A report from the LA Daily News. "The California Association of Realtors reported March’s statewide record $759,000 median sales price for an existing single-family house was up 24% in a year, the largest gain since 2013. Even crazier: It took about eight days for a listing to go into escrow, the fastest-selling speed ever. Similar fervor at the national level led Lawrence Yun, chief economist of the National Association of Realtors, to recently mock discussions of potential home-price problems in a LinkedIn post: 'People are googling more about ‘housing bubble’. Yet, home prices in no risk of a decline due to lack of supply.'"

"Now, I could have authored a pithy rebuttal to Yun, who works at a trade group that obviously advocates homeownership. But somebody else crushed it so well, why try and top it? John Burns, founder of the respected homebuilder consultancy that bears his name: ‘No risk of a decline?’ None? I am reminded of former NAR Chief Economist David Lereah’s book in 2005 titled ‘Are You Missing the Real Estate Boom? Why Home Values and Other Real Estate Investments Will Climb Through the End of the Decade — and How to Profit from Them.’ Look it up on Amazon. Today looks much more to me like a ‘High Risk, High Reward’ market than a ‘no risk’ market.'"

From The Hill. "Experts say there’s no clear end in sight to the homebuying frenzy, but they don’t see the same red flags that preceded the collapse of the mid-2000s housing bubble. 'A lot of the people who are buying today … are among the most creditworthy in the history of mortgage lending,' said Reggie Edwards, an economist at Redfin. 'They have the highest levels of savings, and they're taking out loans that have the most equity off the bat because they're putting so much cash upfront. I don't think we have any concerns about if people can afford the homes that they're buying right now, especially compared to 2006, 2007.'"

From DS News. "As of last Tuesday, 2.33 million, or 44% of homeowners, remain in COVID-related forbearance plans, including 2.6% of Fannie/Freddie loans; 7.8% of FHA/VA loans, and 5% of private and portfolio loans. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau reports that more homeowners are behind on their mortgages than at any time since 2010, the peak of the Great Recession. Nearly 1.7 million borrowers are scheduled to exit forbearance programs in September and the following months, with many a year or more behind on their mortgage payments."

From Kiplinger. "Like ghosts in a haunted house, law firms are pursuing property owners, threatening them with the loss of their property for unpaid second mortgages — 'zombie' mortgages. Some people thought their mortgages were discharged in bankruptcy. Others wanted to pay on their mortgages but couldn’t because there was no longer anywhere to send their payments when their lenders disappeared during the mortgage crisis a few years back."

"Hanford, Calif., real estate attorney Ron Jones is 'far more familiar with these situations than I would like to be, as they are terrifying to people who are suddenly at risk of losing their home.' 'Zombie second mortgages step out of the past, haunting property owners, and threatening their ability to remain in their home or commercial building,' Jones says. 'Many property owners were under the impression that by including the second mortgage in a bankruptcy they were no longer responsible for it. They keep the first current, but stopped paying on the second. In reality, the lender still has a lien against the property. Mortgage debt (secured debt) generally is not dischargeable through bankruptcy. You do not own the home free and clear. You are not off the hook for the mortgage.'"

From Seattle PI in Washington. "Could Seattle's downtown property market downturn be a good thing for buyers? Yes, if it means reduced prices — and right now, it does. The median sold home price, year-over-year, would normally be the most telling of a downturn, and in the case of Seattle's downtown, that median sold price is down to $591,200, a 7.6 percent decline year-over-year. More striking though it the reversal in market demand for downtown properties: As of quarter one, downtown sales have declined 44.1% year-over-year, and those that did sell had to wait a long time to do so: the average days on the market for quarter one was 33, up 94.1% this year."

"Downtown property developers have responded. For example, The Spire is a $350 million, 41-story luxury condominium tower in the heart of downtown Seattle. Now, Spire units can be yours for less than they were originally set to sell for, even though the tower hasn't even been fully completed. 'Spire is announcing limited-time price reductions (up to 10%) in advance of the building’s opening later this summer,' a spokesperson for Spire told the Seattle P-I."

"It's not just luxury towers dropping prices either. 33 downtown Seattle homes have dropped their prices in the last 30 days, including everything from a one bedroom unit on Vine to a two-bedroom on Cedar."

From ABC News in Australia. "A plan to sell off the beleaguered Mascot Towers in Sydney's south has been thrown into doubt following an intervention by retail businesses owners on the ground floor of the building. It's been almost two years since large cracks appeared in the basement of the 10-storey building, forcing the evacuation of residents, who had been unable to return to their homes since."

"Two weeks ago the building's 132 apartment owners were told by the owners' corporation it was no longer financially viable to fix the building and their best option was to cut their losses and sell to a developer. Now several retail businesses, which have been blocked from entering their premises since February, have made an application to the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal."

"Owners were advised they should expect to take a loss of between 70 and 80 per cent, but it was their best hope of recouping any money. 'We have to decide whether we are going to continue to lose money or try to recover some,' Gary Deigan told a meeting of owners two weeks ago."

"They also want the compulsory manager to authorise repairs to allow both residents and business owners to reoccupy the building. 'They did that to stop the sale because … they don't want to lose their spot,' one owner, who wished to remain anonymous, told the ABC. 'This is the last nail in the residents' coffin. This will push everyone to bankruptcy.'"

From Good Returns in New Zealand. "The latest Property Market & Economic Report reveals mortgaged investors’ buying surged from 27% to a record-high 29% share of purchases, reinforcing the heated market, which led to the Government’s recent policies in an effort to dampen the housing market. CoreLogic chief property economist Kelvin Davidson says the figures in the report are a clear 'line in the sand' following the extension of the bright-line test and scrapping of mortgage interest tax deductibility."

"Davidson says it’s now all about what happens next. 'Household debt is high relative to income, and to some extent the debt has only been sustainable in recent years because of low mortgage rates,' says Davidson. He says the recent strength of the property market was always going to be unsustainable and a slowdown is likely to occur in the second half of 2021 – 'the Government changes just reinforce that.'"