A report from Patterson Press on New Jersey. "Burned-out and abandoned, the Victorian house at the corner of Auburn and Fair streets symbolized Paterson’s drug scourge so much that three years ago someone sprayed-painted 'Crackadopia' across its side wall. Brian White, a novice real estate investor, decided to buy the building. White bought the property for $80,000 in 2017 and originally estimated the renovations would run him about $350,000. He cringed when asked last week what the work ended up costing him, putting the expense at more than $1 million. 'I overspent massively,' he said."

"Paterson narcotics detectives have raided the house across the street multiple times in recent years, including one bust in November 2018 in which they arrested 82 people. That building at 83-85 Auburn St. remains a busy spot for drug sales. Just ask its owner, prominent Paterson developer Charles Florio. 'It’s worse than it’s ever been,' the landlord said of the narcotics trade at his property. 'When a junkie throws a rock through one of his windows, he won’t be able to replace it,' Florio said."

The Real Deal on New York. "A luxury condo at Related Companies’ 35 Hudson Yards has sold for just under $7 million in an all-cash deal. Sales at 35 Hudson Yards launched last March. Since then, Manhattan’s already soft luxury market has been battered even further by the pandemic. In a June letter to EB-5 investors, Related cited 'extremely challenging conditions for the sale of residential condominiums' as one of several obstacles it was contending with."

"In July, new contracts for Manhattan condos priced between $4 million and $5 million were down 77 percent from the same month last year, according to a recent market report from Douglas Elliman. In the $5 million to $10 million bracket, contracts were down 39 percent. Above $20 million, there were zero."

The Boston Globe in Massachusetts. "These are unusual times in Boston’s rental market. You might even call them unprecedented. The coronavirus pandemic, a rapid shift to working from home, and mass confusion at the colleges and universities that drive so much of the city’s housing demand have combined to give tenants a rare upper hand over landlords."

"Concessions granted to renters are up. But despite the perks, more than 13,000 apartments in Boston, Brookline, Cambridge, and Somerville remain available in advance of the traditional Sept. 1 move-in frenzy. Even in a market with roughly 250,000 rental apartments, that’s a huge number of vacancies, said John Puma, chief operating officer at the rental website Place For Less. And it could spark even better deals in the weeks to come as landlords scramble to fill their empty units. 'A lot of these apartments have never been vacant on Sept. 1,' Puma said. 'Once it sets in that there’s all this vacancy, I don’t know what the limit will be on price reductions.'"

"Since the pandemic started in March, only five other cities have bigger declines, said Apartment List researcher Rob Warnock — all of them, like Boston, pricey job centers with large populations of twentysomethings. 'Like in San Francisco, New York, Washington, D.C., you’ve got people adjusting to a new economic reality,' Warnock said. 'You’ve got some people asking whether they can continue to afford what they were paying for housing, and others seeing rents going down and hoping to take advantage in some way.'"

From Golf Inc on Florida. "Park Square Homes acquired Hunter’s Creek Golf Course for $2.6 million on August 17, 2020. The 188-acre Orlando course was listed at $3.8 million but the Florida home builder purchased the course at a discount of about $13,962 an acre from the previous owner Tadashi Hattori’s Hunter’s Creek Golf Course Inc., according to the Orlando Business Journal. Hattori bought the property for $4 million in April of 2007 and had listed it several times in the past few years."

From Law 360 on Illinois. "As the Circuit Court of Cook County stares down an influx of eviction, foreclosure and other debt collection cases, the local legal community is using the calm before the storm to help Chicago residents mitigate their pandemic-era financial crises and potentially save their homes. 'The idea is to try to use some of the lessons from the foreclosure program and others around the country so we can tackle this thing really upfront and try to see if we can come to an agreement that keeps everybody in place, and if not, what's the next best solution,' Chicago Bar Foundation Executive Director Robert Glaves told Law360. 'If we get anything remotely like we got in 2008 and 2009, we really need to be out in front of this.'"

"At the height of the housing crisis fallout, each Chancery Division judge was juggling an average of 8,000 foreclosure cases, Judge Jacobius said 'After a while, it could be that the floodgates are going to open,' the judge said. 'But we've been through that before, so we're kind of getting ready for that.'"

From Couer d' Alene Press in Idaho. "Kelsey Hanlon moved into a four-bedroom home near Lancaster Road in January to care for her ailing father. The Bremerton, Wash., native stressed that while she’s enjoyed the area’s scenic beauty and friendly people during her time here, she doesn’t consider herself a transplant, and that she’ll move back when the time comes. 'I told my dad, ‘I can’t keep the house,' she said. 'I could never afford the taxes.'"

"It’s a common song stuck on repeat: The real estate demand in North Idaho drives housing prices higher, which in turn drives assessments higher, which in turn drives taxes higher. But as that desire for natural landscapes swells, those rural areas shrink. Even though Hanlon has only lived near the lake for seven months, she could identify the issue with the simple point of a finger. 'Just over there,' she said, pointing to the land just north of Lancaster, across from the English Point parking lot. 'They’re ready for a hundred new houses, or something like that.'"

"Closer to 150, actually."

The Arizona Republic. "Driving across Arizona, it’s hard not to notice a surge in California license plates. The reason for this is becoming more apparent every day. California is a failed state. After nearly a decade of one-party rule, the once-Golden State is tarnished, possibly beyond repair. Documentary filmmaker Christopher Rufo’s latest work reveals the tragic failure of the city’s homeless policies. In 'Chaos by the Bay,' he shows the results of well-meaning progressive efforts, from decriminalizing homelessness to plying addicts with free drug paraphernalia, alcohol and cannabis. For the most part, rampant mental illness has been left untreated."

"'I have never seen the level of frustration as high as it is now,' city Supervisor Rafael Mandelman said. 'I hear daily from people who say they are selling, they are leaving.'"

The San Francisco Chronicle in California. "When I moved to San Francisco from England in 2007 the city was still a glorious, fun mess. I'd made it to the raucous edge of America that Kerouac called a 'mad city, inhabited by perfectly insane people.' For every young Brit watching 'Bullitt' under a poster of Allen Ginsberg’s 'Howl' in their university dorms, San Francisco was the coolest place on earth."

"By 2007, the first dot-com bubble was mostly just a joke about the brief life of pets.com and boo.com, but the growing disdain for techie culture, often voiced from the artistic community, was real. The Great Recession juxtaposed with the rise of more robust tech giants in the city like Twitter, Facebook and Google (and their moneyed, transplanted employees) forced artists out as landlords cashed in."

"This year has been an unending s--t tornado, whichever way you look at it. People love speculating and reading about stories of seismic cultural shifts in the city, whether it be hate-clicks from the political right happy to see the final destruction of Nancy Pelosi's modern-day Sodom and Gomorrah, or from native San Franciscans anxious about the move into all things tech. This can often lead to hyperbole around changes to the city, but 2020 is not just any year."

"Over 100 restaurants and bars have permanently closed in San Francisco this year, and many more are shuttered, for now, temporarily. Rents have plunged in SoMa and downtown by over 20%. Many of the tech companies around mid-Market have told their employees that they can work from home forever, laying waste to any remaining hope for a tech-fueled renewal to the struggling neighborhood. And wealthy homeowners in the city are selling up, like never before."

The Los Angeles Times in California. "California tenants facing financial hardship because of the COVID-19 pandemic would be protected from eviction through January as long as they pay 25% of their rent during that period, under a proposal announced Friday by state officials. The plan, which faces the high hurdle of having to get a two-thirds vote in each house of the Legislature by Monday night, was seen as a compromise with landlord groups that oppose a pending bill that would have kept tenants from being evicted if they did not pay any rent as late as April."

"'This will not be the ultimate solution to addressing COVID-19 evictions, but will tide us over for the next five months,' said Assemblyman David Chiu (D-San Francisco), who wrote the bill opposed by landlords. 'This gives us the time to reconsider our options next legislative session and potentially work with a new federal administration on economic relief for struggling tenants and property owners.'"

"Opponents warned that Chiu‘s measure would be challenged in court because landlords unable to collect rent could lose their properties to foreclosure if they were unable to pay maintenance expenses and mortgages. The proposed measure 'provides a stopgap,' said Debra Carlton, executive vice president of the California Apartment Assn. 'It requires that tenants impacted by COVID-19 start paying at least some of their rent,' she said."

The Wall Street Journal. "Argentina’s 'century bond' didn’t last long, but its rise and fall holds lessons for investors at a time of market optimism despite widespread economic dislocation. An August restructuring guarantees that foreign creditors will get little more than half of what they were due on $65 billion of debt, including the 100-year bonds the government sold three years ago at the height of a decadelong emerging-markets boom."

"The century bond—a rarity in markets and almost unseen among issuers whose bonds are rated junk—was openly derided by many investors at the time of its sale, given the South American nation’s poor record of paying off debt, a struggling economy and fractious politics. The idea of a serial defaulter issuing bonds lasting into the next century was 'preposterous,' said Martin Schubert, president and chief executive of Eurinam, a company which trades and advises investors on emerging-markets debt. He stayed away from the bond."

"Yet the $2.75 billion in century bonds were quickly snapped up by investors seeking yield at a time of soft growth and low interest rates, and their appeal was intensified by the promise of regular payments for decades."

"Some investors say the idea of a century bond is worth revisiting because markets in the U.S. and elsewhere are similarly showing signs of exuberance. Tesla Inc. shares have risen to over $2,200 from around $400 at the start of the year. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite Index have surged to record levels this year despite declining corporate profits and a sharp rise in U.S. unemployment. 'Treasury yields are so low, it’s forcing investors into risk,' said Piotr Matys, emerging-markets strategist at Rabobank Group NV. 'That’s why people are buying crazy stuff.'"

"In the restructuring agreement, the 100-year bond’s maturity will shorten substantially, along with its value. Holders will end up with bonds maturing in 15 and 26 years and can expect to recover something broadly in line with the recovery value of the restructuring, on the order of 54.5 cents on the dollar. That outcome doesn’t surprise many who sat out the century-bond sale, reasoning that even in Argentina there were better risk-reward combinations on offer."

"'It made splashy headlines,' said Kevin Daly, investment manager for emerging-markets debt at Aberdeen Standard Investments Inc. 'It was one of these classic instruments that hedge funds and nondedicated emerging-market investors were looking at.'"