Author: openjargon

• Owners of Marilyn Monroe's former Brentwood home are suing LA for the right to raze the property.
• They want to expand their current residence, which is located next door.
• The City Council is considering whether to designate the house where Monroe died a historic monument.

The owners of the Brentwood home where Marilyn Monroe lived and later died are suing the City of Los Angeles for the right to demolish the property.

Brinah Milstein and her husband, Roy Bank, filed a Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit on Monday, alleging "illegal and unconstitutional conduct and abuse of power" by the city concerning the property they bought in July 2023.

According to the Los Angeles Times, they purchased the home for $8.35 million. Their intention was to demolish it and expand their current residence, which is located next door, according to the lawsuit.

Monroe died from an overdose in the Brentwood property at the age of just 36.

The plaintiffs claim they were issued a demolition permit from the city, which was initially "held" for 30 days to allow for objections.

They claim that no objections were raised and permits were subsequently issued, which led to them incurring over $30,000 in expenses before receiving actual notice of a "stay" invoked by the city.

Last September, the Los Angeles City Council intervened to temporarily halt the demolition of the home, which KCAL News reported was welcomed by fans and historians.

Scott Fortner of The Marilyn Monroe Collection, a superfan and collector, told the news outlet that the "home is the equivalent of Graceland" for Monroe fans.

He said the property, which Monroe purchased in 1962 for just over $77,000, represented a new beginning for the iconic star, following her divorce from playwright Arthur Miller.

Fortner said the home also has significance in memorializing Monroe, noting that its front step tiles read "Cursum Perficio" — Latin for "my journey ends here."

The City Council initiated proceedings last September to consider designating the property a historic cultural monument, a move that would invalidate the demolition permits.

However, Milstein and Bank have pushed back.

They contend in the lawsuit that Monroe lived in the house for only a short period, less than six months in 1962, and that the house has been "substantially altered" over the years.

"There is not a single piece of the house that includes any physical evidence that Ms. Monroe ever spent a day at the house, not a piece of furniture, not a paint chip, not a carpet, nothing," the lawsuit says.

The lawsuit also alleges that the city's push for the designation violated its own codes, which has deprived the plaintiffs of their "vested rights as owners of real property" and has caused them "irreparable harm."

The City Council will vote on whether to declare the house a historic cultural monument by mid-June.

Representatives for Milstein, Bank, and the City of Los Angeles did not immediately respond to Business Insider's requests for comment.

Brentwood boasts a rich Hollywood heritage, counting Betty White and Joan Crawford among its former notable residents.

However, that rich history, combined with the high value of the land, has created tension when it comes to preservation.

Actor Chris Pratt and his wife Katherine Schwarzenegger recently caused an uproar when they demolished a midcentury modern house designed by architect Craig Ellwood to make way for a sprawling mansion.

Liz Waytkus, the US executive director of the conservation nonprofit Docomomo, told Dezeen last month that the demolition highlighted a "systemic" problem in the area.

"The land has become more valuable than the house, and even if people understand the value of such a home, location and land value often trump architectural significance," she said.

• Uber shares dropped as much as 8% in premarket trading after reporting first quarter results Wednesday.
• The ride-hailing giant saw gross bookings climb 20% and revenue slightly beat expectations.
• Earnings-per-share was significantly below Wall Street forecasts, however.

Uber's share price dropped as much as 8% in premarket trading Wednesday after it reported a mixed bag of Q1 results.

Its gross bookings of $37.7 billion were up 20% compared to the same period last year, but fell short of its target. Plus, its forecast for gross bookings in the second quarter was also shy of Wall Street's expectations.

The ride-hailing app reported revenue of $10.13 billion, just about Wall Street expectations of revenues of $10.11 billion. Its earnings-per-share, however, missed forecasts, coming in at negative $0.32, compared to a forecast of $0.22.

The firm reported an income from operations of $172 million, but the Financial Times reported analysts had forecast this to be over $600 million. Uber cited "discrete legal and regulatory reserve changes and settlements."

It's also facing a $300 million lawsuit from more than 10,000 black-cab drivers in London, which was filed last week.

By contrast, rival ride-hailing company Lyft posted better-than-expected results a day earlier. 

In a press release, CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said: "Our results this quarter once again demonstrate our ability to deliver consistent, profitable growth at scale."

"More than 7 million people now choose to earn flexibly on Uber every month, with driver earnings of $16.6 billion continuing to grow faster than our topline," he added.

While shares dropped as much as 8% in premarket trade on the initial results, at the time of publication, the company's stock rebounded a little and was set to open down around 6% to trade at $66.20, per Markets Insider data.

• A 2,300-passenger cruise is due to set sail in February and will let passengers go nude.
• The Big Nude Boat will take passengers on an 11-day trip from Miami around the Caribbean.
• The company has policies for its nude passengers, including no naked butts on any public surfaces.

A nude cruise is due to set sail in February next year from Miami around the Caribbean — but passengers must follow specific rules about nudity.

The Big Nude Boat is a partnership between Norwegian Cruise Line and Bare Necessities, a specialist nude cruise travel company.

It can take up to 2,300 passengers, and the company describes the trip as a "stress-free, clothes-free experience."

Over the course of 11 days, it'll take visitors to spots like Puerto Rico, the Bahamas, St Lucia, and Martinique, as well as reserve three days for a "Nude Day at Sea."

Cabin prices start at $2,000 per person for a two-person cabin and reach up to $33,155 per person for a three-bedroom 'garden villa' room. The ship, Norwegian Pearl, also has 16 dining options, 14 bars and lounges, a casino, and a spa.

No bare butts on chairs, please

Bare Necessities says it wants to "break down the barriers against social nudity and make clothing-optional vacationing a viable and acceptable option for all," per its website.

But that does mean that the cruise has specific rules about nudity, including strictly forbidding any photos being taken of passengers without their consent.

At all times, passengers must avoid putting their naked butt on any surface. This is, according to the company guidebook, "standard nudist etiquette."

They also need to wait for the ship to leave the dock before whipping off their clothes and must cover up if port authorities board the vessel.

While dining rooms have a mandatory clothes-on policy, passengers can bare all at the self-service buffet area.

This cruise is different from adult-lifestyle cruises, or so-called "swingers cruises," which attract passengers specifically looking for a more "sexually adventurous" vacation.

Bare Necessities says that "social nudity is not a sexual activity." And its policies prohibit "fondling or inappropriate touching," and "lingerie, fetish-wear, and excessive genital jewelry."

"Nudism is about leaving judgment behind," a vice president of sales at Bare Necessities previously told Business Insider.

The VP said the captain and the crew on these cruises are not nude. Instead, they are responsible for doing their typical day jobs and ensuring the dress codes are enforced.

"Our first day aboard is always a little bit of a shock for the crew, but after that it's fun for everyone," Whitmire said.

• OpenAI is targeting some Google's employees, The Verge reported.
• Sam Altman's company is trying to poach Googlers for a ChatGPT search engine, per the report.
• Big Tech is engaged a fierce competition to acquire and retain top AI talent.

OpenAI appears to be going after some Google employees.

The Verge reported that the company behind ChatGPT has been trying to poach Googlers to work on its team developing a search engine for the chatbot.

In February, The Information reported that OpenAI was developing a web search feature that could put the company into more direct competition with Google Search. The new tool will reportedly partly rely on Microsoft's Bing search engine.

OpenAI's search product will function as a feature for ChatGPT that can browse the web and cite sources in its responses, according to a recent report from Bloomberg. The tool will allow users to ask questions and receive answers sourced from across the internet.

Google's future plans in the AI field include large investments and a generative AI search engine.

OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider, made outside normal working hours.

Big Tech is engaged in an intense battle for top AI talent as rival companies rush to launch similar AI-powered products. Some of the industry's biggest names have even been pitching in on efforts to acquire and retain top talent.

Rival companies are fighting over a small pool of advanced AI researchers and engineers. As demand escalates, candidates with the necessary expertise can demand — and get — huge benefits and pay packages.

Google, an AI pioneer, has become a prime target for rivals looking to poach experts because it has some of the sector's top researchers.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has reportedly been writing personal emails to AI researchers at Google's DeepMind in an attempt to recruit them.

• Ukraine said it foiled a Russian plot to assassinate President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. 
• It said members of Ukraine's security service were part of the plot. 
• Russia appears to have gained astonishing access to Ukraine's security service. 

Ukraine's security service, the SBU, said on Tuesday that it had foiled the latest Russian plot to assassinate Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other top officials.

This particular plot, however, appears to have been more troubling. Among those allegedly involved in the planned assassinations were senior members of Ukraine's government protection service.

Mark Episkopos, a Eurasia Research Fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, wrote that the alleged plot exposed serious vulnerabilities in Ukraine's government.

"It suggests a larger phenomenon of extensive Russian intelligence penetration in the Ukrainian bureaucracy and military that will prove difficult to fully diagnose, let alone uproot," he wrote, adding that Ukraine's recent problems on the battlefield could lead some to become traitors.

Since the earliest days of the Russian invasion, Russia has reportedly targeted Zelenskyy for assassination.

Last year, the Ukrainian president said he was aware of so many plots against his life since the start of the war he'd lost count.

According to SBU, the men involved in the latest plot were working as part of a network of agents for the Russian FSB security service. They had been searching for would-be traitors among Zelenskyy's personal security team to take him hostage and kill him.

The plot is "the first time such a high-ranking official of the state security department has become [the] enemy's moles," Artem Dehtiarenko, SBU spokesman, told Politico.

The plan, according to the SBU, also involved persuading a mole to pass information on about the location of top Ukrainian officials, including SBU head, Vasyl Malyuk and Kyril Budanov, the head of Ukraine's military intelligence.

"At the coordinates of the house where the official was supposed to be, they planned to launch a missile strike. Then, they were going to attack the people who remained at the location with a drone. After that, the Russians planned to hit with another missile in order to destroy the traces of the drone," said the SBU.

It's alleged that the plotters had planned to kill Budanov by Orthodox Easter (May 5) and the mission was "supposed to be a gift to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin's inauguration."

It said one of the suspects arrested had bought drones and anti-tank grenades for the mission.

The Russian president's fifth inauguration was held on Tuesday.

The statement said two Ukrainian officials had been arrested in connection with the plot and identified the Russian FSB agents who handled the moles as Maxim Mishustin, Dmytro Perlin, and Aleksii Kornev.

• Israel and Hamas are engaged in tense cease-fire talks despite fighting in Rafah.
• Israeli PM Netanyahu rejected the latest proposal, saying it fell "very far" from Israel's demands.
• Israel wants to keep its right to conduct more operations in Gaza, an analyst told Al-Jazeera.

Cease-fire talks to end the fighting in Gaza are still taking place in the background, despite Israel's military incursion into Rafah.

Negotiators from both Israel and Hamas are in Cairo, having arrived hours after Israeli tanks and troops entered the city of Rafah, according to The New York Times.

Israel Defense Forces said Tuesday it had taken operational control of the Gazan side of the Rafah border crossing after carrying out what it described as "targeted" strikes against Hamas in the city's eastern sector.

In a military update on Tuesday, IDF international spokesperson Nadav Shoshani said it had urged local residents to "temporarily" evacuate the eastern part of Rafah to a humanitarian area ahead of what he called a "counterterrorism" operation.

Shoshani said that IDF troops eliminated 20 Hamas militants in the first hours of the operations, adding that humanitarian aid will continue to flow inside Gaza.

The IDF's ongoing military operation comes as Israel and Hamas are engaged in tense talks to broker a cease-fire deal.

On Monday, Hamas said it had accepted a deal proposed by Egypt and Qatar.

That deal guaranteed the release of all Israeli captives in Gaza, civilians or military, alive or otherwise, from all periods, in exchange for a number of prisoners held by Israel, per a copy of the proposal obtained by Al Jazeera.

The deal also called for the return to a "sustainable calm" that would lead to a permanent cease-fire and a withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip, its reconstruction, and the lifting of the siege, per the outlet.

But in a statement on Tuesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected the proposal, saying it was designed to "torpedo" the entry of IDF forces into Rafah and fell "very far" from Israel's core demands.

Israel's government press office didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

Ismail Haniyeh, the leader of Hamas' political wing, accused Netanyahu of "sabotaging the efforts made through the mediators," per Sky News.

Since Israel started its military operation in Gaza following Hamas' terror attacks on October 7, an estimated 2.3 million Palestinians have been driven out of their homes, and more than 34,500 civilians killed, AP reported Saturday, citing local health officials.

Over 1,100 people were killed in Hamas' attacks, and hundreds were captured. Many are still missing.

According to Mairav Zonszein, a senior analyst on Israeli domestic politics at the International Crisis Group, Israel wants to retain the authority to carry out further operations in Gaza.

"If you enter a cease-fire deal, then you will [eventually] need a cease-fire," she told Al Jazeera.

Yossi Mekelberg, an associate fellow at Chatham House's Middle East and North Africa Program, made a similar statement, saying the Israeli government is biding its time to continue military operations in Gaza.

"Netanyahu knows — as most of us do — that if there is a cease-fire in 6-7 weeks, it's most probable the pressure will mount to end the war altogether," he told BI.

This could lead to Netanyahu, Israel's longest-serving prime minister, losing power and an investigation into how Hamas' October 7 terrorist attacks were allowed to happen on his watch, he said.

It could also result in the International Court of Justice potentially ruling that Israel committed genocide, Mekelberg added.

"If he leaves now, this is his legacy," Mekelberg said.

• Panera Bread is discontinuing its controversial Charged Sips that contain high levels of caffeine.
• The drinks were tied to at least two wrongful death lawsuits against Panera.
• These lawsuits accused the chain of not clearly displaying the drinks as highly caffeinated.

Panera Bread is discontinuing its controversial, highly caffeinated Charged Sips range that was linked to at least two wrongful death lawsuits in the US.

The sandwich and coffee chain is phasing out the three drinks and replacing them with other beverages in the next two weeks, Bloomberg first reported, citing a company memo. Business Insider has approached Panera for confirmation.

Panera told Bloomberg that the change was part of its "menu transformation" and that it would be introducing a blueberry lavender lemonade, a pomegranate hibiscus tea, a citrus punch, and a tropical green smoothie.

Panera currently sells two flavors of Charged Lemonade — strawberry lemon mint and mango yuzu citrus — and a blood orange "charged" splash.

At least three lawsuits have been filed against Panera, accusing the chain of not clearly showing customers that the Charged beverages are high in caffeine.

Two of these were wrongful death lawsuits. Another was filed by a competitive athlete who said she had "permanent cardiac injuries" after drinking two-and-a-half cups of the beverage.

Some social media users called the drinks "crack in a cup," saying that Panera's free refill policy means customers could consume huge amounts of caffeine in one sitting.

The company previously told BI that it thought the wrongful death lawsuits were "without merit" and that it stood by the safety of its products.

Panera changed how the drinks were labeled and displayed after the first lawsuit was filed.

The sandwich chain says on its website that customers should drink the beverages "in moderation" and says they're not recommended for children, people sensitive to caffeine, and pregnant and nursing women.

When served with ice, the strawberry lemon mint Charged Lemonade contains 233 milligrams of caffeine for a 30-fluid-ounce cup, the mango yuzu citrus contains 237 milligrams, and the Charged Splash contains 302 milligrams, though this varies depending on how much ice is added.

The drinks were all previously advertised as containing around 390 milligrams of caffeine per 30-fluid-ounce cup, which CNBC reported was for a beverage served without ice.

The US Food and Drug Administration says 400 milligrams of caffeine is a generally safe daily limit for a healthy adult.

At Panera, a 20-fluid-ounce latte or cappuccino has 147 milligrams of caffeine, while an 8.4-fluid-ounce can of Red Bull contains 80 milligrams of caffeine.

• Microsoft has developed a secret AI model exclusively for US spy agencies, Bloomberg reported. 
• The GPT-4-based model is "air-gapped," meaning it's not connected to the internet. 
• It's part of a broader effort by intelligence agencies to use AI for more efficient data handling.

Microsoft created a secret AI model for US spy agencies that is not connected to the internet.

William Chappell, its strategic missions and technology CTO, told Bloomberg that Microsoft spent 18 months working on the model, which is "air-gapped" so it's secure and can only be accessed by the US government.

Chappell told the outlet that the model based on GPT-4 is now live, can answer questions, and will be able to write code. It can read and analyze files but cannot learn from them to stop sensitive information entering the platform, he reportedly said. It is yet to be tested and accredited by the intelligence agencies.

In an article published by the CIA in December, Dennis J. Gleeson, Jr, a former director of strategy, wrote: "Today's chatbots are not intelligent, but they are innovative, exciting, and full of potential in the context of the volumes and varieties of information the [intelligence community] collects, processes, triages, and uses in support of its global mission."

He added that AI is a "strategic shift in how we think about interacting with massive volumes of data."

Sheetal Patel, assistant director of the CIA for the Transnational and Technology Mission Center, reportedly told a security conference last month that countries are racing to "get generative AI onto intelligence data," adding that she wants the US to win the race.

Intelligence agencies have long wanted to use AI to handle data more efficiently. The Directorate of National Intelligence, which acts as the head of the intelligence community, launched the AIM Initiative in 2019 to help agencies, including the CIA, to process large amounts of data and "fundamentally change the way it produces intelligence."

The CIA is even hiring an "Artificial Intelligence Specialist," according to the careers section of its website, to help realize its AI ambitions. The role involves lending a hand with data processing for an annual salary of up to $172,000.

Microsoft and the CIA didn't immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider, made outside normal working hours.

• EV company Nio is launching a new affordable EV brand in China. 
• Competitor BYD will reportedly supply batteries for the new range, which will compete with Tesla's Model Y. 
• The alliance between the two companies will likely intensify pressure on Tesla in China.

Two of Tesla's biggest rivals in China are joining forces in yet another blow to Elon Musk.

Local EV giant Nio is launching a new affordable EV brand that will compete directly with the Model Y in China — and it has reportedly turned to Tesla rival BYD to provide batteries for one of these new EVs, according to a Reuters report.

Three sources with knowledge of the matter told Reuters that BYD has agreed to provide batteries for the new mass-market brand called Onvo, which Nio confirmeded to Reuters on Monday.

BYD will reportedly provide a small battery pack for one version of the Onvo EV, with Chinese battery maker CALB supplying a larger 85-kilowatt-hour battery pack.

Nio disputed the report, describing it as "inaccurate" in comments to Reuters.

Business Insider contacted BYD and Nio for comment but didn't immediately hear back.

Nio, known for its battery-swapping technology, is set to unveil the first Onvo vehicle at the end of the month and is also planning a second smaller EV that will sell in Europe for under $30,000, per Reuters.

It marks a strategy shift for the EV startup, which has previously focused on the premium market, and it comes as it faces fierce competition in China.

The alliance between Nio and BYD will likely intensify pressure on Elon Musk in China, where Tesla sales have slumped amid brutal competition for EVs.

Deliveries from Tesla's Shanghai factory dropped 18% in April from a year ago, according to preliminary data from China's Passenger Car Association reported by Bloomberg.

The move poses a fresh challenge to Musk as he embarks on a shake-up at Tesla.

The automaker is simultaneously trying to secure EV dominance in China and expand its autonomous driving operations — all while slashing its workforce with ongoing job cuts.

Musk secured a big win in a surprise trip to Beijing last month, sealing a vital deal with Chinese tech giant Baidu that moved the automaker closer to rolling out its Full Self-Driving technology in the country.

The Tesla CEO is now reportedly eyeing up plans to deploy the company's forthcoming robotaxis, which the company plans to unveil in August, to China.

Once again, however, he is likely to face stiff competition from BYD and Nio, who are developing their own driving assistance software.

The past few years were very good to people who decided to sell their homes. The massive relocation shuffle meant most homes hitting the market were the subject of bidding wars. Rich baby boomers jumped in with all-cash offers, and sellers scored huge windfalls as weary buyers pushed prices to new heights. There was no question who had the upper hand.

Now, sellers' fortunes are changing. Home prices are still rising, at a modest pace, around most of the country, but gone are the days of throwing up a for-sale sign and waiting for the feeding frenzy to begin. As buyers' options slowly increase, sellers may have to slash asking prices or wait longer for a viable offer to come along. Today's home shoppers aren't so willing to pass on inspections or give up other contingency rights to expedite a sale, either. Unlike their predecessors at the height of the pandemic, buyers can now afford to kick the tires before jumping into a deal.

Most painfully, mortgage rates have spiked to 7% from their record lows of less than 3% in 2021, which has not only deterred prospective buyers but also changed the calculus for many sellers. Since most people have to turn around and buy another property to live in, even the ones who profit handsomely off a sale are finding it hard to upgrade their digs, given the increased borrowing costs. It's shaping up to be a cruel summer for sellers who aren't ready to come to terms with this new reality.

Of course, it could always be worse. There are no signs that home prices are on the verge of collapse, and more sales are happening now than a year ago. After all, people have to move for a wide variety of life reasons; mortgage rates be damned. The number of homes for sale at any given moment is also growing, which means we're inching closer to a "normal" market. The Housing Ice Age is slowly thawing.

But the peak months of home selling, which last from the spring into the middle of summer, may come with a rude awakening this year. Those who hoped that lower mortgage rates would grease the wheels of the housing market, nudging more buyers to get off the sidelines and bid up home prices, are realizing that dream scenario won't come to pass. Sellers may still have an advantage, but it's getting slimmer.

When hopeful sellers call up Eric Peterson, a real-estate broker in Austin, he usually asks them how much they think their home could fetch on the market. In 2021 or 2022, before rising mortgage rates squashed buyer demand, people typically thought their homes were worth a lot less than what they could sell for, Peterson told me. Now when he poses the same question, "they're usually overshooting it by a little bit," he said. The whiplash can leave today's sellers crestfallen in comparison. Austin was among the cities hit hardest by the pandemic hangover, with local home prices in March down roughly 12% from the peak in May 2022, according to the Freddie Mac House Price Index. But while the city may be on the extreme end of things, sellers around the country face similar circumstances: There are fewer buyers out there, and the ones who are on the hunt have more options.

"The further and further we get from the peak of the market," Peterson told me, "the harder it is to deny what's happened."

The start of 2024 seemed to have all the ingredients of a second home-seller heyday. Inflation was cooling, meaning the Federal Reserve could soon declare victory in its war on rising prices and start to cut interest rates. This, in turn, would bring down mortgage rates, theoretically encouraging more buyers to jump into the housing market. Sellers would have the upper hand in two ways: A new wave of demand would drive up the value of their homes, while lower borrowing costs would make the jump to their new places less painful. Unfortunately for prospective sellers, this Goldilocks scenario was not meant to be. Inflation has been hotter than expected, and the Fed has signaled it's comfortable keeping interest rates higher for longer. Mortgage rates haven't fallen — in fact, they've gone up about 0.6 percentage points since the start of the year. Selma Hepp, the chief economist at the property-analytics firm CoreLogic, calls this "the year of the head fake."

The further and further we get from the peak of the market, the harder it is to deny what's happened.

Now, prospective sellers are staring down the reverse of the hoped-for scenario. On the one hand, their cheaper mortgage rates now seem like a gift that won't come along again, which makes it hard to commit to a move. About 58% of outstanding US home loans had interest rates below 4% at the end of last year, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency. If you put 20% down on a $400,000 house, the difference between a 4% mortgage and a 7% one would be $600 in payments every month. You can see why this is bad for both buyers and sellers — buyers can't stomach paying that much more for the same house, while sellers hold on to the rates they snagged when money was cheap during the COVID-19 health crisis.

But many people still have to move even if they don't necessarily want to, and some sellers may be coming to terms with the fact that rates aren't dropping. Once they've swallowed this reality, these sellers will face a less favorable real-estate landscape. As more listings hit the market in the spring and summer, the number of homes for sale at any given moment, otherwise known as active inventory, is expected to grow. Nationwide inventory is up 33% from a year ago, according to the housing-data firm Altos Research, giving homebuyers better odds of bargaining down prices and scoring concessions.

Sure, sale prices in March were up about 6.6% from last year, according to Freddie Mac, but the leading indicators for deals that will close this summer "aren't nearly that strong," Mike Simonsen, the president of Altos Research, said in a recent weekly update. Prices on new listings across the country are basically flat from a year ago, and 33.5% of single-family homes on the market have seen a cut from their original asking prices, the most of any April in a decade. Moody's Ratings now expects home values to rise a measly 1% this year after a 6.5% increase in 2023.

Even once a price is agreed upon, sellers may have to shoulder more of the costs to complete the transaction than before. Unlike during the height of the pandemic, a buyer might be able to get the seller to pay for closing costs or pricey repairs that come up during an inspection. More than one-third of sellers gave concessions to buyers in the three months ending October 31, Redfin found, up from 27.6% two years earlier.

Sellers across the country won't feel the pain equally — in fact, many will do just fine for themselves. In the Northeast and the West, active inventory is still more than 30% below 2019 levels, keeping competition for homes tight. The situation will be toughest in places like Austin or Boise, Idaho, where wealthy out-of-towners drove up prices amid the pandemic. Now that people aren't moving across the country as much, it's harder to find the kinds of buyers willing to make outrageous bids for their slice of the Sun Belt.

"When we were listing homes for sale and they were selling for so much over asking price, there often wasn't a second buyer that was offering close to that final price," Peterson told me. "So the market was very emotional in one direction. And I was warning everybody: All it takes is that one buyer to go away."

Libby Levinson-Katz, a broker in Denver and the chair of the local Realtor association's market-trends committee, said she's advising sellers there to price their homes conservatively and take care of big-ticket items, such as large repairs, before listing. Price-conscious buyers are already battling high rates and home prices — they don't want to take on more expenses as soon as they get the keys.

"I think sellers need to kind of buckle the seatbelt and know that it's not necessarily going to be a quick sale," Levinson-Katz told me. "It could take awhile because buyers are being really discerning right now."

Lost in all this talk of sellers' woes is the simple fact that more home inventory is good for everyone. Sellers simply had too much power during the pandemic — the pendulum swinging in the other direction just means we're slowly making our way toward a more balanced market.

For one thing, many sellers end up also being buyers themselves: A whopping 78% of homeowners say they plan to buy again right after they sell, John Burns Research and Consulting found. So while it might be nice for sellers to watch their home values climb with each desperate bid, they'll probably have to join the masses clamoring over listings or worrying about the new reality of mortgage rates.

Sellers need to kind of buckle the seatbelt and know that it's not necessarily going to be a quick sale.

Because Americans see their homes as not only shelter but also investment vehicles, a weak sellers' market can be a problem, too — if prices plummet, buyers might not want to purchase homes for fear of catching a falling knife. This is why economists talk so much about the need for a balanced market, rather than one that simply favors affordability for buyers. It's a fine line to walk.

While the slowdown for sellers may be good for the country's housing market in the long run, the sudden switch-up can leave homeowners feeling like they missed the boat. About 79% of recent sellers in a survey from Realtor.com said they wished they had listed their home sooner to take advantage of a hotter market. But Peterson told me he tries to keep things in perspective for his clients — home prices are still up almost 50% from early 2020 nationwide, according to Moody's, and about 42% in Austin. He warns sellers against comparing themselves with those who sold at the market's peak, when cheap money drove up prices. Back then, it didn't matter if you mispriced your home or neglected repairs — low interest rates and booming buyer interest practically ensured you'd find a more-than-willing taker.

"It can always be tricky telling somebody that they were just lucky because it makes you sound envious," Peterson told me. "But 2.5% interest rates can hide a lot of mistakes."

James Rodriguez is a senior reporter on Business Insider's Discourse team.