NATIONAL

Existing home sales fall to a 10-year low in September, as mortgage rates soar
CNBC
Existing homes are selling at the slowest pace since September 2012, with the exception of a brief drop at the start of the Covid 19 pandemic. Sales of previously owned homes fell 1.5% in September from August to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.71 million units, according to a monthly survey from the National Association of Realtors.

Housing's stunning downfall in one chart: Prices have plunged in 51 of these 60 cities, and there's much further to fall
Fortune
On October 20, Ed Pinto—director of the American Enterprise Institute's Housing Center and one of the nation's top experts on residential real estate—emailed me a new custom chart showing the price changes in America's 60 largest metros, measured from their peaks through September. The column displaying those numbers is almost uniformly red. More than 50 of the cities registered decreases, and many of the drops are already deep.

Charted: Rent shrink
AXIOS
Median rent fell for the first time in 2022 on a month-to-month basis as shelter inflation cools off.

CALIFORNIA

Morning Report: About That Conflict-of-Interest Case Coming Up in the Assessor's Race
Voice of San Diego
A criminal case involving a former top official in the County Assessor/Recorder/Clerk's Office has been lurking throughout the campaign to replace longtime Assessor Ernie Dronenburg. Candidate Barbara Bry has deemed a former chief information officer's guilty plea to a conflict-of-interest charge for directing county contract work he oversaw to his wife's company evidence that new leadership in the office is needed.

Why S.F. office vacancies' impact on property tax still unclear
SF Examiner
It's too early to quantify what San Francisco's increasing downtown office vacancies mean for its property tax revenue, according to The City's top economist. San Francisco Chief Economist Ted Egan wrote in a Wednesday memo to Supervisor Catherine Stefani that the Controller's Office is still developing a model that would quantify the risk to property taxes if the market values of office buildings drop. The model is still under review.

COLORADO

Colorado Court of Appeals Clarifies Time Frame for Property Tax Reassessments
JDSUPRA
After more than two years, it seems that the various COVID-19 public health orders are behind us. But, to borrow a phrase from Karen Carpenter, a recent court of appeals decision shows that pandemic-related property tax issues have only just begun. If the decision remains the law, commercial property owners may have more options to lower their property tax assessments in future years.

MINNESOTA

Local View: Tax-bill failure in St. Paul could prove pricey up north
Duluth News Tribune
As county commissioners from throughout northern Minnesota deliberate their 2023 budgets and discuss property tax levies, capital investments, and road and bridge expenditures, they are expressing disappointment that the 2022 Minnesota Legislature did not pass an omnibus tax bill.

NEW HAMPSHIRE

Taxpayers Ask Court to Block Statewide Education Property Tax
Yahoo News
In an Oct. 5 filing in Grafton Superior Court, the taxpayers asked the court to grant an injunction against the tax to stop it from being implemented next year, arguing that it is not applied fairly between property-rich and property-poor towns and is unconstitutional.

NEW JERSEY

Bills target Verizon's push to stop paying taxes on poles, wires
New Jersey Monitor 
The company would no longer pay property taxes on telephone poles, lines, and other infrastructure. In its letters, the telecom giant says because it no longer provides landline phone service to more than 51% of a municipality — a threshold set by state law in 1997, before cellphones became ubiquitous — it is no longer subject to taxation on its infrastructure, known as business personal property.

TEXAS

Texas has a $27 billion surplus. Should it cut taxes or invest in infrastructure?
Dallas Morning News
With state government poised to enjoy a massive budget surplus, lawmakers on Friday began debating in public how to use the money. Republicans who are likely to remain in control of the Legislature after next month's election are talking tax cuts. Democrats are questioning that approach, saying shrewd investments in improving infrastructure and workforce training could help the state economy grow even faster.