Something More Troubling Than Stucco
A weekend topic starting with Jacobin Magazine. “Richard Florida, one of the most influential thinkers about cities in postwar America, wants you to know that he got almost everything about cities wrong. If you live in an urban center in North America, the United Kingdom, or Australia, you are living in Richard Florida’s world. Fifteen years ago, he argued that an influx of what he called the ‘creative classes’ — artists, hipsters, tech workers — were sparking economic growth in places like the Bay Area. Their tolerance, flexibility, and eccentricity dissolved the rigid structures of industrial production and replaced them with the kinds of workplaces and neighborhoods that attracted more young people and, importantly, more investment.”
“His observations quickly formed the basis of a set of breezy technical solutions. Eventually, the mysterious alchemy of the creative economy would build a new and prosperous urban core. Today, even Florida recognizes that he was wrong. The rise of the creative class in places like New York, London, and San Francisco created economic growth only for the already rich, displacing the poor and working classes. The problems that once plagued inner cities have moved to the suburbs.”
“After fifteen years of development plans tailored to the creative classes, Florida surveys an urban landscape in ruins. The story of London is the story of Austin, the Bay Area, Chicago, New York, Toronto, and Sydney. When the rich, the young, and the (mostly) white rediscovered the city, they created rampant property speculation, soaring home prices, and mass displacement. The “creative class” were just the rich all along, or at least the college-educated children of the rich.”
“His latest book, The New Urban Crisis, represents the culmination of this long mea culpa. Though he stops just short of saying it, he all but admits that he was wrong. He argues that the creative classes have grabbed hold of many of the world’s great cities and choked them to death. As a result, the fifty largest metropolitan areas house just 7 percent of the world’s population but generate 40 percent of its growth. These ’superstar’ cities are becoming gated communities, their vibrancy replaced with deracinated streets full of Airbnbs and empty summer homes.”
“Meanwhile, drug addiction and gang violence have spread to the suburbs. ‘Much more than a crisis of cities,’ he writes, ‘the New Urban Crisis is the central crisis of our time’ — ‘a crisis of the suburbs, of urbanization itself and of contemporary capitalism writ large.’”
From The New York Times. “Three years ago, Soo K. Chan, an architect well known in Singapore but new to the Manhattan luxury condo scene, posed a question to jaded New Yorkers: How about a pool in the living room? Well, why not? It was a hit overseas, where Mr. Chan had designed pools for luxury apartments in Southeast Asia, and at the time the New York City condo market was on fire.”
“So Soori High Line, the new 31-unit luxury mid-rise in West Chelsea that Mr. Chan designed and developed, will have four-foot-deep saltwater pools in more than half of its apartments. The 24-foot-long pools, surrounded by a glass enclosure, are heated and partially open to the outdoors, enticing residents to swim even during a snowstorm. The apartments — which range in price from about $3 million for a two-bedroom to $22.5 million for the five-bedroom, triplex penthouse — have ceilings as high as 18 feet, heated limestone floors, gas fireplaces and doorknobs wrapped in hand-stitched leather.”
“But with only a few months left until the building’s completion, just 15 of the 31 units are under contract or reserved, eight of them with private pools, although sales began in 2014. Since then, the developer has hired three different real estate brokerages to handle sales; the most expensive unit under contract so far is a $10.9 million duplex. ‘The expectation was that there are so many billionaires in the world, they’re a dime a dozen – and that’s not what happened,’ said Jonathan J. Miller, a New York real estate appraiser.”
From D Magazine in Texas. “While not as headline-grabbing as reminders of the Confederacy, Dallas’ older apartment stock has been under siege for years and is a more palpable threat to lower-income Dallasites who are increasingly being priced out of their longtime neighborhoods. Assuming you‘ve not been under a rock for the past few years, you’ve noticed the staggering amount of apartments being built in Dallas (and, well, nationwide, if we’re being honest). A good number of them are cheaply constructed, short-term buildings meant to squeeze every penny possible in rent before the glue holding the sawdust together gives way.”
“Most of these apartments are thunderously expensive. I looked at a building on McKinney Avenue and the cost for a 800-ish square foot apartment was about what I paid in mortgage, taxes, utilities, cable TV, internet and HOA dues on a 1,900 square foot high-rise condo. But as much ink and zings have been spilled about these Millennial pickpocket apartments, the city has remained largely mum about what was there before these new buildings. But if you scratch the surface you’ll see something more troubling than stucco.”
“Dallas was chockablock with modestly sized apartment complexes scattered on generous lots. Many were built in the 1950s and 1960s. It’s these older apartment buildings, often constructed with better materials than today’s quick-builds, that tell a story of neighborhood displacement. As the concept of condominiums took off and developers wanted to cash out, many complexes around the nation converted to condo beginning in the 1970s.”
“Flash forward to the current hyper-apartment building cycle we remain in. Developers have approached a number of these older complexes because of their low density, which result in larger, buildable lots. Taking down 30 condos on an acre or two makes economic sense when you replace it with 200 apartments. Current owners take the windfall of likely double the condos’ market value and run.”
“Sometimes selling is the right answer. Often, it’s not. As any homeowner will tell you in the frantic market of the past few years, the question isn’t selling, it’s where do you go next? Selling a $150,000 condo for $300,000 still doesn’t net you a lot of options. Certainly not nearby single-family or even townhome options. For all a seller’s newfound wealth, they’re probably don’t have the income to rent in the building that replaces their home.”
“But if you remain, what’s left of your neighborhood? Older two-story buildings are demolished and replaced with extremely dense, three- and four-story buildings. Gone are the old-growth trees that lined the streets. Gone are the generous setbacks and well-spaced buildings.”
“In the case of apartments being renovated, new rents likely rise in excess of many tenants’ ability to pay. However, while they cost more, increases are nowhere near the magnitude of new-build complexes. This wholesale affordability issue is problematic at most income levels, but nowhere more acute than in the lower-income brackets disproportionally comprised of minorities. While we can debate the merits of Confederate symbols in public spaces, Dallas needs to get off its high-horse in housing all its citizens.”
“But if you scratch the surface you’ll see something more troubling than stucco.”
Pray do tell.
Black mold growing on poorly constructed 2×4 stick frame assembled shacks built by illegals with Chinese dry wall?
Ran across this.
Montgomery and Bucks Counties are VERY affluent suburbs of Philadelphia.
If this is happening here - imagine what is happening in just “normal” places.
The end result of eight years of bailouts, trillions dollar yearly deficits, higher and higher taxes, ZIRP, not one banker in jail, QE to infinity, etc.
Short and good video.
+++++++++
Video: Repossessed homes fill the streets of broken dreams in Bucks County
Since the 2008 recession, more than 12,000 homes have been foreclosed, repossessed or put up for sheriff’s sale.
http://www.buckscountycouriertimes.com/news/local/video-repossessed-homes-fill-the-streets-of-broken-dreams-in/html_dcf96537-6cd3-57fd-9c88-dc76cc4a7aa6.html
Gotta wonder if the property taxes are being paid? Local governments used to auction properties for back-taxes on the court house steps.
I am sure the banks are paying the property taxes.
Like you said, not paying the property taxes means the sheriff seizes the house and sells it to the highest bidder with the results first going to pay off back taxes.
Banks would lose the entire asset. The mortgage would be declared null and void.
Drawing out a foreclosure/not taking care of the house/etc. - the bank can keep the asset on their books and get the federal guarantees to pay FULL BOOK value for the mortgage.
Hope and change - the Mel Watt way.
Amazing what a moral hazard will do to rational thinking.
And who cares about the neighbors or neighborhood? Bankers don’t live there anyways.
Chinese are “white?” - mostly???
+++++
The story of London is the story of Austin, the Bay Area, Chicago, New York, Toronto, and Sydney. When the rich, the young, and the (mostly) white rediscovered the city,
Ssssshhhh…don’t draw attention to the Asian elephant in the room. Pointing out the rapacious appetite of Chinese investors for American property would be rayciss.
Bend, OR Housing Prices Plummet 18% YOY
http://www.movoto.com/bend-or/market-trends/
From the first link:
‘While Florida was once a guru, a font of urban-policy wisdom celebrated by liberal politicians and media darlings like Bono, he now has less to say. His diagnosis of the crisis he partly caused offers no new insights. He has replaced his airy projections of infinite, creativity-fueled growth with a tone of apocalyptic darkness. His shift is noteworthy, but the “creative economy” now has a life of its own.’
You can see we didn’t just happen into this situation.
Also:
‘Meanwhile, drug addiction and gang violence have spread to the suburbs.’
I read that deaths from opioids and other prescription drugs are over 70 a day in the US. IMO much of this is because people don’t see a future. I too wonder how important confederate statues really are.
As this country enacts more and more liberal/progressive ideas, usually through judicial or executive fiat, the future does get darker and darker.
Obama hailed Hugo as a hero.
The end result is misery, ruin and bankruptcy.
There is no hope to escape it. There is no “magic” place to move to anymore.
Those that oppose this dark Orwellian future are labeled as racists and hate mongers with the fake legacy media leading the cheers. Violence is sanctioned against them. No law is needs to be followed if it stands in the way.
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
― C.S. Lewis, God in the Dock: Essays on Theology
There is no hope to escape it. There is no “magic” place to move to anymore.
I’ve wondered if part of what made America work for so long was that if all else fails you could go to the border of the frontier and then just keep going. You had to be enticed to work within the existing system, you couldn’t be forced to. But now there’s nowhere to go…
This Bono clown hangs out with the Davos crowd. Remember how the fawning media tried to work “elite” into their reports as much as possible? Remember how Bloomberg said NYC could become a city of billionaires?
Mayor Bloomberg Wants Every Billionaire on Earth to Live in New …
https://blogs.wsj.com/…/mayor-bloomberg-wants-every-billionaire-on-earth-to-live-in-n...
Sep 20, 2013 - Billionaire Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Friday it would be a “godsend” if New York City could lure every other billionaire around the globe.
And now the globalist NYT wants us to cry a river over these developers who can’t sell their airboxes:
‘Three years ago, Soo K. Chan, an architect well known in Singapore but new to the Manhattan luxury condo scene, posed a question to jaded New Yorkers: How about a pool in the living room? Well, why not? It was a hit overseas…and at the time the New York City condo market was on fire.’
‘So Soori High Line, the new 31-unit luxury mid-rise in West Chelsea that Mr. Chan designed and developed, will have four-foot-deep saltwater pools in more than half of its apartments. The 24-foot-long pools, surrounded by a glass enclosure, are heated and partially open to the outdoors, enticing residents to swim even during a snowstorm. The apartments — which range in price from about $3 million for a two-bedroom to $22.5 million for the five-bedroom, triplex penthouse — have ceilings as high as 18 feet, heated limestone floors, gas fireplaces and doorknobs wrapped in hand-stitched leather.’
‘But with only a few months left until the building’s completion, just 15 of the 31 units are under contract or reserved, eight of them with private pools, although sales began in 2014…‘The expectation was that there are so many billionaires in the world, they’re a dime a dozen – and that’s not what happened,’ said Jonathan J. Miller, a New York real estate appraiser.’
What’s happened here is these people have failed us. The MSM has failed us. But they want us to fixate on really old statues and cut each other to pieces while they fly around in private jets and live like kings. Their big solution is get out there, buy an airbox and refinance every year or two. What wealth does that create? These are real problems that aren’t going away nor fix themselves.
NYC:
“NYC is the giant spoiled brat of American cities. Even though nearly all industry has fled, it remains important merely because it remains the world center of trading in America’s debt-based, Federal Reserve, crony-capitalist monetary system.
The small circle of people in this system who have become uber rich think they are gods. They create nothing and push paper all day.”
Here’s an example:
August 28, 2017
A report from the Los Angeles Times in California. “For decades, the ability to deduct the interest on a home mortgage has been one of the most untouchable sacred cows of the tax code. It is particularly revered in Los Angeles and other areas with high real estate prices, where the annual tax savings can be the difference between being able to afford a house or continuing to rent. Now, Republicans crafting legislation to overhaul the federal tax system and cut rates are considering placing new limits on the home mortgage interest deduction. And thousands of Californians could feel the pain.”
“The move comes as GOP lawmakers and Trump administration officials already have proposed killing another break — the deductibility of state and local taxes — that benefits California residents more than those in any other state. The housing industry strongly opposes efforts to place new restrictions on the deduction, arguing that would lead to lower housing prices because there would be less of a financial incentive to buy instead of rent. At the same time, Democrats from California and other states with high housing prices are gearing up to fight any change.”
“‘I think that harming the ability for Americans to own their home is like attacking motherhood and apple pie,’ said Rep. Judy Chu (D-Monterey Park), whose district includes Pasadena and much of the San Gabriel Valley. ‘I represent a district with homes that are very high-cost, so they have even more reason to be concerned about it,’ Chu said.”
“Diane Yentel, president of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, which advocates for more affordable housing, said the ability to deduct interest on mortgages as large as $1 million means the provision benefits mostly upper-income households. ‘We’re paying about $10.5 billion a year to subsidize the homes of some of the wealthiest people in the world at the same time that we have hundreds of thousands of people with no homes at all,’ she said.”
http://thehousingbubbleblog.com/?p=10186
You see what’s going on here? The party that’s supposedly represents the lower income has become a defender of the landed rich. It didn’t happen overnight, but it happened. The majority of Republicans are on the same team.
Look at this again:
‘The housing industry strongly opposes efforts to place new restrictions on the deduction, arguing that would lead to lower housing prices because there would be less of a financial incentive to buy instead of rent. At the same time, Democrats from California and other states with high housing prices are gearing up to fight any change’
Wa? I thought it was a “housing crisis” in California. Oh how their wails of horror ring out in their 18 foot ceilings and gift wrapping rooms. Motherhood and apple pie my a**.
They have nothing to worry about. House Republicans put out there plan for doing your taxes on a postcard and it includes the deduction for mortgage interest.
https://waysandmeans.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/WM_graphic_website-handout-postcard.png
There you stand comforted with the house republicans, protecting the landed rich, without the slightest sense of irony. And you probably still wonder how you lost the election.
No, I stated fact. I didn’t stand with anybody.
‘The party’s over: Republicans and Democrats are both finished’
‘None of the above would have been possible before then-candidate Trump eviscerated a crowded field of 16 more experienced GOP regulars in the 2016 primaries. It wouldn’t be possible before Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent who only registered as a Democrat months before the primaries, came extremely close to upsetting long-held party plans to nominate Hillary Clinton. (Now that same Senator Sanders is leading a march away from Democratic Party orthodoxy and fully advocating single payer health care, with a third of the Democrats in the Senate happily marching away with him.)’
‘It’s important to remember this didn’t start with President Trump or Senator Sanders. Barack Obama proved the party hierarchy and seniority system was on the wane when he stepped over Hillary Clinton in 2008 to win the Democratic presidential nomination and the presidency after just two years in the U.S. Senate.’
‘But even prior to that, the parties were becoming less discernible from each other, aside from a few wedge issues like abortion and gun control.’
‘They pull donations from the same entities with just a few exceptions, and have similar track records when it comes to enduring challenges like controlling the debt, reining in health care costs, or improving the infrastructure, despite their rhetoric to the contrary. That corruption, or perceived corruption, played a big role in Donald Trump’s successful “drain the swamp” campaign.’
‘The important thing to remember is that all the craziness we’re seeing in Washington these days is not just the result of this president’s personality or some new level of political anger across the country. An old order that’s been in place for generations that kept a lid on the kind of chaos we’ve seen in recent months has crumbled.’
‘These are uncharted waters for sure, but they may not lead to such bad results. After all, the partisan political structure in place for so long has brought us numerous wars, $20 trillion in debt and a government that’s grown well beyond its usefulness.’
‘Love or hate it, it’s time to face this new reality: The Democratic and the Republican parties as we know them are finished and the politicians, the people who give them money, and the people who cover them need to adjust accordingly.’
Yup. The Great Disruptor. The Demolition Man. Someone has to clear the way for the reformers.
What, no more AMT? What about home office and 1099 income? Where does the k-1 income go on that postcard?
The MID is sacrosanct in the U.S. tax code. Republicans may pay lip service to its elimination during discussion of tax reform, but at the end it will survive. Too many wealthy and powerful people stand to lose too much money if it goes away.
And I hope I live long enough for someone to point out how wrong I was in the above post…
If you want to test my theory, do the following:
Compile a list of the values of all homes owned by U.S. Congress members. What’s the average value, and what amount of wealth would the typical legislator stand to lose if the MID were eliminated?
From the first link: ??
I would suggest everyone read the comments section in the reviews on the book particularly you 2-fruit…Nice post Ben…
Ohio has 10 million population in a country of 320 million, and accounted for 9% of all opioid overdose deaths in the U.S. in 2016.
Thanks, globalists.
Oxy was pushed to be the pain killer of choice for docs.
Oxy used to be cheap and easy to get.
Now it is much harder to get…but heroin is cheap.
Son of a friend died of heroin OD….good family…migraines led to legal pain meds, then he couldn’t get the legal stuff, he ended up hooked on heroin. Parents tried all sorts of interventions…nothing worked.
Scary story for someone with migraine-prone friends to read…
Opioid-based narcotics are not really an effective medication for most types of Migraine. A correct diagnosis for migraine requires one skilled in making the diagnosis. There are incorrect diagnosis made by medical doctors/nurse practitioners, but by and large medical professionals get it right if not at first, then soon after. I’ve dealt with migraines for decades. The late Oliver Sachs (the late neurologist and writer) has a good book for laypeople appropriately entitled ‘Migraine.’ IMO the opioid crisis is about substance abuse first and foremost. A great many suffer with chronic pain, but would never resort to a life threatening addiction. There have always been those who give in to abuse of alcohol and narcotics and fail to take the necessary actions to stop their self destructive behaviors. Ultimately it is a personal choice to continue destroying oneself, or to seek help.
I have lived in NYC.
This is about typical between the very corrupt democrat (mostly) politicians, the utterly corrupt unions and the insane environmentalists.
NYC is the giant spoiled brat of American cities. Even though nearly all industry has fled, it remains important merely because it remains the world center of trading in America’s debt-based, Federal Reserve, crony-capitalist monetary system.
The small circle of people in this system who have become uber rich think they are gods. They create nothing and push paper all day.
Glad I left.
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A Few Busybodies Have Destroyed A Dream For NYC
NY Post | 9/16/2017 | Steve Cuozzo
The collapse of Barry Diller’s Pier 55 dream is without parallel in the annals of willful, malicious New York City obstructionism. There’s no glimmer of hope, no encouraging lessons to be drawn, no down-the-road silver lining.
Diller’s reasonable decision to walk away from a vision that had already cost him tens of millions of dollars more than he’d planned, and which might well never be built even had he sunk in tens of millions of dollars more, is a civic tragedy of Shakespearean scope. We’re left with the oft-repeated, defining word of “King Lear” — nothing.
Pier 55 would have brought the city and the world a magnificent recreational pier more like an island — a 2.7-acre oasis of rolling meadows and groves and a 700-seat amphitheater 186 feet from the foot of West 13th Street, reached by two picturesque pedestrian bridges.
Because Diller and wife Diane von Furstenberg’s foundation would have pumped in $110 million, no strings attached, the $130 million project (as originally budgeted) would have cost the city a mere $17 million — or a one-time outlay of $2.02 for each of its 8.4 million citizens. Diller would pay for any cost overruns.
Pier 55 would have been a shimmering jewel in the necklace of reclaimed West Side/Hudson River parkland that stretches south of 59th Street. It promised a free and welcome, alfresco attraction open to all on the site of long-rotting Pier 54, best known for receiving survivors from the Titanic in 1915.
Instead, the useless old hulk will remain as an aching reminder of what could have been — and what’s unlikely ever to be in the future, all because the City Club of New York, comprising a few well-funded environmentalists, decided to champion the American eel.
This is about typical between the very corrupt democrat (mostly) politicians, the utterly corrupt unions and the insane environmentalists.
…the project had the support of the community board, Mayor Bill de Blasio, Gov. Cuomo and Sen. Chuck Schumer.
http://nypost.com/2017/09/14/diller-upset-he-wasted-way-more-than-40m-on-failed-park-plan/
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said it was “incredibly disappointing” that a project with the “potential to have a positive and lasting impact on the state is not moving forward at this time.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/14/nyregion/with-diller-island-dead-park-faces-difficult-future.html
The thing looked like a goofy idea anyway.
It looks AMAZING, would have been a major tourist attraction and would have fixed a decrepit pier into something beautiful.
And it would have cost NYC almost NOTHING.
Third world disease ravages our nations poorest state
“L.A. Health Officials Attempt to Stem Spread of Hepatitis A Outbreak That Has Led to 16 Deaths in San Diego County”
http://ktla.com/2017/09/16/l-a-health-officials-attempt-to-stem-spread-of-hepatitis-a-outbreak-that-has-led-to-16-deaths-in-san-diego-county/
I’m surprised that it took this long to happen. Of course, lice outbreaks at public schools chock full of the illegal’s sprogs has been an ongoing issue for decades.
The Hep A out break here in San Diego is a result of California’s plastic bag ban. The homeless used to use those free plastic bags to defecate in, usually in a bucket or coffee can. Now that they can’t get those free bags, they empty their bowls on the street.
I’ve been tracking the spread and World Famous restaurant has a cook who caught it and the city is warning any patrons from the last few weeks to get tested.
The plastic bag ban was the most idiotic thing we were tricked into supporting in California.
‘Developers have approached a number of these older complexes because of their low density, which result in larger, buildable lots. Taking down 30 condos on an acre or two makes economic sense when you replace it with 200 apartments. Current owners take the windfall of likely double the condos’ market value and run’
‘Much more than a crisis of cities,’ he writes, ‘the New Urban Crisis is the central crisis of our time’ — ‘a crisis of the suburbs, of urbanization itself and of contemporary capitalism writ large.’
Now Dick (can I call you Dick?), these Dallas developers are just taking a page from your book. So just who is to blame for this crisis of capitalism writ large?
Just wondering.
Could a developer get 30 “older” condo owners to sell out in a timely fashion?
I am sure there would be a few hold outs.
Or do they just get their pals at city hall to use eminent domain?
They get a majority on the HOA and run everybody off.
L.A. Hit A Low In Homicides This Summer, Matching Figures From 1966
BY TIM LOC IN NEWS
ON SEP 12, 2017 4:27 PM
There were a total of 59 homicides in L.A. for the months of June, July, and August in 2017, the LAPD announced Tuesday. The city recorded the same number of homicides during the summer of 2014 which, according to the L.A. Times, marked “the fewest killings in a single summer since 1966.”
“Fifty-nine homicides is far too many,” Police Chief Charlie Beck told reporters on Tuesday, reports the Times. But he added that, “that’s a pretty significant accomplishment for this city to have a summer that was that safe.” In recent years the city has normally seen about 70 to 80 homicides per summer. The Times partly credits the drop to, most notably, the hiring of more officers for the LAPD’s Metropolitan Division, and the establishment of a command post in South L.A. for quicker response times.
http://laist.com/2017/09/12/la_homicide_drop_summer.php
Donald Trump’s policies to make America’s cities great again appear to be working.
Open house etc seems slower in the 22151
“[the creative class] created rampant property speculation, soaring home prices, and mass displacement. [They] were just the rich all along, or at least the college-educated children of the rich.”
The idea that freelance graphic designers, art gallery assistants and fashion magazine junior editors all making around $30k a year are capable of fueling asset bubbles has always been a big fat lie designed to snooker investors. The creative class is subject to the superstar effect like everyone else in post-capitalism - a very tiny minority at the top (not nearly enough to fill all those multi-million-dollar apartments) make all the money while the 99% underclass struggle to get by.
To blame the over-worked, impoverished creative class workers for turning cities into a paradise for their betters is like blaming the servants in Downton Abbey for enabling the excesses of the Gilded Age.
The real “mysterious alchemy” was the alliance of Wall Street financialization, elitist globalization, government manipulation of markets and central bank suppression of interest rates and the business cycle, a toxic combination that eviscerated the middle class of all professions.
Asset bubbles are built on made-up stories, fueled by bad policy, and sustained by gullible investors. Florida contributed to the story part significantly, and now he’s blaming the victims to shift focus away from his participation in shaping a discredited narrative that managed to escape the confines of ideology and influence the real world, in the process ruining real lives and wasting the potential of at least two generations of workers. Disgraceful.
Yep, just more deflection by the (((master planners))) so we won’t focus on their crimes and corruption. Instead they want us to blame a bunch of mustachioed hipsters on fixies for the annihilation of the economy and the middle class. Oh, and we must embrace millions of poor from around the world, many of whom want to kill us - just another way (((they))) use deflection and distraction in order to continue perpetrating their crimes without scrutiny. Hell, they’re in charge of most of the regulatory agencies so they never get anything more than a hand slap but Martha Stewart does hard time.
Flower Mound, TX Housing Prices Crater 7% YOY
http://www.movoto.com/flower-mound-tx/market-trends/
The New Corporate Recruitment Pool: Workers in Dead-End Jobs
09/10/17 06:15 PM EDT
By Jennifer Levitz
RICHMOND, Va. — Pressed for workers, a New Jersey-based software company went hunting for a U.S. city with a surplus of talented employees stuck in dead-end jobs.
Brian Brown, chief operating officer at AvePoint, Inc., struck gold in Richmond. Despite the city’s low unemployment rate, the company had no trouble filling 70 jobs there, some at 20% below what it paid in New Jersey. New hires, meanwhile, got more interesting work and healthy raises.
Irvine, Calif.-based mortgage lender Network Capital Funding Corp. opened an office in Miami to scoop up an attractive subset of college graduates — those who settled for tolerable jobs in exchange for living in a city they loved.
“They were not in real careers,” said Tri Nguyen, Network Capital chief executive. He now plans a similar expansion in Philadelphia.
Americans have traditionally moved to find jobs. But with a growing reluctance by workers to relocate, some companies have decided to move closer to potential hires. Firms are expanding to cities with a bounty of underemployed, retrieving men and women from freelance gigs, manual labor and part-time jobs with duties that, one worker said, required only a heartbeat to perform.
With the national jobless rate near a 16-year low, these pockets of underemployment are a wellspring for companies that recognize most new hires already have jobs but can be poached with better pay and room for advancement. That’s preferable to competing for higher-priced workers at home.
https://www.morningstar.com/news/dow-jones/TDJNDN_20170910839/the-new-corporate-recruitment-pool-workers-in-deadend-jobs.html
” But with a growing reluctance by workers to relocate,”….
More piss-poor writing, this time by Jennifer Levitz. They aren’t reluctant to move. They CAN’T move. They cannot afford to live where the good jobs are.
Where do they get these halfwit writers?! New York? DC?
Precisely. They’re all underwater.
How do you know that? Did you speak to the workers involved? That’s an awful lot of outrage there based on nothing.
True, but I also know of a lot of folks in NE Ohio who refuse to leave the state and demand jobs come here. They can move, they just don’t want to.
I won’t speak for other industries, but in tech they won’t hire people in “dead end jobs” (say like tech support) to do higher end work (like say software engineering).
And that’s yet another reason why so many “tech” companies are screwed up.
but in tech they won’t hire people in “dead end jobs” (say like tech support) to do higher end work (like say software engineering).
Not true everywhere; in at least my area of the (ahem) large software company in Redmond WA, it was actually tradition to hire the best and brightest guys out of PSS (Product Support Services) into the product teams.
Mound flower would be a better name
I used to know some people there and stayed a few times. It was a really nice place in the 90’s. Ten acre lots, some kept long-horn cattle behind old fashioned wooden fences. Very picturesque. Probably ruined by now.
Monterey, CA Housing Prices Crater 15% YOY
http://www.movoto.com/monterey-ca/market-trends/
Realtors are liars.
Liars maybe…but do they deserve this ?
“It was a busy night at a downtown Toronto steakhouse Saturday when a gunman strode through the crowded restaurant looking for one man in particular, then opened fire among the tables of diners at Michael’s on Simcoe.
Simon Giannini, a 54-year-old well-known real estate broker with Royal LePage, was shot multiple times and was later pronounced dead in hospital. Toronto Police are now looking for a suspect in what they say is a targeted shooting, though friends and colleagues are stunned as to what could have motivated the attack.”
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/michaels-restaurant-shooting-toronto-1.4293881
Described as a Targeted Shooting…yeah he did someone wrong and ended up paying for it.
“Toronto Home Sales Fall In August, Prices Down 20 Percent From Peak”
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-canada-housing/toronto-home-sales-fall-in-august-prices-down-20-percent-from-peak-idUSKCN1BH1EN
I don’t care what MightyMike says, if I am ever stuck at my house in a flood, don’t send Oprah to save me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1sWsn1Q8lk
So Soori High Line
I can’t believe no one commented on the name of that condo tower—was it just too easy, no sport in it?
Buyers at So Soori will truly end up So Soori.
Is it possible to distinguish between a stock market that always goes up and a bubble?
Oops Bitcoin
“China’s two largest bitcoin exchanges, Huobi and OKCoin, said on Saturday (Sept. 16) that they will halt all trading services for local customers.”
https://qz.com/1079908/huobi-and-okcoin-chinas-two-biggest-bitcoin-exchanges-will-halt-all-trading-services-for-local-customers/
Let’s hope none of those Chinese gamblers borrowed money to play at the casino.
I’m curious about the caveat “local customers”. Does that mean I can still go use them when I’m in town? Or can I only use them from a distance? It’s just interesting that they might be allowed to stay in business for the “right” people.
Weren’t we lectured here that with Bitcoin you don’t need a middleman to convert them into fiats?
“Sometimes selling is the right answer. Often, it’s not. As any homeowner will tell you in the frantic market of the past few years, the question isn’t selling, it’s where do you go next? Selling a $150,000 condo for $300,000 still doesn’t net you a lot of options. Certainly not nearby single-family or even townhome options. For all a seller’s newfound wealth, they’re probably don’t have the income to rent in the building that replaces their home.”
Sounds an awful lot like inflation. Except we only call it inflation if salaries rise. So basically we’ve found a way to print all we want without ever causing “inflation”.