A report from Bisnow. "WeWork has washed its hands of WeLive, the co-living brand it launched a half-decade ago with grand aspirations. Around the time of the two openings, WeWork was telling investors that by 2018, it projected WeLive would grow to a 10.4M SF portfolio housing 34,000 residents and bringing in $606M, 21% of WeWork's total projected revenue. But after opening the two locations in 2016, WeWork East Coast General Manager Dave M cLaughlin said at a Bisnow event that October that the company planned to wait until the concept was '10 times better' before opening more locations. It had already slashed profit projections for WeLive by then."

From NPR. "The pandemic uprooted thousands of people, leaving a glut of luxury apartments available in cities. Economist Nancy Wu, StreetEasy and Zillow: 'Rents have been dropping significantly, especially in really dense urban areas such as New York City and San Francisco. The biggest discounts are in some of the most expensive neighborhoods, and anywhere up to five months of free rent.'"

From Fox 5 New York. "The housing market on Long Island is booming. However, the commercial office space sector is not doing well. Leasing activity on the island has taken a hit. 'The commercial market has too much inventory and no demand,' said Jay Orsini, a real estate agent for Douglas Elliman. A recent report by Avison Young found leasing volume has fallen 42% below the 20-year annual average. 'We had one client looking for about 8,000 square feet and there were over 30 buildings for them to choose from between Nassau and Suffolk [counties],' Avison Young managing director Ted Stratigos said. 'And that's a lot.'"

The Gothamist in New York. "Across Manhattan, office buildings are still suffering from a glut of available space more than a year after the pandemic sent workers home and shut down most leasing activity. According to CBRE, the availability rate in older, 'commodity' buildings like 55 Fifth Avenue was almost 20% at the end of June, nearly double the 2019 rate of 11.1%. 'We certainly are taking a haircut,' acknowledged Brian Soto, director of acquisitions and asset management for Time Equities Inc. 'I mean, we've adjusted our asking rents to where we think transactions will happen.'"

From Bisnow Houston in Texas. "Senior housing facilities across the U.S. were dealt a hefty blow in 2020. The rapid spread of Covid-19 posed a serious threat to the elderly, forcing communities to implement strict lockdown protocols that effectively halted new leasing activity for several months. Houston mirrored the national trend, falling from 81.5% occupancy in Q1 2020 to 72.8% in Q1 2021. In Q1 2020, Houston had 18 senior housing communities under construction. Four of those properties came online during the pandemic, meaning that 14 communities are still expected to deliver over the next 24 months, according to NIC data."

"'The problem is that developers are always a very optimistic group. They tend to overbuild, and in the case of Houston, that has been the issue that has held down occupancy,' said NIC Chief Economist Beth Mace."

From 10 News on California. "San Francisco’s office vacancy is now over 20%, the highest in the Bay Area and the highest it has been since 2003 after the 'dot com' bust."

Fromm LA Downtown News in California. "The first quarter office vacancy rate was 18.8% in 2021, a slight increase from the previous quarter, Los Angeles County Assessor Jeffrey Prang said. That compares to a year ago when it was 16.6%. 'It’s not a dramatic increase, but the metropolitan average is 13.7%,' he said. 'The vacancy rate has been higher than the rest of the county on average for the last three to four years.'"

"Prang said he and his staff are watching large developments like the three-towered Oceanwide Plaza, across the street from the Staples Center and the Los Angeles Convention Center. Corporate stopped construction two to three years ago. 'There were scandals in city hall, leaving a lot of potential growth of assessed value on the area,' he said."

The Calaveras Enterprise in California. "Some important factors in Calaveras County when it comes to housing are the disproportionate number of vacant homes, the large senior population, large amounts of land and difficulties with attracting for-profit developers, said Lee Kimball, housing and community programs manager. About 40% of Calaveras County’s roughly 28,000 housing units are vacant, meaning that they do not serve as a primary residence, according to a 2019 estimate from the census bureau."

"'We are disproportionately high in empty houses,' she said. 'We have a much larger number of people here who own homes rather than rent homes, but we still don’t have enough rental property, when you only have 2% of your houses available for rent.'"

From Business Insider. "South Florida's condominium industry is already feeling shockwaves from the Surfside building collapse last month, as industry experts say condo boards are lawyering up and safety-minded buyers are pausing or backing away from deals. Some have speculated that Florida legislators could move to address condo buildings with waning reserve funds, potentially by making it harder for unit owners to vote to defer payments year after year."

"But Peggy Rolando, a Miami real estate attorney, said that could bring up a whole host of other problems, namely, that many condo owners can't afford to fund large reserves or pay special assessments that won't add any value to their property. 'What you see, especially in moderate condominiums, is sometimes there's people who have lived in the condo that they bought back 30 years ago,' Rolando said. 'They bought a really nice unit, they loved their buildings, but over the years the demographics have changed. The folks there can no longer afford to maintain the buildings in the way they were originally marked.'"

From Hawaii Public Radio. "Landlords have no incentive to keep rents low, says Kaikea Blakemore, Community Development Specialist of Neighborhood Place of Puna. She says some landowners prefer not to rent at all. 'We have on the Big Island one of the highest housing vacancy rates in America. Our vacancy rate is at 20%. Whereas on Oʻahu it's around 15%, the national average is 12%. When you look at vacancy rates, we're seeing how folks are kind of hoarding housing in a way. And I'm not saying it's everybody,' Blakemore says."

From Mises.org on Nevada. "An insider confided to a friend that all he is doing right now is transaction work for real estate holders who are selling now before the market crashes. His clients, members of Sin City’s illuminati, once bitten by the ‘08 crash, believe they’ll beat the crowd to the sales window before the local retail and office market collapses."

"Tiny capitalization rates translating into unsustainable values are being dangled in front of these folks and they are willing to absorb the tax consequences to cash out and be ready to repurchase their properties back at a discount in a couple years."