A report from the Jamaica Plain Gazette in Massachusetts. "'Inventory is down across the Board,' said BJ Ray of the Boston Home Team of Unlimited Southeby’s International Realty. 'Specifically in JP, single-family listings and sales are down about 20% from last year. The condo inventory drop has been even more dramatic, with a reduction of 30% in the number of properties listed and closed sales. However, the drop in price and value haven’t been so dramatic. Single families are averaging about 10% less than this time last year and condo sale prices are down around 5%. Anecdotally, I can say that open house traffic is a lot quieter.'"

"As for the commercial real estate market, Andrew Maxfield of Maxfield and Company Real Estate noted, 'With vacancies up, commercial real estate is struggling.' Constance Cervone of Cervone, Deegan + Associates said that in her building on Boylston Street, there are three vacancies, which has never happened before."

Scripps News on Colorado. "Fall has historically been the ideal time for buyers to get into the market, and this year is no exception, said Kelly Moye of The Kelly Moye Team at Compass Real Estate of Denver/Boulder. Why? Because the holidays are right around the corner and those sellers who haven’t sold yet start to get a bit nervous. Price reductions are prevalent as sellers try to sell before the winter. 'This is a prime chance for buyers to negotiate a great deal on a house,' Moye said."

WKRN in Tennessee. "According to RE/MAX, Greater Nashville homes are sitting on the market longer – 33 days compared to 24 last year. And, inventory is up 15.1% over last year. 'Open houses are popular again,' said Jeff Checko, relocation director with the Ashton Real Estate Group of RE/MAX Advantage. 'Interest rates have remained at or above 7% for several months. We’re starting to feel it in terms of people feeling anxious about making a move.' Typically, new construction makes up 10% of inventory, but currently, nationally, it’s at 30%. For Checko, that means selling a new build will just take a little more creativity. 'That’s the way it works. It’s like supply and demand. If people aren’t buying, the market’s going to respond. Banks and builders and sellers are going to do whatever it takes to motivate people.'"

"That means builders offering incentives such as buydowns. But he admits that the next few months will be very important. If interest rates remain above 7% much longer, we could see inventory pile up even higher. 'Something has to give,' Checko said. 'And so hopefully it’s a healthy combination of prices coming back down to Earth a little bit, not where people get hurt. But rates coming back down too, so people can just move about the cabin.'"

The Bradenton Herald in Florida. "Manatee County’s single-family home supply increased by 12% to a 2.8-month supply, and condo supply increased by 83% to a 3.3-month supply. Manatee single-family homes went under contract within a median of 33 days, a 153.8% increase from last year. 'We are not in the frenzy of the last couple of years,' Lori Bollinger, a Lakewood Ranch-based Realtor with Michael Saunders & Company, said of the sluggish market. 'Buyers are sitting on the fence with the higher interest rates to see how it goes.'"

The Ahwatukee Foothills News in Arizona. "Valley homebuyers may not realize it, but most of the Phoenix Metro region is tilting slightly in their favor. The Cromford Report shows that only three of the metro area’s 17 municipalities are considered buyers’ markets: Tempe, Paradise Valley and Cave Creek. 'Overall the situation is deteriorating for sellers, though they still have the advantage in most locations,' the Cromford Report said. 'One exception is Queen Creek, which we would classify as balanced. The current trends in the market are lessening the negotiation advantage for sellers and probably making them just a little nervous.' The Cromford Report said Valley housing data suggests the market 'still has a long way to go before we arrive at a balanced market.' But it added, 'Each day it moves lower (and) strengthens the borrowing power of buyers.'"

The Tribune in California. "San Luis Obispo-based Realtor Graham Updegrove said the area’s housing market operated at a more 'sustainable' pace this summer than it did during the peak of the buying frenzy that followed the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Updegrove said the steady pace was has been driven largely by a decline in sales. 'Since June, we’ve seen an uptick in the number of active listings on the market, and we’ve seen a pretty significant drop in the number of pending sales,' Updegrove said. 'I think there’s a potential that things are shifting, or just slowing down.' Regionally, all five major regions recorded double-digit year-over-year sales declines in August, with sales in the Central Coast region falling 17.9%."

"Santa Cruz County also saw its median home price drop, from $1.3 million in July to $1.2 million in August, a decline that brought prices 7.7% lower than those seen in August 2022. Any significant changes in median home price — such as Pismo Beach’s 31.9% year-over-year decline to $985,000, or Cambria’s 26.8% decline to $813,000 — were likely skewed by low sales that inflated the amount of year-over-year change, Updegrove said. Pismo Beach saw listings rise 76.9% year-over-year to 23 in August, while Cambria saw listings rise 78.6% to 25. Nearby, home prices fell 7.4% year-over-year in Paso Robles to $725,000. In South County, median home prices fell by 15.4% in Arroyo Grande to $965,000."

The Real Deal. "Last week, Tides principals Sean Kia and Ryan Andrade said they’d executed 'dozens' of loan modifications across their distressed portfolio, workouts they characterized as 'really, really good news.' New terms extended maturity dates and cut interest rates, the sponsors detailed, a band-aid to stanch the bleeding and buy them time to boost revenues through renovations. On Friday, DBRS Morningstar released some not-so-good news. The ratings agency raised loss expectations for two of the amended loans. DBRS Morningstar now expects losses to be 1.5 times greater for securitized loans tied to Tides on Oakland Hills in Fort Worth, Texas, and Tides on Country Club in Mesa, Arizona, than those of the overall loan pool. The debt comprises a larger $1.3 billion pool of mortgages originated by MF1 Capital. Nearly half of the loans are watchlisted."

"The investment may save the deal from default, but it also comes at a price. Preferred equity, often called rescue capital, is more expensive than senior debt and gives the lender a stake in the property. Kia countered that the differential isn’t so extreme given the rise in rates on its senior loan. The deal also adds another layer to the capital stack — Tides will now need to pay back its senior debt, then the preferred equity investment before it doles out returns to the limited partners who made the deal possible. If Tides can’t salvage the property by the time the debt matures, those investors could see nothing. Organic rent growth has plateaued and even declined in some of the markets where Tides holds assets, making post-renovation rent hikes the fulcrum of its strategy to increase revenue."

From Bisnow. "With no sign that the Federal Reserve’s restrictively high interest rates are coming down anytime soon, the commercial real estate industry is still looking at ways to shake loose financing as lending is set to drop around 40% this year. One term gaining popularity is 'dequity,' an ambiguously defined mix between debt and equity that developers are increasingly using to fill holes in their capital stacks. The funding carries increased risk for borrowers — but not enough to discourage the commercial real estate sector from using it to plug a gap."

"Circumstances create a ripe environment for dequity to step in, Georgette Chapman Phillips, dean of the College of Business at Lehigh University and author of a 2005 paper on dequity, told Bisnow. 'What was worth $100 two years ago is worth 50 bucks now. What's the loan-to-value ratio on that?' she said. 'Loans are underwater, people are walking away. It's another reckoning moment.'"

From Global News. "Prospective buyers in Canada’s housing market have a range of choices when it comes to climbing the first rung on the property ladder. Mark Pedlar is a Realtor with Re/Max Bluewater Realty in Grand Bend, Ont., on the banks of Lake Huron. He says that now is a 'better time' to consider investing in a recreational property as demand dies down and buyers can take their time to find a property that suits their needs. 'There's lots of inventory, there's less people out and about looking. It's turned into more of a buyer's market versus a seller's market,' he tells Global News."

The Jersey Evening Post in the UK. "The first sign that Jersey’s once booming housing market had finally started to cool emerged last month when figures revealed the average cost of a home during the spring was £666,000 – down £20,000 against the same period in 2022. Perhaps the more interesting figure was that of ‘market activity’, which showed that the number of sales was down 42% on the same period in 2022. One Islander recently told the JEP that his property had been on the market for the last 12 months. ‘In the end we lowered the price below the recommended market price, but we were still unable to sell it due to mortgage-repayment costs being too high for potential buyers,’ he said. ‘I also found the standard of the majority of estate agents was shocking – they must have been so used to selling houses with ease over the past few years, that they have forgotten how to work to even a minimum standard.’"

"Another said that they lost thousands of pounds in fees when a buyer from whom they had accepted an offer pulled out – after failing to complete the sale of their own property. Estate agent and director at Broadlands, Harry Trower – who last month revealed that transactions had ‘fallen off a cliff’ – said the market remained ‘slow’. And Margaret Thompson, the chief executive of Thompson Estates, warned that vendors who bought their properties when prices peaked last year could ‘suffer a loss’ and urged them to be realistic when looking to sell."

AFP on Germany. "Valeriy Shevchenko felt like he made the purchase of his lifetime when he beat a queue of prospective buyers to secure a two-bedroom apartment in one of Berlin's most popular districts. Two years on, the 33-year-old's housing dreams have come crashing down after the developer of his new home, Project Immobilien, went bankrupt. Hit by a sudden jump in interest rates and raw material costs, twice as many developers have filed for insolvency over the last year than the previous 12 months. Like hundreds of homeowners-to-be across the country, Shevchenko found construction of his new home suddenly halted, as workers cleared out of the site where the concrete skeleton of the building stands, with no windows."

"'From the middle of August, the construction was frozen. The cabinets for the workers here, the crane in the middle, everything moved away,' said Shevchenko at the site, shellshocked by the setback. Many of the halted projects are also well advanced, pushing buyers into dire financial straits. In Berlin, investors of the Project Immobilien's construction had already paid half of what is due. 'I'm not a rich person. My money is the fruit of my labour,' said Shevchenko, who had already paid up 250,000 euros ($266,100) for the apartment he bought for half a million euros."

"With no insurance purchased by the building company or the future homeowners, there is no financial protection against the sudden bankruptcy. Their only hope now is to find someone else to take over the construction, or to finish it themselves. 'I never thought that something like that could happen in Germany,' said Marina Prakharchuk, 39, with tears in her eyes. The Belarusian had paid up 175,000 euros for her 45-metre square apartment. 'All my savings are in there,' said the employee of a logistics company."

ABC News in Australia. "Tasha Jordan and her partner Ken Belbin engaged Golden Homes to build their family home at Turners Beach for $380,000. An occupancy permit was issued by a surveying practice but Ms Jordan had become concerned and wanted another opinion. A geotechnical investigation of the site paid for by Ms Jordan recently found her house had been built on highly reactive clay, making it more susceptible to movement. Last month, Golden Homes' director Emmett Davidson told his clients the company was going into administration because Jarrod Stubbs — the licenced builder it had employed — had resigned."

"Mr Davidson did not hold a building licence and had relied on Mr Stubbs's to construct the homes. Ms Jordan said she could not find another builder to rectify the issues, with some even recommending the house be demolished. Ms Jordan and her teenage children are staying on couches at her parents' home, while Mr Belbin lives with his mum. Their entire lives, including items for the new house, are stuck in a shipping container. 'This house was everything to us. We've put all our money into it,' she said. 'To end up two years later with something this bad … we have been fighting for our lives.'"

"In a town nearby, another client of Golden Homes, Sarah, who did not want her last name published, is living illegally in a converted shed with her children. 'We're stuck in this tiny, cramped, little space with no end date in sight,' she said. Her $390,000 home was nearing completion when Mr Stubbs sent her a text message in July explaining he had left the company. 'I decided its best i [sic] step away from my role there [at Golden Homes] as its [sic] become in my best interest to do so…I believe your home is down to be finished asap im [sic] just not the best person to ask that anymore sorry,' he wrote. Sarah's house remains unfinished, and she too has discovered builders are unwilling to take on the liability of finishing another's incomplete work."

From Bloomberg. "Hong Kong is relaxing its mortgage rules for homes under construction, as the government takes more steps to support the city’s property market that has been weighed by high borrowing costs. While the move will hand more purchasing power to new home buyers, it will not boost the overall property market unless the government relaxes the stress test requirement, said Sammy Po, chief executive of the home division at Midland Realty. 'Simply relaxing mortgages on unfinished properties is not targeting the problem,' Mr Po said. He expects home values to drop 2 per cent to 3 per cent for the full year if the government does not roll out more measures. Expensive interest rates have deterred buyers in one of the world’s most expensive property markets, bringing down home prices down 17 per cent from their peak in 2021."

South China Morning Post. "Soon after China decided to lift border controls in January, ending three years of zero-Covid measures, Stephen Yao embarked on a new mission. Representing more than 200 middle-class Chinese families with many in second-tier cities, the Guangdong-based property agent has been searching for buyers for the investment properties his clients bought in Southeast Asian countries before the pandemic. But amid a bumpy reopening recovery, a protracted property crisis at home and dwindling growth of household wealth, some have struggled with worsening financial conditions and had to scale back overseas investment."

"'A number of them can no longer afford the final payment for their property investment and desperately need cash to solve their domestic financial problems, such as business failures, lay-offs and mortgage loan defaults,' Yao said. 'Some no longer have the extra funds to continue holding these overseas properties. Many of the buyers were ordinary middle-class families from second-tier cities in China engaged in the tourism, export and services industries. Since the pandemic, their income has dropped significantly and the market value of domestic properties has also declined.'"

"Condos in Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia and Japan all became popular investments. Demand prompted Chinese developers to build properties in Southeast Asia, tailor-made for affluent Chinese people eager to invest overseas or to embrace a different life abroad. But those projects are now under threat, faced with making losses. 'It has less than 1 per cent of the 700,000 people that were planned for the Forest City community,' said Patricia Li, one of a group of middle-class Chinese investors flocking to Malaysia to buy property. In 2017, Li invested in two apartments in Forest City, a development by Chinese property giant Country Garden in Johor, the southernmost state in Malaysia."

"Forest City now looks more like a ghost town than the thriving residential and commercial district that was promised, with condos, roads and shops laying empty, according to Li. She said she felt quite depressed as the price of the apartments has fallen to 6,000 yuan per square metre now - down from 18,000 yuan. 'There may be just a few thousand Chinese people living over there now. Many want to sell their houses. Unless he or she can find Chinese buyers, no one else would be interested, neither locals nor buyers of other countries, as the design and features are only suitable for the Chinese community,' she said."