A report from Bloomberg. "Owners of San Francisco’s office towers, shopping centers, hotels and homes are flooding the county with appeals to slash their property assessments — and tax payments — as real estate prices sink in the beleaguered city. A recognition by assessors that property values have plunged only adds fuel to a potential doom loop of disinvestment, where indebted owners walk away from buildings rather than pour money into assets that are worth less than they paid. The median San Francisco home price sank 16% in June from a year earlier, and residential sales volume dropped almost 17%, according to the California Association of Realtors. 'San Francisco is clearly in the first inning' of this price downturn, said Michael Covarrubias, chief executive officer of San Francisco-based developer TMG Partners."

"San Francisco is far from alone as landlords across the country grapple with shifts in real estate demand and rising interest rates that have sent building prices tumbling. Assessment appeals have also risen in Los Angeles, Chicago and New York. Offices in New York may lose an estimated 44% of their pre-pandemic value by 2029 because of the impact of remote work, according to a joint study from researchers at New York University and Columbia University."

The Dallas Morning News in Texas. "Lower construction costs and discounted prices have made newly built homes less expensive than existing ones, a historic anomaly. The median price of a new home in Dallas-Fort Worth has fallen 6% from about $423,000 in June 2022 to $398,000 in June 2023, according to Dallas housing consultant Residential Strategies. Existing home prices also briefly surpassed new home prices in June 2022, but before then, such an inversion had never been recorded. A year ago, new homes represented less than a third of all homes sold in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. As of June, they represented almost 38%, according to Residential Strategies. Builders may offer incentives such as discounts and buying down mortgage rates, which could lure buyers who otherwise would have purchased an existing home."

CBS Minnesota. "Some local housing prices are trending lower. So is it time for buyers to get excited? Realtor Brian Parker says supply and demand is still an issue for buyers. What is happening is some buyers are seeing the prices of homes decrease. 'New ones coming on the market and they're pricing it too high to begin with. They're assuming, 'OK, everybody's paying [$30,000, $40,000] over list price.' Well, a list price nowadays is more like a reserve. That's where we're starting. And if you listen to your realtor and price it at the right number, you will get [a higher price],' Parker said. 'But if you start [with a higher price], people are thinking, 'I'm not gonna go that high, that's about the most I would do.' So then it sits, and then they have to reduce.' Some say this is a swing in the right direction, but many realtors are cautious. 'So now the attitude on the other end is prices are dropping. No, they're going to what they should have been in the first place,' he said."

The Real Deal. "In South Florida, developers are attempting more condo buyouts and terminations from Brickell and Miami Beach up to Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach. But lately deals have been falling apart, or delayed, due to a combination of factors including high interest rates and construction costs, difficulty securing enough support from owners and pullback from lenders and equity partners. 'There’s no doubt that the real estate market, as red-hot as it is in South Florida, we’re not as red-hot as we were last February or March,' attorney Jose Rodriguez, of Rennert Vogel Mandler & Rodriguez, said."

From Better Dwelling. "Canada’s new housing minister has only been in office for a few days, and already stumbled. In a Bloomberg Interview, Minister Sean Fraser pledged to make housing more affordable without lowering prices. He reiterated the housing-is-an-investment mindset, before dropping suggestions that would reinforce higher prices. Great news for investors. Not fantastic if you pay taxes, or you need affordable housing. 'Our goal is not to decrease the value of their home,' MP Fraser told Bloomberg. 'Our goal is to build more units that are at a price that other people, who don’t currently have their needs met, can afford.'"

"Details on how he would lower and not lower home prices at the same time were scarce. However, he did mention he would increase supply, incentives, and development speed. It’s a narrative repeated since 2015, and made Canada the affordable market it is today. Kidding! It’s nonsense, so let’s take a dive into how these strategies work."

The Journal. "It may be hard to believe, but even with the average rent it charges steadily creeping towards €2,000, Ireland’s largest private landlord is struggling. Owning almost 4,000 homes, Ires Reit is one of the biggest players in Irish property. So why is Ires one of the worst-performing stocks in the Irish market, and in the grips of a corporate crisis? Formed in 2014 by Capreit (the Canadian Apartment Properties Real Estate Investment Trust), Ires seemingly perfectly timed its launch as one of the first real estate investment trusts in Ireland. The idea was for the company to be at the forefront of ‘professionalising’ the rental sector, which at the time was dominated by small landlords who owned just one or two homes."

"It was also looking to take advantage of a recovering market, with prices still low following the financial crisis, but starting to rise again. Buying up land and apartment blocks relatively cheaply, many of which were from the State’s ‘bad bank’ Nama, Ires was well-placed to generate steady returns for backers. The vast majority of properties it owns are apartments in areas slightly outside the centre of Dublin which are popular with city commuters, such as Sandyford and Tallaght."

"Around 2019 was Ires’s peak. The firm raised more than €134 million from backers in a move to buy up hundreds of apartments, as investors were keen to get into Irish property amid a backdrop of surging prices. The biggest worry about Ires is its exposure to interest rates, which hits it a few ways. First off, it raises the company’s borrowing costs. There was some criticism after the company only closed a deal on an important €275 million credit facility in December, locking in higher repayments than if it had acted sooner."

"But more importantly, by limiting how much people can borrow, there is a knock-on impact on property. In previous years, the paper value of Ires’s properties consistently rose. Now it’s going the other way, with the firm writing down the value of its assets just a few months ago. Last week it reached a deal to sell almost 200 west Dublin apartments to the Tuath Housing Agency for €72 million and is looking at offloading further assets. Essentially, the argument is the company’s management acted too slowly and is now selling too cheaply because it has little choice."

Stuff New Zealand. "Tasman recorded the largest drop in property prices in the country in July, new figures show. The latest property report from REINZ, released on Tuesday, showed prices in Tasman district dropped 11.3% in July 2023, compared to July 2022. That compares to a national average price drop of 4.2%, and a drop of 8.8% in Auckland. Nelson prices fell 7.6%. Meanwhile, houses in the top of the south are also taking longer to sell: up to 80 days for Tasman in July the longest for a July since 2001, and up from 52 a year ago. Nelson’s was at 60 days, compared to 56 in 2022."

"REINZ chief executive Jen Baird said some vendors were dropping their prices while others 'continued to hold out in the hopes of achieving their original sales price.' RE/MAX Elite owner Kate Bradley said Tasman’s figures were driven by a glut of houses in areas like Berryfields in Richmond. After a period of people 'racing into Berryfields and buying, buying, buying,' they were now seeing people wanting to move on. They’re all looking for an increase in their money and not getting it.'"

"While not long ago you’d be looking at $1 million to buy in the popular subdivision now it was more like $850,000, she said. Higher interest rates and people not able to afford repayments would also have an impact on the market in coming months. 'There’s going to be a bit of carnage in September, October. We haven’t seen the worst of that yet – we haven’t seen mortgagee sales, we haven’t seen desperation.'"

The Globe and Mail. "Next month, millions of new graduates are due to enter China’s toughest job market in decades, further driving up already record-high youth unemployment. Just how much won’t be known, however: officials say they will no longer publish jobless data for 16 to 24-year-olds, citing a 'constantly developing and changing' economy. The announcement was met with derision online and is bound to raise new questions about the reliability of Chinese government statistics as the world’s second largest economy struggles to recover from the COVID pandemic. 'If you close your eyes then it doesn’t exist,' read one widely-shared comment on Weibo, a Twitter-like service."

"The government’s response has so far been limited, without the major stimulus measures that some have hoped to see. On Tuesday, China’s central bank cut rates in an attempt to encourage lending, but analysts at the the Japanese bank Nomura said this would be of 'limited help.' 'The Chinese economy is faced with an imminent downward spiral with the worst yet to come,' they warned."

"Over the last four years, youth unemployment has more than doubled, a result of both COVID restrictions and crackdowns on the technology and education sectors, which employed large numbers of graduates. In June, joblessness among 16 to 24-year-olds hit a record 21.3 percent. But even that was likely an underestimation, as it only includes people actively seeking work and does not take into account young people in rural areas."

"In an article for Chinese financial publication Caixin, that was later censored, Peking University economics professor Zhang Dandan said research she has done suggested the true unemployment rate could be closer to 50 percent in parts of the country. Many young people are pursuing advanced degrees to put off looking for work, while others are leaning on their parents for help, including being paid to be 'full-time children.'"