A report from the Philadelphia Inquirer in Pennsylvania. "Sales in Philadelphia, declined 15.4% from the year before, though they remain much higher than the historic average. 'I haven’t noticed any acute response or panic from the market — no one has called me and said, ‘I need to sell right now because of the recession, or I need to buy now because of the recession,' said Jeff Block, a real estate agent. Then again, he joked, as the old saying, the market 'has predicted nine of the last five recessions.'"

The Washington Post. "Recently, we came across a headline in a local Chicago news outlet about an expensive home that had been for sale for a while. It read: 'Spec house sells for two-thirds original list price.' Then we saw another news story about a home that had just sold for less than what it sold for in 1988. A third home sold for less than the price the builder paid for the lot."

"Is it just Chicago? When real estate markets start to turn, residents might simply wonder why it is taking so long to sell their homes. If they need to leave, or if they believe prices will be lower in six months, they drop their list price dramatically. No one wants to be the canary in the coal mine. The mentality shifts quickly from 'I’ll get what I want if I wait long enough' to 'Get out fast today with whatever we can get.'"

From Bisnow on New York. "When New York passed a sweeping set of rent control regulations earlier this year, multifamily investors and landlords saw it as a catastrophe. 'It was worse than expected,' Hornig Capital Group Managing Partner Daren Hornig said. 'Once this law went into place in New York, it’s been horrific and there’s no way to work around it. There’s no upside. Now, nobody wants to buy that type of product, and banks don’t want to finance it,. [Multifamily] went from the most valuable asset class in the city to arguably the worst asset class in the city, and owners have lost billions of dollars in value.'"

The Marin Independent Journal in California. "Bucking a national decline, the Bay Area is seeing an increase in apartment construction. The San Jose metro area is expected to increase apartment construction by 283 percent, from just 1,579 units last year to 6,044 this year, according to a new report. Oakland is expected to add some 1,850 units, followed by Milpitas at 1,685 units. San Francisco ranks fourth for the region with 1,204 apartments expected in 2019."

"And while the latest report doesn’t take smaller buildings or accessory dwelling units — which the city has been pushing — into account, 'San Jose is just blowing out…it’s just unbelievable,' said Doug Ressler, manager of business intelligence for the company."

The San Francisco Public Press in California. "For nearly four decades, San Francisco’s rent-control regulations have permitted landlords to delay, or bank, an unlimited number of the allowed annual rent increases and apply them any time in the future — all at once if they would like. These banked increases never expire, even after a new landlord buys the building."

"Noni Richen, landlord and president of the Small Property Owners of San Francisco Institute, said that like tenants, many landlords of rent-controlled buildings are perched on the financial edge. 'Most people do the increase every year, and they need every penny,' she said."

The Del Mar Times in California. "One Paseo’s temporary billboard signs must come down by the end of the month. The planning board contends that the large 30-foot double signs on the corner of Del Mar Heights Road and the two long signs on El Camino Real that advertise new tenants must be removed as they are not in compliance. Per the sign guidelines, temporary 'grand opening/coming soon' -type signs are permitted, but only for 90 days. Typically the board has let signs stay up longer to be friendly to businesses but as one local resident pointed out, the signs have been there for over a year."

The Seattle Times in Washington. "Seattle is still in the midst of a building boom that’s adding thousands of new apartments to the city each year — but new data shows a slowdown is likely to begin soon. There are fewer planned apartments and condos on Seattle’s horizon than this time last year, according to housing market data. One reason developers are pulling back is that they don’t expect job growth to continue at current rates, said Drew Daly, co-founder of Seattle multifamily developer Daly Partners. 'There’s a fear of recession,' he said. 'The building cycle has gone on for so long that people are getting more cautious.'"

The News Gazette in Illinois. "A federal tax break outwardly designed to benefit low-income areas is being used in Champaign to build more student housing in a market that already is oversaturated. The apartments will go up at the same time other Campustown apartment complexes seek reductions in their property tax assessments because of high vacancy rates."

"Michelle Layser, an assistant professor of law at the University of Illinois wrote that they are 'poised to become the latest — and most devastating chapter in the history of tax incentives that target poor neighborhoods but leave communities behind.'"

From Senior Housing News. "It’s a common refrain that the senior housing industry is mired in normal supply-demand dynamics. If such were the case, owners, investors and providers feeling the pain now can wait for the real estate cycle to turn and then continue doing business as usual."

"Brenda Bacon, CEO of Brandywine Living, does not subscribe to that line of thinking. 'You’ll hear a lot of people say, ‘Oh, well, this happened in 2008 and it happened in 2002 when the industry got overbuilt, and so this, too, shall pass,' Bacon told Senior Housing News. 'I, for one, don’t believe we’re in a cycle. I think we’re in a sea change.'"

From Real Estate Business Online. "Seniors housing investors are pumping the brakes on acquiring memory care facilities as the property type’s fundamentals and high turnover have proven to be worrisome. The panelists said that memory care was a hot product type in the recent past but that the sector’s current distress is a direct result of overzealous developers."

"'Memory care was low hanging fruit for developers but now it has become overbuilt and has fallen out of favor' said the panel’s moderator Adam Heavenrich, managing director of Heavenrich & Co., a seniors housing investment brokerage firm based in Chicago."