This Kind Of Stuff Can Ruin People

A report from Sarasota Magazine in Florida. “Earlier this month, Debi Reynolds was installed as the 2025 president of the Realtor Association of Sarasota and Manatee. Reynolds has seen a psychological shift in buyers. ‘Sellers, too, sometimes have unrealistic expectations about their home’s value, which can lead to frustration. Many people got caught up in the post-pandemic frenzy that saw homes selling in a matter of hours for higher prices than ever,’ she says. ‘[Up until recently], sellers expected their homes to be valued higher than they are. They became somewhat tunnel-visioned. As a result, many missed that opportunity window and tried to play catch-up.’ In Sarasota County, November data shows single-family homes are taking a median time to contract of 53 days. In Manatee County, it’s 45 days—both sizable increases compared to previous years. But, says, Reynolds, ‘the reality is, sixty days [for a home to be] on the market isn’t a long time, but if a home sits for two weeks, some sellers start to panic.'”

“For sellers, Reynolds stresses the importance of setting realistic expectations and properly preparing their homes for the market. ‘Price it right from the start, and your home will sell quicker,’ she says. ‘If you keep lowering your price, frustration tends to set in. Pricing it right from the start can save you from disappointment. It’s also important to present your home at its best—it’ll sell faster that way.'”

From WTSP TV. “Venice neighbors have called on state leaders to intervene after crews from the Florida Department of Transportation cleared trees and vegetation that acted as a buffer against noise from a highway. The clearing happened ahead of recent hurricanes to clear drainage paths, but now the neighbors are dealing with more problems that are impacting their quality of life. ‘It’s caused me a lack of sleep. At 5 a.m. every morning, I wake up and I have to put a pillow over my head. I can’t do this forever. It’s been going on and it’s not going to stop,’ Russell Pichette said. Several of the neighbors in the Gran Paradiso development along U.S. 41 said it is not just the amplified road noise and building construction happening across that has been causing them sleepless nights. ‘Across the street that development is ridiculous with the street lights and then they’re going to have two bright red signs. I might as well be in the Las Vegas strip,’ Pichette said.”

The Dallas Business Journal in Texas. “New home sales in the Dallas-Fort Worth area were basically flat last month and prices were lower, HomesUSA.com found. Year over year, the average new home price was down nearly 1% in Dallas-Fort Worth last month. Prices have fallen 5% in Austin, 2% in Houston and 7% in San Antonio in the same period. As the year draws near a close, the number of building permits issued through November for single-family homes is mostly higher compared with 2023 levels in many of the fast-growing suburbs north of Dallas, according to survey data compiled by Addison-based Tomlin Investments.”

“The slab-pouring stage in Little Elm is hot, too, with 1,127 single-family homes receiving permits through November this year, versus 968 in the same period o 2023 — a 46% increase in the Denton County city. Celina’s permits were up 20%, to 2,713 through Nov. 30 compared with 2,261 in the same month last year. Princeton’s permits were up 11% through November to 1,750, despite a 120-day moratorium on new housing construction that was enacted in September. Permits were up 33% to 1,193 in Anna, 133% to 614 in Sherman and 124% to 457 in Van Alstyne.”

The Arizona Republic. “The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau sued an Arizona-based real estate brokerage and the real estate agent referral service Rocket Homes, alleging that they agreed to withhold potentially money-saving information from homebuyers. The suit filed Monday claims Detroit-based Rocket Homes pressured real estate agents not to share information about competitors’ loans and other products that its corporate affiliate Rocket Mortgage didn’t offer. The suit alleges The Jason Mitchell Group, headquartered in Scottsdale, encouraged its agents to steer homebuyers toward Rocket Mortgage products so that Rocket Homes would send them more client referrals. According to the suit, Mitchell taught his agents to create ‘a fear’ in clients that they could lose the home they were trying to buy and possibly their earnest money if they used any lender other than Rocket Mortgage.”

The Vermont Digger. “Adam Clark and Eva-Marie Cosoroaba purchased their first home in Essex Junction in March 2021. The two-story residential home needed some work, and later that year the couple contracted with Vermont Construction Company to do the renovations. The engineer’s final report opined that the work ‘was poorly executed, sub-standard and out of sync with normal construction standards in use today.’ On Monday, Clark sued the company, alleging a breach of contract and negligence, among other charges. He is seeking $60,000 in direct monetary damages, as well as other expenses. The couple has since hired another company to address the work done by Vermont Construction Company. ‘It’s been tough financially, unfortunately, but it didn’t ruin us,’ Clark said in an interview. ‘This kind of stuff can ruin people.'”

“Originally from Texas, Clark and his wife moved to Vermont in 2018 and rented in Burlington for several years. Clark said he’s been left aghast at the lack of accountability in the industry. ‘I come from Texas. It’s obviously a conservative state, and so you would imagine that corporations just kind of run everything there,’ he said in an interview. ‘But you can’t just build houses and… do structural work without having a state inspector come by. Here you can.'”

“The company has used several properties it owns in Colchester, Shelburne, Essex and Williston to house seasonal workers. Earlier this month, the town of Colchester ordered the company to vacate part of its headquarters after finding that it was being used to house an estimated 17 people ‘despite having no approvals for life safety features for human occupancy of a public building,’ according to the town’s complaint. In September, town and state fire marshal officials found that 60 people were living in similar conditions in a house in Colchester. Pam Loranger, the chair of the Colchester selectboard, during a Dec. 9 meeting, called the housing situation ‘deplorable and appalling,’ and likened the company’s practices to ‘keeping these people like indentured slaves, servants.'”

From KPBS. “In the six months since the U.S. Supreme Court made it easier for cities to crack down on homelessness, more than a hundred places around the country have banned people from sleeping outside even if they have nowhere else to go. Many of the bans are in California, home to about half of the nation’s quarter of a million people who live outside. ‘Letting them stay in place is cruel. We want to prompt them to come to a better place,’ says Tom Patti, a San Joaquin County Supervisor in California’s Central Valley. He spearheaded an ordinance to make it ‘uncomfortable’ for people to camp outside. It bans sleeping in cars, and requires people living outside to move at least 300 feet every hour. Patti says the county’s approach will no longer be reaching out to people for weeks or months, to offer blankets and build trust.”

“‘We’ve now shifted to a, ‘Hello? Where are you from? Where is your support network? Let’s help get you back to home,’ he says. ‘We’re not hardcore. But we do know that if a person’s trying to build a pallet palace with their blue tarps and tents, we say, ‘No, no, no, you’re not allowed to do this, you are trespassing.'”

From Multifamily Dive. “Lakewood, New Jersey-based real estate syndicator Silverstone Management is suing the companies responsible for building and developing Bold on Blvd, a 272-unit apartment property in St. Peters, Missouri, for allegedly misrepresenting the condition of the property in a $70 million sale to Silverstone in 2022, according to court documents. Before the deal was set to close, the Federal Reserve’s interest rate hikes decreased Bold on Blvd’s market value, according to the lawsuit. In order to keep the property’s value, the plaintiff alleges, Bold St. Peters leased to unqualified tenants in order to increase its income. The joint venture also seller financed $15 million of the $70 million purchase price.”

“‘Unbeknownst to plaintiffs, defendants made material misrepresentations before execution of the contract for sale and during the course of plaintiffs’ due diligence, failed to disclose documentation required by the parties’ contract, and sold plaintiffs a property teeming with latent construction defects and with an artificially inflated occupancy,’ the complaint reads.”

Blog TO in Canada. “You know that one lone house on Bloor St. that’s between the Native Youth Resource Centre and the Korean restaurant Damda? Yeah, I was also wondering what the deal with that house is. Mostly because it looks super out of place among all the businesses along Bloor St. W., but also because has been for sale for the better part of two years. The old Toronto home has been the private residence of the same family for over 80 years. However, it’s not really for a lack of trying that it hasn’t been bought up as a development opportunity. In April 2022, the house was listed for sale for $3,888,000, but despite its prime location, it just won’t sell. The price dropped over $1 million to $2,695,000 in 2023, and then kept dropping every few months to its lowest point in October this year, when it was listed for $1,899,000. Which, if you’re doing the math, is an almost $2 million price reduction.”

From ABC News. “Five floors above a bustling market in Hong Kong’s Mong Kok district, best known for its iconic neon lights that cast red and blue smudges across the steaming bitumen, Coco Au lives in a meticulously organised home. Her room would not be larger than 6 square metres, while her upstairs neighbour’s appears to be even smaller. Social advocates estimate there are well over 200,000 people living in premises like Ms Au, which are referred to as subdivided flats. They aren’t the only kind of tiny housing common in the financial centre. There are even smaller rooms known as coffin or cage homes, although they can be difficult to categorise. Hong Kong authorities have recorded about 110,000 subdivided flats in the city — a figure that doesn’t include coffin homes and cage homes.”

“Hong Kong has the least affordable housing in the world, an unenviable title it’s held for well over a decade. It’s a place where real estate is king, but the divide between the well off and those locked out of the market is dire. ‘If you look at the statistics, there are currently around 2.9 million permanent residential flats in Hong Kong, but we only have 2.7 [million] domestic households,’ says Brian Wong of Liber Research Community. ‘I could reasonably deduce that there is a huge number of vacant flats in Hong Kong, at the moment it is mainly due to the fact that there is no vacancy tax. And it is quite a common practice for the private developers to build and then wait until they see a good price before they sell it. By controlling the number of flats on the housing market, the private developers can practically control price.'”

From First Post. “China’s urban rental market is facing a major slump exposing weaknesses in the country’s housing and economic systems. In 100 major cities, average rents have hit their lowest level in four years showing a sharp decline in the real estate sector. An oversupply of housing has overwhelmed the market with cities like Qidong in Jiangsu province seeing over 40,000 unsold units from just one developer. At the same time, China’s slowing economy has hurt the job market especially for young people reducing demand for rentals.”

“The problem is worsened by investors who bought properties hoping their value would rise. With property prices falling, they are now renting out homes at lower rates to cut their losses. This has pushed rents down even further. In many cases, property values have halved—homes that once sold for 400,000 yuan are now worth just 200,000 yuan. A big issue is the oversupply of housing in many cities due to rapid construction and speculative investments. While this has led to ‘ghost cities’ with empty buildings and falling property values, ironically high housing prices have made it difficult for many, especially young people and low-income families, to afford homes. This has caused a slowdown in demand showing that relying on real estate for growth is not sustainable.”