The Housing Bubble

The Napa Valley Register reports from California. “For Francisco Zapien, the deal was too good to be true. In October of 2006, Zapien signed a contract for a home on Bryan Avenue in Napa. The $550,000 mortgage he was approved for required no down payment. Today Zapien, who has worked as a tractor driver and machinist for the past four years, is caught in a vise. His monthly mortgage is more than he can pay. His home has lost value.”

“‘I have put my home on the market,’ said Zapien. ‘It’s too much money to pay each month.’”

“Zapien knew his monthly costs would be high, so he rented two rooms in his home. The rooms yielded an extra $1,000 a month to help pay the $3,600 monthly mortgage. But with utility bills and other expenses, Zapien said he still was scrambling to pay $2,900 a month.”

“‘If the home doesn’t sell, I will have to turn it in to the bank,’ he said.”

“Evodio Perez, of Napa, is playing a waiting game; in January 2009, he will find out if he has to sell his house or keep it. After refinancing a condo he owned in Napa and making a $60,000 down payment, Perez moved into his El Capitan Way home in 2006.”

“After a few months of barely making the $1,800 mortgage, Perez realized that his adjustable-rate loan was too much. He considered refinancing, but the terms of his loan required him to make regular mortgage payments for three years before refinancing or selling the property. Otherwise, he’d face hefty penalties.”

“In January, Perez said he will find out how much his house is worth. If it’s gone down in value, he will have to sell — if not, he will look to refinance.”

“‘I feel frustrated,’ he said. ‘I bought my home with the intent to progress.’”

“The number of Napa County homes sold in February 2008 dipped substantially compared to February of last year, while the number of homes on the Napa County market has grown.”

“The median price for a Napa County home was $573,000 in February, compared to $670,000 a year earlier. The median for April 2004 was $540,000, meaning home values remain higher than they were before the market reached a dizzying peak.”

“‘Buyers (are) waiting for ‘the bottom,’ circling but not landing,’ wrote Karen Cherniss, with Windermere Real Estate, in an e-mail.”

“According to Trendgraphix Inc., 38 Napa county homes were sold in February 2008, compared to 72 in February 2007. The number of homes for sale in Napa County rose to 720, compared to 605 a year ago.”

“Of the 38 Napa County homes sold in February, Randy Gularte of Heritage Sotheby’s International Realty, estimates 25 percent of those were in distress, either so-called short sales or pre-foreclosures.”

“Over the last six months in American Canyon, the median price has dropped from $600,000 to $400,000. But so has inventory, and that will help what has been a quiet market. Only three homes were sold in February in the south county city, according to TrendGraphix.”

The Sacramento Bee. “Julia and Gary Draper are in escrow for a house where the lawn is overgrown, the carpet needs replacing and the fence blew down in a January storm. Not surprisingly, a bank has owned the place for months.”

“But at $170,000 for three bedrooms in Rio Linda, it is their dream come true.”

“Gary Draper, a public school safety officer with construction experience, did the home inspection himself.”

“In the Drapers’ case, the bank wanted $179,000. The couple offered $150,00 and asked the bank to cover closing costs, says Julia Draper. ‘They countered at $170,000 and said they would pay some closing costs. We accepted.’”

“It appears a good deal. The house last sold in May 2005 for $302,500. A home two blocks away and somewhat larger sold recently for $179,500.”

“For buyers like the Drapers, it means an affordable house – their first home in 24 years together. ‘We’ve been trying for so long,’ says Julia. ‘I didn’t think (the market) was ever coming down.’”

The Bakersfield Californian. “Ducks would glide on a shimmering lake, ads promised. But City in the Hills’ dusty surrounds don’t yet match dreamy scenarios touted in sales brochures.”

“Plans to house 11,500 people in the mostly empty area opened doors for a batch of developments now sprouting nearby. So far, however, permits for just 439 single-family homes have been pulled at City in the Hills, said Phil Burns, Bakersfield’s building director.”

“Construction has largely slowed — as it has at many sites around Kern — since the housing market’s fizzle. Parks and pockets of retail and commercial development meant to provide convenience for those living in the master-planned community have yet to materialize.”

“On Thursday afternoon, a few construction crews worked inside K. Hovnanian’s two project sites here. But signs of unfulfilled grander plans are everywhere at the development’s edges.”

“Construction has stopped in Juliana’s Garden, said Cindy Pollard, a local representative for the project’s Los Angeles-based master developer. ‘Cash flow is an issue,’ she said. In the mean time, the company is trying to sell off its existing inventory of eight empty homes.”

“In August, Sarah Cisneros and her family were the first to move into a $338,000 home in Juliana’s Garden, she said. Cisneros regularly pays a homeowners association fee, she said, but sidewalks are cracked, fences unfinished, central fountains dry and promised parks and retail centers still don’t exist.”

“A ‘for rent’ sign hangs in the yard down the street from her home and several other houses appear empty. ‘It’s a little discouraging,’ Cisneros said.”

The Pasadena Star News. “It’s the misfortune of others that may finally give Fernando Sanchez and his family the chance, after renting here for 21 years, to own their own home.”

“Their budget? $550,000. Two years ago, they would have been priced into the far reaches of the San Gabriel Valley or beyond. Now, they’re looking at foreclosed homes nearby in the $300,000-range.”

“On Saturday, they saw a 1910 beauty in a nice part of Monrovia - three bedrooms, hardwood floors, grassy front and back yards and a two-car garage. The owner left the house 19 days ago and now the bank-owned home, which sold for $664,000 in 2005, was going for $318,000.”

“But the Sanchezes weren’t alone in admiring the home - and it looked like they might have to elbow a few interested buyers aside if they wanted to make a bid. The family was on a weekly minibus tour of foreclosed homes in the region.”

“Pasadena-based LTV Real Estate appears to be the first Los Angeles County firm to embrace the concept of loading clients on to a bus.”

“The operation Saturday had a slapdash quality, with helpers hurriedly stapling together printouts for buyers at a table filled with coffee and doughnuts. More journalists and photographers had arrived by the time of the tour bus’s scheduled departure than had tour participants.”

“The company’s investment in the bus tour has yet to pay off, but LTV has seen three of the homes it’s shown go into escrow in the past three weeks, CEO Cesar Haro said. Prices haven’t dropped as dramatically here as they have in Stockton, where a few of Haro’s employees went to train a few weeks ago.”

“‘We picture that happening in two to three months,’ Haro said.”

The North County Times. “A pair of recent FBI raids in Murrieta illustrates caseloads that are growing as homeowners allege recent, and not-so-recent, incidents of real estate fraud, law-enforcement officials said in interviews.”

“It has been a year or more since Southern California’s most recent real estate wave began to ebb, and court dockets are still filling up with allegations of fraud from the boom. And reports of identity theft and bogus reverse mortgages continue to roll in.”

“The California Department of Real Estate, reported investigating about 9,100 complaints against real estate agents and mortgage brokers in its 2007 fiscal year. That number has risen steadily for four years.”

“And the FBI tallied 260 convictions on mortgage-related crimes in the year through October, more than double the 123 convictions in 2005-06, according to a bureau spokesman.”

“‘There’s a lot of fraud when the market is good that people don’t report,’ said San Diego County Deputy District Attorney Michael Groch, who oversees real estate fraud prosecutions. ‘It’s when the market goes down that these things are exposed.’”

“Poway real estate appraiser Todd Lackner said he’s beginning to notice new patterns of unethical buying and selling behavior taking the place of large cases of outright fraud.”

“One scenario involves a homeowner who is ‘underwater,’ owing, for example, $700,000 on a house that she could sell for only $500,000. She wants to remain a homeowner in the same neighborhood, so she buys a comparable house down the street for $500,000 and moves into it.”

“The lender typically doesn’t care, or even know, that she’s underwater on the first house, as long as she’s current on payments.”

“After moving, she stops paying off the mortgage on the first house. The resulting foreclosure ruins her credit score for the next few years, but she doesn’t worry because she doesn’t plan to buy a house anytime soon.”

“Recent unethical or fraudulent transactions are small compared with what was going on from 2004 to 2006, Lackner said. Since he began combing through records of home listings and sales a couple of years ago, he said, he has discovered several dozen transactions in North County that appeared to involve some sort of fraud, and 500 more in Riverside County.”

“The fact that so many turn up in a simple search of title records indicates that many lenders were lax in screening buyers for their ability and intention to repay, he said.”

“And those numbers don’t even include stated-income mortgage applications, which didn’t require borrowers to provide proof of income. A 2006 study by the Mortgage Asset Research Institute found that 95 percent of stated-income borrowers overstated their incomes by more than 5 percent; 60 percent of the borrowers in the study exaggerated their incomes by more than half.”

“The statistics underscored nicknames such as ‘liar loans’ and ‘overstated income loans’ that the product had taken on. ‘That was almost its intention,’ Lackner said.”

“A frequent red flag near the end of the boom involved last-minute changes to asking prices in the listing database. Lackner said his reviews of listing and transaction records have turned up hundreds of cases in which a house sat on the market for several months, then suddenly had its list price raised by $10,000 or more, and immediately went into escrow.”

“That’s a potential sign that the buyer’s agent conspired to collect an oversized and undeserved commission on the property.”

The Union Tribune. “Robert and Yvonne Cromer began investing in real estate in 2000, when they tapped the equity in their College Area home to buy a nearby rental property.”

“Over the next few years, the San Diego County couple repeated the pattern, accumulating 17 properties in five states. In 2004, they were featured in a CNN Money article headlined ‘Tycoon in the Making.’”

“But…since October, they have lost three homes in San Diego County to foreclosure – homes they bought for a combined $2.6 million, according to county deed records. They have lost three homes in other states to lenders, Yvonne Cromer said.”

“A review of county foreclosures over the past 18 months by The San Diego Union-Tribune found about 200 investors who had lost multiple properties. That number probably understates multiple-property foreclosures because people with common names were excluded from the survey and not all foreclosures were reviewed.”

“Just how big a role investors played in inflating San Diego’s real estate bubble is unclear. Experts have widely varied estimates – with some putting the number as low as 10 percent of overall buyers in the last couple years while others speculate that it was closer to 30 percent.”

“‘The only sure answer is: It was more than we knew about and more than we should have had,’ said Peter Dennehy, senior VP at the market research firm Sullivan Group Real Estate Advisors in San Diego.”

“Studies by the Mortgage Bankers Association of America estimate that about 16 percent of California foreclosures have involved investors. The real estate investors who are now in trouble have some things in common. Most bought at the peak of the market. Several worked in real estate themselves.”

“Pamela Khamo began a career as a real estate agent in 2002 after selling her La Mesa coffee shop. By 2005, her annual income swelled to $360,000, according to bankruptcy records.”

“Khamo had begun buying investment properties a year or so earlier. In all, Khamo ended up with 13 properties at the peak, she said. Income from renting the properties fell well short of covering the mortgages. But the commissions she earned on the purchases helped offset the rental shortfall, she said.”

“Things started to unravel early last year. The slumping real estate market cut her income in 2007 to $180,000, bankruptcy records show. She became ill for a time. Meanwhile, her adjustable mortgages started to reset…sometimes doubling her monthly payments.”

“Khamo scrambled to refinance. She sought loan modifications from banks. But lenders had tightened standards. They wanted more equity in the properties than Khamo had, she said.”

“‘I did buy at the height of the market, unfortunately,’ she said.”

“Khamo filed for bankruptcy in February. She has lost the bulk of the properties to lenders already, according to county deed and bankruptcy court records. She expects to lose all of them. The East County home in which she and her husband reside has been taken back by the bank – although the family still lives there for now, she said.”

“‘It took six years to build everything up and six months to lose it,’ she said.”

The Kansas City Star reports from Missouri. “Real estate agent Cindy Tomasic was taken aback by her first foreclosure listing in tony Loch Lloyd. Then she got her second Loch Lloyd listing. And surprise turned to revelation about what is happening to the values of homes in some of the Kansas City area’s ritziest ZIP codes. ‘I was shocked — who in Loch Lloyd gets foreclosed on?’ asked Tomasic. ‘It’s not just one group of people, not just one income level — foreclosures are affecting everyone.’”

“A review by The Kansas City Star of real estate listings in Jackson, Johnson, Clay, Platte and Cass counties showed at least 50 homes priced $500,000 or more are in foreclosure or are subject to bank-approved sales to avoid one. Experts said the number of pricey distressed properties could be even higher because some people sell their homes before letting their banks know they can no longer make the payments.”

“‘You used to rarely see high-end foreclosures. Now they’re more common,’ said Tim Harrison, an Overland Park real estate investment analyst who helped the newspaper identify troubled high-end properties. ‘People are desperately trying to get rid of houses they can’t afford.’”

“As a result, real estate agents point to some bargain-basement prices on homes boasting 4,000 square feet or more.”

“Examples abound: A $1.5 million Blue Springs home with staircases to east and west wings, a dance floor and five garages listed for $1.05 million. A $1.4 million Independence home with two decks, a poolside wet bar, hot tub and waterfall offered for less than $1 million. A $1.3 million, 6,500-plus square-foot Hallbrook home with granite, marble and hardwood floors sold for $849,000. A $1.25 million Loch Lloyd home with a wine cellar and an imported English pub bar sold in foreclosure for $775,000.”

“A $1.1 million Mission Hills home in foreclosure is under contract for less than $450,000. Many of the homes are in newer subdivisions.”

“‘You saw a huge demand because anyone could get a loan unless they had really bad credit,’ said Curtis Koons, the director of assessment for Jackson County.”

“But prices that go up fast can fall even faster. Consider the history of a house on 64th Terrace off Meyer Circle in Kansas City. A California investor bought it for $450,000 in 2003, rehabbed it and listed it for sale at $890,000, property records show.For three years it sat unsold. Then suddenly the house was reported sold in 2006 for $1.23 million. Records showed the buyer took out loans totaling more than $1 million — or about 90 percent of the home’s value.”

“But the buyer never moved in, and the home has remained vacant. This past year, the home was listed in ‘pre-foreclosure.’ Now, its asking price is $850,000. Neighbor Dan Bowman shook his head and wondered aloud: ‘How can a house sit unsold at $890,000 for three years and then get bought for $1.25 million — then go into foreclosure? It doesn’t make sense.’”

“Don Wratchford ran a successful business customizing and reselling homes after living in them a few years. Then the bottom fell out. Wratchford said his latest 10,000-square-foot home in the Shoal Creek Valley subdivision ‘took a major hit in value.’ The house, which features a basketball court, was appraised about a year ago at $1.7 million. Now, it is listed for $1.1 million.”

“William Seitz bought a bank-owned home in Loch Lloyd for nearly half its previously listed value of more than $1 million. Seitz and his wife jumped at the deal before they even sold their Deer Creek home.”

“‘You hear a lot of doom and gloom,’ he said, ‘but there’s never been a better time to buy a house.’”

“Now, all he has to do is sell his Deer Creek residence. So far, he hasn’t had any takers — even after dropping the price $100,000 below the appraised value.”

The Journal & Courier from Indiana. Four years ago, while much of the country was riding a wave of rising home starts and home values, a few Tippecanoe County Realtors, lenders and others were worried. Despite a boom in new construction, Tippecanoe housing resale values were among the lowest in the country, and foreclosures were being filed with increasing rapidity. Now foreclosure woes and sluggish home sales have spread nationwide. Tippecanoe, however, far from moving beyond the crisis, remains a bit mired.”

“‘We got into this earlier, so I had hoped we’d get out of it earlier,’ said said Marie Morse, interim executive director of Lafayette Neighborhood Housing, of the foreclosure problem. ‘But so far, we’re not there.’”

“According to Tippecanoe County clerk records, the number of foreclosure filings has grown every year since 2002.”

“Richard Murray, VP of administration with Lafayette Community Bank, traces the foreclosure crisis back to 2002. From November 2002 to July 2004, he said, the Federal Reserve Bank left the prime interest rate virtually untouched. That created a ‘false housing market’ in which lenders fell over themselves extending credit to current and prospective homeowners.”

“‘People were put in houses with, basically, no money down. It created a lot of people who frankly weren’t prepared to absorb another $1 a gallon gas increase and higher prices for fuel oil and water rate increases,’ Murray said. ‘When faced with putting gas in your car and food on your table, you do that first rather than making your house payments.’”

“The drop in single-family home construction is not necessarily a bad thing, according to Alan White, co-owner of Kalan Homes LLC, a Lafayette-based homebuilder. ‘Part of our problem is we had so much new construction over a period of years — we just had too much inventory. It needed to correct itself,’ he said.”

“Morse said she doesn’t know how the housing slowdown will affect resale prices, but she does know how it has affected homeowners in the construction trades. ‘Not building houses is the reason some of these people are having foreclosure problems, because they’re unemployed,’ she said.”

The Plain Dealer from Ohio. “In the last two years, home prices have dropped across Northeast Ohio and have plunged by double-digit percentages in many communities, according to an analysis by The Plain Dealer. Cleveland Heights down 11 percent. Mayfield down 10 percent. Akron down 14. Painesville down 13. Even formerly hot areas like Independence and North Olmsted are down 4 percent from 2005 to 2007.”

“Poorer communities have fared the worst. Cleveland is down 49 percent, Lorain 34 percent and East Cleveland a shocking 84 percent.”

“‘Six to eight months ago, people were saying this was going to be a subprime-only issue,’ said Chicago banking analyst Jaime Peters. ‘Now, we’re seeing rapid deterioration.’”

“Peters, who is with the research firm Morningstar Inc., said how far housing values are going to drop is ‘the $400 billion question.’”

“‘People aren’t going to start to buy unless they feel like they’re getting a good deal and a home that’s not going to lose value,’ she said. ‘Banks aren’t going to lend until they feel like they’re going to get paid back. That’s not going to happen until the delinquencies start leveling off. The delinquencies aren’t going to start leveling off until people start buying some of these homes where the people are in trouble. Don’t you love that circular logic? It seems pretty dire.’”

“For everyone who thought housing prices would never decline — especially in Northeast Ohio — this loss of wealth has been jarring. ‘There was no bubble that burst in this state,’ said real estate agent Renee Vartorella in Sagamore Hills. ‘That’s what’s so frustrating.’”

“Christine and Mike Turrington of Garfield Heights have reason to be concerned about what they’re seeing in their community. They bought their 1,500-square-foot home in 1987 for $64,200. Homes in the neighborhood were selling a few years ago in the $130s and $140s.”

“Now the home across the street is in foreclosure. So is the house next door. A foreclosed house halfway down the block is listed for $55,000. One on the next block is $67,000. A house a few doors down that’s not a foreclosure is listed at $89,900. It was valued at $95,900 by the county in 2006.”

“So many homes around the Turringtons are vacant. So many homes are rented to people who don’t care about the properties, Christine said. ‘We don’t want to move, we love our house, but I don’t think we have a choice.’”

“Vartorella said home prices are also being pushed down by foreclosures and desperate sellers. While many of the foreclosures are priced ridiculously low because they’re in bad shape, she said, other homes are heavily discounted because owners want out.”

“One of her listings in Maple Heights along the Garfield Heights border is at $109,000. Within a one-block radius, there are 12 other homes for sale. Seven are listed at $35,000 or less. Four are in the $15,000 range. Only two others are $90,000 or higher. Her seller’s home was assessed by the county for tax purposes at $92,000 two years ago.”

“‘It’s very tough to compete with sellers who don’t care what the houses go for,’ Vartorella said.”

The Morning Sun from Michigan. “Construction is to begin later this spring in Mt. Pleasant on what developers hope will be the most desirable address in central Michigan: Riverplace on Broadway.”

“The project will consist of 22 luxury condominium units, plus first-floor parking. The second and third floors each will contain eight 2,000-square-foot units. The top floor will contain four 2,000-square-foot units along with a pair of 4,000-square-foot condominiums.”

“Moving into Riverplace on Broadway won’t be cheap. Saxton said the prices begin -in the low $350s” ($350,000) for the smaller units, up to about $750,000 for the double penthouse units. Greg Saxton, the project manager, said he’s confident that even though the real estate market may be soft, the units will find a market.”

“‘They are definitely luxurious and upscale,’ Saxton said.”

The Wisconsin State Journal. “Standards for home mortgages also are getting tougher in Wisconsin, especially for loans that banks pass on to national mortgage wholesalers.”

“‘The market has walked away from low credit scores, high loan-to-value and stated-asset-type loans,’ said Ron Steinhofer, president of the Wisconsin Mortgage Bankers Association.”

“Drive-by or quick appraisals sometimes used during the home sales boom a few years ago have disappeared. These kinds of appraisals, which represented about 5 percent of the local appraisal market, relied on assumptions that property values would continue to rise, said Nick Rahn of Dane County Appraisal of Madison.”

“‘I don ‘t think you can make those assumptions anymore,’ he said.”

“Gene DeYoung of DeYoung Appraisal Service in Madison said he hates drive-by or quick appraisals and is glad they’re gone. He said they sometimes were used to inflate home values to help people qualify for loans.”

“‘It was a total abuse,’ he said. ‘You will find that type of thing is quite often the reason for foreclosures.’”

The Pioneer Press from Minnesota. “In 1997, the Ramsey County sheriff’s department served 400 home-foreclosure notices. Last year, the half-dozen sheriff’s deputies who work in the office’s civil division delivered 2,352, about 75 percent of them in St. Paul.”

“The sheriff’s office served 632 notices from Jan. 1 through March 21 of this year, and officials believe they will exceed 3,000 by year’s end.”

“Their Hennepin County counterparts are, comparatively speaking, off the charts — 5,563 notices delivered last year and 1,251 in just the first two months of this year.”

“‘It used to be a few properties scattered about the city,’ says Ramsey County sheriff’s deputy Jeff Hallanger. ‘But now this is normal.’”

“Metro Legal Services, a major Twin Cities-based private process-server firm, handles 1,200 foreclosure notices monthly in the 10-county metro area, according to Scott Gray, the firm’s vice president.”

“‘We did maybe 50 to 100 a month in 2004,’ said Gray, who added that foreclosures now rank as the second-most-delivered legal paper handled by his firm. They ranked at the bottom a few years ago. No. 1? Serving credit card debt lawsuits, which the firm delivers at a mind-blowing clip of 200 a day.”

“‘Many times we deliver both (credit card and foreclosure notices) to the same place,’ Gray said.”

What do you see in your local housing market this weekend? Flippers? “Alan Barberino wanted a fast sale on a house he was selling, but it wasn’t flipping fast enough. Barberino had set the price at 11 Hillside St. in Meriden at $189,000 and got no takers. After a series of reductions, Barberino finally dropped to $159,900, and had several offers in a couple of days. The house sold for $157,000.”

“‘I had set it too high. I should have set it at $179,000, but I wanted to see what I could get,’ Barberino said.”

“Last fall, houses were staying on the market longer but the prices weren’t dropping. That has changed. For every 10 houses, there are only a few qualified buyers. Fairfield County has seen a significant decrease in sales and prices.”

“‘The big problem is that lots of people bought homes that shouldn’t have, or bought and are living beyond their means,’ said Paul E. Gradwell, of Keller Williams Realty in Cheshire. ‘But most of the scallywags have been shaken out.’”

New lifestyle arrangements? “Ongoing projects relating to ‘new urbanism’ in Austin have resulted in that city being selected as the host for the 16th annual Congress for New Urbanism scheduled next month. Waco will be paying attention as well.”

“This wave of new urbanism spans oceanfront sites from Galveston to South Padre Island. The total amount of expenditures projected is upwards of $3 billion over the short term. Many of these communities are expected to attract those from out-of-state as well as individuals and families currently residing in Texas.”

Failed auctions? “India’s developers will begin to lower prices after commercial capital Mumbai failed to attract bids at a land auction for the first time in 13 years, signaling a dip in property demand, Credit Suisse said.”

“Mumbai’s metropolitan authority received no bids for the sale of two of five plots at Bandra-Kurla Complex, and sold another site to the sole bidder.”

“‘A slowdown in real estate prices has been talked about for some time, and now appears eminent,’ analysts Anand Agarwal and Musaed Noorani said today in a note to clients. ‘It seems like only a matter of time before developers begin to cut prices.’”

Or slow sales. “No subdivision is immune to the current housing crunch, even when the land the house sits on is free. Marquette hasn’t seen a huge dip in the market, said Dale Anderson, with Action Reality in McPherson. ‘They move,’ Anderson said. ‘It just takes patience. And reality. Sometimes the price is too high. Sometimes they have to be a little realistic.’”

“Dusty and Bonnie Rhodes’ home, one of those for sale in the neighborhood, has been on the market since April 2006. A retired couple, they are moving because they are upset with the taxes.”

“While the Rhodeses thought that taking advantage of the free land was a good opportunity, they learned ‘free land turned out not to be free,’ Bonnie Rhodes complained. Only six people have been shown the house.”

“Carla Koehn, with Lindsborg Realty, believes central Kansas isn’t facing the same crisis as the East and West Coast’s housing market. ‘We’re all waiting in central Kansas to see how it plays out. Hopefully we’ll pull through without that effect,’ she said.”

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