A report from WPTV in Florida. "'If you go into pretty much any neighborhood across the Treasure Coast, you're going to find multiple properties for sale,' said Kelley Decowski, a real estate agent. Decowski believes the buyer's market is due to a large number of listings available. 'If there are 25 homes for sale and one buyer, that means the demand's going to be low, and the buyer is really going to be able to call the shots and figure out which of those 25 homes is going to give them the best deal,' Decowski said. There are 6,232 homes listed on the Treasure Coast as of January. For available townhomes and condos, Indian River County has up to 11 months of inventory with St. Lucie County closer to 10 months of inventory and Martin County close to eight months."

The Ledger in Florida. "Lakeland resident Misty Wells has a $10,000 check from her flood insurance to begin rebuilding her home along Lake Bonny's canal that was flooded by Hurricane Milton. Except, she hasn't started. She can't. Its foundation cracked in half. For four months, Wells has appealed to her flood and homeowner's insurance companies, who have denied coverage. Without the funds to repair the foundation, the $10,000 check to rebuild the walls sit uncashed. Wells and her family live in a camper overlooking the home they are unable to repair. FEMA inspectors have come out to Nikki Aldahonda-Ramirez's home five times in the past four months. Upon a second inspection, paperwork shows the Honeytree Drive home was listed as having been affected at the lowest damage level and FEMA issued her a check. 'They gave me $9,400 to fix my house, my whole house. My entire house for $9,400,' she said."

Houston Chronicle in Texas. "A couple of years ago, when Sherry Thompson decided to shop around for home insurance after her annual policy with Geico was renewed at $15,000, the advice she got from insurance agents to lower her rate was blunt. 'Get out of Seabrook,' she recalled them saying. The question on her mind quickly became, who could afford to move in? Jamie Terry, a real estate agent in League City, said roughly 10% of the deals she represented last year fell apart because of the cost of insurance. 'This year, it’s really been a factor of, can a buyer really afford this home?' said Teresa Riddle, a Pearland real estate agent. 'They cannot afford what they used to be able to afford and they're having to go down in price.'"

"In Seabrook, an idyllic city of 14,000, online forums are filled with people’s anxiety over the rising cost to insure their most valuable asset. The city is known for its good schools and natural beauty, but almost every property is in a flood zone. 'You see people making comments on social media, like, we have to leave,' said Matt Hearon, who has lived in Seabrook since 2012. 'You better sell now before it gets worse.' A few months ago, Thompson’s neighbor left Seabrook and put her house on the market. It sat there for months. 'I’m shocked it hasn’t sold,' Thompson said. 'It does make you worry.'"

From ABC News. "Jewlz and Terry Fahn said they will need to file a claim under the FAIR Plan, the state's insurer of last resort. The Fahns had to sign on after State Farm opted against renewal of their fire policy last fall, just a few months before the fire destroyed their home. For her part, Jewlz Fahn said she knows that her claim through the California FAIR Plan won’t cover everything that she lost in the fire. Fahn said she’s still struggling to understand why her insurance company wasn’t there to provide a safety net. 'I'm still very scared thinking about how little we are going to get and what we should be getting for our home and for our loss,' she said. 'Insurance companies are supposed to protect you. That's why they're there,' she went on. 'So it makes no sense why they would drop us or anyone else, especially when they have the funds to insure people.'"

NBC San Diego in California. "Residents of University Heights say that they’ve called on city and state leaders for years for help about a homeless encampment in their community, with no result. John Rinaldi’s University Heights dream home, which offers a panoramic view of the city, also gives him a window into an unsightly scene across the canyon. 'You shouldn’t have to contend with people defecating and sunbathing nude, and sitting out here cooking and running solar panels, and putting us at risk of fires,' said Rinaldi, who told NBC 7 that he lost at least one potential buyer for his home, which is up for sale."

"Neighbor Charles Warner showed NBC 7 pictures of cooking pots, batteries and solar panels he believes help to power the encampment’s creature comforts, which include a television. 'I’ve seen a TV on down there…,' Warner said. 'It’s like he has an apartment.' All of this is happening about 50 yards from Warner’s home. 'It’s frustrating to have somebody put your life and your property at risk 24/7, and then to have no response from the city,' Warner said. 'We need to speed up the process if they’re doing anything,' Rinaldi said. 'It cannot take four years when it’s a fire danger and a threat to life. That can’t happen.'"

The Denver Post in Colorado. "Metro Denver’s housing market experienced a surge in new listings last month as sellers rushed the field ready to make a deal. But buyers, hobbled by a lack of affordability, increasingly stayed on the sidelines. Sellers, by contrast, were ready to make a move. They placed 4,339 homes and condos on the market in January, which represents a 135.4% increase from December and a 32% increase in new listings from January 2024. 'Sellers in this market need to be realistic about pricing,' said Amanda Snitker, chairwoman of the DMAR Market Trends Committee and a local Realtor. Testing the market by over-pricing a home has become a riskier proposition that often leads to more time spent on the market and price reductions."

The Gazette. "The red-hot pace of Colorado Springs-area apartment construction turned ice cold last year. Until 2024, multifamily developers were riding high — attracted to the Colorado Springs area. Apartment projects sprang up in several fast-growing areas, including north and northeast Colorado Springs, Fountain to the south of the city and Monument in northern El Paso County. For areas such as downtown, where thousands of new apartments have opened, owners are offering up to two months of free rent to tenants who sign 12- to 15-month leases to fill up their new complexes. 'In this building frenzy, did we build enough affordable units? Probably not,' said Tatiana Bailey, executive director of Data Driven Economic Strategies. Developers are 'building high-margin properties with rents of more than $2,000 a month' that teachers, police and other middle-income workers might not be able to afford, she said."

News & Observer in North Carolina. "Plunging property values, high interest rates, the rise of hybrid work and weak tenant demand since the pandemic have pushed the nation’s office vacancy rates to a new record 20.4% in the fourth quarter — the highest since at least 1979, when Moody’s Analytics began tracking. In the Triangle, it’s even higher at 21% — up from 20.6% in the previous quarter and from 18.9% a year ago, according to CBRE. Across all corners, office buildings, new and old, are sitting empty. In December, Raleigh investor Andy English, with his Perkins Fund, purchased a 160,000-square-foot building in West Raleigh for $6 million, Triangle Business Journal reported. Just five years earlier, the previous owner, Atlanta-based Bridge Commercial Real Estate, paid $33 million for the building — an 80% drop in price. And last June, Atlanta-based Bridge Commercial Real Estate sold a pair of Class A office buildings on Falls of Neuse Road for $12.25 million combined, TBJ reported. That’s more than $17 million below what they paid in 2020 when the combined price was nearly $30 million."

The Kingston Whig-Standard in Canada. "During the darkest days of the year many people like to escape to warmer, sunnier destinations, such as Florida in the United States. One Kingston family has decided to avoid that part of the south and instead spend their money in Mexico. 'I have no interest in going to the United States at this point in time and honestly, I will focus on spending all of the money I make on things that will help people in our own country,' said Mat Clancy. Clancy is a real estate agent in Kingston but has experience working on cruise ships in the United States. His main concern is how the proposed tariffs could hurt different sectors of the economy here in the Limestone City."

"'The real estate industry is fairly invulnerable because I’m either helping people buy a house or I’m unfortunately maybe going to have to sell some houses because people aren’t going to be able to afford them. They get laid off from their job and they can’t afford their mortgage payment anymore,' said Clancy. According to Eugene Lang, a professor in the School of Policy Studies at Queen’s University, Canada hasn’t experienced a tariff from the United States since the 1930s. 'Back then we were more integrated with the U.K. economy than the U.S. It was a completely different era. Now, just to put some numbers on it, 34-35 per cent of our GDP is trade dependent and 75 per cent of it is with the U.S. We are extremely dependent on them in a way that they are not dependent on us,' said Lang."

The North Hampton Chronicle in the UK. "A father of three living on an unfinished housing estate in Northampton has criticised the developers over ‘broken promises’, ‘excuses’ and a ‘lack of communication’. Residents of the 139-home Lancaster and Harvester Way housing development by Watermeadow Homes in Far Cotton have repeatedly expressed frustration over prolonged delays and the incomplete state of their estate. Dad Dean Foskett is now speaking out after nearly three years of living on the site, having paid £338,000 for the house in August 2022 and moving his young family in. The 41-year-old said: 'The site as a whole—there are potholes, uneven roads, high curbs, unkept land, fencing. It looks like we’re living in a constant building site. We’ve gone from being excited about our new home to considering moving because nothing’s happening. They snapped up the money, then pushed us to the back of the pile.'"

Radio New Zealand. "Average Wellington house values have plummeted nearly 25 percent over three years, according to latest official valuations. On average compared to the 2021 valuations, the value of residential housing had decreased 24.4 percent with the average house value now sitting at $1,086,000. The average land land value decreased 36.7 percent to an average of $621,000 over the same period. Lowe and Co managing director Craig Lowe told RNZ the changes in house prices matter most to those that bought during the peak of the property boom in 2021. Lowe said that was due to the potential for those people to be now faced with a situation where they could have negative equity or the majority of their equity wiped out. 'That's where this would be affecting those people quite negatively.' Many of those property owners may be in a position where they would have to wait for house price inflation over time to restore equity in the property before selling, he said."

The Daily Mail. "Another Australian home builder has collapsed, owing millions of dollars to creditors and leaving homes left unfinished or with defects. Clarke Homes, based on the NSW Central Coast, was placed in administration, with a meeting of creditors held on Wednesday. Many of the creditors are tradespeople, contractors and suppliers, with one local firm claiming it's owed around $60,000 by the home builder. 'We're just trying to see if we can recoup some of the money so we can keep going,' the unnamed creditor told the Daily Telegraph. 'We've been busting our a***s to stay afloat because, with the cost of living many people are not spending.'"

"Among the creditors owed are Alesha McNamara and her husband who spent almost $400,000 on their 'dream home'. The couple and their baby boy have been living in the home since early 2024, but there are a lot of defects. Ms McNamara said that during the building process, 'every trade (person) we spoke to was owed money'. Though the house was habitable, Ms McNamara said defects such as holes in the ceilings would cost tens of thousands of dollars to fix. As she is on maternity leave at the moment, so the couple cannot afford to get these problems fixed right now. 'It's definitely cost us a whole lot more than what paying for a different builder might have,' Ms McNamara said."