A report from the Globe and Mail in Canada. "In downtown Vancouver, the condo market has softened considerably, with prices coming down as more units come onto the market. Vancouver realtor Ian Watt is seeing many of those downtown condo owners unloading their investments. The people who were highly leveraged and believing that the market would only go up are getting hit the hardest, he says. 'With prices going down, many of these people are losing what little equity they had, and are drowning. Those who live within their means will be more than fine, but those who aren’t, are dumping their debt.'"

"Mr. Watt says the wave of listings has swamped some sellers. One of his Olympic Village listings had an asking price of $699,000. It sold for $660,000, after two months on the market. It completes Sept. 24. Mr. Watt says the seller had to drop the price after several other units in the same building came onto the market. 'It destroyed our momentum.'"

"Realtor Patricia Houlihan has felt the loss of Airbnb income personally. She says she lost $21,000 of short-term revenue on one property over the summer, but she had the savings to cover the loss. Others aren’t as fortunate. 'I did what other people did, and converted it to long-term rental. But what’s happened is it’s harder to rent out long term because there are all types of [former] Airbnb [units] to compete with now. They used to say that all the Airbnb was taking away rental stock, and it was true. But now all of those who’ve converted to long term are pushing rents down.'"

The Oman Daily Observer. "An on-going exodus of expatriate professionals, long the mainstay of Muscat’s once-thriving residential rental market, is expected to see landlords doling out incentives to attract and retain tenants amid a glut in capacity. 'At a very high level, there has been an average drop of 30 – 40 per cent in achievable rental values for apartments from 2014 to 2019,' said Matthew Wright, a key expert at Savills Oman."

"But also compounding the situation for the residential rental market is the on-going increase in the supply of apartments. For example, around 1,000 new apartments have been completed in the Boulevard area of Muscat Hills over the past two years. While many of these are investment properties, they are likely to be eventually introduced into the rental market, thereby having an impact on achievable rental values."

From India Today. "Aslam, 48, a Noida based property agent who mostly deals in the resale housing market, has not been able to clinch a single deal since March. He cracked at least five to six deals in the previous years, in the same period. 'Housing market is almost finished, even in the resale market, where flat-owners are not able to bear with home loan EMIs and are desperately looking to sell their home with more than 25 per cent discount, still not getting buyers. Uncertainty in jobs is the main reason for the slowdown,' Aslam told India Today."

"Average home prices have fallen by up to 35 per cent from 2019 levels in NCR. In Gurgaon, one of the biggest real estate markets of NCR, sellers have so far held back, and only a few distress deals have been executed. Experts say the housing market in this satellite city of Delhi is virtually dependent on the distress sellers. 'The current pandemic is an unprecedented Black Swan event that is expected to contract growth in the global economy, including that of India. As anticipated, demand was adversely impacted due to economic uncertainty combined with growing unemployment; in fact, our recent Housing-NAREDCO buyer survey indicated buyers had pushed back their purchasing decision up to a year,' said Mani Rangarajan, Group COO, Housing.com."

The South China Morning Post. "China's biggest developers are likely to step up price discounting this year to clear a growing pile of unsold homes, with authorities sounding another alarm in their deleveraging campaign to pre-empt any financial shock to the economy. Completed but unsold homes amounted to 480 million square metres (5.16 billion square feet) across 100 mainland cities at the end of July, according to data compiled by E-house China Research and Development Institute. That's a 7 per cent increase from a year earlier, and the highest level of inventory since November 2019."

"'Developers will offer more discount campaigns to ease inventory pressure and shore up their cash levels as fast as possible,' said Yan Yuejin, director of the Shanghai-based institute. 'Home developers are in a fierce competition to lure buyers in the second half.'"

"Chinese companies are facing increasing refinancing pressure as the deadly coronavirus outbreak ravaged the economy, Fitch Ratings said in a report in February, with smaller property developers the most at risk of failure."

From Domain News in Australia. "The state government’s September 6 announcement that even one-on-one inspections were banned until at least October 26 stunned the real estate industry. This time last year there were 672 reported auctions in Melbourne, according to Domain data. Last weekend there were none. Leah Calnan, Real Estate Institute of Victoria president, says her inbox is jammed with pleas for help. There are landlords receiving no rent and elderly people needing to finance a retirement move."

"Those who bought intending to sell before settlement are in dire straits; Calnan knows of a lost deposit because the buyer could not settle. 'It’s extremely heartbreaking,' Calnan says."

"'Most investors are mum-and-dad investors, not tycoons,' says REIP chief executive Sadhana Smiles. 'We will have people with settlements coming up and they cannot move and will need bridging finance, but the banks – will they come to the party?'"

"Landlords, too, are under pressure, as Dennis (who does not wish to give his full name for privacy reasons) knows. His North Melbourne investment apartment tenants struggled financially so he dropped their rent from $510 a week to $400, then $350, while topping it up to pay his mortgage. 'I am not a fat cat, I’m not sitting in a deckchair by a pool drinking pina coladas because I don’t have to work or pay the mortgage,' he says. 'It’s been a struggle.' Now, his tenants are leaving."

"Dennis’ apartment, which has been listed for six weeks with Harcourts, cannot be viewed, even with key pick-up. 'I am sort of in a sticky situation,' he says. 'I’m going to have to contact the bank and something is going to have to give.'"

"Calnan says agents are under strain too, expecting some to be 'absolutely in financial trouble in the coming months. I think there will be businesses that don’t reopen.' Ancillary businesses – photographers, conveyancers, stylists, floor plan writers – are also taking a hit."