A report from KIII TV. "Despite the economic downturn and sky-high inflation, the number of home foreclosures in our area is level, or even slightly lower than past years. Corpus Christi mortgage banker Claudia Mostaghas said people in the Coastal Bend are not trying to cash in like the rest of Texas. 'We didn't see what happened in other cities like people actually overbuying and overpricing like 100-150,000 dollars in Austin, Dallas, Houston. Like here it was very minimized. And I think that we're more like level off with that,' she said."

The Houston Chronicle in Texas. "More first-time buyers also are accessing down payment assistance programs. Justin Ahramjian, a Spring Branch loan officer with Loan Depot, said that in recent months almost half of his deals involve some form of down payment assistance. 'A lot of these first-time homebuyers, with inflation, are exhausting a lot of their liquid assets more than they want,' he said. Ahramjian recently worked with one teacher who struggled to find a home she could afford until she accessed down payment assistance. 'If I didn’t have that product, that person probably wouldn’t be owning a home right now.'"

From Urban Turf. "With the spring housing market underway, UrbanTurf is taking its annual look at the neighborhood markets around the DC region. Today, we head to over to Anacostia. For the last six years, home prices rose considerably in Anacostia. So far in 2023, prices are heading in the opposite direction. The median home price in the neighborhood east of the Anacostia River this year has dropped 34% to $350,000. Plummeting prices have not resulted in more buyers, as sales are down 16% compared to the same time last year. The homes that are selling in the neighborhood do not appear to be fetching their asking price, as the original list price to sales price ratio has fallen 8 percentage points to 91% in 2023."

The Garden Island in Hawaii. "Single-family home sales on Kaua‘i moved at a molasses-like pace in the first quarter of the calendar year, as evidenced by a more than 55 percent drop in transactions when compared with the same period a year ago. At the same time, the median price of a single-family home dropped 16.67 percent to $1,000,000 from $1,200,000. 'More of the same,' said Jimmy Johnson, broker in charge at RE/MAX Kaua‘i, on the housing market. 'No real price change or affordability.'"

The Aspen Daily News in Colorado. "To give you a sense of how much the market conditions have changed in the past 12 months, let’s look at some market indicators. In the spring of 2022, there were only about 125 active residential listings throughout the Aspen Snowmass market. That number has doubled. From the summer of 2020 through the end of 2021, there was an average of 74 closings per month. Over the past year, that number has declined to an average of only 29 closings per month. In the spring of 2022, it would only have taken two months to absorb all the existing inventory of properties for sale. Now, the number of months to absorb the existing inventory is just over eight months. In terms of market appreciation, that metric seems to have stalled as well. In 2022, the average sale price of a residential property in Aspen was $8.3 million. Year-to-date for 2023, the average sale price is slightly lower at $8 million."

From Bloomberg. "In the early 1980s, First Republic Chairman Jim Herbert, then running San Francisco Bancorp, wanted to get into a new line of business. The Bay Area’s high earners were coming to him and asking for unusually large loans to buy pricey properties in the area. 'Why don’t we do a couple of these and see how they go? Can’t bankrupt the whole bank,' Herbert said to the firm’s president, according to an account of the conversation on First Republic’s website."

"Years later, after Herbert left San Francisco Bancorp and founded First Republic, his new bank became known for handing out interest-only mortgages at rock-bottom rates to borrowers with high incomes and exceptional credit scores. Typically, they didn’t have to start repaying the principal for a decade. Demand for the loans surged during the pandemic as wealthy buyers sought mortgage deals that would allow them to keep the bulk of their money in higher return investments. The rush helped First Republic double its assets in four years. It also contributed to its collapse."

KCRA in California. "Sacramento saw home prices decline almost 12% in March, according to Redfin, making it the second-biggest price drop in the country. The Sacramento housing market has been in a state of change since mortgage rates started to climb in March 2022. Since then, sales have dropped 34%, according to the Sacramento Association of Realtors, and prices have fallen considerably, too. The average price per square foot is now down 9% compared to March 2022. 'We saw a peak last summer in housing prices, but it has been steadily declining since then. However, the first quarter of the year saw an increase in home values,' says Greg McClure, a real estate broker and CEO of Realty ONE Complete in Rocklin. 'This is directly tied to the lack of inventory, which is forcing buyers back into the aggressive mode that we had experienced in the previous years.'"

The Real Deal on New York. "In April, Brooklyn investor and one-time “worst landlord” Zalmen Wagschal filed for bankruptcy protection on a handful of Brooklyn walkups. The landlord chalked the bad debt up to the pandemic. Tenants had stopped paying and nearly two years of eviction moratoriums had kept Wagshal from moving them out. But a deeper dive into the landlord’s portfolio shows Wagschal’s financial troubles predate Covid. Since 2019, he has defaulted on loans backing at least 14 properties after taking on more and more debt, a pattern that points to an overleveraged landlord who couldn’t find a way out."

"The properties on which Wagschal sought bankruptcy protection —  634 Wilson Avenue, 221 Himrod Street, 867-71 Knickerbocker Avenue, 299 Throop Avenue and 1427 43rd Street — are indicative of his portfolio: six-unit walk-ups concentrated in Central and Northern Brooklyn. The owner picked up the buildings between 2009 and 2013 for less than $1 million apiece, then borrowed aggressively against every one — more than quadrupling the debt at each building, on average. If Wagschal were borrowing to finance repairs or improvements, it’s hard to see the results."

The Western Investor. "Despite rosy real estate forecasts when the $18 billion LNG Canada terminal began construction in the northwest B.C. city in 2018, Kitimat housing sales have been falling ever since and hit a six-year low in the first quarter (Q1) of 2023. The city is one of the few places in British Columbia where average home prices are less now than they were five years ago. Kitimat housing sales plunged to just 31 transactions in the first three months of this year, down more than 70 per cent from the 110 sales peak in Q1 2018 when LNG Canada began the biggest private energy project in Canadian history. Sales were also down from 46 transactions in Q1 of 2022."

"Re/Max Kitimat agent and city councillor Graham Pitzel recalls when the official announcement was made of LNG Canada’s approval. 'I sold 34 houses that month. Just unbelievable.' he said. 'It is not that like that now,' added the long-time Kitimat resident. In the first quarter of 2018, the average Kitimat home price peaked at $405,000. This March the average was $372,978, down $4,000 from a year earlier and 8 per cent lower than five years ago."

The Financial Express in India. "Mumbai and its suburbs could see a glut in housing supply in the coming months due to a plethora of new launches by property developers. Already, at 28,000 units, Mumbai Metorpolitan Region (MMR) saw the highest number of launches among the top eight cities in the fourth quarter of FY23. It was followed by Pune with 19,000 units and Hyderabad at 16,000 units, according to real estate analytics and research firm Liases Foras. 'Unsold stock level is at the peak in MMR. In Q4FY23 it has gone up by 29% to 377000 units,' said Pankaj Kapoor, chief executive at Liases Foras."

"'We foresee tremendous supply in Mumbai market due to new launches and redevelopment projects. It is clearly supply overstripping demand in coming months,' said the managing director of a PE firm who did not wish to be named."

Stuff New Zealand. "The suburbs that have seen the biggest falls were in Wellington, including Seatoun, where median values fell $389,800 in a year, Plimmerton, which fell $359,950, and Southgate, which fell $333,150. The number of homes for sale in almost all regions was also up compared to April last year. Realestate.co.nz spokesperson Vanessa Williams said while total stock had climbed from a low of 12,500 nationwide in August 2021, it had remained pretty steady around the 28,000 to 29,000 mark since last November. New listings dropped, but the decline was not reflected in total stock numbers, it was an indication that buyers were taking their time, she said. 'Credit conditions remain tight for buyers while interest rates are uncertain for anyone without a crystal ball.'"

From ABC News. "The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) has shocked borrowers and financial markets by resuming interest rate rises after a one-off pause last month. It has lifted its cash rate target from 3.6 to 3.85 per cent, marking the 11th increase in the space of a year. RBA governor Philip Lowe said the board had paused rate rises last month to assess the impact of previous rate rises on the economy, and strong jobs and inflation data meant it had more work to do to get price rises under control."

"'Inflation in Australia has passed its peak, but at 7 per cent is still too high and it will be some time yet before it is back in the target range,' he noted in his post-meeting statement. 'Given the importance of returning inflation to target within a reasonable timeframe, the board judged that a further increase in interest rates was warranted today.'"

"Pradeep Philip, the head of Deloitte Access Economics, slammed today's RBA decision as increasing the real risk of a recession. 'Today's rate increase shows that the Reserve Bank is still playing recession roulette, despite briefly and sensibly walking away from the table when it paused rate hikes last month,' he wrote. 'Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of mortgage holders are still to see their repayments surge as pandemic-era low fixed rates revert to variable, while businesses continue to be squeezed.'"

"Courtney Rogers has owned her home in Adelaide for around seven years and paid it down to around $300,000 so the initial repayment increases were small. However, as the letters from her bank notifying of repayment increases started to pile up, she decided to take her business elsewhere. 'The fact that my interest rate never dropped below 3.09 per cent during that really super-low interest rate period, when everyone else was getting a much better deal, kind leaves a bitter taste in your mouth,' she said. 'I think people are definitely starting to feel that massive increase on their personal finances and I think it's really impacting the decisions that people are making.'"