They Don’t Know Until It’s Too Late
A report from the Saskatoon Star Phoenix in Canada. “Last November, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. reported that Saskatoon’s vacancy rate had reached a historic high of 10.3 per cent — up from the 6.5 per cent recorded 12 months earlier. And at least one rental market expert believes the vacancy rate has climbed even higher since October, to somewhere between 16 and 18 per cent. Four years ago, Grant Spurdle’s apartment building in Varsity View was filled to capacity, with 63 tenants paying good money. Now a combination of widespread economic weakness, private residential rentals and a glut of new apartments and condominiums has driven the family-owned building’s vacancy rate up to 12.5 per cent. And that’s not the only problem, Spurdle said.”
“‘This (rate) isn’t too uncommon this time of year,’ said the landlord, whose family has run the Temperance Street building since 1965. ‘But what’s really uncommon is we’re not getting a single phone call for rentals. Nothing. The phone’s just not ringing.’”
“Spurdle said while he knows the high vacancy rate is temporary and has plans in place to manage it, the reality is that the next few years won’t be easy. ‘It’s totally temporary,’ he said. ‘But when you’re talking temporary, these business cycles are, like, seven to 14 years. Hungry for seven years is a long time, right?’”
From Bloomberg on the UK. “Rents for luxury homes in central London’s best districts fell 5.1 percent in February from a year earlier, according to Knight Frank LLP. The number of prime properties coming onto the market rose 24 percent, exceeding the number of additional prospective tenants, the property broker said in a report. Successive tax increases in 2014 and 2016 created a flood of new rental properties. Brexit-induced uncertainty has also added to the glut of properties as companies curb transfers of employees to the capital.”
“‘Prime central London remains a tenants’ market and landlords are having to remain competitive on asking rents to minimize void periods,’ said Tom Bill, head of London residential at Knight Frank.”
The Saudi Arabia Gazette. “For the first time in many decades, residential rents in most neighborhoods of Jeddah are starting to drop as landlords struggle to fill housing units vacated by laid-off expatriates. The displays of ‘For Rent’ signs have been increasing in almost every corner of the city, indicating an imminent free fall in the real estate sector. Hafiz Abdul Kareem, the watchman of a building in Al-Rawdah, said he has been working there for the last 27 years and it is for the first time he has been witnessing such a grim situation for renting.”
“‘In our building there is always advance reservation for any empty apartment but for the first time we are having three apartments vacant for several months,’ said Gulam Ali, caretaker of a large residential building in Safa district.”
The Strait Times on Singapore. “Real estate investment - once considered a no-brainer as prices kept going north - has become more complicated in recent years, with changing market dynamics brought about partly by new government policies and measures to cool the market. The slower growth in the Singapore economy, weakness in the oil and gas sector, and continued tightening of the foreign worker policy have crimped business expansion and the hiring of foreigners.”
“CBRE Research noted that islandwide rents fell 13 per cent as at the end of last year from a peak in the third quarter of 2013, while the vacancy rate crept up from 6.1 per cent to 8.4 per cent over the same period. PropNex Realty senior associate director Anthea Yeo said: ‘Some landlords still have high expectations. They think cutting rents by $100 or $200 is enough. Some even want to mark up rents because tenants would bargain, they say.’”
“She has slashed the rent for her one-bedroom apartment in Novena from $3,700 to $2,000 over the years, adding: ‘In the past, I leased to a Japanese expat, now it’s a Singaporean student. I have to review the rent again when the lease is up for renewal.’”
From Fairfax New Zealand. “Last month, Mike Blackburn bought a house. He and his wife looked at about 40 properties before settling on one. As they traipsed through the preceding 39, a pattern emerged. ‘Every second house we looked at was empty,’ he said. ‘That’s just a telling figure. Where have all these people gone?’”
“The significance of what he saw wasn’t lost: Christchurch, the city once desperately short of houses after thousands of them were wrecked by earthquakes, had a lot more accommodation than it used to. Blackburn is a management consultant, specialising in construction clients. He saw a clear vision. ‘There was a major rush, mostly by the group home builders, to build a lot of houses really quickly,’ he said. ‘What’s happened is now everyone who’s needed a house has pretty much got one and they’re still building them. They’re building them flat out . . . all these development companies are month after month submitting 20-30 consents each for essentially spec housing.’”
“Property manager Tony Brazier saw the problem coming. In October 2014 he penned a column in The Press warning of the dangers of over-building. ‘We’ve got an oversupply now,’ Brazier said, ‘It’s bad enough. We don’t want it getting any worse. They should have stopped supplying the rental market a while back. It would be lovely to say, ‘Stop’, and everybody stops, but you can’t do that. We only see the market having gone too far when we see builders going bust. They don’t know until it’s too late.’”
From ABC News in Australia. “Unemployed Darwin tradies are being evicted from rental homes while properties bought five years ago are increasingly selling at a loss, real estate agents say. It is part of a housing market trend as the tropical city comes down off a construction industry high. ‘We evicted a property last week where the renter was a building industry contractor,’ Real estate agent Ken Jones told ABC Radio Darwin. ‘The amount of work he’d been able to pick up over the last 12 months had declined to the point where he couldn’t pay his rent anymore or come up with rental payments.’”
“Data released late last year showed median home prices in Darwin were $480,000, a return to what they were seven years ago. Darwin real estate agent Glenn Grantham said those selling at a loss were mostly those needing to sell quickly due to a divorce or needing to move away. The job losses in the construction industry were likely adding to the sales loss figures. ‘The new factor on today’s market is the addition of people losing their jobs,’ he said. ‘We’re finding a lot of people are moving back to Queensland. I don’t think this has hit home yet for some.’”
Hope n’ change catches up with Radio Shack.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/radioshack-files-for-bankruptcy-again-closing-200-stores-2017-03-08?link=MW_latest_news
I haven’t set foot in a RadShack in over 15 years. It was pricey and selection was weak.
Back in the day people only bought stereo gear there (remember the Realistic brand?) because that was the only place in their podunk town where they could buy it, otherwise they would have to settle for whatever junk they could find at the local K Mart or Sears (if there even was one).
And then there was the TRS-80. Back then it was either that or an Apple II, that is until Commodore appeared on the scene. An IBM PC could cost as much as a small car back then, if you loaded it with all the options.
I’m sure there will be no equity left for common shareholders once the bozos are through extracting it for themselves.
They used to make good speakers. I still have a pair of minimus 7 bookshelf speakers. Still sound great. Probably bought them in the 80’s. They’re the little black metal box speakers, with 5 inch woofers. Time simply passed radio shack by, they were well poised to exploit growing consumer technology back then….
I had some great Athena speakers from the 90’s and thought they were great until I got some new Polks. Huge difference.
Well yeah, its hard to compare them to new technology. My Bose soundlink has a better sound, but will it last 30 years?
Why do you want them for 30 yrs? Buy new and better every 7yrs! keep the economy going!
Unless you’re a “golden eared audiophile” you won’t be able to tell the difference.
And given that most people listen to their music in some mp3 like format while wearing ear buds, most wouldn’t even care
That’s an interesting phenomenon. Many fewer people care about sound quality these days. The convenience of MP3s on smartphones is more important.
Unless you’re a “golden eared audiophile” you won’t be able to tell the difference.
I like to laugh at people who hear differences in power cables or decent quality speaker cables. But there’s a big difference in anything that works at the air/hardware interface. Good microphones and speakers can be amazing. In the early days of digital normal people could also hear the difference between good and bad ADC/DAC hardware but I think that’s in the past now.
I don’t have a golden ear, but I can hear the difference between my new DAC computer speakers and my old set (no DAC)–as long as I’m using a higher fidelity audio file.
Now, if you ask me to tell the difference between my $300 set of USB DAC speakers, and someone’s $3,000 setup at a comfortable volume…you might as well give me a coin.
I was just talking about the chips inside recorders and players. I don’t know anything about new generation enclosures that are digital all the way to the enclosure. Same thing should apply though…I would expect modern DA conversion to be fine but I would still expect to be able to hear the difference in $300 versus $3000 physical drivers+enclosure. Especially at high volume.
Music to your ears. Crank it up.
Princeville, Hawaii Housing Prices Crater 8% YoY
https://www.zillow.com/princeville-hi/home-values/
Some great comments at the New Zealand article. Here’s one:
‘There will be a similar crisis in commercial property shortly. This is a small city of approx 400,000 people. You can’t keep building thousands of square metres of expensive office space and expect companies to magically materialise to lease the space. Why would they? The first developments caught the big law and accountancy and structural engineering firms, then government felt obligated to help the city out by taking a few thousand Sq metres. Most Kiwi businesses are fewer than 10 employees strong and can’t afford expensive new space. There will be huge vacancies in 2018 I predict. Already many restaurants are going bust and so many desperately looking to sell. Many more are for sale but not openly advertised. ‘
A third world economy pretending to be first world.
Is NZ really that corrupt?
They’re tied with Denmark as being the least corrupt in the world according to one measure.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index
Strangely enough, it is the socialist fiefdoms of Europe that are rife with corruption.
Check the list.
Is NZ really that corrupt?
Bankers are bankers. And right now every central bank in the world is trying to keep the asset bubble inflated.
There are cycles in real estate. Consumption-based demand increases for various reasons, based on factors like proximity to work, school district, house quality. Prices rise, then speculators pour in drawn by the whiff of profit, and those willing to stretch while house prices are going up, driven by FOMO (fear of missing out). Then “something” happens, and the downside of the cycle starts, speculators trying to cash out (real estate carrying costs are not trivial), and those to whom the house was nirvana realize the 500K rancher next to the highway might not have been such a good idea.
And then government and central bank support of the market through a trough, then slingshotting up again while prices supports remain in force.
To get an idea of the impact of the latter factors, here’s a tidbit out of Mongolia, with its own housing bubble, despite having a nomadic population.
This might yurt
The IMF bails Mongolia out—again
The Economist
February 25th, 2017
The strings attached to the IMF’s loan are more conventional. They include keeping the central bank out of “quasi-fiscal” activities: it had bought cheap-rate mortgages worth 1.95trn togrog ($787m), helping to support a housing bubble in a country known for nomadism.
http://www.economist.com/news/asia/21717414-every-commodity-bust-brings-balance-payments-crisis-imf-bails-mongolia-outagain
I know the foreclosure data says foreclosures are way down, but I’m seeing a lot of distressed properties when I search Maryland. One of my suspicions is the GSE conforming loan limit is too high for most, putting a lot of people on a foreclosure conveyor belt. But the GSEs are more than happy to buy these loans, with no consequence to the originator.
When the FHFA raised the GSEs’ conforming loan limit level to $424,100 from $417,000, what effect did it have on mortgage originations? An official from Black Knight at that point stated, “Our analysis shows that there are approximately 17 times as many originations-roughly 100,000 in total over the past 12 months-right at the conforming limit compared to preceding dollar amount buckets, and that originations drop off by about 70 percent immediately above the limit. In addition, the data shows that a GSE loan originated right at the conforming limit is nine times more likely to carry a second lien than one that is not.
http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/channels/pipelinepress/03082017-time-change.aspx
Neuro–with respect to your observations about MDs distress. Remember that MD is a judicial state.
Black Knight’s “Mortgage Monitor” from December 2016 goes through some interesting detail overall about the number of first time foreclosures vs. repeat foreclosures starting in 2000 (Page 13).
First time foreclosures are very low…most of the distress are lingering problems…which are exacerbated in states with long foreclosure processes.
At the same time though, MD’s level of distress is just above the national average (page 18).
Here is a link to the page with the reports:
http://www.bkfs.com/CorporateInformation/NewsRoom/Pages/Mortgage-Monitor.aspx
BK’s data is meaningless considering the foreclosure moratorium efforts in effect in all 50 states.
RW: Interesting, thanks for the link.
One more data point about Mongolia: it has nearly the lowest population density in the world: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_territories_by_population_density
So if a housing bubble can be sparked there, it can be sparked anywhere.
On an unrelated point: the population of Greenland is 56K! All I ever heard about Greenland was that Vikings used to live there. I didn’t realize that *anyone* lived in Greenland now! And get this, from Wiki:
“The rate of suicide in Greenland is very high. According to a 2010 census, Greenland holds the highest suicide rate in the world.[108][109] Other significant social issues faced by Greenland are high rates of unemployment, alcoholism and HIV/AIDS.”
Suicide and AIDS in Greenland. Goodness.
There was a cartoon in the era of the s & l crisis. It was a single comic strip of a customer asking at a bank window, “hey, do you have any of those loans that don’t have to be paid back?” It brilliantly captured the zeitgeist of the moment. Could we do something similar now? Could I go to a hard money lender and get a five month loan, then plan on defaulting and maybe end up declaring personal bankruptcy. I mean, is there so much liquidity out there that it’s being handed out in a way that can benefit us bears by taking some of it near the end and planning to hide my other assets in retirements accounts so they couldn’t be touched in bankruptcy.
Ad for an “international realtor” inside the Cherry Creek Safeway grocery store:
http://www.picpaste.com/20170308_094759.jpg
What is the demographic of her clientele? Given that she’s Hispanic, I doubt they’re ChiComs. Maybe she caters to wealthy Latin Americans, though I don’t see Denver as being a destination for them, cuz it snows n stuff. Moneyed Mexicans seem to gravitate to Houston or San Antonio.
If the main goal is to hide the money, then even Bismark ND is legit. It’s just a plain ride away in the summer.
Could be wealthy Latinos buying houses to rent out to less wealthy Latinos. At least in my ghetto hood I see different cars and families coming and going, 3-4 months at a time, but no for sale signs or realtors at all. Must be rentals.
It could also be that she has a very low income, like many realtors and is hoping to get some business by calling herself an international realtor. The sign says that she speaks six languages. It would make sense to list them and also advertise in those languages.
The sign says that she speaks six languages.
Other than English and Spanish, I seriously doubt it. And I’ll bet her Spanish is the mediocre Spanish spoken by Chicanos. Mexicans, especially upper class Mexicans, love to make fun of Chicanos, who the call “pochos”.
She probably doesn’t speak 6 languages, but as a whole, the staff in her office probably do. Spanish, Chinese, English, possibly Portuguese, and what else?
I don’t hear many foreign languages besides Spanish when I walk around Cherry Creek.
Asians are somewhat rare in Denver, at least when compared to other large metro areas. Colorado is still very “white bread”, even blacks are less common here. The only significant minority seems to be Hispanics. When my out of state relatives visit, it is very noticeable to them. I get to hear “Wow, everyone’s white” a lot.
And the botox clinic storefront window on 1st Avenue:
http://www.picpaste.com/20170309_094416.jpg
I guess there’s money to be made catering to post wall career women who are trying to lock down a beta bux now that they can’t get back on the carousel.
I was once in an Applebees-type restaurant with my dad. I pointed out a youngish-looking (35 yo) women at the bar. He said, “I’ve seen that type before. They aren’t looking for a man. They are looking for a father for their children.” This was 30 years ago.
“…youngish-looking (35 yo) women at the bar.”
Roughly 5-yrs of sand remaining in her hour glass.
“They are looking for a father for their children.”
Your dad sounds like he was a wise man.
Six month old data but an interesting summary of the global housing bubble from the IMF.
http://www.imf.org/external/research/housing/report/pdf/Q1_2017.pdf
‘Not too long ago, investors from Amsterdam and Frankfurt were buys gobbling up bonds paying interest of around -0.01%. And they did that because they knew those bonds would become even more negative, based on the anabolic QE steroids policy of the European Central Bank (ECB). They did just that in Germany in mid-July, with the government issuing bonds with a negative yield of 0.05%. investors holding the 0.01% negative bonds all of a sudden looked like geniuses. If you had to be in the European bond market, like nearly ever single life insurer and money market fund in the region, this is what you had to deal with.’
‘And now, what Bill Gross of PIMCO once called the “super nova” of bad bond bets, is facing the prospect of higher interest rates out of the ECB. It’s amazing there is not more news on this. Billions of dollars are being written off as a loss.’
“… investors holding the 0.01% negative bonds all of a sudden looked like geniuses.”
Bahahahahahahaha … Ben, you are killing me with your jokes.
The punch line: “Billions of dollars are being written off as a loss.”
What a surprise! Bahahahahahahahahahahaha …
Clone them.
Ben, does one really need an advanced degree in economics to be sold on the idea that buying bonds that pay a negative interest rate is a bad idea?
I ran this scenario by my paperboy and because of that I now have to pay him each month in advance.
most of these bond players were buying the bonds for capital appreciation , not yield.
Now it seems central banks are > 50% of the bid.
So a negative yield is supposed to somehow produce a capital gain?
“So a negative yield is supposed to somehow produce a capital gain?”
They were probably hoping that the Euro would appreciate vs. Uncle Buck.
If this were the case then the case is automatically made for cash, cash in the form of Euros.
But where do they park that cash? In a bank? They’ll probably get 0% either way.
0% still beats anything less than a zero return, which is what a negative return is.
Not if the source of repayment goes BK. Safety, preservation of assets lead to parking money in negative interest rate vehicles.
I suppose if you had a billion Euros you needed to park somewhere, a bank, which could go under or have a “bail in” might not be your first choice.
Bill Gross warns about the Fed’s Ponzi markets.
http://www.businessinsider.com/bill-gross-our-highly-levered-financial-system-is-like-a-truckload-of-nitro-glycerin-on-a-bumpy-road-2017-3
so true
Some people work, some people watch their assets go up! Then the rich people who own assets hire you to make them more money.
Nice graphic with the top 100 Internet sites, color coded by category (got this from marketwatch).
https://www.vodien.com/da-100-websites-rule-internet.php?link=mktw
So much worthless social media.
Tumblr is #19, LOLZ.
And that *ahem* black circle is bigger than Target and only slightly smaller than PayPal.
Good luck with that….
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/san-francisco-skyscraper-penthouse-hopes-to-fetch-record-42-million-2017-03-08
Faena condo on Miami Beach = $55,000,000. Unreal.
But…but…recovery!
http://wolfstreet.com/2017/03/08/atlanta-fed-q1-gdpnow-forecast-spirals-down-in-an-amazing-manner/
wasn’t 2015 too late for any commodity player -state,country etc ???
$49 = back in the tank for anything oily
‘the vacancy rate has climbed even higher since October, to somewhere between 16 and 18 per cent…Now a combination of widespread economic weakness, private residential rentals and a glut of new apartments and condominiums has driven the family-owned building’s vacancy rate up to 12.5 per cent. And that’s not the only problem, Spurdle said.’
‘But what’s really uncommon is we’re not getting a single phone call for rentals. Nothing. The phone’s just not ringing.’
‘It’s totally temporary,’ he said. ‘But when you’re talking temporary, these business cycles are, like, seven to 14 years. Hungry for seven years is a long time, right?’
14 years is even longer. Here’s the thing Grant: there isn’t going to be another China. What kind of a cycle sees 100 years of concrete poured in 3? I don’t think that’s ever happened before and it’s not likely to happen again. So what if this is more exaggerated than a cycle? What if this was a one time blow-out? What if next year your vacancies are 20%, and the year after that 30%?
And if they poured 100 years of concrete in 3, that also means they used 100 years of rebar in 3, and stacked 100 years of brick in 3, etc.
I would really hate to be an iron ore miner or a steel producer right now. With demand permanently falling over the cliff there is going to be a lot of hurt and there is no hope of a an eventual rebound. Small wonder Brazil is in the toilet, their economy is based on selling raw materials to China. Sure, they assemble some cars and even make small airliners (Embraer), but when was the last time you bought something that was stamped “Made in Brazil”?
And think about how much fuel was consumed. All those steelworkers driving to work, the heavy equipment. How much fuel was needed to turn tens of millions of acres of land into farms. Or the 60% increase in fish farming in the same short period. It was the global QE/ZIRP response to the housing crash that left the biggest impact on the global economy. Look at these articles above: oversupply.
Oil just went through 50 bucks this morning. When I was in west Texas recently, they were fracking like crazy. If they are making money at $50, OPEC is done. One or two kingdoms fall and the new governments will drill baby drill.
If they are making money at $50, OPEC is done.
Every time I hear statements like this, I smile. Couldn’t happen to a nicer group of guys.
It will be fun to see the citizens of those Gulf states have to do real work as they’ll have to send their guest workers home since they won’t be able to afford them anymore. But will they be able to keep the lights on?
I was reading about middle east airlines like Emirates or Etihad. They are mostly run by British expats and receive hefty subsidies from their governments. I’ll bet most of their, pilots, mechanics and other technical employees are foreigners. It will be most interesting to see what happens at those carriers when the subsidies run out.
Hopefully soon we won’t need any middle east oil at all, we can save trillions.
Now go get some LED bulbs and insulate your home.
If they are making money at $50, OPEC is done
Suddenly there’s a war. There are ways to help mitigate lower prices. LOL
If the war is over there the US producers will ramp up production, especially if prices start to rise.
Oh yeah, it’s a true domino effect, and its tentacles reach the four corners of the Earth. Major oversupply everywhere you go. The Chicoms can try to mask it by building ghost cities or the government buying cars that are left parked. I also question the number of cars being produced. If it were true and the 1 billion plus ChiComs were shopping till they were dropping then commodity prices would be up.
Yep, said it before - the whole bubble was driven by china as they tried to replace US consumption (which never recovered from the great recession) with domestic demand. Sheer folly, and the smartest or most devious got their money out of China and drove up prices world wide. Now its all crumbling.
Should have listened to Sum Ting Wong!
Sure, they assemble some cars and even make small airliners (Embraer), but when was the last time you bought something that was stamped “Made in Brazil”?
You could probably pose the same question about great exporting nations like Germany, the Netherlands, or Australia. On the other hand, I think that we import a lot of orange juice from Brazil, so you may have consumed some out of a container that had the country of origin in very small print.
Obviously they do export stuff. I have flown on an Embraer jet and there might be a few Brazilian parts in your car, especially if it’s a Mexican assembled VW. But they are heavily dependent on exporting raw materials, and the commodities crash has hurt them.
Still, Brazil is in far worse financial shape than the countries you mentioned. Though from what I have been reading, Australia is suffering too. Automakers are closing factories there. Future Holdens will be little more than rebadged Chevrolets soon.
What will be interesting for Holden is that half their models already are rebadged Opels. Since GM is selling off Opel (and its sister brand Vauxhall) to Citroen, will Holden continue to resell Opels as Holdens?
Automakers are closing factories there. Future Holdens will be little more than rebadged Chevrolets soon.
Of course, that’s because Australia is one of the most prosperous countries on the planet and workers get paid a lot less in places like Thailand.
Yeah, but from what I have read there will soon be NO auto industry in Australia … none. Everyone is bailing. That has to hurt.
Losing industry AND the global commodities slump can’t be helping their economy.
CNBC mentioned this morning that house flipping in 2016 was at a gen year high. Coincidence?
Ten not gen…
Yet housing demand at 20 year lows.
Guess who the bagholders are?
How do you measure demand?
How do you know if I really want a house or not?
Nothing accelerates the economy like falling prices my friend….. Nothing.
Wheat Ridge, CO Housing Prices Plummet 11% YoY
https://www.zillow.com/wheat-ridge-co/home-values/
Suck ‘em in, shake ‘em out.
Orinda, CA Housing Prices Crater 10% YoY
http://www.movoto.com/orinda-ca/market-trends/
“New York City Rents Crash Again In February Under Weight Of So Much Inventory”
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-03-09/new-york-city-rents-crash-again-february-under-weight-so-much-inventory
Rent always goes up.
What goes up must come down
Spinnin’ wheel got to go ’round
Talkin’ ’bout your troubles it’s a cryin’ sin
Ride a painted pony let the spinnin’ wheel spin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFEewD4EVwU
Counterintuitive data from CoreLogic’s Q4 2016 “Equity Report”:
The cheapest properties have the highest average Loan-to-Value ($500k have average LTV of about 45%).
If makes sense if you believe that in some places cheap homes became more expensive (thus driving down the LTV over time).
“Value” is a transitory thing.
Another factor: look up the term landlord buyers. They may have made a lot of capital gain from stock and did not know where to invest, but homes.
Anyone actually earning profit from investing in the stock market isn’t paying grossly inflated prices for depreciating assets like houses.
Not necessarily. It has been too easy to make money lately. Just take a index fund. Vanguard small cap-medium cap-larg cap? 20%-30% 1-year return. So much money has gone into people who did not think much and just left their money there as long-term investment.
Doubtful but anything is possible. It may explain why prices and rental rates are falling.
The trick is to know when to sell. FOMO can be a factor, especially after a good year. You fear that if you sell now you might miss out on another good year and leave money on the table. Plus selling means realizing gains and paying taxes on them. A lot of temptation to just roll the dice again. Baby needs new shoes!
Sherwood, OR Housing Prices Crater 6% YoY On Plummeting Housing Demand
https://www.zillow.com/sherwood-or/home-values/
http://fortune.com/2017/03/09/ceo-daily-thursday-9-march/
“Royal Dutch Shell joined the retreat from Canada’s oil sands, in its latest move to cut debt and concentrate on lower-cost projects in the wake of its merger with BG Group. It will sell its existing and undeveloped oil sands assets to Canadian Natural Resources in return for $5.4 billion in cash and a 9% stake in CNR worth $3.1 billion. A related portfolio adjustment, buying Marathon Oil out of the Athabasca Oil Sands Project, cuts the net proceeds to $7.25 billion. Exxon, ConocoPhillips, and Statoil have all already written down their investments in an alternative form of oil that, while plentiful, is uneconomic in a world where crude prices are stuck in a range between $50-$60 a barrel. Crude prices fell out of that range for the first time since November yesterday on evidence of an ongoing glut in the U.S.”
http://ourcitysd.com/neighborhoods/the-south-will-rise-again/?utm_medium=email&sslid=MzQwNzI3NzQ1NTY2BAA&sseid=MzE2MjQwNDa3BAA&jobid=f98d0b57-9fe0-47fa-910c-6a560ee3a15e#sthash.iNpQ0Iip.lt94UoBU.dpbs
“The southern reaches of San Diego County have received scant press during the past decade, perhaps because nothing new has occurred there except for the new Cross Border Express (which is a big deal!). 2017 will put a stop to that dearth of newsworthiness. This year will mark the first in what I perceive to be a decade-long binge of development.
The really good news is that most of the sale product will be in the $300,000 to $500,000 range, a target that fulfills the need of a great percentage of first time San Diego homebuyers. And most of it is townhomes, a product that has been largely ignored by developers as long as there was plenty of land for single family homes.”
Yay, more supply
Do houses in Otay Mesa come with their own border crossing tunnels?
Only the model homes, production ones, those are extra.
Los Angeles Chargers sounds doesn’t sound right.
Los Angeles Chargers doesn’t sound right either.
my house is a frickn blessing in disguise.
From Seattle, about a new law dictating how landlords must select tenants. The landlords don’t seem to like it very much.
http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/seattle-landlords-sue-challenge-citys-first-come-first-served-rental-law/
From the Canadian version of the Huffpost, about the Toronto bubble. Nothing very substantial but worth a chuckle.
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2017/03/08/toronto-housing-goldmine_n_15241874.html
The ad for that shack is great:
“As You Watch Prices In The Neighbourhood Skyrocket, You Will Be Delighted You Made This Investment. But How Would You Feel If Someone Else Were To Buy It Before You? The More You Think About It, The More You Will Realize You Must Act Now.”
…
Yes, yes, I must act now.
Manhattan Rents Fall for Every Apartment Size, Even Studios
by Oshrat Carmiel
Bloomberg
March 9, 2017
Rents fell last month for Manhattan apartments of all sizes, the first across-the-board price decline in at least four years, as a construction boom brought more buildings to market and allowed some tenants to leave for bigger or newer units.
For studios, which held their own last year while costs for bigger apartments slid, the median rent dropped 2.6 percent, appraiser Miller Samuel Inc. and brokerage Douglas Elliman Real Estate said in a report Thursday. It was the biggest year-over-year decrease since the firms started tracking the data in 2012. The median price of studios last month was $2,500, the lowest it’s been since January 2015.
“There’s so much inventory, and that influx is hitting across all price points, even the studios,” Hal Gavzie, executive director of leasing for Douglas Elliman, said in an interview. “There were a lot of studios that hit the market and have been sitting there. They had to reduce prices.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-09/manhattan-rents-decline-for-every-apartment-size-even-studios
Washington State Housing Demand Craters 15% YoY
http://files.zillowstatic.com/research/public/State/State_Turnover_AllHomes.csv
https://www.yahoo.com/news/m/8e10e9d0-9352-33e1-8021-f1916ca0c349/the-10-biggest-regrets-people.html
The 10 Biggest Regrets People Have About Buying a Home
Half of people financial website NerdWallet surveyed said if they could repeat the home-buying process, they’d do something differently. Generation Xers were the most likely to wish for a home-buying do-over, with 61% saying they had some regrets about purchasing their house. …
Read more
“The 10 Biggest Regrets People Have About Buying a Home”
1. Spent too much money
In 81% of U.S. counties, home-price increases outstripped wage growth in 2016, according to Realty Trac, putting homeownership out of reach for millions of Americans. Those who do take the plunge might end up spending way more than they expected, and some come to regret it. Overall, 4% of homebuyers NerdWallet talked to said they’d bought a house that was too expensive. Millennials and Gen Xers were more likely to say they’d spent too much money on a house than baby boomers.
Spending too much money on a house can have serious economic consequences. More than half of Americans say they’ve had to make sacrifices in order to afford their mortgage or rent, a 2015 MacArthur Foundation survey found. A fifth took on an extra job, 17% stopped saving for retirement, and 14% racked up credit card debt.