A State Of Fool’s Gold
A report from the Tahoe Daily Tribune. “The Incline Village real estate market is off to a very healthy start in 2018. As properties in good locations hit the market we are witnessing a tremendous amount of showing activity and more multiple offer situations. Since the economy in California continues to produce tremendous wealth, we anticipate a steady stream of buyers to all areas of Lake Tahoe. While the past several years have resulted in many California tax refugees moving to Nevada, that is only part of the equation. Housing prices in the Bay Area have appreciated to the point where properties in Incline Village actually appear relatively inexpensive. So, there is no sticker shock and if anything buyers are surprisingly pleased at how much bang they can get for their buck compared to many Bay Area communities.”
“Longtime observers of the real estate market will naturally start to question whether we are in or near a housing bubble like we saw in the first decade of this century. While there are some statistical indicators that might lead us in that direction, there are notable differences between the current state of the market versus the debacle a decade ago.”
“The vast majority of purchases at Lake Tahoe are discretionary. So, buyers carefully evaluate their financial situation before taking the plunge. We are not seeing the rampant speculation of 2004 to 2007 where buyers were making a purchase and planning to flip the property at a profit in 12 to 24 months. So, the big question is how much more room do we have to run?”
The Orange County Register. “By one widely-watched home-price benchmark, the strongest appreciation nationwide this century was in Los Angeles and Orange counties. When I tossed S&P/Case-Shiller data into my trusty spreadsheet I learned prices in L.A.-O.C. have surged to a nation’s best 171 percent since January 2000. (Ahem, that includes the housing bubble bursting!) And these 21st-century gains easily topped a 105 percent gain for S&P/Case-Shiller’s composite index that tracks all 20 cities.”
“S&P/Case-Shiller shows folks are paying up for housing — even after the painful losses of the last decade — all over the nation. It’s just a bigger bite in L.A.-O.C.”
From the Observer. “Garry Tan, a famed venture capitalist in Silicon Valley, noticed a disheartening pattern in his community lately: people in their mid-30s with children, both working in tech and non-tech industries, are leaving the San Francisco Bay Area due to the area’s uncontrollable housing frenzy. On real estate listing site Redfin, a 848-square-foot, two-bedroom house in Sunnyvale, Calif. was sold for $2 million in February. The price for this house had doubled since 2014. ‘This is what an absurd California housing crisis looks like,’ Tan commented on the listing.”
“Looking at the larger picture, house prices in San Francisco have risen by 76 percent over the past five years, according to Trulia. Since 2007, San Francisco has built over 100 percent more luxury homes, while less than 20 percent of housing for middle-class and low-income residents, according to San Francisco Planning Department data.
From the Daily Californian. “Berkeley’s rent prices continue to climb while apartment rates decrease nationally, according to a report from ABODO. Berkeley saw the fifth-highest increase in the nation in median rents for two-bedroom apartments in March, while Oakland experienced the tenth-highest decrease. Apartment development across the nation is growing, said ABODO spokesperson Sam Radbil, with construction at its highest levels since the 1980s. This is increasing the supply of apartments and driving down prices.”
“Among Berkeley’s new apartments, more expensive units outnumber less-expensive, below-market-rate units by a ratio of nearly 10-to-1, said Berkeley Zoning Adjustments Board chair Igor Tregub. This is far below the regional goal for below-market-rate units, according to Tregub. ‘This is a pattern we’re seeing all over the Bay Area,’ Tregub said.”
From Multi-Housing News. “Jeffery Hayward, head of Fannie Mae’s multifamily mortgage business, sat down with MHN to provide an industry-wide outlook and discuss the GSE’s new initiatives for 2018. What’s your 2018 outlook?”
“Hayward: We expect to do about as much business as in 2017 (more than $67 billion) because we think the size of the market is approximately the same as it was last year. The amount of equity that’s available to invest in the market has increased, and that’s not by accident. The demographics are such that the number of people who want to rent apartments is so large, while the availability of apartments is very low. Equity capital chases opportunity, and since there aren’t enough apartments, rents are increasing, along with investment. I don’t think that dynamic is going to change.”
“Which markets are feeling the greatest impacts of multifamily supply growth? Hayward: The most supply-impacted areas all have strong job markets, so the units will get absorbed. On the other hand, there are other markets that are starved for affordable housing, such as Berkeley, Calif., Oakland, Calif., or San Francisco, where the oversupply is among high-end apartment units. Generally speaking, the oversupply issue pertains to high-end new construction.”
From City Watch LA. “Maybe the business journals are right, and maybe they’re wrong, but if California does have the worst quality of life in the 50 US states, then we can either stop digging the hole we’ve dug ourselves into, or double down and dig ever faster. Metrics are everything, and the metrics saying we’re going down (who cares if we’re 50, or 48, or whatever–we’re not the Land of Opportunity as we once were) includes air quality, pollution, community engagement, and voter participation.”
“Locally, in Los Angeles, we’re emblematic of the same denial and hypocrisy that has long ago converted the Golden State to a State of Fool’s Gold–with self-respecting Angelenos and other Californians bailing to Utah, Texas, Idaho, Arizona, Nevada, etc. ”
“Here are five ways that our ‘leadership’ is diverting and/or ignoring the problems in plain sight (and the voters are letting them, by the way, and/or have concluded that their vote makes no difference): 1) Presume the high cost of housing is the result a natural supply/demand economics.”
“The actual housing vacancy is not known, and nor will our government/utility workers provide that information, but it may be much, MUCH higher than we know. And so long as we avoid the approach to create moderate densification that PRESERVES neighborhoods, and not TRANSFORM them, we will have the YIMBY/NIMBY fight. Who wants to move into a neighborhood that is becoming DIFFERENT than the one we wanted to move into.”
“Much has recently been made of the WIMBY (Wall Street In My Back Yard) of corporate interests mucking up proper development or redevelopment, and precious little has been discussed of foreign, particularly Chinese, investors gobbling up our real estate and leaving a boatload of vacant or inaccessible homes and condos and apartments that could otherwise be used for affordable housing.”
“The shift has hit the fad, and the shifting and fads suggest that Downtown and local/state government has our money … and will do whatever it wants to feed the winners at the expense of the losing majority. And for those of you ‘winners’… congrats on your entitled success. And for those of you ‘losers’… if the game isn’t working your way, play a different game and do what it takes (including moving) to feed your families, your dreams, and the future of your children.”
‘Here are five ways that our ‘leadership’ is diverting and/or ignoring the problems in plain sight (and the voters are letting them, by the way, and/or have concluded that their vote makes no difference): 1) Presume the high cost of housing is the result a natural supply/demand economics’
Those who preach this horse hockey have lead you to this place. Meanwhile governments all over the globe are raising interest rates for speculators, denying foreign purchases, taxing vacant shacks and foreign purchases, clamping down on money laundering. And surprise surprise! Shack and airbox prices are falling like a turd in a well. But go ahead, listen to Leslie. She’s never played you for fools, has she?
The US WANTS that laundered money.
Everybody did for a while and many in the REIC still do. London is the money laundering capital of the world, but their government started closing it off a couple of years ago. It’s probably the biggest housing bubble secret of them all. Canada’s government won’t say it’s a bubble, but they sure popped it.
I’m not saying Chinese speculators drove the price up by themselves. It’s mostly locals. But it provides that idea of an unlimited number of outsider greater-fools necessary to blow it up. Like Californians equity locusts do for Oregon or Las Vegas. Or Latin Americans for Miami. And along comes Mel Watt with the gravy to make it happen.
Yeah, I just posted a locust scenario that hasn’t shown up, but it’s real.
(Kenneth S. Alpern, M.D. is a dermatologist who has served in clinics in Los Angeles, Orange, and Riverside Counties, and is a proud father and husband to two cherished children and a wonderful wife.”
Dr ken its going to pensions- wake up
‘Golden State Engulfed In Poverty: California’s Inequality Epidemic’
‘While some are enjoying luxurious $20 avocado toasts, factory-district lofts, and other perks of the booming tech economy, California is now ranked as having the worst quality of life and the highest poverty rate in the entire United States’
Remember when I first started posting this poverty info a few years ago? Some posters here got might angry and said it wasn’t true. We don’t hear such claims anymore.
The income inequality and rampant poverty was already noticeable when we bailed out and left 20+ years ago. And back then there were no multi mile long Hoovervilles down the street from Disneyland, where rooms at their signature “Grand Californian Hotel” go for $400+ a night and a dinner at the Napa Rose for two can easily top $200.
Hey, poverty with a beach. If you can get there.
Remember the surfer guy who diddled casual hook-ups, slept in ’till noon and ate subsidized lobster?
Because poverty didn’t exist when King Obama was still president…
“Some posters here got might angry and said it wasn’t true. We don’t hear such claims anymore.”
The poor donks. The poor poor donks.
Just got back from a week long family visit / snowboarding trip to Tahoe. We got 4+ feet of snow while there, good timing. Saw so many stressed trees around Tahoe.
The thing Gary Tan said about people in their 30’s leaving is certainly true. How the heck can they afford to stay? I know one family who lives in San Mateo where the father bought a house/lot, tore down and built two sfr’s on it. One for his son, one for his daughter, so they can all be close now that his kids are having his grandkids. They’re certainly the exception. Talking to one of the wife’s cousins in high school there. He said he and his friends pretty much all expect to live elsewhere as adults. Traffic is just bonkers everywhere it seems.
‘In LA, 3 out out of 4 residents can’t afford to buy a new home: report’
‘The average cost of a home, $553K, is more than twice national average’
‘The percentage of Californians who could afford a median-priced home peaked from around early 2009 to early 2012, then dropped sharply over the course of 2012. It has stayed below around 35 percent ever since. The minimum annual income needed to afford a home has doubled from around $53,000 in the five years since the affordability peak in the first quarter of 2012.’
‘Still, Los Angeles County is not the most expensive in Southern California — Orange County tops the list with a median price of $785,000. The median price in San Diego and Ventura County both top $600,000, according the Association of Realtors study.’
The last time I visited Galactic HQ in Santa Clara, I stayed at a nearby hotel, which had a nice free breakfast. As I was waiting for the young Hispanic gal to make an omelette for me, I wondered just how the h e double hockey sticks she managed to survive there. I didn’t ask her, but I’m guessing she either shared a room with a few other people or commuted from 100 miles away, for a job that probably paid $12-14/hr.
I also wondered what she thought of the surrounding neighborhood with its 1 million dollar condos and the dual income 200-300K couples that live in them.
I made small talk with her in Spanish and I think she made my Omelette extra large because I was a “paisano”, even though I’m white and speak Spanish with a Mexico City accent (hers was not).
visited Galactic HQ in Santa Clara”
That’s funny our HQ is up there also. Lots of cranes and buildings last time I was up there maybe 3 years ago.
That place hides incompetence because of demand.
That place hides incompetence because of demand.
If you’re talking about the engineers, I have noticed that in California I don’t have to be as good to stay employed as I did in Colorado. You can get hired in Colorado if you know the right people, but you’ll be gone at the next layoff if you are weak. Maybe that’s true in CA as well, but the layoffs seem to be much shallower and much less often. So it’s a really different feel in the workplace in CA. People think they are better than they are, and look down on the satellite offices that are actually better than they think.
I think the biggest problem in the satellite offices is that there are people there who don’t want to be there but don’t have any other option if they don’t want to move. So that creates a different feel. More like Office Space even though that was set in CA.
That’s what happens when the bar is continuously lowered. Poor employee productivity, laziness, corrupt unions and local government, poverty and crime….. All the things California is famous for.
“California, America’s Poverty Capital”
https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/01/california-poverty-capital-america/
The layoff at the Santa Clara site last year was brutal, over 1000 people got the ax.
FWIW, there were some very sharp people at SCA that were let go last year. People who actually understand UNIX and Linux Kernel stuff, not bozos writing Javascript front ends. They all got snapped up fast by competitors.
You can get hired in Colorado if you know the right people, but you’ll be gone at the next layoff if you are weak.
I suspect this is true anywhere in flyover.
I recall reading an article years ago in the Denver Post, where they interviewed transplants who were throwing in the towel and getting ready to leave. They all basically had the same story: It’s impossible to hang onto a job here. Stories of being laid off in as little as 6 months, saying that it wasn’t like that back wherever they came from. That they came for the lifestyle (skiing, hiking, etc.) and had no idea how bad it was her.
This kind of dovetails with stories of millenials leaving too.
Right. I grew up thinking that was normal. You found a professional level job and hung on for dear life in order to stay where you wanted to stay.
Being in California has really opened my eyes to how different it is if you go to the center of the industry. Not necessarily better. But much different.
Well, maybe yes, maybe no.
Of all the programmers I knew in 2000 here in Silicon Valley, the vast majority left after the dot-coms bombed.
The silicon side can definitely be pretty brutal, too - I know some people who are involved in chip design who are having problems finding good jobs. Maybe it’s great if you’re a “superstar” in some sexy field (like designing machine learning chips), but it can be tough.
Finally, people forget that silicon valley used to have substantial manufacturing (wafer fabs, disk drives, photonics, semiconductor equipment, etc), and a lot of that is gone or going — so what do all those technician level people do now?
so what do all those technician level people do now?
Yeah that may be different. My perspective is coders that are competent but not superstars. Most of the technician level people I know do field applications support and live somewhere else and travel all the time.
Of all the programmers I knew in 2000 here in Silicon Valley, the vast majority left after the dot-coms bombed.
I’ve mentioned the big layoff last year, where 1000+ in Santa Clara got the ax. Well, apparently we’ve been able to rehire some of those people, and some are willing to come back. From what I heard many had to accept short term contract gigs where the pay wasn’t all that.
I once hoped I could buy in Orange County. I watched here as the bubble grew and then burst in 2009 or so. I hoped the prices would revert below the mean. I was wrong. The house prices were propped up and never properly corrected. This was surprising to me at the time, but I concluded that the forces behind keeping the house of cards from a complete collapse were well in control across the world. I had to give up my dream and looked elsewhere. I now live on 38 acres in the high country of Eastern Arizona. I am building my homestead here and paying cash for each step. Solar is almost in and will generate 3.2 Kw to eventually power my bungalow and workshop in addition to the RV I live in now.
I am a tech worker and I have found that there is an arrogance in CA Tech companies as mentioned. I now work remotely 100% of the time for a tech company based in the UK. Almost every job I have landed has been through my network.
I recently read that the Orange County poverty level was $100k. I believe that the demographics are being driven to maximize prices and profits there. To the very rich cost of living is noise on the channel. In many cases these costs are mitigated as “deductions” associated with specious business expenses.
To me it is all a circus, and I did not want to be under the Big Top watching the show any longer.
It’s been a while since I posted. Good to see this blog still engaging with intelligent dialog. Good Job Ben.
It has stayed below around 35 percent ever since. ‘
last bubble it got to 10% affordability
Was talking to a friend, his wife is Chinese. He said she is in real estate, I inquire more. Multi use developments. Basically, Chinese put up $400K or $500K or whatever to buy citizenship and own a chunk of these buildings. Retail on the ground level, apartments or condos on top type of things.
I think the $500K buys them a visa, not citizenship.
That was the first thing Canada cracked down on a few years ago.
Yeah, I seem to recall that the Canucks were selling their version of the Green Card back then.
Hmmm yea green card:
https://www.uscis.gov/greencard/investors
I’m not sure I’d object to a $500K visa. The US would sure make a lot more money than handing out visas to a million kids who just walked in for free. Bring in a million at $500K per pop instead, and that might stave off the pension crisis for a while.
That’s effectively the EB-5 program…although that’s more about investing in job-creating ventures, and not a direct payment to the government for a visa.
If they have that much cash,welcome aboad
‘Among Berkeley’s new apartments, more expensive units outnumber less-expensive, below-market-rate units by a ratio of nearly 10-to-1′
The new stuff: 10 to 1.
‘Jeffery Hayward, head of Fannie Mae’s multifamily mortgage business: The most supply-impacted areas all have strong job markets, so the units will get absorbed. On the other hand, there are other markets that are starved for affordable housing, such as Berkeley, Calif., Oakland, Calif., or San Francisco, where the oversupply is among high-end apartment units. Generally speaking, the oversupply issue pertains to high-end new construction.’
What do you know: Berkeley is oversupplied.
‘Since 2007, San Francisco has built over 100 percent more luxury homes, while less than 20 percent of housing for middle-class and low-income residents’
So how is building more luxury stuff going to make things better? There’s plenty of supply but the only way it becomes affordable is default and foreclosure and lower prices. This is the way you are going. Seems to me it would have been more sane to get rid of the government loan subsidies and let this thing find it’s natural level.
“Garry Tan, a famed venture capitalist in Silicon Valley, noticed a disheartening pattern in his community lately: people in their mid-30s with children, both working in tech and non-tech industries, are leaving the San Francisco Bay Area due to the area’s uncontrollable housing frenzy. On real estate listing site Redfin, a 848-square-foot, two-bedroom house in Sunnyvale, Calif. was sold for $2 million in February. The price for this house had doubled since 2014. ‘This is what an absurd California housing crisis looks like,’ Tan commented on the listing.”
Priced out SF person leaves, goes to Sacramento foothills and pays over asking for a house because “it’s cheap compared to SF.” Priced out Sacramento foothills person leaves, goes to NV and pays over asking for a house because “it’s cheap compared to Sac foothills.” NV person is priced out of housing market completely and, with nowhere to go that’s any cheaper, gets stuck in an apartment rental with skyrocketing rents. Finally, the money just isn’t there for rent so, after getting evicted, living in the car becomes the next best alternative.
I’m sure they’re places in NV boondocks that are still cheap. Don’t know about getting a job there.
Maybe that will be the requirement in the future to get the so called “Universal Income”, you’ll have to move to some small town in BFE flyover. That way the richies can have their coastal paradises without the poor spoiling it for them. Maybe you’ll even need a special passport to visit the coasts.
Being full of idle unemployed free sh!t army members, I imagine those small towns will be idyllic places to live.
It might happen automatically if the free cheese gets cut off in the big city. You shouldn’t need to make it a requirement. Just give free gas or bus tickets (or Uhauls?) to people going the right direction. But the richies need some poor or it takes the fun out of being rich. But it needs to be the poor that have good attitudes. Those are the ones you supply subsidized housing that “meets community standards” after the sorting takes place.
Exactly, someone has to scrub the toilets and other menial work. That way you get rid of the Hoovervilles and they become someone else’s problem.
poor that have good attitudes
Illegal immigrants afraid of being deported tend to have very good attitudes. A tent in the Tenderloin is better than where they came from.
Maybe the conservatives are right when they say Democrats wanted a permanent underclass on the “plantation.”
*sigh* Depressing…
Maybe the conservatives are right when they say Democrats wanted a permanent underclass on the “plantation.”
I had a California lefty friend once upon a time (before she decided I was too deplorable to converse with). Of course if you asked her she was “moderate”. She liked illegal immigration and considered me a racist for questioning it. She felt the deplorables deserved to be undercut by illegals because they weren’t compliant enough toward their betters (her). She also said that it actually wasn’t hurting anybody. I produced a study that said it was depressing wages at the bottom rung by about $2/hr, which was about 20% at the time. She scoffed and said that’s nothing. There wasn’t much more to say…
I’d like to say I was shocked by her comments, but I’m not. I recall a recent conversation with a person who said they were “all for redistribution of wealth”….of course, she said this after flying to an ultra-exclusive vacation spot on her private jet–she must have gotten the notice when there was the original distribution of wealth…I missed the memo and have had to work for what I have.
There is an infamous lunch I attended where a very wealthy left-leaning person talked all about how the wealthy need to pay more in taxes…but then left early for a meeting with her CPA in order to figure out how to avoid a big tax bill.
You do find little pockets of folks on the right even Mid-Peninsula…but you dare not say anything about it in open company.
IMHO, LEGAL immigration is fine. Illegal immigration is not. One reason I’m fully in favor of eliminating the SALT deduction (even though it will probably cost me dearly over time)–if NY wants to pay for all illegals to go to college, that’s fine, but they shouldn’t expect the other 49 states to foot 40% of the bill. With the SALT deduction, that’s what happened.
I’m sure they’re places in NV boondocks that are still cheap. Don’t know about getting a job there.”
Amazon packing boxes and living in cars
Small towns are already “idyllic” enough. Full of drunks, stoners, ex cons and retards. Because they’re cheap rent and short on cops.
If you’re near the interstate, the drugs come to you, too.
Because they’re cheap rent and short on cops.
My Wyoming small town wasn’t cheap or short on cops. In fact a difficult part of being a kid there is the cops are bored, so you get LOTS of negative contact with them if you like to have fun outside the house.
yea that’s how it goes.
At the big 3 in the San Jose area (and several others), free food is given on campus (and it’s really very good, most of the time). The thinking is that if people from these companies leave for lunch, battling traffic, they will have wasted 2-3 hours that could have been spent more productively.
As I was reading this article, I started wondering when they’d also start creating on- or near-campus subsidized housing to keep talent from fleeing to cheaper locales.
As I recall, both Facebook and Google have already started doing this:
https://medium.com/cxo-magazine/google-and-facebook-are-building-the-ultimate-perk-housing-3ec8ba3c4f6b
Thanks for the article, OAM.
The food isn’t free at Santa Clara campus. Sodas are free, but that’s it.
Housing my good friends. Housing.
Jacksonville Beach, FL Housing Prices Crater 6% YOY As Vacation Property Market Demand Collapses
https://www.movoto.com/jacksonville-beach-fl/market-trends/
“S&P/Case-Shiller shows folks are paying up for housing …”
… once again …
“— even after the painful losses of the last decade —”
… a true learning experience …
“… all over the nation.”
A nation populated by vast quantities of totally dumbed-down ignorant pukes.
Real estate is a way out of the ‘hood,” Rodriguez said.
Horse Ed.ah.cation : ” youes cans lead me.es to water, but ya can’t makes me drink.it …”
The Bronx program accepted about 50 teens from three different high schools as well as the City University of New York. They began taking classes through Project Destined, learning the lingo of real estate finance.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/05/alex-rodriguez-jennifer-lopez-boost-inner-city-kids-real-estate-program.html
Sacramento, CA Housing Prices Crater 5% YOY As Mortgages Meltdown
https://www.zillow.com/east-sacramento-sacramento-ca/home-values/
*Select price from dropdown menu on first chart
Okay I’ve started looking into getting decals printed. The size of ones that go on vehicles, with slogans like Overpriced! and Bubble!. Maybe yellow text, black background.
I plan to add them to the new home signs that are in the medians and such everywhere in NoVA.
LOL! Great idea!
Makes me think of those “Now entering California. Felons and illegals welcome.”
Just don’t get caught. I’m sure a judge in the REIC’s pocket will throw the book at you.
Nah, Prop 47 has his back. Keep the damages under $950/occurrence and you’ll skate. I’ve witnessed, in DTLA, people walk into gas station marts and quickly exit with an armload of beer without so much as a “Howdy” to the clerk. Nothing the clerk can do…the LAPD just takes a report if they’re called. The owners just raise prices a bit to cover the shrinkage.
Ethan is in Virginia.
So it’s now legal to steal in CA as long as you keep it under $950? I guess that explains why they Feinstein an out of touch moderate.
Under $500 in va
It’s not legal but LEOs don’t seem to care since there’s not a lot of downside to deter the opportunists.
It also explains the explosion in the vagrant population. Lots of petty theft, minor drug beefs and other “it ain’t so bad” crimes that would, get you locked up in saner parts of the world just nets you hotel vouchers here in SoCal.
Hmm you bring up a good point. If I don’t physically damage their sign, then there is nothing that can be done? Maybe something that is clip on.
I got robbed in a place in NJ where the police didn’t investigate anything less than murder. About 40 years ago. They were pretty upfront about it.
Hmm… sounds like Camden’s south side?
Woodbridge.
fxco intends to raise taxes over 5% that should put a fork in it
fcta.org
Txpyr, do fxco taxes go over the $10K no-no deduct?
$525,000 house runs $5490 taxes
So it’s 1%. I’ve seen worse, like in Texas. Of course they don’t have an income tax. The high mills in Texas weren’t bad when houses were reasonably priced.
Loudoun over here, lemme know if you need help or cash. I’ve always thought classy signs next to Realtors Open House signs would be perfect. This way it’s not a destruction of property and it makes more people think with a catchy phrase.
There is a number of northern VA people on here once again. Maybe we should do a meetup!
I’m in.
Realtors are liars.
… and every closing a crime scene.
Filed under: “man bites alligator!”, or, ” alls eyes know is what eyes read in the digital newspapers” … decisions, decisions …
Over 500 Canadian doctors protest raises, say they’re being paid too much (yes, too much)
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/06/canadian-doctor-protest-their-own-pay-raises.html
Adult dorms in San Francisco, because sharing a bathroom with strangers when you’re 35 years old is so worth it:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/04/technology/dorm-living-grown-ups-san-francisco.html
LOL
Where’s the diversity among these racists?
Everybody is white except the Dreamers painting the hallway and the 40 year old Chinese lady in the last picture.
“Painters work on one of Starcity’s dorm renovations in the Tenderloin neighborhood.Credit Jason Henry for The New York Times”
And they allow dogs. Can dog poo just stay on the sidewalk like people poo?
Tenderloin…..the hotel we stay at is around the corner from there. I was told by a few life long SF residents “For gods sake, do NOT walk towards Tenderloin”!
This is similar to the way adult Americans would live in boarding houses back in the 1920s & earlier. Both my parents lived that way before they got married. My mother’s landlords became personal friends for the rest of their lives. Basically a reversal of the standard of living.
Except boarding houses were cheap, and included meals.
I wonder who keeps the communal kitchen sparkling clean? Also, I don’t think I actually saw anyone cooking in them. Most likely the tenants just warm frozen meals in the microwave.
For a mere $2000+ a month.
Dude, its SF, the fastest way to be ostracized by all your new roomies would be to warm up a microwave meal.
At least they can walk to the Great American Music Hall.
Like I said, I didn’t see a single picture of anyone actually cooking in that kitchen. And it looked clean as a whistle, I doubt anyone has ever cooked a meal there. Kind of like those on premise gyms, no one actually uses them.
They can definitely eat out, but that gets expensive, fast.
They can definitely eat out, but that gets expensive, fast.
True. But stuff like Olive Garden costs about the same in CA as anywhere else. You can eat for 2 days on a $12 spaghetti and meat sauce dinner. Keep a little bit of high protein/low sugar cereal and milk and fruit on hand for brunch and you’re eating for under $10/day with nothing but a microwave for leftovers.
I can’t get to the article now, but I think one of the yuppie residents wanted to “learn how to make Ramen.”
The worst part of that article was the one woman who was laid off from a Verizon store near Atlanta but was offered a job at an SF Verizon store. “So she divorced her husband, packed up her Yorkie,” and went to live in this dorm. Got divorced, just like that.
To be fair, I suspect that many people get married just as whimsically.
Got divorced, just like that.
You find that surprising?
Heh, no wonder I’m a spinster. I never thought of marriage as a whim thing. And it’s much easier to stay single if you can afford it. I gotta feel sorry for that hubby who lost out to the Yorkie. (then again, maybe it wasn’t much of a loss)
I gotta feel sorry for that hubby who lost out to the Yorkie. (then again, maybe it wasn’t much of a loss)
It depends on how much of his wealth he had to fork over to her. Given that she can afford $2000+ a month rent on a Verizon store paycheck, i”m guess that the divorce judge awarded her a tidy monthly sum from her ex.
That my dear, is why some women will “get divorced, just like that”. Some call it receiving cash and prizes for nuking the marriage.
TRESHO:
Three of my eight great grandparents either owned and ran (or came from families that owned and ran) boarding houses from about 1890 to about 1937.
They did okay for themselves most of the time. Made it thru the Depression; sold off the buildings later.
In one case, accommodations offered were cheap (somewhat spartan) but secure. No bs allowed. Offered two square meals daily (breakfast and supper), except Sunday, when you were on your own. Everyone who ate did eat the same meals. No choice of what you were going to eat.
One full bathroom for every four people on average. Bathrooms cleaned daily. Floors cleaned daily. Kitchen cleaned twice daily. On bus routes. Train lines typically 2-6 blocks away.
The vast majority of purchases at Lake Tahoe are discretionary. So, buyers carefully evaluate their financial situation before taking the plunge.
so they can get a job on the lake
So, buyers carefully evaluate their financial situation before taking the plunge.
You’re joking, right?
My family has owned a cabin in Tahoe for the past ~50 years. The immediate neighbor got in over their head, and needed to sell. My uncle at one point thought he’d like to buy a place nearby, got in over his head, and needed to sell.
Some people carefully evaluate their situation, of course. But this is America, the land of spending money you don’t have…same rules apply to Tahoe real estate.
Sorry, didn’t see you were quoting the article…that dude’s smoking something.
Napa, CA Housing Prices Crater 8% YOY As Residents Flee Disastrous State Economy
https://www.movoto.com/napa-ca/market-trends/
Before long we will be competing with robots for dorm space and the robots will outbid us.
Would it be a Reparations Card like SNAP or a Treasury check?
Maxine Waters Promises Reparations For Black Americans
AMBER ATHEY
Media Reporter
11:54 AM 03/05/2018
Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters said during an event in Selma, Alabama on Saturday that she would “be happy” to secure financial reparations for black Americans.
WATCH:
Waters said as long as Democrats win back the House in 2020 and are able to get a president who is friendly to their agenda, it would be “wonderful” to get reparations.
“I’d be happy to do that. That’s no problem,” Waters said when an event attendee pressed her to support reparations.
“If we want to get to the point where we can get reparations, we’ve got to have the power to do that, number 1, by having a supportive president would be wonderful, but taking back the House would be absolutely wonderful,” she continued.
http://dailycaller.com/2018/03/05/maxine-waters-promises-reparations-for-black-americans/
They don’t need reparations, they can just move to Wakanda!
If a Dem controlled House, Senate and Prez (Obama) couldn’t do it, who can.
Plus they already get reparations, every year. It’s called the Earned Income Tax Credit.
Two racis replies in three minutes. Bad racis, bad racis.
I have a get of jail free card:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mexican_passport.jpg
I had my DNA run. I am about 1% African American. Do I get REPARATIONS?
Do I get REPARATIONS?
You may, if lucky, get 1% of what the full-bloods get. Some Indian tribes pay out their oil royalties with similar mathematics.
Would it be a Reparations Card like SNAP or a Treasury check?
You’d be paid in Tubmans.
Got two tens for a Tubby?
Check out what they’re doing in South Africa. Taking away the Boer’s (white’s) farms. Period. This by black folks who were invaders themselves. It’s never about equality, it’s about conquest.
Mugabe did this in Zimbabwe. Interestingly enough, the new reform-minded president, Mnangagwa, is making restitution payments to compensate for taken land.
Yes, I read somewhere in all of this that if they were to turn over the land to its original settlers, they’d have to go back hundreds of years to find the first tribe.
And then tonight I saw some headline that a course being taught at Brown University blames “whitelash” for Trump’s win.
You are right, it’s not about equality, never was, never will be.
South Africa is rapidly becoming the next Zimbabwe. A disaster.
I’ll be very surprised if South Africa isn’t wholly Marxist within 15 years. The transformation toward Marxism there is hardly new, but the pace is definitely quickening.
I’d be very surprised if South Africa isn’t wholly under the yoke of the Chicoms within 5 years. So I guess you’d be right.
If they last that long. Cape Town is on the verge of having no tap water. Once the farms are confiscated famine will be close behind. It will be true justice when SA’s neighbors seal their borders to keep South Africans out.
Why is it that white folks have to pay reparations for what their ancestors(?) did 60+ years ago, but the Dreamer/DACAs get rewarded for what their parents did only 15 years ago?
My white ancestors were slaves of the British in Paisley thread mills.
Not just “white folks”, but anyone who pays taxes. So Indians and other Asians “owe” black people reparations. Hispanics too.
Yeah, that’s gonna be an easy sell. Reminds me of all the black people who thought Obama was going to bury them in cash.
“did 60+ years ago,”
150
African Americans were repressed long after the Civil War. So I went with the approximate time of the Civil Rights Act of 1965, which repealed the last of the Jim Crow laws. More like 50 years.
I thought “slavery was the bar for reparations.
If what you say is true then tell Maxine Waters to sign my Irish @ss up for some reparations.
“No Irish need apply”
u need to pay! Its only fair they get a check.
Never mind, I want a full cut anyway.
The Irish Slave Trade – The Forgotten “White” Slaves
The Slaves That Time Forgot
By John Martin
Global Research, March 17, 2015
Oped News 14 April 2008
https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-irish-slave-trade-the-forgotten-white-slaves/31076
ca needs to send a check to all the chinese laborers that got hosed in the gold rush.
“Its only fair they get a check.”
They’ll still be poor… even with money.
So I went with the approximate time of the Civil Rights Act of 1965, which repealed the last of the Jim Crow laws. More like 50 years.
Jim Crow laws existed only in certain states. Are the rest of us who never had any connection to the south exempt from paying for this then?
Gettysburg (1993)
Quotes
Lieutenant Thomas D. Chamberlain: I don’t mean no disrespect to you fighting men, but sometimes I can’t help but figure… why you fightin’ this war?
Rebel Prisoner: Why are you?
Lieutenant Thomas D. Chamberlain: To free the slaves, of course. And preserve the Union.
Rebel Prisoner: I don’t know about other folk, but I ain’t fighting for no darkies one way or the other. I’m fightin’ for my rights. All of us here, that’s what we’re fighting for rights.
[pronounces it 'rahts']
Lieutenant Thomas D. Chamberlain: Your what?
Rebel Prisoner: For our rights. The right to live my life like I see fit. Why can’t you just live the way you want to live, and let us live the way we do? Live and let live, I hear some folks say. Be lot less fuss and bother if more folks took it to heart.
Lieutenant Thomas D. Chamberlain: Where’d you get captured?
Rebel Prisoner: From a cut just west of Gettysburg town. Wasn’t a pretty sight. Many a good boy lost a young and promising life. Some wore blue and some wore gray. Seen enough of this war?
Lieutenant Thomas D. Chamberlain: I guess I have.
Rebel Prisoner: I guess I have too. Looks like I’m gonna be sittiing out the rest of it.
Lieutenant Thomas D. Chamberlain: Well, I appreciate you talking to me.
Rebel Prisoner: [salutes] See you in hell, Billy Yank.
Lieutenant Thomas D. Chamberlain: [salutes] See you in hell, Johnny Reb.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107007/quotes
when u own a home u automatically have more credibility than a renter.
Castle Rock, CO Housing Prices Crater 10% YOY
https://www.movoto.com/castle-rock-co/market-trends/
Weekly Summary: HBB-Reported Purchase Price Declines
Posted every Tuesday. YTD list and key posted first Tuesday of the month.
–
#Feb 28 - March 6
> -50% Manhattan / AVG SP DEV CND (mom -Jan18)
> -46.2% Western Australia - Crawley / VAL CND PIX (yoy -Nov17)
> -40% Los Angeles - Silver Lake 90027 / MED CND (yoy -Dec17)
> -37.2% Western Australia - Burswood / VAL PIX (yoy -Nov17)
> -20% Los Angeles - Los Feliz 90039 / MED CND (yoy -Dec17)
> -17.4% Manhattan / AVG SP CND+COP (mom -Jan18)
> -17% Los Angeles - Silver Lake 90027 / MED SFR (yoy -Dec17)
> -6.7% Los Angeles - Los Feliz 90039 / MED SFR (yoy -Dec17)
> -4.4% Toronto (yoy -Jan18)
> -3.7% Sydney / VAL PIX (July17P-Feb18)
> -2.4% Sydney / VAL PIX (Nov17-Feb18)
> -2% Los Angeles - Hollywood Hills 90068 / MED SFR (yoy -Dec17)
> -1.6% Auckland / AVG (mom -Feb18)
> -1.2% Auckland / MED (mom -Feb18)
> -1.2% Australia - capital cities (Dec17-Feb18)
> -1.1% Auckland / AVG (Dec17-Feb18)
> -0.8% Australia / VAL PIX (Sept17-Feb18)
> -0.5% Sydney / VAL PIX (yoy -Feb18)
> -0.3% UK / AVG (mom -Feb18)
Gary Cohn’s out. Kudlow as a replacement? Kudlow????? Or Navarro. Gimme Navarro.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-03-06/gary-cohn-resigns
Navarro would be great! He is the only one in the room who sees what is going on in our sham economy.
Couldn’t agree more, Mike. He was marginalized in the administration at first, but kept his head down and did his work. It would appear he has won this round.
I think free trade is all well and good, as long as it is fair.
They called him “Globalist Gary” at the white house.
That was Bannon’s name for him, supposedly. I imagine Navarro agreed.
It is interesting to note that along with this tariff situation, NK appears to be making somewhat conciliatory noises about de-nuking. I have always been of the opinion that NK is basically a proxy for China.
cocaine kudlow is the answer!
Would now be a good time to BTFD?
How a tariff-rattled stock market is reacting to Cohn’s resignation from the Trump White House
By Mark DeCambre and William Watts
Published: Mar 6, 2018 10:29 p.m. ET
Dow futures tumble more than 400 points at lows amid news of the resignation of Trump’s key economic adviser
…
DIRTY FLOATS !
How do DIRTY FLOATS compare as an economic policy to Beggar Thy Neighbor?
southeast asia and japan have been printing money like madmen domestically so they can export product to the USA!
If the dollar were to crater then they would receive less of their own currency when they converted their dollars from sales to USA.
So propping up the dollar by massive money printing allowed the exports to flow to USA.
Now you know why the dollar didnt freefall after all the QE programs.
Whoa. First trade, now sanctuary states.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-03-06/us-sues-sanctuary-state-california-over-immigrants
Something tells me the Oakland mayor is about to become a very unpopular personage in her state, on account of I think she was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
‘In the new lawsuit, expected to be filed today in federal court in Sacramento, the Justice Department wants to nullify Assembly Bill 450, which prohibits private companies from voluntarily cooperating with federal immigration agencies; Senate Bill 54, which restricts state and local law enforcement officials from voluntarily giving federal agents information about criminal aliens who are subject to removal from the U.S.; and Assembly Bill 103, which authorizes state authorities to review and inspect federal detention facilities in California.’
‘And as WaPo notes, the Justice Department will enter court as the plaintiff in a suit, forcing California to appear as the defendant and make the case that its actions are legal.’
‘Of course, Federal law trumps State law, unless, of course, California state officials want another civil war over states rights (which we suspect would be a problem given their lack of gun ownership).’
Where’s Rio with his “feds have the final say always”?
The calm before the storm, and now the storm is here. Looks like it’s on like donkey-kong. I don’t think Cali can afford the lawsuit. Calpers and all that.
crushing.housing.losses.
400k shacks are still selling well. pay your landlords bills B@Tch!
Housing my friend
Albany, OR Housing Prices Crater 22% YOY
https://www.movoto.com/albany-or/market-trends/
“The latter originated in the Fed’s flood of excess dollars into the international financial system in the 1990s and thereafter. This, in turn, caused central banks in Asia, much of the EM, the petro-states and sometimes Europe, too, to buy dollars and sequester them in US treasury paper (and GSE securities).
This Dirty Float was undertaken, of course, to stop exchange rate appreciation and to further mercantilist trade and export-based domestic economic policies in China, South Korea, Japan and elsewhere.
In short, the $15 trillion plague of US trade deficits since 1975 is the bastard step-child of the Dirty Float maintained in Asia and elsewhere as a defense against the Fed’s profligate money printing. Over time, it morphed into a back-door form of de facto export subsidies that would otherwise be illegal under the current WTO rules of global trade.
Needless to say, China was not the only Dirty Float malefactor. The Japanese have been far worse. Since 1990 the balance sheet of the BOJ has expanded by 20X, thereby insuring that the yen exchange rate versus the dollar remained uneconomically low, and that Japan’s egregiously mercantilist trade policy would remain undisturbed by honest yen selling prices for its goods sold on the international markets.
Not surprisingly, it turns out that the land of Dirty Floats accounts for the 90% of the $810 billion trade deficit incurred by the US last year.”
http://davidstockmanscontracorner.com/its-not-bad-trade-deals-its-bad-money-part-2/
The Clintons, The Red Cross & BOXES OF BILLIONS IN CASH
SGTreport
Published on Jan 18, 2018
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TaPWeRmc7SQ
how many walmart jobs does it take to support a state worker these days?
For how much longer will regulators tolerate the divergence of valuable productive resources to the production of worthless virtual coinage?
Is Bitcoin a Waste of Electricity, or Something Worse?
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2018/02/28/business/economy/bitcoin-electricity-productivity.html?referer=https://getpocket.com/recommendations
Tom Pillsworth, right, whose company operates and maintains Bitcoin machines located at a former paper warehouse in Plattsburgh, N.Y.
Credit Jacob Hannah for The New York Times
By Binyamin Appelbaum
Feb. 28, 2018
WASHINGTON — A manufacturing start-up recently announced plans to move into a shuttered aluminum factory in upstate New York, taking advantage of abundant cheap electricity from the St. Lawrence River.
Instead of smelting aluminum, however, the company plans to turn that power into Bitcoins.
Money is supposed to be a means of buying things. Now, the nation’s hottest investment is buying money. And the investment rush is raising questions about whether one reason for the slow pace of economic growth in recent years is that the nation is busy distracting itself. While Bitcoin mining may not be labor intensive, it diverts time, energy and capital from other, more productive activities that economists say could fuel faster growth.
…
Here’s how much it costs to mine a single bitcoin in your country
By Aaron Hankin
Published: Mar 6, 2018 3:13 p.m. ET
Looking to mine bitcoin on the cheap? Head to Venezuela
Getty Images/iStockphoto
So-called bitcoin mining is a hot topic of in the cryptocurrency world.
That’s chiefly because of the rising electricity costs associated with creating new digital coins.
Lately, miners have flocked to Iceland, known for its relatively moderate climate and the abundance of hydropower. In fact, bitcoin mining energy consumption is set to exceed private consumption, an energy expert told the BBC. And according to the Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index, global energy usage of all bitcoin mining already is equivalent to the power uptake of the country of Denmark, with a population of 5.7 million, and will eventually approach Bangladesh, a country of 163 million people.
In search of cost savings, cryptocurrency miners traverse the globe to take advantage of cheaper energy. Those virtual miners perform a crucial function within the blockchain, or the decentralized ledger technology that underpins most cryptocurrencies, by solving complex problems to validate transactions on the network, In exchange for this function, which powers miners are rewarded with bitcoins.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/heres-how-much-it-costs-to-mine-a-single-bitcoin-in-your-country-2018-03-06
…
What the report (see table attached) found is that the U.S. rank 41st among countries, with an average costs for mining bitcoin of $4,758 a bitcoin, close to other popular mining destinations Russia at $4,675 and the aforementioned Iceland at $4,746. That means that investors would be able to make a profit with bitcoin’s current value at $10,616, according to research and data site CoinDesk.
…
So, off to Trinidad and Tobago then, right?