A report from Reuters. "New home sales dropped 2.5% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 697,000 units last month, the Commerce Department said on Wednesday. May's sales pace was revised lower to 715,000 units from the previously reported 763,000 units. The median new house price in June was $415,400, a 4.0% drop from a year ago. There were 432,000 new homes on the market at the end of last month, up from 429,000 in May. At June's sales pace it would take 7.4 months to clear the supply of houses on the market, up from 7.2 months in May."

Mansion Global. "Joan Dangerfield, wife of the late comedian Rodney Dangerfield, is trying to sell her Los Angeles home—and finding that would-be buyers aren’t as eager as she once was. 'I figured it would sell in a week, but didn’t quite work out that way,' she said of the house, which is comparably priced with other homes in the area. 'It was a shock for me to just watch it sit there on the market.' Dangerfield said she didn’t foresee how detrimental the mansion tax would be for her home’s prospects. 'We were flooded with shoppers in March. Then, things just came to a screeching halt. It was such a change in the amount of people coming to view the home that it felt like it wasn’t even on the market,' she said."

"Luxury sellers across the country are finding themselves in similar circumstances. Even with a limited supply of inventory in Miami, Dina Goldentayer of Douglas Elliman said buyers have more leverage than they did last year for things like home inspections and closing credits. 'I’m no longer taking the position of, ‘Take it or leave it,’ she said. 'There are clear shifts that are making it seem like a normal market.' In the New York, the slower pace of sales has allowed some opportunistic buyers to ink great deals. Daniel Parker, co-head of Compass New Development Marketing, said some recent condo closings reflect deals struck during the more robust market in 2021 and 2022. In pockets of the city, such as Billionaires’ Row and Hudson Yards, developers have offered significant discounts. 'They are embracing the market we have rather than the market they wish we had,' he said."

"In Los Angeles, real-estate agent Juliette Hohnen of Douglas Elliman estimated that her business is down roughly 50% in that market from this time last year. At the height of the pandemic-fueled market, she said, she had signed as many as 10 deals in a month. This July, she has only one so far. 'Anyone who bought in the last few years has got these crazy low interest rates, usually between two and three percent,' Hohnen said. If those buyers sell now, they’ll be incurring rates that are almost double and potentially taking a loss on the sale."

"Agents in New York reported a recent pickup in big-ticket deals this summer. Sylvia Hughes said she and her husband saw several apartments before making an offer on their new four-bedroom on the Upper West Side. 'I think the seller was motivated. This apartment had languished,' she said. By the time they saw it, the original $7.495 million asking price had been reduced to $6.195 million and their offer of $6 million was accepted. 'I was beginning to wonder if we should have offered less.'"

A press release. "Luxury home prices in San Francisco are falling faster than anywhere else in the nation, according to Redfin. The median sale price of luxury homes in San Francisco fell a record 12.7% year over year to $4.8 million in the second quarter—the largest decline among the 50 most populous U.S. metropolitan areas. While $4.8 million may not sound like a bargain, it is compared with the $5.5 million record high hit a year earlier."

"Three other pricey West Coast tech hubs also saw double-digit declines. In Seattle, luxury sale prices decreased a record 12.3% to $2.5 million—the second biggest drop in the country. Next came Oakland, CA (-11.1% to $2.8 million) and San Jose, CA (-10.3% to $4.3 million). 'Buyers are getting big discounts on high-end condos in San Francisco right now—especially those under 1,000 square feet,' said local Redfin Premier real estate agent Ali Mafi. 'Those homes are having trouble selling, and some sellers are losing a lot of money.'"

Bloomberg on New York. "Bidding wars for luxury homes in the Hamptons hit a record high in the second quarter, even as sales and prices declined in the broader market across the Long Island beach towns. The median sale price of all Hamptons single-family homes and condos was $1.45 million, a 9.4% decline from the second quarter of 2022. Closings totaled 259, down 41%, Miller Samuel and Douglas Elliman said. In the luxury tier, the median sale price in the quarter was just shy of $6.4 million, down 25% from a year earlier but still 6.6% higher than before the pandemic."

The Globe and Mail. "The spring buying spurt in Canada’s real estate market has likely run its course. Faisal Susiwala, broker at Re/Max Twin City, says buyers in the Ontario cities of Kitchener-Waterloo and Cambridge are hesitant. 'Right now people have retracted. They’re on the sidelines waiting to see what happens.' Mr. Susiwala says sellers are disappointed when showings and sales slow to a trickle but he advises against signalling desperation by cutting the price after two weeks. In Guelph, Ont., the action feels less chaotic as supply rises and days on market stretch out, says Aimee Puthon, real estate agent with Coldwell Banker Neumann Real Estate. Ms. Puthon is urging sellers to remain patient. 'When a property doesn’t sell in three days with five offers, people tend to freak out a bit,' she says."

"Mr. Susiwala is seeing homeowners increasingly stretched by the higher rates and strongly advises people who are struggling to pay their mortgage to work with the lender before the sheriff arrives and locks are changed. 'Ultimately they show up and you’re out.' Mr. Susiwa has sold three properties under power of sale in the past four months. 'We’ve seen some really nasty things happening.'"

"Mr. Susiwala is seeing distressed homeowners now that the interest rate on a HELOC is 7.5 per cent instead of the 1.25 to 1.5 per cent they were paying in 2021. If they need to renew or refinance, they grapple with mortgage rates around 6 per cent today and may not be financially stable enough to pass the stress test at a rate 2-per-cent higher. Mr. Susiwala expects to see more such cases and an increase in listings as a result. 'That is the sad reality of what we are going to face going into September.' Mr. Susiwala urges homeowners to try to weather the storm if they can, including borrowing money from family members if possible. 'This is not a time to panic and sell at a loss,' he says."

I News in the UK. "Reluctantly, I am starting to accept that I entering what I call 'early middle age.' The oldest members of my generation – the millennials – are now in their early forties. My student loan repayments which just hit £500 a month, my mortgage which went up last year because my fixed rate ended, my government Help to Buy loan which just kicked in with repayments at around £350 per month, rising living costs across the board, and the fact that I have to give my ex-partner most of my savings because we have separated and I am buying him out of the flat we bought together seven years ago."

"In my vision I would hit retirement age, clock off from work, cash in on the house I bought as a younger person, having made a small fortune on it, enjoy long lunches with 'the girls' (who were hopefully still alive) and go on holidays. As the years roll on it’s dawning on me that this is less and less likely to happen. My flat is currently in negative equity which means it’s worth less than I paid for it."

ABC News in Australia. "Pat and Peter McQuhae were on their way to owning a 'forever home' to see out their retirement until the biggest home builder in the country gave them an ultimatum: Cough up an extra quarter of a million dollars or your build will be cancelled. The grandparents are among dozens of Metricon customers on fixed-price contracts now forced to choose between paying painfully higher prices or losing their new homes and deposits. 'It was just an incredible punch,' Mr McQuhae said. 'We've done everything Metricon asked, and we did it on time.' The couple has taken legal action against Metricon, but negotiations have stalled. 'I don't think we've got a decent night's sleep since this debacle began, we've been put through the wringer,' Mr McQuahe said."

"Frank Feyen, from the NSW Central Coast, received a termination letter in March - three weeks before construction was due to begin on the investment home he wanted to build to supplement his retirement income. Mr Feyen said Metricon demanded an extra $53,000 and he was also accused of breaching his fixed price contract by not providing details of finance. 'It came as a huge shock,' he said. 'It's drained me financially, it's drained me emotionally. No one should have to go through this,' he said.'"

From News.com.au. "In 2007, Premier Wen Jiabao cautioned that 'the biggest problem with China’s economy is that the growth is unstable, unbalanced, uncoordinated, and unsustainable.' He was referring to China’s penchant for over-investment, which was, in turn, driven by the unique Chinese urbanisation and its build-out of hundreds of millions of apartments. Sadly for China, Wen’s warning went unheeded for another 15 years, in which time the construction rates of apartments tripled. If 600 square meters of real estate was too much investment in 2007, then how would we describe 1750 square metres in 2021? As is often the case in Chinese statistics, words fail."

"Making matters more bizarre, Chinese property statistics indicate that roughly 75 million apartments sold and started since 2007 were never completed. This is enough to house 225 million people – at current rates, about ten years’ worth of urbanisation. If that is anywhere near accurate, then Chinese property buyers have loaned developers about $16 trillion, for which they have not received anything. These are insolvent firms running apartment Ponzi schemes of titanic proportions."

From The Print. "Greater Noida, with its grand towers and sprawling apartment complexes, is also a graveyard of the great Indian middle-class dream gone horribly wrong. Parmita Banerjee is a homeowner without a home. Every day, the 45-year-old single mother posts videos and messages on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram demanding what she’s owed: 'Give us our apartments – we deserve what we paid for!' In the six years since she booked a flat in a yet-to-be-constructed tower at Greater Noida’s Supertech Sports Village, she survived the pandemic, buried her husband, enrolled her now eight-year-old daughter in school, met with MPs and MLAs, and consulted lawyers. But there is no building on the site—no brick, no scaffolding."

"Homebuyers like Banerjee, who put all their savings into owning a flat and securing their future, are now trapped in a web of deceit spun by unscrupulous builders. The drama is playing out in courts. Builders have been arrested—some are declared insolvent—but owners are yet to get their flats. Now they are banding together on WhatsApp, mobilising Twitter storms for media attention, knocking on the doors of consumer courts, and forming forums to fight for their flats."

"On WhatsApp groups teeming with disgruntled and disillusioned buyers, the arrests bring momentary hope. But cynicism quickly sets in. 'Builder has been arrested but what about us? Our apartments are still non-existent,' reads a message by Banerjee in a WhatsApp group called ECO V2 owners society, which has over 500 members. 'Lets tweet and tag Yogi baba,' said another homeowner. A third wants to mobilise the group. 'Lets create a hashtag #Cheatedhomebuyers and tweet and retweet for next two hours.'"

"Debi booked a 2BHK flat in 2013 after selling off her 1BHK apartment in Delhi. The first time that Debi and her husband went to Greater Noida to check the location, they saw a queue of homebuyers, which made them desperate to book a flat quickly. 'Looking at how quickly the flats were being sold off, that same evening, my husband and I booked a flat and applied for the loan the next day,' Debi said. Her apartment was supposed to be on the 16th floor. Debi dreamt of fresh air entering her house through the balcony and how she could look at the world from the top of her apartment. It has been ten years, and Debi is still waiting for the 16th floor to be constructed. 'I hope I am alive to see my flat. We don’t have a house now,' she said, breaking into sobs."