A report from WTBW in South Carolina. "Ted Daniels recently moved to Myrtle Beach in July 2023 from eastern Pennsylvania. He said he found his home online and put an offer in right away. 'I knew that the market was hot, so I offered asking price,' Daniels said. 'It’s not even a market right now to where you can really go in under asking price. I got a great home for the money.' 'I’ve been following the real estate trends,' Daniels continued. 'And in a period of just over six months, the house is already greatly appreciated in value, and I got it locked in at a decent interest rate, before the interest rate really started to skyrocket.'"

"The December 2023 real estate market report released by the Coastal Carolinas Association of Realtors showed new listings were up 20.1% in 2023 compared to December of 2021. Chris Ward, the broker in charge of Beach Connection Realty said luckily the company has seen an increase in inventory. 'We have a lot of new construction,' Ward said. 'And single-family residential homes on the market.' Homes in the Myrtle Beach area are also spending 10 more days on the market which is up 8.8% from last year. 'The increase in price year over year has softened a little bit compared to the previous three years,' Ward said."

The Missoulian in Montana. "Last year was an odd duck for land brokers. The pandemic years of 2021 and 2022 set records for ranch and recreational property sales and prices. As the market cooled last year, brokers had to spend more time seeking and educating sellers. 'Sellers still have that pandemic mindset,' said Ren Martyn, a Colorado broker. 'So getting back to the 2019 pre-pandemic craziness is a challenge.' Greg Fay, of Fay Ranches agreed, talking about one landowner who had a ranch that on paper seemed like a fair price at $9 million to $10 million. After looking at the property, Fay said he told the rancher he thought $11 million to $12 million would better capture the land’s subjective value. Then another broker said they could sell it for $16 million. At that price, Fay said he’s afraid the property will stay on the market. 'Our industry creates some of the problems,' he said."

The Denver Post. "Home and condo sales dropped nearly 20% last year and sales times stretched out by an additional week to 62 days on average, according to 2023 counts from the Colorado Association of Realtors. If there was an upside, it was that the craziness of the pandemic years faded in the rearview mirror. 'It was a slower year — in a healthy way,' said Cooper Thayer, a market spokesperson with the Colorado Association of Realtors and a broker with The Thayer Group in Castle Rock. 'We were coming off three incredibly hot years. It was good to see a slowdown.'"

"'My perspective is that the upper 10% of our market, the truly high-end luxury segment, still has buyers who can afford the best and their wealth lets them fly above the potential turbulence of the economy, no matter what that means. The other 90% of buyers are looking for a deal and are being cautious. We are seeing weekly price drops, mostly in the bottom 75% of the market segment and that is generating some purchases,' said Telluride-area Realtor George Harvey in the report."

The News & Advance in Virginia. "For buyers, the current market conditions offer a distinct advantage. With decreased competition, especially for homes lingering on the market for a week or more, buyers have more negotiating power, said Karl Miller, principal broker at Karl Miller Realty and they can leverage this opportunity to secure favorable terms, from concessions to closing costs. Despite a relatively stable inventory of about 350 homes for sale in Lynchburg's region, the average list price stands at a surprising $441,000. However, Miller said the homes commanding the most attention are those priced below the median, at about $340,000."

"'Buyers don't have as much competition,' he said. 'They can go in right now to the home and chances are especially if it's in the market for a week or two, chances are they're the only buyer making an offer.' That could potentially change in the spring but right now, buyers aren’t competing with other buyers. 'The probability of you competing with five other offers is very low. So you have a little bit of teeth and you can negotiate concessions or maybe negotiate repairs. The market is shifting to a buyer's favor a lot more than it was a year ago.' Miller said there are advantages for buyers in the current market climate. With reduced competition, buyers have the leverage to negotiate on price or concessions with sellers, he said."

WSB in Georgia. "A one-time payment and the home is yours. There’s no mortgage or rent, that’s the deal being advertised on Instagram. The catch is that you become a criminal – a squatter. The account states clearly they have no legal right to these homes. So, Channel 2 Action News sent hidden cameras and a Channel 2 producer in to see what really happens when you show interest in a squatter home. 'This is a criminal act. This is stealing and needs to be looked at that way,' said a property owner who asked only to be identified as David. Property owners and managers say the squatting problem has exploded over the past year in metro Atlanta. 'It’s like I gave away $200,000, I feel,' homeowner Michael Holmes said. 'It’s been a nightmare.'"

"The alleged squatter living inside has filed more than 30 motions in court to tie up Holmes’ efforts to get him out. 'If I can’t bring this to some type of resolution, I’ll be in jeopardy of filing bankruptcy,' Holmes said. 1timePaymentHomes is running a New Year’s special: $1,400 for keys and a lease so as a squatter you can 'stack money and turn ya life around.' 'It makes you feel like, ‘Why do you play by the rules if everyone doesn’t have to?’ Holmes said."

WKRN in Tennessee. "Nashville is a renter’s market. That’s a big swing from the pandemic years when Music City rents were skyrocketing. News 2 asked an expert why this pendulum is swinging in favor of renters. 'There are quite a few apartment buildings, but not quite enough people to fill them up overnight,' said Joel Sanders, CEO of Apartment Insiders. It was just two years ago the rental market was quite the opposite, with prices going 25% higher over two years; but 2024 looks very different. 'Now, somebody can move out of an older building into a brand new luxury building for less money. And so that has caused those B-class buildings to drop their rents.'"

The Real Deal on California. "Mosser Companies has defaulted on an $88 million loan tied to 12 apartment buildings with 459 units in San Francisco. The lender aims to sell the loan and properties. An unidentified lender is now working to sell the troubled loan, and has hired Cushman & Wakefield to market the portfolio of buildings in the Civic Center, Downtown and South of Market, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. Nathaniel Touboul, a real estate partner at law firm Allen Matkins, said apartment properties in San Francisco have been hit with a 'triple killer' — increased interest rates, lower occupancy rates and declining rents. 'What is happening right now is really an illustration of and a reminder that, ultimately, San Francisco is a boom-and-bust city, and real estate is cyclical in nature,' Touboul told the Chronicle."

The Daily Hive in Canada. "BC’s housing minister is weighing in on the story of a Surrey man who lost his $82,000 deposit when he couldn’t close on a pre-sale home. 'When I first heard Mr. [Sudip] Sehgall’s story it broke my heart,' Housing Ministery Ravi Kahlon told Daily Hive Urbanized. Sehgall, a Surrey resident and relatively recent newcomer to Canada, lost his deposit when rule changes in India meant he and his parents couldn’t sell their property there as expected. He says he now doesn’t have enough to afford a lawyer to pursue the matter in court. 'I’ve been ruined. Me and my elderly parents in India. Our life savings are gone,' he told Daily Hive Urbanized."

CBC News in Canada. "Pema Zela says she considered bankruptcy after her tenant refused to leave the home she owns. When Zela and her husband needed to move back into the home in Toronto's east end, she says the tenant told them he would not leave even though his lease was up, stopped paying rent and soon tried to 'make a deal' with them, asking for $50,000 to vacate the property. 'It was unimaginable to me when he first said 'No,' he won't leave. I thought: 'This is my house. How can someone do this?' Zela said. 'I had a pain in my stomach. When he asked me for money I thought: 'How dare you?'"

"The situation Zela and her husband found themselves in is called cash for keys and it's legal, with a tenant seeking or a landlord offering money for a tenant to leave peacefully and at an agreed-upon time. But paralegals and landlords say some tenants are taking advantage of long delays at the Ontario Landlord and Tenant Board, which resolves disputes between landlords and tenants, and are asking for higher cash-for-keys demands than ever before. Landlord Norma Da Silva also found herself in a cash-for-keys situation. She says her tenant requested a 'huge' amount to leave the loft she had been renting to him in Toronto's Queen West neighbourhood. It was a second property for Da Silva, a teacher, and she says she needed to sell it because rising interest rates meant she could no longer afford to cover its costs. As the closing date drew nearer, she said, her tenant told her he would not leave unless she paid him a higher amount — one she says she could not pay — and the sale could not close on time. 'I felt like it was a nightmare. Every aspect of my life started to unravel,' Da Silva said."

The Wall Street Journal on the UK. "With London luxury real-estate prices on the slide and a collapse in high-end deal volume, it has been a tough year for prime central London real estate. But the prime rental market is thriving. People in need of a London base are increasingly opting to take the flexible, minimal-commitment housing option rather than buying, and paying Britain’s high taxes, in a stalled market. Nina McDowall, head of lettings at estate agent Strutt & Parker’s office in Knightsbridge, one of London’s most expensive neighborhoods, said many of her renters are considering buying a London property but only when they find the perfect home at a great price. 'There are a lot of people who are weighing up their options,' she said. 'They might also be sitting tight to see if prices slide further.'"

Business Insider. "Chinese investors, angry about the state of their country's economy, are using an unlikely forum to vent their frustrations: A post about giraffes on the US Embassy's Weibo account. More than 165,400 comments have flooded the post on Weibo, one of China's largest social-media platforms, which details how scientists in Africa used AI and GPS to track and protect wild giraffes. Commenters have taken the opportunity to share unrelated complaints about China's flailing economy in the hope that their comments will not be deleted by Chinese censors. The Weibo account of the US embassy in China 'has become the Wailing Wall of Chinese retail equity investors,' one user wrote on the post, according to Reuters."

"'The US government, please help Chinese stock investors,' one person wrote in a repost of the Weibo article, according to CNN. Other Weibo users commented that the stock market is a 'casino' and an 'execution ground,' Bloomberg reported. 'Anger has reached an extreme level,' another Weibo user said, according to Bloomberg. Some commenters used humor and sarcasm to get around the country's strict social media restrictions. 'Arise! All giraffes who refuse to be slaves,' one person wrote, referencing the line in China's national anthem: 'Arise! All who refuse to be slaves,' according to CNN."

The Globe and Mail. "It’s not just Canada that has a housing problem. This week, China’s Evergrande Group, the country’s second-largest property developer, was ordered into liquidation by a Hong Kong court. It’s a symptom of a malaise in the country – namely, an economic model that has reached its limits. An unspoken social contract then governed relations between the ruling Communist Party and its citizens: you forego freedom, we’ll give you prosperity. The growth model it used to develop its economy was straightforward: move China’s immense population from the countryside to the cities, where it would provide a budding industrial sector with endless quantities of cheap labour."

"The problem is that when you inflate supply and not demand, deflation results. A lot of those homes or office buildings go unsold. Prices fall. Owners become insolvent. And so here we are. This dilemma won’t solve itself. Until China’s leaders confront it head-on and alter their model towards a more demand-focused one, the economy is likely to keep slowing."