It's Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. "Stella Guan's offer on a 'beautiful' Santa Clarita house was accepted in August. She paid roughly $600,000 for the house. But after sleeping there for only a few nights, she had an unfortunate realization. 'I was like 'uh oh, I hate this house,' she recalls. 'I hate this house so much. I should have seen all of the warning signs, but the pandemic housing fever got the better of me.'"

"Ms. Guan had a good experience with her first home purchase, a New Jersey condo, and with interest rates low, she was eager to jump into the California market. 'I thought it's going to be the same as New Jersey. I'll enjoy the ownership and make money in a few years.' She sold the house a few months after buying it. After the repairs, agents' fees and transaction costs, she says, 'I lost a lot of money. It still hurts,' she says, but 'it's just good to have my money back and move on to other things. And never see the house again.'"

"'Once everything is lifted July 1, it’s full-on rollercoaster in,' says Priscilla Abugaber-Mercado, a senior case manager for San Diego Evictions. Relief is something she says landlords need desperately. She says the firm gets calls every day from landlords who need to move back into their own rental properties but can't. 'We have tons of owners who are losing their properties because they don’t have rental income,' says Abugaber-Mercado."

"New York City's apartment market went through a nearly unthinkable 2020, as residents left en masse, vacancies skyrocketed in a matter of weeks and rents collapsed as a result. In January, Manhattan net effective rents fell 19% year-over-year, the second-worst month on record, behind November's 21.7% decline, according to Miller Samuel Real Estate Appraiser & Consultants. Any landlord offering a rent drop of over 15% average is simply trying to buy time, Joy Construction Corp. principal Eli Weiss said."

"Kenneth Morrison, president of Lemor Realty Corp., said he usually fills his apartments before they become vacant. In September, tenants paying $3,200 per month for a two-bedroom, two-bathroom in Harlem moved out, and it took him until this month to find new tenants to fill the space, he said. To get the deal done, he brought the rent down to $2,700 per month and paid the broker’s fee. 'This has never happened before,' he said."

"In Toronto, lots of movement is happening in the stretches of downtown. At the same time, landlords who own duplexes and triplexes in such neighbourhoods are having trouble finding tenants during the pandemic. Changes to the city’s short-term rental rules also mean that landlords cannot easily earn income from Airbnb and other platforms. 'I am noticing an uptick in investor selling,' says Cameron Miller, a real estate agent in Toronto. 'A lot of people are throwing in the towel.'"

"In the 416 area code, the average price of a condo apartment fell 8 per cent last month compared with January, 2020, according to TRREB. In March of last year, Mr. Miller evaluated a condo unit with two bedrooms and two bathrooms in 1,000 square feet of living space for a couple who were thinking of selling. At that time, he estimated the unit would sell for $730,000. The owners held off until last month. The property stayed on the market for just under 30 days before selling $650,000."

"The pair are snowbirds who typically spend their winters down south and are willing to rent during the months they are in Toronto, he says. They were disappointed to leave money on the table but wanted the certainty of selling now in case the market softens further. 'They cashed out,' he says. 'They want to live a rental lifestyle.'"

"The sharp fall in demand due to the pandemic, has lead some landlords to slash prices to appeal to tenants. Across central London, reductions of more than 25 per cent have become commonplace, according to homes listed for rent on Zoopla and Rightmove. Areas that have faced the biggest fall in rents are those in the priciest neighbourhoods in central London. The postcode where the rent had fallen furthest year on year was EC3 (Aldgate), with prices down by an average of 26 per cent. Rents in SW1 (Westminster/Belgravia/Pimlico) were down 23 per cent and, prices in EC2 (Bishopsgate/Cheapside) fell 21 per cent."

"The fall in rent prices is no longer a big-city phenomenon in Spain. For the first time in years, the average cost of rent in the country is either on a downward trend or stagnating. 'In the average regional capital, the discrepancy between [the cheapest and most expensive] rents may be 30%, but in Barcelona or Madrid there is a 200% difference between the most expensive and the cheapest areas,' says Gonzalo Bernardos, director of the Real Estate Masters course at the University of Barcelona. In other words, the cost of rent in Madrid and Barcelona has further to fall because they the cities 'have the largest surplus of rental properties since the advent of democracy.'"

"Prices have declined by 16 percent in a year on an average Dubai flat (and four percent in the last three months of 2020 alone). It really is a renter’s market right now, and not just in Dubai. Down in Abu Dhabi there has been a 15 percent yearly fall in apartment prices and a six percent drop from one quarter to the next. If you’ve ever dreamt of living the island life then this is the perfect opportunity as rents tumbled 18.5 percent on Al Reem during 2020, and 8.3 percent from November to December alone."

"Auctioneers are struggling to find buyers for property worth billions of shillings repossessed from owners that have defaulted on loans. One of the country’s leading auctioneers is looking at a portfolio of more than Sh10.6 billion in residential property, as well as acres of land, some which have failed to find buyers for more than a year, even as more assets are expected to be repossessed by lenders in the coming months."

"An auctioneer who spoke to The Standard said much of the properties listed for auction in the daily newspapers in recent weeks were carried over from last year. 'Not much has changed in terms of properties up for auction this year and some of the properties you see advertised in the papers are those that did not get buyers last year,' said the auctioneer."

"For home-seekers and investors, is the auction market now offering value-worthy picks? A check with auction houses show that indeed, prices on the foreclosure market have slumped to as much as 30% to 40% below market value. 'These are the fire sales happening in the south,' KGV International Property Consultants executive director Samuel Tan tells EdgeProp. 'Conventionally in Malaysia, the reserve prices will be reduced by 10% each time it is re-auctioned. In a sense these are considered fire-sales, especially if they have gone through five rounds of reduction.'"

"The Philippine property sector is not out of the woods yet as sluggish economic and business conditions continue to jack up office, residential, retail and hotel vacancies, property consulting firm Colliers International Philippines said. Residential vacancy rate in Metro Manila hit an all-time high of 15.6 percent in 2020 and will likely worsen further to 16.9 percent, especially in business districts with substantial stock such as the Bay Area and Bonifacio Global City, Joe Roi Bondoc, associate director at Colliers Philippines, said."

"January’s chill appears to have permeated the month’s condominium property market. Sen Sok offers the lowest median sale price for condominium units in Phnom Penh as of January 2021. Sen Sok condominiums saw a downward trend of 20% resulting in a median sale price of $95,000. Developers have been moving their focus away from foreign buyers and instead have turned their attention towards the local market. Sen Sok’s condominium market reflects this shift as a flurry of new developments are mostly offering projects with adjusted payment plans and an overall more attractive asking price for local buyers."

"New Zealand has generations of people who believe that property prices increase constantly and those who have borrowed too much could – in a worst-case scenario – be caught in a horror scenario of negative equity and ongoing debt. 'I am very worried about all those people from generations who have jumped into the housing market, some of them at any cost,' says Tony Coleman, managing director of NZ Gold Merchants. 'The government and the Reserve Bank tell us they can fix the runaway housing prices issue – but they can't.'"

"Coleman, a close follower of New Zealand's economic trends, believes our falsely inflated house prices will have a hard landing eventually – though he predicts a 'squeeze, not a whack.' 'I think some people have gone 'all in' to own a house and will be trapped; they will be unable to sell, their standard of living will drop tremendously as their obligation to pay the bank back will become a priority. Some could lose the house and negative equity [where more is owed than the house value] could apply – so they will still be paying off a debt because of the type of contracts we use here in New Zealand.'"

"The banks' use of low interest rates to 'smooth out' the boom/bust syndrome of the business cycle has fuelled the investment in housing, pushing up prices and increasing the risk, he says. The government's recent guarantee to the banks on new mortgage lending, and allowing big banks to offer a mortgage holiday to those most affected by Covid-19, has eased some of the burden. 'But I do not believe this game of musical chairs can continue for much longer,' says Coleman. 'When the music stops, many of us will be left standing without a chair to sit on.'"