A report from the Daily Mail. "New York City real estate developer Nir Meir and other industry executives were indicted for stealing $86 million from investors through a failed luxury apartment development. Meir, 49, and several other executives from HFZ Capital Group were charged with varying counts of larceny, conspiracy, falsifying business records, tax fraud, money laundering and more on Wednesday. Prosecutors said Meir and the others stole over $86 million from investors, subcontractors and New York City through a series of frauds and schemes that began in 2015.The district attorney's case focuses largely on failed development called The XI along the High Line in Chelsea, which they said Meir used to steal $37 million."

The Des Moines Register in Iowa. "Johnston developer Daniel Pettit sent flowers to Dana and Jerry Ogden after the 2021 loss of their 27-year-old son to fentanyl poisoning ― a gesture that Dana Ogden said moved the grieving California couple deeply. Two-and-a-half years later, the Ogdens are among numerous investors and lenders from across the country wondering if they will ever recoup a large sum of money they gave Pettit in an investment deal gone bad. Ogden said Johnston police appear to be investigating her allegations that Pettit never repaid her and her husband the $60,000 he persuaded them to invest in a West Des Moines apartment development deal."

"Ogden said she told Pettit that she and her husband needed out of the Sugar Creek deal. 'I said, ‘We are tapped out emotionally, physically and mentally. Please, let us walk,' she said. He said, 'No problem'… . It took two months, but everybody signed the legal paperwork on the dotted line. Then the money never came.'"

From NPR. "Seventeen facilities owned by a Peoria-based nursing home and assisted living company are now in foreclosure proceedings after lenders allege a combined $51 million in debts went unpaid. Petersen Health Care entered foreclosure proceedings with X-Caliber Funding and Capital Funding in two separate federal court cases last month. The story was first reported by the Peoria Journal Star. A complaint filed Jan. 23 in the Illinois Northern District Court by X-Caliber Funding said Petersen Health Care defaulted on loans on Dec. 29, 2023. They're demanding a little more than $31.2 million. 'Upon Plaintiff’s review of Defendants’ books and records since that time, it became apparent that Defendants were actually diverting cash from their facilities to float operations at other facilities under common ownership and claiming an inability to pay the current expenses of the facilities,' the attorneys wrote."

The Asbury Park Press in New Jersey. "David Wellington owns two properties on Myrtle Avenue in Keansburg. One is an unoccupied bungalow that he had raised and renovated. The other is a vacant after he tore its bungalow down with a goal of building a bigger house. He needs variances to proceed, but since the summer, both projects are on hold over questions from the borough’s planning board about whether the properties have merged. 'It’s become more of a personal issue now where I stepped out of line because I challenged them,' Wellington said, 'so they’re going to try to make it difficult for me until I run out of money and I’m going to sit there with two pieces of property, two pieces of land that I can’t use.'"

Local 10 in Florida. "Residents on North Bay Village’s Harbor Island captured a scary situation on video when high winds blew heavy construction debris from a stalled high-rise project onto a park, adjacent to a playground. During a Sunday storm, metal scaffolding from the 21-story 7918 West Drive project, located at the aforementioned address, blew onto nearby Dr. Paul Vogel Community Park, landing right next to a playground. City officials said the project became dormant, with 'no explanation,' in December. Jose Gonzalez took photos of the 'very big' pile of debris afterward. 'If you are going to stop building, at least keep everything safe,' Gonzalez said."

The Wall Street Journal. "Houses in Austin that rented for $5,000 or $8,000 a month now lease for as much as 20% off. In Chicago, some amenity-packed apartment towers with a new building smell offer months of free rent. The surplus of new housing is driving down prices at the top of the market. In Austin, rents are falling fastest in areas near downtown that have filled up with pricey new apartments and townhomes. At the 44-story building called Hanover Republic Square, a three-bedroom penthouse going for more than $15,000 a month now comes with up to eight weeks free and a $500 move-in bonus."

"Two months ago, Austin real-estate agent Carly Guimaraes listed a two-bedroom duplex unit in an upscale neighborhood north of downtown at $5,000 a month. That wasn’t an unusual price for a new construction home, but it sat on the market for more than 30 days. After the owner cut the rent by $500, however, the unit was leased in just a few days. 'Everyone came here to build,' Guimaraes said. 'Now that supply is coming to fruition, and it’s created a surplus in the luxury market.'"

Bisnow Boston in Massachusetts. "Life sciences giant Alexandria Real Estate Equities has sold another property at a loss as it sells underperforming assets and focuses on its bigger campuses. Alexandria sold a three-story office building at 138 River Road in Andover for $3.9M to Lawrence-based Energy North Group, according to public records. The sale price represents just more than a quarter of the $14.3M the life sciences REIT bought it for two years ago, the Boston Business Journal first reported. Alexandria has suffered similar losses in the last year as it has begun to unload assets from its Greater Boston portfolio. In June, the company sold a three-building, 510K SF office campus in Newton for $117.5M, half of what the REIT bought the property for in 2020. In December, Alexandria sold two industrial buildings in South Boston for half of the $168.5M it bought them for in 2020."

The Globe and Mail in Canada. "How did rents fall and vacancy rates go up in the most expensive parts of downtown Toronto? 'Trust me when I tell you I’ve never experienced vacant units,' said Sundeep Bahl, a Toronto realtor with Re/Max Plus City Team, who specializes in buying and selling investor-owned condominiums and also provides his own property management services. 'We get a 60 days notice [from a tenant vacating] and we’ve expired the 60 days. The unit’s now become vacant and we can’t find a tenant for the landlord.' Sales of unbuilt condos have reached rarely seen lows, the resale market is facing falling prices, and at the same time there are more newly completed units being added to the market every quarter."

"'They’re cannibalizing each other,' said Pauline Lierman, vice-president of market research with Zonda Urban. 'It’s not the first time we’ve had cannibalization in certain neighbourhood pockets. But at that scale, it really makes a difference.' With a sudden glut of condos, plus more than 5,500 recently opened purpose-built rental apartments, there is more competition for the top tenants. 'Condo projects are recalibrating, pricing is coming down,' said Ms. Lierman. 'I have a [project] where they’re probably coming down $100 per square foot, just to keep things moving."

"The other signal Ms. Lierman is watching closely is preconstruction buyers walking away from deposits. She said Zonda hasn’t seen anything statistically significant, but did note that she’s been told of an uptick buyers defaulting if they came in late in the sales cycle with a deposit of 5 per cent in 2022 for condos that are now finished. Such buyers were likely hoping to flip units on the assignment market and were unable to find takers for units that cost upwards of $1,900 a square foot. 'There was a lot of exuberance, in the sense that this – price escalation – would just continue,' said Ms. Lierman. 'Not now, not now.'"

From Reuters. "TAG Immobilen co-CEO Martin Thiel painted a bleak picture for Europe's biggest residential property market, which has already seen prices tumble by around 10% in Germany's worst property crash in a generation. 'We expect further losses in value,' Thiel said, adding that while he expected the fall in valuations to bottom out at 20%, TAG was taking precautions for worse. 'You have to be prepared in case it is not the 20% but 25% or 30%. The balance sheet must be able to withstand that. You simply need that cushion,' Thiel said in an interview. 'The market for transactions is incredibly difficult. You hardly see any big transactions.'"

"For years, property in Europe and particularly Germany boomed as interest rates fell, turbocharging demand. But a sudden jump in rates and building costs tipped some developers into insolvency as bank financing dried up and deals froze. TAG's CEO said he had misjudged the scale of the slump that forced it to withhold dividends, sell property and raise capital. 'If you had asked at the beginning of 2022 whether prices for apartments … would fall by 20%, I probably would have said: impossible. The business is too stable for that.'"

The Star Weekly in Australia. "Affected families by the collapse of the Victorian builder Montego Homes are reeling from losing their deposits and their dream houses in the Casey South region. Key initial findings have shown that 63 homeowners are affected by the company not having appropriate insurance in place for deposit holders. Uninsured creditor Nicole Clarke, who bought a block of land in Cranbourne East, has still been processing the news with a heavy heart. She lost $13,825, which took her over a year to save. 'It’s not huge, but it’s decent enough to be upset about this because you can’t get it back,' she said."

"Paul Elsharouny, another uninsured creditor, lost over $15,000 from a deposit for his single-story house in Clyde North. He signed the contract in March 2023 and immediately paid the deposit. Ten months later, he was in shock when he discovered the collapse of Montego Homes through an email. 'After what happened with Porter Davis last year, the government should have been warned and put more strict laws in place to observe these builders, but this didn’t happen,' he said. 'We lost our life savings, and we still need to continue with our life.'"

Business Insider. "China's property crisis represents a historic collapse. The world's second-largest economy is grappling with a medley of bearish headwinds including deflation, a flight of foreign investment, youth unemployment, huge debt, and an aging population. Most pressing, however, is its real estate trouble, which the International Monetary Fund characterized as a historic bust matching levels only seen in the worst collapses of the last three decades. In a report published February 2, IMF researchers Henry Hoyle and Sonali Jain-Chandra said the property market will no longer be the powerhouse driver of growth for China's economy that it was in the past."

"'Home prices became significantly stretched relative to household incomes in the decade before the pandemic, in part because consumers preferred to invest their considerable savings in real estate given the scarcity of attractive alternative savings options,' the IMF researchers said. But expectations for ongoing price increases for land and homes led to overextended developers that borrowed too much and overpromised, which has ultimately fueled a collapse in real estate activity. Housing starts have plunged by more than 60% compared to pre-pandemic levels, the IMF said, and weak confidence among homebuyers has led to a sharp drop-off in sales. The collapse has transpired at 'a historically rapid pace only seen in the largest housing busts in cross-country experience in the last three decades,' researchers said."