It's Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. "An 11% increase in new listings shows there’s some movement again in a market that stagnated during the regular summer doldrums. 'What closed in October surprised me,' said Corcoran broker associate Linda Cullen, who specializes in neighborhoods near downtown West Palm Beach. 'I think sellers finally have a better understanding and are being more realistic about what they can really get. There’s not this 'pie in the sky' idea anymore.'"

"In parts of San Francisco, the housing market is in dire straits. Consider the example of one swish apartment close to City Hall, with quartz countertops and a rooftop deck, which in 2019 sold for $1.25m. Not today. After the chaos of the covid-19 pandemic, City Hall now overlooks the locus of the city’s drug problems. Biblical scenes of lawlessness and human suffering play out every night. The flat is now listed for $769,000—and has yet to sell."

"No, it’s not a scam! Several months of free rent is now the standard for most new luxury apartment complexes in downtown Nashville. Joel Sanders, CEO of Apartment Insiders' job is to help tenants find the best deal on rent. According to Sanders right there currently is a supply and demand imbalance in Nashville, so in order to compete, some apartment complexes are offering up to three and four months of free rent. 'And nobody has done it yet, but I wouldn’t be surprised if you eventually see five months free,' Sanders said. '2023 has seen a lot of apartment deliveries, but in 2024 Nashville is going to see even more.'"

"A Dallas-based real estate investment trust saddled with $150M worth of loan defaults is being sued by lenders in a bid to seize the company’s distressed hotels. Two of the hotels, the 152-room Courtyard Dallas Plano and the 126-room Residence Inn Dallas Plano/Legacy, are in DFW, according to The Real Deal. The remaining hotels are in California, Maryland and New Jersey. Ashford defaulted on the loans in July. Ashford was founded by Monty Bennett, an eccentric real estate mogul. Earlier this year, Bennett said he would transfer 19 distressed Bay Area hotels that were part of a $982M mortgage pool back to lenders rather than pay $255M to extend their loans. Ashford has been dealing with debt woes for years. In August 2020, it sold its first New York City hotel after less than two years of ownership to meet demands from lenders."

"Canada’s real-estate sector, once among the hottest in the world and a key driver of the country’s economy, is seeing some cracks. Several major real-estate developers are defaulting on loans, buyers are having trouble closing on units, and dozens of condominium projects are being shelved. The effects could linger for years, turning housing, once the engine that drove the Canadian economy, into a brake that stalls growth, say developers, real-estate brokers and economists. 'It’s bad,' said Daniel Foch, a Toronto-based real-estate broker and analyst. 'The people who are losing are losing really, really big.'"

"Mark Morris, a real-estate lawyer who oversees title transfers between buyers and sellers, said an increasing number of people are trying to unload new-build condo units they agreed to buy years ago but are only now closing. The value of the condo projects has fallen, putting buyers 'underwater,' meaning the value of their mortgage is less than what they agreed to pay for the unit and they can’t make up the difference. In some cases, buyers are simply defaulting on their deals. Morris said he is seeing about one default a week, a number that he expects to increase. 'We have a lot of reckoning that’s still to come,' he said."

"Real estate sales and prices have plummeted across most of the Greater Toronto Area since interest rates started rising in the first quarter of 2022. The average price for all dwelling types combined across the GTA peaked at $1,334,544 in February 2022. Since then, that combined average has fallen 15.6 per cent, coming in at $1,125,928 in October. Outside of Toronto, Mississauga has seen the lowest price decline at 9.7 per cent, while King Township in York Region has experienced the largest drop at 41.4 per cent."

"Three markets have seen average prices decline between 30 and 40 per cent, including Brock (38.5 per cent) and Scugog (35.9 per cent) in Durham Region, and Adjala-Tosorontio (34.5 per cent) in South Simcoe County. Among the remaining 25 Toronto area cities and town monitored by TRREB, six have seen their average price for real estate fall between 10 to 20 per cent. Those include Aurora (15.1 per cent), Markham (14.5 per cent) and Richmond Hill (12.3 per cent) in York Region, Halton Hills (17.8 per cent) in Halton Region, Clarington (16.4 per cent) and Uxbridge (12.6 per cent) in Durham Region, as well as Innisfil (17.5 per cent) in south Simcoe County. The remaining 19 TRREB areas have all fallen between 20 and 30 per cent."

"German home prices will fall more than previously thought this year and next as high interest rates sap demand, according to analysts in a Reuters poll. Once-booming property prices in Europe's largest economy have declined over 10% since they peaked last year. 'Higher interest rates forced about half of all potential buyers out of the housing market … and therefore will lead to price reductions in the German housing market in this and the next few years,' said Sebastian Schnejdar, senior real estate analyst at BayernLB."

"Hong Kong’s once-lucrative land market looks to be in trouble after a series of unsuccessful tenders for government plots cast a shadow over the city’s finances. Earlier this month, Hong Kong’s largest public transport company, the MTR Corporation, revealed that it had received no proposals for a joint development project in Tung Chung, a residential town next to Hong Kong airport. The story is being repeated across Hong Kong, despite historical high demand for homes due to the territory’s size. Terence Chong Tai-leung, professor of economics at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, said developers have a glut of unsold flats, which makes them less likely to bid for new projects. Economists say the trend presages a wider downturn."

"Built along Malaysia’s southern Johor state coast, the 2,833-hectare (7,000 acres) Forest City boasts high-rise apartments overlooking Singapore aimed at Chinese nationals dreaming of a luxury home on a sunny, tropical isle. Landscaped with palm-fringed beaches and lush greenery, the futuristic metropolis has since floundered. Developed by the financially troubled Chinese property giant Country Garden, the city’s developers are now trying to revitalise a place where a mere 9,000 people live in its 28,000 housing units. Officially launched in 2016, the planned $100bn project saw luxury properties going up as authorities granted it duty-free status and tax breaks to make it attractive to mainland Chinese buyers."

"Situated by the Johor Strait with views of the Singapore border just a 20-minute drive away, Forest City was supposed to have a population of 700,000 people across four reclaimed islands by 2035. But Chinese limits on overseas capital flight and a harsh three-year pandemic border restriction meant demand dried up and just 700 acres, or 10 percent of the total project, has been completed. KGV International property consultant Samuel Tan said the high proportion of foreign ownership had stunted Forest City’s chances at success. 'Any project where the majority is more than 40 percent of foreigners is doomed for failure,' he said. '[This is] because they don’t come here, they don’t occupy [the properties] here, they don’t spend money here.'"