A report from KXAN in Texas. "Home prices in Austin continue to cool after reaching a zenith last year. The median home price in the Austin-Round Rock region fell 15% last month to $466,705, per an Austin Board of Realtors report. In April 2022, the median home price in Austin-Round Rock was $521,100. Home sales also dropped in Travis County by 28%. The median home price in the County is $445,000, a 12.8% decrease from last month. Home sales in Williamson County decreased by 11.2% last month.  The median home price decreased 12.8% to $445,000. Last year the median home price was $490,000. Home sales in Hays County rose 1.1% to 361 sales last month. The median price for homes fell 16.9% to $416,500. In April, home sales in Bastrop County decreased 14.1% year over year to 122 sales. The median home price dropped slightly by just over 5% to $380,000."

The Houston Chronicle in Texas. "The number of Houston-area home sales dropped below pre-pandemic levels last month. Single-family home sales fell 18.4 percent to 7,310 in April, the 13th straight month of year-over-year declines, according to a monthly report from Houston Association of Realtors. Homes sold for a median price of $331,000 in April, down 3.6 percent from a year earlier and almost 7 percent less than the record $353,995 in June. The median home price has soared by 35 percent since April 2019 when it was $245,000, according to HAR."

The Denton Record Chronicle in Texas. "Home sales in the city of Denton were down 4% from the same time a year ago. Pending contracts were 5% lower than a year ago. Nominal home prices rose again last month, putting prices roughly $34,000 higher than the January bottom. That still leaves Denton home prices 4.8% lower than April 2022. Adjusting for home size, Denton home prices actually fell 9% from April 2022. Home prices throughout Denton County posted their third consecutive month of lower year-over-year prices in April. The median price per square foot of a Denton County home was 6% lower than the bubbly prices of April 2022."

"In case it isn’t perfectly clear yet, Texas appraisal districts have been extrapolating the spring 2022 housing bubble forward into 2023, pretending that prices are still higher in 2023. It appears many appraisal districts and their mass appraisal algorithms are completely ignoring the 'prevailing market conditions' in 2023 where mortgage rates and the cost of borrowing are dramatically higher than they were for the first quarter of 2022."

The Dallas Morning News. "North Texas commercial property sales are plunging under the pressure of soaring interest rates and tighter lending standards. During the first quarter of this year, commercial property investment in Dallas-Fort Worth plummeted by more than 70% from the same period in 2022, according to the latest estimates by MSCI Inc. 'Despite recent price declines, MSCI Real Assets research indicates that buyers and sellers still disagree on pricing, with buyers more apt to walk away than to overpay,' said Alexis Maltin, MSCI’s Americas head of real assets research."

Bisnow on Pennsylvania. "In the Philadelphia area, the prevailing attitude toward new multifamily development is the same as it is in most markets nationwide: don’t. The construction boom precipitated by rock-bottom interest rates in 2021 is now in its late stages, with 2023 shaping up to be a massive year for new deliveries. Stabilized apartment buildings can’t push rents the way they had in the past couple of years, and new buildings aren’t leasing up as quickly. 'For the next year, I would suggest that all developers just put pencils down so construction costs can drop,' Hankin and Bozzuto Development Co. Senior Vice President Pete Sikora said. 'The capital will come back. It's just that other factors have to help out. And we can't just keep raising rents to solve the issue. And unfortunately, that's been the solution over the last few years. But the music stopped on that.'"

Globest on California. "A year ago, Brookfield’s Downtown Los Angeles office portfolio encompassed 8M SF, including four of the city’s highest-profile trophy towers. It was not a stretch to say that the Canadian REIT dominated the DTLA skyline. What a difference a year makes: Brookfield has now defaulted or missed payments on CMBS loans encompassing more than $1B that are backed by three of its largest DTLA office trophies."

The Globe and Mail. "Economists at Desjardins Capital Markets have issued a dark warning about how much more damage high interest rates could inflict on the mortgage and housing market: You ain’t see nothin’ yet. This week, Royce Mendes and Tiago Figueiredo published a report labelling Canada’s mortgage debt 'a ticking time bomb.' The detonation time, they argued, is still 'a couple of years in the future.' The risk lies in what happens when mortgages come up for renewal. Mortgage holders who have renewed in the past year have already been hit with dramatically higher rates – and, thus, big increases in monthly payments. But even bigger hits are yet to come."

"The bulk of mortgages taken out during the pandemic, when rates were at their bottom and house prices soared, were for five-year terms. For those loans, renewal crunch time hits in 2025 and 2026. The Desjardins economists forecast that on fixed-rate mortgages, first-time homebuyers (who make up about half of all new mortgages each year) will face 15-per-cent increases in their monthly payments. The news is much worse for many variable-rate mortgage holders. The interest rate on their loans has gone up along with the Bank of Canada’s policy rate, but in most cases, lenders haven’t increased their payments. Many of these mortgages have fixed payments – the monthly bill remains the same when rates rise, but more of that money is used to pay interest and less to pay principal."

"About three-quarters of those mortgages have hit their 'trigger rate' – when the interest cost exceeds the monthly payment – which would normally mean an automatic payment increase. But many banks are instead leaving monthly payments unchanged, and allowing the excess interest to pile onto the outstanding principal."

"It’s a nice break for variable-rate mortgage holders now; but when renewal time arrives, they will not only face a much higher interest rate, but will also have a now-growing pile of debt to service. The Desjardins economists say that some five-year variable mortgage holders could be staring down the barrel of a 40-per-cent payment increase in 2025 and 2026."

"In an interview Wednesday, Mr. Mendes said there’s a risk that Canada drifts toward a 'housing recession,' similar to what we saw in the early 1990s: A sustained slowdown in household spending over several years, as homeowners have no choice but to pour more of their earnings into their mortgages. 'People will be devoting a record amount of their disposable income to servicing their mortgages,' he said. 'This is something that has really never happened before.'"

From News.com.au. "Outspoken tech executive Matt Barrie has blasted the Albanese government’s record high immigration intake as a 'national disgrace' in a blistering speech to business leaders and bureaucrats. The Freelancer chief executive, speaking at The SMH Sydney 2050 Summit on Monday, tackled the hot-button issue of migration and housing in a lengthy keynote address entitled 'The Great Australian Scream.' 'The US uses quantitative easing to drive ‘easy, relentless’ growth — Australia uses quantitative peopling,' Mr Barrie said."

"'This is not about ‘growth’ but inflating demand for housing. It’s not about the ‘economy’ but inflating GDP. But population growth does not increase GDP per capita,' he said. 'What’s crazy about the ponzi is 69 per cent of immigrants are in rental stress, with outgoings greater than income, the second worst group after the elderly. That’s why they say migrants are net contributors to the economy — because they’re drawing down their savings to live.'"

"He described the immigration crutch as Australia’s 'big, uncomfortable secret.' 'With the highest inflation in decades, sharply declining real wage growth, the worst rental crisis on record, overloaded infrastructure, construction blowouts, bureaucracy, mass insolvencies, extreme cost of living and the largest destruction in purchasing power in 50 years — the solution is, as always, more people, despite this being the root cause,' he said. 'It’s sending the Australian middle and working classes into poverty. It is politically untenable. Also frankly, I think, morally wrong and a national disgrace.'"

"'The root of all evil is the cost of property, that squeezes the life and soul out of everything,' he said. 'There is no justification for Sydney being the second most expensive in the world. At this point, either wages need to go up 50 per cent or house prices need to halve. Businesses can only afford to increase wages if they cut half their staff, and the AI might indeed sack them.'"