A report from Everything Lubbock in Texas. "Real estate professionals said they have seen a shortage of homes in the Lubbock area. 'Sellers will have multiple offers, so it creates a bit of panic for those who are wanting to move up and put their homes on the market,' said Smith Teresa Smith, president of the Lubbock Realtors Association. 'They’re afraid they won’t find something and have a place to go.'"

The Express News in Texas. "Four San Antonio partnerships sought refuge in bankruptcy two years ago to stop foreclosure actions on their apartment complexes. The partnerships, Terravista Corp. affiliates, weren’t able to hang on to the properties through the bankruptcy process. They ended up selling them to a Los Angeles nonprofit for what Terravista says was a 'fire sale' price — almost $42 million combined in a deal the court approved last year."

"Now, Terravista and the partnerships are accusing a New York finance company of fraud over its alleged failure to secure a Housing and Urban Development loan that the partnerships were counting on in a refinancing so they could retain ownership. Dwight Capital’s actions were part of a 'loan to own' scheme to cause the partnerships to default on their loans and allow Dwight to wrest control of the apartment complexes in foreclosure 'at a steep discount,' Terravista alleges in recently filed lawsuit."

"Losses to Terravista’s business due to the acts of Dwight and others may exceed $50 million, the suit says. That’s largely the future earnings of the apartments had they not been sold, said Kyle Watson, a San Antonio attorney representing Terravista in the litigation."

The Real Deal on New York. "The coronavirus could soon claim another victim in Thor Equities’ real estate portfolio. East West Bank filed a lawsuit in New York State Supreme Court to foreclose on Thor’s mixed-use property at 17 West 125th Street in Harlem. The lender claims that Thor is delinquent on three loans totaling about $20 million."

"In 2015, California-based East West Bank provided three loans to Thor for the property: a $13.5 million acquisition loan, a $3.82 million building loan and a $5.6 million project loan. The developer subsequently renovated the properties. In 2019, Thor allegedly missed two loan payments and reached an agreement with the bank to extend the loan into 2021, according to the complaint. Thor then reached a payment deferral and repayment agreement in April 2020 after the pandemic began. But the complaint alleges that Thor missed its loan payments in November and December, triggering new defaults."

"'Overall, our global portfolio has performed well for the past year but, unfortunately, the difficulty some tenants are having paying their rent in this challenging environment, have thrust us into this situation,' Katie Smith, Thor’s director of marketing and communications, said in a statement to The Real Deal."

From Bisnow New York. "New York City's prime retail properties suffered another brutal three months at the start of the year. Direct ground-floor availabilities in the major Manhattan retail corridors reached a new high, hitting 275, according to CBRE data. That figure marks a 21.7% jump year-over-year, with Upper Madison Avenue the worst-hit area. The once-glorious retail stretch saw seven new spaces added, an 11% jump on the year before, meaning there are now 53 spots available there."

"Overall, the average asking rent dropped for the 14th quarter in a row to hit $618 per SF, marking a more than 13% fall from last year and the lowest in a decade. For the available spaces, the average asking rent is down 20% year-over-year, now at $533 per SF."

"SoHo’s Prince Street rents fell 40% from the first quarter of last year to hit $414 per SF, the worst drop across the borough. Meanwhile, Washington Street in Meatpacking experienced a 28% decline in average rents, with asking prices now at $413 per SF. Times Square, with Broadway closed and tourists still absent from the city, had a more than 21% drop in rents, with the average now sitting at $1,293 per SF, its lowest level since 2010."

"The four-quarter aggregate leasing velocity hit 1.5M SF, the lowest rate since 2014. Overall, leasing volume for Q1 was down a whopping 58% from the same period in 2020."

The Los Angeles Business Journal in California. "Los Angeles offices can reopen as the county loosens restrictions during the coronavirus crisis. But that doesn’t mean they will. Direct vacancies and sublease availabilities for office space across the metro hit all-time highs in the first quarter, according to Kidder Mathews’ first-quarter Los Angeles Office Market Report. Direct vacancies in the first quarter reached 12.6%, and sublease availabilities reached 2.6%, according to the West Coast commercial real estate firm."

"With subleases on the rise, many landlords are starting to offer discounts and concession to attract tenants. Asking rates for new sublet space on the market are averaging 25 cents less per square foot than direct space. Leasing activity plummeted more than 43% year over year, with just over 2.6 million square feet leased in the first quarter."

From Realtor.com on California. "After listing their glamorous Beverly Hills, CA, home for $23.95 million last August, the musician John Legend and his wife, the social media star Chrissy Teigen, have chopped the asking price by a hefty $6 million. Since first putting their home up for sale last summer, the A-listers have slowly whittled away at the price tag. After a couple of months on the market, the price dropped to $23 million, eventually hitting $22 million in the new year. The ultrastylish home of the celeb couple recently bounced back onto the market for $17.95 million."

From Storeys in Canada. "Hamilton’s condo market has already recorded nearly triple the number of condo sales compared to the same time last year, according to a new report from Strata. Though, despite the surging activity, prices appear to be cooling off amid the pandemic’s third wave. Despite the rising sales numbers, overall condo prices appear to be coming down in Hamilton, as the price-per-square-foot is currently sitting at $501, down from February’s record-high of $535, according to Strata."

"Robert Van Rhijn, Broker of Record at Strata.ca, believes a rise in condo inventory could be the reason why overall prices appear to be coming down in Hamilton. 'Although appreciation values are up 5% over the past year, we’re noticing what appears to be a levelling-off since a pricing surge that kicked off in December. A lot of this is likely due to a rise in inventory, forcing sellers to bring down their asking price so they can stay competitive,' says Van Rhijn."

From Bloomberg on the UK. "London new-home sales fell to their lowest level in almost nine years in the first quarter, led by a lack of interest from landlords and a dearth of buyers for central properties. Sales of the homes tumbled 39% to 3,703 compared with the same period last year, according to data compiled by Molior London and seen by Bloomberg News. The researcher calculates the numbers based on transactions at projects with at least 20 units."

"Landlords were deterred from buying purpose-built units as rents fall. Overseas buyers acquired 210 new homes in the quarter in projects with at least 12 units, less than half the amount in the same period last year, Molior’s data show. 'The projects that have sold more than a steady trickle of units overseas over the last three months are often accompanied by rumours of widening discounts,' according to a draft report by the researcher."

From Dutch News. "The cost of renting housing outside the social housing sector fell across the five big cities in the Netherlands in the first quarter of this year, according to rental housing platform Pararius. Rents fell in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague and Eindhoven in the previous quarter but have also gone down slightly in Utrecht over the first three months of this year, Pararius director Jasper de Groot said. The drop was biggest in Amsterdam, where new tenants will pay an average of €1,300 a month for a 60 square metre property – down 7.4% year on year. The reduction is the biggest since Pararius started keeping records and marks a return to 2015 levels, De Groot said."

"Tom Booij of real estate agents Booij Makelaardij, who rents out furnished property in the city centre, said that demand from international clients had gone down since the coronavirus crisis hit. ‘And if rental properties are empty because it is harder to rent them, it is only logical that rents will go down,’ he said."

"In Rotterdam, the average price fell by 7.8% to €912 for a 60 square metre home. Rental prices also fell in Alkmaar, Amstelveen, Haarlem, Hilversum, Leiden and Roermond."

From Euro Weekly News on Spain. "The coronavirus pandemic has transformed the way most home owners rent their houses in Spain. With tenants out of a job, many property owners were forced to drop their rent or pause payments altogether, while still more people that are used to receiving hefty rents for their apartments in the summer months have been forced to switch to long-term rentals. Another favour is that since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, the supply of apartments on the market has skyrocketed."

"This abundance of properties means that the prices, which actually rose by an average of 10 per cent throughout Spain in the month before the pandemic hit, have suddenly started to plummet. In fact, as of March this year, the average rental value in Malaga on Spain’s Costa del Sol was €9.40 per square meter, some 5.3 per cent less than the same month the previous year."

"According to Idealista, for example, Barcelona has dropped 14.3 per cent from last year and in Madrid, rental prices have fallen by 10.7 per cent compared with March last year. Likewise, Sevilla has fallen 6.1 per cent and Valencia has dropped by 6.3 per cent. 'The upward trend that had been taking place stopped short,' explained director of the Southern area of ​​Idealista, Carlos Rueda, emphasizing that, in Malaga 'vacation rentals and all those homes have completely disappeared. They have switched to long term rental.'"

From Banking Day. "The story of fast-declining Australian urban residential rents is going to spell the end for thousands and thousands of small time developers. Big names, totems of property are going to tank. In our second story today Banking Day reports on the 10 per cent plus plunge in Melbourne rents and the pandemonium in the rental market. But the big story for banking is the fall over of developers of units, town-houses, medium density and high density towers and fortresses."

"In modern finance, the breakdown in bank credit quality almost always centres on commercial property developers. Some crooked players in property development are in cahoots with organised crime and allowing for their ‘see no evil’ allies in the banking system, it seems fair to say that organised crime is the biggest and one of the most successful businesses around."

"And the entire banking system is overexposed to property development. In its March 2021 Financial Stability Review, the Reserve Bank of Australia tells the same story in muted tones. In Melbourne the vacancy rate is 6 per cent and in Sydney the vacancy rate is 5 per cent, both climbing fast. 'Rental conditions have also been weak,' the RBA wrote, 'particularly in Melbourne and in the inner and middle suburbs of Sydney where vacancy rates have increased sharply and rents for units have fallen."

"Digressing from the Banking Day version, the RBA said near-term risks of oversupply – and therefore sharp price declines – 'are mitigated by the considerably smaller volume of higher-density inner city apartments due for completion in 2021 relative to previous years.' A trend reversing for the worst."

From Vietnam Express. "The ratio of luxury apartments in HCMC rose from 7 percent last year to 39 percent in the first quarter of this year. The high-end segment accounted for another 20 percent, real estate consultancy CBRE Vietnam said in a note. The mid-priced segment, which used to account for 55-60 percent of supply in the past, accounted for the remaining 41 percent."

"CBRE classifies apartments priced at over $4,000 per square meter as luxury, at $2,000-4,000 as high-end and at $1,000-2,000 as mid-priced. Those below $1,000 are categorized as affordable. Speaking to VnExpress, Nguyen Loc Hanh, CEO of Asia Gem Real Estate Investment JSC, said the rapid expansion in luxury apartment supply is unsustainable and the disappearance of affordable units from the market is worrisome because they are the main market driver."

"Le Hoang Chau, chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City Real Estate Association, said over 60 percent of high-end apartments are bought by speculators, and sounded a similar warning that it is threatening the sustainable development of the housing market."