A report from the Press Democrat in California. "The wind has shifted this summer in Sonoma County’s housing market, with slower sales, rising inventory and an end to sellers automatically asking for more cash than their neighbors received for comparable homes. July home sales fell to their lowest level for the month in nine years, according to The Press Democrat’s monthly housing report compiled by Pacific Union International senior vice president Rick Laws. Sales for the past three months have declined 8 percent from the same period a year earlier. 'It’s going to be a very weak summer,' said Mike Kelly, an agent with Keller Williams Realty in Santa Rosa."

"'People are still buying houses, but there’s not the frenzy anymore,' said Tom Kemper, manager of the Coldwell Banker office on Bicentennial Avenue in Santa Rosa."

"Starting in May, sales slowed, even as the median price for a time kept rising. That rise in the median price could be due to increasing home values but also to a shift in the type of homes that sell. The spring median increase does appear partly tied to a jump in sales of more expensive homes in May and June. July’s drop in the median price similarly seems due partly to a decline in such sales. For example, the number of homes selling for $1 million or more declined to 69 last month from 100 in June."

"Kelly, the longtime host of KSRO’s weekly real estate show, suggested buyers for years frequently bid against one another in order to purchase homes. Many still seem to think they need to offer the sellers’ listing prices when a lesser offer might prove acceptable. 'Guess what?' Kelly said of the market. 'It’s shifted. It’s cooled off.'

"The slowing isn’t limited to Sonoma County. The California Association of Realtors last week reported that July was the third straight month of declining sales statewide when calculated on a seasonally adjusted annual basis. The association characterized the 'softening of the market' as more a shift than a major correction."

"Local brokers, nonetheless, cautioned against overstating the changes. They acknowledged some sellers have cut prices to sell homes, but said attractive, well-priced properties still draw multiple offers. Also, they said the amount of available homes for sale remains relatively limited by historic standards. Even so, more sellers are rethinking their expectations. 'You’re not going to get $30,000 more than you would have last year,' said Lori Sacco, managing broker for Vanguard Properties in Sebastopol."

"Several suggested buyers are catching their breath and don’t feel the same urgency to make an offer. 'They’re not afraid to look twice,' said Pam Bradford, a broker associate with Praxis Realty in Santa Rosa. If buyers earlier this year would have held off making a quick offer on a property, she said, 'you would have missed it.'"

From Houston Culturemap in Texas. "Houston, it looks like we might have a foreclosure problem. This summer, the Houston area has posted alarming year-over-year jumps in the number of homes starting to go through foreclosure, according to ATTOM Data Solutions. The Houston area saw a 76 percent spike in what’s known as foreclosure starts this July compared with last July, the ATTOM report says. This followed two months of double-digit increases in the Houston area compared with last year: 62 percent in June and 153 percent in May. A foreclosure start represents the first public notice of a foreclosure proceeding."

"'The increase in foreclosure starts was somewhat expected in Houston and some parts of Florida — particularly Jacksonville — given the hurricane-induced flooding there last year,' says Daren Blomquist, senior vice president of ATTOM, a provider of real estate data. 'But the widespread upward trend in foreclosure starts across a geographically diverse set of markets this summer indicates there is more to this trend than just natural disasters driving increased distress, although that is an interesting and important piece to all this.'"

"Aside from Houston, Austin was the only Texas market listed in the report as having notched three months in a row of significant year-over-year increases in foreclosure starts: 65 percent in May 2018 compared with May 2017, 44 percent in June, and 29 percent in July. Michael Weaster, a foreclosure specialist with Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Anderson Properties in Bellaire, says he hasn’t detected a rise in foreclosure activity in the Houston area. Weaster suspects most of the homes in the Houston area that recently have gone into foreclosure have been sold through government-run foreclosure auctions rather than through real estate agents."

"Data from the Houston Association of Realtors (HAR) backs up Weaster’s observation. The group tallied 159 local foreclosure sales in the region’s Multiple Listing Service (MLS) in July 2017, compared with 105 in July 2018. That’s a drop of 34 percent. HAR spokesman David Mendel says his association 'is not seeing a spike in foreclosures at all. That means that many of these transactions are happening outside of MLS.'"