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Sellers Have Two Choices, Chase The Market Or Adjust To Where The Market Is

It’s Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. “Several units at the high-end The Lauren Residences condominiums have been sold in a foreclosure auction and the developers of the Bethesda property are facing a pair of separate lawsuits claiming they misrepresented the quality of the units and failed to pay for marketing services. The Lauren, promoted as some of the most luxurious – and expensive – condominiums in the Washington region, opened in 2016.”

“‘The business plan for the development of the Lauren was predicated upon a significant recovery of the Potomac and Bethesda upper end housing market with strong buyer demand for urban, close-in luxury condominium residences which hasn’t occurred in the time frame expected,’ a publicist for Lauren developers said. ‘The Potomac and Bethesda residential markets have underperformed over the past several years and maintain extremely depressed pricing relative to where housing prices were prior to the last recession resulting in limited absorption for all new condominium projects in these markets.'”

“Now the outsize, out-of-place One Manhattan Square luxury condo tower has hit the trifecta: sales are so sluggish on the 815 units that the developer, Extell Development, is offering to waive one decade worth of common charges, the Real Deal reports. Yes, one decade. That’s how tough it has become to sell new condos in Manhattan, where new inventory continues to pile up amid shrinking demand.”

“According to the offering plan, projected monthly common charges are $746 for a one-bedroom unit; $1,452 for a low-floor two-bedroom and between $2,300 and $3,300 for three beds, depending on the floor. You do the math. If someone isn’t paying those common charges, someone else is taking a bath. ‘I’ve seen some pretty insane incentives before but that tops it by far,’ says real estate attorney Petro Zinkovetsky. ‘Those incentives are going to cost them money; someone has to cover the operations of the building.'”

“Last month’s median price was up 2.9% over February, but a 6.9% drop from the $685,000 median a year ago, according to The Press Democrat’s March housing report compiled by Rick Laws of Compass real estate brokerage in Santa Rosa. ‘Sellers have two choices, chase the market as it adjusts their prices to be more competitive or adjust to where the market is and get their home sold,’ said Ross Liscum, a Santa Rosa real estate broker.”

“The Kitsap County market acts as somewhat of an anomaly, with prices continuing to rise despite growing inventory — with Dick Beeson, principal managing broker at RE/MAX Northwest Realtors in Gig Harbor, saying that in certain higher price ranges he’s observed buyers and sellers on ‘almost equal footing.'”

“Beeson even goes as far to suggest that the area could become a buyer’s market in the South Sound. ‘Multiple offers are less frequent in this market, and, unlike six to 12 months ago, sellers are now agreeing to do repairs and pay buyer’s closing costs,’ according to Beeson. ‘Some type of negotiation is once again prevalent in almost every sale.'”

“Condo sales in the core of the Greater Toronto Area have been gradually losing steam after being the hottest segment in the market for a couple of years. Sellers became so accustomed to outlandish bidding wars and high prices that they are not willing to budge on price now. ‘The last two years, the numbers were mind-blowing,’ says real estate agent Erica Smith. ‘Sellers are very stubborn right now. I think that people are stuck on those numbers. Before, they flipped everything very quickly. Investors don’t want to let go now.'”

“The market for single-family homes outside of the core is heavy with inventory, Ms. Smith says. ‘The detached market is really slow. There aren’t just one or two $2-million homes – there are a lot of them,’ she adds.”

“The 4-storey Prince Consort building off St Thomas’ Street in Ryde is back on the market following a drop in the guide price. Built as the Royal Victoria Yacht Club in 1847 at the request of Queen Victoria, the seafront property has a freehold guide price of £450,000-500,000, a drop of £200,000.”

“The Dutch housing market is becoming more balanced but there is still a shortage of properties for sale, the Dutch real estate agency association NVM said. The average price paid for a house in the first three months of 2019 fell €5,000 to €294,000 compared with the final quarter of 2018, the NVM said.”

“At the same time, the number of houses available per potential buyer rose slightly to 3.9. Despite this, ‘the market does not have enough supply and sellers are still able to make the rules,’ chairman Ger Jaarsma said. ‘All these developments indicate that we are heading for calmer waters, even though the demand for property remains large. In addition, a lot of buyers are maxed out – they have reached the maximum that they will pay. There is a new sense of realism.'”

“The area that has seen the steepest decline on Hong Kong Island over the six-month period is Shek Tong Tsui, with a 15.11 per cent drop. Other areas where property prices have fallen include Repulse Bay (12.62 per cent), North Point (11.74 per cent), Quarry Bay (7.24 per cent) and Happy Valley (5.35 per cent).”

“‘These are places where investors have gone into the market and bought up a large amount of property gambling on it being gentrified. The fall in price in these areas is probably a correction of this ­– they were overpriced to begin with,’ said Asif Ghafoor, CEO of Spacious.”

“Auckland house prices have hit a psychological tipping point, one analyst says. CoreLogic has released new data showing the fall in prices across the city. Coastal parts of the North Shore have seen prices fall 4.1 per cent, while the North Harbour region is down 3.2 per cent. Andrew Duncan, of real estate firm Relatable, said many owners’ expectations were built on rateable values that were too high to start with.”

“‘It’s a hard situation for many owners because once you have a piece of paper with a figure on it, from a reputable source you naturally feel hard done by if you sell for anything less. So in many cases, it’s not so much that the market value has dropped, but the perceived value was heightened so much when new valuations came out that it now feels like a drop for some owners,’ he said.”

“The pending increase in the supply of Sydney apartments is ‘sowing the seeds’ of further property price declines, the Reserve Bank has warned in its semi-annual health check of the financial system. The Reserve Bank also noted that 30 per cent of loans had little or no buffer, suggesting there were vulnerabilities.”

“The switch of borrowers from interest only to principal and interest loans, remains a ‘potential source of stress’ the Reserve Bank said, noting that $120 billion of interest only loans are due to change status in 2019. Many of these loans were originated in 2015 when lending standards were weaker ‘suggesting that some borrowers might face difficulties meeting the step up repayments.'”

“The head of a Sherman Oaks firm accused of bilking thousands of investors in a $1.3-billion Ponzi scheme was arrested Thursday along with two associates on federal criminal charges.
Robert Shapiro, 61, the owner of the Woodbridge Group of Cos., and two other company executives were accused of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud and other violations of federal law in an indictment unsealed in the Southern District of Florida.”

“Prosecutors said a Ponzi scheme was orchestrated from Woodbridge’s offices throughout the United States, including in Sherman Oaks, where it is headquartered, and in Boca Raton, Fla., where it was previously headquartered. The indictment alleged that the wrongdoing caused most of the Woodbridge companies to file Chapter 11 bankruptcy, which prosecutors said caused investors to suffer substantial losses on their $1 billion in principal. At least 2,600 victims invested their retirement savings, totaling about $400 million, the U.S. attorney’s office said.”

“The case has drawn attention because of some of the luxury properties owned by Woodbridge. A document filed by Woodbridge in its 2017 bankruptcy case said the company, through limited liability companies, owned 138 properties ranging in value from $50,000 to $150 million. A Woodbridge representative said at the time that about 50 of those properties are in the Los Angeles area, and most of the rest in Colorado.”

“One property that was known to be among Woodbridge’s holdings is the historic Owlwood estate in Holmby Hills. Woodbridge acquired the property for $90 million and listed it in 2017 at twice that as a development opportunity. The home returned to the market in September 2018 at a reduced $115 million.”

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This Post Has 93 Comments

  1. Gosh, multiple foreclosures, billion dollar ponzi schemes. Where are all those posters who assured us this market was good to go?

    1. BTW, a little bird told me there was lawsuits a brewing in Salt Lake City around a builder/lender. Nothing in the media yet that I see.

    2. You see Ben, unlike you and all the losers that comment on this blog (except me of course), we have more important things to do. For example, did you know that in 1969 the average home price was $25,900? The stock market was 1,000? What is it now? 26,000? You see, if all you invested in either you would all become Rich by now. But I bet you all were also Chicken Little in 1969? Don’t worry, we’ll be back again when the dead cat bounce but will fade in time. One last word of advice. There is not a right or wrong time to buy real estate. No one can ever predict the real estate cycle. It goes up 100% then down 2% then it goes up 100% then down 3%, etc. So the correct answer is now is the BEST time to BUY!

      1. Dude, you must not know how to trade. Stop the Koolaid and the reading of the propaganda. More money has been made trading than investing in Re. PERIOD.

        2. I agree that now could be a great time to sell your house. The “best” time for selling in most areas of the US was in the beginning of 2018 and it has slowly retracted since then (foreign buyers disappeared). Switching gears, the best time to buy is NOT now. All that hype is built around low interest rates. If your after a low interest rate you may be getting that but how does that benefit you when you paying at sellers dream / my neighbor sold for x last year, price? The cat and mouse game does not favor buyers so it is not a good time to both buy and sell. Sell, sure. All you have to do is look at who ate making these ridiculous statements and do the math. Realtors don’t make money if they don’t have both buyers and sellers and what a better way to encourage the market by claiming its great for both sides.

      3. Please check back in with us chuckles when the housing and stock market tank yet again and all of you “we can’t lose” morons slam yet again into the wall of reality at warp twelve. I just love to see the stunned looks on your faces when once again “It’s not different this time!” is taught to you.

      4. “It goes up 100% then down 2% then it goes up 100% then down 3%, etc. So the correct answer is now is the BEST time to BUY!“

        Spoken like a true troll and/or realtor. Don’t mind the times it has paused, declined, crashed, or collapsed. Those were all fake news times with peoples fears causing the drops not the true economy. It’s different this time because that’s what they tell us and we believe them.

    3. I believe the entire bubble is build upon fraud. Without fraud, you can’t have the prices. It’s “control fraud,” like William Black highlighted during the last bubble/crash. The lenders submit fraudulent paperwork for the loans. It’s all fine and dandy as long as prices continue going up. Once they reverse, watch out….

      2. “I believe the entire bubble is build upon fraud”

        It is but those “fraud” building blocks are built and engineered by our own government. They want to get as many of the masses they can into a debt box that squeezes every last potential penny they earn in repayment and then take it away when the economy collapses and the payments stop. Once they get majority locked in then they can pull the rug and point back to the last bubble and remind the loan seekers they had warning. The drawn out inflation from all this free money printing that we are experiencing just keeps going. Either stop now and start deflating or let it keep blowing up tell it pops. Right now they seem to want to test how big this balloon can get without popping it.

  2. ‘The average price paid for a house in the first three months of 2019 fell €5,000 to €294,000 compared with the final quarter of 2018, the NVM said’

    ‘At the same time, the number of houses available per potential buyer rose slightly to 3.9. Despite this, ‘the market does not have enough supply and sellers are still able to make the rules’

    Ger just proved even Dutch can be a lion.

  3. ‘a 6.9% drop from the $685,000 median a year ago…‘Sellers have two choices, chase the market as it adjusts their prices to be more competitive or adjust to where the market is and get their home sold’

    But Crowman said prices weren’t gonna fall!

  5. Speaking of ponzi schemes:

    Uber lists the biggest risks to its business’

    ‘Operationally, Uber lost $4 billion in 2017 and $3 billion in 2018. This may continue to get worse.’

    “We expect our operating expenses to increase significantly in the foreseeable future, and we may not achieve profitability,” the company wrote. While this is not an uncommon thing for a young company, Uber adds that “many of our efforts to generate revenue are new and unproven, and any failure to adequately increase revenue or contain the related costs could prevent us from attaining or increasing profitability.”

    https://finance.yahoo.com/news/uber-lists-the-biggest-risks-to-its-business-142123560.html

    It’s gonna be another twitter…

    1. It’s gonna be another twitter…

      At best. Twitter actually looks like it will survive as long as there are a few key people around who like to post on it and help it maintain a critical mass of users. Uber could disappear at any moment once the IPO goes south.

      1. The whole social media business model is an oxymoron as its operating principle is keeping the attention of people who have no attention span.

      2. Right! DJT loves him some tweetering. Won’t likely see that one tank in his term. Lyft is down 20% and with there broad similarities to Uber, the Uber IPO will be interesting. Uber’s model has some more innovative ideas like self driving cars but the current negative profitability doesn’t fare well for the investors. Guess they are hoping to catch this wave of money injection before it runs out.

        1. My prediction is Uber’s IPO performance is worse than Lyft’s. I don’t know of anybody thinking “Yeah, Lyft is kinda lame but Uber is awesome”.

          1. anybody thinking “Yeah, Lyft is kinda lame but Uber is awesome”.

            But the tech behind it! Self driving taxi’s. That will surely shoot there stawk to the moon 😂

      1. Lose $3 billion and go public??
        I wouldn’t touch that stock with the “10 Foot “ Pole.
        But I won’t be shorting it either!

        1. Federal Government or the Federal Re$erve

          Captive investors. Profitable for the sheep shearers for sure.

          1. “I think of the govt as a money lo$ing operation and the Fed as infinitely profitable”

            You just $tated the premi$e of: WW lll

    4. Profitability is so old school. Don’t bore me with balance sheet babble. What does it mean anyway when money grows on QE trees? Just dot the horizon with shiny objects and throw a tarp over the smoking crater on my door step.

    1. “From 1604 to 1810, Amsterdam had three real estate bubbles. House prices doubled or tripled and then fell back to their initial values. Each bubble lasted decades.”

      Sounds about right. The one we’re in currently started around 1996…23 years ago if my math is correct.

  7. quote from that article:
    One definition of a bubble says when higher prices make people want to buy more, not less, of something, it’s a bubble.

    1. ” … when higher price$ make people want to buy more, not less, of $omething, ”

      Cricket$ & Tulip$ to $helter.$peculator$!

    2. The fed will have to raise interest to save the pension funds. Any kind of adjustable loan will destroy personal wealth.

  9. I got lucky on my very first 25 American Silver Eagles purchase yesterday. While the $5 over spot seemed a bit rich, I found a 1996 in there. It was packaged as a 2003.

    The 1996 coins were the least produced of all, and if you want to buy one from JM Bullion they are $85. SD Bullion lists them from $70-$72, but they are out of stock.

    So, I paid $20 for this coin which sells for a lot more. That has reduced my cost basis significantly for the whole lot! As a rule, I have not had very good luck in life, and this made me happy. Then I started to wonder if I should return it out of honesty, but the coin dealer “soaked” me on the price of the coins, so I don’t think I am obligated to.

    1. $5 is not getting soaked. These Eagles have always had a premium. The coins are beautiful though. If you want bullion, buy bullion bars or old US silver.

      Situational ethics are interesting.

      1. I was buying these Eagles new through the 90s and just stuffed them away. I had no idea there was a collector’s price on any of them. Just checked and I seem to have 2 rolls of the 1996. Thanks for mentioning it!

      2. I guess I wrote “soaked” because I found another dealer who will do $3.40 over spot on them. That’s quite a difference. The other guy is telling me I have to buy over 300 of them for that price. I don’t know, it’s all new to me.

    1. My area seems to be sporting a lot more Teslas, for reasons I don’t understand. Six months ago I almost never saw one; now I spot one almost every day. Did I miss something?

      1. It makes sense simply because there are more of them on the road as the years go on, even if the sales rate is dropping. I have seen more of them in the past year than I ever have.

      3. Did I miss something?

        They’ve been selling a ton of 3s compared to past sales of S and X. So even if they were evenly distributed you should be seeing more than before. If you also happen to be in an area that loves electric cars but very few could afford S or X there could be some extra pent up local demand I suppose.

      4. The losers who still think the housing market is hot want to show off on the streets in the ultimate virtue signal on wheels during their long, painful, miserable commutes.

        When I see a tesla driver I assume an IQ of ~85.

        1. I assume a fairly high IQ but not really a car guy. There are exceptions to prove me wrong once in a while of course.

        2. “When I see a te$la driver I a$$ume an IQ of ~85.”

          What do you a$$ume of their ability to $pend monie$?

          $ea = $tolen, Earned, Aquired, …

          “Why is the $ea Thee Queen of a thou$and stream$?I

          Because $he lie$ below them …”

        3. I’m one of those model 3 owners you think has an IQ of 85. My father purchased a model S 3 years ago. Drove it from Vegas to San Diego for a bowl game and was hooked. I knew I wanted a model 3 when they came out. Prior to purchasing my model 3, the nicest car I owned was $17k Honda Civic. I was going to buy the $35k one, but I couldn’t wait and I ultimately decided I wanted the longer range battery anyway.

          I’ve done all the math on maintenance, insurance, fuel savings, etc. I calculate that over the next 10 years or so, my model 3 will cost me about $10k over a Toyota Camry. I am willing to pay that because I want to see the transition away from oil (I don’t love Saudi Arabia, Iran, Russia, or Venezuala).

          1. model 3 owners you think has an IQ

            You don’t have to be stupid to be foolish.

            It took more hydrocarbon based energy to produce your car than you will ever save driving it plugged into a hydrocarbon powered electricity generator. The fallacy of thinking electricity is an energy source. It’s just a transmission device. We don’t mine electricity.

          2. BlueSkye

            I suggest you compare the efficiency of an internal combustion energy to an electric one to look at wasted power. Only about 17%-21% of energy stored in gas to power wheels. For EVs (and Tesla is currently the most efficient of the bunch), the efficiency is 59%-62%. Anyone claiming that EVs are just as polluting or as gas cars is misguided, disingenuous. Look out for fake news and funded by the Koch brothers.

            Also, a portion of the electricity in any jurisdiction has a change of being powered by renewables, and even natural gas which can power electricity generation is much cleaner than oil/gas.

            I’m not arguing that manufacturing an EV is carbon neutral, but it is leaps and bounds ahead of any gas car, even accounting for battery element mining. And, tailpipe emission at the source is damaging because it concentrates pollution in one area, especially in metro areas. If you want to find a fun exercise, look up “inversion” in Salt Lake City. Even better, look at air quality in Ulaan Baatar, Mongolia.

          3. I know what an inversion is. Poor poor Salt Lake City. Sure, you could clean that up by burning your fuel someplace else, but that wasn’t your argument at all. So what if we have 1% renewables, which aren’t renewable at all unless their ERoEI is positive. Solar isn’t. I’ve been to a few solar cell factories and they for sure aren’t made with the energy produced by the plant’s solar array. Neither is a Tesla, or its components, or the factory.

            Based on the HC energy already sunk into your Tesla, you will have to drive it > 2 million miles before you’ve broke even on energy used, without considering government subsidies and stock sales. Good luck!

            Electricity isn’t an energy source any more than dollars are.

          4. ‘If you want to find a fun exercise, look up “inversion” in Salt Lake City.’

            Been there many a winter when the air was worse than any seen in LA over recent years. It doesn’t help to have a large oil refinery complex at the base of the Wasatch Front between Bountiful and SLC, steadily spewing forth aerial toxins that are readily trapped in a thermal inversion.

      5. I live just north of Cincy and see Tesla’s everyday. Two model 3’s (one a fancy dual motor), a model X and a Model S at work. The S is there about every day, the 3’s and X on occasion.

        For something that is not high volume, I see them daily around here – 3 and S, only a couple of X.

        1. @BlueSkye

          Not sure where you are getting your data ERoEI is positive for solar. ERoEI isn’t the best measure of how green something is anymore than how many calories a food contains is a measure of how healthy a food is. Sustainability, emissions, pollution, etc. Those are all better. Any way you slice it, EVs are far greener and cleaner than a gas car. And they are more expensive (for now).

          EVs make up for their manufacturing cost in a couple of months due to reduced emissions, even accounting for large batteries. Over the lifetime of a car, there will be about 50% fewer emissions from an EV than a gas car. Also, the greener the electrical generation is, the greener the EV is and the lower the carbon footprint of the manufacturing. The way forward towards zero carbon is for wind, solar, hydro, and batteries, lots of good batteries. No oil, no gas, and no subsidized nuclear.

  12. If you overpaid for a used house in a sanctuary city, this may affect your property taxes, city services, and quality of life in general:

    “We can give them an unlimited supply [of migrants] and let’s see if they’re so happy,” Trump said later Friday at a White House event where he doubled down on the idea. “They say ‘we have open arms.’ They’re always saying they have open arms. Let’s see if they have open arms.”

    https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/438638-trump-says-he-is-considering-releasing-immigrants-into-sanctuary

    LOLZ

    1. I totally agree with DJT’s line of reasoning on this. He is completely right on this point. Sanctuary city policies are not bearing the full cost of their policies.

      I see a parallel to this in NIMBYism who shoot down housing but do not pay for the consequences of their actions. I say to the extent that NIMBYism and zoning restriction gets in the way of building affordable housing, raise the taxes on those individuals who shooting down new affordable housing and make them share the pain.

        1. Regarding NIMBYism, you got people that brought a long time ago and paid very low taxes because of prop 13. They want taxes low but value high and f**k the younger generation

          1. Oh the horror!!!! Taxes can be paid with credit cards duh… Credit cards can be erased and forgiven, rinse repeat. Everything I touch always goes up in value and the economy is at its best in 200 million years. Bet you think “saving” money is “smart” where you could be investing in IPOs like Lyft that inject and redistribute money back to the rest of the other .001% that need it to feed the economy with jobs like yard maintenance, interior design, pool cleaners, maids, etc. MAGA!

      2. I see a parallel to this in NIMBYism who shoot down housing but do not pay for the consequences of their actions.

        Pay for? They actually make money by restricting housing in a desirable location since they already have one there.

    2. That’s an absolute master stroke. Get a rotating fleet of buses set up at the border, load them up and take them all straight to San Francisco as soon as they cross. Immigration problem solved.

      1. Solved? What, are you a Tesla driver (IQ = 85)? There is nothing about this sophomoric, inane proposal that will solve anything.

        1. Don’t be so sure. The solution is in the secondary effect, not in putting a bunch of illegals in SF. The secondary effect is making it so painful for the biggest sanctuary city cheerleaders that it changes their behavior. And what makes it a master stroke is that his base LOVES to poke at the sanctuary cities types. My guess is that he just won re-election with that one. So it all depends on what problem you think he was trying to solve.

          1. I do think that it is a keen political move. It’s basically akin to what Justin Trudeau said when DJT was elected and said that he welcomed migrants and refugees. Then a flood started coming to the border and he was like, well, yeah we actually want you to respect our laws and borders on second thought. All these illegal migrants were like, “Trudeau said that we were welcome, so we’re just taking him at his word and crossing the border. Here we are!”

        2. Then you come up with a better solution.

          If the Left wants to continue to demagogue about giving the illegals sanctuary in their districts, and use them as a political tool rather than actually work with the rest of Congress to fix this longstanding problem, the let them deal with the financial and social consequences of their inaction.

          And you can take your lame insults and shove them up your ass.

      2. Brilliant idea! Free & Safe pa$$age across the desert, set them free @ Calif Sanctuary cities where they will have waiting for them a free Obama cell phone & a Gubermint Bu$ ticket to Anytown in the midwest, so they can hang out with their cousins working on the farm!

        Please hurry up & send them all to Calif!I

        1. I’m sure there’s plenty of itinerant labor demand on California farms. No need to travel all the way back to Illinois for sanctiary city residents to find work.

    3. This would be poetic justice. I love Nancy Pelosi’s simian-like shrieks of rage at Trump’s gall in diverting these Democrat-on-Arrival asylum-seekers from the red states, where they are intended to change the voting demographics, to “progressive” strongholds where “compassionate” collectivists will be saddled with the costs of absorbing them, not to mention the vibrant cultural enrichment the Central Americans will bring to their new communities. LOLZ is right, brother.

      1. I love the vibrant enrichment of immigrants. Legal ones. My best friends are mostly from south of the border. Mexico, Argentina, Bolivia, Peru.

    4. How could it be targeting of political foes when you are offering free delivery of tax paying Valedictorians?

      White House proposed releasing immigrant detainees in sanctuary cities, targeting political foes

      By Rachael Bade and
      Nick Miroff April 11 at 11:55 PM

      https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/white-house-proposed-releasing-immigrant-detainees-in-sanctuary-cities-targeting-political-foes/2019/04/11/72839bc8-5c68-11e9-9625-01d48d50ef75_story.html

      Undocumented Valedictorian: I’m Cheating No One Out of College

      Taxpaying immigrants

      A 2016 report from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy shows that undocumented immigrants pay well over $11 billion a year in state and local taxes.

      “We pay our taxes. We are not stealing anyone’s money,” Martinez said.

      https://www.voanews.com/a/undocumented-valedictorian-says-cheating-no-one-out-of-college/3392190.html

      The Fiscal Burden of Illegal Immigration on United States Taxpayers
      Report by Matt O’Brien and Spencer Raley | September 27, 2017

      In 2017, the total cost of illegal immigration for the United States – at the federal, state, and local levels – was approximately $116 billion.

      https://fairus.org/issue/publications-resources/fiscal-burden-illegal-immigration-united-states-taxpayers

  15. You’d have thought that they would have learned their lesson the first time from the tulip bulbs.

  16. Hmmm.

    House down on the corner went on the market 3 days ago, and looks like it got an offer for asking the next day. $/sq ft is lower than most other listings in the area though, but not exceptionally.

    New construction just 2 blocks over is listed for $1M more and it’s been sitting for 3+ months. It used to be a small 50 year old 1500 sqft rambler on 1 acre, now it’s 4x 3,800 sq/ft $2M+ homes on quarter acre lots, at least a couple of which I think were bought by Chinese – though I don’t know if citizens or foreign nationals.

  17. Bernanke Green Shoots sighted in China’s housing market! If the demand is a hair-of-the-dog, stimulus-driven sugar high, not organic, no matter — we’re saved!

    Economics
    China Home Sales Rebound in March
    Bloomberg News
    April 9, 2019, 2:00 PM PDT

    China’s property market is showing signs of green shoots again with home sales posting a robust recovery in March.

    After contracting in the first two months of 2019 — including over the Lunar New Year holiday, a time when at least for the past three years residential purchases have typically been buoyant — the project sales of nine major developers rose 20 percent in March from a year earlier.
    …

    1. Independence of central banks under threat from politics
      The Australian-11 hours ago
      We have now watched the banks lend billions and billions to asset prices speculators who have blown bubbles across the planet. Australia’s housing bubble is …

      1. It seems like the central bankers screwed the pooch regarding their vaunted independence by wading into the politically charged arena of wealth redistribution.

    1. “…arsenals are near-empty…”

      Why does this matter when they have a printing press technology, bazookas in their pockets, etc?

    1. An underappreciated story has been the combo of lower home ownership rates along with rental homes moving in large numbers from local mom & pop landlords to the big institutional investors.

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