A report from the Wall Street Journal. "Gary and Karen Steppe listed a condo in Indialantic, Fla., in February for $294,900. They expected the two-bedroom vacation home, which is in an oceanside town near Melbourne Beach, to sell quickly. But the couple initially received no bids. One reason: A rising number of homeowners in the area were also looking to sell. With more properties on the market, 'buyers didn’t have that fear of missing out like they did when the inventory was less,' Gary Steppe said. The Steppes cut the price, then accepted an offer in April for about $275,000. 'I wish I had…sold it two years ago,' when similar condos were selling for higher prices, he said."

"Only five of the 50 biggest markets posted year-over-year price declines in March, according to data provider Intercontinental Exchange, and four of them were in Texas or Florida: Austin, Texas; North Port, Fla.; Cape Coral, Fla.; and San Antonio. Ben Pfeiffer has cut the listing price on a six-bedroom house in San Antonio 16 times since putting it on the market in October. Due to mortgage rates, property tax and insurance costs and overall inflation, 'your money doesn’t go as far to buy a house,' he said. 'My expectation is that I’m going to keep lowering the price until I get a buyer.'"

Market Watch. "Builder confidence plunged in May, as they see home-buying activity wane in the face of high mortgage rates. Confidence fell to the lowest level since January. Builders are ramping up incentives and cutting prices to keep buyers interested. About 25% of builders cut prices in May, the NAHB said, up from 22% in April. The average price cut was 6%. More builders were using sales incentives — other than price cuts — to improve sales in May, up to 59% from 57%. 'A lack of progress on reducing inflation pushed long-term interest rates higher in the first quarter and this is acting as a drag on builder sentiment,' Robert Dietz, chief economist at the NAHB, said in a statement. 'The last leg in the inflation fight is to reduce shelter inflation, and this can only occur if builders are able to construct more attainable, affordable housing.'"

The Akron Beacon Journal in Ohio. "At the urging of former Copley High School basketball coach Mark Dente, a West Akron man took out 20 loans that totaled nearly $500,000. He signed them over to AEM Services LLC, Dente’s real estate investment company. For three years, Dente made the payments on the loans and the man was able to withdraw funds. That stopped in April 2022 when Dente’s business began spiraling, with talks of it being a Ponzi scheme."

"'What about all these damn loans?' the man asked Dente. He said Dente responded, 'None of them are in my name.' 'You’ve got to be kidding me!' the man said. The man, who is 61, took $200,000 from his retirement funds to repay what was still owed on the loans. He returned to work to replace his lost retirement money. The man, who asked that his name not be used, is among 800 people who invested $220 million with Dente and his company, thinking it was being used to buy, renovate and sell homes. Instead, the money was treated by Dente and his associates as a 'personal slush fund,' attorneys allege in court records."

"A Lorain County man had invested in real estate before when he heard about Dente and his company about three years ago. When he invested in the short-term notes, he borrowed $200,000 against his home, which was paid off at the time. He started getting suspicious in late 2021 and early 2022 when he realized he wasn’t earning what was promised on his investments. He said he never got back any of the $388,000 he invested. He also had to pay off what he borrowed against his home. 'I paid for my home and paid for half again,' he said."

"This turn of events was made worse by the fact that this was the second time he’d lost money to a scheme like this. 'When you add up what I lost, I lost everything I ever made while I was working,' said the man, who’s in his 60s. 'I lived my life out of a suitcase to make a better living. In the end, it got me nothing. I was taken by shady people.' He works in the technology business and had hoped to be retired by this point in his life. Instead, he’s still working and isn’t sure when he can retire. 'There’s been a whole lot of lost sleep,' he said. He said he’s haunted by the question: 'How could I have been so stupid?'"

Fox 4 Dallas-Fort Worth. "We hear about squatters in cities like New York and Los Angeles, but the problem is happening here in Texas as well. Terri Boyette moved to Mesquite for work and purchased a home in 2021. She hired a handyman but then had to leave town for a few weeks for a family emergency. She says the man broke into her home. 'I called the police. They said, ‘How long has he been there?’ I said about two weeks. They said this is a civil matter,' she told the committee. Boyette showed video of her home to the senators. While she tried to figure out how to evict the squatter, she says he sold her stuff."

"'This is burglary. This is breaking and entering,' said State Sen. Paul Bettencourt (R-Houston). 'He was selling your possessions on your front lawn. I am outraged. This should not happen in Texas, and it will never happen again after we get this bill passed.' Boyette says the intruder was eventually arrested but just for the break-in. 'He spent three days in jail. Now, he’s out walking around,' Boyette said."

The Santa Monica Daily Press in California. "It’s an odd location for the City of Los Angeles to have spent nearly $50 million to purchase a brand new, five story luxury apartment building for the homeless. The neighborhood around 1654 West Florence Ave in South LA consists of empty, dilapidated storefronts and abandoned, crumbling apartments. The few local businesses consist of liquor stores, marijuana dispensaries, fast food franchises and auto body shops. The building itself is located less than half a mile from the liquor store where the Rodney King riots broke out in 1992. The boulevard never recovered. The area median income is 35% below the City as a whole. It was by far the highest sale price in the neighborhood’s history. The location and price are the first of many questions about the property."

"The Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles (HACLA) purchased the building in March 2022. More than two years later not a single homeless person has moved in. It is completely vacant. The purchase was made possible through Project Homekey, part of the 2020 federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act. According to analyses of publicly available documents, over the past four years HACLA spent more than $810 million to acquire approximately 2,750 apartments and motel and hotel rooms in 38 new and existing multifamily residential buildings. Assisted by three rounds of Project Homekey funding, HACLA’s goal was to get as many people housed as possible, in as short a period of time as possible."

"There are other examples in HACLA’s Homekey portfolio. In late 2015, a real estate investment and development firm started work on a 101-unit luxury apartment building at 21121 Vanowen Street. On September 15, 2015 the company paid $720,000 for what was then an empty lot. The building is in a more sought after neighborhood than 1654 West Florence. Applying the higher end estimated construction costs of $400/sq ft the total cost of development for the 97,479 square foot building was just under $39 million. On October 17, 2022 HACLA purchased it for $55.2 million for a profit of $16.2 million, or 42%, for the firm."

From Truthout. "Just five kilometers from where I live, to the east of Puebla City, activists, locals and La Jornada newspaper have accused the real estate industry of paying people to start nine recent fires in the La Calera eucalyptus forest. Locals told La Jornada they saw men with gasoline drums entering the area, and that getting rid of trees could force a change in land use and a loss of protected status. The fires are happening right after locals and activists rejected municipal plans to increase the housing density in the area from 36 to 200 houses per hectare. Similarly, on March 27, activists closed a road to denounce what they say were intentionally set forest fires to the east of Mexico City allegedly caused by real estate companies seeking to build in the area."

"Companies also 'look for legal loopholes,' said Mexican researcher and doctor of urban land management Melissa Schumacher Gonzalez, in an interview with Truthout. She said a core tactic was divide and conquer, in which developers, 'buy land, and if someone doesn’t want to sell, they isolate them, cut off their access to the street, to force them to sell.' Real estate has 'become an easy way to get rich,' she said. The value of property per square meters has multiplied around tenfold in a decade, making speculation very profitable, and affording those companies the power and means to buy off authorities."

"'The government is a mafia. There’s little difference between it, the narcos, and the companies. It’s basically a corporate narco state … where everything is merchandise and illegal actions are passed off as legal,' Lila told Truthout."

The Telegraph in the UK. "On Thursday I become a homeowner. It is a dream that I have achieved precociously, thanks to the generous support of my parents. But the joy (and relief) is accompanied by the knowledge that when I am handed the keys, I am placing a 40-year burden on my shoulders. If I never move again, I will pay off this mortgage in 2064, when I am 63. My 40-year mortgage might not quite be into my retirement but this is only because I am lucky enough to be a first-time buyer more than 10 years before the London average of 35, and because the idea of an early retirement is a fantasy. It doesn’t change the fact that the interest which will be added over those four decades is eye-watering. Once my five-year 3.99pc fixed term ends, my mortgage will revert to NatWest’s variable rate. If I don’t remortgage, current predictions show that I’d repay £489,266.76 – or £3.14 for every £1 borrowed – over the 40-year term."

"Yet after talking to my mortgage broker, taking on the longest possible term was the obvious decision. Why wouldn’t I, I reasoned, when it will mean my monthly repayments are £400 less than the rent I was paying to live in a shared flat? Nothing is worse than paying rent and watching money effectively go down the drain. Even without a great sage to tell me what I’ll be doing in 10 years (or even in 10 minutes), the stability offered by being a homeowner overrides most of my concerns."

From Politico. "Picture a far-right voter. That person is probably not an art student. Standing on the curb outside the Grafisch Lyceum Rotterdam, a college for media, entertainment and technology in the center of Rotterdam, for a cigarette between classes, young students Chess and Terence complained that the Netherlands is receiving too many of Europe’s refugees. Despite their young age and trendy appearances, Chess van Leeuwen and 19-year-old Terence Voorn, from the nearby city of Dordrecht, fear that their country is deteriorating. The young men ping-ponged worries back and forth: Their concern that they wouldn’t be able to leave their parents’ home; complaints of insecurity and nuisance at Ter Apel, which houses the country’s overcrowded reception center for asylum seekers; expensive environmental legislation; EU rule-making, which they said was ill-adapted to their country."

"'I’m not against refugees, not at all. But if it gets too much, in times of crisis, we have to think about ourselves,' argued 20-year-old Van Leeuwen. Regardless of what else Geert Wilders stands for, 'the Netherlands comes first for him,' he said."

"Across Europe, far right parties are advancing with support from young — and first time — voters. Despite being one of the EU’s wealthiest countries, the Netherlands’ shortage of affordable housing has become a key concern. Amid rising prices, many have an increasingly cynical outlook on life. Unlike their parents and grandparents, this generation feels less restricted by party loyalties, making them more of a wild card and therefore an attractive pool of new voters for anti-establishment candidates. 'I’m really not racist, but when it comes to my own country, I think I should get priority access to a house,' argued Van Leeuwen, who said house prices near the seaside, where he grew up, run into the millions."

ABC News in Australia. "Crime, high interest rates and the lack of government incentives are creating a perfect storm for the Alice Springs residential property market, according to an industry spokesperson. Lindsay Carey is the southern delegate for the Real Estate Institute of the Northern Territory and says the market had 'seen better days.' 'The reality is that the supply versus the demand is certainly lopsided to the supply side,' he said. 'Everyone's concerned about security. There's a lot of people wanting to leave as they don't feel safe.'"

"He said the bad press was also making it hard for the region to attract new people and, coupled with high interest rates, it was effecting potential buyers' borrowing capacities. 'We've seen a turn in the last 12 to 18 months of over 30 per cent less borrowing capacity to what they could have borrowed quite easily two or three years ago,' Mr Carey said. 'So the cheap money is gone and it's definitely impacting what people are willing to spend or can afford to spend.'"

From Reuters. "A campaign by Chinese authorities to encourage people to replace their old apartments with new ones is attracting interest, but faces one major hurdle: the participants in the scheme are struggling to sell their current homes. 'Some people have enquired about the campaign, but so far we haven't had any successful transactions,' said Qin Yi, a property agent in Shanghai. 'The biggest problem is selling the second-hand properties.'"

"In the secondary market, the number of properties listed for sale was 20 times higher than the number of transactions in April, according to a survey of 14 cities by Zhuge Real Estate Data Research Centre. Listings were up 294% year-on-year in Shenzhen, and 39% in Shanghai, it said. Additionally, tens of millions of apartments are yet to be completed in China. 'Sales have been falling off a cliff,' says Ma Hong, senior analyst at GDDCE Research Institution in Shanghai, who estimates the swap programme will have a limited impact. 'Very few people dare to buy a house.'"

"Some 96% of Chinese households already own at least one home. Before the market turned, the Chinese had for decades regarded apartments - especially the new, more modern ones - as the safest place to park their savings. A property agent in the tech hub of Shenzhen, who only gave his surname Zhou, said more than a dozen people have placed deposits, but that their homes 'don't seem to have sold yet.' One executive at a Chinese developer, asking for anonymity due to the topic's sensitivity, said their firm 'had no interest in participating; because the second-hand market was 'very bad.' An executive from another developer described the swap programme as 'meaningless.' 'Nobody is buying, so how do you sell to swap?' the second developer said."