The Commodity Class Of Choice For Investors
It’s Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. “While the percentage of Americans who own their own home has declined for more than a decade, according to a new report, Hispanic homeownership rates are soaring, especially in traditional Hispanic population centers like the Central Valley. And the momentum is clearly building. In 2015, Hispanic homeownership across the U.S. registered the largest one-year spike in more than a decade. Eric Becerra is a division manager for Alterra Home Loans, a Las Vegas-based company that recently expanded into the Central Valley, in part, to service the area’s booming Hispanic market. One major factor fueling the rise in Hispanic homeownership is the number of new programs offering down payment assistance for first-time homebuyers.”
“‘We’re seeing more first-time Hispanic homebuyers with better credit taking part in these programs that allow them to come in with little to no money down,’ Becerra said. ‘Up to now, coming up with a down payment has usually been the biggest barrier for this segment of the market.’”
“The demand for apartments in Dallas-Fort Worth staggered in the first quarter of the year, with leasing velocity dropping more than a third compared with the first quarter of 2015, according to MPF Research, a division of RealPage Inc. The disappointing demand for apartments were seen throughout the country in early 2016, said RealPage Chief Economist Greg Willett. In North Texas, the first quarter showed a demand for 1,989 apartment units, which is roughly a third the absorption volume seen in the first quarter of 2015. Meanwhile, developers finished building 5,763 apartments in the initial three months of 2016.”
“‘New household just didn’t form at the pace normally supported by solid job expansion,” Willet said. ‘That slow rate of household creation likely reflects some concern about the near-term economic outlook.’”
“Parkway Corp. has carved its development niche amassing Center City property, building it up when the time is right. But it’s trying something new at the lot it owns at 20th and Arch Streets, which it is now looking to sell as undeveloped land. The shift comes amid concerns that Center City’s rising real estate values may be losing some momentum. Developers are due to complete more residential units in the area than would be filled under current growth rates, the Center City District business association said in a report.”
“That potential oversupply, combined with expected higher interest rates that would make financing projects more expensive, could conspire against the market, said Michael Silverman, a managing director at Integra Realty Resources in Philadelphia. ‘The music’s going to stop at some point,’ he said. ‘But it’s still pretty strong.’”
“Nevada led the nation in foreclosure rates from 2007-2012 and reclaimed the top spot in February. It ranks among states with the highest percentage of underwater homeowners, those owing more on their mortgage than their home is worth. ‘Banks have held off or slowed down the (foreclosure) process because of legislation in recent years,’ says Scott Beaudry, president of the Realtors’ association. ‘They’ve spaced it out, and they’re really trying to work with homeowners to keep them in their property. It saves them money and resources. They don’t want to flood the market, not at all.’”
“Loria and Mitchell Versher bought their home in Markham for nearly $140,000 in 2007. Almost a decade later, it’s up for a bank ordered short sale for $29,500. Even in the waning days of the boom, it was easy for them to get a $137,000 mortgage at 7.5 percent with no money down, for a home that sold for $87,000 in 2004 and $115,000 in 2005. ‘It took a few minutes,’ Loria Versher said. ‘Everyone was talking about buying property at church — it was a time where people just felt like, ‘I qualify — let’s do this.’”
“In 2015’s fourth quarter, the percentage of underwater local homeowners was nearly 17 percent, topped only by the 22 percent of homeowners in Miami and 21 percent in Las Vegas-Henderson, Nev. ‘Everybody seems to think we’ve recovered from the housing crisis, but for many communities of color that’s not the case,’ said John Petruszak, executive director of the South Suburban Housing Center, which helps homeowners with distressed mortgages.”
“Apartments in central Melbourne are being resold at up to 30 per cent less than their off-the-plan purchase price, sales data shows. One property where prices have fallen is 27 Little Collins Street, which has 171 apartments in a 32-storey tower above a Sheraton hotel. The building was completed by developer Golden Age in July 2015. A three-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment occupying 140 square metres and with two car parks sold for $1,565,000 in August, which is 29 per cent below the purchase price of $2,195,000 in November, 2010. The price of a two-bedroom unit in the same building fell almost 23 per cent in a year, when it was sold for $1,075,000 last April, having previously been bought for $1,320,000 in June 2014.”
“Figures compiled by valuation firm WBP showing half of 1794 properties purchased off-plan between December 2009 and August 2015 had been revalued below their purchase price. In one case, a two-bedroom, one-bathroom unit purchased for $740,000 on 3 August last year was revalued at $600,000 – a 23 per cent discount –16 days later. With the number of apartments due for settlement ballooning, concern is rising about whether buyers will be able to pay for them, especially at a time when banks are tightening rules. If banks value properties for less or cut the loan-to-value ratio they will offer customers, buyers will be forced to pay more at time of settlement. If they cannot pay more, they may be forced to sell into a weaker market.”
“‘For settlement risk, are we cautious? Yes, but are we worried? No. I’m not,’ said Golden Age managing director Jeff Xu.”
“The high point of most housing bubbles is often marked by gleefully reported examples of sellers seemingly stretching feasibility to its limit. Amid the flying ‘skypools’, Versace-designed apartments and Deconstructivist architectural extravagances sprouting up in Nine Elms can be found 400-ish sq ft studios that have been listed for resale on Rightmove for several months for not far south of ‘half a bar’. A common response by many developers to any claim that the capital is overheating is that any such risk is contained within the central London high end. Basically anything above £2m (encompassing larger units), bad; smaller units below £1m, good.”
“In fact, it could be ‘cheaper’ places that face the greater downward pressure (for now, this refers to below approximately £1.5m), particularly two-bed apartments. To support this view, scour the developments at and immediately surrounding the iconic Battersea Power Station. More than 500 units are listed, largely it would appear, by would-be ‘flippers’. The number itself is distorted by a degree of multiple listing, so cannot be entirely scientific. But the total has been going up steadily for a year and some units have been languishing for many months. Some 40% have been reduced in price since they were listed. But, intriguingly, a greater proportion, some 60%, recorded price cuts at the lower price points and in the two-bed category.”
“As attractive as the designs and eventual facilities may be, two-bed apartments have been the commodity class of choice for off-plan investors (mainly Asian) in this London-focused bubble as they were last time around in the boom and bust in northern cities (when there was a greater preponderance of UK investors who ended up carrying the can).”
“More than a hundred houses in southern China have been demolished after the property developer failed to sell them for almost a decade. The houses, located in one of the biggest residential compounds in Heyuan in Guangdong province, were built in 2004. The property is located in one of eastern Guangdong’s poorest cities. According to Jiang Rong Real Estate Development, the property developer, only apartment buildings were sold, while the more expensive houses have never even seen a sale.”
“The company did not give any detail regarding its plans for the land where the demolished properties lay. The demolition project reportedly cost them 120 million yuan ($18 million). China is currently facing a serious issue with the oversupply of new homes in the mainland that remain unsold, the South China Morning Post reported earlier this month. By the end of 2015, of China’s 720 million square meters worth of unsold homes, Guangdong alone had 160 million square meters of unsold housing property.”
“It seems that hardly a day goes by without Portland receiving another placement in the top ranks of a ‘best places’ list. But have we reached ‘peak Portland’? Are we on the precipice of a decline in those scores? Bert Sperling thinks so, and as the architect of many of the studies, he should know. Over the past five years, Portland had the 16th-greatest increase in home prices, but over the past year it moved into third place. No other metro area among the group of 50 largest places shows such a significant spike, Sperling says.”
“‘Creative spaces are being disrupted, housing is going to become less affordable, and traffic congestion is only going to increase,’ Sperling says. ‘There will be overbuilding — building that is done as an emergency, and development that is suboptimal.’ Sperling doesn’t see how the creative, innovative and entrepreneurial activity can happen in a high-cost environment. ‘Affordability is important, because it allows you to take more risks,’ he says. ‘You can afford to take more swings at the plate.’”
“But now Portland is heading in the opposite direction, and it’s hard to buck the market. ‘It’s not like you’re able to roll back the tide.’
‘In 2015, Hispanic homeownership across the U.S. registered the largest one-year spike in more than a decade. ‘We’re seeing more first-time Hispanic homebuyers with better credit taking part in these programs that allow them to come in with little to no money down,’ Becerra said.’
http://thehousingbubbleblog.com/?p=9573
‘A recent report by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, a federal agency that regulates the nation’s banks, warns that declines in mortgage underwriting standards are mirroring pre-crisis trends.
‘Underwriting standards eased at a significant number of banks for the three-year period from 2013 through 2015,’ the report said. ‘This trend reflects broad trends similar to those experienced from 2005 through 2007, before the most recent financial crisis.’ Not since 2006, it noted, have lenders taken on so much credit risk, and it says the hazard will continue to grow this year: ‘Examiners expect the level of credit risk to increase over the next 12 months.’
‘A large chunk of the risk is coming from first-time home buyers with shaky credit and so-called ‘rebound’ buyers who previously defaulted on home loans. The demand from otherwise uncreditworthy home buyers ‘is driving home prices up faster than incomes and inflation,’ noted Edward Pinto, co-director of AEI’s International Center on Housing Risk in Washington.’
‘This is especially true in hot spots like California, where subprime-mortgage lenders offering interest-only loans with no FICO-score requirements are cropping up from the ashes of Countrywide Financial, the bankrupt subprime giant.’
‘In another sign housing is overheating, home ‘flipping’ is red hot again and hitting levels not seen since just prior to the mortgage meltdown. Nationwide, almost 180,000 homes were sold and then resold last year — the highest level since 2007. In fact, according to RealtyTrac, flipping in a dozen metro areas — including New York, Los Angeles, San Diego, Miami and Jacksonville, Fla. — exceeded peaks set in 2005.’
‘Like the last bubble, this one is fueled by artificial demand from government-induced lax lending standards and accommodative interest rates set by the Federal Reserve. Today’s relaxation in mortgage-underwriting standards is largely a function of government housing-policy changes at FHA, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which dominate the nation’s mortgage activity. As in the last easy-credit cycle, we are seeing ‘the promotion of policy to push firms to seek riskier products to promote growth,’ Wells Fargo Chief Economist John Silvia said.’
‘All three agencies have slashed down-payment and other requirements under pressure from Obama regulators, who include, most significantly, former Congressional Black Caucus leader and Obama appointee Mel Watt, head of the new Federal Housing Finance Agency, which now controls Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.’
‘Last year, Fannie Mae launched a new subprime-mortgage product called HomeReady that caters to recent immigrants with weak credit and limited income. The new loan program, which offers ‘income flexibility,’ allows borrowers for the first time to bundle income from roommates and relatives to meet qualifications for income. They only have to put 3% down, and can use gifts from nonprofit groups to subsidize their down payments.’
‘There is no limit on the number of non-borrower household members who can be present on a single transaction,’ Fannie advises originators. And even then there is ’documentation flexibility,’ a frightening echo of last decade’s ‘no-doc loans.’
‘You don’t have to show personal financial independence. You can be maxed out on credit cards and even live in government-subsidized housing. Just as long as you round up enough income-earners and pool finances to help meet a debt-to-income ratio of up to 50%. And you don’t need good credit. ‘If the borrower’s credit score is less than the minimum credit score required,’ Fannie tells loan underwriters, ‘the lender may develop an acceptable nontraditional credit profile’ that takes into consideration timely payments on electricity bills and car insurance — and even gym dues — in lieu of payments on credit cards and loans.’
‘Under HomeReady, you can even qualify for a ‘cash-out refinance’ of your mortgage, a type of loan that led to over-leveraging and a wave of defaults during the mortgage crisis.’
‘Why would Fannie offer the same kinds of poorly underwritten loans that forced it into bankruptcy? Because HomeReady aligns ‘with our housing goals’ set by Watt, it says in its HomeReady literature. It’s all part of a government campaign to ease access to home loans for recent Hispanic immigrants — including those living here illegally. In fact, HomeReady caters to illegal immigrants by allowing borrowers to waive Social Security documentation.’
‘Watt, who as a congressman once demanded Freddie Mac back loans for welfare recipients in his North Carolina district, has instructed Fannie and Freddie to come up with ‘alternative credit-scoring models’ to FICO and approve more home buyers. ‘We have the pedal to the metal’ on adopting a new model, Watt said.’
‘It’s all part of a government campaign to ease access to home loans for recent Hispanic immigrants — including those living here illegally. In fact, HomeReady caters to illegal immigrants by allowing borrowers to waive Social Security documentation’
‘The high point of most housing bubbles is often marked by gleefully reported examples of sellers seemingly stretching feasibility to its limit’
From yesterday:
‘Realtor Zach Bankert said his clients have used a U.S. Department of Agriculture program that helps with mortgages in rural areas like Salisbury. ‘They’ve used USDA financing, which is zero percent down, they got the Maryland mortgage program, $5000 interest free loan to help towards closing costs, and with a little bit of seller contribution, you know, they’ve gotten into a house for basically nothing,’ Bankert said.’
http://thehousingbubbleblog.com/?p=9592
round up enough income-earners
I’m sure they’ll make great neighbors, LOLZ.
Yup, and all of those income earners have career jobs which will all last 5-7 years, long enough to pay enough equity to sell the house and at least break even.
One part of my yard tends to collect any trash that blows around the street. I picked up one piece of paper only to find that it was the W-2 income tax statement of someone at a neighboring address. Total income for six months: $1800. How many incomes like that do they need to pile into one house to pay the mortgage? You would need at least 8 people with 5 jobs each, continually.
What was even more disturbing is that the W-2 was just the piece paper, not in any kind of envelope. I’m guessing that they simply threw the W-2 away or in the recycle bin, where it blew into my yard.
Had a friend renting from his mother-in-law.
She bought the house in Hesperia (California High Desert) from a hispanic family who got foreclosed on.
They had trashed the place, put up makeshift walls to make more rooms and even had people sleeping in the rafters.
Flash forward to last year. She sold the house - back to the same family that lost it years earlier. Some kind of government financing was helping them as well as just putting the house in another family member’s name.
Along with that property she sold three others she owned, including her own home and moved to Texas. She said she had enough.
As I said yesterday
Illegal Immigration affects and permeates everything and it is the most important issue by far. It affects:
Housing
Education
Health Care
Law Enforcement
National Security
Environment
Spot on.
What? Dead appliances and trash piles on the side of the road provide important habitat for roaches and other scavengers. These impromptu garbage dumps are the new wetlands!
Auto insurance rates
dont take away my dirt cheap labor.
Foster Farms, Hilton, every builder, every restaurant….
Landlord-paid illegal immigrant lawncare service
‘We have the pedal to the metal’
This is bound to end badly.
That’s a big 10-4, good buddy.
I think it’s time for the CB radio to come back big among the hipster crowd.
You know if they even knew what a CB was it would!
Lol, it’s just a matter of education. Hipsters go for that retro stuff.
I can see them now, mic’s in their hands, cables leading down to a man bag with a radio and lead acid battery in it, man buns flapping in the air as they ride their fixies down the street….
Oh so you wanna start up with the CB slang again, rubber duckie?
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/07/07/california-screaming
everyone wants to live there ??
‘In another sign housing is overheating, home ‘flipping’ is red hot again and hitting levels not seen since just prior to the mortgage meltdown. Nationwide, almost 180,000 homes were sold and then resold last year — the highest level since 2007. In fact, according to RealtyTrac, flipping in a dozen metro areas — including New York, Los Angeles, San Diego, Miami and Jacksonville, Fla. — exceeded peaks set in 2005.’
Light it UP!!!
http://www.trulia.com/property/3026305464-1799-Rose-Villa-St-Pasadena-CA-91106
No bubble here. Move along…
That’s my home town. Besides the super rich chinese area, there are thousands of homeless people. BTW my mom lives on villa now and it’s not a place i’d really want to rent or buy!
That’s a beautiful house and property. Now cut the price 80% and put it in Oil City and I’d consider it.
Built in 1920
Nice satellite dish.
Pasadena, CA Real Estate and Homes for Sale
476 Homes
http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-search/Pasadena_CA
Pasadena, CA Price Reduced Homes for Sale
102 Homes
http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-search/Pasadena_CA/show-price-reduced
There’s one for $325K.
A run down 100_year old shanty like that is just your style Donk.
“bought their home in Markham for nearly $140,000 in 2007. Almost a decade later, it’s up for a bank ordered short sale for $29,500.”
$29k. About what a used house is worth after depreciation is taken into account.
We’re told that the current run-up in house prices is caused by a supply shortage. However, house prices are going up in cities with declining populations. Which indicates factors other than supply shortage as the price driver.
Example:
1) Baltimore City Population chart
Baltimore house price trend.
2) Detroit population chart
Case Shiller Detroit prices (select city from the “City” drop down list above the chart)
3) Cleveland population chart
Cleveland house prices from Case Shiller (again, select City from the drop down list above the chart).
Low interest rates, plus de facto 0% to 3% down mortgages backed by the government, and foreign money coming into real estate are price-driving factors as well.
House prices are a result of multiple factors. In certain cities with large population influxes, there may well be a legitimate supply shortage. Or, it may just be a lack of supply at affordable prices due to high speculative activity. And there is certainly speculative activity as evidenced by prices increasing in cities with declining populations.
Not to mention declining population in California statewide.
Not when you include illegal immigration - see Ben’s post above about our government making it easier for them to buy in CA.
That’s including illegals. I’d bail on Californica too if I were innudated by that kind of crime and poverty.
And there is certainly speculative activity as evidenced by prices increasing in cities with declining populations.
Is there anything wrong with such speculative activity?
Lola, Have you always pandered with sanctimonious, stupid responses?
That’s a good question. I suppose it depends on the net benefits to society.
However at first blush, it seems to me speculation in basic necessities like food, shelter, energy seems like it would harm those who need to consume those items.
basic necessities like food, shelter, energy seems like it would harm those who need to consume those items.
Perhaps, but there’s certainly a lot of speculation on food and energy in the commodities market. One could argue such speculation is what makes the market.
I guess that’s a yes.
There’s also a net outflux of immigrants (if you believe Pew: http://www.pewhispanic.org/2015/11/19/more-mexicans-leaving-than-coming-to-the-u-s/).
But those who are buying homes today are competing, often fiercely, in highly desirable (often spelled “hip”) areas. That drives these prices up and that carries over (by association) to the undesirable areas (usually much later).
In any case–I agree: the housing market just doesn’t make “sense” today as it didn’t make sense in 2007. We’re already seeing the rush for the doors with luxury properties and in overheated markets. This bubble will end differently though–it may be more of a slow leak and with much more variation. I don’t see a catastrophic failure ala 2008, but something is certainly gonna give.
Test. Pew
Pew pew pew!
‘competing, often fiercely, in highly desirable (often spelled “hip”) areas’
Like Fresno.
Fresno- come for the agrarian urban rot, stay because you’re too poor to leave.
Property needs to be maintained. If it is not maintained, it eventually becomes uninhabitable. Nationally, several hundred thousand homes per year get knocked down and rebuilt.
As such, even with a steady state of population, without new development (or substantial investment in existing structures), there can become housing shortages. With a declining population, if homes are falling into disrepair/uninhabitable status faster than the population declines, you can still have supply shortages of habitable structures.
In Cleveland, with a median home value of $111k per home, how much do you think people are investing in fixing old structures or building new?
In Detroit, abandoned and dilapidated structures are such a problem that the City is knocking them down in large numbers.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-detroit-demolition-feature-idUSKBN0TY0GR20151215
The highest rates of vacant homes (ie. vacant homes fall into disrepair faster than occupied):
#1. Detroit
#3. Baltimore
In other words, Detroit/Baltimore/Cleveland prices are not going up JUST because we have low interest rates (low interest rates may be a factor). They are also going up because people don’t have enough money/give a sh*t enough to keep up the housing stock, and the cities are slowly decaying.
As the existing housing stock decays, the remaining residents are faced with fewer and fewer habitable options.
Housing depreciates rapidly. Especially housing within 25 miles of water.
With 25 million excess, empty and defaulted houses, 4.4 million of which are in CA, there is no shortage of housing.
We were told that if even a hair of a single banker’s head was harmed, financial Armageddon would ensue. Iceland took a more skeptical view and actually held some bankers accountable. Here’s their story a few years later. Note the Iceland unemployment rate chart.
This Is Where Bad Bankers Go to Prison
Iceland is the only nation that put top finance executives behind bars after the 2008 crisis. Still, fears of crony capitalism remain.
March 31, 2016
by Edward Robinson and Omar Valdimarsson
Kviabryggja Prison in western Iceland doesn’t need walls, razor wire, or guard towers to keep the convicts inside. Alone on a wind-swept cape, the old farmhouse is bound by the frigid North Atlantic on one side and fields of snow-covered lava rock on another. To the east looms Snaefellsjokull, a dormant volcano blanketed by a glacier. There’s only one road back to civilization.
This is where the world’s only bank chiefs imprisoned in connection with the 2008 financial crisis are serving their sentences, Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its forthcoming issue.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2016-03-31/welcome-to-iceland-where-bad-bankers-go-to-prison
“Snaefellsjokull”
Made famous in “Journey to the Center of the Earth.”
Hey Donk…..
Ireland and Iceland. One bailed out the banks and shifted the pain to the taxpayers, the other put the bankers in jail.
So which turned out better for ordinary people years later?
It is the perfect test. They are small countries, with relatively well educated populations, that shifted from modest but sustainable economic growth to a credit overdrive. And they both start with the letter “I.”
On the other hand, Iceland controls its own currency and monetary policy, while Ireland does not.
Portlandia” great series
Millennials are worthless:
http://imgur.com/mMYtcY1
FAOMs are worth even less.
What is “FAOM”?
“Nevada led the nation in foreclosure rates from 2007-2012 and reclaimed the top spot in February. It ranks among states with the highest percentage of underwater homeowners, those owing more on their mortgage than their home is worth.
…
‘They’ve spaced it out, and they’re really trying to work with homeowners to keep them in their property. It saves them money and resources. They don’t want to flood the market, not at all.’”
It’s clearly already flooded.
Anyone have good historic numbers for Nevada?
“More than a hundred houses in southern China have been demolished after the property developer failed to sell them for almost a decade. The houses, located in one of the biggest residential compounds in Heyuan in Guangdong province, were built in 2004. The property is located in one of eastern Guangdong’s poorest cities. According to Jiang Rong Real Estate Development, the property developer, only apartment buildings were sold, while the more expensive houses have never even seen a sale.”
Future Chinese growth industry: housing demolition
We’re doin’ it for the children …
“‘Banks have held off or slowed down the (foreclosure) process because of legislation in recent years,’ says Scott Beaudry, president of the Realtors’ association. ‘They’ve spaced it out, and they’re really trying to work with homeowners to keep them in their property. It saves them money and resources. They don’t want to flood the market, not at all.’”
I happen to agree with Shiller;
Robert James “Bob” Shiller (born March 29, 1946)[3] is an American Nobel Laureate, economist, academic, and best-selling author. He currently serves as a Sterling Professor of Economics at Yale University and is a fellow at the Yale School of Management’s International Center for Finance…
SHILLER TOUTS HOMEOWNERSHIP AS A SAVINGS PROGRAM AND INVESTMENT;
http://www2.realtoractioncenter.com/site/R?i=UZF7T9Hh6TWi7B-706dEHQ
Realtor?
LOL.
Realtors don’t have much credibility with anyone given their notoriety.
So a Nobel Prize winner in financial economics touts high-risk, leveraged gambling on future home price appreciation over financially prudent investing.
Go figure!
I submit that many of the low-income households who get sucked into buying homes by subprime affordable housing programs will eventually find themselves facing foreclosure and financial ruin as a direct consequence.
This will work well for Democratic politicians by creating a new victim class for them to bail out at the expense of other Americans who tried their best to steer clear of the scam.
SHILLER TOUTS HOMEOWNERSHIP AS A SAVINGS PROGRAM AND INVESTMENT;’
So does the government that’s why they want programs for poors to buy homes.
One problem is maintaining the homes after you buy them which is costly and requires some skill.
This idiot not so long ago was saying housing is NOT an investment.
Nobel prize tend to ruin people I suppose.
Shillers gonna shill.
I think he said housing was not a particularly good investment.
I think his point here is if you can’t save money any other way, it’s better than nothing.
Getting foreclosed out of your home or stuck permanently underwater is better than nothing?
Not really.
It appears that Shiller’s enthusiasm for housing as an investment is quite limited:
He also explained why he believes a home is a good asset to have.
“The other thing about housing is that if you put yourself into a mortgage and you pay it off, you’re putting yourself into a saving program. A lot of people don’t save outside of some kind of a discipline device like that. So in that sense housing is a good investment.”
Irrelevant.
Housing is a rapidly depreciating asset that costs far more to own than to rent.
Broke-ass ‘Muricans can’t even afford Wal-Mart. How are they going to afford a house?
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/business/article69265187.html
Muricans have the money to afford Wal-Mart just fine. They’re just choosing Amazon Prime instead. Why suffer through People of Wal-Mart for toilet paper and cleaning wipes if you can just push one of Amazon’s Dash Buttons instead?
http://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/amazon-dash-adds-70-new-insta-ordering-buttons-n548566
The people of Walmart are fascinating from an anthropological perspective.
Are you in that pink shorts?
Check out the ugly contempt for the economically disadvantaged people our resident LIEberals claim to champion.
Hypocritical silly LIEberals.
Is this a great time to be in business or what? Imagine the possibilities:
If you have a competitor that is giving you fits then plant one of these hooks in your competitor’s ladies bathroom and then allow it to be discovered.
On the other hand, if you are a disgruntled employee you could plant one yourself and then discover it yourself.
“Oil rig worker secretly recorded, files $1 million lawsuit.”
http://edition.cnn.com/2016/03/31/us/transocean-spy-camera-lawsuit/index.html
You can get pills that clear up all those conspiracies and remove the satellite receiver from your skull. Schizophrenia is treatable, people. Don’t suffered needlessly.
Job cuts piling up in our Obama-Fed-Goldman Sachs “recovery.”
http://wolfstreet.com/2016/03/31/job-cut-announcements-initial-claims-challenger/
“Anyone claiming that America’s economy is in decline is peddling fiction.”
President Obama
Let’s look at the China vacant housing metrics:
720,000,000 Sq. Meters
= 7,704,000,000 Sq. Ft.
If the average home in China is 1,000 Sq. Ft., then we are talking about 7,704,000 homes.
If the population count/home in China is 4 per house, then the total population needed to occupy these homes is 30,816,000 people.
In a country with 1,100,000,000 people, this is 1/3rd of 1% of the population. If I calculated this correctly, I am not sure that is a significant overhang.
Empt cities across China isn’t much different than the US.
25 million excess empty and defaulted houses here in the US and growing by the day.
We discussed here a year ago that China has 60 to 80 million empty “houses”. That is a significant waste of resources for what is still a very poor country.
We got us a new Adan.
I thought I was ADan?
Don’t you know?
What a great idea! Make your China idea work for this place and then I’ll go all-in with you in China:
https://www.google.com/search?q=bodie+ca&biw=1360&bih=651&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiN_ajBzu3LAhVDg4MKHbhqAnEQ_AUIBygC
‘China’s biggest banks posted their lowest annual profit growth in a decade, as bad loans mount in an ailing economy that is pushing lenders toward riskier avenues of expansion.’
‘Three major banks that reported 2015 results on Wednesday said they wrote off 142 billion yuan ($21.85 billion) in irrecoverable debt last year, 1.4 times the volume in 2014, an indication that their customers—many of them state-owned industrial companies—are struggling to repay loans.’
‘Profits for the three banks were nearly flat, compared with industry growth rates of close to 40% just three years ago. Banks are building ever-larger capital buffers to cover bad loans as Chinese companies flounder under a severe overhang of real-estate inventory and excess industrial capacity.’
‘Industrywide, nonperforming loans rose to 1.67% of total loans last year from 1.25% in 2014, the China Banking Regulatory Commission said. Investment bank China International Capital Corp. estimated the true ratio could be as high as 8.1% this year; other analysts have projected even higher estimates.’
‘Credit is souring so fast that commercial lenders are having a hard time expanding capital provisions to keep pace.’
‘ Slowing profit growth has forced many Chinese banks, especially midsize lenders, to invest aggressively in shadow- banking assets such as trust and wealth-management products. Such holdings, termed “investment receivables,” are opaque cocktails of high-yield assets that could jeopardize liquidity should banks need to offload them if markets turn turbulent, analysts say.’
“The disclosure for such investment receivables is quite poor, and it’s very difficult to judge the quality of the portfolio,” said Christine Kuo, senior vice president at Moody’s Investors Service.’
‘Investment receivables at China Citic Bank Corp. rose 70.4% to 1.1 trillion yuan in 2015, the bank said last week. China’s seventh-largest lender attributed the year-over-year rise to more investments in so-called directional asset- management plans—which are typically made through securities companies and allow banks to repackage loans as off- balance-sheet investments—and wealth-management products. Similarly, China Merchants Bank Co., the sixth-largest lender, said Wednesday that its investment receivables rose 75% last year. Its profit climbed 3.2%.’
‘Asset-management companies have been enjoying a buyers’ market, acquiring bad loans at about 30 cents on the dollar, as China’s ailing real-estate sector and heavy industries feed a bad-loan pipeline that is proving a lucrative business for those who can repackage and sell the debt. Huarong said the property sector alone accounted for some 66% of its distressed-debt acquisitions last year.’
‘At such prices, analysts say, a small number of commercial lenders are experimenting with complex ways to restructure bad loans themselves—in one case, by having a bank-related company broker a deal to subscribe to a debtor’s issue of new shares, the proceeds of which are used to pay off the debtor’s bad loans.’
‘A more popular means of disguising bad debt is by parking the loans in a category labeled “special mentions,” which effectively is “a vast warehouse for unrecognized nonperforming loans” that isn’t subject to detailed audits, said Ted Osborne, a partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers in Hong Kong specializing in debt restructuring.’
‘ICBC reported it had 520.5 billion yuan of special-mention loans at the end of 2015, an amount nearly three times as large as its nonperforming loans and 63% larger than in 2014. Bank of Communications Co. reported 118.1 billion yuan of special-mention loans in 2015, more than twice the volume of its bad loans.’
‘The banks said the economic downturn and the government’s plans to shed industrial capacity this year will continue to weigh on their outlook. “Asset quality will remain under pressure, and it will still be relatively tough for risk management and control,” Bank of Communications said.’
‘Banks are facing more problems as Beijing plans to let companies repay distressed loans via equity transfers to lenders.’
‘Analysts say allowing nonviable companies to take on more leverage would prolong inefficiencies in the broader economy. “Such a policy move will likely accelerate bad-loan exposures at banks and impact their near-term earnings and profitability,” said Bernstein Research analyst Wei Hou.’
‘Such transfers reduce nonperforming loans on paper but could end up inflicting greater damage on bank balance sheets. These plans require lenders to set aside four times the value of the equity investment in capital provisions, far higher than the equivalent value that needs to be set aside for a regular corporate loan.’
They aren’t even pretending anymore:
‘A more popular means of disguising bad debt is…’
Let’s look at the China vacant housing metrics:
720,000,000 Sq. Meters
= 7,704,000,000 Sq. Ft.
I’m guessing those metrics are as valid as the 6%+ growth number.
10.7 Sq. Ft. in a Sq. Meter.
I was talking about the 720M sq meters, not the conversion to sq ft. In other words, I strongly suspect that there’s a lot more than 720M m2 of vacant housing in China.
Irrelevant
“They don’t want to flood the market, not at all.’”
They?
Who are “They”?
We are they.
Speaking of floods, some “scientists” from the University of Massachusetts and Penn State predict that sea levels could rise more than 50 feet by the year 2500.
Read Jared Diamond’s books. Civilizations come and go.
“This sucker could go down” — George W. Bush
“Speaking of floods, some “scientists” from the University of Massachusetts and Penn State predict that sea levels could rise more than 50 feet by the year 2500.”
What’s wonderful about these predictions is that they can generate lots of funding without having to carry the burden of proof; The farther out in time you can project your dismal scenarios the less proof you will need and the more dismal your prediction the greater will be your funding.
Check this out:
James Hansen (aka The Father of Global Warming) is predicting that the planet’s sea level will rise by five meters (that’s over 15 feet) over the next fifty years. That would average out to over one foot of sea level rise every three-and-a-half years. At the same time the IPCC is saying the sea level will rise up one meter (just over three feet) by the year 2100.
So which is it? Is it over fifteen feet over the next fifty years or is it just over three feet over the next 84 years? It’s either one or the other but the way things now stand both positions get funded.
http://phys.org/news/2015-09-eyes-oceansjames-hansen-sea.html
Reading a bit further down in the article you will discover that the IPCC’s prediction of a one meter rise by the year 2100 gets reduced to an 18-59 cm rise.
Here, see for yourself …
“The authors predict a period in the next century when ice melt may cause more than 5 meters of increase in sea levels over the course of as little as 50 years — much greater than the 18–59 cm rise by 2100 predicted by the most recent IPCC report.”
These predictions are a joke.
At the end of the article we are presented with this …
“On a personal level, this type of sea level rise would devastate every city I’ve ever called home. From Seattle to Miami to Brooklyn, NY. The economic losses would be enormous. If lack of political action on greenhouse gas emissions is simply a reflection of a lack of understanding of risk, Hansen’s alarm bells may do the trick. Unfortunately, the psychological research indicates that the real barrier to climate change mitigation may be more closely related to our limited cognitive abilities, branding, and preexisting cultural identities.”
Unfortunately, the psychological research indicates that the real barrier to climate change mitigation may be more closely related to our limited cognitive abilities, branding, and preexisting cultural identities.”
Nailed it. Party politics + Funding from big oilkochs means we build new cities in a century.
Yes, curses, if only all of us could be as smart as government-funded climate scientists, then the world would be saved.
As to branding, I’m waiting for the new symbol they will surely create to indicate which products, if I purchase them, will contribute to the cause to lower rising sea levels. Let’s start with Tide . . .
It is a tell that none of them can show that the global sea has already risen over the past 50 years. If it hasn’t, there is no logical model for it to rise over then next 50 or 100.
What about those Pacific islands that are submerging? Does that indicate sea level rise, or were the locals just getting too fat?
“…limited cognitive abilities,
brandingbreeding, and preexisting cultural identities.”FIFY
NYC was supposed to be underwater by June 2015. Oops.
http://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/scott-whitlock/2015/06/12/flashback-abcs-08-prediction-nyc-under-water-climate-change-june
“Civilizations come and go.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUksNYNufPs - 169k -
“Speaking of floods,”
Bill went for a ride after he read that.
How many more waiters and bartenders can our Obama-Fed-Goldman Sachs “recovery” absorb?
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-04-01/waiters-and-bartenders-rise-record-manufacturing-workers-drop-most-2009
Got popcorn?
http://www.theburningplatform.com/2016/03/30/worst-case-scenario-73-down-from-here/
Just wait. Two months before the election. August/September.
Santa Monica, CA Housing Market Implodes; Prices Cave 8% YoY On Cratering Housing Demand
http://www.zillow.com/santa-monica-ca/home-values/
can someone describe life in a permanent sub 2% gdp future?
japan- eu ?
worse
Japan is one of the most prosperous countries on the planet.
Righty Mikey. That’s why old people in Japan are committing crimes just so they can be housed and fed in prison.
How many old people are doing that out of a population of 100 million or 120 million or whatever it is? You can probably find stories like that from every country.
You must have a warped definition of prosperity. Low wages for most, high cost of living (housing), miserably crowded cities where the vast majority live. Big time rates of depression and suicide.
I’m guessing your last name is Krugman.
By most standards, Japan is one of the most prosperous countries. It’s not really matter of debate for people who are familiar with the statistics. I doubt that the rate of depression is higher than the American rate. Life expectancy, just one measure of health, is the highest in the world. Also, plenty of people all over the world enjoy living in cities.
NAR puff piece full of realtorbabble about millennials:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/where-we-live/wp/2016/03/31/how-boomers-can-appeal-to-millennial-home-buyers/
How to “appeal” to millennial buyers would be to lower asking prices by at least 75% because there is no “pent-up demand” for $500,000 starter homes.
Like Boomers care what Milenials think of their home. Here’s a better list.
1) Lower the price
And that’s it.
Free tattoo with every house purchased?
Read today that the Navy is relaxing tattoo standards and will allow tattoos on the neck, behind the ears, and sleeves in order to attract millennials who love them some tats.
More volunteer cannon fodder.
Would having visible tats have kept one out of Vietnam?
COL Kurtz said, “We train our boys to drop fire on people’s heads, but we won’t let them write on their airplanes because they’re obscene!”
From an actual real live person: “A Marine with cold hands and warm pockets is a fool.”
Got to keep up appearances! Well, except for now. Now they’ll even take those neck-tatted degenerates! Got to attract and retain the best and the brightest!
“won’t let them write *certain words* because they’re abscene”
Sailors are supposed to have tats.
‘In North Texas, the first quarter showed a demand for 1,989 apartment units, which is roughly a third the absorption volume seen in the first quarter of 2015. Meanwhile, developers finished building 5,763 apartments in the initial three months of 2016.’
Oh dear…somebody build more, that’s the answer to everything. What rentalwatch doesn’t get is the prices have been an illusion. There wasn’t a shortage all along. It’s manipulation and mania. Like sitting on 40 or 50 thousand houses in Las Vegas. I just shot a video there, There are vacant, foreclosed houses everywhere.
Anyhoo, these apartment deals are going to be a huge disaster. I don’t know why people can’t see it coming.
“What rentalwatch doesn’t get is the prices have been an illusion.”
An illusion driven by the morphing of the term “affordability”.
This morphing allows the seller to get his price immediately and get it paid in full while at the same time it allows the buyer to not pay the full price immediately nor pay it in full.
This makes raising - and getting - prices easy because the pleasure associated with receiving one’s raised price is not offset by the pain associated with paying the raised price.
‘More homes become available on market this year’
‘This is the first spring in five years that there aren’t fewer houses for sale in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. New home sales listings are up 59 percent this year in Cedar Hill and 35 percent in DeSoto. New listings were 31 percent higher in Mesquite and 40 percent higher in Coppell during the first two months of 2016 than in the same period last year.’
‘Listings are up in the Park Cities, northeast Dallas and Denton County, too, according to North Texas Real Estate Information Systems.’
It’s magic! Out of thin air!
“the governor warned that Denver should address its affordable housing situation, or risk having millennials move to less expensive cities”
http://www.bizjournals.com/denver/news/2016/03/31/denver-rents-expected-to-cool-off-in-2016.html
Front Range traffic and pollution keep getting worse every single day.
You couldn’t raise a family here and have a decent quality of life on anything less than a $300,000 household income.
Just an update. It has been 4 years ago today that we purchased and moved into our present home after renting for 8 years. Things are great. In this time period we married off 3 children, taken a trip to Italy, and reduced our thirty year loan to 19 years.
Pricing has once again gone wacky in this part of the country but we bought at a low and this is the last house that we will ever buy.
Pricing was wacky 8 years ago too. As in 3x higher than long term trend.
Correction. 4 years ago.
You can re-fi into a 10 year right now at 2.6%. Third Fed.
The front end years are much cheaper to buy out than the later ones.
2011/12 was a good window
but now u gotta sell
A window to jump out of VA_Donk.. Now theres nothing left but the cryin’.
“Now theres nothing left but the cryin’.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gROO7xSTxfY - 167k -
Just an update. It has been 4 years ago today that we purchased and moved into our present home after renting for 8 years.’
Thats cool. I sold in 2006 after 16 years owning. Then it was 6 years renting 4 plcs., almost all of them crappy , And it will be 4 years in July after buying a short sale.
“Pricing has once again gone wacky in this part of the country but we bought at a low and this is the last house that we will ever buy.”
Renting in Cali is a chancy thing , you probably know this though if you’ve been here as long as I have.
‘bought their home in Markham for nearly $140,000 in 2007. Almost a decade later, it’s up for a bank ordered short sale for $29,500. Even in the waning days of the boom, it was easy for them to get a $137,000 mortgage at 7.5 percent with no money down, for a home that sold for $87,000 in 2004 and $115,000 in 2005′
Get this; the guy who bought it in 2005 went into foreclosure.
It’s a failure of justice, I tell ya.
The best commodity is between your ears. The value per cubic centimeter of your brain is far greater than the value per cubic centimeter that occupies your stucco box, no matter where that stucco box is. And if you own that stucco box it better be along the coast or ski resorts such as Aspen where all the pretenders flock to.
If you rent small, the value per square foot that you get from the small place far exceeds the value per square foot of the larger space.
If you drive a cheap car (my car is now a teenager economy car), your utility from that car far exceeds that which you’d get from a status symbol car.
Your brain generates wealth for you. An economy car, small apartment that you rent, your clothes, and the type of food you eat also are tools for generating the wealth, but the fluff of babe magnets are a drain on your economic potential.
I am fortunate to remember enjoying the simple things in life back in the 70’s. Such as weather watching, bicycling, and day trips to he Sierras. Simple things that enrich your life are all that matter.
You have to game the system these days to get into the upper middle class. I was tired of gaming the system. I don’t want to be part of the dishonest world and Though downsizing my job made me downsize my material possessions, I feel that I increased my value per square foot of my influence in the world. Pride is what returned.
I’m doing spring cleaning and trying to purge non-utilitarian objects from my life and it is a very freeing feeling.
The bigger the house, chances are the more useless sh*t you buy to fill it.
Exactly.
“The best commodity is between your ears.”
Ain’t it da trut.
Dumb ‘em down, and profit.
Ok,
You’re broke and have no valuable skills.
Percentage of income is the tale of expenses.
Act rich and you will be poor. Act cheap and stay debt free and the poverty is just a state of mind. You can be financially middle class independent or you can be a materialist or you can be one of the one percent but you cannot be both financially middle class and a materialist.
I have friends from Hong Kong. Not sure if your screen name suggests you are from Hong Kong, but most of them are materialists. Although one couple, both engineers, who travel back to Hong Kong annually, are not materialists.
The materialists don’t understand how it is being raised by depression era parents who taught me to appreciate library books and weather and geography.
You have to game the system these days to get into the upper middle class.’
you got that right
Hmmm …
Most of my coworkers and their STEM career spouses have incomes well above 200K. Does that qualify as upper middle class?
Combined or each? Trying to figure out how to get to the $!50-$200 spot myself. I know a few people pulling it but they’re in different situations. I probably need to go cleared govvie contractor.
Combined. Not that hard for two senior engineers and especially not for two principal engineers to pull in a combined income like that. I suppose that any guy who pulls that down on his own would have a SAHM trophy wife.
Again, does having a HH income in the 200K range qualify as upper middle class?
It depends on location. Bill was the one who brought up the term upper middle class. Where he lives it’s possible that $200k is not really a lot of income.
We always hear that many women are interested in engineering. Are a lot of the engineers that you know married to other engineers?
UMC is irrelevant in an age of excess and debt. How about having the income and living for under $20K a year? That’s called freedom. Something a couple of DINKS up to their eyeballs in debt cannot imagine.
My colleague who lives near Columbus, Ohio is an engineer. His wife is a communications professor at a college there. I was on business travel with him this week in the Washington D.C. area. We discussed saving for retirement. He is in his mid twenties. He and his wife are maxing to their retirement accounts since age 23. I told my colleague that by the time they are my age, they will each save at least $2.5 million. He said that is what they project. They are into stock index funds. I wish I was as smart as him when I was his age.
They don’t have kids. So if they keep it that way they are sure to get past $2.5 million by 56.
Again, does having a HH income in the 200K range qualify as upper middle class?
CA Fireman yes because you have full retirement that’s got to be worth about 2M in a low interest rate world.
2 engineers no not really depends were they live I guess ? Besides engineers can get laid off at a whim. 2 Chinese lady engineers I work with have PHD Chinese engineer husbands at home day trading because they got let go for some reason or another. Now they make half as much as they did. I can tell they are pissed in there own Chinese way about it. I know of exactly 1 white american female electrical engineer. Come to think of it her husband stayed home too for many years after he got laid off… he was a engineer also.
As a engineer you have to get to VP level to get upper middle class around here in Coastal CA and that usually means you game the system some how or another. Usually by managing engineers which isn’t easy as they tend to be know it alls and argumentative. The VP’s I know personally who made it were not afraid to fire anyone who didn’t see it there way or made life difficult for them.
Game the system is a poor word for it I would say they have ambition and are tireless. They don’t wear down easy.
A man who needs little is a rich man indeed.
That’s a justification used by people who have little.
Starving Etheopian. They have little to least. They win according to you.
I resemble that remark….if I had a car the license holder would say “The one who dies with the least toys wins…”
Cluelessly and hopelessly enslaved to a lender for a lifetime is a winner to you.
A man with no debt is a free and wealthy man indeed.
I said nothing of debt or lender.
You injected that so your thinking might get a foothold.
You had to reach to debt and lender to justify your meager financial life.
Pull yourself out of that gutter, cheer up and don’t take it personal my friend as it has nothing to do with me.
A man who needs little is a rich man indeed.
“A man who needs little is a rich man indeed.” Combined with being debt free.
Can you imagine dying in May of 1969 and not being able to see men walking on the moon? My parents say that and the Space Shuttle, many missions. My dad bought a home computer for the first time in his 70s. He loved it.
All relatively cheap compared to many things.
You,are a rich man to be alive today especially compared to 70 years ago.
Excellent insights… Thanks for sharing.
From the Nevada link:
‘It’s slowly turning around, says Dennis Smith, president of Home Builders Research, a local firm that tracks home sales, building permits and values. Home sales are on the rebound, prices have been gradually rising and fewer homeowners are in distress. But we’re far from being out of the woods. A significant number of sour loans will end up as distressed listings this year and probably longer, Smith says.’
‘As far as overbuilding, that’s what builders do, Smith says.’
But. But rental watch says it’s all good. Building is too slow and hard and stuff. Californians can’t build houses anymore. They forgot how to or something. The government.
Let me tell you; overbuilding is a curse. When it becomes apparent, it kills profits, drives defaults, ruins neighborhoods and companies. People lose jobs. I know, most of you have forgotten but I haven’t.
‘As far as overbuilding, that’s what builders do, Smith says.’
What else are the builder boyz supposed to do?
When did you first hear the concept of shortage in regard to housing? What year was it?
Sometime around when the current bubble started.
CNN cites a study from the Lancet reporting “that if current trends continue, 18% of men and 21% of women will be obese by 2025″ globally.
Fox News also reporting that over 640 million are now obese, globally.
TAX fat people now
“Realtor advises client to look for a house below clients 25% gross income and only take out a 15 year mortgage.”
APRIL FOOLS!!!
‘In one case, a two-bedroom, one-bathroom unit purchased for $740,000 on 3 August last year was revalued at $600,000 – a 23 per cent discount –16 days later. ‘For settlement risk, are we cautious? Yes, but are we worried? No. I’m not,’ said Golden Age managing director Jeff Xu.’
This Australian company has a Chinese version of their website:
http://www.goldenagegroup.com.au/%E5%85%B3%E4%BA%8E%E6%88%91%E4%BB%AC/
They
Boiled it down to that. eh? Pretty good summation.
“Them” by Jon Ronson:
http://www.amazon.com/Them-Adventures-Extremists-Jon-Ronson/dp/0743233212/ref=redir_mobile_desktop
I just wanted to post a big thanks to Ben Jones and the members of the blog for their informative and independent views on the housing industry. Because of you, I managed to purchased the cheap rental I was living in for $45 per square foot. I think that is about right for a depreciating asset that is 18 years old. I did it with 80% down and a small private mortgage from the seller. What this means to me is that I will be able to put my daughter through college without her having to become a debt slave. She will start at the University of Central Florida in the fall, with a Bright Futures Scholarship and some additional scholarship from the university.
Thank you all, big time!
That is wonderful. Congratulations.
Sounds like a home run, good for you!
Good job!
I lived in New Tampa for over a year. University of South Florida is there in Tampa. I drove past it daily to my consulting gig. Gators. I assume UCF is north of there, right?
Ben Jones this article on the jobs report was published today, about an hour ago:
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2016-04-01/the-white-guy-deficit-in-the-jobs-report
These guys need to “check their privilege”
Fat, unskilled, incapable of critical thinking… the new white.
That must be a nice feeling for you knowing that you’re better than everyone else.
Not everyone… and only by my standards, but yes, it’s pretty nice.
“Fat, unskilled, incapable of critical thinking… the new white.”
That’s one ugly statement. The propagandists have done their job well.
“Fat, unskilled, incapable of critical thinking… the new white.”
That’s one keyboard cream puff statement.
When a group has been marked for degradation or extermination, that’s how it’s done, historically.
You just won a free trip to Hoboken! Your free train tickets shall arrive by mail shortly.
Hoboken is dope. You’ll have to up your geography shame game, like the rest of your subpar shaming.
Coincidentally, my almost first purchase was in 2003 — a 2br. on Washington in the ‘Boken.
You guys hate it when I’m not PC.
Yes, you should stop the fat shaming.
It’s not OK, Russ.
Not so funny when it’s at your groups expense, is it?
“You guys hate it when I’m not PC.”
Walk your white butt out your front door and knock on the doors of all your white neighbors and tell them…
“Fat, unskilled, incapable of critical thinking… the new white.”
Knock on doors in the ghetto and tell them about the free shit army.
You wanting to assault me has no bearing on the validity of my point.
“the validity of my point.”
Which is none, other than to sow animosity between peeps. Which is destructive.
Try doing something constructive. I know, it’s a lot harder. But it’s more rewarding.
“Knock on doors in the ghetto and tell them about the free shit army.”
Not everyone who lives in the “ghetto” is part of the free shit army. Get out in the real world and you might learn something.
“You wanting to assault me has no bearing on the validity of my point.”
I don’t want to assault you, I was just pointing out that you are a white guy living in an all white neighborhood saying “Fat, unskilled, incapable of critical thinking… the new white.”
However, after I posted that I did rethink it. If you are in a liberal hotbed like Madison Wisconsin or Dumbo NY etc. your all white neighbors would agree with you right up until somebody wanted to bus some children of color into your hood. THEN they would have a problem with the “low test score kids” bringing down the all white education of the open minded politically correct Liberal’s children.
The “poor me, I’m an oppressed white man” thing makes me feel destructive. I don’t much like whining from anybody about anything, but that particular mode of whining twists my knickers to their snapping point.
I confess, I want to destroy that attitude. It would be rewarding to do so, but it will never happen. So you’re right. I’m being pointlessly cruel. I’ll stop.
Where do you get this “You wanting to assault me” “makes me feel destructive” cr@p?
Are these the new Soros sponsored talking points?
George Soros writes secret messages on the underside of your toilet bowl lid. He rides with the Tidy Bowl Man in his glass bottomed boat. They have a little ladder, and the Tidy Bowl man holds it while George Soros climbs up on it and writes the messages with a paint roller on a stick.
So you tell me.
Selective outrage alert!
They took away the borrowed money, and the resulting revelation of how much poorer Americans really are opened the way for a political backlash, the MSM is figuring out.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-04-01/the-credit-collapse-opened-the-door-for-trump-and-sanders
There must be something very wrong with this property’s location/neighborhood or has some problems the seller has not disclosed:
http://maine.craigslist.org/reb/5518054598.html
Auburn is a 39 mile straight shot down I-95 to Portland. Houses in Portland are 3x as expensive, on average, easily. A fuel efficient vehicle would make a commute not so bad on the wallet. Heck, one could buy this house with a minimum wage job gig in the Lewiston/Auburn (LA) area.
Meth head, pitbull farming neighbors?
Sadly, meth labs are common up here in Maine. We hear on the news about all the ones that are busted, but for every cockroach found….
Another bit of info on that Auburn listing. It has a 40%+ haircut on listing price since 2012:
http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/42-Fern-St_Auburn_ME_04210_M44026-97540#photo36
Historically thats a $20k-30k house in NE.
‘Historically thats a $20k-30k house in NE.’
what year?
Right up to 2000. Maybe 1999.
I just saw the damnedest thing. About 8 or 10 minutes ago I was in my back yard. I saw what looked like a meteor falling west of the city. Falling straight down but slow. It had a big bright flame colored plume behind it. I figure it was a meteor and didn’t go get a camera; I thought it wouldn’t last long. But it fell so slowly, Then just as it got near the mountains on the horizon, it broke up into around 6 pieces, each bright. They slowed down even more and actually appeared to stop falling! This went on for a couple minutes as they ever so slowly drifted down and out of sight. Holy cow, I’ve never seen anything like it. I’m posting this to time stamp it and so I have it written down while it’s fresh. It was so visible and took so much time there has to be video of it out there.
In Phoenix?
Yeah, it was west of the city, the lights went out of view behind some mountains. So maybe 50-100 miles. It was so visible someone had to have recorded it. I’m checking the web. Kinda kicking myself for not grabbing my camera.
You seeing some kind of Phoenix lights redux?
This is from a month ago. It did look more like flares descending slowly:
Mysterious lights in sky military flares Phoenix Breaking News
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7OSuPyJ4sA
Sinister looking…. don’t get alien abducted!
Last time we saw weirdish UFO stuff in the local sky, it turned out to be some kind of unannounced military missile test out over the Pacific.
If you have the time, fill out a report here:
http://www.nuforc.org/index.html