A weekend topic starting with Fortune. "This is traditionally the time when home sales bloom. But 2023’s deep freeze begs the question of whether the warming will emerge from under an ice cube or an iceberg. Take the typical home value of $349,216, which is more than 40% higher than before the pandemic. It really comes down to the fact that 'home price appreciation has far outpaced household income growth in recent years,' as the Wells Fargo economics team put it. 'Home values are now roughly five times higher than median household incomes, a stark change from the 3.5 ratio averaged historically,' they wrote."

12 News in Arizona. "A lack of affordable housing for workers in Sedona has resulted in the city creating a space where they can legally sleep in their cars overnight and have access to necessary amenities. To park in the safe zone, participants must show proof of employment in Sedona or enrollment in a local school. The safe parking zone will be open from 4 p.m.-8 a.m. and participants will be expected to pay a fee to park, city records show. Sedona's leaders stressed they don't want to see residents living out of their cars. But they believe the car park could be a feasible option until the city's housing supply improves. A quick Zillow search shows the cheapest rental in Sedona is a 360-square-foot studio for $1,350 per month. The average home price is listed at over $930,000."

ABC Action News in Florida. "John Pfanstiehl is often reminded of why he lives in Indian Rocks Beach. Over the past few years, however, he and others have had problems with some of their other neighbors — the very temporary ones who rent out homes here short-term through sites like Airbnb and VRBO. 'People drunk coming home pounding on people’s doors because they don’t know which house they came out of,' he said, in part. 'Noise all the time. Lights on all night long.'"

WBRC in Alabama. "Changes are coming to the home buying and selling process. Friday, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) agreed on a settlement that puts an end to the 6% commission on home buying or selling. Realtor Cody Cummings says this will trim the fat on an already saturated realtor market, meaning it is going to get a lot of agents who should not be in the industry out of the industry. 'Last year was the lowest transaction volume across the country since 2009, and a lot of agents, 50% of agents sold one or fewer houses last year. So a lot of agents are on their way out anyway so I think this has just kind of furthered that,' said Cummings."

The Union Tribune in California. "San Diego homeowners could see a drop in the cost to sell properties after a historic settlement with a national real estate agent group. 'There are some really good agents out there that keep you out of trouble,' said Norm Miller, real estate professor at the University of San Diego. 'For some buyers and sellers, it is worth the fee because the risk is so high. The problem is we have all these part-time, mediocre type agents out there that don't know what they are doing.'"

KCTV in Missouri. "The standard 6% commission when selling a home is likely done for. 'The people that I feel this is going to hurt the most, to be honest with you, are the low-income buyers,' said David Conderman, the broker/owner of Keller Williams, Kansas City Metro. 'It’s already difficult for a low-income buyer to compete against investors and cash offers out in the market place, and now they are going to have to find a realtor who is willing work with them,' 'I think what we should have done is go to our mortgage market. We needed to go to Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, HUD, VA and talked about how we can include buyer’s compensation in a loan.'"

Fox 13 in Utah. "One agent said the possible changes could impact first-time home buyers, who could have to pay more for an agent because the commission would no longer come just from the seller. 'They're probably the folks that need the most help throughout the transaction and throughout the process,' said real estate agent Terry Bailey. 'But, the issue is, if they're having to come out with the down payment, and your closing costs, and agent commission, it becomes very hefty and it becomes very difficult for especially first-time home buyers, to enter the market with representation.'"

The Wall Street Journal. "The new commission structure could pose challenges for first-time buyers and others who are struggling to save for a down payment. Because the buyer’s agent’s commission has long been baked into the sale price, the buyer was able to finance that cost over the length of the mortgage instead of having to pay it upfront at the closing table. 'I think you are going to have first-time buyers that are just going to say, ‘I just can’t afford to pay you,’ said Ryan Gable, chief executive of StartingPoint Realty in the Chicago area. 'Those are the people that need us the most, and a lot of them don’t have the money to pay us right away.'"

The Canadian Press. "Just like home prices, farmland prices rose across the country last year – up an average 11.5 per cent overall from the year before, down slightly from the previous year. Prices for cultivated farmland rose in every province tracked by Farm Credit Canada except for British Columbia. Analysts are reluctant to get into picking winners and losers from rising farmland values, but it's clear from the numbers – average values in Canada have gone nowhere but up over the last 10 years, and by double-digit rates in nearly half of those – that landowners, who can be producers or investors, are the winners, especially when they cash out. On the flip side, depending on where in the province the land is located, higher prices make it that much tougher for younger farmers to break into the business and some producers to expand."

The National Post in Canada. "According to Demographia’s 2023 survey of 94 major housing markets around the world, Toronto was the 10th least affordable. The region’s price-to-income ratio ('median multiple') has increased from 5.2 in 2010, to 9.5 today, making Toronto more expensive than virtually any American city outside California and Hawaii. For its part, Vancouver had the third-worst median multiple according to Demographia’s survey, trailing only Hong Kong and Sydney. Vancouver’s price-to-income ratio has increased from 5.3 in 2005 to 12 in 2023. Imagine this: Vancouver is pricier than London, New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Chicago."

The Globe and Mail. "It’s the Canadian way to believe in houses as an investment. In a recent RE/MAX poll, 73 per cent of participants said they believe home ownership is the best investment they can make in 2024, a similar number to last year. Now for a reality check. The national average housing price peaked at $816,720 in February, 2022, and then sank to $659,395 in January of this year. This drop of 19.3 per cent doesn’t kill the idea of houses as investments narrative, but it does offer some perspective."

"Housing has been excellent in the past – the average annual increase in the national average resale price the past 10- and 20-year periods is roughly 6 per cent, according to Canadian Real Estate Association data. If a home is your principal residence, that gain is tax-free. But even with high levels of immigration, there’s reason to question if housing prices can keep up that pace of growth in a slow-growing economy where borrowing costs remain high."

From News.com.au. "Dick Smith has blasted Australia’s latest record immigration figures for January as a 'disaster for families,' as the federal government faces growing calls to reduce the number of new arrivals to ease pressure on the housing market. Speaking to The Daily Telegraph, the legendary Aussie businessman slammed the latest figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) released on Thursday, which showed the country brought in a record 125,410 permanent and long-term arrivals in January. Even accounting for departures, the net increased of 55,330 was the highest January intake ever recorded."

"'Every Australian family has a population plan to have the number of children they can give a good life to, but at the rate we are going it means the average Australian family will have less,' Mr Smith told the newspaper. 'The problem is billionaire political donors have a short circuit in their brains, and all they want is unlimited population growth to grow their wealth. The question every Australian should be asking the federal government is — why did it choose to ramp-up immigration to record high levels when the supply-side of the housing market was clearly bottlenecked?'"

"He suggested the 'unplanned mass migration approach is setting Australia up for an economic and humanitarian disaster, and actively undermines Australians who are struggling with rapidly rising house prices and rental costs. In addition, for the first time in 40 years, per capita GDP has gone down for four consecutive quarters, leaving Australians, at an individual level, in a recession,' he said. 'While the overall size of the economic pie may be growing, it is leaving Australians with an even smaller slice.'"

From Bloomberg. "There are so many apartments sitting empty in Chile that the government is considering stepping in to buy some. That’s an unusual move in a world where it’s a shortage of housing that is typically the problem. The pain points in Chile are restrictive mortgage terms and 14-year-high interest rates that have dragged down property sales. That’s leaving developers with an unprecedented number of empty apartments they still have to pay to maintain. Now, home prices are falling, construction workers are losing their jobs and real estate companies are filing for bankruptcy — effectively throwing the whole industry into crisis. Last year, 137 construction firms and 15 developers went bankrupt, while eight construction companies restructured their businesses. 'This whole crisis made us realize that the real estate business is not going to be' the same ever again, said Luis Carreño, chief executive officer of AThink Desarrollos Inmobiliarios."

"Just in the capital of Santiago, the stock of unsold homes reached a record 68,000 mid-last year and has since slipped to 66,000, according to Chile’s construction chamber. And it’s not that there’s a glut of overpriced, luxury properties: About two-thirds of current inventory is aimed at the middle-class sector, according to José Ignacio Vicente, CEO of property platform Toctoc.com. His company estimates that it would take about two and a half years to sell all of the available homes in the capital at the current speed of sales."

"Now, some developers are so squeezed that when buyers back out of deals they aren’t able to pay back deposits. Katherine Hernandez, a 32-year-old civil construction professional, has spent 10 months trying to get her deposit back after the developer of her apartment building suspended construction at all of its projects. 'It’s not that much, but it’s my money and I need it back,' Hernandez said."

DPA International. "German real estate investment giant Vonovia slipped significantly deeper into the red last year as property values declined, reporting a loss in 2023 of nearly €6.8 billion ($7.4 billion). The company blamed the further devaluation of its real estate portfolio for the losses. Vonovia valued its rental property portfolio at around €83.9 billion at the end of December. A year earlier, the company put the value of that same portfolio at €94.7 billion. In 2022, Vonovia reported overall financial losses of around €669 million due to declining value of its portfolio."

"'We have never seen such a high reduction in value in the history of Germany as in 2023. This applies not only to Vonovia, but to everyone,' said Vonovia chief executive Rolf Buch in a conference call. Real estate investment companies such as Vonovia and LEG have put new construction projects on hold for the time being. Buch said Vonovia would seek to reduce debt in the current year by selling off about €3 billion worth of residential buildings. Last year, the company generated around €4 billion from the sale of apartment buildings."

"Vonovia grew dramatically during a long period of low interest rates up through 2022, buying numerous properties in Germany and across Europe and benefiting from rising rents in major cities. Vonovia also purchased Germany's second-largest residential landlord, Deutsche Wohnen, in 2021. As Europe's largest private residential real estate company, Vonovia owns a total of almost 546,000 flats in Germany, Sweden and Austria, of which around 485,000 are in Germany."