A report from Patch New York. "Turns out it's not just Knicks management who sometimes make pricey deals that don't pay off. Former New York Knicks player Samuel Dalembert recently sold off an Upper East Side investment property for a $3.3 million loss, records show. The 6-foot-11 inch, Haitian-born Dalembert had bought 1134 First Ave., between East 61st and 62nd streets, a decade ago for $8.7 million. He eventually sold the now-vacant building Feb. 16 for $5.4 million — a multimillion dollar brick for the hoops star and would-be real estate investor."

From Fortune. "Hurricanes and homeowners' associations have cooled Florida’s hot condo market. Condo homeowners have been forced to lower their listing prices to offload their properties a Redfin report shows. Condo prices in Jacksonville dropped nearly 7% year-over-year, while Miami’s decreased almost 3%. Jacksonville, Miami, and Orlando condos have seen the most significant price drops during the past year, according to Redfin data. Jacksonville condo owners slashed prices 6.5%, Miami prices dropped 2.5%, and Orlando’s fell nearly 5%. And real estate investor Elena Nuñez Cooper says that condos don’t typically have a cap on HOA fees, and many people can buy a single-family home for 'less than what most luxury condos cost, not even including HOA fees.' Especially for millennials, 'an ever-increasing HOA fee may not be feasible for budget reasons versus a home price that’s locked in via a mortgage,' Cooper says."

The Sahan Journal on Minnesota. "Haji Osman Salad was running a business in December 2020 purporting to cook thousands of meals to feed needy children, raking in hundreds of thousands of dollars each month in government reimbursements. Haji, 34, ultimately received more than $16 million in reimbursements from the federal child nutrition program, according to a federal indictment charging him with wire fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and money laundering. With money pouring in, he turned to real estate investment in early 2021. That was poor timing for Deming Lai and Xiaoling Chen, a Chinese-immigrant couple who were about to close on their first home. The couple had been preapproved for a mortgage and planned to move into a four-bedroom, 1,700-square-foot home in March 2021."

"But their planned transaction never materialized. Instead, the family ended up paying more money for less stability in a haphazard contract for deed transaction. Haji purchased the house in question for $261,000 by using a cashier’s check from his business, Haji’s Kitchen. Then, he turned around and sold the modest one-story home in Blaine to Lai and Chen on the same day for a marked-up rate of $290,000—nearly $30,000 more than he had paid for it. Lai and Chen didn’t know that Haji had allegedly used stolen money to buy the house. He is one of 70 defendants charged with defrauding the federal government in a widespread food-aid fraud scheme known as the Feeding Our Future scandal. Prosecutors say the alleged scheme cost the government more than $250 million in federal funds that were supposed to feed underprivileged children during the COVID-19 pandemic."

The Real Deal on California. "Solar farm developer Clinton Brown has allegedly defaulted on a loan at a Calabasas site where he wants to build a 200-home subdivision, The Real Deal has learned. The property, at 27250 Agoura Road, is currently on the market for $29 million, according to a listing on Zillow and other websites. The vacant lot covers 27.4 acres perched atop the Calabasas hills. Three-bed, two-bath homes in the planned complex are already up for sale at nearly $1.1 million, based on the company’s website. The alleged default adds to the roster of distressed residential development sites in the Los Angeles market."

The Mercury News in California. "A section of a massive East Bay development that would create a new mixed-use neighborhood has flopped into a loan default. The land in default is located in San Leandro and is a key portion of the Monarch Bay Shoreline development that has been in the planning and approval stages for years. All told, the development site would span 75 acres in a scenic stretch of San Leandro’s shoreline along and near Monarch Bay Drive between Marina Boulevard and Fairway Drive. Now, however, a $24.9 million loan for 15.9 acres of land is in default and could be seized by its lender, according to documents filed on Feb. 20 with the Alameda County Recorder’s Office. In an extra complication, the city of San Leandro is the lender. On the 15.9-acre site affected by the loan default, Cal-Coast Development has proposed the construction of 206 for-sale houses, consisting of 144 single-family residences and 62 townhouses. By all accounts, 2023 was also a tough year for developers to obtain construction financing and 2024 so far isn’t looking much more accommodating."

The Tennessean. "Looking for an apartment in the Nashville area? Move-in deals and concessions are increasingly common because so many apartments aren't being rented. The area's average rental vacancy rate of 10.8% is the highest in 20 years, according to Zumper. 'The 12-month net absorption totals 5,000 units, much lower than the market’s historical average of 12,000 units,' Matthews senior associate Sam Jackson wrote in a 2023 multifamily market analysis. 'This slowdown in absorption comes at a time of a near-record pipeline of 22,000 units under construction, causing the vacancy rate to rise to a new record high.' Multifamily development is expected to slow into 2025 as the oversupply is absorbed, said downtown Nashville developer Tony Giarratana."

Bisnow Washington DC. "Suburban office is a four-letter word right now. These properties, no longer in tune with how people are choosing to work, are becoming increasingly obsolete, and building after building is falling into distress. But figuring out what to do with those standalone office parks and how to transition them into the future is challenging, especially for an area like Northern Virginia’s Reston and Herndon suburbs, where low-lying office parks line the landscape. Developers say many suburban office properties in the area will likely be demolished."

The Squamish Chief in Canada. "Squamish was a lot like the rest of the Lower Mainland in terms of the way the 2023 real estate market tracked, according to Andrew Lis, the director of economics and data analytics with Greater Vancouver Realtors (GVR), which was formerly the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver. Lis said some potential buyers are likely struggling to qualify. 'If you have a property that's a lower price, it's a very nice property, it's priced well, it will probably sell very quickly; if you're holding out for a very high price, your property might sit on the market for quite a while,' he said."

"Using the MLS Home Price Index (HPI), Lis said the detached housing sales segment of the Squamish market is up about 2% year over year. 'This masks a decline from a peak point in July where the price of about … $1.7 million and now it's down to about $1.5 million, which was a fairly significant decline from the peak point of the market,' he said, noting that in smaller communities these figures can be bumped easily by a few sales, so, it isn't a perfect measurement."

From Bloomberg on the UK. "A South African developer’s £110 million ($140 million) bet on a luxury plot of land in London has turned sour, with the property changing hands at a discount that was one of the city’s steepest last year. Zenprop Property Holdings Pty sold the Kensington site for about £80 million to hotel operator Arora Group at the end of 2023, after high inflation and a wider sales slump thwarted its plan to build a luxury retirement village, according to people familiar with the matter."

From News.com.au. "A building company has collapsed after a long, drawn-out death, placing the fate of at least a dozen projects into jeopardy. On Wednesday, the Victorian Supreme Court ordered Apex Homes Australia Pty Ltd to go into liquidation. News.com.au previously reported that Apex Homes appeared on the brink of collapse after construction work had stalled for months. Although at the time the company told news.com.au they were battling the winding up application and had employed solicitors to fight the case but in Wednesday’s hearing, no-one from Apex Homes appeared. Customers reported the company’s telephone line being disconnected in recent days and a port-a-loo had been removed from a build site."

"Another family who are building with the construction firm said their house had been stuck up at the lockup stage for months with no end in sight. 'I talked to all my contractors on site. Literally everybody is owed money,' Alan* told news.com.au. Jessica* and her partner moved from overseas to Melbourne and embarked on a journey to build their dream home, but say their experience with Apex has been far from ideal. 'I have an ongoing joke that we may as well buy a fancy tent and just move onto the cement pad and live,' Jessica said."

The Bangkok Post in Thailand. "SET-listed L.P.N. Development aims to generate revenue of 4.5-5 billion baht from its condo inventory totalling 11 billion baht by offering discounts, as the carrying cost of inventory is 4% per year, says the new top executive. Chief executive Apichart Kasemkulsiri said the key reason the company is focused on clearing inventory this year is to rebalance stakeholders' wealth. As of the end of 2023, LPN had condo inventory totalling 11 billion baht, comprising around 5,000 units ready to move in, capable of generating revenue upon sale. The largest portion of unsold units is in two projects in Cha-am, Phetchaburi, completed in 2018, with 330 units remaining unsold out of 660 total units. 'The property sector is no longer a sunrise business. It can be described as a giant fish eating large, medium and small fish,' he said. 'As a mid-sized fish, we need to rebalance and cash in as much as possible.'"

South China Morning Post. "Hong Kong has scrapped all its decade-old property market curbs in a drastic bid to revive the ailing sector, after the city's home prices fell for nine straight months dragging the official home price index down to a seven-year low. Analysts say these measures are unlikely to trigger a rebound in prices, as the prevailing weakness has been due to elevated borrowing costs, a sluggish economy, and a bloated supply pipeline. The restrictions, combined with rising interest rates and the economic malaise over the pandemic period, halted the bull run, with median home prices plunging by about 21 per cent from their 2021 peak. Prices fell 7 per cent last year, dropping another 1.6 per cent last month."

"Lifting all property market curbs will help the transaction volume to rebound gradually back to the level of 4,000-5,000 transactions per month, according to Martin Wong, director and head of research and consultancy for Greater China at Knight Frank. 'But it will not lead to the home prices to rebound immediately,' Wong said. 'There is already abundant supply in the market now and with the removal of SSD, it will further boost secondary market supply.'"