Among Those Worried About What Happens Next
A report from Bloomberg on Washington. “Just a few days after Vancouver announced a tax on foreign property investors, Seattle real estate broker Lili Shang received a WeChat message from a wealthy Chinese businessman who wanted to sell a home in Canada and buy in her area. After a week of showings, he purchased a $1 million property in Bellevue, across Lake Washington from Seattle. He soon returned to buy two more, including a $2.2 million house in Clyde Hill paid for with a single cashier’s check. Shang says she’s been inundated with similar requests from China and Hong Kong. ‘The tax was the trigger of this new wave of investment now coming to Seattle,’ Shang said. ‘Why pay more for the same thing?’”
“‘The key point for Chinese investors is still, ‘Let’s move that money out of China, you never know what will happen to it,’ said Gordon Houlden, director of the China Institute at the University of Alberta. ‘So they’ll go to Seattle or Toronto.’”
The Plano Star Courier in Texas. “Realtors across the Collin County and D-FW are researching the ballooning in housing prices. According to the Texas A&M University Real Estate Center, housing prices have ballooned to $200,00 - $310,000 and more. In September, median prices were $289,995. Low level affordable homes have all but disappeared. ‘The lower priced homes, the ones that are under $300,000, those prices have been increasing like crazy,’ said Rochelle Mortensen, public relations specialist with Metrotex Association Realtors. ‘A few years ago, what would’ve sold for $50,000, you’re lucky to get under $200,000 now.’”
“Across Dallas-Fort Worth, the median price of housing is $245,000, so ‘you need to have an income of $55,000 and that is not the median income of the families that live here,’ she said.”
The Sun Sentinel in Florida. “Delinquent South Florida homeowners could be getting long-delayed foreclosure notices after a court ruling cleared the way for lenders to revive cases that have stalled for years. The Florida Supreme Court ruled last month that lenders can refile foreclosure cases against owners still in default, even if the cases started more than five years ago, beyond the statute of limitations. Among those worried about what happens next is Adam Broder, who paid $386,000 for a two-bedroom condominium in Delray Beach in April 2005, just before the housing market collapsed.”
“He stopped making payments in 2009, he said, and hoped to get a mortgage modification. Instead, his lender, BAC Home Loans Servicing, filed a foreclosure action that BAC later dismissed voluntarily, records show. The case has been in limbo for seven years. ‘I just want to settle at this point and get on with my life,’ said Broder, 36. ‘But the ruling gives [BAC] as much room as they want to start all over again.’”
“Attorneys and industry analysts say they expect the Bartram ruling will lead to hundreds or thousands of refiled cases that were on hold until the Florida Supreme Court ruling. ‘Banks have been keeping a bunch of cases in their back pockets,’ said Thomas Ice, a real estate attorney in Royal Palm Beach. ‘They’re saying, ‘Let’s wait and see what happens in Bartram before we start spinning our wheels.’”
From Quartz. “Scott Shatford didn’t bargain for criminal charges. The official complaint arrived at his front door in May, more than a year after Santa Monica, California, voted to ban the short-term home rentals flooding its small beachside community. Shatford knew the rules but had chosen to ignore them, continuing to list two properties for short stays on Airbnb. He found the city’s ban ridiculous and assumed it would be difficult to enforce. Even if he did get caught, Shatford figured a few fines would be a small price to pay for properties earning him around $60,000 a year.”
“But Santa Monica came down hard. After Shatford failed to respond to multiple warnings and fine notices—sent to rental property mailboxes he never checked—the city filed a criminal complaint against him. Local officials called Shatford an ‘egregious’ violator who repeatedly defied citations and ‘boasted publicly’ that Santa Monica would be unable to enforce its own law.”
“In July, Shatford became one of the first Airbnb hosts in the US to be convicted for renting out units illegally. He agreed in a plea deal to stop listing apartments, pay the city about $3,500 in penalties, and be placed on two years’ probation. That same month, Shatford closed down his rental operation and moved to Denver. ‘I expected fines,’ he says. ‘I really wasn’t expecting them to start to make criminals out of people that were just trying to make a living.’ On Sept. 2, Airbnb sued Santa Monica over its ban in federal court.”
“What happened in Santa Monica wasn’t an isolated incident. Airbnb’s peer-to-peer rentals are being scrutinized in Los Angeles; Miami Beach, Florida; Portland, Oregon; Toronto; Barcelona; and Berlin. In its hometown of San Francisco, a federal judge on Nov. 8 upheld rules that levy hefty fines on hosts. In New York, the company’s largest US market, governor Andrew Cuomo in October signed into law some of the toughest limits on short-term apartment rentals in the country.”
‘Shatford became one of the first Airbnb hosts in the US to be convicted for renting out units illegally.’
Boy, you could see this coming. Yes, the lawyers have fought it off for a while, but it’s illegal and just a matter of time before these craigslist type speculators get run out of town. The article is worth reading in full.
Speaking of illegal:
‘The key point for Chinese investors is still, ‘Let’s move that money out of China, you never know what will happen to it’
It’s only legal to take 50k out of China each year. This is obviously money laundering. How long do you think that will continue? And when money laundering, the price doesn’t matter much does it? You go Seattle, take a look at the disaster in Vancouver.
“We had an hour chat,” Shatford says. “He said, if you’ve got five or less properties, we probably aren’t going to get to that anytime soon…
He basically did tell me that large-scale could be potentially a problem down the line, but kind of small-time wouldn’t really be on the radar for a while to come.” A spokesman for Airbnb said Mildenhall does not recall having this conversation.
Well gosh, can you believe it? AirBnB conveniently doesn’t recall having this conversation.
Asheville, North Carolina was one of the cities having a rough time with short term rental housing, but while AirBnb may have added to it, people were advertising on Craigslist long before AirBnb existed.
They said the main problem was that there was no decently priced long term rental housing for year round residents. However, I’d be willing to bet that licensed hospitality businesses in the area didn’t care much for other people cutting in on their action. Anyway, I think Asheville was somewhat successful in putting the kibosh on short term rentals within the city limits.
I really don’t “get” the success of AirBnb. It’s not like there weren’t other places to advertise short term rentals, like VRBO. And yet, I know of a couple in Virginia who took profits from their other business to buy an old farmhouse, renovate and specifically rent on AirBnb. Of course, they themselves had rented through Airbnb from time to time when they traveled and they had good experiences, so that convinced them it was the way to go.
I have absolutely ZERO interest in ever using Airbnb. If I want to stay somewhere, I want it to be a hotel which has maid service every day, and is a known entity.
I agree, although I wouldn’t limit myself to a hotel. A cottage or villa run by a reputable and experienced person or organization is fine by me.
Two great facts from the article:
“And then, suddenly, Airbnb caved. On Nov. 1, the company introduced a “One Host, One Home” feature in New York and San Francisco that prevented hosts there from listing more than one entire home”
…”Resolving controversies around entire-home rentals is imperative for Airbnb. As of this October, such listings accounted for 66% of the company’s US business… Rentals of private rooms, which tend to be fine with regulators”
AirBNB was forced to cave and limit hosts to one whole house rental, hoping it was enough of a concession to appease regulators. If local regs ban whole-house entirely, 2/3 of AirBNB is gone. AirBNB likely won’t survive, except as a fancy but regulated travel agent.
‘The lower priced homes, the ones that are under $300,000, those prices have been increasing like crazy,’ said Rochelle Mortensen, public relations specialist with Metrotex Association Realtors. ‘A few years ago, what would’ve sold for $50,000, you’re lucky to get under $200,000 now.’
This is true. Almost no one understands what an enormous bubble the government and central bank have enabled in Texas. And it’s already popped.
And with the prolonged oil bust, it’s really going to be bad.
In the summer of 2014 I told readers here that I had visited some people north of Dallas that had bought a house for 250k in 2012. A house just like it nearby had just sold for 350k. Nothing to see there Janet.
“Nothing to see there Janet.”
I think she, Bernanke et al must sit back behind closed doors and smile widely as they marvel at the effects of their handiwork. The masses seem to be nothing but cannon fodder to them, as they reward the wealthy “elite.”
He looks disappointed, and scared too, of what’s around the corner. He just doesn’t look confident, IMHO.
http://picpaste.com/bernanke_20130214.jpg
http://mhanson.com/2410-2/
A visual that says it all. Scroll down to the Case Shiller House Prices graphs and check out Dallas. All the other major bubble cities are at or a little above their last peak, but Dallas just went nuts. Completely disconnected from reality: buildable land in every direction as far as the eye can see. I know there isn’t a housing shortage anywhere, but there REALLY isn’t a housing shortage, or even the remote possibility of a shortage, here in the middle of the country.
Every time I stop at Costco to get gas, every time I see the UPS guy… guess what the topic of conversation is? House prices, and how much they’ve gone up, and why they’re going to keep going up, even if there’s a temporary slowdown. And almost all these people are from California originally.
‘Bubble 2.0 saw much more inflation over shorter period (15% greater “appreciation” in 20% less time), which could set the stage for more deflation over a shorter period.’
‘In 2008, Angelo Mozillo famously said “in my 50 years in this business I have never seen a soft landing”.
———–
“Bubble 1.0 had a much more stable, wider base of participants: tens of millions of individual “end-user, shelter-buyers or landlords” involved; much harder to deflate; price sensitive; variety of sell motivators required for a sustained down-cycle.
Bubble 2.0 was driven by a relative handful of more “unorthodox” participants: insti’s, foreigners, high-tech workers, imported “skilled-workers”, private speculators, and price insensitive buyers in search of yield, laundering money, parking cash, and flipping.”
———-
This supports my theory that house prices do NOT need to drop to where shelter-buyers can afford them on current wages. There are plenty of insti’s, skilled workers, speculators, launderers etc, to buy the houses if the regular Joe’s can’t. Isn’t this why the evil government “meddled” in the market in the first place, with the 30-year mortgage. The meddling worked pretty well until about 2000.
Then again, Ben could be right about gov meddling this time. Say the gov removed all the funny money supporting the speculators and cracked down on the cash laundry. At the same time, the gov removes MID, down payment assist, and other supports for the shelter-buyers. Who would be able to afford more houses?
Donk that’s no theory. It’s simply more guessing and speculating on your part.
How ’bout we use the word “hypothesis” and call it a day?
Realtors are liars.
Government paid Climate Scientists are also liars.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrybell/2011/07/26/we-get-what-we-pay-for-with-disastrous-climate-science/
PS
Chelsea Clinton tried to care about money but couldn’t.
http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/articulo/cartera/economia/2016/12/5/peligran-10-millones-de-empleos-sin-eu-en-tlcan
According to this article, up to 10 million jobs in Mexico are at risk should the US cancel NAFTA, with a near immediate loss of almost 3 million jobs.
They are wetting the bed south of the Rio Bravo.
I don’t get it. I had read something about NAFTA depriving Mexicans of work and that was the reason why they started flooding into the US.
And that there was some unspoken agreement with the Bush regime to keep the border open and make only half-hearted attempts at enforcement. Although, I did read that the Mexicans that were affected were mainly subsistence farmers.
Maybe I read it on one of those fake news websites like the Washington Post.
NAFTA - yes what a disaster the GOP came up with. Years of negotiation with Canada and Mex and Bush 1 was so pleased with it.
To be fair to nattytude, I’ve said before here on the blog that NAFTA was a bi-partisan screwing. It is true that Republicans more or less formulated it the bill, but as we’ve seen, Bubba signed it into law with gusto.
Bush negotiated it for 3 yrs, ran out of time to sign it. Yes, Clinton signed off on it. C’mon it is in the history books.
Following diplomatic negotiations dating back to 1990 among the three nations, U.S. President George H. W. Bush, Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and Mexican President Carlos Salinas, each responsible for spearheading and promoting the agreement, ceremonially signed the agreement in their respective capitals on December 17, 1992.[7] The signed agreement then needed to be ratified by each nation’s legislative or parliamentary branch.
==
December 18, 1992|By Gilbert A. Lewthwaite | Gilbert A. Lewthwaite,Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON — President Bush signed the North American Free Trade Agreement yesterday, and his successor-in-waiting Bill Clinton immediately announced that he would not seek the treaty’s renegotiation.
Mr. Clinton, in a statement issued in Little Rock, Ark., said the signing represented “an important step” toward the economic integration of North America. He repeated his campaign assertion that there would have to be new job and environmental protections, and safeguards against sudden trade “surges,” but these could be settled without renegotiating the treaty with Mexico and Canada before he submitted implementing legislation.
“I will pursue those other things that I think need to be done in the public interest, then I will prepare implementing legislation and try to pass it in Congress,” he said.
His new administration would also take domestic action on assisting workers, protecting the U.S. environment, helping farmers, encouraging public participation in consideration of the agreement and closing loopholes for foreign workers, he said.
“I believe these steps do not require renegotiation of NAFTA,” said Mr. Clinton, promising to work closely with the two neighboring governments and with congress to “move this process forward.”
President Bush, signing the treaty, said yesterday: “I believe the time will come when trade will be free from Alaska to Argentina, when every citizen of the Americas will have the opportunity to share in new growth and prosperity.”
http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1992-12-18/news/1992353055_1_treaty-renegotiate-clinton
Bush got schlonged.
Bush (1) created NAFTA, NAFTA shclonged the US worker.
The un-informed blame Clinton.
Lots of blame to go around.
Bush wanna be 3rd got schlonged.
The above is a perfect example that when it comes to globalism, there is no party. Both major parties are puppets of their globalist overlords.
Our president-elect? We’ll see - he will have to play ball with them, else something could happen - you know, sometimes parts fail in flying machine apparatus, and so on.
Globalists gonna globe . . .
“Clinton, while signing the NAFTA bill, stated that “NAFTA means jobs. American jobs, and good-paying American jobs. If I didn’t believe that, I wouldn’t support this agreement.”"
————–
From Wikipedia:
“Prior to sending it to the United States Senate Clinton added two side agreements, The North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation (NAALC) and the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation (NAAEC), to protect workers and the environment, plus allay the concerns of many House members. It also required U.S. partners to adhere to environmental practices and regulations similar to its own.”
On other words, Clinton amended NAFTA to make it passable…because, in 1993, the House AND Senate belonged to the Democrats.
Let me repeat that last part again.
The House AND Senate were in the control of the Democrats in 1993.
And it wasn’t close.
In the Senate, on opening day, there were 57 Senator Democrats.
In the House, on opening day, there were 258 of 435 Representatives who were Democrats.
Without support of the Democrat controlled House and Senate, NAFTA would have died…just like the TPP.
Didn’t the majority of House and Senate Democrats vote against NAFTA?
In agriculture. But they more than made up for it in manufacturing.
Mexico has some really weird agrarian laws. Basically, no one is allowed to own more than 200 hectares of farm land, and you can’t run a very efficient farm on that amount of land, hence they got clobbered by imports of American corn and other grains. Those who grow higher value crops, say like tomatoes or avocados, do OK. Also, a lot of farmland is communal (they are called ejidos). The land is loaned out to peasants, but they don’t own it, and hence the won’t invest in it (because they know it could get taken away). So they get very low and noncompetitive yields.
There has never really been a shortage of jobs in Mexico, at least not recently, it’s just that the jobs in the US pay a whole lot more, and once they have anchor babies they get to join the FSA.
That said, the prospect of losing export oriented jobs as well as losing the escape valve of sending surplus workers to the US has sent Mexico into a tail spin. The peso is crashing and has sunk to 21 to a USD and is still falling. I’m sure that heavy price inflation is not far behind for them.
“That said, the prospect of losing export oriented jobs as well as losing the escape valve of sending surplus workers to the US”
^^^^This. This is the double whammy that’s hit US workers and taxpayers. Double dipping, maybe triple dipping, when you consider remittances and costs associated with healthcare and child rearing.
The upside is, there’s lots of scope here for negotiation. For example, take your citizens back, including the children, and we’ll let XYZ make their car parts in your country. Oh, you don’t like that? OK, well, we’ve just now added up the costs to the taxpayer for your citizens and their children, and we’ll start clawing those costs back as well. Plus we’re shutting down half of your consulates. Oops, yes, sorry about those frozen bank accounts, don’t worry, they’ll be unfrozen as soon as we’ve taken our rightful share. Got a lot of US citizens in need of drug re-hab, it ain’t cheap.
The Washington Post is the worst major “newspaper” in the country.
Just read a post on ZH by a guy who said he just dropped his Prime membership on Amazon. Buh-bye!
‘The tax was the trigger of this new wave of investment now coming to Seattle,’ Shang said. ‘Why pay more for the same thing?’”
Uh, has anyone told these Chinese speculators about the FIRPTA? All foreign buyers of US real estate must pay income tax (not the often lower capital gains tax!) on any profits they make. And wit will be withheld at closing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Investment_in_Real_Property_Tax_Act
If you buy a $1M trophy property in the US, and some other sucker buys it from you for 1.1M, the profit will place you in the 28% marginal tax bracket (single or married filing separately):
bracket:
$91,151—$190,150 $18,558.75 plus 28% of the amount over $91,150
Speculators? Maybe a few. The rest are simply looking for a place to park their cash outside of the home country, and are more than likely to leave the home empty.
You mean the banks cash.
‘a place to park their cash’
That’s why we’ve seen the tales of woe from Chinese borrowers in Australia, London and Vancouver.
There was a recent article posted here about falling rental prices in Seattle.
Yes, and MUCH more pain to come.
At the Seattle party, the night is still young . . . we were one of the last cities to fall last time and this time will be no different.
You’re late to the party my friend.
You’re not my friend, Housing Analyst, and I’m not late to anything. I bought my house in 1998 before things went crazy here and it’s almost paid off.
The party continues on around me. There are two new half-acre lots being short-platted in my neighborhood right now. They will be purchased by people born in another country.
Mike’s not going to like this:
Republican success opens door to amending US Constitution
“A Wyoming measure calling for a convention on a balanced budget amendment was shelved in 2015 after the state Senate altered it to make it contingent on assurances that Wyoming would not see a reduction in federal revenue.”
Good luck with that balanced budget amendment…
I don’t see how it could be accomplished solely via spending cuts (not that some spending cuts would be a bad thing), plus no one wants to have their ox gored, not even Wyoming.
Mike and I are shedding tears over this.
Some flipper bought an abandoned property near our hood. The place was in pretty bad shape, the roof was caving in, among other things. He fixed the place and flipped it. The buyer paid about twice what it would be worth in a sane market. Just drove by and guess what? There’s a ladder going up to the roof and someone up there assessing the situation. Oh, dear.
Maybe it will slowly dawn on these Airbnb landlords that, while the company encourages them to break the law, it’s not the company that will suffer the consequences. Airbnb has lots of OPM and lawyers. The individual landlords are personally responsible. And easy to find.
Fourth headline from the top on the Huff Post about a Klan rally celebrating The Donald:
http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_5844eb97e4b017f37fe5591c
Real journalists couldn’t stop talking about the “uneducated white voters” this election.
But they never, never once talked about “uneducated black voters” and how that when they do vote what percentage of them vote Democrat Party.
Why is that?
P.S. Correct The Record pays people to post on the HBB.
God bless
God bless President Donald J. Trump. God bless America.
God bless America.
The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three strike law, and then wants us to sing God Bless America…no, no, no…Not God bless America, God damn America. That’s in the Bible, for killing innocent people. God damn America for treating her citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme.
America is not Washington. And the people are not the government, despite all that by the peeps for the peeps bs. Just sayin’.
But they never, never once talked about “uneducated black voters” and how that when they do vote what percentage of them vote Democrat Party.
Why is that?
It must be because the Democrats win the votes of all black Americans, uneducated, highly educated and those in between.
Not this one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTPkaxOuoOk
Dat!
Didn’t get this guy:
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/11/why-hillary-clinton-couldnt-rally-the-black-vote-commentary.html
Yeah, Trump got between 6% and 8% of the black vote. So you can find quite a few individuals.
I’m rather surprised that the Trump didn’t get more of the African-American vote. Wasn’t it African Americans (and Hispanic citizens) who were doing the jobs that Americans supposedly didn’t do? Think janitorial, landscape, paving and light construction, restaurant/hotel, meatpacking and chicken houses, etc. Growing up, I saw most of these jobs being done by African Americans, not just white kids in the summer. Working-class AA’s were the ones who really lost the most from the porous border … why didn’t they vote for Trump?
Some days ago I watched a SJW documentary with some SJW friends. The doc centered on several African Americans were hired to do manual labor, paid for by a grant. When the grant ran out after several months, the characters had to hustle for other jobs.
The SJWs in the room lamented how hard it was for the poor blacks to find a job, and that the only stable career path was fighting for drug and gang turf. These are the same SJWs who want to be so tolerant of the immigrants “looking for a better life.” What about our poor folks already here? The SJW’s can’t seem to make this connection, at least not in my area.
Corporate media is powerful drug. Without it dems would lose city council elections.
Working-class AA’s were the ones who really lost the most from the porous border … why didn’t they vote for Trump?
Republicans take care of the rich and stick it to everyone else. I doesn’t really make sense to think that this wall talk is going to raise wages for black Americans.
And never once do they talk about the Communist Party USA’s blanket endorsement, in every election cycle, of the Democratic Party.
http://www.cpusa.org/article/a-10-point-strategy-to-win-a-landslide-vote-and-build-ongoing-grassroots-power/
But hey, they only murdered like 50 million people during the 20th century. You have to break a few eggs to make an omelet.
“People and Planet Before Profits”
I thought the exact same thing and I have some real data backing your statement/thoughts. I used to teach in the Inter-city in Ohio and the Appalachian area of Ohio
If I recall correctly the inner-city science scores were in the 18% (Nationally) while the Rural Appalachian school’s science scores were in the 82% (Nationally)
OK, now tell me which one of these Demographics have the smart voters and which one has the dumb voters. If you listed to the MSM the Demographic with the18% scores are the smart voters and the Demographic with the 82% scores are the dumb voters. Ok if you say so: (18 is greater than 82 right?)
The one particular rural Appalachian school was probably nor representative of the entire region. In general , HRC won with college graduates and Trump won those who didn’t graduate from college.
There’s NEVER been a better time to get out of debt…and stay out!!
What are we offended by today?
How about Jill the Shill for Hill? What can you tell us, natty? Does she shave under the arms? Where does she stand on chemtrails?
What is your cholesterol level?
Boxers or briefs?
Tuxedo or dinner jacket?
Half the headlines on Huff Post and 3/4 of the headlines on Salon?
Since you derive so much satisfaction from being offended, it’s nice to know that there’s a place that will provide offence so reliably.
What are you doing on this blog?
I’m making interesting points and educating people.
Providing a dissenting opinion. Which is not a bad thing… if the dissent is well-written and supported. Mike used to do that, but nowadays he’s all contempt and smarm.
It’s not all contempt and smarm. Though sometimes contempt and smarm are a reasonable reaction.
Nothing new to contribute…
“What are we offended by today?”
Are you still spotting?
Oh, geez, phony, that’s too awesome, I don’t care who y’are.
What is the context of “spotting” here? I really don’t know. My first thought is that you were using the gynecological term, but I don’t think so.
Meanwhile, Salon just posted an article that if ALL of the Stein voters had voted for Clinton, that would be enough to flip Wisconsin, Michigan, and PA and turn the election to Clinton. And if only the polls were right about Trump being so close, the Stein voters in PA/WI/MI would have held their noses for Clinton just to save the country. The comments are gold, making points such as
9% of registered Dems voted for Trump.
In PA, if the people who voted for the Constitution party voted for Trump, that would cancel out Stein voters opting for Clinton.
Yup, that’s the libs, always blaming someone other than themselves.
Don’t assume Stein voters would hold their noses for Clinton. Clinton needed to “earn” those votes and she didn’t.
The libs are STILL eating their own.
“What is the context of “spotting” here? I really don’t know. My first thought is that you were using the gynecological term”
On the advice of my counsel I respectfully exercise my fifth amendment right and decline to answer that question.
Very well then. Urban Dictionary to the rescue. Hmmm, all of these are somewhat gross but still legal probably not too offensive as is typical of UD. And any one of them would fit the bill here. FYI, the gynecological context on Urban Dictionary is not exactly the same as the medical term.
This one goes out to CNN anchor Martha Raddatz.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8yvnqHmFds
Chris Matthews too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEqjvwK_Y6U
Schadenfreude, one hell of a drug.
“…CNN anchor Martha Raddatz.”
Imagine what she looks like in the morning?