A report from the Journal Sentinel in Wisconsin. "VineBrook Homes Trust, Milwaukee's largest single-family landlord, might not be able to pay its bills next year. With a $1.2 billion debt coming due in 2024, VineBrook's Dallas-based executives told regulators in November they weren't sure VineBrook could 'continue as a going concern' in the next 12 months. To cover its debt, VineBrook plans to sell somewhere between 1,700 and 2,100 of its homes across the country in the next year, according to its third-quarter filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Just a few years after entering the Milwaukee market, 'they’re bleeding cash,' said Francine McKenna, a CPA and former Wharton lecturer who reviewed VineBrook's recent financial statements at the request of the Journal Sentinel. 'These guys are having to borrow like the dickens because they're running ahead of the train, and the train is coming fast behind them,' McKenna said."

Gulf Shore Business on Florida. "Overall inventory of homes in Naples for November increased 38.8% to 3,795 properties from 2,734 properties in November 2022, according to Naples Area Board of REALTORS, which tracks home listings and sales within Collier County (excluding Marco Island). Buyers have not enjoyed a level of choice since September 2020. The month also included 1,080 price decreases resulting in a 3.3% decrease in overall median closed price. New listings increased 23% to 1,174, while overall closed sales decreased 6% to 537. Properties spend an average of 59 days on the market, up by 28%."

From Newsweek. "The housing market has proven to be a tough terrain in Joshua Tree, California, evidenced by a house that sold for $340,000 in December after being purchased for $600,000 in 2021, marking a $240,000 loss. Initially listed at $625,000 in early 2023, the home, situated east of Los Angeles in the Mojave Desert, saw multiple price reductions over the year, finally settling at $340,000 in December, a 47.3 percent decrease from its 2021 purchase price."

From Moneywise. "California’s once-glorious Golden Gate City is a shadow of its former self. Office towers sit empty, hotels are closing their doors, shops are boarded up to prevent crime and San Franciscans are ditching their beloved city in search of safe and affordable housing elsewhere. And the California city’s decline hasn’t gone unnoticed. Business leaders have been open about the problems eating into their bottom lines, such as the shrinking population and the lack of affordability in both commercial and residential properties. According to real estate company Savills, San Francisco had one of the lowest office availability rates in the U.S. before the pandemic at 9.5%; however, vacancy is now at 36.3%, up from 35.1% reported last quarter."

"Another factor that caused retailers, in particular, to ditch downtown San Francisco during the height of the pandemic was crime — in particular, a huge surge in shoplifting incidents. While retail crime levels have since receded, many retailers, like Whole Foods, Walgreens and Nordstrom shuttered stores when things got bad."

The Wall Street Journal. "Doak Hartley usually can’t go to a restaurant, grocery store or even church in town unnoticed. The chairman of Industry Bancshares gets stopped by customers asking about how to get a loan or where the economy might be headed. Lately, the questions are more complicated. Some want to know how many of Industry’s deposits are insured. (Between two-thirds and three-quarters at each of its banks.) Others have heard that Industry has a negative net worth and want to know what that means. (The bank owes more money than it has.)"

"Industry Bancshares, with some $5 billion in assets, is the parent company of six banks with more than two dozen branches scattered across stretches of farms and ranches in eastern Texas. It is one of the small banks in rural America whose local focus has long been a strength, inspiring years of loyalty from their neighbors to keep money down the street. Many of these banks are now reckoning with decisions they made when money was abundant and rates were low, crunched by the Federal Reserve’s rapid interest-rate increases."

"Industry is currently more than $75 million underwater because it piled into long-term bonds when rates were low. Those bonds plunged in value and the bank’s liabilities have been exceeding its assets since soon after the Fed started to hike rates in 2022. In the wake of the pandemic, that business model has proven problematic. The banks were flooded with deposits. But loan growth had been slow, so banks turned to parking deposits in Treasurys, mortgage-backed securities and municipal bonds. While normally considered safe, the market value of those securities fell when interest rates climbed. That left many banks sitting on billions in paper losses, raising regulator and investor concerns."

The Globe and Mail in Canada. "Jessica lives with her pet Dachshund in a 600-square-foot condo she owns in Burlington. But despite making about $80,000 annually, plus benefits, she says the monthly struggle to cover her mortgage and other expenses means she’s still essentially living paycheque to paycheque. She takes home about $2,430 every two weeks after taxes. 'One of my paycheques is dedicated to housing and the other is for everything else,' she says. 'Housing is like 50 to 60 per cent of my income.'"

"Jessica bought the place in 2020 with help from her family. She’d saved up about $21,000 in her RRSP, partially thanks to maxing out matching contributions at a past job, and her mom passed along $60,000 in inheritance after the death of her grandmother. She combined both for her down payment. Her father co-signed her mortgage. 'That $80,000 down payment brought the monthly payments down to something I could afford,' says Jessica, whose mortgage has a fixed interest rate of 2.5 per cent until 2025. 'It was incredible timing. I am nervous that if interest rates don’t come down, I will have to sell my place.' With her tight budget, she finds it hard to think about retirement. 'If I can afford to retire, it’s going to be great, but somehow I doubt that’s going to happen.'"

News.com.au in Australia. "A homeowner left financially ruined from millions of dollars worth of building defects in her apartment block is disappointed that the government has rejected her plea for early access to her superannuation. Tamara Railton-Stewart, 48, believes she has now exhausted most of her options to scrape her way out of a lifetime of debt. The mum-of-one is among a number of victims involved in the collapse of Melbourne building company Shangri-La Construction, which went into liquidation in March this year. 'I think people in my position should have access to their super,' she lamented to news.com.au. 'I am not asking for a hand out, but simply access to my own money.'"

"But earlier this month, Ms Railton-Stewart received a hammer blow from the Australian Treasury, which denied her plea for early release superannuation on compassionate grounds. 'The treasury department will release superannuation to people for a boob job (and) a liposuction' Ms Railton-Stewart said, referencing an incident from earlier this year where assistant treasurer Stephen Jones warned that people were gaming the early release super system to do just that. 'But we’re looking at a lifetime of financial f***ness because we can’t get access to it.'"

South China Morning Post. "In an effort to boost a stagnant housing market, China's local governments have been urging residents to sell their old homes in exchange for new ones, but the call has so far yielded lacklustre results with prospective buyers fearing that poor market sentiment will force them to offer hefty discounts on their old homes. While the scheme has been gaining traction over the past few months, notably in larger cities such as Nanjing and Wuhan, it has also sparked scepticism among prospective buyers and netizens."

"'I'm a bit hesitant to sell my current home because the market price has fallen a lot lately,' said Yang, who owns property in Suzhou, a major city in China's eastern Jiangsu province, which unveiled its exchange scheme in November. 'It's not the brokerage firms that are cutting prices,' he said. 'It's just what the market is like at the moment. If you want to get eyeballs and sell your property fast, you'll have to take big cuts on prices.'"