A report from Business Insider. “Despite Sonja Morgan’s socialite status and her home’s location on the posh Upper East Side, she has struggled to sell the five-story, six-bathroom brownstone. Morgan, a star of Bravo’s ‘Real Housewives of New York,’ has owned the home at 162 E. 63rd St. for 27 years. Since around 2008, she has made numerous attempts to sell it, but has failed to attract any serious buyers. Now, after years of listing and delisting the property, she has opted to auction it with a starting bid of $1.75 million, far below its reported purchase price of $9.1 million in 1997, according to Curbed’s Bridget Read. ‘I wanna be free to garden and travel and not have to worry about the house — but I’m not taking nothing,’ Morgan told Curbed. Morgan’s townhouse carries estimated monthly property taxes of $6,003, per the StreetEasy listing. This figure doesn’t include additional expenses that come with owning a townhouse such as insurance, repairs, upgrades, landscaping, and more.”

The Stamford Advocate. “In dozens of Connecticut cities and towns, houses that have yet to lure buyers after going on the market in the spring of 2023 or prior years. According to brokerage records, in a number of instances houses went under contract, only for transactions to get scotched before getting to closing. More than two years after the now-demolished Highland Lake bungalow first hit the market, a modernist masterpiece was listed for sale in Ridgefield, complete with observation tower to take in views in the lower Hudson River valley. From $22 million back then, the property is priced today at $7.5 million but has yet to draw a buyer.”

“In the midst of its sixth spring on the market is another mega-mansion on Sasco Hill Road in Fairfield, which has seen its price dropped repeatedly over the years, including by $1 million this past January to just under $12 million. The Fairfield, Ridgefield and Woodstock mansions have absorbed the biggest price drops among the town-by-town group of longest-listed properties statewide analyzed by CT Insider. Also having yet to move is the Daniel Baldwin House in Litchfield. First listed for sale in late 2021, the owner has pruned nearly $1 million off the asking price since to bring it to just under $1.5 million. Heading into this weekend’s open houses on Thursday and Friday morning, more than 200 houses hit the market or carried the ‘coming soon’ tag otherwise, ranging from a $7.3 million spread in Washington Depot; to a colonial-era saltbox in Torrington priced at a 15 percent discount off what its owner paid in 2008.”

The Courier Journal in Kentucky. “A healthy summer market would be a welcome change from last year, which saw home sales down 16% compared to 2022 and about 28% from 2021, according to data from the Greater Louisville Association of Realtors. After a period two years ago marked by fast sales and fierce competition, George Barrett, co-owner of Louisville-based real estate agency Homepage Realty said, his agents are having to reeducate both buyers and sellers to the current realities of the market. ‘During that crazy time, sellers were told … ‘I can get above list price. I can have everyone waive everything. I don’t have to give up concessions,’ and I think that mindset is still in people’s minds today,’ he said. For sellers, that means putting their best foot forward when listing their house. ‘The homes that are ready to show will sell in a competitive nature,’ he said. ‘You can’t overprice anything these days.’”

“He also stressed sellers ‘staging’” their homes by decluttering, cleaning, and doing small jobs such as fresh painting. ‘These little things that sellers used to always do, I think for lack of a better term, we got a little lazy during that crazy time,’ he said. ‘Buyers aren’t buying things that they don’t absolutely like the look of walking in anymore because we have more options out there.’”

ABC Action News. “If you’re a condo owner or looking to buy one anytime soon, you may have to rethink your budget. That’s according to Greg Main-Baillie—the executive managing director for construction and project management at Colliers Real Estate Services. When it comes to Florida’s condo market, he told ABC Action News that the next three years will be rough. ‘The initial hit is going to be painful,’ he said. ‘Everyone is going to see a significant increase in HOA fees year over year as well as that initial assessment to repair the building. It’s going to put a lot of people in a tight position and with a very significant adjustment in their monthly budget. My advice to someone looking to buy a condo in this kind of market is [to] Be fully aware of what you’re buying.’”

The Los Angeles Times in California. “When Blake Whitmore pays his mortgage every month on his Marin County home, he winces. The elevator mechanic and father of two young children can barely afford the $3,400 he must pay his lender. His wife has gone back to work, and he flipped a house with a buddy to help pay the bills. The hefty mortgage payment is a painful reminder of a $200,000 investment he made in 2019 in a business recommended by a friend. The venture promised big returns from acquiring film rights and selling them to Netflix and other platforms in Latin America, but Whitmore lost all of his money, forcing him to refinance his home to pay off the debt. ‘I tried to get my money back any way I could,’ recalled Whitmore, 38.”

“Whitmore says he is among the casualties of a Ponzi scheme allegedly involving one of L.A.’s best-known local financial institutions: City National Bank. A recent federal lawsuit alleges that the bank helped to bankroll convicted felon Zachary Horwitz, 37, who perpetrated a scheme that fleeced hundreds of investors. The lawsuit, filed in L.A. by the court-appointed receiver of Horwitz’s defunct investment company, seeks at least $770 million in damages to compensate Whitmore and other investors. It accuses the bank of ‘aiding and abetting fraud’ by extending Horwitz millions in credit and handling more than $1 billion in transactions, ignoring ‘glaring red flags’ along the way. ‘I just shake my head in disbelief. It’s just an incredible lack of accounting controls,’ said bank analyst Bert Ely, who reviewed the 154-page lawsuit for The Times. ‘I’m almost at a loss for words because this is such basic stuff. There’s nothing sophisticated about what was going on.’”

The Toronto Star in Canada. “High interest rates and slow pre-construction sales in the Greater Toronto Area have sent new home sales into a record tailspin this year, the Building Industry and Land Development Association (BILD) reports. Sales of new builds plummeted 56 per cent in April compared to last year and are 65 per cent lower than the 10-year average, according to BILD, which relies on Altus Group data. ‘With months of inventory at nearly a 15-year high and prices down year-over-year,’ said Edward Jegg, research manager with Altus Group, ‘there are plenty of opportunities for those looking to buy a new home ahead of what is anticipated to be an increased demand once interest rates soften and buyers currently sitting on the sidelines return to the market.’”

“The benchmark price for a new condo unit in April was $1,056,786 — down four per cent year-over-year. The benchmark price for a new single-family home was $1,617,896 — nine per cent lower than April last year.”

The Telegraph. “Research by estate agency Hamptons shows that only 32pc of new homes sold in England and Wales were bought before completion – compared to almost half eight years ago. Purchasing off-plan usually involves buyers visiting a show home or sales suite and reserving a plot based on marketing materials and floor plans. Homemovers have also been put off, with only 22pc of detached homes and 31pc of semi-detached homes sold before they were built in 2023. Rico Wojtulewicz, spokesman for trade body the National Federation of Housebuilders, said there has ‘absolutely’ been a reduction in off-plan transactions. Mr Wojtulewicz added: ‘Large sites really need those quickfire off-plan sales to be able to move onto the next phase of the development, so it hurts them.’”

“David Fell, of estate agency Hamptons, added that housebuilders have responded to the drop in off-plan interest by slowing their build rates. ‘Off-plan sales are the foundation of most housebuilders’ businesses – selling fewer homes before they’re built is bad news for their bottom line,’ he said. ‘With off-plan sales harder to come by, housebuilders have responded by slowing build rates to preserve capital and ensure they’re not left with large numbers of unsold finished homes.’”

ABC News in Australia. “Justine Searle never imagined selling her home in Darwin would prove to be a challenge that lost her $100,000. ‘We had purchased it back in 2010 off the plan for $465,000, and when we did sell, we sold for $362,000,’ she said. Ms Searle had bought the apartment in the inner-city suburb of Woolner, just before the construction boom of the Inpex gas project, and rented it out. But she and her partner felt they were ‘throwing good money after bad’ trying to pay off the mortgage, despite it nearly always having tenants. Late last year, Ms Searle and her partner put it on the market for just under $400,000. ‘There were no takers at all, the agent didn’t even get a phone call,’ she said. After months of no traction, increasing interest rates, and chipping in almost $1,000 a month for associated costs, Ms Searle and her partner decided to cut their losses. The property sold within days after dropping the price.”

The Mindanao Times in the Philippines. “Unit owners of Verdon Parc demanded a refund from DMCI Homes after the damage from the Dec. 2, 2023, earthquake rendered their homes inhabitable. During a press conference on May 24, lawyer Kirstin Dela Cruz noted the unsatisfactory action from DMCI management, which reportedly refused to give back their payments since the quake happened. ‘Most were traumatized especially those who were there when the quake happened but all were left with no choice but to leave since the building was no longer safe for occupancy and suffered structural damages,’ Dela Cruz said.”

“Catalina Paglangan, a Belvedere unit owner, shared she was among the residents forced to vacate after the quake. ‘Ni piso, wala mi nadawat nga compensation, pero ang pinakasakit, hantud karon ginapabayad gihapon mi og monthly dues, asay hustiya aning gihimo sa DMCI sa amoa, mura mig mga iro nga gitaboy mi sa kaugalingon namong investment (We did not receive a single peso. What hurts the most is they still demanded monthly dues from us. We feel like dogs being shooed away from our own investments),’ Paglangan said.”

“Paglangan shared they did not know Verdon Parc is one of the DMCI projects. Had she known, she would not have bought a unit. A building of Ecoland 4000, a DMCI-owned condo in the city collapsed following a 6.5 magnitude quake that hit Mindanao in October 2019.”