A report from KPBS. "Southern California home sales, including those in San Diego County, hit one of the lowest levels ever last month, according to CoreLogic. San Diego real estate agent Voltaire Lepe said he and other agents have been feeling the pinch, especially over the last few months. 'I've been in real estate for 20-plus years. This is probably the hardest year that I've gone through,' he said. Lepe’s sales are down about 50%. 'The current state of the housing market today, I would say, is on a downward trend as far as less sales. And I believe prices are also going to drop, or are dropping right now slightly, because demand is down,' he said."

KUTV in Utah. "Makers Line, the construction arm of Q Factor, a Salt Lake development firm whose entities have been shedding employees — may be out of business. An electrical subcontractor said Makers Line told him last week it was no longer involved in a series of projects on the Wasatch Front. A contractor for a Makers Line project in Ogden — an unfinished apartment building on 25th Street, known as Union Walk — said he's owed $300,000, and he's filed a lien on the property. 'We just kind of got promised and promised, and told the check is in the mail,' said Landon Moyes, of Moyes Glass. 'It was just a joke.'"

"Meantime, Ogden City has stepped up its scrutiny of the project, with a city building official citing 'additional dangerous conditions,' including 'sagging floor joists…bearing weight overload…and roof trusses tilting.' 'You are hereby ordered to obtain the proper demolition permit and commence to completion the demolition of the building,' said a city stop work order, 'or present plans to Ogden City to repair the building and abate all dangerous conditions.'"

KVUE in Texas. "Those looking for a place to rent or up for renewal may find a better deal soon. Austin Investor Interests, LLC tracks multi-family housing in the Austin metro area. '… occupancy rates continued their downward trend for the eighth consecutive quarter, falling .8% to 90.3%, marking the lowest point since 2009.' 'The last three years, we just had a euphoric market with so many tenants moving in from the East and the West Coast. And so developers, of course, recognized this demand. They all jumped in there. Everybody's building. Now we have over 60,000 units currently under construction, and this amounts to nearly 20% of our current inventory,' Robin Davis, the Owner of Austin Investor Interests, LLC, said."

"'The sales market is a little bit precarious right now because I think that we're seeing a lot of the investors’ loans coming to maturity, and so to consider refinancing at the current rates is going to force some owners into selling. Anybody who has bought over the last couple of years, you know they may have a significant challenge ahead of them to let go of that real estate without a loss,' Davis said."

From Bisnow. "After a year of slow rent growth and high interest rates, apartment owners that have enjoyed years of profitability are seeking improved efficiency through the increased use of technology to centralize operations. In an effort to keep costs under control, many landlords are looking to make their operations more efficient. 'If you had a problem property a year ago, you could just sell it,' said Lucas Haldeman, CEO of SmartRent, a proptech firm. 'Now, I can’t sell it, so I have to manage it. The tenor of multifamily has absolutely shifted to expense control and ancillary revenue, two things we didn’t talk about when rents were skyrocketing.'"

The Real Deal on New York. "Rent-stabilized heavyweight City Skyline just took another punch. After defaulting on loans tied to five rent-regulated buildings this summer, the firm, headed by Douglas Peterson, was hit by pre-foreclosure filings from Fannie Mae on 11 buildings in Upper Manhattan and the Bronx, court records show. Peterson’s latest defaults total $72 million, bringing the firm’s distressed debt to $108 million. That’s about one-third of City Skyline’s $316 million portfolio, according to landlord tracker Who Owns What. As more foreclosure filings have hit public records, brokers say agency lenders have been quick to foreclose. 'They don’t seem to be willing to work with their borrowers,' Alpha Realty’s Lev Manashev told The Real Deal in September."

"The industry expects rent-stabilized distress to spread. Valuations have fallen between 20 and 45 percent and brokers say even buildings priced to sell have not moved. A few months back, Manashev said he was working to sell 735 East 182nd Street, a fully stabilized building in the Bronx that backs an agency loan. 'I’m trying to talk to [loan] servicers, I’m trying to let them know, ‘Hey, we’re marketing this; here’s the bids we’re getting.’ But they don’t seem to be cooperative.' The lender filed to foreclose on the building in June."

From WFTV 9. "A Central Florida family is facing foreclosure after the house they thought would be their forever home, turned out to be a lemon. A lawsuit claims it’s uninsurable, full of leaks, and has a rotting wood frame that wasn’t disclosed during the sale. They’re suing the seller, the agent who worked with them, and the appraiser who looked over the property before the sale. They cannot sell the house because they now owe more than what it will appraise for. The home was once an assisted living facility, based in Maitland. Lori Cerceo worries that any day now, the locks will be changed on what she expected to be her forever home. 'We have the bank telling us that we’re in default,' Cerceo said. 'We moved to an apartment, so we basically have an uninsurable home, and uninhabitable home, that is just sitting here.'"

"Inside, it’s musty and vacant, and the kitchen cabinets are ripped out. Photos show that the family hadn’t even fully unpacked when a leak prompted them to tear the place apart, revealing the house an appraisal told them was concrete block was actually a wood frame, which Cerceo says was rotting and making her children sick. The defendants have argued in court records that the transaction was an ‘as-is’ sale, stating that the family agreed to rely solely on the representations of the seller and an inspection, which did point out rot around all the windows and doors, but only on the exterior."

From CP 24. "A new report says Toronto's condo market could be headed for a slowdown amid high interest rates and a dearth of buyers. The report looked at nearly 100 communities in seven major Canadian condo markets and found that despite stronger sales in recent months, sales numbers and price are still down when you compare January to August this year with the same period last year. 'Opportunities exist in the current environment as a growing number of assignments come to market,' the RE/MAX report said. 'Many of these buyers purchased condominiums during the pre-construction phase at a time when interest rates were at record lows. As the buildings near completion, many are unable to qualify at new interest rate levels, leaving them no choice but to sell their units.'"

The Globe and Mail. "Toronto developers have delayed launching almost 14,000 condo units this year, as demand has waned because of higher borrowing costs and economic uncertainty. Sales of preconstruction condos have slowed significantly this year as interest rates have climbed, pushing up costs for both buyers and builders. 'Sales are slow,' said Yousaf Iqbal, the head of Canadian operations for IQI Global Real Estate, a firm that caters to Asian buyers. Mr. Iqbal said it is not just borrowing costs that are weighing on buyers: Now that some developers have had to cancel projects or have been taken over by a court-appointed receiver, some buyers are leery about committing to preconstruction condos that are years away from completion."

"In the third quarter, 42 per cent of the condo units launched were sold, according to Urbanation. Although that was similar to levels seen over the past 12 months, it is well below the 70-per-cent level achieved in that period before interest rates started rising in March, 2022. 'Elevated interest rates and heightened market uncertainty continued to grip the new condominium sector,' Urbanation president Shaun Hildebrand said in a news release announcing the third-quarter numbers. 'Many projects have been unable to make an economic case for proceeding in the current market,' said Mr. Hildebrand, adding that developers have shelved projects because of their 'inability to sell at required price to earn an acceptable profit.'"

The Evening Standard in the UK. "Given there’s never a good time to be house hunting, I feel relatively lucky to be pounding the pavements now. I’m also happy not to be competing in a hot market – homes I viewed weeks ago are still listed, often with 10 or 20 per cent knocked off the price I viewed them at. It feels faintly luxurious to be able to deliberate over second viewings. The stumbling block – because with the London property market there has to be one – is that so far, there’s barely anything that warrants more than five minutes of my time, let alone schlepping out to see it for a second time."

"In my price bracket at least, the bulk of sellers seem to be landlords, shifting unprepossessing, unloved properties, most of which need a good £100,000 spent on them. And I’m not looking for perfection, just an energy-efficient, well laid out, pleasantly liveable home. These homes aren’t shifting fast, but several estate agents I’ve been dealing with have suggested that they’ll likely sell to another landlord who can pay cash and so won’t be impacted by mortgage rate rises. We’re only at the start of the slump so perhaps market reality will catch up with those who really need to sell."

From The Local."When a property is put up for sale in Sweden, it usually comes with an advertised utgångspris (asking price), the minimum price for which sellers are supposedly willing to accept offers. In times gone by when the Swedish property market was at its peak, you could usually expect that the actual selling price would be higher than the asking price as buyers would push the price up in their attempts to outbid each other. But the current economic slump means that sellers are often happy to get even just one person interested in their property, with many homes advertised for months before anyone snaps them up."

"The state of the market is such that if you’re a buyer, you may even be able to haggle about the price and put in an offer lower than the asking price. That’s where the word skambud comes in. It used to be seen as a little bit cheeky to offer to pay less than the asking price, so it’s perhaps no surprise that the compound word is made up of 'shame' (skam) and 'bid' (bud). It refers to an offer that’s so low it's almost an insult. 'For shame!' a seller might cry in response. It also used to be pointless, as in nearly all cases you would quickly be outbid by other buyers. But these days, a skambud may not actually be too shameful."

"In fact, many estate agents advise that if the asking price is just above what you’re able to pay, you may be able to successfully put in a lower offer, due to the slow housing market – although if you’re doing it in good faith it’s arguable whether it classifies as a skambud or not. The history of the word skam is debated, but it may be related to an old Germanic word that meant to cover something up which then grew to refer to the embarrassing thing you wish to cover up. Examples: Tror du jag kan komma undan med ett skambud? Do you think I can get away with an offer below the asking price? Ingen vill köpa vårt hus – vi har inte ens fått ett skambud! No one wants to buy our house – we haven't even received an offer below the asking price!"

From Bloomberg. "In a leafy neighborhood in Dusseldorf, Milena and Manuel David planned to break ground this summer on a new home, a milestone that was going to get them out of a cramped apartment where they share a bedroom with their two kids. But during the 16-month wait for a permit, mortgage rates had tripled and their building costs rose by €85,000 ($90,000). The couple crunched the numbers again before facing the fact that their dream of building their own home had collapsed as part of Europe’s worst construction crisis in decades. Similar struggles are playing out across much of the continent. 'I spent so many nights lying awake,' said Milena, a 37-year-old teacher, overlooking the overgrown shrubs and weeds where her kids were supposed to be playing. 'What makes me angry is that we were so close.'"

"The hardest-hit countries are among the wealthiest. New building permits in Germany have fallen more than 27% in the first half. Permits in France are down 28% through July, and UK home building is expected to drop more than 25% this year. Sweden is suffering its worst slump since a crisis in the 1990s, with building rates less than a third of what’s deemed necessary to keep up with demand. The downturn is affecting single-family homes — like the one the Davids were planning — as well as large housing projects."

"The construction crash has led to calls for incentives and industry support, but governments have limited appetite for additional spending after the Covid pandemic and amid efforts to rein in inflation. The result is a wave of company failures and restructuring cuts that risk reducing long-term building capacity. In the UK, about 45,000 residential property builders have shuttered over the past five years. In Sweden, 1,145 companies in the construction industry filed for bankruptcy in the first 10 months of this year, an increase of 35% from 2022, according to data from Creditsafe."

The Investor in Vietnam. "Manipulation of the real estate market should be strictly banned as it is no less dangerous than stock market manipulation, said Trinh Xuan An, a legislator representing the southern province of Dong Nai. Commenting on the draft Law on Real Estate Business at the ongoing session of the National Assembly, Vietnam's highest-level legislative body, An said the Penal Code already has regulations on the manipulation of the stock market but does not have the same for the property market. 'Manipulation in the real estate market has become very sophisticated, leading to bubbles and sky-high prices. Therefore we need specific regulations to eliminate the act,' the delegate said."

"According to the lawmaker, this tactic includes bidding at high prices and then giving up deposits, and using the price of one project to boost the price of another. 'If we do not handle this properly, it will create bubbles and even incidents similar to the collapse of Evergrande in the Chinese market,' he stressed. According to parliament member Nguyen Huu Thong representing the central province of Binh Thuan, it is necessary to clarify the act of collusion in auctions of land use rights to inflate land prices in surrounding areas. This has become common and makes it difficult for people with a real need for housing and real estate. In the nine months, the number of new transactions was only about 50% compared to the same period in 2022 and about 20% of the figure in the period of overheated development due to a lack of social and affordable housing."