A report from Suburbs 101. "Nationally, home prices are going up, but the Texas housing market is getting hit hard by dropping prices. Some places are seeing double-digit losses. The net loss is quite significant in some metro areas. Where homeowners are losing over $230 per day in equity if they had purchased a home in the first quarter of 2023. The biggest losers in the Texas housing market are Snyder, Pearsall, Raymondville, and Fredericksburg, all of which have experienced a double digit percentage drop in home prices. Snyder suffered the largest price drop of 26.67%. Pearsall homeowners also experienced a significant drop of 23.08% in home prices over the course of a year. Of all the Texas metro areas on this list, Fredericksburg homeowners saw the biggest net loss in absolute dollars. The median home price in the Fredericksburg, TX metro area declined from $634,312 to $549,480, resulting in a percentage drop of 15.44%. It’s startling to think someone who purchased a home in Fredericksburg in the first quarter of 2023 has now lost $232 per day in equity."

Florida Politics. "Closed housing sale contracts across Florida fell in some of the state’s largest counties in April. Elliman analysts say the Sunshine state home market is obviously getting chilly. 'Most housing markets saw rising prices reaching new highs and sales falling short of prior year levels. Mortgage rates have remained elevated as economic conditions remain vibrant. Bidding wars remain a factor in the market but rising inventory has reduced its dominance,' the report concluded. Duval County, for the second straight month, had the most significant decrease in housing sales in the state, with 431 total closings. That’s way down from April 2023, when Duval saw 778 homes sold. The home of Jacksonville saw a 44.6% annual drop in contracted home sales in April."

"Duval’s First Coast neighbor St. Johns County, also saw a notable dive in closed and contracted home sales. The home to tourist meccas St. Augustine and Ponte Vedra Beach saw home sales plunge by 34.5% in April compared to a year ago. The only other county with a decrease in home sales exceeding 20% was Broward County, where signed closings dropped by 23.3%."

The Real Deal. "Developer Dan Kodsi isn’t rushing to build multifamily projects in South Florida. Two years ago, he jumped into the market with proposals for an apartment tower in Aventura and another in Miami. Now, he’s reevaluating the developments and tweaking both. 'It’s too expensive to build [high-rise] apartments today,' Kodsi said. 'The margins are very razor tight, and let’s just say capital right now is not leaning to multifamily.' Although much concern nationwide has been over tighter bank lending and elevated interest rates, South Florida is also home to skyrocketing insurance premiums, including for builder’s risk, and construction costs are still higher than pre-pandemic. South Florida also has a record number of units on tap, saturating the tri-county region, while leasing has slowed and rent growth calmed, according to experts."

"'The macroeconomics has created a lot of headwinds. A lot of projects are in a holding pattern,' said Sonny Maken, COO of Associated Builders and Contractors’ Florida East Coast Chapter. 'People are worried about units being overbuilt. They are trying to get clarity on the demand.'"

Click Orlando. "Central Florida’s inventory, now at a four-month supply, is the highest it’s been since pre-pandemic, caused in large part by higher interest rates. Rose Kemp, president of the Orlando Regional Realtor Assocation says that’s actually been healthy despite how some people feel about the current state of the housing market. 'Those pessimistic remarks, I laugh at them,' Kemp said . 'People are continuing to relocate here – a thousand people per week – so as far as housing goes, we don’t see a market that’s going backwards in value.'"

The Associated Press on California. "Wearing a bright safety vest with the words 'Safe Passage' on the back, Tatiana Alabsi strides through San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood to its only public elementary school, navigating broken bottles and stained sleeping bags along tired streets that occasionally reek of urine. Along the way in one of America’s most notorious neighborhoods, she calls out to politely alert people huddled on sidewalks, some holding strips of tin foil topped with illicit drugs. Her voice is cheerful, a soothing contrast to the misery on display in the 50-block neighborhood that's well-known for its crime, squalor and reckless abandon. 'School time. Kids will be coming soon.'"

"Further along, Alabsi passes a man dancing in the middle of the street with his arms in the air as a squealing firetruck races by. She stops to gently touch the shoulder of a man curled up in the fetal position on the sidewalk, his head inches from the tires of a parked car. 'Are you OK?' she asks, before suggesting he move to a spot out of the sun. 'Kids will be coming soon.' Long known for its brazen open-air drug markets, chronic addiction, mental illness and homelessness, the Tenderloin neighborhood is also home to the highest concentration of kids in San Francisco, an estimated 3,000 children largely from immigrant families. On a recent afternoon, two girls with ponytails sashayed across an intersection, talking about becoming TikTok stars one day, seemingly oblivious to a couple hunched over at a bus stop across the street, struggling to light up. As they walked, Alabsi blocked their view of smeared feces."

The Pioneer Press in Minnesota. "The largest private property owner in downtown St. Paul has put 10 of its commercial properties up for sale, including six office buildings, raising deep questions about the future of some of the city’s most storied commercial buildings. Madison Equities listed the commercial properties — comprising more than 1.6 million square feet in commercial space — this past week through brokerage CBRE, including the iconic First National Bank building, the Park Square Court building, the 1890s-era Empire Building, the Alliance Center and two parking ramps. With U.S. Bank poised to leave the 26-story U.S. Bank Center by October except for a skyway branch, occupancy rates in those commercial buildings average 50% or less and dropping. In some cases, estimated market values calculated by the Ramsey County assessor’s office list building values at or even below where they were a decade ago, when the office market was still re-emerging from the Great Recession."

"Not helping matters is the amount of deferred maintenance visibly evident in some of the properties. 'If it was to be sold in a bulk sale, a portfolio sale, you have to think how big that buyer would have to be. You’d have to be a massive player,' said John Rent, a commercial real estate lender based in downtown Minneapolis. 'And institutional buyers are mostly on the sidelines now. To the extent they’re active, they’re engaged in industrial properties and multi-family properties. If I were in their shoes, and there’s an offer on any of these, I’d take it.'"

The Financial Post in Canada. "According to the latest report from the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board (TRREB), new listings were up 47.2 per cent year-over-year, with 7,114 homes changing hands last month, a five per cent drop from April 2023. The ostensible buyers’ market may be largely attributable to a glut in condominium stock. ,'For detached homes, we’re still seeing multiple offers and bidding wars because there is not that much inventory,' Royal LePage sales representative, Thomas Delespierre said. 'But for condos, there are a lot of new buildings coming to completion and a lot more inventory to choose from.'"

The Globe and Mail. "Spring is in the air, and you can feel the thaw in Canada’s real estate sector. Given widespread expectations that the Bank of Canada will soon begin cutting interest rates, thereby allowing some mortgage rates to fall, industry groups are forecasting the return of happy times, with the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation expecting new record highs in house prices before long. But here’s a possibility that’s getting too little attention: What if interest rates don’t come down?"

"The narrative changed sharply on April 25 with the release of the latest U.S. GDP report. What it found was that while the economy was growing more slowly than expected, inflation was heating back up. The following day’s Personal Consumption Expenditure report seconded that finding. The prospect that the dreaded 'stagflation,' which made life so miserable in the late 1970s and early 80s, might be returning to the United States sent a chill through stock and bond markets. In short, there is a growing possibility that interest rates, if they do come down, will come down less than investors hope. Those hoping to be rescued by cheap money are likely to be disappointed."

"A colleague of mine, a former adviser to Barack Obama who’s now at Stanford University, recently surveyed experiences of monetary tightening around the world to reach a jarring conclusion: There is no painless way to restore price stability. Investors have to accept that returning to low inflation can’t be done without asset prices taking a hit. To date, Canada’s property sector has weathered the central bank’s tightening in fairly good shape. But this fight may not be over. Investors should brace for the possibility that before the good times return, they may first have to weather more pain."

This Is Money in the UK. "It is not an easy time to be selling your home. Little more than a year ago, sellers had the upper hand as the housing market was red hot and there were plenty of buyers competing for each available property – and bumping up the price in the process. But higher mortgage rates, falling house prices and economic uncertainty mean that the power balance has shifted. It seems gazundering is on the rise. Others find their property remains on the market for a long time, and are faced with either cutting the price, or holding their nerve and risking their listing hanging around even longer. James Forrester, managing director of agent Barrows and Forrester, says: 'There simply isn't the same buyer feeding frenzy as there was a year ago. 'It's commonplace for sellers to enter the market with an unrealistic price expectation to begin with, and this can see their property sit on the market with little to no interest for weeks on end.'"

"Tim Dansie, director of Jackson-Stops estate agents in Ipswich, adds that even if a buyer agrees to your ambitious price, it can all fall apart later on when they apply for a mortgage – potentially unravelling the whole chain. 'We're clear with buyers when conducting valuations that over enthusiastic asking prices could lead to disappointment down the line. Long chains are often reliant upon a number of mortgages being accepted and completions going through, which is where any overvalued pricing quickly becomes unravelled by lenders who use the true market values, risking the whole chain collapsing. Accepting price adjustments of around 5-10 per cent from the outset can secure a buyer, expedite the sales process, and avoid last-minute negotiations.'"

The Wall Street Journal. "When postal manager José Belloso put his Paris apartment up for sale this year he was required to have an inspector grade the home for energy efficiency under strict rules designed to fight climate change. Belloso’s building was built in the early 1900s from millstone, a porous sedimentary rock that was popular among architects of France’s Belle Époque. His apartment flunked the inspection—and under a regulation that came into force this year, the property was barred from the rental market until costly renovations are made. Belloso was ultimately forced to knock 50,000 euros, equivalent to $54,000, off his asking price to find a buyer. Consumers are starting to pay for the energy transition, and they aren’t happy about it."

"Governments that were among the earliest in the world to adopt climate legislation tried to take the sting out of the transition by motivating consumers with subsidies. Now, however, the same capitals are cash-strapped and many are passing the bill to the consumer. Subsidies are being scaled back, taxes tied to carbon emissions are being phased in, and rules requiring expensive renovations are starting to bite. If the government thought the new rules would spur homeowners to invest, the plan has backfired, Belloso said, adding: 'They raised the bar too high, all at once. And voilà! You plunge everyone into forced sales.'"

Syria Direct. "For eight months, Bozan Sheikho, 44, has been trying to sell his property in Kobani to fund migration to Europe. His asking price is low, but he has not found a buyer in the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF)-controlled northern Syrian city, also known as Ain al-Arab. Sheikho worries that, in the end, he will be forced to sell for 'dirt cheap.' Sheikho owns two shops in Kobani. For one, located on a main street, he is asking for $10,000—less than half of its $20,000 value in 2019, just before United States (US) forces nearby pulled out at the order of former President Donald Trump and the city came under near-constant Turkish threats. Sheikho’s other shop is larger, but on a side street. He is charging the same price for it, though it is worth around $15,000, he told Syria Direct."

"Alongside the shops, Sheikho owns a hectare (10 dunums) of land in the Kobani countryside that he is looking to sell for $5,000. This, too, is below its estimated $9,000 value before 2019. Many residents like Sheikho have put their properties up for sale, Berkel Mustafa, who owns a real estate office in Kobani, said. But while many properties are on the market, there is 'a decline in real estate sales. I haven’t bought or sold any property in two months,' he added. Kobani real estate has lost around 50 percent of its value since 2019, while buildings affected by the February 2023 earthquake in northern Syria and southern Turkey have lost between 65 and 70 percent of their value, he estimated. Before 2019, the price per square meter of residential real estate on some streets reached $200, while it currently goes for $75 or less—a difference that is not related to the decline of the Syrian pound."

"Outside the city limits, the going price for land once ranged from $25 to $60 per square meter, but currently varies from $5 to $20. 'Even so, there is little demand,' Mustafa said. In Kobani, real estate is 'dead.'"

From Haaretz. "After decades of upswings in almost every category of the Israeli real estate market, 2023 was a turning point that took a lot of air out of the industry. It actually started in 2022, when the high-tech bubble burst and interest rates went up. Then the Gaza war broke out in October 2023. It's still difficult to predict when market sentiment will again turn positive, and real estate developers, who had become used to rising prices and endless demand, suddenly had to go on the defensive and make a strategic change."

"Guy Preminger, CPA, a partner in the accounting firm PwC Israel explains: 'When a developer faces a cash flow problem, it often confuses him, and many developers now have this problem: Interest rates have jumped from 5 percent to 8 percent, slowing sales and increasing construction expenses, and the result is that even for a profitable project, this creates a cash flow problem. Suddenly, it's hard to pay fixed expenses and finish projects that developers thought would be wonderful and profitable, because there aren't enough home sales and the cash flow has shrunk.'"

"Real estate developers go to PwC to consult on tax issues, to examine the financial feasibility of projects, including urban renewal projects, and to prepare the financial statements for public companies. 'We see everything,' says Preminger, 'both the good and the bad.' Who are the developers at the highest risk of insolvency? 'Anyone who bought expensive land and realized they're in a hole after the interest rate hikes, or those who thought that home prices would rise forever, and got stuck.'"