A report from Community Impact in Texas. "The residential real estate markets in Round Rock, Pflugerville and Hutto are still dropping in median price and increasing in inventory. The local trend for June is similar to pricing and inventory data shown in the entire Austin-Round Rock metropolitan statistical area. In Round Rock, the median price of a home is $460,000, which represents a 16.4% decrease from last June. Prices in Pflugerville and Hutto are slightly more stable at a median price of $389,403, which is a 7.8% drop year over year. Throughout the Austin metro area, the median home price dropped 9.6% year over year to $483,000 as the number of homes available jumped 38.4% to 9,631 active listings over the same time period, according to the report."

The Tri-City Herald. "The Tri-Cities Association of Realtors reports the average Tri-City home sold for $459,500, down 9% from a year ago but still $41,000 higher than the pandemic-fueled peaks of 2021. June's median price fell by 1.7%. The cost of renting is dropping along with home prices. Rent.com reports the average rent in Washington dropped nearly 7% in June compared to a year ago, the largest drop of any state in the nation. Idaho, with a 6% average decline, was second. Blame or credit the Puget Sound area for the statewide drop. The median rent there fell nearly 14%, to $2,893."

The Washington Post. "New homes made up 31 percent of the total inventory in May, compared with a more typical, pre-pandemic 15 percent, according to the National Association of Home Builders. Prices are improving, too. Home prices peaked in June 2022, then dipped through the rest of the year as the housing recession took hold. In Boise, Idaho, real estate agent Debbi Myers saw the local market explode as West Coast transplants and others swarmed in and scooped up available homes. But now things are getting closer to normal. Homes are staying on the market between 60 and 90 days, rather than the pandemic-crazed '60 or 90 minutes,' Myers joked. In Ada County, Idaho, the number of single-family homes on the market grew for the fourth straight month in June, according to Boise Regional Realtors. That month, the median sales price was $545,000 — 8 percent less than in June 2022, but the third consecutive month of gains. 'Our prices were over, and then under, and now they’re kind of settling where they ought to be,' Myers said."

Palm Beach Daily News in Florida. "It’s the off-season in Palm Beach. And that means that properties on the market can see asking prices fall like raindrops during the frequent afternoon thunderstorms that have bedeviled beachgoers this summer. Such price reductions occasionally can be substantial, as agents seek to grab the attention of would-be buyers who may have left town for the warmer months. And if the house is move-in ready, a significant price drop might be just the real-estate carrot to seal the deal for a buyer who wants a residence for the coming season in Palm Beach."

"Take the case of a four-bedroom house at 449 Australian Ave. Built in 2017 in the lake block, the property entered the market May 1 at $21.95 million. That price included the furnishings and accessories. On May 24, the price dropped to $19.75 million, the multiple listing service shows. And this week saw another reduction, to $18.5 million. The house has 4,224 square feet of living space, inside and out. The seller is a limited liability company managed by Helen M. Ziegler, who bought the property in her name for a recorded $14.9 million in June 2022."

From Barron's. "The highest number of new multifamily apartments since the 1980s is expected to hit the rental market this year. The supply will continue to outweigh demand. And there’s more on the horizon: Jay Lybik, CoStar Group’s national director of multifamily analytics says he expects an additional 457,000 units to hit the market next year. Rents in previously-hot markets, such as Austin, Las Vegas, and Phoenix, have fallen the most. 'All the developers got the same memo and they all rushed into the same places,' Lybik says about the sunbelt region, a name for markets stretching across the southern U.S. 'They all started building at once, and now the markets have crashed.'"

San Gabriel Valley Tribune in California. "In the heart of Santa Ana, a newly renovated office complex has a date with the wrecking ball. There's nothing wrong with the complex. Since the pandemic, however, the owner, Kearny Real Estate Co., has been able to fill only about half the space at the  complex on Harbor Boulevard. So, Kearny decided to tear the buildings down, fill in the underground garage with dirt and erect a new warehouse on the 8-acre site. Three years after the COVID-19 pandemic began, remote work continues to wreak havoc on the office market, pushing vacancy rates to their highest level in years and causing building values to plummet. Some are selling for a loss."

"For many, declining rental income is coming just as property owners are facing the twin perils of expiring loans and higher interest rates. Two downtown Los Angeles skyscrapers are in default and dozens of Southern California office buildings are on watch lists for troubled debt. 'They're experiencing vacancy increases, and the rental rate is not going up,' Kevin Bender, JLL's executive managing director in Los Angeles, said of downtown buildings. 'Their buildings are worth less than their loans.' Meanwhile, investor appetites for office have been waning, causing building values to fall by 40% or more. 'There's a number of these scenarios where these assets have traded at roughly half of what those numbers were four or five years ago,' said Anthony DeLorenzo, a CBRE vice chair specializing in Southern California's office market."

Bisnow New York. "Brookfield is walking away from another office building, this time in Midtown Manhattan. Brookfield has transferred the deed to the Brill Building to lender Mack Real Estate Group in a transfer valued at $216.1M, according to city records first reported by PincusCo. The historic building was once one of Manhattan's most famous — it hosted the offices and recording studios for some of the biggest musical acts and songwriters of the first half of the 20th century. Brookfield has owned the landmarked building for six years, acquiring it through a UCC foreclosure with the transfer valued at $213.2M. Mack bought the mezzanine debt on the property, at that time $144.9M, from Bank OZK in 2019, PincusCo reported."

"Now the building is another casualty of the turmoil facing office properties as interest rates have spiked and office occupancy has stagnated. Brookfield has defaulted on several properties in the U.S. and turned over several to lenders, including two skyscrapers in Los Angeles and another in Chicago. The Brill Building appears to be the first property in New York City, where Brookfield is one of the biggest owners of commercial space, that the asset management giant has given up on."

The Toronto Star in Canada. "Sold Price: $800,000. Neighbourhood: Mount Dennis. X-factor: Warm-toned hardwood floors, recent upgrades and modern finishes adorn this two-bedroom-plus-den house in the northwestern part of Toronto. The detached bungalow at 6 Nickle St. has two bathrooms, including one in the basement. The structure could prove to be an asset if the new owner is looking to rent out part of the home, realtor Othneil Litchmore told the Star. The previous owners of the home bought it in April 2022 for $900,000. They sold it, only a year later, at a $100,000 loss. Litchmore weighed in on the factors that may have played a role in that outcome."

"According to Litchmore, the $800,000 selling price 'is about right for similar-sized homes in the area. We were still close to the height of the market,' when the bungalow was sold in April of last year for $900,000, Litchmore said, referring to the sky-high home prices seen in February 2022. 'It was still an inflated price,' he pointed out."

The Edmonton Sun. "'Bonuses are for people who do a good job, not people who fail at their one and only job,' Franco Terrazzano, federal director of the Taxpayers Federation, said of the Bank of Canada, after his organization uncovered data that shows last year the bank paid $27 million in bonuses and raises to its employees, even as it badly misjudged how high and persistent inflation would be. The bank’s job is to try to keep inflation under between one and three per cent annually, ideally under two per cent. Inflation hasn’t been under 2.0 per cent since February 2021. From January 2022 until February of this year, inflation was over 5.0 per cent — more than three percentage points higher than the bank’s ideal. In June of last year, the rate hit an astonishing 8.1 per cent."

"For more than two years, until early 2022, Tiff Macklem and his predecessor as governor, Stephen Poloz, reassured Canadians again and again and again that inflation and interest rates would never get out of control. 'Interest rates are going to be low for an extended period of time.' 'Inflation will stay low,' and 'Inflation is projected to remain less than two per cent into 2023.' And my favourite from 2021, 'The inflation we’re observing right now is very likely to be transitory.' Macklem confessed to a House of Commons committee in April of 2022. 'We got some things wrong.' Some things!? Seems to me the bank got wrong nearly everything that matters in fiscal and economic policy."

This Is Money in the UK. "The property market is not in freefall but it is experiencing something that could turn out to be even more disastrous. Prices are on a slow, steady route downwards – described by one estate agent as like a ‘balloon slowly leaking air’. Not so long ago, the Bank of England repeatedly pledged interest rate rises would be ‘gradual and limited’. Instead, they’ve been sudden and brutal, writes Simon Lambert. Many people were concerned about super low rates and mega mortgages, but the mantra back was not to worry, as rates would only rise gently and slowly. We now know that interest rate rises have been the exact opposite of that."

"Daryl Parr, of estate agents Jackson-Stops, Colchester, says he has seen ‘huge price reductions’ and a growing amount of ‘gazundering’.This is where a buyer reduces the amount of money they are prepared to pay for a property after they have already agreed a purchase price. ‘We see some agents valuing 10 per cent higher than others – this is a tactic of false hope. Their aim is to get the instruction and market share, rather than just being honest and moving with the market. As a result, what we’re seeing is gazundering. In a recent example of a chain we’re trying to tie up, at the top end they’re getting derisory offers coming in £400,000 under the agreed price. The knock-on effect can make the whole chain collapse.’"

Domain News in Australia. "The years-long boom in regional NSW rents is showing signs of a slowdown, and in some prime pockets rents are already falling. After soaring to record highs amid an influx of sea and tree change demand earlier in the pandemic, rents are now declining in the Southern Highlands, Batemans Bay and Ballina, and look to have peaked in Byron Bay. It also comes amid an increase in supply, and a decrease in demand, as sea and tree change activity wanes and affordability pressures push tenants to look elsewhere or consolidate households."

"Blackshaw Coastal property manager Kelly Jameson said demand in the Batemans Bay region has also eased as infrastructure projects ended. 'The phone is not ringing hot with rental enquiries like it used to be,' she said, noting tenants had more choice. 'Twelve months ago you would have been hard-pressed to find 10 [available] rentals at any time and now there are over 90.'"