A report from the Newport Daily News in Rhode Island. "The City Council is considering asking its legislative delegation to submit a bill that would allow the city to impose a 3% tax on real estate sales over $2 million. 'Our average price in Newport is about $800,000 and that does not get you much,' Newport County Board of Realtors President Sandi Warner said. 'Two million is not a mansion. Two million is just a house.' Warner said taxes like these will chill real estate in Newport, which has been in an odd spot recently following the hot sellers market of the past two years. 'It’s an unusual market,' Warner said. 'If you have a nice home and you are well-priced, you will probably get two or three offers on it. If you are throwing a number up on the wall just to see if it will stick, the buyers have been in the marketplace for longer now and they are very educated. They are not willing to pay these wild numbers that we did see two or three years ago.'"

The Coeur d'Alene Press in Idaho. "Lindsay Allen with Locate Real Estate said that interestingly, the number of pending home sales and the number of closed home sales year-to-date is lower than in 2018-2020, and more in line with 2013 and 2014, which were quieter years in the local market history. 'Sellers are currently accepting 96.2% of the list price, which is on par with what we saw in 2013-2015,' she said. 'This means buyers are getting some good deals right now, and sellers are accepting these requests for concessions. Nearly every offer I am writing right now, whether it is a cash offer or a financed offer, we are seeing concessions on the price, or the sellers agreeing to pay closing costs to the buyers.'"

The Dallas Morning News in Texas. "Nationwide, Zillow found home shoppers need to make more than $106,000 to afford a home, an 80% leap from 2020′s $59,000 sum. Monthly mortgage payments on a typical home have doubled since 2020. The four-year timeframe of Zillow’s analysis portrays a pre- and post-pandemic reality for the Dallas housing market, one defined by escalating home prices and exacerbated by hiked interest rates. Bank of America’s Allen Seelenbinder said he has started to see a plateau in the market compared to the frantic pace between 2020 and 2022."

"'We’re not at a time right now where we’re going to see 40 offers on the same property the day it goes on the market,' he said. 'If you have a homebuyer that is prepared, understands what’s important to them and where they have affordability in their personal finances, then they can make an educated decision and they’re not making an impulse buy.'"

The Herald Tribune in Florida. "According to the Realtor Association of Sarasota and Manatee, average inventory is roughly four to five months, depending on the county and home type. This means the seller’s advantage – also known as being in a seller’s market – is gradually decreasing. The continued shift toward a more balanced residential real estate market favors buyers. It offers buyers more options to choose from, slightly more negotiating power over things like price and closing costs, and more time to decide if a home is the one for their families. The market frenzy of roughly 2020-22, where multiple offers were written the same week a property was listed – where buyers were forgoing contingencies like home inspections and even submitting offers over asking price – are, for the most part, not happening in the majority of real estate markets now."

The Wall Street Journal on Florida. "The challenges swirling around a skyscraper known as One Brickell City Centre, which at around 1,000-feet high would be Miami’s tallest corporate tower, show how the city’s once-sizzling office market is starting to cool. New York developer Related Cos. and Swire Properties are struggling to find an anchor tenant roughly a year after the groundbreaking. Related is restructuring its agreement with Swire, which owns the land, according to people familiar with the matter. Swire even has considered selling the 1.55-acre site in Miami’s downtown, according to a document viewed by The Wall Street Journal."

"Miami’s exceptionalism appears to be fading. Leasing activity in the Miami office market was down 25% last year from 2022, according to commercial real-estate services firm JLL. Sublease vacancy increased by 66% through the end of the year, a sign that existing tenants want to cut back on space. 'There’s a slowdown of new-to-market activity,' said Steven Hurwitz of JLL. 'We’re sort of at a new inflection point.'"

Bisnow Washington DC. "More than a dozen D.C. commercial real estate industry leaders have said in recent weeks that crime in the District has become a top concern among companies considering taking office or retail space. 'You have folks who are looking at breaking their leases because of crime or costs associated with crime,' said Eric Jones, vice president of government affairs for D.C.’s Apartment and Office Building Association. 'People aren’t coming into the office or everyone leaves at 3 p.m. because you don’t want to be in the city when it gets dark.'"

"Lobbying firm The Madison Group had its office at 15th and L streets northwest for more than a dozen years, but after the pandemic-induced remote work shift, Managing Partner Robb Watters said the streets around its workplace became noticeably less safe. 'In the last couple of years, you could just see everything turn,' he said. 'Businesses are boarding up and crime is rampant. There’s less of a police presence.'"

Chek News in Canada. "Days after it was brought to light that homeowners of units in Victoria’s Vivid at the Yates building purchased the homes against rules set in the covenant, the total number of lawsuits filed by BC Housing against allegedly ineligible homeowners has risen to 22. When the project was first announced, it was given an interest-free loan of $53 million with the covenant that the units would only be sold to people with a household income of $150,000 or less and the units would be priced eight per cent below market value. However, on March 5, CBC revealed the B.C. government was suing some of those homeowners, arguing they were ineligible to purchase under these requirements."

"The B.C. government first became aware of the potential fraud in 2021 when it learned some of the units were being rented, which is also contrary to the covenant, and BC Housing began investigating. 'We are taking further action to ensure that these homes are available to the people that need them. We won’t stop taking on wealthy speculators and investors – making sure the housing market in B.C. works best for people, not speculators,' Ravi Kahlon, B.C.’s housing minister, said in an emailed statement."

From Newshub. "New reports suggest New Zealand's housing market is stalling with 'flattish' growth in the first half of the year expected. Reports from New Zealand Home Loans (NZHL) and BNZ suggest that the housing market is losing momentum and Infometrics chief forecaster Gareth Kiernan agrees. 'It's definitely not a sellers' market,' Kiernan said. Buyer interest saw a 'substantial decline' and only a net 9 percent of agents reported seeing more people at open homes, a huge plunge from net 57 percent just the month before. 'This tells us that for the moment a new wave of caution has swept through potential home buyers,' said economist Tony Alexander. BNZ said, 'the market is struggling to absorb a flood of new listings.'"

"The NZHL survey also observes that buyers' 'FOMO levels have fallen away.' Only 11 percent of agents reported observing FOMO in buyers as opposed to 23 percent late in January, and way down from its high of 92 percent in late-2020. 'The increase in supply has taken away feelings on the part of buyers that they need to hurry,' Alexander said."

Sinar Daily in Malaysia. "More than five years ago, they purchased residential units in a proposed housing development project in Selangor. Today, the 2,400 buyers concerned are still waiting for their homes to be completed so that they can move in. But they are in a dilemma as the project, Residensi Hektar Gombak was declared 'sick' in April last year by the National Housing Department, Ministry of Housing and Local Government. A project is deemed sick if construction work is delayed by over 30 per cent compared to its scheduled progress or if its sale and purchase agreement (SPA) has lapsed. The Residensi Hektar Gombak house buyers are now shouldering a substantial financial burden as they not only have to repay the loans they took to buy their 'dream' homes but also have to pay the rentals of the houses they are occupying now."

"One of the homebuyers Mohd Sharrel Fahmi Baharum, 42, a government employee, said some buyers in the affected project have ceased making monthly loan instalments as they could no longer sustain the payments for two homes simultaneously. They have also received 'reminders' from the bank regarding their overdue payments. A firm advocate of the build-then-sell policy, Noor Rosly said the government must take a firmer stance by mandating developers to adopt this concept, pointing out that the argument that house prices will increase if the build-then-sell policy is implemented holds true only when there is a shortage of housing units in the market. 'However, today, there is an oversupply of unsold housing units in the market,' he added."

South China Morning Post. "Shanghai's housing market looks set to continue its downward slide due to a lack of buying interest, as would-be buyers wary of a gloomy economic outlook continue to feel uneasy about the current high property prices. Owners selling homes in mainland China's most developed metropolis will have to offer discounts of 5 to 10 per cent to move their properties along, according to brokers. Miao Yufa, a sales manager at property agency Lianjia in Shanghai, said prices of lived-in homes have dropped by more than 20 per cent from the heights seen in July 2022, and the downward trend will continue as more homeowners are now willing to cut prices to seal deals."

"'For a flat worth 10 million yuan, buyers would require a reduction of at least half a million,' he said. 'Some owners, eager to cash out, will accept the price.'"