A report from CNBC. "A sharp drop in interest rates last week suddenly made millions more borrowers eligible to refinance their mortgages. Appraisals have been an issue in the housing market for buyers and refinancers. Home prices inflated so quickly that some appraisals were not keeping up. Now that home prices are cooling, that is the case less often. On the flip side, as home prices deflate, borrowers lose home equity."

"So-called tappable equity, which is the amount available to a borrower before hitting the required minimum 20 percent equity in a home, fell in the last quarter of 2018 for the second straight quarter, according to Black Knight. After reaching a high of $6.06 trillion in the second quarter of 2018, tappable equity has since fallen by $348 billion, and by $229 billion in the fourth quarter alone. That caused a sharp drop last year in the amount of equity homeowners cashed out."

The Business Journal in California. "A more than $35,000 drop in the median price of homes for sale in Fresno from March to April helped improve the city’s ranking in home affordability compared to other major U.S. cities. In Fresno the median home price in April was $247,400, which would require monthly mortgage payments and taxes of $1,188 a month, or 31.79 percent of household income, RealtyHop’s researchers concluded."

From The Kansan. "While Garden City has made progress in recent years in its continued struggle to meet the housing needs of a growing community, several people who closely watch the local housing market say one particular area of need still sticks out — low-to-moderate income housing."

"Vicki Germann, Realtor for Coldwell Banker the Real Estate Shoppe, said the local housing market is 'heavy' on homes in the $250,000-and-up range, particularly above $300,000, but 'light' on homes $200,000 and below."

"The price of land has escalated, and with it the cost of development. The result is more developers building higher-priced homes because it’s easier to recoup the cost of development and hit their profit margins, said Kaleb Kentner, Neighborhood & Development Services director for Garden City."

"The result has been a glut of higher-priced homes."

"As the development of higher-priced homes took off, Kentner said, the hope was that owners of smaller, older homes in the $170,000 to $200,000 range would want to move up and buy the new, larger, higher-priced homes being built. That, in turn, would make more homes available in the moderate price range. 'It hasn’t really been the case,' Kentner said, referring to Garden City’s stagnant housing market."

From The Real Deal on New York. " Along the 57th Street corridor, clusters of so-called ghost towers — those with darkened apartments — can be spotted on any given night. 'These buildings were targeting the Billionaires’ Club of the world,' said attorney Pierre Debbas, the managing partner at the boutique real estate law firm Romer Debbas, who has a view of One Beacon Court from his Midtown office. 'Most nights, there are five lights on. It’s crazy.'"

"According to the latest U.S. Census Bureau data, 60 percent of residences in a 14-block tract of Midtown East between 49th and 56th streets were 'seasonally vacant' between 2013 and 2017. Meanwhile, a recent study by the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development found that the number of pieds-à-terre in the city jumped to 75,000 from 55,000 between 2014 and 2017. City Comptroller Scott Stringer’s office estimated that 5,400 of them are worth $5 million or more."

"During those boom years between 2014 and 2017, foreign investors — particularly from Russia and China — snapped up trophy apartments that doubled as safety deposit boxes."

"'Some of these buildings are half empty. Is that a big deal?' said George Doerre, a vice president at M&T Bank, which has financed condo projects in the city. 'That’s the question we’ve been asking for four or five years.'"

"Around a third of the condos TRD surveyed are likely owned as pieds-à-terre or investor properties. And if you strip out other units from this equation that are ineligible for the abatement — for example, those getting another type of tax break— the percentage of pieds-à-terre or investor properties shoots up to 43 percent."

"'You can just ride through my district at night, the East Side of Manhattan, and you’ll pass complete buildings where there are no lights on,' said U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney. 'They’re bank accounts.'"

"Inventory in the broader luxury Manhattan market is piling up, discounts are widespread, and sales velocity has slowed. And some say investors (those making financial transactions rather than buying second homes for themselves) are reacting. 'Investors are ducking and covering right now. They’re hoping to ride the market until it comes back,' said Dylan Pichulik, CEO of XL Real Property Management, which manages luxury residential properties for absentee owners in New York."

"The Modlin Group’s Adam Modlin said that back in 2014 and 2015, investors who went into contract for new condos at $2,500 a foot believed their units would be worth $4,000 by the time they closed. 'If you buy today, are you going to be in the money? No,' he said. 'The greater likelihood is that when the project is complete, the price will go down.'"