Today’s Dream Is To Make The Next Mortgage Payment Without Having To Borrow It

A report from Yahoo Finance. “The DOGE effect is finally here. After months of speculation, there are growing signs that the housing market in the Washington, D.C., metro area is starting to shift, and federal workforce layoffs are to blame, according to new data from Bright MLS. For-sale inventory in the region is spiking, driven in part by early retirements and general economic uncertainty. ‘The key word is uncertainty — total uncertainty,’ said Diane Yochelson, a Realtor at Compass in Bethesda, Md., just northwest of the city. ‘One day you go to work, and the next day you’re done — you can’t even go back to your office.’ Yochelson has had several clients in government contracting who were affected by the cuts. One, who was laid off in February, was hoping to buy a home in the region before her son started kindergarten. Now, several months later and still unemployed, she’s thinking about living elsewhere.”

“‘People are now considering leaving the D.C. area,’ Yochelson said. ‘Even if it’s a two-income family and only one person has lost their income, because of the financial straits they’re in, they may look to go someplace else where it’s more affordable.’ As of May, there were more than 13,500 homes for sale in the D.C. metro area, according to Realtor.com, nearly double the inventory available a year earlier. ‘We’re at a point now where there’s enough inventory that’s come on the market that we are starting to see a change in prices,’ said Lisa Sturtevant, Bright MLS’s chief economist. ‘We’ll continue to see prices grow more slowly and possibly actually decline year over year in some local markets.'”

Baton Rouge Business Report in Louisiana. “Some homeowners who bought near the peak of the pandemic housing boom are now finding themselves underwater—owing more on their mortgages than their homes are worth, The Wall Street Journal reports. Though still a small share, the number of underwater mortgages is growing, especially in boomtowns like Austin, Cape Coral and San Antonio―and to a lesser degree, Baton Rouge and New Orleans―where prices surged and have since dropped nearly 20% in some areas. The Baton Rouge residential market has begun to show benefits for both buyers and sellers with increased inventory and gains in median prices.”

“‘It’s a tough market,’ says Melissa Lovett of Pivot Realty. ‘We’re seeing days on market are higher than what they used to be, depending on the area and the price range. Homes that were on the market for less than 30 days are now on the market for up to 60 to 90 days. That isn’t bad, but it’s not what we’re used to. It just means that the market is correcting.'”

Daily Mail. “Pending mandatory repairs and rising HOA fees on aging towers have driven owners to list in a flooded market. In Boynton Beach for example, a two-bedroom, two-bathroom condo at Hunters Run Country Club with access to a resort-style pool and high-end amenities is selling for just $10,000. The owner paid $60,000 for it in 2001. It’s now worth $3 per square-foot. On Marco Island, a one-bedroom, two-bathroom condo complete with water access at Sunrise Bay Resort is listed for $9,000. The State of Florida Property Management Association (SFPMA) reports that at Miami’s Cricket Club, a 50‑year‑old tower, each of the 217 owners were hit with an extra $134,000 in assessments. Summit Towers in Hollywood, Florida, faced a $56 million assessment, or $99,000 for each of the 567 condos, which completely tanked the value of the building. Condos built over 30 years ago have seen a staggering 22 percent drop in value over the past four years, reports SFPMA.”

Fox 5 in California. “‘My heart just aches. I’ve worked there for 8 years, I absolutely adored that job,’ said Florence Evans. Evans is one of approximately 230 UC San Diego Health employees laid off on Monday. She was the front desk coordinator in Hillcrest and abruptly received the news. ‘I can’t imagine how I’m going to make my mortgage payment or my car payment or to eat day to day or medical insurance. I’m at a loss. I’m just totally at a loss,’ said Evans.”

The San Francisco Standard in California. “The Mira was the last gasp of San Francisco’s downtown development boom. Completed in 2019, a year after Salesforce Tower, the 39-story residential skyscraper remade the city’s skyline with its twisting, rippled facade. Even after downtown real estate took a nosedive in 2022, the Mira managed to sell nearly all 392 units last year. But a condo in the Mira comes with a major asterisk, as anyone who tries to buy or sell there quickly finds out. The property has been blacklisted by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. ‘Rather than a blacklist, think of it as a ‘guilty until proven innocent’ list,’ said Hal Light, a mortgage broker. ‘The onus is on [the HOA] to show them that they’ve fixed whatever issue was flagged. It’ll have an effect on the home’s value, for sure,’ Light said of the list. ‘The pool of buyers is going to shrink because some won’t be able to get loans, or people are going to ask why a listing has been sitting on the market for more than 90 days.'”

Montana Free Press. “Bozeman’s Lauri Vandermark expects to save thousands on rent this year after renegotiating her lease in what’s increasingly looking like a flooded rental market in one of Montana’s most expensive cities. She said she splits rent with her daughter, a veterinary assistant, and the two share a two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment in a newly constructed complex on the city’s fast-growing western fringe. Vandermark said her landlord is drafting a new lease, but she anticipates that her $2,900 monthly rent will decrease by several hundred dollars. Casey Rose, a real estate advisor with Sterling CRE Advisors, said that 3,042 rentals have been built in Bozeman since 2021, with more than 1,000 of those units completed in 2024. Hundreds more, especially near the Montana State campus, are currently under construction, and, according to Rose, more than 4,000 rental units are still in the planning pipeline.”

“Rose said that the vacancy rate in Bozeman is at least 12%, with some brokers anecdotally reporting vacancy rates of up to 20% due to the new construction. The figures suggest that hundreds of units are sitting empty in the city. ‘What we’re seeing is all these units coming online at the same time,’ Rose said, describing the situation as ‘classic supply-and-demand’ economics. The city’s housing market, too, has also subsided. In May, the median price of a single-family home sold in the Bozeman city limits was $765,000, a 6.7% decline from the homes sold in May of 2024, according to figures from the Gallatin Association of Realtors.”

The Globe and Mail. “We are poorer than we think. Canadians running their retirement numbers are shining light in the dark corners of household finances in this country. The sums leave many ‘anxious, fearful and sad about their finances,’ according to a Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan survey recently reported in these pages. Fifty-two per cent of us worry a lot about our personal finances. Fifty per cent feel frustrated, 47 per cent feel emotionally drained and 43 per cent feel depressed. There is not one survey indicator to suggest Canadians have made financial progress in 2025 compared with 2024.”

“Our debt-to-household disposable income has bumped up against nearly 200 per cent for years now, putting Canada in first place among G7 countries. Canadian households collectively owe about $3-trillion, almost three-quarters of it is mortgage debt. Today’s Canadian dream is to make the next mortgage payment without having to borrow it. The housing crisis hasn’t just hobbled the hopes of many Canadians seeking affordable housing; it is undercutting middle-class living standards. What all of this tells us, and what those wondering what retirement might look like are realizing, is that paying down household debt for the foreseeable future is where much of our disposable income as Canadians must go. That thinking of retirement provokes anxiety in surveys on the matter shouldn’t be surprising. It is one more item on a growing list of aspirations many Canadians cannot afford.”

The Ahmedabad Mirror in India. “Real estate developers across Gujarat are rolling out hefty discounts during Rath Yatra to jumpstart sluggish sales. Offers range from Rs 50,000 to Rs 11 lakh, varying by property type and location. The affordable housing sector shows the steepest price cuts due to oversupply, particularly in eastern Ahmedabad. Luxury developers are rushing to clear inventory before what many fear will be a prolonged slowdown lasting until Diwali. These discounts target homebuyers’ festival sentiments as builders grapple with high project loan rates between 10-22% annually. Most developers prefer selling at reduced prices rather than shouldering mounting interest costs.”

“A Chandkheda developer, speaking anonymously, explained, ‘We have been feeling the burn of the slow down for the past few months. Since we don’t see the situation improving till the coming Diwali festival, if the state gets a good monsoon season, we are trying to sell the available stock as fast as possible. Since most developers (almost 100%) take project loans, which is available between 10 and 22% per annum to us, it makes more sense for us to offer freebies – in case of ready to move-in property – or an outright discount of 5-15% for under construction properties,’ he further explained.”