A report from the Green Bay Press Gazette. "Market conditions have shown signs of improvement for Wisconsin homebuyers as the state’s busy season ends. The problem for many buyers has long been a lack of homes for sale. But there's ongoing signs buyers in 62 of Wisconsin's 72 counties will find more homes for sale, per WRA. Inventory in Portage County, home to Stevens Point, doubled in October, from 1.7 months to 3.4 months. Other notable inventory surges can be found in the Appleton area (59.1%), Milwaukee County (26.1%), Eau Claire (34.5%), and Dane County (16.7%). Housing markets like Madison, Milwaukee and Green Bay remain solid seller's markets, but not quite the as intensely in sellers' favor. 'It’s not the same market,' said Milly Saldarriaga, of ShoreWest Realtors in Green Bay. 'The market is normalizing.'"

"Home prices likely won't drop, but sellers might not get offers way above asking prices anymore, Saldarriaga said. Competition persists for properties priced below $300,000, but it's softened a bit in higher price ranges. Right-priced homes may sell in a day or two; others may sit a little longer, said Victoria Imhoff, a real estate agent with Century 21 Ace Realty in Appleton. 'Now this is kind of how it is,' Imhoff said. 'It's important to set expectations ahead of time.'"

From Florida Today. "October's housing numbers offered more trick than treat for Brevard County residents looking to sell their homes. According to the latest data from the Space Coast Association of Realters, closed single-family home sales were down 11.6 percent year over year. The median single family home sales price dipped a bit year over year by 1 percent. The median sales price for townhomes and condos fell 7.7 percent year over year to $300,000 compared to October 2022's price of $325,000. It also represents a $7,000 drop month over month and a $77,000 drop since August. Brevard County's housing inventory shot up 30.4 percent year over year to a total of a three month supply. For townhomes and condos, it's even higher. October saw a 104.8 percent spike in the number of units on the market, padding the inventory with a 4.3 month supply — more than double October 2022's 2.1 months. It's also an indicator that the market has leveled out and is moving into more neutral territory — no longer a sellers' market but not yet a buyers' market."

From ABC 7 News. "As we approach the start of a new year, real estate agent Aprile Osborne joined us in the ABC7 studio to share some updates on the housing inventory in Southwest Florida. Despite Southwest Florida being described as a red-hot housing market, the available housing inventory for sale is higher than it has been in several years. What advice does Aprile Osborne give to sellers during quiet periods? She advises sellers to consider taking their listings down during quiet periods to avoid devaluation."

The San Francisco Chronicle in California. "Just 27 miles east of San Francisco, the town of Alamo is home to many grand estates set upon rolling hills overlooking views of Diablo Valley. It is in this bucolic, wealthy enclave that tech billionaire David Duffield established Fieldhaven, a 21-acre estate that took years and over $135 million to build. Adjusting for inflation, the property would cost about $250 million to construct today, or you can buy it now for $35 million."

Bisnow Washington DC. "Office has become a four-letter word for many real estate lenders, and that sentiment is now bleeding into the healthcare sector. The presence of office space within many healthcare properties is creating concern among some lenders who want to reduce their exposure to the asset class, panelists said. Traditional lenders are so averse to the office market that any deal remotely tied to the struggling asset class could be blacklisted, panelists said. 'Some of the big national lenders in our space are saying if it's over 5% office, we're not going to lend on it,' JLL Capital Markets Managing Director Brannan Knott said. 'The office vacancy rate in D.C. is the highest it’s ever been,' Colliers Executive Vice President Adam Schindler said."

The Texas Tribune. "Texas office workers are back in person more than their counterparts across the country — but a lot of the state’s urban office space is still sitting empty. The Austin, Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston areas have office vacancy rates that range from 21% to 25%. But whether the glut of space at a time when developers are continuing to construct more office buildings foreshadows a brewing economic storm remains to be seen. In Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston, the rise of remote work exacerbated already-high vacancy rates brought on by overbuilding in the ‘80s and ‘90s that still casts a shadow on the current office market. 'Dallas, like many Texas cities, built beautiful, high-rise, shiny buildings that were enormous,' said Jennifer Scripps, who leads the economic development group Downtown Dallas Inc. 'They weren't full when they opened and they never filled up.'"

"And owners of office buildings with lots of vacancy have few options to turn things around, said Harold Hunt, a research economist who studies commercial real estate at the Texas Real Estate Research Center at Texas A&M University. They can keep the building as-is and deal with diminishing returns or upgrade it in order to compete with glitzier office properties, Hunt said. Owners can also sell the building or demolish it. 'What do you do with a million and a half square feet if nobody wants it anymore?' Hunt said. 'Everybody just sort of scratches their head.'"

Real Estate News Exchange. "Canadian real estate investors have traditionally been quite active south of the border and five executives with inside knowledge of the American market shared their views. 'Development just doesn't make sense anywhere in the States right now unless you're in some super-specialty niches,' said Grosvenor-Property Americas CEO Steve O’Connell. His company develops, manages and invests in residential, office and retail properties in San Francisco, Washington, D.C., Seattle, Vancouver, Chicago and Los Angeles."

"Alfonso Munk is the chief investment officer for the Americas for Hines, a privately owned global real estate investment, development and management firm with $94.6 billion of assets under management. 'There's an issue with demand, there’s no question, but the real issue in the U.S. in office is supply,' Munk noted. 'Before COVID and before the advent of working from home, we had a massive oversupply of office space in the U.S. The capital markets are not seeing it and banks don't want to finance it, which is an opportunity for tactical people like us,' he said of the asset class. 'But there are B-, C- and D- assets in the office space, because of the tendency of U.S. investors to oversupply everything, that are completely useless. That stuff, we wouldn't touch and I don't think anybody would.'"

"Munk said many Sun Belt markets don’t have the infrastructure to absorb the increased demand. He expects cities such as Miami will end up with an oversupply of multifamily and office assets because they built too quickly. One-quarter of Austin’s apartment stock has been built in the past five years, according to O’Connell, who called it a 'staggering' amount of supply. 'The October rent growth numbers came out and Austin, which is like the poster child for the Sun Belt from my perspective, had negative 5.6 per cent rental growth in that reporting compared to a one per cent U.S. average,' said O’Connell. 'The sheer volume of supply that's coming, which is a result of the lack of barriers to entry that exists in the Sun Belt, is going to have a pretty material impact on potential rent growth for those cities in the next few years.'"

The Indo-Canadian Voice. "The NDP said on Tuesday that at a panel discussion with fellow developers in 2020, BC United MLA Renee Merrifield talked about how developers in Kelowna 'work well together' and are 'careful not to oversupply certain markets.' Merrifield is the owner and co-CEO of Troika Developments. Renee Merrifield: 'Well, I would say that one of the factors is sitting on your screen. The Urban Development Institute and the developers and suppliers and contractors and consultants that form this association have always been incredibly collaborative. I always say we have one of the best sandboxes in all of Canada. You know, we work well together. We talk to each other. We figure out, you know, who’s who in the zoo. We’re careful not to oversupply certain markets. You know, we share ideas and we listen to one another. And that is unique. You know, right now, Troika is existing in 13 different municipalities and I can say we don’t have that same collaboration in any of the other municipalities that we work in. So this definitely is part of our secret sauce and part of our advantage. Absolutely.'"

"The NDP pointed out that on Tuesday morning, Merrifield raised a point of privilege claiming that she did not make comments about restricting housing supply. MLA Ravi Parmar said: 'It’s extremely concerning to hear a BCU MLA talk about building less housing during a housing shortage. We need more supply of all kinds of housing, not less. But Kevin Falcon has consistently opposed David Eby’s actions to increase housing supply. He’s still looking out for the speculators and companies profiting off high housing prices – not the British Columbians trying to afford a place to live.'"

CTV News in Canada. "Police in the Town of the Blue Mountains are investigating a suspicious fire at a housing development. Police responded to a fire at 190 Crosswinds Boulevard on November 30 just before 6 a.m. Thursday, where officers and fire crews found several homes under construction that had been engulfed in flames. On Saturday, fire crews and police responded to another fire just before 11 p.m. in the same area. Police said several houses under construction were engulfed in flames again."

The Daily Post in the UK. "House prices in Wales are forecast to flatline in 2024, property analysts believe. The market is expected to keep falling in the first six months of the year before recovering as lower interest rates kick in. This year’s anticipated property crash hasn’t materialised but house prices are now lower almost everywhere in Wales than at the start of 2023, regardless of property type. Prices have been tumbling since the September 2022 budget and in some places well before then. In the year to September, house prices in Wrexham dived 6.1% to level at £196,000, the second biggest fall in Wales behind Blaenau Gwent (-11.2%). On Anglesey, property values were down 4.9% to average £236,000, according to the Office for National Statistics."

"Designed to address housing shortages in Gwynedd, opponents fear Article 4 will cause house prices to drop across the board, affecting residents as well as second and holiday homeowners. A resident claimed values are in freefall already as the market is squeezed by high mortgage rates and a raft of local price controls. With valuations of his house dropping 'more than £90,000' in the past year, he slammed the local authority on social media. 'They are destroying the investment people have worked for most of their lives for,' he said. 'Look at the house market sites – all houses have dropped over £60k and more. My advice to young people now is… it’s not worth buying a house in Gwynedd.'"

"A woman claimed her house was recently valued at £85,000 less than she was expecting. 'And mine is the cheaper end of the scale,' she said. 'Now I’d love to be magnanimous about this and think … never mind, at least young people will be able to live their dream life near the sea like I couldn’t. But sadly I won’t be able to buy what I want now, so I’ll end up working harder for longer.'"

From Nikkei Asia. "China's real estate crisis enters a critical phase on Monday, when a Hong Kong court is expected to hand down a decision on the liquidation of China Evergrande Group, once the country's largest developer. The long slump in the industry, which accounts for about 30% of China's gross domestic product, is casting a long shadow over the economy and society as a whole and looks set to continue. 'The myth of rising prices has been completely destroyed,' said Huang Li, a real estate consultant in the southeastern Chinese city of Guangzhou, using a pseudonym. 'No one will buy at the current prices.'"

"The city of Huizhou is a bedroom community of Hong Kong's neighbor Shenzhen. In early November, when a prospective buyer came to see a new condominium on the market, a salesperson whispered: 'We're selling it for 12,000 yuan ($1,698) per square meter, a 25% discount, but we'll secretly drop it to 11,000 yuan.' The price of the condominium was further reduced to a bit over 10,000 yuan per square meter, nearly 40% lower than the original price. Even with big price cuts, real estate agents can ease their immediate cash flow problems if they can sell properties sitting on their books."

"The prolonged stress in the real estate sector has left many building projects in limbo. A skyscraper, towering against the blue sky, disappeared from view as the sun set. The 86-story landmark, sitting in prime location in the northeastern Chinese city of Dalian, is unlit at night. Local residents say it is like a ghost. The building is complete, but, 'There's no talk of any tenant applications,' according to a local real estate broker. The main door was rusted, and it was rare to see people nearby even in the daytime."

"An extreme case can be seen in the city of Hegang in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang, bordering Russia. As the resources in this coal mining town ran out, it began losing population. By the end of 2021, the city had suffered a de facto financial collapse. The real estate sector crashed, and Hegang became known as 'the city where condos prices are like Chinese cabbage.'"

"At the end of October, the main street of a building materials market in Guangzhou is lined with hundreds of specialty stores selling materials, tools, curtains and other items. But it is deserted. Some stores have their shutters closed. 'There's no one here. I've worked in this industry for over 20 years, and this is the worst,' said the manager of store that specializes in urinals. The same is true for Peng Xiaojuan, who has run a ceiling board store in Dongguan, Guangdong province, for nearly 10 years. 'Houses aren't selling, and no one is renovating them. I can't make any money.' To increase her revenue, she has begun working as a salesperson for a local tile company."

"On the Chinese internet, a phrase mocking the industry is circulating: 'The whale dies and sinks into the sea,' meaning that when the big players in real estate die, they take the smaller ones down with them."