A report from the Buffalo News in New York. "Amid record prices and crowded open houses, Western New York’s booming housing market has hit an unexpected stumbling block for many buyers: they simply can't find homes to buy. Sales in July fell 9.1 percent from the prior year, according to the Buffalo Niagara Association of Realtors, and even pending deals dropped. Activity came back up in August, with a 5.7 percent gain in transactions. However, that was still much less than the 10 prior months, when sales grew at double-digit rates of as much as 60 percent from year to year."

"After more than a year of go-go homebuying across the region, the region may just have become a victim of the very factors that drove months of frenetic activity in the first place. 'Prices are increasing to the point that it is denying buyers an opportunity to buy,' said David Weitzel, an agent at RE/Max North in Amherst."

From Bloomberg. "Home prices in New York’s Hamptons fell the most in almost three years as buyers in the beachfront towns sought out less-expensive properties and shunned the middle of the market, priced from $1 million to $5 million. Homes in the area, a second-home mecca favored by Wall Street executives, sold for a median of $825,000 in the third quarter, down 13 percent from a year earlier, according to a report Thursday by appraiser Miller Samuel Inc. and brokerage Douglas Elliman Real Estate. It was the biggest annual decline since the fourth quarter of 2013."

"Buyers in the towns and hamlets on Long Island’s South Fork are setting their sights lower as yearly bonuses for New York City’s financial employees -- the lifeblood of the Hamptons market -- are poised to disappoint in 2016. Incentive pay at hedge funds may fall 5 percent to 15 percent this year because of lackluster returns, while bonuses for fixed-income sales and trading may fall 10 to 15 percent, according to an August report by compensation consultant Johnson Associates Inc."

"'Wall Street is not having a banner year and I don’t think there’s an expectation that compensation for this year will be higher than last year,' Jonathan Miller, president of Miller Samuel, said in an interview. 'I do think there’s just a little bit more caution.'"

The Village Voice. "On the heels of new legislation that will penalize anyone who advertises entire apartments on the home-sharing service Airbnb for less than thirty days at a time, the company valued at $30 billion summoned a few of its hosts and held a small protest outside of Governor Cuomo’s New York City office Wednesday morning, claiming that the governor and New York state legislators were helping to make the city’s affordable housing crisis even worse."

"Michelle Yates, a Bed-Stuy resident for eighteen years, who has previously worked in the construction and real estate industries, is encouraged about the changes she’s seen in her neighborhood — which has seen its white population increase sevenfold. 'People are losing their homes because they pulled money out of their homes thinking it was an ATM while sitting on a high-interest mortgage. It has nothing to do with Airbnb. Nothing to do with real estate prices. I don’t believe any of that,' Yates told the Voice, in response to the counterprotesters chants that Airbnb was hurting minority communities."

"Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal, who championed the new legislation, was on hand to shout against Airbnb. 'More than 50 percent of the units rented out on Airbnb are illegal — that’s why Airbnb is freaking out,' Rosenthal told reporters. 'Not because they care about New Yorkers, because this has been illegal since 2010. They’re freaking out because their bottom line has been challenged.'"

From DNA Info. "The management company taking over the Red Square rental building on East Houston Street slashed the salaries of doormen and maintenance workers by roughly 30 percent — and several staffers said they were given ultimatum to either accept the lower pay on the spot or not come back."

"Residents at the 250 E. Houston St. apartment complex received letters on Oct. 20 announcing the purchase by 250 Houston Investors, LP under the management of Dermot Realty Management Co., along with a host of upgrades coming to the building, such as apartment renovations and added amenities pledging to '[elevate] your living experience.'"

"But the change comes at a price for longtime workers at the residence. A maintenance worker who did sign the new contract said he felt he had no choice. He accepted the impromptu demotion, from the position of super to sweeping and mopping floors as a porter, which cut his $18 hourly pay down to $11. 'They threw us in a room and said, 'Sign this or you're fired,' the employee recounted. 'They said, 'You don't do maintenance no more.' They took the keys off my key chain. They said, 'You just sweep and mop.'"

"Two longtime doormen said they received similarly steep pay cuts — from between $17 and $19 per hour down to $12 per hour — which they accepted due to a lack of other options. One doorman said he felt 'stuck,' explaining he and his colleagues 'had no choice.' 'We have families,' he said. 'How can we take care of them?'"

From Bisnow. "NYC’s always been a city of cranes, but never has this been more apparent than today. Development remains strong, and construction spending and employment are hitting record levels. Can developers finance record levels of construction? Is there anything they can do to slow rising costs? GFI Development president Steven Hurwitz says he’s already seen prices begin to cool as the loss of the 421-a has slowed residential development and the frozen land market slows the pipeline."

"'Contractors are starting to see that and are growing hungry,' Steven says. Unskilled labor is much easier to find, and companies have 'staffed up so much that they now have a lot of mouths to feed.'"