A report from the Boston Globe. "The short-term rental platform Airbnb has come a long way from its 2007 roots. A glut of listings — and a range of hosting types to match — has driven some communities to institute new policies governing the practice. And in New England, where second-home owners are known to rent for months at a time through ski season, whether or not to enter the market comes with a snowplow full of logistical concerns, too. 'I think that people think it’s really lucrative, and it’s not,' said Cheryl Loiselle of West Newbury, who bought a home in North Conway, N.H. 'We spend a lot of money just making sure the place is … perfect. We need to be in pristine condition all of the time, because if you get a bad review, you’re basically dead.'"

"'If they’re thinking that they’re going to come into the market and just kill it, and 100 percent of their bills are going to be paid for, it’s probably not the time right now,' said Kelly Coleman, who operates Kelton Collective, a property management company based in Jamaica, Vt., that coordinates short-term rentals. 'We are going to start seeing a number of folks who maybe bought in 2020 putting homes back on the market because they weren’t expecting there to be so much work involved.' Coleman said hosts who have gilded homes in luxury finishes may do better to hold off for now. 'We’re seeing those homes that were $1,000, $1,500 a night, and they have every single luxury item that you could have imagined — we’re seeing them still on the market now for $275-$300 a night,' she said."

Boise Dev in Idaho. "Like the rest of the country, the Treasure Valley’s real estate market surged and slowed in recent years based on a complicated set of factors. Cost for materials was a major driver of home costs skyrocketing during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021. These materials prices, especially lumber, have now largely normalized back to near pre-pandemic levels from their sky-high rates, but now builders are having to navigate a new landscape where high-interest rates are adding tens of thousands to home prices. And as a result, potential buyers are waiting to see a change before they’re willing to put down a down payment."

"According to the latest MLS data available last month, the median price for a home in Ada County was $520,000 in August, down a typical 3% from seasonal summer price highs in July. It’s down year-over-year 8% from last August. Before the pandemic, $600 per thousand board feet was expensive for lumber. Prices jumped up to well over $1,200 per thousand board feet last year, which Idaho Pacific Lumber Company’s Vice President of Purchasing and Sales Scott Sunday says was driven by 2021’s 'shock to the system.' 'It was never going to stay in those ranges, although you had some producers that were thinking it would trade that way forever, but it never does,' he said. 'It always works its way up and down. It had to adjust.'"

"Gene Harding stopped building for six months while interest rates climbed, even as material prices started dropping. His company, Harding Homes, is now paying tens of thousands of dollars less for lumber than he was at the height of the market last year, but high-interest rates are forcing him to switch up his strategy to keep selling homes. A house at the high point in the lumber market would cost $70,000 in materials and now is down to $30,000, plus framers cut their rates in half as they try to dig up business in a slowing market. 'Our sales are pretty vibrant. Not flying off the shelves, but I don’t think that was a healthy market for a buyer back when the market was so crazy because we would sell our inventory out before we finished,' he said."

The Real Deal on California. "An Encino-based investor has declared bankruptcy on a Beverly Hills mansion that sits adjacent to the Los Angeles Country Club golf course, The Real Deal has learned. Kaysan Ghasseminejad, through an entity called K3B Enterprises, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on the property on July 10, court records show. In the latest monthly financial declarations for the bankruptcy estate from early September, Ghasseminejad declared total liabilities and equity at $15 million. On the same day that Ghasseminejad declared bankruptcy on the Beverly Hills property, he also filed a Chapter 11 petition for 17835 Ventura Boulevard, a three-story medical office building in Encino. The property was put up for sale in September."

"In June, lender Sunwest Bank filed a notice of default on the home, claiming that Ghasseminejad had fallen behind on $5.3 million in debt. Ghasseminejad secured the original $4.9 million mortgage on the asset in March. Ghasseminejad bought the home for $13 million in May of 2019, property records show. The bankruptcy of 9996 Sunset adds to the list of distressed residential properties in Los Angeles’ most expensive residential neighborhoods. Last month, developer Elite Management Group filed for bankruptcy after it was sued for fraud in relation to an unfinished mansion in Bel Air. In August last year, spec home developer Mohamed Hadid filed for bankruptcy on 9650 Cedarbrook Drive, a planned 78,000-square-foot home that was once on the market for $250 million."

The San Francisco Chronicle in California. "An ambitious plan to turn a parking lot next to the West Oakland BART station into 1,032 apartments is on life support after its developer lost the property to foreclosure last week. An affiliate of Columbia Pacific Advisors took over ownership of 500 Kirkham St. on Oct. 2 after a foreclosure, property records show. Developer Panoramic Interests lost the site after receiving approval for what would have been one of the largest apartment projects in the Bay Area. It’s now among dozens of Bay Area property owners who have lost their buildings to foreclosure, defaulted on mortgages or sold at a loss. Financing a project that touted its proximity to downtowns was no longer appealing for lenders or equity partners. 'There’s no market for it now,' said Patrick Kennedy, owner of Panoramic Interests."

Community Impact on Texas. "A slew of projects have brought thousands of new multifamily units to the Austin market over the last several years. Jordan Brooks, a senior market analyst with national and local apartment data collector ALN Apartment Data, said Austin’s multifamily unit supply is set to remain high through at least 2024. Austin ranks eighth in the country for cities with the most new units under construction. As of September in Austin, there were: 63,882 units under preconstruction, 41,071 units under construction, 10,124 units under lease-up, or being filled, 17,364 units under construction/lease-up."

"Still, demand hasn’t quite kept up with supply this year, according to data from ALN. As of September, there were almost 20,000 more multifamily units delivered than absorbed, or leased. 'We’re in this period right now of kind of prolonged stubbornly low apartment demand,' Brooks said. 'There’s so much up in the air right now in terms of the economy, but certainly over the next six or nine months it’s hard to see how occupancies are going to bounce back in a positive direction. If that doesn’t happen, then it’s hard to see how rent growth would really reverse course either.'"

From Bloomberg. "AustralianSuper Pty, the country’s largest pension fund, is facing further losses on US property assets as a lender prepares to take back a vacant Washington, DC office tower it owns with Brookfield Corp. The 12-story building in the US capital is now controlled by Starwood Property Trust Inc., which provided a $120 million loan to the property, said two people familiar with the matter. Starwood has been in talks to either find a new tenant for the early 1990s-built tower, which has been unoccupied for some time, or convert it into apartments, the people said."

"Broker estimates suggest the Washington offices have suffered heavy valuation losses, while Brookfield reports show the mall’s value has fallen by about $800 million in the past two years. 'Property is a tale of two halves. There’s always something that is not doing well, and we have some legacy assets that fall into that bucket and are working to respond to these challenges,' AustralianSuper Head of Mid Risk Portfolios Jason Peasley said in an emailed response to questions. 'In the US office sector in particular, we are holding assets at far less than what we bought them for several years earlier.'"

The Wall Street Journal. "Goldman Sachs has agreed to sell specialty lender GreenSky to a group of investors, a major step in what has become a costly retreat from the Wall Street bank’s grand ambitions to serve the masses. GreenSky will continue to originate loans that are mostly geared toward consumers making home renovations. Goldman bought GreenSky just last year for about $1.7 billion and is selling at a fraction of that. While Goldman didn’t disclose the purchase price, people familiar with the matter say it equates to something in the neighborhood of $500 million."

The Globe and Mail in Canada. "Another flurry of new listings arrived on the Toronto-area real estate market this week following the Thanksgiving long weekend. New listings surged 44.1 per cent in September compared with the same month last year. 'It is a tough market. There’s a lot of buyer hesitation still,' says Andre Kutyan, broker with Harvey Kalles Real Estate Ltd. Mr. Kutyan recently showed a house to a couple with stable employment who are looking to sell their $2.5-million property in order to move up into the $3.5-million range. The couple agree the house is exactly what they’re looking for, in the school district they prefer, but they’ve decided to wait to see what happens with prices. 'They don’t feel any urgency to buy,' says Mr. Kutyan. 'It either has to be really special or a deal.'"

"Davelle Morrison, broker with Bosley Real Estate, says some houses are sitting a little longer in the east end of Toronto, where she does much of her business. Sellers with asking prices around the $1-million level are setting offer dates, but in many cases the house is still on the market the following day, she says. That price segment often attracts a cohort of buyers trying to move up to a house from a condo unit, she points out. If they’re attempting to sell the condo first, they may be competing with a lot of other listings. 'The condo market is really flooded right now,' she says."

"The condo market is seeing a rush of supply as investors sell their rental units in the face of rising carrying costs. 'I think the interest rates have really beaten people down.' She’s seeing prices reduced as a result. 'The new term is ‘price improvement,' she says."

Blog TO in Canada. "Along with the fact that far fewer homes have been changing hands in recent months, there some other indicators that the GTA's housing market is in a steep downturn, though prices are not exactly letting up to match the decline in activity. For one thing, homes have been sitting on the market for way longer than they used to back in the days where prospective buyers needed to have a deposit in hand and their bidding war elbows out upon first viewing a place."

"Also, when they do sell, homes are going for far less than their listing price, with many owners forced to accept less than they'd hoped for in light of high interest rates and the more sluggish market they've spawned — for some, selling is not an option but a necessity as their mortgage renewal date at a higher rate approaches. According to a new report from Zoocasa, while real estate in some parts of the province is now selling for an average of 10 per cent less than the prices they are listed at, in others, the trend is far more drastic, with buyers only willing to offer about 58 per cent of the advertised price as of September 2023."

"Across the region, the phenomenon appears to be the most extreme in the places where homes are most expensive, such as Caledon and Halton Hills. The former municipality has the second-highest average listing price in the GTA at $2,365,199, but also the second-greatest difference between that and the average selling price, which is $1,363,853, or a whopping 42.12 per cent less. The disparity is also vast in Uxbridge, which had the third-highest average listing price last month ($2,119,398) but also the third-biggest discrepancy between that and the average selling price, which was 37.5 per cent less, or $1,324,645. Also high on the list was Aurora, the sixth-most pricey community analyzed, where listing prices were an average of 32.69 per cent loftier than actual sale prices last month ($1,897,654 vs. $1,277,312). Then came Burlington, with listing prices 31.89 per cent above selling prices ($1,540,694 vs. $1,049,263)."

Scottish Construction Now. "House prices in Scotland continued to fall according to the latest Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) Residential Market Survey with further falls expected over the coming three months. A net balance of -20% of respondents in Scotland said that house prices fell over the past three months, compared to -17% in August, and -9% in July. In saying that, Scotland though continues to be in a stronger position than most other UK regions. The overall UK price balance sits at -69%, and all regions of the UK had more negative balances than Scotland, except for Northern Ireland."

"Looking at demand, this figure worsened through September. A net balance of -37% of Scottish respondents reported that new buyer enquiries fell. This is compared to -29% the month previous. In terms of the sales market, Alan Kennedy MRICS, of Shepherd Chartered Surveyors, in Fraserburgh, commented: 'The local market has slowed in recent times though buyer demand in some sectors remains strong and realistically priced properties are still selling at or around Home Report values. Local estate agents are showing a lot of price reductions, indicative of difficult market conditions.' Ian Morton MRICS of Bradburne & Co, in St Andrews, added: 'The slowdown in activity is marked and offers below the asking price are becoming more common. It is turning to a buyers’ market as values lower.'"

From ABC News. "China's property market is facing a 'sharp deterioration' which could lead to financial stress domestically, and ultimately affect its trade with Australia. 'If you can't make any money on property in China, which you can't, you're going to get more and more Chinese investors looking around and thinking, 'where can we still make 10 per cent a year for doing nothing?' said Rabobank's global strategist Michael Every. 'And the answer is in Australian property.'"

From CNN. "Fears that Evergrande’s debt woes are spreading into the wider financial industry have sparked a run on a regional bank in northern China, multiple state media outlets have reported. Depositors lined up at the bank in Cangzhou, in Hebei province, to withdraw their money, according to photos and videos circulated online this week, prompting an appeal for calm by officials. Police in Cangzhou have arrested 'many people' suspected of spreading rumors that the bank was suffering a cash crunch because of its exposure to Evergrande, Yicai, a state-owned media outlet, reported on Wednesday, citing an officer deployed at the bank."

"Posts on Chinese social media reviewed by CNN claimed that the Bank of Cangzhou had lent billions of yuan in loans to Evergrande, the indebted property giant that defaulted on its debt in 2021 and is struggling to survive. The bank has a statement from the city government posted at its entrance, assuring the public that their deposits are safe, Yicai said. '[We urge] financial consumers to make rational judgments and to avoid losing interest on your deposits due to rumors,' according to a photo of the statement posted by the media outlet."