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All Your Good Ideas Become Bad Ideas

A weekend topic starting with Geekwire. “Q&A: Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman on competing with Zillow, and the potential of real estate tech. GeekWire: It feels like we are in the wild west for real estate technology in the middle of a crazy housing market. What’s your take on the landscape right now? Glenn Kelman: I think there’s a bubble, so part of it is just the amount of capital that’s come into the space. You had $30 million invested in real estate technology companies in 2012, and now it’s $4.5 billion in private capital in 2018, so that has fueled a land grab.”

“There’s a feeling now among Wall Street investors, and perhaps the general public, that everything’s up for grabs, that real estate’s really going to change. And when you have 20 percent of the U.S. economy at stake, you’re going to see companies take larger losses and bigger risks to try to win the prize.”

“Zillow has done that, Redfin has done that. You’ve got Opendoor and Compass raising billions of dollars in private money. It puts a lot of pressure on all of us. We want to be the source of that pressure, but I think we also feel it, because you know that one day the music’s going to stop, that companies ultimately are valued on their profits. And so at this moment I think we are all taking significant risk, because we see the opportunity, but it’s probably more risk than we had in mind, say two years ago.”

“GW: What are your thoughts on the housing market right now? When will it slow down? Kelman: I think we would all agree that the housing market is in the later stages of a bull run. There probably won’t be a correction this year. There may not even be a correction next year, but a correction is inevitable and we’re fairly close to it, just because it’s been such a long bull run. And so I’m painfully aware of that.”

“Sometimes when I meet the CEOs of other real estate technology companies I ask, ‘Have you ever been through a recession?,’ because all your good ideas become bad ideas. And all the people you hired are suddenly at risk. So I think it’s a lot of risk. The music’s gonna stop playing; the shiitake mushrooms are going to hit the fan and all of us hope that we’re the fan and the other guy’s the mushroom, but you have to be humble about the possibility that maybe you’re wrong.”

The Avondale Advocate. “IN A NUTSHELL: ‘Despite months of declining mortgage rates, the housing market is just not coming around.’ WHAT IT MEANS: It just doesn’t seem to be happening in the housing market. Mortgage rates, which hit their highest rate in nearly eight years in November, have declined steadily since then. Yet there are no signs that buyers have reacted significantly to the drop. The National Association of Realtors reported that sales of existing homes eased in April. That makes two months in a row now that demand was off.”

“Two months doesn’t make a pattern, but when you look at sales over the year, it was off by 4.4%, which is not good news. Indeed, so far this year, the sales pace is running about 2.5% the rate posted in 2018. That is really discouraging since mortgage rates have been below last year’s average. In April, moderate weakness in the Northeast and a modest decline in the Midwest were largely offset by a relatively mild increase in the West.”

“There was one good piece of data in the report: Inventories are rising. Since so much has been made of the last of supply holding down sales, maybe with more homes on the markets, buyers will be able to find the home of their dreams – or at least one they can live with or in.'”

A open letter in the Berkeley Daily Planet. “This city council wants self-respecting human beings, who still have real human feelings in their hearts, to ‘work with them’? First, the city must show that it can actually stop ‘working against’ the people. We see this priority of ‘working against’ most starkly in the depletion of the black community. The displacement has been occurring for years. When is city government going to stop working against the low income people of this city?”

“The City Council passed an Inclusionary Housing Act about two years ago, at the height of the displacement crisis. And all it provided was 20% affordable units in any new development – a mere drop in the bucket. And even that was reducible through fees. This was the same moment when a glut in market rate housing was becoming obvious (there were ‘Now Leasing’ signs all over town). The neighborhoods knew what they needed, what the situation was, and all the city gave them was 20%. In other words, the city has been ‘working against’ the neighborhoods all along.”

The Nevada Current. “When a developer from Tennessee wanted to build a luxury apartment complex on Symphony Park, the City of Las Vegas stepped up with a cut-rate deal — $4.25 million for the 5.25 acre parcel within the city’s redevelopment area.  Appraisals for the property ranged from $6,187,000 to $20,580,000.”

“Candidate Bruce Feher is opposed to the use of redevelopment resources in areas such as Symphony Park. ‘My concern is why are taxpayers subsidizing a luxury apartment complex? I would rather see the City focus more on affordable, safe housing for the poor and needy,’ Feher said. ‘Once we eliminate homelessness then, I would support projects like this.'”

The Nashville Scene. “I want to stay at the Joseph Hotel. The pictures of the rooftop pool deck look spectacular. The building will tower 21 floors above the corner of Fourth Avenue South and Korean Veterans Boulevard, where I’m sitting as I look at a slideshow of renderings on my phone. Slender, beautiful people (apparently) will adorn lounge chairs and poolside cabanas looking off toward the Nashville skyline. Inside, works of art from the developer’s collection will hang alongside pieces by Tennessee artists. The Joseph will feature luxury, fine dining and all the best amenities.”

“But mostly I want to stay there because Nashville taxes are helping pay to construct it. Yes, that’s right. A city that has more tourists than it can say grace over and not enough rooms to house them all is forking over $4.5 million in tax-increment financing to help the developer build what market forces apparently couldn’t: a 297-room hotel just steps away from an area that one month ago threw a three-day NFL party for a few hundred thousand people.”

“For about 10 minutes, I just stare at the construction site and one of the many cranes now visible as you approach the city’s center. In the past decade, Nashville has funded more than $200 million in development through tax-increment financing deals, mostly downtown. In the process of creating all of this glitz, we’ve essentially built two Nashvilles. The one downtown drives much of our economy, both inside and outside the Honky-Tonk Industrial Complex. But we’ve also erected a giant party district full of tractors pulling tourists around on flatbeds equipped with thumping subwoofers. Six years ago, did we really want such a huge ‘transportainment’ industry? Is it really our preference to throw a giant drunken party every night?”

“Which brings us back to the problem of being the ‘It City.’ What exactly makes us ‘It’? Popularity? Culture? Economy? An indefinable combination of factors? Ultimately ‘It’ is a fleeting concept, never meant to be a perpetual title. We’ve got to stop using ‘It City,’ because ‘It’ is meaningless.”

“‘People are too smug about how fortunate we are now,’ late, great journalist and author John Egerton said six years ago. He was right then, and his sentiment is even more right now. There is an air of exceptionalism that has crept into our city’s consciousness, a subtle belief that maybe we’re entitled to our good fortune, that we don’t have to earn it. That’s dangerous.”

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This Post Has 89 Comments

  1. ‘You had $30 million invested in real estate technology companies in 2012, and now it’s $4.5 billion in private capital in 2018, so that has fueled a land grab’

    Yellen bucks looking for a place to die is a real phenomenon. He goes on to say they lose their ass on flipping shacks.

    1. Such a pessimist this Glenn guy has become. Well it ain’t his companies capitol so let it burn! What I have noticed from many companies is that they forecast major losses in such endeavors as flipping houses, giving away free Lyft / Uber rides, or giving new sign ups credits / money in exchange for a long term commitment in hopes for a large percentage stake in industry. When PayPal started they offered a $25 free account credit for everyone that signed up and a $10 credit for every referral. Seemed to work well for getting them propelled into the e-commerce financial industry. eBay surely had a part too…

      1. How is Chris Thornberg’s permabull optimism holding up in the face of falling Bayarea home prices?

      2. Funny how times change. Only a short time ago everybody’s bad ideas had become good ideas. Flipping houses on a corporate scale. Building luxury condos for students. Becoming the third person on your block to get a real estate license. Putting 3% down on a house costing 8-10 times your annual income. Taking out a HELOC to finance your retirement. Etc.

    2. Real Yellen Bux never really die. They live on as undead zombie dollars propping up the FIRE economy. Or regrow from the printing press like an alien godzillian mutant reptile sprouting a replaced limb so the monster can continue ravaging the bank accounts of savers and pensioners. It’s our last few extant savings accounts that are going to end up like Dr. Neville in the Omega Man fighting off hordes of homicidal mutant zombie Yellen Bux. Unfortunately, if recent history is any guide, it will be the real money people earned through labor that is going to die.

    1. Median $/sqft in Redmond, +4% year over year. Cratered….. upward. I know this is a doomsayer bot account but I hate seeing BS. Low/Med strong in Seattle (probably temporary), high end hurting.

      2. “Median $/sqft in Redmond, +4% year over year.”

        High asking prices are like deer tracks…exciting but you can’t hang ’em in the barn.

  3. “Q&A: Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman on competing with Zillow, and the potential of real estate tech. GeekWire: It feels like we are in the wild west for real estate technology in the middle of a crazy housing market. What’s your take on the landscape right now? Glenn Kelman: I think there’s a bubble, so part of it is just the amount of capital that’s come into the space. You had $30 million invested in real estate technology companies in 2012, and now it’s $4.5 billion in private capital in 2018, so that has fueled a land grab.”

    This article is about the 2019 Tech Bubble, but the principles equally apply to the 2019 RRE Bubble as well, since it’s all part of the Central Bank-induced “Everything Bubble”. May God help us.

    https://onezero.medium.com/warning-signs-that-a-bubble-is-about-to-burst-aa9801e65557
    Warning Signs That a Bubble Is About to Burst
    You don’t need a Nobel to see the similarities between 1999 and 2019
    Scott Galloway | May 14, 2019
    Signs that markets or a company are about to find themselves on the wrong side of cyclicality
    • The metrics around valuations, P/E ratios, and easy credit-inflating bubbles are logical indicators of canaries. Seth Klarman, the most successful hedge fund manager nobody’s heard of, recently warned that the sugar high of stimulus combined with high-cholesterol protectionism doesn’t end well.
    • When nations and firms start erecting big buildings, look out. The Pan Am Building, Sears Tower, and any number of giant penises plunging into Mother Earth in emerging markets are little more than multibillion-dollar dick pics and may seem like a good idea at the time but are just tacky.
    • The most obvious canaries within companies are typically manifestations of the CEO’s ego. The strongest sell signals are when the CEO goes Hollywood, or believes the world shouldn’t suffer their absence from fashion covers and ads. David Karp in J.Crew ads and Dennis Crowley in Gap ads should have told us their companies would soon be shadows of their former selves and valuations. Marissa Mayer’s 3,000-word profile in the September issue of Vogue around the time she spent $3 million of shareholder money sponsoring Vogue’s Met Ball is an indicator of poor judgment. This way of thinking leads you to spend another billion dollars of shareholder money to purchase the blog platform (Tumblr) of the guy who’s in the J.Crew ads, only to find you spent $1.1 billion on a porn site that has little revenue.
    • A CEO’s fashion can also be telling. When he or she starts showing up on stage wearing a black turtleneck (“I’m the next Steve Jobs”), it likely means not that Jobs has been reincarnated, but that the company’s stock is about to crash (Jack Dorsey) and/or the FDA is going to ban you from your own labs (Elizabeth Holmes).
    • Mediocrity + two years of tech experience = six figures. Kids who can code and are two years out of school, who are mediocre, are making $100,000-plus in the market. What’s worse is that they believe they’re worth it. If you can code, yay for you. But you have no real hard skills or management ability. Not recognizing that you’re overpaid means you won’t have the funds to avoid your parents’ basement when sh*t gets real.
    • Bidding wars for commercial real estate. Firms that investors believe are the next Google, armed with cheap capital, roam the streets of New York and San Francisco, driving up commercial real estate. They are also competing with the Four (Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google), which are purchasing superblocks in NYC.

    Cheers.

      1. “We’re ripe and overdue.”

        Peache$ gonna bee rotten $helter.$hack tree$!

  4. What is it about El Reno, OK that puts them perpetually in the tornado’s bullseye?

    1. Ca$h & Wanker.Banker$ Deut$che $hady loan$ up @ Tahoe, NON.bank$ $helter.$hack “inve$tment” monie$ as the topography roll$.down.hill to thee.bigge$t.little$t.city.

  5. “…the shiitake mushrooms are going to hit the fan…”

    Don’t know about no mushrooms, but the shiitake is definitely headed towards the fan.

  6. Anyone looking for a cheap condo in Pacific Beach? Many current listings mention Price Drop…

    2. Prof is that where you live? I like that side of San Diego along with La Jolla (beaches there are amazing and warm water!) but over the past 10 years or so it seams to have become so over crowded (no different from up here but more dense down there). Lots of college youth and somewhat of a party town is my take on PB.

      1. Lots of college youth and somewhat of a party town is my take on PB.

        If you’re looking for a rudderless twentysomething male whose whole existence is surf, sun, booze and babes, PB would be the barrel for easy fishing.

          1. Ah yes isla vista for sure. I have family in La Jolla and they always talk about all the college kids in PB. They live in there own little bubble in La Jolla so my view on PB is a bit biased on what I’ve heard them say.

          2. La Jolla is a bubble I could stand to live in, but I’m not sure we’ll ever be able to afford it, especially at elevations above the tsunami hazard zone. However, there are less expensive neighborhoods nearby, including PB. Gotta take the bads along with affordable prices.

          3. all the college kids in PB

            Professor Bear has college-aged kids IIRC and is presumably a professor at a local undergraduate or graduate institution so he may be more informed.

      2. I live in RB, but I have a good friend who wants to eventually buy a condo in PB. I told her to wait until the tailwinds of the next recession and foreclosure crisis. Based on the tea leaves of the deep Treasury yield curve inversion at mid-range durations, I would guess the best opportunities lie about five years out. Given that prices are already sagging at a point of near record low unemployment, the next correction should be a doozy!

        1. The Financial Times
          Opinion Tail Risk
          Yield curve inversion keeps investors on their toes
          Gap between 3-month and 10-year yields tends to collapse before recessions
          Joe Rennison
          The US Federal Reserve typically starts cutting interest rates when the economy is struggling
          © Reuters
          Joe Rennison in New York May 23, 2019

          Like a flickering candle, the difference between the yields on three-month and 10-year Treasuries has been moving back and forth between positive and negative territory in recent weeks. On Thursday the 3-month yield was once again higher than the 10-year, amid a broad and deep sell-off across global markets.

          But for investors, the concern for this widely watched recession indicator — it has turned negative before every US recession of the last 50 years — is not momentary lapses, but more sustained “inversion”. Investors are watching for when the light finally goes out. That has not happened yet.

          Its significance is simple. An inversion suggests investors expect interest rates will be lower in the future than they are now. Why do interest rates move lower? Often, because the Federal Reserve starts cutting them, and that typically comes when the economy is struggling.

          The three-month versus 10-year is important because it is the Fed’s preferred measure of what is known as the “yield curve”, beating out other comparisons, such as the difference between two- and 10-year Treasury yields.

          Over the past couple of weeks it has hovered around zero, briefly dipping into negative territory on multiple occasions before bouncing back higher. For now, the US economy has yet to plunge into darkness.
          …

          2. Yahoo
            Finance
            Tame Inflation Makes $131 Billion Bond-Auction Deluge Palatable
            Liz Capo McCormick
            Bloomberg
            May 25, 2019, 9:01 PM PDT

            (Bloomberg) — A $131 billion deluge of Treasury notes is about to hit with yields at their lowest in more than a year. But bond traders can take heart: This week is also expected to bring confirmation that inflation remains tame, which could bolster demand.

            The trade impasse enveloping the U.S. and China has put global economic growth in question and is driving investors to the safety of Treasuries. The yields on maturities that the Treasury Department will offer — 2-, 5- and 7-year notes — are the lowest since at least early 2018.

            Arguing against a big jump in yields amid the auctions: The latest reading of the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation gauge, set for release May 31, is forecast to remain well below officials’ 2% target. That backdrop is fostering skepticism about the central bank’s view that the forces depressing price pressures will prove “transitory,” and is fueling bets on rate cuts by year-end.
            …

          3. The bond market is pricing in stormy weather over the next three years.

            3 Year Treasury Note
            Last Updated: May 26, 2019 1:58 p.m. EDT
            2.109%

          4. I keep hearing about this yield curve inversion and how bad it is but I have yet to see any problems develop. Is it overhyped?

          5. It’s a forward looking indicator. Normally the shortest duration bonds (e.g. 1 year or less) pay a lower yield than longer term bonds, as there is a risk rates will go up over the life of a longer term bond, creating an opportunity cost of being locked in at a low rate.

            The current situation, with the three-year Treasury yield below the one-year yield, means the market expects a sizable drop in yields from current levels over the next three years. This is consistent with a recession followed by a loosening of policy by the Fed, in the form of lower future rates.

          6. James Picerno
            Economy
            Market Outlook
            Treasury Inflation Expectations Dive As U.S. Yield Curve Inverts
            May. 25, 2019 3:56 PM ET
            Summary
            – The Treasury market’s outlook has turned grim, based on the inverted yield curve of late.
            – Another dimension of the cautious outlook is yesterday’s sharp drop in the implied inflation outlook, based on yield spreads for nominal less inflation-indexed Treasury rates.
            – The acid test in the weeks ahead: Will the hard data in the official numbers confirm the weakening expectations in the Treasury market and PMI figures?
            …

        2. I lived in PB for a couple of years around 2001.. My car was broken into twice in one year and the second time they stole the battery from under the hood as well. Lots of vagrants and druggies down by the beach at night. It was fun for a while but it’s more for youth of party age. They’ve crammed so many units in down there the streets are lined with cars day and night. When I moved out, if the lot was full at my complex, I had to park four or five blocks away. Getting home from work at night became an ordeal almost every night with all the traffic. It’s many times worse now.

          1. I was there 10 years prior to you (1991) in the PB ghetto as a starving student, Del Rey St. Drug dealing, mexican gangs having shoot outs, prostitution, etc. Methed out neighbor tried to kill his ex with a chainsaw one night as I’m up late studying differential equations. I called the cops, he books it before they show up but comes back and smashed up my truck. I later had to testify in court as he was chained to his chair writhing like a snake on PCP. I would go Dresden on places like that if I could.

            Definitely lots of college age “bros” in PB near the beach. I dont have many good memories but I do remember seeing one afternoon driving on the road that parallels Grand on the north side a hacky sack circle where one dude kicked it wild and a likely inebriated bro went for the save and almost took off his buddies head a la Bruce Lee.

  7. The moves by the iBuyer companies don’t address the fundamental problem of high housing prices. These guys aren’t really innovators, but rather just copying the Amazon e-commerce business model to a great degree. There’s some cost savings, but the real problem is that housing prices are too high. This has it roots in monetary and gov’t. agency policies (i.e. bubble-blowing).

    Related article:
    https://www.geekwire.com/2019/new-era-home-buying-zillow-redfin-rivals-plan-revolutionize-real-estate/
    A new era for home-buying: How Zillow, Redfin and their rivals plan to revolutionize real estate, again
    by Nat Levy on May 25, 2019 at 9:58 am

    Q: Does any of this actually fix the fundamental problems in the housing market right now (people can’t afford homes, there aren’t enough of them for sale)?

    [Short answer: No. Next question.]

    “Zillow and Redfin aren’t going to raise wages, ease lending standards or change zoning laws.” [Or address the real culprit: easy $/low rates/cheap credit from the Federal Reserve’s Keynesian/central planning policies].

    Finally, moving into the RRE buy/sell market at/near the market peak is a) a good indicator of said peak, and b) a great way to lose a lot of $, since housing is now just another asset class like stocks, bonds and now market timing matters a lot. These iBuyers are essentially flippers buying at the market peak. Flipping only works in rising markets. Buy high, sell low isn’t a great investment strategy, IMHO. Great shorting opp’ty perhaps?

  8. With China you have to read between the lines. The story below shows how worried China is about capital flight since companies cannot make money with 25% tariffs. China is clearly trying to prevent that by saying it will not let its currency drop. I do not believe they can avoid the capital flight, it will be interesting to see where all the money will go, will it be real estate, stocks etc.

    https://www.oann.com/chinas-top-banking-regulator-says-yuan-bears-will-suffer-heavy-losses/

      2. Two years of flat to down sales for the Chinese is devastating to them since they built factories to produce far more vehicles than they are building and they were counting on increasing sale to fuel GDP growth. However, since most of the vehicles being produced add to the fleet since the average vehicle age in China is still young, this hardly shows that fuel usage in China is falling: https://archive.shine.cn/business/auto/Auto-sales-unlikely-to-shift-gear-this-year/shdaily.shtml

        1. fuel usage in China is falling

          Consider that the most significant use of fuel is construction. 99% of building factories, the things they spit out, houses and ghost cities is based on fuel, not human muscle. Stop the construction boom and the reduction in fuel consumption is more significant than car driving.

    2. I think the Chinese are very successfully using Bitcoin to get their money out. Not on an exchange, but OTC with paper wallets.

      1. I think you are correct here. Chinese gov limited the outflow of yuan per year to a max of 50k and the value of there currency is very volatile to these current markets. It would be great to see the volumes from China into crypto but seems like much of it is untraceable

          1. “OTC with paper wallets.“. I’m no expert but as Ghost of Satashi said they use paper wallets which I believe erases any trail. I could be wrong

      2. Same thought crossed my mind. Not sure the Chinese authorities can prevent currency flight through bitcoin, and so long as this dynamic continues, demand for bitcoin will remain strong.

        1. Almost anythang$ is $afer than A Chinese government $aving$ depo$it account.

          (E$pecially, if outside the Chinese homeland terra.firma boundrie$.)

    3. Looks like we should expect affordable gasoline prices for the summer driving season, with oil prices well below $80/bbl.

      Oil Rig Count Falls Amid Oil Price Correction
      By Julianne Geiger – May 24, 2019, 12:20 PM CDT

      The the number of active oil and gas rigs fell again in the United States this week according to Baker Hughes, after a string of losses in the weeks prior, keeping the overall rig count well below year-ago levels for a seventh week in a row.

      The total number of active oil and gas drilling rigs in the United States fell by 4 according to the report, with the number of active oil rigs falling 5 to reach 797 and the number of gas rigs increasing by 1 to reach 186.

      The combined oil and gas rig count is 983, with oil seeing a 62-rig decrease year on year and gas rigs down 12 since this time last year. The combined oil and gas rig count is down 76 year on year.

      Year-to-date, the oil rig count has fallen from 877 active rigs on January 4 to 797, while gas rigs have fallen from 198 to 186 during that same time. Oil rigs are now at their lowest since March 2018, according to Baker Hughes.

      At 12:33pm EST, moments before data release, WTI was trading up slightly by $0.04 at $57.95, after taking a beating the day before. WTI is trading down more than $4 per barrel week on week as the China-US trade war dampens the mood in the market on top of increasing crude oil inventories in the United States.
      …

      1. “Looks like we should expect affordable gasoline prices for the summer driving season, with oil prices well below $80/bbl.”

        Wow, you think that declining oil rigs means that we will have affordable gasoline prices? Declining rigs means that at these prices it is not worth drilling. Actually, it support my statement that to make money oil shale companies need $80 dollar oil.

        1. They may need $80 oil, but with demand collapsing, it doesn’t seem likely they will get it.

          And I guess that explains the rig count recession…

      2. Considering producers are profitable at $8 a barrel, affordability is on the way.

        1. Can you provide any support for that number? There is no new production possible at $8 a barrel. That is the thing with a finite resource, you produce the cheapest first.

          1. As Ben said earlier today: “Yellen bucks looking for a place to die is a real phenomenon. He goes on to say they lose their ass on flipping shacks.’

            Probably $250 billion dollars or more died in the shale oil and natural gas patch producing oil and natural gas below ultimate cost. I guess consumers got some advantage from it because it kept gasoline prices down unlike in housing where it inflated prices but it would have been far better if it would have been invested wisely.

  9. No “pent-up demand” for $500,000 starter homes happening here:

    “In recent years, more Americans have completed college degrees — lowering their rarity in the workplace, and eroding the wage premium they can command. That — along with the high cost — has spurred a feeling among many graduates that the qualification wasn’t worth the time, effort or money.

    Americans with a bachelor’s degree earned less in real terms last year than in 1990, according to New York Fed data. That’s likely contributed to one of the findings from the Federal Reserve Board’s sixth annual survey of household economics: Just two-thirds of those graduates believe their investment in education paid off.”

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-25/a-degree-may-be-necessary-in-america-but-maybe-not-sufficient

    1. “Americans with a bachelor’s degree earned less in real terms last year than in 1990, according to New York Fed data.”

      Wow, that’s quite a statement right there.

  10. No “pent-up demand” for $500,000 starter homes happening here:

    “The recession and financial crisis of 2008 never ended for many cash-strapped Americans.

    While the economy and stock market are booming, and many Americans are enjoying the benefits, others are headed for financial disaster.

    That’s the warning of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.

    In a new report, the AICPA notes that despite a strong economy, millions of Americans still have credit and saving problems.”

    https://nypost.com/2019/05/25/despite-booming-economy-millions-of-americans-still-on-hard-times/

    1. Heh heh…lets see how 29.4% down in one month looks on an annualized basis:

      ((1-0.294)^12-1)*100% = -98.5%.

      I’m not sure I did that correctly; feel free to check my maths.

        1. I dream of the day my LL pays us to take care of the place.
          I know, I know, but a person can dream, can’t she?

          We did live one year rent free due to LL MIA. That was nice.

  12. Bart Starr (1934 – 2019), legendary Green Bay Packers quarterback

    Died: May 26, 2019

    Died at the age of 85 in Birmingham, Alabama, according to the Packers.

    By: Kirk Fox

  13. What is a Bubble

    A bubble is an economic cycle characterized by the rapid escalation of asset prices followed by a contraction. It is created by a surge in asset prices unwarranted by the fundamentals of the asset and driven by exuberant market behavior. When no more investors are willing to buy at the elevated price, a massive sell-off occurs, causing the bubble to deflate.
    …

    1. A strong showing by populists and nationalists against the Establishment Party quislings of the globalists will mean the ECB’s days of playing “extend and pretend” by printing limitless “stimulus” and transferring the bankers’ gambling debts to the public ledgers are numbered. Ten years of can-kicking by the ECB will come to an abrupt halt when the cascading defaults begin.

      1. So-called “far right” parties are polling strongly as voters give the middle finger to globalist-captured Establishment parties that serve only the elites while betraying their countrymen. The MSM are going to be clutching their pearls and bewailing the election outcome, while of course not acknowledging that the globalists elites’ rapaciousness and implacable hatred for western civilization brought about this outcome.

        https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7072943/Le-Pen-calls-powerful-far-right-group-EU-Parliament.html

      2. Great news. The politicians have to save their seats by voting against the globalists who line their pockets.

  15. “affordable, safe housing for the poor and needy”

    Housing for the poor and needy is never safe for long.

    What they need is job-based rent control. Instead of having the unit rent-controlled, simply have the renter rent-controlled. If a proven worker lives within, for example, two miles of an approved low-income workplace, they are entitled to rent control. Notice I said “proven worker” and “approved workplace.” That is, you need to work at an approved deli or drycleaner or school or some low-pay essential service. AND every 3 months you must produce a letter or pay stub that you are an employee there. If you can’t, you get 30 days to either produce one or full rent is due and payable the next day. And get serious about putting stuff on the sidewalk.

    I’m getting to be an old curmudgeon about these things. Too hard to produce a letter? Tough nookies. In grad school I had to produce my registration every semester to defer my college loans. These guy can do the same to keep cheap rent. If they can’t, then why are they in the expensive city in the first place.

    1. A friend told me that housing had become so bad in Jackson Hole, WY that a local ordinance was passed that businesses had to provide housing for workers. Not exactly the solution you were describing, but it was sort of a mandated workforce housing because the strong economy couldn’t retain the worker bees.

  21. “There is an air of exceptionalism that has crept into our city’s consciousness, a subtle belief that maybe we’re entitled to our good fortune, that we don’t have to earn it.”

    *cough* Portland *cough*

  22. European elections: Greens and far-right gain ground as traditional centre fragments
    Nationalists led by France’s Le Pen and Italy’s Salvini surge in European elections, but Greens and liberals enjoy a strong night.

    https://news.sky.com/story/european-elections-greens-and-far-right-gain-ground-as-traditional-centre-fragments-11729324

    Turning and turning in the widening gyre
    The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
    Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
    Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
    The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
    The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
    The best lack all conviction, while the worst
    Are full of passionate intensity.

  25. Greece’s leftist Syriza Party came to power by pledging to defend the Greek people against the brutal austerity regime demanded by the ECB so its bankster accomplices could get their loans repaid, but then cravenly capitulated once in power and became servile errand boys and bootlickers for their EU and ECB masters. Unsurprisingly, Syriza along with their fellow globalist stooges took a beating in the EU parliamentary elections as millions of former sheeple belatedly woke up and repudiated the corrupt status quo.

    https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/05/greece-tsipras-call-snap-elections-heavy-defeat-190527000225999.html

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