A weekend topic starting with Newsweek. "Last month, Fed Chair Jerome Powell and policymakers suggested the federal funds rate would stay above 5 percent through next year and could begin to come down to a little under four percent in 2025 and drop to 2.9 the following year. 'The fast-rising interest rates are breaking several sectors of the economy,' said Lawrence Yun, chief economist at the National Association of Realtors. 'The remaining sectors will also likely crack if the rate hikes continue.'"

From CBS News. "While the Fed does not directly dictate mortgage rates, it generally influences the real estate market. Rates might not get back to their pandemic lows. While rates might seem high now, they look more reasonable from a historical perspective. 'Buyers got used to perpetually — and artificially — low interest rates. For the time being, believe this to be the new normal. I do not think we will see those artificially historic low rates in the near future,' says Nikki Beauchamp, licensed associate real estate broker at Engel & Völkers."

From Bloomberg. "Not so long ago, families, businesses and governments were effectively living in a world of free money. The US Federal Reserve’s benchmark interest rate was zero, while central banks in Europe and Asia even ran negative rates to stimulate economic growth after the financial crisis and through the pandemic. Those days now look to be over and everything from housing to mergers and acquisitions are being upended, especially after 30-year US Treasury bond yields this week punched through 5% for the first time since 2007. Yields got another boost on Friday after bigger-than-expected surge in US payrolls that bolster the case for more Fed rate hikes. And there’s a lot of debt out there: According to the Institute of International Finance, a record $307 trillion was outstanding in the first half of 2023."

"Johanna Kyrklund, co-head of investment at Schroder Investment Management, likens the bond selloff to the bursting of the dot-com bubble two decades ago, when some 'fundamental assumptions had to be revisited.' 'The same has happened with the bond market,' Kyrklund said. 'New ranges are required and the last two years have been about bond investors getting used to that fact and accepting that we’re not going back to what was true the last 10 years.'"

From The Hill. "There has just been a landmark event at the Federal Reserve: Its accumulated operating losses have passed $100 billion. This startling number, which would previously been thought impossible, was reported on Sept. 14, 2023, in the Fed’s H.4.1 Release. It is essential to understand that these are not mark-to-market paper losses; they are real cash losses resulting from the Fed’s expenses being to this remarkable extent greater than all its revenue. These are equally losses to the U.S. Treasury and thus costs to the taxpayers; nonetheless the Fed keeps officially insisting that its losses don’t matter. (Meanwhile the Fed’s mark-to-market losses are more than $ 1 trillion in the most recent public report.)"

The American Enterprise institute. "Mr. Furman excuses the Fed’s unprecedented losses, which have surpassed $100 billion on their way to $200 billion or more, suggesting taxpayers shouldn’t care. To the contrary, taxpayers should care that the Fed will spend, without authorization, $200 billion or more that will be added to their future taxes. These Fed losses are the result of a radical and exceptionally risky Fed choice to build a balance sheet resembling a giant 1980s savings and loan. In the process, it stoked bubbles in bonds, stocks, houses and cryptocurrencies, in addition to inducing enormous interest-rate risk in the banking system. Those risks have now come home to roost."

"Mr. Furman argues that the Fed’s negative capital position doesn’t matter. If so, why cook the books to avoid reporting it? The Fed books its cash losses as a 'deferred asset' so that it can obscure its true negative capital position. The Fed changed its own previous accounting rules precisely so it could do so. We know what would happen if Citibank tried that. Who authorized the Fed to take an enormous interest-rate bet, risking taxpayer money? Nobody but the Fed itself. Does 'independence' give the Fed the right to spend hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars without congressional approval? That question needs to be debated."

From Fox 4. "As housing prices continue to climb, attainable housing sites are popping up all over Southwest Florida. Lauren Apicella, Realtor with eXp Reality, says her Naples customers are typically cash buyers. 'Our median sales price is at $625,000,' said Apicella. 'What's amazing is in the last three years, we've grown over 60%, so home prices have just exploded down here.'"

From Fox News. "Homes within the cities of Allentown, Bethlehem and Easton in Pennsylvania have seen the largest price increases between August 2019 and August 2023, according to Realtor.com chief economist Danielle Hale. Homes in the aforementioned areas saw prices jump nearly 74% over the past four years, according to Hale. Close behind was Knoxville, Tennessee, where home prices rose 62.7%. In Cape Coral and Fort Myers, Florida, there was an appreciation of 62.6% over the past four years, according to the data. Prices for homes in Boise, Idaho, as well as in Portland and South Portland, Maine, also saw some of the biggest price gains in recent years. 'These five areas have experienced the greatest price change in the last four years, which suggests that there have either been significant economic changes to support higher prices or the run-up is potentially unsustainable,' she said."

From France 24. "Soaring costs across the EU are pricing out renters, deterring prospective buyers and preventing new homes from being built. As Europe’s housing crisis grows, so do homelessness rates across the bloc. What are the solutions to Europe’s housing crisis? Confidence in the market is low. Real estate was the most distressed sector in Europe in 2023, suffering from the highest levels of financial uncertainty, volatility and an increase in perceived risk, according to a study from Weil, Gotshal & Manges, a global legal advisory firm. Avoiding crises-induced peaks and troughs that rock the market may require a change in approach in some countries and cities, said Diana Yordanova, communications director of Housing Europe. 'In many countries, housing has been considered as an asset and it's very often being used for speculation or for investment.'"

The Aldergrove Star. "The benchmark price – the average price for a 'typical' home – was $1.63 million in Langley in September. That’s 0.1 per cent below where it was in August. The relatively small movements in prices over the last few months have been a brief pause in a real estate market that has experienced wild swings over the last several years. Although locals have complained about real estate prices for years, the COVID-19 pandemic saw a massive spike in prices, especially for single family homes. At the start of 2020, benchmark prices in the Fraser Valley for single family homes hovered at just under $1 million. By 2022, they had peaked at almost $1.8 million. Then interest rate increases from the Bank of Canada, intended to curb inflation, caused mortgage interest rates to spike. That led the benchmark rate to fall as far as $1.35 million, before it began to climb again. The benchmark in September for the region was $1.52 million."

Mansion Global. "Soaring interest rates in Canada—and some pandemic-related buyer’s remorse—are calming the cottage market in rural Ontario, giving buyers the upper hand after three frenzied years of nonstop price increases. 'The market was chaotic during the pandemic,' said Pauline Aunger, a real estate agent with Royal LePage in Smiths Falls, Ontario, near Ottawa. 'There were so many people trying to escape into recreational real estate. Whatever the asking price was, it got escalated.' By contrast, many cottage sellers now are cutting prices, said Max Hahne, a broker at Engel & Völkers Collingwood Muskoka, whose territory includes the sought-after cottage country about 100 miles north of Toronto. 'These are secondary properties. There’s no longer that urgency,' Hahne said. 'So there’s a softening of the market. And this is a window of opportunity for new buyers.'"

"Many sellers are also recent transplants experiencing buyer’s remorse—an advantage for cottage shoppers, according to John Fincham, an agent at Re/Max Parry Sound Muskoka Realty. 'People tried cottage living. Some haven’t liked it. Now they want out. There are absolutely motivated sellers. So you can get more bang for the buck,' he said. Some buyers who panic bought during the pandemic also neglected due diligence on their home’s location, Fincham said. 'They don’t know the lake they’re buying on, and they go for the structure as opposed to the lake or the lot,' he said. 'There are lakes that fluctuate 12 feet from high to low water. It might have looked perfect when you bought in August, but you’d spend a third of the next summer flooded. A lot of sales are motivated by just that. These are the sellers taking it on the chin.' Many sellers of cottages 'have not come into line with the realities of the market,' he said. 'I have neighbors who bought a cottage for C$1.4 million at the peak of the market. In 60 days, they haven’t had one showing.'"

"The combination of motivated sellers and patient buyers has led to price reductions up to 'hundreds of thousands of dollars for multimillion-dollar properties,' said Hahne of Engel & Völkers. 'I had a listing for C$3.3 million (US$2.44 million) that dropped to C$3.145 million, then finally sold at C$2.7 million,' he said. 'The owner had moved to be with her son, so the home was empty. The buyer, in England, played hardball. He knew he was no longer in a competitive situation.'"

"And though a July headline in the Toronto Star blared that Ontario cottage prices have crashed, some brokers say the 'crash' may be overstated. 'That’s not a fair assessment,' said Mike Kearns, an agent with Royal LePage Locations North in Collingwood. 'You may see prices pull back further in more rural areas further from the lakes. But in popular areas like Collingwood, Craiglead and Thornbury, all of which offer waterfront, the most I would say is a softening.' Prices have eroded about 20% from the market peak, he added. 'So we’re below the absolute top of 2022, but still way up from 2019, which was pre-covid. We saw unprecedented appreciation during that time.'"

The Globe and Mail. "In July, 2020, Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem assured Canadian households that borrowing rates were very low and would stay that way 'for a very long time.' And by all appearances, it looked like he would be right. As banks offered ultralow mortgage rates, the real estate market roared back to life as a number of Canadians decided to buy their first home, upgrade to a better one, or buy a second home in cottage country. Then, as global supply chains struggled to keep up with sharply rising demand for everything from lumber to lettuce, inflation took off, eventually reaching levels not seen in decades. The Bank of Canada was forced to take action."

"That’s left homeowners looking for any way to cope. Many are lengthening their mortgage amortization, stretching out the duration of their payments from 15 or 25 years to 30 years or beyond to keep their payments down to manageable levels. 'A few years ago, people were refinancing because they wanted to buy a rental property,' said Elan Weintraub, a mortgage broker. 'Now, they’re doing it just to stay afloat.'"

"Owen Hewitt’s mortgage keeps him up at night. In May of 2022, he and his wife, Gabrielle Hewitt, bought a house in Ottawa for around $630,000, locking in a fixed-rate mortgage at 2.9 per cent. The couple pays $2,600 monthly. Though the term won’t be up for another three and half years, Mr. Hewitt is concerned that their mortgage payment will jump when they renew. 'I have lost sleep about having our mortgage eat our income, and the value of our house not keeping pace at all,' said Mr. Hewitt, 39. 'We both work, have great careers and have no kids, and it still feels like we’re in danger of going underwater with one really bad month. I personally have some anxiety about whether I’ve made a choice to have a house over being able to retire. Inflation made it worse.'"

"In November, 2019, personal injury lawyer Jasmine Daya purchased a three-storey commercial property in the Yorkville area of Toronto for her company, which occupied two floors, and quickly found tenants for the other floor. She signed a three-year fixed mortgage at 5.49 per cent. Ms. Daya also owns several bars and nightclubs in the city and has other mortgages. Then came the pandemic, and as court hearings came to a halt, her business slowed and her employees stopped coming into the office. Her tenants kept paying their bills, but they, too, weren’t coming in. 'I was sitting in this empty building, not even with the lights on, and I was like, ‘What have I done?’ Ms. Daya said."

"When her mortgage came due last fall, Ms. Daya signed a one-year mortgage at 7.92 per cent. This added an additional $6,000 to her monthly payments, bringing them to $31,000. A key tenant did not renew earlier this year and Ms. Daya has not been able to find a new one. Ahead of the looming mortgage renewal next month, Ms. Daya has put her office on the market. She listed the property for sale earlier this year and in mid-September, dropped the price by $1.5-million to $6-million. 'It’s not a great time to sell. But I think that’s my best option, rather than struggling every month,' Ms. Daya said. The uncertainty about the situation 'is definitely anxiety inducing.'"

The Mises Institute. "In 1996, we produced a documentary titled Money, Banking, and the Federal Reserve. For the next ten years, we distributed copies all around the world, to our students, our members, and the public. Thousands of people were introduced to the evils of the Fed and central banking. Of course, a lot has changed since 1996. The Federal Reserve has seized numerous new powers and prerogatives, and the US economy has endured three more recessions, a major financial crisis, and forty-year highs in inflation. Another recession appears to be on the horizon, and much more inflation, too. Now is the time to create a new documentary that explains how the Federal Reserve continues to wreak havoc in the modern economy. It’s almost as if Fed economists want to impoverish us."

"The documentary will expose the Federal Reserve for what it really is: an enormous threat to prosperity, peace, and freedom. The Fed steals from the vast majority and gives to the corrupt few. The Fed makes it possible for the regime to wage endless wars. It’s a reason the government has grown to massive proportions. It threatens the livelihood of future generations. And ours, too. It’s a reason civilization is in decline."

"The Federal Reserve’s balance sheet quintupled in size after the 2008 financial crisis. And the Fed caused that crisis. Perhaps intentionally. Since then, the money supply has grown by more than $12 trillion. Half of that was printed in just the last three years. The Federal Reserve’s reckless money printing was touted as creating financial stability, yet Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank, and First Republic Bank still failed. Many more are on the same path."

"The Federal Reserve constantly moves its own goalposts. Remember how Fed economists declared that inflation would be 'transitory' but then said we needed to 'retire the word ‘transitory’ just a few months later? We need to retire the whole system, if you ask me. Politicians tell us that we need more regulation to fix the Fed. What we need is to abolish the Fed. The 'experts' tell us that the Fed is our protector. Ha! It only protects the state, big banks, and their cronies. This is why we need to set the record straight. We cannot let the Fed be its own judge. We cannot let the financial news media paint a rosy picture of the government’s counterfeiting machine."

From The Hill. "Referencing data that showed optimism about the economy often peaks before a downturn hits, Bloomberg pointed to 2007 comments from Janet Yellen, then serving as San Francisco Fed President, in which she predicted a soft landing two months before the beginning of the Great Recession. Last month, Yellen, now the Treasury Department secretary, said she is 'feeling very good' about the U.S. making a soft economic landing without a recession."