It's Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. "In the last 10 years, the average home price has doubled in the KC metro area, from roughly $140,000 to more than $350,000. It took six weeks, and $60,000 more than they initially budgeted - but Sarah Hogan and Joey Tangeman bought a home in Olathe. And they count themselves lucky. They say they never changed their standards, just their budget. 'We had to swallow the fact that we're going to be paying more than we wanted to every month,' said Hogan, 'but it meant we'd actually be able to afford a house and get a house.' CEO of ReeceNichols Mike Frazier said, 'you're going to have to overbid on properties,' the way Hogan and Tangeman did. 'You're going to have to look at your budget and decide what can I truly afford, and know that housing prices aren't going down.' 'Prices aren't coming down anytime soon - if ever,' said new homeowner Tangeman."

"'There was a point where selling real estate in San Francisco was almost like being in one of those quiz game booths where cash is swirling around, and you just have to grab it,' said Cynthia Cummins, Principle Realtor at Kindred SF Homes. 'That’s not happening now.' Mindy Palmer, an agent with Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices in Missoula, Montana, said the stream of buyers flowing into Missoula from out-of-state has not stopped. Even so, Palmer said Missoula’s real estate market has slowed considerably. 'A number of agents are catching their collective breath,' she said. With less competition for properties, Palmer said buyers are giving sellers more pushback on practices that became common in the frenzied market of the pandemic years, such as waiving home inspecting. 'The buyers have really had a tough the past few years, and frankly, they’re not going to take it anymore,' she said."

"Dallas-Fort Worth is among the 40% of U.S. metro areas that saw a drop in home prices at midyear. Median home sales prices in D-FW in the second quarter were down 4.5% from a year earlier, according to the National Association of Realtors. Nationwide, home prices declined by 2.4% during the same period. 'Home sales were down due to higher mortgage rates and limited inventory,' said in the report. 'Interestingly, price declines occurred in some of the fastest job-creating markets,' said Realtors chief economist Lawrence Yun. 'Prices in these areas are trying to land on better fundamentals after several years of skyrocketing increases.' The biggest second-quarter home price declines were recorded in Austin (-19.1% year-over-year), San Francisco (-11.3%), Salt Lake City (-9.6%) and Las Vegas (-7.4%). Looking at major Texas metro areas, prices fell by 2.5% from midyear 2022 in Houston with a median sales price of $348,300. In San Antonio, prices fell by 4.4% to a median of $334,100."

"After three summers of a pandemic-bloated crush of demand that filled up Shore homes, created new investors, and pumped up rental and sale rates, things this summer are quite different. Unheard of in past summers, weeks are going unrented, and rental prices are dropping. Maryellen Sheehan, who owns five Shore houses in Ocean City and manages others, says the market has definitely softened this summer. One owner of a home she helps manage dropped a prime week’s price of a five-bedroom place with ocean views from $10,000 to $5,000 in order to get it booked. 'They typically start with a small reduction,' Sheehan said, 'but as the week gets closer, it’s better to get something than nothing.' She agrees that some owners overpriced their Shore homes, especially recent buyers saddled with big mortgages."

"In Ventnor and Margate, owner Rebecca Lerman, who owns and manages 13 properties, says there’s 'a lot more vacancies, and a lot more inventory, no question about it.' 'I do think the prices are going to stabilize and go down,' she said. 'I have seen people who have vacancies, and they’re like giving it away.'"

"Soaring apartment rents in New York have allowed the city's market-rate multifamily owners to escape much of the real estate gloom of the last year, but prices only paint part of the picture. The spotlight has begun to shift toward the debt secured by multifamily, the biggest asset class in the country. Last month, Morningstar released a report pointing to an '$8B tsunami' of multifamily commercial mortgage-backed securities that are coming due in the second half of 2023 — creating what it calls a 'red October.' It is a 'hydrogen-bomb scenario' for multifamily landlords, Peter Sotoloff, a former managing partner at Mack Real Estate Credit Strategies and former head of U.S. originations at Blackstone, told The Wall Street Journal. Trepp Senior Managing Director Manus Clancy said the 'epicenter of concern' are those who bought value-add properties with floating rate debt at the peak of the market in 2021 and the first half of 2022. Largely in places like Arizona, South Carolina and North Carolina, those buyers are now being buffeted by high interest rates, operating costs driven up by inflation and a leveling-off in rents."

"The unsavory cocktail has threatened the business of multifamily syndicators, who bought properties aggressively at their peak and put short-term debt on them, hoping to flip for a profit. The luxury condo market has seen a sharp slowdown; just last week, Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance wrote off a piece of the debt it has on the luxury supertall at 111 West 57th St. due to slow sales at the building, chalking up an $82M loss. Cracks are also showing in the rent-stabilized market. Flagstar, a subsidiary of New York Community Bank — the largest lender to rent-stabilized landlords in the city — filed to foreclose on eight rent-stabilized properties, The Real Deal reported last week. 'On the rent control side, nobody wants that product anymore,' Clancy said. 'You're seeing people saying, 'We're kind of giving these properties away.'"

"BMO economist Robert Kavcic describes why it makes no sense to buy an income property in the current environment. 'Investors are almost completely absent from the Canadian housing market, especially in Toronto (maybe not so in Calgary). No surprise there, because the economics just don’t make any sense right now. Consider that a new income property investor would be deeply cash-flow negative with 20% down at current prices and mortgage rates. While this was the case to a lesser extent before the tightening cycle as well, it was mitigated by the fact that ultra-low rates allowed a building of equity below the surface. Now, investors are largely cash-flow negative even on the interest portion of their payments. Unless, prices are rising at a brisk pace, which they are not (let alone falling), the case for investment doesn’t exist at this time. And there’s another thing: Investors can pick up better yield in dividend stocks/gov’t bonds, with better tax treatment/no risk, instant liquidity, and no trouble with the Landlord and Tenant Board.'"

"Alarm bells are ringing in the new build sales sector after figures have been released by a major house builder. Mortgage industry figures and housing market commentators say the Bellway figures, on top of the end of Help To Buy, have badly damaged new build sales. Simon Jones, chief of investing comparison platform Investing Reviews, says: 'Private reservation rates being down so sharply says all you need to know about the state of demand for property right now: it's on its knees. The end of Help to Buy has been a hammer blow.' Graham Cox of the Self Employed Mortgage Hub adds: 'Rising build costs and the increased use of buyer incentives have reduced Bellway's margins, adding to their woes. The problem is, for many first-time buyers, new builds are completely unaffordable, and the gravy train for house builders has now come to a shuddering halt.'"

"Former Qantas boss Geoff Dixon has taken a small loss following his recent apartment offering on the Darling Point peninsula. The merry-go-round ended with a $205,000 loss in his $5.8m sale on Eastbourne Rd. It had been offered with a guide of between $6m and $6.5m after Dixon and his wife Dawn paid $6,005,000 in April 2021, just 15 days into its marketing. The three-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment has been sold to former Australian trade commissioners Roger and Julie Bayliss."

"Property resale gains have dropped to the lowest level since 2015, reflecting an overall downturn in the housing market. The latest CoreLogic NZ Pain & Gain report indicates the proportion of properties being resold for more than the original purchase price - a gross profit or 'gain' - fell to 93 percent in the second quarter of the year from 94 percent in the first three months of this year. CoreLogic NZ chief property economist Kelvin Davidson said the drop was widespread across owner classifications, property types and geography. 'What this report shows is the frequency of those gains has declined further, or in other words there's been a rise in the proportion of resellers seeing 'pain' - especially if they've only owned the property for a short period of time,' he said. 'Anybody who bought a year or two ago and has sold more recently has seen market conditions change significantly.'"

"Davidson said the greatest pain had been felt in Auckland, where 11 percent of property resales were below the original purchase price, followed by Hamilton, Dunedin and Christchurch. The median resale loss in the second quarter of this year was $95,000 for Auckland, $82,500 for Wellington and about $50,000 apiece for Hamilton, Christchurch, and Dunedin. Davidson said apartment pain was also on the rise."

"He anticipated continued increases in the number of properties sold at a nominal loss until the market hits bottom. 'A further increase in the share of property resales being made for a loss seems likely in the next few quarters, even as property values themselves stop falling,' Davidson said."

"Country Garden Holdings Co., formerly China’s largest developer by sales, has become a Hong Kong penny stock amid increasing scrutiny of its operations and mounting liquidity concerns. The stock tumbled as much as 14% Friday before paring loss to finish the session at HK$0.98, the lowest ever. It has plunged about 70% from a January peak, the worst performer on the Hang Seng Index in that span. That’s shrunk its market value to just $3.5 billion from an all-time high of around $50 billion in 2018."

"Country Garden’s fall from grace underscores how a persistent slump in property prices is weighing on some of China’s strongest private builders. Once considered relatively immune to the credit crunch, the Foshan-based developer has become a proxy for financial contagion in an industry that accounts for about a quarter of the country’s gross domestic product. Worries about a debt crisis have increased after Country Garden’s dollar bondholders said they’ve yet to receive coupon payments effectively due Monday. That puts the firm on course for its first public default if it doesn’t make the payments within a 30-day grace period."

"The profit warning is likely 'the prelude to an ultimate credit event,' and the company 'might already be in preparation for debt restructuring,” JPMorgan Chase & Co. analysts including Karl Chan wrote in a note. 'Up until now, we still see no signs of further government support or bail-out.'"