Maybe Next Month, I’ll Find Something Even Better

A report from Business Insider. “It’s been difficult to sell a home for so long now that sellers are starting to get desperate. ‘With the passage of time, you essentially have some people really needing to move, despite the higher mortgage rates,’ NAR’s chief economist, Lawrence Yun, told BI. ‘Changes in life circumstances — marriages, divorces, looking for a better school district, a new job in a different location, or a death in the family — all these life-changing events are constantly occurring, and they accumulate.’ However, fewer existing homes were sold last year than in any year since 1995, according to the National Association of Realtors. Price cuts, particularly in the South and West, are becoming more common, and the length of time the typical US home sat on the market — an indicator that prices may continue to soften — has risen for almost a full year, Realtor.com reported.”

From Bloomberg. “The so-called spec home, a spin on the American dream home with standardized color schemes and toilet fixtures, is falling out of favor with some US builders. While that means deals for buyers, the trend also could wind up as a drag on the economy. ‘If supply continues to rise, builders will pull back on new housing starts until they clear the backlog of inventory,’ said Ali Wolf, chief economist at Zonda. ‘If you were going to say, based on supply, should we be waving a green flag, yellow flag or red flag? I’m definitely waving a yellow flag here.'”

“Builders are starting to cut prices more often in the Sun Belt, said Alex Barron, who runs independent homebuilder analysis firm Housing Research Center LLC. He’s seeing price drops of up to 10% in states like Texas and Florida. At Atlanta-based PulteGroup Inc., one of the largest US homebuilders, quick move-ins were 53% of production in its fourth quarter, higher than its historic level of around 40% to 45%. So, it’s cutting its rate of spec building, the company said in January. ‘We’re starting to discount now. It’s a good time to buy a home,’ said Willy Nunn, one of the biggest private builders in the Tampa, Florida area. On a recent Friday, it was hard to spot any slowdown in bustling Hoschton, Georgia. Construction crews appeared busy filling vacant lots with two-story houses priced at $400,000 to $500,000. But even here, Zillow listings showed several homes scattered about unsold for months and seeing price cuts of up to $20,000. National Association of Home Builders Chief Economist Robert Dietz puts the number of unsold spec homes around 389,000, the highest tally in 17 years.”

The News Tribune in Florida. “‘It is hard to qualify this as a buyer’s market when interest rates and the costs of acquiring a home are so high,’ said Jonathan Lickstein, president of Broward, Palm Beaches & St. Lucie Realtors. ‘There’s definitely more negotiability on the buyer’s side. At the same time, it’s still an expensive venture to purchase a home in today’s market.’ January saw a massive increase in the number of new single-family home listings, the largest single-month increase in years for Martin and St. Lucie counties. Active home listings surpassed pre-pandemic figures for the first time in November. ‘You’re seeing more inventory come on, which leans toward a buyer’s market,’ Lickstein said. ‘Sellers are going to have to be more realistic.'”

Sarasota Magazine in Florida. “The real estate market in Sarasota and Manatee counties is settling into a new rhythm—one that favors patience over urgency. Sales slowed in February 2025 while inventory swelled, creating market conditions not seen in years. For townhouses and condominiums, Sarasota County saw more dramatic shifts. Sales fell 12.2 percent year-over-year, with just 237 units changing hands. The median price dropped 12.3 percent, to $342,000, and nearly 72 percent of purchases were all-cash deals. The number of available condo listings in Sarasota County surged to a 9.1-month supply. Owners are also increasingly offloading condos in the wake of recent legislative changes that have made carrying costs more expensive.”

“With more choices available, buyers are taking their time. ‘They feel less urgency,’ Drayton Saunders, a local realtor explains. ‘Some are looking now, but thinking, ‘Maybe next month, I’ll find something even better.’ After years of sellers dictating the terms, the tide has turned. ‘Buyers have more options than they’ve had in years,’ Saunders says. ‘Even with longer days on market, confidence is coming back, especially in waterfront locations. Last quarter, that wasn’t the case. This is a negotiated market again—what used to be normal before the rapid run-up from 2020 to 2022.’ In other words, the real estate market is no longer running at a sprint—now it’s a marathon.”

NBC News on California. “Smoke from the ravenous Eaton Fire had barely cleared when signs began popping up on the charred remains of destroyed homes declaring Altadena was not for sale. But one month after the wildfire consumed more than 9,400 residences and 14,000 acres in the foothill community north of downtown Los Angeles, the first vacant lot sold for $550,000 cash, $100,000 above the asking price. Brock Harris, a local realtor who sold the first Altadena property after the Eaton Fire, expects new home sales to near but not exceed $2 million. He received dozens of cash offers for the first listing and now has five more listings, three of which are in escrow. They all have been cash offers. Prices have settled between $500,000 and $600,000, which is about 50% to 60% of what they were before the fire, he said. ‘It’s purely financial,’ Harris said of the people choosing to sell.”

“Ali Pearl, a University of Southern California writing professor who lost her home in the Eaton Fire, said she is committed to staying in Altadena. But her insurance payouts totaled $600,000 and builders are quoting her $1.2 million to rebuild. ‘We bought that house with the intention of living there for the rest of our lives and passing that house down to our children,’ she said, adding that she and her husband are applying for disaster loans to bridge the gap.”

Silicon Valley in California. “A high-profile East Bay office building has been bought in a deal that shows commercial property values in the Bay Area remain locked in a nosedive. An Emeryville office building at 6001 Shellmound Street has been grabbed by a Bay Area real estate firm in a streamlined foreclosure process, according to documents filed on March 19 with the Alameda County Recorder’s Office. San Francisco-based Blox Ventures paid $20.6 million for the office building through an all-cash deal, the Alameda County property records show. That price is 44.6% below the $37.2 million estimated value for the office building as of January 2024, as calculated by the Alameda County Assessor’s Office. Soaring office vacancies, slumping rents, faltering property values and rising numbers of foreclosures have coalesced to haunt the Bay Area office market.”

The Charlotte Observer in North Carolina. “Shann Fulton and Michele Edwards were divinely aligned on a perfect vision for their wedding day. They looked at venues from the Biltmore Estate to the Bella Collina Mansion in Stokesdale. But they settled on the picturesque Champagne Manor — a 10,000 square foot castle-like mansion in Union County. In early January, the venue’s owner, Jason Lottmann, informed the couple via email that their wedding wouldn’t happen. The venue had been foreclosed on and despite his best efforts, he couldn’t keep up with the payments, his email said. The email left Fulton, Edwards and dozens of couples in shock and filled with questions. That was until his arrest on Jan. 28 — on nine felony counts of obtaining property under false pretenses — illuminating an alleged scheme brewing behind the venue’s pomp and circumstance.”

“Lottmann took approximately $1 million from 30 hopeful couples intended to pay for the venue and their all-inclusive packages, giving the illusion that everything was taken care of, according to James Maye, a spokesperson for the Union County Sheriff’s Department. Lottmann’s email announcing the foreclosure promised the couples refunds. But to this day, Fulton and Edwards haven’t seen a dime of the over $20,000 in payments they made to him. ‘From the time that I found out from the florist, in my gut, I felt like that money was gone,’ Edwards said. Fulton and Edwards were willing to spare no expense to get everything they wanted out of their dream wedding. Over the past year, they made major sacrifices to save over $20,000 toward their big day. ‘We’re just going to buckle down. We’re not going to eat out, we’re not going to travel,’ Edwards said. ‘It was a sacrifice, but we swallowed the pill because we looked at the end goal. But then to find out that you’re out doing whatever with our money, and we’ve lived like this for over a year? It was tough.'”

Bisnow Washington DC. “The federal government, which has always been a point of attraction, is now turning into the city’s Achilles’ heel as the Trump administration has begun slashing the federal workforce and real estate footprint. ‘There was just predictability, stability, and that provided a nice, just stable part of a broader real estate portfolio,’ said Matthew Cypher, director of Georgetown University’s Steers Center for Global Real Estate. ‘That is what really is unnerving, is the reality that this might not be this stable market that it has historically been for literally decades,’ he said.”

“‘The general uncertainty environment has, in many respects, chilled D.C. to traditional institutional investors,’ said Solitude Cove Capital Managing Principal John Kevill, a longtime D.C. broker. These institutions like stable investments with reliable long-term returns. The pandemic-era office disruption made the sector’s future seem murky, and now the Trump administration’s sweeping cuts have exacerbated that uncertainty in the D.C. market. ‘All of these trends feel more amplified in D.C. because the shock to the system that we’ve received is an order of magnitude larger than in most places,’ Kevill said.”

The Globe and Mail in Canada. “40 Glenview Ave., Toronto. Asking price: $5,295,000 (October 2024). Previous asking price: $5,495,000 (September 2024). Selling price: $4,930,000 (November 2024). The owner of this four-bedroom house put it up for sale last fall and held four open house events, cutting the price by $200,000 a month later to keep buyer interest alive. Only after that did one of the open house visitors return with an offer, $365,000 under the revised asking price. ‘At that time, the market had shifted a little …so we adjusted the price,’ said agent Carol Lome. ‘A buyer who came through an open house, came back with an agent and made an offer. In this case, the open house paid off.'”

The Daily Hive. “Though the number of Canadian travellers to the United States continues to drastically drop, one Vancouverite planning a move to Seattle reached out to the city’s residents to find out what he may be in store for. The question was asked in a Seattle subreddit, with the Canadian explaining that they expected little to no change in lifestyle because ‘Seattle is the American Vancouver.’ However, in a discussion covering topics like public transit, housing, and even cuisine, Seattleite revealed more differences than first seen on the surface. The cost of living was a major point that came up. ‘Way more affordable in most cases due to higher earning power and lack of the completely screwed Canadian housing market,’ said one commenter.”

“‘This is a big part of my decision. I was mesmerized by how ‘cheap’ the real estate is,’ said the original poster. According to RentCafe, the average rent for a Seattle apartment is $2,232. In Vancouver, the average rent for an apartment is currently $3,199, according to Zumper. ‘The myriad charts showing the collapse of Canadian disposable income growth versus house price growth live rent-free in my head,’ said another Seattle resident. ‘Lots of causes of course, but the affordability gap is astounding and you all sure have reaped the whirlwind.'”

“Food was another big conversation piece, with Seattleites agreeing that food across the border was much better than in the Emerald City. ‘Food sucks here,’ said one Seattle resident succinctly. ‘Coffee, takeout food, restaurant food, and food in general are all more expensive in Seattle than in Vancouver.’ The big question that Seattle residents had for their Canadian neighbour was why they were planning a move to America with all of the tension between the two countries. ‘Why would you want to move to the U.S. now,’ asked a commenter. ‘This place is going down the toilet since inauguration day.’ ‘My salary has more than tripled,’ the original poster responded. ‘Canadians don’t get paid well, unfortunately. Otherwise it’s obvious to stay in Canada.'”