A report from Island News in Hawaii. "Oahu's housing market has started to cool down, and there are areas such as the North Shore where prices have dropped dramatically. The Honolulu Board of Realtors tells Island News that single-family homes on the North Shore have seen the largest decline in median sales price, with a 20% drop to $1.4 million. The area also saw a 41% decline in the amount of homes sold. These figures compare year-to-date December 2023 prices and sales to the same time period a year ago. 'This is a really interesting market that we're in right now,' Fran Gendrano, president of the Honolulu Board of Realtors, told Island News. 'We haven't seen something like this in 20 years and I always believe that there's balance. There's cause and effect. There's balance in marketplace with supply and demand and home ownership is for everybody.'"

KVUE in Texas. "Research from the Austin Board of Realtors shows the median Austin-Round Rock housing price for 2023 was $450,000, 10.2% lower than the previous year. December 2023 also saw a decrease in closed listings and homes stayed on the market for approximately 84 days compared to 75 days in the previous year.' 'Housing is the most crucial infrastructure within a community,' said 2024 ABoR president Kent Redding. 'Our housing market is still demand driven and the anomalies over the past three years were unsustainable.'"

The Sacramento Bee in California. "One of the most remarkable homes in the Sacramento region — a modern hilltop estate with a resort-like, infinity-edge pool that wraps around the entire back of the estate — sold Wednesday for just over $2 million. The El Dorado County estate is stacked with extraordinary features. Built in 2012, the high-tech home sits on 40 private acres surrounded by oak woodland. 'My jaw dropped when I first saw the photos of this property due to the quality of construction and sweeping views of the valley,' Sacramento appraiser and housing market expert Ryan Lundquist told the Sacramento Bee last summer when the home first listed for $3.65 million."

Bakersfield.com in California. "Bakersfield's apartment market notched a come-from-behind win for investors in 2023, though it's questionable whether it will manage to pull off another gain this year, according to a year-in-review report and forecast from local brokerage ASU Commercial. Thurston reported the number of units that sold in Bakersfield declined by more than a quarter as vacancies increased and rent growth slowed dramatically. Plus, in a sign of unrealistic expectations by investors, the number of properties listed for sale rose from 23 in the spring to 55 by Dec. 31, which ASU multifamily specialist Marc Thurston attributed to 'mixed signals coming from the marketplace.' 'Buyers could be selective about where they invested, while sellers tended to ignore the market signals and, in many cases, sought unachievable prices,' he wrote."

The New York Post. "Blackstone defaulted on the $308 million mortgage on a Manhattan office tower more than a year ago — and the debt is now up for sale at a discount of more than 50%. Special servicer Midland Loan Services was hired by brokerage Jones Lang LaSalle to sell Blackstone’s loan, which is backed by 1740 Broadway, a 26-story Art Deco-style tower between 55th and 56th streets, according to Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the matter. The skyscraper has been losing value since 2014, when the mortgage was originated and 1740 Broadway was appraised at $605 million, according to loan documents reviewed by Bloomberg. Brokerage Jones Lang LaSalle was hired to sell Blackstone’s defaulted New York City loan. It’s packaging the $308 million debt into a commercial mortgage-backed security and selling it at a 51% discount."

"At the time, Blackstone’s EQ — its US office portfolio company — had just bought the 600,000-square-foot property from real-estate investment trust Vornado. It was reportedly full of tenants paying below-market rents, with a source telling The Post that EQ 'overpaid for the building by at least $100 million.' The debt was sent to special servicing in March 2022, when Blackstone shocked the real-estate world by transferring a $308 million loan on the building. 'How could one of the world’s biggest landlords quit on a relatively modest $308 million loan, after they spent a fortune on modernizing the building with a new lobby and restaurant?' one observer mused to The Post at the time."

The Globe and Mail in Canada. "Onlookers have been busily predicting the outlook for real estate in 2024, but one hangover from 2023 still looms over the market: observers say a remarkably high number of homes are still being sold under power of sale. Most mortgage agreements allow the lender to force the sale of a property if a borrower fails to make required payments. 'Most of the stuff you’re seeing now is reno flips gone bad,' said Ron Butler, broker and owner of Butler Mortgage Inc., referring to homes that appear to have racked up big debts to renovate and upgrade to attract a higher-end buyer. 'What we’re seeing here is the collapse of speculation: it takes a while to collapse; it’s never instantaneous … there’s a policy point where the lender says ‘let’s cut our losses.’"

"In the greater Toronto region – the country’s largest real estate market – there are dozens of power of sale listings, and more being added all the time with a surge of new court filings in the new year. The home at 61 Shannon Blvd. is for sale by lender Vault Capital Inc., listed with an asking price of $3.599-million. In early 2023, it sat unsold for three months after being listed for $5.398-million. According to property records, it was transferred to Brampton-based Emerald Buildings Investment Ltd. for $2.050-million in 2019. In March, 2022, Vault Capital lent $1.64-million against the property (a sum that was added to with subsequent refinancings) at the peak of the valuation bubble in Ontario real estate. Now, Vault is seeking repayment of $2.8-million, which is on top of another almost $2.9-million registered against the property by a variety of numbered companies, individuals and other lenders."

"Regardless of how much it may have cost Emerald to renovate the Shannon house, realtor Scott Ingram doubts it could ever have attained the sale price it needed to break even. 'In the history of Trinity-Bellwoods (and Little Portugal beside it, where this one is close to) there have only ever been three sales over $5-million,' said Mr. Ingram, a realtor with Century 21 Regal Realty Inc. He says those $5-million properties were either significantly bigger or more unique than Shannon, and, in his opinion, the house might more realistically be priced at about $3-million. 'Unfortunately for them, the market doesn’t care how much you paid for it, or put into it, or how much money you need. It cares about how much it’s worth.'"

The Evening Standard. "Half of homes that changed hands in England and Wales last year sold after a price reduction, according to new data from Hamptons. Its review of the 2023 property market found that only 22 per cent of London homes sold above asking price – down 11 per cent on the previous year. Only Wales saw a lower percentage of the ten regions surveyed. While a wave of multi-million pound price cuts on London mansions hit the headlines in the autumn, January tends to see the deepest discounts at more pedestrian price tags from sellers that fail to get deals over the line before the end of the year. And this year looks set to offer even bigger discounts than usual for those who can get a mortgage in place. Here are ten London homes with hefty price cuts, from a Spitalfields flat down £100k to Notting Hill and Maida Vale townhouses now well under a million."

"Maida Vale, W9. Was £1m, now £795,000. A four-double bedroom house with garden, close to the canal and ten minutes from the Tube. There's well over 1,000 square feet of space here, though some modernisation is required. Notting Hill, W10. Was £1.1m, now £875,000, A newly modernised three-bedroom, three-bathroom townhouse tucked away on a turning off Latimer Road, on the border with Ladbroke Grove. There are several Tube stations in range and no onward chain."

From News.com.au. "A building company has appointed administrators and all work has urgently been paused, plunging nearly 100 homeowners into limbo. On Monday, Victorian-based building firm Montego Homes Pty Ltd went into voluntary administration. Sam Kaso and Shaun Matthews of insolvency firm Cor Cordis have been appointed as the administrators and halted all construction work while they desperately hunt for a buyer. The building firm, with headquarters in South Melbourne, has reportedly left 90 homeowners in the lurch. A further 11 people, who were staff at the business, also have an uncertain future. On its still-active website, Montego Homes styles itself as a company offering house and land packages 'across Australia.' There are currently 21 active listings for the different house designs it offers. 'Build, buy, finance' is its motto."

The Inquirer. "The night before China’s civil service exam, Melody Zhang anxiously paced up and down the corridor of her dormitory, rehearsing her answers. Only when she got back to her room did she realize she had been crying the whole time. Zhang was hoping to start a career in state propaganda after more than 100 unsuccessful job applications in the media industry. With a record 2.6 million people going for 39,600 government jobs amid a youth unemployment crisis, she didn’t get through. 'We were born in the wrong era,' said the 24-year-old graduate from China’s top Renmin University. 'No one cares about their dreams and ambitions anymore in an economic downturn. The endless job-hunting is a torture.'"

"Vincent Li, the owner of a high-end coffee shop in Shanghai, took a one-two punch that he says knocked him out of the middle class. As Chinese cut spending, they prefer cheaper coffee. And the two apartments he bought for 4 million yuan ($558,612) in 2017 on the touristy Hainan island haven’t attracted any renting or buying interest in three years. 'The property market is saturated,' Li said."

"In China, 96 percent of the roughly 300 million urban households owned at least one apartment in 2019, according to the latest central bank data. A third owned two, and a tenth owned more. About 70 percent of household savings are invested in property. In some cities, apartments have lost two thirds of their value since the real estate market downturn began in 2021, property agents said, making their owners feel less wealthy and slash their spending."