It's Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. "In Seattle and King County, home prices in May were down substantially from a year ago. The price of the median home in Seattle dropped 5.4 %, to $784,925, compared to May 2018, according to the Northwest Multiple Listing Service. The year-over-year slumps were even sharper in some pricier neighborhoods. In Capitol Hill, the median price fell 6.2%, to $984,000. In Ballard, they were off 7.8%, percent, to $785,000, and in Bellevue, they were down 12.4 percent, to $902,000."

"Patti Green-Kent, a broker in Pullman, said the average price of homes sold this year in Pullman is $276,000, which is far below the $406,000 mean price of the 64 homes currently listed. Green-Kent said several upper-end houses for sale now are essentially the only homes with declining prices. 'It’s not because the value isn’t there,' she said. 'It’s just that there’s not as many upper-end buyers.'"

"By the end of May, Greater Las Vegas Association of REALTORS® reported 7,855 single-family homes listed for sale without any sort of offer. That’s up 90.7% from one year ago. For condos and townhomes, the 1,876 properties listed without offers in May represented a 134.8% jump from one year ago."

"While there are few solid numbers to prove how many of the sky-high apartments are inhabited by living New Yorkers and how many are owned by tax-happy LLCs, we looked at voter registration numbers to give us a clue. At 432 Park Avenue, where a penthouse sold for $75 million, there are just 17 registered voters residing in nine apartments, or seven percent of the building’s 125 units. In One57, a Billionaire’s Row skyscraper with 94 condos, there were 14 voters in 10 apartments, which works out to 11 percent."

"Los Angeles prices for luxury real estate have generally softened in recent months. 'There will be about five years of new luxury inventory hitting the market in affluent areas such as Bel-Air, Beverly Hills and Brentwood the next 18 months,' said Eli Karon, a broker associate at Douglas Elliman, who noted that every third house in certain pockets of these neighborhoods seems to be under construction."

"With this oversupply, buyers can get picky, take their time to find the home they truly desire and then negotiate hard, Mr. Karon said. For instance, he noted, a home in the tony Bird Streets sold in April for $15.75 million from a list price of $22.995 million, which was first listed just under $26 million. That’s a 40% discount from the original list price, with 255 days on market. 'There’s just not the demand there to move these properties,' Mr. Karon said, 'and that trend will continue.'"

"Southern California homeowners increased the number of homes for sale in a year by 5,672 — or 18% — as selling times increased 12 days. As of May 30, the report found 36,335 homes, an 18% increase over 12 months, listed in the four counties (Orange, Los Angeles, San Bernardino and Riverside)."

"Amidst Alberta’s recession and the resulting depressed housing market, a couple in Calgary has resorted to a creative way to ‘sell’ their upscale home: a raffle. The couple say they are thinking out of the box as they are struggling with a mountain of debt, with no possible sale at cost recovery levels and poor prospects for waiting out the market. The home cost $2.9 million to construct, but the assessed value of their property by the City of Calgary had plummeted to $1.6 million."

"Global house prices have cooled over the past 18 months, with no indication of an alarming ‘bubble’, according to HSBC. Two countries have seen a sharp correction in house prices in the period. One is Sweden, whose house prices fell by 10 per cent in early 2018. 'Aside from a collapse in construction, we have not seen the weakness spread to the rest of the economy,' HSBC said."

"The second country is Australia, which recorded a 7 per cent decline in house prices in the fourth quarter of last year. Turkey is also seeing house prices fall, with a circa 14 per cent year-on-year drop in the last three months of 2018. Meanwhile, in China, house prices are down in the largest cities."

"A brother of President Uhuru Kenyatta’s lawyer Desterio Oyatsi has joined the list of distressed borrowers being hounded by auctioneers. Pancras Oyatsi’s Sh135 million home in the upmarket Karen neighbourhood will go under the hammer this week after he failed to pay off a loan. He is one among many borrowers caught up in a battle with lenders. Glen Makindu’s business ventures since 2014 have been an unmitigated disaster, punctuated by three auctions of his property and closure of his construction firm that employed 22."

"'I have lost hope and my integrity is in tatters because all my property has been attached,' Makindu said, capturing the despair that has cloaked borrowers who are engaged in business. 'There is simply no money in the market which is why so many borrowers are in distress. Everyone is broke,' said Garam Auctioneers Managing Director Joseph Gikonyo."

"Despite the growing appeal of Cambodia’s property sector with international investors, there are concerns of a supply glut, especially in the mid to high-end segment. CBRE Cambodia warned of 'oversaturation in the high-end segment.' The new supply of high-end condos is estimated to spike by 243 per cent this year, followed by the affordable and mid-range sectors at 100 per cent and 78 per cent, respectively. But the forecast of a glut has not prevented mainland developer Guangzhou R&F from launching two more high-rise developments."

"The Singapore government will be reducing the supply of private residential units later this year amid falling demand since cooling measures were introduced. The ministry said there are around 44,000 private housing units in the pipeline. This comprises around 39,000 unsold units from GLS and en-bloc sale sites with planning approval, and an additional 5,000 units from sites that are pending planning approval. Another 24,000 existing private housing units remain vacant."

"Emerging oversupply of units in Sydney pushing rents down in the nation’s biggest city. The total number of vacancies Australia-wide is now at 77,664 properties for rent, a rise of just under 10,000 dwellings over the past 12 months."

"The U.K.’s most famous fund manager has suspended trading in his flagship fund after a string of poor performance and investor withdrawals. At its peak, the Woodford Equity Income fund managed £10.2 billion ($12.9 billion) of assets, but according to Morningstar, that has shrunk to just £3.7 billion as of the end of May. Ryan Hughes, Head of Active Portfolios at AJ Bell, said that with an element of the fund in illiquid investments, the fund was forced to sell its more liquid holdings to fund redemptions, which in turn can 'exacerbate the problem.'"

"'Events such as this are rare but it is a reminder to all of the risks that come with investing in illiquid assets while offering daily liquidity to investors. This never appears to be a problem when money is flooding in but when sentiment turns it can come back to bite investors badly as has happened here,' Hughes said."