We’ve Been Telling Sellers For Years And Years That It’s A Great Time To Sell, Maybe They Finally Listened

A report from WINK. “Cape Coral is experiencing a rise in foreclosures, with 106 properties foreclosed last month, according to ATTOM Data. This number is significantly higher than those of other nearby cities, such as Fort Myers, which has 63 foreclosures, Naples, which has 37, and Punta Gorda, which has 23. Jacksonville was the only city in Florida with a worse foreclosure rate than Cape Coral. ‘If you’re in an area and you start to see those pop up, and you’ve got a three-year plan. Your plan may be, let’s sell it now before it gets worse,’ said Jason Jakus, director of Florida Gulf Coast Multiple Listing Services. ‘So I think monitoring it is just an asset. When you buy a home, I think monitoring your asset and what affects it around it, which is your comparables, is important.'”

From Fox 13 News. “Florida is home to five of the top 10 cities nationwide for would-be homebuyers getting cold feet, with Tampa ranking near the top, according to a new report. In Tampa, the study shows 19.1% of purchases were called off before closing, ranking third in the country behind only Atlanta (20%) and Orlando (19.4%). Other Florida cities in the top 10 include Miami (18.9%), Fort Lauderdale (18.9%), and Jacksonville (18.4%). In the Tampa Bay area, there’s another major factor, according to Tampa real estate agent Ali St Cyr: the active 2024 hurricane season. ‘A lot of those neighborhoods that were affected by storms, you’re seeing them sell at a lower price than they would have a year before, even if prices were the same because of the damage,’ St Cyr said.”

From WFAA. “‘We had a lot of momentum that last week in March, which is usually kind of the start of the spring market as school ends,’ said Broker Joe Atkins of Joe Atkins Realty. But then came April. And the Trump tariffs. Atkins said that early momentum was quickly lost, and so were some offers. Atkins wasn’t the only realtor who went through this. He said one of the largest brokerages in North Texas told him lots of deals have come undone. ‘In April, they had about half of their contracts terminate…largely due to fear of the tariffs,’ Atkins said. ‘In Lakewood, our inventory for houses priced $2-2.5 million, three years ago, there were five homes for sale in that price point. There are 33 right now. There are a lot of other neighborhoods that have the same issue,’ Atkins explained. According to the Texas Real Estate Research Center, major markets across Texas recently had a greater supply of homes sitting — waiting to be sold — than we have seen going all the way back to 2012, even 2011.”

“Atkins calls this a ‘gridlock market.’ To try to get it moving, he said many sellers have been cutting their asking prices. Atkins points out that, ‘Nationally, we’ve seen more price reductions this year than we’ve seen in all of the last five years.’ Data shows that in the first quarter of 2025, prices were reduced on U.S. homes for sale 265,970 times. That’s more price reductions in the first quarter than there were in 2024 (201,536 price reductions), 2023 (174,024 price reductions), 2022 (70,039 price reductions), 2021 (86,812 price reductions), 2020 (209,399 price reductions). Atkins said buyers should make their best offer, because a seller might be open to that offer or something close to it. Atkins says he has seen specific instances that back that up. ‘Absolutely, I’ve been blown up on both sides of the transaction — buy and sell — by seeing what somebody is willing to take,’ Atkins said. Some sellers are also offering enticements now that go well beyond price cuts and beyond paying the commission of the buyer’s agent, including ‘giving away trips.'”

From LAist. “It could be a big problem for California that many Canadians are angry about tariffs and Trump’s insistence that their country should become the 51st U.S. state. Carol Harris, who spoke with CalMatters from Nova Scotia, said she and her husband have visited family in San Diego every year for a long time, but not anymore. ‘Never again, until Trump’s gone,’ said Harris, a retired university professor who said it will be a big loss. Nancy, who asked that her last name not be published because she fears the Trump administration will target dual citizens like her, is a ‘snowbird.’ Nancy is American-born but has mostly lived in Canada since the early 1970s. She and her husband are selling their condo in Rancho Mirage, a decision they made because of what she calls the headache involved in owning property in two countries, even before all this ‘bullying and nonsense.’ Now she has heard others like her talk about selling their properties in California too. ‘You get together with other Canadians, within the first two minutes that’s what everyone’s talking about,’ she said. ‘The instability is not what you want to deal with when you’re retired.'”

The Lookout in California. “Santa Cruz County’s housing market has shown early signs of shifting toward a ‘buyer’s market,’ some local real estate professionals say, with the number of homes listed for sale last month reaching their highest for the month of May in at least six years. ‘Buyers are realizing there is more to choose from,’ said Sereno Group agent Jennifer Watson. With more prospective buyers entering the market, real estate professionals say sellers who might have hesitated to list their homes are now doing so, giving buyers more options and allowing them to take time before jumping into a purchase. ‘We’ve been telling sellers for years and years that if you don’t like where you live now, it’s a great time to sell, because you’re in the driver’s seat,’ Watson said. ‘Maybe they finally listened.”

ABC 7 in California. “San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie is a big supporter of the ‘Recovery First’ concept, which aims to help people get into treatment for drug and alcohol abuse. But many don’t realize that after treatment, San Francisco does not have a permanent place for people to go if they want to continue being sober. ‘When people are done with their two-year stays, they have to move to a place with drug users or leave the city,’ insisted Randy Shaw, director of the Tenderloin Housing Clinic. The reality is that San Francisco has nothing for those people who want to live in a permanent abstinence environment. ‘I truly believe that people should have a choice but there’s no choice for people to live in drug-free because we don’t have none. We don’t have any drug-free housing,’ added Richard Beal, director of Recovery Services at the Tenderloin Housing Clinic.”

The Canadian Press. “Cottage country homes may be sitting on the market for longer than what is typical for this time of year, according to a report. Royal LePage says the ‘pandemic-era scramble’ for vacation properties has eased up as well as the ‘chaos’ brought on by bidding wars amid slim pickings on the market. Another brokerage, RE/MAX, also says Ontario’s cottage market is facing some ‘instability’ amid growing economic concerns from both buyers and sellers, with some areas seeing prices declining by up to 20.3 per cent since 2024. The real estate company says this is mainly seen in areas like Peterborough County, Orillia, Grand Bend, and Niagara-on-the-Lake.”

“Muskoka broker John O’Rourke says while the region has seen a gradual rise in inventory—some good news for buyers—he adds that neither increased supply nor lower interest rates have boosted demand quite yet. Additionally, the restrictions some regions implement around short-term rentals can dissuade prospective homebuyers from investing in vacation homes in the area, O’Rourke notes. Nineteen per cent of Canadians surveyed in Remax’s Leger survey selling or planning to sell their vacation homes in the next year say they don’t see the investment potential anymore of a recreational property.”

The Globe and Mail in Canada. “As the number of finished but unsold condominium apartments reaches new heights in the Toronto region there’s more competition among lenders and investors offering options for builders to either sell units in bulk or refinance their standing inventory. ‘We’re seeing people show up out of the woodwork. I’ve had various bulk-buying offers,’ said Harley Nakelsky, president of Baker Real Estate Inc., a brokerage that specializes in preconstruction condo selling. He’s also seeing the other side approach him as well: Developers hoping to sell significant amounts of leftover inventory. ‘I have everything from projects that want to move 77 units to ones that want to move seven. … it depends on each developer,’ he said. The sticking point for most builders looking to get rid of extra units is price: many of the unsold units were initially marketed with prices higher than the current market is selling at. ‘They are asking for very good deals,’ said Mr. Nakelsky. ‘The problem is, some of these offers are lower than what my clients want and should sell for.'”

“Mark Kay, president and principal broker for CFO Capital, has been providing inventory loans in commercial real estate since 2004. The last time he had a brisk business was during the 2008 financial crisis, when retail and office condominiums had no buyers or leasing interest as the economy essentially froze for a couple years. Now things have changed. ‘We’re just closing another one right now in Southern Ontario,’ said Mr. Kay, who said his company has worked with builders from coast to coast and has provided inventory loans for hundreds of residential condos in the past 12 months. The way it typically works is CFO Capital will provide a loan for perhaps 55 per cent of the current value of the unsold condos with a mortgage charge that is registered on each individual condo; the term on these loans for downtown Toronto is one year (18 months outside the city) and Mr. Kay is offering interest rates between 6.5 and 8.5 per cent. The choice is often quite clear according to him: ‘You’re making that judgment call. If I know I’m selling it lower than I have to today, do I sell in a fire sale or do I take an inventory loan?'”

Edinburgh Live in Scotland. “New student housing blocks in the capital should be banned over fears of an oversupply, according to an Edinburgh councillor. Over 20,000 beds exist in private student halls in the city, and new projects are regularly being approved. But SNP councillor Danny Aston says the private student halls sector is likely in a bubble, and that the city should look to stem the damage before it bursts. Cllr Aston said: ‘The developers don’t seem to see the bursting of the bubble coming. There’s plenty of evidence that it’s either just started to happen or will happen soon. There have been recent applications, recent decisions. They’re acting as if none of the issues are really happening. I’m concerned by the time they really start to bite, Edinburgh will have been disfigured by a whole bunch of white elephant developments that the operators can’t fill.'”

“Cllr Aston continued: ‘The other aspect directly affecting [the PBSA market] is that we’re moving into a more troubled phase in terms of international relations. Relations with China in particular are becoming cooler. Chinese students, for a number of years, formed a very big part of the demand for PBSA in Edinburgh, particularly one year masters students, which is a big part of the market. And a lot of developers build specifically for that.'”

From Interest. “There’s both good and bad news in the latest housing market figures for May. The good news is sales numbers were reasonably strong last month, with the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand reporting 7166 sales for May. The relatively high new listings numbers were both good and bad news. Good, because it gave buyers plenty of fresh stock to choose from, making it more likely they would find the property that suits them and conclude a purchase. It was bad in the sense that the market was already overstocked and a rush of additional listings added to that problem. That meant Realestate.co.nz had total stock of 34,415 residential properties available for sale at the end of May. By way of comparison, the last time stock for sale levels were about as high as they were last month was in May 2015.”

“That is also showing up in the stock overhang figures, which are the number of properties left unsold at the end of each month. There was an overhang of 28,758 properties at the end of May this year, the biggest overhang in the month of May for 10 years. That overhang would have been even bigger, but for the 3832 residential properties interest.co.nz estimates were withdrawn from active sale in May. All of which adds to the good news for buyers. They now face a market with plenty of stock to choose from keeping downward pressure on prices, allowing them to take their time finding the place right for them and then bargain hard on price. At the same time as mortgage interest rates have been falling. Vendors are facing a bit of an uphill slog though, and those who don’t meet the market on price are likely to be left disappointed.”