A report from the New Orleans Advocate in Louisiana. "After years of rising prices, David Devillier saw his chance to get in on New Orleans’ real estate boom when he bought and restored a nearly 160-year-old Greek Revival double-gallery house a block off St. Charles Avenue. Devillier, who owns a construction company, bought the five-bedroom, 4½-bath house for $600,000, and he estimates he spent about the same amount on the renovations."

"But after the house sat on the market for six months, Devillier recently dropped the asking price to $1.3 million, essentially his break-even point, giving up on a once-anticipated $200,000 profit. 'We knew the prices went up quickly, and it kept going up and going up. You know it’s going to plateau, but I was hoping I could get this sold before it started coming back down,' he said. 'I mean, it’s expected that when it goes up that high, it can’t stay that high.'"

"Still, with the market tough to predict, Devillier is ready to cut his losses. 'It’s not happening anymore, so it’s time to move on,' he said."

From The Bridge in New York. "Dramatic, desperate, or maybe both? To get the final 32 units sold at the 550 Vanderbilt condominium in Brooklyn, developed by Greenland Forest City Partners, uber-broker Ryan Serhant, of Million Dollar Listing fame, has alerted real estate brokers to a flash sale."

"'On this Sunday (December 2nd) we will have a 1-day, 20% OFF SALE from 11am – 4pm,' Serhant wrote in a message to brokers this week, inviting potential buyers in for previews. If the flash sale might seem a stunt—would they really decline to offer discounts later?—a citywide slowdown in condo sales reflects a clear buyer’s market."

"Recent quarterly reports by the real estate brokerages Corcoran and Stribling indicated sales slowing in pricier parts of Brooklyn. Warburg Realty cited '[o]ffers 20% and 25% below asking prices … a phenomenon last seen in 2009,' though it suggested Brooklyn sales at prices below $2 million were reasonably healthy."

The Dallas Morning News in Texas. "The Mark Twain in me would like to point out that the Dallas housing market isn't dead. Rumors about the demise of the local home market are probably exaggerated. Having said all that, anyone trying to peddle a house knows the residential market this year has changed."

"Houses are taking longer to sell. And in most cases there isn't a line of buyers fighting to overpay for your property. That was last year and the year before. And after the boom in housing we've seen over the last few years, any kind of slowdown is likely to cause some anxiety for sellers."

"Housing analyst Paige Shipp of Metrostudy Inc. says the sky is not falling. 'Dallas-Fort Worth, the nation's top new home market, is slowing from a frenzied, overheated pace to a more stable, normalized market,' Shipp said. 'D-FW was one of the first, if not the first, housing market to emerge from the downturn. Our market was hot, dare I say 'overheated,' since 2012.'"

"The D-FW area housing boom of the last few years is unlike almost any in the last 50 years. And if price increases hadn't slowed, we'd be looking at a California-style housing crash soon."

From SocketSite on California. "While the number of homes actively listed for sale in San Francisco peaked at a 7-year high of around 960 this past October and has since ticked down to 775 with typical seasonality in play, there are now 53 percent more homes on the market than there were at the same time last year and inventory remains at a 7-year seasonal high."

"The number of homes on the market priced at under a million dollars in San Francisco is now running 53 percent higher on a year-over-year basis as well. And 26 percent of all the homes currently listed for sale in the city have undergone at least one price reduction, which is even with the same time last year."

From Radar Online on California. "The price of Elizabeth Taylor‘s Beverly Hills mansion has been slashed by $4 million in order to attract a buyer, RadarOnline.com exclusively confirmed. The 7,761 sq. ft. home was placed on the market for $15.9 million in July 2018 but was lowered in November."

The News Tribune in Washington. "By now you’ve likely run across a headline, a report or a passing reference to the cooling housing market. But the housing market — new-home construction and existing-home sales — isn’t just intricately tied to the economy, it is much of the economy, so what’s going on with housing speaks volumes about current conditions and trends."

"It’s also the one economic signal — along with, perhaps, gasoline prices — that most Americans observe every day and can speak about knowledgeably. And that’s why, when the conversation turns to housing and the economy, the two-word summations of present conditions are shifting from, 'Oh, wow' and 'Too high' to 'Uh oh.'"

"Maybe what we’re seeing in the data is just a temporary blip, a statistical anomaly, an adjustment to a market too hot for its own good, a signal of absolutely nothing of significance about the broader economy, and a few months from now everyone will be back to marveling at or complaining about the cost of homes in this region and what pricey real estate is doing to it."

"But just to be safe, and prepared, a little worry and wariness wouldn’t be inappropriate about now."