Detecting Fake News Of Demand
A report from Builder Online. “We heard repeatedly over the two-and-a-half days of the just-concluded Housing Leadership Summit that although times are good now, and demand is solid for whatever builders can deliver to an inventory-starved market, clouds of uncertainty have begun roiling up on the not-too-distant horizon. Although the onset of the last downturn–the Great Recession that took down housing–is more than a decade hence, home builders, their investment partners, and their associated business ecosystem remember one aspect of it as if it were yesterday. They remember that their early-warning systems failed, and they remember that the models to detect what was really going on versus what was ‘fake news’ of demand were broken.”
From Local Memphis in Tennessee. “House hunting this spring? Good luck!! The Memphis housing market is hot! Karen Dzubuk and her partner Osvaldo Lungo know firsthand how difficult the process can be. They have looked at house after house. They have put in one bid after another and they’ve lost time and time again. The sixth time was the charm, they finally got a contract on a house in Cordova. Are you ready for this? They put in their bid sight unseen!!”
“‘He was telling me this morning ‘you’re crazy. You just bought a house and never walked into the house.’ I said, ‘I guess so,’ said Dzubuk. Dzubuk’ s advice to house hunters, remain patient. ‘We hit the jackpot we did.’”
From CAL Matters on California. “The median price of a California single family home is now well over half a million dollars. That’s more than double what the average house costs in the rest of the U.S. Put a more nauseating way, you could buy two ‘average’ non-California houses for the price of one California house. It’s also not a surprise that with unliveable wrecks selling for that much, residents are starting to look for other places to live. According to data from the California Department of Finance, Santa Clara County lost 17,000 more residents to other parts of the state or country than they gained last year. That’s the second biggest net domestic migration loss of any county in the state.”
“Prices are getting prohibitively expensive in and around L.A.’s downtown core. Los Angeles real estate agent Jenn Cahill specializes in neighborhoods east of downtown Los Angeles like Boyle Heights. She says she gets approached by young families with budgets of $500,000 all the time. Which means a lot of her role is adjusting expectations. ‘You walk into a bedroom, and they immediately think it’s a closet,’ says Cahill. ‘And you’re like, no, no ,no, it’s a bedroom, with a little shoebox closet in the corner.’”
From Bloomberg. “Riskier U.S. mortgages are creeping back into the bond market again. They’re being made to people with lower credit scores and with more debt relative to their income. And in separate transactions tied to rental homes, Wall Street banks are putting together securities with fewer safeguards for investors — a potentially worrying sign of complacency. ‘Underwriting starts out very strict and as time goes on, it’s kind of the proverbial frog in the pot of boiling water,’ said John Kerschner, head of securitized products at Janus Henderson Group Plc, which manages $372 billion. ‘The heat keeps going up and up and then you realize, oh, this is really not good.’”
From The Oregonian. “Oregon’s total employment fell by 2,900 jobs in April, the first monthly decline since December 2016, according to state jobs data. In a study released last week, Oregon regional labor economist Pat O’Connor found state ‘wage growth slowing to a grinding halt’ beginning last summer. The slowdown coincided with the weakening job market, according to O’Connor. Portland State University economist Tom Potiowsky wrote that the region is in its ninth year of expansion – one of the longest stretches on record.”
“Signs of slowing population growth, and a cooler housing market, are reflective of a more mature economic expansion without any immediate signs of trouble. ‘As such, we see growth continuing in the Portland (area) at a slower rate but no recession on the horizon – at the very least, not in 2018,’ Potiowsky wrote.”
From NBC DFW in Texas. “Home builders across Dallas-Fort Worth are turning their attention to so-called starter homes with a renewed focus on adding homes under $300,000 back into the market. While the DFW housing market has cooled slightly, real estate experts still point to a seller’s market where inventory’s lower than demand. According to Metrostudy, the median new home price in DFW is down 2.4 percent from last year. It’s expected to continue to drop or at least remain flat, which experts said will help extend this current real estate cycle DFW is in.”
“‘Really, affordability is finding land that’s affordable. It’s finding locations that allow us to get a land price that’s cheaper that we can pass on that cost,’ said Vice President of Construction Greg McGriff. While McGriff said they build anywhere from $200,000 to $500,000 homes, the community currently under construction in Red Oak will focus on those below $300,000.”
“But when they start with land at a lower price point, they can build small, minimize amenities and source materials locally to create homes that appeal to the majority of current buyers who don’t want to exceed $400,000. They’re homes that appeal to buyers like David Taylor who’s looking to relocate from Colorado for retirement. ‘Most definitely the pricing on a new build is a better value to me,’ said Taylor. It’s also an option he feels gives him plenty of options in a red-hot real estate market.”
From Sparefoot on Colorado. “These days, it feels like the self-storage supply in Denver, CO, is at least a mile high. And that could lead to a rocky future for self-storage operators and developers in the region. A report from Marcus & Millichap indicates that among the top 50 U.S. metro areas, the self-storage inventory in the Denver market grew by the second highest level — 36.4 percent — from 2013 to 2018. Only one market, Raleigh, NC, had a higher rate of inventory growth.”
“In light of that potential danger, Joan Lucas, a Denver self-storage broker affiliated with the Aurora, CO-based Self Storage Sales Network, is urging self-storage developers to think twice about building more facilities in the Denver market. ‘Simply stated, the market cannot absorb one more project,’ Lucas said. ‘I believe the Denver market is oversupplied, and it will take some time for the housing market to catch up with all of the self-storage development.’”
“The wariness of operators like Public Storage about the Denver market ‘makes it bad for everyone, because the major institutions drive the cap rates and pricing,’ Lucas said. ‘If they stop looking at Denver as a great place to park their money, we will all be hurt.’”
From the Times Ledger on New York. “The Center for New York City Neighborhoods released a report from its Policy Research Manager Leo Goldberg and Data Manager John Baker in late April detailing the dangerous effects of real estate speculation in Queens and the other boroughs. The April 23 report, ‘How Real Estate Speculators are Targeting New York City’s Most Affordable Neighborhoods,’ depicted which neighborhoods throughout the city and Queens were most affected by flippings and foreclosures in 2016 to 2017 due to the speculation.”
“Homeowners who want to buy affordable homes can’t because investors are buying them and then selling at prices up to 50 percent higher than similar non-flipped homes, according to Cristian Salazar, a spokesman for CNYCN. Typically, a property flip involved an individual or real estate investor buying a house, fixing it up first and then selling it for significant amount, according to representatives of Federal Bureau of Investigations, who are investigating illegal property schemes.”
“The FBI has noticed that con artists are trying to cash-in on flipping by buying homes at low prices, paying an appraiser to submit false paperwork saying there was work done on the house, therefore, justifying the high price of the home and then they get a friend or family member to take out a loan on the house from a bank as a buyer, according to the agency. The bank would unwittingly give out a high loan to the buyer and the con artist will pay the buyer a small fee and make a profit from the sale. The bank ends up taking a huge loss after the property ends up getting foreclosed on.”
From NBC Miami in Florida. “Forty-five percent of home sales in Miami-Dade in 2017 were cash deals, according to ATTOM Data Solutions. Real estate agents like Alicia Cervera de la Madrid, a member of the Miami Association of Realtors, love this cash market. ‘It’s a more stable market and it’s a healthier market. So that’s a good thing,’ says Cervera.”
“But some of the cash raises the suspicion of John Tobon, deputy special agent with Homeland Security Investigations. And he says the dirty money makes everyone pay higher housing prices. ‘A lot of that money comes from illicit sources,’ says Tobon. ‘The initial response to all of this influx of money is, ‘Oh this is great,’ but I think we are starting to see why this is bad,’ says Tobon. ‘It is bad because unless you can come up with $600 or $700 thousand cash, you cannot buy or legitimately compete for a home in the greater part of Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach.’”
“Nobody knows how many properties have been bought with dirty money but Tobon says there’s a lot of money available from black markets around the world such as Russia, Colombia, and Venezuela. ‘The amount of money–its hundreds of billions,’ says Tobon.
“To combat dirty money the Treasury Department now requires title companies in South Florida and other hot real estate markets to share more information on buyers who make transactions of $1 million or more. Those buyers can stay private using a perfectly legal process of making the purchase through a limited liability company or LLC. Separating good buyers from bad ones isn’t easy as many people use LLCs to buy properties.”
“The NBC 6 Investigators reviewed local property records and found that in 2017 in Miami-Dade, at least 11,690 residential properties in Miami-Dade were purchased by or transferred to an LLC. That number has almost doubled in last five years. The Treasury found nationally nearly one in three of the $1 million plus purchases involved a person or company that had been the subject of a previous suspicious activity report.”
Santa Barbara County, CA Housing Prices Tank 10% YOY As SoCal Housing Market Craters
https://www.zillow.com/santa-barbara-county-ca/home-values/
*Select price from dropdown menu on rental chart
Does this mean I’ll eventually be able to buy a house in Huntington Beach??
http://www.idahostatesman.com/article211169379.html
The average home prices in Ada and Canyon counties have taken a dip — if ever so slightly.
After two straight months where median sales prices of homes purchased in Ada County pushed to new heights, April brought a decline of nearly $14,000. The median price of the 856 single-family homes sold during the month dropped to $295,000, down from $308,950.
Buyers were aided by a 28 percent increase in the number of used homes on the market in April, compared to the month before, according to the latest report from the Intermountain Multiple Listing Service. There were 636 existing homes for sale in April, up from 498 in March.
Rising interest rates + DJT New Tax Laws + QE Unwind = The Tipping Point
+++++
Mortgage rates reach seven-year high in a housing market reckoning
May 17, 2018 - Market Watch
Rates for home loans powered to the highest since 2011, setting up a fresh test for a housing market already strained by lean supply and surging prices.
The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 4.61% in the week ending May 17, mortgage finance provider Freddie Mac said Thursday. That was a 6 basis point jump, and marked the highest for the popular product since May, 2011. The 15-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 4.08%, up 7 basis points during the week. The 5-year Treasury-indexed hybrid adjustable-rate averaged 3.82%, up from 3.77%.
Mortgage rates follow the path of the benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury note TMUBMUSD10Y, +0.15% , which is also at its highest since 2011. After several hiccups in the spring, investors are once again selling bonds, believing that higher inflation and more government borrowing will erode the value of fixed-income assets that have already been issued.
The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage is still substantially lower than its long-time average, but that’s cold comfort for would-be home buyers. Home prices aren’t just rising faster than incomes are, they’re accelerating.
“The prospect of rates approaching 5% could begin to hit the psyche of some prospective buyers,” Freddie Chief Economist Sam Khater said.
https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/dhi
Performance
5 Day -5.81%
1 Month -3.93%
3 Month -9.33%
YTD -19.09%
Look at the graph for max time limit. Sorta 2006-ish.
See that “blue sky” above the burned-out $900k San Jose shack?
‘…real estate agent Jenn Cahill specializes in neighborhoods east of downtown Los Angeles like Boyle Heights. She says she gets approached by young families with budgets of $500,000 all the time. Which means a lot of her role is adjusting expectations. ‘You walk into a bedroom, and they immediately think it’s a closet,’ says Cahill. ‘And you’re like, no, no ,no, it’s a bedroom, with a little shoebox closet in the corner.’
http://homicide.latimes.com/neighborhood/boyle-heights
http://maps.latimes.com/neighborhoods/neighborhood/boyle-heights/crime/
‘Latest complete week May 4–May 10
15 violent crimes
33 property crimes
4.8 crimes per 10,000 people
‘In the seven days between May 4 and May 10, both violent and property crime reports were about average.’
‘Over the last three months, Boyle Heights averaged 11.8 violent crimes and 39.4 property crimes per week. This week’s rate of 4.8 crimes per 10,000 people is higher than in nearby El Sereno and lower than Downtown, Chinatown and Lincoln Heights.’
Look at all the high tech intertubes stuff to help loanowners decide where to snap up an investment!
https://spotcrime.com/ca/los+angeles/boyle+heights
‘She says she gets approached by young families with budgets of $500,000 all the time. Which means a lot of her role is adjusting expectations’
Also from the CA article, behold the locusts!
‘Five years ago, Mike Wood said he’d probably get one Californian a week seriously considering buying in Nevada. Now the real estate agent he gets one a day, from places like the Bay Area and Los Angeles and Sacramento. “The reasons are almost always financial,” says Wood. “Their dollar does go further. And our prices have definitely come up over the past five years in large part because of the influx.”
‘According to the real estate data firm Zillow, the median list price of a single-family home in Reno has jumped from about $300,000 in 2015 to nearly $420,000 today. That means some of Wood’s California clients who expect half a million will should get them a mansion in Reno are disappointed.’
“We get people that come up and say, ‘that’s ridiculous,’” says Wood. “‘I should be able to buy that home for $400,000, it’s ridiculous how much your prices have gone up.’”
I had a friend show me a 475,000 4 bd, 2 ba house, 30 miles north of Dallas and said, “I don’t know why I stay here in California.”
I looked at it and replied, “Wow, those equity locusts really drove up the prices out there”
This guy currently has a 4 bd, 2 ba house about 30 miles north of Downtown Los Angeles with a current “Zestimate” of $600,690.
So your spread now between Dallas fringe and Los Angeles fringe is only about 125k?
I told him, enjoy competing with all the other California money. LOL
It will not take a major drop in prices in California to wipe out the equity. Small down payments and home equity loans prevent many people from having a lot of equity in those million dollars homes. The name of the game is leverage and that works both ways.
“It’s ridiculous how much your prices have gone up…”
Heh, and I bet they wonder why. Look in mirror, surfer-boy. It’s you and your ilk. You want a $400K mansion, you’ll have to move to Trump country (where there’s actual rainfall).
Hey Donk.
With so many people fleeing from California’s economic wasteland, it’s quite surprising how long it is taking home prices to crater here.
Where do young people get those $500K budgets?
Smell Watt.
Pretty much. They get 3.5% down from the bank of Mom and Dad, and then are allowed to pay 45%+ of gross household income toward housing, IIUC.
In LA, a $500K house is a total PITI of $3200/month. So, $38400 to the house. So, I guess a couple of $50K teachers could afford this…. if they don’t have cars and if they don’t eat anything.
Donk,
$500k is $3600/month.
Now stack on taxes, insurance and depreciation at $3/sq ft year after wallet draining year and you’re up to $6000+/month….. and you haven’t even turned the lights on yet.
The Memphis link has the television news story featuring the unfortunate couple. A couple more tidbits:
Karen Dzubek (before proclaiming that she “hit the jackpot”): “Holy Moly. This is orange.”
Newscaster: “Check this out. In Memphis and the surrounding suburbs, complete strangers are approaching homeowners, asking if they would be willing to sell.”
May 7, 2018
From WBRC in Tennessee. “It’s no secret, blight is a big problem in the Bluff City. Now, a new list shows the top 10 property owners with the most code violations. Memphis attorney Steve Barlow has spent over a decade on the front lines battling the blight. He leads Neighborhood Preservation Inc., a non-profit that works to remove barriers to fix blighted properties. ‘We have a lot of challenges with abandonment and vacant, unutilized real estate. We have somewhere in the neighborhood of 15,000 abandoned city houses and several thousand abandoned multi-family units,’ he said.”
“Records show nearly all the properties on the list are owned by corporations. We have reached out to Cerberus Capital Management–which manages properties with the most code violations on the list—and they sent us this statement. ‘FirstKey Homes is committed to the Memphis area and our portfolio of high quality single-family rental properties are not part of the ‘blight’ that this civic group is fighting to eliminate. To the contrary, these homes are well-maintained properties for growing families and are helping to provide affordable housing options in Memphis.’”
http://thehousingbubbleblog.com/?p=10425
The same May 7 link:
From the Tampa Bay Times in Florida. “During the worst days of the housing crash, 43 percent of Tampa Bay homes were ’seriously underwater’ — their owners owed at least 25 percent more than the home’s value. Figures released today show that just 9.4 percent of homes with mortgages now fit that category, according to ATTOM Data Solutions. The Times spoke with Daren Blomquist, the company’s senior vice president, about the huge decline and some other trends both positive and worrisome.”
“Q. Why aren’t the equity rich numbers growing faster? A. That’s a testament to an increasing number of folks who do have equity starting to tap into it a little more so they are not necessarily staying in that equity rich category. Q. I’ve heard that some lenders are loosening up? Is that true? A. It’s nowhere near the level of looseness we saw a decade ago during the last housing boom. But one evidence anecdotally is the return of subprime mortgages, which they are now calling ‘non-prime’ mortgages, and I think more companies are doing them.”
“Q. Any other evidence that lenders have loosened up? A. We’re seeing in our own data a somewhat surprising increase in foreclosure starts in the first quarter. A lot of that increase is due to FHA loans originated in 2014, so as early as 2014 we were starting to see some loosening especially for FHA borrowers, which tend to be lower- credit borrowers. (The increase in foreclosure starts) showed up in some places we’d expect, like Rust Belt cities, but then we also saw it in places like Austin, with a 30 percent increase; Dallas, Reno, Las Vegas, Charlotte. All of those are poster-child markets of this housing boom. They’ve done very well, but there have been some increases in foreclosure starts.”
“Q. Anything else to keep an eye on? A. On the grapevine, we’re hearing a little more about people interested in mortgage-backed securities. That’s one of the hallmarks that helped inflate the housing bubble last time around.”
And who’s going to challenge Cerberus Capital Management? Nobody. See below:
“President Donald Trump has chosen billionaire investor Stephen Feinberg to lead his intelligence advisory board, the White House said Friday.
Trump intends to appoint Feinberg, the co-founder and co-chief executive officer of Cerberus Capital Management in New York, to chair the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board, which plays a role in overseeing the intelligence community, deriving its influence from direct access to the president and his senior staff.
Among Cerberus’ holdings is the military contractor DynCorp International, which receives the vast majority of its $3 billion in annual revenues from the federal government.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-11/trump-chooses-cerberus-s-feinberg-to-lead-spy-advisory-panel
Somebody call Rachel Maddow!
Rachel Maddow wouldn’t care about this any more than she cared that Citigroup staffed Obama’s first cabinet.
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/8190
Memphis is a sewer with a couple of nice areas that are livable.. So any decent home that comes on the market in those areas, is bought site unseen. And even so prices are cheap. $300k buys a 4 bedroom 2500 sq ft new home in a good school district.
“And even so prices are cheap. $300k buys a 4 bedroom 2500 sq ft”
8x median household income isn’t cheap. Remember…… the long term housing price/income is 2x.
“…And even so prices are cheap. $300k buys a 4 bedroom 2500 sq ft new home in a good school district.”
LMAO. That ain’t cheap. It wouldn’t be cheap even if you made $125K a year.
Reminds me of a comment scdave might make.
I know her she is running for Mayor of Nashville
https://www.facebook.com/profcarolmswain/
LMAO. That ain’t cheap.
Absolutely. The numbers thrown around on here are amazing. Death pledge indeed.
It makes me laugh when some people insist they’re not rich, no matter how much money they make. I don’t think “rich” is a dirty word - why do people deny it so vigorously? They’ve worked hard (hopefully), deserve it (hopefully) - good for them. What’s the problem?
HBB players have changed over the years. Ben stays the same (he is examining the housing bubble - not giving advice) but the tone of many participants has changed. New, old players - I don’t really know. I usually read the comment first and the name after. One thing’s for sure, the last decade has been berry berry good for some.
I wish I had done things differently, been stronger, not so distracted, but that’s water under the bridge. I would never choose be a landlord again; for the few years, it felt creepy. It did not appeal to me in the least (ha, it auto corrected to “in the lease”.)
I know, at this point, I have a case for LLs. God bless their tyrannical, megalomaniacal little hearts.
Small comfort: if prices continue to rise, we, as renters, won’t get the boot, as we have so many times before - so that’s good.
May 14, 2018 Las Vegas Homebuyers Take A Gamble As Sin City Named The Most Overvalued Housing Market In America
I feel very rich. I don’t need much.
If I were to do it over, I’d stop playing the debt game and retire about 20 years earlier.
“But some of the cash raises the suspicion of John Tobon, deputy special agent with Homeland Security Investigations. And he says the dirty money makes everyone pay higher housing prices. ‘A lot of that money comes from illicit sources,’ says Tobon. ‘The initial response to all of this influx of money is, ‘Oh this is great,’ but I think we are starting to see why this is bad,’ says Tobon. ‘It is bad because unless you can come up with $600 or $700 thousand cash, you cannot buy or legitimately compete for a home in the greater part of Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach.’”
“Nobody knows how many properties have been bought with dirty money but Tobon says there’s a lot of money available from black markets around the world such as Russia, Colombia, and Venezuela. ‘The amount of money–its hundreds of billions,’ says Tobon.
____________________________/
“Starting to see” why this is bad? Christ, I pay this guy’s salary and I’ve been saying for 15 years that this is money laundering.
There are people who are benefitted, often substantially, when our leaders turn a blind eye to financial fraud. But there are more people who are harmed. Guess which group is more politically influential?
Thank you for saying this.
Seattle example. Bellevue is across Lake Washington from Seattle - a high end suburb. There is so much eastern Europe and Russia money pouring in. They are overpaying so that they can ‘clean’ fraud money.
The whole family - wife,young adult children are not being productive —- they are waking up late They are then getting a slow alcohol buzz for the next 10 hours.
It is so frustrating that friends have to work so very hard for $55K/year
‘Underwriting starts out very strict and as time goes on, it’s kind of the proverbial frog in the pot of boiling water,’ said John Kerschner, head of securitized products at Janus Henderson Group Plc, which manages $372 billion. ‘The heat keeps going up and up and then you realize, oh, this is really not good.’
Now hold on here John. You are contradicting several knowledgeable loan owners on this blog who insist these loans are as pure as the driven snow. Senator Running Deer!
But you know, there was that no income considered loan thingy from Freddie Mac a week or so ago. Naaah!
I remember this EXACT scam from Housing Bubble V1.0
+++++
“The FBI has noticed that con artists are trying to cash-in on flipping by buying homes at low prices, paying an appraiser to submit false paperwork saying there was work done on the house, therefore, justifying the high price of the home and then they get a friend or family member to take out a loan on the house from a bank as a buyer, according to the agency. The bank would unwittingly give out a high loan to the buyer and the con artist will pay the buyer a small fee and make a profit from the sale. The bank ends up taking a huge loss after the property ends up getting foreclosed on.”
Back in the bad old days when banks were forced to eat their bad loans and there were no government guarantees on mortgagees.
Banks use their OWN appraisers.
And would also conduct extensive evaluations into the buyers.
Isn’t BIGGER and BIGGER government GREAT!
I want to know which banks are letting buyers using their own appraisers. Have not seen that around here.
Wouldn’t that completely tank the buyer’s credit though?
Unless the buyer’s are people that can barely fog a mirror and not much else, I think they would eventually be tracking down the flipper for some justice.
Considering 90%+ of all mortgages since 2008 are subprime, it’s safe to say they can barely fog a mirror.
“Fog a mirror”
Another phrase from Housing Bubble V1.0
This happened in my hood in bubble 1.0. Probably an illegal who got the loan with some cash back and took a siesta. Price the house sold for was a pretty good spike over the comps, and the new “owner” never ever moved in - couple years later it was foreclosed. I put my house on the market shortly thereafter which was nicer, better location, etc. but didnt give in to my ego and took a lower sale price as I sensed fraud with that other sale and just wasnt seeing many offers - the market had already turned in my area.
That’s is how it was done along Ocean Blvd in Long Beach, CA.
They convicted 5-6 but the agent was found not guilty.
Fake legacy news CNN can’t understand it.
No mention of eight years of obama economics, QE1, QE2, QE3, QE4, HARP, HAMP, TARP, Stimulus, Cash for Clunkers, Operation Twist, adding more to the deficit than all other previous administration combined and accounting for inflation, bank bailout after bailout after bailout, etc.
It is the housing and rental costs that are out of control.
++++++
The economy may be chugging along, but many Americans are still struggling to afford a basic middle class life.
Nearly 51 million households don’t earn enough to afford a monthly budget that includes housing, food, child care, health care, transportation and a cell phone, according to a study released Thursday by the United Way ALICE Project. That’s 43% of households in the United States.
California, New Mexico and Hawaii have the largest share of struggling families, at 49% each. North Dakota has the lowest at 32%.
For instance, in Seattle’s King County, the annual household survival budget for a family of four (including one infant and one preschooler) in 2016 was nearly $85,000. This would require an hourly wage of $42.46. But in Washington State, only 14% of jobs pay more than $40 an hour.
2banana, this just popped up with some interesting stats for Seattle/King County.
https://projects.seattletimes.com/2018/how-to-buy-a-home/
Agreed that more people are getting priced out of their local markets. As for the $40/hour figure, and $85K household budget, I would think that means a lot of households with both adults working. Do we have any numbers on what percentage of jobs pay over $20 / $25 / $30 to give an idea of what the distribution of dual-income households is like?
‘Report: It takes $333K annual income to buy a house in San Francisco’
‘Even though the household median income in the city is $82,900′
‘In San Francisco, that number in 2017 was already $267,130/year. Twelve months later the figure has metamorphosed into an even more intimidating $333,270/year.’
‘In April, the Mayor’s Office of Housing estimated that the median SF income for a single person household is now $82,900/year (again, taxes not included).’
‘In 2016 (the most recent year for which figures are available), the U.S. Census estimated that of 356,797 SF households, only 18.4 percent make at least $200,000/year. There’s unfortunately no census data on what fraction of those also make $300,000/year or more.’
Just like ‘Income Inequality’, we have a growing ‘Home Ownership Inequality’, and larger percentage of (especially larger city-dwellers) people that will be renters most of, if not their entire lives.
And there seems to be a correlation to the deeper the blue the area is the more the ‘Income Inequality’ increases…
Hmmm….
And having to double up with roommates to afford the rent.
Are families doubling up to buy houses in San Diego, like they did ten years ago in the previous bubble?
Median income is for all workers. But SF is a majority renting town. Only about 35% owns. I doubt that 35% has a median income of $300k but I can guarantee it’s a lot higher than $80k. Married couple each working at FB, Google, Salesforce, Netflix, etc easily makes $300k combined from salary alone. Then add in stock options and $400k is not unheard of. And these are the people buying the $1m median homes.
‘add in stock options and $400k is not unheard of’
May be, but statistically insignificant.
Everyone wants to be ’statistically insignificant’
That’s what I thought.
Sounds like housing prices have a long way to fall. A very long way to fall.
“QE1, QE2, QE3, QE4, HARP, HAMP, TARP, Stimulus, Cash for Clunkers, Operation Twist”
I doubt Obama came up with this witch’s brew of Keynesian necromancy on his own, but I suppose it is fair enough to blame him for agreeing to this program of incentives for economic stupidity.
The bank would unwittingly give out a high loan to the buyer and the con artist will pay the buyer a small fee and make a profit from the sale. The bank ends up taking a huge loss after the property ends up getting foreclosed on.
Gee. That sounds like the kind of thing that used to be illegal.
See Bill Clinton, the CRA and Janet “to those bankers who thumb their nose at us I promise vigorous enforcement” Reno to see where this all started…
Today is closing day for us in the Miami area. We’re selling. We had a small bidding “battle.” Two of the bidders were offering cash, the other two pre-approved financing.
We need to get back to banks eating their losses and using sound principles, backed by law. No mortgages should be issued if no money down and no one should be able to get a mortgage for a home that’s more than 3x their annual household income. We do not need the insanity of 12-13 years back.
I’d normally say let people do what the hell they want….but when taxpayers pick up the tab, then we taxpayers should be able to say, “Hold up. Let’s put some brakes on this train.”
We do not need the insanity of 12-13 years back.
I think we’re already there.
Were the cash bidders local?
or just loco?
Eat crow (haha) they ARE making more land
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-17/monaco-s-2-4-billion-plan-to-stay-relevant-expand-the-coastline
Ben Jones this is a fun article about globalists than analyzes and discusses them as narcicistic sociopaths, and that globalists are not human:
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-05-16/brandon-smith-global-elitists-are-not-human
Tampa, FL (Ballast Point) Housing Prices Crater 12% YOY
https://www.zillow.com/ballast-point-tampa-fl/home-values/
Did anyone notice that the US financial system went down this morning? No? Well, you’re not alone. The implications of this little gem haven’t sunk in as yet, at least not for the general public, but I guarantee you that people and companies with lots of money sat up and took notice:
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-05-17/cohen-leaker-steps-forward-say-i-am-terrified-right-now-would-be-understatement
When an internal law enforcement “official” can access your records from the Treasury Dept. and “leak” them to a porn lawyer who is facing disbarment, among other unsavory activities, it’s over. It’s over because the system depends on confidence. This episode just screams insecurity, untrustworthiness and criminality, which doesn’t exactly instill confidence, especially since two other “Michael Cohens” got swept up in this.
Cohen may be a thug and not terribly bright, but this is as bad as it gets. If the Avenatti and his leaker aren’t dealt with swiftly and severely, the system is going down for keeps. Quietly maybe, but painfully.
‘ porn lawyer who is facing disbarment, ‘
That’s an embellishment, lawyers don’t get disbarred for tax liens fyi. There’s not even a bar complaint at this point.
tax liens is not why he’s facing disbarment. It has to do with the Tully Coffee Shops scam.
Unpaid employment taxes are the basis of complaint against him. That’s why the lawyer from washington says he should be disbarred, because of unpaid employment taxes. Go read the complaint.
This isn’t even a state bar initiated complaint, it is from a 3rd party who wasn’t an owner or employee of the failed coffee chain. It is pretty clear the complaint is simply retribution.
I was an accountant at one time. Unpaid employment taxes = stealing from little old ladies as the government sees it. Plus they can take your house. And they don’t play around. There is no tax enforced more vigorously.
There was a bakery/restaurant here in town that stopped paying employment taxes. .gov was all over them like a cheap suit and shut them down. The location remains empty after years, no one will touch it. They were located across the street from Hewlett Packard, and a lot of their biz was with HP employees. Once HP emptied out the campus they lost enough business so as to no longer be viable. A BBQ place next door hung on for dear life and is still around.
This complaint?
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4433390-Avenatti-Bar-Complaint.html
Failure to pay Federal withholding taxes is considered serious. These are not run of the mill tax liens. I had a friend years ago who failed to pay employee withholding taxes. They came down on him like a ton of bricks. Not to mention, there’s a little more to the complaint than just taxes.
http://dailycaller.com/2018/05/13/michael-avenatti-past-history/
The California State Bar is investigating it, so yeah, there’s a potential for disbarment.
http://dailycaller.com/2018/05/16/report-california-state-bar-investigating-michael-avenatti/
Clearly, someone is bankrolling the guy, since he was all of a sudden able to pay off Global Baristas after giving them the stiffage.
Are you an attorney, ibbots? If so, it must really suck to see the legal system exposed as a criminal protection racket for wealthy elites and banksters. Can’t hide behind “justice” and “the law” anymore. Doesn’t exist.
I’ve gotta admire Avenatti, though. He’s helping to bring down the whole rotten edifice, almost singlehandedly. Not to mention taking the US Treasury down as well, as i mentioned above.
One of the repo shops I worked for had two young ladies in the office who were 40-hr/wk employees. The boss, unbottoned shirt and gold chain kind of guy who hired based on cup size and/or hotness, didn’t pay their withholding taxes. He skipped the country soon after with another hottie and multiple bank’s collection proceeds too; he abandoned a phat wife and three kids, mortgage, etc. I talked to one of the young ladies sometime later… both were forced to pay their own withholding taxes. Santa Clara County, California.
The Treasury Dept. has an instrument to assess personal liability against an individual for the failure to deposit the employee portion of employment taxes. It is IRC §6672. They haven’t asserted that liability against this guy.
Like I said, the complaint is retribution based on unpaid taxes. If the IRS isn’t going after him the state bar of CA isn’t either.
The state bar of CA is taking it seriously enough to investigate it. And I’m betting that after the little stunt he pulled, publishing confidential bank records, they’ll take it even more seriously now, probably enough to disbar the guy on top of everything else. Unless someone decides to do a Breitbart on him first. Up until now he’s been a useful idiot, but when the Treasury gets involved, all bets are off. He just messed with the US banking/financial system, so he went from useful idiot to dangerous idiot. Even people who might have been cheering him on before are probably having second thoughts, if they’re well-heeled. He gets taken down before he can do further damage.
The franchise tax board gets mad when you charge customers a sales tax and then keep it for yourself. Hehe… bad dog!
“This complaint?”
Trumped up allegations do not imply guilt. Thanks to America’s founding fathers, we have a rule of law, including a presumption of innocence until proven guilty.
Trumped up allegations do not imply guilt. Thanks to America’s founding fathers, we have a rule of law, including a presumption of innocence until proven guilty.
Too bad Trump is not afforded that presumption.
Trumped up allegations do not imply guilt. Thanks to America’s founding fathers, we have a rule of law, including a presumption of innocence until proven guilty.
Too bad DJT was not (and is not) afforded that presumption.
Is this a fake allegation?
Nobody put a gun to DJT’s head and forced him to have a Stormy fling.
Nobody forced Lewinsky to prep Clinton’s cigar(s)… she had a big ‘ol schitt eating grin, IIRC. Ken Starr sure pissed away the bank though.
In defense of the Mueller investigation, at least so far as I am aware, Trump’s dalliances lie outside the scope. Apparently, the Republican party’s Puritanical moral standards only apply to the conduct of Democrat politicians.
I’m sure hypocrisy isn’t hard to find. But so far everything I’m hearing about Trump is before he was elected. Clinton would have had a much stronger case for “mind your own business” if that had been true for him. We won’t know how much his base will put up with until he cheats on Melania now and then waves his finger at the camera and says “You listen to me”.
Nobody put a gun to Stormy’s head and forced her to have a DJT fling either.
She was looking for a second bite at the apple. Cashed that first check, wanted another, larger one. It was not forthcoming, so she got to tell her story. And that would be the end of it, except her attorney is not happy with the outcome.
To me, the significant part is that the attorney was able to get confidential bank records from the US Treasury and publish them. And not just those of Trump’s lawyer, but two other people with the same name who had nothing to do with the situation. And I think that’s going to be the significant part for a lot of wealthier people and companies. The system relies on confidence. Avenatti and his criminal law enforcement leaker just blew a big hole in that confidence.
I guarantee you that right now, there’s a bunch of folks talking to their financial advisers, trying to figure out how to remove their money from “the system” and place it elsewhere.
Given the gravity of this development, I was not in the least bit surprised to see that it was headline news in today’s Wall Street Journal.
Yah? You really think the WSJ would plaster that all over the front page? Keep dreaming.
WSJ’s very existence depends upon confidence in “the system”. Not a good development for them, either.
I kind of think that the fact that EU countries are going to pay Iran for their oil with Euros to skirt US sanctions is a bigger deal than the Trump drama.
‘Although the onset of the last downturn–the Great Recession that took down housing–is more than a decade hence, home builders, their investment partners, and their associated business ecosystem remember one aspect of it as if it were yesterday. They remember that their early-warning systems failed, and they remember that the models to detect what was really going on versus what was ‘fake news’ of demand were broken.’
I admire this writer and I’ve posted from dozens of his editorials over the years. But I’m going to keep posting this report because IMO it’s important to keep in mind:
April 19, 2018
From Bisnow on Florida. “‘Palm Beach is completely on fire,’ said Todd Michael Glaser, a high-end homebuilder who made his name in Miami but has lately been concentrating on Palm Beach County. ‘I’ve never seen the amount of $8M to $70M homes as in the last three and a half, four months. It’s staggering.’ It’s not just single-family homes that are hot, but a new wave of high-end condos and mutifamily apartments, especially in downtown West Palm Beach.”
“Kolter Urban President Bob Vail, who is developing the Alexander, said that there is something of an arms race for amenities in the new supply of high-end homes. ‘You see that across the U.S. There are [apartment] buildings in Atlanta, Denver and Dallas that are nicer and more fully amenitized than condominium units, because that’s what it’s going to take to get people to choose that building,’ Vail said. ‘It’s just sort of a differential advantage. It’s really become a race in those more in-demand markets.’”
“Though the market is healthy now, the developers agreed a slowdown is possible as new supply takes time to be absorbed, construction costs rise and actionable sites get harder to find. Low salaries in Palm Beach County mean that not many workers can afford high rents. When an audience member asked whether they were concerned with an economic downturn, Vail responded half-jokingly, ‘Condo developers, we don’t forecast those kind of things, you know what I mean? We’re just go, go go,’ he said. ‘And the faster we go, the faster we get to the closing, and then, I’m not going to say we don’t care, but … ‘ The audience chuckled as he trailed off.”
http://thehousingbubbleblog.com/?p=10407
This audience was fellow developers and associated hangers on. By don’t care, he means their customers. Their lenders. The cities they build in. Everyone and everything around them is a toss-away when it comes to making money. They just roll up the LLC, unplug the phones and head to the beach.
‘In light of that potential danger, Joan Lucas, a Denver self-storage broker affiliated with the Aurora, CO-based Self Storage Sales Network, is urging self-storage developers to think twice about building more facilities in the Denver market. ‘Simply stated, the market cannot absorb one more project,’ Lucas said. ‘I believe the Denver market is oversupplied, and it will take some time for the housing market to catch up with all of the self-storage development.’
‘The wariness of operators like Public Storage about the Denver market ‘makes it bad for everyone, because the major institutions drive the cap rates and pricing,’ Lucas said. ‘If they stop looking at Denver as a great place to park their money, we will all be hurt.’
Park their money? You mean like those Manhattan safe deposit boxes in the sky and the Connecticut mega shacks they can’t give away?
‘it will take some time for the housing market to catch up with all of the self-storage development’
Eureka Joan! How about people live in the storage containers? They are doing versions of that all over the place. Dumpsters even.
These storage places have been popping up around here like mushrooms after a rain. An expensive way to store what is mostly worthless junk you couldn’t give away at a garage sale.
We had a garage sale recently, and were surprised at how much stuff is worthless. A lot of people pulled up and left within a minute once it became clear that we weren’t inadvertently selling a Faberge egg or a copy of the Declaration of Independence. We made less than $100.
‘were surprised at how much stuff is worthless’
Yeah, I tried various ways to get rid of foreclosure stuff and you can’t give 90%+ of it away.
When I sold my last place in 2004, I donated about 2/3 of everything I had. They picked it up. Clothes, music, machinery, some furniture, books, bedding. You name it.
I also donated an inoperable car (given separately to a high school).
I wrote off roughly $12,500 in chartable contributions. All itemized, all legal. Had receipts for all of it.
Lots more than I could make at any garage sale.
I’ve been working on and off all spring to clear out the crap. When I was younger I was something of a packrat for vintage computers and consoles. So far, I’ve got a pretty good amount tagged to go away. The slowest part is that some of the stuff will fetch enough on ebay or craigslist that it’s worth my while to sell it, it just takes some time.
Having a place you know are are going to stay put in for a long time is a real motivator - It sets the constraints and I can work backwards from there.
“Park their money” caught my attention as well. They outright admitted what they’re doing.
Frankly, I’ve never understood the point of storage units for more than a couple of months if you’re moving. Within 6 months, it’s likely you’ve paid more for storage than what the actual stuff inside is worth.
Frankly, I’ve never understood the point of storage units for more than a couple of months if you’re moving.
People are horrible at battling inertia. My guess is that most people hope/assume it will only be a couple of months. Then each month it’s easier to pay one more month than actually solve the problem THAT MONTH.
Right on, Carl.
The storage unit business might be sunk by the Millenial movement toward minimalism and tiny houses.
I don’t think people really want a tiny house until AFTER they’ve gone through hard times/divorce/forced move with too much stuff. Give the Millennials another decade, they’re about to get the experience they need.
My two good friends.
“…they’re about to get the experience they need.”
Copy that.
Every Millennial I talked to while working was deeply in debt, and many of ‘em seemed to accept it as normal life. My take is that many folks just don’t “wake-up” until retirement is about ten years away… and they realize that nothing is paid-off.
Median net worth of people 25-34 is -1900 dollars:
The decline in net worth is particularly acute for young adults who have a college degree and debt. As you can see from the following chart, that group now has a median net worth of negative $1,900—down about $8,700 from three years ago and more than $90,000 from 1989, according to the report.
Also, “Millennials earn 20% less than Boomers did at same stage of life”
In the runup to the last presidential election, I accepted the polls as being accurate, but I was quite puzzled about why young people would be so enthusiastic about the status quo and HRC. People vote on how comfortable they are and on their future prospects and it seems to me Millennials are wanting on both fronts. I never did see a post election breakdown of young people’s voting patterns.
OXide…thats sort of true Not minimization more like digitization
gone are the need to own big bulky items anymore so 2 people can easily live in a 1 bedroom apartment, unless you love the feel of books vinyl records,cd’s tapes vhs all that can be on a few hard drives or usb sticks raise a bed 8-10 inches off the ground and its amazing how much stuff you can put there ok ok its NYC thinking
Every Millennial I talked to while working was deeply in debt, and many of ‘em seemed to accept it as normal life.”
😁
“My take is that many folks just don’t “wake-up” until retirement is about ten years away… and they realize that nothing is paid-off.”
🤣
These Millennials should be seeing red, but they’re blasé… gelded really.
You’re so right. I keep telling my daughter you have to understand - things didn’t used to be like this. Holding myself back from the “you’ve got to get mad” speech from Network.
“These Millennials should be seeing red, but they’re blasé… gelded really.”
They should be voting Trump red, to prevent the globalists from finishing the job of destroying America.
Arcadia, CA Housing Prices Crater 9% YOY As Housing Depreciation Ravages CA Borrowers
https://www.movoto.com/arcadia-ca/market-trends/
Ok, this is weird. Two members of the elite, essentially giving the same speech, at two different college commencements. Heads up, you’re going to be hearing a lot about the threat of “alternative realties”, or alternate realities, spewing forth from the elites going forward.
Rex Tillerson warns of ‘crisis in ethics’ and threat of ‘alternative realities’
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2018/05/16/rex-tillerson-vmi-commencement-speech/617849002/
Bloomberg warns of ‘endless barrage of lies’ in politics
https://nypost.com/2018/05/12/bloomberg-warns-of-endless-barrage-of-lies-in-politics/
This is fascinating. It’s like these guys think that they’re the creators of “reality”. That others would try to create a different “reality” is, evidently, heresy to them. Seems like a bit of resentment being expressed.
They know the trouble they’re in. Once reality asserts itself, both of those guys will be on charter jets to their doomsteads in New Zealand.
Related to yesterday’s post about “Fist Full Of Dollars” …
It is Clint Eastwood talking about going to Spain and Italy to make the movie.
https://youtu.be/gz37DHO937U
Duration = 8 minutes
I’ve heard of “spaghetti westerns”. If it’s filmed in Spain, does that make it a “Paella Western”?
“U.S. Births Dip To 30-Year Low”
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/05/17/611898421/u-s-births-falls-to-30-year-low-sending-fertility-rate-to-a-record-low
“The rate has generally been below replacement since 1971,” according to the report from CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics.
Thank goodness for the steady flow of illegal immigrants across our borders, to fill in the birth gap.
Oh wait!
And millions of H1-B hopefuls, waiting patiently to grab the brass ring and come do “work Americans don’t want to do”
Starting to see foreclosures creeping into the picture.
Don’t ever rely on your friendly RE agent, they always say the market is great to hot. Research, research, research you only have yourself to blame?
Starting to see foreclosures creeping back in?
Santa Ana, CA 92704 Housing Prices Crater 7% YOY As Speculators Race To Slash Prices
https://www.zillow.com/santa-ana-ca-92704/home-values/
*Select price from dropdown menu on first chart
How many years ago was oil supposed to top $80/barrel, according to our own Albuquerque Dan? I long ago lost track.
PS Got inflation, and ever-rising long-term Treasury yields, not to mention mortgage lending rates, which are 99% correlated with Treasury yields?
The Financial Times
Oil
Iran turmoil and Venezuela collapse send oil above $80
Tightening supplies and strong demand take crude to highest level since 2014
…
Tightening supplies and strong demand take crude to highest level since 2014
I thought Fracking was going to drown the Earth in oil. Is OPEC having the last laugh?
Laterals on horizontal drilling have gone from 2500 feet to 20,000 feet for some wells. The amount of oil and gas per foot goes down and down while it goes unnoticed since the amount per well does go up. However, we are reaching a point where the energy expended is so close to the amount of energy recovered that it is just uneconomical. OPEC sees this and is no longer afraid of shale oil. The only way we can prevent OPEC from hosing us is to convert to NG for vehicles until we actually have affordable batteries then we can really talk about electric cars. Shale gas reserves are much higher than oil.
I doubt we can ever make an electric car with sufficient range, reasonable charging times, at a reasonable price until we find something better than lithium batteries. Of course, the lack of better batteries limits both solar and wind power growth.
I make it a habit to informally poll every Chevy Bolt driver I run into in this area and ask them what they think about their car. Without exception every single person says it is the single best car they have ever owned and that they would buy the car again in a heartbeat. The genius of something like the Volt is that for most people’s daily commute, 50 miles of electric charge is sufficient in 95% of cases. It’s really the long trips and the outliers that make the gas necessary, but when it is needed, it is needed. A lot of the plug-in hybrids have wimpy batteries, but they may be enough to lifetime gas consumption by up to 75%.
Chevy Bolt - A car for midgets.
With a globe full of oil and more being formed by the day, the supply is infinite.
Seattle head tax passes to fund Homeless Issues
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmBRPsdSWds
Bahahahahaha … whenever I am need of a good laugh all I have to do is look to see what the city fathers of Seattle are up to.
speaking of homeless the building of hotels in LIC is incredible, nobody really stays there so guess who does
http://queenscrap.blogspot.com/2018/05/lots-of-dough-thrown-down-homeless-hole.html
And then they’ll wonder why business move to or expand in the suburbs
This is a China shill. Counter intuitive but the real shills are those who protect the Chinese anti-competitive trade behaviors and stealing of intellectual property by stating that China is too weak to play by the rules. We have heard it for decades. Yes, China will grow far more slowly if it traded fairly but we need to stop worrying about a Chinese collapse, not that I would mind that, we need to protect our interests. China will have to cut into its three trillion plus dollars of foreign reserves but it can afford to clean up the mess it created without being giving a pass on trade cheating which it has for decades. Might hurt some of the multinationals such at Starbucks but I want manufacturing here not Starbucks over there:
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-05-18/china-s-economy-is-too-frail-to-force-open?srnd=fixedincome
“CHINA REBAR: Domestic prices fall further on soft demand”
https://www.metalbulletin.com/Article/3806076/CHINA-REBAR-Domestic-prices-fall-further-on-soft-demand.html
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/focus-chinas-steel-mills-turn-trash-cash-policy-111823822–sector.html
They need to build more ghost cities.
Becoming increasingly clear, the investigation of Trump was part of a plan to cover up the abuse of power by Obama, DOJ, and the FBI. It was a preemptive strike.
It all really does go back to Obama, even when Republicans control the House, the Senate and the executive branch, and even the Mueller investigation. Obama also controls the movements of the stars, the moon, and the planets. And he is living rent-free in your head.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5744905/Trump-hints-DOJ-spy-campaign-Rudy-admits-dont-know-true.html
It is not about Democrats vs. Republicans, it is about globalists who control both parties against non-globalist who are Trump and a few Republicans.
Which fraudulent cryptocurrency is your favorite?
Buyer Beware: Hundreds of Bitcoin Wannabes Show Hallmarks of Fraud
A Wall Street Journal analysis of 1,450 cryptocurrency offerings reveals rampant plagiarism, identity theft and promises of improbable returns
By Shane Shifflett and
Coulter Jones | Graphics by Hanna Sender
May 17, 2018 12:05 p.m. ET
Hundreds of technology firms raising money in the fevered market for cryptocurrencies are using deceptive or even fraudulent tactics to lure investors.
In a review of documents produced for 1,450 digital coin offerings, The Wall Street Journal has found 271 with red flags that include plagiarized investor documents, promises of guaranteed returns and missing or fake executive teams.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/buyer-beware-hundreds-of-bitcoin-wannabes-show-hallmarks-of-fraud-1526573115
Line those buses up, actors ready and ACTION!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GpbY8df3Zo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8TUwHTfOOU