A report from WHSV in Virginia. "As we enter into the last three months of the year, what had hopeful signs of declines in interest rates is no longer the case throughout this year. 'We had heard from a lot of the national economists and lenders that you know the rates were going to come down and they just haven’t and now there’s speculation too well, will they? I think it’s probably safe to assume the rates that we’re looking at are probably not going to drop drastically anytime soon,' Brent Loope, president of Harrisonburg-Rockingham Association of Realtors said. He said they are starting to see an increase in inventory giving buyers more to choose from. He said interest rates have nearly doubled since Jan 2022, but buyers are becoming more patient leading to more price reductions in houses on the market."

From Newsweek. "There are signs of an uptick in new listings and a decline in prices in September, according to Zillow. 'This fall's high rate of price cuts either means buyers have pulled back, sellers have overreached with too-high list prices, or some combination of both,' wrote Jeff Tucker, a senior economist at Zillow. Austin, Texas, saw the highest fall in value of homes for sale in the largest 50 metro areas in the country. As fall ushers in the changing of the leaves, it could also mean a change in the dynamics of the housing market as more listings and motivated sellers offer better options for buyers. For sellers, the cooling of the weather could also mean the loss of heat for the housing market. 'Sellers this fall may rue their timing, as this summer's surprisingly favorable selling conditions fade into memory along with their summer freckles,' Zucker wrote."

WFSB in Connecticut. "An Avon developer is accused of taking deposits to build homes, but not actually building them. Many people say they paid him over a hundred thousand dollars each and have been waiting years for those houses to be completed or even started. Now the I-Team has learned the Avon Police have an active arrest warrant for the developer, William Ferrigno, charging him with first degree larceny in one case out of Avon. The homes are part of a private development in Simsbury called Cambridge Crossing. Katie Barcelo is taking us inside what should be her in-laws finished home. A home that sits right next to Katie’s, the two were meant to be almost identical."

"The homes are part of a private development in Simsbury called Cambridge Crossing. 'My in-laws can’t get a response, their realtor can’t get a response, their attorney can’t get a response,' says Barcelo. 'My office window looks right out at this (home) and I see it every day, and every day it just makes me mad that they’re sitting here desperately waiting to get into their home and all we have to show for it is two by fours and wire.' That’s not the end of the story. There are people living in the completed homes in Cambridge Crossing who are having problems that need to be addressed by the homeowners’ association. Guess who’s the president?"

The Real Deal on New York. "Harry Macklowe landed a $300 million inventory loan for the many unsold apartments at his office-to-residential conversion at 1 Wall Street in the Financial District. 'Beginning in about 2017, condo projects have struggled to make money,' said Urban Standard Capital founder Seith Weissman. 'The best ones are breaking even.' The new inventory loan brings the total cost of 1 Wall Street to around $2.6 billion, adding to the possibility of massive losses at the project, with Macklowe’s ambition to sell an office-to-residential conversion at top dollar unrealized and costs outstripping sales by possibly hundreds of millions of dollars. Although that isn’t necessarily the fault of the developer or equity investor, said Weissman, 'it is their problem.' Some 479 of the building’s 566 units remain unsold, according to loan documents."

Westword in Colorado. "Back in December 2021, a neglected and derelict house at 1350 Newton Street in Denver’s West Colfax neighborhood began catching the attention of neighbors — and the Denver Police Department. A family that lives next door continuously reached out to the owner — in an attempt to warn them about there being fire hazards and other dangerous things at the address — but their cries fell on deaf ears. In January, a blaze lit up the West Colfax house. Jeffrey Moore, one of the concerned family members, was concerned for the responding firefighters and officers, as well as the people who had been squatting in the home. But he was also upset because he and his partner, Evie Burr, had been trying to get the property owner, Eric Ely, to properly board up the home for months over their safety concerns."

"'He admitted to having received all of our notifications and emails warning him but not having responded at all,' Burr recalls. 'He says, ‘Yeah, I'm kind of sitting on this property. I'm having some cash flow issues. It's kind of a pain in my butt right now.’ … It was just such a mind-blowing, out-of-touch conversation.' Moore and Burr say Ely’s business partner was at the meeting, too, where they blamed the lack of care at the Newton Street property on the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Even after the fire, the neglect continued: In one text exchange, Burr told Ely the property needed to be boarded up again, and he texted back, 'Feel free to deal w it! im out of the country.'"

The Union Tribune in California. "The price of a resale single-family home in San Diego County hit a record high in August of $958,000. The overall median price for San Diego County was actually down 1.2 percent in August to $840,000. That was entirely the result of newly built home prices dropping by nearly 40 percent to a median of $731,250."

Los Angeles Magazine in California. "On a recent sunny afternoon in Los Angeles, real estate developer Danny Fitzgerald paced the halls of one of his 11,000 square foot Hollywood Hills mega mansions and reminisced about the famous influencers who once roamed its halls. Now, several of his most luxurious properties, which housed generations of content creators, stand empty. Lately there are signs the boom may be over. Some of Los Angeles' most iconic content mansions, like those owned by Fitzgerald, remain without tenants. 'It's not the [content house] golden era anymore,' said Walid Mohammed, CEO of The Breadwinners Club, an advertising agency in Los Angeles. In November 2020, Clubhouse, a Beverly Hills mansion full of TikTok stars, became the first publicly traded content house. Its stock price is currently down 99% from its 2021 peak of $16.24 per share. Fitzgerald is looking beyond influencer tenants. 'I would love to rent to a family, even for half-price right now,' he said."

From Bisnow. "It's one of the toughest questions plaguing commercial real estate today: What is to be done with a pileup of maturing — or past-due — loans worth hundreds of billions of dollars when refinancing is all but impossible? One form of deal that could rise to prevalence is the discounted payoff, or DPO, debt negotiators told Bisnow. Extensions and short-term forbearance agreements are still the most common resolutions being reached this autumn, as the holidays rapidly approach and complex deals seem less likely to get done before the end of the year, sources told Bisnow. But the longer lenders delay their final decisions, the more appealing DPOs could become. 'We’re starting to see more banks calling us, saying, ‘Uh-oh, we should have sold that loan a year ago,’ Newmark Loan Sale Advisory Group Executive Managing Director Brock Cannon said."

Reuters on Canada. "Greater Toronto Area (GTA) home prices rose in September for the first time in four months but the level of sales fell to the lowest since January. On a year-over-year basis, home prices were up 3%. Still, they have fallen 16.1% from a peak hit in February 2022. New listings jumped 44.1% year-over-year, while home sales were down 7.1%. 'GTA home selling prices remain above the trough experienced early in the first quarter of 2023,' Jason Mercer, TRREB chief market analyst, said in a statement. 'However, we did experience a more balanced market in the summer and early fall, with listings increasing noticeably relative to sales. This suggests that some buyers may benefit from more negotiating power, at least in the short term.'"

From Kent Online. "With demand having peaked amid the pandemic, as droves of Londoners sought to move to the Kent coast, new research suggests the market may have turned. Four towns in the county are seeing some of the highest numbers of major cuts to asking prices in the UK, according to Zoopla. In Thanet, more than one in five properties on the market (just shy of 21%) have had their asking prices slashed by 5% or more in the past 90 days – the highest ratio in the country. In second is the Dover district, with 19.8%, while Maidstone and Canterbury come in at 18.6% and 18%, placing them seventh and 10th in the UK-wide list respectively. So why is it a struggle to sell houses in these parts of Kent? The ‘crazy’ Covid boom."

"Charlie Bainbridge, director of Charles Bainbridge estate agents, told KentOnline there was a noticeable peak in the market post-Covid. Mr Bainbridge says locations which traditionally commanded a premium are now seeing some of the most significant drop-offs. 'Now, you have the same pattern as before, working in reverse. More property is becoming available, buyers have more to choose from, so sellers have to be more competitive in prices. It’s not as if a bubble has burst – it’s just really the impact of those elements.'"

ABC News in Australia. "Another month of interest rates remaining steady is little comfort for thousands of borrowers who are already struggling with higher repayments, including Jalal Ahmed. After migrating from Bangladesh in 2015 with his partner and son and renting for years, the family decided to build their first home on Melbourne's outskirts. They have been living there since 2018 but, after welcoming a second son two years ago, the family began searching for a bigger home for their growing family — encouraged by former RBA governor Philip Lowe's now-infamous forward guidance that interest rates would not rise until 2024. Mr Ahmed settled on a house and land package to build their bigger family home, and put down a $30,000 deposit."

"'That was the hope Philip Lowe gave us, that we have a certain window to shift our requirements, our needs, but unfortunately that's not happened, and due to that assurance, the land price, house prices have gone [up] almost 20 to 30 per cent in my area,' he said. 'Now we are struggling to get another loan to settle the land. That's a really stressful situation for us. We put all our savings into the new plan. I have to settle the land, otherwise the developer will take away my deposit money. I don't know what to do. Maybe we have to lose our deposit money.'"

"Already, Mr Ahmed is cutting back on essentials. 'I'm just cutting some of our expenses, like we cut back the kids' activities … we are not dining out, we are not going for holidays, we are just spending time with family,' he said. 'This is the only thing we're doing, but it's still not enough. We came here for a safer life, but the situation is going in that direction that we don't feel safer anymore here.'"

Stuff New Zealand. "A first home buyer couple have been waiting three years for their new build, but now that it has finally been finished the developer has suddenly gone silent on them. Richard and Meg Maher’s home in Ormiston, Auckland, has received its Code Compliance Certificate (CCC), but not its “practical completion”, meaning the purchase hasn’t been settled. Meanwhile, the sunset clause date in the sale and purchase agreement has passed, leaving the couple wondering if the developer is about to pull out and leave them in the lurch. 'The alarm bells have been ringing for me since the updates stopped in June,' Richard Maher said. 'Last time we stopped getting updates, the developers went into receivership.'"

"The couple’s house is one of 56 outstanding KiwiBuild homes that were supposed to be delivered as part of “The Neighbourhood Ormiston’s” first stage. Maher said he and his wife have been left feeling 'emotionally drained and depleted' by the ordeal, and just want answers from the developers about why their house had been finished, but not settled. The Mahers got married in March 2021. They were going to wait until they were in the house to have their first child, but went ahead, imagining they would be in by at least January 2022. 'We have pinned our whole lives around this bloody house.'"