It's Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. "Home prices in many parts of the Treasure Valley have cooled down in recent months. The median sales price for June 2023 was $545,000 in Ada County, according to data from Intermountain MLS. That's 8% lower than the median price in June 2022, when it was almost $595,000. In Canyon County, the median sales price for this June was $405,000, exactly $10,000 lower than the median for May of this year and $40,000 lower than the median for June 2022. Gem County's June 2023 median home sales price of $433,258 represents a 7.2% decrease from June 2022."

"The Phoenix metro's housing market is crawling back from a 'massive cooldown' after mortgage rates shot up in 2022. In the Phoenix metro, the average value of a home climbed 1% from May to June, up to $448,032 -- steep, but down 7.2% compared to last year."

"Office-to-residential conversions have often been cited as one potential cure to the Bay Area’s housing woes. A recent viral video features a San Rafael office that’s been converted into a one-bedroom condo, priced at $520,000. It doesn’t look like it was much of a conversion — the owners seemingly just added a full kitchen along one wall. According to the listing, there are also HOA dues of $655 a month, which seems a little steep for very few building amenities. 'I think living here might be just as soul-crushing, if not more soul-crushing, than working here,' zillowtastrophes says in the video. The median home price for a condo in San Rafael was $556,000 in June 2023, according to Redfin, down 12% from 2022."

"More than 100 people are jobless after CUSI Construction, a general contracting company in Colorado Springs, abruptly shut down and laid them off. On top of that, employees say the company still has not paid them for their final weeks of work. The abrupt layoff left employees, some hired within the past four weeks of the shutdown, now scrambling to sort out their livelihoods and get new jobs. 'Other employees I’ve talked to had to reach out to their mortgage companies and make arrangements over the course of the next six months so that they don’t lose their homes… We had an employee that just had his first baby, and he has no job,' said Malisa Smith, the former director of construction at CUSI."

"When the Related Companies set out to build Hudson Yards, a roughly 28-acre mega-project on Manhattan’s far west side, its goal was lofty. Now, approximately 50% of the units were still unsold as of the last week of June, more than four years after sales launched. Ann Cutbill Lenane, a Douglas Elliman real-estate agent, signed a contract in 2017 to buy a $4.84 million condo for herself at 15 Hudson Yards. Now, with a need to downsize, she has accepted that she’s unlikely to find a buyer willing to match that price on a resale. She has the unit listed for $4.495 million and said she expects to sell for a loss, especially since Related is currently listing units at a discount, undercutting the price she paid. She said she feels embarrassed to be a real-estate agent losing money on a piece of property. Still, 'I can’t beat myself up,' she said. 'You always take a risk when you step into a new product. That’s just the nature of the beast.'"

"Related’s Sherry Tobak, who heads sales for the two condominiums, said the developer had been forced to reassess its expectations at 35 Hudson Yards. 'When we first opened the job, we thought we’d be able to get a higher price,' she said. 'The message [from the market] was that we were overreaching a little bit.' Tobak said that buyers who purchased at the height of the market at 15 Hudson Yards are now facing inevitable market realities, but recommended that they try to wait out the current cycle. 'If you hold on for a little while, you’re going to make money,' she said."

"Almost 3,200 Dallas-Fort Worth homes were posted for foreclosure in the first half of 2023 after borrowers defaulted on loans, according to research by Attom Data Solutions. That’s a 24% jump from the same period last year. Statewide, 13,869 home foreclosure filings occurred in the first half of this year — a 20% rise from 2022 levels. The Houston area had the largest number of houses threatened by foreclosure with 4,215 filings. There were 1,629 foreclosure notices in the San Antonio area and 628 homes in the Austin area scheduled for forced sales after borrowers defaulted on loans. 'In June of this year, many major Texas counties have either reached or surpassed pre-pandemic levels in terms of posting counts and completed foreclosures,' said Curtis Roddy with McKinney-based Foreclosure Listing Service. 'Notably, Bexar, Williamson, Collin, and Denton counties have exceeded pre-pandemic levels. Additionally, Dallas and Tarrant counties are within 10% of returning to pre-pandemic levels as well.'"

"D-FW ranked 12th nationally among major metro areas with the most homes facing foreclosure this year through June. New York, with 14,037 filings, and Chicago, with 10,963 filings, had the most homes on the foreclosure list."

"A Windsor mortgage broker said she's received plenty of calls from clients after the Bank of Canada hiked its key interest rate to five per cent on Wednesday. 'The major thing that I'm hearing … my phone is ringing off the hook that everybody is in panic and their monthly payments have increased by a certain amount since last year,' said Rasha Ingratta, a mortgage broker in Windsor. In a housing forecast released by Royal LePage on Thursday, the price of a single-family home in Canada was down 11 per cent, while the price of the average home was down 12 per cent compared to this time last year."


"Some of the most reduced properties for sale in Britain have been revealed and the list includes both grand chapel conversions and modest abodes. The asking prices on these properties for sale on Zoopla have been cut by between 44.8 per cent and 48.7 per cent. In one case, it translates into a reduction of £9.5million on a five-bedroom converted chapel in London's affluent Chelsea. This home in the Derbyshire village of Stanley Common has two bedrooms and has seen its asking price cut by 46 per cent in recent months. It was first listed on January 6, 2023, for £249,950 and has had three price reductions since. This three-bedroom house in the Devon village of Whitchurch sits on a third of an acre and is being sold with a guide price of £220,000. It was originally listed for £410,000 at the start of the year. The asking price has slashed several times since the start of this year, with total reductions so far standing at 46.3 per cent. The agent is now turning to an auction to the property, which is taking place on July 18."

"Home buyers in the Netherlands have more to choose from, but many seem to be dithering on buying a home. They’re waiting for prices to fall further, according to analysts at housing site Funda, the Volkskrant reports. After years of sellers having all the say in the Dutch housing market, lower home prices and a bigger offer now give buyers more options. Funda currently has over 113,000 homes listed for sale, compared to less than 75,000 eighteen months ago. And 39 percent of homes are currently selling at above asking price. Last year, overbidding was the norm, and 82 percent of homes sold for more than the seller asked for. And yet, many home seekers are waiting to buy. The majority of home seekers Funda surveyed expect home prices to fall further or remain about the same in the near future. More than half of first-time buyers told Funda they’re not buying now because they hope to pay less in a few months."

"Property experts predict a hike of either 0.25% or 0.5%, which will take the prime lending rate to 12% or 12.25% respectively. Citing a response to a parliamentary question tables in April, Yael Geffen, chief executive of Lew Geffen Sotheby’s International Realty says Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana reported that 32,831 individuals changed tax residence in the period between the 2017 and 2021 tax years – in other words, emigrated. 'Godongwana was saying indirectly that South Africa is experiencing a massive economic exodus – an exodus of people who were heavily invested in the country’s property market...For those left behind, a higher repo rate means higher bond repayments and a crushing debt load on already overburdened South Africans. It’s a grim but realistic forecast of what’s ahead.'"

"Since reaching a peak last year, prices in Seoul—home to about one-fifth of the country’s population—have dropped 9% in the year through March, the biggest decrease among Asian cities in that period, according to a Knight Frank report. Some neighborhoods saw drops as big as 30%. The upshot: Landlords are collecting smaller deposits from new tenants, which is making it harder for some to pay back renters whose leases are expiring. What started as a trickle of defaults has swelled into something bigger. The number of court cases filed by tenants against landlords for unreturned deposits topped 19,200 in the first half of 2023, a 60% increase compared with all of 2022, according to data from the Supreme Court of Korea. In a report from May, the central bank estimated that more than half of the 2 million people who have paid jeonse are at risk of losing a portion of their money."

"A court has spared an embattled building company from going into liquidation despite mounting debts, a 'long line of creditors,' and the landlord repossessing the office space. On Wednesday morning, Melbourne-based Como Homes Pty Ltd was called in the Victorian Supreme Court after disgruntled creditors initiated winding up proceedings against the business in January. However, for one customer who spoke to news.com.au, Jeremy*, said for him, it was more like a nightmare. 'I’ve been sending emails, texts, no reply,' he said. The dad-of-two engaged Como Homes to knock down and rebuild his family home in Melbourne last year. 'Nothing happened until February. And then the house was demolished. And then that’s it, nothing has happened,' he said."

"Jeremy, 56, and his family moved out of the property in December and have been renting ever since. Now they have no idea when their build will begin, with their block sitting empty. 'We’re spending around $2000 in month in rent, we could have saved that,' he lamented. He spoke to a company representative on June 27 where he was informed he build would be starting in a couple of weeks. But growing concerned, Jeremy decided to visit the company’s offices, where he saw a notice that the landlord had evicted Como Homes. 'Enough’s enough. I took a day in lieu and we (he and his wife) went to the office and in the office we found a sign saying they had been evicted. That was the heart crunching thing, we knew ‘okay, something is happening.'"