A report from KRON in California. "Four real estate professionals in the Bay Area were charged in a years-long mortgage fraud scheme. Tjoman Buditaslim (also identified as Joe Lim), Travis Holasek, Jose Alfonso Tellez, and Jose De Jesus Martinez were all indicted for conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, and aggravated identity theft in connection with a years-long mortgage fraud scheme, United States Attorney Ismael J. Ramsey and Special Agent in Charge Herminia Neblina announced. According to the indictment, between May 2019 and Aug. 23, 2023, Buditaslim, 51; Holasek, 51; Tellez, 26; and Martinez, 58, obtained more than $55 million in residential mortgage loans for homebuyers in Northern California by creating fraudulent documents that they submitted to residential mortgage origination companies. The fraudulent documents were used to qualify buyers for residential mortgage loans in connection with the fraud scheme."

"According to the indictment, in one instance, the defendants allegedly created false divorce decree documents and child support checks purportedly payable to the potential buyer. The potential buyer has never been married to or even met the person who was identified as their ex-spouse. The indictment also states the defendants allegedly created false and fabricated bank statements showing falsely inflated bank account balances for potential buyers, submitted loan applications containing materially false information about buyers’ income to a mortgage origination company, and collected proceeds of home sales by directing payments from escrow to defendants and their associates. As a result of the alleged fraud scheme, a mortgage origination company was required to repurchase loans, causing the company a loss of over $8 million."

From Newsweek. "Mortgage delinquencies are rising 15 percent year-over-year, signaling a potential increase in foreclosures as American households grapple with inflation, low housing supply and high mortgage rates. The trend marks the sixth consecutive quarter of delinquency increases, according to TransUnion's Credit Industry Insights Report, adding more pressure to an already distressed housing market. TransUnion's data also exposes a trend in the health of mortgage vintages. Mortgage vintages, delineating the cohorts of loans initiated in the same time frame, serve as a barometer for the lending climate over time. The graph below shows the trajectory of delinquency rates—the proportion of loans past due by 60 days or more—categorized by the quarter of origination."

"Vintage performance 'shows deterioration in more recent originations,' said Joe Mellman, mortgage business leader at TransUnion, adding that 'new mortgage vintages are performing worse than vintages of the past four years.' Recent loan vintages, particularly those from the third quarter of 2021—with an average mortgage rate of 2.98 percent—and those from 2022, when rates rose to an average of 5.90 percent, are exhibiting rising delinquency rates at a notably earlier stage in their term. The trend starkly contrasts with the more mature vintages of the third quarter of 2017 through 2020, suggesting that the financial stability of loans initiated under current economic conditions may be under unprecedented pressure. These vintage performances are set against a backdrop of aggressive rate hikes by the Federal Reserve."

The Real Deal on New York. "The powerful multifamily lending agency Freddie Mac is investigating Ralph Herzka’s Meridian Capital Group over a deal the brokerage did for the company, sources told The Real Deal. While the probe is ongoing, Meridian is barred from brokering deals on behalf of Freddie Mac lenders. Herzka’s firm has placed a broker on leave and is working with Freddie on its inquiry, according to a source familiar with the investigation. The blacklist designation is a big blow to Herzka’s business. Meridian Capital is one of the country’s largest commercial mortgage brokerages, and Freddie Mac is a huge source of loans for the multifamily industry."

"An irony of the probe, which concerns loan information, is that Meridian is an investor in a multifamily lending platform headed by former Freddie Mac CEO David Brickman. Freddie Mac has increased its efforts to weed out mortgage fraud. The agency late last week informed a group of lenders that Meridian had been placed on a 'temporary pause' from arranging Freddie loans, according to the familiar source. Meridian’s strength is in arranging thousands of loans for small building owners who need to finance their properties. Herzka has a reputation as a hard-driving manager. His firm’s motto is 'Eat. Sleep. Close. Repeat.'"

Click Orlando in Florida. "If you take a walk down the beach in Volusia County, chances are you will still spot a construction crane or two with crews working to rebuild the coast. This week marks one year since Hurricane Nicole wreaked havoc on Volusia’s coast. The storm caused homes to cave in, condos to be evacuated, and today, many properties are still being cleaned up. 'We have right now probably just under 30 condo units that still don’t have beach access, still don’t have pools rebuilt and that’s just the ones that we manage,' said Krista Goodrich, who manages dozens of homes and condos in Volusia and Flagler counties."

"Over two dozen condo buildings in Volusia were emergency evacuated for fear of collapse after their seawalls gave out. 'I worry that you’re going to start seeing a lot of these investment locations, specifically condos, that will be going into foreclosure because if you can’t use it, you can’t rent it, you can’t sell it, what do you do,' said Goodrich."

From KUTV. "Utah home builders are pulling out all the stops offering incentives to keep buyers on the hook in a slowing market. 'Everything has slowed,' Ross Ford, executive vice president at the Utah Home Builders Association, told KUTV 2News Friday. One builder, Ivory Homes, is advertising several incentives such as buying down interest rates and helping buyers sell their current house. 'That’s a fear of people right now. They want to move but they’re worried about being able to sell their existing home,' said Analise Wilson, general counsel and director of communications at Ivory Homes."

The Globe and Mail in Canada. "Lenders who are owed a total of more than $203-million have applied to appoint a receiver to manage several housing projects owned by Toronto-area real estate developer Vandyk Properties. Vandyk is just the latest casualty of a treacherous environment for real estate development that so far this year has seen high-profile insolvency proceedings begin for unfinished projects from Coromandel Properties in Vancouver, StateView Homes in Woodbridge, Ont., and The One in Toronto, widely believed to be Canada’s tallest residential condo project."

"The insolvency application covers five projects in the Greater Toronto Area, which include 1,757 unbuilt homes in a mix of apartments, townhomes and detached houses. Of those, 830 have been sold to preconstruction buyers. None of the projects are close to being finished. In the case of the UPtowns, preconstruction buyers have been left waiting since 2017. KingSett’s application says the project is only about 28 per cent complete, and 329 of 342 planned townhomes have been presold. In recent months, more than a dozen contractors have placed construction liens on several Vandyk projects demanding millions of dollars in compensation for unpaid work."

Better Dwelling in Canada. "Two years after fraud allegations first hit, a court is finally taking control of a brokerage’s assets. An Ontario judge has placed Wynn Realty Corp under receivership as of October 25th. Realtor Courtney 'Lynn' Simpson and her broker/husband Kenneth Simpson are alleged to have defrauded dozens of clients. This isn’t the Realtor’s first rodeo either—she previously served time for mortgage fraud. The latest update comes after the allegations of fraud against the brokerage. Courtney Simpson is accused of defrauding 18 victims out of an estimated $1.9 million in deposits. Police have said some victims were 'wiped out' after the losses."

The Telegraph. "A trained surveyor, Phil Spencer is best known for fronting some of the UK’s favourite property shows: Market activity, a core driver of prices, has fallen significantly. RightMove data suggests the number of agreed sales has fallen 17pc since October last year, in part due to overly ambitious sellers in a market in which 37pc of all listings this year have had their asking price reduced. I have seen sellers find great success, who have been able to generate some competition that results in buyers bidding up rather than down."

"Do be careful though, I have also seen it go wrong. Where, both at open houses and auctions, sellers have sneakily asked friends to put in an offer in order to kick-off a bidding war and the friend has ended up with the winning bid so the whole thing has to start again. If I am totally honest, it is the longer term trajectory of the housing market I worry about rather than an immediate crisis. The risk is that Britain falls out of love with property."

The Local on Germany. "Condominiums - or owner-occupied flats - fell in price by an average of 1.5 percent between July and September compared to the previous quarter, the Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW) reported in its analysis published on Thursday. Compared to the same quarter of the previous year, the decline was even greater at 10.5 percent. The dramatic fall isn't just affecting flats, however: detached homes in Germany cost an average of 3.2 percent less than in the previous quarter and 12.1 percent less than a year earlier. Meanwhile, prices for semi-detached homes fell by 5.9 percent compared to the previous quarter - and by as much as 24 per cent compared to the same quarter of the previous year."

"The fall in prices for owner-occupied flats compared to last year's highs is particularly marked in some major cities. For example, the price tag for condominiums in Düsseldorf, the capital of North Rhine-Westphalia, fell by more than 17 percent and in Stuttgart by more than 15 percent. According to the study, the cumulative price declines in Frankfurt, Hamburg and Munich were also more than 10 percent, or the average price decline for all cities surveyed. Sales prices for apartments in Germany's seven largest cities - Berlin, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Cologne, Munich and Stuttgart - fell almost across the board in the third quarter."

"'The crisis on the German property market is continuing,' said IfW President Moritz Schularick, summarising the results. 'The ECB's interest rate hikes have triggered a clear downward trend reversal on the German housing market, and the bottom is not yet in sight.' Across all types of housing, around a third fewer sales were registered than in the previous year. Measured against the average for 2019 to 2021, the figure becomes around 50 percent lower. 'The falling transaction figures indicate that only a few sellers and buyers are coming together at the current prices,' commented Schularick."

From Bloomberg. "Country Garden Holdings Co. posted its biggest sales drop in at least six years as customers’ concerns about its ability to complete projects threaten to exacerbate a cash crunch at the defaulted Chinese developer. Contracted sales for October plunged 81.1% from the same period a year earlier, topping an 80.7% drop in September, its corporate filings show. Country Garden, with property developments in almost every province in China, has seen transactions slump since warning in August of 'major uncertainties' about the redemption of its bonds. Sales are hovering around a sixth of their average monthly level in 2021 and 2022, underscoring customers’ reluctance to buy."

"The developer was the country’s largest builder by contracted sales for several years before plunging to seventh spot in 2023. With more 3,000 housing projects underway, Country Garden has the potential for an even greater impact on the housing market than China Evergrande Group’s debt failure in 2021."