A report from NBC News. "It's a red-hot real estate market — so why are home sales plunging? 'Given the housing shortage and strong demand — there's nothing to suggest home prices will be falling,' National Association of Realtors chief economist Lawrence Yun said. 'We want to make sure that people who are making financially responsible decisions should have access to homeownership. We need to build more, and more consistently, so home prices come down.'"

From Non-Profit Quarterly. "A significant portion of hidden wealth touches down to earth in the form of real property and luxury real estate. Across the world, skyscrapers and mansions are rising in globalized super-cities, a form of 'wealth storage' for the world’s wealthy who are seeking to diversify their asset holdings. These are not people looking for homes so much as wealth parking spots."

"Perhaps the original super city for buying shell real estate was London. Entire neighborhoods—such as Kensington and Mayfair—were transformed into ghost towns of absentee-owned properties, many of them empty. As the UK cracked down on anonymous ownership by announcing the creation of a beneficia"l ownership registry, global investors looked elsewhere. US and Canadian luxury real estate markets became more and more attractive."

"In 2014, 54 percent of real estate purchased in New York for more than $5 million was acquired in the name of anonymous shell companies. In the 6 most expensive condo projects in the city, the owners in a majority of units were hidden by shell companies, including 77 percent of the units in One57 and 69 percent of the units at The Plaza."

"In my hometown of Boston, thousands of units of luxury housing are rising around the central city, with over 5,000 high-end units in the permitting and construction pipeline. High-end rental and luxury condos have transformed the Seaport area into a neoliberal neighborhood, with virtually no public space, coastal access, or services such as schools and libraries. In an analysis of eight luxury buildings, with condos starting at $2 million, over 35 percent were owned by shell companies or anonymous trust entities. In one building, Millennium Tower, anonymous ownership makes up closer to 80 percent of the units."

"One report found more than 103,000 vacant units in Los Angeles with over 41,000 not on the market. Tens of thousands of housing units are being withheld from the market by speculators and anonymous ownership entities (including trusts, LLCs and shell corporations) that are simultaneously overproducing luxury housing and fueling displacement, homelessness and a crisis in housing affordability. Of the 25 luxury condominium buildings profiled in the report, 2,399 of 3,244 units, or 71 percent on average, are sitting effectively vacant—they are not anyone’s primary residence."

"Seattle is experiencing a luxury boom, with thousands of new luxury units in the pipeline. In a 2019 report that I coauthored, we sampled eight new luxury building projects containing 1,635 units, all costing $2 million or more. Limited liability companies or trusts that masked the real owners and beneficiaries owned over 12 percent of units. In one luxury tower, the percent of anonymous ownership was as high as 47 percent—with only 19 percent of all owners registered to vote there. In all of the 1,635 units, only 39 percent of owners are registered to vote at the property, a figure nearly 40 percent lower than that of Washington State as a whole."

From Boston Agent Magazine. "April was another strong month for home sales in Massachusetts. Year over year, single-family home listings increased 70.1%, and condo listings were up 124.8%, according to the report, which also showed an 11.5% increase in single-family home sales and a 46.9% increase in condo sales."

"There were 3,923 closed single-family sales in April and 6,721 new listings, compared to 3,385 closed sales and 5,804 new listings in March. April condo transactions grew to 2,109 closed sales and 3,394 new listings, compared to March’s 1,959 closed sales and 3,040 new listings."

The Real Deal on New York. "Steep discounts can still be found in Manhattan’s surging luxury market — at least if you’re buying from the U.S. Marshals. Earlier this month, authorities offloaded a condo caught up in the 1Malaysia Development Berhad scandal for roughly half of what it was sold for nearly a decade ago, property records show."

"U.S. Marshals closed a deal on the unit, located in the Park Laurel at 15 West 63rd Street, for $16.8 million on May 5. Its previous owner, Riza Aziz, a producer on 'The Wolf of Wall Street' and stepson of a former Malaysian prime minister, paid $33.5 million for the property in 2012 — using funds he allegedly embezzled from a Malaysian sovereign wealth fund."

"To avoid criminal charges, Aziz agreed to forfeit $60 million worth of assets, the Department of Justice announced last year, including the Upper West Side condo as well as an 11,000-square-foot Beverly Hills mansion and a four-story townhouse in London. Between Aziz and other suspects Jho Low and Khadem Al-Qubaisi, the total sum of recovered assets was roughly $1.1 billion as of September."

The Los Angeles Times in California. "Dwyane Wade and Gabrielle Union scored a sale, but not a profit, in Sherman Oaks. They just unloaded their Mediterranean-style villa for $5.5 million, or half a million shy of what they paid in 2018."

The Globe and Mail in Canada. "Taylor Biggar, chairperson of the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver, says house hunters need to be patient. 'Everyone’s getting really wrapped up in the craziness and I think that these times don’t last that long,' he says. The real estate market is cooling slightly, he says. Already, patience is paying off for buyers who waited out the frenzy in March. We’re going to start tapering off,' Mr. Biggar says. 'There’s only so many buyers and sellers out there.'"

The Irish Times. "The Irish Pensions Authority has confirmed that it is investigating potential 'pension scheme trustee issues' in relation to the collapse of Hanover-based German Property Group (GPG), which resulted in 1,800 Irish investors losing as much as €107 million. GPG, formerly known as Dolphin Trust, collapsed last year after taking €1.5 billion from investors in the Republic, the UK, Asia and elsewhere since it was set up by businessman Charles Smethurst in 2008. Mr Smethurst’s home was raided by German police in March as part of an ongoing investigation into suspected investment fraud."

"When GPG collapsed last year it was sitting on 70 properties, mainly run-down and not developed, according to a report submitted to the Bremen bankruptcy court by a preliminary insolvency administrator, Gerrit Hoelzle, last October."

"'The originally pursued business model collapsed years ago,' Mr Hoelzle said. 'Obviously as a result of the increasing financial shortage, the business model, which was initially focused on real estate transactions, gradually developed into a pyramid scheme.'"

From Domain News in Australia. "Melbourne property experts are warning home-buyers against taking advantage of new stamp-duty discounts on unsold inner-city apartments unless the aim is to find a 'city bolthole for their own use' and not financial gain. The concessions were announced in a bid to lure buyers back to the CBD, where an estimated 8000-10,000 apartments are sitting unsold and vacancy rates peaked at 14.6 per cent in October last year, before falling to 11.4 per cent in March."

"Buyer’s advocate Jarrod McCabe said an oversupply of apartments in Melbourne’s CBD, long before COVID-19 hit, meant city units have been underperforming for years. 'Many of these city apartments are not saleable, let alone now when our borders are closed and international student numbers have dropped,' he said. 'For many people, these apartments just become a noose around their neck because they don’t appreciate in value and many of them can be worth less than what they were purchased for, eight to 10 years down the track.'"

"Public records reveal Melbourne apartment owners have offloaded inner-city units at losses of up to 40 per cent in recent months, as some apartments continue to sit empty more than a year since Melbourne first went into lockdown."