A report from Community Impact in Texas. "Even as Southwest Austin remains among the most desirable and pricier areas of the metro to buy or rent, local data points to the housing market settling down after a recent burst of activity. After seeing record-setting home pricing and sales activity that peaked throughout the last two years, year-over-year sales figures in 2023 have fallen every month in South Austin and Dripping Springs. At the same time, homes are staying on the market for amounts of time not seen in years, local and federal data shows. 'We are still in the phase of leveling,' real estate agent Olivia Barnard said. 'We’re still seeing price reductions on some homes where sellers and agents alike are kind of finding, ‘What is the real value?’"

KTVZ in Oregon. "The July report from Redmond’s Beacon Appraisal group said Bend’s single-family home median sales price in July rose by $15,000 to a record $800,000, a milestone that’s nearly $40,000 more than the peak a year ago. Appraiser Donnie Montagner noted that nearly a third of last month’s 141 Bend home sales were for $1 million or higher. There’s still a two-month supply of homes on the market overall, but Montagner noted an increase in some price ranges – as the $1.6 million to $1.8 million category is nearly a five-month supply and above $1.8 million is nearly a six-month supply. Redmond also rose to a milestone, with a median home sales price of $500,000, though that’s still $42,000 lower than last summer’s record level."

WPDE in South Carolina. "Insurance prices have skyrocketed for many across the Palmetto State, especially along the Coastal Grand Strand. Tuesday, hundreds of concerned homeowners came out to a town hall hosted by state leaders, with the hope that they can help find solutions to the increasing insurance rates. Many residents who spoke tonight say their insurance has gone up at least 100%. One resident said their neighborhood HOA insurance fee went up 4 times more than what they budgeted, and they only got a 48-hour notice. 'If you make $100,000 a year, imagine that 60-70,000 of that goes strictly to insurance. That’s the situation we’re in now,' Denise O’Wesney Richardson, President of the neighborhood HOA, said. 'What are you gonna do when people can’t pay? What are you gonna do when they have to walk out and you get foreclosures? This is going to be a ghost town,' one Horry County resident said."

The Real Deal on New York. "The road to selling Louise Blouin’s Southampton estate has been marked by close calls. Last spring, the Canadian art magazine publisher narrowly avoided foreclosure by sticking 366 Gin Lane, one of the compound’s two waterfront homes, into bankruptcy court just two days ahead of a scheduled auction. Now the second mansion is also bankruptcy-bound, as Blouin continues her attempts to refinance and find a buyer for the four-acre property. For the whole estate, known as La Dune, she is asking $150 million."

"The renovations to 366 Gin Lane are what led to the estate’s financial woes. Blouin took out a $26 million mortgage to upgrade the residence in 2018, but didn’t keep up with the payments, triggering foreclosure proceedings from the lender, JGB Management. By May 2022, the loan balance had grown to $40 million. Blouin will likely need an eye-popping sale to erase the mortgage debt, but $150 million is a hefty ask. Blouin now resides primarily in Europe. In 2016, she was named in the Panama Papers, which identified a trove of wealthy people concealing funds in offshore accounts."

The Coloradoan. "Concrete pillars, some five stories tall, and weeds that tower over most people are all that occupy the site of a stalled five-story student-oriented apartment complex at 255 Johnson Drive next to Spring Creek in Midtown Fort Collins. Work on the project ceased in March 2022, and the developer, Valeo Groupe Americas, has been looking for a buyer since, said Craig Frickey, Fort Collins' interim planning manager. 'Valeo has a number of projects that stalled in the wake of the pandemic, and they’re trying to sell all of those projects as a portfolio.'"

"In addition to the Fort Collins site, the Charlotte, North Carolina, company has ceased construction on five other projects across the country, according to a source previously involved with the project, who spoke to the Coloradoan on the condition of anonymity."

The San Francisco Chronicle in California. "The saga of WeWork, the co-working space company that has become synonymous with the highs and lows of 2010s startup culture, may be creeping toward its final chapter. In a Tuesday press release, the 13-year-old company wrote that 'substantial doubt exists' about its ability to stay in business. Once valued by investors at $47 billion, WeWork flamed out in a 2019 attempt to go public and, though still a major commercial real estate holder, has never turned a profit. Shares of the company’s stock dropped about two-fifths in value after the announcement and were trading on Wednesday at 13 cents a share — a market cap of around $270 million."

"A WeWork collapse would be another blow for San Francisco’s commercial real estate market. The company’s website lists 21 office spaces in the Bay Area, including three floors in Salesforce Tower and co-working locations in several other downtown buildings. WeWork had over $13 billion in long-term lease obligations at the end of June, the firm said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday. WeWork, founded in 2010, became the standard-bearing example of corporate hubris and shoddy investment scrutiny when its 2019 IPO attempt resulted in a slashed valuation, an ousted co-founder and a torrent of stories about mismanagement. In 2021, the company went public through a SPAC."

From Bloomberg. "Upstart Holdings Inc.’s breakneck rally is losing momentum after the lending platform that uses artificial intelligence provided a disappointing outlook. Shares dropped 34% on Wednesday, the worst tumble since May 2022, after its third-quarter revenue forecast fell short of consensus estimates. The stock’s recent weakness has sawed off more than half of a 2023 rally that at one point reached 445%. 'I think some of the air is popping out of that balloon today,' said Dan Dolev, analyst at Mizuho Securities. 'Outside of the disappointing 3Q guide for top-line, the quarter was actually pretty strong,' BTIG’s Lance Jessurun, who holds the lone buy rating on the stock, said. 'Obviously expectations were ridiculously high.'"

The Barrie Advance. "The Bank of Canada recently hiked its overnight lending rate to five per cent, which represents a significant bump from the 0.25 Canadians saw just over a year and a half ago. This has left many Canadian mortgage holders, including those in Barrie and Simcoe County, facing impending crisis, or worse. This includes Cora Cook, a Barrie-area esthetician who has been forced to put her family's dream home up for sale after their mortgage payments ballooned from $2,850 to $6,200 since moving into their Springwater home in January 2022."

"'To have to leave the home that we spent so much blood, sweat, and tears into building — everything was custom-built for our family here — and to now give that up, it definitely feels hard. But now, looking at rentals, we're looking at rentals for $4,000 a month,' she told Simcoe.com. Cook says, even with her business and a husband working two construction jobs, they've been forced to sell their furniture and hold garage sales on a regular basis to settle their monthly mortgage bill."

"'It's not like we're struggling for work or anything. We make good money. We have good jobs, but it's just, we want to be able to live our lives and not be putting every dollar toward a mortgage,' she said. While Cook and her family haven't turned to the food bank yet, she says she can understand reports of families making $100,000 or more making use of the social service."

The Telegraph. "Britain’s housing market is in its worst state since the financial crisis, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (Rics) has said, as high property prices and mortgage rates trigger a slump in sales. House price falls in July were more widespread than at any point since 2009, according to Rics’ UK residential market survey of estate agents. At the same time, the net balance of agents reporting a downturn in agreed sales has more than quadrupled since May. The slump in house sales recorded in July was comparable to that seen during 2007, Rics said."

"Robert Cooney, of Robert Cooney estate agents in Taunton, said: 'Price reductions are now required to effect traction on most properties.' William Delaney, of Coopers of London estate agents, said that even offers 'way below the asking price' were in some cases being accepted. The South East, Yorkshire and the Humber and the East Midlands will see the biggest price falls in the next three months, agents warned. Scotland, where the SNP has introduced caps on rent rises, saw the most widespread falls in the number of available rental properties. Grant Robertson, of Allied Surveyors Scotland, blamed Nicola Sturgeon’s 'relentless attack on the private rental sector.'"

Daily Mail Australia."The director of a plumbing company that went into liquidation owing over $12million had been paying himself a six-figure salary in the months before the collapse. C & S Plumbing Pty Ltd, in Benalla in Victoria's northeast, collapsed on March 27 with $0.0 in its bank account and owing $12.2million to over 100 creditors. Simon Nelson from BPS Recovery and Reconstruction has been appointed as liquidator of the business, which also has an office in Melbourne. Documents filed with ASIC by the liquidator includes allegations that the sole director of C & S Plumbing, Shane Arnold, was paying himself a six-figure salary in the months leading up to the company's collapse. The report states that from November, Mr Arnold 'began to receive significantly increased wages' before the company went into liquidation in March."

"In giving reasons for the collapse of his business, Mr Arnold said he was owed $1million from a builder who reportedly refused to pay for work. When the liquidator intervened there were $0.00 left the company's bank accounts. The company had just $61 in its bank account at the time it went under, and owes a whopping $22million to creditors, according to documents lodged with the corporate watchdog. 'I have not recovered any funds from the company's bank accounts,' Mr Nelson wrote in documents submitted to ASIC."

From Vietnam News. "The condotel market remains in a slump due to excess inventory and industry insiders warn it will not recover at least until 2025. Despite recent positive news about government regulations granting land ownership titles to condotels, only 122 units were sold in the second quarter of 2023. According to a report by DKRA Group’s research department, the inventory of unsold units topped 42,300 as of June, far exceeding the combined inventory of beach shophouses and resort villas. Developers are struggling to sell them and bearing the financial costs of bank loans taken to develop these projects, it said."

"Trang Bui, chief executive officer of Cushman and Wakefield Vietnam, attributed the challenges faced by the market to multiple factors, including the pandemic’s impact and economic pressures. 'It is still too early to expect a market recovery for condotels,' said Bui. Vo Hong Thang, director of the consulting and project development division at DKRA Group, said a boom in the condotel segment in recent years has led to an oversupply. The lack of specific regulations and standards for condotels and the failure of developers to fulfil profit commitments significantly eroded investor trust, he said. The high prices make for unattractive returns on investments, he added. 'Investors will need 40 to 50 years to recover their investment, making it an unsustainable option.' According to the Vietnam Real Estate Association, there are around 240 tourism property projects with around 114,000 condotels worth an estimated 297 trillion dong."

From Barron's. "Haixiong Lu, a Shanghai-based rental agent who manages more than 100 residential units, said China’s troubled real-estate market hasn’t only failed to rebound, it has worsened. 'Often rentals do better when home purchases are down,' he told Barron’s. 'But renters I’ve talked to are opting to move back in with their parents or are cramming roommates in one small apartment.' At a time when most observers predicted a post-Covid economic rebound would be humming along, another source of distress for officials and investors is the massive property market, which is back in trouble after a first-quarter flicker that things might be stabilizing."

"The inadequate policies and industry troubles appear to be moving jitters from smaller players to bigger developers, and thus from smaller to larger cities. One trickle-down effect from this trend is that 'secondary markets are suffering from a glut of eager sellers despite plummeting sales,' Nomura analysts wrote in a recent note. Official surveys show ongoing pessimism among homeowners and prospective buyers about the near-term prospects of their properties—resulting in a confidence trap."

"'We shouldn’t be surprised that measure after measure to stabilize and revive the property market has failed. In a highly speculative market, what drives buying is mainly expectations of continued price appreciation,' economist Michael Pettis told Barron’s. 'I just don’t see a recovery anytime soon given how pessimistic potential home buyers seem to be about future prices.'"

"Lu, the residential rental agent, said that prepandemic, one loft apartment in a charming traditional-style Shanghai compound for 9,500 yuan ($1,300) a month would be rented within days. 'I’ve dropped the price down to 7,000 yuan and this year it sat idle for nearly a month,' he said."