A report from Bloomberg. "Landlords have struggled to attract tenants throughout a pandemic that's kept New Yorkers working from home. Apartment owners lowered rents and offered perks such as free months and gift cards - yet they still saw the number of empty units swell. Despite April's record demand, the number of vacant apartments in Manhattan jumped 5.7 per cent from March to 20,743, Miller Samuel and Douglas Elliman said. The median rent in the borough plunged 21 per cent from a year earlier to US$2,791."

"In Brooklyn, rents fell 18 per cent to median of US$2,614. In northwest Queens, an area including Astoria and Long Island City, they slid 16 per cent to US$2,370. 'We're going through a very choppy period,' said Jonathan Miller, president of Miller Samuel. 'It hasn't bottomed yet.'"

From Bisnow Washington DC. "Apartment vacancy has risen dramatically in Northeast and throughout the city, leading developers to offer generous concessions that give renters the ability to move to neighborhoods that may have previously been out of their price range. In Q1, Northeast D.C.'s Class-A apartment vacancy rose to 15.2%, according to Delta Associates, just below the District average of 15.6%. Northeast's effective rents fell 20.5% over the 12 months ending March 31, tying it for the city's sharpest rent drop."

From Consumer Affairs. "Before the pandemic, San Francisco Bay Area apartments were teeming with renters thanks to the technology industry. Fast forward a year and things have certainly changed. ApartmentGuide's latest Rent Report found that the Bay Area experienced the largest decrease -- 45% -- in its average rental price for a one-bedroom apartment over the past year. At the same time, the average rent for a two-bedroom apartment fell by 24%."

"Rounding out the Top 5 metropolitan areas where rent prices took the biggest hit are Chesapeake, Virginia, which had the second-largest year-over-year decline in rent at 29.4%. That was followed by Long Beach, California (-27.0%), Seattle (-18.9%), and Los Angeles (-16.0%)."

From CNBC. "Cloudera exited some Bay Area office space early last year with plans to sublease it and move employees south to the software company’s Silicon Valley headquarters. But the pandemic left the company with nobody to take over a full office, forcing it to take a substantial real estate write-down."

"At DoorDash’s former headquarters in San Francisco, a tenant defaulted on rent a month into lockdown, resulting in lost income for the food delivery company, which was doubling as a landlord. Airbnb said in its earnings report on Thursday that it took a $113 million impairment in the first quarter 'related to office space in San Francisco that we deemed no longer necessary.'"

"Combined, those three companies have recorded nearly $200 million in real estate impairments in the past year after Covid-19 turned the Bay Area office market into a dead zone. That dollar figure swells to almost $1 billion when adding in lease-related write-downs from large tech employers Salesforce, Dropbox, Uber, PayPal and Zendesk."

"By the end of the first quarter of 2021, the amount of vacant sublease space in San Francisco had soared to 9.7 million square feet, up from about 3 million in late 2019, and accounted for 40% of all available commercial space in the city, according to commercial real estate firm Avison Young."

"Mark Cote, co-founder of a tech-focused real estate firm that helps tenants with their growth plans, said that companies looking for an office in San Francisco have a rare opportunity over the next two to three quarters to get in at a discount. Unlike traditional landlords, which have been reluctant to drop lease prices, tech companies with excess space are sometimes willing to offer cut-rate rents and take the loss because they’ve already 'faced the reckoning on the impairment,' Cote said. Cote said companies paying $90 a square foot may offer subleases for $20 to $25 less and eat the difference."

The Real Deal on Florida. "The Regalia condo association settled its lawsuit alleging a slew of construction and design defects and building code violations at the luxury oceanfront tower for $17.5 million. In 2018, the Regalia on the Ocean Condominium Association sued the developers, architect, general contractor and subcontractors over alleged flaws such as improperly installed pool joints and cracking tiles, unsafe steam rooms, and flawed balcony sliding glass doors and railings, according to the complaint."

"The tower has been mired in other litigation. In one case, Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Michael Hanzman ordered the developers in 2019 to turn over control of the entire interest in the entities that own two unsold units to a receiver. Regalia Beach Developers LLC had failed to sell the tower’s top-priced beach house and penthouse. At least some of the proceeds of the sales were to go to the developers’ former attorney under a confidential agreement in a separate suit."

From Blog TO in Canada. "The pandemic has not been kind to many industries, with things like travel and tourism being hit particularly hard, which has upended platforms like Airbnb and the hosts that operate on it. Owners of short-term rentals began to sweat early last year before Ontario even declared a state of emergency and locked everything down, citing tons of cancellations and fears that the extra income that many had come to rely on would no longer be coming in."

"Even before the ban came into place, more and more short-term rentals in the city were popping up on the long-term rental market, being converted to actual apartments for residents who live here in owners' last-ditch attempts to recoup their losses."

From The National. "Indian property developer Kamal Khetan is in an unusual position. For the first time since the 2008-2009 global financial crisis, he is being inundated with offers to acquire land in Mumbai from distressed sellers. Landowners 'are coming at a very reasonable price because it's now the buyer's market, not the seller's market.'"

"The situation is pronounced in Mumbai, where land has long been scarce in the overpopulated financial capital. But it is a trend found across many major cities in India, including the national capital of Delhi and the tech hub of Bangalore, analysts say."

"'Definitely, the land prices have seen some kind of a correction in the last 12 months,' Piyush Gupta, managing director of capital markets and investment services for India at global real estate services company Colliers, says. 'This is not only linked to Covid stress, but it's linked to the overall stress in the real estate and the non-banking sector.'"

The Brisbane Times in Australia. "A year ago, 32-year-old Gary Dickson was living and working cheek-by-jowl with two housemates in Carlton during the extended coronavirus lockdowns in Melbourne. But now, Mr Dickson is one of many renters who have upgraded to new digs on the back of the cheapest inner-city rents in more than a decade. Mr Dickson was paying about $245 a week for a room in his share house, and was expecting it would cost about $420 a week to secure an apartment and more space for himself."

"'[But] I started looking around September last year and I was finding at the beginning of October a lot of one-bedroom apartments that were suddenly in my price range [for about $350],' the university lecturer said. 'Then at the beginning of November, I ended up finding a two-bedroom apartment [in North Melbourne] that was priced the same as the one-bedrooms I was seeing in October in the same apartment complex.'"

"Engaged couple Leigh Boughton, 37, and Genevieve Carthy, 34, were renting a one-bedroom period cottage in Middle Park for $700 a week until the pandemic hit. In July last year, they moved into a brand new two-bedroom apartment on St Kilda Road with two balconies, two car spaces and an on-site gym and pool for $550. The pair, who own an investment property, were the first tenants to live permanenty in the St Kilda Road apartment because it had been used only for Airbnb guests. While it was originally listed for rent at $760 a week, Mr Boughton was able to snap it up for just $550."

"'That’s the only reason why I moved. I’m like, ‘I’d be crazy not to move with everything that’s here,' he said. Mr Boughton and Ms Carthy are planning to start a family, and are now considering riding the rental wave again to find an affordable house, potentially in Camberwell, when their lease expires in July. 'There’s homes that are now similar prices, or for $100 more you get a three-bedroom house,' Mr Boughton said."

From Stuff New Zealand. "Hamilton man David Musgrave is among the roughly 1000 owners of leak-prone homes taking part in a $220 million class action lawsuit against building materials maker James Hardie. When the case begins on Monday at the High Court in Auckland, the homeowners will argue James Hardie’s Harditex cladding system was defective, which James Hardie denies."

"They also argue that James Hardie knew, or ought to have known, its system was defective, but kept supplying it. For Musgrave, owning a home clad with James Hardie’s panels has been life-changing, blighting his retirement. Musgrave intended to sell the home and move to the Bay of Islands to retire, but nobody will buy it."

"'I tried to sell it, and was hoping to move north, but people just take one look at the materials, and they don’t want a bar of it,' he says. 'I’m basically stuck in Hamilton. It’s changed the course of my life. It’s like having a brick tied around your neck when you're trying to swim.'"