A report from the Wall Street Journal on New York. "High-rise developers in Manhattan are coming under stress as tough market conditions are starting to undermine some of the city’s most prominent luxury condo projects. At a mixed-use project that includes luxury condos in Midtown Manhattan, Ceruzzi Properties and Shanghai Municipal Investment last week handed over much of the control to a new investor group. The money helped pay off a $200 million mortgage on the development site that had fallen into default when it expired in December, people familiar with the project said."

"Struggling developers often have two options, said Dustin Stolly, co-head of brokerage Newmark Knight Frank’s capital markets group: 'It’s either going to be a condo inventory loan to buy you more time, or it’s going to be distress.'"

From Greenville News in South Carolina. "Clemson is proposing to add 151,000 square feet and 430 beds of apartment-style housing at the Lightsey Bridge complex. Brent Little, president of Fountain Residential Partners of Dallas, Texas, is the developer working on the Dockside proposal. At a June 11 public input meeting, Little was asked whether more student housing was really needed. He said he would give the 'ugly answer.'"

"'This market will get overbuilt and there will be winners and losers,' Little said. 'There will be more product built here than is needed. It happens in every marketplace.'"

"Little estimates that the market will get over-saturated to the point where housing developments are around 80% occupancy before developers will 'react' and stop building."

"Jeremy Tackett, co-owner of Carolina Real Estate believes there are already 'far too many' units in town, which is making it harder for him to rent properties. He manages some properties for people that are depending on their Clemson investments in retirement. 'Due to the amount of approved student housing projects, there is no way to be 100% full,' Tackett said."

From KFGO in North Dakota. "Construction of new apartments in Fargo has been at or near all-time highs for several years, but not this year. The apartment vacancy rate is now 9%.  A city permit report shows there have been no permits issued for apartments since the first of the year. Last year at this time there were nine apartment permits, totaling more than $43-million."

"'The vacancy rate I think about 4 or 5 years ago had dropped to about 3% so you have a lot of people rush in and build apartments, I think in the last 4 or 5 years we have had over 6,000 apartments (units) built, you're building at a rate of 1,000 a year when the typical rate is 500 a year, it just gets to be where it's over built,' said City Strategic Planning and Research Director Jim Gilmour."

The Colorado Real Estate Journal. "Is Denver overbuilt, or are all of these new apartment communities making up for pentup demand from the past 15 years? Why is multifamily so expensive, and when are cap rates going to adjust for a rising interest rate environment?"

"Nearly 42,000 multifamily market rate units have been built since first-quarter 2014, increasing inventory by 21% in the past five years, according to CoStar. Factoring in a glut of new supply, the current lease-up concessions offered, a rising interest rate environment and the recent volatility in the stock market, investors have cause for some concern."

From Globe St on California. "New supply has had a lot to do with the slow down. In the last year, thousands of new apartments have delivered into Los Angeles, and that has helped to temper rent growth. 'The billions that have been invested into L.A. multifamily construction over the past decade are starting to materialize and lead to lower rents,' says Igor Popov, chief economist at Apartment List."

From KUT in Texas. "The Independent, at 301 West Ave. in downtown Austin, is the city's newest tallest building. The 59-story luxury apartment tower is definitely attention-getting, and some eyes are drawn all the way to the top – to what looks from afar like a tennis court or one of those nets to stop golf balls at a driving range."

"ATXplained listener Jonathan Murphy wanted to know why it looks like that – and why people are so upset about it. 'People are very angry,' Murphy says. 'This is Austin – people are usually angry about something – but this building has definitely got people up in arms.'"

"He says he doesn't know what's at the top or why it looks that way, but he says it looks 'unfinished.' 'It's just such a strange choice that it's visible. I think whatever's up there, maybe we don't need to see – and so it's strange that they've left it so people can see it,' he says. 'There must be a reason behind it – I don't know what it is – but there must be a reason.'"

From Richmond Biz Sense in Virginia. "In the midst of selling off some of his real estate holdings to satisfy a recent bankruptcy settlement, a notorious area landlord jailed since mid-March reached a plea deal last week that requires him to perform community service specific to combatting homelessness."

"Oliver Lawrence was released from jail after a hearing in which he pleaded guilty to reduced charges stemming from an incident in Petersburg four months earlier. The Westover Hills property is valued at $524,000. Tranzon Fox’s Bill Londrey said Lawrence gave the go-ahead for that auction based on the result of the last one, adding that future auctions – if needed to meet the $900,000 bankruptcy payback amount – likely would involve one or more of Lawrence’s residential rental properties, which are said to total over 1,000."

"'I think he wants to see how each of them do financially and how the numbers come in before he determines what course of action he might take,' Londrey said. 'We don’t have any specific plans beyond this one, because he needs to react to how much he’s still in the hole once he knows the number on this one.'"

"Both properties were mentioned in Lawrence’s bankruptcy case as examples of what Peter Barrett, a Kutak Rock attorney serving as the trustee in the Chapter 7 case, alleged as a scheme by Lawrence and his wife Kim to defraud creditors by moving money and assets between them."

From Reason Magazine. "Sydney, Australia, may not be New York or London or Los Angeles, but it's a big city with a population approaching five million. It's got more people than the San Francisco area. But unlike San Francisco (or Los Angeles, or several other major American cities), rental prices in some parts of Sydney are seeing a massive decline—as much as 100 Australian dollars a week in some places."

"It is not some magical mystery as to why Sydney's rental prices are declining. And it's certainly not due to rent control. It's because Sydney's seeing a building boom. The size of Sydney's apartment market has doubled in two years, and landlords have had to drop rents in order to get tenants."

"The Sydney Morning Herald reported over the weekend that the city has seen more than 30,800 multi-unit dwellings built last year, a record for any Australian city. And there still are nearly 200,000 additional dwellings in various stages of development. The city is seeing a glut driven by investors. And those investors are now leasing out the apartments."

"This overabundance in rental properties has spread across the economic spectrum. Median rents in some more expensive parts of the city range around $1,400–$1,700 a month (in U.S. dollars). But there are parts of town where the median rental price is $850 a month, thanks in part to the oversupply. The glut ranges from simple apartments to townhouses."