There’s No One Here To Buy

A report from Architectural Digest. “Before the devastating Los Angeles fires this week, California already had a looming insurance crisis on its hands. In one particularly heartbreaking example, ABC 7 reported on a nonagenarian couple whose fire insurance was canceled before the Eaton Fire. ‘They’ve lived in this house for 75 years, and they’ve had the same insurance, and these insurance people decided to cancel their fire [insurance],’ said Lynn Levin-Guzman, the couple’s daughter, donning an N95 face mask as smoke rises by her family home. ‘Thank you, California insurance companies, for supporting residents who pay taxes and love California. And they wonder why people leave,’ she added, tongue in cheek.”

From WCVB Boston. “This group of Massachusetts homeowners is facing the same old problem: getting the state to help them piece their lives back together. The homeowners have all found themselves with cracking and crumbling basements, but haven’t had any luck convincing the state to find a way to help financially. Among them was Jeff Haynes, who spent a quarter of a million dollars to replace his basement in Rutland last spring. ‘The scope of the project was $250,000, and that meant basically raiding retirement money,’ Haynes said. It happened because of pyrrhotite, a naturally occurring mineral found under much of central and western Massachusetts. Homeowners’ insurance won’t cover foundation repairs, and banks won’t issue a loan for the work since the home’s value also crumbles. That leaves homeowners with their backs against the wall. ‘You are chained to a worthless home,’ Haynes said.”

The Sun Sentinel in Florida. “Christine Cordoso, a resident of the Sunrise Lakes Condominium, says her monthly maintenance fee is set to rise to $1,600 a month thanks to a new state law that requires full funding of reserves for repairs. That’s in addition to her bill for taxes and insurance for her Phase IV condo unit, she said. ‘We take very good care of our building. We’re on fixed incomes,’ she said. The coming fee hike, she said, is ‘too much.’ Sunrise Mayor Mike Ryan said the mandates are putting seniors at risk of homelessness and displacement. Hundreds of condo units are for sale in Sunrise, ‘but there’s no one here to buy.'”

Fox 35 in Florida. “Neighbors are sounding the alarm on a new housing development that’s become a hazard instead. Residents who live off Palm Bay Road near the project say no work has been done on the construction zone for about a year, and they want the mess cleaned up before someone gets hurt. Homeowners say they are scared to walk near the property at night, and it’s hard for them to even get around because the sidewalk is full of overgrown grass and trash. From the property, we could see rotting wood, broken windows, garbage and pieces of balconies falling apart on Thursday. ‘It brings transients in, not good, drugs. Police are always here,’ said Colleen Arnold, who feels unsafe walking her dogs every day. She isn’t alone. ‘It’s an eyesore, and it’s dangerous,’ said Michael Batcher. Nearby signs say the company, D32 Invest, is behind the project. ‘We’ve called them. They don’t return our calls. They don’t do nothing,’ said Arnold.”

KXAN in Texas. “A subdivision in south Austin, that is supposed to have luxury houses, instead has unfinished homes with broken windows and tattered roofs. The homes are covered in graffiti, as tall weeds grow in the drive way. The Southstone subdivision on West Dittmar Road in south Austin is currently under construction, according to the subdivision’s website. The subdivision is supposed to eventually have more than 200 luxury homes with a clubhouse, resort style pool and playground. Victor Uvalle III and his family live nearby with a direct view. He said construction began years ago, and then all of a sudden it came to a halt.”

“‘They started real fast. It looked like they had a lot of contractors out there trying to do a lot of different things,’ Uvalle III said. ‘It was a dead stop. We didn’t have nobody working, no contractors coming by.’ A few months after that, Uvalle III said they started seeing vandalism. He’s worried the vandalism moved to his neighborhood. ‘We’ve had a couple break-ins right here with my parents vehicles as well, just being vandalized,’ Uvalle III said. He said this ultimately comes down to an issue of safety for his family. ‘Riding her bike up the street, I don’t want her to think like, ‘Oh, there’s those abandoned houses that, you know, I can’t ride on that street,’ Uvalle III said.”

From Bisnow. “Nationally, multifamily owners are being squeezed. In New York City, they are being crushed. Landlords across the country, many of which invested in the sector during a time of high prices with floating-rate debt, have struggled to keep up with rising costs and slowing rent growth. The average cost to insure an affordable apartment is $1,770, a 103% increase from four years ago, according to the New York Housing Conference. ‘The free market category is doing OK. I would say that they’re treading water for the most part,’ Marcus & Millichap broker Shaun Riney said. ‘But the rent-regulated space is in a doom loop.’ ‘It takes a long time to sink the Titanic, but the Titanic is sinking,’ he added.”

CBC News in Canada. “Rental prices in Toronto are dropping, with condos and apartments going for hundreds of dollars less than they were a year ago, according to real estate experts. Errol Paulicpulle, a real estate agent with Harvey Kalles Real Estate in Toronto, says there is a greater supply of rental properties than there was a year ago and the result is a more favourable market for renters. ‘Well, it’s definitely slower,’ Paulicpulle said in an interview. ‘The prices have come down anywhere from two to four hundred dollars per unit.’ Paulicpulle, who represents dozens of clients with rental income properties in Toronto, says renters are telling landlords that they want to pay less than asking and are making requests for specific improvements when they do make offers.”

“Giacomo Ladas, associate director of communications for Rentals.ca, said the market may be correcting itself and that correction is being led by renter preferences. ‘Asking rents have gone up so exponentially over the past three or four years that rents in Ontario are still 20 to 25 per cent higher than they were when COVID started. The fact that these are going down is a great sign, but they are still so highly inflated that we kind of think that there was nowhere else for them to go but down,’ Ladas said. Ladas said a combination of factors is working to bring rents down: developers have put new condos on the rental market that were not selling, there’s greater supply of purpose built rentals, less demand from international students with new limits on international study permits; and people are leaving Toronto in search of more affordable places to live.”

From Castanet. “According to Royal LePage’s 2024 Winter Recreational Property Report, the median price of a single-family detached vacation home in B.C. is forecasted to increase 8.5 per cent. During the first nine months of 2024, these properties fell 2.6 per cent to about $1.7 million, while condo prices dropped to about $477,500. At Big White, located outside Kelowna, single-family detached homes decreased nearly 14 per cent to $1.5 million, while the average condo price fell about 22 per cent to $413,000. Joan Wolf, a Kelowna-based realtor with Sotheby’s International Realty Canada, said the ‘buyer’s market’ has properties listed longer and purchasers are negotiating more. While sales are down compared to during the pandemic, she said the benchmark price has not shifted. ‘This is a normalized market,’ Wolf told Western Investor. ‘Everyone keeps calling it a down market, but it’s very normal for property to be on the market six or nine months, even longer.'”

From STV News. “A housebuilder based in East Ayrshire has entered administration with all members of staff losing their jobs. Connect Modular Ltd, which is part of the Wee House Group, based in Cumnock has collapsed with a total of 48 members of staff made redundant across the company. The firm builds modular homes provided to housing associations, local authorities, and community trusts across the UK as part of the wider firm. Connect Modular, alongside West of Scotland Housing Association, also submitted plans to Glasgow City Council last year for the region’s first operational net zero modular housing development. Administrators said the firms had made losses on a number of historic contracts and the business faced ‘unsustainable pressure.’ Michelle Elliot said, ‘Unfortunately, following losses made on a number of historic contracts and rising operational costs, the businesses were facing significant cash flow pressure. Despite the best efforts of the director in exploring alternatives in recent weeks, the cash position deteriorated significantly placing unsustainable pressure on the business.'”

Radio New Zealand. “The number of properties listed for sale in December was the lowest since Realestate.co.nz data began. Spokesperson Vanessa Williams said although December was usually a slower month, the end to 2024 was ‘exceptionally lukewarm.’ The national average asking price was the lowest since April 2021, at $842,476. ‘The property market always cools in December, but the end of 2024 was record-breakingly quiet.’ She real estate salespeople had told her that everyone had ended the year tired and many had opted to push new listings into the new year. Eleven of the 19 regions the site tracks recorded an average price drop year-on-year. The biggest were in Central Otago, down 17.3 percent to $1.325 million, the central North Island, down 11 percent to $708,350 and Bay of Plenty down 10.9 percent to $823,926.”