It's Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. "According to the RMLS, the Portland market also saw its highest inventory in nearly five years. Portland-area real estate agents said much of the challenge for sellers is accepting that activity has slowed considerably in a very short period of time. 'This is not two years ago where you’ll get 15 offers and not have to do repairs,' said Adam Shepard, a broker with John L. Scott Real Estate. 'Sometimes it’s hard to get them over the hump and realize it’s a different market. When you have inventory where the buyer can compare your home to 15 other homes in the immediate area, you don’t have the ability to say, ‘I’ll fix that later, let’s just get it on the market,’ Shepard said. You have to be show-ready Day 1.'"

"For John Coleman, selling his home meant adjusting his expectations in more ways than one. Coleman listed his four-bedroom Forest Park home last October, looking to downsize. He accepted an offer on the home within a couple of weeks, but the buyer’s financing fell through. Financing problems derailed three more offers before he finally sold the home this month. Coleman said in addition to reducing price of the home — he eventually dropped it from over $1.15 million to $999,000 — he briefly took the home off the market to make some improvements. Most buyers, he said, didn’t want to purchase a home that wasn’t fully updated. 'I would have thought we were better off selling a blank slate,' he said, noting that he hesitated to replace carpet or lighting fixtures in case the buyer wanted something different. 'But nobody wanted to take anything on,' Coleman said."

"The residential real estate market was the worst in 2023 since the Great Recession in 2009. It’s a good year to put behind the industry and prepare for a better 2024 with lowering interest rates and increasing population, according to Phoenix REALTORS®. New construction is boosting the housing inventory as homebuilders brought 38.7% more new homes to market than in 2022. This was offset by a 23.5% decline in previously owned homes offered for sale. December is not expected to save the year, either. 'Motivated home buyers and home builders are offering greater concessions this year than typically seen,' said Butch Leiber, outgoing president of Phoenix REALTORS® Board of Directors. 'Usually, there’s an average of $4,500 in concessions on a home, but this year, we’re seeing concessions worth $10,000 and more, including interest buydowns.' The median sales price is steady for 2023 year-to-date. While the median jumped almost 16% in 2022 over 2021, it’s down under 5% for 2023 compared to 2022."

"Some people trying to buy a condominium in South Florida but getting mysteriously rejected for a mortgage could be in for a jolt: The reason they can’t get a loan may be that the condo is on a secret quasi-governmental blacklist. News media reports and data leaks to a pair of law firms in New England and Fort Lauderdale have now confirmed what some in the condo industry suspected: that Fannie Mae, one of two federally chartered companies that help determine who qualifies for home mortgages, has for at least two years maintained a confidential database of condo buildings, including hundreds in Florida, that it won’t back for loans, typically because of maintenance or financial issues. After initially stonewalling, Fannie Mae has recently acknowledged the list’s existence."

"Critics say they fault Fannie Mae not for the stricter standards, which many believe were overdue, but for not making its determinations clear and available to condos so they can address them. 'There are things that weren’t done that needed to be done,' said Leigh Katzman, a founding partner at Katzman Chandler in Fort Lauderdale, the second law firm behind the new website. 'We believe that what we’re seeing now is a process of catching up with what’s been happening. It has caused the list to become larger, and it will become even larger. The people who have lived in condominiums in last the 20 years have paid too little. Now the next owners are going to pay too much. Many associations aren’t prepared for it. There’s a black storm coming. If I’m an owner in a building that’s blacklisted, and I’m hit by assessment for $10,000, normally I can refinance my unit. But now I can’t do that. Or else I sell the unit, but now I can’t sell, either. It’s like a perfect storm.'"

"After spending about 18 months seeking a buyer, a Malibu estate listed for $195 million by former Disney CEO Michael Eisner has quietly come off market, according to listing sites. 'Since there are few comparable sales to justify the price, the owner usually puts a price tag of what they feel it is worth,' Anthony Marguleas, founder of brokerage Amalfi Estates in Pacific Palisades said of ultra-luxe listings. 'It is common for ultra-high-end properties to reduce 50 percent or more from their original starting price.' Joyce Rey of Coldwell Banker Realty said one factor in the uptick in ultra luxe sales is price reductions. 'When you have a difficult market, you have to price more carefully,' Rey said. 'If (ultra-luxe sellers) are getting offers, it is likely that they have reduced their list price. Additionally, many sellers are taking substantially less than the asking price.'"

"Starting quietly around 2010, extending wildly into 2019 and ending with a dull splat post-pandemic, there were a series of absolutely astounding flips of Bay Area commercial real estate assets that made investors unheard of returns no one expected or had seen before. Those days are entirely over for the time being, as we are witnessing a near value extinction event for office buildings plunging under $200 per square foot that is now spreading into other asset classes—perhaps more of a steep decline versus extinction within multi-family and land. Even the stalwart industrial market is feeling the pain with a cooling of tenant demand and value appreciation in that bright darling of the recent market. Amazon and others consumed the planet, moving all retail out of the corpses of shopping malls into thrumming automated distribution warehouses across the globe. Retail itself is entirely a case-by-case basis as that universe transforms, just look at the soon totally dark San Francisco Nordstrom mall."

"The free money used to cure the Great Recession of 2008 is at the root of all this history. When interest rates are at or below inflation, the money is essentially free. Lacing steep interest rate increases with the remote work era was the office building doom whoop. A few personal battlefield notes and some data from CoStar on what did actually happen in the golden era of appreciation: San Jose: 152 N. Third St. office building sold in 2012 for $9.2 million, flipped in 2018 for $40 million, thank you We Work. Now in foreclosure. 2 W. Santa Clara St. office building sold in 2013 for $5 million, flipped in 2017 for $14.4 million. Now looking to convert to housing as the office market has dried up."

"Both home prices and sales continued to trend downward in November as high interest rates continued to keep many prospective buyers on the sidelines. The national average home price fell 1.6% from October to $656,625, according to figures released today by the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA). That’s still 2% above year-ago prices, but now more than 20% below the peak reached in February 2022. Sales are now down 18% from their pre-pandemic levels. 'Demand has indeed collapsed from the low-rate frenzy of 2021 and early 2022, but demographic demand is keeping activity from falling much further,' wrote BMO’s Robert Kavcic."

"Beijing and Shanghai have rolled out a fresh round of stimulus measures - including cuts to down-payment ratios and the extension of deadlines for mortgage repayments - as part of their latest efforts to boost demand in a stagnant housing market. New home prices across 70 cities also dropped, declining by 0.38 per cent in October compared with the previous month, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics. This was their sharpest decline since February 2015. Homeowners have to offer discounts of up to 20 per cent to attract buyers, according to You Liangzhou, the owner of Baonuo, a Shanghai-based property agency. 'The local home market may become bearish if no further support policies are introduced to shore up investor confidence,' he said. 'Lower down-payment ratios and lending rates can be of some help to the market, but removal of home purchase restrictions is desirable.'"

"At the tip of Malaysia, driving south towards the coast, there’s a strange sight in the distance: a dozen tower blocks on the horizon, which locals call 'ghost city.' In reality, it’s a Chinese-built mega-housing development. And on first impressions, it’s hard to believe that anyone actually lives here. Even in midafternoon, the long corridors in the towers are pitch dark. It feels more like a haunted house than a happy home. Forest City was a chance for people in China’s aspirational middle class to invest in a second home abroad, which they could then rent out to locals here. But the company behind the project, Country Garden, is facing debts of nearly $200 billion. Now, with cash drying up, Forest City is a surreal place — almost like visiting an abandoned resort."

"As I stand in the shopping mall, basically half of it is still a building site. In front of me is a kids’ train. There’s no one on it, and the driver is just doing endless loops. 'Normally around here, you’re on your own,' said Nazmi Hamafiah, who used to live in Forest City. After six months, he decided to cut his losses and get out. He didn’t even mind losing his rental deposit. 'It’s multibillion dollar project, it’s supposed to be good,' he said. 'It’s supposed to meet expectations but … frustrating.' Many millions in China have invested their life savings in projects just like this — and they’ll be wanting some reassurance sooner rather than later."