A report from Market Place. "On Friday the National Association of Realtors agreed to settle multiple lawsuits that accused its members of colluding to keep commission rates artificially high. Sacramento Realtor Erin Stumpf said many buyers may not be able to afford to pay agents out of pocket. 'A lot of our buyers are using down payment assistance, 3.5% FHA [Federal Housing Administration] loans, and those buyers do not have the resources to pay their agent directly,' she said."

9 News in Colorado. "Along with a financial settlement, the agreement also binds the association from offering upfront buyer’s agent commissions on the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) and requires agents or anyone working with a homebuyer to enter into an agreement with them. 'I think it's going to hurt buyers because they're going to be asked to pay money unless they can get it rolled into the closing costs. Nobody knows the answer to that yet,' said Ron Throup, associate professor at the University of Denver’s Burns School of Real Estate."

WYFF in South Carolina. "Linda Rademacher is the 2024 President of the Spartanburg Association of Realtors. She said she's not sure what this will mean for realtors' take-home pay, but she doesn't think it will lower house prices. 'I think where the challenges are going to arise are our first-time buyers or buyers who have more limited budgets. Because, if a seller doesn't want to offer compensation, which again, all of that's negotiable, then that buyer may not have the financial means to pay,' Rademacher said."

From 12 News. "Veterans of Arizona’s real estate industry say new rules for realtors expected to kick in this summer will change the dynamics of the home purchasing process, but to what extent is unclear. 'I think that savvy buyers that don’t think they need representation and are buying houses on a regular basis and are comfortable with the process, perhaps there may be a benefit to them because extra compensation won’t be built into the purchase,' said realtor Dennis Carr of HomeSmart. Mark Stapp, professor of Real Estate at ASU’s W.P. Carey School of Business, says if compensation fees are not wrapped into the mortgage, some buyers may be squeezed out of purchasing a home. 'Maybe one of the things that transpires is that you will find buyers, especially at the lower end of the marketplace, less able to afford to buy a house because they don’t have the cash available to pay the agent.'"

KIRO 7 in Washington. "A $418 million settlement by the National Association of Realtors sends waves of shock and uncertainty across the real estate industry on Friday. Jantzee Ellis, a realtor with eXp Realty based in Thurston County, explains that no matter who is responsible for paying one of both fees, the money is still coming from the 'same pot.' Ellis said, 'Without the buyer loan, without their down payment, without their funds, there is no sale, so there is no profit for the seller. There is no listing commission. There is no buyer agent commission.'”

From ABC 25. "Chris Meza is a Central Texas Realtor and managing partner with Carbajal Realty. Meza not only has serious concerns about his future income but how the change could impact the people he works for. 'You do have to look at and be concerned about buyers and how those commissions are going to be covered moving forward — especially in particular the first-time home buyer, where they may not have that cash sitting around ready to buy properties,' he said."

The El Paso Times in Texas. "New homes priced at more than $300,000 are ready to sell, but no one can buy them at a large Upper Valley housing development that was at a standstill for months because of construction and contract problems tied to the developer, who had two high-profile El Paso commercial projects collapse several years ago. Dozens of houses have been built in the Village at Westside Crossing's 253-lot first phase, near the intersection of Artcraft Road and Westside Drive. But city planning department officials won’t allow them to be sold or occupied until required subdivision improvements are completed."

"Longtime El Paso homebuilder Zia Homes completed 60 houses in the subdivision, and has more than $12 million invested there, including almost $3.5 million for buying the lots, Zia owner Preston Brown said. That doesn't include the more than $1 million in financing interest Zia has paid and continues to grow while the homes sit vacant, he said. 'We will lose money on this neighborhood because of the lies of the developer,' Brown said. 'We are blessed and in a (financial) position to handle this. The sad thing is the homebuyers are being hurt by this,' he said."

From Bisnow. "A pioneer in the off-campus student housing business is fighting to stay afloat as foreclosures, bankruptcies, multimillion-dollar judgements and liens pile up against his businesses and personal assets. Patrick Nelson and his California-based firm, Nelson Partners Student Housing, owe at least $115M to small investors and a private equity firm as around a dozen active lawsuits weave their way through U.S. courts, The New York Times reports. As the bills are piling up, at least two judges have held Nelson in contempt of court for misappropriating settlement funds and misusing company money, including to pay for personal expenses."

"Nelson has followed a similar track at other properties facing financial difficulties, moving five companies each associated with one property into bankruptcy after they defaulted on loans, the NYT reported. One of Nelson’s Southern California homes also has a $3M tax lien from the Internal Revenue Service. The first major lawsuit against him came three years ago when hundreds of investors in the acquisition of a student housing tower in Austin alleged they had been defrauded out of tens of millions of dollars."

Globe and Mail in Canada. "476 Hawk Hill Dr., Kelowna. Asking price: $1.749-million (July 27); $1,699,900 (Aug. 2); re-listed $1.65-million (Oct. 4). Selling price: $1.6-million (Jan. 22). They were the only offer on the property and their timing was good because the fall market was slow. The property had initially been listed in the summer for $1.749-million and the sellers adjusted the price a couple of times. 'They were reaching for the stars a bit there,' says the buyer’s agent Richard Deacon. 'The market was certainly not in a great spot back in the summer, and then the [forest] fires hit.'"

From Xinhua. "Germany's housing crisis has shown no sign of easing, with a 23.5-percent decline in the number of residential building permits issued in January compared to the same period of 2023, the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) said on Monday. 'The situation on the housing market is getting worse … the slump in residential construction is more than worrying,' said Lukas Siebenkotten, president of the German tenants' association (DMB)."

From News.com.au. "A major building company has collapsed with the majority of staff sacked and $120 million worth of projects up in the air. Project Coordination (Australia) Pty Ltd, which had been in business for 50 years, went into voluntary administration on Tuesday afternoon. The business had offices in Canberra and Wollongong and did construction work in the ACT and NSW. At the time of its demise, Project Coordination had $120 million worth of projects on its books and a further $90 million in the pipeline, ready to start. Most of the $20 million debt the business owes to creditors was only incurred in the past two months, the administrators also noted. Project Coordination’s 67 staff – 38 of whom are based in the ACT and 29 in NSW – have mostly been made redundant."

"Co-director Paul Murphy, who is 72 years old and has been with the business from the beginning, said he was 'devastated.' 'The economic and regulatory environment that building companies are working in now is more challenging than any other I’ve experienced in the past 50 years – worse than the recessions in the 1980s and 1990s and the Global Financial Crisis in 2007/2008,' he said. 'Nothing has been as bad as this.'"

South China Morning Post. "Hong Kong's current property market downturn is cyclical and not structural, according to S&P Global Ratings, which expects home prices to decline by as much as 10 per cent this year as elevated interest rates keep demand in check. Late last month, Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po scrapped all cooling measures restricting property transactions as he unveiled a budget aimed at restoring the city's flagging fiscal health, addressing mounting calls from the property and business sectors to ditch the decade-old measures. The announcement came as lived-in home prices fell for a ninth straight month in January to a level last seen in 2016."

"Given these dynamics at play, Wilson Ling, associate director for corporate ratings at the credit rating agency said home prices were likely to decline between 5 per cent and 10 per cent this year. 'Even if there's some support from all these policy stimulations, there's probably still a long way to go from a demand perspective and before supply is digested to really reverse the oversupply situation,' he said."

From Bloomberg. "China Evergrande Group’s alleged $78 billion revenue overstatement escalates the legal peril of founder Hui Ka Yan, who now stands at the center of one of the biggest financial fraud cases in history. The nation’s top securities regulator said the developer’s onshore unit inflated revenue by recognizing sales in advance in the two years through 2020 that led up to its default. Evergrande’s alleged fraud dwarfs that of Luckin Coffee Inc. and Enron Corp., dealing a blow to the reputation of its former auditor PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP and the country’s financial oversight. It fuels concern about how widespread such accounting issues are."

"Regulators allege Hui instructed other personnel to 'falsely inflate' annual results. The onshore unit Hengda Real Estate Group boosted its 2019 revenue by about 214 billion yuan, and another 350 billion yuan in 2020, the regulator said. The inflated figures accounted for half of Hengda’s total revenue in 2019, and 79% in 2020. Hengda’s auditor in 2019 and 2020 was PricewaterhouseCoopers Zhong Tian LLP, a mainland entity affiliated with PwC’s network. PwC resigned as Evergrande’s auditor in January 2023 due to audit disagreements."

"PwC has also resigned as auditor for other Chinese developers including Sunac China Holdings Ltd. and Shimao Group Holdings Ltd. In Hong Kong, the city’s Financial Reporting Council said in 2022 that it was looking into Evergrande’s financial statements for 2020 and expanding an investigation of an audit carried out by PwC. The auditor didn’t respond to requests for comment. 'The more alarming question is — given than many other real estate developers have faced financial distress — who else relied on accounting gimmickry to buy them time,' said Joel A. Gallo, an adjunct professor at New York University in Shanghai."