The Story Is All About The Missing Investor – A Key Player In The Housing Market, And They’ve Run For The Exits

A weekend topic starting with an email I received this week. “I was often on your blog daily from about 2007 until about 2010. I remember people discussing the dangers of mortgage back securities, subprime loans and the coming reset of ARM’s, etc. I remember at least one of them stating that they worked on Wall Street and that was the one who talked about the risk inherent in MBS’s. It would be kind of cool to have a discussion on that. I do believe that the original discussion began long before the financial crisis hit. Maybe other users have a recollection of that time period.”

The Online Beacon. “You’ve been saving kitchen inspirations on Pinterest, imagining perfect peaceful bedrooms and daydreaming about half baths. Then, you innocently go onto Zillow or stop by an open house just about anywhere in New England. With excitement in your chest, and a little money stored away, you ask how much it will cost. The realtor looks upon you, smiling brightly, ‘Only $700,000.’ You place that dream back on the shelf. Lisa Paulette has been a realtor in New England for 23 years. ‘The age that I see people renting and buying has just gotten older and older. They can’t afford to leave home even if they want to,’ Paulette explains.”

“The average single-family sale price in Massachusetts is $588,621 — a shockingly high price for a new grad to be faced with. It’s not just Massachusetts grappling with soaring home prices; this trend exists in the rest of New England as well. According to Amanda Blanco and Jay Lindsay’s research in Nowhere to Hide: Housing Costs Keep Climbing in all Corners of New England, ‘between October of 2016 to 2024, the average value of a single-family home in Connecticut has risen 69%, Maine: 102%, Massachusetts: 74%, New Hampshire: 102%, and Rhode Island: 89%.'”

From KSL.com. “The spring homebuying season in Utah is off to a slow start. At least that’s how Dejan Eskic, who studies the housing market at the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute at the University of Utah, describes it. The median statewide price for all housing types in Utah has been stubbornly hovering around $500,000 for months, Eskic said. The number of homes for sale in Utah is back to pre-pandemic levels, Eskic said. ‘The caveat,’ he added, ‘is now there’s less new construction happening. Nobody’s feeling pressure to make a big financial decision,’ Eskic said, ‘because they’re not going to lose anything by waiting.’ At the end of the day, is it a buyer’s market in Utah? ‘Buyers have the advantage, but it’s not a buyer’s market, if that makes sense,’ Eskic said. ‘The sellers aren’t in a pinch. They’re OK sitting and waiting for the right deal to come along.'”

“A new study found it costs $1,517 a month more to buy than rent in the Salt Lake City metro area, when looking at average monthly payments. In fact, Salt Lake had the fifth highest gap between buying and renting costs in the country. ‘This gap is the widest we’ve seen even,’ Eskic said. ‘The demand is there, but it’s difficult to access because so few people qualify for that price point.'”

From Summit Daily. “Things that bloom in the spring: tulips, daffodils — and home listings. ‘Traditionally, maybe you have your property up for the winter, or you’re using it for the winter, and then April (to) May is when your seasonal rentals are all done,’ said Dana Cottrell, a realtor with Summit Resort Group and president of the Colorado Association of Realtors. ‘After Easter, things are dead. But listings start to go up because people are taking (their properties) off the rental market, and they’re like, ‘Yeah, it’s time to sell.’ While the 47% jump in listings might make it seem like there’s been a significant increase in homes on the market, she said listing numbers were low enough by the mid-2023 that even a 50% jump wouldn’t come close to the listings the Western Slope housing market was seeing between 2018 and 2022.”

“While potential buyers in parts of the Western Slope have more choices and potential for negotiation than they did in 2023 — especially now that the number of listings far-exceed the number of sales — they continue to face climbing prices. ‘40%, or 50% of nothing is still pretty darn low,’ she said. ‘When you look at the new listings and what’s going on in the market right now, yes, we are growing like crazy in terms of new listings … but we’re still not back to even the 2018 range, or even the lowest spike of new listings from when we first were dealing with COVID. Bottom line: If you’re waiting for the market to cool like last night’s pizza — don’t hold your breath. The heat’s still on,’ Cottrell wrote in her monthly newsletter.”

The Calgary Herald. “In a regular year, it’s about a 50-50 split between Canadians buying and selling U.S. property, according to the owner of Canada to USA, a company that helps Canadians with cross-border needs. However, this year almost 100 per cent of its clients are selling, according to Miles Zimbaluk, the founder and CEO. They often help clients with real estate and currency exchanges. ‘Almost nobody’s buying at the moment for multiple reasons,’ said Zimbaluk. In the greater Phoenix area, there’s been a 700 per cent increase in Canadians listing properties for sale between January and March of this year over the same period in 2024. Kevin Vaxvick and his wife are ‘snowbirds in training’ from Regina. They spend at least six weeks at their house near Mesa, Ariz., every year, and aren’t motivated to sell. ‘Honestly, we don’t see anything different,’ Vaxvick said, while noting they do see many fellow Canadians selling. ‘I think there’s an opportunity to make a lot of money right now with the dollar being so low,’ he said. Vaxvick highlighted that US$300,000 is more than C$400,000 and some homes in Arizona have more than tripled in value over the past decade.”

San Jose Spotlight in California. “Cities in Santa Clara County have approved hundreds of new homes, but construction hasn’t kept up, a data analysis by San José Spotlight shows. There’s about 37% more housing being permitted than built, and even less affordable housing, based on a countywide six-year average. Experts say rising costs and scarce resources are delaying construction, and permit numbers are being inflated by companies who don’t plan to break ground at all. Land use consultant Bob Staedler said on top of delays, there are developers who get projects permitted without the intent to build them. Staedler said these ‘flippers’ maximize the land’s value and then sell it off after receiving permits. Once resold, the new builder usually has to re-design the project.”

The Hub in Canada. “The notion of a ‘lost decade’ has loomed over the federal election campaign which now finds itself in the final weekend before Monday’s vote. Any talk of a lost decade implicitly—and sometimes explicitly—references the two rich countries that have recently experienced a lost decade and counting. Japan’s lost decade began in 1991 and continues to this day. Italy’s economic malaise began later, with a less clear timestamp, but similarly still continues. Lost decades aren’t so easy to escape, it seems. What distinguishes Canada’s lost decade from Japan’s and Italy’s is that we haven’t just experienced economic stagnation. It’s that we’ve matched flat-lining (or even declining) living standards with skyrocketing housing prices.”

“The data does allow us to say that at the end of Japan’s first lost decade, real housing prices in Japan were 25 percent lower than at its onset. A decade after the 2008 crisis, Italy’s real housing prices were almost 30 percent lower than they were before the crisis. In Canada, by contrast, at the end of 2024 (the last quarter for which we have data), real home prices remain markedly higher than they were 10 years ago at the onset of our lost decade.”

The Globe and Mail in Canada. “In Metro Vancouver, supply has most definitely outpaced demand. The number of newly built, unsold condo units in the Vancouver region is expected to increase by 60 per cent by year’s end. ‘Right now, the market is out of gas. Nothing is working for developers. It’s not really working for buyers. So, we’re just kind of stagnating right now,’ said Ryan Berlin, head economist and vice-president of Rennie Intelligence. The story is all about the missing investor – a key player in the housing market. And they’ve run for the exits. Mr. Berlin has long kept statistics on investors, and from 2020 to 2023 they represented half of Rennie Marketing’s buyers. By 2024, they made up one-quarter of buyers. This year, only seven per cent of buyers are investors, he said.”

“The investor buyer has kept the condo market going for decades. Willing to put up the deposit far in advance of the completed building, the investor enables the developer to obtain financing to construct. Once completed, the investor finds tenants for the unit, and investor landlords became a significant source of housing in the rental market. When lucrative rents were achievable, and borrowing money was cheap, the investor could easily cover costs, known as positive cash flow. But the conditions flipped, and with dropping rents and rising interest rates, many of them entered significant negative cash flow, said Berlin. ‘It’s not very palatable,’ he said.”

“Developers were already dealing with high construction costs and soaring municipal fees. And policies that made sense in a hot market rife with speculation – which defined 2015 and 2016 – are restricting the market even more. ‘If somebody has money to invest in something and they look at this market, they’ll go, ‘Wow, I’m really being squeezed. Maybe I’ll just put it into a GIC. It’s not to judge any of these policies as being good or bad overall for society, like a sort of net utility,’ said Mr. Berlin. ‘But certainly, for investors … this real imbalance got created between risk and reward. The opportunity for reward diminished and the risks increased.'”

News.com.au in Australia. “Labor and the Coalition have officially launched their election campaigns and weighed in with the housing policies they hope will turn the dial. Anthony Albanese plans to bring more buyers into the market by allowing every first homebuyer to purchase with a deposit of just 5 per cent. Peter Dutton plans to bring more buyers into the market by allowing them to access their superannuation to use as a deposit. Their mortgage payments would also be tax deductible. Just like every major party housing policy in recent memory, the problem is that they’re all about bringing more buyers into the market. Grants, guarantees, deductions will make a lot more people eligible to buy. Economists and other commentators have largely panned the policies of both parties as inflating demand without adequately increasing supply. The result? Rising house prices.”

“Change is exactly what’s required according to Finder head of consumer research Graham Cooke. ‘What’s prolonging the housing crisis? Two words – negative gearing,’ Cooke said. ‘It’s created a system where property investors are rewarded for buying up multiple homes, while first home buyers are priced out. By allowing investors to deduct rental property losses from their taxable income, we’ve essentially turned housing investment into tax relief. The result? A market skewed towards investors rather than owner occupiers.'”

From Wales Online. “Alan Harper-Smith’s venture into the property market began with him saving for a deposit on a two-bedroom flat beside a railway. Now aged 67, he finds himself the owner of an expansive ex-farm in Gwynedd. Yet, rather than feeling satisfied, he, along with many other local homeowners, feels cornered. His farm includes five 16th-century cottages transformed into holiday rentals, and his farmhouse runs as a B&B. Alan expressed: ‘To be honest, we are thinking of selling up with all the restrictions coming in the pipeline and the destruction of tourism in Wales. It will be a massive reduction in price for me, but probably worth it from a mental health point of view for both my wife and I. It is driving me bonkers and my health is suffering.’ The property market in Gwynedd has experienced a downturn, leaving sellers like Alan facing tough decisions as their homes lose value. He remarked, ‘No one would sell a £500,000 house for £50,000,’ expressing his frustration.”

“With no choice but to look for other options, he is considering decommissioning his cottages by removing kitchens and bathrooms and transforming them into business premises. This dilemma isn’t unique to Alan – residents across North Wales have turned to online forums to voice their distress about the stagnant housing market, even after slashing prices. The properties range from secondary holiday homes to primary residences. A woman from Gwynedd shared her story, noting: ’18 months prior, her family’s sea-and-mountain-view bungalow was quickly snapped up, only to be taken off the market due to health issues. Now, despite its improved condition. In one month, not one viewing.'”

“Over in Conwy, a couple on pension and owners of a second home are feeling pressured to sell as they face a council tax increase to £9,666 this year, compared to £3,866 if it were their main residence. After two years of unsuccessful attempts to sell, the husband confessed: ‘I am feeling sick and worried. My Welsh-born father and grandparents would be turning in their graves if they knew.’ A 76 year old Pen Llŷn resident has also expressed regret over her property purchase due to unforeseen complications. She said: ‘Had I known back in 2017 when we first exchanged contacts with the builder that there were so many problems ahead, we would have never purchased in Wales. I understand your grief,’ and shared the distress of being unable to sell her home to be closer to her family.”

“In this sluggish market, finalising sales is increasingly difficult, particularly for high-end properties. Online comments from vexed sellers in Gwynedd mirror this frustration. One person said: ‘I am second home owner trying to get out, for one year now. It’s not happening, agents just want you to keep dropping the price. I am in the red against what I paid for my house.’ Despite his frustrations, Alan isn’t keen on selling. ‘I’ve re-invested every penny I’ve earned over the last 28 years into the old cottages, using local people,’ he shared. He laments the government’s approach, saying, ‘Now we’re seeing the government kicking us in the nuts.'”