It's Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. "Florida condo owners are stuck in a rut as prices drop and mounting insurance rates and condo fees are scaring away buyers. It’s led to more condos sitting on the market for longer than single-family homes according to realtors in the Bay Area. 'What you're seeing here is flood insurance rates have impacted not only single-family homes, but they've really impacted a lot of condominiums, especially if they're on the water. And as these insurance policies rise, HOA payments have gone really high,' said Mark Middleton from Silver Trident Realty. 'You can clearly see that condos are staying on the market longer. And some of those prices are significantly lower price than they were a year ago.'"

"Blame the rich, said Mariya Letdin, a business professor at Florida State University. Homebuyers with deep pockets are driving the South Florida residential market, buying pricey homes and pushing median sales prices to historic highs. 'Activity is at the higher end of the market,' Letdin said. 'It’s a tale of two cities within one city. The higher market is insulated from what’s going on. In the rest of the market, we’ll see decreases in prices, because interest rates are holding steady and people can’t afford to stretch their budget.' Some good news for buyers? They have more options on the table with rising inventory. Miami-Dade has 4.4 months supply of houses and 7.8 months of condos; Broward has 3.8 months supply of houses and 6.8 months of houses."

"The increase in area home sales seems to be in contrast to rest of the state, at least during the early part of the year, where home sales continued to decline statewide, according to the Alabama Association of Realtors. Home prices were cheaper, on average, in the Huntsville and Decatur markets than they were a year ago. In Athens, it almost stayed flat. 'New listings are up 29.8%, and I expect this number to increase into March and April as we’ve seen the largest number of signed listings in January and February that we’ve seen in the last two years,' said Realtor Matt Curtis. 'The two figures that some may see as a negative are days on market being up and inventory being up are actually positives in my eyes,' Redstone Family Realty’s Ben Wales said. 'Those support a buyer friendly market and let’s face it, we don’t have much of a market without those buyers, right?'"

"Many believe the real estate market in North Idaho is going to pivot in 2024. A real estate pivot is a shift in market conditions including metrics such as prices or inventory. In this scenario, you too will need to remain stable, confident and calm. Fun fact. In 2019, 75% of North Idaho locals could afford to live here. Last year, that number plunged to 20%. Only a fool trips on something that is behind them. Three percent mortgages are behind us and I have only seen mortgage rates below 3% once in my lifetime and don’t believe I will live to see it again. I am willing to bet you won’t either. What caused rates to dip below 3%? Can you say C-O-V-I-D? Sure ya can. If you are waiting for 3% to return, you may be better off buying a lotto ticket. Your chances of success are about the same."

"Austin was the place to be during the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, four years since the start of the pandemic, the city is becoming a relative housing market wasteland, experts said—or, at the very least, declining in market value significantly. According to Apartment List, Austin's rents declined by 7 percent over the last year, and home prices fell by 11 percent since 2022, the Freddie Mac House Price Index says. 'The metro was attracting technology companies, both old and new, to have the appeal of the next Silicon Valley without those California real estate prices and population density,' Alan Chang, the founder and president of Vested Title & Escrow, told Newsweek. 'That only lasted a few months before real estate started to grow astronomically. I was seeing homes sell over more than twice the purchase price from 18 months prior.'"

"State Farm, California's largest insurer, announced that it will discontinue coverage for 72,000 homes and apartments starting this summer, a move likely to sharply inflate housing costs for affected residents in a state that's reeling from a series of destructive recent wildfires. The announcement comes less than a year after State Farm announced it would not issue new policies in California, citing similar concerns. Karl Susman, an independent broker and industry expert based in Los Angeles, said those who will be dropped are almost certainly properties in and around wildland areas considered at greater risk of wildfires, where standard coverage has become nearly impossible to get. 'You get rid of the worst risks,' Susman said."

"A luxury Toronto condo project that's been sitting idle for at least two years is irking its Forest Hill neighbours, bringing into focus a problem experts say has been fuelling the city's housing shortage: multi-residential building projects that start—then appear to stall. The site on Russell Hill Road used to be a single-family home, before it was demolished in 2017. Construction of a four-storey condo project started, then stalled. Frustrated neighbours say the concrete shell draped in blue and green building wrap has sat on a muddy construction site that's seen little activity for at least two years. 'It's pretty awful,' resident Carol Roup told CBC Toronto. 'And I know a lot of other residents feel the same way … I'd like it finished, built and looking like a real house, or demolished.'"

"Ontario’s cottage real estate market has been decidedly hot and cold over the past four years. In 2022, we wrote about a couple who purchased a cottage in Sault Ste. Marie. during the pandemic. A realtor reported bare-bones places with no septic, no toilets, and more off-grid situations that used to sell for $119,000 or $129,000, were going for $250,000 during the bubble. Due northeast from Toronto, the Kawartha Lakes region is within a three-hour drive of the city centre. It includes the towns of Fenelon Falls and Burnt River. Buyers will want to pay attention to this region. It experienced the highest price drop out of all the Ontario regions for single-family waterfront properties, declining by 25 per cent to $733,300 in 2023. Peterborough County is an ideal cottage region for boating enthusiasts. Prices have fluctuated in the county, from a high of $1,023,800 in 2022 to $875,000 in 2023 for single-family waterfront properties."

"British billionaire John Caudwell placed a big wager on London’s property boom in 2011 when he stumped up about £150 million ($191 million) for a car park in the exclusive Mayfair district to build some of the UK’s priciest homes. The 1 Mayfair project — with a gross development value of £2 billion and each of the 29 stately home-inspired apartments averaging about £70 million — is now nearing completion and is set to hit the market soon. But the timing couldn’t be more awkward. Real estate valuations in the city’s high-end postcodes have tumbled from their peak reached about 10 years ago. One of Caudwell’s local peers recently sold his Belgravia mansion at a loss of about 30%, as more signs of weakness in luxury London housing emerge."

"Some recent deals struck at deep discounts already point to a slump. British billionaire Bobby Arora sold his London townhouse in November for £23.5 million, about 10 years after buying it for £34 million. A South African investor sold a luxury housing site in neighboring Kensington for about £80 million at the end of last year — a discount of roughly £30 million from the price paid in 2017. 'These super prime properties are becoming a real bargain,' Caudwell said. 'The risk is that the margin we expect to make is not made because the world is in a depressive state.'"

"Residential property prices in Germany dropped 8.4% in 2023 from a year earlier, data on Friday showed, in a further grim sign for the real-estate sector in Europe's largest economy. The fall was the biggest since Germany's statistics office began keeping records in the year 2000, underscoring the nation's biggest property crisis in decades. It was also the first annual decline since 2007. For years, the property sector in Germany and elsewhere in Europe boomed as interest rates were low and demand strong. But a sharp rise in rates and costs has put an end to the run, tipping developers into insolvency as bank financing dries up and deals freeze."

"An independent building company that is part of a major national construction chain has collapsed. News.com.au can reveal that Victorian-based building company Station 293 Pty Ltd went into liquidation last Friday with money owed to 'lots and lots of tradies.' The construction firm traded under Cavalier Homes Geelong and as its namesake would suggest, it was a franchise business in the Cavalier Homes network. Cavalier Homes was established in 2001 and has 19 franchises all along the East Coast, spanning across four Australian states. The Geelong branch no longer appears on its website."

"Australian property prices continue to climb at an impressive rate. AMP's deputy chief economist, Diana Mousina, said it was an impressive result. 'It's a very good return if you're thinking about other asset classes,' she said. 'At the same time, you don't really realise that increase in prices unless you sell your home. Really, it's Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane where the price of houses in particular, but I guess also units to some extent, just looks completely overvalued,' Ms Mousina said. 'It's quite difficult to not be close to the CBD and work close to the CBD, which means that people are pressured into a few spots within 100 kilometres of the CBDs, and that's what's kept prices booming. At the same time, we've run very high levels of immigration now for 20 years — and that just adds to our problems in housing supply. So I don't think it's a Ponzi scheme. I think there are genuine reasons why property prices are overvalued.'"