A report from the Colorado Springs Gazette. "Home sales fell in March on a year-over-year basis, continuing a downward trend that began in the second half of last year, while prices last month dropped for the third time since December, according to Pikes Peak Association of Realtors figures. The area's median sales price rose by double-digit percentage gains for 24 straight months starting in July 2020 and topped $400,000 in February 2021 for the first time. By July 2022, it reached $495,000. Year-over-year prices were unchanged in January, but fell again by 5.4% in February — the largest percentage drop in 11 years. In March, the median sales price of $450,000 was down 3.2% from the same month last year."

"Brian Maecker, a real estate agent with Re/Max Advantage in Colorado Springs, said he generally saw 10% price reductions. A home that might have sold for $500,000 before the hike in mortgage rates would sell for $450,000 to $460,000 in the second half of 2022, he said. 'Obviously we're down,' said Mark Reyner, board president of the Housing & Building Association of Colorado Springs and owner of Weatherbee Drywall in the Springs. 'But at the same time last year, we were cranking at basically, you ask anybody in the building industry, at basically an unsustainable rate.'"

"Sellers also might offer $6,000 to $8,000 worth of closing costs to buyers to help them make a purchase, said Patrick Muldoon, president of Colorado Springs real estate company Muldoon Associates. That kind of concession had disappeared during the years when the housing market was crazy, he and others have said. 'I think you're starting to see balance, better balance as far as the offers go,' Muldoon said. 'They seem more reasonable and logical to me, where we had a whole (buying) season, a whole two or three seasons, of illogical buyers, very emotional.'"

The Miami Herald. "Existing home sales in South Florida plunged during the first three months of the year. Miami-Dade County recorded 5,607 sales of single-family homes during the first quarter, a 40% drop from 9,391 closings during the same period last year. In Broward, quarterly sales dropped 27%, to 6,517 single-family house purchases from 8,949 a year ago.  'At the beginning of 2022, when rates were still low and we were coming out of the pandemic, the market got a little crazy and it overstepped. It became too much of a sellers’ market. We experienced rapid price growth' said Jason Damm, assistant professor of professional practice in finance at the University of Miami. 'Now we’re cooling off. The market is healthier than where it was then. We’re going into a post-pandemic normal. It’s stabilizing.'"

The Orange County Register. "March’s statewide median price was $791,490, up 7.6% from February. This price benchmark had fallen eight out of the previous nine months. But it’s no miracle turnabout. March is usually a strong buying month. Prices have averaged 5.7% gains in this month since 1990 – and jumped 10% in March 2022. Consider that March’s price is still off 6.8% in a year, the fifth straight year-over-year decline. And the median is down 12.1% from May 2022’s all-time high of $900,170. The big story remains sales counts. Despite tales of renewed house-hunting vigor in early 2023, closings remain cold since California’s price bubble burst in 2022’s spring. Demand remains historically low. In just 22 months since 1990 – that’s 6% – the California sales pace was slower than this March."

The Contra Costa Times in California. "The name of Richmond's Miraflores development translates to 'Behold the Flowers,' but it's the turmoil around this market-rate and affordable housing complex that's truly a sight to see. Roughly seven years after the project originally promised to build 190 units on 7.3 acres of city-owned land next to Interstate 80, it has completely unraveled, city staff quietly revealed during a community presentation this month. After the developer took out $10 million in loans against the property — without permission from the city — lenders are pursuing foreclosure, the property's taxes are delinquent, the land has fallen into disrepair and Richmond has declared the developer to be in default."

"Golden State Regional Center's owners were indicted in March 2019 for running a fraudulent 'golden visa' program, which offered U.S. residency to foreigners who invested at least $500,000 in American businesses that created at least 10 jobs, specifically in low-employment census tracts. The Securities and Exchange Commission accused the business of advising their immigrant clients to invest in the center's projects — often housing developments — without disclosing their ownership of both entities."

"While Richmond officials continue to weigh their options on how to move forward, former Mayor Tom Butt called out their work on the project. 'Hints of trouble began to surface years ago, accelerating in 2022, but staff did not want to let the community know that the project they had anticipated for so many years was headed for the toilet,' Butt wrote earlier this month. 'As late as a few weeks ago, the developer appeared at a community event at Miraflores Park and told the community to anticipate a groundbreaking this summer, knowing full well it was a lie.'"

From CNBC. "If there wasn't enough banking jargon to blind you, it's time to learn a new piece of it: Welcome to the industry's era of the 'criticized loan.' It's a loan that's not gone bust, or even missed a payment. But in a time when Wall Street is vibrating to any sign of recession risk, especially from banks, it's gaining new currency. Criticized loans are those that show preliminary signs of higher risk, such as a developer who's making payments but is otherwise having financial trouble, or an office building that recently lost a big tenant and needs to replace it."

"And they're rising, which sets off the kind of bells that have sent bank stocks down roughly 20% since early March, even as earnings from the sector are coming in healthier than expected. Banks are being asked more about criticized loans partly because other credit quality metrics look so good, despite the failures of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank last month, according to David George, a banking analyst with Robert W. Baird & Co. Watching these loans is a way to gain at least limited insight into a real estate downturn many analysts expect to get worse before it gets better."

"Not all banks disclose criticized loan growth in earnings reports, and the definition of a criticized asset is more fluid than classifications of whether a loan has missed payments or is otherwise 'non-performing,' meaning it has missed payments or violated some other term of the loan deal. A bank's quarter-end list of criticized assets is developed by a bank itself, under the supervision of bank examiners, according to David Fanger, senior vice president at the bond-rating agency Moody's Investor Service."

The Wall Street Journal. "First Republic Bank is scheduled to report first-quarter earnings Monday. The results will give investors insight into the extent of the damage after sharp deposit outflows at the troubled bank. First Republic has been at the center of a crisis of confidence in midsize and smaller U.S. banks spurred by the collapse of several banks in March. Concerns have mounted about other lenders that could face a liquidity crunch similar to the ones that ultimately took down Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank. First Republic, one of the larger lenders to be swept up in the contagion worries, had to be rescued by JPMorgan Chase & Co. and other big banks last month. The San Francisco bank’s stock has lost nearly 90% of its value since it closed at $115 on March 8."

"Zions Chief Executive Harris Simmons said deposits at the Salt Lake City-based bank have stabilized and at the end of the first quarter were 18% above the levels they were at before the coronavirus pandemic, which flooded banks with more than they could put to work. 'People freak out on the downside of the roller coaster, not on the way up,' Mr. Simmons said. 'But if you put everything in context, you end up back where you started.'"

The Globe and Mail in Canada. "2425 Taylor Crescent, Kelowna, B.C. Asking price: $1.3-million (Sept. 2022). Previous asking prices: $1.499 million (July 15, 2022); $1.399-million (July 31, 2022). Selling price: $1.195 million (Jan. 19, 2023). The house was first listed on July 15 for $1.499-million but didn’t get any offers. The sellers, a professional couple who wanted to purchase another house nearby, reduced the price to $1.399-million after two weeks, but still didn’t get offers. 'We had missed the market when this hit,' listing agent Richard Deacon says. “The market had turned by then. We were in the dog days of summer and we had a strategy in place that if we didn’t get immediate action we would reduce it, which we did.'"

"By the end of summer, they’d reduced it again to $1.3-million. After taking it off the market on Jan. 5 they got a flurry of requests for showings. Ten days later, they got an offer, from a young couple. The deal completed April 20. 'The activity has picked up since this first went on the market. The doldrums of the last few months seem to be over,' Mr. Deacon says. 'Listings still haven’t skyrocketed, but I’m seeing more showings and getting more calls, more interest. Not necessarily seeing more offers,' he adds. 'But this early activity might resemble sales activity in the next two months. It hasn’t got me excited, but there’s a glimmer of hope.'"

The Telegraph. "Holiday landlords are having their properties repossessed for the first time in years as they come under strain from high interest rates, the chief executive of one of Britain’s largest letting companies has warned. Graham Donoghue, the chief executive of Sykes Holiday Cottages, said owners were having their properties taken over by banks after rising rates left them with crushing monthly repayments. Mr Donoghue, who oversees a portfolio of 22,000 properties across the country, told The Telegraph: 'They can no longer afford to meet their banks’ demand and they’re being repossessed.' This happened to 'handfuls' of properties last month 'but that’s not something that in the six years that I’ve been here that has ever made its way to a trading meeting before,' he said."

The Phnom Pen Post in Cambodia. "Kampot provincial police arrested Chea Saron, who holds the honorific title Oknha, and his eight accomplices for alleged fraud perpetrated on over 2,000 families, bilking them out of nearly $40 million total through 'scam' real estate projects. The arrest came right after Saron and his accomplices were invited by provincial governor Mao Thonin to a public meeting with 2,461 families in Chhouk district on April 22, as part of a conflict resolution mechanism outside of the courts system."

"Saron’s arrest, police said, may indicate that evidence has emerged that he never intended to fulfil his end of the bargain with the victims when he took their money or that he engaged in deceptive practices in order to convince them to buy in. 'I call on our people who have been cheated to stay calm and not panic. Please trust the provincial governor and legal enforcement entities, prosecutor and provincial court president to find justice for you over this ‘investment’ that has earned you nothing but tears,' the provincial police said in an April 23 social media post."

"Kampot residents who had invested in Saron’s real estate projects – in some cases taking out bank loans in order to do so – requested that the provincial administration intervene in the matter when the promised construction never began. During the April 22 public forum, an elderly woman said that she and other members of her family had been cheated by the company and had sold land they owned to make the investment. 'I would like to get my money back. I have nothing to eat now. Please take pity on me,' she said."