It's Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. "Year-over-year median sale prices for existing homes fell 5.9% in Santa Clara County, 3.2% in Alameda County and 1.5% in San Francisco in May, according to CoreLogic. 'After several years — six, seven, eight, years of consistent, in some cases double-digit price appreciation — buyers are finally saying, ‘hey, this is it. We’ve reached my pain point,’ said David Stark, spokesman for the Bay East Association of Realtors. Meanwhile, even residents who want to buy are taking their time about it, Stark said. Homes are sitting on the market longer, racking up fewer offers and selling for less than they did several months to a year ago."

"'For the first time in many years, we’re seeing homes on the market in the 30-day range, where just a year ago it would have been half that time,' said Stark, who attributes the market slump to buyer fatigue."

"Working in Las Vegas real estate his entire career, owner of Icon Realty Scott Pharris remembers the great recession all too well. 'The market is in a much healthier place it seems like this time than it was ast time,' Pharris said. 'Buyers are going to have a little bit more sway in the transactions that we are seeing. Sellers are going to be a little more negotiable.'"

"'It's not that recession we saw 10 years ago,' said Anna Usma, with online real estate company Opendoor. 'It’s definitely not the same market we had last year, but home prices are keeping up with what the values are. They are not depreciating as rapidly as we have seen in the past.'"

"Median home sales prices fell in 10 of the Dallas-area districts included in the survey. Some of the biggest median home sales price declines this year from 2018 levels were in pricier neighborhoods in Coppell, North Dallas and Colleyville. That's caused consternation for some home sellers who haven't gotten the message that the big run-up in North Texas home prices is slowing. 'We went from being overheated — which wasn't sustainable — to where the market is more stabilized,' said Paige Shipp, who heads the Dallas office for housing analyst Metrostudy Inc. 'We have seen some price reductions. That was from sellers thinking they would be able to sell for more than their neighbors did.'"

"Vacation-home seekers in New York’s Hamptons are in luck: They have a record number of choices -- if only they were interested in buying. There were 2,557 homes on the market at the end of the second quarter, an 84% jump from a year earlier and the largest supply in data going back to 2006, according to appraiser Miller Samuel Inc. Sales fell for a sixth consecutive period to 498, the fewest for a second quarter since 2011. Buyers 'were waiting for the ultimate deal,' said Todd Bourgard, Douglas Elliman’s regional manager of sales for the Hamptons. 'The prices were a little higher than what they thought true market value was, and they were on the sidelines.'"

"Edmonton’s residential real estate has been in a downturn for the past five years, but Altus says it has noted weaker new home demand in both Edmonton’s suburban and inner-city market this year compared with 2018. Condominium apartment sales are down – at about half the level reached in 2017 – and total new multifamily sales are also down. Excess inventories continue to bedevil the condo market. The Altus report showed approximately 1,700 unsold condominium apartment units at the end of the first quarter of 2019 – a three-and-a-half year supply – one in three of which was in a completed project. Ten new condo projects were launched in 2018, representing more than 900 new units."

"Michael Brodrick, chairman of the Realtors Association of Edmonton, says buyers are firmly in the driver’s seat in the city’s residential market. 'Last year we saw record inventory levels in some months, so that makes it a buyers market because you can look at as many houses as you want to make an offer or don’t make an offer,' he said. In June, construction was halted on project in the city’s northeast after Kingsett Mortgage Corp., which had lent developer Station Point Developments $17-million, was placed in receivership. The project, first envisioned as condo, then switched to purpose-built rental, is about 78 per cent complete and the developers say they require another $6.9-million to finish."

"Buyers from Hong Kong, China and the Middle East are taking advantage of the falls in London prices and sterling, which mean they can get a 50 per cent discount compared with five years ago. 'They often remark that Brexit is buttons compared to what is happening in other parts of the world,' says Hannah Aykroyd, the founder of Aykroyd & Co, a buying agency."

"Hong Kong’s inventory of unsold residential property rose to the highest in more than a decade. The figure stood at 10,000 unsold homes at the end of the second quarter, 1,000 units more than the end of March, according to data by the Transport and Housing Bureau. 'Developers still need to proactively sell completed new projects to avoid special rates,' said Centaline Property Agency’s senior associate research director Wong Leung-sing, referring to the vacancy tax. 'The 10,000 completed unsold homes has just reached the warning level. Do not let the number rise.'"

"Beijing’s city government offered two residential land plots for sale without specifying maximum prices for the apartments to be built on them, the South China Morning Post reported on Wednesday. The biggest slide in home prices this year may be a 5 percent decline in the smaller, tier-3 cities, HSBC analyst Michelle Kwok said in a report. National sales may tumble 10 percent. However, the residential market is 'far from entering a severe downturn,' she wrote."

"About to retire from a leading PSU company about six years back, Devika (name changed) wanted to have her own house to spend the retired life. To fulfill her dream, she booked a flat in an upcoming housing project of Amrapali Group in Greater Noida, but, with the realtor becoming bankrupt, she is now forced to stay in a vacant flat of one of her relatives in Ghaziabad. According to ANAROCK data, investors in about 2,00,000 housing units in NCR are facing financial crunch with around Rs 1,26,000 crore of their hard-earned money stuck up in the projects that were launched in 2013 or before."

"The latest CoreLogic CHIP Report indicated that NSW unit construction peaked at an unprecedented level in 2018. The latest indicators to the end of June, it said, showed 62 per cent of Sydney off-the-plan apartments were settling with a valuation lower than the contract price. Similar to NSW, the report noted that Victoria is also moving through a historic peak in unit construction and is experiencing some challenges due to an oversupply in specific sectors of the market."

“In Melbourne, 46 per cent of off-the-plan units are settling with a valuation lower than the contract price, causing lenders to remain cautious of the lending/settlement risk that exists within this sector.”

"Do we laugh, cry or simply shake our heads that when growth in Auckland house prices finally ends, after many years of a sharp upward trajectory, economists talk as if this is a bad thing? Everyone who has borrowed huge sums – because that was the only way they could buy a house – worries about prices falling. Most concerned are those whose equity in their home would be wiped out if our largest city saw a correction such as those recently in Melbourne and Sydney."

"For those alarmed about their hard-earned retirement savings dwindling before their eyes, the PM’s themes of 'widening our idea of what prosperity means' can feel not just fluffy but frightening."