It's Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. "Home prices continue to go down in the Boise area. The Intermountain Multiple Listing Service shows the median price of a newly constructed single-family home in Ada County dropped in March to $507,500, a decrease of more than $20,000 from February and more than $100,000 from March 2022. The sales price of existing homes has been dropping as well, though at a somewhat less dramatic rate. The median cost of an existing Ada County home in March was $475,000, down 14% from the $555,000 of a year ago."

"In Canyon County, the median price of an existing home was $380,000 and the price of a newly built home was $409,000. That compares to $420,500 and $505,562 a year ago in March, respectively, meaning new houses in the Nampa and Caldwell area have fallen nearly $100,000 in price. 'Buyers still have negotiation power,' said Debbi Myers, president of Boise Regional Realtors. 'Inventory growth and longer days on market grant buyers options and time, an opportunity they have not had in recent years.'"

"In March, median home prices in the city of Austin dropped just over 15% year over year to $529,495. Median home prices in the Central Austin region also dipped about 10% year over year from $795,000 in March 2022 to $700,000 last month. ABoR’s report shows monthly housing inventory has continued to trend upward in Austin, with 2.8 months on inventory last month compared to only half a month of inventory in March 2022. Housing inventory in the Central Austin region reached 3.6 months last month, a 500% increase since last year. Austin’s active listings surged 307.9% last month to 2,166 listings."

"There were 2,756 single-family and 1,525 condo sales in Massachusetts in March, reflecting drops of 23.4% and 22%, respectively. It was the fewest number of home sales in the state since 2011, according to Cassidy Norton, media relations director at The Warren Group. Looking at The Warren Group’s town-by-town breakdown, sale prices for single-family homes in Plymouth dropped 6.8% year over year to a median of $515,000. And sales were down 22.4%. The median sales price for a single-family home in this Middlesex County community was $502,500 in March, a 15.7% year-over-year drop based on an equal number of sales. Sales numbers plunged the most across the water in Nantucket County (down 42.9%), which also experienced the biggest drop in the median sales price: $2,265,000, down 30.9% (based on eight sales)."

"Data-sharing agreements with tech companies and undercover 'sting operations' have cut the number of illegal vacation rentals operating on Kaua‘i to the lowest rate in a decade, officials report. The remaining illegal TVRs are mopped up by a planning department task force, which book 'undercover reservations' in 'sting operations,' and collect documentation to be used as evidence in issuing violation notices and fines, said County Planning Department Director Ka‘aina Hull. Illegal TVRs can be subject to harsh fines of up to $10,000 a day if they are discovered. One property owner faced a $130,000 penalty in 2019, according to The Garden Island reporting."

"Pagosa County stopped their moratorium on new vacation rentals, which has been in place since last September. I interviewed four of the main rental management companies yesterday so that I could be better informed as to the latest trends. First of all, short-term rentals are hurting. Right now, there is a glut on the market, meaning rents are way down and occupancy as well. Now for the latest real estate news. Total sales are down 53% from a year ago. Keep in mind the market was at its peak a year ago. Home sales are down 46% with inventory up 21%. Condo sales are down 75% with inventory up 50%. Land sales are down down 55% with inventory up 39%. My guess is that we’ve seen about a 10% price correction since the peak a year ago."

"Oakland city leaders late Tuesday night voted to end the city's eviction moratorium on July 15. Landlords in Oakland had expressed their opposition to the proposal, instead calling for an immediate end to the moratorium. 'I can't sleep at night because I know I have to pay this bill tomorrow and that bill the next day and I don't have enough money to pay, and I have to work day and night, three jobs to get by,' said Lynn Truong, Oakland property owner."

"Toronto luxury sales have taken a big hit, dropping sharply in the first quarter, according to Sotheby’s International Realty Canada. Sales of homes over $4 million (including condos, attached and single-family) were down 65 per cent in the first quarter of 2023 compared to the same time last year, with 44 properties sold across Toronto. And home sales over $1 million saw a 53 per cent decline year over year, the report said. During the market correction — which has seen the average Toronto home price drop by more than 15 per cent from the peak of $1.33 million in February 2022 to $1.1 million in March 2023 — buyers have become more savvy, educating themselves on what a reasonably priced home is in the city. If the home is priced correctly it could enter a bidding war, but if a seller isn’t realistic about the value of the home it will sit on the market for weeks and even months."

"With house prices down over 8% in the first quarter of this year there are real signs that the market is being shaken up. So what does this mean if you are planning to buy for the first time in Amsterdam or even sell and move to a new place in the Dutch capital? As a company, Expat Mortgages talks to some 100 potential buyers a week and, says Richardo Cruz Fortes. 'It was clear that negative news about the housing market had taken over from people’s emotional decision to buy. Some people became more reluctant to commit or put their hunt for a new home on the back burner, but we have some clients who realised that the downturn gave them more options because fewer people were going to viewings,’ he says. ‘At the same time, estate agents had more time to talk to them about the ins and outs of a particular property and in some cases they were even able to talk down the price.’"

"In a recent article entitled 'Is there a Huge Demand for Condominiums in Cambodia?,' CBRE Cambodia had suggested that the capital’s condo supply closed 2022 at around 45,000 units, and projected that figure to rise to 65,000 by end-2023. CBRE Cambodia valuation and advisory manager Chin Daluch explained that advances made on the aforementioned seven projects – which were either completed or put on the market – do not guarantee a material pick-up in condo prices or transactions. That, she said, would require at least another year. She put the relative inactivity in the Cambodian condo market down to three main reasons: global economic uncertainty; a supply glut; and increased caution amid bank loan interest rate increases."

"Another Victorian building company has gone bust, weeks after the collapse of one of Australia's largest home builders, Porter Davis, and construction firm Lloyd Group. Award-winning builder Mahercorp announced it went into voluntary administration on Friday, affecting more than 700 homes, as the industry continues to struggle amid the cost of living crisis."

"One of the most surprising victims of the recent US banking crisis is a Swedish pension fund responsible for managing the retirement funds for a quarter of the country’s population. For years, Alecta’s 1.2 trillion-kronor ($116 billion) portfolio included shares of Signature Bank, First Republic Bank and SVB Financial Group, the parent of Silicon Valley Bank, alongside those of large Swedish companies."

"But Alecta’s nearly $2 billion loss in those US holdings, equivalent to roughly 2% of the fund’s total assets, looked to many like a serious misstep. The scandal has already triggered the departure of the chief executive officer, sparked an investigation by regulators, and is likely to force the fund to scale back its assets in the US, where its holdings include Microsoft and Google parent company Alphabet. On Thursday, the pension fund’s executives apologized for the situation. 'The investments in US banks were a failure,' said acting Chief Executive Officer Katarina Thorslund. 'We shouldn’t have ended up in that place.'"