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Her Inbox Is Flooded With ‘Price Reduction’ E-Flyers

A report from the Seattle Times in Washington. “Across King County, condo shoppers have nearly three times as many units on sale to choose from than when the market peaked last year. Bidding wars have all but disappeared. The typical condo even now sells for below list price, which was unheard of in recent years. Condo prices countywide dropped 7% in March compared to a year prior, according to monthly real-estate data released Friday.”

“The annual dip in condo prices was the second biggest since the market bottomed out in 2012. The one time condo prices dropped more? That was just a month prior, when condo costs declined 8.4% year-over-year. It’s been quite the change. Flash back to spring 2018 and prices were soaring as much as 35% a year.”

“‘This is the first window of opportunity where buyers can take the reins a bit and work the sellers off their price,’ said Windermere condo broker Jeff Reynolds.”

“King County’s median single-family house sold for 3.2% less in March than a year prior — the biggest drop in seven years. Inventory nearly doubled in that span while prices again dropped. The price shift was led by an 8.2% annual decline in the city of Seattle. Prices were virtually flat in West Seattle and declined in every other neighborhood, led by  year-over-year prices dips of 14.5% in Queen Anne-Magnolia, 10.6% in Southeast Seattle and 8.5% in the Ballard/Greenwood area. Prices also decreased a bit in the north and southwest parts of King County.”

“Across Seattle and Bellevue, there are 1,400 brand-new current and future condos available and sitting unsold, up from just 100 at this point a year ago, according to the real-estate firm Polaris Pacific.”

From 5280 in Colorado. “Denver can expect fewer bidding wars this spring, says Libby Levinson, a Kentwood Real Estate realtor in Cherry Creek. Inventory (of the single-family and attached home variety) increased 36 percent this past March when compared to March 2018, according to the latest Denver Metro Realtors Association (DMAR) report.”

“This means that more homes were listed on the market than could be absorbed by the market—i.e. houses took longer to sell than last year, too. Levinson says the increase of housing supply is leading many sellers to scale back their asking price as homes spend more time on the market.”

“‘[Last year] sellers could price their house a little bit above fair market value and still get a bidding war,’ Levinson says. ‘Those days aren’t happening anymore.’ She says her inbox is flooded with ‘price reduction’ e-flyers.”

“Levinson says the health of the luxury market has been a harbinger of things to come. ‘In that higher segment, if things start shifting, people aren’t as willing to spend the big money on luxury homes,’ Levinson says. ‘It starts to be an indicator of what’s happening in other price spans.'”

From WPTV in Florida. “If you’re looking to buy a home in South Florida, Realtors say now is the time to do it. Experts believe there is a shift happening that’s making it more desirable for home buyers. ‘The market is starting to what we call a shift, it is starting to shift from a heavy seller’s market,’ said Realtors of the Palm Beaches and Greater Ft. Lauderdale President Jeffrey Levine.”

“Levine said the latest information shows median sale prices for single family homes in Martin County have dropped 7.9% from this time last year. ‘We have historic low-interest rates, and we have a lot more inventory to choose from that is one of the reasons why the median home sales price is coming down a bit,’ said Levine.”

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  1. ‘King County’s median single-family house sold for 3.2% less in March than a year prior — the biggest drop in seven years. Inventory nearly doubled in that span while prices again dropped. The price shift was led by an 8.2% annual decline in the city of Seattle. Prices were virtually flat in West Seattle and declined in every other neighborhood, led by year-over-year prices dips of 14.5% in Queen Anne-Magnolia, 10.6% in Southeast Seattle and 8.5% in the Ballard/Greenwood area’

    Hmmm, so I guess Redfin’s talk about “to the moon Alice” was a bunch of hooey. Why would a REIC outfit like Redfin, losing money like lyft BTW, want to stage a phony talk-up of a boom?

    1. This got me doing some research. Sure enough Redfin is a sinking ship. Negative profitability shows as a red flag for their business model that is attempting to take on real estate mortgages, purchases, and resales.

    2. “Why would a REIC outfit like Redfin, losing money like lyft BTW, want to stage a phony talk-up of a boom?”

      Maybe their business model involves activities that produce stellar results when everyone believes real estate is booming, and won’t do so well otherwise?

      1. “Maybe their business model involves activities that produce stellar results when everyone believes real estate is booming, and won’t do so well otherwise?”

        Bingo! From Wikipedia …

        “Redfin’s business model is based on sellers paying Redfin a small fee, in the 1-2% range. Buyers are given a small portion (usually 0.5%) of this fee by Redfin.”

        A booming real estate market produces transactions. These transactions generate fees for Redfin, hence Redfin has an interest in generating a talk up of a boom.

      2. Wait, Redfin is part of the REIC? I remember when RF first came on the market, everyone was saying how it would blow up the REIC. What happened?

        1. Pretty plain as day they are. The entire company is built on the assumption of profiting from RE. When they first announced they would be buying and selling homes, many realtors saw that as major competition and began the wide spread UHS brown spot movement. The main pain point I recall hearing was from used shack dealers aka realtors, complaining about the loss of listings. The days of the realtor are nearing an end and companies like Redfin will just help make this happen faster.

        2. Too much readily available money for being coopted, too difficult a struggle for being revolutionary.

        3. “ I remember when RF first came on the market, everyone was saying how it would blow up the REIC. ”

          Was this memory of yours one that produced brown stains in your and your fellow coworkers pants? Your comments are very telling that you have a concerned interest in RE and my guess would be a career dependent on RE.

  2. ‘She says her inbox is flooded with ‘price reduction’ e-flyers’

    And the Denver Post is full of hooey as well it would seem. There seems to be a pattern here!

    1. Compiled from a five minute perusal of Zillow for ZIP 80210, several used houses with recent price cuts, all clustered around the $500,000 “starter home” price point:

      $525,000 cut to $499,000 on 4/5/19:

      https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/2756-S-Harrison-St-Denver-CO-80210/13387162_zpid/

      $515,000 cut to $495,000 on 4/1/19:

      https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/3655-E-Yale-Ave-Denver-CO-80210/13375619_zpid/

      $515,000 cut to $505,000 on 3/12/19:

      https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1375-E-Amherst-Cir-Denver-CO-80210/13387114_zpid/

      $535,000 cut to $520,000 on 3/21/19:

      https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/2651-S-High-St-Denver-CO-80210/13377547_zpid/

      $549,000 cut to $539,000 on 4/5/19:

      https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1176-S-Logan-St-Denver-CO-80210/13368427_zpid/

      $479,900 cut to $474,900 on 3/19/19:

      https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/2279-S-Marion-St-Denver-CO-80210/13376185_zpid/

      $540,000 cut to $483,000 on 3/8/19:

      https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1748-S-Garfield-St-Denver-CO-80210/13373630_zpid/

      That last one is a 10.5% price cut, any REALTOR here care to explain that one? And it’s been a month now at that new price and still hasn’t sold.

      I have posted several times on the HBB the past couple years that “there is no pent-up demand for $500,000 starter homes.”

      Because I’m right. The household incomes in Denver can’t support these prices. Welcome to CRATER 🙂

      1. Very consistent with my local zip codes as well. 2/3 of listings or more have price cuts. While “list” price may be going up, DoM are also going up and median “sale” price has been going down for the previous 9 months. This Lyft IPO doesn’t appear to be benifiting home sales in the Bay Area as predicted…

        1. That’s a ridiculous prediction. Lyft’s business model is predicated on the crazy idea that you can steadily squeeze a gold mine of profits out of a workforce of down-on-their-lyck drivers who are willing to sacrifice physical depreciation of their used cars on the altar of corporate profits.

          This will never grow into the next Microsoft.

          1. “…a workforce of down-on-their-lyck drivers who are willing to sacrifice physical depreciation of their used cars on the altar of corporate profits.”

            Isn’t that similar to Domino’s pizza?

          2. “That’s a ridiculous prediction. “

            Agreed but with the printing press and PPT artificially inflating the markets anyone could IPO a beach front store that sells sand and make millions. We live in interesting times…

      2. Astounding. I wouldn’t buy any of those homes for 1/2 of the list price. Am I missing something here? Why are those houses which seem pretty old and nothing special so absurdly priced?

        1. “Am I missing something here?”

          Drink some more Denver: it’s different here Kool-Aid™ and convince yourself that these used houses are indeed, “special.”

          1. The influx of illegals and potheads, coupled with Denver’s wise and benevolent leadership, is certain to drive up housing values as well as the quality of life in this booming metropolis.

          2. My Dad works at a lumber yard in Ft Collins near a rail way and he tells stories of how the homeless are doing a San Fran number on sidewalks, in their lumber yard, etc. They’ve had break-in attempts, dudes passed out, etc. All hail the sanctuary cities!!

        2. “Am I missing something here?”

          It’s cuz everyone wants to live there, even if it means sleeping outdoors.

    2. So long as the envelope is fat enough I can get anyone to say whatever I want them to say.

      It’s quite effective really.

        2. Actually, as I understand it, they’re skipping the peer-review all together, and just publishing the papers. So you can publish and avoid perishing even if your work is crap, I guess.

          1. Sounds similar to never learning to row, then joining the college rowing team, thanks to your parents’ outsized contribution to the college of your choice.

  5. With the Plunge Protection Team remaining ever vigilant, the stock market can achieve a permanently high plateau, no matter the financial condition of the actual corporations whose shares are traded.

    1. Who needs investors when you have easy money and a Plunge Protection Team to prop up share prices?

      ‘How is this possible?’ Analysts puzzle over stock market’s rally amid equity-fund exodus
      By Chris Matthews
      Published: Apr 5, 2019 4:53 p.m. ET
      U.S. equity funds posted outflows of $39.1 billion year-to-date
      Getty Images

      U.S. stocks at the end of March posted their best quarter in nearly a decade, but they did so without help from investors in U.S. stock mutual funds and exchange-traded funds, which have seen sizable outflows since the start of the year, according to data from Lipper and EPFR global.

      For the quarter, the S&P 500 (SPX, +0.46%) rose 14%, and added another 1.9% so far this month, putting the broad-market index just 1.3% shy of its Sept. 20 record, even as U.S. equity funds posted outflows of $39.1 billion, according to a Bank of America analysis of EPFR data.
      …

      1. Sometimes I feel like I am the only person in the world who looks at the DOW and sees an absolutely astounding bubble. 26k+ is almost unconscionable, yet not only is that reality, but it moves higher and higher on bad news.

        Look at Boeing – it’s being celebrated that both plane crashes appear to be caused by the same problem, irrespective of the fact that the company is ripe for massive lawsuits of all varieties, from innumerable parties, not only from victims of the crash itself but from companies who lost revenue, etc.

        And then you look at the NASDAQ and companies like Tesla – their orders and deliveries missed, they are hemorrhaging cash, yet their stock has increased. Huh? This pig should be down below $200.

        Bad news, good news – it does not matter, stocks are surging higher and higher. It’s rigged. There’s no other explanation.

        1. “Look at Boeing”

          China, 1 Billion + 360 billion people$ … just placed purcha$e order$ for 300 EU Air Bu$ flying dragon$ …

          (Also adding 16,000 mile$ of high $peed cho.choo’$)

          Why would American companie$ wish to do bidne$$ in a country that is going to continue to $teal their idea$ no matter how many time$ they hand$hake on their bidne$$ dealing$?

          1. Why do people continue to believe that all China does is steal American ideas? They are a big intelligent country with lots of smart people. Just look at their history before America became America.
            We had the same belief about Japan , before ww2, and then this tiny country damn near whipped our butt at the start of WW2.
            And I am a WW2 vet.
            We should have learned from that example not to denigrate our opponents.

          2. “And I am a WW2 vet.”

            Thank you for sharing that, and for participating here. Do you know roughly how many WWII vets are still around?

          4. My parents came of age during WWII. They live in a retirement community now which had a couple of German immigrants who were veterans of Hitler’s army. Both have recently passed, but I did enjoy the chance to dine with one of them on a visit a couple of years ago and hear him recount his experience as German POW in American hands. (Apparently our troups were kind enough to the teenage warrior that he decided to move here and start over as a U.S. citizen.)

        2. “Because Americans are the dumbest investors around, and there’s lots of liquidity in this market.” – George Economou, CEO of Dryships.

        3. “Sometimes I feel like I am the only person in the world who looks at the DOW and sees an absolutely astounding bubble. ”

          Bet you also thought it was a bubble at 5K, 10K and 20K. You’re like the proverbial carpenter who has a hammer and sees a nail everywhere he looks.

          If all you know is to look for bubbles, you’ll always find a bubble.

          2. Just because we’ve had the world’s longest-ever global real estate bubble underway since 1997 or so, or perhaps even back to 1992*, as extended by deliberate central bank intervention to prolong its duration, doesn’t mean it will last indefinitely.

            Anything that cannot continue forever will end.

            –Herbert Stein’s Law

            * If dated by when housing starts began their protracted ascent, then 1992 is arguably the onset. I worked in a financial research firm in the early 1990s, and I still remember my coworker’s gasp when he saw the release of the skyrocketing housing starts data.

          3. It looks like housing starts are long past their point of inflection and slightly beyond their maximum level of attainment since the Fed’s post-2009 financial engineering to reflate the housing bubble.

          5. Chinbabwe,

            Don’t be mad at me that you lost out on decades on unprecedented wealth creation. Your anger is mid-directed.

        4. “…it’s being celebrated that both plane crashes appear to be caused by the same problem…”

          Given two crashes in different parts of the world with the same unusual underlying problem that has come up on no other airplane model over the courseof thousands of different flights flown by hundreds of different pilots, that points to the airplane model rather than pilot error as the cause.

          You have to think Bayesian to understand this, as frequentist statisticians will tell you that a sample size of 2 is too small to draw any conclusions.

          2. The fact that other models may have computer control issues does not somehow negate the evidence of problems with the flight control system in the Boeing 737 Max.

          3. Boeing=criminal negligence. The lawsuits are piling up. Ralph Nader’s grand niece was among the victims. Many volunteers and aid workers from around the world were on that plane. With 80k+ Boeing employees in Seattle, this could blow up the real estate market in Boeingville.
            “A diligent safety analysis would have predicted this outcome. Neither Boeing nor the FAA seems to have done such after the first 737 MAX crashed. They provided an Airworthiness Directive with procedures that were insufficient to correct the system induce misbehavior.

            Moreover their description of the MCAS was incomplete. It is only now known that the MCAS trims the stabilizer at a speed of 0.27 units (degrees) per second while the pilots electric trim moves the stabilizer at only 0.18 units per second:

            “It’s like a Tasmanian devil in there,” says Dennis Tajer, a 737 pilot and communications chair for Allied Pilots Association, which represents American Airlines’ pilots.
            …
            If MCAS keeps tripping, and if pilots do not shut off electric trim entirely, the result is what Tajer describes as a two-steps-back, one-step-forward scenario, with MCAS maintaining an edge.
            “The MCAS knows but one speed, which is 0.27, which is the most-aggressive speed,” Tajer says. “If you look at the balance sheet on it, MCAS is winning, and you are losing.”

            The insufficient advice to pilots given after the first crash only adds to the long list of criminal mistakes Boeing made and which the FAA allowed to pass.” https://www.moonofalabama.org/2019/04/ethiopian-airline-crash-boeing-and-faa-advice-to-737-max-pilots-was-insufficient-and-flawed.html#more

          4. ” …as a two-steps-back, one-step-forward scenario, with MCAS maintaining an edge..

            Wowsers!

            HAL 9000 : “I’m sorry Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that”.

            HAL (Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer) is a sentient computer (or artificial general intelligence) that controls the systems of the Discovery One spacecraft

        5. Tesla is down quite a bit from its peak. Some times stocks rise because the bad news as not as bad as expected. Boeing, from what I understand, still has a mammoth order book for the 737 jets. Very few carriers have cancelled from what I understand.

          I have driven my model 3 for the past week and I can say it is easily the most enjoyable purchase of my life. It is just really fun and relaxing to drive. Quiet, quick, smooth, and the auto-pilot features make the drive much less mentally taxing. I wouldn’t go back to a gas car ever.

          1. I have driven my model 3 for the past week and I can say it is easily the most enjoyable purchase of my life.

            I hear these statements a lot from new owners. One thing I’m curious about is what’s the best car they’ve ever owned before this? I always suspect it’s exciting to them because it’s their first performance car. I’m sure it’s good but I’m really skeptical that I would get that excited about it. I’ve already owned a car that ran 0-60 in the 3s.

          2. What is amazing about it is auto-pilot. The whole experience of driving itself is just so much more enjoyable. Think back to when you first had a car that had cruise control and then compare that to a road trip without cruise control. Auto-pilot, where I don’t need to accelerate or brake on my own or even steer, but merely just hold the steering wheel and be ready to take control (it’s not perfect) makes the whole experience of driving, especially in stop and go traffic, so much more enjoyable.

          3. “Think back to when you first had a car that had cruise control and then compare that to a road trip without cruise control.”

            Reminds me of driving my ’69 Z28 w/454 and stiff cornering suspension. I’d hold the steering wheel against my left thigh, hold the little catsup cup in my left hand and dip the french fries with my right hand all while balancing a big mac on my right thigh and a milkshake between my legs. 🙂

          4. Think back to when you first had a car that had cruise control and then compare that to a road trip without cruise control.

            Hmmm. Maybe I’m just really different than most people. I almost never use cruise control. Always focused on getting around the next car in front of me…usually somebody on cruise control :-). I identify much more with RMSs post.

    3. Believe it or not, despite having already enjoyed one of the longest bull markets in history, the stock market can only go up from here, out to an indefinite future time horizon.

    1. “WeWork is…already the biggest private occupier of commercial real estate in London and New York”

      WTF?!

  7. A city-data forum posted started on 3/10/19 titled “Denver isn’t for me anymore:”

    “I’ve been a Colorado native my entire life, and was given the opportunity to transfer to Denver for my job in late 2014. I had family in the area who loved it, and after living in small towns for my entire life, I wanted to try the big city life.

    The first 2-3 years were great. It was an easy transition, and I enjoyed having all of the big-city amenities within a stone’s throw of where I lived. My commute was reasonable, and the added housing costs were worth it to me. Over the last year, however, my opinion has changed quite a bit.

    The cost of housing in the metro area has gotten out of control. I’m making decent money, but when I’m having to pay close to $1400 for a one-bedroom apartment just to keep a roof over my head, I think it’s time to move elsewhere. I live in Brighton, not LoDo – I know several people who live in the city and pay 30-40 percent more for a one bedroom.

    This isn’t New York, LA, or San Francisco. To me, Denver is a midwestern city with mountains in the background. I’m not a skier, so that doesn’t add much value. I enjoy hiking in the foothills, but it’s not worth the hassle to fight the traffic to drive into the mountains to do a weekend hike. It’s a shame that so many transplants have descended on this city and put Colorado natives like myself in a position where we’re looking elsewhere.

    Anyone else feel the same sentiment?”

    http://www.city-data.com/forum/denver/3025294-denver-isnt-me-anymore.html

    REALTOR are you listening? Because alot of other people are feeling the same sentiment. Denver = CRATER.

  9. ‘In November 1914, the entire Harry H. Culver Company’s sales force of “seventy men” performed in a large minstrel show to raise money for a church in Culver City.[ix] Minstrel shows were a grotesque racist caricature of black people typically staged mainly by white men in blackface performing skits, dancing the cakewalk, playing music and buffooning in ways that ridiculed black people and reinforced white supremacy.’

    ‘When Harry Culver announced his plans for the city in 1913, he stated that the “tract will be subdivided into about 250 large residence lots, each with proper restrictions, and over 300 business lots.”[x] There were several implications in this statement. His reference to “large residential lots” established an economic restriction. Large lot size was a common exclusionary zoning ordinance that was “successful in keeping low-income African Americans, indeed all low-income families, out of middle-class neighborhoods.”

    ‘In that same year he also oversaw the issuing of the following opinion which makes it explicitly clear what he meant. “The Los Angeles Realty Board recommends that Realtors should not sell property to other than Caucasian in territories occupied by them. Deed and Covenant Restrictions probably are the only way that the matter can be controlled; and Realty Boards should be interested. This is the general opinion of all boards in the state.[xv]”

    ‘Culver was also president of the California Real Estate Association (CREA) in 1926 and president of the National Association of Real Estate Boards (NAREB) in 1929, both of which were limited to white membership and upheld race restrictive covenants. The CREA encouraged “racially restrictive housing covenants well into the 1960s,” endorsing their use “for keeping out African Americans as well as Japanese and Mexican residents.”[xix]’

    ‘The provisions against “alien races” and “non-Caucasians” also “sometimes applied to Los Angeles’s Jewish population”.[xx] As for the NAREB, their 1924 code of ethics, which remained unchanged until 1950, states: ‘A Realtor should never be instrumental in introducing into a neighborhood a character of property or occupancy, members of any race or nationality, or any individuals whose presence will clearly be detrimental to property values in that neighborhood.[xxi]’

    https://la.streetsblog.org/2019/04/05/the-hidden-history-of-culver-city-racism/

    ‘The CREA encouraged “racially restrictive housing covenants well into the 1960s,” endorsing their use “for keeping out African Americans as well as Japanese and Mexican residents.”

    1. ‘How many times have we seen this? Some woke person gets worked up over someone else wearing a hat that shows their support for Trump and decides to go nuts in public. It happened again yesterday in Palo Alto, California. A 74-year-old Jewish man named Victor was wearing the hat in a Starbucks when a woman he didn’t know approached him and started shouting. From KTVU: “This woman came over and not only started screaming at me, she turned to the Starbucks audience and said, ‘Hey everybody come here! This guy’s a racist! This guy hates brown people!’” said Victor, wearing a yarmulke on his head Wednesday instead of his MAGA hat.’

      ‘The woman who shouted at Victor identified herself on Facebook as Rebecca Mankey. She posted two photos of Victor and encouraged other people who saw him around town to join in and harass him. From an archive of her Facebook post: Anybody in Palo Alto know this freak. He was sitting in Starbucks. I think he lives in Palo Alto. He will never forget me and will think seriously about wearing that hat in my town ever again. If you see him in this hat, please confront him. You do not want to be the person who didn’t speak up as we slipped into fascism.’

      ‘I yelled at him. Called the entire Starbucks to order and yelled at him more about how it is not ok to hate brown people. He threatened to call the cops. I left after yelling at him some more. When I walked back by after picking up my lunch, he was still there. I went back in and yelled that I had changed my mind and wanted him to call the police because I wanted to know his name, where he lived, his wife’s name, and where his kids went to school…’

      ‘The part that was really heartbreaking to me was that in a full Starbucks, I was the only person yelling at him. There were other white people there who should have called him out. It is the duty of every white person in America to stand up to this every time they see it.’

      ‘When someone responded to Mankey’s Facebook post suggesting that she had gone too far, she replied, “I am going to publicly shame him in town and try to get him fired and kicked out of every club he is in.” She continued, “I am going to go to his house and march up and down carrying a sign that says he hates black people. I am going to organize protests where he works to make him feel as unsafe as he made every brown person he met today.”

      ‘Alas, that plan didn’t work out too well for Mankey who is an affordable housing activist who also worked as an office manager in a local guitar shop. When her boss at the guitar shop found out about what she’d done, he fired her. I don’t like seeing people get fired over politics but in this case, what can you say. She literally vowed to make this exact outcome happen to a stranger over a hat. If ever there was a case of poetic justice, this is it. I’d like to think this could be a learning experience for Mankey but really, if she hasn’t learned this lesson by age 46, she probably won’t learn it now.’

      https://hotair.com/archives/2019/04/04/palo-alto-woman-harassed-elderly-jewish-man-maga-hat-vowed-get-fired-fired/

      So tolerant, so progressive.

      1. Sickening, the behavior of these rabid leftists and the assumptions they automatically make about anyone wearing a MAGA hat. The vast majority of Forgotten Voters didn’t pull the lever for Trump because of any animosity towards other races. They did it because the alternative was a one-woman crime spree who exemplified the corrupt, crony capitalist status quo.

        1. a one-woman crime spree who exemplified the corrupt, crony capitalist status quo

          You are far too kind with that description. She’s a carpet-bagging coattail-riding narcissistic sociopathic witch.

          2. And yet she won the popular vote.

            Judicial Watch’s efforts and successes lead me to believe otherwise. People desperately clinging to the popular vote simply seek to delegitimize a duly elected president.

        2. “They did it because the alternative was a one-woman crime spree who exemplified the corrupt, crony capitalist status quo”

          A little tongue in cheek I hope. The outcome did change for the American worker or rural America.

      2. Re-post from 1/28/19 – Covington Gives Us A Glimpse Of Civil War Two:

        “During the attempted electronic lynching of the Covington Catholic high school boys on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, the mask hiding the Left’s genocidal rage slipped and was momentarily visible. The reality of the confrontation was inverted 180 degrees by the duplicitous mainstream media so that a smiling white teenager was made to face the wrath of an Orwellian two-minute hate that stretched on for days, even after the factual record was corrected. Accelerated by social media, the virtual lynch mob called for, among other horrors, MAGA-hat-wearing teenage boys to be fed headfirst into wood chippers, or for them to be locked en-masse into their school and the school to be burned to the ground.”

        https://www.americanpartisan.org/2019/01/covington-gives-a-glimpse-of-civil-war-two/

      3. A man wears a hat and a total stranger loses her mind?

        I like it. Now to somehow find a way to cash in, perhaps design a hat that will cause strangers to go crazy and rush into my bank and demand that I do a HELOC or maybe a reverse mortgage.

        Think of it: One hat design, a million copies. Pass the hats out on the street and the multiplier effect would-be tremendous.

        1. We won’t make much progress until we stop seeing the other side, whoever they may be, as the enemy.

          1. It’s a hard cycle to break. If they see you as their enemy the prudent thing is to believe them. I guess that’s the challenge of “love your enemies”.

        2. “I am going to publicly shame him in town and try to get him fired and kicked out of every club he is in. I am going to go to his house march up and down carrying a sign that says he hates black people. I am going to organize protests where he works to make him feel as unsafe as he made every brown person he met today.” —Rebecca Parker Mankey

    2. “The reason the Vestals started to consider buying a home is “sort of hilarious,” Caitlin Vestal said: it was “how crazy the rental market is.”

      “We have two dogs, and basically got up here and realized it would be very challenging to rent a house with dogs,” she said.

      Even though the process of finding a home – and paying for it – was stressful, Caitlin Vestal and her husband are “very excited” to move into their new neighborhood, she said.

      Plus, since they navigated Portland’s crazy real estate market for their first home, the Vestals will be well prepared if they ever decide to move.

      “I don’t know any other market,” Caitlin said. “So to us, this is the game we’re playing. It’s completely insane, but that’s just how it is. You gotta roll with it.”

      https://www.oregonlive.com/front-porch/2016/04/looking_for_a_home_in_the_red-.html

      1. I absolutely love that post. It is so glib, so completely whimsical almost to a fatalistic degree. That is one of the anecdotes that encapsulates so much of the resignation of home buyers who are committing financial suicide.

        1. There was a similar post a few years back of a couple buying a San Mateo home with a built-in BBQ pit in the backyard. The guy was quoted saying something like enjoying having friends over for dinner. I recall the purchase price was way up there in the high $600k or low $700k.

  11. After “push button, get mortgage” now a new level of previously unimaginable stupid.

    MarketWatch – Facebook sets its sights on housing. Americans may start to become more ‘social’ in the way they shop for homes, one analyst thinks:

    “Facebook intends to build a platform that aggregates advertisements for housing products and services, a spokesperson confirmed. That could be homes for sale, or it could be new developments, or even a lottery for an affordable housing opportunity.

    Facebook’s secret sauce may be not just its penetration, but its ability to make life milestones social and interactive.

    “Here’s what I predict,” Hebron said. “When Facebook users are experiencing their peak FOMO while viewing pictures of their friends’ shiny new homes, I think that they will soon likely see a button that says something like ‘now go search for your new home.’”

    https://www.marketwatch.com/story/facebook-sets-its-sights-on-housing-should-zillow-be-worried-2019-04-03

    1. “adverti$ement$ for hou$ing product$ and $ervices”

      Reckon “Angie’$ List” is a failure …

  13. ‘Supervisor Sandra Lee Fewer, who represents District Two, grew angry and tearful as she described the effects of the housing crisis on her neighborhood.’

    “SB 50 does nothing to build more affordability into our housing market,” declared Fewer. “We are building and we have been building and the majority of what we’ve been building is unaffordable housing. People in rent-controlled apartments no longer feel safe.”

    ‘Fewer added, “The idea that these are just NIMBYs—come out and see who lives in my neighborhood, talk about the seniors living under the poverty line and eating cat food for dinner, families are tripling up in single family homes. I don’t believe in trickle down economics. We’ve seen what happens when we rely on developers.”

    https://sf.curbed.com/2019/4/5/18297044/sb-50-gordon-mar-scott-wiener-transit-housing-gentrification

    Cat food? What’s for breakfast?

      2. $peaking of $tandford rat$ …

        Elizabeth Holme$:

        Holmes began attending Stanford University’s summer Mandarin program. In 2001, Holmes applied to college at Stanford, where she studied chemical engineering, and worked as a student researcher and lab assistant in the School of Engineering‘s lab.

  14. Colorado’s socialist government has effectively shut down the state’s oil and gas industry in the name of fighting gloBULL Wrming. Colorado probably isn’t the first place anyone thinks of when it comes to oil and gas. But in the state, about 90K people work in the industry and $1B in taxes is generated yearly.

    The state will kiss most of that tax revenue buh-bye starting next year and a lot of guys who wear hard hats to work will be unemployed. But that will be more than offset by windmills and stuff, amirite? Yeah sure.

    This is what happens to a state when Californians invade. They destroy everything.

    Watch out Montana, Idaho and Utah…..you’re next on their radar.

    2. “This is what happens to a state when Californians invade. They destroy everything.”

      But California is #3 in crude oil production in the U.S. Colorado’s insanity is more likely homegrown in the People’s Republic of Denver.

    3. But house prices will go up to the moon…so all is forgiven. Come on California boys. Come to my state, I got commission checks I need to make.

  16. it seems to me that the problem consists of one thing! Immigration into areas by others.
    When I came to this area about 60 years ago there were 4 houses for sale in the newspaper. And over the years California had an influx of migrants, legal or not, and the demand for home increased dramatically as houses were needed for those incoming residents. State wide the demand for house rose, the demand for construction materials increased, the wage rose, forcing prices higher for new construction, demand increase for first level homes increased, prices rises allowed sellers of those homes more cash or credit to move to the next level of home, forcing prices higher for existing homes. Politicians reacting to make more money available for low income buyers, drives prices higher for everyone. until it stops!
    When?
    When the population stops increasing!

    1. “When the population stops increasing!”

      Like this?

      1960 166,689 −1.0%
      1970 139,788 −16.1%
      1980 115,427 −17.4%
      1990 95,787 −17.0%
      2000 82,026 −14.4%
      2010 66,982 −18.3%

    2. But so much of this is zoning. Eliminating single family zoning would go a long way to allowing creating a wide variety of housing options at every price point.

  17. “A California man accused of slashing someone with a sword after his “Make America Great Again” hat was swatted off his head”

    That you Jussie?

    1. Good point. One can never know which news is fake, or even staged, without digging deeper.

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