It’s A Tough Conversation To Convince Them That Their $10-million Investment Is Worth Zero

A report from WSB Radio. “Looking to buy or sell a house any time soon? Atlanta’s housing market is shifting toward more balance as we head toward the second half of the year. Georgia MLS Spokesman John Ryan says after all the frenzy during the post-pandemic years, it’s becoming more of a buyer’s market, and sellers need to take note. ‘Overpricing your house right now, I think you’re going to see that it may be sitting on the market a little bit longer than what we have seen as well.’ He says 52% of transactions in the first half of the year included seller concessions. The median sales price in metro Atlanta was $411K which is down $4K from this time last year.”

WOAI in Texas. “If you’re shopping for a home, the world of real estate may now be friendlier territory than it’s been for years. ‘We’ve shifted from a ‘sellers’ market’ and we’re definitely getting close to a ‘buyers’ market,’ declared San Antonio Realtor Caralee Gurney. Until recently, a tight supply of homes has squeezed prices up, and squeezed shoppers looking for a house. But Gurney says that has changed. Now, instead of shoppers scrambling to outbid each other on a limited supply of homes, the number of available homes has increased to the point that the pressure is on homeowners trying to sell. ‘We’ve had such a long haul of houses going up, and up, and up, in value,’ Gurney said. ‘And now people are a little bit afraid and we’ve got a lot of people putting their houses on the market. Even with talk about interest rates, people are still buying. We just have a surplus of houses that we haven’t had in a long time and buying is starting to be more viable for people.'”

The Bend Bulletin. “For the first time in more than a decade, Bend approached a balanced housing market in May, according to a monthly housing supply report. ‘The more product you have on the market, the more choices and options buyers have and that could affect price,’ said Donnie Montagner, owner of Beacon Appraisal Group of Redmond. ‘To me it’s reflective of a market that is moving away from a seller’s market.’ Meanwhile, the median sales price of a single-family home in Bend dropped to $772,000 in May from its record-breaking high of $832,000 the previous month. Since May 2022, Bend’s median price of a single family home has been between a low of $660,000 to the high of $832,000 in April, according to the report.”

Aspen Times in Colorado. “Lisa Lewis was curious to see what $500,000 worth of wildfire mitigation work in her mountain community might do for her homeowners insurance premium. Her Summit County neighborhood, situated mere feet from U.S. Forest Service-owned land at the base of the Gore Range, was among the first in the country to implement a fuels reduction project in a protected wilderness area in 2022. But when Lewis tried explaining it to her insurance carrier, they ‘had no clue what I was talking about.’ ‘They didn’t even know that what we did actually lowers risk,’ said Lewis, who never saw a reduction in her premiums as a result of the work. ‘It was maddening.'”

“In most cases, insurance rates only continue to skyrocket. The state saw a 52% increase in insurance premiums for single-family homes between January 2019 and October 2022, according to the Colorado Division of Insurance. Mountain towns have seen even greater increases. Premiums for multifamily buildings, like condominiums and townhomes, have increased in some cases upwards of 1,000% in recent years, according to local officials. Tony Cookson, a business professor at the University of Colorado Boulder, co-led a 2024 study on the fallout of the 2021 Marshall Fire that destroyed over 1,000 homes in Boulder County. By analyzing the contracts of nearly 5,000 policyholders who filed claims after the fire, the study found that 3 in 4 homes were underinsured, meaning the policies weren’t enough to cover the full cost to rebuild. Cookson said most homeowners are unaware of how underinsured they are. Eagle County Community Mitigation Manager Eric Lovgren blames ‘behind-the-scenes algorithmic decisions’ that keep homeowners in the dark. ‘There’s no return on investment on the millions of dollars that have been spent by the county, fire districts (and) individual homeowners,’ Lovgren said.”

From Direct Relief. “Wildfires are not unusual in California; power outages aren’t either. For Naomi, who asked that her last name not be used for privacy reasons, the power loss to her Altadena home due to high winds from the Eaton fire left her unfazed and prepared. Like many of her neighbors, Naomi hasn’t and isn’t expected to receive insurance payments to rebuild her home. Some didn’t have insurance; homeowners whose properties were paid in full are not required to obtain insurance. Some homeowners were underinsured and don’t have the cash to rebuild. Many older adults and retirees in Altadena had the appropriate insurance, but through reverse mortgage agreements, the insurance money to rebuild has gone to mortgage lenders, not residents.”

“For displaced homeowners with mortgage payments, monthly living costs have become untenable. According to Census data, the median monthly homeowner costs for residents with a mortgage in Altadena is $3,442, compared to $844 for homeowners without a mortgage. Tina Johnson’s 1940s home is damaged, but it’s still standing. Six of her relatives’ homes have burned to the ground; including her father-in-law’s home, which was paid in full. ‘He now has to try to qualify for a $700,000 mortgage at the age of 83 in order to rebuild a house that he had no mortgage on,’ she said.”

Bisnow San Francisco. “In line with its 2025 strategy to look for savings and strengthen its balance sheet, Hudson Pacific Properties offloaded 625 Second St. for $28M, half of the 2011 purchase price. Frontline Realty Capital and Triyar Realty Group picked up the 138K SF building, which was 38.7% occupied as of the end of 2024. It was the most vacant building in Hudson Pacific’s 2.4M SF San Francisco office portfolio, the San Francisco Business Times reported. The REIT also has a substantial portfolio of office and studio space in Los Angeles, where the entertainment business continues to struggle in the wake of the pandemic, strikes and contraction in production. The challenging conditions in both California markets contributed to a full-year loss of more than $364M, almost double the $192.1M it lost in 2023. The buyers, San Francisco-based Frontline Realty Capital and Los Angeles-based Triyar Realty Group, also acquired 1440 Broadway in downtown Oakland earlier this year for $5.2M. The building sold for $43.5M in 2018.”

The Globe and Mail. “New Bank of Canada data show that Canada’s chartered banks doubled the debt they have extended to real estate developers and builders in the last year, raising outstanding loan commitments to an unprecedented $85-billion. The data reflect the financial standing from the first quarter of 2025, and the largest growth area of new lending comes from a subcategory called ‘interim construction lending’ that rose to $32.9-billion, up 383 per cent from $6.8-billion in the same quarter in 2024. Interim lending spiked to $25-billion in the second quarter of 2024 and has been above $30-billion for three quarters now. The latest number is the highest ever recorded by the Bank of Canada (which began tracking interim lending in 1994), and is more than double the previous record of $16.2-billion in the second quarter of 2022.”

“‘What everyone was doing was trying to recapitalize all their debt to a number where they could at least hold on,’ said Steve Cameron, president and chief operating officer with Cameron Stephens Mortgage Capital Ltd., which specializes in ‘mezzanine’ or interim real estate lending. ‘It was this chaotic run to the noninstitutional lender for as much leverage as they can hold on, as tight as they can, while this market corrects.’ He said many lenders were caught off guard by the erosion of value in the condominium space, which has changed the underwriting math in many cases. ‘They are very conservative, and on a lot of deals [the banks] were at 50-60 per cent loan-to-value (LTV). Now, they are waking up and saying ‘Wow, these are actually more like 90-95 per cent LTV,’ he said. ‘We’re starting to see a few more distressed situations. I wouldn’t be surprised if we’re going to start seeing more. Unfortunately, as far as I’m concerned, this is not a blip: this is a complete reset. It might be five years, it might be 10 years, but the condo market will probably not come back the way it was,’ he said.'”

“The hardest group to convince may be land developers, which Mr. Cameron describes as an almost genetically optimistic group. ‘A lot of our clients, they are coming to the realization slowly that things have changed. It’s a tough conversation to convince them that their $10-million investment is worth zero.’ The sheer scale of the lending could pose a risk, according to Fred Cassano, national real estate leader and partner at PwC Canada. ‘The government really needs to step in to get construction going again. Once construction starts, then you can refinance and pay off the interim lending,’ said Mr. Cassano. ‘Right now, no one’s doing anything, and that’s the worst thing that’s happening. No one is breaking ground because the numbers don’t work.'”

Stuff New Zealand. “There’s not a lot of point at looking at an Auckland property’s new CV to work out what it might be worth, because the CVs were determined a year ago and the market has moved on. Cotality chief property economist Kelvin Davidson says it’s also worth noting that the former CVs were set in 2021 during a ‘peak.’ ‘Just because you got a piece of paper through the mail yesterday or today saying your CV has gone down 15% or 5% [average drop 9%], you’re still going to sell your house for the same price as you would have a week ago. They were probably exaggerated, then you roll through to mid-2024 and it’s a kind of trough, so you know that’s sort of exaggerated in both directions. The latest adjustment is just kind of unwinding that excess from last time.'”

“Wellington RVs were released a few months ago. Craig Lowe, managing director of Lowe & Co says they probably helped make the market a little more ‘liquid.’ ‘Wellington’s lost 25% since the peak, and, of course the ‘brain’ doesn’t do 25% very well. It’s a quarter. People were in absolute shock, even though people know everyone else’s RV has also dropped by 25%. But [the new valuations] did help in expectation management for the sellers. The reality is that money was gone anyway. The buyers were never there to pay more than the RV. The RV dropping hasn’t changed its value, but it has made it [the reality of the current market] more visceral for owners. And therefore I would argue it has probably helped make the market a little more liquid in Wellington as people are more realistic.'”

The Nation Thailand. “Despite Thailand’s historically low seismic risk profile, the tremor has triggered a marked decline in sales for new high-rise residential developments exceeding eight storeys. Woradech Rukkhaphan, chief executive of VBeyond Development, said a recent earthquake has fundamentally altered housing preferences across the kingdom. He characterised the current environment—marked by price adjustments and developer promotions—as presenting a ‘golden opportunity’ for purchasers. With commercial banks holding approximately 500 billion baht in NPLs and state-owned institutions managing another 326 billion baht, AMCs have become vital players in managing distressed assets. Dr Rak Vorrakitpokatorn, chief executive of Bangkok Commercial Asset Management (BAM) outlined the evolution of AMCs beyond traditional models, advocating for active ‘recycling’ of distressed assets to restore profitability through aggressive management and rapid turnover of properties acquired at substantial discounts—often around 70% of appraised values.”