A report from the Globe and Mail in Canada. "Michael Bublé has owned this 7,100 sq. ft. West Vancouver mansion with ocean and city views for 11 years. The house was a year old when he bought it in 2007 for $4,550,000. Asking price: $6.998 million. Selling price: $5.180 million. The sale reflects a severe downturn in the high-end detached house market, particularly in West Vancouver, says listing agent Carsten Love."

"Mr. Bublé bought the house at a peak in the market and did renovations. The selling price reflects the withdrawal of Mainland Chinese money from West Vancouver. He saw another sale in the neighbourhood where a new house that was listed for $10.5 million went for $6 million, well below assessed value. It created a new market."

"'That sale really did put us in a different mood,' says Mr. Love. 'The market has drastically dropped, and West Vancouver is the worst market in North America with its months of supply. It’s got about 14 months of supply, and for example, Burnaby has about seven or eight months, which is not great. But it’s double in West Van. And it’s going to get worse as we come into spring.'"

"But with 20/20 hindsight, Mr. Love says a lot of sellers are wishing they’d unloaded their properties two years ago, when the market was at another peak. 'I think people are going to have to wake up, because we thought our market was impervious to anything. We all bragged about it: ‘Vancouver, people love us. We’re the best. Nothing can hurt us.’ How fast things change. Now people go, ‘ Uh, okay…’ he says, laughing."

"'Reality is starting to set in. Prices went up so fast, and maybe for false reasons – not because people wanted to live here, but because they were propping up our market for a safe place to park their money.'"

The Courier Mail in Australia. "Bargain hungry home hunters are in the box seat with a spike in the number of discounted properties hitting the market. The top 20 homes with the biggest price cuts on the market in Queensland right now have been revealed, giving savvy buyers a chance to snap up a bargain for up to $800,000 below market value."

"Death, divorce and desperate vendors are some of the reasons for the number of 'distressed' listings, according to SQM Research. SQM Research managing director Louis Christopher said 23,000 of the 330,000 properties on the market nationally were distressed, compared to only 18,000 a year ago."

"'There is the potential to be able to buy at, or below, fair market value,' Mr Christopher said. 'Especially in a downturn similar to the one we’re having now, that probability has increased. I suspect it’s because the Gold Coast has a higher percentage of investors as a proportion of total buyers than most other regions in the country and it’s also a transient place, so people come in, live there for a few years and move out again.'"

"Helen and Tim Stieler are selling their renovated, three-bedroom house in the heart of Chermside for offers over $565,000. The Stielers have already moved to a property on a bigger block of land to accommodate their growing family. Mrs Stieler said she could not believe the property had not been snapped up yet."

"'The convenience is amazing,' Mrs Stieler said. 'We’ve had a large number of people go through, but just haven’t found the right person. It really is a bit of a bargain.'"

The Wall Street Journal on China. "SHANGRAO, China—Investors were pouring into this sleepy city in southeastern China until late last year to scoop up apartments as new high-rise projects mushroomed. Then sentiment turned. Unsold units started piling up and developers began cutting prices. Homeowners fearing a housing-price collapse protested at one sales office in October."

"The deepening slump, visible as well in other smaller Chinese cities, illustrates why property sales aren’t expected to help bail out China’s economy as overall growth slows this year. This time, Beijing is trying to avoid a repeat. Officials express deepening concern with financial risks from years of rising property debt, as well as social discontent in cities where homeowners have much of their wealth tied to property values and young people fear prices have soared out of reach."

"In a suburb of Beijing, 29-year-old Zhang Jianhua said he pays two-thirds of his monthly income from a job making soup dumplings to cover his mortgage for an apartment. Prices in his area dropped 20% from last year, and recently, Mr. Zhang joined 200 other homeowners at the central housing ministry to protest."

"'I felt like I had no other choice but to protest,' Mr. Zhang said. 'I’ve been so upset.'"

"Shangrao home prices are 11% off their peak last May, according to Anjuke, a Chinese property brokerage. On a recent weekend, local developer Youbang Real Estate was pulling out all the stops to market the biggest project in the city, One Sino Park, with 5,500 units."

"At another project, built by Country Garden, one of China’s top three home builders by sales, a 54-year-old small-business owner who only gave his surname, Liu, said he had just signed the contract on a new apartment for when his 23-year-old son, a recent college graduate, gets married someday."

"'I feel like Shangrao’s vacancy rate is already really high,' said Mr. Liu, who bought the home for 30% less than the advertised price. 'A lot of my friends already hold two or three homes.'"

"Wang Lingling, 34, bought a home in Shangrao last October. She and her husband, who have two children, are struggling to pay 3,900 yuan a month for the housing loan because they work part-time jobs and don’t have fixed incomes. They say they don’t eat out as much anymore to save money."

"'Now we have to think twice before buying things,' Ms. Wang said. 'We must first put all our money toward paying the mortgage.'"