A report from Villages-News in Florida. "A seller hopes a $30,000 price cut will get things moving at a home in The Villages. The home at 4168 Burgess Drive in the Village of Richmond is now listed at $1.12 million. It’s been on the market for more than 100 days. The home was originally purchased in 2022 for $496,700."

The Olympian in Washington. "For at least the third straight year, more than 100 homes sold for $1 million or more in Thurston County, according to the Northwest Multiple Listing Service. Owning a home that costs that much is no longer unusual, said Mitch Dietz, owner and designated broker of Coldwell Banker Evergreen Olympic Realty in Olympia. Dietz recalled that in 2010, few, if any, homes in the county, including those with waterfront views, sold for $1 million. Dietz said 2024 was a 'weird' year. By all indications it was a market that favored sellers, yet his office had more canceled transactions than ever because buyers felt they had more options, he said. It’s still a market that favors sellers, but buyers last year were able to negotiate price, ask the seller to help pay for closing costs and ask for home inspections, Dietz said."

Summit Daily in Colorado. "Buyers largely held the upper hand in Summit County’s real estate market in 2024 and had more negotiating power compared to recent years as trends moved away from the High Country’s pandemic-fueled real estate spike, real estate agents say. While the average sales price climbed around 10%, the listed-price-to-sold-price ratio dropped a percent or two and remained at 95-97% throughout the year. Homes were often sold for less than originally listed. 'Previously (a listing) would get multiple offers, and so the sellers (were) getting a higher sales price. …Now that we’ve become more of a normalized market, there’s more room for the buyers to negotiate because they’re not competing with other buyers for the same property,' Re/Max agent Jan Leopold said."

"Summit-based real estate agents reported prices jumping 15-20% each year from 2020 to 2022. It was the epitome of a sellers market. Sellers could list their properties at record-high prices, and buyers had competition. A new normal was set for sellers based off a couple years of the same trend. Real estate agent Dishon Lutz said the market hasn’t been this way in years because of the pandemic-fueled real estate boom, and that created a lingering sentiment among sellers Lutz said the real estate market is a rapidly evolving one, and sometimes the general public might not realize it and refer to price ranges that worked maybe a year ago, but not now."

Business Insider. "Linda Sims was away visiting family in October 2017 when her next-door neighbor called: Sims' house was on fire. Within hours, the entire structure — and much of the surrounding northern California canyon — was wiped out by the Tubbs wildfire. The flames destroyed years' worth of Sims' and her husband's memories, possessions, and the house they planned to sell one day to add to their retirement savings. She told Business Insider that the couple had worked hard to save for retirement throughout their careers, but most of that money was invested in the house they lost in the fire. Despite the hundreds of thousands of dollars they received in insurance and settlement money, it didn't come near to covering the full cost."

"With limited savings left, Sims recently moved in with one of her children so that she could reduce her housing costs to cover the steep price of the memory care her husband now needs. She said what she receives monthly in Social Security barely covers her daily essentials. 'There was nothing I could do but just watch the money flow out of my account that I had saved,' Sims said. 'We lost half the value of our house or more because we didn't have enough insurance. Every two years, we went in and upped the insurance,' Sims said, explaining that she tried to increase the total amount of disaster coverage on the house several times before the wildfire. 'But that's all the insurance companies would allow in one of those areas.'"

The Globe and Mail in Canada. "1 Balmoral Ave., No. 602, Toronto. Asking price: $1.495-million (November, 2024). Previous asking price: $1.75-million (September, 2024). Selling price: $1.495-million (November, 2024). About two dozen buyers made time to tour this three-bedroom unit in one corner of a boutique building on Yonge Street, but none came forward with an offer. To draw a buyer the seller cut the asking price by $255,000. Within a week, a new visitor signed a deal for the lowered asking price. 'In my 25 years plus in the business, last year was the most challenging time to sell condos,' said agent Dino Capocci. 'The seller understood: If we wanted to sell, we’d need to adjust our price.'"

Lancaster Guardian in the UK. "Residents on a half-built housing estate near Lancaster are calling for action to be taken against the developers over a host of concerns. The new estate at St Michael’s Gardens in Cockerham was supposed to have 36 homes along with enough car parking spaces, as well as an approved drainage scheme and maintenance plan. Lancaster City Council is now taking enforcement steps against the developers, Pleasington Homes Ltd. Residents’ worries have been highlighted by Lancaster city councillor Sally Maddocks and Jason Park, chairman of Cockerham Parish Council. Coun Maddocks said: 'The situation is causing residents to feel angry, depressed and incredibly frustrated at the slow progress to put things right.'"

"Mr Park criticised the city council’s communication with residents, but he also believes it faces big planning pressures, along with other councils. 'With big developers, there’s an assumption that everything will be in place financially. But budgets are tight and some developers go bust. Should due diligence tests be part of the planning process? Pressures on council planning departments could get worse because the government is pushing for more homes to be built. There could be a greater risk of more housing schemes going wrong, with half-built estates and ghost towns.'"

From ABC News. "Inflation, global uncertainty and a tight jobs market are making conditions tough for Australian businesses and many are expecting it to get worse before it gets better. Builder Joey Pamment's work has slowed by up to 75 per cent compared to the COVID years, when the construction industry was booming. 'It's a tough time to be a builder,' he told the ABC. 'When we were booming, we were getting two to three inquiries sometimes a day, or at least a week,' Mr Pamment, the director of his eponymous building company, said. 'At the moment we maybe get inquiries once a month, or every second month. A lot of the inquiries are dead leads, where you put the price in and the price is so exorbitant the client doesn't go ahead with the project.'"

"The most recent national data showed the pipeline of unfinished residential construction work has risen to a record high, while the number of dwellings under construction continued to fall. Over 10,000 insolvencies have already been recorded for the current financial year, while a record 14,000 were recorded for the whole of the previous financial year, and 10,000 for the year before that. It's a trend builder Joey Pamment has noticed, with his company taking a hit from numerous subcontractor insolvencies. 'We're still feeling it,' he told the ABC. 'We've had projects where the joiner has gone broke, the plumber has gone broke, and that puts pressure on us, because we lose money out of pocket if we have to get a new trade, a new subcontractor. We have lost money many times in the last couple years with insolvencies.'"

From Bloomberg. "Distressed property sales in Hong Kong are beginning to bite banks that used to be well protected against loan losses. The city’s commercial real estate sector is going through one of its worst slumps in history, with no end in sight. Average prices of office buildings, shopping malls and other properties have fallen more than 40% from their highs in 2018, eroding the value of the collateral backing many bank loans. Defaults are also rising as more property owners and developers run into cash flow difficulties. Banks with soured loans and mortgages have been reluctant to sell the underlying real estate assets at a loss — but that is changing. Some recent transactions, including the HK$2.6 billion ($334 million) sale of the Cheung Kei Center to a university in November, saw lenders offload assets at less than the face value of their loans, crystallizing losses."

"'Banks are realizing that if they don’t sell their commercial properties, the values will go lower and lower,' said James Mak, chief sales director at Midland Commercial Realty Ltd., a property brokerage. 'They have to sell at a loss because that’s how the market is now.' At least HK$2.1 trillion has been erased from commercial and residential real estate values in the city since 2019, according to a BI analysis."

South China Morning Post. "A glut of new homes is likely to saturate Shanghai's property market this year, increasing pressure on developers to sell their projects quickly and prevent an inventory from building, according to agents and analysts. At least 270 residential developments with some 30,000 units are expected to go on sale in mainland China's commercial and financial hub this year, on top of the existing inventory of 54,000, according to property agency Baonuo. Based on last year's sales, developers could take more than a year to offload their inventory."

"'Homebuyers are fully aware of the excessive supply of new homes,' said Wang Feng, chairman of Ye Lang Capital, a Shanghai-based financial services group. 'They are hoping developers offer steep discounts to lure buyers.' Some developers have taken note of the situation, slashing prices by as much as 30 per cent ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday, which starts on Tuesday and ends on February 4, to bolster sales. Since 2017, the Shanghai government has had the final say on new home prices to prevent a bubble in the local property market. Now, the government's aim is to keep prices stable to avoid a sharp downturn in the market."