A report from Barron's on Idaho. "It wasn’t so long ago that homes in Boise were a hot commodity. But now? 'Nobody wants to buy a house in Boise right now, and nobody wants to sell a house either,' Redfin agent Shauna Pendleton joked recently. The reality isn’t quite as dire: There are buyers and sellers, she said, but their numbers are greatly reduced from the frenzied days early in the pandemic, when sellers could list a house in just about any condition and sell it in a weekend. Prices in Boise climbed 67% from the start of the pandemic to their peak in 2022, then dropped as much as 13% at their trough, according to Federal Housing Finance Agency data."

The New York Post. "The rising cost of home-owners insurance threatens to further stall a national housing market that’s already groaning under the weight of high interest rates, rising prices and surging construction expenses. It’s derailing home sales in some of the country’s strongest housing markets. It’s making condo buildings ineligible for mortgages. In Florida, Farmers pulled its insurance business entirely from the state in July, leaving as many as 100,000 policies ineligible for renewal. And the company stopped issuing new contracts in California, where an estimated 1.2 million homes are at risk from wildfires. One 200-unit waterfront condominium in Long Island saw its insurance premium more than double to $461,000 for this year, according to Orest Tomaselli, a president at lending advisory firm CondoTek."

"There’s added consequence if condo owners can’t afford to pay up – or simply don’t. If more than 15% of a building’s owners are delinquent in their HOA payments, no unit at the property can qualify for a mortgage, Tomaselli said, citing lending rules by housing finance agencies like Fannie Mae. And in the past year, delinquencies on condo association fees have become a serious problem, said Tomaselli, who helps condo boards comply with federal lending standards. 'Now all of a sudden, you’re seeing numbers of 12, 14, 20% of unit owners delinquent on their maintenance by more than 60 days,' Tomaselli said. 'For the first time in my career, I’ve seen insurance costs kill some deals,' said Joe Hernandez, a partner in the real estate practice at Miami law firm Bilzin Sumberg."

The Tampa Free Press. "A Florida real estate agent has pleaded guilty to three counts of bank fraud. Each bank fraud count carries a maximum penalty of 30 years in federal prison. Maria Del Carmen Montes, 46, Kissimmee, was indicted, along with coconspirator Carlos Ferrer, on July 20, 2022. According to the plea agreement, Montes, coconspirator Ferrer, and others created and executed a mortgage fraud scheme targeting financial institutions. Montes assisted clients with purchasing homes and after signing the real estate contract, referred her buyers to a loan officer at a mortgage company."

"In order to qualify her clients for mortgages loans for which they were unqualified, Montes transferred the personally identifying and financial information of her clients to Ferrer and directed Ferrer to create fictitious paystubs and W-2s showing false earnings and length of employment for her clients knowing that her clients never worked for the companies on the fictitious employment documents. After Ferrer created the documents, Montes submitted the fictitious paystubs and W-2s to the financial institutions who relied on them when making underwriting decisions."

Business Insider. "Some homebuyers who decamped for the suburbs in the horrifying first months of the pandemic have come to regret their move. But as housing costs and mortgage rates hit record highs, they're stuck. John Natale, a real-estate agent based in Wall Township, New Jersey, calls this phenomenon 'drive till you qualify.' He says it used to be that he could find his clients a home in their price range in whichever county they wanted to be in. Now, because prices in exurbs have swelled since 2022, his millennial clients are being priced out of anything within striking distance of New York. 'People are adjusting one, two, maybe even three counties over just to be able to afford a house,' he said."

"Rafay Qamar, a real-estate agent in Chicago, says many of his millennial clients who left the city to buy homes in the suburbs in recent years are trying to come back. 'Some of these were rash decisions because properties were moving so aggressively, so quickly. People didn't really have a chance to shop around,' Qamar said. 'In about a year or so they're like, 'Listen, work just opened up, and this commute is terrible. We've got to sell it and go back to the city.' But in this housing market, many are stuck. They can't afford to sell their suburban homes, some of which have depreciated since the market highs in 2021 and 2022, particularly with mortgage rates so elevated. 'A lot of people are now underwater,' Qamar said."

ABC 7 in California. "Last Thursday, we learned that the only Safeway grocery store in the Western Addition of San Francisco will close. Community members and those with the NAACP are speaking out, saying if this plan goes through, this will negatively impact the city's Black community with longterm implications. Those with Safeway say they have entered into an agreement to sell the 3.68 acres site to a real estate company for a mixed-use development project, which would include housing and commercial retail space. 'They need to really do things about taking things from the inner city that we need, and then developing housing. Housing for who? The homeless? You need to do better than that,' said Norris Mays, who lives in the Western Addition."

CTV News in Canada. "An investigation is underway into a two-alarm fire early Saturday in Sage Hill. At around 12:50 a.m., crews responded to the 100 block of Sage Hill Terrace N.W. where they discovered two multi-family homes under construction on fire. A second alarm was called to bring more resources to the scene. Crews used aerial ladders and platforms to limit the spread, although the fire did spread to a third unit. Conrado Rivera lives in apartment across the street and was woken up around 2 a.m. His son's car was damaged by the heat from the fire, while the flames also impacted the outside of his apartment building. 'How can this burn like that?' Rivera asked. 'I think there is no electrical there.'"

The Telegraph in the UK. "We are still a far cry from 2020 and 2021 when, amid a stamp duty holiday, buyer demand pushed house prices to rise by nearly 20pc over the period. 'Up to around 12 or even nine months ago you could sell anything at a pretty punchy price,' says James Farrance, associate director at estate agency Braxtons in Maidenhead. 'And now it’s a case of ‘let’s put it on the market with something more sensible.’"

"Those looking to sell in the next 12 months will benefit from remembering the fundamentals of selling property, says Alex McNeil, partner at Bramleys estate agency. 'It is the traditional thing which is to make sure your house is well presented and priced correctly when you go on the market,' he says. 'Buyers will now ignore the few houses that are on the market at unrealistic prices and particularly in the average areas. So it is important to get your price right from the start.'"

Domain News in Australia. "Owners of apartments in Sydney’s defect-riddled Mascot Towers buildings have been thrown a lifeline with an offer to cancel their massive strata debts and outstanding mortgages so that they can restart their lives elsewhere. It means most will end up bearing a financial loss on their apartments by agreeing to sell their homes to a new commercial consortium, but they would then be free of their multi-year legal nightmare. Each owner would be entitled to a percentage of the yet-to-be-determined sale price, minus the repayment of the building’s strata debt – with owners having already taken out a $15.3 million strata loan to pay for some remediation work and legal costs."

"'I think it’s a good arrangement,' said one owner, university lecturer Alex Chan. 'I know we’ll lose some money but, at this stage, I don’t care. It’s like the Titanic is going down and when someone offers you a lifejacket, you don’t turn them away.'"

From CNBC. "Zhongzhi Enterprise Group filed for bankruptcy liquidation late Friday, as the Chinese shadow banking conglomerate is unable to repay its debt amid a deepening real estate crisis in the country. The company has filed for bankruptcy on the grounds that it is 'clearly' lacking the ability to repay debt and has insufficient assets to pay off its dues, according to a WeChat statement issued by Beijing's First Intermediate People's Court. The country's massive property sector has also been caught in the middle of a crackdown on shadow banking which was used by real estate companies to purchase land from local governments."

"'We do not expect a government bailout as many Zhongzhi products are non-standard wealth management products that had long been discouraged or banned by Chinese regulators; some are comparable to a Ponzi scheme,' Zerlina Zeng, senior credit analyst at CreditSights told CNBC."

The Wall Street Journal. "The bad news keeps coming for China Evergrande and its investors. A top executive of the beleaguered property giant’s electric-vehicle business has been detained as part of a criminal investigation, adding to Evergrande’s mounting problems. China Evergrande New Energy Vehicle said on Monday that Liu Yongzhuo, an executive director and the president of its automobile business, was being held by authorities 'on suspicion of illegal crimes.' It didn’t provide details or say when he was detained."

"Liu, who is in his early 40s, joined the real-estate conglomerate two decades ago. He used to be chairman of Evergrande’s soccer club, and previously held other senior positions at Evergrande’s bottled-water business and a unit that made technology investments. He became vice chairman of the electric-vehicle company, also known as Evergrande Auto, in 2020. His detention comes months after Evergrande’s 65-year-old founder and chairman, Hui Ka Yan, was placed under police surveillance for suspected crimes. In September, police in Shenzhen also detained several employees of Evergrande’s wealth-management unit."

"Evergrande’s Hui was once one of the world’s richest men, and his company was once the largest Chinese property developer by contracted sales. But years of aggressive borrowing and spending in sectors far beyond property helped push the developer into financial distress, and it defaulted on its international debt in late 2021. In 2021, Hui predicted that Evergrande would eventually emerge as a successful EV company with a smaller property business. But the conglomerate’s liquidity crisis has hampered its production plans, and by June last year Evergrande Auto had delivered just over 1,000 vehicles in total."