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Certainly There Has Been A Significant Decrease In Activity Everywhere

It’s Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. “The median price per square foot in all but three of the 16 price groupings in Asheville was higher in 2018 than in 2017, per Mosaic. It ranges between $105 a square foot on listings below $100,000 — up almost 16 percent year-over-year — to $396 a square foot at listings north of $1.5 million, down almost 32 percent from 2017.”

“‘Sellers can’t price their house really high if they know the market is going to catch up to it. They need to be careful that prices are so high and they shouldn’t be disappointed with the prices they’re selling at, said Mike Figura, head of Mosaic Realty.”

“Prices in the Dayton region have increased for the past years as homes have flown off the market within days. But the seller’s market is starting a slow but steady shift. Buyers looking for higher-end homes of $350,000 or more are already experiencing more options, said Springboro Realtor Herman Castro. Some of the more expensive listings are having to drop up to $100,000 of the listing price to attract interest.”

“The developers behind Oceanwide Plaza, a massive $1 billion project that has ground to a halt in Downtown LA, owe more than $52 million to some of its contractors, according to a Curbed review of publicly available real estate records. ‘Obviously it’s a lot of money, right?’ said Webcor attorney William Eliopoulos. ‘We’re out a lot of money on this.'”

“Prices of detached homes in central Toronto are down almost 13 per cent from December of 2017. Prices in Vancouver have contracted as much as 30 per cent for detached homes. ‘Real estate markets across Canada are facing a headwind, says Brad Henderson, CEO of Sotheby’s International Realty Canada. ‘Certainly there has been a significant decrease in activity everywhere.'”

“In the United States, data from the National Association of Realtors shows that purchases by Canadians are markedly down, Mr. Henderson notes. ‘We’re in a holding pattern. Everybody’s in wait-and-see mode; nobody is panicking,’ says Tom Locati, a partner at Russ Lyon/Sotheby’s International Realty in Phoenix. ‘We don’t see people running for the doors.'”

“Home prices in the British capital’s prime postcodes – which include Chelsea, Islington, Kensington and Mayfair – dropped 1.5 per cent in the final quarter of 2018, data compiled by broker Knight Frank showed. That extended the decline for the year to 4.6 per cent. Prices in the best areas around the edges of central London, where thousands of new apartments are being built, fell at a near identical pace to the prime areas and are now at a five-year low, the broker said.”

“‘Both pricing and sales volumes were on a downward trajectory in the second half of 2018,’ said Tom Bill, Knight Frank’s head of London residential research.”

“A run of good fortune for the world’s top casino operators is coming to a halt as high-rollers feel the pinch from China’s economic slowdown. Sluggish Chinese economic growth and overhanging trade tensions with the U.S. have led wealthy gamblers who make up more than half of Macau’s wagers to moderate their betting habits.”

“Several Chinese high-rollers in Macau late last month said times were tougher. An electronics-factory owner visiting MGM Resorts’ Macau property said he had cut his trips to Macau in half and reduced the size of his bets to 15,000 yuan ($2,224) from 40,000 yuan. ‘There’s not as much money in the wallet,’ he said.”

“Home values in Australia’s two major property markets have fallen since the end of 2017, with the median price of a house in Sydney down 10.9 per cent year-on-year to $902,786, and 10.6 per cent to $740,425 in Melbourne, according to CoreLogic. At the same time, the number of homes advertised for sale has risen dramatically, with listings up 34 per cent in Melbourne compared to the same time last year, and 24 per cent in Sydney.”

“For buyers that means one crucial thing: negotiating power. ‘Heightened levels of homes available for purchase inevitably pushes more power back to the buyer,’ CoreLogic head of research Tim Lawless said. ‘Buyers are now in a position where they can negotiate harder, take their time in making a purchase decision and be selective in finding a home that is right for their budget and lifestyle.'”

“In Flemington, five kilometres from Melbourne’s CBD, the median house price has plunged from $1.17 million in mid-2017 to $896,000 at the end of 2018, according to the Real Estate Institute of Victoria. In Melbourne’s hipster heartland of Brunswick, the median house price peaked at $1.28 million in the third quarter of 2017, and has since fallen to $1.025 million, while houses in Chadstone plummeted from a median of $1.23 million in mid-2017 to $916,000 at the end of 2018.”

“Apartment hunters in Sydney can also take advantage of dramatic price plunges in Newtown, where the median apartment price fell by 19.88 per cent in 2018 to $665,000, and Paddington, where units have fallen by 20.37 per cent for a median value of $856,000, according to CoreLogic.”

“In Roselands, 16 kilometres from Sydney’s CBD, the median house price fell by 14.08 per cent to $973,000 over the past year, while Redfern’s median house price plummeted by 18 per cent to $1.4 million.”

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This Post Has 61 Comments

  1. ‘We’re in a holding pattern. Everybody’s in wait-and-see mode; nobody is panicking…We don’t see people running for the doors’

    The article says Canadian purchases are off 45%. I wonder why Larry never mentioned that?

    2. “In the United States, data from the National Association of Realtors shows that purchases by Canadians are markedly down, Mr. Henderson notes. ‘We’re in a holding pattern. Everybody’s in wait-and-see mode; nobody is panicking,’ says Tom Locati, a partner at Russ Lyon/Sotheby’s International Realty in Phoenix. ‘We don’t see people running for the doors.’”

      Dont panic! Dont Panic!!!!!! No bubble here!!!!

    1. “There’s not as much money in the wallet”.

      Never fear, I am here. Bring yourself to my bank (along with a document certifying that your body parts are marketable) and perhaps we – you and I, working together in sort of a, er, partnership arrangement – will discover an interesting (and, oh so lucrative) solution to your monetary woes.

      Pssssst: If you happened to have spawned a very good-looking teenaged daughter then count this as a plus and, ah, be sure to bring her along on your visit.

      😁

  4. ‘Buyers are now in a position where they can negotiate harder, take their time in making a purchase decision and be selective in finding a home that is right for their budget and lifestyle.’”

    Or they can just sit tight and wait for the coming tidal wave of foreclosure sales.

    1. I don’t think the world works like that anymore…”Foreclosure” is now a quaint concept, like “Gold-Backed Currency”.

      The darker side of me thinks that the long-term play will be in the nationalization of housing to some degree. We’re taking the long road to socialism.

      1. The darker side of me thinks that the long-term play will be in the nationalization of housing to some degree. We’re taking the long road to socialism.

        Either we pay the piper or we sell it all to the Fed eventually at prices only someone with a printing press could pay. And nobody wants to pay the piper.

      2. the long road to socialism.

        After it has been a miserable failure everywhere it took root.

        I still hope we have more courage and sense than that.

  5. “‘Sellers can’t price their house really high if they know the market is going to catch up to it. They need to be careful that prices are so high and they shouldn’t be disappointed with the prices they’re selling at, said Mike Figura, head of Mosaic Realty.”

    Sounds like Mikey’s fallen behind on his Beemer payments.

    1. When Genie (man lift) decided to relocate their manufacturing to the Columbia Basin political insiders bought up all of the adjacent land surrounding the facility counting on their eventual expansion. They didn’t one schitt about the hundreds of blue collar jobs, just greedy profits for themselves.

      1. “They didn’t one schitt about the hundreds of blue collar jobs, just greedy profits for themselves.”

        Think of them as collateral damage.

      2. “political insiders bought up all of the adjacent land”

        Same thing happened in Vancouver, WA when I-205 went up btw there and Portland, according to friends of mine.

  8. 1) “Asheville real estate market hits ‘healthy place’ as housing sales dip, median prices rise”

    – Median price, like the Case-Shiller Index is a lagging indicator.
    “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.” – Mark Twain

    2) “Mike Figura, head of Mosaic Realty, said Asheville and Buncombe’s market is finally hitting “a healthy place,” though housing inventory in the city and county remains low in the area’s most active price segments.

    “There’s a lot of demand,” Figura said. “There are homes on the market and buyers are not having to be as frantic about buying as they were in 2016 and 2017 but there’s still a lot of competition out there and they can’t take all day either.

    “Sellers can’t price their house really high if they know the market is going to catch up to it. They need to be careful that prices are so high and they shouldn’t be disappointed with the prices they’re selling at,” he said.” [What did he just say, exactly?]

    – The more I hear real estate agent/broker-speak the more it sounds like Fed-speak (U.S. central bank-speak). They both say mostly nothing useful, and only serve to obfuscate the clear economic trend, which, if they’re speaking, is down and they’re generally trying to “put lipstick on a pig.”

    “How do you know when a politician is lying? His lips are moving.” – Favorite Old Joke
    – (Note: “The Fed” or “RE agent/broker” may be substituted for “politician” without modifying the meaning of this statement.). So, I guess, in keeping with the Mark Twain quote, there are (at least) three kinds of liars. 🙂

    1. How does the market catch “up” to falling prices?

      By explaining Realtor Math with Realtor Grammar, that’s how. LOLZ

    1. “… where does it pencil out …
      Ode to the #2 Ticonderoga!
      (Hail Thoreau, writing implement manufacturer!)

      Digital Metal Bitcon$ … or … Electric chainsaw & a 300 year American Black Oak? … decision$, decision$

      Lumber’s epic gain may soon give way to a bear-market correction
      MarketWatch | Feb 8th 2019

      ” … Now, as prices head higher again before the spring building season, Kuta says, “there is less demand to absorb the excess production that came on last year as a result of historic lumber prices.” At the same time, “ongoing $tructural i$$ues facing hou$ing,” including labor $hortages, lack of entry-level home$, high land cost$, $lowing economic activity, and equitie$ potentially topping, “have taken a $erious toll on growing hou$ing in the U.$.”

  12. I always like this blog as it is full of independent thinkers for the most part. No one orders off only the left or right side of the menu as instructed by their TV leaders. With the exception of the banana and the pill. Spring is coming and home depot is laying off installers… hmmmm
    Have a good weekend and my rates get back to normal!

      1. heck yeah! Been here since 2005. Got Popcorn guy and the lady attacked by the bear (she wrote a book)

          1. Maybee the HBB can do a “lost.in.tran$lation” puzzle one weekend …

            “Amisharesuffering” > Hwy50ina49Dodge

            (& Ye old.timer$ remember why eyes (👀) changed it right?)

          2. I’ve had dozens of names, staying incognito. I bought my first house in 1989, second in 2003, cashed out in 2008. Now sitting, saving and waiting.

    2. Pukes I know tell me their phone rings off the hook every day from construction-type folks looking to do work on room additions and house repairs and such. Apparantly they are hungry for work. This news fits well with the news of the Home Depot layoffs.

    1. FED i$ content to contemplate any debt$ number$ that $tart @ $3.5 Trillion$ & > … Omphalo$kep$i$, until April $howers bring forth May ro$y “flower$ with Thorn$”

    2. Are the Keynesian fraudsters at the central banks getting ready for another printing party?

      Do bears defecate on Federal lands? It’ll probably take a couple of years to kick in though, unless speculators try to front run it a lot faster than last time.

      1. One of the commenters at the ZH site is spot on, I think, with the following observation:

        “I believe the one thing that the FED is most concerned about and does not talk about is the lack of foreign demand for US Treasuries. This was inevitable and will continue to get much worse and deficits continue to explode. People think they just capitulated to the market, which is true. The truth is likely more sinister though. In all of their most recent talks they have talked about making QE permanent, which essentially is just printing money nonstop and destroying the dollar. They are trying to ready the public for this because for some reason they think its better to hyperinflate the dollar instead of default on the national debt. It doesnt really matter how you sell it, admitting that you are going to print money forever will destroy the currency. It baffles me that they can be so arrogant as to think that they might be able to get away with this. They know they are going to have to do it soon so they keep coming out talking about it to make it seem like the decision wasn’t made overnight. It’s about to get real soon.”

        1. They are trying to ready the public for this because for some reason they think its better to hyperinflate the dollar instead of default on the national debt.

          Who pays the biggest price in each case? Pick wrong and you lose your head if you’re in charge when it all goes down.

          1. If you want a preview of coming attractions as the Fed ramps up its debasement of the currency, read “When Money Dies” by Adam Fergusson.

            “When Money Dies is the classic history of what happens when a nation’s currency depreciates beyond recovery. In 1923, with its currency effectively worthless (the exchange rate in December of that year was one dollar to 4,200,000,000,000 marks), the German republic was all but reduced to a barter economy. Expensive cigars, artworks, and jewels were routinely exchanged for staples such as bread; a cinema ticket could be bought for a lump of coal; and a bottle of paraffin for a silk shirt. People watched helplessly as their life savings disappeared and their loved ones starved. Germany’s finances descended into chaos, with severe social unrest in its wake.

            Money may no longer be physically printed and distributed in the voluminous quantities of 1923. However, “quantitative easing,” that modern euphemism for surreptitious deficit financing in an electronic era, can no less become an assault on monetary discipline. Whatever the reason for a country’s deficit – necessity or profligacy, unwillingness to tax or blindness to expenditure – it is beguiling to suppose that if the day of reckoning is postponed economic recovery will come in time to prevent higher unemployment or deeper recession. What if it does not? Germany in 1923 provides a vivid, compelling, sobering moral tale.”

        2. Although I agree with the sentiment of the ZH commenter, he’s missing one important thing. If ALL of the world’s central banks go QE at the same time then none will crash. The banks will simply make the rich richer again, no matter in what country those rich reside.

          1. That’s the thing – the entire world is debasing their currency, so ours, as the reserve currency, is still the preferred one, same as our stock market.

          4. “That’s the thing – the entire world is debasing their currency…”

            With the Breton-Woods agreement savings had value, but with the cost of the Great Society programs, Israel’s capture of the West Bank and the Vietnam war, Nixon did-away with the “gold standard,” which devalued the dollars that every other country held in reserve and average people had in savings.

          5. which devalued the “…dollars that every other country held in reserve and average people had in savings.”

            So is it smarter to HODL your wealth in fiatscos, and accept the inexorable march of currency debasement, or gamble in the asset markets, hoping the odds will remain ever in your favor?

    1. I think Amazon is having serious second thoughts about the wisdom of establishing its HQ in NYC. Ever since a 28-year-old socialist bartender overthrew a 10-term corporate stooge, the writing has been on the wall for the Establishment (corporate stooge) Democrats. The demographics of NYC are now such that anyone who runs on a far-left platform of sticking it to The Man has a good shot at getting elected. The sweetheart deal Amazon thought it had with crony capitalists like Cuomo and the machine Democrat apparatchiks could easily be overcome by events now that the Gimme Dats and SJWs are in a position to bilge the Old Guard Democrats in favor of more AOC-style “progressives” promising freebies for all and sundry that “the rich” and corporations will pay for. In that political climate, Amazon would be crazy to go ahead with its planned NYC HQ.

      1. The demographics of NYC are now such that anyone who runs on a far-left platform of sticking it to The Man has a good shot at getting elected.

        You saying this time the “rent is too damn high” guy might have gotten elected? That’s the problem with being a visionary…always too soon.

        1. Brandon is very charming and articulate. His #WalkAway campaign is simply about walking away from the Democratic Party and its identity politics. From what I’ve seen, he doesn’t presume to tell others where to go. A race between Brandon and AOC would be one to follow as a non-voter.

    1. Why do people want to lend the government 3K interest-free?

      I thought you could be penalized if your refund is excessive?

      1. We get an underpayment penalty for not paying quarterly estimated taxes. The government really wants that interest-free loan.

        1. Once I learned I could avoid the underpayment penalty simply by paying last year’s federal taxes divided by 4 every quarter (on time) during the next year, I haven’t had to pay a penalty for underpayment. But then my income changes little from year to year.

          1. My point is that we are penalized for not wanting to give the government an interest-free loan. It’s the principle not the nominal penalty.

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