A report from the New York Times. "In the class-action suit, a federal jury in Missouri ruled that the National Association of Realtors and several real estate brokerages had conspired to fix prices. 'Brokers are nervous that they won’t make as much money. Instead of $65,000 a year, they’ll make $45,000. And they go, ‘OK, then I have to get a job at Walmart,' said Antonio del Rosario, an associate broker with Brown Harris Stevens, in New York City. Stephen Brobeck, a senior fellow at the nonprofit Consumer Federation of America, who has been drumming for reforms since the 1990s, sees the verdict as a watershed opportunity to clean house. 'This glut of agents is killing the industry,' he said."

"When Moya Skillman, a real estate broker with Compass in Seattle, goes out with friends, they’ll often dish about the latest episode of 'Million Dollar Listing.' Everyone knows reality TV isn’t real, right?' Skillman said, sounding unconvinced. 'Right? You don’t just negotiate a deal over speakerphone and all of a sudden collect $500,000.' Del Rosario, in New York, put it more bluntly. Real estate 'is looked at as a shady business,' he said. 'We’re right there with the used-car salesman.'"

The Dallas Morning News. "The latest sign in the North Texas home market says 'New Price.' More Dallas-Fort Worth area home sellers are adjusting their prices as the market heads into the traditionally slower winter market. About 27% of D-FW homes listed for sale with real estate agents had price reductions as of October, according to Realtor.com. Nationwide, 18.9% of homes in October had price cuts. 'Price reductions are because the demand is lower due to interest rates,' said real estate agent Scott Schueler with Keller Williams Realty. 'Sellers still pricing at the top of the price comps are starting to come to reality that the market has already peaked.'"

From Point To Homes. "The American housing market is not for the faint-hearted. Point2 analysts discovered that price corrections are pummeling condo owners in 36 cities and single-family owners in 25 markets. Single-family homeowners in these cities have been losing up to $223 in value every day since they bought their homes last year, while condo owners have been bleeding even more money: The $336 that the average San Francisco condo owner lost daily would add up to a total of $122,500, which is perilously close to the city’s median income (nearly $182,000)."

"Single-family homeowners: Prices fell in 25 cities with eight more staying put for the whole year. Memphis leads the way with the biggest percentage drop (-17.1%), while San Francisco saw the largest net price decrease (-$81,250), followed by Oakland, CA (-$62,988). Condo homeowners: Prices plunged in 36 cities, with Henderson, NV; Memphis, TN; New York City, NY; San Francisco, CA, all seeing drops of more than -10%. Again, San Francisco recorded the most significant net loss, at -$122,500 in just one year. Memphis recorded the most significant single-family price drop, as well as the second-biggest condo price drop. This could be due to the fact that rising inventory is transforming Memphis into a buyers’ market: With a 24% year-over-year increase in inventory, Memphis is second only to El Paso, TX, where supply jumped 36% year-over-year."

"Aside from San Francisco, where condos are depreciating at the fastest pace, condos in Henderson, NV; Oakland, CA; and New York City, NY lost $110, $118 and $219 every day since September 2022, totaling $40,000, $43,000 and $80,000 in losses, respectively. Following a 4% drop in price, it's the Manhattan condo owners who were the hardest hit. Those who bought a condo last year would have to sell at a loss one year in. Single-family homes and condos in the Bronx both recorded price drops, followed by single-family home prices in Queens, which also depreciated in the past months. This means that buyers here, if forced to sell, would simply lose money. Some homes in Brooklyn are also worth less today than they were one year ago."

The Real Deal on Florida. "An unfinished penthouse at the Villa Valencia condominium in Coral Gables has a leading role in the latest chapter of the legal drama starring disgraced developer Rishi Kapoor. Mironest CG, an entity under contract to buy a top-floor unit in the 13-story mid-rise at 515 Valencia Avenue, is suing Kapoor and his former company, Coral Gables-based Location Ventures; Miami-based One Sotheby’s International Realty; Miami-based Winmar Construction and private lenders Martin Halpern and Robert Gutlohn. Mironest CG alleges it is in danger of losing the unfinished penthouse because the Location Ventures affiliate that developed Villa Valencia is insolvent. Further, the unit could be lost to foreclosure before the buyer can close on its purchase, the lawsuit alleges."

"Halpern and Gutlohn, who are based in Coral Gables, should have known that Location Ventures was in despair, but that the duo still provided the financing because they knew they could foreclose on the penthouse and other unfinished units if the loans were not repaid, the lawsuit alleges. 'Worse, the entities threatening to foreclose are all insiders who must have known of Villa Valencia’s shaky finances and red flags in Mr. Kapoor’s business practices,' the lawsuit states. 'As lenders and stakeholders, they received regular reports on all construction progress and budget deviations. Unsatisfied with their ill-gotten gains, defendants are still trying to line their pockets with the few unencumbered assets Location Ventures has left.'"

The Wall Street Journal. "The office sector’s credit crunch is intensifying. By one measure, it’s now worse than during the 2008-09 global financial crisis. Only one out of every three securitized office mortgages that expired during the first nine months of 2023 was paid off by the end of September, according to Moody’s Analytics. That is the smallest share for the first nine months of any year since at least 2008 and well below the nadir reached in 2009, when 47% of these loans got paid off. Many office owners can’t pay back their old loans because they can’t get new mortgages. Remote work and rising vacancies have hit building profits, making it harder to pay interest. Higher interest rates have pushed debt costs up and building values down. 'People just don’t want to touch it,' said Alex Killick, managing director at CWCapital, a company that handles troubled CMBS loans."

"The office sector relies on a steady stream of debt. Landlords typically buy buildings with big mortgages, and when they mature they pay them off by taking out new loans or by selling. That worked well when buildings were full and loans cheap and plentiful. In 2018, Kushner Cos. and RFR Realty borrowed $480 million against four Brooklyn office buildings. By 2023, occupancy had slipped to around 78%, partly because co-working company WeWork moved out, according to data from Trepp. When the balloon mortgage came due in September, the owners didn’t pay it off and defaulted."

"'The borrower engaged various lenders to secure financing but was unable to obtain any loan commitments,' the company handling the loan on behalf of bondholders wrote in a commentary. When the loan was issued in 2018, the buildings were valued at $640 million, according to Trepp. An appraiser recently cut the value to just $207 million."

The Vancouver Sun in Canada. "In fall 2022, investors who had poured hundreds of millions of dollars into short-term loans with mortgage broker Greg Martel were nervous. They had been collecting high returns on the basis that their money was pooled to provide bridging loans for real estate development, often for less than 90 days, to allow projects to secure permanent financing or pay off a current loan. But when there were delays in payments and some investors started calling for their principals to be returned, Martel balked and asked for more time. 'I was desperate for the repayment … as my financial situation was rapidly deteriorating,' Victoria resident and investor Laurel Rayani said in an affidavit filed in B.C. Supreme Court."

"Martel had rented a 9,500-square-foot, ground-level office with bays for vehicles, and a series of expensive houses and condos along the California coast between San Diego and L.A. He lived the high life, flying on private jets and buying high-end cars. But that has come to a crashing halt. Investors now believe they are victims of a massive Ponzi scheme, according to lawsuits filed in B.C. Supreme Court, U.S. courts and information provided to the B.C. Financial Services Authority. Martel has denied he ran a Ponzi scheme."

"Investors claiming losses include those in Vancouver, Burnaby, Coquitlam, North Vancouver, Victoria, Kelowna and Prince George, and also in Alberta, California and as far away as New York. Martel was declared bankrupt in B.C. Supreme Court at the end of August and there are warrants for his arrest in Canada and the U.S. for contempt of court because he has failed to properly provide answers and information on what happened to the money. After telling investors in a series of online videos this spring that they would get their money back, Martel fled to Thailand and disappeared, according to U.S. court filings. If the investment turns out be a Ponzi scheme with $300 million owing, it would be the largest ever in B.C. and one of the largest in Canada."

"Ron Usher, general counsel for the Society of Notaries Public of B.C., is involved in the receivership of the last massive Ponzi scheme in B.C. of former notary Rashida Samji. She was sentenced to six years in prison in 2016 for duping nearly 300 investors out of $110 million between 2003 and 2012 for a supposed winery expansion. The largest Ponzi scheme in B.C. is the Eron Mortgage scandal, where investors lost more than $175 million in the 1990s. Usher said it isn’t as hard as people believe to fall under the quasi-hypnotic spell and promises of those who run Ponzi schemes. 'These things collapse ultimately when the in (of dollars) doesn’t match the out,' said Usher."

From Building in the UK. "There is a phrase you hear a lot in the residential development sector right now, with firms hunkering down to face a grim winter in the industry. No one quite knows who first said 'survive until ’25', but the meaning is plain enough. However, even that bleak, Hobbesian slogan does not quite express how much of a slog the sector is in for, given many do not expect a strong recovery until much later than that. Bob Weston, founder of £240m turnover Essex-based builder Weston Homes says his version is: 'Survive until ’25, and revive in ’27 – There’s nothing round the corner.'"

"Far from improving in the past six months, he believes that market conditions have only got worse. 'I don’t think anyone in government knows or – dare I say – cares, how vulnerable SME builders, indeed anyone ranked below the top 20 biggest, are at this point.' For Weston, looking for investor buyers for completed schemes, the reality on the ground is more stark still. 'We’ve got quite a high level of stock. And there’s no one in the [corporate] market wanting to buy them, at whatever terms,' he says. 'So, we’re having to drop anchor and stop building. We will survive of course. But will we end up half the size? It’s a realistic option.'"

ABC News in Australia. "A former client liaison officer with Niche Living says she was dealing with distressed clients, who had been waiting years for their homes to be completed, on a daily basis. 'These are clients that have been waiting for a long, long time, [it was] affecting their mental health, unable to pay a mortgage or rent,' Sandra, who did not want to give her real name, told Nadia Mitsopoulos on ABC Radio Perth. 'These were desperate people. They put all their money into this and some of them are never going to realise this dream of owning their own home.'"

"Customer Richard Hamilton said he decided to buy a new-build house in a Niche Living development in Orelia, south of Perth, at the end of 2020. He said he had great difficulty getting the company to answer his emails and phone calls about completion. By January 2023, Mr Hamilton had been paying a mortgage on the unbuilt house for several years and had given up his rental property in the expectation of being able to move in in early 2023. Instead, he has relied on friends and a series of house-sitting opportunities, the latest of which ends in January 2024."

"'I've been facing the threat of homelessness for the whole year,' he said. He said he could afford to rent if worst came to worst but it would be a great increase in financial pressure. 'I'm feeling desperate, I'm feeling really stressed out,' he said."

South China Morning Post. "The default rate for Chinese high-yield property dollar bonds will remain elevated next year as property sales continue their slide, putting more strain on already stressed liquidity conditions, according to Goldman Sachs. China's default rate for high-yield property bonds has reached 42.2 per cent so far this year, slightly below a record 46.8 per cent in 2022, Goldman strategists including Kenneth Ho said in a report to clients over the weekend. The rate is likely to hit 35 per cent in 2024, they predicted. 'Our China property team expects difficult market conditions to continue," the US investment bank said. Primary property sales will decline by 5 per cent year on year in 2024 as increasing supply in the secondary market adds to pricing pressure, which could create a negative feedback loop on price and volume in the primary market.'"

"China's dollar-denominated high-yield bonds, dominated by property-sector issuers, have handed investors a 23.2 per cent loss so far this year, after a 33 per cent slump in each of the past two years, according to the ICE Bank of America Index. The turmoil has pushed some money managers to move away from China's broken property market and seek income outside the country."