A report from the Times Standard in California. "Garberville and Whitethorn in Southern Humboldt County saw some of the highest foreclosure rates in the nation during this year’s third financial quarter, according to ATTOM. For ZIP codes with over 1,000 housing units, Garberville ranked as the fifth on the top 10 list of most foreclosures with one for every 60 housing units. Nearby, Whitethorn saw one foreclosure per 82 housing units, ranking it ninth on the list. The major factor driving the foreclosures is not a mystery, according to 2nd District Supervisor Michelle Bushnell, who represents the district. 'With the decline of the cannabis market, they’re (residents) not being able to pay their mortgages with any kind of a job in this southern region and so they’re having to relocate, and they are trying to put those homes on the market, but they’re not selling,' Bushnell said."

"It was legalization that sounded the death knell for the local cannabis industry, of which Southern Humboldt County is a historic center. As a result, Garberville, Whitethorn and many other Southern Humboldt County communities which primarily depended upon cannabis farming as a revenue source, have struggled in recent years. Cannabis was so dominant an economic force in the region that local satellite industries – like food service and hospitality – also took a hit, leading to high foreclosure rates."

"Bushnell said many homes were bought not to true value and residents, floating at sea while the cannabis industry sunk beneath the waves, were stuck with mortgages they suddenly could not afford. Many ended up relocating to the Eureka and Fortuna area, where jobs are more plentiful or moving outside of Humboldt County entirely. 'There are an abundance of rentals in the southern region down here, where you used to be able to never find a rental there,' Bushnell said. She added many of the rentals are sitting vacant."

The Real Deal on California. "It doesn’t pay to build homes in San Jose. Higher interest rates and soaring construction and labor costs have curtailed home building across the Bay Area’s largest city, the San Jose Mercury News reported, citing a new report. The prospect for building both market-rate and affordable homes in the South Bay city remains 'bleak' as builders face 'numerous challenges' and economic pressure on various fronts, according to the city’s residential feasibility study. For the second year in a row, the report examined the cost feasibility of five different types of properties in San Jose. None of them penciled out."

"'Worse than last year,' Nanci Klein, head of economic development for San Jose, told the newspaper. 'Unless something crazy changes, we’re not going to get much development, housing or commercial.' 'Interest rates have really shut down the capital markets,' Shawn Milligan, a San Jose-based developer, told the Mercury News. 'You can’t borrow at 9 or 10 percent and underwrite a project. It’s impossible. It was possible when interest rates were 3 percent. It has kind of turned everything upside down.'"

"This has created a vicious cycle, added Louis Mirante, vice president of public policy at the Bay Area Council. 'The fewer projects, the less labor there is,' he told the newspaper. 'The less labor there is, the fewer projects there are. That death spiral is going on.'"

Honolulu Civil Beat. "I love living in condominiums, having been a condo dweller for over 40 years. But I’m concerned that the condominium model of housing is collapsing. While more housing will answer much of Hawaii’s ills, creation and governance under the current condominium model may encourage an exodus of those fleeing the growingly oppressive consequences of current condominium governance. Condominiums are a form of property ownership created by government statute enabling development of higher density, lower-per-unit-cost housing. Condominium association governance is modeled after nonprofit corporations; the state Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs lists nonprofit corporation law, HRS 414D, on its website as a law that pertains to condominiums."

"The state’s condominium statute was written for those who build, sell, buy, and manage condominiums, and focused upon the transactional aspect of condominiums. Statutes that were added as afterthoughts to protect association members (owners) are mostly unenforceable, possibly written to maximize the use of attorneys to interpret these vague statutes and associations’ governing documents as they please. Without owner-protective changes, the government that created condominiums is furthering the collapse of the current condominium model, allowing condominiums to become less desirable, more financially taxing, and less physically sound, and culminating in harm to a large segment of Hawaii’s population and its economy."

The Daily Mail. "Its expansive ski resorts, low living costs and vast hot springs attracted an influx of homebuyers during the pandemic. But is Idaho's red-hot housing market coming to a fiery crash? Experts estimate homes in the Gem State are now more than 40 percent overvalued after soaring demand artificially pushed up prices. And as mortgage rates also rise, it means residents are at risk of falling into negative equity. Redfin shows that the median cost of a home in Idaho's capital Boise is now $515,000. It marks a drop from their peak of $583,000 in May 2022 but remains well above the $333,029 cost in December 2019. It is little wonder then that experts are concerned."

"Moody's Analytics economist Matthew Walsh said: 'If you look at Idaho over the past three years, you've had this extreme run up in home prices since the pandemic began. So if you look at that relative to the demographic drivers - the household formation and the income growth there - that run up has been so much more extreme which is why we see the inflated valuation of houses there.'"

The Journal News in New York. "More Westchester communities are moving into the luxury housing market as prices rise amid low inventory. A new report by Houlihan Lawrence, a leading real estate company in the northern suburbs, showed 209 luxury homes across 15 school districts were sold in the third quarter of 2023. In Westchester, homes sold for more than $2 million are considered luxury properties, according to the report. About 40% of this quarter’s luxury sales in Westchester closed below asking price. About 25% closed over asking, from $10,000 to $1 million over listed price."

From Curbed. "After the first wave of COVID receded, buying a multifamily rental seemed like one of the best bets a person could make. Prices were high, sure, but interest rates were low, and it seemed that with a little savvy you could raise rents forever. (Not to mention that those high real-estate prices pretty much guaranteed steady demand that would keep rents up — all those would-be buyers priced out of the sales market.) But depending on when and what you bought and the debt you used to finance it, the tides have turned."

"Next month, $4.5 billion in loans will mature, which means that many property owners will have to refinance their existing loans when interest rates are high and lenders are skittish about making new loans. But this is just a sliver of what’s coming due in the next four years: Between 2023 and 2027, $980.7 billion in multifamily debt will come due, an amount that dwarfs commercial-office debt."

"We talked to Manus Clancy, a senior managing director at Trepp, a commercial real estate data firm, to find out what’s going on: 'If you took out floating-rate debt, your cost of debt has probably doubled from 4 to 8 percent, and that’s eating away at your profits. And the level of rent growth is not what they were expecting now that the COVID rent boom is over. We’re seeing much higher costs: insurance, utility, and labor. And if their strategy was that they’d come in, slap a couple of cans of paint on the place, sell it for 15 percent more, the market isn’t there anymore. For a lot of buyers, they’ll have buyer’s remorse. Why did I buy during the peak of the market? The other buyers, the costs will eat up their profits, and they’ll end up defaulting on their loans.'"

"So were these bad bets? 'It was this narrative that a lot of people believed in — that rates were never going to go up, that the Fed would never do what it did. You could look back and say they were pennywise and pound foolish and they should have known, but plenty of people were doing it.'"

The Globe and Mail in Canada. "British Columbia’s new legislation that would ban short-term rental in secondary investment properties will cause a whole lot of pain – and without producing the desired affordable housing, says a Kelowna, B.C., property manager. Amanda Van Der Lee is owner of How to Host Property Management & Design, an umbrella company that handles all aspects of short-term rental, including licensing and bookings, interior decorating and cleaning. Ms. Van Der Lee employs about 15 staff and hires contract workers to run 60 properties for her investor-clients. On their behalf, she rents out mostly condos, but single-family houses as well."

"Not only will her business be affected and jobs lost, but her investors will suffer financial losses, she predicts. In Kelowna, she says there are 15 buildings that allow short-term rental, all licensed and above board. Her clients went into their investments playing by a set of rules that the province is now threatening to remove. She says the city had approved the buildings for short-term rental, or had grandfathered in non-conforming short-term rental – which would no longer be allowed under the new rules. Ms. Van Der Lee, who posted her grievance on TikTok, questions how that is fair."

"'We are going to be left with so many units,' she said in an interview. 'And people have these terribly high variable rate mortgages where long-term income won’t be able to cover the mortgages on these properties. Owners will be cash flow negative. We will see that – or we will see a ton of [these units] hitting the real estate market, depreciating the values of them. And I don’t think people are going to cash out equal to the mortgage they owe on the property, so investors will be walking away with empty pockets. It’s terrible.'"

"She said luxury short-term rentals would never be affordable as long-term rentals. Also, a share of the presale market might depend on the short-term rental market. 'We have new builds, not even built yet, and all these properties have deposits on them. So if a revenue property is eliminated, the [owners] will just leave their deposits on the table and walk away. Who wouldn’t?'"

From ABC News. "News that quarterly inflation has rebounded back to 1.2 per cent is a double-whammy for Frances Chapman, as it is for most Australians with a mortgage. Not only does it reveal just how much extra her family is paying to buy essentials, but it has also more than doubled the odds of another interest rate rise in a fortnight's time. 'That's pretty scary to think about, to be honest,' she said. 'I'm not sure we could handle much more of a rate increase. So, ultimately, I guess we would have to look at trying to find a cheaper place to live and … we worked really hard to be able to afford this home. We might consider leaving Sydney — potentially moving down the south coast or something like that,' she explained.'"