A report from the Kitsap Sun in Washington. "A wave of new homes are being built on a hillcrest in Silverdale in the Skyfall neighborhood. The third phase of the project, made up of 29 single-family homes on lot sizes between one and three acres, offers a microcosm of a hot housing market that's steadily rising in recent years -- every one of the houses in the neighborhood will list for more than $1 million. 'People, they have that hard time figuring out why housing is so expensive because they're sitting on a home that they bought really inexpensive with a very low mortgage rate,' Kitsap Building Association executive officer Randall King said. 'It's just the cost of things these days. You can't build that $200,000 home they had six years ago anymore.'"

The News Tribune in Washington. "A project that has been long-planned as a second Tacoma apartment site for a Seattle developer took another step forward this month. Arbutus House LLC, representing Great Expectations in Seattle, purchased three Tacoma Dome District-area parcels encompassing 109 S. 25th St and 102 S. 24th St. Great Expectations founder Ben Maritz and Great Expectations last made news in Tacoma in September 2022 via Cornus House after facing higher interest rates in the development process. The same day his company closed on acquiring the Arbutus property, The News Tribune reported on another construction pause nearby at another transit-oriented development: the unfinished Tacoma Trax apartment project at 415 E. 25th St."

"That project ground to a halt at the end of 2022 and was foreclosed on by its lender last year, who is still considering next steps after construction briefly resumed to keep the permits active. In contrast, Cornus House keeps plugging along, according to a January update on its website. The company at that time stated, 'The supply chain and escalation budget concerns in 2022 when the GMP (guaranted maximum price) was executed have largely been avoided.' It added, 'We entered a market in the middle of '23 and into '24 where the vendors/subcontractors are hungry for work, and the 20% markups have all but disappeared.'"

Market Watch. "Nearly a third of home sellers are slashing prices in Sun Belt cities as spring home-buying season heats up. According to February data from Zillow 33% of home listings in the Tampa, Fla., metro area saw a price cut in February, the highest share in the nation. That’s up 3.7% from a year ago. Phoenix, Ariz., and San Antonio, Texas, followed with 32% and 27% of homes listed in those areas seeing price cuts. The price cuts are the symptom of at least two factors: Homeowners are struggling to price their homes well, and there’s a surge in new listings, Orphe Divounguy, senior economist at Zillow, told MarketWatch."

"'After a drought of activity in the housing market, nobody is quite sure how to price their home,' he explained. 'Successful sellers are those who adopt [a home builder’s] strategy,' which is a combination of price cuts and concessions, Divounguy said. Additionally, some markets have seen a big bump in newly built homes, particularly cities in the Sun Belt, such as in Texas and Florida. Nationwide, one in five home listings is seeing a price cut, which is higher than normal for this time of the year, Zillow said. It’s also 2% higher than a year ago. 'That’s happening because sellers who misjudged the market are cutting prices to close the gap with buyers,' Divounguy said."

The Denver Post in Colorado. "Metro Denver’s track record for listing homes at the correct price is so bad that an Austin-based real estate technology firm called True Footage is using it as the proving ground for GlassHouse, a new digital platform for buying and selling real estate. A common problem in the real estate industry is that sellers have an overinflated sense of what their homes are worth, said John Liss, CEO of True Footage, which is launching GlassHouse next week in Denver, the first step in a larger rollout. Denver is one of the worst markets when it comes to unrealistic listing prices, according to a True Footage analysis. Over the past six months, 45% of residential listings in metro Denver started too high, were cut, and then lingered for weeks. Why is stretching on the listing price a problem? When the listing price was wrong and had to be lowered in metro Denver, a home spent a median of 61 days on the market before eventually selling at a 7.2% discount."

WLOS in North Carolina. "Next week, Buncombe County commissioners could move forward on the first step of a pilot program that would pay property owners thousands in incentive payments to free up their short-term rentals for long-term affordable use. Vanessa Zadeh, who moved from Portland, Oregon, to Buncombe County, said she chose to live in the county because she wanted to operate short-term rentals for added income. 'I bought my properties specifically because it was open use,' said Zadeh. 'I would not be interested (in the Conversion Project) because I do use the rentals for my family part of the year cover, so if I had to have a long-term renter in there, I wouldn’t be able to do that.' 'It pays my mortgage,' said Lisa Gluckin, at the same meeting."

Click Orlando in Florida. "Even though the deadline is not until Dec. 31, Volusia County officials are urging condo associations to start getting their milestone inspections done. It’s part of a state law created after the Surfside condo collapse in Miami back in 2021, but the deadline for inspections is at the end of 2024. The county said there are more than 80 condo buildings in Volusia that still need to get the milestone inspection done. Bob Delrose of Surfcoast Realty told News 6 that the reserve funds are where it is getting tricky for many condos. He gave an example of one condo in Ormond Beach he works with. 'They for the last 50 years have been putting $25,000 a year in their reserves,' said Delrose. 'After this study, they’re asking them to put $170,000 per year in the reserves.'"

The Daily Voice on New York. "House hunters looking for a deal won’t want to miss this impressive waterfront estate on Long Island that was once home to a billionaire. Known as 'Goose Creek,' 30 Mathews Road in the East Hampton hamlet of Wainscott dropped to $45 million on Tuesday, March 26. Originally listed for $70 million in July 2021, the sprawling 14-acre property, with more than 800 feet of water frontage, was the longtime home of billionaire real estate developer and art collector Sheldon Solow."

The Blast on California. "LeBron James is reportedly disturbed by squatters who have taken over a $5 million home close to his sprawling Beverly Hills mansion. The house was taken over by squatters in October after sitting empty on the market for months and has now been used for large, loud gatherings and 'cocaine orgy parties.' It comes amid reports of a surge in squatters occupying several homes across the country. LAPD Senior Lead Officer James Allen went further to note that the current ownership of the home is uncertain, as it has been the subject of a bankruptcy court case, and that the home is entering foreclosure. 'I guess he left his friends in the house. I guess we can say they're squatters. But they're squatters to the owner that's in foreclosure to the bank,' Allen said."

The Real Deal on California. "The words 'this key won’t unlock this door' may prove prophetic for the owners of the Jimi Hendrix Red House. The home, located at 1524-1528 Haight Street in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district, is in danger of foreclosure, according to a notice of default filed on Feb. 13. The owners of the home, identified in property records as Rasmi and Bahjeh Zeidan, allegedly fell behind on $1.9 million in debt. Cathay Bank provided the $2 million loan on the asset in July 2018. With the alleged default, the Jimi Hendrix Red House joins an expanding list of distressed residential properties in the Bay Area. In February, apartment landlord Veritas lost 95 apartment buildings in San Francisco after defaulting on $1 billion in loans. Earlier this month, Group I also allegedly defaulted on a $26 million loan tied to 988 Market Street, the city’s first office-to-home conversion."

The Globe and Mail. "Billionaire financier Stephen Smith is merging recently acquired Home Trust Co. with Fairstone Bank of Canada in a deal he values at about $5-billion to $6-billion. Last year, a subsidiary of Smith Financial Corp. closed its acquisition of Home Capital, which owns Home Trust. Once combined with Mr. Smith’s other subprime lender, Fairstone, the new entity will have $30-billion in assets, two million customers and 250 branches across Canada."

"The two banks are similar businesses with the same target market, but offer different products. Home Trust provides single family residential mortgages, commercial mortgages and credit cards, while Fairstone offers consumer loans, a Walmart rewards credit card, consumer auto finance lending and a point-of-sale financing business. The lenders provide subprime lending to customers who typically would not qualify for loans at a bigger bank, such as business entrepreneurs, self-employed workers, and new immigrants who have yet to build a credit score. 'They’re typically not served by the big banks,' Mr. Smith said in an interview. 'They may have other credit challenges and large banks aren’t suited to them. That’s our market – that’s the Fairstone market and that’s the Home Trust market.'"

The Daily Hive in Canada. "The prospect of owning a home has sailed far beyond reach for many in Toronto, but there was a time in the not-too-distant past when even blue-collar single-income families could comfortably afford to purchase a house in the city. A vintage ad making the rounds on social media this month is underscoring the soaring costs of housing in today’s real estate market compared to the almost unbelievably low sticker price of a two-storey home sold in the early 1960s."

"The ad for a home model known as The Crestwood offered a starting price of just $16,745 for the single-detached house in the Finch and Leslie area, maxing out at $19,495 with an attached garage. According to The Bank of Canada’s inflation calculator, that base price of $16,745 in 1963 would translate to $166,194.13 in 2024 dollars — which is still just a fraction of the average home price in Toronto today. The average price of a detached house in the region reached $1,443,612 in February 2024, which is almost 10 times the cost of these detached homes 61 years earlier."

"'My dad paid his house $30,000 in 65. Half acre lot with large home. Our poor kids will be paying a mortgage still at retirement,' says one user. Another user explained how much things have changed since the era this advertisement was produced. 'My father a clerk in a manufacturing setting in the late fifties could buy a new four bedroom home in Toronto a new car every four or five years and along with a stay at home mom, raise five kids.'"

From City AM. "Britons in full time work spent over eight times their annual earnings buying a home last year, and London dwellers have been hardest hit. In the year to last September, the average house in England sold for £290,000, while the typical earnings of a full time worker were £35,000, giving a ratio of 8.3, a housing affordability report by the ONS said. In the London borough of Wandsworth, the average salary worker made just shy of £40,000 last year, but the average house cost £600,000, giving a ratio of 16.6. Meanwhile, in the borough of Richmond, the average worker also made around £40,000 and the average home cost over £700,000, giving a ratio of 18.4."

"Over a decade of wage stagnation coupled with a tough economic climate has made buying a home increasingly difficult. Charles Breen, founder at Montgomery Financial, said: 'While house prices peak, pay cheques not keeping pace have left the vast majority struggling with affordability and unable to get on the property ladder. It appears our social contract with the government for them to provide hard-working people the chance of home ownership has been torn up. This isn’t affordable Britain, it’s rip-off Britain.'"

ABC News in Australia. "It's a miracle. At least, that's the thinking of a growing number of the world's greatest minds as they ponder the thorny subject of chucking people on the unemployment scrap heap. In fact, they've even coined a new term for it: Immaculate Disinflation. Once again, in what's become a feature of this weird economic cycle, the unpredictability of the real world is making a mockery of the economic textbooks. Rarely have we seen such a brutal round of interest rate hikes. And yet, while they've had the utterly predictable effect of tipping many major economies into recession, there's one important area that is defying conventional wisdom."

"When it comes to the public arena, central bankers are more than happy to take the kudos for some mystical or even divine powers in engineering this unexpected feat. Privately, however, they've been flummoxed by the shift. Not only does it confound decades of thinking, but it has confused their strategy. For very recently, despite all the talk about maintaining 'full employment' and holding on to job gains, most have been silently praying for unemployment to go higher, to confirm they're on the right path to slaying the inflation dragon."

"It's been an article of faith for decades. In the choice between jobs and inflation, taming consumer prices comes first. Jobs are just collateral damage. Not that any central banker would ever openly admit that. There's a lot riding on this new economic religion. It's fired up a fervour for every conceivable store of wealth, from gold to bitcoin. Stock markets globally are soaring, punching through new records. And real estate, that perennial punt for Australians, is again on the march with the hint that interest rate cuts are coming. But much of this depends on jobs. Higher unemployment hits consumption, business profits, tax receipts and even the banks which are exposed to rising bad debts, which so far remain historically low."

"The Financial Stability Review released by the RBA last week highlighted a growing number of Australian households spending more than they were earning just to keep their heads above water. About 5 per cent of mortgage holders were outlaying more on essentials and repayments than they earned."