They’ve Had It Way Too Good For Way Too Long
It’s Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. “The median price of a single-family home in Santa Clara County hit seven figures for the first time last month: $1 million on the button. Prices grew even dizzier in San Mateo County, where the $1.2 million average matched the previous record, set in May 2015. Two years ago, Eugene Jong and his wife, Linda moved from their San Jose townhouse to a single-family home in Los Gatos. He watched as San Jose prices kept rising. Then in April, he pulled the trigger, listing the 1,250-square-foot townhouse for $599,950. The townhouse drew 15 offers over the asking price and sold in seven days for $665,000.”
“Alain Pinel agent Mark Wong, who negotiated the sale, said it was a matter of good timing: If Jong had delayed and listed his townhouse in May, his fortunes might now be up in the air — at least in part because the amount of inventory is ‘creeping up’ and softening competition. ‘The market is shifting right now,’ Wong said. ‘The market is really mixed. Some people are getting multiple offers, some are getting no buyers. Just in one month, the market has changed a lot.’”
“You might think the sky was falling with all the hullabaloo over a 6-month moratorium on student apartment construction. But the temporary halt may be wiser than some people think. Two years ago, Bruce, Jon, and Nathan Odle published a 14-page report that painted a grim picture of college enrollment and student housing. The family — Columbia’s leading student apartment developers — predicted ‘obsolete, distressed properties’ in just 4-8 years. Yet student housing construction in Columbia has continued, even accelerated.”
“Jon Odle made these pessimistic prognostications when his family cancelled a 1,200-unit student apartment at Discovery Ridge. The student housing market, they told the Tribune, was overbuilt. ‘It’s institutional investors chasing higher return and having no knowledge’ of whether the Columbia ’student housing market’s economics are imbalanced,’ Odle said. ‘The market is more about flipping than looking at market dynamics,’ he added. ‘Anybody from out of town can come in and fill up [their apartment project] and sell it…one month after finishing. It’s a terrible deal for a college town like Columbia because they don’t care how healthy the market is, if the market’s in equilibrium or not.’”
“A newly built Sunny Isles Beach project may be telling of the state of the luxury market’s health. In August, Key International completed 400 Sunny Isles, a 230-unit luxury condo development, and by March the developer had sold nearly all of its units for a combined $206 million. Now, a surge of resale inventory has hit the market: 37 percent of 230 units are listed for sale for a combined listing volume of $119 million.”
“And 400 Sunny Isles is not the only newly completed project with significant listings. At Mansions at Acqualina, 14 units of 86, or 16 percent, are on the market for a combined $137 million. At Regalia, 11 units of 39, or 28 percent, are available for sale for a combined $146 million. Overall in Miami’s luxury condo market, inventory was up 55 percent at the end of April 2016 compared to a year earlier,Ron Shuffield, president of EWM Realty International said. Sales of luxury condos, defined as $1 million and up, were down 24 percent during that same period. At a commercial real estate summit in New York last week, developer Steve Witkoff, who owns a hotel in South Beach, commented on the Miami market: ‘Miami is a brewing storm,’ he said, ‘and it’s going to get even worse out there.’”
“New data from Wyoming Workforce Services shows Natrona County had the largest employment drop for any metropolitan area in the country for the month of March. The housing market has taken a big hit too. The median home price is now about 190 thousand dollars. One year ago it was 215 thousand. Realtor Gary Bryan with Broker One Real Estate said ‘Because of the economy its taking houses a little longer to sell. So I’m not seeing that more people are selling their house per say than they were a year ago. But it might be taking a little bit longer for that house to sell.’”
“The oil bust is spreading to the broader Houston economy, suggesting at least two years of job losses, sluggish growth, and softening home sales before the region sees a rebound, according to a new forecast from the University of Houston. The forecast by economist Bill Gilmer, is considerably darker than projections made just six months ago, when it looked like the oil crash would bottom out in 2015. Instead, prices and production continued their free-fall, nearing the proportions of the epic oil bust of the 1980s and rippling into retail, restaurants, real estate and other sectors supported by the wages, salaries and spending of the local energy industry, the forecast said.”
“The headline number: a projected 40,000 net jobs lost in Houston through 2017. ‘I hope you didn’t come looking for a lot of good news today,’ Gilmer told the audience of about 800 business people downtown. The intensity of the crash has been unprecedented, Gilmer said. In the 1980s the number of rigs in operation plunged 82 percent over four years; this time, the rig count has plunged nearly that much - 79 percent - but in just two years. ‘This has come harder and faster than anything we have ever seen before, in terms of damage to the American oil industry,’ said Gilmer.”
“As the economic contagion spreads through Aberdeen, so do the anecdotes of its fall from one of the richest cities in the UK to a city in crisis. Tales of oil executives queuing up for food banks or to sell their Rolexes to overwhelmed pawn brokers are breathlessly repeated by cab drivers. One tells of how financed sports cars are being abandoned in dealership forecourts overnight by those unable to keep up with payments.”
“According to rating agency Moody’s mortgage arrears in Aberdeen have spiralled to double the national level and could rise further. One estate agent who quickly asks not to be named says: ‘They’ve just had it way too good for way too long. Rent keeps falling but we still have people who aren’t able to pay. A lot of landlords depend on their rental income, which is a lot lower now than it was. A two bed flat in some of the better parts would have been about £1,300 before the downturn but you’d only get £900 now.’”
“Prestige rents are under pressure in a number of blue-chip suburbs across the capital city markets, according to CoreLogic RP Data. Beach and harbourside Sydney suburbs like Tamarama, Dover Heights and McMahons Point all recorded falls of more than 20 per cent in median asking house rent, while in Point Piper, unit rents fell 13 per cent to $950 a week. In Melbourne, the inner eastern suburb of Kew recorded a 11 per cent fall in asking rents to $720 a week, while in Perth’s most prestigious suburb of Peppermint Grove, asking rents for houses fell 33 per cent over the past year to $1250 a week.”
“In Peppermint Grove, Joseph Rooney, property manager at William Porteous Properties International, said rents were down 15-20 per cent due to a drop in demand from foreign expats following retrenchments at companies like Shell and Chevron. ‘A lot of people are not moving and instead hammering down their rental price. We’re advising clients to accept a lower rent rather than face the possibility of a property sitting vacant for two months,’ he said.”
“Long the golden privilege of the Hong Kong-based finance and banking crowd in Asia, the days of guaranteed housing allowances fat enough to rent a 4,000-square-foot harbor-view home on the Peak or a townhouse in exclusive Repulse Bay for HK$300,000 ($38,650) a month are gone. And it’s putting a damper on the luxury rental market.”
“The downsizing trend is occurring against the backdrop of Hong Kong’s biggest property correction since the severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, epidemic of 2003. After climbing 370 percent until their September peak, housing prices have since fallen about 14 percent. After more than a decade of steady rental increases, luxury landlords are now looking at reductions of as much as 30 percent for properties at the very top of the market, said Walker Lam, director of the Hong Kong market at Landscope Christie’s International Real Estate. ‘It’s humbling times,’ said Joanne Lee, associate director of research and advisory for Hong Kong at property agency Colliers International Group Inc.”
“The man behind China’s tallest tower has a message for developers scrambling to erect skyscrapers across the country: Less is more. At an awards ceremon for tall buildings in China, the general manager at Shanghai Tower Construction & Development Co. sounded a downbeat note, appealing to his peers to think twice about planning another skyscraper.”
“‘The biggest challenge facing China is how to build fewer skyscrapers,’ Gu Jianping said during a panel discussion. ‘A tall tower surely has huge costs and rents would be high. Would there be demand for such a tower? If there is no market, the building will become a ghost tower, or you will have to cut rents, meaning it will fall short of your investment,’ Mr. Gu said.”
“As prices continue to soar in Vancouver’s infamous real estate market, a bold new solution has emerged to cool down a crisis that is driving young people deep into debt and forcing thousands of families to flee. But Vancouver-based economist Marc Lee says the key question is whether elected officials have the political will to fix the sizzling market. The city’s housing market is broken, he said bluntly after releasing his new report on tackling its housing affordability crisis. Yet as far as the author is concerned, the real heart of the issue is overcoming vested interests in real estate and property development industries.”
“‘My sense is that Premier Clark is not interested in really addressing affordable housing, or maybe she wants to appear to be addressing it,’ Lee, who does research for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA), told National Observer. ‘All of the things they’ve been saying in terms of wanting to preserve the windfall gains that have occurred in the property market suggest that they’re not serious about affordable housing.’”
“Since 2005, real estate boards, associations, and corporations have donated more than $360,000 to the BC Liberals, while real estate property and development groups have donated a whopping $2.8 million. Premier Christy Clark’s own party fundraiser is Bob Rennie, owner of Vancouver’s largest real estate market firm, whose company has shelled out over $250,000 to her party in the last six years alone.”
“A Chinese woman boarding a flight to Hong Kong to come to the United States was apprehended by border control authorities. She had wrapped her body in so much cash that she could barely walk and I think that tipped them off,” Asia Society’s Vice President of Global Programs Bruce Pickering told Yahoo Finance.’
‘Physically strapping cash to one’s body is one of several ways Chinese are bringing money offshore. The national bankcard UnionPay is a key way that Chinese are paying for large ticket items abroad, according to Pickering, who describes it as a “super ATM card.” UnionPay is China’s only domestic bank card organization (operated under the approval of the People’s Bank of China) and it’s the third-largest payment network by value of transactions processed, after Visa and MasterCard. The cards can be used in 150 countries and regions outside China.’
‘“In countries like Canada, for example, you can actually buy real estate just by swiping your card and it’s been an easy way to facilitate cash transfers,” he says.’
‘But as stringent capital controls are being placed on Chinese individuals, China’s State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) imposed a temporary limit on cash withdrawals from UnionPay cards. Currently, Chinese are only able to move $50,000 per year out of China. Despite Beijing’s attempt to limit capital outflows, there are loopholes, of course.’
‘By pooling their UnionPay with friends and family and less legitimately through Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macau, Chinese are able to make large purchases, according to the Asia Society.’
‘There are additional programs that have been introduced to provide alternative legitimate channels to transfer more than the allowed $50,000 per year specifically for real estate purchases. Last year, China’s Securities Times (the official newspaper authorized by the China Securities Regulatory Commission) reported that the government is rolling out a new program called the Qualified Domestic Individual Investor (QDII2) program, which would allow Chinese citizens to invest directly in overseas assets including equities and real estate.’
‘Pickering says though China’s regime remains staunchly authoritarian, it’s vital that it create new avenues for individuals to invest their money overseas because it will happen one way or another. “The government likes to see where the money’s going and to know exactly what you’re spending on,” he says. “For the Chinese, it’s proven time and time again that if you try to land too hard on [the people], the money tends to squish out in other ways. They’ll try to move the cash in suitcases and other means.”
This begets the question; Just how egregious is mortgage fraud in China? Can it possibly be worse than here?
Link please. You and your mortgage fraud boogeyman hiding behind every tree.
It’s nothing to be scared of my friend. Unless you’re engaged in mortgage fraud.
I’m not scared of it at all. I have seen it up close and personal, with it happening on three out of the four new homes in a cul-de-sac a couple of blocks up the street from me, back in the 2004-5 timeframe:
Move in zero-down using two different loans. A year later, get house appraised for $125K higher than purchase price, do a cash-out refinance, and then stop making payments.
Then live rent and mortgage-free for a few years before moving (still have to pay utilities though, with the bank usually covering the property taxes).
I just don’t think mortgage fraud is nearly as prevalent this time as compared to the last housing bubble. I see far more all-cash purchases now then I ever did then. There is a flood of foreign cash coming in now like never before.
Sure you are.
“A Chinese woman boarding a flight to Hong Kong to come to the United States was apprehended by border control authorities.
Mail order bride?
In serious note my would be so cal neighbor. Crooks every one of them.
This reminds me of the greatly-underrated National Geographic channel program “Locked Up Abroad,” in which young people, typically naïve Westerners, are persuaded to smuggle drugs through a Third World airport and end up arrested because they are wearing heavy coats and look like the Michelin man.
‘A flat at Hing On Mansion in Tai Koo Shing, with an area of 583 salable square feet, will be auctioned on June 1, marking the first foreclosure sale at the coveted Hong Kong Island development since February last year. CS Auctioneers data shows the flat was first listed for sale at the end of last year for an asking price of HK$9 million. But the price was reduced to HK$8.5 million in February.’
‘Earlier this month, another flat of the same size at Hing On Mansion was sold for HK$8.18 million. Land Registry records show that its owner filed for bankruptcy earlier this year.’
‘Asking prices for other Tai Koo Shing flats are also coming down fast. The owner of a 1,046-ssf penthouse at Primrose Mansion slashed the asking price by more than HK$6 million to HK$18.8 million or HK$17,973 per ssf. Last December, the asking price for that unit was HK$25 million.’
‘In Tseung Kwan O, the owner of a 503-ssf unit at Le Point reduced the asking price by HK$1 million to HK$5.55 million or HK$11,034 per ssf. The asking price was around HK$6.5 million about six months ago.’
‘In the primary housing market, a homebuyer at The Bloomsway, a Kerry Properties (0683) project in Tuen Mun, will not proceed with the purchase of a 389-ssf flat and has forfeited the deposit of about HK$390,000. The project was launched last November.’
The previous owner bought the penthouse for HK$16.57 million in February 2013. ‘
Realtors are liars.
TGIF. I always look forward to the Friday Fishwrap!
Realtor Busted After Scamming $76K From Renters
https://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20160517/jackson-heights/realtor-busted-after-scamming-76k-from-renters-da-says
This is Singapore:
‘Mortgagee sales include homes being built as market takes a hammering from oversupply’
‘More newly completed and even uncompleted homes are going under the hammer as the housing market contends with an oversupply from the property boom years and a weak rental segment. A total of 12 properties either completed in the past three years or still being built have been put up for mortgagee sale so far this year, according to JLL data. This is close to the same number as for all of last year - 13- and a sharp rise from just three in the same period last year.’
‘A mortgagee sale occurs when a home borrower defaults on loan payments and the bank arranges a forced sale to recover its money.’
‘Some newly-completed units on offer include apartments of over 1,500 sq ft, which owners find difficult to sell as prices are typically above $2 million, said Ms Grace Ng, deputy managing director at Colliers International. Some are penthouses, bought off-plan she said. “Upon completion, the vendors experience difficulty in renting and selling them due to the undesirable layout.”
‘Other new properties are one- bedders priced at $1 million or below, such as small-office-home-office units at euHabitat in Eunos and The Greenwich in Seletar - both up for mortgagee sale this year. euHabitat was completed last year; The Greenwich in 2014.’
‘During the boom, investors were drawn to shoebox apartments, given their low overall prices. But investors who are servicing more than one loan may be feeling the heat from the increasingly competitive leasing market. “Some are unable to secure tenants or are forced to accept lower rents. They could find it a stretch to service their mortgages,” said Ms Ng.’
Vancouver could follow California Governor Jerry Brown. His proposal will single handedly do more for housing than anything else done in the last 50 years!
California Governor Jerry Brown gets a lot of things right.
Gov. Jerry Brown has proposed sweeping statewide legislation that would allow new market-rate projects with on-site affordable housing to be approved “as of right,” in potentially California’s most significant housing policy change in years.
Rental Watch, will this end the CEQA mess to which you are often referring?
More inventory with an affordable component. Everything the HBB readers have been seeking!
There’s plenty of housing inventory. It just happens to be priced 300% higher than long term trend.
Rent it for half the monthly cost.
I don’t know. This is the first I’ve heard about this legislation.
Does this allow projects to override City zoning (can you build residential projects in an industrial zone)?
Does this allow projects to get through CEQA faster?
Or does this just stop city’s from being able to block new projects in residential zones?
I’m not sure what this will do…it will help, certainly, but I don’t know if it will solve the CEQA mess…I guess I’ll do some reading.
Gov. Jerry Brown has proposed sweeping statewide legislation”
I wonder what will this do to SOAR in Ventura county ?
Darn liberals and their problem solving.
only solution offered is higher taxes and spending
bern
What made the 50’s and 60’s golden?
Spending: Reagan tripled the deficit, Bush doubled it, Clinton had a surplus, O cut it 70%.
Spending???
Know your party.
“Darn liberals and their problem solving.”
lol
CEQA is the main problem caused by liberals, and has been a known issue for at least a decade.
Yup, those liberals are right on top of solving problems.
Who is FDR?
He was a fiscal conservative, like you.
thanks! Saving money is a fun game.
Darker than 6 months ago”
They should have come here.
Houston……it looked dark to the HBB readers about 2 years ago…..except to Albuquerque Dan!
July 30, 2015
Preparations For Growth Can Be Overly Optimistic
“Residents of The Woodlands – or Houston commuters driving through the area to and from Dallas and other points north – have found themselves stuck in all kinds of traffic. A significant reason for the massive surge in infrastructure upgrades is due to the world headquarters of Exxon/Mobil moving into the neighborhood. For over a year, local residents have been bracing themselves for the influx of what was estimated to be 50,000 new inhabitants. However, the current substantial drop in oil prices put a hold on much of the transition, and only a fraction of the predicted total have moved in.”
“Kimberly Nicole, a Realtor based in The Woodlands who caters to upscale and elite homes and clientele, terms situations like this ‘The Exxon Effect,’ where preparations for growth can be overly optimistic. There is a glut of new building and real estate agents alike; when the bubble pops as reality sets in, there are too many empty houses and an overabundance of those wanting to fill them.”
“‘The Woodlands situation is an example of how a housing market can fluctuate as wildly and as immediately as the New York Stock Exchange,’ she said. ‘Most agents are unprepared for the tumult; it’s the savvy agents who are familiar with all aspects of real estate that can successfully navigate through the turbulence.’”
http://thehousingbubbleblog.com/?p=9156
BTW, the median price in Houston is still going up. It’s a flawed, lagging statistic.
‘Darker than 6 months ago
They should have come here.’
I’d like to make a point. We’ve seen people say, “no one here saw this commodity bust.” I’ve been posting stuff about steel and copper and rosewood furniture and New Zealand milk for a long time. But specifically, I went to the north of Dallas in the summer of 2014 and reported a house had gone up 50% in two years. I went back in September of 2014 and reported I had seen the bubble in Prosper Texas, where they were scraping off thousands of acres and throwing up 700k houses surrounded by billboards saying zero down. That should never happen.
You know what stands out in my mind about that period? I found a little blurb and posted it in the comments here. It said a hotel room in Carlsbad New Mexico was charging $350 night. That should never happen.
These weren’t big fact finding missions; just random trips and internet searches. Can these big shots at the government and central banks not see this? In 2004, I was in Sedona AZ and a guy told me his house was going up $10,000 a month. That should never happen.
Yesterday I saw this:
‘Watch as million-dollar homes take over big cities’
This has graphs (in red no less) showing the spread of million dollar houses like a disease. All over the country. Gee whiz, says the media!
That to me is dark. That is an ass pounding on the horizon. I don’t know why more people can’t see it. This sums it up:
‘They’ve just had it way too good for way too long’
And this:
‘The median price of a single-family home in Santa Clara County hit seven figures for the first time last month: $1 million on the button. Prices grew even dizzier in San Mateo County, where the $1.2 million average matched the previous record, set in May 2015′
This should never happen.
like the advertised home price peak of 2006
it was 6/2005 in most hoods
then Kaboom
inventory tight in 22151 - this is peek lemming time
Are you sure?
Springfield, VA Housing Prices Plummet 6% YoY On Ballooning Housing Inventory
http://www.zillow.com/springfield-va-22151/home-values/
a burned down house in my hood just sold for 2x what I paid for my house
HA !
Of course it did Va_Donk. Of course it did.
Article for all the Big Government authoritarians:
“Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan on Thursday became the latest state leader to sign contentious legislation restricting civil asset forfeiture — the process that allows police to seize and keep property suspected of being connected to illegal activity without having to convict, or even charge, the owner with a crime.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/in-a-reversal-md-gov-larry-hogan-signs-bill-limiting-civil-asset-forfeiture/2016/05/19/c2b960e4-1df2-11e6-9c81-4be1c14fb8c8_story.html
“…the process that allows police to seize and keep property suspected of being connected to illegal activity without having to convict, or even charge, the owner with a crime.”
The people have always some champion whom they set over them and nurse into greatness…This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector. –Plato
“Alain Pinel agent Mark Wong, who negotiated the sale, said it was a matter of good timing: If Jong had delayed and listed his townhouse in May, his fortunes might now be up in the air — at least in part because the amount of inventory is ‘creeping up’ and softening competition. ‘The market is shifting right now,’ Wong said. ‘The market is really mixed. Some people are getting multiple offers, some are getting no buyers. Just in one month, the market has changed a lot.’”
Sum ting Wong, Jong!
Risk-Off!
Risk-On, Risk-Off Returns as Driving Force of Currencies: Chart
Lukanyo Mnyanda
May 20, 2016 — 12:29 AM PDT
…
JSE closes lower as miners retreat in risk-off trade
Maarten Mittner | 19 May, 2016 18:38
…
‘Risk-off flows’ from stocks as hawkish Fed spook funds: BAML
May 20, 2016 6:35 AM EDT
…
Bonds, notes thrive on risk-off sentiment
AAP – 4 hours ago
…
University Park(D/FW), TX Housing Affordability Skyrockets As Prices Nosedive 21% YoY
http://www.zillow.com/university-park-tx/home-values/
‘Mortgage fraud by brokers and banks could bring on a financial meltdown, an economic researcher has warned. As at least three of the major banks investigate allegedly dodgy loans to Chinese buyers, LF Economics founder Lindsay David says fraudulent lending is rife in Australia’s property market — and that we should all be scared.’
‘NAB is the latest bank to launch an investigation after receiving a tip-off about a mortgage broker involved in a new tower development in Melbourne’s Southbank. It comes as lenders instruct brokers to stop lending to overseas borrowers, after Westpac and ANZ launched an investigation into suspect loans worth almost $1 billion.’
‘But Mr David believes the practice of doctoring paperwork on home loans is much broader than the banks would have us think. NAB has been told a broker used Photoshop to inflate figures on pay slips and bank statements in order to secure loans for overseas buyers.’
‘While the practice has long been portrayed as the work of a few bad apples in the competitive mortgage broking industry, evidence is emerging that senior banking employees themselves may be involved in mortgage fraud.’
‘Last month, ABC business journalist Elysse Morgan revealed that her loan documents had been tampered with, telling Four Corners that she got them back from the bank to find that her income had been “massively inflated”. “There was a line that says ‘your monthly income’, and for my husband it was correct, but for me it was inflated by around 38 per cent,” Ms Morgan said.’
‘She said she had never found out who changed the figures on her loan application, and declined to name the bank when contacted by news.com.au. It may sound extraordinary, but Ms Morgan is not alone. Hundreds of mum-and-dad borrowers have contacted the Banking and Finance Consumers Support Association with claims that lenders have forged their signatures on loan documents, with details of their personal income and assets bumped up by hundreds of thousands of dollars.’
‘BFCSA President Denise Brailey says she has reported hundreds of such cases to the financial services regulator, ASIC. Borrowers come to her for advice when they find themselves saddled with massive debts and their homes repossessed, after being sold loans that are beyond their ability to pay.’
‘When Ms Morgan saw that her income had been inflated, even though she was “on a pretty good salary”, she wondered: “What’s in the interest of the organisation or the institution to prop that up?” “You’ve only got to think to yourself, ‘are they taking it from a double-A to a triple-A rating?” she said.’
Baltimore plagued by zombie foreclosures
WTOP News Radio
By Jeff Clabaugh
May 19, 2016
WASHINGTON — The only thing worse than a home in foreclosure is a home in foreclosure with nobody living in it, and Baltimore has one of the highest foreclosure vacancy rates in the nation.
They are called zombie foreclosures, and RealtyTrac says 9.7 percent of houses and condos in foreclosure in Baltimore are vacant, a Zombie foreclosure rate topped only by St. Louis, Indianapolis and Albany, New York.
Often, the lender’s hands are tied, because these vacant properties are still in the foreclosure process, meaning owners have abandoned them before they have to. Sometimes long before they have to. Legally, a bank taking initiative to change the locks, have the lawn mowed or the property otherwise maintained before the foreclosure process is complete would be considered trespassing.
Maryland also ranks among states with the highest zombie foreclosure rate, at 7.2 percent.
Oregon tops the list, with 11.8 percent of residential properties in foreclosure sitting vacant.
http://wtop.com/money/2016/05/baltimore-plagued-by-zombie-foreclosures/
Baltimore also has a law and order problem that is only going to get worse, now that the corrupt, incompetent Democrat (redundant, I realize) municipal “government” has caved to the extortion of the street mobs. Who in their right mind is going to buy a house when the dystopia will make the place unliveable?
The mere mention of Baltimore acts as a Rorschach test for some people.
Irrelevant.
Irrelevant.
http://imgur.com/gallery/A43mw
LOLZ
lame, as usual
Irrelevant
Irrelevant
Im not far from BAltimorgue an know a number of people there. While its a rough city, they tell me cool stuff isn’t priced out. They like it, and there is fun and funky stuff to do. Crime is high, and its now being marketed as a commuter spot to dc.
‘Crime is high’ realtor translation = adventurous!
‘The massive wave of new apartments scheduled to hit the market could trigger a crisis as skint buyers become unable to complete their purchases, according to new data from Core Logic RP Data. That ‘settlement risk’ is highest in Melbourne and Brisbane, where the supply jump in new apartments is expected to be the highest. The risk could see significant falls in apartment prices as sellers outnumber buyers.’
‘According to CoreLogic, Melbourne is scheduled to have 80,503 new apartments completed by April 2018 compared to an average of 30,781 completions over the last five years and slightly less last year. Brisbane will see 44,511 completions to 2018 compared with 14,932 on average for the last five years and just over 16,000 last year.’
‘Both cities will have to absorb well above the average apartment take-up in the two years to 2018. In Melbourne the overshoot is 31 per cent, while in Brisbane the figure is a whopping 48 per cent.’
‘In other cities, the overshoot is far smaller or not existent. However in Sydney, in the year to April 2018, the number of apartments coming onto the market will be well above the five year average and last year’s total.’
‘CoreLogic research analyst Cameron Cushing says investors, in particular, may have paid a deposit three or four years ago but when they come to settle on their apartment, bank lending rules have changed.’
“When they committed, the banks were lending 95 per cent of valuations and the interest rates on investment loans were the same as on owner-occupied loans. Now the banks won’t lend 95 per cent and investment loans are 30 basis points above the owner-occupied rate,” Mr Cushing told The New Daily.’
‘Another complication is that if apartment prices start to fall significantly then buyers will only be able to borrow, for example, 90 per cent of a reduced valuation meaning “they will have to make up the difference themselves”, Mr Cushing said.’
‘If people can’t come up with that difference, then they would not be able to settle on the property and the developer would be left trying to sell it in an over-supplied market. The effects could cascade through the market, Mr Cushing said. “We’ve never seen as many apartments being built as we are now. There is a massive new wave coming,” he said.’
It’s always the same. “If this happens, and that happens, gosh, this could get bad!”
Economics has failed America
http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/05/19/economics-has-failed-america-globalization-trade/
krugman wants more gov$
see Greece-vz,Arg for results
No, Keynesian fraudsters installed by oligarch grifters and crony capitalism sanctioned by the brain-dead majority has failed America.
crushing.housing.losses.
The collapse of socialism in Venezuela is a preview of the mess we’ll see when our Permanent Democrat Supermajority runs America into the ground and the FSA goes for grabbing what it wants rather than relying on “redistribution of the wealth” by the DNC’s Comrades of Proven Worth.
http://www.businessinsider.com/venezuela-political-economic-collapse-protests-2016-5
“This Tech Bubble Is Bursting”
http://www.wsj.com/articles/this-tech-bubble-is-bursting-1462161662
Article is looking in the rearview mirror as the HBB reported this last fall.
‘It’s not all good news amid the campus housing booms transforming North and West Philadelphia and college towns around the U.S.’
‘While just two of the dozens of Philadelphia-area apartment-building loans tracked by investors in mortgage-backed securities are currently “in special servicing” and close to default, “both are student housing complexes,” notes Sean J. Barrie, research analyst at Trepp LLC in New York. Both properties are operated by Campus Living Villages, an Australian investment company backed by pension funds.’
‘Writes Trepp in a report: “According to May servicer data, the $52.6 million The Edge at Avenue North loan has been sent to special servicing.” The loan on this 799-unit property at N. Broad and W. Oxford Sts in Philadelphia, on property adjoining Temple University (corrected), is for more than the property is now worth.’
‘Edge lost students when Temple opened its new dorms nearby. Built in 2006, “the property has negative cash flows since 2013.”
‘backed by pension funds’
Guess what? Somebody out there isn’t going to retire.
‘It’s institutional investors chasing higher return and having no knowledge’ of whether the Columbia ’student housing market’s economics are imbalanced,’ Odle said. ‘The market is more about flipping than looking at market dynamics,’ he added. ‘Anybody from out of town can come in and fill up [their apartment project] and sell it…one month after finishing. It’s a terrible deal for a college town like Columbia because they don’t care how healthy the market is, if the market’s in equilibrium or not.’
‘The market is more about flipping’
I’ve been telling you guys. This flipping apartments is so prevalent I could dedicate an entire blog to it right now. It’s driven by the life insurance companies and pensions starved for return (heck of a job Janet). The tax code encourages it. It causes rents to skyrocket. These wall street guys are getting a nice slice, doing nothing much for it. And the federal government is backstopping a big part of the whole thing.
“I’ve been telling you guys. This flipping apartments is so prevalent I could dedicate an entire blog to it right now.”
Let’s count some wins:
“It’s driven by the life insurance companies and pensions starved for return (heck of a job Janet).
Win.
“It causes rents to skyrocket.”
Win. Rents count as income, both actual income and imputed income, and this income is a gigantic win for the economy.
“These wall street guys are getting a nice slice, doing nothing much for it.”
A super win.
“And the federal government is backstopping a big part of the whole thing.”
A win for all the children of America.
I have been in a lot of college towns.
There are ALWAYS lots of apartments around colleges not matter how many dorms there are. And they make pretty good coin.
These folks knew the Temple dorms were being built - they had at least a three year heads up.
There is so much MORE to this story.
My guess. Substandard apartments that were not maintained. Temple students had no where else to go so they sucked it up. Lots and lots of equity loans taken out but only used for enriching the board of the directors or their pet projects.
The story of every college town. Rentals that are close to campus are overpriced dumps.
“‘It’s not all good news amid the campus housing booms…”
Wait, wait, wait. Hold up. Before anything else can be addressed, why are they assuming it’s common knowledge that it’s *all* good news, as if people go on and on about how great the campus housing “booms” are?
In sales they call that an assumptive close.
‘The overall inventory of vacant developed lots (VDL) fell in 1Q16, down 2% YoY, with only 2,887 lots being delivered in the first quarter. We are now moving into a new space we haven’t seen in a while, with potential lot shortage and competition for future demand. The total of 53,209 vacant lots include only single-family detached and townhome units. The increase in starts moved the needle on months of supply in a major way as, even with the “zombie lots,” the market is down to 38.3 months of supply. A year ago builders were concerned about how many lots they were holding and now this year there will probably be a rush on lots.’
“Rising home prices due to increased construction costs, land and lot price increases, and rising development costs have forced new home prices above levels that could maximize absorption,” said Brown. “In the first quarter, there was a slight growth in the median closed home pricing at 4% across the market, though it was stronger in some submarkets like Gilbert, Mesa and Chandler. Land pricing has appreciated slightly faster which is going to push builders into higher prices.”
I should have warned you rental watch, cover your eyes:
‘Land pricing has appreciated slightly faster which is going to push builders into higher prices’
Yeah, you’ve got it backward.
Have you ever been through the process of selling land? I have. In fact, I’m doing it right now.
You put the property on the market (with or without an asking price), and builders bid. The variation in what is offered can be wide–and is dependent on the bidder’s cost of capital, cost of construction, and what they intend to build and sell on the property.
If a piece of land is priced too highly, it won’t sell. It will sit on the market for years.
Ever drive past signs on the freeway trying to sell land? Ever note how frequently the signs remain for a long time? It’s because the seller wants too much.
Without home prices that justify the land purchase price, land will not sell.
You know there is a bubble going on. I’ve sold land a couple times, but not when prices were artificially high and everybody was screaming shortage. Brown’s been around a long time. They are building expensive houses because they are paying so much for the lots. Call it a chicken or an egg if you want. Lot prices are driving more expensive houses. The sellers and the buyers at each stage have to play along in a mania, as do the lenders.
They are building expensive houses because they are paying so much for the lots.
They’re playing that game in Fort Collins, creating an artificial lot shortage by limiting subdividing. They’re trying to convert the place into Boulder 2.0. Sure, it will drive prices up in the short haul. But eventually they’ll run out of trust fund babies who will pay the price, and that crowd will choose Boulder over Ft. Collins.
The “worst since Lehman” indicators are multiplying.
http://wolfstreet.com/2016/05/19/delinquencies-of-commercial-industrial-loans-spike/
I was a little unsure of which way things were going—but this business delinquencies chart is pretty convincing evidence that we’re headed for a downturn, one sooner and larger than expected. (Look at the slope on that uptick. It’s not only Sports Authority/Chalet having trouble.)
Why are you confused? The Housing Bubble Blog makes it crystal clear.
No market for $5M starter mixed-use buildings, here.
I’ve got to give the man points for creativity and initiative!
Under obama - if you are a banker you can loot billions and not one of you will ever go to jail.
But don’t ever try to impersonate a democrat senator - 15 years in jail!
—————-
Indebted Florida man accused of posing as U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin to avoid paying home loans
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS | May 19, 2016 | Laura Bult
A Florida man is getting probed for posing as U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin to get out of his mortgage payments.
Sidney Hines, 67, called a collection agency five times in 2013 and 2014 impersonating “a sitting U.S. Senator from Illinois” with the initials R.D. claiming that his loan for his New Port Richey, Flor. home had been paid in full, according to a U.S. Attorney’s Office indictment.
The two Illinois senators during that time period are Richard “Dick” Durbin and Mark Kirk.
Court papers say that Hines got a $5,863.73 loan through the HomeSaver Advance program, which allows delinquent borrowers a payment plan to pay off past debts.
Hines skipped out on his HSA payments, prompting the ClearSpring Loan Services debt collection agency to take over the loan, according to court documents.
Hines called the collection agency multiple times posing a Durbin to try and convince them that the loan had been paid in full and for it to be removed from his credit report.
He faces five counts of impersonating a federal officer or employee and could serve up to 15 years in prison if convicted.
With everyone losing their ass on an overpriced house, it seems to me the most efficient path forward is to walk away from it.
There is a lesson here. There is only one way to avoid paying a grossly inflated price for a house. Don’t pay it in the first place.
Life as we watch this three-ring sh*t show lurch towards its denouement.
http://www.theburningplatform.com/2016/05/20/life/
Old Yellen can’t and won’t hike, incessant jawboning to the contrary.
http://investmentresearchdynamics.com/fed-funds-rate-hike-another-empty-threat/
You got that rite! Can’t believe people waste so much time and money covering this $hit show.
She should have went into women’s soccer if she wanted to headfake.
A nation of broke @ss loosers:
“Negative equity. Amid the global financial crisis, it spelled misery for millions of U.S. homeowners as the outstanding balance on mortgages exceeded resale prices.
Now, it’s shifting to another credit-addicted sector: the car market. Almost one-third of U.S. vehicles traded in this year were in negative equity, according to JD Power data. That puts a heavy burden on consumers and it’s an unhappy signal for auto-maker profit.
One reason negative equity is rising is that lenders have extended the duration of car loans to keep monthly payments affordable. If a customer pays a loan slowly, he’s likely to owe more than the vehicle is worth for a longer period and won’t rush out to purchase a new one.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/gadfly/articles/2016-05-20/negative-equity-hits-the-car-market
Well duh! Cars depreciate far more quickly than houses do.
Debt rolled into more debt. Uniquely ‘Merican.
My wife needs a newer automobile. I have been waiting for the “debt implosion” to happen… remember those days when FOR SALE signs were scrawled with, “take over payments?”
Can You Use Student Loans to Go on Spring Break?
Mr. Banker says yes, you can, and you should:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-20/can-you-use-student-loans-to-go-on-spring-break
What the hell. Live it up while you can. Obama and Hillary will see to it that your debts are “forgiven” (transferred to taxpayers) to win your lifetime D vote.
A few months ago I asked a FSA Sanders supporter if I would be getting a refund check for the student loans that I repaid.
Yeah. I worked night jobs to help pay my own way through school, and retired all of my student loans within two years of graduating. F*** these parasites and the imbecile voters who are enabling their freeloading.
I know someone who admitted to doing that. I couldn’t believe it. I mean, you’re going to be paying for that trip, with interest, for the next twenty years.
This is at a much higher rate than 2008. Can’t say enough about this kind of stupidity.
U.S. credit-card balances are on track to hit $1 trillion this year, as banks aggressively push their plastic and consumers grow more comfortable carrying debt.
That sum would come close to the all-time peak of $1.02 trillion set in July 2008, just before the financial crisis intensified, and could signal an easing of frugal habits ingrained by the recession.
Hey! Let’s turn mothballed ships into condos!
http://www.businessinsider.com/decaying-ships-off-coast-of-san-francisco-2016-5
Insanely hot people like this massage therapist, or me for that matter, can’t play the victim card if we’re fired because we’re so darn irresistable. Damn. There goes that future lawsuit….
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/wrongful-termination-suit-brought-by-massage-therapist-who-says-she-was-fired-for-being-pretty-tossed-by-ny-judge-2016-05-20
“When the suit was filed, Adams…told the Post she didn’t view Edwards as competition. “No disrespect to anyone — but I’m a centerfold,” Miss November 1992 boasted.”
Bahahahaha. Awesome.
Would a nuclear war be bad for housing? Fallout shelters could be the new granite countertops….
http://www.theburningplatform.com/2016/05/20/former-nato-commander-predicts-nuclear-war-with-russia-within-next-year/
Barbara boxer is an apologist for the Soros thugs who violently disrupt Trump rallies and assault and intimidate his supporters, but isn’t quite so thrilled when what goes around comes around.
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2016/05/senator-boxer-claims-bernie-supporters-made-fear-life-scary-video/
2banana’s Rule.
Conservatives are more than happy to live under the laws and taxes they want for everyone else.
Liberals/progressives expect to exempted from the laws and taxes they want for everyone else.
Which is why “conservatives” make sure those laws are favorable to them, especially if they’re rich.
Give it a rest, banana; “liberals”, “conservatives”, they’re all crooks.
Dementia causes one to repeat, and prevents learning. The fearful fossil can’t help it.
If you’re a Trumpista, Sanders might be your best friend.
The Chair Thrown ‘Round the World
A Las Vegas reporter’s second-hand claim Bernie Sanders supporters threw chairs at a Nevada convention was widely reproduced by other news outlets.
CLAIM: Angry Bernie Sanders supporters threw chairs during an adversarial Nevada Democrat convention in May 2016.
UNPROVEN
WHAT’S TRUE: Video captured during the Nevada Democrats’ convention depicts a man briefly picking up a chair before placing it back down without throwing it.
WHAT’S FALSE: Despite extensive YouTube, Periscope, and photographic documentation captured by supporters of both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, no available images document anyone’s throwing chairs at the Nevada convention.
http://www.snopes.com/did-sanders-supporters-throw-chairs-at-nevada-democratic-convention/
Hillary’s owners happen to own the media…
She looks like a corpse now a days which is good news because that means she will be one in the not so distant future. Her, Feinswine, Reid, Bubba Clinton, Bernie, and justice Ginsberg all look like they died a few years ago.
Have you seen the number of octogenarians in the Senate leadership? It looks like the Mormon Church.
The hollowing out of the middle class by the Oligopoly is turning us into Renter Nation.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-05-20/existing-home-sales-tumble-south-west-regions-condo-sales-soar
The Keynesian fraudsters running our central banks for the exclusive enrichment of their oligarch cronies are “magic people.” They said so.
http://wolfstreet.com/2016/05/19/ecb-vasiliauskas-share-purchases-qe-leaks-banks/
The Comrades of Proven Worth at the DNC must redouble their efforts to import more Somali entitlement voters and register more felons as lifetime Democrats. Our Permanent Democrat Supermajority is not going to build itself, you know.
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2016/05/seattle-officers-stop-several-east-african-migrants-suitcases-cash-leaving-us-theyre-welfare/
Actually, it is building itself. Half of all births are to single mothers, and growing.
A lot of that is attributable to committed couples that don’t care to pay the extra tax for being married, or to enrich the wedding industrial complex.
Coinbase changing its name to GDAX and will add ether this summer, in addition to its current Bitcoin, GDAX will also later make Litecoin as easy to buy. Currently people mostly use shapeshift to buy alt coins with bit coin.
I expect to have Ethereum and Litecoin debit cards available.
If you don’t buy crypto currency you should at least buy silver, gold, maybe yuan (as a competitor to the dollar). Vacate imperialist war monger currencies. Starve the beast.
https://news.bitcoin.com/coinbase-ether-litecoin-trade-gdax/
By the time Yellen gets done debasing the currency, pre-1964 US silver coinage will be the only money accepted as a medium of exchange. Bitcoin, not so much.
That is an opinion obviously.
Government cannot stop cryptocurrency. That is a fact.
It appears that Soros and other billionaire oligarchs see what’s coming and are parking their money in gold before the flight to safety stampede begins.
http://www.thedailybell.com/gold-silver/billionaires-buy-gold-as-stagflation-triggers-demand/
The Chinese have been encouraged for over two years by their government to buy gold.
Lake Mead (water source for Las Vegas) down to its lowest levels ever. Buy now before the taps stop running!
http://www.desertsun.com/story/news/environment/2016/05/19/lake-mead-declines-new-record-low/84597120/
It’s time to dam the Colorado River at the Utah state line and let Las Vegas wither and die and California dry up and fall off.
Can I get a “Hallaluja!” in the house?!
And bar entrance into the state to any California Democrats who try to ooze into Colorado to escape the collectivist utopia they helped create.
haters of California Staters R funny!
Lots of unflushed toilets coming to SoCal, Southern Nevada and Arizona. Maybe people can rent a port-a-pottie and put it in the backyard.
Gasp! I guess there’s always wine and beer.
Of course it’s worrisome. As I recall, it dropped a couple of feet overnight after a mild earthquake a few months ago.
After growing up in Manhattan, and currently (presently? - too lazy to look up what’s proper) living in Las Vegas, I’m looking in the crystal ball and wouldn’t be surprised if we ended up in the Midwest or Southeast (friends in So. Carolina, relatives in Virginia.) We could move near other relatives in Dallas/Ft. Worth; the rest of them are on Long Island and very pricey northern New Jersey and Westchester (NYS) areas, neither of which we can afford, never mind the old NYC neighborhood (which has become out of sight pricewise.)
We’re the po’ relations.
“Overall in Miami’s luxury condo market, inventory was up 55 percent at the end of April 2016 compared to a year earlier, Ron Shuffield, president of EWM Realty International said. Sales of luxury condos, defined as $1 million and up, were down 24 percent during that same period.”
Hello Ron Shuffield! Remember 2005, when you were quoted in the New York Times?
“Premonitions of a bubble on the verge of popping do not ruffle those who are bullish on real estate. In Miami, Ron Shuffield, president of Esslinger-Wooten-Maxwell Realtors, predicted that a limited supply of land coupled with demand from baby boomers and foreigners would prolong the boom indefinitely.
‘South Florida,’ he said, “is working off of a totally new economic model than any of us have ever experienced in the past.”
http://tinyurl.com/zvpvmjh
That article started with this gem:
Real estate-crazed Americans have started behaving in ways that eerily recall the stock market obsession of the late 1990’s.
In Naples, Fla., some houses have been bought twice in a single day, an early-21st-century version of day trading. Buying stocks on margin has morphed into buying homes with no money down. The over-the-top parties of Internet start-ups have been replaced by flashy gatherings where developers pitch condos to eager buyers.
…
“It just seems like everyone is doing it,” Laurie Romano, a 26-year-old self-described real estate investor, said with a giggle as she explained why she was attending an open house this month for the Nexus, a 56-unit building going up in Brooklyn’s chic Dumbo neighborhood. She and her fiancé, a dentist, had already put down a deposit on a Manhattan condo earlier in the week and had come to look at another at the Nexus.
“She and her fiancé, a dentist, had already put down a deposit on a Manhattan condo earlier in the week and had come to look at another at the Nexus.”
You know, I was just about to say that at least with beanie babies people only spent a few thou. Then I thought, I’d better double check…
http://www.businessinsider.com/family-spends-100000-on-beanie-babies-2013-7
‘by March the developer had sold nearly all of its units for a combined $206 million. Now, a surge of resale inventory has hit the market: 37 percent of 230 units are listed for sale for a combined listing volume of $119 million. And 400 Sunny Isles is not the only newly completed project with significant listings’
It hasn’t even been a year and 37 percent are back on the market. What a disaster this is going to be. Note the price per square foot in Miami Beach is much higher that it was in the mid-2000’s.
Craters forming in South Florida is the canary in the coal mine for the cracks appearing on the coasts.
I anxiously await the new YoY pending on Zillow data. It’s going to be a doozy.
“Overall in Miami’s luxury condo market”
When I hear “luxury” I always think of Ricardo Montalban, Chrysler Cordoba and Rich Corinthian Leather.
Famous Chrysler Cordoba Commercial with Ricardo … - YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfKHBB4vt4c - 377k -
While I hate seeing great music commercialized like this, gotta love the excerpts from the Concierto de Aranjuez.
Hillary got rich fighting for us.
https://earloftaint.com/2016/05/15/hillary-for-prison/
Fraud and corruption.
The obama and hillary way.
—————–
Seattle …East African Migrants with Suitcases of Cash Leaving US – They’re ALL ON WELFARE
The Gateway Pundit | 05/19/2016 | Jim Hoft
Seattle and King County officials have stopped several migrants with suitcases full of American dollars leaving the United States.
All of the suspects carrying the suitcases full of cash were on welfare. KING5 reported:
“ Travelers pulling suitcases full of cash started showing up at Sea-Tac Airport last year holding tickets for flights headed out of the United States.
The people carrying the cash didn’t hide the fact from Customs. Just the opposite, they reported it. Anyone traveling out of the United States is required to declare any amount over $10,000 and fill out a one-page federal form.
These reports are what caught the attention of terrorism investigators in Seattle…
…Seattle and King County are home to tens of thousands of immigrants and refugees from East Africa, many of whom use the hawalas to send much-needed money back to loved ones in their homelands. Given the presence of active terrorist organizations in Somalia, investigators worry that some of the money …
Kerns said the first cash shipment rolled through Sea-Tac early last year. A man carrying $750,000 in cash told Customs officials he was transporting the money overseas. Over the next several months, couriers carrying as much as $2 million boarded commercial flights at Sea-Tac.
He researched the names of the ten clients who transferred the most money through hawalas last year.
“All ten of them were on welfare benefits. DSHS benefits,” said Kerns. “It’s fraud. Straight up fraud – every one of them.”
Kerns said he, along with an agent from a federal agency he would not disclose, took their case to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Seattle.
“They don’t want to touch it,” said Kerns. “My opinion – I believe it’s because it will look like they’re targeting a certain population.”
Lifetime.Democrat.Entitlement.Voters.
I hope my entitlement (soc sec) is still there when I turn 65.
According to the SSA, they’ll only be enough money coming in for me to get about 75% of my “entitlement”.
My financial plans assume I get $0 (because on a net basis, I’m assuming my tax rate is going up to pay for Medicare).
As someone else has quipped here before. “Save every penny (for retirement) cause yer gonna need it.”
“All ten of them were on welfare benefits. DSHS benefits,” said Kerns. “It’s fraud. Straight up fraud – every one of them.”
There’s no explanation of what fraud is going on. Is it illegal for welfare recipients to send money out of the country. Further on in KING 5 story is the following:
Sources within the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Seattle, who spoke on the condition that they not be named, disputed Kern’s version of why the case hasn’t moved forward.
Sources say Kerns case was not developed enough to proceed with criminal charges against any specific target. They say he was advised to follow up with an assistant U.S. attorney who handles fraud cases, but he never did.
So it’s just another example of ranting and raving on a crackpot right wing website. Of course, the people who read such nonsense don’t care about the facts.
They sound like bundlers - collect a bunch of money from their communities to bring back to Somalia, or wherever, to support various causes. Iranians do this a lot, just like the Irish did in the 70/80’s with the IRA. They don’t send direct because then they’d be associated with people / organizations on terror lists.
They should put these criminals on a tug and sink it in the ocean. Of course you don’t see the fraud, you’re not looking for it.
One Somali said that he was sending money to poor relatives back in the old country. That’s certainly not illegal. I imagine that it might be illegal to send money to a group on the State Department’s list of terrorist organizations, but there’s nothing in this news story that shows that that’s what’s going on.
Agreed. That they were fraudulently collecting $100 a week in foodstamps isn’t the issue.
The USDA Food and Nutrition Service reports that as of September 2014, there were around 46.5 million individual food stamp recipients (22.7 million households) receiving an average benefit of $123.74 each per month (around $257 per household).
People are the worst, fraud is everywhere.
Look at pedo Priests in Boston, do you want to ban them all?
How are you feeling? You sound like you’re doing better.
Still hurts and numbness, huge hole in my jaw. Takes time to heal…..
thx
“…huge hole in my jaw.”
Didn’t they pack it with bone graft material?
Where Realtors go to retire:
Welcome to “Pervert Park,” home to real people who’ve done terrible things
http://www.salon.com/2016/05/19/welcome_to_pervert_park_home_to_real_people_whove_done_terrible_things/
That’s a story right out of Everytown, California.
“Patrick Naughton will tell you that he should never be allowed anywhere near little girls again, under any circumstances. If he can live out the rest of his life in group environments like Pervert Park without harming anyone, that’s a good outcome. ”
Unless of course, six months from now Patrick decides to go to the park on a Saturday afternoon and take advantage of the new Transgender bathroom laws while a distracted mother watches her 3 year old boy and lets her 7 year old girl go to the girls room.
That’s a bad outcome.
Never, never let your child use the restroom unsupervised with a Realtor.
If you see a realtor in your neighborhood, lock your doors and call the authorities immediately.
‘Prestige rents are under pressure in a number of blue-chip suburbs across the capital city markets, according to CoreLogic RP Data. Beach and harbourside Sydney suburbs like Tamarama, Dover Heights and McMahons Point all recorded falls of more than 20 per cent in median asking house rent’
Beach-side no less! This time last year Sydney was probably the hottest and one of the most expensive on the planet.
Comment by redmondjp
2016-05-19 13:40:33
Did you select a new internet handle yet? Which one of us won the contest?
Not yet - but I am thinking Rj Nation be working!!!
May as HA suggested “living in your skull rent free”. I kinda like that one too.
rj soon not be in chicago.
That was me, not Senior Housing Analyst. You requested suggestions for a new username. I obliged.
You should just call yourself Sybil.
Get back on the meds, HA. Multiple personality disorder is a serious mental illness.
I’m not nearly as eloquent as Senior Housing Analyst.
Actually you are, which is what makes it so easy to figure out that you are all the same person, as I have explained previously.
Who is?
Boys, Boys - calm down!!! All in good fun right?
“Who is?”
Abbott & Costello Who’s On First - YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTcRRaXV-fg - 319k -
‘As the economic contagion spreads through Aberdeen, so do the anecdotes of its fall from one of the richest cities in the UK to a city in crisis. Tales of oil executives queuing up for food banks or to sell their Rolexes to overwhelmed pawn brokers are breathlessly repeated by cab drivers. One tells of how financed sports cars are being abandoned in dealership forecourts overnight by those unable to keep up with payments’
This article is something. It too has quotes saying this is worse than the 80’s:
‘In the 1980s the number of rigs in operation plunged 82 percent over four years; this time, the rig count has plunged nearly that much - 79 percent - but in just two years. ‘This has come harder and faster than anything we have ever seen before’
How many articles have been written saying this isn’t as bad as back then? A couple hundred? I remember the regular reports of dropping rig counts those days. Many of us hung on thinking it would turn around. It had too! Nope. I’ve called it the dull realization; it’s over. Best to pick ourselves up and find a new way to make a living. Still, this report is kinda shocking. What exactly does such a swift collapse mean? What effect will all the junk bond borrowing the oil industry has done in the past year and a half have? That easy money wasn’t available in 1985.
30,000 apartments in the pipeline in Houston. Almost all of them luxury.
$400 worth of granite and a $100 upgrade for stainless appliances–now it’s luxury.
Meanwhile, in the Jeffersonian democracy the neocons built in Iraq at the cost of $2 trillion dollars and 4,000 US lives….
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-05-20/tear-gas-bullets-fired-anti-government-protesters-storm-baghdad-green-zone-enter-pms
Joe Biden in 2010: “Iraq will be one of the greatest achievements of this administration.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOcPCrGRs6k
As I travel it is very evident in certain parts of the country getting a loan is near impossible and the hot markets get loans like is 2005-06 again.
Blue states seem to get the best deals and very red states are having a hard time. I believe if TRUMP is the president blue and red states won’t matter, I see a robust housing under him.
There’s a little problem with that narrative….
US Mortgage Demand Plummets To 20 Year Low
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-yX5B5Hn95bQ/VYC3Wr6ihBI/AAAAAAAAj7I/alOslZa-cK8/s1600/MBAJune172015.PNG
why? Red state have more poverty and less skilled workers. how can trump fix that?
That’s unpossible! We all know they’re “right to work” and “business friendly” states. The streets are paved with gold in those places.
What happened to Jingle_Fraud? He took off out of here like he had a hot date with TrigglyPuff.
Last sighted going into a 24 hour all you can eat buffet.
That was two days ago, and they haven’t left yet…
I am very busy these days. I enjoy my work and my clients. It is going to be a prosperous year.
I cannot play on the HBB every day anymore. I will check.in when I can. The next week is very busy, but I’m having fun! It is gratifying to know you miss me HA!
Kindly let us know when default #2 occurs.
The wife, who watches HGTV too much, sez she hasn’t seen a new “Flip or Flop” in months. Are there no more “deals” in So.Cal to flip????
Seems early in the season to be showing re-runs from 2015 shows.
She only needs to hang on a little longer:
http://tvseriesfinale.com/tv-show/flip-flop-season-five-debuts-june-hgtv/
“Season five of HGTV‘s Flip or Flop TV series premieres Thursday, June 9, 2016 at 9:00pm ET/PT. The show features flipping experts Tarek El Moussa and Christina El Moussa as they buy, renovate, and sell real estate for fun and profit.”
From the episodes I’ve seen, ISTM the two flippers spend a lot more time fixing up than they do flipping. They fix a lot of structural issues and systems, new roofs, etc. Your wife is probably more interested in watching the house be fixed up than she is in the profit from the flip.
Heritage Hills(Denver), CO Housing Affordability Skyrockets As Prices Plummet 14% YoY
http://www.zillow.com/heritage-hills-co-80124/home-values/
great Tom Petty documentary on Netflix….
Agreed - and Petty has guts!!!
do these guys get paid for this wisdom?
Faber [Marc] now emphasizes balance in one’s portfolio.
“You need to be diversified,” he said Wednesday. “To own some real estate makes sense, to own some equities makes sense, to own some cash and bonds probably makes sense, and to own some precious metal makes sense.”
However, he warns that “the market will not go up. Technically, the market isn’t looking very good.”
^^LOL^^ And what, pay like 1 -2% for that platinum “advice”?
The dividing line between haves and have-nots in home ownership: Education, not student debt
Many worry that student loans are a drag on the economy, particularly the housing market. Analyses from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, cited by leading economists, do not provide compelling evidence for this hypothesis. The New York Fed data contain no information about education. As a result, their analyses contrast the home ownership rate of student borrowers with that of an inappropriate comparison group: those who attended college debt-free and those who never went to college. More complete data from researchers at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System reveal a different story. The striking gap in homeownership is not between college-educated people who did and did not borrow, but between those with and without a college education
http://www.brookings.edu/research/reports/2016/05/03-dividing-line-between-haves-have-nots-home-ownership-education-not-student-debt-dynarski
Notice how Trump’s main concern after the Egypt tragedy is: people won’t travel, wont stay in his hotels.
lame
It’s a valid concern. The Chinese have been buying up hotel chains to get their money out of China before the bottom drops out…what happens to those highly leveraged financing deals if a significant number of people suddenly stop traveling?
“birth tourism”
Pensions may be cut to ‘virtually nothing’ for 407,000 people
“One of the biggest private pension funds in the country is almost out of money, and fresh out of options.
The Central States Pension Fund has no new plan to avoid insolvency, fund director Thomas Nyhan said this week. Without government funding, the fund will run out of money in 10 years, he said.
At that time, pension benefits for about 407,000 people could be reduced to “virtually nothing,” he told workers and retirees in a letter sent Friday.”
No market for $500k starter retirement condos, here.
The Teamsters voted overwhelmingly for corruption (Democrats), knowing full well the patronage and graft the Democrats use to reward their supporters. Now thought they were voting themselves limitless benefits someone else would have to pay for. Surprise! The thieves and swindlers you installed in office ripped you off, too! Must.not.laugh….
Citizen Jones!
As you are doubtless aware, the Comrades of Proven Worth at the DNC have worked closely with our generous and benevolent oligarch donors and the responsible media, which some of your posters disparage as “captured” or “corporate media” or “Oligopoly-owned MSM stenographers,” to craft an approved Narrative. This Narrative is intended to illuminate the glorious path to our incorporated neoliberal globalist plantation, where the wealth can be distributed more fairly in a way that more firmly establishes our pending Permanent Democrat Supermajority and rewards our donors for their steadfastness.
Along with our partners in the media, public school system, and universities, we have succeeded admirably in freeing 95% of the population from the burden of independent or critical thought, as they can instead trust us, their betters, with deciding what is best for the Greater Good. Some would say they been rendered docile and stupid, but this is an incorrect interpretation - they have been liberated from the burdens and responsibilities of making intelligent or rational choices, and are now exhibit the kind of bovine complacency one sees in Hindu cows, or the simple, selfish craving for immediate gratification one sees in zombies.
There is, however, a fly in the ointment. As you know, your site has a social responsibility to only post information and views that support the approved Narrative and DNC talking points. However, it has come to our attention, through our surveillance and monitoring networks and the dillgence of our informants, that certain refractory spirits on the HBB are openly mocking The Narrative and its inherent contradictions. More shockingly, they have posted caustic critiques of DNC worthies and their SJW cadres such as Sister Number One, Hillary Clinton, and Triggleypuff, an exemplar of the values and militant collectivist zeal we seek to inculcate in young people. We have started dossiers on the most vocal and recalcitate of these resisters, such as Goon, 2banana, and Selfish Hoarder, for the glorious day when our Permanent Democrat Supermajority will enable us to declare our People’s Republic of New Democracy and update that archaic document written by white male slaveholders, The Constitution, to strip out the dangerous Amendments, especially the 1st, 2nd, and what’s left of the 4th Amendment. It’s for the children…then, to prevent their mind-poisons from infecting our precious snowflakes and SJWs, we will boxcar Goon, 2banana, SH, and certain other HBB miscreants to our Reeducation Camps, once we’ve done away with quaint niceties like due process…for the children. Disputing The Narrative can only confuse the special snowflakes and unravel years of indoctrination by our NEA cadres.
Citizen Jones, we expect you to act immediately to bring your blog into compliance with The Narrative, and to censor and expel all those bitter clingers who stubornly persist in independent or original thought or display evidence of critical thinking that challenges The Narrative, the revealed Truth handed down by our Oligopoly betters. Our progressive spies on the HBB will be monitoring your progress and reporting back to us.
Forward!
A Comrade of Proven Worth
More scare talk about Brexit…any young couple trying to find affordable housing will not be distraught about insanely overpriced homes falling 18%.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/brexit-to-crush-house-prices-by-18-says-osborne-a7039981.html
Shipping and freight volumes keep collapsing…yet Yellen maintains the fiction that the economy is doing well enough for a June interest rate hike to be on the table. Riiiiight….
http://wolfstreet.com/2016/05/20/shipbuilding-industry-collapses-in-china-and-south-korea/
Yuuuuuuuge rate hikes are coming!
Not a chance. NIRP is next on deck as Yellen escalates the Fed’s swindles against savers and retirees.
Hence the irony.
Commentary: Single-payer essential to controlling health-care costs
By David Woods
One hears these days mutterings by disaffected Americans that if Donald Trump becomes president, they will pack their bags and leave for Canada. One assumes, of course, that no wall will be built along the border to thwart their exit.
I made the reverse trip. Having emigrated from Britain to Canada, where I became the editor in chief of the Canadian Medical Association Journal, I opted to come to the United States in 1988 for personal reasons.
But I was also taken with American rugged individualism and a health-care system focused on market forces and competition. I wrote articles for the Economist Intelligence Unit and other periodicals on the wonders of the American system. In print, I debated longtime advocates of single-payer national health insurance, extolling the virtues of the health-care market that others abhorred.
Gradually, though, I too began to have doubts about market-driven health care. Over the 25 years that I’ve lived on the U.S. side of the border, I’ve come to the view that the American health-care system - which still leaves 11 percent of the population uninsured, despite the Affordable Care Act - is inferior to the health systems in Canada and the United Kingdom.
One of the ACA’s architects, Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, describes the U.S. health system as a “terribly complex, blatantly unjust, outrageously expensive, grossly inefficient, error-prone system.” Unfortunately, that’s still true, six years after the ACA’s passage.
The reform didn’t address the fundamental problem in U.S. health care: It’s more about profit than patients.
Controlling health-care costs is essential to the long-term financial health of the United States. A single-payer system would make truly universal coverage affordable, costing no more than we already spend on health care. Of the $3.1 trillion the United States will spend on health care this year, 63 percent is taxpayer-financed, funding Medicare, Medicaid, and Veterans Affairs, along with private coverage for government employees and tax subsidies for employers.
Because of its fragmented, profit-driven system, the United States spends 18.1 percent of gross domestic product on health care, compared with about 8 percent in Britain and 11 percent in Canada. Much of U.S. health spending is simply wasted. For example, 25.3 percent of hospital expenditures go to administrative costs, compared with 12.4 percent in Canada, where there is a single payer in each province and hospitals are mainly funded on a global or lump-sum basis.
Canadians also save money by training a higher percentage of primary-care doctors relative to specialists, negotiating drug prices with pharmaceutical companies, and prohibiting drug companies from advertising directly to consumers. These measures would save Americans billions annually. Americans spend $1,010 per capita on pharmaceuticals; Swedes spend less than half that, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The reason? Sweden doesn’t pay the list price.
http://www.philly.com/philly/health/20160516_Commentary__Single-payer_essential_to_controlling_health-care_costs.html#buBw4PqMYr1wFyKp.99
Poors are supposed to die. In the rain.
Talked to a dude this week whose father in law had moved back to Canada about two years ago, he is moving back to the U.S. mainly because it takes months to see a doctor there.
Bob Seger Travelin Man Beautiful Loser - YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzGhc9XRv9Q - 351k -
Peak real estate ideas?
http://pierce.bangordailynews.com/2016/05/19/home/retail-block-made-of-shipping-containers-planned-for-portland/
re: Androidz mention of trampolines placed in empty grocery stores:
http://bangordailynews.com/2016/05/20/news/bangor/lewiston-man-plans-to-open-trampoline-park-in-former-orono-department-store/
crater