A report from the Wall Street Journal on New York. "The coronavirus lockdown has frozen Manhattan’s luxury real-estate market, with the volume of deals slowing to a trickle over the past three months. But one developer said he’s seeing signs of life on—of all places—Billionaires’ Row in Manhattan. Two units asking roughly $30 million each have sold at the under-construction condominium 111 West 57th Street since March, according to Michael Stern of JDS Development, one of the building’s developers."

"Mr. Stern said both deals were signed with only a 'slight' discount to the asking price. 'Any developer who says their pricing is absolutely firm is not being serious,' he said. 'It’s the best time to be a buyer, because everyone is willing to listen to a reasonable offer at a fair discount.'"

The Idaho Statesman. "Baby-boomer buyers briefly pulled back. Sellers too. But on Boise’s bullet train to High Housing-Price City, the coronavirus pandemic has been little more than a curve in the track. Last month, 834 new and existing homes sold in Ada County, according to the Intermountain Multiple Listing Service. It was the lowest total for any May since 2014, when 783 homes changed hands. And prices? They went down too. The median price for homes sold in Ada County dropped from a record $374,900 in April to $360,450 in May."

From Crain's Chicago Business in Illinois. "A Highland Park house that the late architect Stanley Tigerman designed in the postmodern style in 1990 sold for less than the value of the land that it’s on. Designed as a 'suburban village' where different functions like cooking, sleeping and reading each get a separate node of the building off a plaza-like hallway, the three-bedroom, 5,100-square-foot house on Park Avenue West sold June 11 for $780,500."

"The house is on 1.6 acres. Crain’s found three recent land sales nearby that, based on their price per square foot, would have sold for $947,000, on average. The Tigerman property, which the architect in 2017 described as 'one of my favorites,' went for 82 percent of that. 'All I can tell you is that’s the world we’re in now,' said Nancy London, the Baird & Warner agent who represented the buyers."

"In recent months, a Frank Lloyd Wright house in Elmhurst and a Prairie School landmark in River Forest have also sold for the value of the land or less. Another Tigerman design, built in 1985 about four miles east and near Lake Michigan, has been on the market for most of the past five years, first listing at $3.25 million in June 2013. Its price is now down to $1.5 million, or about 64 percent of the $2.35 million the sellers paid for it in 1994."

The Union Tribune in California. "San Diego officials are projecting they’ll take in less property tax revenues based on predictions of a rise in tax delinquencies and in foreclosures linked to the pandemic. Property tax, the city’s largest and most consistent revenue stream, typically doesn’t begin to dip significantly until a year or two into an economic downturn, because there is a delay in tax assessors re-assessing property values downward."

"But city officials say they anticipate fewer people will pay the property taxes they owe during the new fiscal year that begins July 1. They predict San Diego’s delinquency rate will triple from an historically low 0.8 percent to 2.4 percent."

The Los Angeles Times in California. "American Campus Communities, a large national student housing owner, has maintained mostly steady occupancy since March, Chief Marketing Officer Jason Wills said. Wills called a rash of lease-breaking in the spring a 'knee-jerk response' to confusion and concern. In mid-April, the company preleased 76.6% of its portfolio for the upcoming academic year — up from 76.2% during the same period last year."

"However, Joseph Tobener, a Bay Area attorney specializing in tenant law, said his law office is fielding 15 to 20 calls a week from parents and students, primarily in the Bay Area, who want to break their lease. 'It’s only going to get worse,' he said."

From Community Impact in Texas. "A total of 460 homes were sold across six Katy-area ZIP codes during May. This is a decrease of 35 from the previous month. Overall Houston-area home sales dropped 20% year over year in May, but none of the Katy-area ZIP codes that experienced sale price decreases saw that large of a drop. At 12%, ZIP code 77450 experienced the highest year-over-year decrease of the median price of homes sold in May among six Katy-area ZIP codes."

"ZIP code 77441’s year-over-year drop was 10.9%, while ZIP code 77494 experienced a 6.8% decrease. This is the second month in a row that 77450 experienced a year-over-year decrease and the third month in a row for 77441."

From Arlington Now in Virginia. "Another week of ramped up activity in Arlington! Sellers are listing homes at a faster pace than buyers can ratify contracts despite strong showings, fantastic interest rates and beautiful weather. Buyers — I encourage you to take a second look at properties that have been sitting on the market a little longer. Some of these are likely contemplating a price reduction and getting to them before that happens can spell huge opportunity."

The Oregonian. "Former NFL quarterback Drew Bledsoe created a family compound in Bend that reflected his successful career. It’s been estimated by Realtor.com that a comparable property today would cost about $20 million. The dwelling was completed in 2008 as the housing bust was intensifying. His estate has it all, yet it took seven years to find a new owner and it finally sold at $5.6 million, a 43% discount from the original asking price of $9.95 million."

"What finally motivated someone to make an offer that was accepted? A $20 million value for $5.6 million."

From KITV in Hawaii. "Jackie Quinlan's one bedroom condo at the Waikiki Banyan has a great view of the ocean, a full kitchen along with new furniture and fixtures, it even has a nonconforming-use certificate, which makes it a legal vacation rental. What it doesn't have is guests, because it is not allowed be open for business. 'This is my livelihood. I haven't made any money since mid-March. Yet the hotels are able to make money. I don't understand why they can operate, but we cannot,' stated Quinlan. 'Financially I am living off of my savings, it is very stressful,' added Quinlan."

"That frustration is being echoed by other legal vacation rental owners as well as property managers hurt by the targeted shutdown of their businesses. 'I think it is frustration and desperation, like everyone else who has lost their job. The bills don't stop coming, mortgages still have to be paid, or rent is still due,' said Honolulu attorney Gregory Kugle."

From Bloomberg. "Tuesday afternoon, a smallish Chinese real-estate firm, ticker symbol DUO, went crazy on the Nasdaq. Out of the blue, in a vacuum of news, depositary receipts of the Shenzhen-based outfit shot up 13-fold, taking its market capitalization to $4 billion. Nobody had a definitive reason why. But people could guess. Its name: Fangdd Network Group Ltd., sounds like the acronym for that amalgamation of American megacaps, the 'Faangs.'"

"A lot of the stock market has this tinge of late. Get people to believe that other people will believe that a stock will go up, and fear-of-missing-out will take over. More than 15,000 retail clients of the Robinhood investing app added DUO to their account last week, a phalanx of day traders marching to war."

"Newly minted equity experts in chat rooms, enticed by ever-falling fees, empower themselves and push shares of companies with not much profit into the stratosphere -- sound familiar? Comparisons between today and the dot-com bubble write themselves, in the era of the Robinhood market. Whether this episode ends like that one has become an obsession of Wall Street."

"Everyone knows the dot-com bubble ended badly -- in a two-year bear market that cut the value of the U.S. equity market in half. Then again, it took years for warnings to come true that people would pay a price for blind speculation. The Nasdaq 100 doubled in 1999 -- fortunes were made for people who sold at the top. How many will pull that off this time is a question that haunts this and every speculative episode."

"'It is definitely a sign of a bubble,' said Matt Maley, chief market strategist for Miller Tabak. 'That’s another sign of froth -- people deciding, ‘I just need to bet, therefore I’ll bet on anything.’ And even though they don’t know anything about the stock market, they’re betting on it now. You’ve also seen that pick up in the options market, which is obviously a lot more speculative than the regular market.'"

"To Jim Bianco, president and founder of Bianco Research LLC, it all comes down to the Fed structuring the market so that everyone always wins. 'That’s why we’re seeing a giant rush of small retail investors and everybody else into the market,' Bianco told Bloomberg Television. 'When you go into the market, you go to the riskiest end of the market, so you buy bankrupt companies, you buy beaten down airlines, you buy cruise ships, you buy retailers because they will benefit the most from a support system where everything is targeted, and the markets will always go up.'"