A report from Candy’s Dirt in Texas. “If anyone at a cocktail party says, ‘I’m waiting on the housing market to crash,’ you simply walk away from that conversation because that person has zero knowledge whatsoever. If someone says, ‘There are going to be a rush of foreclosures and bank-owned homes that I’m going to scoop up,’ once again, walk away as that person continues to be talking about things that aren’t going to happen.  In the past week, there have been nearly 500 homes in Tarrant County that have decreased their asking price. In that same week, there have been nearly 900 new homes hitting the market. If you’re a buyer, you might not have to overpay or even pay asking price for the home of your dreams.”

From Bloomberg. “Danny Meier had one of the busiest years of his career in 2021. The 36-year-old closed roughly $799 million worth of loans at Academy Mortgage Corp., ranking him among the top producing originators in the US. Now, he’s bracing for a 20% reduction in business and recently had to cut several staff. ‘It’s scary,’ Meier said in a phone interview. ‘We have sellers panic listing, and then you have buyer fatigue and buyers stepping out altogether really fast.'”

“Already, the fallout is cascading across the industry. Wells Fargo & Co. has warned that income from its mortgage-lending business may drop significantly in the second quarter. Employees at the bank’s home-lending division and its rival JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s unit are being laid off or reassigned to different areas. Real estate brokerages such as Compass Inc. and Redfin Corp. also announced plans to cut their workforces earlier this month.”

“‘Layoffs are happening everywhere,’ Meier said. ‘People are cutting rates, cutting costs, with desperate attempts to gain business.'”

The Phoenix Business Journal in Arizona. “Despite a soft spring, several homebuilders are moving ahead with plans to open their communities throughout the Valley this summer. ‘The Phoenix area housing market has stalled in recent months as a result of eroding affordability from spiking mortgage interest rates,’ said Steve Hensley, advisory manager for Zonda housing research firm. ‘Zonda’s New Home Pending Sales Index shows demand fell 10% from April to May and demand was 24% lower than a year ago.'”

The Real Deal on New York. “Buyers in the Manhattan housing market have lost their sense of urgency as a myriad of factors change the landscape. The number of signed contracts in the borough has dropped annually every week since April 11, according to UrbanDigs. For the week of June 13, contract signings were down 28 percent year-over-year. ‘You get people going into paralysis or simply taking a moment to recalibrate and say to themselves, what do I need to do?’ Douglas Elliman agent Frances Katzen told Bloomberg.”

From NBC on California. “Real estate agents and brokers say the housing market has cooled off significantly in Silicon Valley compared to just a couple months ago. Realtor and broker Rigo Bracamontes says higher interest rates are keeping homes on the market longer, open houses are attracting smaller crowds and the multiple high bidders are disappearing. ‘Today, there will be many buyers that will be able to buy that three or four or five months ago were not just because the competition is not there any more,’ he said.”

“Bracamontes predicts home prices will drop even more by September and October, but buyers still face interest rate hurdles. ‘The idea of let’s ask this price because there are many buyers, those days are gone for the moment,’ Bracamontes said. One particular single family home on North White Road in San Jose has been on the market for 24 days. The seller did what was unheard of just a few months ago: dropping the list price by $95,000. Even with the price drop, the home is still listed at almost $800,000, which is still too high for many people in the valley.”

“‘The market is changing,’ Bracamontes said. ‘It definitely is not what it was three, four, five months ago.'”

From KTSB on Idaho. “Anyone who has bought a house lately or is looking to buy one knows just how expensive and competitive the Treasure Valley housing market is. There appear to be some signs that the market conditions are changing. For the month of May, Boise Regional Realtors reported home prices did go up again, as noted earlier, but closed home sales went down for the third month of consecutive year-over-year declines.”

“Boise Regional Realtors 2022 President Becky Enrico-Crum: ‘I’m not sure that we’re going to continue to see the price go up. I think what we’re finally going to see is that price to stabilize. I keep saying where’s the ceiling? I think we’ve hit the ceiling, and you know, it’s a really big ceiling.'”

The Motley Fool. “Canada’s housing market is crashing this year. In May, the average house price was $711,000, down more than $100,000 from the February peak of $816,000. It was the first major correction in Canada’s housing market in a long time.”

From Domain News. “A recent cost of living survey has concluded more than one-quarter of Australians will suffer from mortgage stress in the wake of the Reserve Bank of Australia’s aggressive rate rise. ‘If that twenty-three per cent who said they have mortgage repayments $500 to $750 per week were single-income households, they would be in real trouble,’ Bill Tsouvalas, CEO of Savvy, said. ‘The COVID mortgage holidays are over and for some families, there may not be much left in the tank when it comes to covering mortgage repayments.'”

“Mr Tsouvalas also advised that anyone currently saddled with a home loan should look to get the best deal possible as soon as possible. ‘If you can refinance at a lower rate – lock it in now,’ Tsouvalas said.”

From Reuters. “A southern Chinese city is sending officials to neighbouring villages to drum up interest in its unsold homes and offering to help find jobs for those who buy an apartment, as a deepening property malaise grips China’s small cities. Yulin, a city of 5.8 million known for its annual summer dog meat festival, will recommend a home buyer for more than three jobs, The Economic Observer, a weekly newspaper, reported.”

“But rural residents in the Guangxi autonomous region, which includes Yulin, on average earn only about 5,000 yuan ($748) a year, less than half of what urban residents make, official statistics show. Yulin’s civil servants have also been told to persuade their relatives and friends to buy properties to help meet the target, it said. Yulin is not alone in taking unusual steps to lure home buyers. In a city in central China’s Henan province, a desperate developer has offered to take wheat and garlic as part of the down payment for properties.”

“Property markets in China’s third- and fourth-tier cities remain bleak even after steps to stimulate weak demand, with new home prices falling for a ninth consecutive month in May and inventories rapidly ballooning. The oversupply is particularly severe in Yulin, where the destocking cycle is more than 10 years, according to a real estate company cited by The Economic Observer, compared with up to three years normally in China.”