Some Homes Are Not Selling On The First Day As We Experienced In Preceding Years

A report from WTOP News. “The D.C. region’s housing market continues to shift to one more favoring buyers and one becoming more challenging for sellers. Closed sales throughout the D.C. region in May were down 6.5% from a year ago. Active listings were up 41.6%. ‘Really, Northern Virginia and Arlington seem to be holding out the best. District of Columbia condominiums are the weakest,’ Corey Burr at TTR Sotheby’s in Chevy Chase said. For sellers now on the market or thinking about listing soon, Burr said most will need to reset their expectations. ‘Many sellers feel as if they are entitled to a certain value, but when the market is changing and correcting, the only thing that matters is what a buyer will pay for a property,’ he said. ‘You almost have to lighten up on expectations about what your neighbors got six, 12 or 18 months ago.'”

“Burr has a new formula for sellers when it comes to deciding what to list their property for. Think low but expect results if you do. ‘In a very good market, you would try to determine what a realistic selling price would be, and you might create a list price about 5% above that,’ he said. ‘A newer strategy in this kind of challenging time is to create that realistic selling price, and then subtract 5% for the list price. We know that buyers will still bid up a property and make very clean offers, but this is a way to better ensure that activity will take place on their property.'”

Bham Now in Alabama. “If you’ve been house hunting in Birmingham lately—or just casually browsing Zillow—you’ve probably noticed: The real estate market in The Magic City looks a little different than it did a few years ago. We caught up with some experts at Ray & Poynor in English Village to get the lowdown on what’s happening in the local housing market right now. Over the last few years, especially during the pandemic, Birmingham’s housing market saw intense demand and limited inventory. Homes were often selling within days (or hours), frequently above asking price, with multiple offers and very little room for negotiation. Now, while demand is still strong, some of that urgency has eased. Buyers aren’t always rushing in with aggressive offers on day one, so sellers may need to be more flexible on price or terms. ‘We are seeing a slight shift in 2025 from previous years. Home prices remain steady, but some homes are not selling on the first day as we experienced in preceding years. In general, buyers and sellers are negotiating more during the home buying process,’ said Hill Weathers, Agent, Ray & Poynor.”

WSBTV in Georgia. “In Atlanta, uncertainty is playing out across the city where ‘for sale’ signs are popping up, but realtors say the market remains stuck between favoring buyers or sellers. ‘Right now, it is a little difficult both on the seller’s side and buyer’s side,’ said Alicia Lovett, a local realtor and recent first-time homebuyer. ‘When you have a certain fair market value that you need to sell for, you can’t just sell for anything — your price is your price.’ Meanwhile, many buyers are still waiting for a market crash or the ultra-low mortgage rates seen during the pandemic.”

Beach Talk Radio News in Florida. “Realtor Jorge Barrera from Premiere Plus Realty has shared new data he compiled that shows the real estate activity on Fort Myers Beach has been relatively quiet as of late. From January through May of this year, 38 homes have been sold. In 2023, during those same 5 months, 119 homes were sold. For the year, in 2023, 179 homes were sold. In 2024, 70 were sold. 2021 was the best year for sales, over the last 5 years, with 192 homes sold. He found there are 132 vacant lots on the market as of June, 2025 with only 8 lots being sold so far this year. Back in 2023, 66 vacant lots were sold. Last year 32 were sold. Barrera says buyers indecisiveness is due in part because of hurricane’s Helene and Milton. ‘It was the last straw for many residents and the number of listings went way up, while buyer confidence went down for the same reason.'”

WFTV in Florida. “In 2025, the housing market in Orlando is changing. There are more homes for sale now, and prices are no longer rising quickly like in recent years. One big change is the number of homes available. As of May 2025, there were about 11,000 homes for sale in the area—that’s 35% more than in May 2024. This is the most homes on the market since early 2011, so buyers have more choices than they’ve had in over a decade. Real estate agent Victoria O’Day from Palmano Group said, ‘This isn’t 2021 anymore.’ She explained that sellers today need better marketing, smart pricing, and even virtual staging to stand out.”

A press release. “According to the Rankin Richey Real Estate Team, real estate agents in Tahoe City, California, North Lake Tahoe currently has 589 active listings, offering buyers more choices compared to a year ago, while the number of closed deals remains steady at around 90 per month. Average prices have softened to approximately $1.5 million, with market activity becoming more balanced, especially in the price ranges below $2 million. According to Greg Rankin, ‘It is currently better for buyers because inventory is high, with around 589 active listings—the most since 2018—giving buyers more choices and negotiating power.’ Prices have softened, with average sales around $1.5 million and median prices in Truckee and Incline Village down 9–13% year-over-year. Homes are selling faster, in about 39 to 40 days, but without bidding wars, allowing buyers time to decide. Sellers are more flexible, often accepting offers below asking price, offering credits or repairs, and accommodating timelines.'”

From Calmatters. “It hasn’t happened yet, but California is bracing for a demographic and economic hit under President Donald Trump’s multi-pronged effort to limit the entry of people born abroad and deport those already in the U.S. In fact, during the last Trump administration, California’s population declined in part because immigration to the state slowed down after the White House put up increased obstacles to enter the U.S., according to the state’s chief demographer. A full third of the state’s prime working-age population is made up of immigrants, including immigrants in the country without authorization. That latter group represents roughly a tenth of the state’s workers, said Giovanni Peri, an economics professor at UC Davis who studies the economic impact of immigrants.”

“One major reason California loses so many people is the high cost of housing. Eric McGhee, a demographer at the Public Policy Institute of California, says high living costs are also increasingly a drag on the state’s attractiveness to new international arrivals. Bottom line, ‘if you’re interfering with immigration flows to California, that’s going to hurt the state’s growth,’ said McGhee. In construction, mass deportations would curb GDP by 16%, and in agriculture, 14%, the report’s authors found. Undocumented immigrants make up more than a quarter of the workforce in both industries. They also found about 11% of the state’s small business owners are undocumented, as well as about 700,000 of the state’s homeowners — about a third of the state’s undocumented population.”

Bisnow New York. “In the days following democratic socialist candidate Zohran Mamdani’s victory in New York City’s mayoral primary on Tuesday, the city’s business community has warned that his left-wing politics will scare off investment. Now, one nine-figure deal has already fallen apart, according to the would-be buyer. Benefit Street Partners Realty Trust, a Manhattan-based, credit-focused alternative asset management firm, has backed out of a $300M acquisition deal for a NYC hotel portfolio, the firm’s president wrote on LinkedIn Thursday evening. ‘We were days away from signing a contract,’ Michael Comparato wrote in the post. ‘Been working on it for months, loved the opportunity. Enter Zohran Mamdani.’ In a direct message to Bisnow, Comparato wrote, ‘It’s very scary that a socialist could be voted into power in the United States,’ but declined to comment further.”

The Globe and Mail in Canada. “Vancouver’s real estate industry had a great run at the height of the pandemic, but three years on, major marketers and developers are laying off staff and selling off assets. The most recent is Wesgroup Properties – developer of the master-planned community River District – which announced the layoff of 12 per cent of its staff last week. Prior to that, condo marketing company Rennie Group announced the layoff of 25 per cent of its staff. Developer, architect and consultant Michael Geller said that he’s playing more golf these days because of the downturn. It’s not that developers are asking for a ‘bail out’ of sorts from government, but more of a return to the way things were, so that housing continues to get built, he said. To get housing starts going again, the industry would like to see reduced municipal fees and a lift on the federal foreign buyer ban on real estate, he said. ‘Foreign buyers really impacted my projects, not because they bought units in my developments … but because the foreign buyers were buying the homes of the people who were buying into my project,’ Mr. Geller said.”

“Andy Yan, associate professor of professional practice in urban studies at Simon Fraser University, said the layoffs appear to be more periodic than disastrous. ‘Is this an end of sunny days or a prolonged period of climate change for the market residential industry?’ said Prof. Yan. The presale condo market in the city of Vancouver had largely been driven by investors. In Vancouver, 50.3 per cent of condos built between 2016 and 2022 were investor-owned, according to the Canadian Housing Statistics Program. In Toronto, it was 56.3 per cent. Those investor condos were smaller in size than condos purchased by end-users, said Prof. Yan. The vacancy rate for rental units in Vancouver is the highest it’s been in 20 years, except during COVID. ‘Wasn’t this the housing direction that was needed?’ asked Prof. Yan. ‘Why aren’t we saying that the supply and demand policies are working? Shouldn’t we be okay with declining rents and housing values? This is market behaviour. We decided to regulate for the public good and market exclusion, and this is where we are at. However, we still have far to go in terms of housing affordability for those on local incomes and without access to wealth.'”

The Olive Press in Spain. “Research conducted by three university professors has identified speculative investment and tourism as key drivers behind soaring prices in both Madrid and Barcelona, with rental markets bearing the brunt of the crisis. The study, titled The Housing Classic: Bubbles in Madrid and Barcelona’s Real Estate Market, was compiled by economics professors from the University of Barcelona, Complutense University of Madrid, and University College Dublin. In Barcelona, researchers identified three distinct bubble phases in the rental market: July 2015 to February 2016, June 2016 to December 2017, and most critically, from August 2023 to the present day.”

“According to Enric Aragonès from the Tenants’ Union (Sindicat de Llogateres), buying a home now requires more than seven years’ full salary – the highest amount since the 2008 mortgage crisis. Perhaps more strikingly, 60% of home purchases are now made without mortgages, whilst over half of Barcelona’s property transactions involve owners with eight or more apartments. The researchers warn that speculative investors who acquire properties purely for profit rather than personal use are ‘reinforcing the risk of market overheating’. Residents from six Barcelona apartment blocks recently organised protests against Vandor, a listed investment company that has acquired 14 buildings containing 200 apartments in the Catalan capital. Tenants claim the company is systematically evicting residents to convert properties into student co-living units.”

Free Malaysia Today. “Housing experts have called for a vacancy tax to help tackle the rise of vacant and unsold homes and lower property prices by discouraging speculation. They said many ‘affordable’ housing units are being held empty by owners or investors, making it harder for real buyers to find homes. Research associate K Theebalakshmi said a vacancy tax can prevent speculation and push developers to build homes that meet actual needs, reducing oversupply and supporting more balanced housing development. Figures from the statistics department show that nearly 20% of homes in Selangor and Penang were vacant in 2020. More than 53,000 units were unoccupied in Penang, often waiting to be sold or rented out. In Selangor, 343,562 homes were reported vacant, with about 197,065 of them either newly completed or pending occupancy.”

“Azree Othuman Mydin, the dean of Universiti Sains Malaysia’s housing, building and planning school, said a vacancy tax would reduce flipping and hoarding, especially for properties in the RM300,000 to RM500,000 range. ‘If we want housing to go to those who need it most, we must stop treating homes as trading tools,’ he said.”

Radio New Zealand. “A high-profile property investor and investment coach is taking aim at real estate salespeople advertising properties as ‘cash flow positive.’ ‘Cash flow positive’ is generally understood by investors to mean that the rent from the property will fully cover the cost of owning it, such as loan repayments, rates and insurance, and leave a surplus each week. But property investor Steve Goodey said he had found instances where claims were made that did not stack up. In one case, an Auckland unit was being advertised as a ‘solid home or cash flow positive investment’ but he calculated that even at the top of the rent range for the unit, it would need to be bought for $405,000 to make it cashflow positive. He said the salesperson told him the vendor wanted $500,000.’ The salesperson told RNZ that the numbers stacked up if an investor had a 20 percent deposit. ‘But the title should be changed to cash cow investment as it has caused confusion for some investors.'”

“In another case, a property was being advertised as cashflow neutral with a purchase price of $699,000 but Goodey estimated it would be negative by $16,000 a year. Another property going to auction promised to be cashflow positive but Goodey said that was a bold claim to make when the sale price was not known. He said it was disappointing that no one seemed willing to tackle this sort of marketing. ‘I’ve had agents come to me and say that a property is cashflow positive if you put a 30 or 35 percent deposit down in cash. That makes anything cashflow positive – are we just making stuff up as we go along now?'”