A report from the Palm Beach Post in Florida. "Condo units in older buildings are not selling. Special assessments, levied to undertake the repairs, have been as high as $200,000 per unit owner. Repair bills can run as much as $15 million. Along the Treasure Coast, a group of condo associations has been created to press for changes in the new law. Its spokeswoman, Darlene VanRiper, said condos from across the state are looking to join. The alliance has already hired a lobbyist. 'The report said we needed to pay $148,000 to paint our catwalks,' she said. 'That is not a structural issue. We did it anyway, and the cost was $58,000. This overreach is happening over and over throughout the state.' 'They are pricing us out of our homes,' Mark Shea told WPTV news. He is the president of the Robles del Mar association in Indian River Shores. His community has many seniors living on fixed incomes who cannot afford the special assessments."

Florida Today. "Owners of condo units at Villa Riviera Club in unincorporated Brevard County will be facing a hefty special assessment in the coming months. The four-building, 29-unit, oceanside condominium complex will have to do more than $1.2 million worth of balcony and walkway work. Combined with planned stucco repairs, painting of the buildings, other needed repairs and a contingency cost in case unexpected problems are found, that will result in special assessment bills of $50,000 per unit, pending owner approval of certain alterations. And that $50,000 special assessment is on top of a regular condo assessment that totals $13,344 a year per unit. The latest unit sale, in May, was at a price of $440,000.Of the 29 units, 21 are regularly rented out by the owners as vacation rentals."

"Rebecca McGreal, president of the Villa Riviera Club Condominium Association noted some other owners are putting their homes on the market for sale, which she believes partly is related to the upcoming special assessment. 'There was a very mixed reaction,' with pushback from some of the unit owners, McGreal said. 'Some of them were very upset with the board. But they know the work needs to get done. We're playing catch-up with some of this now. It's sad to see some of these owners go,' McGreal said. 'It's a sign of the times, unfortunately, throughout Florida. The cost of the assessment is definitely impacting their decision."

Honolulu Star-Advertiser in Hawaii. "A Honolulu City Council resolution wants state lawmakers to address what it deems are 'drastic' increases in property insurance premiums paid by homeowners across Oahu, particularly for those who own condominiums. 'These increased premiums for condominium association insurance, which in some cases are up to 1,000 percent higher, are passed on to the condominium owners, resulting in drastic increases in maintenance fees … costing condominium owners hundreds of additional dollars each month,' the legislation states. 'If property insurance premiums continue to rise, the impact on District 8 and Oahu as a whole will be significant. Homeowners, particularly condominium owners and homes affiliated with a homeowners association, may face monthly maintenance fees that double or triple due to increased insurance costs, ' Council member Val Okimoto told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser."

From Fox News. "Some Democratic voters in Nevada recently told The New York Times that rising housing costs will keep them from voting for Vice President Kamala Harris in November. Times reporter Jennifer Medina interviewed several voters around the Las Vegas area who said they’ve been disillusioned by the Democratic Party because of homes becoming more expensive during the Biden-Harris administration and see no hope of Harris bringing them down if she remains in office. 'They just promise things. But I don’t see nothing coming out for us,' 54-year-old Las Vegas resident Maria Ocampo told the outlet, adding that Biden didn’t ease the prices in Nevada after he was elected. 'When we got the new president, I didn’t hear nothing, I didn’t see any changes.' Ocampo told The Times that she’s not planning to vote this election after the past several years of her rent climbing, including a point where 'her landlord more than doubled the rent to $2,800 a month,' the outlet reported."

"Medina reported that among the dozens of Las Vegas voters she spoke to, 'the rising cost of housing was routinely cited as the most persistent financial difficulty weighing on their minds,' especially among Black and Latino blue-collar workers."

From NBC News. "Homes are getting more affordable in some of the most populous counties that are up for grabs in the presidential race. But the improvements are incremental and may not yet register with most residents before they cast their ballots. In Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix, home hunters are finally starting to see 'the first little smidgen of any advantage that they’ve had since 2021,' said Tina Tamboer, a senior analyst with the Cromford Report, an Arizona real estate research firm. Several years ago, open houses were packed and all-cash buyers were making offers well above asking prices. But ever since the Federal Reserve began hiking interest rates to tackle inflation starting in March 2022, 'the water was pretty much turned off,' Tamboer said. Sales have fallen to a small fraction of what they were at their peak, homes are sitting on the market for weeks or months, and sellers are sweetening their incentives."

"Sheryl Bowden, who has sold real estate in the Phoenix area for 40 years, said she has rarely seen the market this quiet for this long. In some cases, buyers aren’t even coming to look at properties. One of her listings – a $400,000, four-bedroom, three-bath house – sat for weeks before the seller reduced its price to stay competitive. 'In any other market it would have been gone immediately. It is the perfect first-time homebuyer property,' said Bowden. Sellers have mostly stuck to their prices, which have risen slightly over the past year but are 9% lower than the spring 2022 high. The area’s median sales price of $475,000 in September, according to Redfin, is 58% higher than at the start of 2020, when the median-priced home was going for around $300,000."

"Bowden said one of her sellers is a retiree who worries that cutting their price would eat into the proceeds needed to buy their next home. 'They can reduce their price, but there is no guarantee they can get an offer because there are no buyers looking,' she said. 'They are in a catch-22.' Bowden has also struggled to move rental properties, like a townhouse listed for $1,699 a month that just one prospective renter has looked at in over a month. Bowden counted 66 similar rentals in a 2-mile radius that she’s competing with. Maricopa County rents averaged just under $1,500 in September, slightly lower than three years ago after having surged as much as 25%. But they’re still higher than the $1,200 monthly average four years ago."

"In two key counties in metro Atlanta homebuying difficulty is also retreating. 'Inventory is up significantly,' said Bob Clarkson, a real estate agent with Century 21 who focuses on metro Atlanta. Clarkson said that in the booming region 'there’s not as much competition anymore' for homeowners looking to sell, with the average time on the market now 35 to 45 days. Competition plunged 31 points in Cobb and 30 in DeKalb, according to NBC News’ measure, over the last 12 months. Prices in the area have also fallen more steeply than in most of the U.S., but the discounting remains modest."

KTVU in California. "For another straight year, and despite a slight drop in its median sales price, a small town on the Peninsula received the distinction of having the #1 most expensive zip code in the nation. Atherton, with a median home sale price of $7.9 million, took the top slot for the eighth consecutive year, in Property Shark’s annual rankings. Property Shark said the San Mateo County enclave saw a 5% drop in home prices in 2024. 'That resulted in a $400,000 median sale price decrease,' the site said."

Bisnow San Francisco. "Things haven’t been the same in Bay Area multifamily development since Silicon Valley Bank failed. 'The finance environment is horrible,' Riaz Capital CEO and founder Riaz Taplin said. 'In the old days, you'd call First Republic and that would take two minutes and you'd be done.' Now, 'getting anything financed is a bit of a complicated technical process,' Taplin said at Bisnow’s Annual Multifamily Conference for Northern California on Oct. 16. 'The loss of SVB and FRB will be felt forever.'"

"'We really have had no net effective rent growth,' SummerHill Apartment Communities CEO Doug McDonald said. 'We are still in a negative leverage environment. We are well below replacement costs. So, investors still lost money. The developers still lost money,' said Mike Kim, senior managing director of development at Boca Raton, Florida-based Mill Creek Residential."

Bisnow Houston in Texas. "With more than 100M SF of office space sitting vacant, Houston and Dallas property owners are missing out on billions in lost rent. Combined, the cities are losing out on nearly $3.2B in rent because of the vacancy, according to a study. 'Lost revenue from vacant office space hurts all parties involved,' said James Barnes, creative director at NeoMam Studios, which produced the study. 'Landlords and property owners bear the brunt of the loss, as vacancies mean no rent is coming in to cover mortgage payments, maintenance costs, or other operating costs associated with the building.'"

"'At some point, it’s going to eat into the tax base,' said Jay Wall III, a Houston-based senior vice president for Moody Rambin. 'You've only got two alternatives if you're a government leader … you've either got to raise taxes or cut services. That’s just inevitable,' Wall said. 'And by the way, the market has not bottomed out, no matter what anybody's telling you.' Houston has also seen numerous supply booms dating back to the '80s, leading office analysts to believe the city will carry a higher static vacancy until numerous obsolete buildings are removed from the inventory. This means a significant proportion of value will never return in the form of rent revenue, Wall said. 'The kitschy response to that is that Houston is not overbuilt, it’s under-demolished,' he said."

The National Post. "About one-third of a home’s price in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area is a confection of taxes, some of which are passed down from developer to consumer. And amid a years-long, and unprecedented, housing crisis in Canada’s largest city, such a debilitating tax regime speaks of flagrantly poor, if not contemptuous, governance. Market fundamentals, like population growth — one of many — largely determine a home’s valuation, inviting the question: if not for tax greed, how much would that million-dollar home actually cost? (And, by extension, how many hundreds of dollars could be saved on rent every month?)"

"The Canadian Centre for Economic Analysis (CANCEA) revealed taxes comprised 31 per cent of a Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area home’s sticker price in 2021. But Paul Smetanin, CANCEA’s president, who estimates levies have grown to at least 33 per cent today, says they’ll keep escalating should nothing change. 'Since our report, and given that they’re up to 2021, it’s definitely due for an update because it’s higher than 31 per cent now,' Smetanin told the Post in a September interview. To put that into context, on the purchase of a million-dollar home three years ago, buyers essentially paid $310,000 in taxes."

"Of the estimated 33 per cent tax share, the federal government reaps 39 cents on every dollar. 'When you compare taxes on a new home to the rest of the economy, it’s about 2.6 times the rest of the economy,' Smetanin said. 'The situation was already indicative of the fact that governments in Canada are constantly looking for taxation readiness and it seems that, because people need homes, they become an easy target. Homebuyers are a captive audience.'"

Vancouver is Awesome in Canada. "Property developers have, again, asked Metro Vancouver regional government members for development fees to be waived, deferred or redirected citing escalating costs to construct new homes. Citing higher finance interest rates and rapidly inflating construction costs, the developers have taken issue with what are called development cost charges (DCCs), which are to pay for new roads, parks, sewers and water pipes surrounding new construction or associated with the population increase that comes with it. As it stands, existing taxpayers pay taxes to Metro Vancouver to maintain existing infrastructure. When enough new homes are built to require new or larger pipes, that is where DCCs come into effect."

"And as a result of Metro Vancouver having gone decades without increasing DCCs on new home construction, it has been left with a funding deficit to pay for growth-related projects. Chris Gardner of the Independent Contractors and Businesses Association spoke to the mayors and claimed, 'The growth-pays-for-growth model is broken.' Beau Jarvis, CEO of Wesgroup, also questioned the 'growth-pays-for-growth' concept. Citing developers putting projects on the shelf, so to speak, Jarvis asked for a motion for deferral of the DCCs at the Nov. 1 general meeting."

"Jonathan Cooper, senior vice-president of Strand, said 'part of the problem is median household incomes in B.C. and Metro Vancouver are only going up a few percentage points a year and so the reason there are so many projects on the sideline — be they rental or strata — is that in the presence of constrained incomes, there is a limit on what home buyers and renters can afford to pay and layering costs on top becomes counterproductive.'"

"Hani Lammam, executive vice-president of Cressey, said construction prices are so extraordinary that 'even with free land we cannot build homes people can afford.'"

ABC News in Australia. "Linda Thoresen is dealing with a precarious future. The 66-year-old civil servant is less than a year from pension age but has decided to postpone retirement and continue working to pay down her $170,000 mortgage. 'I just decided this morning to make higher fortnightly payments while I'm working to see if I can get a bit nearer to a lower payout when the time comes,' she said. 'There will come a time when I go, no, I really have had enough of work. But unless I have a windfall, I can't see a solution other than having to sell and find somewhere else to live.'"

"When Ms Thoresen bought her two-storey North Fremantle townhouse in Perth, she was in her 40s — about a decade older than most of her friends. The thought of stepping back from work is tempting, she said, but the reality of her financial situation meant it wasn't the best option just yet. 'I can't see a solution other than selling and finding somewhere else to live. More older Australians are finding themselves in a similar position. Census data showed over the past 20 years, the number of Australians aged 55 to 64 who owned their homes outright had almost halved."

"Data provided to the ABC by Digital Finance Analytics, from a survey of 52,000 people, found the number of older Australians with a mortgage who planned to retire but changed their minds doubled in the year to September. The average loan balance in this group was about $190,000, but some owe much more — up to half a million dollars. About three-quarters of the retirees with a mortgage owe more than they have in superannuation, and more than 50 per cent of 55-65-year-olds expect to sell their property or use their superannuation to repay their mortgage."

"Finance analyst Martin North, said more people were remaining in the workforce for longer because of 'a significantly higher mortgage liability than they expected.' The impact was typically felt in Melbourne and Sydney but it was beginning to spread out, he said. 'I'm seeing people struggling in Hobart, Adelaide, Brisbane and Perth as well. So this is a national problem.' Mr North said that was being driven by higher interest rates and people pulling more equity out of their property for their own needs or to help their children buy a home. 'This is a really critical factor, because it is having an impact on those parents, and it's changing their own retirement plans.'"

"Mr North said the Reserve Bank of Australia should be looking into this issue because high house prices forced more first home buyers to rely on their parents for financial help to string together a housing deposit — the so-called 'bank of mum and dad.' That could, ironically, leave the 'mums and dads' more vulnerable to a potential drop in house prices, if they delay paying down their own home loans and then need to sell. 'The other factor that we found in our surveys was that less people now have the capacity in their superannuation to pay off their mortgage,' Mr North said."

"Michael Fotheringham, managing director at the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute, said that was forcing some people to sell their homes and rent. '[That's] been increasing for the last decade or more,' he said. There's also a long-term effect on the economy when people use their superannuation to pay off a home loan, he said. 'It means they're more likely to draw on the pension to get through [retirement]. The second effect is a downturn in economic activity by retirees — they're not participating in the wider economy as much as they otherwise would. People using their super to cover mortgages end up dependent on pensions, which places a financial strain on government resources.'"

"Data from mortgage broker Lendi shows over the past four years, the proportion of first-home buyers over 37 years old, increased 16 per cent. Mel Smith is an Aussie Home Loans franchisee — Aussie is owned by Lendi. She said it data was a clear sign that if house prices continued climbing, that age could get even older, and with the average home loan lasting 30 years, many may find themselves reaching retirement age still paying it back. Ms Smith said banks were becoming more concerned with what customer's exit strategies were. 'It's important that they're aware that past the age of retirement, they still will have this home loan."

"'We work towards strategies of either having it paid down prior [to retirement], or have a plan in place to scale down or relocate into something that you can afford later on in life, without a mortgage.' But she said those plans were not front of mind for many of her clients. 'Customers do come in with a level of anxiety about still having these loans into retirement. A lot of people are also just thinking, it's a future problem — they kick the can down the road.'"