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Many Of These Boondoggles Have Already Been Built, And Many More Are Now In The Pipeline

A report from Crain’s New York Business. “The market has changed since 2012, when Extell’s One57 tower in Midtown reached over $1 billion in purchases in six months, touching off the city’s luxury construction boom. Extell followed that Billionaires’ Row success with several more pricey condo projects across Manhattan, all aimed at the world’s wealthiest investors. Other developers had the same idea, resulting in an oversupply of lavish properties at a time when those buyers have all but disappeared.”

From Queens News in New York. “A new report found that five Queens areas saw significant price drops throughout November. The Breezy Point-Belle Harbor-Rockaway Park-Broad Channel area had the highest median percentage price drop, with a 9.7 percent drop based on one sale dropping $75,000 below the median selling point.”

“Coming in at number two was East Elmhurst, which had a 8.91 percent median price drop with six sales dropping down $109,444. At number three, South Jamaica had a 7.55 percent decrease with the price drops decreasing by $43,000 in total. The fourth neighborhood with the highest median percentage drop was Corona with a 5.46 percent median price decrease, with price drops averaging at a $27,000 decrease. At number five, the Far Rockaway-Bayswater area had a 5 percent median price decrease, however the price drops averaged at a $20,000 decrease.”

The Real Deal on Florida. “Developer David Martin dropped the price of his Grove at Grand Bay penthouse to $19.8 million, a 29 percent cut from the original preconstruction price. Martin isn’t the only developer to adjust his pricing amid a glut of luxury condos in Miami.”

From Patch Massachusetts. “Barack and Michelle Obama have reportedly closed on a multi-million-dollar mansion on Martha’s Vineyard. TMZ reported the former first couple bought the home for $11.75 million. The house had been on the market for four years and was initially listed for more than $22 million before the price dropped to $14.85 million. But according to real estate records, the Obamas got the house for millions less.”

From Celebrity Networth. “Yet another famous celebrity home seller has been forced to levy a steep discount in order to try and move a property in an increasingly tough housing market. But unlike many other similar stories as of late, Tom Ford’s recently price-slashed 22,000-acre ranch isn’t located anywhere near Los Angeles.”

“Instead, the fashion designer and filmmaker’s ranch sprawls over New Mexico land, and after first listing the property back in 2016 for $75 million, he’s cut the asking price by some $27 million down to $48 million.”

The Berkeley Daily Planet. “Boring as it is, land use continues to be the most contested topic among self-styled progressives here and all over the country. More precisely, the contest is the intersection between housing as a market opportunity for surplus capital and housing as a human right. Berkeley, for example, is vastly overbuilt in the category of ‘market rate’ (read expensive) housing and vastly under-built in the basic shelter category for truly low-income people.”

“Many of these boondoggles have already been build, and many more are now in the pipeline. Anecdotally it’s apparent that many older buildings in Berkeley have unrented units, and many of our new buildings have signs advertising available ‘luxury’ apartments which are being held out of the market in anticipation of even higher rents.”

From Curbed San Francisco in California. “Oakland housing activists Moms 4 Housing frequently cite a statistic alleging that there are four empty homes in Oakland for every homeless person—a figure alluded to in the group’s name. But is this true?”

“The best available public figures, variable though they may be, do support the four-to-one claim. In fact, the entire Bay Area has far more empty houses than people without homes in 2019.”

The Durango Herald in Colorado. “Even though hundreds of apartments are going up in Durango, the need for affordable housing continues to intensify. Bill Hermesman, who has owned rental units in town for 25 years, said he noticed a slowdown in demand over the summer. ‘This is probably the slowest year I have had in many, many years,’ he said.”

From Senior Housing News. “There may be an abundance of available homes in some major metro markets over the next two decades, driven in part by the wave of aging baby boomers. Whether all these boomers will be able to find buyers for their homes — and then make the move to senior living communities — is an open question.”

“Some markets with a large population of older adults — such as those in Florida and Arizona — may see a more severe housing glut than others. These trends could impact the senior living industry. Already, baby boomer home-sellers are seeing tepid interest from younger buyers. Some industry insiders — like Rick Exline, director of life plan communities at Des Moines, Iowa-based Life Care Services — fear that a housing glut, coupled with a lack of younger home-buyers, could impede boomers from selling their homes and moving into senior living.”

“‘Millennials are living differently, the next generations are living differently, there may not be the need for the house in the suburb to raise my family,’ Exline told Senior Housing News. ‘So, 10 years out, I think we’re going to have an issue with individuals who want to retire and move to senior living, and where’s the market to buy their homes?'”

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  1. ‘Some industry insiders — like Rick Exline, director of life plan communities at Des Moines, Iowa-based Life Care Services — fear that a housing glut, coupled with a lack of younger home-buyers, could impede boomers from selling their homes and moving into senior living’

    This on top of an already burst senior living bubble:

    https://seniorhousingnews.com/2011/08/28/downturn-forces-non-profit-senior-living-communities-to-find-alternatives-to-survive/

  2. ‘Yet another famous celebrity home seller has been forced to levy a steep discount in order to try and move a property in an increasingly tough housing market. But unlike many other similar stories as of late, Tom Ford’s recently price-slashed 22,000-acre ranch isn’t located anywhere near Los Angeles’

    Wa happened to my shortage LA?

    ‘instead, the…ranch sprawls over New Mexico land, and after first listing the property back in 2016 for $75 million, he’s cut the asking price by some $27 million down to $48 million’

    Closing in on half!

    1. “Are we there yet?” … (We need MORE LIQUIDITY! Powell is a wu$$!)

      Someone paying $120,000 for a banana duct-taped to a wall at Art Ba$el is the perfect picture of wealth inequality

      Art sale$ and auction$ have been $etting record$, which could be another $ign of the wealth gap, according to a Citi report

      MarketWatch |Published: Dec 5, 2019 |By NICOLE LYN PESCE

      This is banana$.

      An Italian artist duct-taped a banana to a gallery wall in Miami as part of the Art Basel festival — and it sold for $120,000. Actually, he’s sold two editions already.

      There’s nothing especially fancy about the exorbitant fruit displayed at the Galerie Perrotin, which is titled “Comedian.” Maurizio Cattelan, an art world prankster perhaps best known for creating a $6 million, 18-carat-gold toilet that he named “America,” grabbed the banana from a local Miami supermarket, Artnet reports.

      1. “…an Italian artist duct-taped a banana to a gallery wall in Miami as part of the Art Basel festival — and it sold for $120,000….”

        But, any REIC agent will tell you that bananas only go up!

      2. If only he could staple Jello to a wall. It’d fetch millions, and be artwork as noteworthy (and as rare) as getting a Realtor to tell the complete truth about a listing.

  3. “But according to real estate records, the Obamas got the house for millions less.”

    Haha…the Obamas get a luxury home for almost, but not quite, 50% off. We’re getting there!

    2. The Obamas, like the Clintons before them, raked in enough payola as payment for services rendered to Wall Street and the financial sector during their “public service” that overpaying by a few million wouldn’t be a big deal.

      1. Biggest scammers in the history of the US presidency. They entered the office broke as a joke, and now they have a net worth of over $100 million. This guy was campaigning for the little guy and against “Wall St. fat cats,” then went above and beyond for said fat cats. Now he’s charging hundreds of thousands per speech for these fat cats while the people he purported to help are living in misery thanks to a hyperinflated cost of living.

        1. A lot of sour grapes here. Remember, you just need to work harder and write a few books. You need to build it! Don’t let someone else built it for you 🙂

        2. his guy was campaigning for the little guy and against “Wall St. fat cats,” then went above and beyond for said fat cats.

          Obama was plucked from well-deserved obscurity in the bowels of the Chicago Democratic Party machine – the most corrupt in the nation – and groomed as a presidential contender by George Soros and Goldman Sachs. Their investment in this insubstantial bon vivant paid off handsomely, though the dupes who fell for “hope n’ change” ended up getting the smelly end of the stick.

          1. I also don’t buy that Obama was very popular with the average voter. It was just that his competition (McCain and Romney) was so terrible.

          3. I also don’t buy that Obama was very popular with the average voter. It was just that his competition (McCain and Romney) was so terrible.

            I don’t think I can agree with that. I think people really liked Obama’s “voice of reason and intelligence” after W’s odd ways. I think McCain and Romney both had a pretty good chance against an average D.

            Speaking of McCain, to me it seems like this culture war really got rolling with the selection of Palin. That’s when I first saw the left lose their mind. I don’t know if they all felt that way immediately or if they were convinced by TPTB that hated her. But I do think that the deplorables went for Trump partly in reaction to how she was treated.

          4. Creepy Joe’s contempt for the voter was loud and clear today. Creepy Joe’s arrogance and entitlement is best exhibit when he and his sneering little bastard of a son of his shook down a Russian energy company.

          7. The latest Biden video is typical Biden – he’s checked out mentally. I found the Pelosi video today more disturbing where she flips out after being asked if she hates Trump. Her right arm goes full spaz-italian while her left arm looks dead. I’m guessing she’s had a stroke or two. Trump could not have better (weaker/more corrupt) opponents than the current batch.

            Oh, and in housing I’m hearing on the radio an advert pitching some sort of multi-family housing backed note promising 9% annually, paid monthly. Location is in Austin, TX. Lots of seniors in HI and not the smartest state by a long shot so theres always lots of grifters trying to con/steal from old folks in this state. Lately theres been a lot of purse snatching from the elderly. I could solve this problem with a wood chipper.

            https://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/2019/11/27/another-violent-purse-snatching-waikiki-prompts-call-greater-police-presence/

          10. “Get your words straight, Jack!”
            “Look, fat…”

            Joe clearly didn’t expect a question on his Burisma corruption from the yokels in Iowa. With a dash of Alzheimer’s.

          11. I also don’t buy that Obama was very popular with the average voter. It was just that his competition (McCain and Romney) was so terrible.

            Concur. McCrazy was a rabid neocon and “Keating Five” alumni who’s sole allegiance was to Israel’s Likud Party. Romney was the epitome of the globalist vulture capitalist and a soulless empty suit. Obama was arguably the least bad of three appalling option of these three globalist stooges. The forgotten voters were SO ready for Trump or anyone who would give the elites and their Republicrat duopoly puppets the middle finger.

          13. The forgotten voters were SO ready for Trump or anyone who would give the elites and their Republicrat duopoly puppets the middle finger.

            I’m curious how this whole impeachment thing will go over with said folks…

    3. Meanwhile, we’re supposed to avoid wondering how humble public servants become wealthy…?

      2. “In order to become the master, the politician poses as the servant.” – Charles de Gaulle

        – It’s all about self-enrichment, not public service. Oligarchs all.
        – BTW, worst Pres. ever., IMHO. OK, maybe Woodrow Wilson.
        – Seems like they should be buying in Iran, since he loves it so much and hates the U.S.

    5. I think this is legitimately reduced. But just think how easily payments from the PTB can be washed. Overpay for a book deal or speaking engagement or a reduced price for a home.; Millions of dollars for bribes can be laundered so easily. No wonder that so many Senators go into the legislative branch middle class and end up quite wealthy and the donor class and not the citizens get the policies they want.

      2. Interesting dog water bowl station in the kitchen but otherwise too stark. Wouldn’t want to be there in winter.

  4. “The market has changed since 2012, when Extell’s One57 tower in Midtown reached over $1 billion in purchases in six months, touching off the city’s luxury construction boom.

    I would not want to be living in the One57 tower or any other ultra-luxury address when the social unrest against rapacious elites that is sweeping the globe comes to Manhattan.

  6. “10 years out, I think we’re going to have an issue with individuals who want to retire and move to senior living, and where’s the market to buy their homes?’”

    10 years is about my time frame too for a secular correction. I actually think it is about 9 years now.

    1. 10 years out? I don’t think so, Tim. That would put the youngest boomers at an age of 65, with the oldest at 83.

      1. Which seems right many boomers will want to live in their homes into their early eighties even if they retire much younger. The crunch will not come when the first boomers start to go into assisted living already happening but when the majority of boomers cannot live in their present homes and the numbers leaving their homes exceeds the number of millennials wanting to live in the area.

        1. You’re ignoring the most important point – DEATH. Most people do not even make it into their 80s.

          1. If they make it to their 60s, they usually do. Big difference between life expectancy at birth and when you have already in your sixties. A lot of boomers have already died but if they owned a house it is already on the market or previously sold. We are concerned about new supply.

        2. Which seems right many boomers will want to live in their homes into their early eighties even if they retire much younger.

          This.

          We are dealing with this with our own grandparents. They actively resist assisted living even though it is now quite dangerous for them to stay in their house. Mini TIAs and mobility issues are a problem. And my wife’s mom is stretched thin trying to commute 30-45 minutes a way several times a week to check-in and do basic stuff. There becomes a point where this age group will realize that they can’t age in place and then they will move. And then the sell happens.

          1. “…my wife’s mom is stretched thin trying to commute 30-45 minutes a way several times a week to check-in and do basic stuff.”

            Based on observing a similar situation play out in the family of a long time friend, I’d suggest that as long as someone keeps enabling the oldsters they will stay in the house.

            In my friend’s case, he was making a nearly 400 mile round trip every week or two for years. He was making repairs to things on the house. As well as picking up groceries and what not which he was paying for. He was also paying other bills. Oh and his brother apparently was basically paying the mortgage during this time.

            You may ask why they had a mortgage, well that’s a very long story I won’t get into.

          2. My parents held out into their mid-80s in our Midwest childhood home. Inlaws sold recently along the Wasatch Front in their late 70s, to relocate closer to most of their kids.

            Health concerns drove both moves.

          3. I’d suggest that as long as someone keeps enabling the oldsters they will stay in the house.

            You may be right. But in my area when I was working the med-surg floor, I had tons of patients who were very critical and had some sort of surgery done because they fell and weren’t found for a day or two. It gets very scary when people who have mobility issues place themselves in a situation where they don’t have someone close by.

          4. “It gets very scary when people who have mobility issues place themselves in a situation where they don’t have someone close by.”

            It’s almost like Little House on the Prairie.

    2. It’s starting to look like we are going to have an uneven decline in property values long term, with a “Two Americas” outcome — if you were to take a snapshot today, you would believe that “walkable” urban areas would maintain or increase desirability with suburbs and exurbs declining, but then you look at what is happening in San Francisco and it seems equally likely that the wheels could come off as the reverse of that.

      1. This is why places like Park City retain their sky-high valuations: not near an urban city center and yet isolated and secluded with only very wealthy allowed to live in the area.

        1. Those are soulless pits where oligarchs park their money. They don’t live there full time. Some years they never even visit.

  7. “A new report found that five Queens areas saw significant price drops throughout November.”

    East Elmhurst and Corona are presently suburbs of Cali/Mexico City and the rest of them are dumps that offer a 1.5 hour subway and bus commute into Manhattan. Far Rockaway is a hurricane tragedy waiting to happen.

  8. GM announces its own battery gigafactory with LG Chem, 30 GWh of capacity eventually below $100/kWh
    Fred Lambert
    Dec. 5th 2019
    Electrek

    GM has announced a new joint-venture with LG Chem to build their own battery gigafactory, which will have 30 GWh of annual capacity, in Ohio. The two companies promise a new “industry-leading cost per kilowatt hours” in GM’s future electric vehicles. The news leaked earlier today, but now that it has been made official, we have a few more details.

    Together, the companies will invest “up to a total of $2.3 billion through a new, equally owned joint venture company” to build the new battery factory in the area of Lordstown, Ohio, where GM recently sold its factory to an EV startup affiliated with Workhorse now called Lordstown Motors.

    On a call with journalists following the announcement, the companies sad that they were on track to eventually be below the $100/kWh barrier which is often cited as the point at which it becomes cheaper to produce a BEV than the equivalent internal combustion vehicle. BEVs already usually have a lower total cost of ownership.

          3. Cheap at Last, Batteries Are Making a Solar Dream Come True
            Eric Niiler
            WIRED
            12/2/2019

            “Todd Karin was prepared when California’s largest utility shut off power to millions of people to avoid the risk of wildfires last month. He’s got rooftop solar panels connected to a single Tesla Powerwall in his rural home near Fairfield, California. “We had backup power the whole time,” Karin says. “We ran the fridge and watched movies.””

            “Californians worried about an insecure energy future are increasingly looking to this kind of solution. Karin, a 31-year-old postdoctoral fellow at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, spent just under $4,000 for his battery by taking advantage of tax credits. He’s also saving money by discharging the battery on weekday evenings, when energy is more expensive. He expects to save around $1,500 over the 10 years the battery is under warranty.”

        2. We’ve lived off grid with solar PV for 12 years. The state paid 30% and the federal government 30% and it was still expensive. Yes panel prices have dramatically declined but inverters and charge controllers are expensive and have a much more limited life span than panels. Batteries are very expensive and the technology is far from being as good as it needs to be to make intermittent power a practical replacement other continuous power sources for the country.
          Solar will be in the mix but for a “green new deal” we’d need drastically simpler lifestyles or a much smaller population.

          1. Batteries are very expensive and the technology is far from being as good as it needs to be to make intermittent power a practical replacement other continuous power sources for the country.

            Agreed. Right now they are more of a luxury, like having a really nice generator that has no fumes and that can save you a little bit of the recoup cost over time. But over 120k Germans have solar + battery and 1 million people worldwide already have this setup, so it’s already got some traction, even though the percentages are still small.

    5. Last sales figures from China showed EV sales down 46 percent. It does not bode well for the industry. Like all the green industry without massive subsidies it is dead. Yes, I am a Boomer and foolish enough to believe that Businesses must make a profit to be sustainable and that profit should not be a subsidy. Millennials may believe they know more than 2000 years of history has taught us. However I am willing to bet within 50 years successful societies look more like Boomer than millennial societies. However we may all go through some extreme pain prior to people realizing that the truths the founding fathers felt was self evident really are the only truths.

      1. ICE powered cars can be defacto banned via fuel economy standards. Raise them high enough and it won’t be possible to meet the numbers.

        I still think that the objective is to get the middle and lower classes out of car ownership. Only the UMC will have cars.

        1. “I still think that the objective is to get the middle and lower classes out of car ownership. Only the UMC will have cars.”

          Where do you come up with these notions?

        2. I still think that the objective is to get the middle and lower classes out of car ownership.

          The lower classes can keep old cars going for a LONG time if gasoline is available. How do you get them out of their old cars? Massive cash for clunkers? Impossible emissions testing standards in order to register? Make gasoline unavailable in the quantities needed to drive them? All of the above for city dwellers and just ignore the country folks and their evil ways?

          1. just ignore the country folks

            Actually, you can run a car on wood chips. The Germans were pretty good at this a while back. Not too long ago I read about how somewhere in battle torn middle east, they were running cars on molten plastic waste.

          3. “Impossible emissions testing standards in order to register?”

            Yep. CARB has been putting the squeeze on otherwise-usable cars for some time. If you can’t repair an emissions system with factory or “CARB EO-listed” parts, you’re F’d cause it won’t pass visual inspection.

            Yes, there are carve-outs for “historical vehicles” but that class of vehicle is normally a toy/hobby for gearheads with cash, not your maid’s daily-driver.

      2. “Yes, I am a Boomer and foolish enough to believe that Businesses must make a profit to be sustainable and that profit should not be a subsidy.”

        Ok, boomer. (Being the same age, I agree…)

          1. There are lots of ways to make a profit. But if you want a business that changes the world, then maybe that is a secondary concern. Most people at the end of their lives don’t really care about how much profit they made.

      3. The bigger picture is that Chinese auto sales have been falling for about a year an a half. EV sales have held up better than gas sales as a percentage. Also, China phased out their subsidies to local EV manufacturers this year, so that is a big reason for the lack of continued growth in the EV segment. Also, I suspect lots of EV buyers are waiting for the model 3 to roll out of the new factory.

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PEV_Registrations_China_from_2011.png

      4. “…foolish enough to believe that Busine$$es must make a profit to be $u$tainable and that profit should not be a $ubsidy.”

        aqdan is a “True.Believer” in U$ taxpayer financed ‘Merican Indu$trial AGRI. Bidne$$

      1. Puff piece. Try this:

        https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/25/global-car-sales-expected-to-slide-by-3point1-million-this-year-in-biggest-drop-since-recession.html

        -Global car sales are expected to decline by about 3.1 million in 2019 — a larger unit drop than in 2008, according to Fitch Ratings.

        -Falling demand in China, the world’s largest auto market, is a major factor in the worldwide decline.

        -Sales in the U.S. are struggling as well. Fitch Ratings anticipates an approximate 2% decline in U.S. sales to 16.9 million in 2019.

  10. Except for emergency situations, I have come to hate Government involvement in anything.

    Government is corrupt and the animals that run the show just distract from a government for the people.

    It’s really time to clean house before it’s to late and these nuts damage the USA beyond repair.

    The Globalist/Elite/Wall Street took over , with strangly the Communist in there ready to make power grabs. This isn’t the USA I was raised in.

    1. I believe it is too late for this country for a number of reasons, but if I was to list one it gets right to the heart of your statement – there is no political will to do what’s right. These people are profiting off the selling out of the country, and they will continue forever.

    2. “I have come to hate Government involvement in anything.”

      Oh, thee evil Fbi! Oh, the evil U$ Treasury deep.$tate workers!, Oh, the evil U$ Postal Office!

      Rudy’$ on it, looking in basement cafes … in Ukraine!

      Reuters |WORLD NEWS|DECEMBER 5, 2019

      U.S. cracks down on Russian ‘Evil Corp’ hackers after $100 million spree

      Andy Sullivan, Raphael Satter

      ” Dridex targeted smaller businesses and organizations that lacked the $ophisticated cyberdefenses$ of larger organization$, U.S. officials said.

      but he doubted that Yakubets would ever see justice.

      “What are the chances this guy is going to face trial in the United States?” he said. “Probably next to zero.”

      The action against Evil Corp., described by officials as one of the most damaging criminal organizations on the internet, comes with a $5 million bounty issued for information leading to the arrest of its alleged leader, Maksim Yakubets.

      British authorities described the 32-year-old Yakubets as a s$upercar-lover who cu$tomized his Lamborghini license plate to read “Thief” in Ru$$ian and ran his operation from the basements of Mo$cow cafes.

      “Yakubets is a true 21st century criminal,” U.S. Assistant Attorney General Brian Benczkowski said. “He’s earned his place on the FBI’s list of the world’s most wanted cyber criminals.”

      Evil Corp is alleged to be behind an ever-evolving family of maliciou$ $oftware known Dridex, which has bedeviled bank$ and busine$$es since it first appeared in 2011. The malware works by hacking into banks and businesses and making rogue financial transfers that are eventually funneled back to the hackers.

        1. “I have come to hate Government involvement in anything.” = like the Bundy’$ in AZ = “$o, eye did knot pay my grazing fee$ for years & made thou$ands, … $ad.”

  11. Did you guys see this new ish from Olick/realtor.com???

    “Sales of existing homes will fall 1.8% from 2019, according to the forecast. Home prices will flatten nationally, increasing just 0.8% annually, but PRICES WILL FALL IN A QUARTER OF THE 100 LARGEST METROPOLITAN MARKETS, including Chicago, Dallas, Las Vegas, Miami, St. Louis, Detroit and San Francisco.”

    Holy cr*p… I mean this is a sea change in their messaging… Agents must really be needing help soothing the greedhead sellers into “giving it away.”

    Also I mean… isn’t this EXACTLY how this went down last time? Places that went highest fastest fell furthest fastest firstest…

    1. foo or should I call you fool

      This is fake news. Just more progressives fake news trying to crash the economy before the 2020 election! Everyone knows real estate always goes up. ALWAYS. END OF STORY

      1. “Just more progressives fake new$ trying to cra$h the economy before the 2020 election!”

        Private Equity = non.wanker.banker$ … provide less than <10,000 election votes, what percentage (%) is that of 143+ million cast votes?

        Deal$
        Goldman Sees Private Equity Firm$ Bracing for a Downturn

        Luke McGrath and Ed Hammond

        Bloomberg |December 4, 2019

        Private equity firm$ are bracing for a downturn and putting in $afeguards to limit their down$ide ri$k.

        “Every one of our client$ is focu$ed on being prepared for a rece$$ion,” Alison Mass, Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s chairman of investment banking

        “I was in Asia earlier this fall and saw the head of a private equity firm that has assets all over the world,” Mass said. “He said he had given a recession checklist to each one of his CEOs with nine things on that checklist that he wanted all of them to work on and come back to him.”

        The checklist included talking to suppliers and asking them to extend terms, limiting capital expenditures to critical items and hiring only essential employees

      2. +888,888.88 (best price for used shacks)

        News like this is rubbish and scares away potential FB’s ,eh, buyers… Please stop spreading it, Diane wasn’t thinking straight when she posted this FAKE NEWS. buyers are just on vacation, holidays, etc. Spring time means back to the moon for my commission checks

      3. Housing can go down and the economy can go up. The low initial unemployment claims number is more proof of that. America did not grow rich by real estate speculation and will not grow poor due to its end. The values which favored hard work over get rich quick schemes served us well. The quicker we return to those values the better we will be.

        1. “America did not grow rich by real e$tate $peculation”

          Aqdan, are you a native American, living New Mexico?

        3. Or everything can go down at once…more the usual situation when a bubble bursts.

          Happy New Year!

          How many Goldman Sachs private equity clients are preparing for a recession? Every single one of them
          By Shawn Langlois
          Published: Dec 5, 2019 2:56 p.m. ET
          72% of NABE economists expect recession by end of 2021

          https://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-many-goldman-sachs-private-equity-clients-are-preparing-for-a-recession-every-single-one-of-them-2019-12-05?mod=home-page

    2. Prices have been falling a long time now. Plunging prices can no longer be concealed so the Real Estate Liars Club is forced to concede… simply to provide themselves cover later on.

      Realtors are liars

      1. Karen McDougal: I knew Trump was married.

        dtRmpsis said: don’t mind her, she’s @ home, busy with her “left” nipple, wow, were yer ever on teen usa?

        American Evangelical’$: “dtRumpsis, he’$ our $aviour!!!”

    3. I saw one local Salt Lake Valley greedhead post their used shack (which smelled of mold) for $500,000 in August 2019, by December it was down to $387,000. The realtor told me at the end of November “highest offers due by December 3rd at 7:00 PM, and be generous, we have many offers.”

      By December 5th it was relisted.

      They won’t just give it away!

  12. “10 years out, I think we’re going to have an issue with individuals who want to retire and move to senior living, and where’s the market to buy their homes?’””

    With 25 million excess, empty and defaulted houses out there and another 35 million already starting to empty, there’s no need to wait…..

    Sefner, FL Housing Prices Crater 10% YOY As Tampa Area Continues To Depopulate As Boomer Demographic Fades

    https://www.movoto.com/seffner-fl/market-trends/

    As one noted economist advises, “Mortgage debt is the most toxic and damaging debt of all. Avoid it at all costs.”

      1. The FIRE sector could and did go down. One of the many great lies is that the economy could not be returned to growth without putting a floor on housing prices. I took the $8000 home tax credit but creating a competitive corporate tax rate and protections against foreign dumping of goods would have helped the economy far more than all the housing aid. Of course Obama was interested in savings globalism and the bankers more than restoring prosperity to the working class. The stimulus measures just meant money flowing to China and Europe. As I said at the time supply side not demand side measures were needed, it was counterintuitive but Trump has shown it to be true.

  15. Chinese developer Oceanwide Holdings looks to be trying to exit the U.S. market, either partially or fully, putting its considerable development portfolio in New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco all on the market at once. And that includes the under-construction Oceanwide Center at First and Mission — originally planned to be a two-tower complex, though now only one tower remains in the works.

    https://sfist.com/2019/12/04/its-not-even-built-yet-but-downtowns-oceanwide/

    1. “In addition to marketing the $1.6 billion San Francisco development — which already took some bids late last year that Oceanwide rejected — Oceanwide Holdings is looking to offload its Oceanwide Plaza development in Los Angeles. That project, which briefly halted construction in January but has since resumed, includes a Park Hyatt hotel and 504 condos, as well as retail space.”

      Don’t give it away! Remember, now is the best time to buy!

    1. Japan’s solution to its debt woes and sluggish growth would be a wealth tax, not a consumption tax or more QE trying to push inflation (which only seems to inflate stocks/bonds).

  20. The crew of a yacht that floundered off a remote desert island in the South Pacific has been rescued 17 weeks after their boat sank. Rescuers said the marooned crew and passengers might have been recovered sooner had they spelled out SOS for search and rescue aircraft, instead of “Realtors are liars.”

    2. Growing pains for a company. Keep in mind that even though Ford and GM are now seriously joining the EV fray, they have no reliable charging network.

      Personally, I’ve never waited for a supercharger. It is extremely rare to wait at all, but I think the long waits over the Thanksgiving holiday really underscores just how many new model 3s are being added. Tesla is going to have to start increasing the mobile superchargers and hasten the V3 charging stations (9 minutes to charge 0-80%) in some of these areas.

  24. Got bond defaults?

    No income, no payment.
    No payment, no problem.

    The Financial Times
    Chinese business & finance
    China’s bailout of private companies fails to halt defaults
    State funds lend $22.7bn to struggling listed groups using shares as collateral
    An investor looks at an electronic board showing stock information of Shanghai Stock Exchange
    Sun Yu and Xinning Liu in Beijing yesterday

    Chinese private companies are defaulting on their debt obligations even after receiving government bailouts, raising questions over Beijing’s efforts to rescue listed groups using public funds.

    Beijing last year launched one of the largest state-led campaigns to save troubled private sector businesses after falling stock prices hit so-called equity pledge financing, which enables companies to borrow using their own shares as collateral.

    Of 339 listed private companies that have received government funding since the rescue campaign began in August 2018, 75 later reneged on payments even after local courts ordered them to pay up, according to public records.
    …

    1. “Chinese private companies are defaulting on their debt obligations even after receiving government bailouts, raising questions over Beijing’s efforts to rescue listed groups using public funds.”

      This sounds extremely reminiscent of the Obama era subprime mortgage bailouts of U.S. households that mired themselves in a pile of debt.

  25. ‘The moratorium is likely to come as a relief to homeowners with few insurance options. But it doesn’t solve the broader problem facing insurers of how to price wildfire risk.’

    ‘There is “a global reappraisal of what catastrophic wildfire risk means in California,” said Rex Frazier, president of the Personal Insurance Federation of California. “How the state copes with that new reality—I think that’s the dialogue that’s ahead.”

    ‘California wildfires cost insurers more than $24 billion in 2017 and 2018, according to the state.’

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/california-bans-insurers-from-dropping-homes-in-wildfire-areas-11575585626

  26. CNBC has a report that Brazil has been buying US soybeans and then selling them to China. Hard to control the flow of commodities

      1. The soybeans are still shipped along the same route with the least amount of handling…just a little more paperwork.

      2. I seem to recall that this is what China did to get around tariffs by expanding their manufacturing in Cambodia and Vietnam.

      1. It’s quite simple really.

        The DemoComrades are terrified at the notion of running against Trumpy. How to solve that problem? Try to impeach him.

        It’s backfiring on the communists in ways they never thought.

          1. Hah! I used to really like Jeff Dunham, but he got pretty political in his past special (netfix?), I couldn’t watch it.

  31. Am I the only Fed observer who finds it paradoxical that the more they try to protect the world from the natural consequences of bad household- and firm-level borrowing decisions, the more fragile the overall financial system becomes?

    It’s a conundrum!

    1. Got fragility? Got systemic risk out the wazoo?

      From the magazine
      The Firefighting Fed
      America’s central bank better get used to its role as permanent economic rescuer.
      Nicole Gelinas
      Autumn 2019

      A week before the Federal Reserve cut interest rates in September, to 2 percent, President Trump took to Twitter to call Fed board members “Boneheads” and exhort them to “get our interest rates down to ZERO, or less, and we should then start to refinance our debt. INTEREST COST COULD BE BROUGHT WAY DOWN.” Though he may rue Trump’s unorthodox method of lobbying the central bank, Fed chief Jay Powell is inching toward doing what the president wants—and the Fed may as well get accustomed to doing the dirty work of the executive and legislative branches, no matter who’s in power. The global financial system is as fragile as it was back in 2007, when signs of the financial crisis started to emerge. Yet there’s no political appetite for a massive legislated bailout, à la the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, that Congress passed in late 2008, to ease the crisis. The next time around, in other words, the Fed could end up acting on its own—or become the political scapegoat for elected leaders’ failings.

      How brittle is the financial system? The week after the Fed cut rates, it released its quarterly report on outstanding debt. American individuals, businesses, and government owe more money than ever before—up about 25 percent from 2008, an increase that far outpaces the roughly 8 percent population growth during that period. For the second quarter, total debt outstanding was $53 trillion—up from $42.7 trillion in 2008 (adjusted for inflation) when the financial crisis hit. Much of this increase—$9.4 trillion—was federal borrowing. But not all. Though households owe less money on mortgages than they did 11 years ago (due mostly to massive defaults), they owe far more on student loans, cars, credit cards, and other consumer credit: $4.1 trillion, or nearly $1 trillion more than back in 2008. Companies owe nearly $10 trillion, $2 trillion more than they owed back then.

      The systemic risk here is not clever bankers making up funny-sounding financial instruments (though they still do that). It’s that people and companies owe so much that the financial system can’t withstand the slightest hint of higher interest rates. Sure, your 30-year mortgage may be locked in at record-low rates. But Americans’ $1 trillion in credit-card debt, as well as trillions of dollars in short-term corporate debt, is not locked in, making it highly sensitive to rate hikes. The Fed isn’t boxed in by Trump’s tweets, in other words, but by a decade’s worth of its own actions, in keeping rates artificially low.
      …

      1. It’s a conundrum!

        With debt comes fragility. Living without debt results in savings. Savings brings its own problems, like where to stack all of it.

        1. Savers are also at risk of becoming victims in the War on Savers, as the debt donkey version of the Hunger Games ensues.

          Diversify wisely. And may the odds be ever in your favor.

          1. Savers are also at risk of becoming victims in the War on Savers, as the debt donkey version of the Hunger Games ensues.

            +1. The mob is coming for your savings…
            Diversify wisely. And may the odds be ever in your favor.

      2. Winston Churchill said, “It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.”

        I was rechanelling Sir Alan Greenspan:

        Markets
        Why Greenspan’s Bond Conundrum Looks Like the New Normal
        By Sid Verma
        May 3, 2017, 5:35 AM PDT
        Updated on May 4, 2017, 1:51 AM PDT
        – Global savings limit Treasury yield rise: Oxford Economics
        – Technical forces may account for depressed long-dated yields
        …

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