A report from The City on New York. "Christine Fife was 'speechless with joy' when she won her foreclosure case in January 2020, she recalled, believing her decade under threat of foreclosure in her Upper West Side condo was finally over. Now, though, Fife is once again facing the seizure of the apartment she has owned since 1990. In February 2021, New York’s top court issued a decision that eliminated a path that New York homeowners had used for years to fight foreclosure. Fife had borrowed $731,000 against her apartment in April 2007 to pay living expenses after a disabling injury and divorce. Monthly payments were nearly $5,000, with adjustable rate mortgage that started at 8% annual interest, potentially rising as high as 15%."

"'I didn’t know anything about mortgages,' Fife said. 'I was just so happy that I was able to live on another day. I was probably the easiest take on the block.'"

"Rockland County resident Susan Azcuy is in a situation similar to Fife’s — believing that she’d survived foreclosure only to find the cloud hanging over her once again. For 23 years, Azcuy and her husband kept up with the mortgage payments on their house in Pomona, including a 2005 refinancing, for which she took on a debt of $210,000 at 5.75% interest. But in 2012, after Azcuy’s husband was fired from his job, they missed a payment and their lender quickly moved to foreclose."

"Due to penalties and foreclosure fees, Azcuy now owes nearly $400,000, just shy of double the amount of the 2005 refinancing. 'It’s really scary. We’re still struggling,' Azcuy said. 'I was very, very hopeful to be able to continue living here.'"

"It’s not uncommon for lenders to allow their right to foreclose to expire, according to real estate lawyers. There are millions of residential loans being serviced somewhat incompetently, so these things do sometimes slip between the cracks,' said Joshua Stein, a commercial real estate lawyer. Real estate industry supporter's of the Court of Appeals’ decision say it made little sense for a foreclosure case to fail because of what they consider a clerical error — one that basically lets borrowers shirk their debts."

"'The idea that you should still be at risk because you haven’t repaid the money you borrowed doesn’t strike me as egregious,' Stein said."

From CBC News in Canada. "A litigation lawyer says she's seen a 'significant increase' in the number of clients who purchased a home with no conditions and are now seeking legal recourse for problems that popped up after moving in. 'People get the house, they move in, they're all excited and they discover some big issue, whether it's a foundation issue, another structural issue and because of the way the law works and the 'buyer beware' principle, they're often stuck with it,' said Erin Durant of Durant Barristers in Ottawa."

"In September Scott Fulton, 26, and his fiancée purchased their first home in Winchester, southeast of Ottawa, with no conditions. About two weeks ago, during their final walk-through, they found pools of water in the basement. Fulton said a sump pump had failed and he was able to get the seller to replace it before move-in, but now the water is back, and isn't going away."

"If he could do it again, Fulton said he wouldn't change anything because placing an offer with no conditions was a calculated risk based on the knowledge the property had a brand new well and septic system. 'If the market was what it was five years ago, we probably would have had conditions put in ... but with the way it was, you weren't going to get in with all those conditions,' he said."

From ABC News in Australia. "Kate and Rod Iskander's building site with views across Hobart's River Derwent is littered with bricks and hardening bags of cement after their builder stopped work on their home two months ago. They say they are financially out of pocket hundreds of thousands of dollars and are faced with the prospect they may not be able to finish their home. Their builder, Inside Out Construction — owned by Corey Wills — has gone into administration."

"'I haven't slept, I cry all the time … the kids are devastated,' Kate Iskander said. The Iskanders have described their financial loss as 'a scar on our financial lives going forward forever.' 'My estimation and based on the couple of quotes we've got [to complete the house] is we're nearly $250,000 out,' Rod Iskander said. 'We might have to walk away from this and not be able to have our home … yeah, it's devastating,' Kate Iskander said."

"Maddy and Victoria Stansfield signed a contract with the same builder. The sisters have dreamed of becoming home owners since high school and have been putting money aside. The sisters face the prospect of losing close to $75,000, with the builder in administration. 'That's really one of our main concerns, we've put our life savings into building this home,' Victoria said."

"Alistair Dennis said he feels like one of the lucky ones — he and his business partner were also clients of Inside Out Construction. Their two-unit development on Hobart's eastern shore is almost complete. 'I just feel sorry for people … we know of people who have half-built houses and framework,' he said. Nevertheless, Mr Dennis said their build had taken a toll. It started in 2020 and he said it had been a long and difficult journey to get the building company to finish the job."

"'It's just been one debacle after another. My business partner, who has got the other unit, his mental health is not good because of it.'"

From Stuff New Zealand. "A Northland man who paid a container home company more than $500,000 for his dream home says he has received nothing and lost his life savings. Justin Steves​ wanted to build a home for his family of five on land he bought in Tutukaka, north of Whangārei. Steves, his wife and two children had been living in Brisbane but were ready to return to New Zealand. In April 2019, Steves came to New Zealand and met Warren Sinclair​, the owner of Whangārei company Ready Homes."

"Ready Homes creates houses out of metal containers, which the company claims on its website are 'the opportunity to get on the ladder for fraction [sic] of the cost of investing in bricks and mortar.' Options on the website range from a simple single-container sleepout priced from $24,995 to multi-container, four-bedroom homes costing more than $350,000. They are built offsite, and then transported to the owner’s property."

"'When we first met him, he gave me a verbal figure on-site for the build of about $500,000 to $600,000. We were a bit gullible, when we went back to Australia I paid a deposit before I’d even signed a contract.' After receiving the $35,000 deposit, Sinclair provided a quote in July 2019 of about $930,000. 'Just straight away we thought oh no, we’ve paid money, what do we do,' he said. 'We negotiated it down to about $770,000, I was obviously going to finance the rest once we got here and got a job and all that.'"

"By May 2020 they had paid Ready Homes $512,000. 'He hasn’t done anything. He chopped a few containers up, consents have never been done, the drawings have never been done.' They were now living in a tiny rental property with no money and no prospect of getting their dream home, he said. It had been like a death. 'He’s destroyed our lives. He’s taken our half million bucks, blown it, and we’ve got nothing, and he’s created so much drama along the way.'"

From Reuters. "Life used to be good for Jerry Tang, who left his rural hometown in 2014 to become a real estate agent in Shenzhen - China's tech megacity and one of the world's hottest property markets. 'It's definitely much harder to sell this year,' he said. 'Buyers are waiting to see what happens with the market, while developers are cash-strapped, they are taking time to pay commission to agents.'"

"If Shenzhen - emblematic of China's meteoric economic rise over the past 40 years - is not immune, then few places in the country are. For some, the tougher curbs and subsequent property market chills are a sign that speculative buying - often rampant in China as traditionally there have been few other investment options - could become a thing of the past."

"'My parents' generation could close their eyes and point somewhere to invest their money and get a great return - they could gamble,' said Lisa Li, who works in the investment industry and recently bought a small studio apartment but found the process nerve-wracking. 'Our generation can't do that, we'd be in trouble,' she said."

The Epoch Times. "Deutsche MarktScreening Agentur GmbH (DMSA), an independent data service based in Berlin, recently analyzed the top 10 Asia-focused pension and mutual funds with the greatest exposure to Evergrande bonds, estimating a combined loss of $10 billion. About $7 billion of those losses have already been incurred, and about $2 billion will be incurred in bankruptcy filings. In addition, international investors are expected to lose $158 billion on their investments in Evergrande’s credit default swaps."

"A Credit Default Swap (CDS) is a derivative product that allows a 'credit provider (lender)' to transfer credit risk. For example, Evergrande borrowed $100 million from Bank A. In order to reduce the default risk, Bank A signed a CDS contract with Bank B and paid the amount equivalent to the insurance premium to Bank B. Then when Evergrande defaults, Bank B shall bear the loss of Bank A, that is, the risk of default is transferred from Bank A to Bank B through CDS."

"Evergrande and other China exposures contributed to losses of about 21 percent for the 10 funds this year, totaling $7 billion, the report said. Evergrande’s bonds are now trading at a quarter of par, or 25 cents. With a redemption rate of 5 percent for every $100 in bankruptcy, according to Fitch, a further 6 percent, or $2 billion, is expected. 'If Evergrande will be bankrupt, the above funds would lose $9 billion in total year-to-date,' said Marco Metzler, senior analyst at DMSA."

"Evergrande’s reported exposure is only $1.2 billion, but actual losses could be nearly ten times that amount, Metzler argues, saying that the difference can be explained by CDS. According to a research note from Goldman Sachs,, the market’s CDS exposure to Evergrande is about $158 billion, meaning that the spillover effect of Evergrande’s bankruptcy would lead to $158 billion in losses on top of the $23.7 billion in bonds."

"Metzler said the top 10 funds, in addition to their holdings of $1.2 billion in Evergrande bonds, also held bonds of other highly indebted Chinese property companies, such as Fantasia Holdings Group. High exposure to property bonds is now the undoing of these funds."