A weekend topic starting with the Philadelphia Inquirer in Pennsylvania. "Philadelphia developer Eric Blumenfeld has lost control of the landmark Marine Club condo building at Broad Street and Washington Avenue amid an ongoing financial crisis involving upward of $200 million in debt. The property, a 120-year-old office and warehouse complex that was converted into a 295-unit residential complex in the 1980s and renovated in 2000 by Blumenfeld, has been at the center of multiple, yearslong disputes — in the form of both legal claims from investors and complaints from residents about the building’s neglect as Blumenfeld’s finances have collapsed."

"Still, residents described themselves as cautiously optimistic about the new management company after enduring years of neglect. Troy Feldman, who’s lived in the Marine Club since 2020, said he has no plans to move from a unit he got at a deeply discounted price — $160,000 — that sits above SEPTA’s Broad Street Line and within walking distance to both Passyunk Avenue and Rittenhouse Square. 'The location is fantastic,' Feldman said. 'The market’s going up. They’re putting up an apartment building across the street. I purchased it knowing that my value should go up a lot, given that the building gets into a stabilized state.'"

From Newsweek. "Gen Z is looking forward to a housing market crash, according to a new study from LendingTree. Housing prices reached their highest levels in two decades this year, pricing out most Americans. Younger people are particularly hopeful that prices crash, opening the possibility of homeownership to them, according to the LendingTree report. Fifty-three percent of Gen Z respondents to the poll said they want the housing market to crash. By comparison, 43 percent of millennials and 46 percent of Americans with children under 18 are hoping the housing market crashes, according to the study. The study found that 35 percent of Americans overall want the housing market to crash."

"'Right now, home prices are high, as are mortgage rates,' LendingTree senior economist Jacob Channel said in the report. 'With that in mind, I can understand why some might wish for a housing crash that brings lower prices. Unfortunately, if the national housing market were to crash, odds are that it would bring down the rest of the economy with it.'"

"One Reddit user pointed out recently that his generation graduated into a world of COVID-19 and canceled job offers, and many missed out on the chance to buy homes five to 10 years ago when prices were affordable and rates were low. 'I hear my [girlfriend's] family members talk about buying a $150,000 lakefront condo not too long ago [in Ohio maybe 10 years ago], and now it's worth $450,000,' Reddit user DynamicHunter posted. 'We just have no chance, especially with the double whammy of COVID surge in price and current interest rates with very little pay increases.'"

Community Impact in Texas. "According to Austin Board of Realtors officials in a news release, there were 2,337 total sales across the MSA in October, indicating that buyers are still 'finding value in the market.' Along with more sales and listings, median home prices dipped by 7.5% to $435,000. ABoR housing economist Claire Losey noted in the release that the decrease in year-over-year median sale prices 'pales in comparison' to the housing equity gained over time. 'The median price is still 44% higher than it was in September 2018,' Losey said. 'Homeownership is still the best way to create generational wealth.'"

Blog TO in Canada. "A home near Toronto that's been listed multiple times and sold on three occasions in the past six years shows just how much real estate prices in the GTA market can fluctuate on a year-to-year basis. The four-bedroom, four-bathroom detached home, located at 28 Fitzmaurice Dr. in Vaughan, boasts 3,300 square feet of living space and a two-car garage. The property was first listed on the market on March 18, 2017, and sold just six days later for $2.15 million. Just a year later, the home was listed for rent at $3,700 a month, and eventually sold again in February 2022 for $2.55 million. The home was unsuccessfully listed for sale in November 2022 for $1.99 million, nearly $600,000 below what it was sold for just a few months earlier."

"In March 2023, the home's price was hiked up once again when it was listed for $2.59 million. After sitting on the market for roughly three months at this price, the home was relisted and sold for $1.95 million in November 2023 — well below its sale price in both 2017 and 2022."

From David Rosenberg at the Globe and Mail. "There may be lies, damned lies, and statistics as Mark Twain posited. But statistics, as flawed as they may be, are all we have to go by. And the statistics show a Canadian economy that very likely has already slipped into a recession, even as Tiff Macklem doth protest too much. The Bank of Canada will be singing like a canary within the next several months. The recession here promises to come earlier and be far more severe than what we will see unfold south of the border — that won’t be a pretty picture, either — with negative implications for the loonie, but highly positive implications for the long end of the government of Canada bond market as inflation completely melts away by the time spring arrives."

"But an even more deeply rooted problem is that we have had a government that caused the economy to become addicted to debt and excessive house price inflation, and papered over these problems by promoting an immigration boom. But the issue with the unprecedented population growth is that it isn’t paying for itself (quite the opposite). That is my opinion."

"Instead of promoting productivity and capital investment, the Canadian government for years, if not decades, has pursued policies aimed at spurring a housing and credit bubble of epic proportions, and now it is time to pay the piper. Household debt relative to disposable income has mushroomed to 172% — that is about 30 percentage points higher than the epic credit bubble peak in 2006-07 in the U.S. that brought the house down (both literally and figuratively). Remember — this is an aggregate statistic. The number is even higher when you consider that nearly one-third of Canadian households are debt-free — for the other two-thirds, a dire situation has taken hold. Delinquency rates are on the rise and the banks are now being forced to bolster their loan loss reserve provisioning in anticipation of a recessionary default cycle."

"We have reached the point where nearly 15 cents of every after-tax dollar are being drained from household pocketbooks to service the mountain of debt — right where this ratio was prior to the 2001 and 2008 economic downturns. In fact, the total debt-service ratio for the personal sector is higher now than it was in the spring of 1990 when it was 12.7% — Canada was in the midst of a horrible recession back then. But what is key is that the BoC policy rate was 13% at a time when the household debt ratio, at 89%, was about half of today’s disturbing level. Today, we have a 5% interest rate doing the damage a 13% interest rate used to unleash because of the fact that the debt has ballooned as much as it has."

"This debt bubble is now set to unwind, and likely not in a very orderly fashion. And the property bubble is already being burst —the YoY trend in the new house price index moving from +11.5% two years ago to +5% a year back to nearly -1% currently. There is so much air underneath the residential real estate market that just to mean-revert the homeowner affordability ratio would require a 20% plunge in home prices — and that is a conservative estimate."

The Herald Scotland. "As central banks hike interest rates to levels not seen in decades, it is fair and appropriate to ask: what were the policy mistakes that contributed to the current painful inflationary period? Experience and wisdom come from failure, and central banks need to learn from their mistakes in the run-up to this inflationary period, so they are better prepared for the next economic shock, which is sure to come."

"A report the Group of Thirty released on November 30 is part of that self-analysis process. The study led by former central bank governors Jacob Frenkel (Israel), Raghuram Rajan (India), and Axel Weber (Germany), with a working group of 18 other former governors and policymakers, including Mervyn King, calls for a humble approach to central banking. The authors say we should be going back to basics, core principles, and economic approaches. Doing so, they say, will strengthen central banks at a juncture when tightened policy and interest rates put them under increasing political pressure."

"Being humble also means central bankers should avoid committing to large-scale long-term interventions in the economy, as intended and unintended effects are hard to predict, and the longer they are in place, the higher the likelihood of poor outcomes. Those poor outcomes are visible in pumped up equity prices, in housing markets over stimulated with nearly free money, in poor outcomes for savers and those on fixed incomes. Often the applied monetary cure can have serious deleterious spillover effects."

"To be sure, maintaining greater room to manoeuvre, anticipating the next economic shocks, still requires central banks also to be clear they are ready to 'do whatever it takes' as Mario Draghi did, to avert the Euro crisis. But central banks must also articulate their exit strategies. The economy must not become addicted to endless central bank intervention. An extended period of aggressive central bank interventions and unconventional measures to widen and deepen central bank actions in the economy should not become the norm."

"Perhaps the inflationary spike, now gradually being subdued, in Britain and elsewhere, with much higher interest rates will help spur a return to more normal policies. I hope so. We would all benefit if central banking was boring again, as my former mentor the late Paul A Volcker, former chair of the US Federal Reserve System, who slayed America’s inflationary dragon of the 1970s and 1980s, preferred it to be."

"We would be better off too if central bankers and the public took a more limited view of central banks’ tasks, abilities, and effectiveness. Being realistic may be disappointing or frustrating for those who still erroneously believe central bankers can help cure all ills, monetary, fiscal, or industrial. They cannot."