A report from Business Insider. "Owners are trying to unload units in the face of the skyrocketing costs of maintaining an apartment in Florida. At the same time, prospective buyers are driven away by those same fees. 'It's definitely been a slow-motion train wreck,' said Joe Humphfner, who owns a condo in Jupiter, near West Palm Beach. Listings have soared as prices fall in major Florida cities, according to Redfin. The number of listings in February jumped nearly 30% in markets like Jacksonville and Miami compared to the same time last year. Meanwhile, prices dropped by as much as 7% in Jacksonville, to $254,000, and 3% in Miami, to $385,000."

"Humphfner bought his pad for $140,000 in 2020. Rising costs have made him consider selling already, he said. HOA fees on his one-bedroom unit have jumped from $200 a month to $500 a month. Much of the increase, Humphfner said, has come from the increased cost of the building's annual insurance payments, which have ballooned from $30,000 per year in 2020 to $100,000 this year. Humphfner, 25, predicted that many owners like him will be forced to sell their units because of increases like these. 'Unless there's a miracle in the insurance market,' Humphfner said, 'I don't see it being sustainable.'"

The Bellingham Herald in Washington. "Home sale prices in Whatcom County and Bellingham decreased in February. Whatcom County's median home sale price has fluctuated throughout 2023. The median home sale price reached an extreme high of $702,500 on Nov. 20, the highest price recorded in 2023, according to Redfin. In February, Whatcom's median home sale price fluctuated, starting at $604,950 on Feb. 5, then jumping to $626,000 on Feb. 12, and then dropping to $580,000 on Feb. 19."

Realtor.com on California. "Eva Longoria could hardly be considered a desperate housewife these days, even though she famously played one on TV more than a decade ago. But without finding a buyer for her home, the actress did recently slice the price of her Beverly Hills mansion. The haute home landed on the market almost a year ago for $22,888,000, and Longoria has now dropped the price a second time. The posh place is now listed for $18,988,000. She and her husband paid $13,500,000 for the chic, 1.4-acre property in 2017. The couple will still make a hefty profit, even though they spent an untold (but obviously substantial) amount on an exquisite renovation."

The Los Angeles Times in California. "Every once in a while, Shardreata Moore gets a Subway coupon in the mail, and she knows she won’t have to worry about her next three meals. 'I get a $7.99 footlong and have them cut it in threes,' the retiree told me. Moore says she goes to Subway to order a chicken sandwich on whole grain bread, with spinach, cucumbers and tomatoes. That way, she gets some protein and at least a few fresh vegetables without a trip to the grocery store, where inflation is a killer. Kris Gaine said that when she retired several years ago from 40-plus years in ticketing and subscriptions at downtown L.A. arts venues, she was financially set. 'Not now,' she said. 'Inflation has overtaken my pension and Social Security. I stand here and shake my head on most of my visits to the grocery store.'"

From The BBC. "New York City deli owner Jimmy Yavrodi looks grimly out of the shop that he opened 27 years ago in one of the city's prime business districts. 'Everything is empty,' he says. 'I don't understand it.' From his perch on Park Avenue South, the 61-year-old sent two children to university and employed 12 people, slinging sandwiches and salads for the office workers that streamed in from nearby buildings. These days it offers a window from which to watch what some are calling America's office 'apocalypse.' His next door neighbour, 360 Park Avenue South, has been empty since 2021 for redevelopment. The 20-storey building, which sold for $300m (£233m) that year, recently drew headlines after one of the owners handed over its 29% stake to one of its partners, walking away from commitments to fund $45m more in upgrades,in exchange for $1."

"On the street, residents will tell you life has returned since Covid. But sales at Mr Yavrodi's Taza Cafe & Deli, which have sunk 70% since 2020, tell a different story - one revealing the enormous challenges facing owners of office properties around the country, and the risks those issues are creating for the wider economy. 'We depend on office employees and office employees are not here. It's very simple math,' he says. 'If they don't come to work, places like us can't survive.'"

"The declines have coincided with a sharp rise in borrowing costs, creating incentives for even well-financed firms to walk away from their properties, as the value of their buildings sinks below what they owe on their loans. The situation looks more serious in other places. In San Francisco, where the shift to remote work has been most extreme, the mayor has paused hiring and ordered officials to prepare to slash spending by 10%. Analysts in Boston, where more than a third of tax revenue comes from commercial property taxes, are forecasting looming budget shortfalls and pushing the city to find new ways to raise money. Warnings have also bubbled up in Atlanta, Dallas and other cities."

"Mr Yavrodi remains sceptical. After shrinking his workforce from 12 to five, switching up his menu, and expanding deliveries, he sees little anyone can do to address the problem. 'Everybody has different ideas but they are trying to put a bandage on a big cut when they need heavy-duty stitches,' he says. 'The way of life for the offices, as it was before the pandemic, is never going to come back.'"

The Globe and Mail in Canada. "That swooshing sound you hear is markets zooming upward. Over the past few days, many of the world’s leading stock market indexes – the S&P 500, the Nasdaq Composite, the Stoxx Europe 600 and the Nikkei 225 – have hit record highs. So has bitcoin. So has gold. But, um, why? At the risk of sounding rude, the underlying data don’t seem to be quite as cheery as the current bull market in nearly everything would suggest. Corporations are reporting decent but not overwhelming earnings growth. Interest rates remain at punishing levels in Canada, the United States and Europe."

""Thanks in large part to those painfully high interest rates, the global economy is sputtering. Britain and Japan are already in recession. Germany is likely to join them, according to the Bundesbank. Meanwhile, China is grappling with a property crisis. This is not the most natural launch pad for widespread gains in asset prices. To be fair, the current level doesn’t feel like a bubble, where share prices lose all connection to rationality. It seems more like a frothy, optimistic market determined to look on the bright side of things."

The London Free Press. "The number of London homeowners defaulting on their mortgage payments has risen more than 80 per cent as high interest rates catch up with buyers who paid soaring home prices, a new analysis shows. London had the second highest rate in the country, as defaults rose 83.3 per cent at the end of the third quarter last year, second only to Barrie that saw defaults double, says the report by credit agency Equifax and Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. Delinquency is defined as missing three or more mortgage payments."

"Although the 83.3 per cent increase sounds dire, it means about 70 homeowners defaulted on their mortgage payments in London, said Rebecca Oates, vice-president of analytics for Equifax, a credit reference agency. 'When you miss mortgage payments for 90 days, that is pretty bad,' Oates said. London stands near the top of the list as home prices here rose sharply in a short period of time and have now fallen. If a homeowner has to renew their mortgage but the home is worth less than the mortgage, it may not be renewed."

"'It is happening across Ontario, and Hamilton and Toronto rates are increasing faster than London,' Oates said. 'House prices rose significantly and income has not risen.' Last month the average home selling price in London was $618,000, down more than $200,000 from February 2022 when it was $825,000. In 2022, the Bank of Canada’s key lending rate rose from 0.5 per cent to 3.75 per cent and now stands at five per cent."

The Chosenilbo. "One of South Korea’s top 10 construction companies, Company A, has decided internally to avoid pursuing large-scale projects this year. Instead, they will prioritize smaller projects with secured stability or ongoing construction ventures. The business activities of domestic construction companies are sharply declining. In January, new construction orders in South Korea totaled 8.5639 trillion won, down 53.6% from the same period last year (18.4721 trillion won). This decline is the largest in over 13 years since October 2010 (58.9%). Annual construction orders for the previous year also fell by 18.5% compared to the year before, totaling 176.1387 trillion won. Excluding the IMF foreign exchange crisis period in 1998 (-42.6%), this marks the largest decline in construction orders since records began in 1977."

"Joo Won, deputy director of the Economic Research Department at Hyundai Research Institute, emphasized, 'The construction industry, known for its high wages, has a substantial effect on boosting purchasing power and stimulating the economy when job opportunities increase. This particularly benefits low-income households.' He added, 'It’s crucial to prevent further decline in the construction sector to support domestic consumption-driven economic recovery.'"

From Barron's. "There are many things haunting China’s economy these days, foremost among them the property market, which is a deflating bubble draining wealth from all corners of the country. Housing prices and sales are falling, and with them the investments of Chinese, who are notorious savers who put most of their excess cash into property. Developers are defaulting, and perhaps most infuriating to buyers, many have paid full price for units only to see them never finished. But nowhere are things worse than the property market in lower-tier cities—places with relatively modest GDPs and no more than a few million people. Their biggest problem is glut—too many units with few prospective buyers."

"Investments for residents in third-tier cities are being pummeled because they hold a significantly larger share of their household wealth in property than residents in higher-tier cities like Shanghai. 'I’m one of the unlucky ones,' said Wang Liyun, a 36-year-old white-collar worker in the third-tier city of Langfang, between first-tier Beijing and second-tier Tianjin. 'I bought in early 2021, then prices began to fall. I’ll ride it out, and I have hope prices will swing back up. But I consider myself a smart financial person, so this will impact how I spend in other areas. This is the only rational reaction when your main source of investment falls.'"

"As of the most recent data, the time to clear housing inventories in lower-tier cities is now about 30 months, compared with eight months three years earlier, according to data provider Wind. The rate remains roughly half of that for higher-tier cities. The southern city of Shaoguan—on the cusp of the third and fourth tier with 2.8 million residents—has an inventory clearing time of 131 months, or 10 years, according to a survey by think tank E-House China Research and Development Institute."

"One official late last year was surprisingly candid when interviewed by Chinese media. 'How many vacant homes are there now? Each expert gives a very different number, with the most extreme believing the current number of vacant homes is enough for 3 billion people,' said He Keng, 81, a former deputy head of the statistics bureau. 'You don’t dare buy now because prices will continue to fall. And you don’t dare sell because prices are low,' said Gou Liwei, who lives in a low-income area outside of Chengdu and has family in small cities across China, and who bought two additional properties years ago, before prices began to fall."