It's Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. "In the last couple of weeks the market has slowed down, according to real estate agent Jared Dunn. He says it's not necessarily dismal, but they haven't seen homes flying off the market in a number of days, or even hours like they had the last couple of years. Dunn says there are factors sellers should consider, like when the Chiefs' play home games."

"Many home sellers in the Twin Cities are feeling a fall chill. After a robust summer, home sales across the 13-county metro are slipping, and so are price gains. The situation is somewhat confounding to Ian Harrison, who has already discounted the price of his four-bedroom, 2.5-bathroom house at least four times during the two months he has been trying to sell it. Still, he has yet to receive a single offer on the house."

"He acknowledges pricing the house higher than he expected to sell for with the expectation that a buyer would negotiate a lower price, and he is worried that’s he has missed the biggest wave of buyers."

"The median price of new condos/ townhomes has been more or less steadily rising over the last 11 years even as the Chicago real estate market was in a decline. However, it has plateaued a bit in the last 12 months - maybe even declining somewhat. In contrast, the median price of detached homes peaked above $1.2 MM in 2009 even as the sales of these homes declined. Then prices plummeted all the way to the mid $500s in 2013, peaked again around $900 K in the 2016 timeframe and are now on the decline again. For the last 12 months the median price at which detached homes have sold has been just below $800K."

"As the oil industry is starting to normalize so is the housing market. 'Due to some economic perhaps uncertainties maybe some fears going on out in the market place but I think that overall we are still in a pretty healthy market it’s just not a crazy market,' says broker Laura Sales. 'The advantage to buyers right now in this market is that there is just a little bit more inventory. You don’t have to make a decision so quick you might have a little bit of time to think about it.'"

"Silicon Valley big shot Scott McNealy drastically slashed the price on his mega Portola Valley, Calif., mansion on over 13 serene acres. McNealy originally listed the estate, which includes a 28,000-square-foot house, for $96.8 million in June 2018. The new listing price is $54.8 million, an impressive $42 million price cut."

"Across Greater Vancouver, bungalows experienced the largest year-over-year price declines during the third quarter. Langley, West Vancouver, Burnaby, Coquitlam and North Vancouver bungalows saw sizable decreases, with median prices down 13.5 per cent, 12.1 per cent, 10.0 per cent, 9.6 per cent and 8.4 per cent respectively. 'Buyers are in control in the detached market. Sellers have had to embrace the new market reality to get deals done,' said Randy Ryalls, general manager, Royal LePage Sterling Realty."

"Retired Squadron Leader Krishan Mitroo has paid 90 percent of the cost of his house in Noida, northern India, to developer Jaypee, and the property was supposed to be handed over five years ago. However, Jaypee was forced to delay the project and went into insolvency in 2017. 'The project has been stuck and there is no progress at all. Even the bankruptcy court has not been able to resolve the issue so far, it is just hanging in thin air,' Mitroo said."

"Many banks find themselves unable to recoup their money because the properties they took from the mortgagors cannot be sold for the right price. 'Sometimes the offers are way below the reserve prices. Naturally, the banks do not accept. Even now, there are so many properties on the market, but the banks find the offers quite unacceptable. There is, for example a five-acre piece of land in Kawempe Industrial Area, but there are no buyers,' says Mr Festus Kateregga of Quickway Auctioneers and Court Bailiffs."

"A weakening economy, rising bank provisions and tumbling property prices are heightening fears that Dubai could face a repeat of 2009 when the government and government-owned companies restructured multibillion-dollar debts, plunging the emirate into recession. Property prices have fallen 31% from a mid-2014 peak, according to consultants ValuStrat, echoing the crash of 2009 to 2011, when prices plunged by more than half."

"'Banks have exposure on both sides of real estate — as providers of capital to real estate developers and as providers of mortgage financing,' said Asad Ahmed, managing director of Alvarez & Marsal Middle East, noting that the sustained drop in property prices since 2014 means that many Dubai property buyers would have seen their equity wiped out. 'The buffer that this equity provided to banks may also have disappeared,' he said."

"Some of Sydney’s most affordable suburbs are taking the biggest hit to rental prices, as increased supply and slow wages growth put downward pressure on the markets. 'There’s been a lot of development and investor activity in western Sydney,' said Domain research analyst Eliza Owen. 'Those are the investor markets, they’re the big rental markets, and we’re still somewhat in that overhang period where a lot of people bought investment properties, and there wasn’t necessarily the tenants to fill them.'"

"'There are apartments in Penrith and St Marys where no one will show up for weeks at a time,' property manager Tom Turner said, with many properties averaging just one person per open home. 'There’s not just competition [from properties] within your suburb, but competition with the better version of your suburb,' he said."

"'I had one landlord [Monday] who was adamant she wanted a rent increase … she has got some mortgage stress and needs to recover repayments,sai property manager Lisa Wallace said."