I Was Chasing The Market Down

It’s Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. “Experts said growth could be playing a role in Lakeland having the most foreclosure activity in 2024 compared to other metropolitan areas of its size. ‘It’s not surprising to be honest with you. Lakeland’s the jewel of Polk County. Everyone wants to be in Lakeland and the state of Florida,’ said Bob Miller, real estate broker at MillShire Realty. Miller said Florida’s homeowners insurance crisis is another reason why some people are no longer able to afford their mortgage. ‘When those insurance premiums start kicking in, they can’t make the payments they just don’t know what to do so a lot of them, for lack of a better term, they curl up in a little bit of a ball and they wait in a corner for someone to knock on the door. That’s not the best option,’ said Miller. According to ATTOM, one in every 172 units saw foreclosure activity in 2024. ‘A lot of times, the biggest problem is that the homeowner doesn’t communicate with the bank and that’s when things really start to spiral out of control,’ said Miller.”

“Indiana has the third highest foreclosure rate in the nation, according to data from the Fair Housing Center of Central Indiana. The data shows that Marion County foreclosures rose for a third straight year. Last year, 1,630 Marion County homeowners defaulted on their mortgages and lenders took possession of their properties. ‘There’s just not enough money to go around,’ said Amy Nelson, executive director of the Fair Housing Center of Central Indiana. ‘Wages haven’t kept up with prices. Not only are individual housing costs going up, but costs for so many different things.’ The neighborhoods with the highest foreclosure rates is Crown Hill followed by Near Southside and Arlington Woods. In Crown Hill, ATTOM Data shows there is one foreclosed home for every 29 houses.”

“Katherine Garcia says she didn’t know anything about the house she rents being in foreclosure until lawyer letters came to her address. ‘I don’t know anything, so I’m in the middle of something that’s not even my problem,’ she said. The letters weren’t for her. She says they were for her landlord, threatening foreclosure. Garcia says the foreclosure sale is Thursday and that her lease for the house in Statesville is up a few weeks later. She says she would love to stay there and sign another lease with whoever buys it, but she can’t risk it. So, she’s looking for another place.”

“Mortgage Fraud is surprisingly common among real estate investors. That is the conclusion of a recent Philadelphia Fed working paper by Ronel Elul, Aaron Payne, and Sebastian Tilson. The fraud is that investors are buying properties to flip or rent out but claim they are buying them to live there in order to get cheaper mortgages. One-third of all investors is a lot of fraud! The flip side of this is that real estate investors are much more prevalent than the official data says: ‘We argue that the fraudulent purchasers that we identify are very likely to be investors and that accounting for fraud increases the size of the effective investor population by nearly 50 percent.'”

“The mortgage fraud paper also provides evidence of investors losing money. In particular, rather than fraudulent investors crowding out the good ones, they are actually more likely to end up defaulting on their purchases: These fraudulent borrowers perform substantially worse than similarly declared investors, defaulting at a 75% higher rate. This mortgage fraud paper seems like a bombshell to me and I’m surprised it seems to have received no media attention; journalists take note. For everyone else, I suppose you read obscure econ blogs precisely to find out about the things that haven’t yet made the papers.”

“Call it the dilemma of the accidental supercommuter. During the early years of COVID, buying a place two or three hours from Manhattan seemed not only feasible but, in many cases, sensible. Now that employers are increasingly mandating that workers return to the office, they’re doing whatever they can to stay. For many, that means moving a little bit closer to the city, or at least closer to a train station. Jared Vengrin, a real-estate agent at Corcoran, says that he’s been having a lot of conversations in this vein with clients — people looking to move from places like Stone Ridge and Accord to Northern Dutchess County. He observed firsthand that while some were canny about buying within commuting distance, a lot of buyers were tempted by houses that were significantly further out, where they could get more for their money, especially in the heady days of fully remote work and the real-estate frenzy that followed, with buyers snapping up houses as soon as they hit the market. ‘Now many are selling,’ he says.”

“Homeowners of condos and townhomes that have ‘opted in’ to be part of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers debris removal process have been left in limbo. ‘Our six units all had shared walls; they were three-story condos,’ said Mark Smith, who lived in a condo that burned in the Palisades Fire. Smith and his neighbors are still waiting to find out if they qualify for the Army Corps debris removal program provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which comes at no cost to the homeowners or their insurers. ‘We are essentially on a technicality because we are deemed commercial. We are actually underfunded, underinsured, and this is going to be, well, it is going to be absolutely devastating to a lot of homeowners,’ Smith said. Smith’s homeowner association insurance was dropped last year, forcing the community to be insured by the California Fair Plan, leaving them with little help financially in this rebuild process. ‘We anticipate it is going to be about $50,000 per unit,’ Smith said. What happens next for homeowners, like Smith, is still up in the air. With bills adding up, a lack of information leaves him and others in the dark. ‘I would like to see FEMA do the right thing,’ Smith said.”

“San Jose has suddenly become a buyer’s market in terms of housing. According to Redfin, the Bay Area’s biggest city saw a 30% spike in home sale listings, the highest percentage jump in the county. Although the spike is suitable for realtors, many question whether there will be more competition and home buyers. ‘It just really worked out with our personal plans. So we decided to list now,’ said Jorge DeLuna of San Jose. ‘We were not ready at the end of last year and this is just the right time for us.’ Deluna listed his 100-year-old four-bedroom, two-bath Spanish-style house on Gordon Avenue for just under $1.8 million without realizing it was included in the 30% hike.”

“In times of turbulence in the real estate market, sellers often cling to prices from recent history while buyers predict a slide sometime in the future. But property deals are coming together in the Toronto core when both camps take a clear look at where prices are hovering today – and their own circumstances. ‘They have to fit their mindset into the current market,’ says James Warren, real estate agent with Chestnut Park Real Estate Ltd. Some of the houses that were listed on the MLS in the fall without finding a buyer have come back on the market in 2025 at a lower price, he says. If an asking price is too rich, the property may be unfavourably compared to others listed at a lower price. ‘If you have an inflated price on your house, you’re going to get used to sell other houses – and there’s nothing worse than that.'”

“In March, Mr. Warren sold a three-bedroom condo unit at 33 Mill St. after listing it three weeks earlier with an asking price of $2.45-million. The owner agreed to a sale price of $2.35-million. ‘It depends on the seller and how realistic they want to be,’ he says of current negotiations. ‘You can’t hold out for that extra bit of money because it isn’t there.’The difference setting a realistic asking price from the start can make was on display at two identical houses listed one year apart by two brothers, Andre Kutyan, broker with Harvey Kalles Real Estate points out. At 87B Bedford Park Ave., Mr. Kutyan sold a four-bedroom house within 24 hours of listing the property with an asking price of $2.798-million. The buyers paid $2.785-million for the house on March 17. In March of last year, Mr. Kutyan had listed the sister house at 87A with an asking price of $3.385-million. It languished on the market with a series of price trims until October, when it sold for $2.707-million. ‘I was chasing the market down,’ he says. ‘They wouldn’t listen on price at the start.'”

“At the same time, some homeowners are selling under duress. Mr. Kutyan points to one property listed under ‘power of sale’ in mid-town which currently has an asking price of $7.849-million. A lender is selling the house at a discount to the previous selling price of $8.35-million in 2023. Broker Cheri McCann of McCann Realty Group is seeing first-time buyers enter the market now that buyers have more power and sellers are often more amenable to securing a deal. ‘If it doesn’t work out, you move on to the next one,’ she says of the negotiations. Some people are trying lowball bids, she adds, but those typically don’t result in a sale. ‘They’re trying to steal it from the sellers – and that won’t happen.’ As for the coming weeks, Ms. McCann is planning to roll out some additional properties between now and the end of June. She expects some homeowners may also decide to list as they face higher interest rates when their five-year fixed-rate mortgage loans come up for renewal. ‘I think it’s important not to flood the market with listings,’ she says.”

“The property market is being swamped with listings, according to latest data from Zoopla. There are 11 per cent more homes for sale compared to this time last year, the property portal says. The glut of homes on the market is translating into slowing house price growth. Richard Donnell, executive director at Zoopla said: ‘House price growth is set to moderate further as supply grows and the extra costs of stamp duty in England feed through into house prices. A slowing in house price growth is not a major concern although the market needs some growth in prices to encourage sellers to come to market and buyers to make realistic offers on homes for sale. There is plenty of demand for homes but also lots of choice. Households looking to sell their home in 2025 need to be careful when setting their asking prices if they are to attract sufficient demand to agree a sale.'”

“The all-important auto industry in this east German town rolled with history’s punches. Now the people of Zwickau are bracing for a new threat: the second Trump administration. In Germany, an economic juggernaut whose export-led economy has been struggling, Trump’s tariffs feel like the coda to an era of trade-based prosperity. ‘The result would be a second Detroit,’ warned Uwe Kunstmann, chair of a workers council at VW’s Zwickau plant. ‘To reindustrialize America, Trump is really going for Europe,’ said Georg Riekeles, associate director of the European Policy Center and a former E.U. senior adviser.”

“At the VW plant in Zwickau, ‘existential fears’ are setting in, said Anne Petzold, an employee. Born and raised in Zwickau, Petzold, 32, lives with her partner and 2-year-old daughter on the outskirts of the Saxon town. Last year, they bought a house. ‘Of course, you’re scared. You know you have to be able to pay off the loan, whether you’re employed or unemployed,’ she said. ‘So you set aside as much as you can.'”

“Experts have warned the Victorian government’s attitude towards landlords and the state’s weak economy is deterring Melburnians from investing in their own city. And new PropTrack research shows median weekly rents have decreased or remained flat in more than 30 Melbourne suburbs in the 12 months to February, meaning investors could be losing money in these areas. Caulfield houses led the charge with median weekly rents dropping from $975 to $875, equating to a 10.3 per cent fall – or a $100 loss per week. ‘Anywhere that rents are going down indicated a possible oversupply of rentals in that area,’ said Property Investors Council of Australia director Ben Kingsley.”

“Melbourne rich lister and regular The Block buyer Danny Wallis is making moves to offload his portfolio of investment homes across the state. ‘I wouldn’t invest in Victoria, full stop,’ he said. Mr Wallis described the government’s decision this month to introduce a new property tax to replace the Fire Services Property Levy, as ‘just ridiculous.’ Mr Wallis also criticised government policy that financially penalises investors for leaving a house sitting vacant even if it does not meet basic living standards, as required under the law, for reasons such as heritage concerns impacting upon renovations.”