A report from CBS News in Florida. "Just 16 years after construction, residents at a Brickell condo are grappling with a contentious $21 million special assessment for repairs to their buildings. Some unit owners of the two buildings at 1060 Brickell face individual payments exceeding $40,000. While the condo board insists the repairs are urgent and legally required, many residents feel blindsided and financially overwhelmed. 'I think it's excessive,' said resident Nima Mahdjour. 'I feel like I'm being milked.' Residents allege that while a meeting was held, the board bypassed a formal unit-owner vote. The special assessment looms large, forcing many to consider their financial future in one of Miami's most coveted neighborhoods. 'We question the speed of how they're moving to do things,' said resident Marthin Chan, who now contemplates selling his unit due to the financial strain. 'If it's so dangerous, then kick us all out of the building, and we should all not be here.'"

The New York Post. "Bill Ackman on Thursday listed two of his New York City apartments for sale at a multimillion-dollar loss, according to a report. The billionaire hedge fund manager is seeking to unload two swanky apartments on Manhattan’s Upper West Side for $19.9 million – years after he spent $22 million on the pair, according to Curbed."

The Real Deal. "Homebuilders have to use additional incentives to attract buyers — especially those in the market for entry-level homes — as interest rates remain stubbornly high. That’s what Tri Pointe Homes is doing for three residential developments in Austin. Lennar spent $53,400 in average sales incentives per home delivery in Texas in the third quarter this year, up roughly 8 percent from the same quarter last year, which comes out to about 17 percent of revenue spent on concessions per home, according to its latest earnings report. Builders are beating the resale market with the forward commitment strategy by sidestepping seller concession caps, which typically limit how much a seller can contribute toward a buyer’s closing costs at 3 to 6 percent, depending on the loan, said Austin Real Estate Experts owner Matt Menard. 'What builders did in response is they got in the finance business,' Menard said."

The Los Angeles Times. "Southern California home prices dipped in October for the third straight month. Home price growth peaked at nearly 9.5% in April and has declined every month since. In recent months, the number of homes listed for sale has steadily grown. Real estate agents say homeowners who once balked at giving up their ultralow mortgage rates from the pandemic and prior are increasingly choosing to move. In October, the number of homes on the market had risen in all six counties over the prior year, ranging from a 25% gain in San Bernardino County to 49% in San Diego County. In Los Angeles County, inventory climbed 33%. In the last year, asking rents for apartments in many parts of Southern California have ticked down. Experts say the trend is driven by a rising number of vacancies, which have forced some landlords to accept less in rent."

The San Francisco Chronicle. "Gov. Gavin Newsom just bought a sleek six-bedroom mansion tucked away on a leafy road in a wealthy Marin County town, around 20 miles north of San Francisco. The home, on Woodland Road in Kentfield, sold for $9.1 million last week, records show. The California governor, and possible 2028 presidential candidate, appears to have gotten a good deal, too: The home was first listed at $9.5 million in September, before being relisted with a $1 million price cut last month."

KOMO in Washington. "The city of Bellingham is set to start cleanup efforts at a large encampment along East Stuart Road next week, following years of complaints from residents about violence and crime. Kelly Todd, who lives in the Tullwood Apartments near the encampment, said, 'They continue to do their campfires and they burn everything, plastic everything it gets pretty bad.' Todd added that the area has been plagued by crime, noting, 'We hear gunshots all the time, last week I heard one, the week before that I heard a couple.' A resident of the encampment, who identified himself as Mac, said they feel misrepresented. 'It just happened and some of us can’t get out of it and we’re stuck,' he said. Mac expressed a desire for more support from the city, saying, 'They don’t give us any resources like an ultimatum or where can go next or nothing they just keep kicking us from one woods to another.'"

KHQ on Idaho. "The 2024 point in time count (PIT) gathered data on 789 Boiseans experiencing homeless. Spokane's PIT - as required by the federal government - checked in with 2,021 on the streets. It paints a vague picture of discrepancy confirming what Spokanite's continue to shout; problems in The Lillac City are exaggerated with a potential template of success to follow just across the Snake River. 'It's clean,' Austen Furymiller said. 'The Boise Police Department cracks down on any issues that arise. Furymiller returned to Boise for a simple standout trait - it's clean and safe."

"'If it's illegal, we take action, we hold them accountable, and our criminal justice system here works,' Boise Police Deputy Chief Tammany Brooks said. 'We respond to all calls.' It's a claim backed up by Furymiller who has worked in the service industry downtown Boise between restaurants and breweries. 'People understand if they step out of line, [police are] gonna show up. There will be consequences for actions,' Furymiller said."

"'Sometimes prosecutors are making decisions about, hey, you know, I'm not going to prosecute this type of crime, right?' said Ada County Prosecutor Jan Bennets. 'It can lead to not enforcing things, which then is not a deterrent for people to commit crimes.' The system creates the outcome of a clean and safe city partly due to state law, according to Ada County Sheriff Matt Clifford. 'You're not gonna see people shooting up or smoking fentanyl on the street here because people know. You are going to jail for that,' Clifford said. 'Sometimes people say you are just harassing these poor addicts. Well, is it fair to just let them stand there and abuse themselves? That's not very humane.'"

From WTOP. "In the midst of record-high office vacancy rates and a changing work economy, Arlington County, Virginia, has passed a plan to cut red tape, so that empty office buildings can be transformed into multi-use spaces. Arlington faces significant challenges in its commercial office market, with more than 10.7 million-square-feet of vacant space and an oversupply of outdated office inventory. 'Close to half of the office buildings in Arlington are basically costing more to the owner than they are producing in income, and sometimes by a whole lot,' said Arlington County Board Chair Libby Garvey, during a Saturday meeting."

CBC News in Canada. "Ontario's home construction regulator is seeking to revoke the licence of a builder that has admitted to selling homes without legal approvals and left more than 100 buyers out millions of dollars in down payments. Last month, CBC Toronto reported on issues with the Sunrise Homes company, including projects going into receivership, allegations of misappropriation of funds and one particular project that's recently left 117 buyers out about $14 million collectively — of which they are trying to recover about $10 million through Tarion, the provincial warranty corporation."

"Faran Haq spent $100,000 on a down payment for a pre-construction home that was supposed to be built by a Sunrise corporation called Sunrise Acquisitions (Stayner) Inc. near Wasaga Beach, Ont. Instead of moving in this summer, as he expected, the project went into receivership in February and Haq is now hoping to recover some of his funds through Tarion. 'When I found out about the information on the builder and the defaults and the receiverships at the other sites, it definitely sort of felt like the carpet was pulled under my feet,' Haq said. 'We feel wronged … To have a corporation out there that has a licence to build, even after committing all that they have committed.'"

"Bob Aaron, a Toronto-based real estate lawyer and former member of Tarion's board of directors, says he'd like to see the HCRA sanction the individuals behind the company. 'I don't see any action being taken against the individuals to prohibit them from setting up under a new name,' he said. 'This is too little too late.'"

This Is Money in the UK. "Tenants will compete over fewer homes and pay ever-higher prices thanks to Labour's attack on landlords, according to a closely-watched survey of property experts. Daniel Wiltshire, an actuary and independent financial advisor at Wiltshire Wealth says a number of his buy-to-let clients have now decided that property investment is no longer for them. 'The cult of buy-to-let is dead,' said Wiltshire. 'I've had several meetings with would-be property investors who have decided to pull out and look at stocks and shares instead The national psyche is hard-wired to pour money into bricks and mortar, but the recent increase in stamp duty, along with other incremental tax rises over the past 10 years, has made even the most die-hard property enthusiast question the wisdom of putting all their eggs in a single, highly taxed basket.'"

Domain News in Australia. "Four capital-city suburbs nationwide dropped out of the $1 million club in the third quarter of this year – and they were all in Greater Melbourne, new data has revealed. The four suburbs that fell out of the $1 million club last quarter – as opposed to the 32 that joined it for the first time – are Beaconsfield, Riddells Creek, Sandhurst and Gisborne. Dimming demand has made prices fall, says local agent Damien Walder of Bound Real Estate. 'There’s definitely a lot more property on the market,' he says. 'And there’s not a lot of urgency from buyers as well.'"

"Riddells Creek, east of Gisborne, experienced the largest price fall at 5.9 per cent (or $60,000), bringing the median down to $955,000. [Prices] did drop finally because the interest rates sort of levelled out a bit,” says local agent Amanda Burt. 'Vendors’ expectations were very high, so we’ve had to bring them down to reality again,' Burt says. She has also recently seen more investors needing to sell their properties at a loss, which has heavily affected the median house price. 'If [investors] bought at the peak of the market, they haven’t been able to recoup it, and they might have lost between $20,000 and $50,000,' she says."

The Malaysian Star. "The dream of owning a home has turned into despair for some homebuyers in Marang, Terengganu, as their housing project has been left abandoned for over eight years, reported Harian Metro. This was the state of the Taman Sri Purnama housing project in Kampung Gong Chempedak, whose abandoned status has left many homebuyers who invested into the project with massive debt. Buyer Mohd Hafiz Salleh, 38, said a private developer had created the project in 2016, promising prices ranging from RM73,000 to RM148,000 per unit. 'We’ve been waiting for eight years for our dream home and we still haven’t gotten it. We don’t know what the real issue is that has caused this project to remain incomplete,' Mohd Hafiz said. He added that the buyers are now left to pay their house loans to banks and the Public Sector Home Financing Board of between RM400 and RM800 each month for essentially nothing."