A report from Bloomberg on Connecticut. "In Greenwich, the leafy Connecticut town famous for its cluster of hedge funds and the titans of Wall Street who occupy many a gated mansion, the rich are being maddeningly frugal. As Barry Sternlicht complained when he assailed his former hometown as possibly the country’s worst housing market. 'You can’t give away a house in Greenwich,' the head of Starwood Capital Group said, causing something of a ruckus. Many continue to try to sell their real estate holdings. As of Sept. 14, there were 46 homes at $10 million or more on the market, some that have been lingering since 2014, according to data from Miller Samuel and Douglas Elliman."

"One problem is that risk levels have gone through the wringer. Members of the younger Wall Street crowd are quite conservative, says Robin Kencel, a broker with Douglas Elliman. 'They used to say Oh, I’ll stretch.’ Now they’re more practical. They’ll ask ‘What are the utility bills? Oh, wait -- I don’t want it.’"

The Casper Star Tribune in Wyoming. "Casper’s housing market was recently ranked as one of the least healthy in the country, largely due to the oil and gas bust. Realtors report that homes are retaining their value, and the current market offers opportunity. 'Right now, the interests rates are screaming low, lower than they have ever been,' said Gary Bryan, a real estate agent with Broker One Real Estate in Casper. 'There are better houses on the market, better inventory than we’ve had before because we’ve had a little bit of an adjustment. It’s not a bad adjustment. It’s a good thing for buyers.'"

"Two years ago, Casper was a seller’s market, he said. But times have changed. 'There is a little more negotiation going on,' he said."

The Williston Herald in North Dakota. "Despite the oil industry’s slowdown, Williams County’s population and housing needs continue to grow at one of the fastest rates in the nation, researchers say. Making predictions for Williston is challenging, though, in light of the dramatic swings that the city has seen in its housing needs, Nancy Hodur, assistant research professor and director for the North Dakota Center for Social Research, said."

"'Now all of a sudden you have vacant housing,' she said, pointing out that although the market has opened up, what’s available needs to fit the needs of the majority of the population. 'The tricky thing about saying you have a surplus of housing, is maybe you have too many $325,000 houses when what you need is houses for $125,000.'"

The Vindicator on Ohio. "Karen Humphries lives on Halls Heights Avenue on the Youngstown’s West Side, and she’s witnessed firsthand the damage out-of-state investors can do to a neighborhood. Out-of-state owners from various states own six of the 16 houses on the first block of Halls Heights and nine of 38 on the entire street. Humphries said those houses often sit empty for long periods of time. She sees children going in and out of them when they play."

"Code enforcement scheduled two hearings for the property at 44 Halls Heights. Both times the property owner failed to appear in court. The Mahoning County Land Bank took control of the property on July 13 – nine years after it was purchased by a limited liability company in California. The land bank has since purchased three more properties on Halls Heights. 'These out-of-town people have no idea what they’ve done to our neighborhood,' Humphries said. 'They’ve destroyed our neighborhood.'"

"The problem isn’t unique to the West Side’s Garden District. Out-of-state owners control 15 percent of properties citywide and 22 percent of the city’s 3,900 vacant properties. Out-of-state-owned properties are about 50 percent more likely to be vacant than locally owned properties. Nancy Martin, president of the Brownlee Woods Neighborhood Association, said investors from Taiwan and Australia own property in her neighborhood."

"People from the Netherlands, England and Australia own property in the Garden District, said Jerry O’Hara, president of the Garden District Neighborhood Association. Out-of-state owners range from companies that specialize in flipping properties to ill-informed investors who get in over their heads purchasing homes over the internet. 'Some of them have no idea what they’re doing,' said Ian Beniston, executive director of the Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corp. 'When you say, ‘Do you understand Youngstown has 4,000 vacant properties?’ You can feel their mouth drop over the phone.'"

"Houses will show up on the internet selling for just a few thousand dollars. 'Then they buy it, and they’re stuck with it,' O’Hara said. 'That’s what happens a lot of times, and then they just sit because they can’t do anything with them.'"

WSIL TV in Illinois. "Dismal home sales numbers in Carbondale get worse as more folks hang out the 'for sale' sign. 'Last year was the beginning of what's going on this year, and this year it's worse,' explains realtor Terri Henry. Block by block, sign after sign, she says she hasn't seen home sales this slow in the past two decades. 'There were 11 homes on the market and up till now there's only been one that has sold and closed, so it's going to take us 66 months to get rid of these homes at that rate,' says Henry."

"Resident Ingrid Hansen noticed that same trend hit what she describes as a 'well established' neighborhood near the university. 'The home next door has been vacant for four months but usually they sell within a year. I don't know, maybe this year it will be different,' she says."

"Henry says it's definitely a buyer's market, but she doesn't see many out there. 'If you have 100 homes and you only have 25 people to buy, you're going to be left over with 75 homes, so its going to be those homes that are in great condition, great area, ready to sell or the best deal,' she explains."

"Realtors say if a homeowner is having trouble selling the property they might choose to rent it out, but that creates another challenge since Carbondale already has a saturated rental market."