A report from the Bellingham Herald in Washington. "A new Whatcom County housing development will welcome its first resident this month as the project continues construction over the next couple of years. The Church Hill Ranch neighborhood in Ferndale is expected to have 82 for-sale, single-family homes available in the development community when it is complete. 'Right now we are starting two homes a month and will continue to do that until we see a change in the market. We don’t want to overbuild, and will try to match demand as we come into the spring,' said Robert Weston of Windermere Real Estate. Two homes have already been reserved for purchase and many more are available for pre-sale, according to Weston. 'There is definitely a need for single-family homes in Whatcom County and Ferndale,' Weston said. 'The Bellingham market seems to have quite a bit of attached or townhome-style new construction available.'"

WESH in Florida. "In the Orlando area, stats give insight into how the housing market faired last year. Sales dropped an average of 20% on everything from single-family homes to townhomes. Realtor Barrett Spray says for his colleagues, 2023 was survival of the fittest. 'If you were a newer agent in the industry or one who frankly wasn't very good at their job, you didn't do well this year. There were a lot of agents who left the business and had difficulties,' Spray said."

Lamorinda Weekly in California. "It was an interesting year for buyers and sellers of residential real estate during 2023 in Lamorinda. The higher interest rates as well as a lack of supply kept the number of transactions down for the year. Sales volume was much lower in each community and the average sales price in each community moderated somewhat. Per Contra Costa Association of Realtors statistics reported for closings Jan. 1 through Dec. 31, 2023, the average Lafayette sales price was $2,230,387. This was a large decrease from the $2,456,834 in 2022. It was $2,124,266 in 2021. (It was $1,248,532 in 2013.) In Moraga, the average sales price was $2,029,624, down from $2,214,037 in 2022. In 2021 it was $1,926,353. The 2013 average was $1,147,207. "

"In Orinda the number of single-family closings was 182. A year ago it was 235. In 2021 there were 373 closings. The reported sales ranged in price from $700,000 to $4.295 million with an average price of $2,091,048. In 2022 it was $2,291,847 and in 2021 it was $2,187,385. In 2013 it was $1,240,158. In Lamorinda in 2022, 118 homes sold for over $3 million. This number dropped to 66 in 2023! In Lafayette alone, 63 sold for $3 million or more in 2022; it fell to 38 last year."

KSWB in California. "Residents in Chula Vista say that more unhoused people are setting up camp along Industrial Boulevard. City Council met to discuss the issue along the street neighboring the popular Harborside Park and Harborside Elementary School. Last Friday, the city swiped 63 tents from Industrial Blvd. along with nearly 37,000 pounds of trash. Hours later, 17 encampments were back up. As of Tuesday, the number of encampments has grown to 45; a trend taking its toll on local business. Eight-year-old Jaden Rojas practices there and says his ride to the gym is a sight no kid should see. 'I see people like with knives. I heard people shooting guns in the air, stabbing each other, just on the way there,' Rojas said."

7 News Boston in Massachusetts. "The ‘American Dream’ for Wildia Capre always centered around owning her own home. 'I wanted a piece of my city,' said Capre who immigrated to Boston as a child. In July 2022, her childhood dream came true when she closed on a multifamily building in Dorchester. However, her dream soon became her nightmare. 'Most of the cabinets, they are either broken or keyed, they barely open, they are all keyed inside,' Capre said as she walked in her empty upstairs unit. 'The microwave is completely gone.' 'Screaming, yelling, slamming doors upstairs, dropping things on the floor, breaking things upstairs and at one point she threatened to come downstairs and cave my head in,' Capre remembered. Records show police were called to the property multiple times for landlord and tenant disputes. Capre even filed for a restraining order against her renter. 'I have felt anything but safe in this house since I bought it,' Capre said."

"'If you are a corporation, it’s easier for you to deal with these types of things, you have your lawyers, you know, but when you are a first generation, you just bought your house, you basically dished out your life savings and to not have the help at all,' Capre said. Capre said she is still owed around $7,000 in back rent and wants the court to make her former tenant pay. Their court case is still ongoing. 'Things don’t just stop because people moved out of your house. The bills don’t just get paid. My mortgage still needs to get paid, the damage needs to be fixed,' Capre said. Douglas Quattrochi, the executive director of MassLandlords, said he’s also heard from many landlords who are frustrated by the legal process in the state. 'If you are looking at the courts for a quick redress you’ve done something wrong. The courts are your redress of last resort. It’s going to take a long time, you’re definitely going to lose money; you’ll never get it back,' Quattrochi said."

Biznow Dallas-Fort Worth. "After spending the last 18 months shrouded in uncertainty, many real estate professionals in North Texas were reluctant to predict how the market would perform in the new year. A deluge of new apartments coming online in Texas has already begun to dampen pricing power at DFW-area apartments, with January data from MRI Software showing rental rate growth declining by 1.2% over the last 12 months. More than 44,000 units are slated to deliver over the next two years. That trend is expected to continue, which should provide some relief for cost-burdened tenants. This is especially true in the Class-A market, which will comprise the bulk of new deliveries, said RR Living CEO Melanie French."

"'When you have a lot coming on board at one time, you’ll see that temporary drop in rates and heavy specials,' she said. 'Those that get built want to cross that 90% occupancy and get stabilized, so all of the sudden they are giving two months free.' ' We are kind of oversaturated right now with apartment dwellings in the Dallas-Fort Worth market,' said Will Pender, regional president at Adolfson & Peterson Construction. 'I do see a slowdown; I don’t see a sudden stop to it, but we’ve got to fill some of these existing units.'"

The Globe and Mail in Canada. "530 Downs Rd., Quinte West, Ont. Asking price: $829,900 (October, 2023). Previous asking price: $849,900 (September, 2023). Selling price: $820,000 (November, 2023). Previous selling price: $859,900 (July, 2023). City dwellers bought this three-bedroom house on a 2.6-acre property just north of Trenton, Ont., in July, 2023. But they soon changed their minds, finding it too far from family. In September, they put it back on the market, priced at $10,000 less than what they had paid two months prior. When buyer interest petered out and competition from other nearby homes increased, the sellers shaved another $20,000 off the asking price."

"'They didn’t automatically expect they would sell it for the same as what they got it for,' said agent Paul Lang. 'They knew they were going to have to sell it for less. Two homes came up on the same street within a week, so it was dicey. But my sellers were on top of things, and we stayed under the other guys’ price.' The sellers landed a $820,000 deal, on condition that the buyers sold their property within 45 days, which they pulled off. 'It was a long condition because they literally just listed their house the day before,' Mr. Lang said. 'We’re starting to see a lot more of this. Like the last four [properties] I’ve put offers on in the last week and a half, three of them had a condition of sale of property.'"

The Telegraph in the UK. "Expensive family homes are lingering unsold for the longest time since 2009 as sellers are forced to reduce asking prices at a record rate. Homes that cost between £500,000 and £1m are being advertised for nearly 11 weeks (75 days) before an offer is agreed, according to Hamptons estate agents. The market for these properties has had the biggest slowdown in the past year, with 2023 marking its worst year since 2009. The proportion of sellers reducing their asking prices before making a sale has reached its highest level since Hamptons’ records began in 2012."

"Although 23pc of sellers in England and Wales sold above their asking price last year, 55pc agreed to a discount. The proportion of sellers achieving at least their asking price fell to its lowest level since 2020. Hamptons said there was a mismatch between what price sellers expected to achieve and what buyers were prepared to pay, resulting in more negotiation in 2023. More price reductions are expected this month on properties that failed to sell in 2023, continuing a trend seen in December as sellers started preparing for the new year."

From AFP. "Real estate developers building the athletes' village for this year's Paris Olympics are struggling to find buyers for their apartments once the Games have finished due to a downturn in the French property market. The vast complex in the deprived Saint-Ouen suburb of northern Paris has been one of the biggest construction sites in Europe over the last four years and is now nearing completion ahead of the start of the Games on July 26. Of the 88 apartments put up for private sale by the Icade group in July 'around ten' have sold, according to an executive at the company, with prices now being reduced by around nine percent to 6,900 euros/m2."

"In a falling market, part of the challenge for developers is drawing middle-class families to an area long associated in the public mind with run-down housing estates and high crime. 'They haven't put them on sale too early, they put them on sale with prices that were too high,' Selim Mouhoubi, who runs the local Stephane Plaza real estate agency in Saint-Ouen, told AFP. 'It's always a question of price.'"

The Guardian Australia. "When Veronica and Cliff Baker poured their life savings into purchasing a $1.1m three-bedroom penthouse in Sydney, they hoped it would be where they grew old and hosted their children and grandchildren. They didn’t know that in 2019, they’d be evacuated from Mascot Towers in the city’s inner-south after cracks were discovered in the basement. Nor did they know for the next four-and-a-half years, they’d be in limbo, living in the basement of their daughter’s home while paying thousands of dollars in strata fees, repair bills and legal costs."

"Over Christmas, the state government – which certified the apartment blocks as fit for habitation – handed down a potential settlement to clear the massive debts of more than 130 apartment owners. But the Bakers – who are now in their late 70s and early 80s – say it will give them 'next to nothing' and is being rushed through to avoid creating a precedent for other poorly structured housing. 'We don’t really know what we’re being offered because it’s gone through so quickly,' Veronica says. 'How we’re going to live after this – we don’t really know. To leave us without a home at the age we are … we have no hope at all.'"

"While the Bakers don’t know what their individual lot will be worth, Chandler has indicated in meetings the total sale will be less than $42m – around a 70% loss on pre-evacuation values. If that were the case, the Bakers would be offered less than $400,000 - enough to rent another property, but not to buy. When they left their Mascot Towers property, it was valued at $2.4m. To the Bakers, the proposal comes as a bitter pill. They’ve paid off their mortgage, taken no rental assistance and never missed strata fees, which cost $8,000 a quarter. The Bakers’ son, Craig Croxford, says his elderly parents had been robbed of the 'happy, secure retirement that they had worked towards their entire lives.' 'They believed there would be speedy justice for them and other residents who had done nothing wrong … they never envisaged they’d be in this state of purgatory for five years,' he says. 'In many ways, you have more consumer protections when you purchase a fridge or a television in Sydney and it fails on you.'"

South China Morning Post. "Home prices in major Chinese cities fell at the fastest pace in almost nine years in December despite easing measures meant to spur sales, underscoring the challenge of reviving a market when buyers have lost confidence. Prices of new homes fell last month in 62 of the tracked cities, versus 59 in November. Lived-in homes saw lower prices in all 70 cities in December for the first time since October 2014. 'National new home prices in 2023 demonstrated a trend of 'rise first then fall' with a widening contraction, which implies a price-for-volume strategy has been taken in multiple cities,' said Yan Yuejin, director of Shanghai-based E-house China Research and Development Institute. 'In the past, slides in home prices were tightly regulated by the authorities in case of further impacts on the economy. But we can see some cities acquiescing or encouraging developers to offer discounts to spur sales, as it to some extent would help developers with their cash flow.'"

"'National data reflected an obvious divergence in different cities,' said Zhang Bo, chief analyst at 58 Anjuke Real Estate Research Institute in Shanghai, adding that the markets in Beijing and Shanghai were relatively resilient while lower-tier cities were still under pressure. 'Second-hand home pricing is expected to continue its falling trend in the first quarter of this year, dragged by soaring listings,' he added."