A report from KOLO in Nevada. "Last year, State Farm alone canceled 70,000 policies in California. Denise Bremer, the President of Incline Village Realtors, explains that our proximity makes us the logical next step. 'Because we do border California, they see that we’re forested and say ‘guess you’re the next community,’ Bremer said. Without insurance, many homeowners can find themselves in big financial trouble. 'Lenders aren’t going to lend on anything that’s not insurable,' said Bremer. 'Housing prices will go down is the bottom line. If you can’t get insurance, you won’t buy, and if you put your house on the market the value will go way down because there are no buyers,' said Bremer."

WFTV in Florida. "Some Orlando condo owners say they may soon be priced out of the homes they’ve lived in for years. Owners at the Regency Gardens Condominiums got notices saying their board plans to pass a special assessment on May 15th. According to the notice, the smallest homes in the condo will need to pay $11,148.42 for the assessment, and the largest homes will need to hand over $22,104.69. Many residents say they will now need to quickly sell their homes or could face foreclosure. 'It’s going to be impossible. You’re going to see 60 or 70 percent of the people living here out within 6 months,' said condo owner Bryan Pricher."

The San Francisco Chronicle in California. "The talk of the town in Orinda — the small, affluent city nestled on the eastern side of the wooded Berkeley Hills in Contra Costa County — is not about a recent spate of home burglaries or the downtown movie theater going dark two nights a week to save on electricity. Instead, the buzz is all about the California home insurance crisis — a far drier subject, but a particularly dire one in Orinda. A Chronicle analysis of data provided by State Farm to the state Department of Insurance found that 1,700 homeowners in Orinda will lose their State Farm coverage — the most in any ZIP code in the state. The non-renewals affect about 55% of Orinda homeowners with State Farm policies, the largest percentage in the Bay Area."

"Carl, 76, an Orinda resident who’s been a State Farm customer for 50 years, said he was so angered by the non-renewal notice that he penned a letter to the company’s CEO, Michael Tipsord. 'I got a letter back from somebody saying ‘Tough s—-, we’re canceling your liability insurance and earthquake insurance as well,' he said."

The Real Deal on California. "Ilan Kenig, the CEO behind FMB Development, has lost his home in Pacific Palisades to his lender — and allegedly owes more than $500,000 in unpaid credit card debt. Kenig signed a deed-in-lieu of foreclosure, handing over the nearly 7,000-square-foot property at 1355 Berea Place to lender VIG Private Lending, according to documents filed with Los Angeles County in February. The foreclosure comes as Kenig is suing four former partners, including Rabbi Yoshiyahu Yosef Pinto, once an adviser to high-profile New York real estate players who was convicted on bribery charges in Israel, claiming a multimillion-dollar fraud scheme that left Kenig with nothing but debt bills. Kenig’s default on his home is one of many. He has filed for bankruptcy on at least six FMB multifamily projects, and has claimed in legal documents that 'almost all' of FMB’s projects are in default. TRD reported on a Van Nuys project that filed Chapter 11 in November."

NBC Chicago in Illinois. "Several Chicago-area residents were left wondering if a popular home-flipping business was a bad business model or a Ponzi scheme as iFLIP Chicago has been targeted in several lawsuits, accusing the company of luring inexperienced investors into predatory loans. The loans have led to financially devastating consequences for dozens of families in the Chicago area. They were approved for hard-money loans by Envision Funding. The loans were short-term with had high interest rates. Loan statements from Tatianna Barnett, a realtor who signed up for the iFLIP Bootcamp in 2021, showed that thousands of dollars were repeatedly transferred out of her loan account to another LLC she’d never heard of. She later learned that LLC was owned by another iFLIP joint venture participant who had also signed onto a loan with Ramo Bey. Barnett said she has no idea where the money is, and told NBC Chicago that she has lost $169,000."

"NBC 5 Responds has been contacted by several other iFLIP investors who made the same allegations. 'All of us are facing bankruptcy, are facing foreclosure, short sale. My mom's 401k is in this investment and we are at risk of losing over $200,000,' said Ameera Haamid, an emergency room physician. After Haamid's loan matured in Februrary, she said she tried to refinance her loan with a new lender, but was told her debt was too great and the home's value wasn't worth what it once was. Mortgage documents show at least seven other iFLIP joint venture properties are also currently in foreclosure, including Barnett’s. Sandra Robinson lives next to the home Haamid was never able to finish renovating. 'It's an eyesore, a disturbing eyesore. I hope something gets to be done,' longtime Woodlawn resident Sandra Robinson said."

The Daily Record in New Jersey. "Morris County's 2023 Development Activity Report indicates the residential 'building boom' of recent years, fueled by towns required by the state to build more affordable housing, may be cresting, even as previously approved projects with hundreds of units can be seen rising now in Parsippany, Hanover, Montville, Lincoln Park and elsewhere. The county's commercial real estate landscape, however, continued a startling transformation last year as developers demolished vacant office properties. 'When you look at these complexes that have been vacant for 10 years,' said County Commissioner Stephen Shaw, who now runs Shaw Construction out of a home office. 'It's eerie when you drive through the parking lots and there's weeds coming up through the cracks.'"

The Philadelphia Inquirer in Pennsylvania. "For the last few years, Center City District has focused on measuring the strength of Philadelphia’s downtown compared to what it was before the COVID-19 pandemic. Prema Katari Gupta, chief executive officer of Center City District, said looking back at Center City’s successes and challenges over the last four years is important, but 'it might be time to stop talking about recovery.' 'Maybe our cities will never go back, no matter how hard we will them, to where we were in 2019. And it’s time to embrace the unanticipated strengths but also the exposed vulnerabilities and really work hard to build a downtown that our region needs and that also is the sort of place that it should be,' Gupta said."

Brunswick News in Canada. "The developer of the stalled 99 King St. construction project is adding new fencing and screens as he hopes to get the project off the ground. The site of the former Woolworths building has sat empty since it was demolished in June 2021, with plans pivoting from mixed residential and office space to a full residential building. Saint John's growth committee heard an update on the project Monday after council received a letter from resident Adam Pottle saying wire mesh fences and 'tattered signage' around the perimeter are unsafe. Deputy mayor John MacKenzie called it 'unfortunate,' and said at the meeting he appreciates the repairs, saying the site can't be accessible or visible. 'We want this project to go ahead. But at the same time, it can't be an eyesore any longer,' he told Brunswick News. 'They've got to fix it up and prevent people from being able to access it and see that ugly hole.'"

"Developer Percy Wilbur said that the installation of new fencing would start Wednesday. He said the cost of filling in the site would be north of $500,000 and would only 'add to the burden' on the project. 'I can appreciate that it's an eyesore,' Wilbur said. 'It was never my intention to tear down one eyesore to create another one. I'm working exclusively on this project to move it forward.'"

This Is Money in the UK. "House prices fell for the second month in a row, according to Nationwide. Aside from higher mortgage rates, a glut of homes coming onto the market is also thought to be behind the downward pressure on house prices. Jonathan Hopper, chief executive of Garrington Property Finders, said: 'Two things lie behind the market's about turn on prices. The first is mortgage interest rates are heading in the wrong direction. The second is the oversupply of homes for sale in many areas. The flurry of activity seen at the start of the year opened the floodgates for many would-be movers who had been holding off on putting their home on the market. The current surge in supply, coupled with wobbling demand from buyers whose affordability is being stretched to the limit by stubbornly high mortgage interest rates, is pushing prices down in many parts of the country.'"

"Jeremy Leaf, north London estate agent and a former Rics residential chairman, added: 'We are not surprised by the small drop in property prices. The increase in listings is resulting in more choice for buyers and some heavy negotiations on the ground which means only realistic sellers are proving successful.'"