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Prices Are Down And Sellers Are Dispirited

It’s Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. “New York City is coping with a nationwide exodus of residents from big, expensive cities. In addition, foreign buyers have retreated from the market. ‘The thing is, you don’t have the Chinese buyers anymore,’ said FOX Business’ Cheryl Casone from inside a Meatpacking District penthouse that saw it’s price slashed by $3 million. ‘You don’t have the Saudi buyers, don’t have a lot of the Russian money flowing into New York because there was a law change — and that has changed the story.'”

“The days of making easy money in Hamptons real estate are — spoiler alert — over for now. Sales are down and inventory is up a staggering 76.9 percent year-over-year. So, what does any of this mean? If you want to buy on the East End, now is a fabulous time. Prices are down and sellers are dispirited, so deals can be made. If you want to sell, make sure your pricing is realistic.”

“It seems that the market for real estate in D.C., while still competitive and neighborhoods are still gaining in value or staying strong in their value, is trending toward a buyers market. Based off what I have heard from other agents, houses in many instances are sitting longer on the market, getting fewer offers than we were seeing few years ago, and buyers are starting to ask for more from the seller with regards to credits, repairs, price reductions, etc.”

“Nearly a year after the most recent North Platte-Lincoln County housing study, local lists of homes for sale are growing longer in the wake of several tight years. ‘It’s finally changing,’ said Nancy Faulhaber, part founding owner of Coldwell Banker in North Platte. ‘You had people who lived in a $150,000 house and wanted a $200,000 house, and they didn’t have anything to buy. And now they do.'”

“Luxury home prices have slipped in some California markets. The median price for a high-end home in Santa Clara was $2.8 million in August, a year-over-year drop of 2.8%. This was the largest fall in price there since realtor.com started tracking luxury markets in 2010. Million-dollar sales in Santa Clara were also down 23.2%. And in Marin County, the median luxury price fell 6.5% to $3.1 million, compared to the previous year, the report found.”

“Wealthy homebuyers are finding global cities less welcoming — even hostile — to their cash. Even as the flow of investment has slowed, many developers are delivering projects started when the supply of rich buyers seemed to go on forever. Now there’s a glut of luxury properties. Prices got too high and economic conditions changed, said Thomas Veraguth, the Zurich-based head of global real estate strategy for UBS Wealth Management.”

“‘It’s fatigue,’ Veraguth said. ‘Even the richest will say, ‘I’m not going to pay that price anymore.'”

“Calgary’s sluggish housing market continues to see prices fall for new single-family detached homes. Calgary Real Estate Board chief economist Ann-Marie Lurie says too many homes have been built, and the resale side of the market is oversupplied as well. ‘Buyers are really hard to find these days for homes in pretty much any price range,’ said Jim Sparrow, a long-time realtor with Royal LePage. ‘If you’re selling your house, you have to take a deep, deep breath and you have to lower your price to probably well below what you thought your house was worth. And even then, you’re in for a challenging time.'”

“Since the referendum in June 2016, house prices in prime central London have dropped between 14 and 19 per cent. Several homes on the market with asking prices of more than £5 million have had their prices slashed by more than 30 per cent. A six-bedroom house in Chelsea, currently marketed for £5.95 million, was listed in 2013 at £9 million, according to Zoopla. In Hampstead, a six-bedroom home currently marketed for £5.25 million was listed on Zoopla in November 2016 for £6.95 million.”

“Property prices have fallen in Dublin for the third month in a row. Both house and apartment prices fell. The sharpest declines have been experienced in the leafier and more expensive areas. Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown saw house prices decline 6.8pc in the 12 months to September. The price of the typical house has fallen by €6,000 in the last month alone.”

“‘Not only were last month‘s data weak, but further weakness lurks ahead. Real estate is primed for a further moderation as financing to the sector is being squeezed by a regulatory crackdown,’ Martin Lynge Rasmussen, a China economist at Capital Economics, said in a note. The weakness in October, which is traditionally a high season for new home sales and dubbed ‘Golden September and Silver October,’ was in line with sluggish transactions in smaller cities.”

“The number of applications for building permits has fallen sharply, reflecting a downturn in the local building industry. Esperance-Goldfields Master Builders chair Brett Partington said Esperance had experienced a downturn. ‘It’s the old supply and demand. There’s actually an oversupply of residential housing,’ Mr Partington said. ‘Previously, there were a lot of people who had a residential home and a rental investment. As people have left the town to find employment elsewhere, there was an oversupply of housing.'”

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This Post Has 101 Comments

  1. ‘squeezed by a regulatory crackdown’

    Yeah, it’s Brexit, oil prices, capital controls, Chinese buyers disappear, SALT taxes, red tide, Orange Man Bad. The excuses list goes on.

    1. Right now with stawks at record levels, economy is doing great! it seems like the RE market would be booming but its not. Just let the cat out if the bag already. Foreign buyers ran prices up and now they are gone. Supply and demand basics. MSM touts they are puzzled to why we are in a decline. Its like they are afraid to talk of the role foreign buyers had and where we are now. Take the demand away and down it goes, simple.

      1. Expanding on the foreign statement i made. The fox article you linked does mention it but my take is that “foreign” is a bad word when it comes to real estate reporting. We hear more about bad weather or holidays as leading factors or why the market is hurting.

      2. Foreign buyers ran prices up and now they are gone.

        It’s a mania. Foreign buyers may have been among the enablers.

  2. ‘Ann-Marie Lurie says too many homes have been built, and the resale side of the market is oversupplied as well’

    For years Anne-Marie tried to puff up the market with “it’s gonna blow through the roof any day now!” Now she tells sellers to take their whippings.

    ‘Buyers are really hard to find these days for homes in pretty much any price range…If you’re selling your house, you have to take a deep, deep breath and you have to lower your price to probably well below what you thought your house was worth. And even then, you’re in for a challenging time’

    Before Vancouver, before Toronto, Calgary was the shining star in shack gamblers visions in Canada. How the mighty have fallen.

  3. ‘The days of making easy money in Hamptons real estate are — spoiler alert — over for now. Sales are down and inventory is up a staggering 76.9 percent year-over-year’

    There should never, ever be days of making easy money with shacks.

  4. ‘Since the referendum in June 2016, house prices in prime central London have dropped between 14 and 19 per cent. Several homes on the market with asking prices of more than £5 million have had their prices slashed by more than 30 per cent’

    I get tired of the horse-sh#t media and their lies. I’ve well documented London prices peaked in 2014 and these posh shacks have been sinking like a turd in a well ever since.

    Which brings something up: the internet is pretty much a deception machine, spying on you, throwing up fake search returns. Relentless REIC falsifications, until the sales drop and then it all about “these stupid greedy sellers holding us back!” And we get the dingle-berry websites that just want click-bait. They don’t do any real work, just sit around and wait for someone like me to find some real data and pretend they found it.

    What I do know is this thing popped a long time ago. Now the CRE bubbles are going down too.

    1. “I get tired of the horse-sh#t media and their lies.”

      This tells me you are positioned on the wrong end of it.

      “They don’t do any real work …”

      There is no need; The people who do real work are very anxious and are very willing to share what they earn with those who “don’t do any real work”. The main device utilized is the “horse-sh#t media and their lies”.

      Like it, love it, want more of it.

  5. How long will it take to transition from the current “moderate slowdown / soft landing” denial stage of the housing market cycle to outright panic and blood in the streets?

    1. outright panic and blood in the streets”

      Not happening yet, not like last time. Stock market at all time high, money everywhere. The penny mac’ers are busy as ever we share a building with them. They like to smoke. Its the old Countrywide all over again.

      1. Interesting how stock market outflows are complemented by record highs.

        Just think how high Mr Market will go when stock market inflows resume. The stock market goes up, no matter what. To the moon!

        Investors putting money back into stock-market funds, but flows still solidly negative for 2019
        Published: Nov 15, 2019 1:17 p.m. ET
        For every $100 that has flowed out of U.S. stock funds in 2019, $15 has come back in the last 3 weeks: BofA Merrill Lynch
        …

          1. ‘Hindenburg Omen’ and ‘Ohama Titanic Syndrome’ form in a key stock-market index
            By Mark DeCambre
            Published: Nov 15, 2019 2:57 p.m. ET
            The ominous-sounding chart pattern crystallized in the Nasdaq and has presaged market corrections
            Dark storms looming in the Nasdaq Composite?

            A pair of ominous patterns are forming in the Nasdaq benchmarks, which could signal that a stock-market climb, fueled by a hoped-for tariff detente between the U.S. and China, may be starting to unwind—or at least stall out.

            Analysts at popular blog SentimentTrader note that for the first time in months on Wednesday, the Nasdaq Composite Index (COMP, +0.73%) simultaneously triggered a so-called Hindenburg Omen and an Ohama Titanic Syndrome.
            …

      2. Not happening yet, not like last time.

        Didn’t happen last time. Got close and TPTB panicked. A few people got some OK deals in places like Phoenix before it shot to the moon again. But they had to contain that fast no matter how much it cost or People Who Matter were going to lose a ton of money and maybe their heads. Crisis narrowly averted temporarily. And here we go again.

        1. ‘A few people got some OK deals in places like Phoenix before it shot to the moon again’

          Ben Franklin said 6 months after the war was over that so many inaccuracies had been written the people in the future would have no idea what really happened. It’s the same with the foreclosure thing.

          1. As the saying goes, the victors write the history books, or something like that. I’m sure a variant of that phrase is applicable.

    2. The Winter of Our Di$content … i$ yet to cometh!

      A major theme found in The Winter of Our Discontent is the effect of $ocietal pre$$ure. At the beginning of the novel, Ethan Hawley is unhappy with his job as a grocery store clerk, but it is the complaint$ from his wife and kids about their $ocial and economic $tatus that drive his character to change his beliefs about wealth and power.

      Purchasing over.priced $helter.$hack$ is the fa$test way to di$cover wealth & comfort$ in the U.$A!, just ask $uzanne!

      1. I really enjoyed a recent interview that the NPR Planet Money team did with Robert Shiller and his new book Narrative Economics. In this interview he talks about narratives and how predictive they are to economic behavior:

        “Back in the early 2000s there was a story that people would tell themselves that it had become easy to get rich quick, that you could buy a house and sell it 3 or 6 months later for a huge profit. Everyone was doing it! This story was contagious and a lot of people believed it. And it probably got mixed in with others stories that people told themselves, like, “Hey, I’m smart, and if my next door neighbor can make all this money, so can I!” And then of course when the housing bubble burst later that decade and dragged down the economy, the story changed. We all tell each other, and we tell ourselves, stories about what is happening in the world and our place in it, and those stories can influence the way we behave, including of course the economic decisions we make. But how can we identify the precise effect of stories on economic behavior? And how do some stories go viral and effect the whole economy and others don’t?”

        “Increasing we are starting to study how people change their thinking. So if we are going to describe how people make decisions, especially for forecasting economic events like recessions, we have to know how people are changing their thinking. Unfortunately that doesn’t sound glamorous because we are often talking about naive theories that are just half-baked, they sound maybe wrong to us, but if people think that way they are basing their decisions on it.”

        https://www.npr.org/2019/10/16/770686962/how-stories-shape-the-economy

    3. Global Per$pective$ … (T$k, T$k, T$k)

      CENTRAL BANK$ $69 Trillion of World Debt$ in One Infographic

      VisualCapitalist |November 14, 2019 | By Jeff Desjardins

      Two decades ago, total government debt was estimated to sit at $20 trillion.

      Since then, according to the latest figures by the IMF, the number has ballooned to $69.3 trillion$ with a debt to GDP ratio of 82% — the highe$t total$ in human hi$tory.

      https://www.visualcapitalist.com/69-trillion-of-world-debt-in-one-infographic/

      1. “…the highe$t total$ in human hi$tory.”

        Is there any reason this can’t keep going higher and higher, faster and faster, forever?

        1. Is there any reason this can’t keep going higher and higher, faster and faster, forever?

          Not unless the producers making the food and clothes and shelter that people need stop accepting central bank paper in return for real goods and services.

        2. Is there any reason

          Only the unexpected, which most of us hanging out here with Ben not only expect, we have been watching it gain momentum.

        3. Is there any reason this can’t keep going higher and higher, faster and faster, forever?

          Nominally, no. Most of the debt will be dealt with by inflation. Japan seems to show that debts can go much higher, albeit with strange distortions and questions on how it impacts growth.

          Reinhart and Rogoff claimed in their famous book, This Time It’s Different, that once debt-to-GDP exceeded 90% that growth slowed dramatically. However, this was later disproven by and undergrad econ student:

          “But no, he was correct – he’d spotted a basic error in the spreadsheet. The Harvard professors had accidentally only included 15 of the 20 countries under analysis in their key calculation (of average GDP growth in countries with high public debt).”

          “Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada and Denmark were missing. Oops.”

          “”Herndon and his professors found other issues with Growth in a Time of Debt, which had an even bigger impact on the famous result. The first was the fact that for some countries, some data was missing altogether.”

          “Reinhart and Rogoff say that they were assembling the data series bit by bit, and at the time they presented the paper for the American Economic Association conference, good quality data on post-war Canada, Australia and New Zealand simply weren’t available. Nevertheless, the omission made a substantial difference.”

          What debt is used for is probably more important than relative levels of debt.

          2. “Most of the debt will be dealt with by inflation.”

            Do you really believe wages will triple or quadruple to meet grossly inflated prices?

            Of course not. Only DebtDonkeys believe that.

            Prices will continue falling to dramatically lower and more affordable levels meeting wages.

            Orem, UT Housing Prices Crater 20% YOY As Salt Lake City Construction Costs Slip To $50 Per Square Foot

            https://www.movoto.com/orem-ut/market-trends/

            God Bless President Donald J. Trump And God Bless America!

          3. Do you really believe wages will triple or quadruple to meet grossly inflated prices?

            Yes. Not in a year, but over time. I’m a Gen X, and minimum wage went from $4.25 to $7.25 in nominal terms. The effective minimum wage of the US is $10.80 because many states have minimum wages around $13, $14, and $15. Target has raised its minimum to $15 and Amazon has its minimum at $15. If Walmart follows (though I doubt they will quickly), the de facto minimum wage will be $15 in the US. Inflation adjusted it will really be a decline since the 60s, 70s, and 80s.

            My operating hypothesis is for gradual inflation, which I see all around me in wage inflation at the low end. I can’t get a good house cleaner for under $15/hr for my Airbnbs. We just lost a good maintenance tech in a bidding war to his old company. Housing will come down on the high end, stagnate below the inflation rate for a decade, and inflation will creep up. That is how things “might” get back to normal. The wild card will be demographics, recession, war, or major political change.

          5. I’ve said this before here…

            Ken Rogoff is the bald-headed stooge advocating for a cashless society. That clown shouldn’t be quoted, anywhere.

        4. Is there any reason this can’t keep going higher and higher, faster and faster, forever?

          How low can mortgage rates go? https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-08-18/negative-mortgages-set-another-milestone-in-a-no-rate-world

          I saw that Denmark actually had negative rates, basically paying people to take out mortgages. Who buys and/or guarantees those I wonder. Also, while that will drive house prices even higher, that will lock in some seriously high property taxes.

          Big Picture: I’m reminded of WKRP’s “As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly.” Mortgages rates are dropping like turkeys, heading for the concrete lower bound. What happens when they all hit the lower bound.

          Markets start squealing when money starts being redistributed away from them via higher interest rates. Politicians squeal when their revenues drop. Printing money and handing it to favored groups is merely redistribution – expertly done in this case, unlike all previous episodes 😉

          How long can this kind of redistribution go on without resulting in something breaking? Something that the printing press can’t fix? Gotta remember the economy is a competition for resources. I try to get the most I can for my goods and services, you try to give me as little as possible for them.

          Are we beyond serious dislocation though? As long as the masses have their bread and circuses, does it matter that the donor and political class grows so much wealthier relative to them? Become a race of Eloi to the Morlocks? Without the devouring and such of course. Is that kind of situation stable? Especially when it arises essentially by fiat? Medieval knights were able to live off their peasants value creation for a long time. What did they provide? In some cases security, in others, just allowing the the peasants to live.

          Hard to say.

    4. “…How long will it take to transition from the current….. … to outright panic and blood in the streets…?”

      My own personal theory is that ever rising holding costs (taxes, maintenance, insurance and to a certain extent mortgage interest) will be the catalyst.

      I just don’t see a stock market like meltdown.

      More of strong, steady strangulation.

      However, having said that, the REIC has a long history of amplifying their own verbal diarrhea and then drowning in it.

      No matter the outcome, grab your 10 gallon hats and enjoy the show!

      No doubt there will be a surprise encore ending.

  6. Said Thomas Veraguth, the Zurich-based head of global real estate strategy for UBS Wealth Management:

    “…Wealthy home buyers are finding global cities less welcoming — even hostile — to their cash. Even as the flow of investment has slowed, many developers are delivering projects started when the supply of rich buyers seemed to go on forever…”

    Thomas Veraguth, here is some breaking news for you – Most of those “Wealthy Buyers” were never wealthy to begin with. They were just part of the “pretend rich”, flashing wads of borrowed money.

    Of course, you experts at UBS couldn’t of seen this coming!

  8. Sometimes I laugh at the style choices of my nabe! Check out 12/32, millennial grey with a giant deer head!

    zillow.com/homedetails/388-S-100-W-APT-1-Saint-George-UT-84770/68879366_zpid/?

  9. Cryptoqueen’s brother admits £4bn fraud

    Bitcoin rival was a vast Ponzi scheme whose glamorous founder has vanished

    ‘It is a far cry from 2015, when Ms Ignatova appeared at a financial conference organised by The Economist in Sofia to explain her “innovative approach to making investments and transactions faster, easier, more secure and more convenient”. The following year, wearing diamonds and a flowing crimson dress, she explained OneCoin to a large audience at Wembley Arena, reassuring those who feared they may be investing too late that, on the contrary, it was “only the beginning”.

    ‘Investigators believe that more than £4 billion was raised by the scheme, in which the currency “price” was simply made up by the perpetrators and earnings from new dupes could pay off those few investors who chose to cash out.’

    ‘By March 2017 more than £3.5 billion had been invested from 175 countries, including about £100 million from Britons. The “currency” was pitched as accessible for ordinary people, not only rich investors. It was promoted heavily to Muslims, including in Britain, being falsely pitched as “Sharia-compliant”.

    ‘It was a hit in Africa, where backers of OneCoin created rap songs and music videos celebrating the Mercedes cars and other riches that could allegedly be had by getting involved. One episode of the BBC podcast features Daniel, a OneCoin investor, who convinced his mother to invest her savings in the scheme, rather than buy a maize store.’

    ‘Today Ms Ignatova’s alleged accomplices are on trial in the US and she is wanted by the FBI, whose agent William F Sweeney said: “Unlike authentic cryptocurrencies, which maintain records of their investors’ transaction history, OneCoin had no real value. It offered investors no method of tracing their money, and it could not be used to purchase anything. The US attorney for the Southern District of New York, Geoffrey Berman, described it as a “multibillion-dollar cryptocurrency company based completely on lies and deceit”.

    “They promised big returns and minimal risk, but, as alleged, this business was a pyramid scheme based on smoke and mirrors more than zeroes and ones. Investors were victimised while the defendants got rich.”

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/cryptoqueen-brother-admits-4bn-fraud-3wzw5hsfn

      1. How is Bitcoin any different than Federal Reserve Notes created out of thin air and backed by nothing of tangible value?

        2. How many institutions do you frequent on a daily basis that accept Bitcoin? When is the last time you were paid in BitCoin by your employer? Can you pay your taxes with BitCoin?

          2. Bingo. It’s all about the market penetration when it comes to currency acceptance.

            The banking institution that I think is really playing cryptocurrency well is Silverlake. Matt Levine did an excellent write up on the Silverlake Exchange Network (SEN) a few days ago. From his newsletter:

            “1) Lots of banks want nothing to do with cryptocurrency customers.

            2) But they’ll happily take deposits from other banks.

            3) Silvergate can pay cryptocurrency customers zero interest on deposits (no competition!), and then put the money in ordinary banks and earn interest.”

            Here is the line that should make Mr. Banker salivate:

            “The success of our digital currency initiative has enabled Silvergate Bank to rapidly grow and maintain noninterest bearing deposits from digital currency customers,” it says, increasing noninterest-bearing deposits from 12.4% of deposits in 2013 to 79.9% in 2019.”

          3. Not to say that USD is 100% safe but have you ever seen $1 turn into a $100 and then into a $20 in the matter of months? Crypto is based on the same theory of the tulip mania minus the tangible tulip. If the US gov develops a form if crypto i would consider it but some decentralized monetary system such as BTC will never become what the dreamers wish it to be, it wont be allowed.

          4. Not to say that USD is 100% safe but have you ever seen $1 turn into a $100 and then into a $20 in the matter of months?

            Agree. I am certainly not advocating for cryptocurrency, at least in its current form. But it looks like Silver Lake Bank has positioned itself to make money regardless of what cryptocurrency does. They will make money if it goes up or down because they can hold the dollar accounts of cryptocurrency buyers.

        3. How is Bitcoin any different than Federal Reserve Notes created out of thin air and backed by nothing of tangible value?

          Reserve notes are backed by an army and law enforcement. Everything will change if crypto manages to get the same.

    1. He’s suspended indefinitely without pay, but at least the rest of this season and playoffs. That could seriously affect a player who’s not been responsible with their money. The earliest he can expect another check is like next September, so that’s a really long period of time with zero income.

    1. Surprise, surprise, large study funded by an insurance company recommends more steps to get Americans better (read: costlier) insurance across a range of categories: health, auto, disability, renters, etc.

      Also, employers need to raise pay.

    2. I wonder how many Pension funds bought into that “investment”? Surely it’s junk-rated and only gamblers would be messing with it?

  15. Seattle area: Buyer willingness keeps falling

    https://twitter.com/coqumragep279/status/1195454800344702976

    Buyer willingness in the King County,WA (Seattle+burbs) housing market dropped sharply in 2018 and reached lows not seen since the end of 2013. This year (2019) it looks like willingness will reach even lower lows. Many offerings are severely overpriced and buyers are distinctly disinterested. Only about 1/3 of listings got sold during the last several months, as documented in an earlier tweet this week. #buyerstrike

    (Please click through to twitter and like/follow me if you can. We need more regional focus on the horrendous Seattle bubble)

    1. We just need negative rates and all will be well. I heard it on a tweet the other day from our leader.

      1. we are getting that close to zero that they will be forced to go that route if they insist on keeping this bubble inflated

  16. Why St. Louis Missouri? Steve Johnson, CEO of the St. Louis Economic Development Alliance, says: “One of the things they’re looking for, and it’s increasingly hard to find in major metros, is the affordability that St. Louis offers. What it means to the company is that they can employ people who actually can afford to own their own home. They can employ people who don’t have to commute an hour to 90 minutes each way.”

    St. Louis also has a million square feet of office space immediately available in the skyscraper at 909 Chestnut, plus the density and transit access that larger cities boast but without the congestion. https://kmox.radio.com/articles/news/jp-morgan-plots-move-new-york-st-louis-possibility

        1. National Lampoon’s Vacation

          The scene where the Griswolds roll through a black neighborhood of St. Louis.

          Ellen: This is so dangerous! We have no business being in an area like this!

          Clark: This is a part of America we never get to see.

          Ellen: That’s good!

          Clark: No, that’s bad. We can’t close our eyes to the plight of the cities. Kids, are you noticing all this plight? This will just make us appreciate what we have.

          (gun shot heard outside the car)

          Clark: Roll ’em up!

          (moments later)

          Clark: I wonder if you could tell me how to get back on the expressway?

          Pimp: Man, f#ck yo’ mama!

          Clark: Thank you very much!

          https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Funny/NationalLampoonsVacation

    1. department of labor

      Those types often hate the “contractor” scam: same work, less pay and no benefits.

      1. My understanding of a contract worker was if you worked for Uber, Lyft and the local cab company when ever they need you ….. but f they forbid you to work for the competition then you are an employee.

        1. Independent Contractor Defined

          “The general rule is that an individual is an independent contractor if the payer has the right to control or direct only the result of the work and not what will be done and how it will be done.”

          “You are not an independent contractor if you perform services that can be controlled by an employer (what will be done and how it will be done). This applies even if you are given freedom of action. What matters is that the employer has the legal right to control the details of how the services are performed.”

    2. If Uber drivers are independent contractors, then they need the ability to set the fare that they will charge to ferry passengers. If they are only “takers” of what Uber will allow, then they aren’t really independent. So in other words, they are clearly not independent contractors but employees without benefits.

      1. “then they need the ability to set the fare that they will charge”

        Eye don’t think Tupperware Mom or the Fuller bru$h Dad get to set the price$ charged.

  18. On April 21, 1986, Real Journalist Geraldo Rivera, in a much-hyped two-your special, opened a vault belonging to the late gangster Al Capone. The vault contained only debris, and a note written in Al Capone’s handwriting that said, “Realtors are liars.”

  19. “The days of making easy money in Hamptons real estate are — spoiler alert — over for now. Sales are down and inventory is up a staggering 76.9 percent year-over-year.

    Since the financial sector grifters who own shacks in The Hamptons were the primary beneficiaries of the Fed’s “No Billionaire Left Behind” monetary policy, sales and inventory must be even more grim out in oligarch-looted flyover country.

    1. The Financial Times
      Opinion US economy
      The importance of an inverted yield curve is overrated
      Financial cycle measures like property prices are better predictors of recession
      Gillian Tett
      SAN FRANCISCO – MARCH 23: Real estate signs are posted in front of homes for sale March 23, 2010 in San Francisco, California. Sales of existing homes fell for the third straight month, falling 0.6 percent in February. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
      Homes for sale in San Francisco in 2010. The last recession was sparked by a boom-to-bust financial cycle © Getty
      Gillian Tett yesterday

      Wall Street is obsessed with the game of inversion-watching right now. No wonder. Four months ago, the yield on long-term US Treasury bonds fell below that for short-term ones, creating what is known as an “inverted yield curve”.

      This sparked jitters, given that yield curve inversions preceded “seven of the last seven recessions”, with a lag of “8-60 months”, according to a recent Bank of America Merrill Lynch client note.

      Although the curve un-inverted this month, as the yield on 10-year bonds rose, this may not be much comfort. Wall Street lore holds that inverted curves often uninvert right before the downturn hits. Cue more jitters.

      But as this inversion-watching game intensifies, it is worth reading a recent paper from the Bank for International Settlements, the central banks’ bank in Basel. It suggests that term spreads — what the shape of the yield curve measures — are not as good at predicting downturns as widely assumed and that there are other, better indices that economists and central bankers could (and should) use.
      …

      1. “A commonly cited reason for the predictive power of the 10y-3m term spread is that, when investors forecast weaker economic activity, they also anticipate more stimulative monetary policy and, in turn, lower future short-term rates. If concerns are strong enough, expected rates can be sufficiently low to push current long-term rates below current short-term rates, resulting in an inverted yield curve.”

        These central bankers think of themselves as masters of the economic universe. In this state of existence, interest rate levels have nothing to do with the demand for loanable funds to support the conducting of real economic activities. Rather they merely reflect central banks’ current and expected future levels of interest rate price fixing.

        1. BIS says “this time it’s different”:

          “In fact, the recent inversion of the US Treasury curve has coincided with exceptionally subdued term premia. Term premia in the US Treasury market have been declining since the Great Financial Crisis, likely because of demand pressure from price-inelastic buyers such as central banks, pension funds and life insurers (Graph A, left-hand panel).icon Also, the current combination of a negative term premium and an easing monetary policy stance is unusual. During past episodes when the yield curve inverted, the monetary policy stance was tightening.”

      1. But its different this time remember. No unemployment, everyone is a savy investor and / or drives for uber and lyft

  24. Winter is coming! Cant find a moron to buy moran way. Chase that market down greedbag 😉

    Price history
    DATE EVENT PRICE
    11/11/2019 Price change $1,999,999(-20%)
    10/9/2019 Price change $2,500,000(-9.1%)
    9/18/2019 Listed for sale $2,750,000

    32-Moran-Way-Santa-Cruz-CA-95062

  25. Still here daily, rarely comment

    Some BC housing market “insight” from {read the very small print at bottom} Central 1 Credit Union, Vancouver BC ahem.
    Even for a glossy whistle by the graveyard, a quick skim shows me a lot of words like pressure, drag, headwind and the like.

    I quote: “recent credit constraints are also keeping renters out
    of homeownership for longer. ”
    HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAH finger wag to any responsible lending heaven forbid!

    This is the CMHC for ya, enjoy. (Data co contributor of course)

  27. That’s no comfort for many who bought in Cross’s development, Laurel Court. A flat bought in April 2010 for £150,000 sold for £75,000 last year. Another purchased for £151,000 in November 2009 sold for £105,000 in April this year. A two-bed flat in the block is currently listed on Rightmove at £45,000, and is the cheapest property for sale in the whole of Folkestone. The agent says it is in “impeccable condition” but warns that service charges apply. When Guardian Money checked this week, there were 18 listings on Rightmove of flats in Laurel Court, many with “reduced” stickers.

    Of the other flats going cheap in Folkestone, many are in Pleydell Court – another McCarthy & Stone development. The most recent sale there was for £80,000, a £15,000 fall from the price it sold for 11 years earlier.

    https://www.theguardian.com/money/2019/nov/16/flat-retirement-builder-value-mccarthy-stone

  29. https://www.salon.com/2019/11/15/housing-price-slump-in-the-expensive-bay-area-could-signify-economic-shift-ahead/

    So, what could be happening? Do techies have less money than they used to? Is Silicon Valley recessing? Is the economy overall approaching recession? Or is it merely new tax laws taking into effect — as the San Francisco Chronicle postulated?

    Some housing market experts believe it is due to prices being unaffordable.”

    They cant crack the code. Experts…

    1. “Kamala Harris campaign circling the drain.”

      Won’t miss her puffy moon-face or fake feminist accomplishments.

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