It's Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. "The global financial outlook 'kinda sucks,' said UC Santa Barbara professor Peter Rupert. This year, because of an 11 percent drop in the median house price, from $718,000 to $655,000, Santa Barbara sits in the middle of the pack as more affordable than Ventura, Alameda, and Santa Cruz counties. The South Coast also had an 11 percent decrease, which pushed its median home price from $1.34 million to $1.27 million."

"Small details about the housing market can say just as much about how well Americans, and the broader economy, are doing. On Tuesday, Rob Dietz, chief economist for the National Association of Home Builders, posted a research note about one in particular: the size of newly constructed homes. Overall, sizes have been on a downward path since mid-2015. 'Current declines in size indicate that this part of the cycle has ended,' Dietz wrote."

"The Bridgehampton home of the late Sono Osato who died in December, has sold for $26 million. Ms. Osato originally listed the home in March 2018 for $37 million, and the ask was most recently pegged at $34 million."

"The price tag on a circa-1885 Victorian mansion that once belonged to author Anne Rice has been lowered for the second time in two years. After extensive renovations, the property’s current owner first listed the New Orleans landmark in 2017 for $5 million. The price was dropped to $4.5 million last summer, and now Curbed is reporting that it’s been chopped yet again, this time to $4.3 million."

"It's been almost a year since the soapy country music saga ended, and two years since Connie Britton's character, Rayna James, was killed in a car crash, but fans still flock to see the mansion that stood in as the country crooner's family home. It's located in Nashville (of course!), and any fan who wants to step forward can now buy the place for the reduced price of $16 million. The 20,533-square-foot European village-style estate has bounced on and off the market since 2010, when the price was set at a whopping $22.5 million."

"Metro Vancouver’s rental apartment building sales market is slowing down. Pricing has come off anywhere from seven to 20 per cent in land and in apartment buildings, said David Goodman, principal with Goodman Commercial, which specializes in rental apartment sales."

"A new price reality has set in and sellers must realize that if they want to sell they’re going to have to come off the record-high asking prices, he said. 'There have been some buildings on the market for four, five, six months where the ownership is not willing to recognize the realities of the market, so these buildings will simply not sell.'"

"A leading agent has said that estate agency is currently on its knees. Trevor Abrahmsohn of Glentree Estates in London, asked how much more punishment agents can take 'from this Tory government.' Abrahmsohn did not confine his criticisms to the Conservatives, also hitting out at Labour’s 'hate-fuelled stupidity' in wanting to end permitted development rights."

"Abrahmsohn said of the ban: 'Letting agents are not exactly high on anyone’s popularity list. However, like dung beetles or sewage workers, they do perform a necessary function.'"

"Turkey’s state-run real estate company, is offering big discounts on apartments after an economic slump caused a crisis in the housing market. Home-buyers can snap up one of about 3,000 properties for as little as 304 liras ($50) a month, Hürriyet newspaper reported on Friday citing a schedule of sale auctions."

"Australia’s ailing housing market got a triple tonic this week as the central bank flagged interest rate cuts, the banking regulator eased lending criteria and the threat of tax changes that could have hurt property investment abated with the government’s re-election."

"But there are at least 80,000 reasons to suggest there’ll be no rapid rebound as the worst housing slump in a generation spreads deeper into the economy. That’s how many apartments were completed in recent years in Sydney — adding about 5% to the housing stock — while Melbourne and Brisbane have also seen relatively large additions, according to the Reserve Bank."

"That raises the question: Who’s going to soak up all that new supply? On a recent Saturday morning in Wentworth Point, a suburb of high-rise apartments in west Sydney that largely sprung up during a five-year housing boom, the hordes of potential buyers seen at the peak has slowed to a trickle."

"The hangover is hitting the economy, with signs a multi-year jobs boom is running out of steam as tepid wages and the downer from falling home prices curb consumption. 'The thing that I think would really shift the balance of risk is if we were staring down the barrel of a softer labor market,' said Sally Auld, senior strategist for JPMorgan Chase & Co in Sydney. 'That means that income growth will slow further, and it also brings into play the prospect of forced selling in the housing market, which is not something we’ve had as of yet.'"

"Construction activity — which feeds into gross domestic product — has already plunged as developers scale back because of the glut of apartments hitting the market. 'We’ve seen the numbers of people attending our open homes drop dramatically,' said real estate agent Alex Chidiac. 'The good times weren’t going to last forever.'"

"Florida is getting hit with waves of foreclosures, and we had better pay attention to this disturbing trend. Foreclosure rates have been increasing in Florida for eight straight months, according to ATTOM Data Solutions. Some Florida metros are seeing double-digit increases in foreclosure activity. Last month, for example, foreclosure activity was dramatically up in Volusia (97 percent), Orlando (90 percent) and Miami (45 percent)."

"And all of this is happening in a relatively strong economy with unemployment low and wages rising. In Florida, however, wages aren’t increasing at the same rate as ever-rising housing costs — and that makes us particularly vulnerable to a foreclosure crisis."