A report from the Real Deal. "Theresa Battle’s first thought each morning is whether today is the day she’ll lose her two-story house in Jamaica, Queens, to foreclosure. Battle runs a daycare center out of the property. Like millions of Americans, she was unable to keep up with her mortgage payments after the pandemic forced her to close her business in March 2020, cutting her income in half. She thought she’d be protected by the federal government’s forbearance program. When she asked for help in June 2020, her mortgage servicer, BSI Financial, turned her down, she said, because her home loan isn’t backed by the federal government."

"Battle said BSI has offered her a three-month payment plan that would require a $7,000 lump-sum payment and mortgage payments that jumped to about $3,600 from her previous payments of $2,471. When Battle looks at the unpaid balance of her loan, which now sits at more than $500,000, she said it looks as if she hasn’t paid anything. 'I just feel like I’m stuck with them forever,' she said."

The New York Post. "Cristiano Ronaldo is willing to take a massive $10.75 million loss on his New York City Trump Tower condo following backlash, The Post can report. The Portuguese soccer star first purchased the three-bedroom, 3.5-bathroom unit at 721 Fifth Avenue in 2015 for a whopping $18.5 million. Ronaldo first listed the 2,510-square-foot abode in 2019 for less than half of what he bought it for, at $9 million. But without any offers and amid a looming pandemic, the athlete has been forced to slash the price even further."

"Property records reveal that the home is now on the market for only $7.75 million."

The Review Journal on Nevada. "Las Vegas’ housing market, after months of frenzied activity, is showing some signs that it’s tapping the brakes. Resale totals have fallen the past two months, and available inventory has climbed for three straight months as house prices keep setting all-time highs. Homebuilders also have seen drops in sales and customer traffic during what is historically the spring buying season. Nationally, the homebuying binge appears to be cooling, too."

"Housing markets are always prone to ups and downs, and the latest frenzy isn’t going to last forever. Fueled by cheap money, buyers have been showering Southern Nevada houses with offers, often within days of hitting the market, and routinely paying over the asking price, multiple sources have said."

"When, or how, the buying boom ends is anyone’s guess. But house hunters have pulled back lately as the streak of record-high prices raises concerns that some people are getting priced out. Buyers picked up 3,189 previously owned single-family homes last month, down 9.6 percent from April. That month, sales fell 5.3 percent from March, according to LVR data. The drops were a sharp reversal from March, when house sales shot up 34.7 percent from February, the association reported."

"At the end of May, 2,031 single-family homes were on the market without offers, up 11.2 percent from April. Inventory rose 3.1 percent month to month in April and 5.7 percent in March, LVR data shows. Meanwhile, homebuilders reported 1,085 net sales — newly signed sales contracts minus cancellations — in Southern Nevada last month, down 10.7 percent from April, when sales fell 22.1 percent from March, according to figures from Las Vegas-based Home Builders Research. Customer traffic for Southern Nevada subdivisions last month was down 25 percent from its recent peak, set in March, Home Builders Research President Andrew Smith reported."

"Nationally, the housing cooldown 'is not the bursting of a bubble,' Daryl Fairweather, chief economist of Redfin said in the recent report, but is instead 'a sign that consumers might rather spend their time and money on other things besides housing now that travel, dining and entertainment are resuming in full force.'"

From Globest. "The California apartment market is on a bumpy road to recovery. Currently, most of the major metros in the state are seeing significant decreases in apartment rents. The May report from Apartment Guide has found that San Francisco, Oakland, Los Angeles and San Jose all rank among the top US cities with the biggest fall in one-bedroom rental rates. San Francisco and Los Angeles lead the nation for rent decreases."

"One-bedroom apartment rents in San Francisco and Los Angeles are down 18.9% and 18.4%, respectively, the most in the nation. San Jose ranks fifth in the country with one-bedroom rents down 15.3%, and Oakland is eighth with rents down 14.2%. Looking at California as two halves, Northern California is struggling more than Southern California. Los Angeles is the only Southern California market to experience significant decreases in apartment rents."

From Multi-Housing News. "The Southern California metro entered 2021 with the second-highest unemployment rate nationwide, regaining less than half of the 660,000 jobs lost last April, Marcus & Millichap researchers noted. Although, as the state slowly reopens and the metro takes steps toward recovery, unemployment was still at 11.1 percent in April, well above the 6.1 percent national figure, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics."

"Despite volatile economic conditions, developers remained active in Los Angeles, with 173 multifamily projects under construction, encompassing a total of 28,237 units as of May. Projects underway account for 6.4 percent of the metro’s total inventory."

"Pandemic-driven relocation trends strongly influenced San Francisco’s multifamily market in 2020, putting downward pressure on rental rates in one of the least-affordable regions in the country. Development, however, powered through, with more than 5,000 units delivered in 2020."

"Construction activity remained strong in San Francisco, with a total of 24,929 units under construction as of May. The 135 multifamily projects account for 9.4 percent of the region’s total stock. While another 116,720 units were in the planning and permitting stages, fluid market conditions will likely shrink this number."

From Better Dwelling. "Lumber prices are still making a nose dive, as supply catches up and demand softens. Last week we mentioned lumber prices have officially crashed from their all-time high. This week BMO economist Carl Campus wrote to clients that prices have fallen below US$1,000/mbf. This is the first time it fell below that mark since March. Lumber is still more expensive than before the pandemic, but prices are crashing hard."

"Lumber completed a technical crash last week. Now it’s shaved off another 10 points from the all-time high since then. On May 7th, random length framing lumber reached a peak of US$1,670/mbf (manufactured board foot). Today the market closed at US$996/mbf. This is the first time since mid-March that prices have sunk below the four-digit mark, 'neatly unwinding the prior two-month surge,' wrote Campus. '… the softer-than-expected April housing starts was clearly a turning point for market sentiment. With demand finally blinking, the supply side appears to have gained a better footing, relieving near-term price pressures,' he wrote."

The Globe and Mail in Canada. "2727 Yonge St., No. 608, Toronto. Asking price: $1,495,0000 (March, 2021). Previous asking price: $1,545,000 (February, 2021). Selling price: $1,325,000 (March, 2021). This unit in a six-storey building is unusually large, with roughly 2,000 square feet of living space and all of it on one level. But buyers were unwilling to fork over $1.545-million for an unrenovated 20-year-old space. The asking price was slashed by $50,000 and drew out two offers, both below that new price; one by $195,000 less and the other by $170,000."

"'In the middle of COVID, the market has changed a lot. One unit there was sold for $1.6-million early in February, 2020, and then nothing else since,' said agent Dino Capocci. 'We tried around $1.5-million hoping to create some activity, but the market wasn’t there. When we had the two offers – one was $1.3-million and one was $1.325-million – the seller said obviously the market was speaking and they’ll take the highest price and move on.'"

From Nine News. "Australians are facing a 'ticking economic time bomb' due to soaring house prices and the anticipation that interest rates will rise within the next few years. A new report by the University of New South Wales has noted that in the past 30 years, Australia's household debt has more than doubled. In 1990 the national household debt sat at 70 per cent of Australia's Gross Domestic Product (or GDP). In 2020 that figure rocketed up to 185 per cent of GDP."

"The report, titled Housing: Taming the Elephant in the Economy, called on the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) and a Royal Commission to ensure younger Australians aren't burdened with the cost of housing.
'Australia's approach to housing policy has fuelled income and wealth inequality and created significant economic instability. This is a huge drag on productivity and warps Australia's capital investment patterns,' said the report's lead author, Professor Duncan Maclennan."

"Professor Maclennan said market regulators are largely ignoring the real-world impacts exploding property prices is having on the day-to-day movements of Australians. 'The Commonwealth Government's policy actions are boosting inflationary pressures and the RBA has effectively washed its hands of responsibility for house prices, arguing higher prices are good for the economy,' Professor Maclennan said. 'But when people are paying more and more for rent and to service their mortgages, they have less and less to spend on other goods and services.'"

"Housing economist Saul Eslake said soaring house prices is not simply a knee-jerk reaction to the developments of COVID but the result of how Australia's property market is structured. 'Media coverage is rightly sounding alarm at recently booming house prices that are locking more young people out of the market. But this is far from a short term or cyclical issue. It's a structural problem that's been building for decades,' Mr Eslake said. 'It's been more than amply demonstrated that what governments need to do is step back from policies which serve mainly, or only, to inflate the demand for housing, and step up to pursue policies which expand the supply of it.'"