It's Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. "Spring in the Seattle area looks a bit different from usual this year. The median single-family home in King County sold for $875,000 in April, down 12% from a year ago. The median Snohomish County home sold for $767,500, down 9%. The median Pierce County home sold for $525,000, down 9.5%. The median Kitsap County home sold for $520,000, down 8%. Prices dropped sharply on the Eastside, where the $1.45 million median home price was down 16% from April 2022. Seattle’s $886,000 median was down 13%. Homes are also sitting longer in Everett, Tacoma and Bellevue."

"'It feels much like our economy: a little unpredictable,' said Ballard Windermere agent Kayse Gundram. Gundram listed a $2.4 million, four-bedroom Craftsman less than a block away from Capitol Hill’s Volunteer Park in April that has been sitting for sale since, despite a $100,000 price drop. Several buyers visited the home multiple times, even checking to make sure their cars fit in the garage, but did not submit offers, baffling Gundram and other agents she knows, she said. 'There’s kind of no rhyme or reason to what goes quickly and what sits on the market,' Gundram said."

"Spring is typically a hot time for the residential housing market in Philadelphia and around the country. But this year is far from typical. Compared to past seasons, the market is struggling — mightily — to blossom. 'It’s about as weak as it gets,' said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics. 'It’s kind of consistent with the worst of sales during the peak of the pandemic when we were all shut in. Or go back to the financial crisis back in ‘08/’09. It’s those kinds of levels.'"

"Earlier this year, we wrote about the cooldown in Austin real estate following an extended period of meteoric growth. It appears that the new ice age in home buying has spread beyond Central Texas. In the Austin-Round Rock Metropolitan Statistical Area, though, the numbers are even more stark. Median home prices are down 11.2%, closed sales are down 18.7%, and homes are taking 122 days to close, an increase of 46 days year over year. Active listings are up a staggering 377.7%, and inventory is at 3 months, up from just .5 in 2022."

"There's one vague, under-the-radar fee that brokerages have more recently injected into the homebuying process. The fee goes by many names: an administrative fee, a transaction fee, or even a 'regulatory compliance' fee. When it pops up on a closing statement, the charges can range from a few hundred dollars to nearly $1,000. 'It gets called so many different things,' Amelia Robinette, a broker in northern Virginia, told me. 'It should just be called a bullshit fee.' The agent I spoke with in Las Vegas said it'd become almost standard in the industry. The size of the fees had only grown, the agent said, since buying activity plummeted from the heady days earlier in the pandemic. 'Everybody has this idea of, 'Oh, real-estate brokerages, they're swimming in cash,' the agent told me. 'Well most of them aren't, and a lot of them are going under, especially now that the market's slowed.'"

"Detroit-based Rocket Companies experienced its second consecutive quarterly loss since going public. The corporate parent of Rocket Mortgage reported Thursday a $411 million net loss in the first quarter on $666 million in total revenue. Mortgage lenders nationwide have experienced a decline in business since early last year when mortgage rates started climbing, leading to fewer home purchases and less refinancing activity."

"Plans to construct a 400-unit condo tower at 110 Fifth St. in San Francisco have been placed on ice, with owner and developer Hearst Corp. citing worsening market conditions and high construction costs. A Hearst spokesperson said the building 'doesn't pencil because of market conditions and construction costs.' The spokesperson said Hearst is not planning any changes to the entitled project at this time."

"Three in 10 Canadian homeowners are having a tough or difficult time paying their mortgages – a situation that jumps to more than five in 10 among those with variable-rate mortgages, according a poll. 'It’s really the people who are least equipped to deal with fluctuations in the market who are poised to be the worst hit,' said Angus Reid Institute president Shachi Kurl, adding that it is often younger Canadians facing these financial hurdles. 'These buyers are perhaps most vulnerable. They’re looking at a variable mortgage because they were looking to reduce their monthly payment to the absolute minimum. It was a gamble, and the odds are turning against them.'"

"In some apparent good news for first-time buyers, one of the only items (along with sweet potatoes) whose price isn’t spiralling in the cost-of-living crisis is the one-bedroom flat. In fact, recent Zoopla research uncovered a real terms fall of 24 per cent since 2016 for central London flats. Buying agent Roarie Scarisbrick points to a buyers’ advantage in the one-bedroom flat market, in part thanks to landlords selling up, hit with hefty mortgage charges and the prospect of big pay-outs to upgrade their properties’ EPC ratings looming. That glut of ex-rental flats we can hope to see hitting the market do offer a great opportunity to add value, often having been left unmodernised for several years, or even decades."

"Swedish builder Skanska reported a sharp fall in operating earnings for the first quarter on Thursday. The Nordic region's largest builder, and one of the biggest in the United States, reported an operating profit of 394 million crowns ($39 million) in the quarter, down from 1.85 billion a year earlier. Swedish housing prices have fallen by double digits since the Riksbank's tightening cycle began in earnest a year ago. While the decline has appeared to slow in the early months of this year, many economists predict further fall."

"The real estate market has faced unprecedented problems with a large inventory and a sharp drop in liquidity since the middle of last year, said Dr Nguyen Van Dinh, Vice Chairman of the Vietnam Real Estate Association. Apartment prices in the city plummeted by 40-50% year-on-year in the last quarter of 2022, while sales declined by 30% year-on-year, according to Cushman & Wakefield. The market has seen a huge imbalance between supply and demand for years, with an oversupply in the high-end segment but a shortage of affordable housing products, according to Dinh."

"One person came to the first open home of James Faber's Palmerston North property, which convinced him to take a risk on a $1 reserve auction. A similar property nearby had sat on the market for months, partly because deals had fallen through, Faber said. 'I just wanted it sold and wanted it sold fast,' he said. 'From the start I was saying I’m not nervous, but just in the last week it’s starting to get that way, to be honest with you, just due to the lack of interest.'"

"Faber is selling in a market where listings remain high, sales are 35% below their 10-year average, and prices continue to fall. Before listing, online valuations put Faber’s three-bedroom property at $580,000. 'The market’s doing nothing but going downwards, so I’ve been expecting to go below market value, and hoping it would at least get in the region of $420,000 to $430,000 range,' he said."

"The advertisement states 'vendor has to sell!,' and Faber said that was because he had to pay his mother back $300,000 she loaned him for another subdivision he had under way. 'I bought this other development project a year and a half ago, and expected to have the old house sold and at least one new build sold by then to pay mum back, but as you can expect everything has dragged on and dragged on. I absolutely regret buying this current project I’m working on because of the way the market’s gone, 100% wish I had never bought it.' Faber worked for Property Brokers for over six years, and is an investor with six properties."