A report from CNBC. "After three years of soaring home prices, the heat is coming off the U.S. housing market. Home sellers are slashing prices at the highest rate in at least eight years, especially in the West, where the price gains were hottest. In California, where home price gains were in double digits, active listings were 17 percent higher in August compared with August 2017, and sales dropped to the slowest pace in two years, according to the California Association of Realtors."

"'While home prices continued to rise modestly in August, the deceleration in price growth and the surge in housing supply suggest that a market shift is underway,' said Leslie Appleton-Young, chief economist at the California Realtors group. 'We are seeing active listings increasing and more price reductions in the market, and as such, the question remains, 'How long will it take for the market to close the price expectation gap between buyers and sellers?'"

From Palo Alto Online in California. "The residential property market in Palo Alto is showing multiple signs of a slowdown. The median price of all sold homes in Palo Alto from June to August was $2.86 million, an 8 percent drop from the first five months of 2018."

"The number of offers on a single property is dropping as well. The severe bidding war was a norm in the spring. Homes listed aggressively low compared with their fair market value could attract as many as 20 bids. Recently, many homes listed for $3 million only received one or two offers. At the high end, homes don't seem to attract interest even after a $1-million price drop."

"What caused the market to shift? First, home prices may have jumped too high too fast. The median home price in Palo Alto in the first half of 2018 reached $3.1 million. It was a 15 percent increase from 2017 and 29 percent higher than 2016, on top of a long bull-market cycle that ran for five years from 2010 to 2015, when Palo Alto's home prices nearly doubled. It's hardly sustainable."

"Second, while we are still experiencing historically low inventory, the number of new listings increased by 11 percent over last year for the period from January to August, which helped slightly to restore the balance between supply and demand."

"Lastly, as uncertainties about the global economy are rising, potential buyers, both local and foreign, are in wait-and-see mode. The rising tension between the U.S. and China is affecting the entire global "tech value chain." The depreciation of China's currency by about 10 percent since February also negatively affected potential demand by Chinese investors."

From Realtor.com. "It looks like the nest Hugh Hefner bought for his wife, Crystal, isn't quite as lavish as she imagined. In 2013, the 87-year-old Playboy founder paid $5 million for the sleek home in the Hollywood Hills for his 27-year-old wife. Although they lived together at the Playboy mansion in Los Angeles, Hugh wanted to ensure that Crystal would be taken care of after he'd passed on to the silk bathrobe in the sky."

"Hugh died in September 2017, and a few months later Crystal put the place on the market for $7.2 million. It's now back on the market for $5.8 million—the price reduced by a whopping $1.4 million."

From the Los Angeles Times. "Owlwood, a 10-acre estate with a Hollywood history as rich as any, is back up for grabs in Holmby Hills. This time, it’s being floated for $115 million, down from the $180-million price tag it wore last summer. The current owner, a Sherman Oaks development group headed by Robert H. Shapiro called Woodbridge, bought the home for $90 million in September 2016."

"The latest listing arrives as Woodbridge works its way out of bankruptcy proceedings. In December, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged the firm with running a $1.22-billion Ponzi scheme that defrauded over 8,400 investors, and the group filed for bankruptcy a few weeks before the charges arrived. In May, Woodbridge agreed to settle the liability portions of the SEC’s charges."