My Home Is Completely Gone, We Have Absolutely Nothing Left, I’m So Screwed

A report from Virginia Business. “‘See the rats run,’ a Facebook post put up Saturday reads. It’s illustrated with a map purportedly of Arlington County — a map covered with dozens of ovals indicating where houses are on the market. Many of the ovals are labeled ‘coming soon’ or ‘new.’ In the wake of President Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s efforts to fire hundreds of federal employees via Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, has the Northern Virginia housing market imploded? ‘There are hoax postings going around the internet,’ Terry Clower, professor of public policy at George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government, wrote in an email Monday. Lisa Sturtevant, chief economist for Bright MLS did note Monday that she was working on a report that shows the number of potential buyers requesting home tours is ‘dipping a little more sharply in the D.C. metro [region] than in other markets, meaning that buyers are not as interested in D.C. as they might have been last year at this time,’ she said.”

Fox 5 Washington DC. “FOX 5 spoke to real estate experts and reviewed data to see how much truth there is to viral social media posts spreading misinformation about the D.C. housing market – turns out, not much. ‘I’ve seen some posts where people are panicking saying the D.C. market is crashing and that is totally not the case,’ said Kris Paolini, principal real estate agent at Redfin. ‘I think it would probably take a couple months for people to come to terms with the fact that they can’t find new employment, that they want to leave the area,’ said Paolini. ‘We have seen very few requests from clients who want to sell just because they lost their job. I think more than anything the impact has been buyers putting their search on hold.'”

WFTS in Florida. “Almost four months have passed since Hurricane Milton — since devastating flooding partially submerged dozens of homes along Lake Bonny in Lakeland. Yet four months later, homeowners like Misty Wells are still living through Milton daily. ‘We are backs against the wall and have no idea what direction to go now,’ she said. Its foundation is sinking and cracking, which is damage she says FEMA can’t cover. ‘A FEMA manager actually hugged me and cried because she felt so bad that she cannot help us,’ Wells said. ‘Now, we’re just hoping for a miracle.’ On nearby Little Lake Bonny, Nicole Aldahonda-Ramirez is in a similar hell. She, too, doesn’t have the money or help to rebuild her home. ‘The funding that I got from FEMA for the house alone was only $10,900,’ she said. She pleaded for the city to expedite a study to figure out why Lake Bonny flooded and asked the city to help flood victims financially. ‘It’s just not fair that you guys aren’t doing anything for us,’ Aldahonda-Ramirez said.”

The Idaho Statesman. “Building in the Boise Foothills has always been a grueling task. Water issues, erosion, steep slopes and fire risk are a few of the issues developers face when trying to build in one of the region’s most prized icons. But that doesn’t stop developers from trying, such as with Boise’s upscale Terra Nativa subdivision. Jerry and Judy Myers bought a newly constructed home and moved to the neighborhood in 2016 to be closer to their daughter and better take care of Judy’s aging mother. Prices were steep — between $600,000 and $675,000 when they bought their home — and have only gone up since. Homes in the neighborhood are now selling for over $1.5 million. But the ghosts of Terra Nativa seem to have followed them. When they were moving into their new house, their home inspector noticed cracks on the outside of the home. ‘Each year it got worse,’ Judy Myers told the Idaho Statesman.”

“Judy Myers said they spent about $800,000 — well over what they paid for the home, and most of their life savings — to keep the house from coming apart, including about 70 steel helical piers. The couple paid for the repairs out of pocket since insurance doesn’t cover ‘dirt movement,’ she said. A former schoolteacher and real estate agent, Judy Myers came out of retirement to sell more homes to pay off the costs of their home repairs. It wouldn’t be right, she said, to sell their home until she could prove that it had no problems. At this point, ‘It’s a house of steel,’ she said. The neighbors’ tort claims sought $4.5 million in damages. ‘As a direct and proximate result of the conduct of the city and ACHD, ground movement has occurred and is expected to occur in the future, subjecting (the owners) and their home to serious, irreparable and permanent damage, loss in market value, economic loss and emotional suffering,’ according to the three claims. ‘In the event this movement continues unchecked, the home will likely become unsuitable for occupation,’ each of the claims says.”

NBC News on California. “As work crews race to clear debris from thousands of homes and businesses destroyed in last month’s wildfires, residents are grappling with whether they can afford to stay. Even homeowners in tony Pacific Palisades face displacement. Blake Mallen, an entrepreneur, lived in a home valued at more than $3 million near the trailhead where the Palisades Fire was first reported. The five-bedroom, five-bathroom home was paid off in full, but Mallen was one of some 1,600 Palisades residents dropped by their homeowners insurance companies last year amid soaring costs and an increasing risk of wildfires. He attempted to supplement his homeowners insurance through California’s FAIR Plan, the state’s insurer of last resort, but was told he did not qualify because his home value was too high. Without insurance, Mallen has been unable to recoup losses. ‘This is the death of the American dream,’ he said. ‘We’re seeing the core of our community fragment.'”

“Mallen has spent much of the past five weeks on the phone with lawyers, hoping to find a loophole that will make him eligible for some kind of payout. For now, he is facing a total financial loss, he said. His home of seven years was not just where he and his wife raised their two children, it was their entire nest egg. ‘Right now, we couldn’t even rebuild if we wanted to,’ he said, speaking from his rental house in L.A.’s Venice neighborhood. ‘Do I even want to rebuild a house that can’t get insurance?'”

The Los Angeles Times in California. “It has been more than a month since the harrowing wildfire swept through Pacific Palisades, and Marc Hara knows he should be grateful. After all, he and his fiancée managed to escape the blaze that leveled their condominium complex. But Hara, who is living at a relative’s house, is far from sanguine about his future. Not only were all his possessions destroyed, but Hara figures the couple is out $170,000 after State Farm dropped him as a policyholder — something he only learned later, he said, after realizing the insurer mailed a nonrenewal notice for his interior coverage to an old address. ‘My home is completely gone. We have absolutely nothing left,’ said the 58-year-old physical therapist, who had recently remodeled his condominium and is now seeking FEMA disaster assistance. ‘I’m so screwed.'”

“The devastation caused by the twin blazes has exacerbated a crisis in the insurance industry and raised fresh questions about whether the state — and its top insurance regulator, Ricardo Lara — has done enough to protect homeowners from not having adequate insurance to cover their losses. ‘His regulations and his policies are clearly ones that the insurance industry wants,’ said Rep. John Garamendi (D-Fairfield), former state insurance commissioner. Lara disputes the claim and disagrees with Garamendi that he has the power to force insurers to write policies. ‘It would only exacerbate the problem at a time when insurance companies are pulling out of California,’ he told The Times. ‘And, quite honestly, you know, this is not going to be the first or last time that I get white mansplained on how to do my job.'”

“Carolyn Kousky, an associate vice president at the Environmental Defense Fund, said catastrophe models and the availability of passing on the costs of reinsurance to consumers are critical for insurers as climate change heightens the cost of disasters worldwide. ‘There’s a lot of worry that the Sustainable Insurance Strategy is going to lead to higher prices, and it probably will, but part of that is because the risk of wildfires is really high, and it’s very difficult to offer lower cost insurance when risks are high,’ Kousky said.”

From Bisnow. “A national build-to-rent construction surge is bigger in Texas than anywhere else in the country. But an upcoming stall in BTR development may be bigger too, creating significant unmet demand for a product that only some developers will stick to building. Texas has the most U.S. rental houses under development by far, with nearly 22,000 on the way. Second-place Arizona and third-place Florida each have fewer than 14,000 units in the pipeline. When complete, those units will expand Texas’ BTR inventory by 70%. At the national level, more than 110,000 single-family rentals are under construction, which will expand existing inventory by 53.5% when completed. ‘From the beginning, we’ve been in the middle of the fairway. We have a single institutional partner. We have low-leverage bank loans. We do locations that are triple-A locations, so we haven’t felt any stress in any of our projects,’ said Paul Davey, CEO of Houston-based Balcara Group, which has exclusively developed build-to-rent communities since its formation in 2018. ‘Whereas some of our colleagues in other firms have. It’s proven to be, ‘Wow, this didn’t really work.'”

CBC News in Canada. “A home renovation company endorsed by TV celebrity contractor Mike Holmes said Friday it’s closing down, blaming CBC News coverage. ‘Due to actions taken by CBC, our company’s reputation has been severely impacted, making it financially impossible for us to continue operations,’ wrote Ivan Atanasov, CEO of Ontario-based AGM Renovations, in a letter to the company’s tradespeople, vendors and contractors. ‘Despite our relentless efforts to recover, the extent of the damage has left us with no viable path forward,’ he wrote. ‘AGM… will be permanently closed.'”

“Homeowner Peter Mikhail, who was featured in the CBC News story, said he doesn’t feel AGM should take pride in the work done at his home in Caledon, Ont. Mikhail hired the company to do a major kitchen renovation in May 2022. His complaints include damaged flooring, incorrectly installed fixtures and unsafe electrical work. Mikhail says he’s relieved AGM is no longer in business, but worries about customers who are mid-renovation, and those who were dissatisfied with their reno and are trying to get compensation. Mikhail estimates he will have to pay thousands of dollars to fix the work done in his home. He figures he will get no money from AGM now, and says the renovation industry needs to be regulated to protect homeowners. ‘[It’s] a weird kind of feeling right now, because I feel like I’ve won something, and yet I haven’t,’ he said. ‘I can’t imagine how many people that are now in financial distress and have no recourse… What’s going to happen to these people?'”

The Daily Post. “House prices have plunged in a county where a crackdown on holiday homes is taking place. Values in Gwynedd fell 3% in the final quarter of 2024 to continue a year-long property slump. Year-on-year prices are now down 12.4% in a county where pricing mechanisms have been put in place. House values were also depressed elsewhere in North Wales in 2024. Some residents in Gwynedd have been complaining of substantial falls in the value of their properties before and after the local authority implemented an Article 4 directive last September. This curbs their ability to convert residential properties into second homes or holiday lets. Cyngor Gwynedd also charges a 150% council tax premium on second homes.”

“A Llŷn Peninsula homeowner said she asked for a valuation from her local estate agent. She complained: ‘We had it valued 2 years ago and they have confirmed, as a result of Article 4, our house is now worth £30,000 less. To say I’m upset is an understatement and I wish that I had never come back to live here.’ Anecdotally, there are reports of some higher-value houses in the county falling by £100,000. One person said their Gwynedd home had lost 20% of its value since Article 4 was announced. ‘Had a look through my fingers at Rightmove’s tracker,’ they said online. ‘I know it’s not 100% accurate but it’s a good data-based indicator. I am going for a long walk and to try and forget.'”

The Herald Sun. “Melbourne couple Nicole Lawler and George Boakye will watch their mortgage get bigger this week, even thought the Reserve Bank cut interest rates. They’re among the thousands of Australians part way through building a new home, who face the reality that their mortgage will become bigger as construction progresses — even as others’ loans become cheaper. Ms Lawler said the rate cut would soften the blow of their next progress payment due on Thursday, but the next few months would be a ‘struggle’ as they juggled paying rent as well as a mortgage for their future home in Weir Views to Melbourne’s west.”

“‘We are both working full time, and it’s just killing us, we don’t have the money to go out for dinner or away for a weekend — we used to do that all the time,’ Ms Lawler said. ‘We don’t get to spend quality time together as we are working so much just to survive.'”