A report from KELO. "Building permits issued in South Dakota in the second quarter of 2023 were down 37% from the previous year, said Aaron Scholl, assistant professor of economics at Northern State University in Aberdeen. That’s more than twice the amount of downturn reported nationally (15.1%) and reflects a sharp turn from South Dakota’s building boom of 2020-2022. Brandon Martens, a Sioux Falls real estate agent, said the numbers show the housing market leveling off after the 'anomaly' period of 2020-22, when post-pandemic stimulus money kickstarted the economy. In some cases, he said, year-over-year declines are misleading because the market is reverting to a place volume-wise 'where we should have been in the first place.' 'But there are definitely people in the Realtor world that are struggling right now,' Martens added. 'They’re trying to find out where that next buyer or seller is coming from just because the market has shifted so much in the last couple of years.'"

"'When I sort of gaze into my crystal ball and try to see where the housing sector is going to be for the next year or two, it’s not great,' said Jared McEntaffer, a former economics professor at Penn State University. 'We had so much rapid price growth that it’s going to be hard for that to unwind very quickly. Expectations are very anchored at higher price levels, and people that are in their homes are not going to want to lower the prices. There’s a new normal out there.'"

ABC 11 Raleigh in North Carolina. "Home loan applications fell to the lowest level since 1995 last week, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. Compass Realtor Danni Dichito works with a lot of first-time home buyers and many are pressing the pause button. 'They've said 'You know what, I'm not being qualified and getting qualified for what I want in a home,' so they're waiting. The payments are too, too much,' said Dichito. She said new construction is still a good option mostly because builders are motivated to move inventory. Some companies are offering price reductions or low financing. 'Buyers are able to get a really awesome interest rate that we haven't seen in over a year's time,' Dichito said."

WFSB in Connecticut. "The subject of an I-Team investigation faces criminal charges after police say he took $300,000 from a couple from New Jersey to build a home, but never did. In fact, according to the couple’s civil lawsuit, he never even owned the property he said he would build on. Walking into the Avon Police Department with his bail bondsman, William Ferrigno, owner of Sunlight Construction, had nothing to say. Ferrigno is currently facing several lawsuits by prospective homeowners, alleging he took deposits for homes but failed to build them, in Simsbury, Burlington and Avon. But it’s one case in Avon, he’s now facing larceny charges for."

"According to the lawsuit, a New Jersey couple says they gave Ferrigno and sunlight construction $300,000 to build them a home on Windsor Court in Avon. This was in August 2022. In May of this year, the couple says they learned the property they had paid for was sold to someone else. According to the lawsuit, Ferrigno never owned the property and although he told them at the time they signed their contract, he had been in the process of buying the property from someone else - he never did. The couple says they have not received their money back. The I-Team reported earlier this week that Ferrigno faces 26 civil legal actions, including allegations of stolen deposits, as well as several foreclosures and businesses alleging he failed to pay them for work."

The Tampa Bay Times in Florida. "After skyrocketing to unprecedented levels in recent years, home values are leveling out in Tampa Bay — but it may take time for buyers to reap any benefit. The average home value for the region has dropped 1.79% since last year, a Tampa Bay Times analysis of Zillow data found. This change is significantly lower than during the pandemic — when the prices appreciated 28% in a year — or any time in the last decade. Experts say the change is largely due to a peak in prices, which escalated dramatically during the pandemic. 'It’s really an affordability situation,' said Orphe Divounguy, a senior economist at Zillow. 'In some markets, prices were basically growing almost exponentially … Tampa being one of them. Affordability just got out of hand, disqualifying many potential prospective homebuyers.'"

"Many parts of Tampa Bay that experienced sharp appreciation during the pandemic are now seeing the steepest declines. For example, in ZIP code 33579, which includes parts of Riverview, home values climbed 24% from 2020 to 2021, and another 34% the following year. But in the last year, values went down almost 7% — more than any other local ZIP code. 'Those markets that were the least expensive really appreciated the most,' said Kristine Smale, a senior vice president for the real estate analytics firm Zonda. 'That’s where the land was available and builders were pushing prices.' Tampa Bay is not alone: Home values are now dropping in roughly half of U.S. metro areas, Divounguy said — especially those that developed more housing in recent years. In addition to the values simply peaking, he said, the addition of new units has moderated growing prices."

From DS News. "According to new data from Redfin, the median U.S. asking rent rose 0.4% year-over-year to $2,011 in September—the sixth straight month in which rents were little changed from a year earlier. Prior to that, rent growth had been slowing rapidly for roughly a year, coming back down to earth after a surge in prices during the pandemic. The median asking rent fell 2% from a month earlier in September.As rising rental supply leads to rising vacancies, many landlords are handing out concessions, such as a free month’s rent, to attract tenants without having to lower asking rents on paper."

"'Last year, conversations with home sellers were hard. I had a lot of discussions about how they needed to lower their price expectations because the market had turned,' said David Palmer, a Redfin Premier Real Estate Agent in Seattle. 'But this year, they have a better understanding of the market. We’re now having the property management conversation earlier: ‘Do you have a rental plan if we can’t sell your home?’"

The Orange County Register. "The gap between what California tenants pay and nationwide rents narrowed during the pandemic era. This rent metric shows price drops in eight California cities since 2019. The three largest declines were in the Bay Area – Oakland ($1,571, off 19%), San Francisco ($2,203, off 16%) and Mountain View ($2,504, off 8%)."

Bisnow Dallas Fort Worth in Texas."Office tenants in DFW are asking to take a closer look at their landlords' books as a wave of distress threatens to upend the market. Landlords have in the past been reluctant to disclose financial documents, said Jihane Boury, vice chairman at Savills North America. But as interest rates rise and a wall of office maturities looms, savvy brokers are inquiring about those items upfront. Tenants are voting with their feet if they don't like what they see, according to Boury and other speakers at a Bisnow event last week. 'The tables have totally turned,' Boury said. 'Even though landlords are still wanting to perform due diligence on their tenants, we are looking out for our clients, especially in the next wave of leasing the market will experience.'"

"Lenders filed foreclosure notices on three Dallas-area office buildings in mid-August, and in late September, Pillarstone Capital reported it had defaulted on its loan for a 253K SF office building in Uptown. 'The explosive nature of interest over the last six months is really unprecedented,' said Ramsey March, partner at Stream Realty Partners. 'Budgets are being exploited from an interest perspective, and if [a building] didn’t have the right rate cap, if it didn’t have a financial strategy or plan in place going in … then there may be owners and developers that didn’t realize what kind of trouble they are in.'"

The Record in Canada. "Three city councils want the number of new homes built to double over the next decade, to help end a housing crisis. But the construction of new homes is tumbling instead as condo buyers take a pause. The 10-year pledge requires the construction of 7,000 homes in Waterloo Region per year on average, starting last year. That’s double the pace of new homes built in the three cities in the previous 10 years. Investors have largely stopped buying condos, deterred by a sharp rise in borrowing costs, said Geoff McMurdo, chief administrator of Activa, a prominent homebuilding firm. 'A lot of companies just said, ‘You know what, this is not a good time to sell. So we’re not going to launch a project,’ McMurdo said. 'If you had to put it down to one thing, it’s interest rates. Interest rates are scaring away buyers.'"

"Waterloo Mayor Dorothy McCabe points to several big apartment projects that are approved but stalled. One example is the proposed 25-storey condo highrise at 70 King St. N. It was approved five years ago with a different design but remains a hole in the ground while the developer seeks more buyers."

From Dutch News. "Swedish real estate investor Heimstaden is selling off thousands of homes in the Netherlands. In total, some 12,000 homes in the Netherlands will be sold as soon as their tenant leaves, a process which may take 10 years, the company says. Heimstaden has a portfolio of some 13,500 residential properties in the Netherlands, most of which are rent-controlled. According to the FD, Heimstaden has to sell the properties because it needs cash to refinance debts."

"This is something Heimstaden denied in a press statement last week. 'These actions are solely aimed at preserving our desired rating and are unrelated to any capital requirement for upcoming maturities, which currently does not exist,' the statement said. Last week, the company also sold its Icelandic portfolio. In 2019 Heimstaden bought over 9,500 Dutch homes from British investment group Round Hill for €1.4bn, the biggest deal ever agreed in the Netherlands in terms of the number of properties."

From Scoop. "A pre-election snapshot of the New Zealand property market reveals a softer-than-expected 'spring swing' has begun. Vanessa Williams, spokesperson for realestate.co.nz, says it is typical for Kiwis to hold off on making significant financial decisions in the face of uncertainty: 'We are talking about the higher end of the market, where there is less demand. Homes priced over $2 million tend to spend more than twice as long on our site than those priced closer to the national average asking price, telling me that demand is not currently satisfying supply in this area of the market.' Vanessa says this could be a side effect of the election. A pause as Kiwis wait to enter the polling booths. However, compared to September last year, average asking prices were down 5.3% nationally and by varying degrees in most regions."

News.com.au in Australia. "A Queensland family is furious after their insurance claim for a defective house was rejected because the state insurer didn’t have enough time to review their case. Dad-of-five Justin Herald, from Broadbeach Waters in the Gold Coast, forked out $2.4 million to move his family into a three-storey house in July last year. The 53-year-old knew the home was still within its warranty period and pretty soon they realised it had serious waterproofing problems which led to black mould proliferating the entire upstairs of the house. 'This is a master scam,' Mr Herald told news.com.au. 'There’s no incentive for them to actually do their job if they can hide behind this 28 day thing. That idiot builder has got away with everything.'"

South China Morning Post. "Last month's package of relief measures from Beijing to bolster the beleaguered property market has not yet had a major impact on homebuyer confidence, with weak sales data and further house price declines expected. 'Most buyers are still trying to bargain prices down while some owners have realised that they were over-optimistic a month ago and are willing to cut prices,' said You Liangzhou, the owner of Shanghai property agency Baonuo."

"Jack Zhang, a 40-year-old Shanghai resident, said he would take a wait-and-see attitude towards the housing market even though he is eager to upgrade to meet his family's needs. 'I have yet to decide whether it is a good time to sell my two-bedroom flat before buying a bigger home,' he said. "My observations are that an increasing number of homeowners are looking to sell their flats and some of them will sooner or later offer price cuts if they are hungry for cash.'"