A report from the Daily Mail. "After two years of rapid price growth, it appears Austin's housing bubble is finally about to burst. Properties in the Texan city are typically selling for $525,750 having declined almost $150,000 from their peak in May 2022, according to Redfin. It marks an astonishing u-turn in demand for Austin which was seen as the epitome of the Sunbelt's real estate boom during the pandemic. Between March 2020 and May 2022, the median sales price of a home in Austin ballooned from $420,000 to $669,000. Moody's Analytics economist Matthew Walsh said: 'At its peak, Austin's housing market was over 60 percent overvalued. Across Texas in general, a lot of homes have been built in the last few years at a time when demand is stalling due to affordability.'"

The Naples Daily News. "New data shows that Southwest Florida has begun falling behind the rest of the nation with how quickly property is coming off the market. 'We are in the type of market today that will differentiate between those who are realistic about selling and those who are still dabbling based on past perceptions,' said Budge Huskey, CEO of Premier Sotheby’s International Realty. 'The increased inventory is motivating sellers to pay more attention to pricing the home competitively for today’s market and buyer. Values increased approximately 60% over the last three and a half years in our market so if a small amount is given back, most sellers will still enjoy a very healthy profit at time of sale.'"

Gridiron Heroics on Colorado. "Star quarterback Russell Wilson lost money on a pricey asset when he left the Denver Broncos in the offseason. Per Courtney Geers with the Denver Business Journal, Wilson lost $3.5 on his nearly two-year investment in his Denver-area home: 'The recently released quarterback lost millions selling the home he owned for less than two years. Russell Wilson appears to be making a quick departure from Denver and will lose $3.5 million as he goes.' The Broncos’ recently released quarterback has sold his Cherry Hills Village home for $21.5 million, according to property records recorded on March 20. That’s compared to the record $25 million he and his wife paid for the home at 10 Cherry Hills Park Drive on April 1, 2022. That’s kind of a crazy outcome, given how housing market pricing exploded in the previous few years as interest rates skyrocketed."

KDVR in Colorado. "It’s not cheap to live in Denver, but a recent report from Zillow shows that the Mile High City is one of the top areas when it comes to deal sweeteners for renters. In February, nearly half of the rental listings in the Denver metro area on Zillow were promoting some kind of deal sweetener, like free parking or a month of free rent. On a national scale, 32% of listings included a deal sweetener. However, in the Denver metro, 48% of listings had a little something extra to offer, according to a monthly Zillow report. That’s 8.5 percentage points higher than it was a year ago. 'This could mean there are more apartments available than there are people looking to rent them,' Zillow said."

From Reuters. "While the increase in interest rates engineered by the Federal Reserve over the last two years put a damper on the overall U.S. housing market, it took a sledge hammer to home flippers from small contractors to reality TV stars. Just ask Tarek El Moussa, star of HGTV’s 'The Flipping El Moussas.' 'How do I account for [interest rates]? I got my ass kicked last year. I lost a lot of money. And that's just the reality of the business,' said El Moussa. HGTV's El Moussa bought 91 homes in 2021 - garnering him a $600,000 average monthly mortgage payment. Then mortgage rates surged, home sales in southern California plunged, and he found himself with inventory he could not offload."

"Julio Martinez, co-owner and broker at JATS Properties in Los Angeles, said '2023 was kind of weird.' He acquired just six homes last year and even that was due to several of the properties being in foreclosure. If not for that, 'we probably would’ve only done one or two.'"

From NPR. "The National Association of Realtors settled a lawsuit last week that could up-end the way real estate agents are paid. Many sellers may opt not to pay buyers' agents in the future. In that case, buyers will have to pay their own agent out of pocket, on top of a down payment and other closing costs. 'Many first time buyers are already at the absolute max of what they're able to borrow,' says Vanessa Perry, a professor at George Washington University School of Business. 'They're not going to be able to come up with any additional cash to pay their own agent.'"

Bisnow on Maryland. "The appraised value of the financially troubled office tower at 300 E. Lombard St. in downtown Baltimore has plummeted by 76% in the last decade, according to a new report from Morningstar Credit. The property received a new appraisal in January, putting its value at $9.1M, down from $38.5M in December 2014. Morningstar cited a sharp increase in vacancy at the property as the catalyst for the dropping value. It reported that the building had an occupancy of 57% last June, a sharp drop from 97% a decade before. According to property records, Pittsburgh-area firm JMS Capital Group, via subsidiary PWA 200 East Lombard LP, purchased the property in 2015 for $40M. JMS Capital Group didn't respond to requests for comment."

CBC News in Canada. "A Halifax senior says major roadblocks stalling the sale of the home she's lived in for 50 years should be a cautionary tale for people who own older duplexes around the city. Arlene Best, 78, moved into assisted living at Northwood's Halifax campus last fall, and has been trying for months to subdivide and sell her half of a duplex on Marilyn Drive in the Southdale area of Dartmouth. She said she planned to rely on money from the sale to pay her rent and bills, but Halifax Water requires new sewer and water lines to be installed before the duplex can be subdivided. The work is expected to cost about $45,000, which Best said she doesn't have."

"Best said her neighbour subdivided a duplex with the same piping system around 2015 and no major changes were needed. She assumed her case would be the same. Selling the entire duplex would solve the problem, but Best can't take that step. She jointly owned the property with her late sister and a family member is keeping the other side. 'It was paid off. And I was thinking, 'Thank heavens, it's my house now.' But now it's costing me a fortune to sell my house,' Best said."

South China Morning Post. "Hong Kong homebuyers are piling into flats on sale in Tseung Kwan O on Saturday, taking advantage of the cheapest prices seen in the area in five years and the government's abolition of purchasing curbs last month. Wheelock priced the flats at a five-year low for the district, aligning with peers who continue to offer discounts to woo buyers in the wake of the government's policy stimulus. The units at Seasons Place include up to three bedrooms, with areas ranging from 323 to 665 sq ft. The price after discounts has been set between HK$4.47 million and HK$10.8 million, or HK$13,576 to HK$16,257 per square foot. The discounted average price of the 368 units is HK$14,604 per square foot."

From Barron's. "Will Beijing roll out large-scale stimulus measures for its property sector, and what will they target? It’s now a perennial question, with China’s property bubble bursting and wealth for homeowners, developers, and bondholders evaporating. Authorities are repeatedly saying they won’t, particularly for larger firms that have been more irresponsible in Beijing’s view. Demand for new housing in China is set to drop by around 50% over the next decade, the IMF said in a recent report. This will make it significantly more difficult for China to get its overall economy back growing robustly. As Barron’s reported, a major part of China’s property crisis is its vast number of vacant properties. This slowing demand will only make it harder to fill those units, the bank said."

"Confusion reigns among large troubled firms about just how sternly Beijing is going to deal with them. But smaller cities are where unknowns are the greatest. This is compounded because lower-tier cities account for 80% to 90% of sales by area, according to government data. Atop that, these areas are where the overwhelming amount of property glut lies—units developers built but can’t find a buyer. 'We need all the help we can get. There are so many units just sitting empty,' said Wen Kehua, an agent at real estate brokerage Lianjia in the third-tier city of Shaoguan, which has an average rate of 131 months, or 10 years, of clearing time—the amount of housing stock divided by contracted units."