People Are Putting Their Houses On The Market And Just Can’t Sell Them – The Houses Are Lying Empty

A report from the Wall Street Journal. “The inventory of homes for sale is finally rising. Buyers aren’t interested. ‘There will be more price reductions that are going on, and more willingness to sell at a lower number, especially in the next couple months,’ said Jeff Lichtenstein, president of Echo Fine Properties in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. ‘We’ve definitely seen people who have taken losses.’ ‘There’s not even usually a home for sale in our neighborhood, and I think there’s three or four right now,’ said Dirk Lovelace, who listed his Tryon, N.C., house for sale in April. Lovelace is selling because he now lives with his wife in South Carolina, and the costs of owning the North Carolina house have risen. Lovelace cut his listing price in May, but he hasn’t gotten any offers. He thinks buyers are nervous. ‘The current sentiment is, the market’s probably going to go down further, so people are just waiting,’ he said.”

“Some homeowners who bought their first homes in 2020 or 2021 now have children and need to upgrade, said Elle Pappas, an agent at Thrive Real Estate Group in Denver. But unlike a few years ago, when she helped clients strategize about how to win bidding wars, buyers are now holding out for a deal, she said. ‘The immediate conversation, even upon the first appointment I have with them, is, ‘How much of a discount do you think I can get? How many concessions can I get?’ Pappas said.”

From NBC News. “Sales of previously owned homes in April declined 0.5% from March to a seasonally adjusted, annualized rate of 4 million units, according to the National Association of Realtors. That is the slowest April pace since 2009. Inventory jumped 9% month to month and was nearly 21% higher than April of last year. There were 1.45 million homes for sale at the end of April, which at the current sales pace represents a 4.4-month supply. That is the highest level in five years. ‘Home sales have been at 75% of normal or pre-pandemic activity for the past three years, even with seven million jobs added to the economy,’ said Lawrence Yun, NAR’s chief economist, in a release. ‘At the macro level, we are still in a mild seller’s market. But with the highest inventory levels in nearly five years, consumers are in a better situation to negotiate for better deals.'”

Los Angeles Daily News. “An additional 364 lots either are in escrow or up for sale in Altadena and Pacific Palisades. While those 585 lots represent only 6% of all the houses that burned down in the fires, they could be the vanguard of a growing wave of land sales caused by the January firestorms. ‘Sadly, as the inventories rise, we’re seeing downward-pressure on pricing,’ said longtime Pacific Palisades agent Dan Urbach. ‘At this time, we’re selling lots at about 40% of their pre-fire … land market value. A lot of them would much rather sell and buy a house in Sierra Madre and get on with their lives.'”

“Early sellers typically got multiple, all-cash offers, with some saying they rushed to sell before a glut of lots hits the market. For Richard Korngute, 69, who had a horrible experience building another house elsewhere, it wasn’t worth the trouble to rebuild. Korngute’s insurance wouldn’t cover the full cost of rebuilding. But that was just a small part of his family’s decision to sell. ‘With the state of the Palisades and the total destruction up there, and the possible toxic land and air, we didn’t really want to be living anywhere near that for the rest of our days,’ he said. ‘It’s like Hiroshima. There’s nothing left. … You go to places where you walked with your dog or your child or your neighbor. There’s nothing there.'”

Bisnow Washington DC. “The federal government this year has fast-tracked plans to shrink its real estate footprint. The Trump administration in recent weeks has approved the accelerated disposition of five buildings in a cluster of Southwest D.C. that has been eyed as the District’s next major redevelopment opportunity. But one influential planning body sees the buildings as an opportunity to meet a longstanding need: more space for Smithsonian Institution museums. National Capital Planning Commission Commissioner Evan Cash said he wants to hear what the Bowser administration envisions for the site, and he doesn’t think NCPC’s desire to use buildings for Smithsonian museums would be out of step with the city’s goals. But he said he doesn’t think every property should simply be auctioned off to the highest bidder.”

“‘So maybe the federal government should look at whether there’s a different way they can offload these buildings at something less than fair market value, just to make sure that we get the highest and best use out of the properties,’ he said. At the NCPC meeting, Cash raised the idea that anything in the block between C Street and the National Mall be an ‘automatic ‘we’re just going to give this to the Smithsonian.’”

The Financial Post. “Condominium sales are plummeting in Canada’s two main markets, with the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. (CMHC) warning that investor profitability has flown out the window. Condo sales in Toronto and Vancouver were down 75 per cent and 37 per cent, respectively, from 2022 to the end of the first quarter of 2025. These condo markets were on a roll up until 2022 as lower interest rates enticed buyers to buy, investors to invest and builders to build. But the tables have turned with higher interest rates reducing affordability for homebuyers and returns for investors. ‘High interest rates, which increase carrying costs, combined with stagnant price growth that limits equity building, have significantly reduced potential returns for investors,’ the CMHC said in its report, adding that it has become more difficult for investors to get financing especially if their unit is worth less at completion than when they pre-purchased it.”

“The CMHC doesn’t expect the economics on condos to improve anytime soon, describing markets that are awash in inventory. ‘In Toronto, where the market weakness is the most pronounced’ pre-construction inventory was 14 per cent higher in the first quarter that in 2022 and would take almost six years to sell at the current pace of deals. To make matters worse, a record number of condominium apartments were built in Toronto and Vancouver in 2024. The result is that Increasing inventory and falling sales have also lowered resale prices in Toronto by 13.4 per cent and 2.7 per cent in Vancouver.”

Cornwall Live in the UK. “A Cornish homeowner cannot sell her ‘dream’ holiday cottage despite discounting it by £100,000 – thanks to the double tax whammy hitting second home buyers. Debbie Pugh-Jones, 69, has lived in Golant near Fowey for 11 years, but wants to sell up and move to Bath, Somerset, to be near her grandchildren. The two-bedroom house was worth an estimated £425,000 during Covid, but Debbie put it on the market last August at £400,000, hoping for a quick sale. But there has been little interest and the price has gradually been reduced to £325,000 – a 25 per cent reduction – without success.”

“Debbie, a travel writer, said the property market in Cornwall has been decimated by the rise in stamp duty on second homes and a doubling of council tax on such properties in an effort to provide more homes for locals. She said the community was in danger of becoming a ‘ghost town’ because of unsold properties that are lying empty. ‘People are putting their houses on the market and just can’t sell them – the houses are lying empty,’ she said. ‘I know somebody whose council tax has gone up to £6,000 a year, he wants to sell up because he can’t afford that extra tax. You’re going to end up with a ghost town. I’m expecting another grandchild now, another girl, and I’m really desperate to move ‘”

“She said: ‘Originally the house went on at £400,000 but it didn’t get any interest at all. I changed agent, still no interest, no viewings. I went through two more agents, then to a company which said they would try to market to investors. I came down in price to £365,000, but still nothing happened. So I decided to put it back on the market with another local agent, she got one viewing for a potential investor, but he wasn’t interested. Another new agent with a shopfront – we’re down to £350,000 now – I had viewings from two potential second home owners. A new agent in April said, you know, just forget what happened in the past, we’re starting new today. I’ve still not had any viewings and I brought it down to £325,000 last Friday.'”

The Daily Telegraph in Australia. “They’re the suburbs Sydney’s fledgling housing boom forgot. Property prices in some of the city’s most coveted suburbs have plummeted over the past year despite falling interest rates igniting another surge in real estate values across the rest of the market. Median price falls of up to $750,000 in coastal and well-connected inner suburbs have largely been the result of buyers turning to more affordable markets amid cost of living pressures. PropTrack data indicated the largest falls over the past year were in eastern suburbs Vaucluse, Waverley, Woolloomooloo and Darlinghurst and in northern beaches suburbs Manly and Fairlight. Manly house prices were an average of close to $750,000 lower than a year ago, while in neighbouring Fairlight the difference was about $600,000. Other suburbs with major falls, reported at between 10 and 14 per cent, were Cammeray, Cremorne, Gordon, Kirribilli, Neutral Bay and Lindfield, on the north shore.”

“Auctioneer Damien Cooley – the director of Cooley, one of Sydney’s biggest auction houses – said the type of housing stock coming to market was playing a part in prices. ‘A-grade’ homes that ticked all the boxes for buyers were still selling well even in up-market areas. But there was also a high share of listings for ‘C-grade’ and ‘D-grade’ homes – properties with major drawbacks – and these were struggling. ‘Sellers of C-grade homes are getting crucified,’ he said. ‘Buyers are not interested in a lot of these properties unless they can get them for bargain basement prices.'”