A report from the Wall Street Journal. "When William Mark decided to get back into investing after the 2008 financial crisis, he looked past stocks and bonds. Needing to play catch-up with his retirement portfolio, the piping engineer decided to bet on a complicated product he hoped would deliver double-digit annual returns. Mr. Mark bought a leveraged ETN issued by UBS AG that bet on companies that invest in the mortgage market, known as mortgage real-estate investment trusts. He eventually poured $800,000 into the investments, called leveraged exchange-traded notes, or ETNs. When the coronavirus pandemic hit, he lost almost every penny."

"'I’m 67 years old and I’m basically bankrupt in just two weeks,' Mr. Mark said."

From Next City on Nevada. "With the coronavirus pandemic causing untold economic damage again, state housing advocates are preparing for another potential wave of foreclosures. Last month, as the state’s unemployment rate soared past that of the Great Recession, the Nevada Affordable Housing Assistance Corporation, a group that administers the state’s Hardest Hit Fund, announced that it was relaunching a program that helps people on unemployment pay their mortgages."

"'The numbers are staggering,' Verise Campbell, the CEO of the Nevada Affordable Housing Assistance Corporation, said last week after the program relaunched. 'For example, we turned our phones on yesterday, and within 17 minutes we had 260 calls.'"

"Rather than keep the phones on and pile up applications that will take a long time to process, the organization shut them off. It’s accepting only a few hundred calls each day, in order to be able to respond to applicants more quickly, Campbell says."

The Madison Park Times in Washington. "We have the first data in from the Northwest Multiple Listing Service since the stay home order was implemented, and, as we expected, the market experienced a slight dip but certainly not the free fall that some predicted. In looking at Seattle as a whole: Sales of homes over $2 million dropped from 66 from March 1, 2019, to May 25, 2019, to 51 during the same time period in 2020. The average price of these sales was $2,898,699 in 2019 and $2,678,041 in 2020 for that time frame."

"No matter how tight the inventory, pricing and presentation will always be the key principles to a successful transaction. Take this time to make your home market ready; first impressions count. Having an experienced broker who will analyze the micro-neighborhoods and the most recent sales data will help you price your home competitively. If a home goes on the market even a bit too high, it can sit, and that may result in a larger price reduction than if the home had come on the market at a reasonable listing price."

The Idaho Press. "Measures necessary to slow the spread of COVID-19 pushed Idaho’s unemployment levels to a record high, but many local developers are moving ahead with major projects anyway. Even though the country is in a new stage of economic uncertainty, the vast majority of Boise’s major development projects currently underway will continue as planned. However, that doesn’t mean there aren’t questions about the future. Developers say lenders have tightened up their requirements for projects."

"Clay Carley, general manager of Old Boise LLC and developer for several major downtown Boise projects, said the pandemic has not slowed the demand for housing in the area. He still plans to break ground on his two-building, 60-unit development on Sixth Street in downtown Boise. Carley said days before the final deal was going to be sealed with two of his financers, they backed out due to the pandemic, so he had to scramble and find other financing."

"'Someone on their loan committee asked for more security in these projects,' he said, about the lenders who backed out. 'Usually that means you think the market is going to go down or this project isn’t going to absorb and pay the debt, but I can’t imagine why they would think that in this market, in this location.'"

From Socket Site in California. "While the pace of home sales in San Francisco has started to rebound, new listing activity continues to outpace the number of new purchase contracts being written. The number of homes listed for sale across the city, net of new sales, ticked up another 7 percent over the past week to 930, representing 44 percent more homes on the market than at the same time last year and another 9-year seasonal high in terms of inventory levels."

"At the same time, the percentage of listings with at least one official price cut – which doesn’t include properties that were withdrawn from the MLS and then re-listed with a lower 'original' list price – has ticked up to 19 percent."

The La Jolla Light in California. "In the weeks following the state’s stay-at-home coronavirus order in March this year, some communities saw a break in the turnover of short-term rentals. Gordon and Maureen Dunfee, who have lived in the same Barber Tract home for 30 years, said short-term rentals took over their street."

"'We had a beautiful neighborhood, beautiful community with kids and families,' Gordon Dunfee said. 'Things change, which is natural. But with the short-term rentals, things changed drastically and negatively and it became a hotel zone. We were surrounded by short-term rentals; we have no neighbors now. Every two or three days … we would have new people come in and celebrate something like a graduation, bachelor party, etc.'"

"But during the pandemic, Maureen Dunfee said, 'we have enjoyed peacefulness in our neighborhood. But it has also profoundly shown us that we have no more neighbors in our neighborhood. We feel alone on an island, so to speak.'"

The Associated Press on Hawaii. "Hawaii County has processed nearly all of its short-term vacation rental applications, but it could be months before the units are allowed to operate as a result of the coronavirus. Under emergency health restrictions issued by the state, the rentals can be used only to house tenants who were already there when the restrictions went into effect or workers for essential businesses or operations, such as first responders."

"Vacation rental occupancy statewide was 5% in April, the first month after Democratic Gov. David Ige’s March 26 mandatory 14-day quarantine for travelers. Hotels that were allowed to remain open had an occupancy rate of 8.9%, according to data provided by the Hawaii Tourism Authority."

"Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell estimated there are 800 legal vacation rentals on Oahu and another 8,000 operating illegally. 'As we come back to new normal, (they) should be in resort areas and not in our neighborhoods,' Caldwell said. Maui Mayor Mike Victorino said he would like to keep visitors in the resort areas of his county without 'utilizing our residential facilities.' Hotels and resorts should open first and reestablish themselves, he said."

"'We have a large number of illegal vacation rentals, and many are closing them down,' Victorino said."