A report from the Real Deal on New York. "The Financial District’s condo supply has surged. And there are still few buyers in sight. The downtown district now holds the most unsold inventory of any New York City neighborhood, with 1,433 new condos available, many of them yet to be listed, according to data by Marketproof. As a result, condo units in the area are selling at hefty discounts. According to Bloomberg, Trinity Place Holdings, which developed Jolie at 77 Greenwich Street, slashed prices and is offering up to $175,000 in closing credits to buyers who work at downtown firms, although a spokesperson for Serhant, which is marketing the apartments, denied that."

"The most expensive sales in the area — penthouses in Silverstein Properties’ 30 Park Place — sold at million-dollar discounts, Bloomberg found."

From Mansion Global. "'People do not want to buy a depreciating asset,' said Lawrence Yun, chief economist at the National Association of Realtors, who expects U.S. house prices will rise 7% to 9% this year, and 3% to 5% next year. 'Given, at least in Manhattan, prices have softened a bit, it may provide a chance. Maybe in the past people thought, ‘Oh it's way too expensive.’ It’s a second-chance opportunity.'"

"Zoltan Szelyes, chief executive officer of Switzerland-based Macro Real Estate AG, said some luxury condos in New York City are trading at a 25% to 30% discount. Liam Bailey, global head of Knight Frank's research department, noted that New York prices have been soft the past two to three years, since even before the pandemic sent citydwellers running for the suburbs. He said inventory levels are 'relatively high' at the moment, so there are deals to be done. He also flagged Miami prices as being off their peak levels from a few years ago."

The San Francisco Chronicle in California. "It has taken more than five years and millions in price cuts, but 2820 Scott Street finally sold for $17.5 million. When we wrote about the mansion last spring, listing agent Olivia Hsu Decker was optimistic that a $6.5-million price cut plus the home's ample space would make it newly appealing to pandemic buyers. But it took almost a year after that price cut for the home to sell, though Hsu Decker said there were many close calls, and higher offers. 'I had higher offers at $25 million, $22 million and $20 million, but buyers backed out of escrow when they got remodel estimates from their designers,' she said."

The Los Angeles Times in California. "Katy Perry’s guesthouse is pricier than most people’s dream house. After listing the home for $7.95 million last year, the pop star just sold it for $7.475 million — a profit of $25,000 compared to what she paid for the Beverly Hills Post Office property in 2018."

"The singer still has a few other places to stay in Southern California, including a larger house right down the street that she bought for $18 million in 2017. Last year, Perry and her fiancée shelled out $14.2 million for a mansion in Montecito."

From D Magazine in Texas. "Are These Dallas Office Properties Functionally Obsolete? One thing that doesn’t get talked about in Dallas-Fort Worth is how much space we have available. Yes, the record amount of sublease space (9.5 million as of April 2021) is not exactly a secret, but what about the other 60 million and change of direct space, most of which is older second-generation space."

From CNBC. "The average rent a one-bedroom apartment in notoriously expensive cities like San Francisco, Manhattan and Seattle is decreasing. Cities where average one-bedroom rents are decreasing: 1. San Francisco. Rents have decreased 45%. 2. Chesapeake, Virginia. Rents have decreased 29.4%. 3. Manhattan. Rent have decreased 27.3%. 4. Long Beach, California. Rents have decreased 27%. 5. Colorado Springs, Colorado. Rents have decreased 24.6%. 6. Seattle. Rents have decreased 18.9%. 7. San Jose, California. Rents have decreased 16.2%. 8. Los Angeles. Rents have decreased 16.0%. 9. Jersey City, New Jersey. Rents have decreased 15.5%. 10. San Antonio, Texas. Rents have decreased 15.4%."

From KITV. "Hawaii landlords say a proposal by lawmakers to essentially create a payment plan for past-due renters shifts the burden onto private owners who are also suffering financially. 'It does nothing to protect people like me as far as giving me income to pay my mortgage, to pay my property taxes,' said landlord Becky Gustafson. 'It's a bandaid on the real problem, which is tenants were given a carte blanche to not pay rent.'"

From CBC News in Canada. "You may have heard it's a seller's market when it comes to Winnipeg real estate right now. But owners of some rental properties are offering incentives just to get potential tenants into their apartment buildings, due to a high rental vacancy rate in the city. Winnipeg has seen a lot of new construction in the last decade, equalling about 1,500 new apartments each year. But this year, fewer people were moving within the city or moving to Winnipeg, said Avrom Charach, a Winnipeg property manager. 'When you construct an extra 1,500 to 2,000 apartment units and there's … less people moving, you don't have people moving into those new units,' he said."

"Charach says he thinks the reason for the gap is because most of the new construction in the city has been focused on building what some would call 'luxury apartments,' while there's been little to no new construction of units affordable to those with lower incomes. 'There really is no new construction aimed at that dollar value, simply because someone building an apartment building for profit can't even cover their costs at the $625 [per month] rents we're looking at,' he said."

The Globe and Mail in Canada. "House prices have been on a decade-long tear, led by big cities such as Vancouver and Toronto, making owners of even modest homes paper millionaires. For a surprising number of Canadians, ballooning property values have made the family home not only their biggest asset but the main source of retirement income."

"A 2017 Ontario Securities Commission survey found that almost half of Ontarians aged 45 and up are counting on rising home prices to fund their retirement. The research also showed nearly 60 per cent of those preretirees surveyed have little or no retirement savings. The other warning is that people shouldn’t have all of their retirement eggs in one basket."

"'It’s not only one asset class; it’s on one street. It’s hard to be more concentrated than that,' says Scott Plaskett, chief executive officer of Ironshield Financial Planning in Toronto."

"Ultralow interest rates have fuelled the current real estate boom across much of the country – a phenomenon likely lengthened by the economic downturn caused by the pandemic – but it may have reached its limit. 'There is another shoe that has got to fall,' Mr. Plaskett says. 'The governments can’t print this much money without creating an inflationary environment. Eventually, that’s going to catch up to us and the only way to curb inflation is to slowly raise interest rates.'"

From Chosun Media on Korea. "Seoul's downtown shopping district of Myeong-dong is on a sharp decline. Gone are the days when the glitzy storefronts and bustling stalls in the prime shopping area attracted people of all ages. Store owners who have been doing business there for 30 to 40 years say the coronavirus pandemic is not the only reason that the area is turning into a ghost town."

"Just two years ago, Myeong-dong was dotted with posters and signs welcoming Chinese tourists, while hawkers learned Chinese and Japanese to attract customers. But now two out of three stores are empty and 'for rent' signs have replaced the banners welcoming tourists. The high rents became another problem, soaring to W1 billion per 3.3 sq.m. Hwang at the merchants' association said, 'Building owners have slashed the rent by up to 70 percent, but there are still no takers. The appraised value of the property has doubled, while landlords are practically begging tenants to stay. But even if rent has declined sharply, who in their right mind would think about investing their money to open a shop here now?'"

From Free Malaysia Today. "Thinking of buying a property? After having decided on location, price and the type of property – terrace versus high-rise – the final decision awaits: buy off-plan or an existing property? The answer used to be pretty straightforward years ago. One either bought from the developer (in property parlance the primary market) or directly from owners, in the secondary market."

"However, it has become more tricky now. Buyers now have a third choice, because of the large number of completed unsold units, known as the overhang. As at the end of December 2020, Malaysia had 29,565 completed but unsold housing units built on residential land, with a value amounting to RM18.92 billion, according to the National Property Information Centre’s latest Property Market Report 2020."

"There are an additional 23,606 units of unsold serviced apartments, built on commercial land, valued at RM20.76 billion. That’s more than 53,000 housing units yet to be waiting to be off-loaded by developers. Let’s call the overhang units 'old new' properties. They may have been completed three to four years ago, maybe even longer, but they have never had an owner. Developers now have all these uncompleted projects which they have to sell. As long as these units remain unsold, their cash is stuck in the ground."

The Australian Financial Review. "Andrew Wilson, chief economist with Archistar, said some first-home buyers have also started getting into the inner-city apartment markets as they have become more affordable after prices fell sharply over the past 12 months. 'I think we’re seeing a shift in the dynamics of the past year, and now seeing more buyers in the inner-city apartment markets. But it is still a buyer’s market,' he said."

"Louis Christopher, managing director of SQM Research, said looming oversupply remained a challenge for the sector’s recovery. 'There’s a huge stock surplus coming,' he said. 'When we consider the amount of building commencements which are due to be completed, there are about 180,000 dwellings, with zero international migration. And the border is most likely going to be closed for most of the year, if not all next year, so, we’re going to have another year of significant surplus of rolling stock relative to the population’s current requirements.'"

From Stuff New Zealand. "David Faulkner just bought a commercial property to run his business out of. Faulkner trains residential property managers for a living, and he owns a residential renter himself. But he is one of many eyeing alternative places to put his money now the Government has declared a low-level war on residential landlords. 'It wasn’t a case of, ‘OK, my god, let’s go commercial – but it was a good investment,' Faulkner says."

"Part of his reason was commercial property isn’t subject to the policy changes that have convinced landlords that they’re the current Government’s least favourite block of voters. Residential landlords have been sent a clear message that the days of massive capital gains are over. Investors buying residential rentals will have to pay tax on capital gains if they sell within 10 years, and investors are to progressively lose their ability to offset interest paid on home loans against rental income, a move Westpac economist Michael Gordon called the 'most meaningful intervention into the housing market in decades.'"

"But Nick Goodall, head of research at CoreLogic, which tracks the property market, says there’s no evidence yet that landlords are dumping rentals. Goodall says houses have something other investments, other than bank deposits, do not have: An implicit guarantee that the Government would intervene to stop house prices falling too far, and that is appealing to households.