A weekend topic starting with Senior Housing News. "Senior housing capital markets remain unstable. Titan SenQuest Management CEO Kevin Kaseff believes that, while the pandemic hastened a bear market, this is actually the beginning of a market correction. 'This [looks like] a classic cycle. Everybody is more conservative,' he said."

"'We’ve had to speak to twice as many lenders per deal as we used to, and we’re getting about half as many term sheets. Arguably, you could say it’s four or fiver times harder to get things done,' said Carnegie Capital Managing Partner JD Stettin."

"Even the strongest sponsors are feeling the pressure. Titan SenQuest received a lending quote from one of the agencies on a deal that required the owner to set aside nine months of cash operational reserves in what it called a 'Covid holdback' valued at $450,000. 'The only [sponsor] would do that deal is somebody who is incredibly desperate,' Kaseff said."

"'One of the things we’ve seen people freezing on is folks who are used to or only comfortable with non-recourse terms. They either have to start getting comfortable with signing on recourse debt, or we’ll have to wait out this term in the market,' Stettin said. 'If you’re willing to write a 30% equity check and post maybe six, nine or 12 months of reserves, then I think you have a great opportunity.'"

The Wall Street Journal. "Just when many owners of hotels in Florida, Texas, Arizona and California thought the worst of the pandemic was behind them, a surge of Covid-19 cases in those states is spoiling any near-term recovery hopes. 'We saw a nosedive in our reservation trend,' said Heiko Dobrikow, general manager of the 231-room Riverside Hotel in downtown Fort Lauderdale."

"Travellers can show up at the last minute and get a room because hotels are operating at such high vacancy rates compared with normal times. 'There’s plenty of availability,' said Andreas Ioannou, chief executive of hotel owner Orchestra Hotels + Resorts, whose properties include the Hilton Fort Lauderdale Beach Resort. 'People know they can walk in and get a room.'"

From Boston.com on Massachusetts. "Along with disrupting higher education, one of Boston’s key industries, the change in how courses are instructed also stands to reduce drastically the number of students who actually need to live in Boston in the fall. The years of landlords increasing rents by hundreds of dollars annually are likely in the rearview mirror, however. 'Typically, independent landlords and luxury buildings raised rent by $100 to $300 every year for the last few years,' said DJ Gendreau, a realtor with Douglas Elliman. 'This year we’re seeing rents decrease.'"

From Bisnow Washington DC. "Apartment landlords felt a sharp impact from the coronavirus pandemic last quarter, with D.C.-area rents experiencing their greatest decrease since the turn of the millennium. The previous quarters with the highest rent drops this century were in Q3 2009 and Q4 2013, which each experienced roughly 3% declines, Delta Associates President Will Rich said. The drop in rents was caused by a significant decline in apartment demand, especially in the District, where absorption was down 25%, according to the report."

"'The apartment vacancy rate in the District was 6.8% at the end of Q2, up from 4.1% the same time last year. 'There has been an impact on absorption, on rents, on vacancy, basically all of the metrics were impacted in some fashion by the pandemic,' Rich said."

From KVUE in Texas. "A new report by CoStar Group Inc. shows Austin has the sixth biggest drop in rent prices since the start of the pandemic in March. The director of analytics Sam Tenenbaum said over the past year, vacancies in Austin increased by about 2%, mostly due to construction. CoStar Group found in the second quarter of this year alone, the Austin area gained 4,000 new apartment units with about 14,000 more units under construction. Because of this, the Austin area has the fifth highest apartment vacancy rate of any large market in the country."

From Patch New York. "Rents in Manhattan are becoming cheaper. Median one-bedroom apartment rents dropped 5 percent year-over-year in RentHop's analysis of New York City's rental market at the end of the second quarter of 2020. The plunge was driven by large dips in the median rent for one-bedrooms in neighborhoods such as the Flatiron District (10 percent decrease), Lincoln Square (9.2 percent) the Bowery (9.1 percent), Chelsea (8.8 percent) and Lenox Hill (8.6 percent)."

"'Many neighborhoods across the five boroughs experienced price reduction due to reduced demand. Specifically, in Manhattan, one of the most expensive real estate markets in the nation, rent dropped in most luxury neighborhoods,' the RentHop study reads."

The Loveland Reporter Herald in Colorado. "A Chicago-based development company faces a foreclosure action and millions of dollars in mechanic’s liens over a stalled apartment project in Old Town Fort Collins. Contractors have filed liens totaling several million dollars against the property. Great Western Bank, which holds a deed of trust on the property, also filed a notice of election and demand July 13, citing an additional debt of almost $1.5 million. A notice of election and demand is the first step in the foreclosure process."

"Doug Dohn, CEO of Dohn Construction, told BizWest that some of the other liens are encompassed in his $2.2 million lien. Dohn said CA Ventures lost financing for the project."

The Greater Baton Rouge Business Report in Louisiana. "While some downtown office building owners are weighing whether to pump more outside air into their buildings, others aren’t even considering it, given the fact that hardly anyone is coming into the office. For Rich Major, who owns the side-by-side Providence and Orphanage buildings on Main Street, the thought of changing his air filter hasn’t even entered his mind. However, he says he also doesn’t plan to raise rents for his tenants."

"'The number of people going into my commercial buildings is so minimal these days,' says Major, whose tenants are largely still working from home. 'This is new to me.'"

From KOMO News in Washington. "More and more people are seeking to sell their homes and move out of Seattle area, according to a newly released report. The report by Redfin, found that the number of home sellers looking to leave the Seattle metro area has jumped to 13.7%, compared with 11.2% at the same time last year. Meanwhile, the net outflow of homeowners from Seattle has soared from 363 in the second quarter of last year to 6,007 in the second quarter of this year - a jump of more than 1,500%."

From KCRW in California. "KCRW speaks with Evelyn Garcia, who manages a seven-unit apartment building in South LA. Her father owns the building and lives in it too. KCRW: Tell us about this building. How did your father come to own it? Evelyn Garcia: 'My father got laid off. And he went ahead and refinanced his home and decided that perhaps this was something he could get himself to keep himself busy while he stopped working. … His regular employment … was sheet metal. And he decided to purchase this. … This is his only source of income. Yes, he went ahead and purchased it with the funding from his primary home and his retirement savings.'"

"Did anyone stop paying the rent in your building? 'Yes, they certainly did. A lot of my tenants were unfortunately unable to pay the rent because of COVID. It's been affecting us, but we're willing to work with our tenants, and we've been really flexible with them.'"

"Are you working out mortgage payments out with the bank? 'Yes, we've already spoken to the mortgagor. And thankfully we got a six month extension. And since our bank isn't federally owned, or it's not Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, unfortunately it's a private bank. Everything is kind of up in the air. And I know that they have no obligation to assist us. I just don't know what's going to happen after six months, because we haven't gotten a straight answer from them. So anything could happen. We could go into foreclosure after six months from now.'"

From Socket Site in California. "Back in 2007, the 1,670-square-foot, two-bedroom unit #27C in the St. Regis Museum Tower building at 188 Minna Street quickly fetched the $2.75 million price at which it was listed, financed by the Hong Kong-based Bank of East Asia. The unit returned to the market priced at $3.08 million in March of last year. Reduced to $2.7 million [in June of last year], the luxury unit was then withdrawn from the MLS at the end of [2019] and re-listed anew in January with a (further reduced) price tag of $2.53 million and an official '1' day on the market."

"And the sale of 188 Minna Street #27C has now closed escrow with a contract price of $2.3 million, representing a 16.4 percent ($450K) drop below its 2007-era value on an apples-to-apples, versus 'median price,' basis."