If You Really Want To Sell This Property, You’re Gonna Accept A Lower Price

A report from the Washington Post. “At the beginning of February, Daniel Leckie, 36, was living his best life. He was a new dad, a new homeowner and had his dream job as a historic preservation specialist for the General Services Administration. He was even a few payments away from having $80,000 in student loans forgiven after a decade of working as a public servant. Then came the email. He was just days away from being off probation and months away from loan forgiveness. ‘I was so close,’ Leckie said. ‘My performance review was great and yet I was crumpled up and thrown out like a piece of trash.’ For now, Leckie’s biggest concern is finding employment to cover the next mortgage payment and help care for his 6-month-old son. ‘I’m a proud public servant, and I think that the work we do is incredibly valuable. But I would be lying if I said that part of the reason I felt compelled to stay in public service for this long wasn’t because of the promise of loan forgiveness,’ Leckie said. ‘It’s not my number one priority, but it’s still very dismaying.'”

“Public Service Loan Forgiveness is a critical benefit that nonprofits, states and the federal government use to attract talent. After being laid off from her position as the student loan ombudsman at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in February, Julia Barnard wrote a blog post on her union’s website to help other fired federal workers navigate their student loans. ‘I immediately felt that the question of what to do about [Public Service Loan Forgiveness] was going to be top of mind for many people,’ Barnard said. ‘People plan their careers based on the promise of student loan forgiveness.'”

From NBC News. “One of President Donald Trump’s first actions upon entering the White House was to order federal employees to return to the office. A worker told of colleagues attempting to quickly sell their homes to move closer to a train stop, while others were struggling to find extended hours of day care to cover the extra time for commuting. Some — including those who were exclusively hired to work remotely — will likely be forced to quit. ‘Everyone built their lives around these remote positions,’ said a Veterans Affairs employee who is on leave with a newborn. ‘My supervisor lives in [Florida] and was hired as a remote employee. She can’t relocate.'”

The Washington Post. “Olek Chmura, a former probationary employee at Yellowstone National Park, hardly bothered to check his email Friday after two judges ordered his bosses to offer him his job back. ‘The government hates us,’ said Chmura, 28, who cleaned toilets and emptied trash cans at Yellowstone until the Trump administration fired him on Valentine’s Day. Shernice Mundell, 47, said she has spent the past month applying for unemployment benefits in D.C., scanning the internet for jobs and updating her résumé to attract private-sector employers after losing her job in the Office of Personnel Management. In her first few months, Mundell felt confident in her decision. Three months after she started, she was promoted to a job that paid her $69,000 per year, a $15,000 raise. Now her next mortgage payment is scheduled for April 1, and she is running out of savings.”

“‘Lucky for me, my daughter said she would help me pay the bills,’ said Mundell, who is a member of the chapter of American Federation of Government Employees that represents OPM employees. ‘But it’s my responsibility. I don’t want to put that on anybody else.'”

Yahoo Finance. “Florida’s pandemic-era housing boom is finally starting to fade. For-sale inventory in the state has reached the highest levels on record, and homes are staying on the market longer even as peak homebuying season kicks off. In many parts of the state, prices are starting to fall. While the state’s condo market has been in correction ever since new building laws took effect in the aftermath of the 2021 condo collapse in Surfside, Fla., the market for single-family homes is also starting to soften. ‘Inventory and time on market has been dramatically increasing,’ said Ben Grieco, a real estate agent in the southwestern city of Port Charlotte. ‘It’s not like buyers have left by any means, but there’s just so much to choose from that it’s really pushing prices down.'”

“As of January, single-family home prices were falling the fastest in a cluster of cities on the southern Gulf Coast. Prices in Punta Gorda are down nearly 8% since January 2024, according to Zillow. Thirty miles south, in Cape Coral, home prices have dropped 5.6% year over year. Memories of Hurricane Ian still loom large with today’s buyers and sellers, said Rick Harrison, a Fort Myers-based real estate agent. ‘Everybody at this point has been educated enough to know that hurricanes had a huge impact on our area,’ Harrison said. ‘On both sides, people are worried.'”

“There are deals to be found in new construction too, after several years of aggressive development have left many builders sitting on unsold homes. Builders are often willing to buy down mortgage rates to below 5%, cover closing costs, and offer credits toward upgrades. Some are cutting prices on homes entirely, something they typically avoid doing because it hurts existing owners in their communities.”

Flathead Beacon. “After this commentary is published, I am going share it with as many Canadian media outlets as I can find. Why? Because our long-time friends on the other side of the Montana border need a reminder that we Americans relish our enduring, special relationship and hope that it’s resilient enough to continue through the current chaos. I’ve also just returned from visiting relatives for a month at a retirement community in Arizona with a heavy population of Canadian snowbirds. I talked to several Canadians who are selling their longtime winter homes and vowing to never spend another penny in America.”

The Fresno Bee. “Architect Ubaldo Garcia recently finished designing two projects that will add extra homes to single-family lots. ‘On one, I was able to fit six,’ Garcia told The Bee. ‘On another one, I was able to fit eight total units.’ He is doing this in the city of Madera with accessory dwelling units, known as ADUs. In recent years, the number of ADUs has skyrocketed across California. About one-fifth of all home building permits issued in 2023 were for this type of home. In the Central Valley, the trend is evident in Clovis and Fresno — two cities that have encouraged ADU construction by providing builders with pre-approved designs and streamlining the permitting process.”

“‘We have received no applications for a true affordable housing project in the last three years,’ Will Tackett, the city’s director of community development, told The Bee in December. ‘What we’re trying to do is incentivize affordable investments in our city.’ That’s why the Madera City Council approved zoning code changes in January aiming to encourage homeowners to become developers. In order to qualify for a bonus unit in Madera, an ADU on a single-family lot must be reserved through a legal deed as affordable to either ‘very low-income and low-income households’ for no less than 10 years, or ‘moderate income households” for no less than 15 years.’ Madera modeled its initiative after San Diego’s bonus ADU program, which launched in 2020. Researchers have found that San Diego’s program produced a substantial amount of new construction proposals: About 1,300 ADUs were proposed under the program by February of last year, with half being pitched as affordable.”

Your Tango on California. “For many travelers, short-term rentals like Airbnb, have been a blessing, providing flexible accommodations at a reasonable price point. However, rentals that are a blessing to travelers, are often a curse for homeowners and neighbors. It’s easy to forget that unlike hotels and motels, Airbnbs are often located in residential neighborhoods. One woman recently shared her experience on Reddit, describing how her peaceful San Diego neighborhood is being ‘terrorized’ by an Airbnb property across the street. Despite multiple attempts to address the issue, it has only escalated, leaving her and her neighbors feeling powerless.”

“Everything started when a family bought a foreclosed property across the street from the woman’s home and spent over a year rebuilding it into a luxurious new house. At four times the size of the original home, it featured upscale amenities, including a pool and hot tub. However, things took a turn when, starting in December, the woman noticed people frequently coming and going from the property. Her suspicions were confirmed when she discovered the house was listed on Airbnb as a four bedroom rental, capable of sleeping up to 14 people.”

“She wrote, ‘We are being terrorized by noise and constant activity at all hours of the day and night. There will be as many as a dozen cars, Ubers coming and going around the clock, people congregating in the front yard/street, playing music, talking and yelling. We are woken up in the middle of the night multiple nights a week. Today a party bus was parked in front of our house, blaring music, unloading drunk girls for a bachelorette party.'”

CBC News in Canada. “The association that represents almost 2,000 real estate agents in Nova Scotia is calling on the Houston government to rethink its plans to double the deed transfer tax for non-residents buying homes in the province. The Financial Measures Act, up for public comment at Monday’s meeting of the newly created public bills committee, calls for the non-resident deed transfer tax to increase from five per cent to 10 per cent on April 1. Suzanne Gravel, incoming president of the Nova Scotia Association of Realtors, said the measure will send the wrong message to would-be investors in the province. ‘It instantly gives a person [a] ‘they don’t want us to come there’ feeling,’ Gravel told CBC News recently. ‘It’s a big tax, it’s a big tariff.'”

“That sentiment is shared by John Duckworth of Duckworth Real Estate in Chester, N.S., whose primary business is selling to non-resident clients who want to have a second home in Nova Scotia. Duckworth said the proposed tax hike will discourage people from moving to the province. ‘It’s a ‘don’t come here’ tax,’ said Duckworth. ‘I don’t know what the premier’s trying to do with this, but the whole thing is just totally negative.'”

“He said the measure would also affect Nova Scotians selling their properties, forcing would-be home sellers to lower their price to shoulder some or all of the increase being proposed. Dalhousie University economist Lars Osberg agreed. ‘In the jargon of economics, that’s called the price elasticity of demand or the price elasticity of supply, but the plain English of it is that if you really want to sell this property, you’re gonna accept a lower price,’ said Osberg. James Wooder, a Cape Breton resident with property on the South Shore he may one day want to develop, worries the increase could depress real estate prices in rural communities. ‘Somebody thought it was a good idea, but they didn’t think about the knock on and unintended consequences of this, which could be disastrous,’ said Wooder. ‘What does it mean for municipalities if the overall [tax] base for the municipality takes a hit over the long run?'”

ABC News in Australia. “As Queenslanders in the south-east grapple with the damage bill from ex-tropical cyclone Alfred, in a quiet, far-flung corner in the state’s west a different insurance battle is brewing. Six councils in south-west Queensland have banded together to protest an eye-watering increase in insurance premiums of up to 300 per cent. ‘If I pay my insurance premiums I can’t afford to pay my house payments,’ Charleville resident Sonya Johnstone said. ‘We are living pay week to pay week.'”

“After their annual insurance premium tripled from $3,500 to $13,500 in the past two years, Mrs Johnstone and husband Michael Johnstone this year decided to forgo flood insurance and ‘pray to goodness’ they avoid flooding in the next 12 months. And they are not alone. ‘There’s a significant amount of elderly people in Charleville that don’t have insurance because they just can’t afford it,’ Mrs Johnstone said.”