A report from KVUE in Texas. "After a red-hot Austin housing market, a new report from Zillow shows us just how quickly it's cooling off. The average home value in the Austin-area is down 12% since the record highs we saw in June. But for some, taxable property values are still rising. Melanie and Caleb Sexton built their home in Round Rock in 2018. They say they've seen their appraisals higher this year when they know homes similar to theirs in the neighborhood are going for tens of thousands less than the values they're getting. So now, the Sextons are thinking of protesting their appraisal. 'I think it's something to consider because it's not reflective of what's going on in the real estate market. And again, we don't want to see our taxes go up,' said Melanie Sexton."

"'Buyers in pandemic-era hotspots like in Austin and Phoenix are seeing their markets return faster to normal,' said Orphe Divounguy, a senior economist with Zillow. 'Long gone are the days where you could just put a sign in front of the front yard and expect a bidding war to set the price for you. It's not going to happen. So working with an agent is going to be very helpful.'"

The Orange County Register in California. "Jeff and Melaina Brill will long remember February as the month they went through a complicated pregnancy and a hellish home sale at the same time. Their daughter, was delivered by C-section on March 2. Three and a half hours later, they got a text saying the two-bedroom condo the family of five had outgrown had been sold as well. Unbeknownst to the Brills, their real estate agent or their homeowners’ association, mortgage giant Fannie Mae had put their building, the Harbor Lofts condominiums in downtown Anaheim, on a secret list of condos ineligible for Fannie-backed mortgages. They didn’t find out about it until their buyers applied for a loan near the end of a three-week escrow. All over America, condo buyers and sellers have been getting similar surprises."

"Many, like the Harbor Lofts, got put on the list because of construction defect litigation between the owners and the builder. In February, residents of 6,102 condos at Laguna Woods Village learned their homes were added to the list because their HOA’s insurance is insufficient. 'You’re essentially blacklisting the (condo) community, and that affects values,' said David Gaylord, a mortgage broker with Arbor Financial in Laguna Niguel. Nobody knew about the list at the Harbor Lofts — until the Brills’ escrow almost fell through and saddled the couple with an extra mortgage they couldn’t afford. The buyers, meanwhile, went from lender to lender, finally getting approved for a loan, but at a higher cost. The Brills coughed up $15,000 to cover the buyers’ added finance costs."

From Fortune. "Heading into 2023, Yieldstreet told Fortune that the firm had reduced its homebuying levels by more than 90% as the institutional homebuyer awaited steeper declines in home prices. High interest rates, coupled with high home prices, means that buying new single-family rentals doesn't make a lot of sense right now for institutional investors. Tejas Joshi, director of single-family residential, says Yieldstreet is waiting for either home prices to fall further or interest rates to come back down. Or both. 'If short-term [interest] rates came down around 4%, and if home prices were about 15% lower than the peak last year, that is a valuation that supports the equity return that investors need to make,' Joshi says."

"Yieldstreet isn't alone. According to an analysis conducted by John Burns Research & Consulting, institutional investors bought 79% fewer homes in the fourth quarter of 2022 than in the fourth quarter of 2021."

The New York Post. "A little-noticed revamp of federal rules on mortgage fees will offer discounted rates for home buyers with riskier credit backgrounds — and force higher-credit homebuyers to foot the bill, The Post has learned. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will enact changes to fees known as loan-level price adjustments (LLPAs) on May 1 that will affect mortgages originating at private banks nationwide, effectively tweaking interest rates paid by the vast majority of homebuyers. The result, according to industry pros: pricier monthly mortgage payments for most homebuyers — an ugly surprise for those who worked for years to build their credit."

"'It’s unprecedented,' added David Stevens, who served as Federal Housing Administration commissioner during the Obama administration. 'My email is full from mortgage companies and CEOs [telling] me how unbelievably shocked they are by this move. This was a blatant and significant cut of fees for their highest-risk borrowers and a clear increase in much better credit quality buyers – which just clarified to the world that this move was a pretty significant cross-subsidy pricing change.'"

Business Insider. "A crash may be coming for the commercial real estate market, and the fallout could be as bad as what was seen in the 2008 crisis, according to the CEO of a real estate investment firm. 'Unfortunately in the situation we're in, things need to bottom out, and they haven't bottomed out yet,' said Patrick Carroll, the CEO of Carroll. H predicted areas like offices and hotels would be 'destroyed' – similar to what other commentators have warned for the sector as it faces tighter credit conditions and a wall of debt maturities. 'It's going to be ugly. It's going to be at least as bad as '08, '09,' he warned."

"The stress in the market could soon bubble to the surface, as $1.5 trillion in commercial real estate debt comes due in the next three years, Carroll said, at which point it will need to be refinanced or renegotiated somehow. 'Sellers are not realizing how much their properties have lost value, and they're not willing to dump their properties yet because they haven't felt enough pain. They're about to start feeling pain. These lenders are screwed,' Carroll warned."

Bisnow Boston in Massachusetts. "It isn't looking good for Boston’s office market after the first three months of the year. With vacancy rates reaching historic highs and the market suffering from millions of square feet of occupancy losses, experts say that the damage is far from over. The Boston metro area recorded 3.4M SF of negative net absorption in the first quarter, according to Colliers, with 1.5M SF of that occupancy loss occurring in Boston proper. 'I don’t think we’ve hit bottom,' Colliers Research Director Jeff Myers told Bisnow. 'I think there is still more pain in front of us.'"

The Globe and Mail. "Canada’s banking regulator is warning that although extensions to mortgage payment periods have helped borrowers absorb surging costs, the fix is short-term and will keep them in debt for longer,threatening both their financial stability and that of the banking system. Tolga Yalkin, an assistant superintendent at the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions, said higher costs of borrowing and a potential recession could deal a blow to already stretched homeowners and spur defaults."

"'It won’t surprise you to hear that we are not wearing rose-coloured glasses. The growth in highly leveraged borrowers increases the risk of weaker credit performance,' Mr. Yalkin said. While many lenders have allowed variable-rate mortgage holders to extend their amortization periods to keep payments from soaring as interest rates climb, Mr. Yalkin said the measure addresses only short-term affordability concerns, while leaving borrowers to pile up even more debt and accrue higher interest payments."

"In January, OSFI proposed tougher lending requirements that would make it even harder to get approved for a mortgage. Critics have questioned the need for these measures, saying that low delinquency rates demonstrate that tighter underwriting standards are unwarranted and overly restrictive. But OSFI would rather take the initiative in addressing potential issues,Mr. Yalkin said, especially since, as he put it, 'arrears are a lagging indicator of risk.'"

The Copenhagen Post. "House prices might have fallen 9.7 percent since mid-2022, but buying one has not become more affordable, according to Finans Danmark, the financial sector’s interest group. The figures, which are based on the assumption the buyer will need to borrow 95 percent of the value of the property, make for even harder reading in Denmark’s major cities. Ane Arnth Jensen, the deputy managing director of Finans Danmark, speculates that prices could fall further, as buyers will most likely put pressure on sellers to lower their prices, but that it might take time before 'an equilibrium' is found. 'When there is a gap, like the one we have seen, it is usually an indication that there may be further pressure on prices. Where it lands, no-one knows,' she said."

From Globes. "Prices of new apartments on the free market in Israel have fallen 5.8% in four months, equivalent to an annual fall of 18%, and a serious warning sign for the entire real estate sector, according to figures published by the Central Bureau of Statistics on Friday. This comes alongside a monthly decrease of 0.2% in the first overall monthly index of apartment prices of 2023. At the same time, rents continue to rise and fuel inflation and interest rate rises."

"Israel Builders Association president Raul Srugo said, 'The Israeli government has absented itself from the economy and the housing market, just ahead of the peak of a crisis we have not yet experienced. The responsibility lies with the state's leadership to provide incentives that will prevent a halt in building starts, because of the tremendous shortage of apartments and will help the homeless. As a representative of the industry, I tell you that if interest rates continue to rise, many contractors will lose their economic independence and some will collapse. This is an event that can affect the pocket of every citizen in Israel, with a drop in the capacity to build and a jump in home prices and rents.'"

"The annualized 18% fall in apartment prices on the free market is in line with the results of Israel Land Administration land auctions, which fetched prices of than half of the appraisers' estimates. Former Minister of Construction and Housing Zeev Elkin said, 'We said that in 2023 the increase in housing prices would be curbed and here it is.'"

News,com.au in Australia. "Customers at a collapsed building firm are furious as the appointed liquidators have flagged that they will pursue some of them over unpaid debts. That’s despite many being left tens of thousand of dollars out of pocket with incomplete homes and facing increased build costs when they go with another company to finish construction. One customer who preferred to remain anonymous told news.com.au that the liquidators are 'seeking more money from suffering customers.'"

From Business Daily. "Banks are turning to repeat auctions to speed up the sale of repossessed cars, houses and land at discounted prices as tight economic conditions knock off property valuations. The lenders, alarmed by the rising portion of loans for which principal and interest have not been paid for at least 90 days, are instructing auctioneers to re-advertise bids for repossessed assets. Some of the properties being re-advertised have suffered a drop in valuation due to factors such as depreciation and tight liquidity conditions in Kenya’s soft economy, leading to reserve prices that are now closer to previously received bids. As a result, there is a glut of repossessed vehicles, land, homes and office equipment being sold off cheaply across Kenya."

"'There is not much liquidity in the market now for individuals and businesses as well. A lot of the auctions we are seeing are not necessarily new but are repeated auctions. The market has not been good. There are not many takers,' said John Gachora, the NCBA Group managing director. 'The auction pages in newspapers have been growing. It is unfortunate that there are so many auctions going on.'"