A weekend topic starting with the Globe and Mail in Canada. "In the leafy Vancouver west side neighbourhood of Kerrisdale, there is a lot at W. 35th Avenue that has sat overgrown and empty for several years. A City application sign that shows a proposal for clustered white rental townhouses. 'Rental for the most part does not make sense,' says long-time developer Anthony Hepworth. 'It’s a lousy business,' he says of rental."

"He says the problems are the high cost of land as well as climbing construction costs in the past three years. After 32 years, the rents have only doubled, he says. 'We are capped out at $3,000 a month. The potential for people to pay more than that, is very, very limited. Theoretically there should be a lot of room for rentals to climb – and I think some people are betting on that. But there is a small market for that,' he says."

"He is seeing properties intended for family housing sit undeveloped. 'I do know what has happened in the townhouse market, and people that bought townhouse sites in Cambie phase three, particularly south of 37th Avenue, all hugely over paid and all those projects are not viable. They didn’t get started, because they haven’t got the presales. They haven’t got bank financing and their land costs are simply too high. So they are sitting there.'"

From KGO in California. "As part of Building a Better Bay Area, we're constantly looking at alternate ways to ease the housing crisis. One company in Southern California is building modular constructed homes in the Bay Area and is looking to buck the perception of 'prefab.'"

"If you blink, you might miss what's happening at construction site in Burlingame where a nearly 5,000-square-foot home unfolded before our very eyes. 'It's pretty amazing. Just yesterday it was just a hole in the ground and now we're standing on the second floor,' said homeowner Byron Lee as he smiled."

"In just two days, the 6-bedroom home by custom builders 'Plant Prefab' will be standing, ready for finishes. Plant estimates the average cost of one of their homes is about $250 to $350 a square foot. The company says this includes finishes, fixtures and appliances but not transport, installation or foundation. In Burlingame the average home is about $1,100 or $1,200 per foot. Including finishes and other building costs brings Byron's total home cost to just under $4 million, or under $1,000 a square foot."

"'Buying the land wasn't cheap. This is after all the Bay Area so that was a big chunk of our budget,' says Byron."

From WKRN in Tennessee. "Nashville’s neighbor to the north is in the midst of dramatic change; known for Austin Peay State University and the military, Clarksville is also a popular place to buy a house. The real estate industry there is like a fire that continues to find fuel– and it’s heating up."

"Zillow economist, Sarah Mikhitarian, says home values in Clarksville, TN have climbed 23% over the past 10 years with the vast majority of that growth happening in the last 5 years when home values climbed 21%. Clarksville was recently named one of the most popular places to flip a home. It made it in ATTOM Data Solutions Top 10 Markets with the highest home flipping rate."

"'I work with investors that do flips and that is really big it has worked in the past to be lucrative where investor could make good return that is slowing down a bit​,' said Debbie Reynolds, who’s been a broker in the city for 39 years."

"She added that the affordable home is harder to make for a builder as land costs have gone dramatically up​. 'We may see a bit of a slowdown because that happens with changes in the economy and figures and all that but even when we went through the recession Clarksville continued to have new construction, continued to expand and grow and I see that continuing​,' Reynolds said."

From Urban Land. "Almost $20 billion in commercial real estate traded hands in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area in 2018, according to brokerage firm Newmark Knight Frank—and that is only counting transactions over $20 million. Each of those transactions involved a story. A buyer had to find a seller, they had to agree on terms for the purchase, and then the buyer had to get to closing."

"The standard in the D.C. area is for a purchase-and-sale agreement to give the buyer 30 days to study the property and make sure the buyer understands what it is that is being bought, and then another 30 days before the transaction closes and the deed changes hands. A small, refundable deposit is put up during the initial study period, with a larger, nonrefundable deposit required at the end of that period."

"The publicly marketed process helps participants avoid the ugly 'r' word —re-trade. A re-trade takes place when a purchaser contracts to buy a property at a certain price but before closing declares that the price needs to be lower. Re-trading puts the seller in a bad position because the seller has invested time and effort in the transaction and is not in a good position to find a new buyer."

The Commercial Observer. "When global real estate owner Bizzi & Partners Development broke ground on its supertall 273-unit condominium project downtown at 125 Greenwich Street, New York in 2017, it couldn’t have predicted the super roadblocks ahead. But, the issues started at the time of acquisition, sources said."

"In 2014, the development group, led by Bizzi and including Howard Lorber’s New Valley Real Estate, paid The Witkoff Group and Fisher Brothers $185 million for the plot, nearly double what it had traded for just over a year prior. By the fall of 2017, the developers had begun construction, and they launched condo sales, which ultimately proved lackluster, according to sources that requested anonymity. The units were priced in the 'mid-$2,000s to $3,000s per square foot' in a downtown market where 'everything’s going for around $2,000,' the source said."

"A year later, in the fall of 2018, it was reported that the owners nabbed a hefty $473 million construction package from a bevy of Asian contributors, including Bank of China, United Overseas Bank (UOB) and China Cindat, to finish the build out."

"Several months later, in March 2019, the project stalled due to a lack of funding after topping out at over 900 feet that month. When the project didn’t meet a desired 'proof of concept' sales hurdle as a loan covenant established by its senior lender, Bank of China, the bank declined to fund into the project, a source explained. As of the end of August, the interiors aren’t finished, and sources said 'it’s not even watertight' and only around '65 percent complete.'"

"As it sits dormant, the unpaid debt is rapidly accruing interest and, 'when you own a [condo] building that height, if you keep tacking on weeks, it’s a lot of money,' one source said, estimating that the sponsors are incurring costs of at least $2 million per month. '[The sponsors have] already built it, but the problem is [that] they’ve spent hundreds of millions more than anyone possibly would ever [buy it for],' said a source with knowledge of the project."

"And, in Downtown Los Angeles, Oceanwide Plaza, a $1 billion, three-tower mega development from Beijing-based Oceanwide Holdings Company that’s situated across from the Staples Center, has made waves after topping out in April 2018. Despite the progress, it’s nowhere near completion. Oceanwide stopped work on the site in January. Development first started in 2015, with the Chinese firm joining the waves of foreign capital that poured into U.S. real estate."

"Oceanwide’s only direction on the future of the project was a statement earlier this year that it needed to be recapitalized. Months later, it still remains empty, with cranes still on site but no news of a future capital injection. It was reported in the spring that contractors were chasing down around $100 million in payments for their previous work, with Lendlease subcontractor Webcor Construction filing a $53 million claim."

"Oceanwide also has a megaproject in San Francisco called Oceanwide Center that was halted in May in want for additional financing."

From Arizona Public Media. "Phoenix-based development company El Dorado Holdings plans to build a 28,000-home community south of Benson. In August, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reissued a Clean Water Act permit for the project, giving developers the green light to begin building. The development will house an estimated 70,000 people. Benson is now home to about 5,000 people."

"Cochise County Administrator Ed Gilligan told The Buzz the county supports the Vigneto development for many reasons. 'Most importantly, that development really represents a necessary economic opportunity for the county,' which he says has suffered from a loss of population and jobs following the Great Recession. He says agricultural land, which comprises much of the county, doesn't earn much tax revenue."

"'When we look at a project like Vigneto, a master planned community, 28,000 homes with a median home value approaching $300,000, that is a significant change in revenue for schools, local government economies, businesses,' he said."

"Lanny Davis is an attorney representing El Dorado Holdings, the Phoenix company that wants to build the master housing plan near Benson. He says it will be a boon to the area, and is supported by Benson city officials. 'Young people move out and don't come home, the economy is stalled,' Davis says, and the Vigneto development will bring needed economic development and 'serve as a magnet for future generations' to stay in the Benson area. 'What we’re talking about is currently a desert, where scorpions are happy but they don’t offer much benefit to the community around them, which this development would.'"