A report from My Northwest in Washington. "The glory days of 30-year mortgage rates hovering around 3% or less may be in the rearview mirror. Windermere's Chief Economist Matthew Gardner was on Seattle’s Morning News Wednesday and declared, ‘Are we ever going to get back to sub 3%?’ No, that was artificial. It was fake. It was government-induced. It should never have happened in the first place. But it did. So anyone waiting for that 2.95% 30-year fixed rate? They’ll be waiting a very long time. I expected her to see a drop in values because we peaked in the region back last May. We certainly have seen a year-over-year drop,' Gardner said. 'So far this year, we are still down 7 to 8%, roughly, depending on the part of the region where you are.'"

Vice Magazine. "Kristin Turner’s first few months as an Airbnb host had gone off without a hitch. She and her husband had purchased a home in Austin, Texas, in 2022 as a place to stay when they commuted into the city to work at a downtown trauma center, where they are both nurses. In July, they closed on a three-bedroom home, planning to put it on short-term rental sites like Airbnb. Then, one night last October, Turner received an email that changed everything. It was from a member of the Airbnb team who identified herself only as 'Eleanor,' saying that the company had decided to remove her from the platform not because of her own behavior, but because her account had been 'closely associated with a person who isn’t allowed to use Airbnb.'"

"Soon enough, all her home’s bookings had been deleted and she could not get into her account. The potential consequences were clear. She had purchased a home on the idea that she would rent it out to help cover the mortgage, and now the company that dominated the short-term rental market had suddenly and permanently banned her from doing so. Immediately, she began to fear that her family would face financial ruin. The ban, Turner said, proved to be more than an inconvenience. It became 'absolutely life-changing,' causing her and her husband 'horrific and traumatic stress,' she said. Austin housing prices have since dropped, meaning they’d take a large loss if they sold it."

The Real Deal. "In 2014, Starwood thought it hit a gusher in West Texas oil country. But like many would-be wildcatters, the firm may now be left with little more than a sad story and a sunburn. As rates have risen and rent growth slowed, swaths of Sun Belt rental properties acquired at the top of the market have spiraled into distress. But for a stretch of West Texas multifamily owned by Starwood Capital, it’s not the macro factors that sparked trouble; the area’s oil industry is to blame."

"On the heels of the 2014 oil bust, Starwood picked up four investments in Midland and Odessa, twin cities in Permian Basin, the heart of Texas oil country. Through the down years of 2016 and 2020, the Miami Beach, Florida-based private equity firm struggled to keep up with payments on $100 million in debt covering more than 900 units. Two multifamily assemblages have landed in default and face foreclosure, while the other two are struggling with delinquency."

"In 2020, Park at Caldera’s occupancy slipped from 94 percent to 80 percent. As of November 2021, the development’s debt service coverage ratio hovered at a mere 0.48. University Gardens fared little better with a DSCR of .72 by the end of 2021. In February 2022, the portfolio transferred to special servicing for imminent default after Starwood 'indicated it can no longer cover payment shortfalls.' The firm declared imminent default for Park at Caldera the next month. Both assets are marked REO or real estate owned in servicer records, signaling the borrower defaulted on its debt obligations and the property failed to sell in a foreclosure auction."

"The average rent at Hawthorne House still stands 32 percent below what its lender underwrote for. Aviare Place is 44 percent below underwriting. That is, the investor’s bet on boom times may just go bust."

The San Francisco Chronicle in California. "Park Hotels & Resorts’ plan to surrender ownership of two of San Francisco’s biggest hotels reflects the city’s slow tourism recovery and the widening financial distress hitting local property owners. The company plans to give up nearly 3,000 hotel rooms in the Hilton San Francisco Union Square and Parc 55 properties. Its expected $725 million loan default appears to be the largest U.S. hotel default during the pandemic. Though unmatched in size, Park Hotels is far from alone. Other San Francisco hotels such as the Huntington on Nob Hill and Yotel on Market Street were recently sold in foreclosure auctions. And more than 30 additional San Francisco hotels are facing loans due in the next two years, said Emmy Hise, senior director of hospitality analytics at CoStar, a real estate data firm."

"Numerous hotels around the country, from Portland, Ore., to Minneapolis to New York, have also gone into foreclosure in the past year."

The Financial Post. "Just as Canada’s housing market was starting to rebound, the Bank of Canada has dealt it another blow. The bank’s decision to raise its key interest rate 25 basis points to 4.75 per cent on June 7 will put downward pressure on home prices, which have rebounded faster than the bank had expected, according to James Laird, president of CanWise mortgage lender. The rise brings the policy rate to the highest it’s been since April 2001."

"'The Bank of Canada just stomped on housing sentiment in a way that only it can,' mortgage analyst and strategist Rob McLister said, adding that the stress test will get 'meaningfully more stressful' for borrowers at the margin. Royal LePage chief executive Phil Soper said he was not surprised with the rate hike due to the rapid rise in prices. He said the rate hike may be the 'borrowing straw that breaks the camel’s back' for some people, as it will keep them from buying and they’ll decide just to step back."

CBC News in Canada. "Ontario's Home Construction Regulatory Authority (HCRA) has revoked a Mississauga-based developer's licence to build or sell homes in the province after it says the company tried to charge a buyer significantly more for a home than was contractually agreed upon. It's the first time a home builder has received the regulator's most serious punishment for increasing a price since CBC Toronto reported last March that the Doug Ford government planned to crack down on the practice. The move comes after Pinetree Developments Inc. demanded a buyer pay more than half a million dollars extra for a home in Mississauga than was contractually agreed to, according to HCRA notices of proposal to revoke the licence. When the buyer refused, the company listed the home online, the HCRA documents say."

"But that wasn't the only issue. A HCRA inspection that began in December 2022 found falsified documents were used to obtain building permits, the developer failed to enroll homes in the provincial warranty plan and that there was a lack of explanation when the HCRA came inquiring about the increase in price. A phone number listed for Pinetree in the HCRA's registry is disconnected, and an email sent to an email address listed for Pinetree returned a message saying it couldn't be delivered. An additional request for comment sent to an email address listed on the company's website received no response."

"NDP housing critic Jessica Bell said there's more to be done. She said people filing complaints with the HCRA have often spent their life savings in pursuit of home ownership. 'These people are stressed, they're furious, their lives have been turned upside down. They just want their home built,' she said."

The Guardian on Australia. "Jack Lynch and his partner moved out of Sydney to the picturesque but cheaper Blue Mountains to become homeowners in 2021, and promptly locked in a cut-rate, fixed-rate loan. The couple, in their early 30s, are now bracing for that loan to expire, and for repayments to increase by more than $2,000 a month. 'It is going to be a massive, massive struggle,' Lynch says. His partner, who is on maternity leave, has picked up two teaching jobs, and Lynch is negotiating with his own employer to take on extra work. At the same time, they are caring for three young daughters, including a one-month-old. 'We moved so far away to afford a mortgage instead of rent to have extra room for the girls – that line of thinking is now totally pointless.'"

"Lynch and his partner are among 880,000 Australian households with fixed-rate mortgages expiring this year who will need to find hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars more each month to meet repayments, as an era of cheap rates is replaced with financial stress. Along with the personal toll, the 'mortgage cliff,' as it is widely known, represents one of the biggest challenges for the property sector and wider economy, with the peak resetting period starting in July, according to bank data. Along with the 880,000 expiring fixed loans in 2023, there are a further 450,000 due to expire in 2024 and beyond."

"For Lynch, it will be an extra $24,000 a year; an amount he is unsure the family can find. He says their savings will only cover five months of the inflated repayments that will kick in after the fixed loan expires in September. 'What if the fridge breaks down? What if one of the kids gets hurt or sick? Our savings are for emergencies.'"

The South China Morning Post. "From now on, visitors to the Unesco-listed Malaysian island of Penang will have fewer accommodation options. After mulling it over for more than a year, on May 25, the Penang state government imposed a ban on almost all forms of short-stay accommodation in residential units - the kind typically found listed on Airbnb and Booking.com - throughout the island, with immediate effect. Penang is the first state in Malaysia, and the first tourist hotspot in Southeast Asia, to take such measures - mostly, it claims, to regulate hordes of tourists, some of whom behave badly and disturb local residents."

"Airbnb quoted a Penang-based host, Sharinah Bte Mohd Ibrahim, as saying that, after her husband was laid off due to the Covid-19 pandemic, 'the income earned through hosting helped our family survive ... it will be difficult to service my bank mortgage and I will bear losses if I'm forced to sell the unit now.'"