A report from Deseret News. "More than a month after the failure of the Silicon Valley Bank, Moody’s Investors Service downgraded 11 investors. Moody’s research released on Friday suggests that the industry is experiencing greater instability from several bank failures and high inflation, calling 'into question whether some banks’ assumed high stability of deposits and their operational nature, should be reevaluated,' The Wall Street Journal reported. Six U.S. banks were placed on Moody’s review list in March, per Reuters."

"All six banks put for review failed and were downgraded with the new study, including Comerica Inc., First Republic Bank, Intrust Financial Corporation, UMB Financial Corp, Western Alliance Bancorp and Zions Bancorporation. The other downgraded banks include Associated Banc-Corp., First Hawaiian Inc., Washington Federal Inc. and U.S. Bank, reported WSJ. U.S. Bancorp lost $682 billion in assets, Zions Bancorp lost $89 billion, and finally, Bank of Hawaii Corp. lost $24 million."

The Express News in Texas. "The fever is breaking. San Antonio-area home prices, which got superheated through the pandemic, finally notched an annual decline in March. 'Now the buyer actually has time to think about the decision,' said Sara Gerrish, the Realtors' board chair. 'Before, when things were really hectic, you would see buyers make offers sight unseen, thousands above list price, and compete in multiple-offer situations.' In San Antonio, the housing market’s temperature began falling last spring as higher rates and prices put the notion of homeownership out of reach for many prospective buyers. For 12 months, that’s been slowing the number of homes sold in the area."

"The same patterns being seen in San Antonio are playing out in the state’s other large cities. Sales fell 18.3 percent and the median price dipped 3 percent to $325,000 year-over-year in Houston, sales dropped 14 percent and the median price declined 13 percent to $450,000 in Austin, and sales dipped 1.3 percent and the median price slid 0.8 percent to $390,000 in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, according to those areas’ Realtors’ groups."

The Bradenton Herald in Florida. "Existing single-family home sales increased in Manatee County for March in comparison to the same month a year ago, while prices decreased by 6.3% to $491,988. The amount of single-family homes on the market rose significantly with 1,706 listings compared to 431 a year ago in the Bradenton area and 1,911 listings compared to 690 a year ago in Sarasota."

WFAE in North Carolina. "Are you seeing fewer cranes out there? Well, it turns out that construction in Charlotte is stagnant. That’s according to new figures from CoStar looking at the first quarter of 2023. The numbers also show apartments and the industrial sector, which ncludes warehouses and distribution centers, saw their weakest periods in almost two years. So what’s going on? We turn now to Tony Mecia of the Charlotte Ledger Business Newsletter. Mecia: 'In Charlotte, we've become accustomed to seeing things being built all the time — apartment complexes, office towers, industrial buildings, retail shops. But if you look at the numbers, they've been down for the last couple of quarters, the last half a year or so. There's a lot of economic uncertainty. Financing costs are getting more expensive. Banks are getting a little more reluctant to lend money for construction projects. And so, you know, a lot of this boom that we've seen over the last few years is really slowing down.'"

"'I think it's really sort of a continuation of a trend that's gone on for a few months in that you're seeing that the year over year median sales prices of homes in the Charlotte region has gone down. Now, it's not significant. It's 0.4% in March compared with March of 2022. But for a region that's been accustomed to ever-increasing home prices, it is a little bit different.'"

NBC Bay Area in California. "The Bay Area has the worst performing housing market in the nation, according to a new report. Parcl Labs, which tracks the housing market, said that prices in the Bay have dropped a staggering 24% from their peak last summer -- more than double the national average of 10%. Analysts say that’s partly because people have been moving away, meaning there’s more supply than demand."

The Real Deal on New York. "Two Upper East multifamily apartment buildings are heading to a bankruptcy auction next month, more than a year after a lender moved to foreclose. Aulder Capital initiated a UCC foreclosure on the 37-unit multifamily properties at 162-164 East 82nd Street in late 2021. The apartments, which are mostly free-market rentals, are largely controlled by apparel entrepreneur Ruben Azrak. Azrak hired bankruptcy specialist David Goldwasser to put the properties into bankruptcy in September of last year, halting the foreclosure."

"Bankruptcy gave the owners one last chance to refinance, but the lending environment has been brutal. The property is the latest example of the distress in New York’s multifamily market. Rent-stabilized buildings have faced headwinds since the 2019 rent law, which severely limited rent increases at stabilized units. But free-market rentals are also facing challenges. Last month, Moody’s downgraded the CMBS debt secured by 11 Manhattan multifamily buildings owned by Blackstone, claiming that the cash flow wouldn’t cover the debt service. The portfolio is 96 percent free-market."

The Financial Times. "US banks are becoming increasingly worried about falling commercial property valuations and the risk they pose to lenders’ balance sheets, senior executives said.Office valuations in particular have been pummelled. Last week, Wells Fargo reported that its non-performing commercial real estate loans had jumped nearly 50 per cent since December to $US1.5 billion. Morgan Stanley cited commercial property and a deteriorating economic outlook as reasons for a sharp rise in its provisioning compared with last year. 'In my view we are not in a banking crisis, but we have had, and may still have, a crisis among some banks,' chief executive James Gorman told analysts on a call."

"This week Christopher Ailman, chief investment officer of the $US306 billion California State Teachers’ Retirement System, told the Financial Times he estimated office values had fallen by about 20 per cent and that he was bracing for steep losses on the fund’s $US52 billion real estate portfolio. 'If you have maturing debt, you can’t carry the existing debt load and you’re not willing to put more money in, then it’s foreclosure,' said Tony Natsis, head of the real estate group at law firm Allen Matkins. He added, however, that lenders would prefer to modify existing loans: 'They’re asking themselves ‘do I really want to take this back in a bad market?'"

The Edmonton Journal in Canada. "It’s not quite the deluge of buyers seen last spring when Edmonton’s resale real estate market saw record-high sales. Melanie Boles, a realtor and chair of RAE, points to March resale market data, showing sales had fallen nearly 45 per cent from March 2022, an all-time record for any month when 3,311 homes changed hands. 'When we take out the anomaly years of the pandemic, we’re seeing fairly strong activity in the city.'"

"Of course, most buyers are local, Boles says. But they have shifted their sights to lower priced segments. With an average price of a condo at the end of March falling five per cent year over year to $170,000, and townhome prices dropping nearly 13 per cent to about $248,000, Edmonton remains among the most affordable markets for price-sensitive buyers. 'It’s not that the buyers have left the market,' Boles says. 'It is more they have changed what they’re looking to purchase given the higher rates.'"

From I News in the UK. "In 2018, Victoria Lowe put her three-bedroom flat in southeast London on the market for £525,000, some £50,000 less than she bought it for, but with the hope it would sell quickly. Five years later, no one has bought the flat, and she’s now dropped the price by £80,000. It has become a weight around her neck that has left her unable to move on with life. One tiny consolation is she knows she is not alone."

"Lowe, 40, is one of a growing number of people who bought a home through the Government’s shared ownership scheme and now regrets it. Like many stuck in a similar situation, she is finding it impossible to sell her property. Her last attempt in 2020, when she tried to sell at a £80,000 loss, resulted in her agreeing the sale with a buyer, only for them to later pull out. For Lowe, the experience has been one she did not think would ever happen. 'When I went into this thing, I just never dreamt I wouldn’t be able to sell it, I knew the price might go up or down, but to not be able to sell it at all didn’t even cross my mind,' she said."

Stuff New Zealand. "Residential properties are selling for on average $39,500 less than asking price, according to data from CoreLogic.CoreLogic head of research Nick Goodall said the difference between what sellers wanted, and what they got, was greater in the most expensive areas of the country, where house price falls have also been greatest. In Auckland, the median selling price was $69,000 below the median asking price, and in Wellington, median selling price was $55,000 below. 'It may be that those people are just taking longer to adjust their expectations on what they will have to accept,' Goodall said."

"Homeowners in the country’s most expensive regions tended to overestimate the value of their properties the most, with Queenstown topping the list, followed by Auckland. REINZ recorded that in March the median national house price was $775,000, down from $890,000 at the same time the year before. 'I think we’ve definitely been through a significant adjustment phase in the last 15 to 16 months, where vendors have started to come back into the market, and had to adjust their expectations, and asking prices will have come down off the back of that,' Goodall said."

The Age in Australia. "For months, Anthony Morgan and his partner have driven their five young children past the block where their new family home is being built. Their kids, aged between two and 11 and who all have disabilities, were excited as the concrete foundations were laid at the block in Lara, outside Geelong, and when the timber arrived last week for the next stage of the build. But the future of their dream home is now unclear after they received an email on Friday night informing them that construction company Mahercorp, which includes housing construction brands Urbanedge Homes and Eight Homes, had gone into voluntary administration."

"Work on more than 700 Victorian homes has been halted for five weeks while administrators consider restructuring the business. On Saturday, Cameron Redmond, whose home was also being built through Eight Homes, tried to call Mahercorp seven times. He left voicemails and sent emails.The father of two said a number of delays in recent weeks had started to ring alarm bells, but Friday’s news was still a shock."

"'It absolutely gutted me. My wife rang me, she was crying for hours. We don’t know what it means, whether we have lost thousands of dollars. We wanted to be in by Christmas,' the 30-year-old said. The family has been living with relatives while waiting for their first home to be built. 'This was our first family home,' Redmond said. 'It was all exciting and we were pumped, and now it’s like someone punched me in the gut.'"

From CNN. "Wearing surgical masks to cover their faces, dozens of people demonstrated outside a branch office of China’s central bank in the landlocked province of Henan early this month to demand their savings back. They’re among thousands of depositors in China that protesters say are still campaigning for compensation after last year’s rural banking scandal saw their accounts frozen. China’s latest banking scandal started last April, when five rural banks, four in Henan and one in the eastern province of Anhui, froze depositor funds. Sanlian Lifeweek, a state-owned magazine, estimated that 400,000 customers were affected."

"One of them, who asked to be identified only by the surname Du, says he put his entire family’s savings, worth about 5 million yuan or $726,000, into one of the banks. CNN is not revealing the identities of the bank victims in order to protect their safety. They say all they want is their money back but their requests have been ignored. Some say they’re being tracked, harassed or physically attacked by local officials. 'I live by begging from others or receiving donations,' he told CNN. 'If I can’t get the money soon, then my children and I can only live on the streets, without a house or a home. People like us have been robbed of money, yet we are treated like criminals.'"

"Experts say small banks in other parts of China could face the same crisis, as the world’s second largest economy faces a longer term structural slowdown. 'It’s just the tip of the iceberg, and there are similar situations in other provinces,' said Frank Xie, a professor at University of South Carolina Aiken. 'I would say at least one-third or one-quarter of the small banks in China are in trouble.'"

"About a quarter of the Chinese banking industry’s total assets are held by around 4,000 small lenders, which often have opaque ownership and governance structures and are more vulnerable to corruption, say experts, as well as the sharp economic slowdown the country faced during the pandemic. But the government has learned its lesson and has likely clamped down to conceal information about other troubled banks, according to Xie. 'They’re sitting on a volcano, but they have put a big lid on it and are sitting tight on it,' he said."

"Many small banks also relied on financial products tied to the real estate sector for higher returns, so when the property bubble burst and the economy slowed, funds dried up. 'The government’s attitude is that as long as they’ve suppressed the people with problems, there is no need to pay back the money,' said Zhang, another bank victim and lawyer in Beijing. Zhang says many lawyers in China have been told not to represent bank victims, but since he’s a lawyer himself, he has halted his regular legal work and is pouring all of his energy into trying to recover the depositors’ funds."

"Zhang has been in touch with many of the depositors, as he tries to mount various legal cases. He says many of them are dealing with anxiety or depression and are struggling to continue their previous jobs. 'Some depositors, myself included, can no longer survive,' Zhang said. 'Because all of our money is stored there, some people may commit suicide, some depositors may hurt others. Everyone has a tipping point.'"