A report from the Ventura County Star in California. "When developer Shangri-La Industries stopped paying its bills and stopped its state-funded work turning motels in Thousand Oaks and other cities into housing for the homeless, one of the big unanswered questions was: What happened to the money? Shangri-La has now provided its answer: The company’s recently fired chief financial officer took it and spent much of it on Beverly Hills real estate, expensive cars, private jet travel, VIP passes to Coachella and more than a quarter of a million dollars in jewelry and handbags for his girlfriend. Shangri-La borrowed tens of millions of dollars against its Homekey properties, and is now in various stages of default and foreclosure on those loans. Last month, Shangri-La, its CEO and companies affiliated with it filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles County Superior Court against Cody Holmes, who was the companies’ CFO until he was fired in January."

"One of Shangri-La’s seven Homekey properties in California is the former Quality Inn & Suites in Thousand Oaks. Shangri-La was awarded a $26.7 million Homekey grant in 2022 to buy the motel and convert its rooms into 77 studio apartments for homeless people with counseling and other services on site. Work began last summer and stopped a few months later. Shangri-La is in default on two loans on the property and has been sued by contractors who say they’re owed millions of dollars for work the developer never paid for. A limited liability company controlled by Holmes bought that Beverly Hills house, an 11,000-square-foot mansion, for $13.4 million in 2022, according to court records. The LLC is now in bankruptcy, and the primary lender on the home is trying to have the bankruptcy thrown out so it can foreclose on the property."

Silicon Valley in California. "The standard 5% to 6% broker commission on home sales may soon become a thing of the past, which could mean big savings for Bay Area home buyers and sellers. Last week, the National Association of Realtors agreed to a $418 million court settlement to end its practice of directing home sellers to offer to pay the commission for buyers' agents. Right now, sellers generally pay both their agent and the buyer's agent a fee of around 2.5% to 3% of the sale price. For a $1.1 million home — the typical cost in the Bay Area earlier this year — that could come to about $66,000. Generally, the charges are baked into the listing price."

The Providence Journal. "A developer who for years has left a trail of complaints resulting in multiple suspensions and fines by the state contractor’s registration board continues to do business in Rhode Island – even though he owes the state more than a quarter of a million dollars in personal income taxes. Sathuan K. Sa, whose name is listed on a dozen corporations filed with the Rhode Island Secretary of State’s office, is 30th on the Division of Taxation’s list of 100 top delinquents. And he’s being accused of shoddy and substandard work by owners at two condominium projects he developed in Providence, four years apart."

"Judith Glynn, a native Rhode Islander who also owns property in New York City, was looking for an investment property five years ago. After moving in toward the end of 2019, Glynn began to hear complaints from other unit owners. 'It’s brand new construction. What could possibly be wrong?' she recalled thinking. 'The apartment is beautiful.' 'Somebody could smell somebody else’s bacon. Somebody turned their lights off and the fireplace went on. They couldn’t have possibly inspected anything. It’s a lipstick-on-a-pig apartment,' Glynn said, adding that she didn’t have enough hot water to fill her bathtub."

WINK News in Florida. "Near Collier Boulevard and Tamiami Trail East in Naples is a little community called Manatee Cove. 'It’s a brand new community,' said Tanya Jennings. 'So it’s very pretty, and everyone is very friendly.' But this small community is having a big problem. They’ve received letters from their mortgage companies advising they have 60 days from the date on the letter to provide flood insurance, or they’ll be forced to use insurance that the mortgage company chooses. Jennings moved into her home on August 2nd. At the time, her home was in Collier County’s Zone X, which isn’t a flood zone. 'It took a minute for me to swallow what was being presented,' Jennings said. 'Our lowest quote was $9,300,' she said. 'Nobody in here would have bought in an AE flood zone,' said Liz Beckman. 'We just would have gone to another community.'"

NBC Miami in Florida. "Residents at a northeast Miami-Dade condo community are concerned after the county's Unsafe Structures Unit declared the buildings 'unsafe' for failing its 50-year recertification. Vanessa Ortiz, a single mother of two, says she is moving out of the Jade Winds community because the conditions are too much for her to handle. Over the last five years, she’s documented some of the issues including flooding in her unit, water dripping from the roof and mold on walls. 'It looks like a third world country,' Ortiz said. 'Should I get my kids out of here and sleep in the car until we find somewhere else? I’m just overwhelmed, overloaded.'"

New York Daily News. "A Queens-based real estate firm and its broker-president will have to cough up $845,000 as part of a settlement reached with the city and state over accusations they illegally listed and rented out multiple Upper East apartments through Airbnb, according to court documents. The agreement with Mega Homes and its broker-president, Katherine Cartagena, which city and state officials finalized Wednesday, will require the nearly $1 million payment as restitution and will serve to shut down the illegal, short-term rentals, which were run out of 311 E. 51st St. and 207 W. 75th St. in Manhattan by Mega Home Inc. According to city officials, Mega Home and Cartagena raked in more than $2 million from Airbnb between 2019 and 2022. Those payments — tied to just the two Upper East Side buildings — were for approximately 550 short-term rentals to over 2,000 guests within that three-year stretch."

From Skift. "Earlier this month, Skift published a list of top U.S. cities that offer the potential to profit from short-term rental arbitrage. The idea: To lock in a long-term lease on a property and collect more than the lease amount by renting it out. The added bonus here, and the 'arbitrage' part is that you don’t have to deal with owning the property. 'When you remove from the equation the fact that there is skin in the game and capital at risk, that’s when the industry begins to get unwieldy. Because now the people who can just decide on a Tuesday that they’re going to enter the short-term rental business on Thursday,' said Carl Shepherd, who founded HomeAway in the early 2000s. 'People did that in spades during the pandemic which pushed inventory through the roof — it wasn’t people buying a vacation rental property, it was people who were already renting a property long-term and then re-renting it on Airbnb as a short-term rental. So that created all the extra inventory that we’re now having to deal with.'"

"'When you have entered the industry for the purpose of making positive cash flow from day one, it becomes a dicey proposition for short-term rentals,' he said. 'For instance, there are over 11,000 properties in Austin. But we don’t have 11,000 properties worth of nightly rentals. So rates have come down. That’s going to put all these folks who have arbitrage in deep trouble because they perhaps thought they could charge $500 a night and now they can charge only $300. And if I’m in arbitrage and let’s say, I’m paying $100 a day to rent the apartment long-term, and I think I can make $200 a day when I’m booked, at 80% occupancy I’m fine. But what happens when the rates fall to $150 a day? Now I need a 100% occupancy rate, and that is simply not there.'"

From Fox News. "Washington state landlord Jaskaran Singh is outraged by a serial squatter who owes thousands in back rent and has repeatedly thwarted eviction efforts from his rental property. 'He paid for the first month [or] two months rent and basically, after that, he's living rent-free,' Singh told 'Fox & Friends First.' His refusal to leave, however, forces Singh to fight an uphill battle riddled with even more challenges to collecting rent. 'They are simply exploiting the system, and I'm not getting justice. Justice is delayed. I would say justice is denied. The judges are not ready to listen to me, and this is not what the American dream is,' he said."

"Meanwhile, community members have rallied against squatting in the area. Footage shared by Seattle-based journalist Jonathan Choe captured responses from a number of neighbors and landlords protesting outside the property. 'If you're not going to pay, you shouldn't stay there,' said King County Republican Party Vice Chair Kory Hahn, who led a 'Get out, con man!' chant in Korean. 'We're just tired of criminals getting away with stuff,' another protester said. Others joined in chants of 'no pay, no stay.' Choe reiterated to host Carley Shimkus that Singh had gone through the appropriate legal channels to get something done, but to no avail. '[This is happening in] an elite neighborhood, and these homes are all multi-million dollar homes,' he explained."

The Vancouver Sun in Canada. "A court has ordered the sale of a condo project site in Vancouver’s West End because the developer owes more than $37 million to lenders and has defaulted on loan payments. The developer was aiming to build a 22-storey building with 120 condo units and a six-storey lowrise building with 51 affordable-housing rental units. The site at 1485 Davie St. near English Bay is home to an old, four-storey rental building. The developer is Align Properties, a Vancouver-based company that used to be known as Vivagrand Development Corp. and described itself as being part of the Xiangli Group, a real estate developer based in Guangzhou, China. Recently, the B.C. Supreme Court issued an order stating that Align owes over $37 million with interest adding $16,555 a day. It ruled that Bancorp Financial can sell the property to recover the amount it is owed."

The Globe and Mail in Canada. "March has brought renewed life to the Toronto-area condo market on the heels of a flurry of single-family home sales earlier in the year. But while buyers seem to be more optimistic in all segments of the market, they are keeping a close eye on their finances. Christopher Bibby, broker with Re/Max Hallmark Bibby Group Realty advises sellers to have a built-in negotiation buffer in the asking price. 'The buyers aren’t going to come in and pay list price,' he says. 'I think people are being very methodical and calculated. All the buyers are being very disciplined. They have budgets.'"

"Davelle Morrison, broker with Bosley Real Estate Ltd., has noticed a change in the mood of buyers in many segments of the market. 'The prices aren’t taking off at this point,' she says. '[Buyers] are not getting carried away – they’re offering what they think the house is worth.' In the condo segment, she is working with a buyer who purchased a home east of the city but has now started the search for a pied-à-terre in Toronto. Inventory is high in the segment, she adds, as some investors decide to get out of the rental business. 'There are certainly lots of condos for people to choose from. They are taking their time.'"

Daily Mail in the UK. "More than 30 brand new properties have been left abandoned and boarded up after a developer blamed council delays for running out of money amid a planning row. Some 33 new build homes on an estate in Calstock in Cornwall have been deserted after multi-million-pound costs spiralled out of control. Construction Partners, who were behind the project, say they have faced £1.2million in extra interest payment charges while awaiting approval from Cornwall Council. The firm based in Exmouth, Devon, now says it can no longer afford to continue the work - despite many of the properties being finished."

"They include 15 homes allocated for affordable housing - though parish councillors have said many of the other homes, valued at between £500,000 and £800,000, are too costly for most locals. Calstock parish councillor Dorothy Kirk described the current plight of the estate as 'a tragic situation where everybody loses'. Fellow parish councillor Alistair Tinto has said: 'The application would have brought 15 much-needed homes to Calstock. What would be left is market houses which Calstock doesn’t need at prices around £500,000 to £800.000. That is not affordable. That price is way out of the pockets of the people.'"

The Daily Monitor. "VAAL Real Estate, launched a development property that will be the tallest residential tower in Uganda on completion. Named the Cadenza, the property will have 24 floors and three basements. It will be made up of 306 condominiums, including studio, one-bedroom and two-bedroom apartments. The remaining handful are luxury penthouses on the top. For a while, many industry players have been wary of investing in premium rental homes because they were not considered viable investment opportunities anymore. After 40 years in the Kampala real estate industry, one civil engineer says he decided to sell off his properties in Kololo and invest in tourist lodges."

"He said the reason he sold his Kololo properties is because they had not been offering him the expected return on investment. Twenty years ago, when property was comparatively cheaper, he rented out each of them at $5,000 (Shs19m) a month. By the time he sold them five years ago, he was barely getting $1,000 (Shs3.9m) from each. The only way to get a good return on investment was to demolish these old villas and build office blocks but he did not want to go through the trouble with bank loans. The least he is comfortable with was at least $6,000 (Shs23m) from each, but alas."

"'A property worth Shs5.8 billion ($1.5m) should at least earn you Shs580m to Shs600m a year, which is 10 percent of the value. But by the time I sold them, each was only earning me a little over Shs300m a year. That return on investment is not worth it,' he said. He explained that the reason premium homes are no longer investable is because there has been an oversupply of properties and an undersupply of tenants over the last decade, bringing the rates down."

"But according to VAAL Real Estate, the cause of such unprofitability is because there is very limited rental market for villas in Uganda. 'A stand alone home in Kololo can only be afforded by ambassadors, CEOs, and international NGOs as office space. Those numbers are very limited. The rich Ugandans that can afford to rent a Kololo villa at $6,000 (Shs23m) already have such a villa down the street. That is probably why that gentleman had to sell,' says Brian Arinaitwe, the head of marketing at VAAL."