We Are Never Getting Yesterday Back

A report from Yahoo Finance. “Lynn Knittel-Bruk wasn’t expecting a financial fever dream when she inherited a condo in Lake Worth, Fla., from her late aunt. Agents suggested the unit would fetch between $175,000 and $220,000. But when she listed it last summer, buyer interest was tepid, and she found herself competing with dozens of other units for sale in the same complex. As the condo racked up days on market, she was footing the bill for monthly association fees that swelled to close to $800 a month, plus a mortgage payment. Seven months and one Realtor switch later, the condo finally sold in February for around $90,000. Had the process taken any longer, Knittel-Bruk, 65, said she was prepared to give the unit back to the bank. ‘It was an absolute nightmare,’ Knittel-Bruk said. ‘I had no idea that inheriting a condo was actually going to cost me money.'”

“In Delray Beach, north of Fort Lauderdale, a part of the state where more than 80% of condos are more than 30 years old, real estate agent Paul Lykins has witnessed the price correction firsthand. He sold Knittel-Bruk’s condo, and has other listings that are lingering on the market. He and a prospective buyer recently toured a unit that had been cut to $230,000 after 46 days on the market. Its initial list price was $285,000. ‘We’re just seeing price drop after price drop,’ Lykins said. ‘I think a lot of people are nervous about buying condos right now. They take care of one assessment, but then is there another assessment around the corner?'”

From WINK News. “The Southwest Florida housing market is experiencing a slowdown, with more homes on the market but fewer buyers. This trend is causing concern for sellers who have been waiting for months to find potential buyers. Cindy Marsh-Tichy, president of the Realtors of Punta Gorda, Port Charlotte, North Port, and DeSoto, said this is a sign of the times. ‘Things are sitting on the market a little longer. There’s a lot of homes on the market, more inventory than we’ve had in a while,’ said Marsh-Tichy. ‘It’s a buyer’s market, for sure,’ she added. ‘A home seller probably will not recoup the value of their home depending on when they purchased. If they purchased at the height of the market, it may be quite a while.'”

“Rodney Weng has been trying to sell his Punta Gorda home for two and a half years. Initially, showings were frequent, but interest dropped off after the first year. ‘It’s been on the market probably two and a half years, and showings have been pretty good at the beginning, but then after about a year, everything kind of just dropped off,’ said Weng. Despite dropping the sale price by $79,000, potential buyers have not been interested. ‘I expected probably six months. I figured somebody would have done grabbed it up,’ said Weng.”

News 12 on New York. “Housing, hoops and jobs, that’s how the Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park Project was sold to the community. While the project did bring Barclay’s Center and some jobs, two decades since it’s inception, only 55% of the 2,500 affordable housing unites promised, have been built. Now, the developer is facing hefty fines for the unfinished affordable housing. ‘So part of it was a lot of empty promises, a lot of fantastic thinking,’ said Assemblymember Jo Anne Simon. The project developer, Greenland USA, foreclosed on its right to build the remaining housing. ‘Somebody would have to buy that debt and that has not happened yet,’ said Simon. ‘We’re a month away from a deadline that can’t be met,’ Michelle de la Uz, of the Fifth Avenue Committee. ‘And there are liquidated damages in a contract that must be paid.'”

ABC 15 in Arizona. “The housing market in metro Phoenix is softening at a time when the spring selling season is usually robust. ‘The market is feeling softer and softer, with many properly priced homes sitting unsold and with very few showings,’ said Greg Hague, CEO of Scottsdale-based 72Sold. In fact, said Chris Morrison, founding partner at Retsy | Forbes Global Properties, a 10-year high in inventory is creating a market that buyers have been clamoring for — despite the 7% mortgage interest rates hovering over their pocketbooks.”

From KNIA in Iowa. “4.2 acres platted in southeast Newton decades ago for 14 detached townhome units, is now being opened up for construction of single family homes. An eight lot subdivision has been approved for Whispering Pines at 501 East 19th Street South. The request to make vacant lots there available for single family houses was made by Griffith Home Builders of Kellogg President Chuck Griffith. Newton Mayor Evelyn George notes building on the property hasn’t occurred for many years. ‘I know there has been a lot of effort put into trying to sell the vacant lots, and it hasn’t been successful when it was set up as the original condominium development. They feel this will be more successful.'”

KUSI in California. “The U.S. housing market seemed to improve for buyers as April saw an increased number of listings compared to last year across all regions, including San Diego, according to a recent monthly report. The San Diego metro area had the sharpest increase in year-over-year inventory growth out of all the 50 largest housing markets in the country at over 70%, data showed. This means interested homebuyers in San Diego have more options to choose from. It was followed by Washington, D.C. which saw a 69% increase and San Jose reporting year-over-year growth in inventory at 68%. Realtor.com reported the median list price of a home was nearly $980,000 in April, a 6.7% decrease from the median price in the area last year.”

Berkeleyside in California. “Paying $2,295 each month to rent a dated one-bedroom apartment might not sound like much of a bargain if you haven’t been in the housing hunt lately. But that figure — which was the median monthly rent new tenants paid to lease hundreds of older Berkeley apartments last July, August and September — represents a remarkable shift in the city’s housing market. Two summers earlier, in 2022, that same stock of apartments commanded a median rent of $2,600. And the summer wasn’t a fluke. According to data collected by the city and analyzed by Berkeleyside, new leases in Berkeley’s stock of older apartments throughout 2024 had rent levels that were roughly in line with what tenants were paying for those apartments six years prior. That’s before adjusting for inflation. Factor in rising costs elsewhere — the Consumer Price Index grew by more than 25% from 2018 to the end of 2024 — and rents were in effect far cheaper.”

“Developers who helped drive the city’s building boom previously told Berkeleyside a glut of new housing has led to falling prices. And local landlords appear to agree. The Berkeley Property Owners Association sent out a newsletter to its members last July headlined, ‘Managing Through Declining Rents,’ which cited the city’s new housing supply as one reason why ‘many owners are no longer able to command the rents for their vacancies that they once could.'”

News 4 San Antonio in Texas. “A huge apartment complex that’s been plagued by crime and gang activity is going into foreclosure, leaving the future of hundreds of tenants uncertain. The owner tells the News 4 I-Team he believes the city’s migrant policies and police response caused the downfall of his property. The owner of the 678-unit Palatia apartments says they never financially recovered after Tren de Aragua gang members broke into hundreds of apartments, damaged them, and even rented them to people who had been staying at the city’s migrant resource center. Last summer John Barker showed us how many of his apartments were being lived in by people who had left the migrant center or the airport shelter operated by the city.”

“Some had paid money to gang members to stay there. ‘They had their own leases they were signing with these residents, with these migrants they were bringing in, taking their money and breaking into their units,’ Barker said. Barker says he begged the city for help, but at first an assistant city attorney responded with indifference. ‘He said verbatim to me, we refuse to acknowledge there’s a migration issue and if there’s any issues on site, that you’re having to deal with, that’s on you,’ Barker said. Repairs were so extensive and costly he’s now forced to give the property back to the bank next week. ‘We spent a lot of money trying to bring this thing back but we’re just past the point of return,’ Barker said.”

The Globe and Mail in Canada. “The next couple of years will be painful for the Vancouver region’s real estate market, say industry experts. Foreign money and a historically low interest rate have vanished. Inventory has piled up; projects are being put on hold – even after construction has begun – and work is drying up. ‘I don’t think we need the housing if we don’t have the jobs,’ said Ross McCredie, chief executive officer of Sutton Group, one of B.C’s largest real estate franchisors. ‘It’s the same issue they’re having with the Broadway Corridor, and all this housing they want to build. Well, just drive around Vancouver right now … you see a lot of vacancy signs on apartment buildings. Rental rates are going down; vacancy rates are going up. People are leaving the province.’ In the current downturn, Mr. McCredie expects that segments of the presale market will see foreign buyers walk away from their deposits rather than complete. ‘For a long period of time, Vancouver focused just on rich people from foreign countries. And they didn’t put housing in for people like ourselves. So, I think I think it’s been a huge problem.'”

“Part of the problem is that the current market downturn in Metro Vancouver is different from previous cycles, said Greg Zayadi, president of Rennie Group. ‘We are never getting yesterday back, not as an industry and not as a city,’ said Mr. Zayadi. Mr. Zayadi is seeing all stages of a stalled development industry. He’s seeing the developers who have permits but have decided to wait another year and ‘mothball the sales centre, stop the marketing.’ And he’s seeing two or three developers who have already presold units who are giving back the deposits. He’s even seeing developers who’ve decided to stop and leave a hole in the ground for a few years. ‘We all grew these companies through, you know, 2017, 2018, 2019 and then accelerated in 2021. And now the market is off massively. We’re about to get the presale numbers in, but I bet you it’s going to be the worst quarter we’ve seen in pre-sales in the history of our market,’ said Mr. Zayadi.”

This Is Money. “House prices fell in April as the rise in stamp duty dampened the property market, according to Nationwide Building Society. Aside from the stamp duty impact, there has also been a glut of homes on the market which can contribute to falling prices. In the four weeks to 20 April there were 12 per cent more homes for sale, than a year previously, according to Zoopla. The average estate agent branch had 34 homes for sale, compared to 31 at the same time last year and a low of 15 in 2022 during the pandemic boom. Jonathan Hopper, chief executive of buying agent, Garrington Property Finders says this is creating a perfect environment for buyers. ‘In some parts of the UK, the supply of homes for sale is now far outstripping demand,’ said Hopper. ‘This is especially true in more expensive, and often highly desirable, areas where the trickle of supply has turned into a flood.'”

The New Straits Times in Malaysia. “A total of 23,149 completed residential units, valued at RM13.94 billion, remained unsold as of late 2024. Over 60 per cent of these properties were condominiums and apartments, while 13.8 per cent were double-storey terrace houses. Kuala Lumpur recorded the highest number of unsold homes at 4,234 units, followed by Johor (2,964), Perak (2,844) and Penang (2,796). Former Valuation and Property Services Department director-general Professor Mohd Khairudin Abd Halim said the authorities must address the issue of unsold homes when formulating housing policies. ‘This glut in housing could be an opportunity for young people, if accompanied by the right policy support. They should be encouraged to buy homes as soon as they enter the workforce because property is a permanent asset, unlike other assets that depreciate. The government must prioritise this effort,’ he said.”

From Real Estate Asia. “Lower stamp taxes on Hong Kong’s residential properties are unlikely to drive prices up despite a surge in transactions under $4m because of a persistent oversupply, analysts said. With about 108,000 private homes forecast to come to the market in the next three to four years, developers are under pressure to keep rather than raise prices, Elliott Hau, head of financing valuation at Colliers Hong Kong, told Real Estate Asia. ‘The overall impact on property prices may be limited due to the ongoing oversupply issue,’ he said via Zoom. ‘The increase is not solely due to the ad valorem duty adjustment,’ he said. A significant factor is the large property stock developers are holding, which is driving them to cut prices and use various marketing tools to boost sales, he added.”