It's Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. "A luxury real estate brokerage that handled some of Orange County’s biggest and most iconic home sales has shut down. Villa Real Estate closed all three of its offices in Newport Beach and Laguna Beach, leaving 125 agents scrambling to find a new brokerage. Jamie Duran, president of Coldwell Banker Realty Southern California, said her division has been 'very busy in talks with quite a few brokers.' 'Companies call us and want to be acquired,' Duran said 'They just want to get out of Dodge with their shirt on.'"

"The sprawling apartment empire built by Veritas Investments, San Francisco’s largest and most controversial landlord, is unraveling at a rapid clip as multiple troubled loans backed by thousands of the company’s apartment units flood the marketplace. Rents are still between 5% and 10% lower than they were before COVID and, in some neighborhoods such as South of Market, it’s closer to 20%. 'The market is in free fall, in one sense. Downtown is exposed significantly,' said veteran San Francisco landlord David Gruber. It would be difficult for a buyer to make solid assumptions about what the portfolios are worth, he said. 'Everybody is spooked by this stuff. Who is the lender going to be? How do you forecast? How do you know the values?' Gruber said. 'San Francisco is the poster child for everything that is wrong nationally. I don’t know how many people want to deal with it.'"

"A strongly criticized new Florida law restricts the real estate buying power of foreigners from seven countries, a startling move for Miami’s global property market. 'The biggest winners are going to be local residents, as well as those moving down from the Northeast. There will be less competition to acquire property,' said Jack McCabe, owner of real estate and economic research firm Jack McCabe Expert Services in Deerfield Beach. 'The biggest losers will be those with high-dollar properties, as well as developers who have catered to foreign buyers. You look at Hialeah, Sunny Isles (Beach), Doral where you have a large concentration of foreign buyers, those marketplaces will have more of a dramatic effect.'"

"The heat wave in the Hamptons is over when it comes to summer rentals, real estate brokers told On The Money. The number of available rentals in the posh Long Island enclave out East is growing, even as demand for season-long rentals has fallen – and the market is taking a hit, Susan Breitenbach, a broker at Corcoran Group, told On The Money. While many rentals have dipped to pre-pandemic levels, others have been slashed as much as 50%, Breitenbach adds. Of course, some brokers note this is just an inevitable correction from absurd pandemic prices. 'The pandemic was once in a lifetime pricing we’d never seen before,' David Mazujian, licensed real estate salesperson at the Corcoran Group said."

"The median sales price for a single-family home in Maui County dipped in April to $1.1 million compared to the $1.24 million median price at the same time a year ago, but home sales continued their downward trend as changing mortgage rates discourage buyers. In Maui County in April, 57 single-family homes were sold, down 48.2 percent from 110 sold in April 2022. Over the last 12 months, the number of single-family home sales each month has been down from the previous year. Maui County’s housing inventory has seen an upward trend over the past year."

"The owner of a B.C. mortgage company is facing several lawsuits from investors, accusing him of not repaying them. On Tuesday, an estimated 50 investors attended a hearing at the B.C. Supreme Court, and another 350 watched the proceedings online. 'There's been a lot of people who are very concerned about their investment,' said Chris Ramsey, a lawyer of one of the investors. 'I've had calls from many investors who borrowed money against their houses to invest in this in this company. And obviously, this is a very serious issue.'"

"Troubled Swedish real estate group SBB has sold most of its shares in construction company JM for 2.8 billion Swedish crowns ($276 million), the company said, taking a significant loss on a stake bought less than two years ago. Th transaction gives SBB a much-needed cash infusion after scrapping a share issue this week when ratings agency S&P Global downgraded the company's debt to junk status. SBB originally bought most of the shares, a roughly 20% stake, in June 2021 for 326.30 crowns per share. The sale at less than half that price could trigger an accounting loss of some 3 billion crowns, Carlsquare analyst Bertil Nilsson said. SBB is likely to continue selling off assets this year to reach a goal of divestment amounting to 6 billion crowns, the analyst added."

"The average price for a home on the market fell sharply last quarter in the four largest cities in the Netherlands. The housing inventory on offer has also become more extensive. In the four largest cities of Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague and Utrecht, a home cost an average of 480,000 euros in the first three months of 2023. That's 8.2 percent less than a year earlier. Land registry Kadaster said that small private investors are now selling more homes than they are buying. Kadaster further noted that the budget that first-time buyers have available has 'solidly' decreased. At the same time, NHG national mortgage guarantee program said that the increased mortgage rates have reduced the financing options available to homebuyers. This will result in the Dutch housing market becoming increasingly stalled, NHG said."

"The rising cost of living, says Richard Gray, chief executive of Harcourts South Africa, is coming at the general public 'from all angles' and most people are struggling. Another interest rate increase may therefore 'push' some homeowners 'over the edge of affordability,' forcing them to sell. Already, increasing numbers of homeowners are selling their properties because of financial stress. 'This is a good investor buyer market because some home owners are under pressure. There is an uptick in investor properties and this trend will continue,' said Sharon Kayise, Tyson Properties’ rental agent in Johannesburg."

"Luxury home prices have fallen globally for the first time since the 2008 global financial crisis, according to Knight Frank. 'Annual prices are now falling in 16 of the 46 markets tracked. While two-thirds of markets are still seeing positive growth, the large size of price declines in the weakest markets has pulled the overall index negative,' Liam Bailey, Knight Frank’s global head of research, wrote in the report. Wellington saw the most significant price fall with a decline of more than 27%, followed by Auckland and Christchurch, which witnessed prices drop 17% and 15.3%, respectively. Other under-performers include Stockholm and Vancouver, 'reflecting weakness in their broader national markets,' the report said."