A report from the Santa Barbara Independent. "'We’re seeing a shift in the market here in the Santa Barbara area. There are more price drops, and inventory has slowly increased month after month. Right now, I’m telling my sellers that presentation and pricing are key to a successful sale. Overpricing a home in today’s market could lead to chasing the market down and will ultimately cost a seller more money,' says local Realtor Abel Ramos with Compass."

Hawaii Business. "Believe it or not, it’s still possible to buy single-family homes for less than $1 million – and in the six least-expensive areas of O‘ahu, median prices are actually lower than a year ago. In Pearl City-ʻAiea, the median price through the first eight months of this year was $950,000, which was 12% below the median in the first eight months last year. Other areas with median prices below $1 million through August were the ‘Ewa Plain, Kalihi-Pālama, Mākaha-Nānākuli, Wahiawā and Waipahu. In each of those areas, the median price this year was below the same period last year. Fran Villarmia-Kahawai, president of the Honolulu Board of Realtors, says a lot of the people looking at these less-expensive homes are first-time homebuyers who may not be able to afford more, or don’t have large down payments. 'They may have gotten outbid in the frenzy before, but now they’re coming back and there’s not much of a frenzy now,' she says."

From Florida Today. "When former Cocoa Beach Mayor Ben Malik moved into his current home in 2008, his Brevard Avenue neighborhood was a quiet residential area a mile or so from the city's tourist hub downtown. But an explosion of vacation rentals in the beach town has brought the tourists to him, with one vacation rental next door and one directly behind his home. Earlier this year, he got so fed up, he put his house up for sale. There was little else he felt he could do as state law limits local ordinances about the industry. Malik later took his house off the market after one sale fell through. 'This is what I got to listen to last night. That’s behind me,' Malik said earlier this year, playing a video on his phone capturing loud music blaring in the darkness from the short-term rental bordering his backyard."

"Lifelong Cocoa Beach resident Pamela Durkin is broker/owner of Coconut Properties Florida Real Estate. Durkin said prices are plunging across Brevard County’s barrier-island market of Airbnb listings because of reduced demand. 'There's such a flooded market of Airbnbs, and nobody wants to come here during September-October because it's hurricane season,' Durkin said. 'They're just not getting rented. They have to really drop their prices low. My cleaning lady, she said she's very slow. She does strictly Airbnb rentals. She's super-slow. She cleans from Cape Canaveral to Indialantic. And she's very, very slow. All her Airbnbs are vacant,' she said."

The Real Deal on New York. "After three long years of buying homes sight-unseen, waving due diligence and generally being subject to the whims of sellers, buyers again have the upper hand in Manhattan’s residential market. 'If you’re a buyer, you really have been waiting for this for a couple years,' said UrbanDigs co-founder John Walkup. 'You’ve got a decent amount of choice and you’ve got the market to yourself.'"

The Austin Monitor in Texas. "A parking-free, 30-unit apartment building that gained attention as one of the first attempts to bring 'missing middle' housing downtown has been turned over to its lender after failing to generate enough occupancy to operate successfully. Weaver Buildings, the company that created the Capitol Quarters project on Nueces Street near 12th Street, announced this week it had gone through a deed-in-lieu transfer of the property to North Carolina-based Churchill Real Estate Holdings. The 45,000-square-foot project broke ground in 2019 and offered three-bedroom apartments exclusively at a cost of $1,200 per bedroom in an attempt to offer shared living options for the downtown workforce. 'It seemed like there are a lot of employees that, even though this is kind of a niche option, they would appreciate that option to live a little bit cheaper than a studio to be able to walk to work. That was the thesis,' said Jen Weaver, president of Weaver Buildings."

Bisnow Boston on Massachusetts. "Kendall Capital, through the entity 33 West LLC, acquired an eight-story, 38K SF Class-B office building at 33-41 West St. for $4.1M from Dedham-based Bay Management Corp., according to public records. The deal was a 74% discount from the $16M price that Bay Management paid for the property in 2016, Banker & Tradesman first reported Monday. Mai Luo, president at Kendall Capital, told Bisnow Tuesday that the property had been listed on the auction site Ten-X. Luo said that although the price was lower than expected, it might be the reality of the market as more deals begin to happen. 'It’s reasonable because if we look back and say, ‘Oh, my gosh, it’s 75% off,’ people often forget the value goes up and down, and maybe this is the new normal,' Luo said. Bay Management bought the property in 2016 for $16M, more than double the $7.2M price the prior owner paid in 2008."

The Globe and Mail. "The sputtering Toronto-area fall real estate market is seeing a steady rise in inventory as October begins but skittish potential buyers are looking for more clarity in the outlook for the Canadian economy. As buyers take their time, sellers need to be extremely rational in setting an asking price, says James Warren, a real estate agent with Chestnut Park Real Estate. Mr. Warren has an upcoming listing in midtown Toronto that was listed previously for $7.4-million and $6.8-million without finding a buyer. The homeowner then approached Mr. Warren. 'We’ve just banged it down to under six,' he says. 'I don’t want to take overpriced listings.'"

"With resistant homeowners, Mr. Warren tells them frankly, 'you’re being used to sell other houses.' That’s what he calls the 'light bulb moment' for many sellers who are holding fast to a higher price, he says. While buyers were able to pass a mortgage 'stress test' when they purchased, they now face soaring expenses in other areas of their lives. 'What the stress test didn’t take into consideration was the inflation rate.' When interest rates were low, buyers were more willing to throw money around, he adds. 'I think people are now beginning to understand the value of a dollar.'"

The Belfast Telegraph in Northern Ireland. "Within the county, people aren’t afraid to bid where they see value, says Colin Graham of Colin Graham Residential. 'We are finding that the market in our area is buoyant, yet price sensitive. The properties that are being listed at the correct level are getting good interest and naturally finding full market value through the bidding process. The properties that are being pitched too high, even if by only a little, are seeing little to no interest… currently there is no in between.'"

From Bloomberg. "In July this year, Nuremberg’s mayor celebrated the final beam being placed atop the redeveloped Quelle building, a monumental 1950s symbol of postwar Germany’s economic revival. Revamped with offices, shops and homes, a big part of the giant complex was slated to open in 2024. In recent weeks, however, the site’s developer Gerch Group, which has €4 billion ($4.2 billion) of projects under construction, has filed for insolvency proceedings, along with one of its project companies linked to the development. The opening date’s now in doubt. It’s yet another blow to a property market that’s reeling from the end of the cheap-money era."

"The travails of Gerch and its ilk show that developers — the firms that own the building projects — are the ones in imminent danger. 'Project developers are struggling with the increased construction costs, increased interest rates and the drop in prices,' says Marlies Raschke, cohead of restructuring and insolvency at law firm Noerr. 'We’ve seen several of them filing for insolvency in the last weeks and we expect more.'"

"Developers around the world face similar woes. In Australia, Porter Davis is among homebuilders that have gone into liquidation this year after surging costs and falling demand. In Sweden, a rise in bankruptcies has been driven by a construction slump, while in Finland housing starts could plunge to levels not seen since the 1940s, according to the country’s construction lobby. It’s a rapid change in fortunes after the years of rock-bottom interest rates, when money poured into property as investors hunted for yield."

"Taken together, all these factors depress the underlying value of developer land. It upends the economics of property development, too, with the price drop meaning some companies may lose money just by finishing a building. In one example Aggregate Holdings SA, the diminished real estate empire run by Cevdet Caner, had to hand over the keys of Berlin’s QH Track project to creditor Oaktree Capital Management."

News.com.au in Australia. "A building company has collapsed into liquidation with 50 homeowners across Melbourne and regional Victoria impacted. News.com.au can reveal that River Dale Building Group Pty Ltd which traded under the name Chatham Homes went into voluntary liquidation less than 24 hours ago. News.com.au understands the building firm did not take out insurance for a handful of customers which means they are set to lose their entire deposits without government intervention. School teachers Louise and Brett Strachan have been devastated to learn of the company’s demise, especially because domestic building insurance was not taken out in their name."

"'We’re going to lose $32,000 in total,' Ms Strachan, 32, told news.com.au. The mum-of-two said they first engaged Chatham Homes way back in 2021 but despite the passage of two years, there’s only an empty block of land to show for their time and money. Ms Strachan was due to have another baby and so she and her husband fast tracked signing the building contract, which was done at the end of June. 'My husband and I were completely fooled, we were so excited,' Ms Strachan said."

From Jing Daily. "China, once the envy of the world with its skyrocketing economic growth, now stands at a critical juncture. Xie Zhuoqun, a 37-year-old resident of Hangzhou, an affluent coastal city and tech hub renowned for lavish luxury consumption, usually allocates an average of 10,000 yuan ($1,364) monthly for luxury goods. 'I’ve observed a noticeable deterioration in the overall economic climate,' she says. 'Luxury items remain unsold on store shelves, prompting discreet outreach from sales assistants to their customer pool. People seem to be window shopping more but making fewer purchases.'"

"'It seems that some businesses create artificial queues outside to bolster their image,' she continues. 'When it comes to the housing market, the challenges are even more pronounced. Listed properties struggle to attract buyers, and even with a one million yuan price reduction on properties valued at over ten million, there are still no takers.'"