A report from Bisnow on New York. "There has been a slew of bad news for the New York City residential market in recent years, particularly at the high end. Now developers, brokers and landlords are looking for new ways to stay profitable. A flood of product of pricey new rental and condos hitting the market has forced some sponsors to cut asking prices and landlords to offer up steep concessions in order to lure people in for some time now."

"Hudson Cos. principal Aaron Koffman believes people are becoming choosier when it comes to buying condos. His firm is building One Clinton in Brooklyn Heights, where a five-bedroom, three-bathroom unit is asking $6.4M, according to StreetEasy. 'It’s not if you build it they will come like it used to be … [but] there is good residential product out there. I think it’s just how you differentiate yourself,' he said. 'Developers are going to be a little more discerning than we have in the past.'"

From Mansion Global on New York. "A New York City duplex that once asked $120 million is now being offered for $59 million, after another price cut on Friday. The Manhattan home, which was owned by the late 'King of Wall Street' and former Salomon Brothers CEO John Gutfreund and his wife first came to the market in April 2016, a month after Gutfreund’s death at the age of 86, according to listing records."

"It experienced a couple of reductions off the $120 million price tag before it was removed from the market briefly last September, then relisted for $68 million."

From Mansion Global on Connecticut. "Music executive Tommy Mottola has sold his Georgian-style Greenwich, Conn. estate for $14.875 million, or 25% off its original asking price. Mr. Mottola first listed the property for sale for $19.95 million in April, 2017, The Wall Street Journal reported."

From Radar Online on California. "Is Alexis Bellino’s ex-husband Jim facing money troubles? Just as the former The Real Housewives of Orange County star is fighting an order forcing him to pay Shannon Beador’s legal fees in a defamation suit, RadarOnline.com has learned he’s once again slashed the price on his mega mansion – and has now chopped nearly $1 million off the initial asking price!"

"According to Trulia, the 4,539 sq ft, 4 bed, 4 bath home in Dana Point, Calif. is currently listed for $5.18 million. Jim was awarded the Dana Point home in his divorce from Alexis in 2018. It was first listed in November 2018 for $5.9 million, before being slashed on January 8 to $5.85 million. Just a few weeks later, on January 28, a much bigger price cut brought the home down to $5.595 million. With still no sale, another $100,000 was chopped off on February 15th, bringing the price down to $5.495 million."

"Amid the mansion price freefall, Jim was locked in a nasty lawsuit with RHOC stars Tamra Judge and Shannon Beador, suing them for $1 million for defamation. As Radar previously reported, Jim sued the RHOC ladies after they claimed he was a "shady mother**ker" on Heather McDonald's podcast."

From Bloomberg. "Consumer credit scores have been artificially inflated over the past decade and are masking the real danger the riskiest borrowers pose to hundreds of billions of dollars of debt. That’s the alarm bell being rung by analysts and economists at both Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Moody’s Analytics, and supported by Federal Reserve research, who say the steady rise of credit scores as the economy expanded over the past decade has led to 'grade inflation.'"

"This means debtors are riskier than their scores indicate because the metrics don’t account for the robust economy, skewing perception of borrowers’ ability to pay bills on time. When a slowdown comes, there could be a much bigger fallout than expected for lenders and investors."

"'Borrowers with low credit scores in 2019 pose a much higher relative risk,' said Cris deRitis, deputy chief economist at Moody’s Analytics. 'Because loss rates today are low and competition for high-score borrowers is fierce, lenders may be tempted to lower their credit standards without appreciating that the 660 credit-score borrower today may be relatively worse than a 660-score borrower in 2009.'"

"What has analysts concerned is that cracks have already begun to show up in the form of a rising number of missed payments by borrowers with the highest risk, despite a decade of growth. And now with the economy showing signs of weakness, as seen with the recent inversion of the Treasury yield curve, those delinquencies could grow and lead to larger-than-expected losses for investors in riskier asset-backed securities."

"The concern that’s come up, Goldman and Moody’s say, is that lenders haven’t adjusted their underwriting standards as average credit scores have risen during one of the longest economic recoveries on record. So as cracks start to appear in the economy, someone whose credit score rose to 650 from 550 since the Great Recession may pay their bills more like they did 10 years earlier."

"'Borrowers’ scores may have migrated up, but inherently their individual risk, and their attitude towards credit and ability to pay their bills, has stayed the same.' deRitis said. 'You might have thought 700 was a good score, but now it’s just average.'"

"FICO acknowledges that the credit score alone may not be enough to make informed underwriting decisions, and other factors need to be considered."

"'The relationship between FICO score and delinquency levels can and does shift over time,' said Ethan Dornhelm, vice president of scores and predictive analytics at FICO. 'We recognize there’s a lot more context you can obtain beyond a consumer’s credit file. We do not think that score inflation is the issue, but the risk layering on underwriting factors outside of credit scores, such as DTI, loan terms, and even trends in macroeconomic cycles, for example.'"