A report from Boston.com in Massachusetts. "Temperatures, home prices, and sales did cool in September. The median sales price of $850,000 for a single-family home in Greater Boston last month still broke the record for September (by $50), according to a report the Greater Boston Association of Realtors released Tuesday, but it’s a far cry from the $961,250 properties were commanding back in June. It was the third straight month of price declines, according to the GBAR. The condo market saw only 630 sales, a 10.6 percent drop compared to September 2023 and 'the lowest for any September in over a dozen years,' the GBAR reported. 'We’ve also seen a sharp increase in listings since the Labor Day weekend, which has afforded buyers more time and a greater selection of homes to choose from, so they’re acting with less urgency than they did earlier in the year,' said Jared Wilk, GBAR president. That inventory rise — the number of active listings is up at least 23 percent in both the single-family and condo markets — has also put a damper on price gains, according to the GBAR."

Daytona Beach News-Journal in Florida. "One day in mid-September, real-estate agent Mike Gagliardi was asked about the condominium market. He checked and found that in the previous 24 hours, 60 separate condo units for sale in the Daytona Beach area had dropped their asking prices. Supply is in pursuit of demand, resulting in a condo sales slowdown. Gagliardi, team lead for the Mike Gagliardi Team with Re/Max, said the current inventory on the market is estimated to sell in 14-15 months, making it a buyer’s market. 'We’re just not getting any buyer activity,' he said. 'Last year, about 50% of our deals were cash. We’re slowly seeing that transition away,' he said. 'It seems like the people with the cash are holding onto it.'"

"In Volusia County, condo sales are on pace for a year-over-year decline in 2024, according to numbers crunched by Mark Wright, director of real estate for the Property Appraiser's Office. Dennis Almand — a Eustis businessman who has bought three Daytona Beach Shores condos within the last four years and is also trying to sell 276 acres in Georgia — sold one of his three condos, taking a $10,000 loss, said he didn't mind. The other two were upgrades and the fulfillment of a dream. His wife, two children and four grandkids love the ocean. 'You mention the beach, man,' he said, 'and we're going.'"

The Union Tribune in California. "San Diego County homes are taking longer to sell and there are other signs buyers would rather walk away than make a purchase, said a new report from Orange County-based Reports on Housing. The real estate research firm said as of September, 6,990 homes have been taken off the market compared to 3,478 last year. 'Many sellers in San Diego County have thrown in the proverbial towel,' said Steven Thomas, founder of Reports on Housing. 'Life changing circumstances to pull a home off the market are the least likely reason that they are pulling their homes off the market. They are pulling their homes off the market because of lack of success.'"

"He said last year, when there were fewer homes on the market, starting out with a wild listing price didn’t make much of a difference. With more homes for sale now, there just aren’t enough well-heeled buyers to bolster the market. Bolstering his claim is that 34 percent of current listings have had their asking price reduced at least once. Also, the time it takes for a home to sell, called expected market time, has increased to 80 days, compared to 57 days last year. That figure includes all housing types — single-family, condo, townhouse — and all price points."

"There’s an economic principle that gets thrown around business circles that says, technically, all homes are affordable because someone is buying them. Thomas said that’s not how he would describe things. 'If that was true, there wouldn’t be any homes languishing for a long time,' he said."

The San Francisco Chronicle. "Ten years ago, it would have been odd for a California homebuyer to talk with real estate agent Alex Michas about home insurance early on in the purchasing process. In today’s market, home insurance can make or break a sale. 'I think there’s going to be some upset people when it becomes clear the impact this insurance situation is having on their values, but that isn’t really there yet because interest rates are sort of shielding that,' Michas said. Meanwhile, 13% of agents in California had a sales transaction canceled due to not finding insurance in 2024. That’s almost double what buyer’s agents found in 2023, according to data from the California Association of Realtors."

"'I’ve heard of stories where someone goes into escrow and they find out the fire insurance is $7,500 a year, and they can’t afford that. It’s just not something they can do on top of the mortgage,' said Loren Bennett, a Redfin agent focusing in Ventura County. 'It’s definitely a change. I definitely think it’s here to stay, which is disappointing in a way, but I think it is something that we need to get used to.'"

From KOMO TV. "An affordable housing provider sued the city of Seattle on Tuesday, claiming that a series of ordinances meant to help tenants are proving financially disastrous for housing providers. GRE Downtowner, LLC, owns the Addison on Fourth apartment building in Seattle’s Chinatown-International District. In court filings, the company claims that a half dozen ordinances adopted by the city since 2018 have made it unprofitable to operate affordable housing complexes. Coupled with the Winter Eviction Ban, the COVID-19 Eviction Moratorium, the six-month notice on rent increases as well as providing relocation assistance if rent increases exceed 10%, and Sean Flynn, the executive director of the Rental Housing Association of Washington said it creates an inhospitable landscape to house the city’s most vulnerable residents."

"The lawsuit claims that changed once Seattle started adopting the tenant protections in 2018 and now the building has a 38% vacancy rate, which it blames on factors related to these city ordinances. 'The Addison no longer has enough revenue to pay its lender,' Flynn said."

Loop North News in Illinois. "Apartment owners apparently don’t like Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and his band of extreme left-wing aldermen sticking their noses into landlord private property rights. Chicago’s small, 'Ma and Pa' apartment building owners in six rapidly appreciating Northwest and West Side neighborhoods say the mayor – an avowed Democratic Socialist – and left-wing Chicago City Council have launched an attack on their property rights. And experts say that could cost owners money and loss of control over their real property. The ordinance purports to 'preserve naturally occurring affordable housing' by requiring owners of rental apartments who wish to sell their buildings to give tenants a right-of-first-refusal to buy.'"

"A North Side real estate broker – and resident owner of his renovated three-flat family home in the Avondale neighborhood – had a strong reaction to the ordinance. 'The anti-gentrification ordinance is a political ploy by Mayor Johnson and his gang of super-liberal alderpeople to appeal to their voting base, and keep them in office,' the Avondale resident surmised. 'The ordinance may slow down demolition of aging frame two-flat buildings because of the sharply higher demolition fees. However, any new replacement housing will carry higher rents and will generate much more real estate tax dollars for the city.'"

The Ottawa Citizen. "Ashcroft Homes has lost control of its much-troubled housing development, Eastboro, which has been sent into receivership. Ontario Superior Court Justice Owen Rees has appointed MNP Ltd. as receiver over all of the property and assets of Ashcroft Homes – Eastboro Inc., a subsidiary of Ashcroft Homes. The Royal Bank of Canada applied for the order under the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act, arguing that Ashcroft has failed to make $4.85 million in interest payments on an $80 million bank debt, and has failed to offer 'a satisfactory plan' for restarting the stalled Eastboro project in Orleans. 'Development on the Eastboro development has been halted and the debtor is shown itself unable to obtain funding for the additional works needed,' Sylvia Kovesdi, RBC’s senior director of special loans and advisory services, said in an affidavit, adding: 'The project is a failure.'"

"The receiver has now assumed control of Eastboro’s assets, including the deposits made by would-be homeowners in the 200-acre development. One of those homebuyers, Sami Bibi, 57, an economist at Statistics Canada, made a down payment on his four-bedroom Eastboro house in October 2019. His $670,000 house was finished in June 2023, but Bibi and his family were not allowed to take possession because the subdivision’s stormwater system remains unfinished. Bibi said Wednesday he’s saddened by the latest news, but not overly surprised since Ashcroft had not provided a timeline for the sewer work. 'I suspected they had a problem,' Bibi said."

BBC News in the UK. "Kevin and his family moved into their new home on April Fool's Day 2020, something he says is ironic given his living room ceiling is still leaking four years later. Kevin says problems with the house in the village of Mindenhurst, Surrey, started before they got the keys, when they were told by Cala Homes that safety balustrades would need to be installed across all the upstairs windows because the windowsills were too low."

"'From the minute we walked in there was a glut of issues,' says Kevin. 'The front windows didn't shut, the alarms didn't arm, there was no power in the kitchen, the plumbing didn't work and there was no hot or cold water in the showers. We've had the patio re-laid three times, the driveway re-laid twice… it's just been a nightmare.' Kevin says the house had a total of 184 problems including water leaks. Two independent chartered surveyors, Colin Bernhardt and Robin Austin, inspected Kevin's home. Within an hour of arriving they agreed Cala Homes could have done an electronic test to quickly work out where Kevin's ceiling leak was coming from, rather than their repeated, failed attempts to fix it."

"'This is a mastic joint, it allows the building to contract and expand,' Colin says as he pulls it out of brickwork on the roof. 'It's not doing anything. These are all gaps where water can ingress,' Robin adds. 'I just think it's the blind leading the blind in terms of what I'm seing here.' Kevin says he approached the NHBC in September 2021, who told them to work with Cala as his dispute was within the two-year period. The issues with the home have been 'really tough,' he says, and began at a particularly difficult time for the family."

"'[We had a] new baby, three small children, Covid… We've had to go through counselling as a couple, this has really impacted our lives. The communication between the contractors and subcontractors has been poor. We have had to effectively project manage every issue from start to finish. We looked at selling 18 months ago… and the advice that we took was that we probably couldn't sell this house at the moment, we'd lose too much money.'"

ABC News in Australia. "An independent review has exposed serious failures in how the Victorian Building Authority (VBA) handled complaints from home-owners facing years of financial distress over defective or unfinished homes. The damning report has prompted the government to announce it will replace the VBA with a new, more powerful watchdog with greater powers to tackle sub-standard building work. It found poor building standards and unethical conduct had flourished in an ineffective regulatory environment overseen by the VBA. Their complaints related to the construction of 75 homes, 22 of which remain incomplete. Four complainants are embroiled in legal action. In one example, a couple approaching retirement age continued to pay for alternative accommodation nearly five years after they signed a construction contract for a home where allegedly major defects later prompted a messy dispute."

"All the complainants have suffered 'severe financial, emotional and physical distress' from their interactions with the building industry, the legal system and the VBA, the report said. 'Every aspect of their lives has been negatively impacted,' the report said. 'They have watched their savings or superannuation be replaced with debts they cannot bear.'"

"Property owner Kerry Ould was one of the case studies included in the review. She invested her superannuation into a unit, but discovered it was covered in dangerous combustible cladding and riddled with major defects. Ms Ould said the VBA were of little help during her ongoing battle with property developers. 'They've let us down. They've destroyed us. For eight years my life has been on hold. It's like I'm on a freefalling plane and when are we going to crash?' she told ABC Radio Melbourne."