A report from the Daily Independent in Arizona. "In the southeast corner of Avondale Boulevard and Thomas Road, the Oak Park subdivision has been a part of the Avondale community for over 10 years. But its population is 0. No one lives there. As of March 6, only four unoccupied houses are within the subdivision. The rest is dirt or paved roads. According to Maricopa County Assessor records, the land is owned by Avondale Recovery Acquisition LLC, a subsidiary of Raintree Investment Corporation in Carlsbad, California."

"According to records, the four single-family residences were constructed in 2009 with 2020 Full Cash Values between $231,000 and $284,000. Records appear to indicate the subdivision has the capacity for over 50 homes. 'This sounds extremely unusual as we have a desperate shortage of homes to meet demand at the moment,' said Mike Orr with The Cromford Report, a group that analyzes the housing market in Arizona."

"'The last deed dates for the homes are in September 2008, around the time of the national recession. They bought it at a knockdown price ($4 million) at a foreclosure auction during the housing crash and are presumably holding out for the highest possible return on their investment,' Mr. Orr said about the investment company. 'The completed homes are not available for sale or rent.'"

The Coeur d'Alene Press in Idaho. "Hayden Anderl of Coldwell Banker Schneidmiller Realty said there has been a 40% increase in resale home prices since 2016, going to $299,000 from $215,000. The price difference in resale homes and new construction last year was about 10 percent, down from 17 percent in 2018 and 16 percent in 2018. Grey Rowley on the luxury market: 'Supply of luxury homes will continue to outweigh demand, listings will linger, and in some cases, sellers will make big price cuts to move the inventory.'"

From Forbes. "In just a few short weeks, the coronavirus outbreak has impacted many aspects of everyday life. It's important to keep in mind that New York City and the surrounding areas were already buyer's markets prior to the coronavirus outbreak. So, sellers were well aware they didn’t have the upper hand to begin with."

"According to Noemi Bitterman of Warburg Realty, the sellers experiencing frustration have either already sold at less than they wanted or taken their properties off the market. So it’s safe to assume that the majority of sellers are extra motivated right now. 'The properties that are on the market right now are priced to sell. Although sellers do not love the buyer’s market, they accept what is and have priced their properties accordingly,' she explains."

From Patch California. "This 1101 square foot home in Alameda is in foreclosure and just became available. It has 2 bedrooms, and 2 bathrooms. Address: 2518 Encinal Ave, Alameda, California. Price: $668,000."

The Wall Street Journal. "It is perhaps fitting that the stock market plunged last month as we approached the 20th anniversary of the top of the internet-stock bubble. On March 10, 2000, the Nasdaq Composite Index hit an intraday high of 5132.52. We all know what happened next. By October 2002, the index had fallen 78.4%—to 1108.49."

"And that was only half the agony. The other half was the index’s anemic recovery from that low. It took until November 2014 for the index to battle back to its March 2000 level, even after taking dividends into account. If you adjust for inflation, the index didn’t recover until August 2017, more than 17 years later."

"The Nasdaq’s snail like recovery after the dot-com crash doesn’t appear to have been unprecedented, at first blush. For example, it wasn’t until 1954 that the Dow Jones Industrial Average clawed its way back to where it stood, on a point-for-point basis, before the 1929 crash—a recovery time of 25 years. Taking into account all U.S. bear markets since the mid-1920s, I calculate it took an average of just 3.1 years for the broad market on a dividend- and inflation-adjusted basis to make its way back to where it stood before the bear market began. So, the Nasdaq’s plunge in 2000, and subsequent slow recovery, is an outlier. No other bear-market recovery in U.S. history took as long."

"And let there be no doubt that the Nasdaq market was poorly diversified 20 years ago. Cisco Systems, the internet hardware and software company, had the largest market cap of any stock in March 2000, and represented the largest share of any in the Nasdaq Composite, which is a cap-weighted index. Over the two years subsequent to the bursting of the internet bubble, the stock dropped more than 90%."

"The overall stock market today has become increasingly concentrated, making it more difficult to achieve the level of diversification that would otherwise ease bear-market losses. For example, the five companies in the S&P 500 with the largest market cap now make up more than 18% of the combined market cap of all component companies. That is the most in U.S. history, according to Morgan Stanley Research—higher even than at the top of the internet-stock bubble."

"In contrast to the 18% of combined market cap that the five largest companies in the S&P represent, the comparable proportion for Nasdaq was more than 40%."

"The other investment lesson is that valuations matter, even though they don’t seem to when things are humming and some investors are convinced that the rules have changed. At the top of the internet bubble, for example, Nasdaq had a price/earnings ratio of more than 100 when calculated on trailing 12 months’ earnings—and still 75 when based on estimates of subsequent 12-month earnings. Both were many orders of magnitude higher than the broad market’s long-term P/E average of below 20."

"In hindsight, the P/E ratio was a good indicator of the market’s overvaluation, and of weaker returns ahead: Since its March 2000 high, the Nasdaq Composite, on an inflation- and dividend-adjusted basis, has produced a return of just 1.3% annualized. The comparable return for the S&P is 4.1% annualized, which is itself lower than the 6.8% average annualized return for the past two centuries."