A report from the New York Post. "This historic Soho loft is in contract to sell for the low price of $4 million. The sprawling loft first went on the market for $10.95 million in 2013. The seller is artist Edwina Sandys, who was last asking $5.5 million for her quirky home. 'The loft is worth so much more. I think she just gave up. It’s tragic,' said a source familiar with the residence."

The Minneapolis Business Journal in Minnesota. "The market for million dollar homes in the Twin Cities is heating up, but a pair of luxury listings on Lake Minnetonka have dropped in list price by a total of more than $10 million since they hit the market in 2018. An 18,036-square-foot home on Halsted Bay at 3465 County Road 44 in Minnetrista first hit the market in April 2018 for $11.1 million. The price has dropped over time and was just reduced this month to $5.9 million, according to Realtor.com."

"On the other side of the lake, a 15,858-square-foot home once listed for $14.49 million in 2018 was reduced last week to $9.5 million, according to Realtor.com."

The San Francisco Examiner in California. "'I understand that coronavirus affects everybody,' said Jie Wang, a middle-aged landlord who owns three properties in the Bay Area, one of which is a family-owned restaurant which shuttered last year and remains closed. So the rental income is her only source of income. One of her tenants lost his job and was unable to pay rent. He began to feel guilty about it, 'and I really understood him,' Wang said. He told her that he was leaving to go back to his home country, Guatemala."

"But unfortunately for Wang, the tenant handed his key to his friend who began occupying the unit without paying rent and refusing to vacate. With the courts closed during the pandemic, Wang has been unable to reclaim her rental unit. She has lost 50 percent of her income at a time when she really needs it."

From Socket Site in California. "Despite some recent misreports in the media, apartment rents in San Francisco haven’t started to rebound, at least not yet. In fact, the weighted average asking rent for an apartment in the city is still holding at around $3,100 month, which is down 22 percent on a year-over-year basis and 30 percent below a 2015-era peak, with the average asking rent for a studio, which is down nearly 35 percent from peak, still under $1,900 a month and the average asking rent for a one-bedroom closing in on $2,600 a month and currently down over 28 percent from peak."

"And while the average vacancy rate for larger, institutional buildings has dropped, driven by aggressive discounting and incentives to sign a new lease, the overall number of units listed for rent in San Francisco, including units in larger buildings as well as one-off rentals, is still twice as high on a year-over-year basis and has actually inched up over the past two weeks in the absolute."

From Arlington Now in Virginia. "The year-long (and counting) pandemic has caused a large increase in the apartment vacancy rate in Arlington. Some of Arlington’s landlords have responded to high vacancy rates by lowering rents. But landlords also have another tactic to fill vacant apartments, by taking long-existing units off the market for long-term tenants and switching them to hotel units or short-term rentals. The County Board should scrutinize these requests and consider the benefits of abundant housing, even if it means large landlords must charge competitive prices. Renters should be the ones benefiting from the lower demand."

"Arlington’s vacancy rate is relatively high at 9.4% across the county. This is slightly above what is considered healthy for a rental market (7-8%), but it is still below the rate that would be worrisome. County-wide, landlords have responded by lowering nearly 15%. However, given that Arlington had a 4% vacancy rate before the pandemic, it is not surprising that landlords would look for other options to reduce the number of vacant units they carry."

From Tucson.com in Arizona. "Downtown Tucson’s newest apartment complex is commanding monthly rents of more than $4,000, spurring interest from other investors to build more units. As more students choose to live in the new towers right on campus, outlying student housing complexes have been seeing higher vacancy rates, Evan Hyde, a project manager for Cruachan, told members of the Rio Nuevo board. 'Student housing in downtown Tucson isn’t thriving as it was when it first went in,' he said."

"Hyde said they plan to cut some of the large, four- and five-bedroom units that rented per bedroom, and turn them into traditional apartments. With more than 20% vacancy at the Cadence, the building has become 'underutilized' and having year-round residents could help downtown’s recovery from the pandemic, he said."

The Globe and Mail in Canada. "When Stephanie Hunter and Braden Bonwick were searching for a house in the Niagara region, they were given a brief opportunity to view the properties and were advised to provide a cover letter and photo of themselves as they competed with dozens of buyers for homes that were selling for $100,000 over the asking price."

"'It felt like we were playing a game of chance,' Ms. Hunter said. 'You have 15 minutes to look at a place while a line of agents and their clients is forming outside the front door asking if you’re almost done. Then finding out the home you just had 15 minutes to look at had 65 viewings that day and all offers have to be in by 5 p.m. tomorrow.'"

"Welcome to the small city housing frenzy, where Toronto and Vancouver real estate tactics have become the norm. There are no home inspections and no conditional offers – and bids are routinely well over asking. The benchmark price of a detached house in Barrie reached $721,000 in February. That was almost $100,000 more than three months ago and about $200,000 more than a year ago, according to Canadian Real Estate Association data. Three years ago, the price of a detached house in the city was less than $500,000; five years ago, it was less than $400,000."

"In Prince Edward County, a popular vacation area for Torontonians and Quebeckers, a local realtor says prices have become disconnected from reality. Treat Hull, who has sold properties in the county for almost a decade, said his region is in a real estate bubble. 'I am really worried that we’re heading for a train wreck à la Toronto in 1990. I hope I am wrong,' he said."

The Toronto Sun in Canada. "Just in case anyone isn’t yet exhausted from the seemingly endless discussions around how the Toronto housing market is completely loco, yet another week has passed and the spring market is in full swing. And it’s still completely loco. Properties — the good, the bad, and the, quite literally, ugly — continue to trade in a frenzy, commanding multiple offers and fetching bank robber prices."

"Sellers appear to be delighted, buyers seem to be a mixed bag of resolute and furious, and the rest of us, well, the rest of us are wondering what to make of it all. The new million-dollar question is what happens next? I have yet to speak to anyone who believes this is sustainable. Is this a bubble or an affordability crisis? Beyond semantics, is there even a difference?"

"From what I can observe, we’re well past the point where people’s frustrations have begun to give way to anger and indignation, economists’ careful analysis has started to openly betray alarm, and politicians have started to float ways to intervene in order to cool things down. One need only look behind us to see how it usually goes when government steps in to slow down a real estate market."

"Short answer: Not well. Let’s go back to 1974 when, in an effort to cool down dramatically rising prices in a market driven by speculative investment, the Ontario Land Speculation Act was introduced by the provincial Conservatives. A standalone tax to accompany federal capital gains taxation, which added a 20% levy on profits from speculative investment. In theory, a good idea — reduced profits should mean reduced incentive for investors to compete with end users for real estate."

"As the story goes, the real estate market was brought to its knees almost overnight. Investors offloaded holdings and stopped all new acquisition. Liquidity in the marketplace was substantially reduced. Prices came down but so did demand. The owner-users that the government has purportedly stepped in to save now had houses they couldn’t move. Oops."

"The act was repealed 1978. In April 2017, facing an affordability crisis similar to today’s, Ontario Liberals implemented a foreign buyer tax in an attempt to cool things down. A 15% tax on all real estate held by non-resident foreign nationals, the idea being that it would disincentivize foreign buyers, thereby reducing competition and bringing down prices."

"The legislation had an almost immediate calming effect. By that June sales were down 37.3% from the year before. And what we eventually came to understand was that while we had largely overestimated the extent to which foreign buyers were actually driving the market, we had vastly underestimated the impact such an intervention would have on buyer psychology in the marketplace. People were spooked."

"The market cooled. Home values fell. The market hadn’t just moderated — the bubble had burst. And it was the Liberals holding the pin."

"It’s entirely another when policy is implemented with a sledgehammer, resulting in largely unintended effects while missing the mark on the intended objectives. In a country where it is estimated 60 to 65% of the average household’s net worth today is tied up in real estate, such a thought is terrifying. Hearing that the Feds are studying the idea of imposing a capital gains tax on primary residences is chilling. How can that even be a conversation right now?"

"The Toronto real estate market is out of control. Low interest rates, intense demand, steep competition, and stimulus money flowing through our tenuous pandemic economy — it’s a perfect storm. So rather than throw around ideas for heavy-handed interventions that could easily blow things up entirely, let’s hope our politicians lean into careful moderation."