This All Sounds A Lot Like The Bubble Of 2006
KARE 11 reports from Minnesota. “When real estate agent JJ Korman showed homes a few years ago, he knew it might take several visits before he got an offer. But this year, buyers are nearly knocking down his door. ‘Back then maybe we’d get a 15 to 20 showing amount in the first month,’ said Korman, owner of Korman Realty. ‘Here, we have that in the first weekend.’”
“Homes now sell both faster and higher. Twin Cities median sale prices are at a record $242,000, often driven up as buyers scramble to outbid. Dave Hackenmueller, a local real estate agent for 40 years, calls the last few months ‘insane.’ ‘You are going to have multiple offers,’ said Hackenmueller. ‘That’s just a given.’”
“But if this all sounds a lot like the bubble of 2006, experts say, it’s not. A new study from the University of St. Thomas found the bad loans and excessive flipping of ten years ago are gone, saying sales are now thanks to a healthy economy and cheap loans. ‘There’s a direct relationship between interest rates and values,’ Hackenmueller said, ‘And when rates are 3.5 percent, people are willing to spend more.’”
The Denver Post in Colorado. “Homebuyer demand suffered a big drop in Denver in June, despite a surge in listings that came onto the market last month, according to an index from Redfin. Redfin tracks the home tours its clients take and the subsequent offers they make, using that sample to get a pulse on demand in the larger market. A score of 100 on the index matches the three-year average of activity from 2013 to 2015. Scores below that reflect weakening buyer interest.”
“The Denver demand index came in at 36 in June, down from an index score of 129 a year earlier and the lowest monthly score captured since the index started in 2013. The 54.7 percent drop in June was the most severe among the 15 major metros that Redfin tracks.”
“Denver has faced a shortage of listings for three years now. But the June home sales report from the Denver Metro Association of Realtors showed a 24.4 percent surge in listings in June vs. May, nearly six times the average increase between those two months.”
“Despite that surge in supply, unlike any seen in months, Denver buyers cut way back. Karla Kirkpatrick Adams, a Redfin agent in Denver, said overall homes are taking longer to sell. Some buyers panic after their homes spend more than a month on the market, even though historically speaking that isn’t a long time. ‘The market is not as crazy as it has been,’ said Adams. ‘Prices have increased to a point where it is pricing people out of the market.’”
The Alaska Dispatch News. “In Anchorage, selling more expensive homes is getting harder. More listings, slower sales and flat prices in Alaska’s largest city are apparent across the housing market this summer, but it’s the upper reaches of the market, above the $750,000 mark, that are most sluggish. That’s in part because oil companies are transferring some high-earning employees out of state, said Niel Thomas, associate broker at Coldwell Banker Best Properties. Sellers in that price range also include doctors, attorneys, architects and financial and other business executives, municipal property records show.”
“Thomas sees a wide-open window for those with above-average financial means who are on the hunt for a more expansive layout. There are ‘good opportunities for local residents to upgrade if they are in stable economic circumstances,’ he said.”
“The expansion of choices at better prices is the silver lining to a market that is reverting to what realtors are describing as more balanced. The number of active single-family home listings in Anchorage as of June stood at 1,026, up 38 percent from June 2015, according to data provided by Thomas from the Multiple Listing Service. The tail end of the last recession, in October 2011, was the last time home listings broke the 1,000 mark.”
“Closings recorded by MLS totaled 1,268 for the first six months of 2016, a 7 percent drop from the first half of 2015. The year-to-date average sales price of $365,811 for a single-family home, while just barely lower than last year, is nonetheless significant for breaking a four-year trend during which the average sales price increased by 3.3 percent each year.”
“While buyers hold the advantage at the upper end, the market favors neither buyers nor sellers at the lower to upper-middle price ranges, below $500,000, as an inventory shortage has eased, according to Naomi Louvier, owner and chief executive officer of Jack White Real Estate. ‘Compared with last year, we’re not seeing as many bidding wars,’ she said. ‘To compete against the other listings, you have to do more preparation. You might have to stage your home.’”
‘The number of active single-family home listings in Anchorage as of June stood at 1,026, up 38 percent from June 2015′
There’s a graph worth looking at; it shows the listings at years end, down, down, boom!
’significant for breaking a four-year trend during which the average sales price increased by 3.3 percent each year’
In 2012 it was almost 5%. There’s an awful lot of places in the US that are jumping up 5 or 7 or 10% plus each year, when the inflation rate is nearly non-existent. Wages are down from 2009. These increases have been played down, but with buyers putting 3% down, it doesn’t take much backsliding to be underwater. I don’t know who they think they are kidding in Anchorage; it’s gonna be a disaster and there isn’t anything that can stop it. There’s no where to get a job that can pay for a $300-500k house.
When it all goes to sh@t the buyers will be victims and more money will be printed to help them.
lol@az_donk
“…and more money will be printed to help them.”
Especially if they’re willing to vote properly.
With government and central bank doing their best to juice the market, buying virtually all the new mortgages since 2008, depressing interest rates (to those who say the interest rate isn’t controlled by the Fed, they succeeded in raising it sky-high in the early 80s and they succeeded in lowering it after 2008 - once could be a coincidence, twice is likely not), and offering 3% down (de facto zero down) mortgages, it will naturally push prices up.
This brings back the belief that real estate is the “magic asset” that not only never goes down, it climbs quickly in price, bring in plenty of speculative activity.
What will happen, I wonder, if prices merely level off. It didn’t work out well last time.
This time of course, the repayment risk is borne by the taxpayer, so how a leveling off will look is not totally clear.
goosing asset prices is no way of addressing the real economic problems.
Haven’t you heard? Goosing asset prices = sowing the seeds of green shoots.
Those who question this are peddling fiction…
Better ask Loretta to look into this.
Not with low oil prices and cuts to the military
hey 2 do we really need to spend this much on the military?
why cant foreign countries pay their own way, why do we go into trillions of debt and nothing to show for it?
the 2nd ave subway will not start on time, the subways are packed during rush hours and it will take 20-30 years to get a new tunnel built in the east river…..all could be started today by spending the money at home and not keep military bases overseas
http://ny.curbed.com/2016/7/26/12287238/second-avenue-subway-consultant-delays
What do you think as a percentage of GDP or percentage of the budgets should we be spending on the military.?
Back in the Eisenhower days of building the interstate highly system military spending as a percentage of the budget was 45%+.
Today it is 17% and falling.
Wonder how many dozens of subway tunnels we could build for the amount of free government benefits paid to illigals and importing muslims?
military spending as a percentage of the budget was 45%+ ??
Not odd if you take into account that we were fighting a World War…Nice spin though 2-fruit…
The GDP of united states in 1953 was 2.57 trillion dollars…Today its 18.558 Trillion…So, as a percentage of the budget, it would naturally be lower today…Anybody who does not believe that the military budget is a bloated farce is just looking through their neocon eyes…The military is just another entitlement program as far as I am concerned…
We are in a cyber, air, Navy & nuclear war footing now and going forward…We don’t need all the boots anymore and all the hardware & bases that come with it…We don’t need a lot of the bases over seas either unless some of those countries want to pay for it…
Eisenhower was president during WWII?
Who knew?
I heard an interview with Gary Johnson, he basically said that if you followed the Pentagon’s recommendations, you would cut defense spending by approximately 20%.
How about we start there?
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter with a half-million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. . . . This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.
U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, April 16, 1953
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chance_for_Peace_speech
So far - not one liberal or progressive will answer the question.
What should be the percent of GDP or percent of the budget be spent on the military?
I know math is hard but try.
Platitudes don’t count.
Liberals aren’t answering the question because they know enough not to walk into the usual verbal traps.
Today’s budget is crowded with spending on Medicare, Social Security, and debt service — things that Eisenhower barely had to think about. So military spending can be high in an absolute sense while still eating a smaller piece of the budget pie.
It involves more than math. There are probably experts on the DoD budget who’ve been working in the Pentagon for 20 years who would need an hour to answer that question.
true…..we really have warped priorities in america.
not only that but we have severe functional illiteracy problem….just today a moron runs into a train and service is completely stopped…..bet he was on his phone…
http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2016/07/28/newark-light-rail-crash/
How could he be illiterate if he was texting?
-1
‘A score of 100 on the index matches the three-year average of activity from 2013 to 2015. Scores below that reflect weakening buyer interest. The Denver demand index came in at 36 in June, down from an index score of 129 a year earlier and the lowest monthly score captured since the index started in 2013.’
‘Realtors showed a 24.4 percent surge in listings in June vs. May, nearly six times the average increase between those two months. Despite that surge in supply, unlike any seen in months, Denver buyers cut way back.’
This is like watching the three stooges. You know somebody is about to get a pipe to the noggin or something.
‘Some buyers panic after their homes spend more than a month on the market’
You mean sellers panic.
“Three out of five apartments built in metro Denver since 2014 came with rents at the top one-third of the market, while only one in 15 came with rents in the bottom third of the market, according to an analysis from Zillow.
“You are getting so much inventory at the high end you are changing the stock of the housing market,” said Svenja Gudell, chief economist at the Seattle-based real estate website.
Zillow divided apartment rents in 15 major metros into three tiers and then assigned new apartments coming on the market into one of those three groups, with a focus on the top and bottom tiers.
In metro Denver, 60 percent of new apartments fell in the top rent tier, where rents averaged $2,060 a month. Only 6.6 percent had rents that would fit in the bottom third, where the average was a much more affordable $1,164 a month.”
http://www.denverpost.com/2016/07/27/metro-denver-apartments-not-affordable/
It is unclear from the raw data to what extent the 24.4 percent increase in supply reflects an increase in the rate of new listings, a decrease in the rate of buyers entering the market, a decrease in number of buyers making a purchase due to sellers pricing above market value, or something else.
I can confidently predict that if every Denver seller dropped their asking price by, say, fifteen percent, the ill-conceived ‘demand index’ could easily shoot back over 100, even though the asking price decrease would only reflect the supply side of the market, as no change in demand is needed for the market to clear. Whoops!
Nothing like 90% saturation of the market with sub-prime mortgages to get things cracking.
Everyone’s credit sucks cause they defaulted on their overpriced shanties.
When you run out of quality buyers u dig deeper looking for anyone to unload an overpriced asset onto.
You unload them on the same people who defaulted before. Those suckers never get tired of leverage.
Merkel’s window of opportunity to put German taxpayers on the hook for the bad loans of her bankster puppetmasters may be sliding shut, as the German sheeple who voted for Merkel and her globalist Quislings are finally starting to wake up.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3709396/Merkel-RUINING-country-Germans-revolt-four-savage-attacks-Muslims-week-blame-ISIS-terror-attacks-million-refugees-welcomed-year.html
Embrace diversity
All cultures are the same
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPdN0g-toBE - 185k -
The NAR has ensured money-laundering statutes overlook buyers of real estate. But with Comrade Hillary’s collectivist kleptocracy soon to have an insatiable appetite for taxpayer dollars, these transactions might start getting more IRS scrutiny.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/28/us/us-expands-program-to-track-secret-buyers-of-luxury-real-estate.html?_r=0
“There are 5 investment groups buying up every property at any price nationwide sight unseen. It seems that the plunge protection team has spread it’s wings and is now guaranteeing all home sales. Seriously homes are only sitting on the market for a couple of days now. I know builders who are responding to this and slapping together cardboard houses to sell. We are witnessing the death of productivity and innovation. We will have an economy that makes the disaster the soviets created look like something to work towards.”
He’s a good friend and he knows exactly what’s been going on.
Yet demand for new houses sits at the level of 1960.
HA, good one Blue. The CEO of double speak is caught in his own web!
+1
‘China’s stock market calm has been shattered. Shares plunged Wednesday, with a gauge of smaller companies sinking 5.5 percent, as people familiar with the matter said the China Banking Regulatory Commission is discussing stricter curbs on wealth-management products. A measure of the Shanghai Composite Index’s short-term volatility doubled, after sinking to a two-year low on Monday.’
‘The market’s exaggerated response shows what’s at stake for China’s watchdogs as they attempt to reduce risk in the financial system while avoiding going too far and provoking another crash in the $6.4 trillion stock market. The Shanghai Composite is down 15 percent this year, among the world’s worst performers.’
‘China’s securities regulator has already restricted the use of leverage by structured asset management plans, and was said to warn brokerages to do better due diligence when raising money for companies. The Shenzhen Stock Exchange will demand better disclosure and limit speculation on stocks in popular industries such as virtual reality and artificial intelligence, according to a statement in the Securities Daily Tuesday. China will curb asset bubbles, the official Xinhua News Agency reported the same day, citing a government statement after a Politburo meeting chaired by President Xi Jinping.’
‘On Wednesday, that all added up to a bad day for stock investors. The ChiNext Index of small-company shares sank by the most since June 13, the Shanghai Composite Index fell 1.9 percent and the Shenzhen Composite Index lost 4.5 percent.’
Paging Albuquerque Dan
‘China’s government has once again managed to engineer a mini-stock market collapse. This time, though, it’s probably a good thing.’
‘The ChiNext composite index dropped 5.6 percent Wednesday after a report in the 21st Century Business Herald indicated the authorities may curb the ability of wealth-management vehicles to invest in equities. The story also dragged the blue-chip-heavy Shanghai Composite 1.9 percent lower and lopped 4.5 percent from the Shenzhen index. (The ChiNext fell another 1.8 percent as of 11:30 a.m. Thursday, while the Shenzhen index declined 1.4 percent and the Shanghai measure was down 0.6 percent.) As deep as the plunges seemed, they were merely the worst since early June. Volatility is a fact of life in China’s stock market.’
‘The declines this time were led by small-cap companies, to which most of the wealth-management product money seems to have flowed. That explains why the ChiNext was the worst hit, followed by Shenzhen. It’s worth noting that these products have been widely referred to as shadow banking. Among other things, they help lenders take loans off their books and could be fueling an unhealthy bubble in China’s smaller stocks.’
‘The ChiNext has been the poster child for the exuberance surrounding bets on high-growth companies. While the index itself was already down 12.6 percent this year before Wednesday, many of its constituents have rallied at a speed that might invite regulatory scrutiny.’
‘Take Shenzhen V&T Technologies, the leader so far this year. The auto-parts maker debuted in the small-cap market in March and has since rallied 969 percent. Its stock price now gives it a value of 104 times the past year’s earnings.’
‘There are more than 30 stocks that have shot up 100 percent or more this year in the ChiNext, most of them trading at 100-plus times earnings. In case that looks vertiginous, the index has an overall P/E ratio of 69.5. The same gauge for the Russell 2000, the U.S. small-cap index, is 19.6.’
‘Of the companies that have positive earnings in the ChiNext, 177 trade at more than 100 times. Five are over 1,000, led by Qingdao Huaren Pharmaceutical, a maker of systems to deliver medical infusions, at 4,460 times.’
That guy was an absolute embarrassment. Everything he said was 100% BS.
He will be right one day.
His loquaciousness was quite enlightening. It gave great information about the workings of the right wing mind in 21st century America.
I disagree that A-dan was right-wing. Instead, A-dan was a textbook example of not understanding something if his salary depended on not understanding it.
When it served his salary to support right-wing business-friendly policies (energy regulation policy, I believe), he was dutifully right-wing and pro-Romney. But then, when it served his salary (not sure in what capacity) to promote the superpower of China, he was dutifully pro-China. He had no steady internal political compass. His compass was driven by the direction of the swiftest wind, even were he driven onto the shoal.
u know the sh@t show will last until they have unloaded the sh@t onto u.
Exactly what I plan on. At the appropriate hair-cut of course.
The only way to win is not to play…
“Homes now sell both faster and higher. Twin Cities median sale prices are at a record $242,000, often driven up as buyers scramble to outbid. Dave Hackenmueller, a local real estate agent for 40 years, calls the last few months ‘insane.’ ‘You are going to have multiple offers,’ said Hackenmueller. ‘That’s just a given.’”
Can anyone recall Sir Alan Greenspan clarifying how there is no Housing Bubble, though acknowledging that some hot coastal areas were ‘a bit frothy?’
It seems the froth tsunami has now washed inland all the way to the Twin Cities. Albeit St. Paul, MN is a red hot bubble market, cuz everyone wants to live in Garrison Keillor country. LOL!
Every town every city housing is going gangbuster….Everybody must want to live in those places. LOFL
Instead of frothing at the mouth, maybe you could look a few things up.
As of 2014, the median household income of Minneapolis is about $70,000. At 4% interest, full PITI (including PMI) for a $245K house will cost about $1550/month, or 27% of gross income. Two elementary school teachers fresh out of college could buy that house and still live within their means.
This isn’t froth, this is fundamentals.
Example of $245K house:
http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/3900-Upton-Ave-N-Minneapolis-MN-55412/1728410_zpid/
Last sold: Apr 2002 for $169,000
It was built in 1931.
Let’s look at the howmuchamonth:
In 2005 (the only data I could readily find), household income was about the same as it is now ~$70,000.
In April 2002, interest rates were ~7%.
Full PITI for the same house at 7% interest is $1448/month, or 25% of gross income.
So even though the house increased in price, the howmuchamonth went from 25% to 27% gross income, which is nearly the same. That is, the house is as affordable now as it was in 2002, pre-bubble. So how is this a bubble, at least for middle-class end consumers? Such is the power of interest rates.
I have been saying this for quite some time: mortgage rate is not a good predictor of affordability, and neither is house price, or FICO. The best predictor is a derived figure: howmuchamonth as a proportion of income. And yet, few of the number crunching economists — not to mention realtors — will crunch and post such numbers. Because, you know, MATH IS HARD.
As for the house being built in 1931 — Tudor Craftsman are some of the best built homes, and almost always the systems have been modernized by a previous homeowner. But hey, feel free to direct your fancy towards the *new* particle board boxes that you film for your videos.
You couldn’t give me a rental that was built in 1931.
Sure, a house that’s been rented for 80+ years will likely be a teardown. But not a well-maintained house.
Donk the price doubled from 1997-2002. Of course wages(inflation) didn’t move at all.
Do the math.
That’s an average annual increase of about 2.7%. Inflation has averaged around 2.1% over the past 14 years.
That’s not inflation my friend.
*Learn* the difference.
FINANCIAL TIMES
Oil nears a fresh bear market: 5 things to watch
Crude oil’s quiet slide from its 2016 high sharpens questions about the outlook for the commodity
yesterday
by: David Sheppard and Neil Hume
Since oil prices hit a year-high above $52 a barrel in June they have slipped almost 20 per cent, leaving them on the cusp of a new bear market and heaping more pressure on oil companies and major producing countries that had hoped the worst of the rout was over.
…
Ironically - coal is on an amazing run…
It’s ironic how producing an overpriced commodity can bankrupt a country.
a housing bust is a great excuse to print some more money and buy some more bonds.
Handing out loans with fiat and collecting interest is hard work! LMFAO
lol@az_donk.
2banana’s favorite bubble city.
We all know what is coming next.
Inventory builds
Sales drop
Sellers don’t want to give their houses away
Chasing the market down
We are victims
Why would the banks lend us so much money?
We didn’t understand the contract
“Despite that surge in supply, unlike any seen in months, Denver buyers cut way back. Karla Kirkpatrick Adams, a Redfin agent in Denver, said overall homes are taking longer to sell. Some buyers panic after their homes spend more than a month on the market, even though historically speaking that isn’t a long time. ‘The market is not as crazy as it has been,’ said Adams. ‘Prices have increased to a point where it is pricing people out of the market.’”
Just got back from London after two weeks.
Have plenty of observations but exhausted. Will write them up soon.
The narrative, once scripted, must be controlled.
Lose control of the narrative and you lose everything…
Guns Were A Big Focus At The Democratic Convention, And That Tells You Something:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/guns-democratic-national-convention_us_5799653ee4b02d5d5ed454e8?section=
Gun Safety Ticket Marks New Era In National Politics:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-feinblatt/gun-safety-ticket-marks-new-era-in-national-politics_b_11217122.html
It’s a “truth safety” narrative. Can’t have people telling the truth, that offends people, causes violence, lives lost. We need a truth ban, the one we’ve got isn’t strong enuf.
‘Democratic delegates drowned out the former defense secretary Leon Panetta with a chant of “no more war” on Wednesday night, prompting convention organisers to turn the lights out in their section of the Wells Fargo arena and the protesters to light it themselves using cellphones.’
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jul/27/leon-panetta-anti-war-protesters-democratic-convention
I have to give these protesters major props. They’re not lying down for the narrative. BTW, it’s rumored that ISIS is Panetta’s creation.
Whoa! Not to be left out, James Comey doubles down on the war narrative: Don’t defeat Isis, because if you do, they’re going to come here!
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/28/world/isis-attacks.html
Jeebus, what in hades do they put in the water in Washington?
It’s interesting to note the difference between Google and Bing’s news aggravator pages this morning. With Google, everything is awesome and all the DNC speakers are stalwarts and it’s all unicorns and skittles. With Bing, videos of dissent and the protesters facing the thin blue line, trying to bring down that fence.
Meanwhile, Trump spent most of yesterday trolling the bejeezus out of the Dems, the media and Obama. That made me laugh. Obama has spent much of his administration trolling the crap out of American citizens, moralizing and wagging his finger. It was refreshing to see him get it BAM! right in the kisser.
Ooh, and here’s a little vid about the “seat fillers” at the DNC.
Jeebus, like Ben sez, total dumpster fire.
https://twitter.com/Griefage/status/758550963514961920
Great pic in the comment by Brooklyn Non-Zombie:
She Lives
Sometimes the truth can’t be ignored, like the dead body in the river in Rotten Rio:
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/1512281/team-gbs-olympics-watersport-athletes-warned-unsafe-rio-venue-with-sewage-excrement-dead-body-rio-2016-olympic-games-brazil/
Wow, those pics are truly disgusting. If I were an Olympic athlete, I would not set foot in Rio, that’s for sure. And yet, many will, despite dire warnings. Hope they have their tetanus shots up to date.
They need a new water sport: Turd Hurdling.
The new “curling”. Priceless.
“The year-to-date average sales price of $365,811 for a single-family home, while just barely lower than last year, is nonetheless significant for breaking a four-year trend during which the average sales price increased by 3.3 percent each year.”
Bye-bye, speculators who thought Alaska real estate always goes up.
Hello inventory surge.
So the average person or family in Alaska is making $122,000 per year to afford an average house there?
Up until the oil crash, yes.
Now, not so much.
Up until the oil crash, yes.
Bingo. ISTR seeing where Alaska is facing a recession in the first time in many decades.
Zillow’s Zestimate of my house’s worth declined $2,409 over the past thirty days. Apparently the tide has turned.
Most amusing.
Most amazing. Are you in LA?
I was advising a freind on (not) buying a place in the greater Boston area when he soon relocates there, due to the permanent income damage which could result from buying near a bubble peak. I pointed out that after the last bubble peak in April 2006 (based on Case-Shiller/S&P Index values) it was almost six years later when prices finally bottomed out in February 2012.
This time the bottoming out process could last far longer, as price declines are beginning to show up despite market life support measures already in full force.
2409? Good to know how precise they are. LOL
Echh. My rental, according to Zillow, is going to the moon.
Up around $38K since April (from $275 then to $313K now, peak in 2006 was $454K.) Trulia and Redfin are $242 and 265K, respectively, so what’s going on? I’m as puzzled as Mr. Herman.
Wow, Zillow says my house went up $25,165 last month. Why am I going to work every day?
Oh, I guess because in the last 2 years it has gone up and down about $100,000. It is getting back to the peak now, which it previously achieved in 2014. California foothills above Sacramento.
And you’re still underwater without a buyer in sight.
Is there a limit to quantitative easing?
The short answer is “yes,” but the trouble is we don’t know where that line in the sand is situated. Total assets of central bank balance sheets at the moment are $17.2 trillion. It is rather scary when one starts to round trillions, as every decimal point is $100 billion. Before the Great Financial Crisis started in 2007, total central bank assets were $6.4 trillion, according to Yardeni Research.
Most market observers think the Fed came up with the idea of impregnating their balance sheet, but that is incorrect. In 1998 the Bank of Japan embarked on the first real QE operation in the modern era, which can be seen in the first upward zigzags in the blue line here. The Federal Reserve unofficially started QE in late 2008 by taking in all kinds of illiquid debt instruments, the markets for which had vanished at the time. Officially, QE operations in the U.S. Treasury and mortgage markets began in early 2009.
What I am worried about is that central bankers may get cocky, as so far their monetarist maneuvers have not broken the financial system. While quantitative easing isn’t necessarily real debt monetization and outright printing in the U.S. as the Fed swaps one interest-bearing asset Treasurys) for another (excess reserves), it is that interest on excess reserves has purposefully always been above the fed fund rate that stops them from producing hyperinflation. This higher rate stops excess reserves from entering the fed funds market and in effect stops the credit multiplier of the fractional reserve banking system.
In essence, the U.S. version of QE was the most profitable carry trade in the world where the Fed paid 0.25% (the interest rate on excess reserves for most of QE’s tenure, rising to 0.50% on Dec. 17, 2015) to buy assets that had yields of 2% or higher, in effect remitting the difference to the Treasury.
Monetary economists at the Fed seem to think that they know how to unwind its balance sheet (see “The Federal Reserve’s Balance Sheet and Earnings: A primer and projections”).What I am worried about is that what was discussed in Tokyo this month is very different than the controlled QE in the U.S. and is more along the lines of what Ben Bernanke told Etsuro Honda in April.
It feels to me that the line in the sand — the QE “point of no return” — is getting nearer and nearer.
“What I am worried about is that central bankers may get cocky, as so far their monetarist maneuvers have not broken the financial system.”
It seems broken. Look no farther than the reflated U.S. housing and stock market bubbles coupled with a U.S. pension system on the brink of collapse.
If the Fed were to ever tighten, it would stick a ginormous fork in many speculative asset bubbles.
Hence don’t be foolish enough to believe they actually intend to tighten any time soon.
40 year old backup quarterbacks should always rent.
Former Colts QB Matt Hasselbeck’s $1.5M Indianapolis estate up for sale
“To buy it, you’ll just need to come up with $7,242 a month. That’s on a 30-year fixed loan at 3.56 percent and 20 percent down.”
Dana Hunsinger Benbow, dana.benbow@indystar.com
11:21 a.m. EDT June 22, 2016
The former Colts backup quarterback is headed to ESPN. Kind of sad to see one of the good guys go.
There’s no reason for him to stay in Indianapolis. He doesn’t have ties here.
The Indianapolis Colts cut him loose. ESPN picked him up — to replace Mike Ditka — for the network’s Sunday Countdown and Monday Night Countdown.
Still, there’s something a little sad about seeing former Colts backup quarterback Matt Hasselbeck’s classic Meridian Hills estate up for grabs to whomever wants to snatch it up.
The 5,385-square-foot manor on West 73rd Street was listed earlier this month by F.C. Tucker for $1.5 million.
With that price tag comes a 12-room home, including five bedrooms and four full baths, sitting on 1.3 acres.
Built in 1950, the regency style, cream-colored house with dark brown accents, has a second-floor balcony that spans the entire front of the estate.
There is an upstairs master bedroom with a “luxurious bath and massive walk-in closet,” according to the listing. A wet bar and media center. A sprawling backyard perfect for throwing footballs around.
Go to Realtor.com to see photos of Hasselbeck’s house.
The house has been for sale for three weeks and was still active as of Wednesday morning.
Just got back last evening from Jackson Hole, WY. Spendy. Pretty. Ergo, pretty spendy. Lots of thigh gap too.
Word. Thigh gap abounds in Aspen too, was there yesterday.
Too Funny
Unrest at DNC - Flag burning - YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHrkWELsw0g - 141k - Cached - Similar pages
9 hours ago …
Leftist Protester Catches On Fire from Burning U.S. Flag
Breitbart - July 28, 2016
PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania — Protesters at the Democratic National Convention grew even rowdier than on previous nights and a U.S. flag was lit on fire — and a protester attempting to dance on the burning flag ended up on fire.
Police and protesters attempted to treat the injuries and worked together to carry off the burned protester.
They should stoke that fire with their welfare checks.
Looked like that dude could Feel the Bern.
Segment on immigration that aired this morning:
https://www.c-span.org/video/?412902-5/washington-journal-roundtable-immigration-reform-campaign-2016
Cloward-Piven is real.
Vancouver RE tax hike may drive more Chinese to Bitcoin
https://news.bitcoin.com/vancouver-real-estate-tax-china-bitcoin/
Which I am 100% in favor of. The filthy rich can park their money in bits and bytes and modern artwork and tulip bulbs for all I care.
It’s rather disgusting for the rich to take advantage of a “needs” industry like housing to pump up the value of assets that they don’t really need, while working people are crowded into the last of the Class B apartments. Every dwelling these money launderers don’t buy is a dwelling for someone else to actually live in.
I’m sure glad you’re in favor of it Donk.
I kind of think the ones who are adding the 15% tax are the Chinese officials themselves. The article seems sort of ambiguous. Otherwise why else would the Chinese flee the capital controls by buying bitcoin.
If it’s Vancouver charging the tax it would make more sense though. Yet that hardly would cause any fear of capital control.
‘The proportion of U.S. households that own homes has matched its lowest level in 51 years — evidence that rising property prices, high rents and stagnant pay have made it hard for many to buy.’
‘The Census Bureau says just 62.9 percent of households owned a home in the April-June quarter this year. That equaled the homeownership rate in 1965, when the census began tracking the data.’
‘The trend appears most pronounced among millennial households, ages 18 to 34, many of whom are straining under the weight of rising apartment rents and heavy student debt.’
Stop peddling fiction.
A generation of broke @ss loosers.
And there is no “pent-up demand” for $500,000 starter homes.
“As homes continue to claw back value lost in the real estate crash, Palm Beach County house prices last month climbed to their highest level in eight years.”
http://www.mypalmbeachpost.com/news/business/real-estate/palm-beach-countys-median-house-price-jumps-to-320/nr3Qp/
Going up to Seattle for a new gig. There are a LOT of freakin’ rentals available! Been seeing some concessions too, a free month or some such, but not a lot… maybe 1%. Hoping this will pick up. Gonna get me a deeeluxe apartment in the sky for a couple grand… the views from those buildings are amazing.
The 200 mountain properties I track on zillow are yielding 4 or 5 price reduction emails a day… usually 10% or more. 1 or 2 sales.
Seatle..what a sorry city. Need some Sun.
There’s no sun in your basement.
You’re talking to yourself again, Housing Analyst!
I am in the Seattle area (Eastside) - I’ll buy you a beer when you get here.
HA and Russ (aka Central Scrutinizer) are two different people. Russ is headed your way. I highly recommend buying him a beer. Likely to be good company, even if you don’t agree with some of his points.
Of course, I recommend buying a beer for HA as well, but he’s in the Northeast.
You’re talking to yourself again, Housing Analyst!
I am in the Seattle area (Eastside) - I’ll buy you a beer when you get here.
HA! Hahahahaha!
Census vacancy data came out today.
I know that with the multifamily development, vacancy rates should ultimately rise…However, that data has not yet shown up in the Census data. Q2 rental vacancy rate fell from 7% in Q1 to 6.7% in Q2.
If you are building lots of multifamily, but not enough housing in total (due to single family weakness), the overall vacancy rates will still fall.
With 20 million excess empty houses condos and rentals, there’s no need to build more.
Get it right….It’s 32 million excess empty houses. You are not CEO material…you have been demoted!
Anchorage won’t be a disaster but it will be a severe slump. There was no property bubble in Anchorage. The fall in prices is driven by real factors, mainly the fall in oil prices. The housing price fall is the normal market price reaction, exactly what you need to happen. Now young people have a better chance of getting their first house. Businesses will have lower rents and that might help new businesses start up. Hotel rooms will be cheaper which will bring more tourists. The city economy will have to adjust to the new reality of not relying on oil to pay for everything.
Guess again my friend.
2000 median price-$144k
2016 median price- $346k
Median wage gain from 2000-2016=0%
AK housing prices have a long way to fall. A very long way to fall.
Confessor. Feminist. Adult. What the Hell Happened to Howard Stern?
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/31/arts/howard-stern-sirius.html
San Francisco Gate provides the following puff piece prior to the coronation:
http://www.sfgate.com/news/politics/slideshow/Hillary-Clinton-through-the-years-132833.php
“While former president Bill Clinton last night spun a web of fabrications about his wife Hillary’s progressive “accomplishments” as First Lady, senator and secretary of state in a featured speech to an embarrassingly depleted audience in the Wells Fargo Center where the Democratic Convention was being held, an impromptu demonstration outside on Broad Street by protesters from Bernie or Bust and Black Lives Matter was listening to Dr. Jill Stein, the likely presidential candidate of the Green Party, calling for them to continue their movement by backing her third party bid.
The protest action really began in the late afternoon when, at the end of a roll-call vote of delegates from all 57 primary states and territories which formally nominated Hillary Clinton as the Democratic presidential nominee. As Bernie Sanders was completing his surrender to Clinton by having his Vermont delegation offer their votes to Clinton, some 750 of his nearly 1850 delegates were staging a walkout from the convention hall. Several hundred occupied the convention press tent. Others went out on the street, with most heading up to City Hall, where many of them joined Bernie or Bust activists to announce that they were not supporting Clinton.”
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/07/28/moving-beyond-the-sanders-campaign-2/
Why Liberal Women Hate Hillary » Alex Jones’ Infowars: There’s a …
http://www.infowars.com/why-liberal-women-hate-hillary/ - 119k - Cached - Similar pages
1 hour ago
Two face federal charges after police find six pounds of pure fentanyl:
“AKRON, Ohio — A Bedford Heights man and a San Diego resident were indicted on federal charges Wednesday after police found them in possession of more than six pounds of fentanyl, authorities say.
Norman Hunter, 43, and Matthew Martin, 31, face charges of conspiracy to possess to distribute and distribute cocaine and possession with intent to distribute cocaine.
Bedford Police Chief Kris Nietert, the head of the Southeast Area Law Enforcement Task Force, said police initially believed the fentanyl was cocaine. However, lab tests that arrived Thursday revealed that it was pure fentanyl, Nietert said.”
http://www.cleveland.com/court-justice/index.ssf/2016/07/two_face_federal_charges_after.html#incart_river_home
“The soundtrack to the Democratic national convention rings familiar in Philadelphia.
Debbie Wasserman Schultz was booed at her Florida delegation breakfast on Monday. They booed during the opening prayer. Bernie Sanders was booed by his supporters when he insisted it was time to rally behind Clinton. Even Barack Obama addressed it in Wednesday’s remarks: “Don’t boo, vote!”
As the lusty jeers have cascaded down from the stands at the Wells Fargo Center, Philadelphians everywhere have braced for the backlash. We’re used to it. Another major event, another disorderly crowd, another barrage of hackneyed tut-tuts from out-of-towners reminding us yet again that Eagles fans once booed Santa Claus.
My hometown didn’t invent booing, a practice with roots in ancient Greece and Rome, but it sure feels that way. That’s the consensus whenever the national media descends on Philadelphia and reporters dredge up the past to reinforce the cliche of the locals as boorish louts.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jul/28/booing-philidelphia-losing-democratic-convention-sport
DMC from Run-DMC: ‘I snorted and guzzled through almost every day’
“DMC is angry about police killing black people. “Those bullets should not have left the chambers.” He was moved by Dallas police chief David Brown’s “I’ll be loving you always” eulogy for his five murdered cops. “That was incredible!” he exclaims. He’s also impressed with Brown’s community policing approach, and that he has fired more than 70 sub-standard officers. “We’ve got to go through all of America’s precincts, one by one, and weed out all the bad weeds.”
He raises murders within African American communities, recounting a recent forum. “A young girl gets up and says: ‘Here’s the truth, DMC: when a white cop shoots a black kid that’s wrong, but when a black kid shoots another black kid that’s how it is in the hood.’ That hit me in the gut. I said ‘Damn, that’s the fight right there’. It goes deep: I remember when Jay got shot …
DMC says contemporary hip-hop is overwhelmed by mediocre rap. “So illiterate, so disrespectful, so negative. Here in America, you can be a motherfuckin’ fool, as long as you’re making money. If you get a young positive brother talking like a Chuck D or a KRS-One or a Rakim, America don’t want to hear from you. We need to go to these radio stations and say we don’t wanna just hear these same 10 records about sipping syrup, having sex and shooting motherfuckers.”
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/jul/28/run-dmc-autobiography-darryl-mcdaniels
“a brown skinned Palestinean Jew”
Welcome to Jesus, DNC 2016.
Forward.
How is it treason to ask Russia to turn over 30,000 personal deleted emails?
Ms Clinton’s senior policy advisor, Jake Sullivan said…
“This has gone from being a matter of curiosity, and a matter of politics, to being a national security issue.”
According to Hillary…
“Clinton turned over about half of the 60 thousand emails that were on her server, after telling the State Department that the emails she deleted - about 30,000 - were personal.”
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Donald Trump ‘accused of treason’ after urging Russia to hack Hillary Clinton’s emails
The Republican candidate has sparked outcry - once again
Andrew Buncombe Philadelphia
@AndrewBuncombe
8 hours ago
“Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” said Mr Trump, speaking at one of his golf resorts. “I think you’ll be rewarded mightily by our press.”
On Wednesday, Mr Trump refused to call on Russia to desist from any such actions. “If it’s any foreign country it shows how little respect they have for the United States,” said Mr Trump, who added that he was “not an email person myself because I believe it can be hacked”.
The comments by the Republican candidate were quickly condemned by the Democrats. Ms Clinton’s senior policy advisor, Jake Sullivan said in a statement: “This has to be the first time that a major presidential candidate has actively encouraged a foreign power to conduct espionage against his political opponent. That’s not hyperbole, those are just the facts.”
He added: “This has gone from being a matter of curiosity, and a matter of politics, to being a national security issue.”
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////
By CBS News, Paula Reid, Hannah Fraser-Chanpong CBS News September 22, 2015, 10:36
Report: FBI pulls deleted emails from Hillary Clinton’s server
Comment Share Tweet Stumble Email
Last Updated Sep 23, 2015 12:24 AM EDT
The FBI has salvaged work and personal emails thought to have been deleted from the private server Hillary Clinton used while she was secretary of state, Bloomberg first reported Tuesday night.
The FBI has been trying figure out how many classified emails Clinton had on her server and how they got there. The agency is concerned about whether Hillary Clinton’s private email system exposed any classified information, and if so, the extent of exposure, as well as why it occurred.
The request for the Justice Department investigation came after the inspector general (IG) for the State Department and the inspector general for the intelligence community penned a memo in late June suggesting that Clinton’s private account had “hundreds of potentially classified emails” in it. The two IGs were concerned about the possibility that classified information may have been compromised.
Clinton turned over about half of the 60 thousand emails that were on her server, after telling the State Department that the emails she deleted - about 30,000 - were personal.
STDs on the rise in San Luis Obispo County
http://www.ksby.com/story/32558821/stds-on-the-rise-in-san-luis-obispo-county
What you get when the Lola’s are let loose.
All that demand-side housing market stimulus from the Fed, FHA, GSEs, etc. and yet home ownership has collapsed to a half-century low?
Maybe it’s time to stop policies that artificially inflate housing prices in favor of other policies which permit prices to revert to affordable levels for American families.
It is facinating to see the Chinese government adopting a more laissez-faire approach to asset prices than Uncle Sam’s. Has the world gone berserk? When did it become our government’s prerogative to backstop gamblers on real estate price speculation?