A weekend topic starting with the Messenger Inquirer in Kentucky. "In recent months, CNN, the Washington Post and several other national media outlets have asked if America is heading into another housing bubble. The general conclusion has been that economists say we’re not. But they said the same thing back then too, CNN pointed out."

"Stephanie Rhinerson, a mortgage loan officer at Independence Bank, said, 'people are paying higher prices for homes because interest rates are so low. As rates tick back up, I don’t know if they will continue doing that. Rates are picking back up now, but I think they will remain low. People got spoiled when they were super low.'"

"Kyle Aud, Owensboro market president of German American Bank, said, 'There aren’t as many 100% loans available now like there were back then. You’ve got to put a little skin in the game these days.'"

From Bloomberg. "Quantitative tightening could be announced in July or even sooner and the central bank could eventually sell some of the mortgage-backed securities it owns, according to economists. 'As demonstrated by past experience exiting extraordinary stimulus, taking away the punch bowl is less straightforward than adding to it,' - Economist Eliza Winger."

The Real Deal on Florida. "David Solomon wants to be his clients’ one-stop shop: realtor, builder and seller. The Miami Beach native, who just closed on his first spec home project site, is one of a growing number of brokers who are getting into luxury home development and renovation flips, in what’s become a record-setting market. 'In this market, anything is possible,' Solomon said."

"Some agents have made more money during the pandemic than in their entire careers. In some cases, they are investing their commissions and more into renovations or ground-up construction. 'We have good intel. The market has a bit of runway,' said Douglas Elliman agent Brett Harris. 'The top realtors who made a lot of money can jump in and invest it. Ride the wave.'"

From Colorado Public Radio. "'The answer should be [that] the builders should be able to ramp up production to build more homes. This is a golden period for the home builders,' said Elliot Eisenberg, a self-employed economist who used to work for the National Association of Homebuilders. 'This is the market screaming: ‘Build more.'"

"'Everybody is making concessions in this business except for sellers. Sellers are king,' said Ann Kidd, chair of the Pikes Peak Association of Realtors. 'They rule the land.' It might logically follow that it would then also be a great time for realtors. Kidd said that is the case – for the few realtors who can get affordable listings. Looking at recent records of houses for sale in the Pikes Peak Region, she tallied only 29 three-bedroom, two-bathroom homes listed for sale under $500,000 – housing stock she qualified as the 'average, typical American dream.' Meanwhile, she said 4,600 realtors operate in the same region."

"'It’s a crazy mess,' she said. 'We have hungry buyers, but we also have hungry realtors.'"

The Los Angeles Times in California. "Retired Grand Prix motorcycle racer John Kocinski isn’t exactly riding off into the sunset after selling his mansion in the Bird Streets. The home was auctioned off for $6.526 million — just 22% of his original price tag of $30 million. Records show Kocinski bought the property for $2.3 million in 2004 and developed a Mediterranean-style mansion, which was finished in 2019."

From Blog TO in Canada. "People are still taking off from downtown Toronto for cheaper, more spacious and less dense housing in the surrounding suburbs. RE/MAX noted on Thursday that both Durham and York Regions are absolutely booming lately when it comes to residential real estate sales, and showed record year-over-year growth in 2021. By December, average prices for some home types in some towns were up a whopping 40 per cent since December the previous year, such as in Oshawa."

"RE/MAX also notes buyers moving to smaller, quieter areas in the region, such as Richmond Hill and Markham, which are 'not situated in the middle of nowhere' and 'strike the right balance between living in the downtown core and enjoying small-town living.'"

From Reuters. "Swiss banks have criticised planned new measures designed to cool the country’s red hot property market, saying the steps were unnecessary and would do nothing to slow rising house prices. The government said on Wednesday that from October, lenders must increase their cushion against home lending risks, sounding the alarm over one of Europe’s most expensive housing markets, where total mortgage lending has swollen to more than $1 trillion."

"Swiss banks have criticised planned new measures designed to cool the country’s red hot property market, saying the steps were unnecessary and would do nothing to slow rising house prices. 'People could simply go elsewhere for their loans. Changing the balance sheets of the banks is not going to cure the situation, if it needs curing,' said Oliver Buschan, a member of the SBA’s executive board told Reuters, adding that house prices were rising because of fundamental factors like a lack of space and population growth. 'We do not consider this a bubble,' he said."

"'The whole market would have to collapse by 40% for there to be a problem with the collateralisation, and that is just not going to happen, given the fundamentals,' Buschan said."

From Stuff New Zealand. "There were 16,773 homes on the market, a 29.7 per cent increase on December 2020. Of the regions, 14 had significantly more homes for sale than a year earlier. Wellington had the biggest increase at 206.6 per cent to 1061, and Auckland was up 30.6 per cent to 7595. Real Estate Institute acting chief executive Rowan Dixon said while there was an annual uplift of listings in many areas in December, sales were also down in every region apart from Marlborough."

"There are some reports that buyer sentiment is shifting, and they are less prepared to pay current prices, Dixon said. But this was likely to be due to tighter lending criteria, rising interest rates, and new investor tax policies rather than an increase in listings."

"If demand stayed the same, or reduced and supply continued to increase the fear many potential sellers had of not being able to buy a new place once they had sold would start to dissipate, said Ray White chief operating officer Daniel Coulson. 'This will encourage them to list which will ease the pressure on the market. It also means sellers will have to be careful about the strategy they choose, and will not be able to simply wait it out till they get the price they want.'"

The Wall Street Journal. "As Chinese property giant Evergrande continues to struggle, the battle for control of its assets is heating up. Who is still standing when the dust clears will say a lot about the future of China as a place to invest more generally. The past week has witnessed two important developments. First, following a letter from offshore debtholders threatening unspecified legal action, Evergrande Group announced Wednesday that it aims to release a 'preliminary restructuring proposal' within the next half year."

"Second, the Financial Times reported Thursday that Los Angeles-based Oaktree Capital has moved to seize a large chunk of Evergrande’s Hong Kong property, worth an estimated $1 billion, against a secured loan now in default—a property which could have potentially served an important role in Evergrande’s general offshore debt restructuring. Oaktree has another secured loan to a separate Evergrande mega-project onshore, according to the FT."

"Meanwhile, since the company has managed to avoid a technical default onshore thanks to negotiations with creditors there—who may ultimately be expecting some roundabout assistance from Beijing—money continues going out the door for operations and Evergrande continues to spend to build apartments owed to its customers."

"That raises the risk that, by the time secured offshore creditors like Oaktree also collect and a formal restructuring proposal from Evergrande arrives, there might not be many scraps left to fight over. To be sure, many offshore bondholders’ predicament is partly of their own making. Rating agency Moody’s notes that covenants on Evergrande’s bonds—limiting, for instance, the amount of leverage that subsidiaries could take on and constraining dividend payments—have been significantly weakened over the past decade."

"And holding the unsecured debt, in particular, of a highly levered company like Evergrande which has most of its assets onshore under the auspices of its mainland subsidiaries was always inherently risky. Still, if Evergrande’s offshore bondholders do get roundly stiffed, it is difficult to deny that the optics for China as a place to invest writ large are terrible—especially given what holders of U.S.-listed Chinese educational and internet technology stocks have experienced over the past 12 months."