A report from Jackson Hole News and Guide. “Looking to buy a house, Harry Richmond found one three or so hours away from San Francisco where he lives and works. But, just as the 33-year-old pharmaceutical industry employee was getting ready to buy in Truckee, a town of roughly 16,500 just a few miles north of Lake Tahoe, the town temporarily banned new short-term rentals. ‘That completely changed everything and pulled the rug out from under my feet,’ Richmond said.”

“He planned to subsidize his mortgage by renting the place out in the short term. But the moratorium called his ability to get a short-term rental permit into question, increasing the risk. ‘I was just getting to a point where I needed to pull the trigger on something,’ Richmond said. ‘But after that happened, it just didn’t make sense financially.’”

“That wasn’t uncommon. ‘Yes, that’s a thing,’ Truckee-area Realtor Christy Morrison said. ‘If I looked in our database, I would say 20% to 30% of people now are not going to buy.’ Those people, she said, are people like Richmond who can no longer plan on short-term rental income to offset mortgage payments.”

The Greeley Tribune in Colorado. “Median sale price in Boulder (Redfin): $780,000 (-14.3% from December; +4.7% since January 2021).”

From WTOP News. “Even in this tight housing market, there were 16 million homes in the U.S. classified as ‘vacant’ in 2020, the most recent year for available data. Some are so-called ‘zombie foreclosures,’ houses sitting empty and waiting for the bank to sell them, and some are dilapidated or rundown homes that may be waiting for a buyer or a bulldozer. And those are a potential red flags of an unhealthy neighborhood or housing market.”

“The vacancy rate in Maryland was 9.4%, and the vacancy rate was Virginia is 10.4%, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Vacancy rates are the highest in southern states, and in New England. The vacancy rate in Vermont is 22.9%, and in Maine it is 22.7%. In Alabama the vacancy rate is 17.7%, and in Mississippi, it is 16.3%.”

From Al-Jazeera. “Despite bullish global commercial real estate outlooks from Big 4 accounting firms, the pandemic’s effect on the office subsector – in many ways the marquee slice of the global real estate industry ­– has been profound. ‘All over the world, CEOs are wondering how to explain to their shareholders why 50-to-60 percent of their corporate real estate is basically vacant,’ says Nicholas White, co-founder of Smart Buildings Certification, an Amsterdam-based consultancy. ‘They’re asking their CFOs for all sorts of data on which of these expensive properties to get rid of and which to keep. But it’s almost impossible to imagine that this won’t eventually affect what they can ask for rent, their vacancy rates and ultimately the values of the properties.’

The Real Deal. “A convicted Chicago real estate scammer’s former lawyer wants to hold onto condos he received from the client as payment in 2007, and is suing the banks trying to foreclose on them, claiming they are doing so fraudulently. Rufus Cook, the former lawyer, and Robert Anthony Bryant, previously a client of Cook’s who served prison time in a scheme involving tax-delinquent real estate, filed a lawsuit late last month in Illinois federal court naming HSBC Bank, Bank of America, Citi, a Cook County judge and a slew of lawyers for the banks as defendants.”

“Bank of America is attempting to foreclose on one of the properties — which is listed for sale for $1.95 million by broker John Munson, who said he represents a trustee on a loan tied to the property and received offers but none at the price needed over the more than yearlong period it’s been marketed. ‘There is interest in this property, just not at the number they need,’ Munson said.”

“An auction was held for the property Feb. 25 and it fetched a $1.8 million bid, according to records of the Judicial Sales Corporation, which conducts most foreclosures sales in Cook County. Cook’s suit seeks to prevent a closing.”

Canadian Mortgage Trends. “There are signs cropping up that the intense level of housing imbalance seen throughout the pandemic may finally be reaching a turning point. Data from some of the country’s local real estate boards showed a notable monthly rise in new listings in major markets. ‘One month doesn’t make a trend, but if February is any indication, more sellers may be (finally) making their way into Canada’s housing market,” observed RBC economist Robert Hogue. ‘This was especially the case in Calgary and Edmonton where a wave of properties put up for sale set the stage for the strongest number of transactions ever recorded in a February,’ he added.”

From News.com.au in Australia. “House prices could fall faster than expected after a surge in homes being listed in some of Melbourne’s inner suburbs. In Stonnington West for example, the number of properties available have jumped by 23 per cent, and this has contributed to a fall in property prices. ‘In recent months, the Stonnington region has experienced a fall in median prices, which we estimate [to be] a 9 per cent drop in median sale prices in the last 12 months,’ said Suburbtrends director Kent Lardner. ‘Unless demand increases, prices may fall further and faster if listings volumes continue to build like this.’”

“New listings in Sydney have also jumped 81 per cent – while listings in the inner west rose by 88 per cent in February. Mr Lardner said he didn’t think there would be a price drop in this region because demand was still ‘red-hot.’”

“The inner city suburb of Beaconsfield suffered the biggest slump across the country with house prices plunging 9.2 per cent meaning they are now worth $162,662 less than three months ago, according to CoreLogic. The popular inner west suburb of Newtown suffered a $120,207 loss in house prices, while Surry Hills faced a loss of $134,054 and the waterfront suburb of Birchgrove experienced a drop of 6 per cent or $190,581. Meanwhile, new property listings in Canberra also saw a significant increase of 86.1 per cent, while Melbourne’s new listings climbed by 76.7 per cent and Brisbane rose by 51.8 per cent. Across the country, new listings rose by an average of 62 per cent.”

From Stuff New Zealand. “A report from the REINZ shows house prices in Palmerston North fell by almost $100,000, though it’s projected this will likely be a blip. The January 2022 market report showed the median house prices in Palmerston North fell from a December high of $750,000 to $660,000. Feilding, meanwhile, saw a median price decrease to $600,750. REINZ ambassador to Palmerston North Andy Stewart said that in terms of supply, it was good for consumers.”

“‘It’s looking like a buyers’ market at the moment. We’ve seen the number of properties for sale jump up to 400 in the last month,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t help that the Government has introduced a tougher LVR (loan-to-value ratio), higher interest rates, and that there’s now far tougher lending criteria which is starting to turn away some investor interest.’”