We All Knew It Would End And The End Is Nigh
It’s Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. “22-year-old Sarah Villamore and her husband have given up on finding what she and her husband can afford in the Williston market. It just doesn’t exist yet. ‘It’s difficult if you are a millenial trying to buy a home,’ Villamore said. ‘You don’t want to buy the cheap, crappy ones because then you are just throwing all your money away.’”
“Mayor Howard Klug noted that he’d seen a number of homes for sale on the way to the Williams County Commission meeting room, and said he was perplexed by that. ‘You’re telling me there is no inventory out there, but on the way here I counted five or six houses for sale, so I really don’t understand what is going on in the market here in Williston,’ he said.”
“Consumer outlook on home buying is not about the economy or the appreciation in housing prices, but the shortage of inventory, Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the the National Realtor Association, told real estate professionals from Bradenton-Sarasota. A big concern to renters looking to buy a home is rising prices. From 2011-17, income has risen 15 percent, while home prices have risen 48 percent, Yun said.”
“‘Beth Barnett, a real estate sales associate for Coldwell Banker based at Lakewood Ranch, said she doesn’t relate to Yun’s comments about an inventory shortage because of all the new home construction in Manatee County. ‘Where we have a shortage of homes for sale is in the price range under $400,000,’ she said. ‘We are having more problems selling resales because we are competing with new construction.’”
“Teton County, Idaho is being plagued by zombies…lots that is. These are undeveloped subdivisions left abandoned by developers due to the recession. There are around 7,000 of these empty and abandoned lots in Teton County. Some have been sitting there for over a decade. They might finally be getting turned around. ‘There are so many subdivisions in the county and so many of them have one or no homes,’ said Anna Trentadue, program director for Valley Advocates for Responsible Development.”
“The bank now owns many of these after the developers went bankrupt and lost their financing. ‘Property values were skyrocketing,’ said Gary Armstrong, planning administrator for Teton County. ‘A lot was done on speculation that things would work out really well and then the housing bubble burst everywhere.’”
“When a co-op on the 34th floor of a ritzy Upper East Side building sold last year, the price was recorded as $3 million. But it actually cost closer to $2.7 million. At closing, the buyer of the three-bedroom co-op at 425 East 58th Street received a credit of $225,000. The buyer and seller, at the behest of the co-op board, cut a deal to keep the technical sale price in line with the expected value of similar units in the building. Though the contract detailed this arrangement, public records only reflect the higher price.”
“This trick is particularly rampant in the new development sphere — where buyers have their pick of price cuts and concessions. Attorney Adam Leitman Bailey said his firm has represented lenders on two of these cases recently. ‘In my humble opinion, this fraud is disgusting and should be illegal,’ he said. ‘It artificially is making consumers believe that housing prices are higher than the market actually indicates.’ He added that banks should stick to the terms laid out in sale contracts, without getting ‘involved in any chicanery or fake pricing.’”
“High-profile real estate developers, marketing executives and real estate agents are bracing for a sustained downturn in the housing market after sales in April – usually one of the most active months of the year – plunged by double-digits across Metro Vancouver. Vancouver lawyer Richard Bell told a real estate seminar that the Vancouver new home market has seen an ‘incredible run over the past 10 to 15 years.’ But, he added, ‘We all knew it would come to an end and the end is nigh.’”
“‘I have been seeing more and more price reductions in the detached housing market,’ said Michelle Yu, a top-producing Vancouver agent. Yu, known for her eight-figure land assemblies, said investors should not expect a quick return on investment if they had bought recently. ‘All you can expect is capital gain. However, as long as the NDP is in power, I strongly believe the double-digits gain honeymoon is over. On top of that, there are many different new taxes, stricter rental rules.’”
“The year so far has seen no recovery in the already stagnant property market in Putney. Demand for new build properties appears to have almost completely ground to a halt. With a large number of units in the pipeline and many of these in developments without riverside views, but are built along the busy Upper Richmond Road which are more difficult to shift, there is a danger of a serious overhang of unsold inventory.”
“Local agent Allan Fuller commented: ‘There is no doubt that sales are slower that 2014, however that year, particularly in the period up to August. We experienced a buying flurry of activity that year, often having an open house on a Saturday with 20 or more people viewing each property, then several offers on the Monday. It seemed that people saw others keen to buy and almost fever like followed suit.’”
“‘Its all about the price, vendors and agents who overprice property are left stranded, time and again we are proving that sensible pricing get real interest and sales result,’ Allan continued. ‘As for new properties the recent developed large blocks in Putney are long sold out, so naturally not in the statistics newer ones are getting activity but are too far off completing to be seriously marketed yet. So in the famous words of Corporal Jones, ‘Don’t panic’”
“As Melbourne races toward a population of more than eight million within just two decades, experts have warned that much of the new property construction will not meet the needs of its residents. The city’s construction boom has increasingly been concentrated on apartment towers, but new data shows just 7 per cent of those sales are for family-sized apartments. ‘While it’s clear that the property sector has a love affair with building apartments, the odds of a perfect match with the public is as scientific as pairing up on The Bachelor,’ Propertyology head of market research Simon Pressley said. ‘“It doesn’t work like: ‘we’ll build it, they’ll come’.”
“University of Melbourne planning researcher Kate Raynor said it was clear the mix of recently built apartments was geared toward investors. ‘There’s been an influx in one bedroom apartments and that is going to cause problems,’ she said. ‘An investor is concerned with different things an owner-occupier is looking at, namely rental returns. We’re living in the five year hangover of that situation.’”
“Auckland’s housing market is starting to slow as it heads towards winter, with Barfoot & Thompson’s sales taking a seasonal dip and prices easing back as well, with the median dropping from $860,000 in March to $830,000 in April, which was also below the April 2017 median of $850,000 and significantly below the record high of $900,000 set in March last year.”
“Inventory was the highest it has been for the month of April since 2011, suggesting buyers still have plenty of choice, and with prices being flat at best, vendors will need to be realistic in their price expectations to achieve a sale as we head towards winter. ‘While there is no suggestion that prices are poised to start their upward climb, with prices no longer declining in comparison to 2017, the point has been reached where a further decline is the least likely future outcome,’ Barfoot & Thompson Managing Director Peter Thompson said.”
“After a decade of soaring real estate prices that have turned ordinary homeowners into paper millionaires and added billions to the provincial GDP, the B.C. economy finds itself in a dangerous position, says an SFU professor. ‘We have an economy that’s been made dependent on this through a faulty policy framework and this is a bad long-term model,’ said Josh Gordon, an assistant professor in the school of public policy at Simon Fraser University.”
“The province relies so heavily on the real estate industry that a crash would have major impacts on both the economy and the everyday British Columbian, according to academics and former finance ministers who spoke with CBC News. ‘This is why you shouldn’t design your economy around real estate and real estate price appreciation,’ Gordon said. ‘There’s a range of dynamics that happen in housing bubbles and booms, which is that people take on a lot of debt. So when that process stops or reverses, there’s a lot less discretionary spending that happens, so you would see an impact in the retail sector and so on,’ he said.”
“For Vladimir Dvoracek, real estate’s supremacy isn’t just an economic problem. It’s also sociological. ‘What does life consist of? The important things are … having kids, playing with them in the park, holding hands with your spouse and going for dinner,’ said Dvoracek, an associate vice president of institutional research at the University of the Fraser Valley. ‘Speculation in real estate, sure it happens, but it’s almost become a mania in Vancouver. It’s almost all people think about, and that’s not real life.’”
From the comments to the NZ article:
by Retired-Poppy
DGZ, it’s obvious you didn’t read the article properly. Typical resonance from another TTP clone. When adjusted for inflation, prices are indeed falling in Auckland. Barfoots use the word “easing” by their measure. The effects of ring fencing is yet to come so get used to it!
by Pragmatist
Perhaps we should help poor DGZ out. We could list all the words that the RE crowd will use to say prices are down without actually saying down or falling..
Easing
retrenching
mellowing
relaxing
declining
correcting
Join in people
by Retired-Poppy
Skidding, downtrend, downshift, drop-off, dip, holy cr*p!
For those here that prefer not to oscillate, use these;
Dive, plunge, nosedive, nosebleed, pummet, pitch, keel over, collapse and the all time favourite - crash.
by mfd
Consolidating
Poised for further increases
Taking a breather
by Chairman Moa
slipping
sinking
dwindling
moribund
dilapidated
by bilbo
slump
stablise
meltdown
downward pressure
buyers market
soft landing
sideways trajectory
downturn
revaluation
autumn apprehension
adjusting expectations
winter woes
spring slowdown
summer slumber
Chinese on holiday
positive long term outlook
bargain prices
by Jock Silver
Presenting the word cloud of doom: https://i.imgur.com/X1XSVge.png
Man, these people really fight it out!
by NorthernLights
Aucklands property bubble has two components: an underlying trend that prevails in reality and a misconception (elevated by spec spruikers)relating to that trend. A positive feedback developed between the trend and the misconception, (ordinary folk joined with the spruikers ) which set in motion a boom market . The subjective reality ( or feeling the market can only ever go up ) creating & reinforcing the true reality (True reality being a product of the subjective reality created & those drawn into it as new believers ) The Auckland market is liable to be tested by negative feedback along the way (The Chinese no longer arriving in by the van load to auctions & govt restrictions put in place ) and if it is strong enough to survive these tests, both the trend and the misconception will be reinforced ( The market will remain omnipotent or maybe not ) So all here are right at this point The test is on and we will see the result in due course.
just love “taking a breather”
They forgot everyones all time favorite C R A T E R.
CR8R
From yesterdays crow fest:
‘Scientists always add qualifiers to their predictions, not make dogmatic no-matter-what statements. In this case, rents *will* grow to the sky *if* apartments are built at historic rates. Except that they *aren’t* being built at historic rates; therefore the rents *will not* won’t grow to the sky. Surely this isn’t too difficult for you.’
‘And we all saw this coming.’
Really it wasn’t bad. Tastes like chicken.
Eat your crow and CraterTaters Donk. Eat up.
We have some real scientists on this board alright.
‘Newly-released federal data on mortgage lending from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau shows people with low- and moderate-incomes made up only 26.3% of borrowers in 2017, down from 36.6% in 2009.
In part, that’s due to federal rules that sought to crack down on the subprime lending tactics that helped bring on the financial crisis.’
‘the biggest mortgage lender in the country isn’t a bank at all — it’s Quicken Loans, which originated 27% more loans in 2017 than its nearest competitor, Wells Fargo.’
‘ economists have raised concerns about the large volume of lending by non-banks. Many of these firms are relatively new and non-public, making it more difficult to assess their level of risk and their capacity to absorb losses if the housing market were to turn sour.’
http://money.cnn.com/2018/05/11/news/economy/banks-low-income-mortgage-borrowers/index.html
‘their capacity to absorb losses if the housing market were to turn sour’
Why do they keep saying this? Quicken isn’t buying shacks. The only capacity they need to have is cancel the leases and turn off the phone lines.
“Making it more difficult to assess their level of risk.”
When you originate loans on Monday for the express purpose of selling the paper on Tuesday, you basically have 0 risk.
They do have a risk. They can have the loan thrown back in their lap if they don’t follow the rules. They can be sued by those harmed. But some of these outfits are a website and an 800 number. Where are the assets should they run off? How much skin do they really have in the game? This whole story of “we don’t do things like the old days” is the Wells Fargo’s. And they are inching away.
https://www.newamericanfunding.com/loan-types/cash-out-refinance/
https://www.newamericanfunding.com/loan-types/interest-only-loan/
https://www.newamericanfunding.com/loan-types/fha-loan/
“FHA loans can be used to purchase a home or refinance an existing mortgage, and there are many benefits to having an FHA loan. You can purchase a home with a lower down payment than a conventional loan, or use a streamline refinance to lower your current payment, with less documentation than a traditional loan.”
“FHA loans are designed to make home ownership more affordable. Though they were originally intended for borrowers with less than perfect credit, they are now popular with a wider group of borrowers.”
“FHA loans enable more people to achieve home ownership by allowing borrowers who have less than perfect credit, no credit history, or who may have experienced some financial missteps, like a foreclosure or bankruptcy, to qualify.
“The program has become popular with first time home buyers and move up buyers because you can purchase a house with a low down payment, qualify easier with lower underwriting standards and FHA loans traditionally have lower rates than conventional loans.”
“Over the past few years FHA MIP has dropped making it even easier to qualify. FHA Allows Low Down Payments: With a low down payment option, more people can purchase a new home.”
“FHA Allows 100% Gift Funds: In addition to a low down payment, those funds can come from a gift. FHA Insures All Types of Properties: FHA loans are available for single-family detached homes, 2-4 unit homes, condos, and manufactured homes.”
“FHA Streamline Refinance: One of the best things about FHA loans is the ability to Streamline Refinance. This is the easiest way to refinance as there is no credit qualifying, no income verification, and no appraisals required.”
‘no credit qualifying, no income verification, and no appraisals required’
OMG… draconian measures by the FHA!
And FHA is supposed to be the counter cyclical lender. Here they are going full bore in the opposite direction.
I didn’t have much to start, but I have utterly and completely lost all faith in the US government to manage an economy. Where is Trump on these policies? Why is nobody talking about this massive bubble?
Apparently the management regime now in play is to stimulate the crap out of the economy while in office and pass the trash on to your successor. If the stimulus is pro-cyclical, then all the better.
The deficits are lower than under Obama. Certainly, as a percentage of the economy but even in nominal terms. Trump’s first two years deficits combined will not equal the either one of Obama’s first two years. You are just upset that Trump is looking at 3 to 4% growth for the second quarter and 3% growth for the year, something Obama never achieved over eight years, despite the fact it should have been a chip shot recovering from the recession. The bounce back from a severe recession usually is 4 to 5% growth for the first year. Only if you think we do not have any Americans who do not need real job is the economy at full employment. Then, we might be over stimulating. However, where is the wage inflation if that is true? No Obama gave us demand side stimulation when we needed incentives for manufacturers to make themselves more competitive. Trump is giving us what we needed hence the growth. Hey under Obama it was $8000 dollar credits to buy homes, cash for clunkers, money to keep state workers on the payroll, money for extended unemployment etc. all demand side stimulation without addressing the fact that we needed to stop jobs going overseas. Thus, almost ten trillion in debt with the country becoming less competitive and our infrastructure worsening. BTW, I received the $8000 dollar credit, I do not thank Obama because all he did with the program is keep housing prices up. The free market would have given me at least that much and probably more in a reduction had he not put that program in place.
“…financial missteps, like a foreclosure or bankruptcy…”
Add that one to the list after undocumented astronaut.
Fundamental transformation of America.
To include the libraries.
+++++
A Haven for the Homeless
The city of Santa Monica – and its librarians – are on the front lines of the homelessness crisis in Southern California.
By Elizabeth Segal - May 9, 2018 - U.S. News & World Report
“I’m from Kentucky. They gave me every drug under the sun – ‘You’ve got to have this the rest of your life,’” the 54-year-old says, a country twang in his gentle voice. “I got addicted to the drugs – all of ‘em.”
James is one of many homeless people who flock to the library in Santa Monica, California – an idyllic, trendy and fast-gentrifying beach community that also serves as a haven for the less fortunate.
Homelessness has long been a factor here, tied in part to the community’s mild climate. But with the number of homeless people surging by a whopping 26 percent between point-in-time counts in 2016 and 2017 – roughly the same year-over-year rise seen overall in Los Angeles County, which counted nearly 58,000 homeless last year – the city is experiencing a crisis on its streets and in its at-capacity shelters. A 2018 count showed homelessness had increased by another 4 percent in Santa Monica, with 957 individuals tallied.
In the midst of this dilemma, the library is a magnet for folks needing a respite from the streets. Its stacks are so crowded that people have taken to Yelp to complain.
“Basically a homeless shelter with books,” said one library user. “It’s hard to concentrate because there’s always someone snoring loudly with their filthy feet up on the furniture.”
“Sometimes inside their heads, things are going on, and how it comes out can be a little scary for staff,” says Erica Cuyugan, assistant city librarian. “So that’s the feedback that we would be getting, is that we don’t know how to handle or talk to people. So (we’re) trying to give them the tools, the scripts.”
The homeless crisis is also generating some progressive, outside-the-box ideas. Last month, Los Angeles County held an awards ceremony and exhibition featuring the winners of a design competition for pop-up housing units that would allow homeless people to move onto others’ property.
This is happening, on a much lower scale, at the library in our little burg. Parents who used to feel comfortable bringing their kids to the library no longer feel that way. Now they come, sans the kids, quickly get their books (they can search for them online ahead of time) check the books out and leave.
I can only imagine what it’s like in bigger city. I’ve heard horror stories about the main library in downtown Denver.
When I was younger, the lines of stacks would stick out right from the wall, with books against the wall at the end, resulting in skinny little three-walled rooms. It created a great pocket to sit on the floor and read. Now, in every library, no matter how small or intimate, the stacks are open-ended. It’s noisy and sterile, no privacy at all. But that’s how it has to be. A kid’s private little alcove is now an addict’s place to shoot up and die.
I can’t say I’ve noticed any obvious homeless people or addicts in my local library, but I did notice that over the last year they removed all the nooks and crannies where you used to be able to sit and read a book without feeling like you were in the middle of a fishbowl. Now it’s just giant open rooms with nowhere even semi-private to sit. Not even any of those little corrals libraries used to have. All the desk and table spaces are completely open and shared. I now go, grab stuff, and leave. It’s no fun anymore.
Our library has a “computer lab” upstairs, which are mostly used by dregs to watch porn. They should just remove the lab, as ordinary people no longer feel comfortable there. It seems that the only non porn users are transients looking for jobs on craigslist and the occasional Mormon missionaries.
Smoking is not allowed in the library, and they will call the cops to enforce that, so the bums go outside to smoke. There is a picnic area with tables nearby, far enough away from the entrance to allow smoking, which the bums have monopolized.
I take my son to several libraries in the area and I haven’t noticed an increase in patrons that look as if they are homeless. Our libraries are really good here with lots of kid-friendly things. The local library recently got a huge new wooden train set and a bunch of blocks. I play with my son for an hour or so and then we grab a pile of books and read on some of the kid couches.
Saw my first bum at the liberry a month ago. Shame too since I like going there to work, but not with that filth around. And I mean literal filth, the stench was unbateable. Another good thing ruined by Democrat policies.
“They should just remove the lab, as ordinary people no longer feel comfortable there.”
Bad call. What’s needed is a ‘no porn in public libraries’ rule with strict enforcement.
Numerous liberal judges have found a first amendment right to look at porn in the library. UnPC books can be excluded but porn is a right.
In one of the libraries I go to, in a town with a population of less than 4K, they have a full time security guard in the library to keep the homeless from overrunning the place. A library a couple towns over had to get rid of their “comfortable” sofa-style chairs as homeless would always be posted up in them asleep. Now its grade school style plastic chairs.
I’ve said for 25 years now, take away free internet, dvd rental and the homeless and library “usage” would go down about 95%+.
I think I’m the only person who’s been inside the nonfiction stacks for years. My library recently renovated and the nonfiction section actually shrunk. And they have only a couple dozen magazines. I don’t think they can blame this on Amazon.
The homeless crisis is also generating some progressive, outside-the-box ideas. Last month, Los Angeles County held an awards ceremony and exhibition featuring the winners of a design competition for pop-up housing units that would allow homeless people to move onto others’ property.
So, rather than generate real employment for these people and not have policies that make housing utterly unaffordable, the solution is to create Hoovervilles. And it’s going to get worse, a whole lot worse (just wait for next gen AI to eliminate millions of menial jobs).
In my little burg, at the intersection where the two biggest streets meet, there is always a panhandler on each corner and in the medians, holding a sign saying they’re hungry or something along those lines. The latest sympathy generating technique involves having a dog with them.
I agree with you. Of course, it leads to the next question with the need for people to work menial jobs declining how can any rational person think that allowing in people that can only work menial jobs is good for the country? Knocking down the US a few pegs and creating groups of people that have no loyalty to this country is useful for creating world government. However, it is not in the national interest.
The homeless shack has been a student design project for a couple decades now. They are part of the tiny housing movement. But nobody likes the easy solution: dorms and micro apartments.
“Homelessness has long been a factor here, tied in part to the community’s mild climate.”
One thing my wife likes about our current location are the winter’s brutal cold snaps, which are typically ten degrees below zero… not a vagrant in sight.
Hard to beat California’s mild weather and easy access to Mexican black tar heroin. Add in sanctuary state status for the imported drug dealers and its recent policy of emptying out its prisons and it is true utopia for junkies. George Soros is very proud.
George Soros cannot die soon enough. My worry - does he have any kids that are going to follow in his footsteps spending tens of millions of dollars hiring protestors off of Craigslist for his political whims?
He has a least one son that is following in his footsteps. However, while he has the ideology he does not seem to have the abilities so if the evil demon Soros would just die we will have a better world.
“One thing my wife likes about our current location are the winter’s brutal cold snaps, which are typically ten degrees below zero… not a vagrant in sight.”
I used to think the same thing, that winter had a great “cleansing effect”. I see panhandlers now in Montana. Mostly in Missoula but some in the Flathead as well. None where I am.
The vagrants reappear in the Spring, but not the same ones.
A lot of homeless die of exposure in cold areas. They’re usually 3 sheets to the wind at the time.
Indians too.
Thank federal government boarding schools for a large part of that, we are here from the government and here to help you.
Back in the good old days, the local police would search the sage brush around Eddie’s Club once it closed, looking for drunks sleeping it off in cold weather. The Indians they shipped to the medical center, where we laid them out like railroad ties on blankets in the warm waiting room until sunrise. Now & then the cops would find a dead body mixed in among the living ones, usually due to non-accidental & non-environmental causes.
Part of my mini-mental exam for these arrivals was the question: “What’s the word?”
There must be a lot of rehab centers in Santa Monica. Head em in from Kentucky, get their mediCal money and move em out.
But guess which price NYC will use for the property taxes…
Do these people really think this kind of sham will fool anyone with an internet connection or basic research skills at city hall?
+++++++
“When a co-op on the 34th floor of a ritzy Upper East Side building sold last year, the price was recorded as $3 million. But it actually cost closer to $2.7 million. At closing, the buyer of the three-bedroom co-op at 425 East 58th Street received a credit of $225,000. The buyer and seller, at the behest of the co-op board, cut a deal to keep the technical sale price in line with the expected value of similar units in the building. Though the contract detailed this arrangement, public records only reflect the higher price.”
It will fool the next buyer.
Precisely
Any guesses how this is going to end?
++++++
Starbucks chairman announces free bathrooms and table space for the homeless
American Thinker | May 11 2018
The ever well meaning Starbucks chairman, Howie Schultz, more terrified of bad publicity and claims of racism than anything in the world, has just announced a rather customer-unfriendly policy of opening Starbucks bathrooms (as well as table space) to all comers, including people who won’t spring for a $4 cup of coffee. Speaking to the Atlantic Council, Schultz said:
“We don’t want to become a public bathroom, but we’re going to make the right decision a hundred percent of the time and give people the key,” Schultz said, “because we don’t want anyone at Starbucks to feel as if we are not giving access to you to the bathroom because you are less than.”
Well, yes, you do, Howie. If you open the bathrooms to all comers, including non-paying customers, you’re turning Starbucks into a public bathroom. The fact that Starbucks will be the only business with such a policy means that all of the homeless will concentrate in these outlets. Rival store-owners and social service agencies will actually direct the homeless to Starbucks outlets for the free services. Large groups will congregate, moms with strollers drinking lattes and buying their little ones apple sauce in packets will sit cheek to jowl with hardcore drug-addicted homeless and now entertain requests for spare change.
“Any guesses how this is going to end?”
If depends on where the Starbucks store is located. If the Starbucks store is located where the homeless are located then that particular Starbucks store is screwed. If there are no homeless around in the area then the Starbucks store will be able to maintain bragging rights about caring for the welfare of the homeless without having to act on any of them.
The perfect situation for a Starbucks store is to be located in a city that maintains a policy of driving the homeless off to some other city that is more accomodating, such as the city of Santa Monica.
When I saw that yesterday, I thought to myself “Oh boy, every Starbucks in downtown Seattle is Screeeeeewed!”
I remember the first time I used the rest rooms on the top floor of Pacific Place (not too far from Pike Place Market) by the AMC Theaters.. it’s an upscale shopping area-type building (there was a Tiffany’s, etc) and heard grunts and screaming from the largest stall in the Men’s room. The next time I was there, it sounded like fight club going on in that stall, and I ran out and told security.
I was slow on the uptake, to realize people were in those stalls shooting up, but since then I’ve only noticed it more and more. Recently I stopped at a Target in Federal Way, parking out in the boonies and saw a homeless looking dude making a beeline to the front door as I was walking in. Yup, straight into the restroom to shoot up. I told an employee who got someone who I guess was security. All they said was “Thanks. We have to kick out like 10 of these a day.”
Never encountered anything like that living in Texas or the Midwest. Looking at reddit and nextDoor, it’s a daily gripe around here though.
Most street-accessible businesses lock their bathrooms, and most big office buildings don’t have (an obvious) restroom on the ground floor, so yea 2banana - this is likely going to impact Starbucks VERY, VERY negatively. How many of those stores are not corporate owned? Those owners aren’t going to like seeing their business immediately goto into the (now clogged with needles) toilet.
Wait, guys grunt and scream when they’re shooting up? To be honest, I thought you were talking about something else.
That first time it was clearly one guy. I think he couldn’t find a vein or something the way he was cussing.
That other time I referenced…. it sounded like something out of a horror-SciFi ….
I don’t know where the tipping point is, or when it’ll be reached, but that’s clearly where Seattle is headed as people are getting more and more sick of being treated like cows to be milked while the city around them suffers through an invasion as they are being priced out.
The most recent flap is over the proposed employee head tax, and the report stating we just need $400 million a year more to ‘defeat homelessness’, on the heels of the recent tax hikes and the $Billion spent already.
The sheeple be waking up… At least I hope so.
I never go to sbux but i might start just to see the oh so tolerant millenials sip $7 mochas next to bums shooting up.
Seattle will wake up by only voting 87% Democrat instead of 92%.
Yeah, TIC TOK, I’m a foolish optimist.
You can always count on Seattle to get it wrong, and spend LOTS of your money doing it. Sounds like you weren’t around for this, but the reality is that the people running the government don’t have any business running a garage sale, let alone a city. They’re beyond incompetent.
“Four years and $5 million later, the Seattle City Council hits the flush button on high-tech toilets that never proved their worth…
…After four years of watching the public restrooms offer more sanctuary to drug users and prostitutes than to tourists and the general public, the city is calling the experiment a failure — a costly one.”
https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/fleeced-and-flushed-the-public-toilet-fiasco/
“Seattle will wake up by only voting 87% Democrat instead of 92%.”
Yes, but that would be enough to shift the state’s politics and that would result in the leaders in Seattle deciding to take a more moderate approach since politicians always want to move up the food chain.
It is the same with minorities. This is why they go after any conservatives that happen to be minorities with such viciousness. Democrats must convince blacks that voting for Republicans is voting for the KKK. It cannot be just a difference in political views. I personally believe that at least 15 to 20% of blacks have views that would put them in the mainstream of Republican thought. However, blacks have been conditioned to believe that it is morally wrong to vote for a Republican. If Republicans just captured 15% of the black vote, Republicans would have more than 6o Senate votes and an electoral college advantage which would seldom fail. The Democratic leadership knows it is not enough to criticize Republican views, you must demonize Republican or the house of cards collapses and the Republican party becomes as dominate as it was in the 1920s. People like George Soros are constantly creating organizations such as BLM to keep this from happening.
I seriously doubt that the GOP’s policies would be of much help, though the argument continues to be made:
They [Diamond and Silk’ say Mr Trump opened their eyes to the way Democratic identity politics keeps blacks poor and loyal to the left. When politicians stop talking about race, they suggest, racial inequalities dissolve. “Trump’s not a racist, he’s a realist,” Ms Hardaway says. “The only colour he sees is green and he wants you to have some.” Such arguments have long been popular on the right, as an endorsement of small-governmentism and as an explanation for why nine out of ten blacks vote Democratic, though 70% identify as conservative or moderate. Yet black voices give those familiar lines a special power. Ms Hardaway describes blacks as living on “the Democratic plantation” and Hillary Clinton as a “slave master”. The rapper Kanye West recently echoed her. He suggested his fellow African-Americans prefer Democrats because they are “mentally enslaved” by a Democratic platform unduly focused on past injustice. Mr Trump, who loves a celebrity boost, claimed Mr West had “doubled” his black following. There is no evidence for that; only 13% of blacks like Mr Trump. Diamond and Silk are in fact more revealing of where the president stands with African-Americans, not least because they appear to have few black fans.
https://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21742144-what-success-pair-political-entrepreneurs-reveals-about-voting-and
Franchise owners will fight back and say no way, but company owned stores will have no choice.
Yeah, does anyone know the breakdown of franchise vs. company owned?
And the workers will get the worst of it - having to clean up the bathrooms will be a nightmare. Probably have to deal with dead or od’d people at times too. This is absurd. A friend of mine who works at a supermarket says the bathroom they have for the public is a disaster zone, she cant even understand how people can make such a mess. But these are mentally ill people we’re talking about for the most part.
Sbux is all corp owned, no franchises.
Time to short sell SBUX
MGSpiffy
Time to short sell SBUX
Great thought. Too chicken to short th stock but the ideea of options is interesting!!!
Don’t most people, at least in suburbia, go through the drive thru? Even at the one closest to the house, which doesn’t have a drive through, from what I have noticed most people get their order to go as the place always looks nearly empty.
But yeah, inviting the homeless into your shop is a really bad idea. I expect SJWs to target other chain businesses to do the same. I wouldn’t be surprised if other businesses have already, albeit very quietly, changed their policies to be “homeless friendly” to avoid any bad publicity.
I see a business opportunity for increasing sales for mom and pop stores (especially coffee and restaurants).
I know a few owners. They don’t play this game.
I know a few owners. They don’t play this game.
My wife already competes well with Starbucks in China. This will just make it easier if she opens a shop in the USA.
Almost any grocery store, and every big box store is already like this. In the dozens of times I’ve stopped in one to use the restroom, I think there was ONE Safeway, in an urban area, that didn’t allow it.
The real fun will start when SJWs insist on both all-sex single bath-rooms with a locking door, making those all-sex bathrooms available to the homeless. There’s nothing an addict likes more than a single-room bathroom with a locking door.
‘Police say it’s a growing problem in Santa Maria — transients breaking into private property.’
‘One Santa Maria family just bought a new house and came to find that someone had broken in and made themselves at home before they were able to move in. Neighbors say they caught trespassers multiple times leaving drug pipes and other belongings behind.’
‘Santa Maria police say they’ve been responding to vacant home break-ins two to three times a week, consistently over the last several months. Officers have to kick the people out and arrest them. Meanwhile, homeowners often finding drug paraphernalia and a mess to clean up.’
“Over the last several months all over the city we’ve seen individuals moving into vacant residences to kind of inhabit at random,” said Lt. Russell Mengel, Santa Maria Police Department.’
‘Police would go on to arrest the woman for trespassing for the fourth time in two months. They say this is happening to many empty homes in Santa Maria. “Most of them have some type of substance abuse issue so they don’t qualify for other housing options in the city, but it’s a lifestyle choice,” Lt. Mengel said.’
Vacant shacks in California. Who woulda thunk it?
“We don’t want to become a public bathroom, but we’re going to make the right decision a hundred percent of the time and give people the key,” Schultz said, “because we don’t want anyone at Starbucks to feel as if we are not giving access to you to the bathroom because you are less than.”
Work at Starbucks and you can get Hep A cleaning up the restrooms all for minimum wage. cool
Back in the sixties discrimination was a sign of sophistication.
What happened to “We reserve the right to refuse service”. Or “No shoes, no shirt, no service”? I guess I’m officially an old fogie now.
Welcome to “Snowflakeworld.”
‘We are having more problems selling resales because we are competing with new construction.’
That’s when you are well and truly fooked Beth.
‘There are around 7,000 of these empty and abandoned lots in Teton County. Some have been sitting there for over a decade. They might finally be getting turned around. ‘There are so many subdivisions in the county and so many of them have one or no homes’
But, shortage?
Fooked is an understatement.
Do you remember the Savings and Loan bust of the late 80s? When it happened, around the Dallas/Ft Worth area there were many subdivisions where construction had just began, and were effectively abandoned when the development stopped. Some were just empty streets full of cleared lots without houses, other had a few completed or partially completed houses.
It took several years before most of the developments restarted and houses were occupied, etc. But this was around a large metropolitan area with > ~4M population at the time that found a number of ways to rebound economically.
Per Wikipedia: Teton County, Idaho
Area: 451 mi²
Population: 10,564 (2015)
7000 lots - at 1.5 people per home, that’s enough housing for the currently existing population of the entire county. Absorption, or even disposal of those lots will take over a century.. or two…
How? How did any developer, or financier think it was a good idea to attempt development once the number of lots before them pushed passed a thousand? or 5 thousand? Something in the water that inhibits basic math skills?
We still have them all over Arizona. I’ve made some videos. Check out the Casa Grande debacle. At one point a few years ago there were 40,000 lots in foreclosure around Kingman. I think the whole town is around 40,000 people. Now people there are snapping up shacks with zero down USDA loans.
Any links or search terms?
A quick google of “Casa Grande debacle” or “Case Grande housing overbuilt” isn’t giving any top hits.
Queen Creek, Arizona
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bb2StPn-nD0
Casa Grande, AZ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4TMMLkTyzw
The HBB channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCr0kVPTPfgQ9WHYvA4qB04g
Thanks Ben.
For some reason I now have this urge to play Fallout again…
‘I have been seeing more and more price reductions in the detached housing market,’ said Michelle Yu, a top-producing Vancouver agent. Yu, known for her eight-figure land assemblies, said investors should not expect a quick return on investment if they had bought recently. ‘All you can expect is capital gain. However, as long as the NDP is in power, I strongly believe the double-digits gain honeymoon is over.’
Michelle is a bright penny! The double digit days for Vancouver ended in 2016.
ASKBiblitz on Twitter: “Crash! And take that asshole Bob Rennie with it …
https://twitter.com/leobiblitz/status/613724921789743104
“A big concern to renters looking to buy a home is rising prices. From 2011-17, income has risen 15 percent, while home prices have risen 48 percent, Yun said.”
I think what people tend to overlook when just looking at the strict percentages (which are bad enough in and of itself) are the starting point on those percentages.
So if median income is $50,000 and that has risen by 15%….your new median income is at $57,500…..a whopping $7,500 increase.
And if at the same time the median housing price is $250,000 (and it’s much, much greater in many places)…..that 48% rise in prices translates into a…..$120,000 increase!
So my income went up by $7,500 but the shack went up $120,000?
Makes complete sense to me. The economics on this are so far out of whack I feel like I’m on another planet.
It’s so basic to see yet millions of people either bury their heads so as to not see it or they are just too damn stupid to see it.
I’ve seen this come up quite a bit on local discussions - the horizon (ready to purchase) receding faster than people can move towards it.
And it’s worse when you consider other factors. That 15% increase? that’s pre-tax. Take out 15% for fed tax, 7.65% for FICA and maybe a few more state and local, and that $7500 increase is just $5600 net.
But that $120,000 increase? That’s all to be paid in after-tax dollars. The 20% down-payment target went up $24K alone - that over 4 years of banking that 15% pay increase. Surely it made up some ground earning interest while sitting in the bank… *snorf* Maybe it should have been invested in the start market… no risk there, right?
A while back I described plotting 2 curves: one of the homes that could be bought and the prices they are at, and the other of the people wanting to buy a home and the incomes they had. Where they matched up or overlapped, people had options. The one curve has moved up and to the right, the other to left.. changing who can buy, and if they can, what sort of house they can get.
It’s been less than a decade, and many people have seen or felt that shift, and their position on that curve move, in a personal way - sensing that earlier in their lifetime, their purchase opportunities were much better feel a recognition that it’s continuing to get worse for them. And that leads to a lot of frustration and anger in the populace at the receding quality of life, which I think we’ll see more and more of expressed at the ballot box, among other places.
It’s not about the absolute increase though. It’s about the increase in howmuchamonth. 7500/12 = $600 extra per month. That will allow you to service almost $200,000 additional house price at 4%. So incomes are going up faster than house prices
Iphone prices are up 500%. In 2011 it was $200 with a 2 year contract. Today it’s $1000. Sales of iphones have increased substantially since 2011.
They have gone up but that’s apples/oranges. The contract subsidized them. IIRC when you could start getting unlocked phones without any subsidy they were around $600?
“When a co-op on the 34th floor of a ritzy Upper East Side building sold last year, the price was recorded as $3 million. But it actually cost closer to $2.7 million. At closing, the buyer of the three-bedroom co-op at 425 East 58th Street received a credit of $225,000. The buyer and seller, at the behest of the co-op board, cut a deal to keep the technical sale price in line with the expected value of similar units in the building. Though the contract detailed this arrangement, public records only reflect the higher price.”
And I wonder if this $225,000 credit was counted as part of the downpayment?
I’m sure this has been reported here before and somehow passed me by, but apparently concessions like this have been allowed to be counted as a downpayment since 2015 http://investmentresearchdynamics.com/subprime-mortgages-come-roaring-back/.
Here’s a glimpse of global banking via the U.S. Treasury. Enjoy!
American officials can destroy foreign firms
https://www.economist.com/news/business/21741556-there-are-also-big-downsides-actions-against-rusal-and-zte-zap-american-officials
It goes to show what a huge advantage it is being the reserve currency of the world. Take that away and things change drastically. However, being the world’s largest economy would still allow us a position of great strength.
Layoffs in the mortgage biz:
http://www.cleveland.com/business/index.ssf/2018/05/us_bank_to_lay_off_260_from_be.html#incart_river_mobile_index
‘The decision is real estate-based, said U.S. Bank spokeswoman Molly Snyder. “After a strategic review of our real estate footprint, we have made the decision to close the U.S. Bank satellite office in Bedford, Ohio, when its lease expires this fall.”
‘Snyder didn’t respond to a question about whether the company’s mortgage business has declined. “This action is expected to be permanent,” Snyder said.’
Bend, OR(century west) Housing Prices Crater 17% YOY As Unemployment Ravages West Coast
https://www.zillow.com/century-west-bend-or/home-values/
*Select price from dropdown menu on first chart
“The End is Nigh”
One possible path to affordability: Build your subdivision in the path of a future lava flow.
“Nobody could have seen it coming!”
…
The construction of Leilani Estates was approved in 1960, according to Daryn Arai, deputy planning director at the Hawaii County Planning Department, and about 1,600 people live in the neighborhood today. It’s a rural neighborhood that has offered relatively affordable homes, in contrast with Hawaii’s more expensive real estate on Oahu and Maui.
Despite the neighborhood’s position in an area where lava flows are most likely to occur on the island, there are no building restrictions, Mr. Arai said.
…
there are no building restrictions, Mr. Arai said
“I have my own building restrictions.” Madame Pele said.
Legends of Madame Pele: She is often portrayed as a wanderer… some times as an unattractive and frail elderly woman accompanied by a white dog. Pele takes this form of an elderly beggar woman to test people – asking them if they have food or drink to share. Those who are generous and share with her are rewarded while anyone who is greedy or unkind are punished with their homes or other valuables destroyed.
Hey real estate is “hot” on the big island.
“From 2011-17, income has risen 15 percent, while home prices have risen 48 percent, Yun said.”
A tsunami of federally-guaranteed debt during a period of slow income growth explains how this REbubble could have happened.
Another day, another tumble in the Bitcoin price to a dramatically lower level…
Bitcoin Tumbles After South Korea’s Biggest Crypto Exchange Raided
Investing.com | May 11, 2018 10:51AM ET
Bitcoin down 13% in rough week for cryptocurrencies
Investing.com - Cryptocurrencies tumbled across the board on Friday adding heavily to a major weekly decline after news that South Korean officials raided the country’s largest crypto exchange.
Bitcoin sank 7.90% in the last 24 hours to reach $8,602.20 on the Bitfinex exchange by 10:46AM ET (14:46GMT), the largest crypto by market capitalization has lost 12.7% so far this week after an attack at the $10,000 level last Saturday petered out at $9,990.
Major rival Ethereum slid 10.2% to $682.54 in the last 24 hours, bringing weekly losses to 16.7%.
Ripple tumbled 13.2% to $0.69200, upping the weekly decline to 23.5%, while Bitcoin Cash, product of the Bitcoin fork and the fourth largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, plunged 13.7% to $1,419.00 but still showed a 19.5% fall for the week.
While cryptocurrencies have seen severe selling pressure this week amid a series of negative comments from high profile investors, news that South Korean prosecutors raided the country’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange, Upbit, on Thursday and Friday seemed to derail any possibility of a recovery.
https://m.investing.com/news/cryptocurrency-news/bitcoin-tumbles-after-south-koreas-biggest-crypto-exchange-raided-1443379
What is amazing it is still $8600.Shows how much criminal activity and capital flight from China there is in the world.