That ‘For Sure’ Feeling Hasn’t Come Yet

A report from WUSA. “The number of homes for sale in D.C. has reached record highs. The exodus of fired federal workers is leading to major shifts in the District’s real estate landscape. Many federal workers have lost their careers, and now have to leave behind their homes. ‘It’s sad, I feel bad for a lot of them. I have some, they just don’t know want to do,’ said Mary Bazargan, who has been a real estate agent in D.C. for around 10 years. She said she now has a surge of clients affected by the federal government’s job cuts. ‘The D.C. market is still healthy, but sellers do need to make sure that they are competitive, or maybe just a little conservative.'”

From Realtor.com. “Canadian snowbirds have long enjoyed a connection with Sun Belt states such as Florida, Arizona, and Texas. But now, that migration pattern is under pressure. A weakening Canadian dollar, rising U.S. housing costs, and growing geopolitical tensions between the two countries are prompting many Canadian homeowners to sell their U.S. properties and repatriate their gains. Miles Zimbaluk, a Realtor® and founder of Canada to USA, has worked with snowbird clients for years. Typically, his business is evenly split between buyers and sellers. But this year, he says, almost everyone is looking to sell. ‘We just have no Canadians that are really buying properties right now,’ he says. Some sellers are making the decision based purely on financial strain. ‘If it is too expensive to maintain that property … I would say it’s definitely a good time to sell,’ says Zimbaluk.”

From KOAA. “Home buyers in Colorado have more choices and still have time to shop around as the housing market in Colorado remains balanced, according to experts. ‘The Colorado Housing Market is characterized by more inventory this year compared to last year,’ Cooper Thayer, a market spokesperson and a Realtor with the Colorado Association of Realtors, explained. ‘We see about 50 percent more active listings on the market. In fact, right now, there are about 24,000 or 25,000 homes active on the market in Colorado. This is one of the highest levels we’ve seen in a little over a decade.'”

“In the seven-county Denver area, single-family and condo-townhome average days on market came in at 54, up more than 20% from where things stood in March 2024. Thayer also pointed out that nearly one in three sellers had to drop their original listing price last month. ‘We’re seeing sellers take a lot more of a methodical approach to preparing their homes for the market, and you have to be quick and reactive if your home does not get the attention that you’re expecting,’ Thayer stated. ‘Last month, we actually saw about 29 percent of active listings on the market reduce their price, which is in line with the rest of the country, but probably on the higher end, when compared to some of the other states that don’t have quite as much excess inventory as Colorado does.'”

From Arizona’s Family. “If you’ve driven around Valley neighborhoods lately, it probably won’t take long to stumble across a home for sale. ‘We were ready for a change, and honestly, being back in the house, it’s kind of bittersweet because I love this house, I’ve put a lot into the house, and I want another family to enjoy it as much as we have,’ said Brandi Kilby. Six weeks ago, the Kilbys put their north Peoria home near Happy Valley Road and 73rd Avenue on the market. ‘I thought for sure I would have my house sold by now,’ she said. But that ‘for sure’ feeling hasn’t come yet, even with the listing’s recent price drop. ‘I honestly feel like it’s just uncertain times right now,’ explained Kilby. ‘I’m just being faced with a decision to rent it out or hold and keep it on the market a little bit longer.'”

“Kilby’s home is one of nearly 20,000 that were on the active market in the Phoenix metro area in April. That month was the highest number of active listings in the area in several years. ‘You’ve got a lot more competition if you’re selling, so you might have to do a lot more concessions, maybe lower the price,’ says Independent Real Estate Market Analyst John Wake. ‘We’re to the point where the number of homes for sale, the supply of homes for sale, is so high it’s starting to put downward pressure on prices.'”

The Real Deal on California. “More and more borrowers are handing over the keys to their distressed buildings, according to panelists at the IMN Distressed CRE West Forum in San Francisco this week, leaving their lenders with no court fight to foreclose but often a ‘pretty messy’ clean up job filled with potential pitfalls and liabilities. About one-third of distressed borrowers recently have been offering a deed-in-lieu of foreclosure to their lenders, according to Dan Duarte, director of the special assets department at Chico-based Tri-Counties Bank, who moderated a panel on ‘Forced Owner Exit Strategies.’ Duarte said it had been years since he had seen this many borrowers ready to walk, oftentimes leaving the bank with not just the building, but also past due taxes.”

“‘The borrower is actually coming to the bank and saying, ‘Look, will you accept a deed-in-lieu? We’re done. We don’t want to go through the foreclosure process. We don’t want to take on default interest rates. We just want to hand it back to you,’ he said. But banks do not want to own more buildings, especially where the value of the property becomes significantly lower than the debt. So while there is some simplicity to deed-in-lieu agreements, ‘we spend a lot of time trying to avoid that,’ said Seth Moldoff, director of special assets for Umpqua Bank. ‘The offer of the deed-in-lieu is interesting, but it’s usually not going to work out well from the bank’s perspective.'”

“At the same time, it’s ‘no coincidence’ that the conference was held in San Francisco, also for the second year, according to Heather Turner, CEO of Portland-based Tamarack Capital Partners, a hospitality-focused investment firm. For Bay Area investors, the transition from a white-glove local bank like Silicon Valley Bank or First Republic to a big national bank like JPMorgan has been ‘one of the most unenjoyable experiences in the history of mankind,’ according to Riaz Taplin, founder and CEO of Oakland-based multifamily developer Riaz Capital.”

From CBC News. “Housing prices could drop slightly in Metro Vancouver amid ongoing political and economic uncertainty in Canada, some real estate experts say. Realtor Steve Saretsky said that while it used to take one or two weeks for a condo to sell, it can now take two or three months. Investors are also buying less, he said. ‘Unsold inventory on developer balance sheets is at all-time highs,’ Saretsky said. This, he said, is because ‘the investor base really disappeared, which is to say the math simply does not work anymore.’ For investors who already own, Saretsky said the unstable economy, declining rents and stagnating prices mean many are trying to sell and get out of the market. ‘The reality is, when you have record inventory for sale or you’ve got six or seven months of inventory on the market, sometimes the only way to stand out [as a seller] is to have the lowest price, right?'”

“University of British Columbia Sauder School of Business associate professor Tom Davidoff said potential buyers may want to consider giving lower-than-normal offers. ‘If I were a buyer and I didn’t need a place desperately, if I had a place I was comfortable that I could stay, I think I would be doing low-ball offers,’ he said. ‘I think bidding five, 10, 15 per cent below asking. Why not? Take some swings.'”

Newmarket Today in Canada. “Aurora, Newmarket and the Greater Toronto Area continued to see a delay to the usually busy spring housing market, according to April’s home sale numbers from the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board. Dylan Silbernagel, a sales representative with Keller Williams Realty Centres, said the first three months of the year were the slowest for home sales since 2011. ‘Buyers have just truly disappeared from the market,’ said Silbernagel, saying ‘uncertainty caused by Canada’s federal election and U.S. tariffs are impacting sales. The median prices for detached houses sold in Aurora dropped dramatically month-to-month, going from $1,633,000 in March to $1,361,000 in April. That decline means the median has dipped just below the median from 2021, according to Silbernagel.”

“Newmarket saw an even bigger decrease compared to its composite MLS home index price. The town’s housing market was down compared to its benchmark of $1,122,200, dropping by 7.33 per cent year-on-year, the second biggest decline in York Region, behind only Markham. Throughout the Greater Toronto Area, home sales were up month-to-month compared with March, going from 5,011 to 5,601. That’s down significantly from April 2024, when there were 7,302 sales. Some property types are seeing bigger declines, with sales of condo apartments declining by 30.4 per cent, sales of townhouses dropping 22.9 per cent and sales of detached homes falling 21.7 per cent.”

Insauga in Canada. “As prices drop, many homeowners have taken losses on property sales. The most recent example is a luxury home that just sold for a $1.35 million loss in Toronto. There have been many examples of homeowners who have sold for big losses in the last year. These homes were purchased at peak high prices in early 2022. But this latest example, a home at 227 Strathallan Wood, near Lawrence Avenue and Bathurst Street in Toronto, was purchased in 2023. The four-bedroom, seven-bathroom home sold for $8,350,000 in June 2023, according to online real estate records. The home was listed for $7,549,000 in March and just sold for $7 million this week. The Lytton Park home is fairly new, completed in 2022, according to the listing.”