A report from the Acadiana Advocate in Louisiana. "When Jose and Angie Medina got married in 2007 the 33 lots in the Gideon Grove subdivision outside Youngsville were still mostly empty. But the developer, Roderick Cawthorne, persuaded them the sparse neighborhood would soon be filled with young families living in custom homes."

"Twelve years later, Jose Medina calls that picture an 'illusion.' On recent visits, unfinished culverts lined the main drag of the subdivision, Gideon Road, which was littered with construction debris. 'We bought the house, and then he said, ‘I’m not the kind of contractor that’s here today and gone tomorrow.’ Probably two weeks later we couldn’t find him,' Angie Medina said."

The debt Cawthorne complained about to residents came primarily from lenders who appear to specialize in risk who loaned millions to awthorne over a decade, despite his repeated defaults. One of those lenders, Colorado attorney Stephen Replin, authored a book titled 'Where To Go When The Bank Says No!'"

The St Louis Post Dispatch on Missouri. "It has been a messy divorce. At City Hall, officials had lost faith that Paul McKee could finance the projects he promised, and allegations of state tax credit fraud, which surfaced last spring, were the final straw."

"Meanwhile, most of the properties NorthSide owns continue to decay. Few of those structures are salvageable, a far cry from the 152 rehabs McKee promised in a 2013 plan submitted to the city. More than 200 of NPorthSide’s properties have been condemned by the city; many, unsecured and abandoned, have simply crumbled. The historic Clemens House, which McKee once promised to renovate and turn into senior apartments, burned in the summer of 2017."

"Sunshine Ministries, a nonprofit that works with the homeless north of downtown, has managed to reach a deal with McKee over the years. He owned one of the parcels on the site where Sunshine built its new men’s shelter. Years ago, Carol Clarkson, Sunshine Ministries director, was looking at another property he owned on North Florissant Avenue. The price he asked seemed well above market, and she didn’t go through with the deal."

"'I know it’s inflated,' she said McKee told her. 'But I want to make sure I keep my comps up.'"

The Shawnee Mission Post in Kansas. "Just this week I was making calls around a recent Prairie Village listing to see if any of the surrounding neighbors had given thought to selling with the spring market now in full swing. I have noticed recently that there are quite a few $800K homes sitting on the market currently when there was a time when they would barely get the foundation poured before the home was under contract."

"I have noticed recently that there are quite a few $800K homes sitting on the market currently when there was a time when they would barely get the foundation poured before the home was under contract. Currently there are eight single family homes (five years old or newer) for sale over $800,000.00 in Prairie Village, all of which are new construction with the exception of one."

"In the last two months, only one home in that price range has gone under contract and it was a new construction property in the low $800’s. Quick math tells me that at that sale rate, there is currently sixteen months of inventory in the PV luxury market when only one is selling every two months."

"Another piece of this story to watch are the resale of tear downs that have been owned and lived in over the last few years. This spring is presenting the first of these homes where essentially lightly used tear downs are now competing with new construction tear downs which have never been occupied. This will be an interesting story."

"I say it will be interesting because the PV market has seen home value appreciation over the last 2-3 years, but how much have the new homes appreciated? Or are they like a used car where the moment you drive them off of the lot they lose value? And if so, how much? In other areas of town currently, where resale properties are competing with new, the new properties are achieving the highest sales prices and the previously owned homes are selling for less to compete. Why would Prairie Village be any different?"

"The graph above shows the number of new homes ($800K+) that have hit the market in a given month over the last year. You can see that in February 2018 there were no new luxury homes that listed for sale. This year, however, five new luxury properties hit the market in January and four in February. These early 2019 listings could be the reason for the increase in inventory. Considering that only one has sold in the last 60 days yet nine new listings have hit the market, the demand for these homes simply cannot keep up."