A report from the San Francisco Examiner in California. "With record vacancies in San Francisco office buildings and home prices down, the number of property owners appealing to lower their property taxes has skyrocketed to the highest level since at least the Great Recession year of 2009. Patrick Carlisle, chief market analyst at Compass Real Estate, said many requests could be coming from the greater downtown SOMA, Civic Center area where condominium prices have declined sharply, from an average high of about $1.05 million per condo in 2022 to around $830,000 on average at the end of summer, according to a report he published this month. 'The values in that particular area of The City for condos have been hit very hard,' he said, putting prices about where they were in early 2014."

"The vacancy rate in San Francisco’s office market was at a record high of 34 percent in the third quarter, according to the real estate firm CBRE. Hans Hansson, owner of Starboard Commercial Real Estate and a veteran of 35 years in the San Francisco market, said vacancy rates are higher than they appear because companies’ leases have not run out. He predicted the impact on The City’s finances from adjustments to commercial property values would be serious. Hansson cited recent sales of large office buildings at steep discounts from prior purchase prices. 'It’s a disaster,' he said."

The California Newsroom. "The Los Angeles real estate developer Shangri-La Industries, a major recipient of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Homekey program, received more than $114 million in state funding to convert seven motels in San Bernardino, Ventura and Monterey counties into housing for homeless people. But instead of creating hundreds of apartments for some of California’s neediest, the company has left a trail of unpaid debts, properties facing foreclosure, buildings in receivership, and lawsuits accusing Shangri-La principals of running a financial shell game."

"'In effect, Shangri-La is operating a real estate Ponzi scheme, where loans that were supposed to be reserved to complete specific projects were commingled with other funds and entities to prop-up other failing Shangri-La projects,' reads a court filing from December 8, by lawyers for a lender involved in several Shangri-La Homekey projects. 'I’m not going to respond to that allegation at all,' Shangri-La owner and CEO Andy Meyers said in an interview Friday. 'We are an entity, Shangri-La Industries, and have a number of properties. But there’s no Ponzi scheme. Obviously, whomever made such an accusation doesn’t know what a Ponzi scheme is.'"

"One of Shangri-La’s selling points as a Homekey developer was its financial strength. In a 340-page packet of documents sent to the state housing department in April 2022 by Shangri-La/Step Up, and obtained by KCRW and The California Newsroom through a public records request, its executives claimed it was a 'financial powerhouse.' Shangri-La Industries and its development subsidiaries, Shangri-La Construction and Shangri-La Development, have ties to Shangri-La Entertainment, which was founded by the late film producer and philanthropist Steve Bing. In the materials, Meyers even pledged to commit up to $275 million to the company’s Homekey projects. When asked about that personal pledge on Friday, which bears his signature, Meyers said, 'I’m not really sure what you’re talking about.'"

From Bloomberg. "This might have been the year that New York City’s ultra-luxury housing market entered a holding pattern. 'Co-ops have been on the decline for quite some time, which is not to say they’re not beautiful—they are, and many have some of the best architecture ever built,' said broker Donna Olshan, who publishes a weekly luxury market report. 'But the shareholders [of co-ops] are suffering. They accept lower-than-true-market value for the privilege of being in a dysfunctional club."

"Despite the similarities to 2022, Olshan says the city’s 2023 luxury housing market will be remembered as a slog. 'In general, prices were much more negotiable, and units hung on the market much longer,' she says. 'We’re living in fragile times. It just takes a long time to do every deal—and get it across the finish line.'"

Building Salt Lake in Utah. "Salt Lake City’s record growth and building boom have delivered a massive new supply to the market. This has led to the market tipping in favor of renters as property managers try to fill units in a now-saturated market. After a period of quickly rising rent, Salt Lake City is now seeing average monthly rent fall and vacancy rates climb. As a result, concessions are spiking. Recent data on rent trends and concessions provided by Costar shows that rent concessions offered in the Salt Lake City submarket are at almost 40%, last seen during the height of the pandemic as people, mostly students, moved home."

"CoStar found that while the supply of new apartments being delivered is large, with nearly 5,000 new units in 2023, demand is only at around 3,500 units. This is much higher than the previous year when demand was around 1450 units, a record low since 2013. Michael Pretrivelli, the Director of Marketing Analytics for Nevada and Utah at Costar, sees these pressures as part of a temporary oversupply of deliveries and pressures for more rent stabilization. 'The other big issue we are seeing is lease-up times for new projects is jumping from an average of 12-14 months to almost 18-24 months,' Petrivelli said."

Blog TO in Canada. "A detached home in Brampton that's been sold three times over the past two years shows just how much home prices in the GTA can change year-over-year. The four-bedroom, three-bathroom home at 140 Fernforest Dr., was first sold in December 2021 for $1,485,000. Just a few months later, the home was put back on the market and eventually sold for $1,565,000 in April 2022, an exact $80,000 markup from its previous price. In October 2022, the home was leased for $3,800 per month before it was put back on the market for sale. In December 2023, the home was sold for a third time for $1,052,000 — roughly $500,000 less than its sale price just a year and a half earlier. A power of sale, which slightly differs from a regular home sale, is a clause written into a mortgage note that authorizes the mortgagee to sell their property in the event of default in order to repay the mortgage debt."

ABC News in Australia. "Property prices 'defied expectations' to hit record high values this year, but some suburbs and regional areas have bucked the trend and seen 'very significant declines' in their median house prices in the past 12 months. Data compiled by PropTrack found that some suburbs saw median house prices drop by more than 10 per cent in the past year. PropTrack economist Anne Flaherty said the housing market was experiencing a correction after a surge in buying demand during the pandemic, which has led to 'very significant declines over the past 12 months' in some suburbs."

"The biggest decline in house prices in the past year were in the suburbs of greater Hobart, with Carlton — around 25 kilometres east of the Tasmanian capital — seeing a 13.3 per cent fall in the last 12 months. House prices in the nearby suburbs of Dodges Ferry, Sorell and Primrose Sands all fell by more than 11 per cent year-on-year, while Kurrajong Heights, around 80km north-west of Sydney, was the only suburb outside of Tasmania to see the biggest fall in price growth. 'Hobart really dominates the list of suburbs that have been big price drops over the past year, [and] I think that the reason for that is to do with the fact that during the pandemic, Hobart massively outperformed,' Ms Flaherty said."

"The reversal of the property buying trend during the pandemic — and the associated higher prices — reflects the changes in demand and borrowing capabilities. 'What this comes down to is that competition to buy in these suburbs was so high during the pandemic years that buyers were basically just upping and upping their offers, and of course, interest rates were extremely low at that time, so people had greater borrowing capacities,' she said. 'Now we've seen that it's not as competitive, so it's taking properties longer to sell in these areas, and we've seen prices come back as a result of that low demand.'"

South China Morning Post. "Hong Kong may have seen the last of the interest rate hikes in the current tightening cycle, sparing homebuyers from higher borrowing costs, but analysts warn this may not prevent property prices from slipping further. Property prices in Hong Kong, among the most expensive in the world, have dropped by almost 20 per cent from their historical peak in 2021, according to data compiled by the Rating and Valuation department. Joseph Tsang, chairman of JLL Hong Kong echoed Wong's sentiment, saying Hong Kong banks will delay lowering their prime rates. 'Cutting interest rates doesn't mean the market is going to rebound, we saw that in 1997,' Tsang said, adding that JLL will not change its forecast on property price declines next year."

"The expected Fed rate cut may not be fully realised, according to Chau Kwong-wing, the director of the Ronald Coase Centre for Property Rights Research at the University of Hong Kong. There is a possibility the Fed may hike rates again if inflation rears its head again, he said. 'Inflation in the US is a structural [issue], the main cause being decoupling with China,' Chau said. 'The decoupling process will take a long time and therefore inflation and interest rates will remain high for the next couple of years, although there may be short-term fluctuation.'"

From Newsweek. "Weibo, China's leading microblogging platform, is urging its users to refrain from badmouthing the economy, account holders have said. The apparently automated notices, first reported by Bloomberg on December 15, arrived in the inboxes of netizens who commented about the state of the Chinese economy, which has been in flux since the country embarked on its post-pandemic recovery one year ago. It was unclear whether the soft censorship had resulted in any shadow bans or outright suspensions of Weibo accounts, but it highlighted growing apprehension about whether China was likely ever to witness again the type of explosive growth it had enjoyed for decades, and which eventually propelled it to the world's No. 2 economy in 2010."

"Weibo is often likened to its Western counterparts like Facebook or X for its influential role in shaping China's social media landscape, but it has always existed in a strictly regulated online environment overseen by the country's cyber watchdog and large censorship apparatus. On the website and elsewhere this month, expressive users shared screenshots of their inboxes and the Weibo notice that explicitly advised them 'not to badmouth the economy,' hinting at potential risks for their account."

"In tandem with Weibo's warnings was a cautionary message issued by China's State Security Ministry, which warned users against spreading 'false narratives' about the economy. 'Their essence is to use various false narratives to construct a 'discourse trap' and 'cognitive trap' of 'China's decline' in order to continue to cast doubt on the system and the path of socialism with Chinese characteristics,' the ministry said in a December 15 social media post on WeChat."

"China's state media also have published official lines that sought to push back against negative remarks concerning the state of the economy. An official Xinhua News Agency article carried a headline that said, 'China's economic resilience effectively refutes pessimistic views.' A related Weibo hashtag that said, 'those who badmouth the Chinese economy are destined to be disappointed,' amassed over 140 million views between December 14 and 18."