A report from Vail Daily. "Mark Weinreich, a broker associate with Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Colorado Properties’ Beaver Creek in the Villa Montane office, notes that for the resort and luxury market, there are more choices. Good properties priced to fair market value are still selling quickly. 'By all indications, we have likely reached the height of the market,' Weinreich said. 'That being said, homes that are priced to market value based on condition, features, and location are still commanding top dollar. Given the demand, there is some opportunity for sellers to explore the market — depending on their sense of urgency — and willingness to let buyers sniff it out. If it’s not priced right, homes will sit. Sellers that aren’t getting sales quickly are most likely overpriced. Buyers aren’t willing to overpay.'"

KTVZ in Oregon. "In isolation, a $58,000 drop in Bend’s median home sales price last month sounds pretty dramatic. But coming down from the July record of $800,000 to a similar price as seen last spring, and the volatility seen amid factors from rising interest rates to the continued supply crunch is more understandable. The 7.25% drop puts Bend's August median price at $742,000, a figure 'in line with median sale prices seen in mid-2022,' noted Redmond appraiser Donnie Montagner. Redmond’s median home sales price, by contrast, has been fairly stable, up just $5,000, to $505,000 in August, still below the record sales price of a year ago, at $542,000."

"The city’s inventory of single-family homes was up a bit, to 2.8 months, which is still the highest figure in at least three years. Montagner said Redmond’s home sales inventory in the $600,000 to $650,000 price range has been increasing and currently stands at over eight months. The inventory of homes a bit cheaper ($500,000-$550,000) or more costly than that ($750,000-$800,000) ranges from four to six months, he noted."

NBC Bay Area in California. "The Bay Area tends to lead the country when it comes to high housing prices, but new numbers show the region also leads in price drops. According to the latest numbers from Go Banking Rates, the average home price for Palo Alto was down nearly $500,000 from this time last year. In Mountain View, prices were down $250,000. In San Francisco, prices were down more than $200,000."

From TV Line. "Wanna bet someone’s gonna try to pin this on Jan? TVLine has confirmed that the iconic and massively renovated Brady Bunch house — which HGTV put on the market last May — ended up selling for $3.2 million. Not only is that $2.3 million less than the $5.5 million listing price, but it’s $300K shy of the $3.5 million HGTV paid for it in 2018. HGTV poured a staggering $1.9 million into the North Hollywood, Calif., property in an effort to recreate some of the series’ iconic interiors, including the floating staircase, the burnt orange-and-avocado green kitchen and the kids’ Jack-and-Jill bathroom."

"As to why HGTV ended up taking such a loss on the pop culture time capsule, Compass’ Danny Brown, the listing agent on the property, tells TVLine, 'We felt the property was worth about $3-$3.5 million and that’s exactly where it landed; there are no intellectual property rights that are included in the sale. HGTV spent about $5.5 million purchasing and gutting the house which is why we listed it at $5.5 million, even though we knew it was an aspirational list price.'"

The Union Tribune in California. "San Diego County rents have dropped two months in a row and it's been a long time since that's happened. The biggest drops have occurred where prices went up the most over the past few years — like University City and several North County cities. Increased vacancy rates mean renters now can opt to move rather than face an increase for renewing. San Diego County is not alone in rent reductions, with much of the nation experiencing slowdowns. Joshua Ohl, a managing analyst at CoStar, said the rental market is in correction territory after explosive growth during the pandemic. 'There's a course correction on rent growth across the market in many instances,' he said. 'Some of those areas had 20 percent rent growth (annually) and this is a market correction.'"

The Austin Monitor in Texas. "A combination of softer demand by renters and new multifamily apartment units completing construction has caused some lowering of rents in the Austin market, according to members of the Austin Apartment Association. At a series of panel discussions last week, the appearance of 'negative rent growth' after years of upward movement was a topic of much discussion. With construction of new communities starting to catch up to the strong demand surge that began five years ago, association members said the market is likely to see flat or falling rents in the years to come."

"'Demand has been pretty muted now for really about a year and a half, maybe a little more than that, and so the new construction activity combined with that needed demand has really brought occupancy back down not only to a normal level before the run-up in 2021, but actually to below where they were going into the pandemic,' said Jordan Brooks, senior market analyst with ALN Apartment Data."

From D Magazine. "'What’s going to happen to billions of dollars of loans and properties as high interest rates continue to wreak economic havoc?' is among the biggest question marks for the multifamily industry—especially in Texas, which has become one of the hottest markets in the country. Multifamily has been considered the darling of commercial real estate since the end of the Global Financial Crisis and is often thought to be a lower-risk investment among real estate asset types. Investors in hot markets like Texas have bid up prices for years: I’ve seen the same properties go from selling at 7 caps to 3 caps within a five-year stretch. Covid pushed prices even higher. Floating-rate debt allowed buyers to compete, with higher leverage and historically low interest rates."

"'Extend and pretend' has become the most popular phrase used in these types of market conditions. In almost all of these cases, borrowers are going to need additional capital, meaning they’ll have to go back to their investors or find it elsewhere. Private equity investors are therefore providing 'rescue capital' or preferred equity, structured as a loan with its own high interest rates: preferred equity is currently in the mid-teens. But properties can only support so much debt and preferred equity payments, and often it’s the common equity shareholders who will be left empty-handed as the last in line after the lender and preferred equity holders. In other situations, we’re starting to see some sponsors sell their general partner position at a loss to new equity, relinquishing any potential fees or or carried interest they’d normally be eligible for."

"Last, but not least, many sponsors are going to need a broker. For borrowers facing insurmountable challenges with underwater properties and impending maturities, selling, even at a loss, is going to be the best option."

From Mansion Global. "Developers are racing to build more luxury rental apartments in South Florida, threatening to create a glut at the higher end of the market despite the stream of affluent new residents still pouring in. The Miami metropolitan area, which consists of Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties, has more units under construction as a share of inventory than any other major market in the country, according to real-estate data firm CoStar Group. About 90% of all the new apartment units coming to the market are considered higher end, or rent for $2,261 a month or more, CoStar said. The bulk of that product is expected to be delivered in 2024."

"As more luxury units become available, they are taking longer to rent. At the high end in South Florida, vacancies are around 8.5%, CoStar said. The luxury sector’s vacancy rate will rise to 11% over the next two years, according to a forecast from Juan Arias, CoStar’s director of market analytics in South Florida. Developers feel pressure to rent units quickly because their brand-new properties are empty and many tenants don’t want to live in ghost buildings. Many of these new buildings are offering one or two free months. Other concessions include smaller deposits, which in some cases have been slashed by more than 80%. 'A lot of that is not because you can’t rent them—it’s because you need to rent fast,' said Eli Beracha, director of the Hollo School of Real Estate at Florida International University."

The Aldergrove Star in Canada. "'Many buyers are in ‘watchful waiting’ mode as they hold off on decisions in anticipating of potential further rate changes,' said Narinder Bains, chair of the Fraser Valley Real Estate Board. In Langley, the benchmark price for a single-family detached home was almost unchanged from a year ago, or a month ago. After swings in price up and down, the benchmark remains at $1.638 million, up 0.9 per cent from a year ago, and just 0.5 per cent from July. Across the Fraser Valley, the average price for a detached home has swung back and forth wildly over the last three years."

"After a brief dip in the first few months of the pandemic, the price of housing began a screaming upward climb, with the typical Fraser Valley house price rising from just over $1 million to a height of $1.9 million by late 2021. In the spring of 2022, with interest rates rising and inflation pressuring Canadians, the bottom fell out of housing, with prices for houses losing most of their early-pandemic gains, bottoming out around $1.3 million. A final swing, as interest rate hikes were paused this year, sent prices back up to around $1.6 million, before retreating slightly again. A decade ago, houses in the Fraser Valley were still routinely selling for just over $600,000."

The Journal in Ireland. "The first affordable housing purchase scheme in Housing Minister Darragh O’Brien’s constituency has been delayed by at least a year, with the delays causing stress and worry for applicants. The Dun Emer housing scheme in Lusk, Co Dublin was initially due to be fully completed in October 2022, but some residents have been told it will be October this year before they will be able to move in. 'I wish I never applied for the scheme,' one person told The Journal. 'I thought we were the luckiest people ever to get this. And I couldn’t believe my luck that we were selected… and to be able to afford something in Dublin. I was ecstatic. I thought it was the best thing that happened to me. But it has caused so much stress and anxiety and everything is just constant worry.'"

ERR in Estonia. "Anyone moving around Tallinn who happens to pass by the storage lot of construction equipment and tool rental company Cramo on Tähetorni tänav may notice that the lot is currently filled with a considerable number of construction containers. Weigh this up against recent news about the downturn in the construction sector and one may get the impression that work at construction sites has halted altogether. Cramo Estonia CEO Remo Holsmer says that this year is indeed much harder than previous years, but the situation can't be called very bad yet either."

"'Our construction market hasn't yet reached the state seen in Finland, for example, where the market is essentially frozen, businesses have gone bankrupt and the state is allocating public funds to rescue the sector,' he continued. 'Things have also gotten more difficult in Sweden, and since we as a state are rather closely connected with our closest neighbors, then it's likely there are more difficult times ahead for the construction sector in Estonia as well.'"

From Reuters. "The crisis facing Germany's residential construction sector, triggered by high credit and material costs, intensified in August, with the number of companies reporting cancelled projects at a new high, according to a survey published on Tuesday. One in five companies - 20.7% - reported cancelled projects in August, up from 18.9% the previous month, according to the Munich-based Ifo economic institute. 'Residential construction cancellations are piling up to a new high. We haven't seen anything comparable to this since the survey began in 1991,' said Ifo head of surveys Klaus Wohlrabe."

"An increasing number of firms are facing difficulties, with 44.2% of companies reporting a lack of orders in August, versus 13.8% at the same time last year, said Ifo. 'Some businesses are already struggling to keep their heads above water,' said Wohlrabe, adding that nearly 12% of companies in the sector are reporting that they face financing difficulties, the highest proportion in more than 30 years. A majority of companies fear further declines in business in the coming six months, according to Ifo. 'The uncertainty in the market is huge,' said Wohlrabe."

News.com.au in Australia. "Seventy-seven Melbourne apartment owners couldn’t have imagined that the innocuous ping of a new email landing in their inboxes would herald the disaster that would leave many of them on the brink of financial ruin. 'IMPORTANT,' said the email – sent by their strata firm in March 2020 – which in hindsight was not an exaggeration. Lot owners located in the inner suburb of West Footscray learned that combustible cladding had been installed on their four-storey building complex, which meant a barbecue or cigarette on the balcony could turn the block into a deadly inferno. When the block was built, this type of cladding was not illegal. This turned out to be the first of many serious defects which came to light in the years after residents moved into the block from 2014."

"Several independent building reports found the builder, Shangri-La Construction, had carried out inadequate waterproofing, causing some residents to experience waterfalls in their lounge rooms, resulting in rampant black mould and rendering some properties too dangerous to live in. Residents had begun a lawsuit against Shangri-La Construction when the building company went into liquidation at the end of March. Residents at the West Footscray block dread receiving their quarterly strata fees, which has spiralled to be about $10,000 a year, more than people’s mortgages in some cases, and is expected to take 15 years to pay off due to the many defects. This has left apartment owners with no way to recover the money needed to carry out the rectification works, leaving them to foot the $4.5 million bill themselves."

"'You can’t come back from this, it’s a life sentence,' 32-year-old Andrew John, one of the residents, told news.com.au. 'There’s people who are retiring, people with disabilities, we’re all stuck. You walk past people here, no one smiles, no one talks to you. We’re at our wit’s end.'"

South China Morning Post."After several years of fruitless attempts to declare bankruptcy, Crystal Chen's final days were marred by a major regret - that her family might receive harassing phone calls from creditors after her death. Before succumbing to an illness last month at the age of 38, Chen filed for bankruptcy protection in two courts in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou, where she lived. The hope was that she would be able to wipe out 1.9 million yuan (US$260,000) worth of debt that she accumulated due to a failed investment."

"Both courts rejected her request on the grounds that the country lacks a 'personal bankruptcy statute,' said her lawyer, Alice Luo. While China has turned from a centrally planned system into a market economy through decades of reform - including a law on enterprise bankruptcy enforced in 2007 to help troubled companies recover from crippling debt - there is no such legislation for individuals such as Chen who are unable to pay off their debts. Shenzhen, the metropolis located a 130km (81-mile) drive from Guangzhou, is the only place in all of mainland China where local residents can file for personal bankruptcy, as a pilot scheme was launched there in March 2021."

"But now, with her death, what she leaves behind will be used to repay the debt, and her family could be persecuted for the unpaid sum, as a traditional belief that 'the son must pay his father's debt' still prevails in Chinese society, Luo said. Raymond Zheng, who owns a piling company in Guangzhou that has amassed considerable debt amid the country's ongoing property crisis, is among those who are being dragged down by their businesses."

"'What I want most now is for my company to go bankrupt, and I even hired a bankruptcy law firm for this purpose, but the court refused to accept my application,' he said, adding that failing to declare bankruptcy 'makes my debts keep snowballing.' Feeling like he was falling into a 'bottomless abyss,' Zheng's personal credit rating also took a big hit as he defaulted on payments to third parties. Now he is restricted from borrowing money, using a credit card or even buying a plane ticket, under China's credit system."