A report from NBC Miami in Florida. "Two dozen properties in Coconut Grove are ensnarled in a legal dispute involving lenders, investors, a developer and dozens of people who put deposits down on the home of their dreams – only to find out last week that those properties may be instead sold or auctioned off to the highest bidder. 'We don’t see an end to this road, at least not one that is positive for the buyers,' said Alexandra Cardoso, who’s been waiting more than five years to take ownership of the Coconut Avenue townhome she contracted to buy for $1.55 million. 'We’ve been waiting patiently and doing everything on our end the right way, so for us it’s like the good guy is getting screwed.'"

"Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Jennifer Bailey has appointed a receiver to take over their companies, dig into the books and piece together this saga of broken promises, vacant properties and empty bank accounts. The receiver who took over Send Enterprises reported finding two bank accounts – total balance: $269.29. 'Which kind of leads me to the question that everybody wants an answer to,' he told Bailey during a case management conference last week, 'Where did the money go?'"

The Miami Herald in Florida. "Embattled real estate CEO Rishi Kapoor has agreed to step down as manager of Location Ventures, the firm at the center of multiple federal investigations, including an FBI inquiry into Kapoor’s $10,000-a-month consulting agreement with Miami Mayor Francis Suarez when Kapoor was seeking zoning approvals from the city. A spokesperson for the development company said Location Ventures has appointed former Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Alan Fine to oversee liquidation of company assets."

"It has been a spectacular fall for a rising real estate star who befriended South Florida politicians and captured headlines for his planned luxury condos in Coral Gables and Fort Lauderdale, and projects in Miami and Miami Beach that offered 'co-living,' which is similar to dorm-style housing."

The Real Deal. "Real estate crowdfunding platform CrowdStreet is coming under fire after tens of millions of investor dollars allegedly went missing from accounts connected to Nightingale Properties. The dramatic disclosure, made last week by a fiduciary for the retail investors, related to two Nightingale deals in Atlanta and Miami Beach for which Nightingale raised more than $60 million from over 800 investors. Both deals never closed, and entities connected to Nightingale CEO Elie Schwartz allegedly 'misappropriated' the funds, according to the fiduciary."

"In June, Anna Phillips, who has a background in forensic accounting, was elected by the investors as a fiduciary and independent manager. On Friday, she revealed her findings to investors. 'The bottom line is that the money that was raised by both entities has been misappropriated,' said Phillips. 'They literally have no idea what happened to all the money,' said Adam Stein-Sapir, a distressed debt expert at Pioneer Funding Group, who is not involved with CrowdStreet or Nightingale."

Boston 25 News in Massachusetts. "For the first time in years, Sarah Buckwalter is having a hard time renting out her property near Old Silver Beach in Falmouth. 'It’s definitely been slower this year,' Buckwalter said. 'We used to be booked a year in advance. Now if you get anything, it’s last minute.' Blake Decker manages more than 200 rental units and said he’s already slashed prices. 'I can tell you internally, we’ve been reducing rates--in some cases dramatically--to try to get back in line with what the demand is,' Decker said."

Palo Alto Online in California. "June is typically known as one of the slower months for the real estate market due to various factors. This past June in Palo Alto, however, defied expectations as it saw an unprecedented surge in new listings, reaching the highest number in the past decade. Unsold homes, on average, have been on the market for 40 days. Pricing is a critical factor that influences the speed and outcome of a sale, but determining the right price is more of an art than a science. In a market with divided dynamics like the current one, even with significant bidding activity, prices may not reach fair value as buyers tend to be disciplined and opportunistic."

The New York Post on California. "As commercial and residential vacancy rates continue to reach all-time highs in San Francisco, many big tech buildings have been left abandoned. But no one is rushing to buy. 'Big companies are dumping space on the market with almost no takers,' Craig Petersen from Kidder Mathews told the Real Deal."

From Bloomberg. "A trip to the restaurant that sits atop the No. 1 Poultry office block in London’s financial district is a chance to experience firsthand the Tale of Two Cities that’s upending the commercial real-estate market. You can gaze out at a forest of new skyscrapers that developers hope will bring in big rents and even bigger prices. For the South Korean owners of the older WeWork-occupied building down below, the future looks far bleaker. Seoul’s Hana Alternative Asset Management is preparing to put the Poultry site back up for sale, people with knowledge of the process say. Its estimated worth is £125 million ($164 million), according to the same people — about a third less than Hana paid."

"Its unhappy experience is far from unique. Prices for this type of property are plummeting around the world, from midtown Manhattan to Hong Kong and Paris. With real estate already reeling from the end of rock-bottom interest rates, a reckoning is coming for many landlords and debtholders. South Korea joins a line of nations whose funds made bad real-estate bets, from the Japanese in the early '90s to the Irish just before the financial crisis. 'The City of London’s history is of investors arriving and then leaving,' says Michael Marx, ex-boss of landlord Development Securities PLC, 'Some with fingers burnt and some to replace losses in their home market.'"

"Between 2017 and 2022, the investors snapped up more than 90 European properties for prices above €200 million each. Many were large blocks in the City of London and Paris’s La Defense. Values in both financial hubs have fallen more than 20% in the past year, according to broker Savills Plc. In Hong Kong, a unit of Korea’s Mirae Asset is cutting by 80-100% the value of a fund that provided more than $240m of mezzanine finance to the Goldin Financial Global Centre, according to local media. A Mirae spokesperson says it’s focused on recovering money. Several Chinese ventures have struggled too, including another Canary Wharf failure."

The Sydney Morning Herald in Australia. "Strata levies paid by apartment owners are up by 15 to 20 per cent on average over the past year as the costs of insurance, utilities and repairs and maintenance outstrip even the rapid rise in general inflation. Apartment owners are facing an increase in strata fees on top of rises in mortgage repayments. Karen Stiles, executive director of the Owners Corporation Network, which represents residential strata owners, says increases of 20 per cent would have been typical for apartment owners over the past 12 months. 'What we are seeing is levies rising and sometimes going up 70 per cent or more in the second year of new buildings as developers do set levies low to entice people to buy,' Stiles says."

"One owner of an apartment in Sydney told this masthead that she has paid a special levy of $40,000 to help fund remedial work for construction defects on her seven-year-old building. 'We have sued the builder, who went broke, we have sued the developer and have received a percentage [of the costs],' she says. Another, who owns an apartment in a large complex in inner Melbourne that is just over two decades old, says insurance costs started to 'move dramatically about four years ago.'"

The Province. "Tiffany Verhagen moved from Victoria to Edmonton several years ago for a job in the oilsands. She and her husband, Jason, saved up and bought a home. But with a variable rate mortgage, they’ve been squeezed by the last 10 interest rate hikes by the Bank of Canada, the most recent hitting with a bang on Wednesday. A flood in her basement suite has also wiped out $2,100 a month in rental income and the 37-year-old also took out a $30,000 line of credit to pay for fertility treatments. Speaking from Fort McMurray where she works as a cook, Verhagen said she is expecting to return home to find a letter stating her mortgage payments have gone up again. The debt has become so unmanageable, Verhagen and her husband are facing foreclosure. 'I haven’t been sleeping, that’s for sure,' she said."

"The latest interest rate hike has pushed more Canadians to the edge, forcing them to consolidate debt and consider consumer proposals to stave off bankruptcy, said insolvency trustee Chris Sinclair. Sinclair said he’s never seen such a scary financial picture for homeowners in his 14 years in the business. 'It’s pretty heartbreaking,' said Sinclair, who is based in the North Shore and works for Smythe Insolvency. Victoria-based mortgage broker Elizabeth Prins said clients who are on variable rate mortgages are struggling. 'They’re drowning,' she said. 'I’ve been talking to clients who have had to use credit cards to buy groceries.'"