There’s No Light At The End Of The Tunnel, You Can’t Sell The Houses Either, So We’re Stuck Here

A report from KTOO. “On the night of Jan. 7, Juneau resident Drew Dembowski had just returned to his home of nearly 30 years. The idyllic brick ranch house sat at the base of the San Gabriel Mountains in Altadena. Dembowski had just returned to California from Juneau the day. He was there to finish getting his home ready to put on the market. Like many Southern California homeowners, Dembowski’s insurance of 28 years dropped his coverage a year ago. He could only find home insurance through a state plan offering the most basic coverage. Months of uncertainty lie ahead. Instead of listing his home on Zillow, he’ll file insurance claims. He knows he won’t recover the full value of his home, but he’s making peace with that. In a way, it’s a relief after struggling for so long to part with it. ‘I just spent a year and a half and a half-million dollars remodeling the house to sell,’ Dembowski said. ‘It was supposed to be listed in a couple of weeks, and now it’s just a pile of rubble.'”

The San Francisco Chronicle. “Nestled in the rolling hills of southwest Walnut Creek, the retirement community of Rossmoor is a verdant oasis sheltered from the hustle and bustle of the Bay Area. But for the community’s roughly 10,000 residents, there’s no escape from the homeowners’ insurance troubles that have spread across the state. It’s created a situation in which all but a handful of recent home sales in Rossmoor have been cash only. That’s an outcome feared by many California communities as rising homeowners insurance rates and cancellations of policy renewals have affected people across the state. With home insurance hard or even impossible to come by, the fear is that potential buyers may be unable to get mortgages, which could put downward pressure on home sales and prices. ‘They would actually have to sell to get money,’ said Mary Beall, a real estate broker manager who does business in the community. ‘Those are the people who are really being hurt.'”

“Current homes on the market range from around $200,000 for a smaller condo unit in the Waterford to $2.6 million for a large condo, according to a real estate agent. Ann Peterson, a Rossmoor spokeswoman, said the average sales price of a home in the community is about $583,000 — an average that declined 11% for co-ops and 7% for condos in the past year. Sales prices of single-family homes and The Waterford are not included in that average. HOA or mutual fees range from $883 a month to $1,896 a month, and have risen nearly 20% in some mutuals.”

Fox 13 in Florida. “Tropical storm Debby caused flooding in Sarasota that hadn’t been seen in years. Allison Cavallaro is still dealing with the build-back and struggles nearly six months later. ‘There’s been injuries, infections, retired people in our neighborhood have now exhausted all of their money,’ said Cavallaro. ‘We have had to lean into an SBA loan. So now we owe money for something that shouldn’t have happened. This has been 170 days of a nightmare.'”

Miami Today in Florida. “Experts look to 2025 as a year of residential real estate growth in Miami-Dade as the market begins to open back up. ‘We’re seeing a sharp increase in the amount of inventory,’ says Berkshire Hathaway President Ron Shuffield. While growth of home prices has slowed, Mr. Shuffield says they’ve rather ‘plateaued at a higher level’ than they were at the beginning of the pandemic. The median price for condominiums has fallen, from $449,000 in March 2024 to $415,000 in November, a 7.6% drop. According to Mr. Shuffield, at the present pace of sales the market has 18 months’ of supply for condominiums, which is evidently twice the amount needed to maintain an optimum level, as an excess would drive prices down and force sellers to operate at a loss.”

“‘The thing about condos … only 35% to 40% of the people that own a condo actually live in the condo,’ he said. ‘Another 60% to 65% are investors or leasing those, so you have a lot of rental apartments in condominium buildings all through the county. So, a lot of these decisions are financial decisions rather than people leaving town or anything like that, but it does reflect on value.'”

The Hartford Courant. “As Greater Hartford faces an incredible demand for affordable housing and long-term rentals, the high number of listings on Airbnb shows plenty of open properties or rentals available. A consumer affairs study from last year marked Connecticut as the worst state for renters. It appears many potential sellers and landlords are content with the short-term benefits of Airbnb. Jacek Mikolajczyk, a realtor at Berkshire Hathaway, suggests that many potential sellers are also using Airbnb while waiting for a better environment to sell.”

“‘We are seeing a little bit of a slowdown,’ Mikolajczyk said. ‘Some of the homeowners are trying to survive and are trying to rent until the mortgage rates go back down and they can list their house again and get the most income they can for them. ‘In this market, there are not too many homes listed,’ he added. ‘People are thinking they are going to get the prices they were getting during COVID, but that’s not the case anymore and it’s hard to let them go for less, so they try an Airbnb.'”

The Texas Tribune. “Austin rents skyrocketed during the COVID-19 pandemic as tens of thousands of new residents flocked there and the region’s job market boomed. Now, Austin is one of the only major U.S. cities where rents are falling. Austin rents have tumbled for 19 straight months, data from Zillow show. Surrounding suburbs like Round Rock, Pflugerville and Georgetown, which saw rents grow by double-digit percentages amid the region’s pandemic boom, also have seen declining rents. The chief reason behind Austin’s falling rents, real estate experts and housing advocates said, is a massive apartment building boom unmatched by any other major city in Texas or in the rest of the country. For new tenants, it means landlords may offer several months’ worth of free rent in order to convince them to move in. San Antonio, Dallas and Plano have also seen declining rents — but they haven’t fallen as fast as in Austin.”

KKTV in Colorado. “Arrest papers obtained by 11 News explained why a Teller County woman was accused of setting her house on fire, causing a wildfire that forced over 700 people to evacuate from their homes. On Oct. 28, 2024, the Teller County Sheriff’s Office responded to 13 Beaver Lake Circle in Divide for a fire investigation. Papers said the home was already fully engulfed in flames. The arrest papers said a deputy found Lowa Tillitt, the homeowner, and asked her how her home had caught fire. Tillitt explained she was burning cardboard boxes in her stove, and the fire jumped from the stove to the couch when she opened it. Tillitt said she was unsuccessful in putting the fire out, so she got her dogs and left.”

“During further investigation on the fire and Tillitt, arrest papers said they learned she had an ‘estranged’ relationship with her insurance company. Tillitt reportedly blamed her insurance company, American National Insurance, for the state of her home. In 2023, Tillitt’s insurance was canceled due to her home being a ‘fire hazard,’ and she reportedly became upset. She believed her home was uninhabitable and, according to papers, she told her insurance company she would commit suicide or die in the home due to its conditions. Tillitt had moved into a trailer outside of her home, due to the conditions. Three days before the fire, she called American National several more times, extremely upset about her insurance being canceled, screaming and cursing at operators on the other line. Her house then caught fire on Oct. 28, 2024. Papers said her home was set to be foreclosed, and that foreclosure was rescheduled several times. Her home was set to be auctioned following the foreclosure.”

The Calgary Herald in Canada. “Calgary’s housing market is expected to ‘stay strong’ in 2025 despite reduced migration and heightened economic uncertainty, the local real estate board says. CREB chief economist Ann-Marie Lurie said a significant change in 2024 was an inventory gain, with levels increasing by 40 per cent in the second half of the year. Lurie said that influx of inventory raised questions about supply. ‘It has made people question, are we in a scenario now that we have too much supply?’ More than 20 per cent of new home construction in 2024 was rentals, a number that typically sits at less than 10 per cent, she said. The overall supply of housing is projected to continue growing in 2025, but Lurie says it isn’t a problem. ‘It’s definitely changing, no question. But on a broad basis, we’re still not at a point where there’s too much (supply),’ she said. The climbing vacancy rate comes as rental demand slows amid shifting population trends. ‘We have more supply coming at a time when . . . our immigration targets are shrunk,’ Lurie said.”

Kent Online in the UK. “A group of homeowners are fed up after forking out £50,000 to try to fix a faulty sewage pump. Over the last year, people living in Castor Park, Allington, have been left to deal with blockages, leaks and wastewater overspills. Until the problem is resolved, the residents are forced to contribute around £310 every four days to have the waste manually disposed of. Mum-of-one, Danielle Ross-Davies has been organising the waste tankers and subsequent blockage removals on behalf of her neighbours. ‘Effectively it’s like the blind leading the blind at the moment. It’s a nightmare,’ the 35-year-old said. ‘How are we supposed to find this extra money, especially in the cost of a living crisis? We are just nine houses with normal jobs.'”

“Her husband Jamie, 36, added: ‘There’s no light at the end of the tunnel – we do not know when this is going to end. We can’t let sewage just come up and over, we’ve got to get it removed. You can’t sell the houses either, so we’re stuck here.’ Mandy Stevens was the first to move onto the site seven years ago. She added: ‘I’m more frustrated that we’re not getting any answers to who’s at fault here. We’ve paid out a lot of money already. It’s hard – I’m on my own having to fund this.'”

Domain News in Australia. “House prices are lower than a year ago in a string of regional Victorian towns that have been losing steam as workers return to their Melbourne offices. Among the once-soaring tree-change spots, the Alpine and Hepburn shires both recorded a loss of 7.1 per cent, the Surf Coast fell 4.8 per cent and the Macedon Ranges fell 5.4 per cent, the Domain Rent Report for the December quarter showed. The largest drops were in the Colac Otway Shire, down 13.3 per cent to a median house price of just $498,500 and Murrindindi, down 11.9 per cent. KPMG’s director of planning and infrastructure economics, Terry Rawnsley, said that without the same influx of migrants into regional areas, house price affordability was improving. ‘Locals don’t have the wages to pay for that price tag – now there’s a shift to more about what the locals can afford to pay,’ he said.”

“David Baldry, of Smyth Real Estate in Lorne, said the drop in house prices in the area was due to the pandemic as well as higher taxes and higher supply. ‘Now because of the Airbnb tax and the land tax a lot of people are putting their properties on the market, and with good stock levels and extended periods on the market it shows that the prices aren’t meeting the market,’ he said. With most buyers in the Surf Coast from Melbourne, Geelong and Ballarat, securing or selling holiday homes, cost of living had significantly influenced the market, Baldry added. ‘The cost of living is biting people, and the first thing to go in financial crisis is the holiday house,’ he said.”

Hindustan Times on India. “The season of sales and discounts has returned to Mumbai’s real estate industry, with developers offering a slew of incentives to attract homebuyers. This time, not only are developers promoting these schemes, but their umbrella association, CREDAI-MCHI, is also actively involved. Industry insiders note that such offers are typically rolled out when sales begin to slow. The incentives on offer range from gold coins to discounts of up to ₹18 lakh, along with an additional ₹2 lakh discount for first-time women homebuyers. The exhibition is set to feature around 100 developers, alongside 50 financial institutions and allied sectors. ‘We’ll have exclusive deals such as no stamp duty and GST, discounts up to ₹18 lakh, ₹5 lakh spot booking discounts, flexible payment plans, zero club charges, and giveaways like mobile phones, modular kitchens, and two- and four-wheelers,’ said Dhaval Ajmera, secretary of CREDAI-MCHI. He added, ‘On Sunday alone, all developers will offer an additional ₹2 lakh discount to first-time women buyers, provided the booking is completed by March-end.'”

“‘Supply has expanded significantly, but sales are showing a slowdown post-launch,’ said Pankaj Kapoor, managing director of Liases Foras, a real estate rating and research firm. ‘The aggregate numbers may appear to be growing due to a surge in new launches, but sales per project are experiencing a decline.'”