were just under 800 calls for emergency service at Head of Falls in 2023 for incidents such as drug overdoses, assault, prostitution and sexual assault, which Kaenrath said was part of the justification for officials’ deciding to prohibit encampments. ‘The conditions they were living in down there were just horrible,’ Kaenrath said.”

The Chilliwack Progress in Canada. “Chilliwack council waived fees and development cost charges (DCCs) totalling almost $1.2 million at the Nov. 19 council meeting for an affordable housing project on Spadina Avenue. But before the vote, Coun. Jeff Shields took the opportunity to raise a ‘big’ concern he has about another project, the Trethewey supportive housing and homeless shelter project. ‘We have the good people of the United Church that donated a church property worth a fair bit of money in a nice area of town. We have really stepped up and showed our commitment to building housing but now I have this big concern with the other partner in this, which is the provincial government, responsible for building this housing.'”

“‘As we know we have one sitting over there on Trethewey and we’re into the second or third year of it sitting there not done. And I don’t have great confidence but I do hope the province is going to do a whole lot better on this one than it did on the last one,’ the councillor said. Chilliwack has proven ‘over and over again’ that it is willing to commit to this kind of housing, Shields said. ‘And still we kind of get left out, and left high and dry.'”

Newmarket Today in Canada. “Sales were up in Aurora but remained steady in Newmarket in October, while average prices came down in both towns last month, according to the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board. Average prices dropped in Newmarket last month, with September coming in at $1,128,773, while average prices in October were at $1,077,014. This was also down from October 2023, when prices were at an average of $1,155,339. The average prices of homes sold in Aurora last month dropped by more than $100,000, down from $1,505,401 in September to an average price of $1,381,537 in October. That’s also slightly lower than the average price in October 2023, which was at $1,387,256.”

“Jeffrey Graves, a sales representative with Royal LePage Your Community Realty said it’s currently a ‘very balanced market’ in Aurora, with plenty of supply. This means buyers can negotiate for good sales conditions, and sellers may need desirable features like renovated kitchens, bathrooms, and finished basements to stand out, he added. ‘It’s all about selling and buying in the market you’re in, not an imaginary or a fictional market that you want it to be,’ he said.”

BBC News in the UK. “In 2016, Michele McInroy was overjoyed to pick up the keys to her new home – a two-bedroom flat in a refurbished building in Woolwich, south London. But her joy soon soured. Communal areas were neglected, lifts didn’t work and repairs went unfixed, Michele says. Earlier this year, her service charge increased to around £10,000 a year, marking a 320% rise in five years. Michele, who works as a civil servant, hopes to move from the capital to Dundee to be closer to her grandson but she is struggling to sell the flat. ‘I’m losing time that I could be spending with my family that’s really precious to me,’ she says. ‘I just feel trapped and there is absolutely nothing I can do.'”

“Across England and Wales, other homeowners are telling similar stories, as annual service charges have risen significantly. The average is currently £2,321, up 44% since 2016, according to estate agent Hamptons. In London it’s £2,500, marking a 52% increase in the same period. Others I have spoken to say their service charges have increased by 400-500% in that time. As Sebastian O’Kelly, chief executive of the Leasehold Knowledge Partnership, puts it: investors cottoned on to the fact they could make money out of the boom in newbuild apartment blocks that have sprung up across the country over the last 25 years. Income from ground rents and lease extensions as well as the rising value of the land itself all make this lucrative. ‘We’re talking about a multi-billion pound property sector.’ He argues that leaseholders are at the mercy of companies who are ‘just there to make money out of them.'”

The Daily Telegraph in Australia. “The Suffolk Park offering Pompano House, listed by Darren Palmer of The Block and his husband Olivier Duvillard, seems set for a bigger loss. After costing $3.85 million in the pandemic-induced 2021 regional property boom, it came with initial $3.1 million to $3.3 million guidance in a ‘quiet listing’ through Byron Bay First National agent Jane Johnston. The guidance was then tweaked to $2.95 million to $3.245 million. Now it comes with $2.55 million to $2.8 million guidance through Johnston. The couple have also yet to sell their Bondi Beach home, which came with initial $9.5 million hopes in August. Its last known guidance was $8.5 million.”