Talk About Screwing A Homeowner

A report from the Daily Journal in Indiana. “Homebuyers and sellers are moving into good positions to buy and sell homes in Johnson County next year, local realtors say. Over the last year and a half, said Greg Leugers, the managing broker at The Leugers Group based in Franklin, has seen a change in the market. It’s still a seller’s market — the inventory on hand has increased, for example — but it’s still not balanced and not really a buyer’s market yet, Leugers said. ‘Their buying power kind of took a tumble for a lot of these buyers with interest rates the way they were. When they were low, they could afford much more,’ Leugers said. ‘[Now] it seems to be like homes are still moving fairly quickly, but again, just not like it was when we had multiple offers and over-list price offers.'”

“Buyers have been able to negotiate more on prices than they have before, for example. This includes asking for help with closing costs, something that has become a bit of a trend, Leugers said. ‘It seems like a little bit more, especially first-time homebuyers, they got enough for their down payment, but they don’t have enough for the down payment and closing costs,’ he said. ‘So we have been able to see where sellers are more willing to help out with closing costs and be a little bit more flexible on price.'”

The Miami Herald in Florida. “About 5 miles south in St. Pete Beach, Jill Mederos’ home took on three feet of water, yet she was denied FEMA aid. She’s had to dip into her 401k early to pay her mortgage and rent while she waits for local building officials to work through a backlog of permits. Mederos is nearly out of time and money. After 12-hour shifts at St. Petersburg’s Orlando Health Bayfront Hospital, she comes home and cares for her 87-year-old father. She’s hired a contractor and independent appraiser to prove to FEMA her damages skirt under the 50% rule. In mid-December, she logged into the agency’s portal to find she had been denied federal aid. Days later, a letter from St. Pete Beach informed her she would need to tear down or elevate her home because damages exceeded 50%. Her damages were estimated by the city at 50.6%. ‘Talk about screwing a homeowner,’ she said. ‘0.6%? Really?'”

From NBC Miami. “If you live in a condo, especially in an older building, there’s a good chance you’re feeling the rising cost of owning a condo. ‘You know, all of a sudden, you pay $120,000 more for your apartment,’ said condo owner Daniel Lezcano. NBC6 heard from many owners in South Florida who are worried about large special assessments. The trend is fueling a surge in the number of older condos on the market in 2024. ‘These special assessments… they’re growing $100,000, $200,000. I’ve heard as high as $350,000 per unit to fix the structural imperfections in these older buildings, basically rendering that inventory unsellable at the moment,’ said Craig Studnicky, a broker and the CEO of the real estate firm ISG World.”

The Union Tribune in California. “A Chula Vista construction company that pledged to disrupt the local market for accessory dwelling units — the granny flats that so many homeowners want to expand their living space, and so many elected leaders have pushed to help solve a critical housing shortage — is being broadly accused of fraud. Instead of building the backyard homes known as ADUs, a new lawsuit says Multitaskr Construction collected at least $10 million from San Diego County homeowners and then did little more than plant portable toilets on the property. More than 60 property owners stretching across the region have joined the fraud and breach-of-contract case against Multitaskr, accusing company executives of using high-pressure sales tactics and demanding payment upfront but failing to see the jobs through.”

“The legal complaint also accuses the company of colluding with various lenders to approve loans for the work before the jobs were completed — a practice that would violate state law. ‘Despite not performing any work, each of the lenders have improperly disbursed the entirety of the loan amounts directly to Multitaskr without performing necessary and required due diligence,’ the lawsuit says. Online reviews show many customers did not have their projects go as planned. ‘There is no project. They have our money,’ one customer wrote. ‘Multitaskr not only broke promises but also put many of us in a difficult financial position,’ another posted.”

From CBS Boston. “A business owner in Brockton, Massachusetts is moving his tech support company out of the city, saying he’s fed up with homelessness and the associated issues plaguing downtown. For more than 20 years, Howard Wright ran Wright Technology Group in downtown Brockton but the office sits empty now. Wright said he was concerned about safety in the area. He said he’s hoping to move back if Brockton makes major changes. ‘It’s become more aggressive, more violent,’ said Wright. ‘It’s a situation where my team members don’t want to come in. We had individuals taking drugs outside our office, we come in the morning, they used to be asleep in the vestibule and make a mess and no one really felt comfortable.'”

“According to a new federal report, homelessness across the country has reached historically high numbers. Between 2023 and 2024, Massachusetts experienced a more than 50% increase in homelessness. Among families with children, it climbed a staggering 74%. Advocates partially ‘attributed this increase to the state’s Right to Shelter Law and its application to hundreds of recently arrived migrant families, refugees and asylum seekers.'”

KXAN in Texas. “For those looking for a new place to live, right now may be a good time to find a deal on an apartment. Redfin showed that Austin had the biggest drop year over year in rent prices. As of November, the median asking rent price in Austin is just over $1,400. That’s down more than 12% since November 2023. KXAN’s Will DuPree spoke with Cindi Reed with the real estate software company MRI Software. ‘Yeah, this, this whole cycle of construction and rental rate drops and occupancy drops. It all started back in 2021. I call that the year of extreme. That’s when we saw rental rates climbed at 25% higher than what we were paying in one year’s time. So they started building in 2021, and then all of those properties started getting delivered last year in 2023. So, in 2023 we saw about 90 new properties here, about 25,000 new units showed up in 2023. We weren’t able to absorb all of those. And now 2024 rolls around, and we just delivered another 30,000 units, and our absorption rate was around 18,000 of those.'”

“‘So you’re continuously seeing the occupancy fall. We’re down to 84% in Austin. For the viewers out there that are renting apartments now, is your time, because we’re seeing an average of anywhere between, you know, six to eight weeks free on some of this new developments. And for them to be considered stabilized, they need to be around 90% occupied, close to total occupancy. And those 90 properties that opened in 2023 are sitting on an average at around 79%, so we’re still seeing some of those from 2023 trying to fill up. And the ones that have opened in 2024 are only 30% occupied so far. In 2025 we’re seeing about another 15,000 units coming up. So that’s half of what we delivered in 2024 Okay, which will, you know, stop some of this major impact. But it is still 15,000 units coming up out of the ground and being delivered to us. So, we anticipate to see occupancy fall. Outlying metro areas, San Marcos, Kyle and Buda is another hot market right now where you’re gonna see there’s been about a 5% decrease in pricing there. They’re only 79% occupied on average. So you’ll get some good deals there.'”

Blog TO in Canada. “This year was a rough one for Toronto area real estate, with developers and other sellers panicking as sales fell off a cliff, all as buyers remained in holding patterns trying to wait out the market amid a lousy economy. A downslide persisted throughout the year, with condo sales in particular plummeting to worse and worse lows not seen for decades, all while the number of homes sitting on the market shot to astounding highs that made many realize that our alleged housing supply crisis is more a housing affordability crisis. In this rare time for the region, many areas swung to buyer’s markets, with more wiggle room for price negotiations as sellers got increasingly desperate. Many were forced to sell at huge losses for properties that would historically have been lucrative.”

“Looking back on the year as a whole, the neighbourhoods they found to be the most underbid in 2024, and thus the most likely spots for a deal compared to list price, were: Eastlake in Oakville (which spent the most months in the top five places for underbidding). Lakeview in Mississauga. Huttonville in Brampton. Both of the latter were underbid by the most in a single month, by 11 per cent in January and June, respectively.”

Sydney Morning Herald. “A billion-dollar Victorian-based home builder has entered voluntary administration, leaving more than a thousand homes unfinished and customers in limbo. Bensons Property Group blamed tough conditions across the construction sector post-pandemic, in which thousands of builders have gone bust. Australian Securities and Investments Commission data shows that in the nine months to the end of March, more than 2000 construction companies entered administration and represented the greatest number of company failures, accounting for nearly 27.7 per cent in that period. According to now-deleted content on Bensons’ website, one of its core values is integrity, stating it will ‘deliver on our promises, on the homes that we create, which are dependable and reliable, and built on time.’ Bensons, founded in 1994 by self-made developer Elias Jreissati, focused on building large and luxurious apartments blocks in Victoria, Queensland and Tasmania.”

The Investor in Vietnam. “Multiple factors are delaying the real estate market’s recovery, with the ‘wait-and-see’ mentality of investors being a significant impediment, says Vo Hong Thang, director of consulting & project development at DKRA Group. Notably, many real estate companies are struggling with financing, particularly those with high bond debt. Statistics show that the total value of corporate bonds maturing in the market is projected to exceed VND300 trillion (around $12 billion) in 2024, with more than VND130 trillion of that coming from the real estate sector alone. ‘This is a massive amount in the current market, where liquidity remains very tight. At the same time, delays in project legalities make it difficult for businesses to access new bank loans,’ Thang said.”

“According the Ho Chi Minh City Real Estate Association (HoREA), between 2015 and 2023, HCMC approved 138 real estate projects. However, only 52 of them were launched, providing 35,556 apartments and 6,081 low-rise houses. Among the remaining 86 projects, 30 were halted, leaving 21,676 units across more than 210 hectares in limbo. The other 56 projects have yet to break ground, covering 754 hectares and containing an additional 32,375 units. As a result, unsold inventory in the city has accumulated to over 54,000 units, including 46,986 apartments and 7,065 low-rise houses.”

“HoREA chairman Le Hoang Chau held that the delays in clearing inventory not only waste valuable land resources but also create an imbalance between supply and demand – too many high-end properties and a shortage of affordable housing. This, he argued, is a key reason why housing prices have continuously risen in recent years, far beyond the reach of middle- and low-income buyers. The looming pressure of bond maturities is also creating challenges for real estate companies. It is estimated that the sector will face bond repayments totaling about VND180 trillion ($7.07 billion) by 2025.”