A report from the Mercury News in California. "It might be hard to fathom in this real estate market, but one in eight home sellers in San Francisco and on the Peninsula is now taking a loss. How can that be? Some sellers who bought at the top of the market in 2021 and 2022 are being forced to accept less than what they paid for their homes. According to Redfin, more than 13% of those who sold homes in San Francisco and San Mateo counties between August and October went into the red — a rate about four times the national figure and the highest share of any major region in the country. The typical loss in the area: $122,500."

"In October, the median single-family home price in San Mateo County was $2.1 million, according to the California Association of Realtors. That’s a roughly 13% decline from the local market’s peak in April 2022, when the median topped $2.4 million. There was an even bigger drop in San Francisco, where prices fell 20% to $1.65 million. For the entire Bay Area, the median price tumbled 15% from its peak, coming in at $1.27 million in October. After San Francisco and the Peninsula, areas with the highest share of sellers losing money were Detroit and Chicago at around 7%, followed by Cleveland and New York at about 6%."

"Many would-be sellers are still on the fence, reluctant to give up the lower interest rates they locked in before the recent spike. The drumbeat of news about sky-high rates, sometimes boosting monthly payments for new mortgages by thousands of dollars, is only adding to sellers’ hesitance, said Silicon Valley agent Mary Pope-Handy. As a result, the inventory of homes on the market remains tight. 'It’s like the toilet paper shortage,' she said. 'People say there’s a shortage, and then it becomes one. Except this one is real.'"

The Omaha World Herald in Nebraska. "'I think the era of very low interest rates was just like a once-in-a-generation thing to happen,' says Dave Liniger, who co-founded Re/Max Holdings, a real estate franchiser, two generations ago in 1973. 'And I just don't see it going back.' And it's about time for more single-family houses to get built, says Erin Sykes, chief economist for Nest Seekers International, a multinational real estate brokerage. 'We've had this ongoing conversation about the shortage of housing, which is true, generally speaking,' she says, 'but it's actually a shortage with more of an asterisk. We have an oversupply of multifamily and a shortage of single-family.'"

The Denver Post. "Colorado’s economy next year won’t be a bed of roses, with job gains running at their slowest pace since 2011 and commercial real estate under extreme stress. 'We went from being roughly a top 10 state to being a bottom 10 state for job growth. How could we be so wrong and do we need to revise down our employment numbers?' said Brian Lewandowski, executive director of the Business Research Division at the University of Colorado Boulder, of the questions the Outlook panel asked as it tried to prepare its 2024 forecast."

"A huge reckoning continues in commercial real estate, and while it is playing out slowly, loans made under now unrealistic assumptions will have to be reworked. Banks continue to tighten their lending standards as they try to build up their reserves against losses, and venture capital remains scarce. Marcel Arsenault, CEO of Real Capital Solutions, offered a more dire view of what is coming, shaped in part of his understanding on what is going on in commercial real estate. 'In our shop, we are worried about a recession,' Arsenault told the crowd. He predicted Colorado would likely lose jobs next year and that the vacancy rate for apartments, which are being overbuilt, could reach 15% next year, or triple the current rate."

Reuters on Canada. "Greater Toronto Area home prices fell in November as higher borrowing costs crimped affordability, while the level of sales edged higher for the first time in six months, Toronto Regional Real Estate Board (TRREB) data showed on Tuesday. The seasonally adjusted average home price fell 2.2% in November from October to C$1,104,062 ($815,769), marking the fourth decline in the last five months. On a year-over-year basis, the average price was up 0.3% but it was down 18.9% from the February 2022 peak."

The Globe and Mail in Canada. "As tougher lending requirements have more homeowners turning to the private mortgage market, brokers say having a strategy to eventually get out of the loan is crucial, or they risk falling into a debt trap that could eventually lead to a `For Sale’ sign on the front lawn. They can be a financial lifeline for a homeowner or buyer who can’t get traditional financing because of their low credit score or because they don’t pass traditional lending requirements, but the fees and interest rates associated with these loans are significantly higher than a bank or credit union. Private mortgage interest rates can range from 10 to 18 per cent, depending on factors such as the property value and credit risk of the borrower."

"The latest data from the Financial Services Regulatory Authority of Ontario shows private mortgages represented 11.7 per cent of all brokered mortgages in the province last year, compared with 8.4 per cent in 2014. The dollar value of private mortgages in Ontario last year was $25.9-billion, more than doubling from $9.1-billion in 2014, according to the data. Frances Hinojosa, chief executive of Tribe Financial Group says she’s also noticing an increasing number of homeowners who were previously set up with a private mortgage at other firms without a proper exit strategy – they’re now not able to handle the higher monthly payments upon renewal nor do they have proper options to move forward with other financing options."

"'We’re starting to have difficult conversations with homeowners saying, really, your only exit strategy at this point is you should seriously consider selling and rightsizing your housing situation – look at buying something smaller or something a bit cheaper,' she said."

From News.com.au. "Home builder Simsai Construction has gone into liquidation after a dispute with the Australian Taxation Office over debts nearing $4.5 million, it has been reported. The Perth-based company was working on approximately 100 houses when the business entered administration in early November. The company ran brands First Home Buyers Direct, Express Homes WA and Multi Develop 360. Administrators say the business could have been insolvent as early as July 2021, noting an insolvent trading claim of $4.2m may need to be investigated, the West Australian reported."

"Administrators also revealed the company had borrowed $230,000 on a three-month high interest loan in June 2023 to keep its doors open. Fees on that individual loan had increased to over $100,000 by November. Additionally, up to $2m could be owed by three former Simsai directors to the business. Administrators indicated directors had been willing to repay outstanding debts, possibly through selling their personal homes. 'The business was operating but the business had basically run out of cash,' Mr Schwarz told news.com.au. 'It’s a victim of the industry unfortunately, all the usual pressures, increasing costs, delays, supply constraints.'"

ABC News in Australia. "More people looking to break into the property market are lying on their loan applications — by either overstating their income or understating their expenses — in desperation to try to secure a home loan, according to new data. Sean Quagliani, the co-founder of financial technology company Fortiro, which big banks and other lenders use to help them detect fraudulent documents, says since interest rates started rising about a year and a half ago, there has been a threefold increase in people lying on home loan applications."

"'One example might be, somebody will modify a pay slip to increase the amount of income that they've got,' Mr Quagliani says. 'We see other examples of people removing transactions from their bank statements to only show that they might have no kids, but they have kids. People can be very creative. If you put yourself in the shoes of a prospective borrower who might be trying hard to get onto the property market and put a roof over their head … it's a decision between telling the truth to the lender, and potentially not getting access to the credit to get the property.'"

"Doctoring documents or otherwise lying on your loan application can invalidate the loan contract, resulting in a default on the mortgage, and might even land those involved in jail for fraud. Another reason for the threefold increase in 'liar loans",', Mr Quagliani says, is that there's more opportunity to fabricate documents due to the plethora of free tools available online. 'You're not going to a bank and sitting down in front of anybody anymore, it's a very sort of online digital experience … achievable in probably 30 seconds,' he says. 'To give one example, it's as easy as just downloading a bank statement template that can be filled out pretty quickly on your computer using Microsoft Word.' He picks out an example of a template that looks identical to that used by a big-four bank. 'You can either do a DIY and [the website will] give you the template, or you pay $99, and it will create it for you,' he says."

"Melbourne-based mortgage broker Philip Robertson also thinks the regulator needs to lower the buffer for those refinancing their loans. He says a small number of his clients are refinancing on lower buffers of 1 or 2 per cent, but that most do not qualify. That, he says, leaves many trapped and thereby they are more likely to take on riskier personal or business loans. 'There's a lot of credit card debt out there,' he says. 'There's a lot of unsecured business loans, short-term loans, there's payday lending, there's, you know, all sorts of delaying tactics that you can use — borrow money from friends and family, that sort of thing. Their situation and their circumstances will be so much better if they were able to perhaps go interest-only for a short time [or] change to a lender who had a low rate. That will relieve a lot of stress, especially on people who are more vulnerable, or lower-income people.'"

From The BBC. "'I managed to escape this place,' Nazmi Hanafiah laughs, slightly nervously. A year ago, the 30-year-old IT engineer moved to Forest City, a sprawling Chinese-built housing complex in Johor, on the tip of southern Malaysia. He rented a one-bedroom flat in a tower block overlooking the sea. After six months, he'd had enough. He didn't want to continue living in what he calls 'a ghost town.' 'I didn't care about my deposit, I didn't care about the money. I just had to get out,' he said. We had arranged to meet in the same tower block he used to live in. 'I'm getting goosebumps just being back,' he said. 'It's lonely around here - it's just you and your thoughts.'"

"China's largest property developer Country Garden unveiled Forest City a $100bn (£78.9bn) mega-project under the Belt and Road Initiative - in 2016. At the time, the Chinese property boom was in full flow. Developers were borrowing colossal sums of money to build both home and abroad for middle-class buyers. In Malaysia, Country Garden's plan was to build an eco-friendly metropolis featuring a golf course, waterpark, offices, bars and restaurants. The company said Forest City would eventually be home to nearly one million people. Eight years on, it stands as a barren reminder that you do not need to be in China to feel the effects of its property crisis. Currently, only 15% of the entire project has been built and, according to recent estimates, just over 1% of the total development is occupied."

"Speaking to people in China who bought units in Forest City is not easy. The BBC did manage to reach a handful of owners indirectly, but they were reluctant to comment, even anonymously. However, social media offers some anecdotal evidence. Under a post praising the development, one buyer from Liaoning province said: 'This is very misleading. The current Forest City is a ghost town. There are no people at all. It is far from the city, has incomplete living facilities, and it is difficult to move without a car.' Other comments asked how they could get a refund on their property, with one saying: 'The price of my unit has dropped so much, I'm speechless.'"