A report from the Emeryville Eye in California. "A recent SF Chronicle report provided some concerning data regarding Emeryville home values. According to the report, Emeryville is one of only two cities in the Bay Area that has seen a decline in home values since the 2020 pandemic. While San Francisco has seen a 3% decline in median home values since 2019 according to Zillow data, Emeryville has seen a 12% decline over this same span. This drop is being driven by 15.6% drop in value of condominiums over the past five years, falling from a median $568,000 in 2019 to $479,000 today. This decline seems to driven be a perfect storm of higher interest rates, spiking HOA dues, Insurance rates, and shifting consumer desires."

"Some Realtors are optimistic that when the interest rates eventually drop, we should in turn see a return to a more 'normal' market in Emeryville. 'Post COVID when interest rates were in the 2 to 3 percent range, home prices dramatically increased flooding the single family home market – which ultimately pushed many buyers who wanted a home and wanted to take advantage of low interest rates into the condo and townhome market,' provided Compass Realtor Chris Clark. 'Now that interest rates are much higher, demand has flattened and those with means that want to are able to get into a single family home. They can be more selective.'"

Fort Myers Beach News in Florida. "The verdict was unanimous for the more than two dozen Fort Myers Beach residents who turned out Monday to speak out at the Town of Fort Myers Beach Council’s hearing against the 17-story, multi-building Seagate condo project at the former Red Coconut RV Resort. The condo towers, which would be the largest buildings in the town at an estimated 255 feet, were just too tall they said. Former mayor Ray Murphy said the neighbors of Seagate are 'not going to be able to enjoy their retirement days staring at a massive wall.'"

CBS Colorado. "The Colorado Division of Securities is pursuing legal action against a man whom it claims deceived investors and used the ownership of federally supported low-income housing projects to line his own pockets. Securities Commissioner Tung Chan announced its civil court filings against Michael Dale Graham, 68, on Nov. 12. The filing states Graham collected more than $1.1 million from eight investors to purchase three adjacent homes in Aurora. The Denver-based Gravitas fund and its investors purportedly qualified for the federal Qualified Opportunity Zone (QOZ) program with the homes. The zones encouraged growth in low-income communities by offering tax benefits to investors, namely reductions in capital gains taxes on developed properties."

"Gravitas also transferred the titles for the two properties to Graham privately. As their owner, Graham obtained undocumented loans from friends totaling almost $600,000. The two loans used the two properties as security. Gravitas investors were never informed of the two loans, according to the case document. 'Effectively, Graham used Gravitas as his personal piggy bank,' as stated in the case document, 'claiming both funds and properties as his own. Graham never told investors about the risks associated with transferring title to himself. On September 1, 2023, he sent a letter to investors, stating that the properties 'we own' are doing well and generating growth due to record-breaking home appreciation. But Gravitas no longer owned the properties. Gravitas no longer had assets at all.'"

The New York Times. "The insurance crisis spreading across the United States arrived at Richard D. Zimmel's door this month in the form of a letter. Zimmel, who lives in the increasingly fire-prone hills outside Silver City, New Mexico, had done everything right. None of it mattered. His insurance company, Homesite Insurance, dumped him. 'Property is located in a brushfire or wildfire area that no longer meets Homesite's minimum standard for wildfire risk,' the letter read. Zimmel's bigger worry, he said, is how the struggle over insurance could affect his home's value, which his real estate agent estimates at about $725,000. 'I just don't know what's going to happen to the town if this keeps happening,' said Zimmel's agent, Shelley Scarborough."

CBC Boston. "In a year-end interview with WBZ-TV, Gov. Maura Healey had a message for the handful of Massachusetts communities that designate themselves as 'sanctuary' cities for immigrants. 'We are not a sanctuary state. If you come here, there is not housing here, and I think that's been effective in changing the trajectory of [migration to Massachusetts],' Healey said. 'I don't really understand what that terminology means in practice, because I guess I come to this also as a former prosecutor and Attorney General. I can tell you that when it comes to criminal investigations of violent crime, of drug trafficking, gun trafficking, human trafficking, today, and this has always been the case, local law enforcement, state law enforcement, working with federal law enforcement, will continue to do that work.'"

"Healey also called on Congress and the incoming Trump administration to try again to pass reform of the immigration laws and border security. And on the subject of how Trump won the election, Healey echoed the view of many observers that 'Democrats weren't paying enough attention to people's pocketbook, to their economic circumstance.' 'I have been laser-focused on costs, [with] the tax cuts that I put in…and we've really focused on housing…we've got to lower the cost of homes,' Healey said. 'I think that's where Democrats need to be. That needs to be the focus, that needs to be the message. And there were many people who did not feel connected to that in this last election.'"

From Bloomberg. "Elon Musk, the billionaire tasked with making the US government more efficient come January, has zeroed in on the Federal Reserve. The central bank in charge of protecting the world’s largest economy is 'absurdly overstaffed,' Musk wrote on social-media platform X. The remarks were part of a thread beginning when someone posted about the Fed’s latest policy decision. The Federal Reserve Board in Washington and 12 regional reserve banks across the US employed about 24,000 people last year. The Fed and Chair Jerome Powell have been a frequent target of Trump, who appointed him during his first term. Recently, he ridiculed Powell’s role as 'the greatest job in government,' saying, 'you show up to the office once a month, and you say, ‘Let’s see, flip a coin.’"

"In the Eurosystem, which comprises the European Central Bank and the region’s 20 national peers, the central banks of Germany, France and Italy together had more people on their payrolls. While Powell hasn’t responded directly, ECB President Christine Lagarde challenged Trump’s gripe, inviting him to come and observe the work of her team in Frankfurt. 'I have thousands of hard-working people — economists, jurists, computer scientists — and I can assure you that they work super hard every day, not just once a month,' she told Bloomberg TV. 'We defend the euro, and we fight for the euro, just as the Fed defends the dollar, I’m sure — I don’t want to speak for Jay Powell, but I’m sure that’s how he sees his job.'"

Bisnow on Texas. "Houston brokers and analysts saw a true mixed bag in the commercial real estate industry in 2024. A wave of distress has threatened to crash over the multifamily industry for years now, with investors buying Class-B and C assets for much more than they were worth in 2021 and 2022. But people still found a way to extend and pretend in 2024, Berkadia Senior Managing Director Chris Curry said. 'Towards the tail end of this year, particularly Class-B and C workforce housing deals start to go back to lenders,' Curry said. '[So much] distress has built up in the system that we can see, you would think it would be a lot more than what was taken over by lenders at this point. So that music stops leading into next year.'"

"The biggest difference in 2025 will be more sellers coming to the market, largely by force, said Berkadia Managing Director Joey Rippel. 'Nobody would like to sell in this current environment if they can avoid it,' Curry said. 'So they kicked the can. Ultimately, that can can’t be kicked much farther. That will force a lot of deals to the market to clear at whatever price. That’s what’s going to get capital really excited, when there’s a lot more opportunity to buy with market-rate sellers.'"

The Philippines Star. "The Metro Manila condo oversupply, now equivalent to 34 months, is not surprising. Indeed, anyone with some brains would have expected it to happen. The country’s condo industry is supply-driven. They build without thinking who will buy all their units. Notice how in malls, nicely dressed agents annoyingly try to sell condos like sidewalk vendors. Their focus on the speculative buyer who buys 'for investment' is dependent on a lot of factors including how buoyant the economy is and if interest rates remain affordable. Now, the property developers have more unsold units than they want. Hopefully, they don’t end up like some of the ghost cities I saw in China. Chinese developers built all those high-rise condo buildings with a bahala na attitude. They were getting easy credit to build so they built. Then, the bottom fell."

"Apparently, gone are the days when the elite have a lot of idle money to buy units for speculation. Even the corrupt politicians who buy condo units for their mistresses are apparently deciding to stay financially liquid. Ignoring the market segments that need housing is driven by the greed of our property developers. They shun the affordable segment that actually needs housing because they want quick profits, as big as the market can deliver. Now, their capital is trapped in suspended construction. There are many of those near where I am in Pasig that have not progressed since the pandemic. With no market to sell to and the high cost of interest on money required for completion, why hurry?"

Business Republic. "China is struggling with a property glut. Millions of unsold homes are weighing on real estate valuations and undermining President Xi Jinping’s efforts to stimulate the world’s second-largest economy. In 2025, expect the authorities in Beijing to step up by creating a housing policy 'bad bank.' The scale of the problem is anyone’s guess. Researchers at Goldman Sachs estimate residential inventory would amount to 93 trillion yuan ($13 trillion) if developers completed all projects currently under construction. That’s equivalent to eight times the value of homes sold in China in 2023."

"When Xi first came to power in 2013, his administration was also grappling with a property market downturn. Citing ministerial officials, state media outlets at the time suggested 'basic conditions' were in place to set up a housing policy bank to tackle excessive inventory. Eventually the central bank stepped up instead, injecting more than 3 trillion yuan of liquidity between 2015 to 2020 to effectively subsidise the 'destocking' of new apartments. Ironically that move helped to inflate the property bubble, which eventually burst in 2020 and left behind a much larger property mess. In 2025, the Ministry of Finance will need to wield a big mop to clean it up."