A report from ABC News in Australia. "Many people who bought properties in Sydney or Melbourne a year ago on 10 per cent deposits are facing the fact that their life savings have, for the moment at least, disappeared in falling home values, while crashing markets have devastated investors in regional towns where booms have turned to busts."

"Melbourne man David was in high spirits seven years ago when he invested in two properties in the thriving regional Queensland city of Gladstone, when the pubs were full and 'everybody was loaded with cash.' His father and uncle also bought a couple of investment properties each. 'They kind of got all excited about it and we all fed off each other's excitement,' he told PM."

"Then Gladstone's boom ended when energy companies finished building several giant LNG export terminals, and most of the workers employed in the construction phase left town. David's investment homes are now worth half the price he paid for them, the rent on them does not cover his bank loans, and nobody wants to buy them off him."

"The investment properties were getting rents over $1,000 per house during the boom, but now they would be lucky to get a few hundred. He was forced to sell off the rest of his property portfolio and move into a share house as a result of the Gladstone crash."

"Chris Bryck, founder of financial services company Stockspot, said his clients are increasingly investing their money in shares and cash. 'It's a snowball effect — when people see prices fall in a market, they're less inclined to buy,' he told RN Breakfast. 'People fear falling prices, and they move out of the way.'"

"At the moment, he said, property prices are still falling faster than they have in most people's lifetimes, especially in the two biggest cities."

The Nikkei Asian Review. "China's once-sizzling property market is showing signs of a slump, adding to a growing list of warning signs about the Chinese economy. Sales volumes in 24 cities tracked by China Real Estate Index System fell by 44% in the first week of 2019 compared with a year earlier."

"Many analysts now expect China's home sales to contract this year. Perhaps more worrisome, though, is the growing number of Chinese property companies that appear to be struggling under the weight of heavy debt burdens. Moody's Investors Service has assigned junk status to 51 of the 61 Chinese property companies it assesses."

"The property slump has also triggered several episodes of social unrest, which Beijing seeks to avoid at all costs. In October, Shanghai homebuyers came out in droves to protest a developer's decision to cut prices in an apartment complex. The angry residents screamed slogans denouncing the developer and carried placards saying: 'Give us our hard-earned blood-and-sweat money back!'"

"Xiang Songzuo, a professor at the prestigious Renmin University in Beijing, warned in a speech in Shanghai on Jan. 20 that real estate is one of a few serious 'gray rhinos' -- a potential risk that is obvious, but ignored -- facing the economy this year. According to his estimates, about 80% of Chinese people's wealth is in the form of real estate, totaling over $65 trillion in value -- almost twice the size of all G-7 economies combined."

"To him, Chinese people have 'played around with leverage, debts, and finance, and eventually created a mirage in a desert that will soon entirely collapse. This collapse will be a perfect Minsky moment,' he added, using the term for a sudden collapse in asset prices after a long period of growth, named for American economist Hyman Minsky."

"While developers struggle to refinance their piles of debt, Chinese cities are facing a glut of unoccupied flats.
A massive building boom across China, including in tier-two cities like Jinan, has left as many as 65 million empty apartments across the country, according to estimates by Gan Li, a professor at Southwestern University of Finance and Economics in Chengdu. Prof. Gan's striking estimate that 21.4% of housing -- stand unoccupied was published in a report in December. The proportion is up from 18.4% in 2011, driven by a rise of vacancies in second- and third-tier cities."

"Prof. Gan warns of potential financial risk from the rising number of vacant houses. Of the 22.9 trillion yuan ($3.4 trillion) of outstanding mortgage debt held by Chinese people as of the end of 2017, 47.1% of that is tied up in residences that now stand empty."

"In other words, almost half the bank loans are tied to housing assets that are neither being lived in nor churning out rental income. According to the stress test conducted by the professor, a 5% fall in housing prices would take away 7.8% of the actual asset value of occupied houses, but 12.2% for unoccupied houses 'If housing prices keep on falling, the damage to unoccupied residences accelerates even more than the occupied [ones],' Prof. Gan said in the report."

From Global News in Canada. "One unintended consequence of the oversupply in multi-family homes over the past few years, said Jason Yochim, CEO of Saskatoon Region Association of Realtors , was the 'magnified downward pressure on market values.'"

"'The pricing for multi-family, especially apartment-style units, has been hit much harder than other housing types,' he said. 'Owners who have put the minimum down payment on these properties are at the highest risk of owing more than their home is worth.' He said it is resulting in many condo owners being left 'under water' with their mortgages if they purchased when demand was higher, resulting in higher foreclosure numbers."