Feel Free To Toss A Lowball

A report from Market Watch. “‘Sellers still have expectations that some people call unrealistic. I call it aspirational pricing,’ Jeanne Frederick, a Las Vegas-based global luxury-property specialist at Coldwell Banker, told MarketWatch. Heather Cook, a Charlotte-based real-estate agent with the Curated Group for the Real Brokerage, agreed. ‘There’s an extreme disconnect between seller mentality versus reality,’ she said. ‘Buyers are absolutely unwilling to overpay for homes, especially ones sitting on the market for over 30 days, which is not uncommon right now.’ ‘A lot of stuff is just sitting, and there’s so much inventory,’ Scott Goshorn, a Los Angeles-based real-estate agent with Rodeo Realty, told MarketWatch.”

“Builders have been playing the price-cutting game for far longer as they too deal with an inventory overhang. In June, 37% of home builders cut prices to boost sales, the National Association of Home Builders said, the highest share since at least 2022, when the lobbying group began tracking the data. The average price reduction was 5%. About 62% of builders also threw in sales incentives, such as offers to cover buyers’ closing costs.”

WPTV in Florida. “About 140 condominium owners in West Palm Beach are facing a decision to sell their waterfront property or spend potentially more than $1 million in repairs. ‘If you’re talking assessments… those are not doable for a lot of these people,’ said Paul Moreno, president of the La Fontana condominiums in West Palm Beach. ‘The price range Serhant is looking at, nobody is going to be feeling any pain. The only thing we’re going to be missing is right here.’ ‘We have a lot of those older condo buildings that are sitting there, and of course, they are being affected by the new condo laws and assessments,’ said Paul Lykins, a real estate agent in Palm Beach County . ‘You know, developers are coming in and waving bags of money at them.'”

KHOU in Texas. “According to the Houston Association of Realtors (HAR), single-family homes now have a 4.9-month supply compared to 3.6 months in spring 2024. That means it’s officially a buyer’s market. Real estate broker Anthony Enih said builders like KB Home offer new home perks. ‘New construction homes have so many different incentives. They have different interest rate programs,’ said Enih. ‘While that home is nearing completion, if nobody’s bought it yet, we’re able to get an even better discount.'”

From Idaho News. “Home sales numbers released by the Boise Regional Realtors showed a lackluster Spring, but as numbers begin to tilt slightly more in favor of buyers, the BRR is looking for increased activity this Summer. A look at new construction sales data from May could also be a useful indicator for the summer sales months. While the median sales price dropped slightly by 1.4% to $573,990, the number of new construction units sold increased by 8%. The days on market dropped significantly, and inventory increased by more than 43% year-over-year.”

CBS 8 in California. “The former Horton Plaza in downtown San Diego is facing foreclosure as its redevelopment project stalls due to financial troubles. Stockdale Capital Partners, the developer behind the project, is more than $360 million in debt, putting the future of the once-thriving shopping center in jeopardy. The property, purchased by Stockdale in 2018, was slated to become ‘The Campus at Horton,’ a mixed-use development featuring housing, office space, food and shopping. However, construction has been halted, and the property is now scheduled for a trustee sale on July 7th. The current situation has raised concerns about Stockdale’s ability to fulfill its contractual obligations to the city. When contacted for comment about future plans, Stockdale’s president responded via email with: ‘No comment – stop contacting us.'”

The National Post. “The condo market in Canada’s two largest cities has experienced significant decline from 2022 to the end of the first quarter of 2025, according to the most recent report from Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC). The report, released Monday, said that condo sales in Toronto are down 75 per cent. In Vancouver they have fallen 37 per cent. Inventory has surged in Toronto, with more than 20,000 unsold condo units, including pre-construction, under-construction, and completed units. Meanwhile, listings are up 25.2 per cent year-over-year in the GTA, giving buyers more negotiating power and putting downward pressure on prices. Resale condo prices in the GTA have fallen 16 per cent from their peak in early 2022. Echoing a CMHC observation, the TRREB says the GTA market is heavily investor-driven, with nearly 75 per cent of Toronto condos owned by investors. Even more disastrous is that over 80 per cent of investors in new condos in the GTA are losing $1,000–$1,500 per month per unit due to high interest rates and rising costs. Many can’t raise rents enough to offset losses because of rent controls and a competitive rental market.”

From Money Sense. “During the pandemic, Canada’s recreational property market took off. There were double-digit percentage increases in the median sale price of cottages across the country, with eager buyers determined to leave the city at just about any cost. Bidding wars were the norm and many sales happened quickly and without an inspection. But just a few short years later, demand has eased in a big way and many pandemic-era cottage buyers want out. Cottage inventory is high, prices are dropping and mortgage rates have slowly but steadily come back down. We spoke to realtors Megan McLeod and Rebecca Campol of Sotheby’s International Realty Canada in Port Carling, Ont., to learn more.”

“It’s a mix of pandemic and politics, according to McLeod. ‘January was a totally different market than February,’ she says, noting that the recreational property market came to ‘a screeching halt’ shortly after President Trump was sworn in. Now, there’s plenty of inventory on the market—plus, a lot of highly motivated sellers. In a buyer’s market like we’re experiencing now, McLeod urges clients to slow down and take their time. If you put in an offer and the seller doesn’t accept it, it’s OK to wait a few days before countering. And in the absence of a bidding war, feel free to toss a lowball. ‘There’s no harm in going in with a lower offer right now.'”

Realnoe Vremya in Russia. “The median long-term rental rate in the capital of Tatarstan was 45,000 rubles. Since the beginning of the year, the rental price has decreased by almost 9.7%, analysts calculated. However, realtors recommend not to rely on the statistics of aggregators, where there are a lot of ‘fake’ advertisements. ‘Now the volume of supply on the rental market is 40-60% higher than a year earlier,’ explained the situation in the regions, Director of the company’s rental department Olga Pavlinova. Diana Karimova, head of the Rental Department at Etazhi-Kazan, confirmed to Realnoe Vremya that the downward trend will continue in the first and second quarters of 2025. ‘We are talking about properties that were not sold, properties that were put up for rent above market last year, as well as investment lots purchased last year during the boom in the housing market,’ she explains. ‘This year will be significantly different from the previous one. Competition among properties has increased, on average, the price is decreasing by 10-15% compared to last year.'”

From Domain News. “More properties are sitting on the market for six months or more across Australia, and experts say it’s largely due to unrealistic sellers. ‘We’ve seen a rise in old listings, and that was more prominent in the month of May than in previous months,’ SQM managing director Louis Christopher said. ‘Nationally, it is now coming up to 83,000 properties that have been on the market for over 180 days.’ Brisbane’s old listings were up 9.6 per cent over May but were down 9.1 per cent over the year, and Perth’s were up 4.3 per cent last month and up 2.4 per cent over the 12 months. ‘When I look at, for example, Sydney, there’s definitely a clearer trend of rising old listings since essentially 2022,’ Christopher said. ‘When I look at Melbourne, it’s not as clear as Sydney, but there’s been a sustained rise since mid-2023.’ He said sellers hanging on to a goal price was to blame, as well as seasonal conditions. ‘It’s a combination of unrealistic vendors and not as many buyers out there,’ Christopher said.”

“Michelle May, principal of an eponymous buyers’ agency in Sydney, said there were many properties sitting on the market that were undesirable properties or had unreasonable prices. ‘Real estate selling is incredibly cut-throat and competitive. I know sometimes agents come across vendors who are wholly unrealistic,’ she said. ‘They want the business so they’ll go, ‘yep, sure, I can sell it for that’. Get the vendor to sign on the dotted line and begin the process of managing the vendor’s expectations.’ May said the Sydney market had a high number of apartments with construction issues that were bought off the plan, which made it hard for their sellers to achieve goal prices and avoid losing money. ‘People don’t realise buying off the plan is like buying a new car, and it can drop in value at first. I see properties that were bought four to five years ago that are selling for less than they bought for,’ she said.”