Bits Bucket for September 6, 2013
Post off-topic ideas, links, and Craigslist finds here.
The Housing Bubble
Examining the home price boom and its effect on owners, lenders, regulators, realtors and the economy as a whole.
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Name:Ben Jones
Location:Northern Arizona, United States
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“With over 25 MILLION excess empty houses in the US and another 35 MILLION houses just beginning to come on the market now that boomers are starting to die off, housing prices are going to go alot lower.”
There is no question about it.
Contractors are rapidly bringing a slew of luxury apartments online for all of you who cannot find an empty house. Everyone wants to live in an old grain warehouse or in a walkup over an empty store front.
And if you get your wallet out, I’ll layout and install an Efco storefront on your walkup to match the first floor.
Efco
Emirates Facade Company (with Pella windows)
Thank you for this, HA/Pimp.* Now I have a name to attach to the ubiquitous 2000’s era facade: pale red and tan brick with those dang flat flush windows and the main entry on the corner. On vintage 2001 buildings, the corner entrance was a circular lobby with those useless tubular rails(?) sticking out of the flat roof. Post 2006, those corner sections are square, I guess because they’re cheaper. Ugly, unoriginal, and used in every darn city center. They are to commericial facades as the “brick front” (with useless gable) is to residential McMansions.
Everyone knows what I mean:
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22efco%22+facade&safe=active&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=lPcpUrSzN6fa4AOi8YCoDg&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAQ&biw=1083&bih=863
————–
*I don’t agree with your pricing philosophy, but I enjoy the little gems from the building industry that you occasionally let slip.
Oh I agree with his pricing as a buyer. But he can only deliver garbage quality locations and houses for that.
There’s no philosophy…… Its reality which you seem to run from. Being mortgaged to your eyeballs and the tragic error of overpaying already made, we understand where you’re coming from.
And materials, labor and profit are the same Amount irrespective of location, which is $55/sq foot.
(and please stick to one username)
Thanks in advance,
Management
The mentality of the debt absorbed is hard to penetrate. The lot under my workshop is valued by the assessor under $10K and sits in a neighborhood of $250K (supposedly) houses. I did spend quite a bit of time searching through the haystack, but reasonable lots do come up for sale. $20K lots, there are many of those, but it wouldn’t change the argument one bit. Any one gripped by debt psychosis must insist that their lot is worth north of $100K to even begin to justify the ridiculous price they paid for their “house”.
The tax assessor thinks that both my lot and my house are worth north of $100K, the lot more than the house.
Does that mean my county is gripped by debt psychosis? Oh wait, it IS the DC area… :LOL:
Hard to say. I am only familiar with one person from that neighborhood.
Is the tax assessor going to make up for the difference between what you have in the shack and what it’s actually worh?
You post the same, laughably wrong data, EVERY day. So is your goal to fool the occasional reader that happens to show up and can’t do a smell test?
Because your data, that is off by an order of magnitude, and would require someone be totally ignorant to believe, isn’t fooling any of the regular readers.
Why do you work SO hard and being so WRONG?
Darryl,
You work hard at diminishing what little credibility you had.
Why is that?
Apparently, countering the avalanche of illogical gibberish is a daily chore.
The proper way to counter illogical gibberish (such as “housing is an investment” or “house prices only go up”) is to use cogent argument.
Using illogical gibberish to counter illogical gibberish, just makes you look like a kook, discrediting everything you say, making the illogical gibberish that you are trying to counter, look relatively reasonable in comparison.
For example, if you say “Baby Boomer die off will result in 35 million additional, empty excess houses.” the response is likely to be “What an idiot. He really thinks that there are not any children that will become adults as the boomers die off? I’m not going to believe ANYTHING that idiot says.”
The data is so laughably wrong that no one would take anything he says seriously.
Then stop using illogical gibberish Darryl or do we have to put you back in the corner again?
The issue is, in my opinion, not how many excess houses we have as a nation, but do we have excess housing WHERE people want it?
Where I live (the in-fill between Cincinnati and Dayton), they are building houses as fast as they can and are selling them just as fast. Commercial aint doing bad either. People are still leaving the cities for suburbia. This is helped by businesses leaving the cities for suburbia as well. So there is a shortage of housing where people want it, but a surplus where people do not want it.
I suppose the same thing is being played out on a national level as well, with excess housing (in general) in the MidWest and NorthEast, and a shortage of housing in other parts of the country where the population is growing rapidly?
Now, there are local variations on this theme. Proposition 13 has companies tied down to their current locations in CA, so they aren’t as mobile as companies elsewhere in the country. Imagine if Proposition 13 went away in CA and companies could move without incurring a property tax increase. Do you think a lot of them would leave their current cities for suburbs who gave them other tax advantages to move?
However, if you let the house prices in the areas where “nobody wants them” actually fall to where they need to fall to AND don’t let criminals take over, people and business will eventually be pulled back that direction to take advantage of the low cost of living. But if that were to happen a banker might lose his bonus…
In theory, yes. But there are several factor affecting how quickly that will happen…
1) “Eventually” can be quite a long time.
2) As you said, keeping criminals out is a requirement. History shows that these neighborhoods can go back quickly around here.
3) Since most people around here have children, quality of school districts is very important. In neighborhoods where property values fall significanlty, the quality of the schools soon follow.
4) Jobs are migrating out to the suburbs as well. In Ohio, each suburbs and exurbs are usually their own seperate city. Employees pay a city tax to where they work. Companies do pay a property tax, but typically receive an exemption for 10-15 years to reloact to the city. The city counts on the employee city tax. Suburbs/Exurbs can, and very often do, steal companies from one-another. They give the compay a 15 year tax abatement but collect large sums of money from the employees who work there (ie 2% annually). As a result, companies migrate every 15 years or so to new locations in new buildings further out into the area to get the tax breaks, while the employees see their job site change. Stupid way to run a government, I know, but that’s why Ohio is known for its urban sprawl. Metro Cincinnati has 2.2 million people, but spread out over an area that rivals Yellowstone park. You could live next to your employer and then 3 years later the office moves an hour away, but still in the metro area.
But there’s usually a reason that the city started where it did. Some natural resource or feature that gives it an advantage as long as you don’t let other factors ruin it.
Not always. Buffalo was the terminal point for cargo ships from the Great Lakes to the west, until the Welland canal bypassed it. No more reason to be.
“So there is a shortage of housing”
BS. There is no “shortage of housing” anywhere. Not in NY, CA, London, Singapore, Bejing, Moscow…….
Rising flood insurance rates bearing down like a hurricane on Florida
“Jim White of Century 21 realty had a contract on a relatively modest $250,000 home in Redington Beach, but the buyer backed out when he realized his flood insurance would exceed $10,000.”
http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/realestate/rising-flood-insurance-rates-bearing-down-like-a-hurricane-on-florida/2140008
I’m not sure why flood insurance is necessary considering everyone who bought a house from 1998-2013 is deep underwater.
Insurance didn’t help them. Why would it indemnify current buyers(suckers)?
“…a relatively modest $250,000 home…”
Yup, $250k is chump change.
It is time to think about scooping up another property if your on the fence.
put down the national association of realtors koolaid
‘i am not buying a flowery pillowcase of emotions or a future of warm memories. i am conducting a business transaction to purchase a piece of land and an assembled collection of construction materials.’ — mr. money mustache, 9/4/13
U.S. Economy Adds 169,000 Jobs as Unemployment Rate Falls to 7.3 percent
New York Times | 09/06/2013 | CATHERINE RAMPELL
The nation’s employers added 169,000 jobs in August, slightly below what economists were expecting, and the unemployment rate ticked down to 7.3 percent from 7.4 percent.
The growth was about in line with the average hiring rate seen so far this year, which has been mediocre but steady. If the economy were to fill the jobs gap left by the recession within the next four years, around 300,000 jobs a month would need to be created, according to the Hamilton Project at the Brookings Institution.
Employment gains in the recovery have been disproportionately in lower-wage sectors like food service and retail, causing concern about not only the quantity of the new jobs but also their quality. The industries are more likely to hire part-time workers and operate on just-in-time schedules, making it difficult for employees to predict how many hours they will have from week to week.
“It’s really frustrating not knowing whether I’ll have money to pay rent and my bills,” said Charles Eden, 20, who works at a Wendy’s in St. Louis for $7.60 an hour. Last week, he had 30 hours; this week, 12. Ideally, he wants 40. “It’s really hard to find a second job not knowing whether I can work or whether I can’t work in a given week.”
The labor force participation rate remains low, partly a function of the aging work force and partly workers sitting on the sidelines as they wait for the economy to heal. Some who took shelter from the poor job market by enrolling in college and retraining programs these last few years are finally starting to cycle back into the work force, and the lucky ones are finding new opportunities.
“gains in the recovery have been disproportionately in lower wage sectors”
The future belongs to Lucky Ducky.
Welcome to the recoveryless recovery.
The trend is not your friend!
“The growth was about in line with the average hiring rate seen so far this year, which has been mediocre but steady.”
I.e. there is nothing very surprising in the number, yet Treasury bonds are rallying as though the QE3 taper plan will be cancelled.
What gives?
Held down by government job loss.
That should make the Republicans very happy. Sequester!
There’s no net gov job loss.
Every retiring senior Fed in my office is backfilled with a contractor.
Feds drool, contractors rule.
Double checked the data. I sit corrected. There were indeed net government job gains.
In a lot of districts, teachers are “fired” in June and rehired in August. Make sure you are looking at numbers that adjust for that predictable pattern.
It does make Republicans happy. They get to tout “private-sector” job creation and it fills their campaign coffers (see link below).
Labor participation lowest since 1978. And that includes part timers also? Things ain’t so good.
Who was president in 1978?
Lets skip over blaming Bush and get back to blaming Nixon.
As the boomers aged, we knew workforce participation would drop significantly.
In 1978 there were twice as many people in their 30s as in their 60s. Now, there are more people in their 60s than their 30s.
To see what is happening, you can look at labor participation by age cohort…that’s the only way to really tease out demographic effects. Let’s pick three age groups.
Young: 20-24: We are currently at 70.5%, down from 75% or so about a decade a go…this group is clearly suffering;
Mid-career: 40-44: We are currently at 82.2%, down from 84% or so about a decade ago…this group is not doing great, but not as bad off as the young;
Post SS collection: 65-69: 32%, up from 27% or so a year ago…this group needs to work longer generally before retirement.
Don’t get me wrong, I understand that we still have a massive wave of people who will be retiring, and so you would expect unemployment rate to fall even in conjunction with weak job growth, but the labor force participation rate for people who should be still in their working life is below normal, and those who should be retiring are working longer.
Pretty sure you are off the track on this too. Boomers are not retiring in droves and reentering the workforce in droves. This makes unemployment of the youth even worse.
Wait, here the boomers aging is the cause for the bad news, but above your post seems to imply that all those 35 million boomer houses will be replaced with young folks?
Sounds like you are playing both sides of the demographic fence.
and the unemployment rate ticked down to 7.3 percent from 7.4 percent.
Sweet! 7%, here we come!
Wish they had a better breakdown of these numbers. If I were a business owner, I could destroy two jobs at 40 hr/week and create three jobs at 27 hr/week. I could claim a 30% increase in hiring, and get bonus points for sticking it in the eye of Obamacare. Sweet!
“If I were a business owner”
You didn’t build that!
According to Zerohedge, there was an outflow of jobs in the “acting” space and an inflow of jobs in the restaurant space… they half-jokingly said it was due to the Porn industry shutting down for a week after a porn actress was identified as having HIV.
You know you’re in trouble when your disappointing National Employment Statistics are blamed on the porn industry…
Why Fewer Working-Age Americans Are Working
WASHINGTON September 6, 2013 (AP)
By PAUL WISEMAN AP Economics Writer
Associated Press
The drop in the unemployment rate in August to a 4½-year low was hardly cause for celebration. The rate fell because more people stopped looking for work.
More than 300,000 people stopped working or looking for a job. Their exodus shrank the so-called labor force participation rate — the percentage of adult Americans with a job or seeking one — to 63.2 percent. It’s the lowest participation rate since August 1978.
Once people without a job stop looking for one, the government no longer counts them as unemployed. That’s why the unemployment rate dropped to 7.3 percent in August from 7.4 percent in July even though 115,000 fewer people said they had jobs.
If those who left the labor force last month had still been looking for work, the unemployment rate would have risen to 7.5 percent in August.
“Pretty disappointing,” said Beth Ann Bovino, U.S. chief economist at Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services. “You saw more people leave the job market and fewer people get jobs. Not a good sign.”
Back in 2000, the participation rate hit a high of 67 percent. At the time, women were pouring into the labor force. But women’s participation fell modestly through the mid-2000s — then dropped sharply from late 2009 through 2013.
Women’s participation rate was 57 percent last month, down from a peak of 60 percent in 2000.
For men, the participation rate last month was nearly 70 percent. Their participation peaked in 1949 at 87 percent and has declined gradually in the decades since.
In a 2011 report, the Congressional Budget Office noted that the recent drop in women’s participation was particularly steep among those with dependent children and well-educated women married to high-earning men.
Another factor in the declining participation is that the oldest baby boomers have reached retirement age.
But Craig Alexander, chief economist at TD Bank Group, says “demographics cannot explain the amount of decline” in labor force participation.
Many Americans without jobs remain so discouraged that they’ve given up on the job market. Others have retired early. Younger ones have enrolled in school.
Some Americans have suspended their job hunt until the employment landscape brightens. A rising number are collecting disability checks.
“It’s not necessarily people retiring,” Bovino says. “It’s young people going back to school” rather than taking their chances on a weak job market.
Labor force participation for Americans ages 16 to 19 was just 34 percent last month. That’s near their record low of 33.5 percent set last year.
It isn’t supposed to be this way. After a recession, a brightening economy is supposed to draw people back into the job market. But it hasn’t happened. Labor force participation “certainly shouldn’t be at current levels,” Alexander says.
…
Once people without a job stop officially looking for one, the government no longer counts them as unemployed.
Once the unemployment runs out there’s not much incentive to continue to report in to the unemployment office.
This points to a good reason to reduce unemployment payments: Reducing the number of (officially counted) discouraged workers could lead to a drop in the unemployment rate.
+1 Saves gov money, and gets ‘em closer to their desired stats.
Those stats have nothing to do with “reporting” to any state unemployment office. They are done by phone survey. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
“Housing is massively overpriced irrespective of location. Why buy when you can rent for half the the monthly cost?”
Exactly. Then buy later as prices roll back to the long term trend or roughly 1997 levels. Sit tight and and watch this thing come apart. There are tens of millions of excess empty houses out there and many millions more coming.
My 100 sqft condo costs me less than $500 a month, PITI+LOA+maintenance.
Are you saying that you could rent that for $250 a month? HAR!
“irrespective of location”
Clown.
You have a run down dump in the desert with shared walls that you paid a massively inflated price for.
You see Darryl? You need to be truthful with the public.
You paid $50 per sq ft for a run down 30 year old dump with paper thin shared walls.
Who is the circus clown Darryl?
100 sf condo? Really?
Welcome to the recoveryless recovery:
http://www.infowars.com/study-beginning-of-the-longest-period-of-economic-decline-in-american-history/
So, I’m curious:
What exactly was the expected result of QE, and what is the actual result? And how to explain the discrepancy?
Perhaps it might be time to re-examine the strategy?
Do you mean the expected result they said they expected, or the expected result they actually expected? It may be going exactly according to plan…the real plan, that is.
This is very, very good point.
All the big players walked away unscathed.
No defense contractor left behind:
http://www.infowars.com/pro-war-senator-votes-bought-with-83-more-defense-lobby-money/
Who cares. Denver won last night.
You mean Ravens got smeared….. badly.
liberace cried himself to sleep and wet his bed last night after watching the game
lmao…..
Poor Liberace. Tonites symphony will crash without his harpsichording.
And Lamar Odom’s in rehab.
that’s right b1tches.
and after we win the sooper bowl everyone will get $50,000 of instant equity!
Yeah, every time a hometown city wins a game, comps go up and people buy houses sight unseen there. Oh, and in other news, most people care about the ticket sales for current movies in the theaters. News about stuff like that also affects people’s decision about what city to buy a house sight unseen in.
In an ironic twist, I guess a winning football team would help house prices indirectly. The taxpayers have the privilege of knowing that the monies funneled to their expensive stadium weren’t wasted.
The taxpayers have the privilege of knowing that the monies funneled to their expensive stadium weren’t wasted.
FWIW, the new mile high stadium was relatively “cheap”, 400 million IIRC. A veritable low frills job when compared to some of the billion dollar venues out there.
It takes a lot of defense contractors to figure out how to break the firewalls that protect personally identifiable information.
i’m reading your email right now.
regards,
goon.squad.ctr@xxx.xxx.mil
Try my gmail account. Contact the folks at Google if you have any problems breaking in.
The NSA already has GMail compromised…
If the government can’t buy or coerce the encryption keys from the developers, they steal them. Orwell would be proud.
Who keeps buying up all the ten year notes? It goes up and up for days and then, blam, a steep drop. Is it the Fed?
Hope and Change
“Despite statements from both US President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry that a US-led strike on Syria would be a “limited and tailored” military attack, ABC News reported on Thursday that the strike planned by Obama’s national security team is “significantly larger” than most have anticipated.
http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Report-US-strike-on-Syria-to-be-significantly-larger-than-expected-325389
We thought Bush was a lousy president. This guy is going to make him look like a piker in every way imaginable.
i wasn’t alive when nixon was in the white house but obama is the worst president in my lifetime.
Nixon gets a bad rap because of the watergate. With the advent of info technology Bush II and Obama did/do equivalent of water gate each morning before your breakfast.
Going to? He already did x100. At least you knew exactly what Bush was going to bring to the table.
“is going”?????????
I’d say he’s already there. I didn’t think it could get much worse than Bush, but it sure did, and how. The Nobel Peace Prize Prezzy. What a complete, utter, contemptuous joke.
And it’s amazing to me how his supporters, many of them supposedly human rights oriented, fail to see this moron for who and what he really is. NSA, expansion of military actions, etc. And all completely justified.
Like I’ve said, people have to be right, so they’ll defend the most incredible wrongs.
The Euro-socialists gave him the Nobel for 2 reasons:
Because he’s black
Because he’s not Bush
They gave him the prize based on the same false hopes that the majority of voters embraced. It is the golden age of codependency.
They gave him the prize based on the same false hopes that the majority of voters embraced.
+infinity. They gave it to him based on hopes inspired by the sales pitch.
They too must be feeling that they were fooled.
“Fool me…you can’t get fooled again.”
I was fooled once. Shame on him.
I am believing more and more that pols have a Faustian pact more a rule than an exception.
Gosh. Obama makes Jimmy Carter look good.
Obama’s “most transparent administration in history” makes Stalin look good.
My rankings since carter, Worst-best
1) Bush II: he would be the nicest guy we had as president, but the iraq/afghanistan fiasco ruined our lives forever. I doubt it was his idea, but he listened to the wrong guys…
2) Obama: wow what a disappointment. I’m actually finally starting to wonder if Romney would have been worse. I think, with the House as it is, it might have been.
3) Carter: completely ineffectual, his own party hated him. I liked the Metric idea.
4) Reagan: did save the economy but our current fantasy economy is because of him.
5) Bush I: for two reasons a) he saved Kuwait and then got the heck out of there and b) he actually supported raising taxes because he felt it was the right thing to do, politics be darned
6) Clinton: if only that guy could have kept his thingy in his pants…anyway liked him for the welfare reform, did like the cojones he showed to help the bosnian muslims, he was a least kinda sorta pro enivronment, only wish he could have run through Hilarycare…
Hate him for the above escapades, still unclear if NAFTA is the worst thing that happened to us or was inevitable and we’re ahead because of it, and the Marc Rich pardon.
Obama’s national security team is “significantly larger” than most have anticipated.
Where are the obfuscators when you need them?
http://westernrifleshooters.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/obamayoureracist2.jpg?w=584
wait a second…you mean kerry and obama are liars?
you racist.
The Housing Crime Syndicate dominates the discussion on every single internet media outlet except for one.
Guess………
Where do they find enough morons to hold up both ends of a Housing Crime Syndicate discussion?
the national association of realtors are as moral and ethical as jerry sandusky
I’d rather get bent over by Sandusky than a realtor. The losses are far less that way.
“Mortgage Defaults Skyrocketing”
http://www.billsbills.com/blog/mortgage-defaults-skyrocketing-hamp-has-failed
Default is what happens when the price of housing is grossly inflated.
Actually, if prices are increasing, even if grossly inflated, defaults are low because people that need to sell, can.
Defaults happen after prices have fallen. People that lose a job, have other expenses they can’t pay, or just give up, can’t sell, so have to walk.
Sorry Darryl but prices are falling(yes… they really are) and anyone who bought a house 1998-current are underwater and can’t sell.
Housing demand is at 14 year lows and falling.
Defaults happen when you can’t pay and can’t sell, regardless of which way the wind is blowing. Anyone who bought in the past decade can’t sell for what they paid. Anyone who went from full time to part time or unemployed can’t even pony up the exit costs. The number of able and willing buyers is shrinking constantly. Half of what sales there are to the Buy-to-rent ponzi funds. Applications for mortgages are at record lows. SFH building permits are at record lows. Only a desperate Debt Donkey could fail to recognize the direction this leads.
This spring there weren’t any houses for sale here. Now going into winter for sale signs are up everywhere. Anyone else notice this inversion where they live?
I would amend that statement to be that FORECLOSURES happen when you can’t pay and can’t sell.
Lots of people miss a payment here and there (unforseen auto repair, medical expense, etc.), but many of them cure.
Nonsense.
Redefault rates are at multi year highs.
What are you talking about?
People miss a payment…sometimes they cure. If they don’t cure, they are on the path to foreclosure. If they are on that path, one way off that path is to sell, which they can typically only do if they can sell for more than the debt.
While I don’t see what it has to do with the discussion, you are right, the percentage of foreclosures that are people who have been in foreclosure before is getting higher and higher. The last number I saw was close to 50%. The reason for this?
In conjunction with data that also shows lower and lower total number of foreclosures, the only conclusion you can draw is that there are fewer and fewer first-time foreclosures.
I just told you what we’re talking about.
Redefault rates are at multi year highs and rising. This is what happens when you pay inflated amounts for what is always a depreciating asset. In this case, a house.
Foreclosures happen when banks follow accounting law.
We never hear of any foreclosures on those mortgages the Fed has been gorging on. Why is that?
“The losses associated with buying resale housing at current massively inflated asking prices is irrecoverable.
Rental rates are half the cost of buying.”
Correct.
That explains why housing demand is at 14 year lows… and falling.
Phoenix Housing Demand Collapsing 14% Year over Year
http://picpaste.com/pics/5cd3cd264b00f4cd8b062a10c8c7e008.1378433728.png
Demand collapses when prices are grossly inflated.
“Demand collapses when prices are grossly inflated.”
So prices were not grossly inflated a couple months ago, when demand was up?
Demand wasn’t up Darryl…….. Do I have to school you on chart reading too?
It’s a been a deflationary spiral since 2008 and the scope of which is widening and deepening as are the personal financial risks.
Don’t be taken advantage of. DO NOT borrow and continue stockpiling cash. You’re going to need it.
‘DO NOT borrow and continue stockpiling cash.’
Au contraire, I know some who think the banks are going to let our cash reserves go poof and believe buying a tangible like a house is the best way to preserve any value the cash could hold. Emotions contribute to part of that rationale. I am more leaning towards the fact that houses are good for the realtors self-interests primarily. Someone will buy a house, even a podunk box of one in oil city egypt. It is like Ebay. I know I have minimal chance of winning an auction because there is a bunch of greater fools than I. Those fools know more about what to overbid on a $25 widget than they have a clue about not overpaying for a 30 year loan installment howmuchamonth plan. Things happen on the margin. There are 300 million consumers in this country. Watch how they overbid.
Theres no question there is Dumb. Borrowed. Money. out there. But the reality is that there is so little of it that it is reflected in sinking demand. For this reason, the US is swimming in a sea of excess empty houses.
Sea of empty houses? Remember, market can stay irrational longer than joe_the_worker can stay patient. He gives in to sales pressures and good news media releases. Also, Suzanne is there to make joe feel he is not fulfilling his duties.
I’ve said that if my tombstone has an epitaph that laments me never having had owned/mortgaged a house, so be it. Life experiences are not the same bucket list for everyone.
Yes….. tens of millions of them.
And remember…… there are alot of dumb people out there……….. with empty pockets.
With housing demand sinking ever lower to multi-decade lows, the supply of houses will continue to rise.
Here you go:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Maine-Rangeley-Area-2-34-Acre-Commercial-Residential-Building-Lot-w-River-Access-/200959942667?pt=Land&hash=item2eca25600b
0 bids. A worthless piece of dirt in the middle of no where with oppressive weather tens months a year.
Imagine that.
We’ve been in a credit crisis for seven years and you are still trying to figure out how to dump any money you still have. Despite the Fed pumping trillions of $ into the banking system, people are maxed out on what they can/will borrow and their ability to pay off what they owe is about zero and falling. That is a tipping point, and not towards your house or your ebay crap being more valuable.
‘ That is a tipping point, and not towards your house or your ebay crap being more valuable.’
But people crave houses and widgets.
The craving doesn’t seem to materialize.
We need to measure the size of your head.
Does it??????
http://31.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mejf3hHghZ1qzh2ygo1_500.jpg
No demand….. Especially for worthless dirt in the middle of no where.
Hi. I have been seeing more land / building lots for sale here in suburban Boston. Although it is relatively rare I have never seen any (I don’t think) in the five years I have been here. Does that mean market is getting frothy or old timers / wiser people bailing and getting while getting is good? Or both? Not much buildable land or lots here. Geographically compact compared to many other metro areas and a lot of conservation. I have seen maybe seen 1/2 dozen places in the past month or two in the western suburban market I monitor: Belmont, Concord, Arlington, Lexington, Sudbury, etc..
P.S. Have your own drone. 19 year kid killed in NYC park by his own remote control toy helicopter.
http://news.msn.com/us/man-killed-by-remote-control-helicopter-in-ny-park
Almost everyone I know here in MA over the age of 30 can’t wait to GTFO. Lot’s heading south to the Carolina’s. Some heading north to Free Hampshire. If the market comes back enough on the South Shore, I’m selling my POS multi-unit and moving… north or south doesn’t matter as long as it isn’t in Crappachusetts.
New housing meme: ‘Filthy-rich Syrian-refugee all-cash-buyers saving the market’.
20 minute time limit
No responding to your own posts
Annnnnnnd… run with it!
http://i0.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/004/130/bagdad-bob.gif
Well played! Anyone else?
Oh the horrible Phoenix traffic.
This morning I left my house at 6:55, drove 20 miles into downtown (half surface streets and half freeway), dropped my daughter at her bioscience magnate school in downtown, then returned home, arriving in my driveway at 7:45.
That’s a fast camel u got Darryl.
That’s a lie.
magnate school
I’m pretty sure it’s “magnet” school, not “magnate” school—unless they are trying to suggest that they can turn you into a magnate.
Magnate school is the factory under the Harvard quad I was talking about yesterday.
“…bioscience magnate school…”
I believe that it is actually ‘magnet school’. A ‘magnate’ is a powerful or influential industry leader, like a real estate magnate. You know, like the RE thousandaires who all went TU when Bubble 1.0 popped or the millions of FBs who are soon to realize that its not really different ‘this time’.
That’s Darryl. A $40kyear millionare.
I wondered why the conversation about imbalances fell quiet during that hour.
“Why pay more that the cost of materials, labor and profit($55/sq ft) for a 20+ year old used house?”
Exactly.
If you’re paying more than $35/sq ft for resale house, you’re getting ripped off.
You’re out of your mind. I WISH I could have bought the house I currently live in for $50,000 (which would be $35/sq. ft.). I could have paid cash. It’s unrealistic. Even if you tie it back to the last rational market (1998).
No it’s reality my friend. You paid to much for what is always a depreciating asset. Do you really think your house is worth what it cost to build new? Of course it isn’t. It’s worth something less than that, typically 65% of material, labor, profit. Which is what? $35/sq ft.
My house sold for $50,000 when it was built new in 1977. While I may have overpaid for it in 2010, I certainly couldn’t have gotten it for $50,000.
Perhaps you’re just stuck in the 70s.
Hope you are still happy in the house Hatfield. The fact that you couldn’t “get it” at below the cost to build new is because we were/are in the middle of the biggest housing bubble in history.
My house sold for $50,000 when it was built new in 1977. While I may have overpaid for it in 2010, I certainly couldn’t have gotten it for $50,000.
Many here ignore the changing value of the dollar. $1 in 1977 is about $3.85 in 2013. So your $50K house should sell for about $192,500 today.
Thanks to the Fed and their unlimited ability to devalue the dollar.
And, according to this site, it would cost me over $300K to build the house I have right now. What’s up with that?
http://www.building-cost.net/CornersType.asp
More OxyMath?
As I recall you embarrassed yourself with that silly website once before and I saved the information. Would you like to review it once again?
Hi Colorado, Can’t do it on 10K at most, not in CA at a UC. Crazy huh ? Then add $15K for tuition and books!
just shy of 30K per year 15k plus 14.5K. Too much for a old test Engineer I should have been a Mortgage broker !! Many folks here take out seconds on their homes to swing this.
Looks like Junior College for a couple years for my kids. They can be joe sixpack test Engineers like me and work for the UCLA MBA’s who spend 14 hours a day working on power points slides and fighting each other over resources, like me
UCSB single room 10 meals 14,411; 17 meals 16,084
Double room 10 meals 13,911, 17 meals 14,584
Triple Room 10 meals 11,111, 17 meals 11,784
Unlimited meals in single room 16,534
See more at: http://www.housing.ucsb.edu/rates#sthash.6B68v7bg.dpuf
Send the kids to Cal State. They are tons of them, all over the place, chances are your kids can commute from home. But yeah, the JC route for the first two years is the way to go in California. Very affordable.
Send the kids to Cal State. ”
yep. I just wanted to put some numbers down to show what some Engineers here pay for their kids, after all they would never send their kids to Cal state.
Hint most were not born in the US and feel the need to compete , cars, degrees, houses, schools, etc, after all that’s how they made it here in the first place right.
How can they afford the 160K cost on their 100K salaries? Especially if they have more than one kid?
As for Cal State, I know some very successful people who got their degrees at lowly Cal State after doing their first 2 years at a JC. And they graduated with almost no student loan debt.
But yeah, UC has become the enclave of the hyper competitive. Then again, I know a guy with a computer science degree from UCSD who’s driving a taxi these days.
“Looks like Junior College for a couple years for my kids.”
+1 We’re interested in the technical schools too, which many in the power generation business attend. We are not buying sheepskin stupid on credit that can’t be discharged. Sorry Obama.
Unlimited meals in single room 16,534
Well, the kids can live off campus after their freshman year.
My son has his own room in a house that’s 3 blocks from his school’s campus. It’s $300 a month. He spends about $150 a month on groceries.
Easy money and housing Inflation = full employment in the USA ? I doudt it but its what the FED will aim for. Its an old economy just look at Japan what do they expect ?
“The August jobs report missed expectations pretty much on all major fronts. It also included some historic morsels of doom, and a general smattering of blah befitting a sluggish economy rife with uncertainty. But when you add it all up, it’s just what the doctor ordered, presuming the doctor is a trader or running an equity fund.
In the attached video, my co-host Jeff Macke is able to make fun of my advanced age and the fact that I remember what was happening in 1978, which also happens to be the last time the labor participation rate was as low as it is now.
As bad as that is, and as structurally damning as it may prove to be longer term, this is a market that cares only about what today’s snapshot of employment means inside the hairless head of Federal Reserve chairman, Ben Bernanke. The answer, of course, is that there’s no way the Fed can proceed with its tapering plan this month and begin to scale back its $85 billion a month bond buying program.
Don’t be silly. Unemployment is down. For Employment to be down at the same time is unpossible.
Years of Tragic Waste
NY Times | 9/5/2013 | Paul Krugman
In a few days, we’ll reach the fifth anniversary of the fall of Lehman Brothers — the moment when a recession, which was bad enough, turned into something much scarier. Suddenly, we were looking at the real possibility of economic catastrophe.
And the catastrophe came.
Wait, you say, what catastrophe? Weren’t people warning about a second Great Depression? And that didn’t happen, did it? Yes, they were, and no, it didn’t — although the Greeks, the Spaniards, and others might not agree about that second point. The important thing, however, is to realize that there are degrees of disaster, that you can have an immense failure of economic policy that falls short of producing total collapse. And the failure of policy these past five years has, in fact, been immense.
Some of that immensity can be measured in dollars and cents. Reasonable measures of the “output gap” over the past five years — the difference between the value of goods and services America could and should have produced and what it actually produced — run well over $2 trillion. That’s trillions of dollars of pure waste, which we will never get back.
Behind that financial waste lies an even more tragic waste of human potential. Before the financial crisis, 63 percent of adult Americans were employed; that number quickly plunged to less than 59 percent, and there it remains.
and that 2 trillion doesn’t even include the 500 billion that obama gave to solyndra
Solyndra was just a symptom of the era of malinvestment. I do think it is odd that a real success story does not get the spotlight from time to time. There must be some, even if accidental.
A legacy for Barack Obama: A war nobody believes in, led by a man nobody trusts
Washington Times | 9/6/13 | W Pruden
A war nobody believes in, led by a man nobody trusts. If Barack Obama is still looking for a legacy, here it is. Everything about the Syrian dilemma stinks.
Bashar Assad is recognized by nearly everybody as the source of at least half the stink. But only half. The rest of the stench is supplied by the rebels. It’s tempting to suggest that Mr. Obama, who yearns for applause, deserves the dilemma.
Bombers always sound to the uneducated ear like the cheap, quick and sensible way to punish international bad guys. Lots of bang-bang, fire, smoke and bravado is exciting, stimulating and inspiring, guaranteed to warm the blood of those who are not required to shed the blood. Bombs usually accomplish considerably less than expected, as decades of war on nearly every continent have demonstrated to anyone paying attention.
But cutting an American president, any president, off at the knees is no strategy, either, even if he’s a president who deserves punishment for screwing up everything he touches and threatens to make incompetence the national virtue. If the president really wants to go to war over Syria’s chemical weapons, and doing it alone unless you count the French, he should have done it without consulting Congress, since he thinks congressional permission is not really necessary. Congress only wants to belabor the obvious, anyway, and spend the rest of summer and early autumn debating, preening and trying to avoid responsibility for saying either yea or nay.
“But cutting an American president, any president, off at the knees is no strategy, either, even if he’s a president who deserves punishment for screwing up everything he touches and threatens to make incompetence the national virtue.”
BS
Honestly that’s Bush legacy. Nobody wants to fight the neocon’s war anymore.
Inflation everywhere except in wages and ipods…
————————-
Why McDonald’s is supersizing its prices
By Alex Rosenberg - yahoo.com - September 6th, 2013
McDonald’s might not be happy with your dollar anymore. The fast food giant announced that they are testing a “Dollar Menu and More” that includes items priced up to $5 (for 20-piece chicken nuggets). If McDonald’s finds success with the higher-priced menu in the five markets they currently testing, then a nationwide rollout is likely.
The Dollar Menu was introduced in 2002, and has since been a big driver for McDonald’s. In their second-quarter earnings call, CEO Don Thompson called it “a foundational component of our strategy,” and said that it represents 13 to 14 percent of sales.
But lately, franchisees have started to raise concerns about pricing, and the Dollar Menu has become a target of ire. According to a franchisee survey conducted by Janney Montgomery Scott analyst Mark Kalinowski, many franchisees complain that the Dollar Menu and discounting were cutting into their profits.
So between customers scrounging for a deal, and franchisees looking for profits, McDonald’s appears to be between a rock and a hard place. And increasing prices on their preexisting Dollar Menu appears to be their way of finding wiggle room – even if it threatens to create a customer revolt.
“To me, it reflects the inflation pressure that quick-service restaurants are experiencing now,” said Brian Kelly of Brian Kelly Capital. “But whether it works remains to be seen.”
That’s price fixing, not inflation.
“Why McDonald’s is supersizing its prices”
My wife’s Dish 500 just went up again.
mcdonalds new dollar menu will be government-subsidized dogmeat sandwiches, just like obama ate growing up in kenya
their cr@ppy burgers are not worth 5 bucks. there 1 coffee is the only deal there anymore.
WTF?
zerohedge just sited Al-Arabiya for another gas attack in Syria…then bloomberg news had it as breaking news.
now nothing on bloomberg and nothing al-arabiya website?
found the story in the bloomberg wires and here:
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/syria-said-to-use-gas-against-qabun-neighborhood-2013-09-06
I was thinking about that TEOTWAWKI story on the western rifleman website.
There was a scene where the military was confiscating everyone’s guns.
So, why didn’t these armed patriots clean out the military’s clocks in the story? Isn’t that the rationale for everyone being armed to the teeth? Instead, they all ran for the hills.
Actually, that’s what would happen. If professional soldiers invaded my neighborhood I don’t see how a bunch of fat, outgunned middle aged guys could fight them off. All it would take would be a single tank with a flamethrower to wipe out the neighborhood. We could all shoot our WalMart rifles at it to no effect.
Maybe. The Chinese learned to take out a Japanese tank with one .22 shot in their last war.
Generally you can’t fight an army head to head without another army. But the Iraqis showed how it’s done after “mission accomplished”…you don’t fight them head to head.
Ummmm…..because it is a made up fictional story?
So, why didn’t these armed patriots clean out the military’s clocks in the story? Isn’t that the rationale for everyone being armed to the teeth?
“Ummmm…..because it is a made up fictional story?”
Hey Bob tell him what he’s won.
And Colorado, about these recurring fantasies you keep having about “Teabillies” and “armed patriots” being wiped out by an air strike or a single tank with a flamethrower, finding the right therapist will probably take some time and work, but it’s worth the effort.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101015184
Key point in the article is that investor buyers are curtailing purchases. This will lead to fewer bidding wars, more first time buyers able to purchase, etc.
“This will lead to fewer bidding wars, more first time buyers able to purchase, etc.”
An investor race to the exits and price crash would certainly work wonders to enable first time buyers to purchase.
In broken job market, unemployment rate “hugely misleading,” economist says
by Jeff Ostrowski
One of the headline numbers from today’s jobs report: The national unemployment rate fell to 7.3 percent, its lowest point in nearly five years.
But Heidi Shierholz, economist at the Economic Policy Institute, says the jobless rate is falling not because the job market is improving but because discouraged workers no longer are counted as part of the labor force.
In other words, unemployment “dropped precisely because the labor market is so weak,” she says.
“There are about 3.8 million ‘missing workers’ — jobless people who would be in the labor force if job opportunities were strong,” Shierholz writes in an analysis today. “If our 3.8 million ‘missing workers’ were in the labor force looking for work, the unemployment rate would be 9.5 percent instead of 7.3 percent.
This entry was posted on Friday, September 6th, 2013 at 1:35 pm and is filed under Job market. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
“These weren’t foreign-born America-hating terrorists. These were native-born America-hating terrorists.”
And as we’ve all been told, they are the very, very worst kind of terrorists.
‘Sovereign citizens’ assault Port Everglades
By Robert Nolin, Sun Sentinel
8:07 p.m. EDT, September 5, 2013
Amid the explosions, smoke, roaring vehicles and chattering gunfire of a terrorist attack Thursday afternoon at Port Everglades, one fact became chillingly clear:
These weren’t foreign-born America-hating terrorists. These were native-born America-hating terrorists. And they were making things difficult for the good guys.
“They’re moving, they’re taking positions, they have superior firepower,” said Sheriff’s Deputy Richard Saito. “They’re clearly very well-trained, very well-motivated.”
Of course it wasn’t a real terrorist attack, but rather a large-scale SWAT training exercise mounted by the Broward Sheriff’s Office involving boats, bus, bombs and booby-trapped hostages.
“This is really a worst case scenario,” said Saito, the SWAT team member who concocted the training storyline.
In Saito’s plot, seven “sovereign citizens,” or militia-styled revolutionaries who advocate the government’s overthrow, assault the port by boat. Their goal: steal a shipment of arms and ammunition transiting through the facility.
Initially thwarted by deputies, the terrorists seize hostages, (I think they got Colorado and Alpha) wound a deputy, and leave a backpack full of explosives by Terminal 22. Then things get serious.
The terrorists strap bombs to the hostages, (Run Alpha run!) take over a bus, (Get off the bus Colorado! These are armed Teabillies!) and engage in a full-blown gunfight with SWAT team members. The bad guys use paintball guns. The helmeted, body-armor-clad SWAT team responds with simulated ammo.
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/broward/fort-lauderdale/fl-port-everglades-sovereign-citizens-20130905,0,7970718.story - -
Looking at the photos of all these large-scale SWAT training exercises going on all over the country reminds me of this quote.
“Rabbit hunting is fun. But it ain’t no fun when the rabbit has the gun.”