A Lot Of Homes That Are Not Selling
The Denver Post reports from Colorado. “Last week, Denver-based MDC Holdings, builder of Richmond American Homes, reported a $94.4 million loss for the first quarter. Additionally, MDC said prospective homebuyers are having a more difficult time selling their homes so they can buy new homes. MDC is hardly alone. Other large, national developers that build homes in Colorado made similar reports.”
“‘They got ahead of themselves,’ said Wells Fargo economist Michael Swanson. ‘And when you get ahead of yourself, you have to sit back and wait.’”
“Jeff Willis, president of the Home Builders Association of Metro Denver, said local homebuilders are doing a good job of clearing inventories, offering incentives, slowing work on projects, and walking away from land-purchase options. ‘It’s still going to take time to whittle down that inventory,’ he said. ‘There’s still some pain to be had for builders.’”
“Jay Peterson of Hanley Wood Market Intelligence said this winter’s snowstorms kept potential homebuyers off the lots of metro-area developers, compounding the problem of growing inventories.”
“‘There were incentives everywhere from $30,000 to $50,000 off,’ Peterson said. ‘I heard of some builders who were even selling their homes at a loss during that time.’”
“Swanson sees what’s happening as a typical part of the business cycle. ‘Once you have gone to the top of the mountain, you have to go to the valley,’ he said. ‘There will be another summit, but we’re not going to get there soon.’”
The Idaho Statesman. “The number of Treasure Valley homes for sale is at a record high, and that is sure to keep driving down home prices, experts said Friday. The Intermountain MLS said 3,143 homes were put up for sale in Ada and Canyon counties between April 9 and May 9, raising the total available nearly 80 percent to 7,124 in just one month.”
“When condos, townhomes and manufactured homes are added, the total jumps to 7,827, said Heinrich Wiebe, co-founder of Genius Realty. Don Hubble, owner of Meridian-based Hubble Homes, said that on Jan. 6, 2006, only 1,780 homes were listed, about one-fourth as many.”
“‘I don’t see any recovery,’ Wiebe said. ‘All I see are a lot of homes that are not selling.’ Wiebe said MLS data shows that 63 percent of homes for sale are owned by investors.”
The Bend Bulletin from Oregon. “Eleven building projects, at a collective cost of more than $250 million, are either under way or expected to start construction this year or in early 2008. Some of the projects, like Bend developer Steven Trono’s 200,000-square-foot Mercato, promise to transform their neighborhoods with innovative shops, high-end condos and expensive offices.”
“Looking further out to next year and beyond, the 199-unit, five-building 500 Bond project will crown the hill above the Old Mill site with four- to five-star hotel-condo rooms. But, with 90,000 to 100,000 square feet of new retail space coming on line, along with 175 top-end condos and townhomes, at least 50,000 square feet of new leasable office space and 199 new hotel-condo rooms to sell and fill, is it all too much?”
“In a softening residential real estate market, the saleability of the district’s condo and townhome projects remains to be seen. The buyers have split about half and half between local Bend buyers moving down from larger homes to out-of-town buyers.”
“So far, 14 of The Plaza’s 42 units are under contract. Prices average around $650,000 to $700,000 for units in the all-residential building.”
“‘They are that urban buyer who wants to bike or walk, who doesn’t want to worry about exterior maintenance,’s said broker Debbie Tebbs. ‘We’ve had interest from people from L.A., people from Chicago, from all over, for that type of housing. So it is a different buyer than I think we have seen in Bend.’”
“Bend developer Steven Trono is shooting even higher on the income scale, planning condos that will range to more than 3,000 square feet in size with price tags, in some cases, surpassing $3 million.”
“‘We’re looking for maybe 26 buyers who already love Bend but don’t have an urban product like this to buy into,’ Trono said, ‘and maybe 26 buyers who are maybe already in Bend, who want to come down from huge houses to something that’s maybe still big enough they can visit with their grandkids in it. People who are living in 6,000- to 8,000-square-foot houses now.’”
“In other words, he’s shooting for buyers in an income bracket that most local developments have never really tried to target.”
“‘Vail, Aspen, Jackson Hole. That’s our competition. It’s nobody in town,’ said Trono, who says his experience consulting with a regionwide radio and TV network in the early 1990s convinced him that the right development in Bend could compete on that kind of dollar level.”
“‘I don’t know if we are overbuilding,’ Compass Commercial’s Jeff Mollencop said. ‘I think we are trying to keep up with the demand. It runs in cycles, of course. There is going to be a lot coming onto the market, and it may take some time to fill, but overall I think it’s very strong and healthy.’”
All of these locally printed articles, across the country, depict much larger drops than is being shown by the national MSM.
Has everyone stocked up on popcorn for 60 Minutes tonight?
“All of these locally printed articles, across the country, depict much larger drops than is being shown by the national MSM.”
Yep. Boise was mentioned last week by the WSJ as still enjoying above-the-national average for appreciation. But the local paper says…”The number of Treasure Valley homes for sale is at a record high, and that is sure to keep driving down home prices.”
Everyone on this blog knows how misleading median prices can be, especially on lower sales volume. But the MSM is still running with it.
60 Minutes tonight. Cover of Time Magazine by end of year??
Man of the Year: David Liarrhoea ! Or, is it … BEN JONES !
“Da “Ben”!
It looks like 60 minutes is going to be covering Redfin.com…
Today was the first day I have ever looked at that site, seems to be a pretty good site for looking at ALL the houses in an area. I found over 300 listings alone in about a 2 mile radius from my house…I had NO idea there were that many houses for sale in this little area.
What the heck? It only covers like 4 areas. There are TONS of way better sites than that.
And, it says it is still just searching MLS.
Yeah, not working for me either. My zipcode apperently does not exist (foothills east of Sacramento).
Maybe later.
Apparently.
I just typed in a particular Boston-area zip code (in Winthrop), and although it showed a map that included many little house-symbols in Winthrop, it spat out a bunch of listings that were mostly East Boston. Redfin needs a new software engineer.
what’s really strange about Redfin is that per their website Stacy Hetland is their Orange County, CA agent and supposedly has closed 50+ sales. But when you check caiif. dept. of real estate records, there’s no record of her being licensed…
http://www.Windermere.com has a better and faster sight for straight MLS info if you’re in the west.
Gonna Run MDC?
“Last week, Denver-based MDC Holdings, builder of Richmond American Homes, reported a $94.4 million loss for the first quarter. Additionally, MDC said prospective homebuyers are having a more difficult time selling their homes so they can buy new homes. MDC is hardly alone. Other large, national developers that build homes in Colorado made similar reports.”
Too much Treasure, not enough buyers…
“The number of Treasure Valley homes for sale is at a record high, and that is sure to keep driving down home prices, experts said Friday. The Intermountain MLS said 3,143 homes were put up for sale in Ada and Canyon counties between April 9 and May 9, raising the total available nearly 80 percent to 7,124 in just one month.”
Trono has gone off the deep Bend
“Bend developer Steven Trono is shooting even higher on the income scale, planning condos that will range to more than 3,000 square feet in size with price tags, in some cases, surpassing $3 million.”
Says his competition is Vail, Aspen, Jackson Hole. Got news for you, Mister Trono. Vail and Aspen and Jackson Hole are probably having enough troubles of their own!
Boy, I’ve heard this all over the place: “Let’s turn ___________ into the next Vail/Aspen/Jackson Hole.
Up here in Birch Bay, WA, it’s been referred to as “the next Santa Barbara.” Gimme a friggin break.
Wha? I thought Ashland was the next Aspen?
Bozeman, MT wants to be the next Boulder, CO. Be careful what you wish for….
“‘We’re looking for maybe 26 buyers who already love Bend but don’t have an urban product like this to buy into,’ Trono said, ‘and maybe 26 buyers who are maybe already in Bend, who want to come down from huge houses to something that’s maybe still big enough they can visit with their grandkids in it. People who are living in 6,000- to 8,000-square-foot houses now.’”
That’s an awful lot of “maybes,” i.e. wishful thinking.
You know, I read articles about the god-awful real estate market here in Colorado, but you know, existing homes for sale still seem expensive. My observations are that home prices have basically stayed flat for years. Despite the huge inventory of existing homes, I haven’t seen the bargains like we had in the late 1980’s.
Just wait.
Right now people (and builders) owe so much that they can’t lower prices or they’ll be selling at a loss. Wait for the mass bankruptcies to force builders and bankers to dump, even at a loss. That is when you’ll get the discounts.
Yep. That’s what we’re going to do. Bankruptcies, resets, “it’s all good.” lol
~Misstrial
Personally, no hurry on my part.
I expect the builders to crumple first. In a manufacturing business, it is way better to sell at a loss and see your stock take a hit then it is to run out of cash flow. No cash flow= instant death.
I think a big part of the change will be that builder’s costs will actually decline as fewer homes are built and China doesn’t consume half the worlds concrete with double digit GDP growth rates. A few years from now builders will be able to build a nice house less expensively than it costs today.
One thing about Colorado is that at least in some counties builders have avoided building entire neighborhoods full of spec homes. These past 10 years it has been more common for construction to begin on a house once a contract has been signed and a deposit forked over.
This was interesting for us, as we never experienced that situation in San Diego.
Anyway, the last time I checked there were only 30 houses under construction at this time in Loveland, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see that number continue to drop. Even Lennar has stopped building spec homes.
Blog Jestering
Watching Big Lebowski
Drinking White Russians
Does it get any better than this?
My favorite mixed drink. Cheers!
From the Big Lebowski:
RESIDENTIAL AREA
“The Dude and Walter are pulling up in front of a dilapidated
house sitting on a scrubby lot. Parked incongruously in
front of the house is a brand new red Corvette.
DUDE
F**k me, man! That kid’s already
spent all the money!
WALTER
Hardly Dude, a new ‘vette? The kid’s
still got, oh, 96 to 97 thousand,
depending on the options. Wait in
the car, Donny.
===================================
Sounds like a HELOC to me
“Jay Peterson of Hanley Wood Market Intelligence said this winter’s snowstorms kept potential homebuyers off the lots of metro-area developers, compounding the problem of growing inventories.”
Pinch me hard! Hey, Jay, another overpaid, overeducated economist who uses the word “intelligence” in his research, and can’t project that it might snow in Colorado in the winter. Jay, you should have put a asterick * with your high priced intelligence last April 2006, telling your readers these are my projections for April 2007 *except if it snows in Colorado. The SPIN stops on Ben’s Blog
Another e-CON-omist in our midst.
Who woulda thunk it would snow in Colorado during the winter? Maybe they can blame the high inventory in Phoenix and Vegas because of the hot weather in the summer.
FWIW, we signed to have our current house built in December, and construction began in January, and was competed in May. The Colorado Front Range isn’t Green Bay.
You know, he sounds like me when I was 10 and my Dad took me to baseball games. The crowd would be chanting “strike” but I was wishing for an easy to field pop fly. I felt sorry for the pitcher having to throw so hard for so long, so I had constructed what I thought was the perfect scenario in my head. It was a fantasy world, but I enjoyed it.
Then again, I was a kid at a baseball game and he is an alegeded adult doing a business deal. My fantasy world couldn’t hurt anyone. What about his?
The next crash:
http://www.azcentral.com/business/articles/0513biz-ev-retail0513.html
“The Valley has a record 9.6 million square feet of retail under construction, and most of it is opening this year or next, according to CB Richard Ellis. Two-thirds of that is in the East Valley, adding the equivalent of at least five new Chandler Fashion Centers.”
Have to build malls for all these new neighborhoods full of McMansions. Until those neighborhoods are half empty, and the half of the people left can’t afford their housepayment, let alone shopping at the new mall.
“The new regional malls…are open-air lifestyle centers. The 5-year-old Chandler Fashion Center is the last enclosed mall built in the East Valley.”
So what moron thought this part up? That’s a great way to guarantee no customers for 4 months. “Gee, we can go to this mall and bake in the sun, or we can go to Chandler Fashion and be in air conditioning”. Not to mention the extreme milf factor at CFC
I can’t figure that out either. The country went to enclosed malls 30 years ago so people could shop rain or shime, freeze or broil.
I don’t get why the change back. Just doing anything to stand out as “new and different”? Like, “Only the uncooth would shop in an enclosed mall”.
Desert Ridge is like “the place to go”…. to be out in the heat and fry your brain.
They must be building all these Frigging New Wonder Malls for girls and women in my family. It must be a girl thing because I swear that I haven’t lost a Damned thing in any of them.
HEY!….Who TOOK my Wallet and Credit Cards ?
“We are getting 100,000 new people a year,” said Bob Pearlstein, a senior vice president with CB Richard Ellis. “When a city grows like that, there is a demand for more retail.”
Everything’s so wunnerfull in Arizona I can’t hardly believe it.
As a realtor in Arizona, I can tell you that the inventory keeps climbing every week. The only time we have a lower number is at the first of every month when listings expire. The total valley inventory is now close to 54,000. Then ofcourse there are about 3,500 builder specs too. Don’t you just love a turnaround story……
They are building them all over the place in Portland as well, talk about brilliant, it rains 8 months out of the year here!
“open-air lifestyle centers”
The new euphemism for STRIP-MALL?
Ha ha. The 7-11 has to be a “multi-cultural electic browsing shopping destination”
The laundromat? technological sartorial refreshment center.
The hoodlums boozing and catcalling in the parking lot? “street artist colony”
LOL
Except they aren’t set up like strip malls along a busy street. If they were set up like that, they might get “impulse buyer” traffic. They are set up like fake downtown districts - as if you were in an area with lots of interesting boutiques, but they are all The Gap and Sunglass Hut and that sort of thing. And you have to drive 30 miles to get there. And if you want to drop your purchases off before you are done shopping you can’t just duck out to the car from the closest door, you have to hike out to it in the weather.
They only really work for people who think of shopping as a major form of entertainment.
Today’s Master Of The Obvious (MOTO)
You win a frozen dinner.
“‘They got ahead of themselves,’ said Wells Fargo economist Michael Swanson. ‘And when you get ahead of yourself, you have to sit back and wait.’”
“Bend developer Steven Trono is shooting even higher on the income scale, planning condos that will range to more than 3,000 square feet in size with price tags, in some cases, surpassing $3 million.”
- I think that Steve must of spoken with ‘Brenda’ from last Thursday’s post. Did she not say that sellers should ‘Raise Price’s?’
// ‘Once you have gone to the top of the mountain, you have to go to the valley,’ …. ‘There will be another summit, but we’re not going to get there soon.’”//
This language would be a wonderful addition to the heading on a Notice of Default!
~Misstrial
http://www.cnbc.com/id/18612256
“The report starts innocuously enough, stating that the median annual income of NAR members dropped in 2006 from $49,300 to $47,700.”
“Among Realtors working as full-time brokers, men earned a median of $94,000 last year, while women brokers earned $80,000.”
Holy crap. That’s a lot of cabbage for someone without a degree.
The drop in median income of MEMBERS is misleading (i.e., understates the problem), as the ones who aren’t making any sales have dropped their membership.
I bet that is before the SEP-IRA and lets not forget gas for the old car and the trips to starbucks. Also lets not forget the desk fees - 6 years ago a Remax agent paid $950 per month! I know I was one.
Anyone else sick of this “Green remodeling” crap?
http://www.cnbc.com/id/18590809
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18472719/
People used to remodel for home value increase. Now we’re supposed to remodel to make the place more energy efficient? Any talk on how many lifetimes it would take to pay back these remodels, or how much energy is wasted roucing these “green” products.
What about remodeling just to make the place something you want to live in? Oh, that doesn’t generate enough “green” (spending money) for the companies that do remodels.
yeah conservation is for commies
I don’t mind remodeling to save energy, per se.
I repaired an old out of use solar system last year (to the tune of $1000).
I’m sick of advertising pretending to be news.
I hope you are joking!
solar payback w/o gov incentives is just under 1000 years
nukes are the only “alternative” energy
the rest is how air
My calculation came out to ~15-17 years. And that’s at current prices with no incentives, as the prices keep coming down.
Out of curiosity, do people do an ROI calculation for furniture or vehicles or lattes or other items they buy?
You bet. I do an ROI calculation on everything. I’m about to go to lunch and I’m already doing an ROI and opportunity cost analysis.
Hmmm..
Thai for 15 bucks.
Burrito for 8.
some sushi, 25 bucks.
skip it, stay home, 3 bucks and put the excess in the home downpayment fund.
Decisions, decisions.
Excuse me but that is just bullsh*t. Maybe you have not priced solar panels recently or maybe you live where the sun does not shine. Where I live the payback without government incentives is 15 years. With Pacific Power buying back my electric production it drops to 11 years. Also where I live (WA state) if I buy panels made in state the payback drops to 4 years! The first modern solar cell was made in 1946 and oh by the way it is still generating electricity!
Not only that, but energy prices will keep rising much faster than inflation as China and India industrialize. If we don’t start diversifying our energy sources and constructing homes with better insulation, we will be facing another 1970’s energy shortage.
The thing that kills me are these empty nesters building “green” in an 5,000 sqft trophy home.
Right. Shrink to half size house, and there is your savings.
All this talk of compact flourescent. What is that? .0001% of energy usage. If you want to make a dent:
smaller houses
smaller cars
use less AC/heat
cooler shorter showers
wash clothes using short cycle in cold water
hang the clothes out to dry
hand wash dishes
Oh, but it is so much easier to put in compact flouresents and think you’ve done your part.
I agree entirely. Geez, I do everything you mentioned. But I really don’t do it to save the planet. The more I scale back, the less I spend, and the less I need to work. And that means more free time to bike, kayak, sail, garden, read, ….
Lighting is a non-trivial fraction of electricity use (20-30%?) and compact flourescents are the easiest and cheapest upgrade.
It’s still relatively small but it’s a start.
Getting rid of a SUV for a small car is a much bigger difference.
You live in phoenix (least environmentally sustainable city on the planet), sick of green remodeling?
It’s the only thing to save you. When peak oil and global warming whacks Phoenix silly—then only the greenest most efficient (i.e. cool without running massive electricity sucking A/C) structures will retain any value.
Or you can try to build your own nuclear reactor.
Energy and environmental costs are guaranteed to only go up. When you improve efficiency the point is to hedge yourself against possible hyperinflation in these. It’s like in financial options—there’s not just the intrinsic value (money saved now) but the risk reduction for the future.
I’m waiting for the first nuclear powered automobile.
“I’m waiting for the first nuclear powered automobile.”
And you thought the Pinto with its exploding gas tank was a problem- at least it didn’t take out three city blocks
Dude how will global warming hurt Phoenix? Oh no instead of 116 in July it will be 119!!
Ed, Global warming projected 100 year temperature rises of 2-3 degrees is an averaged reading covering both oceans and land. Oceans will warm about 1 degree but land temperatures will increase by 5-7 degrees. It’s all about differences in heat capacity. Arizona in the mid 120s would be interesting.
“Or you can try to build your own nuclear reactor.”
We have our own nuclear reactor. It gets the worst safety grades in the country. But it is all ours.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/nuclear/page/at_a_glance/reactors/palo_verde.html
One more of these, and we’re set.
Besides, if ANY solar system ever actually works, cost effectivly, we’re WAY set! Oh, and those cost effective hydrogen farting algaie we’ve been promised… WE’RE so growing millions of sq miles of that!
What I’m most sick of is advertisment pretending to be a news story!
I’m sick of environmentalists pretending that we can save the planet with altering just about every aspect of our life. Flouresent is not even a start. It is a rounding error in the energy usage reduction we’d need.
Ethanol is a sham. We burn as much fossil fuel to produce it as we get from it.
Hydrogen is a sham. We get it by burning coal to super heat water, then inject the water into natural gas to break the natural gas into hydrogen and CO2.
Hybrid cars are a sham. They use ultra light (expensive) metals to reduce weight (which jumps back up with the batteries) and low horsepower engines. Dump the batteries to reduce wieght, and you wouldn’t need the batterie bost to accelerate. Nor would you need to replace the batteries a few times a decade.
Photo-voltaic production creates mass quantities of toxic waste.
If we’re going to fix this through conservation, we need to change every aspect of our lives.
Sorry, but nuclear, biomass (turning our forests into tree farms to be burned) and sequestration (capturing the CO2 at the exhaust stack and injecting it into deep wells) is the only way we’re going to fix this.
Real environmentally sustainable architecture is difficult for exactly that reason. You have to have enough money to hire people smart enough to research everything and fuss over spreadsheets and agonize over every tiny bit of material. To actually get to a LEED certification is way beyond what most “green” advertised buildings can achieve, and for a good sustainable balance LEED gold or platinum is best.
When everything is correctly done the environmental savings and cost over lifetime of ownership pays for the input many times over. Remember that the vast majority of expense for any inhabited structure is upkeep and materials, not the construction. One of the big leaps forward recently has been the ability to build sustainably for a reasonable incremental cost, which is most often now between 10% and 20% increase over base.
*If* I had a house I wouldn’t be interested so much in the ROI as to getting “off the grid”. IMO existing public energy sources will be expensive and highly unreliable in the not-so-distant future.
I agree. As a lot of FB get poorer, and copper gets more expensive, I’ll bet many will be coveting those electrical power lines… You might get to be off grid whether you want to or not.
Ha, that reminds me of an interesting OT. A house in my old neighborhood was used as a meth lab (it is a rental), and when the tenants moved out, they stole all of the copper, and I mean ALL of it, wires, plumbing, etc, to pay for more meth (they were too whacked out to make it for themselves any more).
Ron,
The electrical transmission and distribution system uses primarily ACSR cable, which stands for Aluminum Conductor Steel Reinforced–a center steel cable for strength, wrapped by aluminum conductors. Even the cables feeding your house are aluminum. Copper is just too expensive for the utilities to use.
There is definitely a problem with people stealing copper wiring out of unfinished houses, however, and this will only get worse if the price of scrap metals stays steady or rises.
However, those transformers used to step the voltage down are FULL of copper, if they are anything like they used to be. I worked with people who recycled those beasties (they used to be really hard to work with because they were also full of insulating fluid that contained PCBs.)
If the builders and realtors were being honest with you they would admit that the lending was so loose and the appraisals were so loose that any transaction could be done to make a deal . 75k cash back …no problem ,income doesn’t qualify …no problem , no money for a down payment …no problem ,your buying 5 homes at one time …no problem ,still owner occupied won’t charge the neg. cash flow against debt . Want to flip a house ,no problem we will raise the price to get you the fix up costs .
The brokers in a real estate office are suppose to check all the deals of agents under their license . What happened to the check and balance there ?
Why do you think sellers kept thinking they could raise the price of their homes ? They saw these fraud deals go out at the higher prices and they felt they were entitled . Other appraisers used those fraud comps .
The REIC/lenders did some really really bad things with this real estate market just for a buck .You can see how much this fraud has affected the market . The REIC had to keep the rah rah cheerleading for real estate to hide their sins and keep the party going .I would not trust any of their numbers and they should be sued for false advertising . Scr-w them …it was evil.
You hit the nail on the head!
But the FEDs knew this all the time… and they encouraged it. It’s like deterring drug dealing… do you give the most pain to the addict, the dealer, or the kingpin. I say the Kingpin deserves the most pain. Same as punishing prostitution- in fairness who should get the bigger smackdown, the john, the prostitute, or the pimp? The top of the food chain is the FED, the securitizers, the lenders etc. Trust me, they have longer memories than any of the other players. They deserve a lot of pain.
A nice housing recession every once in a while is is good learning experience for the RE economy.
It teaches the stupid Fbs and RE Agents the true VALUE between their 4 Starbucks caffe latte’s a day OLD habit and their NEW once a month Happy Meal Dining Out Experience .
Unfriggenbelievable what I just found in a local (Orlando, FL) listing for adult-ed classes. When I first saw it I thought I was viewing an old course catalog from two years ago, but this class is offered in July ‘07.
I can’t post a direct link, but here’s the main site’s link if anyone’s interested. http://www.theknowledgeshop.us/class_catalog.aspx If interested, click on “view catalog” and scroll down to page 15.
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Too late to take the bullet train. But not too late to take the bullet…
I have to be honest, I’m a big fan of efficiency and conservation. This is OT, but I was amazed at how little space and energy the Romans (modern) use in their day to day life.
Of course they all drive at a hundred miles an hour in these tiny cars or on mopeds, and seem to still use leaded gas. But otherwise it’s very impressive how efficient everything else seems to be.
I’ve been to Italy twice, once to visit a friend from the Navy days that was stationed there.
Here is the problem with Italy. No fossel fuels. Zip, Zilch, Nada.
And, not many rivers they can dam.
So, just about all their energy is from imported sources. If they tried to burn energy the way we do, they’d have mass trade gaps and no economy.
So, they STRONGLY limit the amount of electricity that people can use. They put a main breaker on the house for like 15 amps. That is what we use for one room, but that is what they get for their whole house. If they want a higher breaker, it is mass amounts of money.
When my firend got stationed there, and moved off base, he had to borrow a device from base that the amperage usage of all his applicances, then make a chart. If you want to run the microwave, turn off the TV. If you want to run the teany, tiny clothes washer that holds 2 pairs of jeans, turn off the itsy-bitsy fridge that is smaller than most ones you’d find in an RV here.
NO one, NO ONE has a clothes dryer or a warer heater bigger than about 5 gallons.
Not to mention $8 a gallon gas.
It is FORCED conservation. It would require the U.S. to change just about everything we consider to be a “normal” lifestyle.
Atlanta listings topped 106,000 today. A month ago it was at 99,000. A year ago it was at 75,000.
Update, update!! 110,000 today. 4000 new listings over the weekend. That just blows my mind.
I’m in Atlanta trying to sell a condo, no luck so far.