It's Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. "Guy Therien saw a house on a five-acre property outside of Sherwood last year that he says was beyond his wildest dreams. The Parrett Mountain estate was for sale, but he couldn’t afford it. This year, he owns the place. It’s not that his finances skyrocketed, though he did receive a promotion at work. Instead, Therien was able to purchase the hilltop home for less than half the price of the original owner’s investment."

"Terry Sprague of Luxe Christie’s International Real Estate in Lake Oswego calls this 'special pricing,' based on the owner’s motives and timeline. One of Sprague’s listings in Portland’s Eastmoreland neighborhood is for sale at $2,388,000. The owner invested about $4.5 million in buying and meticulously renovating the 1928 house and landscaped property. A year ago, it was listed by another agent at $3.5 million and it didn’t sell."

"Some homeowners who have decided to sell their homes despite the coronavirus pandemic seem to be facing economic reality — and trimming their prices, according to research by Weiss Analytics. Sellers in most metro areas have trimmed their home prices by 5 percent to 10 percent, but those levels vary. In Pittsburgh, where an aggressive statewide lockdown has prevented real estate transactions altogether, sellers who cut their prices are listing at an average discount of 20 percent. In Phoenix and Sacramento, the average price cut is just 3 percent."

"Not surprisingly, New York, an epicenter of the pandemic, had the highest percentage of new listings with discounted asking prices. Some 34 percent of properties that went on the market there were priced below their February values, Weiss says. Other metro areas with high levels of discounts included Baltimore, where 31 percent of new listings were marked down, and Los Angeles, where 30 percent of homes for sale were discounted."

"Homes priced higher than $600,000 are most likely to be discounted, Weiss says, partly because lenders have pulled back on making jumbo loans. Sellers of some 37 percent of houses in that price range have asking prices below their February values, with a median discount of 7.7 percent."

"Real estate attorneys are helping a growing number of clients who want to tear-up agreements they signed before the Covid-19 pandemic erupted and the city was shut down. 'It’s open season on contracts,' said attorney Scott Claman. 'More contracts are sick and dying than people from Covid.'"

"A penthouse on East 29th Street that was in contract for $8.68 million and closed for $680,000 less on April 29. An Upper West Side condo in contract for $2.25 million was discounted to $2.025 million, according to attorney Bruce Friedberg. 'It’s viral,' said Claman, referring to the rash of Covid-19 closing discounts. 'You hear of one deal that got done, and then everyone wants to do it. My dad used to say you can’t play poker with 48 cards because you don’t know what’s missing from the deck. This is where we are now—playing with 48 cards.'"

"Big lenders are tightening their requirements for real estate investors, mortgage brokers say, which could further slow activity in places such as Southern Ontario where investor demand had driven up prices and sales. 'For them to say, you can’t even use money in a home equity line of credit, that is a pretty big thing in our business,' said Dave Butler, principal broker with Butler Mortgage Inc., who works with real estate investors and is one of many who received an e-mail from Scotiabank announcing the changes."

"Banks have told brokers they want to see that real estate investors have liquid assets or assets that can easily be turned into cash to cover mortgage payments if renters are unable to make their payments. At the same time, investors who bought properties to rent them on Airbnb are losing business with the provincial restrictions on short-term rentals and the temporary demise of the tourism industry. 'There have been thousands of real estate investors buying negative cash flow properties, specifically condo investments where their monthly costs far exceed their monthly income on those properties and that is a very real source of concern,' said Calum Ross, principal broker with The Mortgage Management Group, who mostly works with real estate investors."

"Buyers are seeking discounts of up to 20 per cent on properties as the housing market reawakens. Estate agents reported a surge in demand yesterday after ministers lifted a seven-week ban on home moves. Property adviser Henry Pryor said he had four clients who had deals put on hold by the lockdown, all of whom were now seeking 20 per cent off the agreed price, but would likely settle for 5 to 10 per cent. He added: 'There is going to be a Mexican standoff and it will be interesting to see who blinks first. Estate agents will try to convince us that it is business as usual, but buyers will have read the reports about the economy and say they are taking a risk.'"

"Data from a Prague City Hall project shows that rental prices for apartments have dropped one-fifth during the coronavirus crisis, and the number of flats available has tripled, while use of flats for short-term rental has dropped by half. 'It is obvious that Airbnb’s offers are no longer increasing. On the contrary, vacant apartments and houses that were previously leased via Airbnb are already moving to conventional leases. For example, in Prague 1, fewer than 100 new rental offers per week were added in January and February; at the turn of March and April, this number climbed to 309 new rental offers in one week,' Golemia data analyst Martina Paříková said."

"At the foot of the Acropolis hill, in the touristic Koukaki district, the coronavirus lockdown has silenced the sound of Airbnb customers' wheeled luggage. The tourist industry in Athens, as in many other European capitals, has ground to a halt. Owners of small apartments in Koukaki, who had been renting them on the Airbnb platform in order to provide income during the financial crisis, are once again struggling. 'The reservations stopped abruptly,' laments Romina Tsitou, an Airbnb host since 2014."

"Well ahead of the coronavirus outbreak, experts already predicted that change may come to Hungary’s housing market, as prices over the past five years sky-rocketed both in terms of sales and renting. A drop in the number of transactions that began in the second half of 2019 might have already indicated this. Hungary’s housing market shrank by 58% in April compared with the same month a year earlier. While Budapest saw an average decrease of 5.7%, the decline was more apparent in the countryside where it amounted to 14.1% during this period."

"In Budapest (examining the case of properties 'at least' in good condition), this means a drop from HUF 841,000 (EUR 2,402) per sqm to HUF 793,000 (EUR 2,265), while outside the capital, a drop from HUF 440,000 (EUR 1,257) per sqm to HUF 378,000 (EUR 1,080). The analysis, however, notes that this decline can still pretty much be considered as the continuation (and, of course, the intensification) of a trend that had started months ago before the outbreak."

"The pandemic and the resulting postponement of Dubai’s long-awaited World Expo, which was supposed to commence in October, ensures the city’s yearslong price slump will persist for at least another year. 'Last year, we said values would go down 7% to 10%' in 2020, said Haidar Tuaima, head of real estate research at appraisal firm ValuStrat. 'Now 7% is very much on the optimistic side.'"

"A plot of land at Hong Kong's former Kai Tak airport has failed to sell at auction in a sign the city's worsening economic crisis is starting to take its toll on the property market. The government rejected all four offers received for the 19,788 square metre site after they failed to meet the reserve price, it said in a statement. It is a reversal from the heady days of last year, when developers were paying top-dollar for land at Kai Tak. The city had its worst slump on record in the first quarter, and key economic drivers such as tourism and retail sales are in free-fall."

"Property price cutting has nearly doubled and tripled in Australia’s two largest cities, new data shows, signalling a slowing housing market. More than 13 per cent of property listings in Sydney and 10.7 per cent in Melbourne had their prices discounted in April, according to Domain data. 'It’s a good leading indicator of where prices are going to go,' Domain senior research analyst Nicola Powell said. 'When you see an increase in the proportion of listings with a discount, it normally means that you’re going into a softening market.'"

"Sydney’s Northern Beaches region, which includes suburbs as far south as Manly and as far north as Palm Beach, saw the highest proportion of discounted properties in the country at 17.6 per cent in April. Prices in the area were coming down from a high peak, Joshua Perry from Belle Property Dee Why said, which meant widespread discounting was expected. 'There’s always some owners who aren’t adjusting, but most are now seeing that what is happening now is a fair price,' Mr Perry said."

"The BNZ has sounded alarm for the residential construction industry, saying house prices are likely to fall 12 per cent. Head of research Stephen Toplis said the bank was very unsure construction would be the economic saviour people were hoping for, given the big obstacles in its way, the biggest being unemployment. And there were three other 'massive' obstacles affecting housing demand: lower population growth, weaker house prices and a freeing up of AirBnB properties."

"With tourism on hold, more AirBnB properties would hit the market, boosting the housing supply. As demand weakened, house prices would fall, as low as 12 per cent, for about three years, and this would further suppress demand for new housing, 'as already-nervous investors stay clear of the market.'"