A report from the Star Advertiser in Hawaii. "Munro Murdock, Hawaii Legal Short-Term Rental Alliance (HILSTRA) president, said owners and operators across the isles are feeling the pain from delays in reopening Hawaii tourism through a pre-arrivals testing program. 'First it was Aug. 1, then Sept. 1, now it’s Oct.1 at the earliest. It’s only a matter of time before you see a lot of companies in our industry throw in the towel. We’re coming up on six months with virtually no revenue,' Murdock said."

"Murdock said his company manages legal vacation rentals for 30 owners. From April to August of last year, the company took in $1.5 million in gross rent, or roughly $50,741 per owner. During the same period this year, Murdock said gross rents fell to $104,259 or about $3,400 per owner. That doesn’t even cover a month of expenses for Murdock’s average owner, who likely spends from $4,000 to $7,000 monthly, he said."

"Michael Rubini who owns a vacation rental on Oahu’s North Shore, said he’s been devastated by Caldwell’s emergency orders. Prior to COVID-19, Rubini said the property, which has a NUC, generated about $15,000 to $20,000 a month in income, but he said he’s made 'zero dollars' since Caldwell’s ban. 'Just because they shut down vacation rentals doesn’t mean that I don’t have expenses,' said Rubini, who is retired and lives in California. 'My property taxes also don’t go away. I pay the higher residential A rate since it’s an investment property. I used to pay $6,000 in property taxes. Since they passed Residential A, it’s more like $22,000 a year or so and they aren’t even letting me use the property for short-term rentals.'"

From News Channel 5 in Tennessee. "The company with listings all over the globe says the ban will help social distancing efforts, but neighbors across Nashville say they’ve yet to see bans like these enforced. Had they known what to expect next door on Pecan Street, Stephanie Gonzalez and her fiancé Trevor Murphy may have thought twice before moving in a year ago. Since then, practically every weekend has meant one large party after another. On multiple occasions, they've seen parties of more than 100 people."

"'It’s like somebody decided to take Broadway and say, here’s a little seed of Broadway and we’re going to put it right next to your house,' Murphy said. 'We had a three-year phase out, but the state of Tennessee preempted us and said you have to grandfather those,' said Metro councilwoman Angie Henderson of District 34."

From Forbes on New York. "It’s likely, however, that the Manhattan market has not reached the bottom, agents say. 'We are currently in a buyer’s market and for sure there are great deals to be made,' says Arlene Reed, a broker with Warburg Realty. 'Interest rates are low and the longer the developers sit with the product the more negotiable they will become. However with COVID-19 still very much on everyone’s mind, an economy that is doing poorly, many jobs not coming back and rising delinquencies, people are fearful. Many prefer to wait and see. The amount of delinquent or understated assets is understated because of all the stimulus packages and deferred loans. There has to be a trickle-down effect. Banks are preparing for a much worse scenario.'"

"'I believe that because of all this we have not reached the bottom,' Reed says. 'Though you can make great deals now, there is no downside to waiting and reevaluating in six months. It is not likely that interest rates will go up anytime soon so there really isn’t any downside to waiting.'"

The Wall Street Journal. "Paul Fireman has sold his home in an affluent suburb of Boston for $23 million. It is one of the priciest sales for the area, though it also sold for a small fraction of its initial asking price. The Brookline, Mass., property originally came on the market for $90 million in 2016."

The Los Angeles Times in California. "Musician Brent Kutzle wasn’t quite able to record a hit in Topanga. The OneRepublic bassist and cellist just sold his scenic mountain retreat for $1.865 million, or $235,000 shy of what he paid for the place last spring, records show."

The Nob Hill Gazette in California. "To get to the bottom of this crazy market, we convened a virtual event with seven of the region’s most respected real estate professionals. DJ Grubb: I’ve been poaching a lot of San Francisco brokers who are now jumping the bridge because they’re finding that their consumer wants to come over to the Oakland/Piedmont/Berkeley communities. We are selling luxury real estate over here for under $1,000 a foot. My real estate is not expensive compared to other luxury markets in the Bay Area, especially in Piedmont, on the high end. It’s the family formation. I think they’ve been pent up in San Francisco, in their condominium and/or flat. And they’re saying, 'Let’s get out.'"

"Gregg Lynn: We focus on the second-home market South of Market, and Russian Hill, Pacific Heights, condominium and co-op. Between 2018 and 2019, about a 12-month period, that’s when the media noticed the homelessness issue in San Francisco. That’s when the big stories came out in The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. And that’s when there was a big acknowledgment that 'Hey, there’s a big problem here.' We lost about 80 percent of our buyers from the Peninsula, Marin and the East Bay that were looking for second homes here. And they haven’t come back yet. So, yes — COVID has been a horrible situation to deal with. But a lot of our second-home buyers, which are the strength of our apartment, co-op and condominium market, disappeared along time ago."

From Socket Site in California. "Having slipped to just under $3,600 a month two weeks ago, the weighted average asking rent for an apartment in San Francisco has since ticked down another percent to $3,550. The average asking rent for an apartment in the city, which measures 2.4 bedrooms when counting a studio as having one, is now down over 20 percent ($900) from a 2015-era peak of around $4,450 per month, 18 percent ($800) cheaper than at the same time last year and 13 percent ($550) cheaper than just six months ago, with the average asking rent for a one-bedroom in the city having just dropped to around $3,000 a month (which is down from $3,700 at peak)."

"And having spiked last month, as we first reported at the time, the number of apartments being advertised for rent in San Francisco, including both one-off rentals as well as units in larger developments, is now over 150 percent higher than at the same time last year. At the same time, offers of complimentary rent and cash concessions still haven’t waned, driving effective rents down even more."

From Yahoo Finance. "Almost a quarter of hotels were delinquent on their mortgage payments in July, the highest rate on record, according to a new report. Some 23.4% of commercial mortgage-backed security (CMBS) loans, which finance many hotels, were more than 30 days late in July, totaling $20.6 billion. Only 1.34% of hotel CMBS loans were in default in July 2019, according to Trepp."

"'If hotels don't get more help, we will start to see a lot more defaults,' said Brian Mahany, a Texas-based attorney specializing in CMBS loans. 'Hospitality won’t get back to where it was for a couple of years, so unless there is some relief, a lot will go under.'"

"The hotel industry has been hard-hit during the coronavirus pandemic, losing over $46 billion in revenue per room since mid-February. The industry has been hit harder than the retail industry, where only 16.1% of CMBS loans were more than 30 days late in July. Hilton’s revenue per room dropped 81% in the second quarter, Marriott’s dropped 84% and Hyatt dropped 89%."

"Previously, hotels’ highest delinquency rate was during the Great Recession at about half the rate seen this year, with only $13.5 billion in delinquent loans, according to Trepp. 'The industry is in a lot of trouble. When you look at the delinquency numbers, it’s the highest to date in history, outpacing 2008,' said Michael Buono, principal and CEO of New York Renaissance Group and Mulberry Development, which owns well known hotels in New York City such as the NoMad Hotel. 'And it’s just the beginning.'"

"The largest chunk of delinquencies come from the New York City metro area, with a 38.72% delinquency rate for a total of $1.475 billion in late loans. The Chicago metro area was the next hardest hit, with 53.84% delinquency and a balance of $976.3 million. Houston and Los Angeles also each owed more than $500 million in delinquent loans, according to Trepp."

"New York is 'a city dependent on a huge influx of travel, which you don’t see now,' said Buono. Plus, 'it’s incredibly expensive to own in New York. So we come up with all these creative ways to make these deals work through long-term land leases and buying air rights. Now, hotels are suddenly not allowed to have people in this incredibly valuable space.'"

"These CMBS loans are particularly tricky when they go into default because most are packaged with hundreds of other loans and underwritten into a trust, said Mahany. 'If you’re in default on a CMBS loan, hotel owners are starting to realize, there is no one you can deal with. There is no office, no employees — the business exists on paper only,' said Mahany. 'The decision maker is a special servicer who has an incentive to keep you under water for the longest possible' because they only get paid for their administrative, decision-making services when a loan is in default, he said."