A report from The Day. "The leader of the Ledyard-based Eastern Connecticut Association of Realtors sees signs that single-family home prices in the region may not be jumping by double digits this year, as they had for much of the past several years. 'I see the trend going down on how much single-family prices are going up,' said Susy Hurlbert, president of ECAR. Hurlbert pointed out that the median price of a single-family home locally last year was $340,000, the highest ever recorded by ECAR, which tracks New London and Windham counties. By comparison, the highest annual median home price recorded before the last local real estate bubble was $255,000 in 2007, one year before the nation's financial collapse related to the subprime mortgage crisis. 'We're in a completely different situation,' Hurlbert added. 'There's no sign of a bubble.'"

The Los Angeles Times. "In the last decade, investors and home buyers from outside the area have poured into Leimert Park, driving up prices and irritating some residents concerned about the gentrification of the historic Black neighborhood — and their peace of mind. To some extent, such pitches occur all over Southern California, but Leimert Park residents said the inquiries reached a peak over the last few years as home prices soared and have generated fear that some people are being taken advantage of. Gwendolyn Jones, a 74-year-old Leimert Park resident said most of the offers she's received for her house have been fair, at over $1 million, but two were for around $550,000. 'Why would you think I would be stupid enough to sell you my house for that?' Jones said."

"Since 2015, average single-family home prices across L.A. County have risen 89%, according to Zillow. During the same time, values more than doubled in Leimert Park, climbing 132% from $413,857 to an average of $960,708 in December. Not all longtime residents are bothered. Rossanna Taylor, who bought her house in 1993, is among the unbothered. She also shared a unique perspective on how the requests make her feel. 'I think I am in demand,' she said on a recent afternoon, standing in the doorway of her 1941 home that Redfin values at nearly $1 million."

The San Diego News. "In Spring, 2020, when governments around the world – in an unprecedented move to contain a virus – shut down work, schools, commerce, travel, commuting, congregating, church services, restaurant dining and drinking, exercising in gyms, parks, beaches, sports, and holidays. Then the remarkable happened: A home-buying frenzy like no other in real estate history. According to the California Association of Realtors, from June 2020 to May 2022, the median price of an existing single-family home in California shot up from $626,170 to a peak of $900,170. That’s an increase of 44% in less than two years. In La Mesa, excluding Mount Helix, the median price of a home in 2020 was $655,000. In 2022, the median price of a La Mesa home was $872,000 – an increase of 33%."

"In Mount Helix, the median price of a home in 2020 was $860,000. In 2022, the median price of a home in Mount Helix shot up to $1.3M – an increase of 51%! A possible theory for Mount Helix outperforming other housing markets is 2020 was a year of civil unrest, protests, riots, and increasing homelessness. Mount Helix notably benefited from the great city exodus of 2020 – 2022. In 2020, the mortgage (principal + interest) for a $1M home with 20% down would have been $3,236 at 2.68% interest. That same house, now at 7.15% interest, would cost you $5,403 (principal + interest). That’s an extra $2,167 per month every month going toward nothing."

Go Banking Rates. "Realtor.com economist Jiayi Xu said there has been a positive uptick in homebuyers’ and sellers’ activities. 'The recent rise in listing activity suggests that sellers are closely monitoring mortgage rates and adjusting their selling strategies accordingly,' said Xu. Against this backdrop, some locations are seeing an uptick in inventory, such as Cape Coral, Fla., which saw an eye-popping 99.3% year-over-year inventory increase, according to Realtor.com."

The Real Deal on Texas. "When Mike Bergthold took the stand in a Travis County courtroom this week, he made no secret about the challenges he faced last month as StoryBuilt’s receiver. 'Frankly, a lot of the things we’re uncovering are inexplicable,' he said, referring to the forensic accounting he and his team have been executing on the failed builder’s books. Bergthold took over StoryBuilt’s estate last summer after the Austin-based developer suddenly crumbled, running out of cash and leaving a massive development pipeline in the lurch."

"At the start of StoryBuilt’s receivership, the developer’s principals and investors assured Bergthold that the business still had tremendous value as a going concern. Its operations and portfolio were worth selling as a unit, rather than piece-by-piece, they told him. After careful scrutiny by the receiver and would-be buyers, though, that first impression appears incorrect. After several months of marketing the company, it became clear it would not sell as a going concern. The offers the company received included significant discounts the receiver couldn’t accept. The receiver spent months trying to protect StoryBuilt’s properties from foreclosure. Several investors have decided not to work with the receiver; instead they will sue over their investments in certain projects. As it turns out, most of StoryBuilt’s developments are worth less than their secured debt, Bergthold wrote in his latest report."

The Globe and Mail. "The Globe calculated mortgage payments in more than 20 markets tracked by the Canadian Real Estate Association. The analysis relies on estimates of the price of a typical home in February, 2022, and in December, 2023, the latest available data. For an estimate of mortgage payments for today’s buyers, The Globe used a 5.29 per cent rate, the current lowest five-year fixed rate. The calculations assume buyers have a 20-per-cent down payment and will take 25 years to pay off the mortgage."

"Those steep price declines are mostly found in Ontario. In Cambridge, for example, where prices have dropped 28 per cent from their peak, a buyer today would likely face monthly mortgage payments around $300 lower for a typical home. Buyers will find similar conditions in London, Waterloo, Hamilton and Oakville. The province also dominates the ranking of markets where prices have fallen by around 20 per cent, which currently produces mortgage payments that are roughly equal to those buyers faced two years ago, before the central bank began raising rates. Chilliwack, B.C., is the only city outside of Ontario among those analyzed to also exhibit these conditions."

Collingwood Today in Canada. "The Towns of Thornbury development has fallen into receivership and will soon be sold to the highest bidder. The prominent development adjacent to the Foodland grocery store has been under construction for several years and was recently placed into receivership by Ontario Superior Court Justice Peter J. Cavanagh. The project’s lenders, Foremost Mortgage Holding Company and Foremost Financial Corporation, asked the court to place the property in receivership after the property’s owner defaulted on mortgage payments. Foremost says it is owed $8.8 million on the property, with costs and interest continuing to accrue."

"CollingwoodToday spoke to one local resident who had purchased a home in the Thornbury Towns development, who asked that her full name not be used in this story. After purchasing a unit in 2020, she described a stressful situation and multiple delays waiting for her home to be finished and having to move several times when it didn’t happen. She said the final straw for her was a request for the builder on a Monday for another $100,000 for the project to be paid that Friday. She pulled out of the project in May 2023 and said the deadline for her deposit to be returned was the end of January 2024. She is now renting a home in Thornbury. 'The stress was so much, I took time off. And pulled out of the project,' she said."

Sky News in the UK. "When Chris Hayes bought his first property in 2017 aged just 28, he didn't realise the decision would 'ruin his life.' The flat, in central Manchester, was newly built when he moved in. But within a year water started leaking from the 'badly built roof' and he is now facing a £170,000 bill to repair it. The 34-year-old says paying that would leave him 'homeless, bankrupt and possibly even jobless,' as going bankrupt would disqualify him from his profession in financial services. But Chris, not the developer, is liable for the costs under the terms of his lease - the 'feudal' arrangement that allows someone to buy a property on land or in a building they don't own. 'The biggest mistake of my life was buying this flat,' he said. 'It's basically ruined my life.' Chris said he complained about the roof leaking as far back as 2018 but 'nothing was done to rectify this' and the problems are now so bad, the insurance provider 'is refusing to pay out.'"

7 News in Australia. "Housing prices in one picturesque area on the NSW coast have dropped by up to $187,000 in the past year, according to new data revealing the beachside suburbs where values have fallen the most. Home values across the 25 oceanfront suburbs — mostly located on the NSW Central Coast, Sydney’s Northern Beaches and the Mornington Peninsula in Victoria — fell between $32,000 and $187,000. Buyers looking to snap up a cheaper beachside home can turn to Forrester Beach on the Central Coast, where prices had the biggest decline of 11.4 per cent to $1.46 million in 2023, according to PopTrack data."

"Other areas include Wamberal and Avoca Beach on the Central Coast, where prices dropped $135,900 and $89,600 year-on-year to an average median value of $1,657,000 and $1,609,000 respectively. Prospective buyers in Victoria stand to save the most in McCrae on the Mornington Peninsula, where the median home value decreased by $79,000 to $1.13 million. These areas were very popular during the pandemic as lifestyle locations offering tree and sea-change escapes boomed, explained PopTrack senior economist Angus Moore. 'They were among the strongest performing regions for their respective cities,' he told 7NEWS.com.au."

South China Morning Post. "While Hong Kong's real estate sector is not in a crisis like its counterpart in mainland China, sluggish home sales, falling home prices and record-high office vacancy rates have weighed on companies and individuals. Dwindling transactions and falling prices have also made it harder to find buyers, especially for properties tarnished by foreclosures. A US$192 million mansion on The Peak, linked to top China Evergrande Group executive Hui Ka-yan, has been on the block since November last year. Meanwhile, Evergrande's US$1.6 billion building in Wan Chai has yet to find a buyer 15 months after it was seized and put on the market by receivers. PACM has seen a 20 per cent increase in defaults year on year, according to Francis Ng, managing director of Pacific Aegis Capital Management Group (PACM), a Hong Kong-based company specialising in real estate private debt investment. 'It's taking a lot longer to liquidate loans that are secured by real assets,' he said. 'I think it's taking about twice the time it needs. And exit prices need to be further adjusted down.'"

"'Before mid-2023, it used to be a borrowers' market in Hong Kong, but the turnover has been dropping since then,' said Kenny Chung, executive director and money manager at Astera Capital. 'Borrowers are scared of rising rates, while lenders also turned more cautious with property valuations falling fast. They would rather wait for more signs of stabilisation in the property market before deploying their money.'"

From Reuters. "In the heart of the northern Chinese city of Shijiazhuang, a fence displaying the slogan 'Happy Every Day' hides an unfinished apartment complex, a daily reminder of the unresolved costs of the collapse of China’s once-largest developer. Construction on the Central Plaza project that promised buyers about 1,800 new homes stalled in 2021 after China Evergrande Group defaulted. A government notice on the site says the project is seeking a new developer. Buyers, who paid in full years ago, have been stuck watching and waiting for a lifeline."

"'We seem to have no way of resolving this issue,' said a 38-year-old Shijiazhuang resident, who bought two still-unfinished units for more than $350,000 in 2017 and who asked not to be named. Evergrande has said it would work to finish ongoing projects despite the order. China has said that completing the unfinished homes is a policy priority. But the project in Shijiazhuang, an industrial city with about 11 million people, shows the scale and difficulty of working through the overhang of unfinished construction left by Evergrande and just how much its downfall has damaged confidence."

"'This has made me lose faith in the housing authorities' management capabilities as well as real estate,' the Evergrande home buyer told Reuters. The Shijiazhuang resident waiting for work to resume on the Central Plaza project said buying a new apartment in China was just too risky. He regrets not putting the money he committed to the project to buy a property in Tokyo or Osaka. 'I will never invest in this place again,' he told Reuters."