It’s Investors Who Are In The Headlights
It’s Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. “Is Fed chair Janet Yellen a sorceress who needs to conjure up a new spell? One online retail executive seems to think so. Patrick Byrne, the CEO of Overstock, said in the company’s earnings release Monday that the United States economy has been lifted by ‘Janet Yellen’s Magic Money Machine.’ Presumably, the ‘machine’ is the Fed’s poiicy of low interest rates. Byrne said this machine ‘has kept sales of homes and home-related products robust.’ But he warned of a discouraging shift in the economy in the third quarter.”
“He noted that there were ’sharp traffic swings for competitors with sites catering to disposable income’ — particularly fashion and jewelery retailers. During a conference call with analysts, Byrne elaborated on these comments, saying that ‘there’s a real secular, fundamental question mark about the economy’ and that he is ‘quite bearish’ about consumer spending outside of housing. Yes, Home Depot and Lowe’s are still doing well. But the lousy results from Macy’s and Gap this week are not a good sign. Walmart is the worst-performing stock in the Dow this year. And shares of higher-end retailers like Nordstrom and Tiffany have plunged too. So there’s a case to be made that Yellen’s magic is starting to wear off.”
“People buying homes in Waco generally find bargains, according to a report by real estate giant Coldwell Banker. Trammell Kelly, a residential real estate specialist with Kelly Realtors, said would-be home buyers from California or the Northeast typically sell upscale homes before considering a move to Texas, or Waco. ‘They are simply amazed at how much more house they can acquire here for the price,’ Kelly said, adding he is seeing an increasing number of investors from California and even the Dallas-Fort Worth area who are buying homes locally not to live in but to resell.”
“Coldwell Banker reports that 50 of the top 100 most expensive markets in the United States are in California, with Newport Beach topping the list. The average listing price of a four-bedroom, two-bath home there is $2.29 million.”
“Orange County home sales and prices ‘lost steam’ in October, dipping more than usual from September amid the elevated cost and restricted supply of homes, CoreLogic reported. ‘The luxury market got hit in September because of the stock market dip,’ said Steve Thomas, author of ReportsOnHousing. ‘For example, demand in Newport Coast dropped down to 5 pending sales (as of) … Sept. 24, and there were 121 homes on the market at the time.’”
“The fictional home of Al Pacino’s character (Tony Montana) in the 1983 film Scarface has sold after a price drop of almost US $23 million. The ridiculously opulent Montecito, California mansion spent a whopping 17 months on the market. Russian-born financier Sergey Grishin bought the estate for a reported $20 million in 2008, when U.S. housing prices went through a major crash. Thinking he could make a pretty penny, he waited until 2014 to put the Montecito home on the market at $35 million, but no buyers bit. Months later, he dropped the price by nearly half, to $17.9 million. It finally sold at $12.26 million, leaving Grishin over $7.7 million in the hole.”
“RealtyTrac released their October Foreclosure Market Report and it’s a mixed bag. Despite a fairly steady flow of repossessions and auctions over the last few years Chicago’s shadow inventory has really flattened out. Gone are the days when it would decline by 800 or more units in one month. In fact, October’s level was actually up over September. That was the second time in less than a year where we saw an actual increase in the level of shadow inventory.”
“I don’t understand why this is happening since you would expect the auctions and repossessions to be steadily driving this number down. Could we really have reached a steady state where we are perpetually dealing with the most intractable properties that you can’t even give away?”
“Not so long ago, houses in Alberta suburbs couldn’t be built quickly enough to keep up with demand — but a report says the number of new houses that aren’t sold or rented has jumped by nearly one-third in Edmonton and by a smaller degree in Calgary. An ATB Financial report says Edmonton has seen the number of so-called ‘unabsorbed’ new houses skyrocket by more than 30 per cent in the past year. Currently there are 403 unabsorbed houses in Calgary, a number that’s falling, compared to Edmonton’s growing number of 949, according to ATB Financial. Some ATB economists believe the current economic conditions in the province will cause the number of completed but so-called ‘unabsorbed’ homes to grow.”
“Housing investors have suddenly become a bunch of nervous Nellies. A survey by Digital Financial Analytics, shows only 58 per cent of one-property investors expect higher prices in the coming 12 months, down from 83 per cent in the September survey. The change of heart has been no less dramatic for portfolio investors owning more than one property, with only 63 per cent now expecting price rises, compared with 89 per cent in September. The balance of supply and demand in the housing market is continuing to shift, with a divergence between the number of homes newly listed for sale and the total still on the market waiting for a buyer. Sydney and Perth share most of the blame.”
“‘House price expectations are on the turn, with investors, those eternal optimists, now more uncertain about future capital appreciation,’ DFA’s principal Martin North said. All market segments, including home owners and first home buyers, are less inclined to expect rising prices but it’s investors who are ‘in the headlights.’ ‘Such large changes over just a couple of months are unusual,’ Mr North said. The survey’s construction may even understate the extent of the turnaround. It is based on responses gathered over the latest 12 months.”
“Westpac economist reckon the Auckland housing market is suffering a hangover from what it calls ‘recent excesses.’ ‘The weakness was especially concentrated in Auckland, with sales down 15 per cent and prices down almost 5 per cent in just one month,’ say the report’s authors. ‘This confirms the idea that some of the recent froth in the Auckland market was driven by investors getting in ahead of the new regulations.’”
“The report says investors have done their dash for now, and the ‘Auckland housing market is likely to suffer the resulting hangover, for at least a few more months.’ Peter Thompson, managing director of real estate firm Barfoot & Thompson, says: ‘What is clear is that the rate of price rise that occurred in September, at the start of the spring season, has not been sustained. Clearance at auctions has definitely slowed,’ he says. ‘However, buyers are no longer under the same pressure to meet vendor price expectations, and the properties that are selling are those with realistic reserves.’”
“With the real-estate boom entering its fourth year banks and developers are eager to expand credit to the sector, though regulators say they are monitoring lending for real estate for signs of a bubble. The National Bank of Cambodia could increase the risk weights associated with real-estate lending. ‘The real-estate and construction sector has grown very fast. It seems to me that supply is in excess of demand. It is a bubble, but I don’t know when it will bust,’ said Economist Srey Chanthy. ‘If you have time, spend a day hanging around in Phnom Penh and the suburban areas. You will find that there are a lot of real-estate projects going on, many buildings, apartments/condos and they have low occupancy rates, some are even empty. Most project owners, apartment and condo investors, buyers and customers borrow from banks. If they cannot pay, the bust will occur and prices will drop.’”
“Stephen Higgins, managing partner at research firm Mekong Strategic, agreed. ‘It’s a bubble, particularly in the apartment market, with many buildings having very high vacancy rates, yet there’s a lot more supply coming online,’ he said.”
“Home sales Belgravia, the London district favored by Russian oligarchs for its large Regency-style houses, are slumping after the collapse of the ruble against the pound. Transactions dropped 25 percent in the neighborhood in the 10 months through October from a year earlier, compared with a decline of almost 20 percent in the rest of central London’s best districts, according to researcher Lonres. Sales of luxury homes in the capital have also been damped by an increase in the stamp duty sales tax and falling commodity values. That’s prompted broker W.A. Ellis LLP to warn that ‘the bubble may already have burst’ for the most expensive properties.”
“‘The share of Russian buyers in the prime central London market is down due largely to the currency weakness and difficulty in getting money out of the country,’ said Charles McDowell, who advises wealthy clients on buying luxury homes in London. ‘This has affected Belgravia and Knightsbridge in particular, which is very much the Russian heartland.’”
“During his career apogee in the early 2000s, Oscar-winning actor Nicolas Cage was one of the highest-paid celebrities on the planet and was making as much as $40 million a year. In 2009, the once high-flying Cage filed for bankruptcy. At the age of 51, he’s only now climbing back to financial solvency. How could a multi-millionaire movie star fall so far, so fast? Simply put, Cage made colossally stupid real estate investments — and dug a deeper hole for himself through poor management of his property-related debts and obligations.”
“His vast real estate empire included two apartments on a ritzy stretch of New York’s Fifth Avenue; three castles (one an ancient Bavarian castle in Germany); Dean Martin’s former home in Beverly Hills, Calif.; a townhouse in Bath, England; and two islands in the Bahamas. His magnificent homes, apartments and land either went into foreclosure or were sold for huge losses. What’s more, the IRS came after him for $6.3 million in back property taxes.”
“The median price of all Orange County homes – the price at the midpoint of all sales – slipped to $600,000 in October, down 2.4 percent on the month. It was the second-biggest September-to-October percentage drop in numbers dating back to 1988.”
The beginning of a very long trip to the bottom.
And prices in The OC pretty much represent the comparable lid on prices throughout the rest of overpriced California housing. It’s great to see CA housing starting its journey on the long road back to affordability.
“He noted that there were ’sharp traffic swings for competitors with sites catering to disposable income’ — particularly fashion and jewelery retailers.”
What’s disposable income?
“What’s disposable income?”
It’s income that eventually becomes mine.
Another type of income that eventually becomes mine is non-disposable income.
Interesting that the guy used the word “secular” to characterize doubt about the economy. Does that mean that relentless positivity about the economy is tantamount to a religious faith?
Wikipedia says:
“Secular has at least two meanings: separate from religion; and aperiodic.
“For the first meaning, see secularism, secularity, secularization and references therein.
“In the second meaning, secular may refer to:
Secular basis, a long-term financial basis
Secular equilibrium, a situation in which the quantity of a radioactive isotope remains constant
Secular phenomena, astronomical phenomena that repeat too slowly to be observed, if at all
Secular variation, the long-term non-periodic variation of a time series
Secular Games, a religious celebration held in ancient Rome”
Secular
Good to know—thanks, Combo!
Huntington Beach, CA Housing Prices Crater 6% YoY
http://www.zillow.com/huntington-beach-ca/home-values/
‘Authorities in China have cracked the country’s biggest-ever underground banking network, which handled illegal foreign exchange transactions worth 410 billion yuan ($64 billion), police said Friday. The bust comes amid a monthslong crackdown on illicit outflows, which officials say disrupt China’s financial management, facilitate corruption and help terrorists and criminals launder their dirty money.’
‘Since April, Chinese authorities have uncovered over 170 big cases of underground banking and money laundering worth over 800 billion yuan ($126 billion), the state-run People’s Daily reported.’
‘China has tight currency controls, which officially limit individuals to converting $50,000 worth of currency a year, but they are widely evaded. That has helped drive capital outflows to enormous levels this year, adding to strain on the value of the Chinese currency and putting upward pressure on interest rates, even as the Chinese economy slows. Beijing has also launched a massive campaign to crack down on corrupt officials overseas who have taken their fortunes out of the country, part of an effort to shore up the reputation of the ruling Communist Party.’
‘Brian Jackson, a senior economist for IHS Economics in Beijing, said the crackdown may be aimed, in part, at staving off capital flight led by insiders as China prepares for another round of state-owned enterprise reform. That was a problem when China restructured massive state companies in the early 2000s, he said.’
“Today’s move could be not only to punish current corruption and reduce current capital flight, but to also prevent/discourage future asset stripping,” he said in an email. “Emphasis on attempt — hard to say if it will be meaningful over the longer term since there are many methods to move money out of China.”
Hey, now Associated Press, this is out of line:
‘but they are widely evaded’
Don’t you know if the Chinese authorities snap their fingers, it gets done! Nothing, nothing, gets past them.
‘Authorities in China have cracked the country’s biggest-ever underground banking network, which handled illegal foreign exchange transactions worth 410 billion yuan ($64 billion), police said Friday. The bust comes amid a monthslong crackdown on illicit outflows, which officials say disrupt China’s financial management, facilitate corruption and help terrorists and criminals launder their dirty money.’
Sounds as though the all-cash Chinese investor slice of California real estate demand just went POOF.
Bitcoin! The medium of Islamic terrorists and Chinese launderers.
This was pretty funny. I’m sure the right people managed to sever their ties to said banking network, or use it to expatriate their own assets, before the axe fell. I get the feeling that any organized campaign against corruption in China is a factional political maneuver that has little do with actually punishing or preventing corruption, because everyone in power is corrupt.
Are elected officials in British Columbia going to make some kind of protest?
‘Westpac economist reckon the Auckland housing market is suffering a hangover from what it calls ‘recent excesses.’ ‘The weakness was especially concentrated in Auckland, with sales down 15 per cent and prices down almost 5 per cent in just one month’
Just a few months ago, it was reported house prices in Auckland were going up something like $500 per day. Man, that must have been an irresistible gravy train:
‘Hammer falls on Auckland housing market’
‘There are reports of some auction clearance rates being lower than 35 per cent as well as fewer attendees at auctions, and sales volumes are down by about 20 per cent for October on what they were in September.’
‘When there is high competition at auction for a property, the price can be pushed over expected market value if multiple bidders seek to secure a property, and this has been common over the past year in the Auckland market.’
But how could such a thing happen? Don’t they have appraisers and loan officers?
‘The loan stats that should frighten you’
‘When I bought my first home in Wellington in 1992 it was rare for banks to lend more than twice the income of the occupier. Generally, three times was seen as the upper limit. The requirement for a big deposit and the limit on the loan-to-income multiple meant we could only afford a house worth $112,000, but it was the same for everyone. That house was around the average for Wellington and just fine for a young family buying a first home.’
‘In 1992, mortgage rates had dipped under 10 per cent, but were as high as 15 per cent less than two years earlier, which meant the bank and I were reluctant to take on too much debt. Unemployment was still over 10 per cent and 18 months earlier I was a jobless ex-student.’
‘Banks and borrowers were as risk-averse as each other and the idea of borrowing to buy multiple homes as investments was foreign.’
‘Fast forward to 2015 and the mathematics are on another planet. That house in Wellington has more than quadrupled in value, thanks in no small part to interest rates halving and the “normal” loan-to-income multiple more than doubling.’
‘We all know the leverage had increased, but until this week we weren’t sure how much. The Reserve Bank published its first analysis of loan-to-income multiples. About 40 per cent of mortgages between May last year and September this year were worth more than five times the borrowers’ income. About 60 per cent of lending to landlords was at the same level and a stunning 27.3 per cent took loans worth more than seven times their incomes.’
Isn’t it amazing that anywhere on the globe, whatever the loan limits are for a given area, house prices seem to always go right up to that point.
I don’t even know where Boulder is. Is it in Missouri?
‘Boulder real estate hits top 1 percent of country’s most expensive markets. Average list price for a 4-bedroom home in city of Boulder tops $1 million in first half of the year’
‘Scarcity, combined with tougher occupancy rules, has even caused larger homes once used as student rentals to convert back to single-family use, he said. And the demand is outstripping supply for all types of housing — not just four-bedroom homes.’
“We have listings for one-bedrooms in Boulder that are going for $1.2 million,” said Kelly Moye, a Re/Max agent based in Broomfield, who said she wasn’t surprised by the survey’s findings.’
‘The average price of a home sold in Boulder County was $638,146 in October, 17.7 percent higher than the average a year earlier, according to the Colorado Association of Realtors.’
Gyrating Realtor logic. Gyrate Realtor gyrate!
I can see paying for CA coastal weather but boulder is devner w granola and dreadlocks
Choosing between Denver/Boulder smog and CA poverty and crime isn’t much of a choice.
I can see paying for CA coastal weather
So did this guy:
‘put the Montecito home on the market at $35 million, but no buyers bit. Months later, he dropped the price by nearly half, to $17.9 million. It finally sold at $12.26 million, leaving Grishin over $7.7 million in the hole’
I admit to liking Boulder (”twenty square miles surrounded by reality”), but give me a break, those bubble prices are ridiculous.
Irvine, CA Housing Prices Crater 8% YoY
http://www.zillow.com/northwood-irvine-ca/home-values/
shows neg yoy and future
is Irvine going ferguson ?
I grew up in Irvine. Irvine is a very safe, master planned community with good schools.
Over the last several years, the Chinese have descended on the city - so much so that the shopping centers I knew as a kid now all have Chinese characters.
All that Chinese money flowing in just went poof as per an above post, so cratering Irvine housing prices are not surprising.
My parents bought their house for 120k back in 1980 - 2 story, 3 bed 2 1/2 bath house around 2000sqft. I told them back at the peak of the last boom to sell it and they declined. I’m telling them again to sell it now they are retired… but they’re reluctant. “Where would your brothers live?” my mom worries.
My brothers are 37 and 31.
‘Fed pushes back as Congress eyes its billions’
‘Congress is aiming to take billions out of the Fed’s accounts to help pay for a new highway and transit bill.’
‘There may be no going back. For lawmakers from both parties who have been scouring the budget for offsets, siphoning off money from a Fed backstop account and cutting a dividend the Fed pays to banks are attractive options.’
‘And lawmakers and aides say that the Fed had earlier indicated — behind the scenes — that it preferred a raid of the surplus account to pay for highways over the dividends proposal. Draining the $29 billion account set aside to absorb possible losses is a small cut compared to the Fed’s $4 trillion balance sheet.’
‘The Washington Post editorial board scolded Congress and wrote that, “Many a banana republic … has come to grief using its central bank to facilitate government deficit spending.”
“For the Federal Reserve to be saying this impinges upon their integrity, etc., etc. — you know, it’s absurd,” said Rep. Peter DeFazio, the top Democrat on the House transportation committee. “This is a body that creates money out of nothing.”
They want to take your money machine Janet.
This is funny on a lot of levels. They can’t even find the money to fix the roads and Krugman thinks we should dummy up a space alien invasion.
Who says highway bills are about transportation? (And not about buying votes by “bringing the bacon back” for pet projects in congress critters’ districts).
The interstates are in bad shape in Arizona and have been for years.
And this highway bill will fix that?????
Around here in Sillycon-Valley, I’d say that the majority of highway improvements have come from local $$$ (from sales tax).
And sometime the improvements, aren’t, for example the “new” I-580/I-680 exchange isn’t much better than the old one, but the new I-880/237 exchange is a huge improvement over the old one.
Didn’t any of the stimulus money go towards this “shovel ready project”? Locally, they were overpaving actually good roads with stimulus money.
The Fed pays a dividend to banks? How about they pay a dividend to me? That would start making up for seven years of no interest on my savings.
Who gets paid a dividend? The owners, that’s who.
I think they should pay for the Syrian “refugees” too. They are costing us $62,000 each to start. They are then planning to loot Social Security and Medicare.
http://www.nationalreview.com/syrian-refugees-belong-in-safe-zones-outside-america
‘There may be no going back. For lawmakers from both parties who have been scouring the budget for offsets, siphoning off money from a Fed backstop account and cutting a dividend the Fed pays to banks are attractive options.’
Technically speaking, couldn’t the Fed simply ‘expand its balance sheet’ by a small fractional amount to cover this funding request? If the Fed had no problem using this approach to bail out foreign banks to the tune of several trillions, then why not extend a little largess to our Congress?
Check it out, some retard bought that place that’s literally on the highway that I linked to a few days ago:
https://www.redfin.com/MA/Belmont/135-Radcliffe-Rd-02478/home/8453079
Satellite view showing highway basically running through backyard.
An astute HBB reader pointed out that in photo 9 of the Redfin gallery, you can clearly see a highway sign from the house’s dining room, just beyond the yard.
WTF? How can people be this stupid? Shit listed at $629K and sold in less than a week!
You better look. This is ugly.
MA Housing Demand Plummets 59% YoY
http://files.zillowstatic.com/research/public/State/State_Turnover_AllHomes.csv
And keep in mind the median price is down YoY across the entire state.
Ugly? No, that’s sexy as hell. I’m sitting on like $380K cash right now. Trying to buy a decent place while still maintaining an emergency fund and maxing out my tax-deferred space. I’m waiting for the reckoning.
That’s Route 2. Not an 8 lane expressway or anything. Arlington and Belmont are great towns. Bemont is where the Romneys lived. $600K for a house is a bargain if you consider other SFH in Belmont.
Yeah the house has a shitty view but your kids are going to go to the best schools in Massachusetts (probably the country). Your kids will grow up next to business magnates and world leaders. Also relatively speaking there’s an access road before the highway so its not THAT bad.
I lived on the other side of that highway in Arlington and it was fine. I also currently live in Belmont, way south of here though. I’m renting here instead of buying 10 miles away because my son will get to go to an amazing school system. Also because housing is a bubble and I’m not going to buy into a bubble when I can rent for less.
“$600K for a house is a bargain”
That house isn’t worth $100K. It must be the privilege of living in Massachusetts.
I’m thinking business magnates do not live in little ranch like that, or even on the same roads.
“Not an 8 lane expressway or anything…”
Only 6 lanes?
So here’s the view from the highway:
http://bit.ly/1Lr6n3m
Trust me, it’s much worse than that photo at 7-9am & 3-6pm. Weekends are not particularly busy, but lord, could you imagine living on that thing?
Christ, you can’t be serious. Route 2 roars like, well, a highway. Because it’s a highway.
I-95 is only 2 lanes through much of Connecticut, and I-93 is 3 lanes for a good portion. I sure as hell wouldn’t want to live on those roads, and Route 2 isn’t materially different.
I’m in East Arlington, by the way, so very familiar with the area. Also renting, because screw it, if people are dropping $629K for shit-shacks on the highway, you know they’re desperate. I mean, come on. The house is a 50’s piece of shit, AND it’s on a major road.
No amount of money is worth breathing the exhaust that comes off of Route 2.
We are in a regime dominated by irrational buyers here in greater Boston.
I live in Lexington, next town over. The market here has been so insane it is hard to characterize. Shacks like this going for 700k, people buying way over asking. House down the street from me just sold for 230k over asking. There were over 10 offers.
It is pure insanity. I bought my house in 2012, Zillow says its doubled its value since then. On the face of it, that’s crazy — but given what’s happening in town and what happened with my neighbors place — I believe it.
I can’t even formulate a theory on WHY this is happening other than some irrational fear that there will never be any homes for sale here again.. Esp since there was pretty much no bubble here in MA in 2004-2007 so don’t know why there is one now.
MA and in particular eastern MA has been in a perpetual bubble since the mid-1990’s when I was working there on the CAT.
Here’s what I believe is about to happen.
China dumps all of the houses that have bought with the underground exported funds.
The 50k per year will not be taken in to account and deducted from the wrongful monies…leaving a net of 100% of the house is now communist government owned.
I think anyone who hasn’t realized that China will sell an item it cost them $40 to make, for $12 just to keep the flow going, hasn’t a clue.
China dumps the houses for whoever says yes, because real money has no real value to their government.
Houses not involved in this [yours] drop to 50% or 30%, in some cases like Newport Beach, maybe 10% of current price veritably overnight.
Russians panic, dump theirs also. As do Canadians [but they have a whole 'nother set of problems above and beyond ours]
Housing prices here drop to half of what they are overall.
Interest rates rise to ‘keep payments the same’ on the now $75,000 house as the payments were when that house was $300,000.
Stupid stuff like ‘equity wealth’ becomes an odd term from the past.
The ridiculousness of stocks trading at ‘15 times value’ are a memory on par with pogs.
Cash wins.
“maximum DTI as a lifestyle” stay where they are DTI wise.
Property taxes drop so low [I don’t know the answer here.
interest rates got to low 10’s for the best.
The pound to dollar is 2.12 to 1.
Italy is the first to pull out of the mess and block a border.
Call this a prayer of sorts….
That is the likely outcome of all this for certain.
most oil city markets are way over 2006 peak
oh the humanity
… and not a buyer site.
Oh my word.
There have been two big rallies and collapses in oil futures this year. And the glut was there the whole time.
http://www.nasdaq.com/markets/crude-oil.aspx?timeframe=1y
Russian-born financier Sergey Grishin bought the estate for a reported $20 million in 2008, when U.S. housing prices went through a major crash. Thinking he could make a pretty penny, he waited until 2014 to put the Montecito home on the market at $35 million, but no buyers bit. Months later, he dropped the price by nearly half, to $17.9 million. It finally sold at $12.26 million, leaving Grishin over $7.7 million in the hole.”
OMG, Ben—delightful schadenfreude on that one! Seven years later, he finally realizes that maybe he didn’t pick it up at such a great price during the downturn. Priceless. And that $7.7M doesn’t even count his carrying costs for the past seven years.
Let me just say: there are a lot of downturn buyers who still think they got a good deal.
Nice! Let’s bring on the pain.
stock market just closed HIGHER….
somehow some of you think there’s gonna be a crush!
yeah right… just around the corner.
not going to happen.
Lessons to learn:
1. Don’t fight the Fed.
2. BTFD!
1. You’re screwed.
2. The cascading defaults and resultant losses are yours and yours alone.
Said the retards in 2006. And before every single downturn. Reversion to mean will be painful for the undiversified.
Let’s see if I follow your logic:
The stock market crushed it TODAY.
So any of yous who think the stock market doesn’t always go up is a moron.
“Over-Reaching Government “Enables” Culture Warriors”
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-11-20/over-reaching-government-enables-culture-warriors
‘More “Free Stuff”’
Since when does the IRS collect property taxes?
Seattle, WA Housing Prices Crater 6% YoY
http://www.zillow.com/seattle-wa-98199/home-values/