Buyers Are Trying To Steal Places

It’s Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. “Mayra Villalona is sitting on what she thought was real estate gold. She bought a two-bed, two-bath condo near Fort Lauderdale in 2021 for $145,000, hoping to pounce on pandemic-era real estate prices. ‘This is really a great community to live in,’ Villalona told CBS News. ‘It’s just to me, for me, it’s not an investment right now. It’s not a good one.’ Villalona’s condo has been on the market since last November. Despite spending $20,000 upgrading the kitchen and the bathrooms, she has seen virtually no potential buyers. She has lowered the price twice with no luck. It is currently listed for $255,000. ‘Because it wasn’t moving…And…I wanted to sell it,’ Villalona said of why she lowered the price. Villalona says her fund restoration fees have increased ‘three times already’ because of the law, from about $20,000, to now over $50,000. ‘Well, it used to be 20 and then they went to 35, and now I owe over 50,’ Villalona said. In hindsight, would Villalona have still bought the condo back in 2021? ‘Probably not this one,’ she said.”

“The major data points in the Rhode Island real estate market are changing and in ways that may not have been anticipated. While prices remain steady other numbers are showing that the market may see some significant changes, and you only have to look to Washington, D.C. to see the influencing factor. Josh Cullion with Mott & Chace Sotheby’s International Realty said the cuts to higher education, healthcare and research are beginning to be felt here in Rhode Island. ‘Two clients, just as immediate examples for the sake of the conversation, who are relocating and changing plans [due to Washington cut]. You know we’re going to be listing and selling their home because they’re relocating to a different location because of the impact that it’s had. I don’t want that to be nightmare fuel. That’s, you know, those are two lone examples,’ said Cullion. ‘I don’t believe myself, call me naive, that it’s a title wave happening, but of course it’s being impactful.'”

“Ryan McDonough was looking to buy a home closer to the city of Phoenix as his family expanded. In January, he made an offer on a home in Phoenix and closed on the property within three weeks. In stark contrast to the quick timeframe for buying his new house, selling his existing house in Prescott Valley, about 90 miles outside of Phoenix, has been an expensive slog. ‘We’re hoping we made the right decision’ in buying, he told MarketWatch. ‘But right now, having two mortgages and two utility bills, two homeowners association [fees] … we’re really bleeding.’ The financial pressure has been mounting as their home sits on the market. They cut the price to $609,000 from its initial listing price of $630,000. His two mortgages add up to about $6,000 per month, and McDonough is also facing the resumption of student-loan payments. He had intended to pay off a big chunk of student-loan debt with the proceeds from the home sale. ‘I’m starting to think like I might need to go in with my financial assets and borrow from 401(k)s or some other assets I have,’ McDonough said, to tide the family over until their old home finds a new owner.”

“Chet Gallaway has had his Bay Area home on the market for eight months. Gallaway’s father built the home in San Carlos in the 1970s, and Chet lived there until he moved to a new house two hours north of Sacramento area. Gallaway had renters in the property, which is on the market for about $3 million. He wasn’t in a rush to sell, because the home was paid off. But he didn’t expect it to be so difficult — or this slow. ‘I personally expected it to sell very quickly,’ Gallaway, who has joint ownership of the home with his father, told MarketWatch. Not getting any worthwhile bites, he dropped the price of the home from $3.5 million to $3 million. But he was getting what he considered to be lowball offers. With the economic uncertainty surrounding the Trump administration’s new policies, ‘I think people are just less willing to plunk down millions of dollars for a property,’ he added.”

“Gallaway, who is a farmer and a real-estate investor, doesn’t want to keep cutting the asking price just to sell the home he and his father own. His father, who is nearly 80, lives on a vineyard and does not object to the sale. And there is no rush, so Gallaway isn’t unduly concerned. ‘If I had to sell it, then of course I would just feed into the death spiral and just drop the price’ until an offer comes in, he said. ‘We just don’t need to sell badly enough to capitulate.'”

“Condo owners in Modesto‘s Walnut Orchards community are protesting a proposed $25,000 special assessment per unit to replace balconies, some of which were deemed unsafe by the city of Modesto. ‘I’m on Social Security and I’m disabled and I’m a single parent. I would not be able to afford that assessment,’ said Maria Rodriguez, a condo owner of 22 years. Rodriguez already pays nearly $600 a month in HOA dues. Another resident, John Thiel, says the board framed the vote as the lesser of several financial burdens. Residents were told if the one-time fee is not approved, the HOA may increase monthly dues by 20% annually. ‘That was really alarming to see, because when you look 10 years from now, a monthly payment was going to be projected at over $4,000,’ Thiel said. ‘They’re being very unreasonable. They’re not answering our questions,’ Rodriguez said. ‘I wouldn’t recommend anybody move in and take on this HOA the way it is. I would tell them, run the other way.'”

“A juror who forced a mistrial in a deed-fraud case when she shared her own legal research with the panel will avoid a civil contempt finding if she performs 100 hours of community service, the judge ruled. Christine Heegan-Gorodinsky of Edgemont appeared Thursday, April 17, before Westchester Judge George Fufidio, two weeks after the abrupt end of the 10-week trial of Marcia Campbell and Anthony Chilliest. Campbell, a real estate broker, and Chilliest, a lawyer, were charged with conspiracy, grand larceny and falsifying business records, accused of stealing the deeds to three homes headed for bankruptcy or foreclosure, fraudulently obtaining $2 million in mortgage loans and evading $200,000 in state taxes. Two of the homes were in New Rochelle and the other was in Yonkers, and Campbell and her husband had moved into one of the New Rochelle homes. A new trial date for Campbell and Chilliest has not been set. Campbell is also awaiting trial in the Bronx on charges accusing her of taking the home of a woman who was trying to transfer ownership to a relative and stealing more than $250,000 through real estate investment scams. “

“Last year, a small Northeast Baltimore school flew into panic mode as a nearby apartment complex threatened to double the rents. Behind the scenes, the owner of the apartment community tussled with his lender over mounting financial troubles. Mendel Steiner, whose Dutch Perring Owner LLC business had purchased two communities near Morgan State University, had failed to comply with the terms of a loan from the Bank of Montreal, attorneys for the bank wrote last year in court filings. The bank asked to strip Steiner of the properties. Then, in January, the bank in legal filings reported a new development in the case: Steiner was dead. Steiner, 33, died at the beginning of January after years of being ‘unwell,’ according to Boro Park 24, a Brooklyn-based news source. The Real Deal, a real estate-focused publication, reported last month that court-assigned receivers had been appointed to take over his multifamily units in Cleveland. He is believed to have owned apartment units across the country. There are about 800 homes spread among the Baltimore apartment complexes, Dutch Village and Pleasantview, according to legal filings. From the start, the bank alleged that Steiner had misled them. Steiner stated in loan documents that he bought the two properties for $173 million instead of the $115 million he actually paid, the bank’s attorneys wrote in court filings. Steiner’s attorneys faulted the bank for approving the loan in the first place and said they were not giving him enough time to fulfill his promises.”

“For most of the last decade, the skyline in the nation’s capital was defined not only by the Capitol and the Washington Monument but by a flock of construction cranes. Over the last year, most of those cranes have disappeared. Last year, 932 rental housing units began construction in D.C., according to the Washington D.C. Economic Partnership’s annual Development Report. That was down 79% from the 4,474 units that started construction in 2023. Every year before that, going back to 2015, developers started on at least 5,000 units. The market for financing new housing in D.C. has become frozen, MRP Realty principal Matt Robinson and other developers said, in large part due to the high levels of unpaid rent that are depleting the income of landlords across the city.”

“Priya Jayachandran, CEO of nonprofit affordable housing developer National Housing Trust, said at a Bisnow event Tuesday the firm has five affordable properties that are losing money due to high levels of unpaid rent. She said the nonprofit is having to put more money in to hold onto the assets, and it is trying to sell one of them because it can’t afford to maintain the property. She said it had a deal in the works for a new affordable housing development with tax credits lined up, but the lender, which she declined to name, backed out because of uncertainty in the city. ‘Their credit folks have decided D.C. is not a good investment right now,’ she said.”

“A new report says new condo sales in the Greater Toronto Hamilton Area (GTHA) have declined more than 60 per cent year-over-year to reach the ‘lowest quarterly total since 1995.’ A total of 28 ‘presale projects’ in the GTHA – which would have resulted in over 5,700 units – have either been put on hold, cancelled, or placed in receivership or converted to purpose-built rentals since 2024, according to Urbanation’s data. Unsold new condominium inventory in the first quarter of 2025 totaled 23,918 units according to the report, which was an increase of six per cent and equal to 78 months of supply. Of that unsold inventory, Urbanation says nearly 11,000 were pre-construction projects and another 11,000 were under construction units. ‘With the Toronto region relying on condos for more than one-half of its total housing development, the magnitude of this slowdown will result in severe supply repercussions,’ Shaun Hildebrand, President of Urbanation, said in the report.”

“The Toronto-area real estate market is already awash in homes for sale, and now industry players are preparing for another large wave heading into May. ‘It’s a tough market,’ says Patrick Rocca, broker with Bosley Real Estate, who is planning to roll out a handful of listings over the next few weeks. ‘There’s zero clarity right now and that makes people nervous,’ he says. ‘Until we get a little bit more certainty, we’re going to be going sideways.’ Mr. Rocca says he is starting to see an increasing number of people under financial pressure. Home and condo owners need to sell for various reasons, but he’s advising those who have the luxury of time to wait. ‘If you’re testing the water, don’t do it.'”

“The condo segment, where new construction is adding units to a saturated market, is especially challenging. A semi in the Leaside area was still sitting after two weeks with an asking price of $1.299-million. Mr. Rocca says negotiations are often drawn out these days, but deals can come together when both sides are willing to budge. Recently he has seen a flurry of offers from bidders who are standing firm with their original offer. ‘Buyers are trying to steal places,’ Mr. Rocca says. In some cases, he senses, inexperienced agents representing buyers are not educating their clients. In those cases, buyers make a take-it-or-leave-it-offer that the sellers reject, and then there’s no room for haggling. ‘My rule of thumb is, it’s not what it comes in at – it’s what it ends up at,’ Mr. Rocca says.”

“In Bangalore’s white-hot real estate scene, fear is selling faster than facts. The city’s tech-fueled growth, soaring rents, and flashy new launches are pushing young professionals and first-time buyers into snap decisions — driven more by panic than planning. Social media flaunts clubhouse views and ‘booked before price hike’ captions, while brokers drum up urgency with tales of vanishing inventory. But one user’s viral post is now flipping the script, laying bare the emotional and financial toll of falling for the hype — and urging others to take a breath before jumping in. ‘You might think you’re late to the real estate party. But here’s a different perspective: You’re actually right on time — to skip this overhyped wave and wait for a correction or stabilisation,’ the user wrote on Reddit.”

“Having lived in Bangalore for six years, the user said they consciously chose renting over buying — valuing financial flexibility over a two-decade EMI burden. ‘The poor rental yield, the high interest burden, and the psychological weight of a 20-year loan just didn’t feel worth it,’ they said. Between 2020 and 2022, they watched the market but stayed cautious. Then rents doubled, and friends started flaunting new homes online. FOMO kicked in.”

“‘I gave in,’ they admitted. What followed was a whirlwind of site visits and price shocks. ‘Tier 1 builders were quoting ₹1.8-₹2.2 crore for a 2BHK. Even Tier 3/4 builders wanted ₹1.3 crore or more!’ Eventually, they booked a ₹1.2 crore flat in East Bangalore after a sales pitch claiming ‘80% units are already sold.’ But after the booking, red flags surfaced. Legal issues, a builder with a shady track record, and worse — the same flat was offered to a friend weeks later at ₹10 lakhs less. ‘Then began the painful 100+ follow-ups to get my booking amount refunded,’ the user said. Their message was blunt: ‘Bangalore real estate is already inflated. Don’t believe the hype.’ They questioned aggressive marketing, delayed possession timelines, and secret discounts — all signs, they argued, that demand isn’t as frenzied as it seems. ‘In times like this, cash is king,’ they said, citing economic uncertainty and job market volatility. Their advice? ‘Be smart. Be patient. And most importantly, don’t fall for FOMO.'”