A report from the Wall Street Journal. "A gauge of U.S. home building and approvals for new projects declined in March, continuing a recent weak stretch for new housing construction. Single-family building has held near the highest levels since before the most recent recession, while multifamily construction eased because of a glut of apartment properties in certain metro areas."

The Seattle Times in Washington. "For a while it looked like developers might have been too aggressive with all those new units: Vacancy rates had been rising, recently reaching their highest point since the recession. Building owners struggling to fill up tons of new units all at the same time resorted to offering concessions like a free month’s rent or thousands of dollars in gift cards. The supply-and-demand equation flipped so suddenly that Seattle rents went from soaring at the fastest rate in the country to among the slowest."

"Now, generally speaking, apartments in Seattle are filling up nearly the same rate as they are opening. The most notable change is in the downtown Seattle core — the region’s busiest construction market — which had a whopping 26% of apartments sitting empty at this point a year ago, skewed by all the new buildings; now, it’s down to 12%. On the other end, South Lake Union just got a wave of new units, and has seen its share of empty units rise from 14% a year ago to 17% now, the highest rate in the region."

"The new figures offer fresh insight into the years-long, multibillion-dollar experiment being waged by developers as they build more apartments in the city of Seattle this decade than in the previous half-century combined. Will enough renters eventually materialize to fill them, or will the city have a skyline of empty ghost apartments? We still don’t know for sure — because it can take years for new buildings to fill up, and a lot of them haven’t even opened yet."

The Washington Post. "Liz is hardly the only example of residential anthropomorphism to hit the market in the recent years. Amid a crowded field of rooftop pools and 24-hour concierge services and doggy spas, developers in Washington and beyond are turning to cutesy human names to help their swanky apartment buildings and condos seem not only livable, but relatable — and many are picking names that match those of the millennials they want to attract."

"In the late 1990s and early 2000s, high-end apartments and condos began pouring onto the market, says Amy Groff, the National Apartment Association’s senior vice president of industry operations, and the branded building was reborn. To project luxury and stand out now, she says, 'You have to get kind of creative with the names.'"

The Buffalo News in New York. "A bitter battle between McGuire Development Co. and a former partner has ended with the company taking over the site of a long-stalled $200 million development of retail and housing on the edge of the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus. McGuire late Friday seized control of the 11-acre Pilgrim Village, which is home to low-income townhouses, after developer Mark H. Trammell defaulted on more than $12 million in loans, company officials said."

"McGuire's takeover leaves the future of the apartments uncertain. For now, McGuire executives said, a non-profit company will continue managing the 66-unit property while McGuire decides how best to redevelop the site. In a physical sign of that so-far-untapped promise, piles of dirt and debris left over after five buildings were torn down two years ago sit just across the street from Kaleida Health's gleaming Gates Vascular Institute."

From Globe St. on Florida. "Today, we look at why multifamily developers in South Florida are increasingly looking to incorporate a short-term rental strategy to diversify their portfolio and mitigate risks with vacancy and turn to CorpHousing Group managing partner Brian Ferdinand to share his thoughts on this trend."

"Globest.com: Why are short-term rental operators targeting oversaturated condo markets, creating a long-term solution for developers? Ferdinand: We are finding that this is being concentrated primarily in markets that have an oversupply of product."

From Crain's Chicago Business in Illinois. "A Miami real estate firm has taken control of the Raffaello Hotel, ending what turned out to be a disastrous investment for many people who bought hotel rooms in the Streeterville property during the last boom. Maxwelle Real Estate Group recently acquired about 140 rooms in the 175-room boutique hotel at 201 E. Delaware Place and plans a major renovation of the property, said the firm’s Chicago-based attorney Michael Delrahim."

"Maxwelle bought the rooms individually because the Raffaello is a so-called condo-hotel. Rather than one investor owning the entire hotel, dozens of investors owned one or more rooms in the Raffaello, much like they would a residential condominium, using the rooms or renting them out. Condo-hotels were a big but short-lived fad in downtown Chicago, but they never lived up to the hype of their promoters, a group that included Donald Trump. Today, the Raffaello and Trump International Hotel & Tower are the only two Chicago condo-hotel properties."

"It has been a rough ride for many investors in both. Some who bought units in the Raffaello lost them to foreclosure. Many other investors sold their rooms to Maxwelle for huge losses. An investor that bought one room on the hotel’s eighth floor for $287,000 in 2006 sold it to Maxwelle in February for $150,000, a 48 percent decline, according to Cook County property records."

"After taking over the Raffaello’s common and commercial space last year, Maxwelle tried to persuade the hotel’s investors to back a major renovation of its rooms as well. But many investors balked at the idea, wary of putting good money after bad. They told Maxwelle that they’d be willing to sell their units instead, leading to the recent bulk sale."

"'There’s a time to hold ‘em and a time to fold ‘em,' said Norman Lieber, who sold three units in the hotel to Maxwelle. 'It was time to fold ‘em.'"

"Lieber said he would have had to invest about $100,000 per room under Maxwelle’s renovation plan, and he didn’t see himself getting that money back anytime soon. Like many kinds of real estate, units in condo-hotels plunged in value after the crash. Making matters worse, few banks would provide mortgages to condo-hotel investors, depressing investor demand for them, Lieber said."

"'It got to the point where the only people who could purchase the units were cash buyers,' he said. 'And at that point, you’ve eliminated 80 percent of buyers.'"