It's Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. "The red-hot Houston housing market, which experienced a record-breaking run starting in the second half of 2020, has begun to cool, according to the Houston Association of Realtors. The volume of home sales has lagged behind year-earlier levels for four consecutive weeks. The decline mirrored a drop in pending home sales across the nation, which fell in June compared to both the month and year before, according to the National Association of Realtors."

"'The moderate slowdown in sales is largely due to the huge spike in home prices,' said Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the NAR. 'Buyers are still interested and want to own a home, but record-high home prices are causing some to retreat.'"

"Joel Kan, associate vice president at the Mortgage Bankers Association, noted that the volume of mortgage applications to purchase a home had declined on an annual basis for the past three months and is now at its lowest level since May in 2020, despite mortgage rates remaining near record lows."

"Pending home sales, showings and mortgage applications to purchase new home, three indicators of future home sales, also dropped. Over the same period, pending home sales fell by 19 percent and showings by 7 percent, according to HAR data. Mortgage applications during in the week ending July 23 were 18 percent lower than the same week a year before, said the Mortgage Bankers Association."

"In Northern Virginia, inventory was up nearly 31%, according to the Northern Virginia Association of REALTORS®. However, weekly showings in Northern Virginia toward the end of June revealed a noticeable dip in activity. There were 3,610 new listings in June—37.4% above the 2,628 new listings last year. 'Towards the end of June, we did see some softening, which likely is related to vacations,' said Ryan McLaughlin, NVAR CEO."

"Ask any real estate agent to characterize the current real estate marketplace and you’ll hear descriptions like 'sizzling hot,' 'unbelievable,' 'phenomenal,' and other superlatives. It might come as a surprise, then, that some homes have stayed on the market for months, even years. Joyce Styne, a real estate agent with Berkshire Hathaway, is selling a home in East Hills that was originally marketed for $2.1 million in November. The price was reduced three times: to $1.898 million, then $1.75 million, then to its current asking price of $1.699 million."

"'Unfortunately, I did not select the first price, and at this point of time it is now at the correct asking price,' Styne says. 'Had it started at the current price with its superb presentation, it would have long been sold.'"

"Le, and her partner Vu, live near Lake Murray at San Diego and own several other San Diego properties. They rented out portions of the estate and a pool house to five current tenants and also rented space to area visitors through the Airbnb system. Le and Vu said they wanted to maintain the over 10,000-square foot main house, pool house and 5 1/2 acre property and continue renting out space as a service to the Rancho Santa Fe community rather than allow developers to turn the historic property into new homes. However, records showed they were losing over $20,000 a month with their arrangement for a long period of time."

"Vu said they had lost over $1 million on the property and were being heavily pressured by the buyer whose identity has not been disclosed to him, forcing them to take at least $1 million off the list price. He said the buyer who will not identify herself, and her agents, were continuing to try to drive down the purchase price by specifying changes such as gate repairs costing $6,000 and landscaping alterations Le and Vu needed to execute before the forced sale."

"The mystery buyer was strong arming the El Camino property owners who desperately needed the cash sale or allow the property to be foreclosed, according to Vu. With his eyes turning red, Vu said he had received better offers but they were contingent on financing and he was forced to sell the property as quickly as possible."

"TD Economics says Canadian housing sales have 'begun their correction in earnest.' And as far as bank economist Rishi Sondhi is concerned, the 'interesting question becomes how steep the decline will be.' Sondhi noted that since March 2021, Canadian home sales have dropped by 25 percent. 'As it turns out,' the bank economist wrote, 'March seems to have been the absolute peak of the mountain in terms of activity.' Sondhi noted that the pace of Canadian home sales in the first quarter of 2021 was clearly 'unsustainable.' 'The question was how long it would hold up,' Sondhi remarked."

"The higher markets flew during the boom, the harder they will fall. Home sales have dropped 32% in Nova Scotia year to date, 20% in Quebec, and 17% in Ontario, Sondhi said."

"The gap between house and unit rents across Australia’s capital cities is sitting at record levels, jumping well ahead of where they were a decade ago. Domain chief of research and economics Nicola Powell said this record gap meant people renting units were able to save more now than ever, thanks to the cheaper costs, which allowed them to buy into the market sooner. She also said the consistent decline of unit rents across some capitals had seen investors turn away from buying them."

"Propertyology head of research Simon Pressley took a more pessimistic view saying it could take up to five years for the unit market and ents to recover from the impact of the pandemic. Prices could stay at low levels or even fall, even as the market recovers, he warned. 'I think there’s a lot of people contemplating [buying an apartment] now … but they should be asking themselves, ‘how would I feel in two years time if I bought an apartment for $550,000 and it’s now worth $480,000’?' Mr Pressley said. 'The prices that are going up are for houses and not units, so that should be sounding alarm bells.'"