A report from Shreveport KSLA. "The real estate market in Southeast Louisiana is grappling with high interest and insurance rates, leading to a decrease in buyers heading towards the year’s end. 'The time to buy is when nobody wants it. The time to sell is when everybody wants it and this is the time when there are few buyers in the market and there’s some, I hate to say it, desperate sellers but there are,' said real estate analyst Arthur Sterbcow. Sterbcow says the current market dynamics, with fewer buyers and desperate sellers, present a unique opportunity for investors. Angela Davis says her Uptown rental has been on the market the entire year she’s lived there. 'With [rates] being so high right now it’s not a surprise that people are not really looking,' she said."

WAFF in Alabama. "Real estate experts say 2023 was a tough year for the market in Huntsville. Christopher Hulser-Hoover, President of the Huntsville Area Association of Realtors, said homes in Huntsville have also been staying on the market longer so potential buyers are no longer rushing to purchase a home before they’ve done their due diligence. 'It’s not that mad rush where if they walk into a house they immediately need to go out and write a contract on the hood of their car,' Hulser-Hoover said. 'They can actually think about it overnight. We’re not seeing the multiple offers of 12-15 offers per home, they actually have a little breathing room and the ability to make a wiser decision on a home.'"

"While we are seeing new inventory popping up all over the metro area, the problem is the price tag. Many of the new-build homes are not affordable for first-time home buyers, forcing many to sign a mortgage they can not afford and quickly relist the home back on the market."

The Salt Lake Tribune in Utah. "Owners of the failed building contractor Makers Line are off the hook in three of the 18 lawsuits filed against the Salt Lake City company and its related entities, but new complaints have been filed this month. Union Station, the property owner of an incomplete apartment complex in Ogden that is now slated for demolition, was also ordered, by default, to pay roughly $64,028 to Bear River Heating and Air Conditioning for unpaid labor. Building Salt Lake first reported Makers Line’s potential demise in late October; an attorney confirmed the company was 'no longer doing business' in early November, according to court documents. The contractor is attached to at least eight ongoing projects in Salt Lake City, according to city records, and more than a dozen across the Wasatch Front. The fate of its unfinished projects remains uncertain."

KWTX in Texas. "For the first time in years, the housing market experienced a decrease in sales in 2023, something local experts believe is good for consumers. 'I think this is a much healthier market honestly,' said Brook Ashley of Brook Ashley Realtors, 'You’re not having to offer 20,40,50,000 dollars over asking price, and waive inspections, and just the craziness that happened in recent years. That’s just not happening anymore.' Richard Hoxworth, with Summit Funding in Waco, echoed a similar sentiment, saying that when you compare the current market to the peaks we’ve experienced in recent years, it’s almost impossible to avoid a slowdown."

"'The example I use with a lot of my customers is, ‘hey, when you’re at the very tip-top of a roller coaster, everything feels like a drop, because there’s nowhere else to go,' said Hoxworth. 'We got to such an unsustainably busy place in the market in 2020-2021 and a lot into 2022, where we were so busy there was really nowhere else to go.'"

From Silicon Valley. "Chris Finnie didn't lose her Boulder Creek home when the CZU Lightning Complex fires in 2020 ripped through the Santa Cruz Mountains. But she lost her home insurance anyway and got forced onto a bare-bones last-resort policy that costs three times as much. 'We're kind of caught between the devil and the deep blue sea,' Finnie said. 'We either pay outrageous amounts money for substandard insurance, or outrageous amounts of money for actual insurance from insurance companies. I don't see an alternative.' The 10 costliest U.S. wildfires in insured losses all occurred in California, eight of them in just the last decade. Those include the 2018 Camp Fire near Chico, the 2017 Tubbs and Atlas fires in Wine Country, and a series of 2020 lightning-sparked fires, the LNU Complex in the North Bay and the CZU Complex in the Santa Cruz Mountains. The bill is now coming due."

"Jaimi Jansen, a Bonny Doon businesswoman whose home also survived the CZU blaze, had to get FAIR Plan coverage too after being dropped by her insurer, and now pays $14,000 — 10 times what she'd been paying — for the skimpier policy. She has to rent out a room in her house to help pay the bills. 'I'm trying to figure how to afford to live in Santa Cruz,' Jansen said. 'It's tough. The whole insurance thing is a total bummer.' 'It'll be business as usual and the insurance companies win,' said Bob Burns, an automotive business consultant who moved from Boulder Creek, where his house survived the fire, to a home down Highway 9 in Felton where he could only get FAIR Plan coverage. 'It's blackmail at this point — you have to pay them.'"

Business Insider. "The office market is still working its way through a downtrend, and some properties could notch even worse price declines than recent deals have seen, a real estate expert said. 'As we think about the office market, and maybe as a microcosm for the overall commercial real estate market, we think valuations are only 50% of the way through their declines,' Rich Hill, head of real estate strategy and research at Cohen & Steers, told CNBC. The office market will see its next leg lower in 2024 as distressed properties work their way through the system, he added."

"The warning came after a Los Angeles office building was sold on Tuesday for 52% less than its price in 2018. And just days earlier, the third tallest office high rise in LA was sold for 45% less than its price in 2014. 'So you're going to see a lot more headlines like this with valuations being down more than 50%,' Hill said. 'I think you're probably going to see some headlines that are even more severe than that.'"

"Also this month, a working paper from researchers at USC, Columbia, Stanford, and Northwestern said commercial real estate sector is at risk of seeing its biggest crash since 2008. It estimated that due to declines in property values from rate hikes and remote work, about 14% of all loans and 44% of office loans are in negative equity, meaning current values are less than outstanding mortgage balances. As a result, 10%-20% of all commercial real estate loans could end up defaulting, and banks could see around $160 billion in losses, according to the paper."

The New York Post. "Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell risks clearing the way for Donald Trump to win the presidency in 2024 if he doesn’t immediately start cutting interest rates, a top progressive lawmaker claimed Wednesday. Ro Khanna, an outspoken California Democrat who has repeatedly blasted Powell over the Fed’s handling of inflation, once again took aim at the top central banker. 'Powell should cut interest rates now given most of inflation was caused by supply shocks,' wrote Khanna, a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. 'If he doesn’t, he may be the person most responsible for the possible return of Trump.'"

CP24 in Canada. "An Ontario court has ordered a developer to pay nearly $180,000 after illegally selling homes in Richmond Hill. Last week, the Home Construction Regulatory Authority (HCRA) announced that Ideal (BC) Developments Inc. pled guilty to selling a new home without a licence and other charges. The HCRA said the developer took hundreds of thousands of deposits from unsuspecting purchasers for new residences in Richmond Hill. 'While this restitution does not compensate purchasers for their lost deposits, we hope it helps alleviate some of their financial loss,' Wendy Moir, the HCRA’s CEO and registrar, said in a statement."

The Yorkshire Evening Post in the UK. "A number of properties in Leeds, from flats to detached houses, has had their asking price reduced this month. From a two bedroom flat which has had its price reduced by 34.4 percent, to end terrace houses which have seen their prices cut by a fifth. Here are the 13 most reduced homes in October on the market, according to Zoopla. Melbourne Mills, Melbourne Street, Morley, Leeds LS27: This 2 bed flat on Melbourne Mills was last reduced on December 14 by a total of 34.4 percent, to £82,000. Calico House, Morley, Leeds LS27: This 2 bed flat in Morley was last reduced on December 20 by a total of 25.9 percent, to £100,000."

"Artist Street, Leeds LS12: This 2 bed flat on Artist Street was last reduced on December 20 by a total of 23.8 percent, to £80,000. Homegarth House, Wetherby Road, Roundhay, Leeds LS8: This 2 bed flat on Wetherby Road was last reduced on December 13 by a total of 21.1 percent, to £75,000. Park Avenue, Swillington, Leeds LS26: This 3 bed end terrace property on Park Avenue was last reduced on December 7 by a total of 20 percent, to £120,000. Castle Road, Rothwell, Leeds LS26: This 3 bed semi-detached property on Castle Road was last reduced on December 5 by a total of 19 percent, to £170,000."

Yahoo Finance on Australia. "Property owners who sell up are largely making a profit as home prices recover, but there are some suburbs where owners are more likely to lose cash. Rapidly rising interest rates have forced some new homeowners to resell quickly, and CoreLogic noted there had been an increase in these sellers making a loss. For property owners who’d had their home for three years or less, the number of resales making a loss increased to 6.6 per cent in the quarter, up from 3.6 per cent just 12 months ago. Where property is being sold at a loss, the average amount owners are losing is $40,000. The majority of properties to sell at a loss were units, making up 70.9 per cent."

"Among the capital cities, Darwin had the highest number of loss-making resales (30.3 per cent), followed by Perth (10 per cent). Sydney was next (8.9 per cent), followed by Melbourne (8.7 per cent). Focusing on Australia’s two biggest cities, Sydney and Melbourne, these were the suburbs with the biggest number of loss-making sales. In one Melbourne suburb, a whopping two in five sellers copped a loss."

The Wall Street Journal. "The smartest strategy for investors in Chinese assets this year: Do something else. Sitting on cash was more profitable in 2023 than investing in Chinese shares, buying bonds sold by Chinese companies or betting on the performance of the yuan, the country’s currency. In many cases, even throwing away 5% or 10% of your cash would have been less costly. China’s CSI 300 stock index is down about 14% this year, putting it on track for its third consecutive year of declines. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index, which includes the shares of many Chinese companies, is on course for four years of losses."

"The prolonged slump in Chinese assets is raising serious questions about the benefits of investing in the world’s second-largest economy. At the start of 2023, investors were even more optimistic. Portfolio managers bet that the end of China’s draconian Covid-19 policies would lead to a rapid economic recovery. The hope was that consumers finally freed from lockdown would celebrate with a spending boom. They did, briefly—but since then the country has fallen into deflation and economic malaise."

"'The biggest problem is that at the beginning of the year the China trade looked like a guaranteed winner. But anything that you tried to buy has been disappointing,' said Ben Bennett, a senior investment strategist at Legal & General Investment Management. 'It wasn’t just that China was the wrong theme. Everything in China fell. You were lucky to have not got sucked in and just been watching it.'"