A report from BC Business in Canada. "Senior economist with the division of real estate marketing firm Rennie, Ryan Berlin is one of four analysts tasked with offering a thoughtful take on the Metro Vancouver housing market. Q: Where do you think Vancouver housing prices are going after the pandemic, and why? A: Based on the current trajectory, a billion dollars for a single detached house may not be out of the question."

From Realtor.com. "With home prices at a new record high and homes flying off the market in hours in some cases, it’s no wonder that Google searches for 'when is the housing market going to crash' have spiked dramatically in recent weeks. After all, the mania seems reminiscent of the run-up to the housing bubble in the mid-2000s—and we’ve all been told that what goes up must eventually come down."

"The loss of a home 'would create some personal hardship,' says Realtor.com Chief Economist Danielle Hale. 'But they’ll probably be able to walk away and be in OK financial shape.'"

From CBS Denver in Colorado. "Denver and the parts of the country haven’t seen a housing bidding war like this in quite some time. 'I had seller in Castle Rock where my seller had an offer, sight unseen, before we even went on the market,' Marybeth Brush explained."

"In some neighborhoods, the listing prices almost look random, if not weird. Yet, they could all still go fast. Brush tells us that may be, because of multiple factors. 'It could be the one home across the street is not flipped, and another is already set to go,' she said. It’s not all about sellers, buyers may want to keep trying, even if it’s taking a while for bids to be accepted. 'I actually wouldn’t wait, what I would do is cash in on the low interest rate that we have right now,' Brush added."

From Up North Live in Michigan. "Are the houses selling 10-15 percent over the asking price structurally worth it? 'A house is worth whatever someone is willing to pay,' said Northern Michigan Real Estate Consultant Michael Tarnow."

"Tarnow has been an appraiser in northern Michigan for almost five decades. 'Appraisers are in a very difficult position in a market like this because we’re historians, we’re looking at what’s already taken place and while we make projections, sometimes you’re just not going to get to that sale price because it’s a leading sale,' Tarnow said."

"With such a competitive market, buyers are willing to pay more for a house, but when houses don't appraise for at least that amount it can cause problems for the homebuyer. 'Well, if it’s a homebuyer who has a modest down payment they could be stretched to the point where the sale just doesn’t work for them,' said Tarnow."

The New York Times. "A big shift toward working from home is endangering hundreds of locally owned Manhattan storefronts that have been hanging on for life to return to the desolate streets of midtown and the financial district. 'Right now, we’re suffering,' said Gili Vaturi, who operates Torino Jewellers on Lexington Avenue. She said her sales are still so weak that she is not covering all of her costs even with a much-reduced rent deal with her landlord."

"GFP, Vaturi’s landlord, has allowed more than half its storefront tenants to pay roughly 10% of their sales in rent so they can survive, said Eric Gural, a co-CEO at the company. The forgone rent is increasingly becoming a burden: The financial cushions that GFP keeps for unexpected costs at each of its 56 buildings have been 'materially depleted,' Gural said, meaning they might not be able to make up for rent shortfalls from other tenants."

"'We always say, ‘How is it going to rain 56 times?’ he said. 'And there it was, it happened. It rained 56 times.'"

"Some landlords took on lots of debt before the pandemic, thinking rents and building values would go up and up, and now some cannot offer rent deals for much longer — or at all. Breathing down their backs are banks and investors, whose patience may run out."

The Wall Street Journal. "The share of Black homeowners in forbearance stood at about 11% in mid-April, more than double the overall rate and that of white borrowers, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. The rate for Hispanic homeowners hovered around 8.4%. Eljon Williams’s mortgage was placed into forbearance last spring shortly after he was furloughed from his job as a substitute teacher in a Boston-area school district. Mr. Williams doesn’t yet know when he will be able to return."

"At the time, Mr. Williams agreed that at the end of the forbearance period, he would either bring the loan current, pay off the roughly $300,000 mortgage in full or work with the company to figure out a repayment plan. He said that earlier this year, his servicer, Dovenmuehle Mortgage Inc., told him the only option to make up the past-due amount of more than $40,000 was to increase his monthly payment to almost $3,400 from about $2,800."

"Homeowners who opted into forbearance and whose mortgages are federally backed are able to add the missed payments to the end of their loan terms. Servicers of loans that are held by private investors—such as Mr. Williams’s mortgage—aren’t required to offer that option. Dovenmuehle said it 'can neither confirm nor deny the existence of any borrower or client' but disputed the accuracy of the details The Wall Street Journal shared with the company about the Williams’s situation because they are “clearly inconsistent with Dovenmuehle’s practices.” The company didn’t respond to further inquiries from the Journal."

"When Mr. Williams does return to work, he said he wouldn’t be able to afford the higher payments. 'My fear is that in order for me to save my house, I might be forced to file for Chapter 13 bankruptcy,' he said."