Everywhere You Look, It’s Vacant Houses
A report from Newsday on New York. “The waterfront Hamptons estate known as Villa Maria boasts 11 bedrooms, Carrara-marbled baths, arched windows overlooking formal gardens, a heated pool, tennis court, guesthouse — and a $51 million discount off its original price. The 15-acre former convent in Water Mill, previously owned by the late shoe designer Vince Camuto, was listed in 2008 for $100 million. It sold last month for $49 million to two separate buyers; one paid $36 million for 11 acres, including the 20,000-square-foot main house on Mecox Bay, and the remaining land traded for $13 million, said a spokesman for Sotheby’s International Realty.”
“Other luxury properties also have gotten steep price cuts this year. On Monday, a 10,000-square-foot oceanfront home on 6 acres in East Hampton fetched a closed-sale price of $40 million, according to Sotheby’s, which represented the seller. It was a markdown of $29 million from the 2016 asking price. Lasata, the onetime childhood summer home of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, sold in January; a 7-acre piece of the East Hampton estate, including the 10-bedroom home, closed for $24 million, down about $15 million from its 2016 listing price, public records show.”
“‘All the whiplash we’ve been going through . . . makes the high-end buyer pull back,’ said Judi Desiderio, chief executive of Town & Country Real Estate in East Hampton. ‘We’re a luxury item. They don’t need to spend $20 million on a high-end home when they can rent it for $1 million.’”
“It’s a change from the heady days of 2014, when an East Hampton estate sold for $137 million, breaking national home price records. At that time, the median Hamptons home price was posting annual gains of as much as 26.5 percent, rising to $975,000 in the last three months of 2014, a report by Manhattan-based appraisal company Miller Samuel and brokerage Douglas Elliman shows.”
“With such dramatic gains not so long ago, ‘the market got away from some of the sellers in terms of their expectations about what their homes were worth,’ said Martha Gundersen, an associate broker with Brown Harris Stevens in East Hampton.”
From The Real Deal on Florida. “Continuum investor Stuart Eichner just sold his Continuum South Beach unit for $9.3 million, a 28 percent discount off the original ask. Eichner, who invested in the Continuum project, is the brother of developer Ian Bruce Eichner, whose Continuum Company built the $440 million, two-tower condominium in 2002 and 2008. The Eichners first listed the three-bedroom, 3,000-square-foot unit condo in 2016 for $12.9 million, or $4,300 per square foot, the took it off the market for a few months and relisted it the following year for $11.5 million, or $3,800 per square foot. It just sold for about $3,070 a foot.”
“In 2015, his brother, Ian Bruce Eichner, listed his four-story penthouse at the Continuum for $50 million, or $4,519 per square foot. It is no longer on the market.”
The Houston Chronicle in Texas. “Harvey forever changed Houston’s real estate market. It clobbered property values, and it raised them. In February, Sam Scott said goodbye to the Memorial Bend home he and his wife raised three children in and painstakingly renovated over two decades. After Harvey flooded his neighborhood and a nearby wastewater treatment plant overflowed, filthy sludge sat in the house for days. The Scotts felt they had no choice but to tear it down.”
“They put their nearly 10,000-square-foot property up for sale for $550,000, a discount from what lots were selling for pre-Harvey. After dropping the price by $25,000, they accepted a builder’s offer for $500,000. Bernie Otten was able to return to his flooded home in The Woodlands in less than four months, but some of his neighbors still aren’t back. About 100 homes in Otten’s Timarron Lakes neighborhood flooded during Harvey. Some owners sold right away to investors, for a fraction of their homes’ pre-storm value.”
“‘I think there will be more people moving and more people who lease their houses,’ Otten said. ‘The market’s going to be soft.’”
“In Meyerland, one of the neighborhoods hit by flooding three years in a row, 163 homes are for sale or rent, more than 7 percent of the properties there. But still-unoccupied homes make up what’s being called a ’shadow inventory.’ These properties are not being actively marketed, but their owners would sell for the right price.”
The Baltimore Sun in Maryland. “Barbara Stokes stood on the stoop of her home at the edge of the Druid Heights neighborhood of West Baltimore and surveyed the line of row houses across the street. Every one of them was vacant. But that’s not the worst of it. In January, police found the body of a 41-year-old man in one of the houses, dead from an overdose. A week earlier, a 30-year-old man was found dead outside another.”
“Stokes, who grew up in the neighborhood and has lived in her current home for four decades, said the houses are open for people to come and go. ‘They need to do something, because these vacants are creating a lot of problems,’ the 79-year-old retiree said. ‘Everywhere you go, everywhere you look, it’s vacant houses,’ she said. ‘It looks like it’s more vacant houses in the city than occupied houses. It seems like it never changes.’”
“On that last count, Stokes is basically right. In 2010, in the wake of the global financial crisis that wrecked the local housing market, officials counted 16,800 vacant buildings in Baltimore. They decided to take action. Then-Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake launched the much-lauded Vacants to Value program, and the city put millions of dollars from a legal settlement with the banks behind the crisis toward demolishing entire blocks at a time. The state added millions more to bring down more blocks. Pugh, who took office at the end of 2016, has sought to expand that effort.”
“The result? Eight years and tens of millions of dollars later, officials count 16,500 vacant buildings in the city.”
From Maui Now in Hawaii. “Over the last few years, Maui’s housing inventory has dropped to record lows and prices have reached near-record highs, for buyers and renters. A recent report by the Hawai‘i Appleseed Center for Law and Economic Justice states that vacation rental units put pressure on Hawaiʻi’s already-stressed housing market by reducing homes for Hawai‘i residents and driving up rents. The report adds that 1 in 7 housing units on Maui is a vacation rental unit. In Lahaina, it is 1 in 3.”
“Hawaiʻi’s housing costs are among the highest in the nation with workers earning the lowest wages in the country after accounting for cost of living. The Appleseed report adds that the proliferation of short term VRUs—the majority of which are operated by nonresidents—has added another pressure point by further limiting the availability of housing for local families.”
“‘Given the enormous economic incentives, it is inevitable that opportunists will use VRUs to commercialize Hawai‘i’s neighborhoods. Hosts are overwhelmingly speculators and investors who benefit from the escalating price of housing in Hawaiʻi, and our property tax rate, which is the lowest in the nation,’ the report states.”
From CBS SF Bay Area in California. “The Lake Tahoe you see in the vacation ads usually features the famous, pristine lake, snow-capped Sierra Nevada mountains, luxury beachfront residences and nearby ski resorts. The Tahoe you don’t see has blocks of rundown, cheap motels that have become the last resort for the everyday workers who support the local economy. About 75 percent of the homes in the Tahoe Basin are second — vacation homes. In the affluent Tahoe Keys neighborhood, for example, it’s not uncommon to see empty houses. A 4,500 square foot lakefront property on Beach Drive is listed at $6.5 million.”
“Nearly everything South Lake Tahoe resident Christine Grissom, her 11-year-old daughter and her husband own fits into one suitcase. They have been living this way for the past nine months. ‘You know what’s scary is I am the normal and that’s the hard part. You’ve seen what I’ve seen in the Bay Area, I lived in the Bay Area, the majority of us are a half a paycheck away from being on the street,’ she said.”
“She came to Lake Tahoe in search of affordable housing and found work as a Safeway cashier and a bus dispatcher. Today she makes $32,000 a year as a clerk at the El Dorado County recorder’s office. ‘You work and you’re homeless. That’s ironic to me, I just never thought it was going to be this way — especially being an American,’ she said. ‘In all honesty, all I want to do is work 40 hours a week, have four walls and a pizza. I just don’t want to see the carnage of our economy anymore.’”
‘Nearly half of the rents in Brooklyn’s major retail corridors dropped during the winter, according to a Real Estate Board of New York report. The average asking rents dipped in seven of 15 shopping strips with the largest decrease on Franklin Street between Meserole Avenue and Commercial Street in Greenpoint. The area saw a 36 percent drop to $57 per square foot from $89 last year. Diana Boutross of Cushman & Wakefield said the numbers were mirrored citywide because of inflated prices.’
“The rents are adjusting because the rents are too high, the volumes are dropping, and it’s basically a correction in retail rents,” Boutross said.’
North Bethesda, MD Housing Prices Crater 9% YOY As Federal Budget Impacts NoVA/DC Market
https://www.movoto.com/north-bethesda-md/market-trends/
Nothing is cratering in the Sacramento Foothills.
Rental inventory is low for SFRs, although it is increasing….probably a 1.5% availabilty.
Sale inventory is even tighter, probably less than 1% of inventory available for purchase in the $200k to $500k range. Most listings sell quickly (2-3 weeks or less). The upper end ($1 million plus) is much slower. with probably 12 months or more of inventory.
We are halfway through Prof. Bear’s 5-year prediction in December 2015 that my house will be worth less in December 2020 than in 2015.
“….Comment by Professor Bear
2015-12-18 08:08:37
I predict your house will be worth less in five years than it is today, even according to Zillow……”
Note: Zillow Value on Dec. 1, 2015 = $701,000
Note: Zillow Value on May 1, 2018 = $743,000 (up 6% in 2.5 years)
So far the value seems to be holding up, but it did get down to $685,000 in early 2017.
DegenerateGambler
Arlington, VA Housing Prices Crater 14% YOY
https://www.movoto.com/arlington-va/market-trends/
Nothing is cratering in the Sacramento Foothills.
It’s been a pretty good spring for the majority of sellers. But I do notice a LOT of houses going pending and then going back on the market multiple times. Not sure how normal that is.
Getting financing is very tough for buyers these days. Lots of deals fall out for this reason.
‘Mattie Shoemaker-Young owns a flower shop off Veronica Shoemaker in Fort Myers. She’s lived in the area her entire life and has seen properties deteriorate with little consequence. “Been a lot of promises, a lot of talk but no real action,” she said.’
‘The City of Fort Myers says that right now, it doesn’t have a formal foreclosure process that is clear and cost efficient. They suspended such programs after the housing collapse in 2009, leaving some neighbors stuck living next to rundown buildings.’
‘But under a new proposal, the city can fine properties that pose a threat to the health or safety of people living nearby. If nothing is done after three months, code enforcement can then order a foreclosure.’
Gee - no one could have seen that coming. I am sure it was done for the children though.
+++++
“They suspended such programs after the housing collapse in 2009, leaving some neighbors stuck living next to rundown buildings.’”
This is the future.
Anytown, USA.
Who in the world us going to pay for the upkeep of all these deserted buildings? All the spec property nationwide that will never find an owner or a tenant?
Choice A: Crumbling buildings, wasted cities.
Choice B: Socialized housing, wasted cities.
Many Detroits of all sizes, all over the country.
Free money ain’t about to remain in such places. Yellen bucks won’t remain in such places. Yellen bucks will filter elsewhere, ruining more cities. And lives.
It’ll be worse in China, with empty cities full of unoccupied, rapidly decaying high-rise apartment buildings for decades to come.
“…Choice A: Crumbling buildings, wasted cities…”
I am constantly appalled how cheaply and poorly so many of these tract homes are constructed.
Materials quality and construction quality are pathetic.
Even under best of circumstances, maintenance is constant.
An empty un-maintained home will self destruct.
And cheap construction will guarantee that will happen sooner rather than later.
Only long range solution is to bulldoze the site and start over.
What a scam.
‘From house to house, half a dozen homeowners in a Valrico subdivision showed us hundreds of cracking, popping and hollow tiles. Working couples and retirees shelled out $300K to $400K for their brand new forever homes between two and three years ago.’
‘Some, like Laura Burch, says she wakes up every day thinking about and worrying what the future holds for her and her neighbors. The builder, Alpha Homes, which also does business as Suarez Housing, provided a one year warranty. Every homeowner we interviewed except for one showed us proof via certified mail, texts, or emails they reported hollow, popping or cracking tiles during their first year.’
‘Suarez honored the warranty in some cases, replacing rooms full of tiles for both Laura Burch and Tom Wodka but now less than a year later the same defect affects the new tiles. Every homeowner we met with says they can’t get the builder to respond.’
‘Alpha Homes and Saurez Housing appear to be winding down operations. The office sits vacant and we could find only a handful of homes they pulled permits for in the last year.’
‘The owner Robert Suarez did not return our calls and this gate stopped us from knocking on his door. But we did speak to his attorney. Mickey Keenan says they will work with homeowners and sub-contractors to find out what caused the defects in the tile and come up with a resolution.’
‘Tired of waiting Tom Wodka has filed suit against the builder who in turn is suing three of its subcontractors. Other Suarez homeowners are filing complaints with state regulators and applying for relief from the Florida Construction Recovery Fund. The fund governed by state law to provide relief to Florida homeowners who’ve been financially harmed by a licensed contractor.’
Wow - that is a HECK of a warranty.
I could be wrong - I am sure that is NOT what it said at the time of sale.
But I really hate warranties. They are not even worth the paper they are written on. Usually full of legalize and nearly impossible to use to get something fixed.
But salesmen LOVE them.
++++
“Mickey Keenan says they will work with homeowners and sub-contractors to find out what caused the defects in the tile and come up with a resolution.’”
But I really hate warranties. They are not even worth the paper they are written on. Usually full of legalize and nearly impossible to use to get something fixed.
But salesmen LOVE them.
You’re making me think of the movie “Tommy Boy”.
I think this is the scene you’re thinking of. Love it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEB7WbTTlu4
If the tiles cracked again after being fixed by the builder, it must be something structural going on with the property. They can continue to fix it again and again and the tiles will continue to crack. The builder , will then blame everyone else from the designer, engineer and sub contractors.
It will be a legal nightmare and homeowners will have to wait years to get this resolved.
** This is why you never purchase from blo and go development. These guys are there to make a profit, and everyone else’s expense.
The owner has a claim against the seller. There isn’t enough information there to identify who will pay up. Defective spec? Defective materials? Defective installation? You don’t know and neither does the writer.
Thre’s only one party that’s not answering the phone.
Defective $1500 tile jobs are a piss poor reason to close up shop. It could be his work but it also might be incorrectly specified materials which is the engineers fault. Bad batch of Durock or adhesive results in same failure, sometimes.
The issue is - to what ever the tile is attached to is MOVING or SHIFTING.
Tile ( a hard surface) and grout (a hard surface) can not flex. So, it cracks
So the wall or floor is the issue.
And the question is - why is the floor and walls flexing and shifting?
Not enough floor braces? Undersized floor braces? Shifting foundation?
Expansive soils can do that to houses build on a slab. Many if not most houses in SoCal have a cracked slab. In our old Escondido house, only the entry had tile. I suspect that hardwood and laminate floors can handle flexing better.
The things I learn on this blog never cease to amaze me. The more I read about stuff like this, the more my eyes are opened to these hidden risks that can cripple oneself financially.
Expansive soils are a big deal out west. You will encounter sections of the Interstate that are not flat, sometimes with signage warning of “heaves”.
Usually when a house is built in the Centennial State, an expansive soil test will be done after the basement has been dug. If none are found, the basement’s floor will be concrete, otherwise it will be a wooden floor on joists, sort of like a crawl space.
“The more I read about stuff like this, the more my eyes are opened to these hidden risks that can cripple oneself financially.”
The more I read this blog, the less I want to buy a house!
I know for a fact that Saint George has expansive soil so be careful. I remember stories about it when I lived in SLC.
And the expansive clay soils are not limited to places like Colorado or Texas either (google for a nationwide map). I did a project outside of Denver where we had to drill pilings 128 feet deep to support the entire building, due to this problem. And all of the underground utilities had to have slip couplings or expansion fittings on them to account for ground movement.
Then I found out that my home in the Seattle area has the exact same problem! One evening in October, our fireplace mantle tipped so much that it dumped everything sitting on top of it onto the floor. The clay soil underneath the exterior wall foundation got wet from the fall rain, causing the exterior wall to lift relative to the fireplace foundation which is separate from the house footing. The 4×6 wood mantle was glued to the top of the fireplace and also to the wallboard with construction adhesive, so when the wall raised, it tipped the mantle.
Oh, and my garage slab has been settling on either side as well, such that the garage door when closed is flush with the slab in the center, but has a 2″ gap on each edge. It wasn’t like that when I bought the house 20 years ago (sigh).
It serves to remind us that everything that we build is temporary, and is subject to the whims and fury of mother nature.
Were piles in the contract documents my good friend?
The more I read about stuff like this, the more my eyes are opened to these hidden risks that can cripple oneself financially.
But it is not in wikipedia.
Like these high-end homes in Boise, Idaho …
https://www.ktvb.com/article/news/local/birds-eye-view-homes-in-boise-foothills-continue-to-slide-crumble/277-428919117
“Like these high-end homes in Boise, Idaho…”
Funny to see “high end” and Boise used together.
Yeah :-). I guess everything is high end now.
But really you can buy a lot in Harris North http://www.boisehunterhomes.com/communities/boise-idaho/harris-north/ on a hill in Boise
Time to lawyer up…
Valrico is in west central Florida.
Kalaheo, Hawaii Housing Prices Crater 15% YOY As Pacific Rim Housing Correction Accelerates
https://www.zillow.com/kalaheo-hi/home-values/
*Select price from dropdown menu on first chart
Lack of inventory…
Translation: Plenty of way over-priced crack shacks for sale. Not so many house for sale that make financial sense for the buyers (Hey - we are not going to give it away!).
Rising interest rates + DJT new tax laws + QE unwind = the tipping point
+++++
Pending Home Sales Decline For 4th Straight Month, Weather Blamed
ZeroHedge - Mon, 04/30/2018 - 10:17
Unadjusted pending home sales dropped 4.4% YoY (the 4th straight month of declines - the longest streak since 2014)…
“Healthy economic conditions are creating considerable demand for purchasing a home, but not all buyers are able to sign contracts because of the lack of choices in inventory,” Lawrence Yun, NAR’s chief economist, said in a statement.
Purchases dropped 5.6 percent in the Northeast, reflecting multiple winter storms…
It occurs to me that many who voted for Trump might be disenchanted upon finding that their “sweet equity” is gone and that they’re now underwater. They might even be tempted to vote for Senator Running Deer AKA “Hope and Change 2.0″ in 2020.
If your theory was true then why are no red states in near rebellion over the new DJT $10,000 limit for real estate/income tax and MID limit on Federal income taxes?
Seems only blue states are going wacko over this.
What’s the percentage of red state people significantly affected by this? If they are only a little affected they might accept it just for the entertainment value of watching the drama on the coasts.
I know of no one in flyover who’s talking about it. And no one is talking about how it is affecting the coasts.
I do know of several people appreciative of the income tax cuts.
They’re going wacko over not being able to deduct the local taxes, not over plummeting house values, which hasn’t happened yet.
There are red states that are bubbly and frothy too. If those housing markets crash, voters will blame Trump.
It is perfectly plausible that the bubble bursts in the high tax blue states due to the tax cuts and the resultant fleeing of tax payers. The lower tax states may not have a significant drop due to the influx of residents and the fact that the tax benefits for lower price homes and or lower taxed homes is still largely intact. Few people in red states are going to get impacted by the restrictions on deductibility and most of them gained more benefits from the corporate cuts than they will lose.
The lower tax states may not have a significant drop due to the influx of residents and the fact that the tax benefits for lower price homes and or lower taxed homes is still largely intact.
That’s a bug maybe. If we get another Great Recession with a housing crash, Trump will be blames, whether he deserves it or not.
Yes but the chance of a Great Recession after the feeble recovery is slim. The excesses in the economy are no where near 2006. The savings rate was much lower than today and the housing bubble has not reached flyover to the same degree, we are in much better shape on our energy situation. $100 plus oil maybe is even beneficial this time, it will boost not only oil but NG and coal exports and alternative energy industries which are much bigger this time. It was $147 oil in 2008 that broke the economy last time and turned a housing downturn into a collapse. Shale oil and gas put us in a much different situation. It is expensive oil but above $100 a barrel and $6 TcF gas quite plentiful.
I’d vote for her if she would really take on the banks like she implied she would 10 years ago. But I admit that doesn’t seem likely at this point.
I think she’d take on the banks just like Obama (aka President Goldman-Sachs) did….ignore what the politicos say, watch what they do (and who gives them $$$)
And not all that much $$$ at that.
‘It’s a change from the heady days of 2014, when an East Hampton estate sold for $137 million, breaking national home price records. At that time, the median Hamptons home price was posting annual gains of as much as 26.5 percent, rising to $975,000 in the last three months of 2014′
Take note all areas experiencing double digit price increases. It’s not real and will evaporate. Also, kinda hard to pin what happened in 2014 on the President.
The Millennials who voted for hope and change are belatedly starting to see the light.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-04-30/democrat-aclypse-now-millennials-are-leaving
Young people are always more liberal than older people as a group. As it is said if you are not a liberal at 25, you have no heart. If you are not a conservative at 35 you have no brain.
FB had a pretty good scam in NYS. Just avoid answering the door and you could not be foreclosed.
Now - that is gone.
+++++
New York Evictions Just Became Easier For Lenders
New York Foreclosure Blog - April 27, 2018
NYS courts have made New York evictions easier for lenders and landlords. Lenders are overjoyed they no longer need to prove deed ownership to the tenant during an eviction.
However, the meaning of “exhibiting the deed” has been one of great debate.
The court held in Home Loan Services v. Moskowitz that attaching a copy of the deed to a 10-day notice to quit served by “nail and mail” was insufficient to satisfy the requirement of the exhibition of the deed.
This left lenders in a very difficult position. An occupant could simply avoid in-hand service. They would have a defense. Furthermore, it keeps the lender in the dark of who is occupying the property. Thus, leaving the lender the expense and time-consuming task of doing hand/personal service.
The very same court overturned Home Loan Services v. Moskowitz earlier this month. The court ruled in Plotch v. Dellis:
Service by means other than personal delivery of a certified copy of the deed, i.e., service of a certified copy of the deed which is left at the premises for the respondent to retain and examine, satisfies the exhibition requirement.
The Court has determined that service by nail and mail service is satisfactory for commencing a post-foreclosure eviction. Lenders can simply nail or mail a copy of the deed with the notice to the door.
It seems like most lenders would prefer to keep those non-performing loans on the books as assets, rather than eat the loss by starting the foreclosure process.
“Seems like” but doing was a crime very recently.
Building lots were selling for over $550,000 in Houston????
++++
“They put their nearly 10,000-square-foot property up for sale for $550,000, a discount from what lots were selling for pre-Harvey. After dropping the price by $25,000, they accepted a builder’s offer for $500,000.
There must be something we aren’t being told, such as the location of said property. I have a friend who lives in suburban Houston. His newish 3000 sq ft house is worth about 200K.
Ah - sweet non biased journalism that just wants to present facts.
And then we have the fake legacy news media which needs to push a left wing progressive meme at every opportunity.
Maybe we should have engineers writing the news.
I know plenty of engineers who are leftists. Most of my coworkers are. It was interesting to listen to the lunch bunch bloviate before the previous election. A super majority were “With Her”. Only a few said nothing, and I assumed there were voting for Trump.
According to Wikipedia:
“Memorial Bend is a historic neighborhood on the west side of Houston, Texas.
It is made up of 1950s and early 1960s homes built in the modern (contemporary), ranch, and traditional styles. Memorial Bend is considered to have the highest concentration of mid-century modern homes in Houston. Modern architects who designed homes in this neighborhood include: William Norman Floyd, William R. Jenkins, William F. Wortham and Lars Bang. Many of these homes were featured in national magazines for architecture and design such as American Builder, House & Home, Practical Builder, Better Homes & Gardens and House Beautiful.
Memorial Bend is located in the 77024 zip code area just south of Memorial Drive and the Sam Houston Tollway (built through the middle of the neighborhood in 1992).”
Pretty much everything in the Memorial area is upscale, i.e. expensive as heck.
More information for any who are interested:
http://swamplot.com/tag/memorial-bend/
Long term democrat rule + public unions + free sh!t army = misery, ruin and bankruptcy
And, oh yeah - BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
++++
“On that last count, Stokes is basically right. In 2010, in the wake of the global financial crisis that wrecked the local housing market, officials counted 16,800 vacant buildings in Baltimore. They decided to take action. Then-Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake launched the much-lauded Vacants to Value program, and the city put millions of dollars from a legal settlement with the banks behind the crisis toward demolishing entire blocks at a time. The state added millions more to bring down more blocks. Pugh, who took office at the end of 2016, has sought to expand that effort.”
“The result? Eight years and tens of millions of dollars later, officials count 16,500 vacant buildings in the city.”
They’re losing at whack-a-mole.
Comment by 2banana
2018-04-30 09:19:16
Long term democrat rule + public unions + free sh!t army = misery, ruin and bankruptcy
And, oh yeah - BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
—————
“On that last count, Stokes is basically right. In 2010, in the wake of the global financial crisis that wrecked the local housing market, officials counted 16,800 vacant buildings in Baltimore. They decided to take action. Then-Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake launched the much-lauded Vacants to Value program, and the city put millions of dollars from a legal settlement with the banks behind the crisis toward demolishing entire blocks at a time. The state added millions more to bring down more blocks. Pugh, who took office at the end of 2016, has sought to expand that effort.”
“The result? Eight years and tens of millions of dollars later, officials count 16,500 vacant buildings in the city.”
————————–
I’m sure you’ll enjoy our Canadian version of dealing with vacancies: one door over at Sir Garth’s blog re: dealing with vacancies in Vancouver BC
http://www.greaterfool.ca/2018/04/25/the-man/
In principle I agree with a surtax on vacant property. Who and what is taxed and how much is a political matter, but I’m more in favor of taxing people who, for whatever reason, choose to leave their properties unoccupied. That would include banks who are sitting on unoccupied homes or keeping them off the market.
I agree.
Leaving properties unoccupied is a net loss to the local area.
Malinvestment has its costs, and those costs should be borne by those “malinvesting”.
Adverse possession was created to address the leaving of fields unworked by absentee owners. The courts decided that society benefited more by allowing someone to work the land and actually produce food. If the real owner stayed away long enough and did not assert claim to the land he would lose possession. It is interesting that hundreds of years after this procedure was created to address medieval conditions it has applications today. Probably because our economy looks less and less like capitalism and more and more like feudalism.
You keep voting for democrats, liberals and progressives and yet never see the connection.
I am sure even bigger and bigger government with more and more regulations and high and higher taxes will be able to get you a pizza.
Hope and change. Just not the change you were looking for.
++++++
“She came to Lake Tahoe in search of affordable housing and found work as a Safeway cashier and a bus dispatcher. Today she makes $32,000 a year as a clerk at the El Dorado County recorder’s office. ‘You work and you’re homeless. That’s ironic to me, I just never thought it was going to be this way — especially being an American,’ she said. ‘In all honesty, all I want to do is work 40 hours a week, have four walls and a pizza. I just don’t want to see the carnage of our economy anymore.’”
“‘In all honesty, all I want to do is work 40 hours a week, have four walls and a pizza. I just don’t want to see the carnage of our economy anymore.’”
You don’t get to have four walls and a pizza for forty hours a week, you only get to have the pizza. What you need to do is add in some more hours to your work week; Do this and maybe we can talk about the four walls that you say you need.
Just ask W, you need those two or three jobs.
Yes, he let the truth slip out with that comment. All part of that great “service economy” that was lauded. Never mind that those service jobs don’t pay living wages.
“You keep voting for democrats, liberals and progressives and yet never see the connection.”
Yeah man, it’s all her fault. The terminally-ill decades-long bipartisan status quo that has sabotaged this hardworking American’s very modest aspirations would have been totally different if only this one woman had voted for McCain back in 08. That would have stopped the bailouts and the rebubble and ZIRP.
After all, a vote for Bush was so effective in preventing the first housing bubble. And eight years of Schwarzenegger successfully turned California around.
So just keep wagging your finger at every rare person who sticks their head out of the sand to realize the discrepancy between the recovery propaganda and the reality around them and dares to want a better life than the one they have. Like you say, they’re just getting what they deserve, right?
“Grissom spent a year living at an Oakland homeless shelter with her daughter at night while she worked full time delivering mail for the United States Postal Service… Showing KPIX her motel room, she pointed to the bed where she and her daughter sleep. Her husband sleeps on the floor.”
“The terminally-ill decades-long bipartisan status quo”
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ THIS !!!
Who the hell goes to Laje Tahoe to find affordable housing?? It was beyond reach when I worked there 35 years ago. And I made good money.
The poors live in Reno or Carson and commute.
Maybe affordable housing means sugar daddy. Then, it all makes sense.
Bend(Century West), OR Housing Prices Crater 17% YOY As Influx Of Retirees Fails To Materialize
https://www.zillow.com/century-west-bend-or/home-values/
*Select price from dropdown menu on first chart
Good one, and please keep reminding people to use the dropdown menu to get median list price.
And another reminder: even a broken analog clock is right twice a day.
Hello my good friend.
Redmond, WA Housing Prices Crater 6% YOY On Skyrocketing Housing Inventory
https://www.movoto.com/redmond-wa/market-trends/
Redmond seems like a sh!thole…
2banana’s Rule: Dem control + public unions + free sh!t army = misery, ruin and bankruptcy
And all that OT is calculated into his pension too.
+++++++
BART reining in janitor overtime after public fallout
San Francisco Chronicle | April 29, 2018 | Michael Cabanatuan
As BART’s ridership surged three years ago, along with the number of homeless people lingering inside its downtown San Francisco stations, the transit system doubled down on custodial work — and some of its janitors started cleaning up paywise.
One system service worker, BART’s title for janitors, made a little more than $271,000 in 2015, with $162,050 of that in overtime. A year later, two other BART janitors joined him in collecting more than $100,000 in overtime pay in a year.
So the janitor’s base pay was >$100,000? I must be in the wrong job….
Public unions are the biggest all time donors to political campaigns
Public unions give 99-1 to democrats
No city or state democrats could be elected without them
Democrats reward public unions lavishly for their support.
THAT is all you really need to know.
Top All-Time Donors:
https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/
That janitor makes enough to afford a home in SF ! ;p
Fake news…
Fake housing economy…
Fake economic growth…
Fake recovery…
Fake jobs…
And now fake art.
++++++
What if Those Paintings… Are Fakes? French Art Museum Discovers Half of its Collection are Fake
PJ Media | 04/30/2018 | Michael Walsh
It’s every art gallery’s worst nightmare: given the ability of forgers down the centuries, what if some of those priceless works of art hanging on the walls are… not real?
A state-owned French art museum has discovered that more than half of its collection consists of worthless fakes and experts fear that other public galleries may also be stuffed with forgeries. An art historian raised the alarm after noticing that paintings attributed to Etienne Terrus showed buildings that were only constructed after the artist’s death in 1922.
Experts confirmed that 82 of the 140 works displayed at the Terrus museum in Elne, the artist’s birthplace in southern France, were fakes. Many of the forged oil paintings, watercolours and drawings were bought with £140,000 of municipal funds over the past few decades. Others were given to the museum by two local groups that raised money to buy them by appealing for donations. Some were bequeathed by a private collector.
Yves Barniol, the mayor of Elne, near the Spanish border, said: “It’s a catastrophe. I put myself in the place of all the people who came to visit the museum, who saw fake works of art, who paid an entrance fee. It’s intolerable and I hope we find those responsible.” The municipality has filed legal complaints for forgery and fraud. Police have seized the fakes and are trying to trace the forgers and dealers who sold them.
If nobody can tell the difference, why does it matter so much what people saw? Humans are funny.
The National Gallery in London has a DaVinci on display. An amazing piece, in part because DaVinci himself painted it. If it turned out to be a fake, it would lose some (not all) of its appeal to me,
Why is that important to you? I would think that the quality of the art would stand independent of who created it. Or is it an attempt to educate yourself and figure out why experts think a real DaVinci has no equal…which I realize requires a real one for comparison?
I could still appreciate the quality of a forgery. Heck, back then people imitated DaVinci (there we some of those on display as well). But being that DaVinci was a prominent artist who was way ahead of his time makes the work pleasing as well at least to me. For others perhaps not; and that’s fine with me.
What about a house? Does the same hold true? If people thought that Frank Lloyd Wright designed it, and then decades later it was discovered that one of his staff was the architect instead?
My good friend….. Whomever stamped the drawings is the EOR irrespective of who worked on them.
San Francisco, CA 94110 Housing Prices Crater 8% YOY
https://www.zillow.com/san-francisco-ca-94110/home-values/
https://snag.gy/m5EzRB.jpg
The Secret To All Great Art Forgeries
First, you start with a population that is incredibly stupid and then go from there …
http://theconversation.com/the-secret-to-all-great-art-forgeries-50173
Or use a 3d printer n laser scanner
What I found interesting at the National Gallery in London was that the reprints of the works simply did not do them justice. This was especially the case with the Van Gogh’s they had on display, as the reprints could not reproduce the artist’s textures and the fact that the paintings were “bumpy”. The Sunflowers work is a great example of this.
Overall I didn’t enjoy my trip last year to London, with two exceptions: The National Gallery and the British Museum. Those two made the trip worth it.
How are you able to appreciate the textures? I figured by now, all these great paintings were behind glass, or the viewers were kept too far away to see that well. To protect them from theft or vandalism by some nut.
Many at the National Gallery were not behind glass, though I was told that is in process of changing. It was remarkable how close you could get to them, even the DaVinci (which was already behind glass). The DaVinci had a dedicated guard too, whereas there was usually a guard in each room watching over dozens of paintings.
“Fake news…
Fake housing economy…
Fake economic growth…
Fake recovery…
Fake jobs…”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R48KMbOOR-A
A little background…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLg1k4I9fqk
Keller, TX Housing Prices Crater 7% YOY As Oil Bust Ravages Dallas Area
https://www.movoto.com/keller-tx/market-trends/
‘The report adds that 1 in 7 housing units on Maui is a vacation rental unit. In Lahaina, it is 1 in 3…the proliferation of short term VRUs—the majority of which are operated by nonresidents…’Hosts are overwhelmingly speculators and investors who benefit from the escalating price of housing’
I could have told you that years ago. How many of these shack hoarders would be doing the B&B if prices were flat or falling?
How many of these shack hoarders would be doing the B&B if prices were flat or falling?
What do you mean? People with a lot of investments prefer to spend their free time cleaning toilets. It’s relaxing for them after all that stress from managing money.
They dont clean the toilets though - they hire the locals who are “trained” in the failing schools to remain plantation workers.
I’ve said it before, if home/land owners actually had to take the effort to maintain their properties themselves, there would be a radical downsizing and a migration to renting/condos.
‘About 75 percent of the homes in the Tahoe Basin are second — vacation homes’
Similarly, aren’t there some resorts in Tahoe that would be much cheaper than buying and maintaining some giant shack? Plus you could stay at different places, maybe Aspen. Ahh, but then you’d be missing out on that sweet equity!
These people are speculating and will receive an a$$-pounding just like before.
There are plenty of folks who don’t care about flushing their money down the toilet because they have a never-ending supply for never-ending flushes. I knew a guy when I lived in Jackson Hole who worked as a full time property manager for one of these vacation homes. The owner had a full time staff of around 10 people for a private property he visited about 2 weeks per year. Yet he called the manager on a daily basis to yell at him about this or that. One could say that he was putting money into the local job market, yet the staff still couldn’t afford to live in the area and mostly commuted over a treacherous mountain pass from Idaho, dodging avalanches and California drivers in tin can rentals.
Bottom line: when you have enough money to afford a place like that, depreciation is little more than an annoyance.
‘when you have enough money to afford a place like that’
You’re missing the point. Rich people like to waste money? Why not stay at a resort for a fraction of the cost? Cuz you miss out on the sweet equity.
They are speculating.
These aren’t “rich people”. They’re DegenerateGamblers one payment or one layoff away from losing there ass.
Which is why they are so upset that they will actually have to pay a greater share of their own taxes, rather than have others to pay their taxes for them via Federal tax deductions.
This is also why I am in favor of a two-tiered or progressive property tax. Something along the lines of primary residences at below some reasonable multiple of median area income pay one rate, and luxury residences pay a property surtax. If you can afford to have a luxury residence that you visit 2 week with an entire staff, you can probably still afford to pay the tax, but it makes the speculation less likely as caring costs start to mount.
This is also why I am in favor of a two-tiered or progressive property tax. Something along the lines of primary residences at below some reasonable multiple of median area income pay one rate
In OH owner-occupants get a specific discount on their RE taxes. In MI out-of-area owners of vacation properties pay a steeply increased RE tax. Supposedly RE taxes are voted on by some of the taxpayers, which theoretically addresses the balance between taxes paid and taxpayer income. I’ve not heard of a progressive RE tax on extravagantly priced homes, but it makes sense. Property tax (e.g. my car) is a different matter.
With regards to property tax on car, I wish my state would tax fuel efficiency rather than age. Cars that are > 10 old have the lowest renewal fees for vehicle registration. Ostensibly this makes sense since many poorer individuals cannot purchase a new vehicle, but it isn’t always so clear-cut. Where we live air pollution is a huge problem, and aligning the the tax around fuel efficiency or emissions seems more pro-social than simply taxing newer vehicles at a higher rate. New vehicle or old vehicle, everyone breaths the same air (well, not really since high-rollers live in Park City at altitude and escape the inversion).
I think the original intent of the tax wasn’t to social engineer around consumption or emissions. It was simply a tax on the value of the property, which goes down with age. To implement what you are talking about requires changing the reason for the taxation to something other than value/wealth.
True point. Most countries in the EU base taxes on C02. Newer cars are typically cleaner (though not always), so the effect is that older cars cost more to register. From an economics perspective, this is an effective way of clearing the air. Here in Utah, we have many days of really unhealthy air. When it gets really bad, all the politicians roll-out the tired “Clear The Air” campaign, but it doesn’t really change things. The scheme I proposed would actually move the needle. But when your legislature is in the pocket of car dealerships, lip service is preferable to actually making changes that might hurt the status quo.
http://cleartheairchallenge.org/
Housing my friends….. Housing.
Frisco, TX Housing Prices Crater 7% YOY As Oil Recession Slams Dallas Area
https://www.movoto.com/frisco-tx/market-trends/
AirheadBNB and others like them have morph into 2hr room rentals for hookers and johns and drug dealers. Anything illegal? Use AirheadBNB. Washing sheets, disposing condom wrappers and cleaning toilets.
We stayed in an AirB&B during our trip to Kona a couple of years ago. The location was ideal and the price was affordable, but the cockroaches inside the place we stayed nearly ate us alive. I haven’t had that experience with other HI accommodations.
Ugh! That would be a show stopper for me. Did the reviews mention anything about that?
Does anyone here think home or rental prices in the Southern California coast cities will drop? I’d like to move there from the Bay Area.
Thanks for the input.
if they drop it wont be for long.Everyone wants to live there.
The temperatures are nice within a couple of miles of the coastline. Beyond that… it’s the broil setting.
Mercer Island, WA Rental Rates Crater 15% YOY As Seattle Area Housing Correction Advances
https://www.zillow.com/mercer-island-wa/home-values/
*Select price from dropdown menu on rental chart
Ha Ha Ha. NO.
DegenerateGambling
Carmichael, CA Housing Prices Crater 7% YOY As 2016 Vintage Subprime Mortgages Failure Rate Accelerates
https://www.movoto.com/carmichael-ca/market-trends/
Get Serious About Online Misogyny Before More Women Are Killed:
“It is part of what the Southern Poverty Law center calls the “online male supremacist ecosystem,” where men gather to denigrate and dehumanize women. That digital ecosystem includes “men’s rights activists” and “pickup artists” who overlap with each other and with the alt-right. The SPLC classifies them as hate groups.”
https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_5ae3deb2e4b02baed1ba618f
The SPLC has zero credibility, they’re not a “civil rights” organization, they’re shakedown artists and enemies of First Amendment freedom of speech.
he SPLC has zero credibility, they’re not a “civil rights” organization, they’re shakedown artists and enemies of First Amendment freedom of speech.
You’re insulting shakedown artists…
“While a 100-year old male will likely expire within a relatively short time frame, it will not just “being old” that leads to death. It is the onset of some outside influence such as pneumonia, infection, organ failure, etc. that leads to the eventual death as the body is simply to weak to defend itself. While we attribute the death to “old age,” it was not just “old age” that killed the host.
What the majority of mainstream analysis fails to address is the “full-cycle” of markets. While it may appear that “bull markets do not die of old age,” in reality, it is “old age that leaves the bull defenseless against infections.”
http://davidstockmanscontracorner.com/economic-old-age-and-the-infections-of-monetary-central-planning-part-1/
The all-time worst infection in human history is finance.
Would you rather gamble away your hard-earned money on stocks or on real estate?
7 reasons stocks are better than real estate
By Shawn Langlois
Published: Apr 27, 2018 1:52 p.m. ET
Real estate or stocks?
You’ve heard this before: Stocks, over time, outperform real estate.
There are many schools of thought on this but one common statistic that gets tossed around shows equities over the past several decades have returned an average upwards of 10% a year, while real estate is in the 4% ballpark.
Ask anybody who managed to nab property in red-hot markets in Silicon Valley, Los Angeles or New York in recent years, and they’ll likely scoff. So might the guy who keeps getting caught wrong-footed trying to time his moves into the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA, -0.61%) and the S&P 500 index (SPX, -0.82%).
Obviously, there are a lot of moving parts to this argument, but when deciding how to allocate your cash, it’s not all about the prospective returns.
…
My county raised the value of my 60 yr old “structure”
When asked if buildings depreciate or appreciated they couldn’t answer
appreciation is awesome.
La Mesa, CA Rental Rates Crater 9% YOY As San Diego County Housing Correction Expands
https://www.zillow.com/la-mesa-ca/home-values/
*Select list price from dropdown menu on rental chart
I guess I know how it unfolds.
Fake peace in Korea and real war in Persia.
Getting closer.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/04/rockets-hit-hama-aleppo-army-positions-syrian-state-tv-180430054021196.html
crushing.housing.losses.
I buy tiny houses now.
“…and a $51 million discount off its original price. The 15-acre former convent in Water Mill, previously owned by the late shoe designer Vince Camuto, was listed in 2008 for $100 million. It sold last month for $49 million to two separate buyers; one paid $36 million for 11 acres, including the 20,000-square-foot main house on Mecox Bay, and the remaining land traded for $13 million, said a spokesman for Sotheby’s International Realty.”
Another $51 million Yellen bucks just went POOF!
u have to use yellen bucks! lmfao
Nobody put a gun to the dude’s head and made him overlay by $51 million.
Overpay
overpaying for shacks is about as american as aaple pie.
The Hamptons’ orgy of excess was enabled solely by Ben & Janet lavishing trillions of printing-press FedBux on their Wall Street grifter accomplices to buy up the distressed assets of the proles. When the pitchforks and torches come out after the Fed’s financial house of cards implodes, these two gold-collar criminals better hope their oligarch patrons save a couple of seats on their Gulfstreams as they flee to some offshore, non-extradition hidey-hole.
Meanwhile, McCain’s grim prognosis has set him free to ramp up his shilling for his globalist, open-borders puppetmasters.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/mccain-in-new-book-im-freer-now-to-speak-my-mind
“I’m freer than colleagues who will face the voters again.”
I thought Senators voted for what’s best for the Republic regardless of voter sentiment or political party pressure.
I thought You dreamer, you!
Apparently the Camp of Saints like “caravan” has arrived at the US border and is demanding to be allowed to enter the US. The usual suspects, like Jorge Ramos of Univision, are clamoring that they be allowed to enter and given papers.
The DNC better start printing up millions of membership applications for the Democrat-on-Arrival tidal wave that is going to swamp the southwest once leftists in Mexico get free rein to start their “redistribution of the wealth” schemes.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-04-30/peso-pummelled-after-mexicos-leading-party-warns-confiscation-coming
The confiscations in Mexico will benefit (albeit temporarily a la Venezuela) the demographic that enters the US illegally.
Sell in May,
Go away.
Dow drops for third session as caution grows ahead of Fed meeting
By Sara Sjolin and Ryan Vlastelica
Published: May 1, 2018 10:25 a.m. ET
Apple’s earnings are due after the bell
…
…
Billionaire investor Sam Zell is … cautioning that stocks could face a reckoning. And he’s not sounding that bullish about real estate either — the sector where he made his fortune. He delivers our call of the day.
“The stock market, despite all of the gyrations, is still at an all-time high. Real estate is priced to perfection,” Zell tells Bloomberg TV, as the S&P 500 SPX, -0.39% stands 8% below its January peak.
“I’m a little bit like that old Wendy’s commercial: ‘Where’s the beef?’ … I think it’s a very challenging situation, one that requires discipline.”
Zell agrees with the notion that there is a ton of capital chasing too few opportunities. He suggests investors resist urges to buy, buy, buy.
…
So what is Zell doing… buying or selling?
Dying … x1 day @ a time … one wonders what trea$ures he has re$ting in his $torage unit$
Today we have $3.2 billion in cash, uncommitted, and we’re just sitting there, waiting for the world to come to us,” he says
Warren or $am? … he $ounds like a Berkshire mocking bird, with a lot le$$ $eed monie$ …