Home prices are up more than 50% nationally since 2019, and the median existing-home price in November rose to $409,200. Home buying overall has dwindled over the past three years due to high home prices and the surge in mortgage rates.

U.S. condominium prices experienced their largest annual decline since 2012, falling 1.9% from a year ago. Over 10% of condos had a lower estimated value in November than their last sale price, with some metro areas seeing over 25%. Rising homeowner-association fees, higher insurance premiums, and maintenance costs are making condominium purchases less affordable.

Downtown Dallas recorded a 27.2% office vacancy rate, the second highest of any downtown nationally, with many companies moving to newer suburban campuses. Real-estate investors purchased $51.7 million in downtown Dallas office property in the first three quarters of this year, versus $1.8 billion in Dallas’s suburban markets.

Los Angeles will implement new rent-control limits in February, capping annual increases at 1% to 4% for most multifamily apartments. The new policy affects approximately 651,000 apartments, or three-fourths of L.A.’s multifamily housing stock. The average rent for a rent-controlled unit in Los Angeles is about $1,800, compared with $2,700 for market-rate units.

Spending on data-center construction looks poised to surpass office-building construction as soon as next year. Data centers yielded an 11.2% return last year. That was higher than every other sector, other than manufactured housing.

The share of first-time homebuyers has dropped to 21%, or half from what it was before the pandemic.

Nearly 30 million households, or 54% of primary mortgage-holders, have mortgage rates at or below 4%. They were able to buy homes or refinance their mortgages when rates fell to 3% or lower in 2020 and 2021.

Affluent renters who may spend $20,000 or more a month on a luxury single-family home or apartment are increasingly customizing their new places—replacing lighting, adding home-office space or just painting and adding wallpaper, all in an effort to live in a space, albeit temporarily, that fits their design aesthetic and lifestyle. Many landlords are not only allowing these renovations, they’re actually encouraging them.

St. Paul’s strict 3% rent-control ordinance led to a 79% drop in apartment-building permits and an at least 6% decline in property values. Meanwhile, Minneapolis, without rent control, saw apartment permits rise nearly fourfold in early 2022 from the year before.

Home sellers are seeing a demand for fully furnished luxury real estate. While buyers with deep pockets and busy lives have long sought the simplicity of a turnkey home—one that’s move-in ready, requiring little to no additional work—more buyers today are looking for homes that are move-in ready and fully outfitted, down to the last household item.