A report from the Philadelphia Inquirer in Pennsylvania. "The deal was simple: Property mogul Chris Rahn got to buy a bundle of 22 vacant, publicly owned lots on the cheap. In exchange, records show he was expected to build homes for the financially needy on eight of them. Five years on, most of those 22 lots — including one of the parcels where he’d agreed to build affordable housing — have been developed into apartments pulling in big rent checks. The other properties where Rahn was to build affordable homes, however, remain empty, weed-filled eyesores. That’s because the officials who arranged the sale let him shirk his end of the bargain."

"Rahn and his wife, Christine Pasieka are facing a fusillade of lawsuits, seven at last count."

From Home Town Station on California. "Buying a run down distressed property in Los Angeles, fixing it up and then selling it for a tidy profit is more popular than ever. There are even specialized agents operating in this domain called REO agents. REO stands for 'real estate owned' and is a property owned by a bank or other financial lender that was in default, financial distress or disrepair."

"Lenders generally don’t like to hold onto properties like this because real estate is not really their area of expertise. Loaning make believe digital money is. So this would be the first place to look if you were trying to find someone who was trying to offload a property at a discount."

The Los Angeles Times in California. "Weary after months of sleeping on other peoples’ couches, Martha Escudero walked through the broken door of an empty home in El Sereno and started bringing it back to life.Her homesteading, part of an organized effort by tenant activists in March, was illegal, but it worked. The L.A. Housing Authority this fall granted occupancy rights to the family of Escudero and others who had seized numerous homes that the state acquired as part of now-abandoned plans to extend the 710 Freeway."

"Aided by activists armed with bolt cutters and drills, some have descended again and again on vacant homes in El Sereno. These days an uneasy calm hangs over the community. Some residents have confronted the activists and hung signs outside their homes saying, 'Squatting is not the answer.'"

"'The first time around it was very shocking,' said Marie Salas, who lives across the street from the house Escudero occupied. 'But the audacity, the carelessness, the I-don’t-care attitude about the neighborhood to say, ‘We’re going to break in again?’ It’s just disgraceful.'"

"Neighbors in the community of well-maintained properties in the $675,000 range express mixed feelings about the escalating tension. Some support the effort to sell or rent the homes to needy families, but strongly oppose the methods of the families and their activist allies. After hanging a banner protesting the home seizures on her fence, Salas said she has had rocks and empty beer cans thrown in her frontyard. Another neighbor, Aaron Mauricio, said drill-wielding activists shoved him while he was trying to stop them from getting inside a vacant home on his street."

"'There’s families here. There’s kids here. They were breaking the law and they had no right to do what they were doing,' said Mauricio, 48, a middle-school teacher."

From Counterpunch. "In response to the state of Oregon’s latest extension of the partial ban on evictions, the landlord lobby here is suing for 100% of back rent. So to put this analysis of a lawsuit momentarily in Marxian economics speak that I learned during my one year of college, the landlord lobby believes in socializing their expenses, sharing this burden among those least able to do so, while maintaining laws and social norms in such a way that they may privatize all of their profits."

The Palm Beach Post in Florida. "The dramatic and deadly rise in coronavirus cases has led to a surge in homelessness, said Pamela Payne, chief executive officer of the Homeless Coalition of Palm Beach County. 'It's a catch-22,' Payne said. 'Working can lead to the spread of the virus. But unemployment is a big culprit in homelessness. If you don't have work, you don't have a home.'"

The Sydney Morning Herald in Australia. "Four years ago Daniel Grollo was feeling invincible. His Melbourne-based construction and development company Grocon had been named preferred bidder by Infrastructure NSW for Sydney’s sprawling Central Barangaroo development precinct, a deal the company expected to soothe the financial stress the storied builder had been suffering for about two years."

"But a senior adviser to the group came to Grocon’s Melbourne office with a warning about speculation in property circles that could destroy his plans to turn the company around. 'Don’t worry about it, he’s a friend,' Grollo blithely replied with the confidence that several sources, who have known the man for years, say is one of the marks of his character. The adviser shot back: 'I hate to disappoint you, but Packer has no mates.'"

"Grollo would in late November and in the midst of this legal fight place large parts of Grocon into administration, firmly blaming Infrastructure NSW for the company's financial woes."

The Wall Street Journal. "A Chinese asset market that barely existed three decades ago is now one of the world’s largest and most important centres of leverage and economic activity. The country’s property sector has developed at a breakneck pace, construction and asset prices have surged, and the country’s top real-estate developers have become some of the largest firms in the world."

"The real-estate industry now accounts for about 7% of Chinese GDP, having climbed steadily upward from around 4% or below at the time of the big bang privatizations of the 1990s, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. China’s large banks, once primarily financiers of industry, are increasingly devoted to the mortgage industry. Real estate-related lending now makes up 37.5% of Industrial & Commercial Bank of China’s book, from below 30% as recently as 2014, and below 20% in 2004, according to S&P Capital IQ."

"Large developers such as China Evergrande, Country Garden Holdings and China Vanke have loaded up on debt to different degrees, but the sector is heavily leveraged across the board. Taking on debt allows the companies to bid aggressively in land auctions."

"Following the global financial crisis of 2008-09, Beijing’s stimulus sent credit surging, with much investment finding its way into residential real estate. During the following years, China’s 'ghost cities' became internationally famous: districts and sometimes entire towns in which residents had never arrived, leaving developers burdened with enormous inventory."

"And though developers have learned their lesson when it comes to building properties that won’t be purchased, the vacancy rate of urban Chinese housing—at over 20%, according to the China Household Finance Survey—still exceeds that of some vacation hot spots in southern Europe, where second homes are common."

"Dealing with overburdened real-estate developers is tough for the central government, but middle-class Chinese families who have borrowed large sums to invest in property are a far more sensitive issue. Chinese household debt sat below 20% of GDP until 2009, but has climbed aggressively since. Despite rapid economic growth, the metric stood at 59.1% as of June 2020."

"The International Monetary Fund forecast in 2019—before this year’s surge in household debt—that the climb would continue, reaching about 68% by 2024. Chinese households are now far more heavily leveraged than other East Asian economies at a similar stage of development, and debt is largely concentrated in real estate."

"Much recent lending and purchasing has been done by families who already own at least one property, with additional apartments regularly left empty. Some will be passed onto the next generation, but China’s awkward demographics mean the population will soon begin to shrink, worsening the equation. Repeated efforts by the central government to restrain the industry have floundered, with the incentives of households, developers and local bureaucrats all aligned to keeping the show on the road."

"As time goes on, the risks aren’t just of losses and defaults, but waste: Plowing large proportions of the country’s income into an asset market with no yield has consequences for prosperity and productivity."

From News.com.au. "China has barely been out of the news in the last few months. Headlines have been fuelled by the increasingly strident administration of President Xi Jinping cracking down on human rights, slapping tariffs on overseas goods and its diplomats undiplomatically throwing shade on any nation that doesn’t acquiesce to Beijing’s demands."

"By all accounts the powers that be in China are chuffed with themselves, feeling this more forceful approach is just the thing for battering nations into doing its bidding. You might call it a take no prisoners approach - except Beijing seems quite keen on taking as many prisoners as possible – including a number of Australians some of which have yet to be charged."

"But while the Chinese Government’s approach may win it friends within the Communist party hierarchy; aboard it’s losing friends faster than a septuagenarian going out for coffee while waiting for a COVID test result on Sydney’s northern beaches. The strategy may be one of Beijing’s biggest strategic miscalculations yet."

"After many years of China’s star rising, attitudes towards the nation are plummeting to new lows. And that’s making it harder for countries to be seen to capitulate to its demands. Nowhere is this starker than in Australia. 'Negative views of China increased most in Australia, where 81 per cent now say they see the country unfavourably, up 24 percentage points since last year,' stated a report from the US Pew Research Centre, a think tank."

"China has a word for its relatively recent and forceful style of international relations: 'wolf warrior' diplomacy. The term was coined from a Rambo-style Chinese action film, Wolf Warrior 2. The slogan of the movie was: 'Whoever offends China will be punished, no matter how far they are.'"

"It has seen China not only lash out at any criticism levelled it but also to deliberately provoke nations that have displeased it. Beijing’s dealings with Canberra – from refusing to take Australian minister's phone calls to leaving lobsters to die at airports while spurious customs checks take place – have hardly been polite. But perhaps the clearest example of the 'wolf warrior' strategy was a tweet from Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian which showed a doctored image of an Australian soldier holding a knife to the throat of a young child."

"Communist Party mouthpiece The Global Times has praised the wolf warrior approach, declaring it a push back against 'fake news.' 'This change in China’s diplomatic style has won a round of applause as many Chinese people want to see diplomats responding to Western accusations with not just humble explanations or inactive silence, but also the ability to resolutely to fight back against the stigmatisations and to bravely challenge Western hegemonic bullies.'"

"The West will adjust to China’s new assertive and confident diplomatic style one day when they genuinely accept peaceful coexistence with a powerful China, and admit that containment and confrontation against China is both meaningless and useless.' The hope is that bashing nations into submission will ultimately see Beijing emerge victorious in international disputes. It appears it may be a vain hope."