A report from Banker and Tradesman. "Last year may have started off with a bang for many Massachusetts loan originators, but the sprint rapidly slowed to a jog, and then a slog. 'I specifically remember the turning point was very weird,' said Keith Hapenney, another top LO and loan originator at Leader Bank. A popular loan product dubbed 'Lock, Shop and Drop,' designed to let a prospective homebuyer lock a rate before starting to shop for a home turned into a loss-maker as the Federal Funds Rate rose by leaps and bounds. 'What was meant to be a product that brought people in ended up us getting our asses handed to us on the portfolio side,' Hapenney said."

The Jax Daily Record. "The price of a single-family home in Northeast Florida rose 2.8% in April to a median price of $370,000, according to the Northeast Florida Association of Realtors. Median home prices in the region have fallen 7.65% since peaking in July at $399,450. Home prices are 2.4% lower than in April 2022. NEFAR’s April report said the number of closings, pending sales and new listings all dropped. NEFAR tracks home sales in Baker, Clay, Duval, Nassau, Putnam and St. Johns counties. While prices have slipped amid higher mortgage rates, the number of homes on the market is up 121% from a year ago, to 4,667 homes."

The Star Telegram. "Some experts say they don’t see North Texas home prices going down as long as the area continues to see more people moving here population and a strong job market. The median home price in Fort Worth in April was $336,250, which was about 5.3% lower than a year go. The median listing price of a Dallas-Fort Worth home at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic was around $330,000, said Mark Roberts, director of research at real estate investment firm Crow Holdings. Compare that to median listing prices today, and North Texas homes are about $460,000. 'You take the combination of that higher home price and higher mortgage rates, and that monthly mortgage payment has gone from about $1,100 per month to $2,400 per month,' Roberts said."

The Nevada Appeal. "The median sales price for an existing single-family residence in Washoe County was $540,000, an increase of 2.3 percent from the previous month and down 9 percent from last year. The median sales price of an existing condominium/townhome in Washoe County in April 2023 was $315,000, a decrease of 6 percent from last year. Lyon County had 74 sales of existing single-family homes, a decrease of 23.7 percent from the previous month and a decrease of 33.3 percent from last year.The median sales price for an existing single-family residence was $380,000, an increase of 1.6 percent from the previous month and a decrease of 33.3 percent from last year. Douglas County had 66 sales of existing single-family homes, an increase of 88.6 percent from the previous month and a decrease of 6.5 percent from last year. The median sales price for an existing single-family residence was $520,000, an increase of 4.5 percent from the previous month and a decrease of 18.4 percent from last year."

NBC Bay Area in California. "Rakesh Rajappa bought a three bedroom, three bath San Jose home in 2020. He told NBC Bay Area he sometimes has buyer’s remorse, even at the lower interest rate. 'I do have second thoughts. Was it cheaper just to rent?' said Rajappa. 'Or is it worth buying a house?' Rajappa added he can’t imagine how new home buyers are doing it. The floor plan he bought two years ago for less than a million dollars is now selling for 1.1 million with interest rates at double what he pays. Kevin Mahoney and his partner said it’s difficult enough just paying rent, even with two incomes. They’ve pretty much given up on buying a home. 'We’ve been looking to move out of the state, frankly,' said Mahoney. 'Because we just can’t afford to live here.'"

The Denver Post. "The heyday of marijuana sales in Colorado – back in 2020 when recreational and medical sales topped out at a combined $226 million – is a distant memory, as the state’s dispensaries struggle through an economic downturn, with sales plummeting and small businesses foundering. Nationwide, the marijuana industry’s share of real estate acquisitions is taking a hit. Realtors 'are seeing a decline in commercial property purchases by marijuana industry-related businesses and a corresponding increase in leasing activity,' the National Association of Realtors reported."

"'The market’s just bad. It’s bad right now,' said 29-year-old Val Tonazzi, who works in cannabis sales. 'There’s businesses closing, left and right.' Business owners of smaller chains, like Renée Grossman, find themselves especially at risk. 'There’s too many stores, there’s too much cultivation, there’s too many products,' she said in a phone interview. Grossman was forced to move forward with a significant round of layoffs last year. She said other businesses in 'cash crunches' can’t pay their bills. 'Most companies I know are losing money, or they’ve shut down and scaled back,' she said. 'A lot of companies that are my size or smaller are really feeling the burn.'"

CTV News in Canada. "A pair of real estate brokers have had their contracts terminated by RE/MAX and are also under investigation by their professional order. The realtors are Christine Girouard and Jonathan Dauphinais-Fortin. A La Presse investigation revealed they allegedly had friends and family members submit bogus offers on homes they were selling to create a sense of competition among legitimate buyers to drive up prices."

"Girouard is one of the stars of the reality TV show 'Numero 1.' She and Dauphinais-Fortin are now facing an investigation by the real estate governing board of Quebec (OACIQ). On Wednesday, RE/MAX Quebec announced it was cutting ties with the two agents. Terry Kilakos, founder of North East Real Estate, says the way the bidding process works encourages buyers to overpay. Offers are kept confidential, leaving prospective buyers having to guess how much they need to bid to secure a home."

"'There needs to be transparency in the offers that are coming in,' he said. 'So basically, if you're bidding on a house that's selling for $500K and you're going in for $490K, and you have somebody coming in and telling you, you need to bonify this offer because we have competing offers, you need to know what those offers are.' According to La Presse, in at least one instance, Girouard and Dauphinais-Fortin had a friend submit a lowball offer to scare a prospective buyer into unnecessarily upping his bid by $40K."

Daily Mail Australia. "Sydneysiders have lashed out after the city was voted the best in the world in a global survey. The poll, which surveyed 15,000 people in 20 different countries last month, rated Sydney as the top city in the world to live and fifth 'best city brand' overall behind London, New York, Paris and LA. Another user suggested the poll had 'surveyed 15000 real estate agents', in a jokey reference to Sydney's savage rental market."

"While the city may be attractive for boomers and older people with wealth, many younger Sydneysiders said they felt it was too expensive. 'Sydney is the worst place to live,' one wrote. 'Over populated, worst rental crisis in history, nothing to do at night and if you do you have to fork our your own kidney. Let's be real! There are nicer cities in the world.' Another said it was the best city in the world if you turned a blind eye to the 'train system, airport, nightlife, traffic, toll roads, house prices, wages, red tap and cleanliness.'"

"Another frustrated user added: 'How does it keep receiving this title when it’s a ghost town that goes to bed at 10pm?!'  Lynnette Belivanis said she was 'born and bred' in Sydney but vehemently disagreed with the poll, questioning what it was based on. 'Definitely not on the cost of housing,' she wrote. 'You have to be earning a three-digit salary to afford a mortgage that you'll be paying off the rest of your life, and it's only getting worse (my poor kids). The transport system sucks. The night-life has no life. Restaurants close at 10... if not earlier. Bars are not far behind. The cost of living in general keeps increasing with wages slow to catch up.'"

The Financial Times. "Something is rotten in the Chinese economy, but don’t expect Wall Street analysts to tell you about it. There has never been a bigger disconnect, in my experience, between some of the rosier investment bank views on China and the dim reality on the ground. Hopes for a reopening boom were based on the premise that, once released from lockdown, Chinese consumers would go on a spending spree, but company reports show no sign of one. Corporate revenue is now growing slower than officially stated GDP in 20 of China’s 28 sectors, including consumer favourites from autos to home appliances. Weak revenue is in turn depressing earnings for consumer goods companies, which normally track GDP growth quite closely, but shrank in the first quarter."

"Many Chinese youth need a job before they can join a spending spree: urban youth unemployment is rising, and last month topped 20 per cent. These facts point to the source of the rot. Since 2008, China’s economic model has been based on government stimulus and rising debt, much of it pouring into the property markets, which became the main driver of growth. With debts so high, the government was much more restrained in its stimulus spending during the pandemic."

"A growth model dependent on stimulus and debt was always going to be unsustainable, and now it has run out of steam. Much of the stimulus over the past decade had flowed through local governments in China, which used their own 'financing vehicles' to borrow and buy real estate, propping up the property markets. Those vehicles are fast running out of cash to finance their debts, which is curbing their investment in the property market and industry as well. Industrial sectors are slowing faster than the consumer-related businesses at the centre of the reopening story."

"While analysts may have little to lose from rosy forecasts, the rest of us do. 'Boomy' chatter has contributed to investors’ loss of hundreds of billions of dollars in China in just the past four months. Further, global growth may prove weaker than expected in 2023, since the hope is that a US downturn will be countered by the China reopening boom, which may never come. It is time to expose this charade before the fallout gets worse."