A report from Bangor Daily News. "Property values declined last year in many rural Maine towns and some surprising ones, including Cape Elizabeth and Carrabassett Valley, according to Zillow. Real estate agents in Cape Elizabeth, the Sugarloaf region and central Maine said that though they aren’t seeing a noticeable decline in property values in their areas, the declines might be a partial result of a lack of available homes right now. 'Some things are sitting for longer than they would have, and most of those, I would say, are clearly overpriced or need work, preventing buyers from taking the plunge, because it still is hard to get people in to do the work,' said Mary Libby, who owns an eponymous real estate agency based in Cape Elizabeth."

"Jeff Kennedy, the designated broker of Mountainside Real Estate in Carrabassett Valley, said sales for larger, more expensive properties have 'certainly slowed down,' he said. 'When things are priced right, they’re still selling,' Kennedy said. 'There are worse properties, particularly some of the older camps and things like that, in the area that were overpriced. We’re seeing the prices go back.'"

"Some more coastal regions in Maine that saw decreased property values from June to December last year include Brooklin, Brooksville and East Machias. But many rural, inland Maine towns also saw declines. The largest was a 3.6 percent decline in the Franklin County town of Phillips, where average home values are less than $180,000. Guilford’s homes are $30,000 cheaper, and the town saw a 3 percent decline. Prices also dropped in the rural towns of Unity and Chesterville."

Palo Alto Online in California. "Here's a look at where the Midpeninsula's housing market was last year and where it's expected to go in 2024. Despite all the catching up through the year, home prices still showed their first decline since the pandemic. The median price of a single-family home in Palo Alto declined by more than 8% to $3.3 million. All three affluent sub-neighborhoods of Palo Alto, namely Old Palo Alto (-12%), Crescent Park (-14%), and Professorville (-23%), experienced double-digit drops in median sold prices. Importantly, this decline was not attributed to a scarcity of high-priced homes but rather to a drop in actual sales. The tech industry's shake-off of excesses built during the pandemic bubble, though worrisome for layoffs, is seen as positive for the industry's long-term health."

The Denver Post in Colorado. "The date was Nov. 9, 2006. The venue was the Broomfield Event Center. The place was packed. Little could the mayor have imagined that not even 17 years later, the Broomfield Event Center — later renamed the 1stBank Center — would hold its final event. After All Elite Wrestling’s Dynamite and Rampage show on Sept. 27, the city-owned venue went dark. The 150,000-square-foot building, with curvaceous rooflines accented in red, is destined for the wrecking ball as early as June. Its demise has many causes, from a taxing district plan that failed to live up to expectations to competition from both established and newer concert venues along the Front Range. 'It never performed,' Broomfield City Manager Jennifer Hoffman said. 'It never delivered from the beginning.'"

"Then there’s the city’s own involvement with the 1stBank Center — a dynamic Hoffman, the city manager, reflects on often. The facility costs approximately $1.2 million to operate per year. 'You build it, you owe more than the building is worth,' she said, and 'then you have three years of the worst recession since Black Tuesday (in 1929). There are many excellent lessons learned for us not to have a repeat performance.' Stephanie Delaney, who was walking her dog on a recent frigid morning, has lived in Arista for about a year. More apartments, she said, 'would be a bummer.' Restaurant owner Kayla Leavitt, already missing the loss of venue traffic she used to get at the Proto’s Pizza she runs, is even more blunt about the prospect of more housing: 'Anything but apartments,' she said."

Axios on North Carolina. "Uptown's cooler, younger neighbor is stealing its prospective office workers. It's unlikely South End, where new office buildings keep opening, will experience the kind of empty cubicles and quiet hallways that buildings in other parts of town do, industry experts tell Axios. 'It is one of the anomalies in the entire office market across the country,' says James LaBar, senior vice president of economic development for Charlotte Center City Partners. A handful of large buildings may be to blame for pulling the occupancy rate down in Uptown. For example, at least five buildings are more than half empty, according to the city's report."

Bisnow New York. "Scott Rechler built the foundation of RXR Realty's $19B portfolio in the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis, buying up office buildings from owners who had fallen on hard times. Now he's looking to do it again. RXR has teamed up with Ares Management Corp. to launch a $1B fund that is seeking to acquire Manhattan office towers that have struggled to stay competitive following the pandemic's reshaping of the workplace, The Financial Times reports. The fund is already in talks to acquire $1B of office loans from banks at a discount, Rechler told the FT."

"Rechler's firm hasn't been immune to that distress itself. The firm defaulted on its $240M loan on the 790K SF office tower at 61 Broadway last year. Its lender has been marketing the loan for sale, and RXR has agreed to hand over the keys to whomever buys the building's debt. More than $32B of U.S. office loans were in distress as of the third quarter, according to data from MSCI. Another $50B of loans were marked as potentially distressed. Ares partner Craig Snyder told the FT that there has been a 'broad, indiscriminate flight of institutional capital from the office sector,' pressuring owners of buildings with maturing debt that might otherwise be healthy."

From Bloomberg. "Canada is limiting a key source of its growing population by capping the number of foreign students, a move aimed at quelling public anger at Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government over a housing shortage. The federal government on Monday set an intake cap for international student permits at about 360,000 for 2024, or a decrease of 35% from last year, according to Immigration Minister Marc Miller. The cap will remain in place for two years, with the 2025 limit to be reassessed at the end of this year. The new measures are aimed at curbing that growth, especially in colleges that Miller has accused of churning out bogus diplomas like 'puppy mills.' Students in master’s and post-doctoral programs aren’t included in the cap."

"'It’s a bit of a mess. It’s time to rein it in,' Miller told reporters in Montreal. 'It’s not the intention of this program to have sham commerce degrees or business degrees that are sitting on top of a massage parlor that someone doesn’t even go to and then they come into the province and drive an Uber.' His office has previously pointed to Ontario — where more than half of the one million visa-holders are based — as well as Nova Scotia and British Columbia as jurisdictions with unsustainable growth."

"'It’s the single biggest thing that we can do immediately to address the housing crisis,' said Mike Moffatt, senior policy director at the Smart Prosperity Institute and a former economic adviser to Trudeau from 2013 to 2015. 'We will first of all see easing pressure on the rental market. But what we’ll also see is an overnight investor say, you know what, the student market doesn’t look as attractive as it did.'"

London News Online in the UK. "Shop owners below the infamous Nestle Tower in Croydon say they are desperate for signs of real progress as they struggle to attract trade in what they say has become a ‘dead zone.’ R&F Properties, a large Chinese development company, began redeveloping the tower into more than 200 flats in 2019 after purchasing the tower and the adjoining Grade II-listed Segas House in 2017. However, the redevelopment came to an abrupt halt in 2020 and the sole remaining trace of work on the tower is the scaffolding that still encases it today."

"The few shop owners left on St George’s Walk, an arcade which runs beneath the St George’s Tower (its official name) say they feel a deep sense of uncertainty about the future. They say they often get no passing trade throughout the day. One of those shop owners, Moshin Akbary, said: 'It’s a dead place. The dilemma is that the company who were going to develop it is now not doing anything with it. This is not the St George’s Walk we want.'"

Edinburgh Evening News. "Midlothian’s MP has called for more scrutiny of the construction industry after communities were left ‘in limbo’ by the collapse of a major house builder. Owen Thompson says the uncertainty caused by the news Stewart Milne Homes has gone into administration is a blow for councils across Scotland. The news means work has stopped on 28 council homes due to be delivered as part of the new town of Shawfair, with the local authority saying it does not know when or if it will restart. Mr Thompson said already cash-strapped councils across Scotland were braced for the financial blow as they grapple with the fallout from the administration of house builder Stewart Milne."

"Unfinished council homes, unadopted roads, and snagging issues are just some of the problems that local authorities may now have to deal with in the wake of Stewart Milne’s collapse. The MP said the impact was being felt across his constituency already. He said: 'This is a major blow for Midlothian. There is now a real sense of uncertainty over a contract for 28 affordable homes in the Shawfair development, which had been undertaken in partnership with Stewart Milne Group. This is an absolute mess. People have lost their jobs and other may lose their homes. Now, with the firm’s administration, we don’t even know if those homes will ever be built. He said: “This is a major blow for Midlothian. There is now a real sense of uncertainty over a contract for 28 affordable homes in the Shawfair development, which had been undertaken in partnership with Stewart Milne Group. We need answers and support for the communities left in limbo.'"

Australian Associated Press. "More than 1300 Victorian households are waiting for their domestic insurance claims to be settled, with an unprecedented number of people seeking financial help. The collapse of builder Porter Davis and other construction companies in 2023 led to the influx of cases being referred to the state-backed insurance agency. More than 30 home owners impacted by builder collapses have now written to Premier Jacinta Allan and the Victorian Ombudsman seeking transparency over how claims are processed."

"There were more than 4849 claims submitted since the beginning of March 2023 for incomplete homes or those with defects, according to the Victorian Managed Insurance Authority. Some 213 of the 1359 outstanding claims are relate to Porter Davis and 462 were lodged on the day it collapsed. About half of the outstanding cases were submitted within the last 30 days, the authority said. The rest of the outstanding claims are connected to other companies and may include instances where the insurer has made an offer which has not yet been accepted."

"The letter sent to the ombudsman and premier over insurance concerns alleges issues such as a lack of transparency or prolonged claims which resulted in a 'double catastrophe' for those affected. 'Our collective experiences with (the authority) have been fraught with unjustifiable delays, opaque decision-making, and outcomes that are unreasonable, oppressive, and grossly unfair,' the letter says. Opposition home ownership and housing affordability spokesman Evan Mulholland said hundreds of people had been let down by an 'unfair and protracted' insurance process. 'The last thing any victim of a home builder collapse should face is delay as they try to get their life back on track and achieve their dream of buying a home,' he said."

From Lifestyle Asia. "A mansion on the Peak just sold for HKD 833 million (USD 107 million). The ultra-luxury home sold at over a 35% discount from its previous valuation of HKD 1.3 billion back in October. The mansion in question is a two-storey, 11,687 sq ft home located on 25-26 A&B Lugard Road. The selling price means that the square foot price for this transaction was roughly HKD 71,000 amidst a real estate slump in Hong Kong."

South China Morning Post. "Embattled mainland Chinese developer Country Garden Holdings has put a chunk of assets on the block in Guangzhou in a bid to repay sizeable debt due within the next six months. The move comes on the heels of an agreement struck last week by the developer's subsidiary to sell its last investment in Australia. 'At the moment, investors in the mainland, especially those owned by the state, still have plenty of dry powder, so they might consider [picking up] property projects, especially the good ones,' said Shen Meng, a director at Beijing-based investment firm Chanson & Co. 'One main thing to consider is whether the listing prices are attractive enough. In Country Garden's case, there will definitely be room for negotiation.'"

"The assets - two office towers, a hotel, a residential building and commercial property - have a combined base price of 3.82 billion yuan (US$530 million), marking Country Garden's most ambitious attempt at divestments in the city."

The Times of India. "There is no denying now that China's economy, the world's second largest, is in deep crisis. China's economy grew 5.2% in 2023, slightly above the official target, but the recovery was far shakier than many analysts expected, weighed down by the mounting local government debt and deepening property crisis. This week, stock markets in China and Hong Kong have plummeted to their lowest levels in several years, as faith in the world's second-largest economy has dissipated and international investments have withdrawn. This downturn coincides with data indicating faltering economic growth and a worsening crisis in the real estate sector."

"Secondhand home prices in China's four wealthiest cities dropped by 11% to 14% in December from a year ago, according to Centaline Property. Developers defaulted on about $125 billion of overseas bonds between 2020 and late 2023, according to S&P Global Ratings. More than 50 developers, mostly private ones, have gone bust. Some local governments, which rely on land sales for income, have hidden debt worth up to $800 billion, according to some estimates. In the latest data from the NBS, 62 out of 70 cities witnessed a decrease in home prices on a monthly basis, marking an increase from the 59 cities in November."

"This has forced real estate developers to restore unusual and bizarre marketing strategies. According to a Wall Street Journal report, a real estate firm in Tianjin aired a video commercial with the tagline 'buy a house, get a wife for free.' This was a clever twist on the phrase 'buy a house, and give it to your wife,' utilizing identical Chinese characters but structured in a manner commonly associated with offering complimentary items to home purchasers. In September, the firm received a penalty of $4,184 due to the advertisement."