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New Years Housing Bubble Predictions

What’s your housing bubble predictions for the new year? Six months ago. “I’ll lose 20 pounds by year’s end? Or is that wishful thinking? I see a decent chance of economic downturn in Q4, how much though is anyone’s guess. Too much jerking around of rates and credit to call it. Housing price wise, I think we’ll see accelerating/steepening declines in Q4. It’ll get blamed on the weather, etc, but a LOT harder for the MSM, etc to ignore or talk over than it is currently.”

From one year ago. “I predict more mortgage loan shenanigans by .gov to stimulate demand for grotesquely overpriced houses as price declines and weakness in most markets becomes impossible to ignore.”

From Nevada Business. “Nevada’s residential housing should be stabilized and sustainable throughout 2020. ‘We’ve gone from a high appreciation market to a more normalized market,’ said Tom Blanchard, president of the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors. ‘We could not sustain the high appreciation market we were in the past couple years. If you don’t sell, you don’t make money, but it’s healthy for us as a housing market to have taken a breather from what we’ve seen in the past, which was just unsustainable.'”

“Las Vegas home prices are predicted to fall, according to Realtor.com. A drop in home prices seem to go against all other information and basic economic principals as the same report predicts Nevada will see a surge in homebuyers, Blanchard said. ‘We still have a draw, we still have a need and people want to buy. But, supply is limited, and the price is going down?’ Blanchard said. ‘That goes against all the laws of the economics of supply and demand.'”

The Bellingham Herald in Washington. “Whatcom home sales, which have hovered around 3,000 sold units a year for the past three years, should remain flat in the coming years, said Troy Muljat, of Muljat Group Realtors. He also expects home appreciation to return to historical norms, increasing around 4% a year. ‘Those appreciation gains of the past decade are not sustainable,’ Muljat said.”

From CBS Boston in Massachusetts. “Home sales in November tumbled by 11.9 percent compared to last November and sales over the first 11 months of 2019 are down 2.3 percent compared to the same period last year, The Warren Group reported . ‘It’s not uncommon for single-family home sales to take a dip towards the end of the year, but a near 12 percent decline is unprecedented,’ said Tim Warren, CEO of The Warren Group. ‘The last time November Massachusetts single-family home sales declined by a larger percent was nine years ago in November 2010 when sales plummeted almost 30 percent.'”

From WMFE in Florida. “Florida’s economic outlook for 2020 is good but not great, according to economic commentator Hank Fishkind. Fishkind: First of all, it’s important that our listeners understand we have already passed the peak for this business cycle. The peak occurred in 2015. In 2015, US GDP growth peaked at 2.9%. And since then it’s slowed down, and last quarter it was at 1.8%. Florida has a similar trend. Florida’s gross state product peaked at 4.2% in 2015, Orlando’s peaked at 5% in 2015, Daytona, Melbourne, Palm Bay, Tampa, you name it, they peaked in 2015.”

“Q: Okay, so are there other factors you’re looking at more locally that caused you to expect good but not great growth in 2020? HF: Yes, there are. So population again, peaked in Florida, in 2015 at 425,000, which is quite a good number. It’s slowed to about 350,000 this past year. Now 350,000 population growth, obviously a big number Matthew, but it’s the average population growth that has occurred in Florida since 1970. And what’s important about that is, given the very long trajectory of this growth expansion cycle a whole decade, very low interest rates, very strong housing markets in most places or at least modestly strong housing markets in some, we should have seen much more population growth in Florida: we’re simply not seeing it.”

The San Francisco Chronicle in California. “John Solaegui, Compass: The market has been cooling lately. Properties are taking longer to sell and some sellers have had to reduce their prices. Some of it may be the seasonal autumn/winter slowdown. Market fundamentals point to slower growth in 2020, depending on the neighborhood and property type. Buyers: watch for opportunities, paying particular attention to properties that have been languishing on the market.”

“Do not expect prices to plummet, but you may be able to write a winning offer with more contingencies, or even contingent on the sale of your current home. Sellers: accept that the market has shifted. Your home must shine above the competition. Employ ‘just right’ pricing, within 2 to 3% of the true market price. Pricing above market is deadly. Pricing below market may result in lowball offers. Do not expect multiple offers, but remember that all you need is one good buyer.”

The Times of London in the UK. “Fears about the health of Blackmore Bond have grown after the company missed another deadline to pay thousands of investors their interest. Blackmore is behind on its quarterly coupon payments, having failed to pay its bondholders the interest they were due in October. The company has invested the money raised in property developments around the country. Blackmore unnerved its investors after it was late paying the quarterly interest that had been due to bondholders in July and failed to meet a pledge to pay the delayed October coupon by the end of November, blaming a slowdown in property sales.”

“A scandal last year involving another minibond issuer also fuelled worries about Blackmore and thrust the minibond industry into the spotlight. London Capital & Finance collapsed last January owing more than £237 million to 11,625 investors, who are expected to receive only 25 per cent of their money back.”

The Sydney Morning Herald in Australia. “A two-year slowdown in Sydney’s economy has exposed entrenched challenges for the city which need to be address in the coming decade, economists have warned. The report’s author, economist Terry Rawnsley, said the slowdown highlighted problems Sydney has with housing affordability and access to jobs, services and business opportunities which had become more difficult due to congestion. The past decade underscored the degree to which Sydney’s economic fortunes are linked to the property market.”

“Economist Chris Richardson said the longer-term outcome of a boom and bust in house prices is higher mortgages and slower population growth. ‘The pain of higher mortgages and the servicing of them began to be apparent – people started to leave Sydney in greater numbers or they didn’t come here in the first place because prices were through the roof . . . and that began to weigh on the economic performance of NSW.'”

“Mr Richardson warned Sydney’s apparent reliance on rising property prices for stronger economic growth ‘doesn’t augur enormously well for the coming decade as a whole.'”

The Wall Street Journal. “The Census Bureau released on Monday state population estimates for the year ended July 1. California is an exception to the Western state growth trend. This month the state said its population grew 0.35% in the year ended July 1, the slowest pace on record since 1900. The new census estimates show that more residents left the state than moved in for the third consecutive year.”

“The 2010 Census marked the first time California didn’t gain a congressional seat since it became a state. Its high cost of living, tight supply of housing, threat of natural disaster and restrictions on foreign workers have all helped slow the state’s population growth, said Jeanne Gobalet, a vice president at Lapkoff & Gobalet Demographic Research who is based in Saratoga, Calif. ‘California’s less appealing as a destination,’ she said. The lifelong Golden State resident has noticed that people she meets outside the state ‘talk about California as a place they might like to visit in their lifetimes, and they don’t really want to live there.'”

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This Post Has 85 Comments

  1. Happy New Years! I elected to have a minor surgery performed this week so i could recover over the new years and have been a but medicated but today im feeling pretty present 🙂 my prediction for 2020: FBs that once could squat for years will be evicted in months, foreclosure/ zombie homes will flood in, ibuyer will become more common, home prices will comtinue to be propped up with more QE and banks will bailed out. Nov 2020 could change much of this depending on who gets elected. Either way i see the funny money printing / QE operations going until then and housing declining with the help of life support.

  3. My rent will probably go up by $20 a month and I will renew my lease. I will not buy a used house this year. My portfolio is over half in cash now and I will wait for a 20% correction before I buy more stocks.

    Life without debt feels really good 8)

    1. My mortgage will not go up at all, but my property was just re-appraised so I expect a bit of a tax increase, no biggie. I sold equities out to cash at 27000 and I’ll sell a little more in the spring, then wait for the correction.
      No debt except the mortgage. Yeah I have mortgage debt, but my house is worth much more than I owe on it, so solvent life feels good too.

        1. Sell (some) in May and Walk Away? After that it will depend on how badly TPTB want to keep Trump in office.

      2. As one of our contributors said so eloquently, “anything can happen using DonkeyMath.”

        He’s right.

        Wilmington, NC Housing Prices Crater 22% YOY As Coastal Carolina Homeowners Slip Deeper Underwater

        https://www.zillow.com/wilmington-nc-28405/home-values/

        https://snag.gy/m5EzRB.jpg

        As a leading economist noted, “A house is a rapidly depreciating asset that empties your wallet every day you own it. Rent a house for half the monthly cost of buying it.”

  5. ‘We still have a draw, we still have a need and people want to buy. But, supply is limited, and the price is going down?…That goes against all the laws of the economics of supply and demand.’

    There is no law of supply and demand Tom.

  6. ‘Sellers: accept that the market has shifted. Your home must shine above the competition. Employ ‘just right’ pricing, within 2 to 3% of the true market price. Pricing above market is deadly. Pricing below market may result in lowball offers’

    Wa? But IPO? I guess the old tactic of pricing low to start a bidding war is dead.

  7. ‘California’s less appealing as a destination’…people she meets outside the state ‘talk about California as a place they might like to visit in their lifetimes, and they don’t really want to live there’

    I’d be safe and warm, if I was in LA…

    1. The filthy, mean streets of coastal California simply get meaner and filthier with each passing year.

      1. I’m afraid to go to California. I’m sure I’d trigger The Big One while I’m there. At least other FUBAR states like Florida give advance warning for their natural disasters.

  8. 2020 will be the year the central banks run out of road for their can-kicking. It will also be the year that the chimera of our “greatest economy ever” built on debt-fueled consumption is exposed as a fraud as the cascading defaults begin. Last but not least, social unrest against corrupt, unaccountable elites that went viral in more than 20 countries around the world in late 2019 will start to manifest here in the USA as the proles are pushed past desperation by unaffordable housing and the destruction of their purchasing power, courtesy of the Fed.

  9. I see a high tech stock correction particularly companies who chronically lose money or just barely breakeven with accounting tricks.

    1. I would say that those companies are not “tech”. They don’t make hardware and they don’t write/sell software. A ride sharing company is not tech, it’s a taxi company where you can hail a cab with a smartphone app. Yeah, they have an advanced IT infrastructure, but that’s not the product, the product is a taxi ride, the IT infrastructure is overhead. And they can’t seem to turn a profit.

      Meanwhile, old school tech firms like Intel, HP, IBM, Oracle, etc. make billions in profit year after year after year.

      2. Meanwhile, old school tech firms like Intel, HP, IBM, Oracle, etc. make billions in profit year after year after year.

        I think my old school tech firm may be pretty dependent on those unprofitable unicorns consuming a lot of storage. So I could see times getting tighter when they die. But the real economy needs storage too. Just not so much. Although if we’re really going to make cars with a jillion cameras that want to save all the video from all those cameras all the time…hello automotive grade flash memory. Which means all the test chambers have to be upgraded to -40 capability.

        1. In my experience, storage has always been the roller coaster in tech. For some reason storage companies have a pronounced feast and famine cycle, with large periodic layoffs. There used to be a firm here in the Centennial state called StorageTek, which was notorious for hiring binges followed by mass layoffs. For some reason Sun acquired them, and of course Sun was acquired by Oracle. From what I have heard, there is a tiny remnant left of StorageTek at Oracle’s Broomfield campus.

          What has puzzled me is that, at least in theory, the demand for storage is “to the moon, Alice”, but that doesn’t seem to translate into steady employment. An old boss now works at NetApp and has been trying to recruit me. I have been politely declining, even thought it’s at the solid state storage group in Boulder.

          1. Yeah, I’ve mentioned it before but I used to work at STK on Iceberg :-). That old group still at Oracle are some of my old friends, but more got laid off recently and now there are almost none left.

            NetApp is meh, but that old group in Boulder that’s now integrated with Solidfire is a good group. I wouldn’t turn my nose up at them if the offer was right. I worked with them for a long time after STK when they were LSI and a few of them are old STKers too.

          2. Yeah, they tell me that “it’s different here at SolidFire, it isn’t really NetApp”, but I have my doubts. Anyway, the pay would be about the same as I get now and I would have to commute all the way to Boulder vs. working at home, and would work in a bench seating environment and gave to pay to park.

            Plus the coding test is insane. From what I have heard most candidates don’t bother to turn it in, and those who do spend 20-40 hours working on it. Several people there, including managers, know me and my work. Yet I would still have to burn all those hours taking the test. I am also told that SolidFire has a hard time recruiting and retaining people, yet they refuse to be more flexible. Meanwhile, at the current job my director treats me well, I get big raises and RSU grants.

          3. I am also told that SolidFire has a hard time recruiting and retaining people, yet they refuse to be more flexible. Meanwhile, at the current job my director treats me well, I get big raises and RSU grants.

            Sounds like a no brainer then. I didn’t realize it was so hard to get hired into NetApp. I got laid off from LSI during the NetApp purchase. I never tried to get back in since then.

      3. Uber/Lyft are going to turn even less profit when gig workers are required to be hired as official employees. One thing I haven’t read is whether there’s a minimum hours threshold before the employees gets the benefits. Surely they don’t need to provide health insurance to someone who drives for only 4-5 hours/week? That’s the easy way to get around providing bennies. Just limit hours, like they do at WalMart and McDs’s.

  10. …. And falling housing prices.

    San Diego, CA Housing Prices Crater 11% YOY As Southern California Slips Deeper Into Mortgage Defaults And Mortgage Fraud

    https://www.zillow.com/san-diego-ca-92104/home-values/

    *Select price from dropdown menu on first chart

    A noted economist stated, “If you have to borrow for 15 or 30 years, you can’t afford it nor is it affordable.”

  12. This is from the article, some serious rewriting of history:
    The country will stick to the principle that “housing is for living in, not speculation” and must not take real estate as a short-term stimulus to the economy, said Wang Menghui, minister of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, at a national work meeting.

    1. I think Chairman Xi has been saying housing is for living, not speculation, since 2017. But as they say, the mountains are high and the emperor is far.

  13. 2020 will see battle lines being drawn between collectivist control freaks serving as quislings for their globalist oligarch bankrollers, vs. heritage Americans who have lost faith in the system and just want to be left alone. The latter, as events in Virginia are showing, are quite prepared to draw a line in the sand if the collectivists decide to impose their diktat.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWyNPNGN3sw&t=9s

    1. This is going to be interesting. Will the globalists proceed with their unconstitutional gun grab? I think they are expecting/hoping the people will meekly surrender their firearms and the National Guard to do their bidding; but what if that doesn’t happen? What if the National Guard refuses to obey? What if the people shoot back?

      I think the grabbers are pondering this scenario. They know that if push comes to shove and the people (many who have military training) shoot back, then there’s no getting the genie back into the bottle. They will have a full blown civil war on their hands. Imagine if the people are able to take and occupy Richmond.

      How would the Deep State respond to such a series of events, especially since it’s so close to DC?

      1. I think they are expecting/hoping the people will meekly surrender their firearms and the National Guard to do their bidding; but what if that doesn’t happen?

        Michael Bloomberg, the bankroller and organ grinder for the Democrat minions pushing this latest gun grab, isn’t stupid. Already Gov. Northam has offered a “compromise” whereby if gun owners agree to register their “assault weapons,” then their legal ownership of AR-15, AK-47s, etc. would be grandfathered. However, as countless precedents show – most recently in New Zealand and Venezuela – registration is ALWAYS a precondition to confiscation for the collectivists and their globalist masters. While the cucks in New Zealand handed over their newly banned guns like subservient little serfs, Virginians seem to be made of sterner stuff, as the nearly universal middle fingers in response to this latest Democrat gun-grab illustrate. So if Comrade Northam and his fellow quislings try to carry out the orders of their globalist pimps by forcibly disarming law-abiding American citizens who refuse to comply with their diktat, that’s when we’ll see how serious Virginia gun owners are defending their Constitutional rights.

        1. Im really surprised Bloomberg thinks this way after being mayor of NYC, he should know almost all street crime is with illegal guns and almost no one is a member of the NRA….I propose a 5 year sentence NO bail for carrying an each illegal gun on a public street. 10 years no bail if the serial numbers are filed off and double everything if you have priors. But you know Sharpton et al. will call this racis…

      2. “Will the globalists proceed with their unconstitutional gun grab?”

        I don’t know but they’re hiring.

        Job Opening

        Job Code Title: DISARMAMENT, DEMOBILIZATION AND REINTEGRATION OFFICER
        Department/Office: Department of Peace Operations
        Duty Station: NEW YORK
        Posting Period: 26 December 2019 – 08 February 2020

        Responsibilities

        Acts as a Focal Point for Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR) components for two to three missions, responsible for planning, support to implementation and evaluation;

        Provides Headquarters support in planning the civilian and military logistics support for DDR;

        Identifies potential problems and issues to be addressed and suggests remedies to DDR units in the field;

        Languages

        English and French are the working languages of the United Nations. For this post advertised, fluency in English is required.

        https://careers.un.org/lbw/jobdetail.aspx?id=127453

        1. Virginia increases its corrections budget in anticipation of jailing defiant gun owners. By a whooping $250K. BWHAHAHAAHHAAA! Considering each inmate costs the state something like $60,000 a year, Comrade Northam and his globalist quislings are seriously underestimating how many gun owners will need to be locked up if they go through with implementing Bloomberg’s orders.

          https://www.yahoo.com/news/virginia-increases-corrections-budget-anticipation-135915963.html

        3. “Duty Station: NEW YORK”

          In the field usually means Camp Lemonier, the American base in Djibouti, e.g., high endurance drone support, hostage rescue and reintegration, multilateral logistics, etc., not your typical dysfunctional snowflake government employment.

    2. I have always found prepper doom narratives to have great entertainment value. A favored past time…to ponder various scenarios that might emerge from societal chaos. But this is the first time it looks like things might actually go off the rails, and frankly, as much as I’ve contemplated it, I’m now nonplused to have to consider it a real possibility. There’s no common ground between political factions anymore. The divide keeps growing. Each side clamors louder and louder that the other side needs to be vanquished.

      As far as housing goes, it appears the Heisenberg Uncertainty principle is at work. The more I observe where it is the less I understand of where it is going. Though there is nothing new under the sun, any similar circumstance is so far in the distant past that for all practical purposes these are the times that never were. If I had one prediction, it would be that those of us who have been saving and looking for value for our dollars will not find it in 2020.

      1. There’s no common ground between political factions anymore. The divide keeps growing. Each side clamors louder and louder that the other side needs to be vanquished.

        You’re right, there’s no common ground between me and a collectivist mob that wants to help themselves to the fruits of my labor, and trample on everything I hold dear. But it’s more like one side – the collectivists – is trying to impose its diktat on the other side, which just wants to be left alone. The takers can’t “vanquish” the makers because then we’ll be another Venezuela. But being control freaks, the Left is going to keep trying to impose its will on people who don’t want anything to do with them or their warped progressive “values” that justify the coercive “redistribution of the wealth” for the benefit of parasites. Virginia is shaping up to be a flash point, because if the collectivists try to ram through the gun confiscation demanded by their globalist masters, they could end up provoking a confrontation and backlash that won’t end well for them.

      2. Each side clamors louder and louder that the other side needs to be vanquished.

        Both sides? What I hear from the right seems to be much more about “leave us alone” than “you must submit to our vision”. Abortion, as always, being the big exception to that general trend.

        1. During and after the last election, we’ve been treated to scenes of Comrade Maxine Waters exhorting her Red Guards to “get up in their face!” when they encountered Trump officials in public spaces. We witnessed countless assaults on Trump supporters by SJWs trying to stop them from attending rallies for their candidate – a fundamental Constitutional right. We saw Soros-funded Antifa militants beating up citizen journalists (Andy Ngo) and elderly drivers who didn’t comply with their roadblock instructions fast enough (while worthless cops in progressive-run cities looked on and did nothing). ALL of the aggression came from the Left – which is why you had the rise of groups like the Proud Boys to fight back (they were promptly branded as “domestic terrorists” by the FBI, while Antifa has free rein to conduct assaults at will). So don’t try to imply there is equivalency between the Left and the Right or that the Right is clamoring for the Left to be vanquished. We just want the collectivists to f**k off.

          1. My post was devoid of any implication of equivalency. It was only meant to address differences that seem irreconcilable. I listen to the staple leftist news broadcasts when I’m driving. I listen to infowars and read the gateway pundit etc for another another perspective. It’s like these people can’t possibly be living in, and observing, the same universe. I can’t envision a detente between the two factions. Sorry to say, what I see, but do not support or advocate, is fighting in the streets.

        2. Both sides? What I hear from the right seems to be much more about “leave us alone”

          I hear a lot of people calling for the arrest and imprisonment of the Clintons, the Podestas, the Bidens, Adam Schiff, Comey, Brennan, Clapper, etc for treason and other crimes. Justified or not, it’s different than “just leave me alone”.

          The supporters of the above are equally insistent that Trump and his crowd be arrested and imprisoned.

          Seems like it’s all going to culminate in some galactic level fireworks.

          1. I hear a lot of people calling for the arrest and imprisonment of the Clintons, the Podestas, the Bidens, Adam Schiff, Comey, Brennan, Clapper, etc for treason and other crimes. Justified or not, it’s different than “just leave me alone”.

            I always interpreted that as frustrated jokes, but fair enough. The frustrated calls from the left to take off the gloves and start confiscating guns I do NOT take as jokes…but I guess it’s all in the perspective.

      3. ‘There’s no common ground between political factions anymore’

        We’ve got the fact that we live in the best country on the planet in common. This is globalism death-throes amplified by the globalist media. I’ve been reading some editorials here and in the UK. A remarkable thing has happened. The Conservatives now represent millions of people who have voted Labour their entire lives. They aren’t suddenly conservatives. Millions of people who voted for Obammie twice voted for the current president. I know some: they consider themselves liberal and plan to vote for him again. So the Republicans now represent millions of liberals.

        One editorial said the factions right now are insiders versus outsiders. That’s one way to look at it. Or establishment types versus anti-establishment, etc. We may rally around immigration issues or trade or Brexit. As they discovered in the UK, it takes more than one vote to shove these globalists off the stage. But look at them now. You aren’t hearing any of this “leave voters didn’t know what they were voting for” crap now. It’s a new era. Calling people racist doesn’t shut them down anymore. IMO identity politics has run its course. Changes this profound take time to sort out.

        1. Well said, Ben. The Internet has broken the stranglehold on news and information long held by the Oligopoly and their controlled media outlets. People can go to sites like this for real news, real truth, and the free exchange of information and views, unfettered by PC Commissars or a slavish adherence to political correctness. Around the globe, the masses are rising up and pushing back against corrupt, unaccountable elites. Globalism has been exploded as the ideology of plunder of the masses for the sole benefit of a corrupt and venal elite in the financial sector. The globalists can still push their Narrative and try to suppress honest debate, but increasingly, their BS is falling on deaf ears as the screwed-over proles have become awake and aware.

          1. The Internet has broken the stranglehold on news and information long held by the Oligopoly and their controlled media outlets.

            It’s becoming less and less so. If the central planners get their way, you won’t be able to access the internet without a biometric ID and everything you post with be used to calculate your social credit score. On the other hand, if the central planners fail to get the cat back in the bag with respect to the democratization of information, their long planned for global superstate will evaporate. And, like I said above, neither side is going to willingly submit to the other. There is no resolution. One side wins and the other loses.

        2. “insiders versus outsiders. ”
          “establishment types versus anti-establishment”

          This conflict is really about Merit vs. Privilege.

        3. If the GOP can win back the House, while purging the RINOs and Never Trumpers, then the Left will have to reassess their strategy, though they might insist on continuing with the same losing strategy.

          Anyway, that so many voted for the Hildebeast last time does give me pause.

  14. I predict more of the same – oligarchs chasing yield at the expense of society, driving up the prices of life’s necessities due to their insatiable greed.

  15. The end of the year is going to be very different from the beginning of the year. The year will start off well, and those in defensive positions (cash, The Precious) will take a hit. Then the shenanigans — low interest rates, repo market, globalist manipulations, Brexit, overdue commerical/multi RE loans, inverted yield curve, etc. — will finally catch up with the economy. I expect a recession/crash between Memorial Day and Election Day. It won’t be as serious as 2008, maybe along the lines of 2001. I don’t know where they’ll go from here. I need to spend the first half of the year preparing defense.

    1. It won’t be as serious as 2008, maybe along the lines of 2001.

      I respectfully disagree. Engineered boom/bust cycles are the most efficacious means for the Wall Street-Federal Reserve Looting Syndicate to transfer the remaining wealth and assets of the vanishing middle class to the Fed’s oligarch cohorts. The Great Muppet Reapings of 2000 and 2008 are mere warm-ups for what’s coming, given the gargantuan asset bubbles and debt loads created by ten years of “accommodative” Fed monetary policy. The next crash is going to exceed the Great Depression in terms of economic devastation to the real economy as well as the rigged Wall Street speculative casino.

  17. “I’ll lose 20 pounds by year’s end? Or is that wishful thinking?”

    I predict that both my weight and San Diego housing prices will decline in 2020, with the latter by a larger percentage.

  18. “we have already passed the peak for this business cycle. The peak occurred in 2015.”

    My favorite media excuse of this cycle. From Australian papers last year to the US today. Like, “Oh, yeah, EVERYONE knows the peak was YEARS ago. Duh! Wait, no one told you?? We definitely reported it at the time. No, really.”

  19. If you or I lie to the FBI while being interviewed in the course of an investigation (based on the FBI agents’ notes, as tape recording the interview is not allowed), we could face five years in a federal prison for making a false statement. However, corrupt FBI holdovers from the Clinton and Obama era lie routinely on the rare occasions when the FBI actually investigates its Deep State moles, but per our two-tiered justice system, lying FBI officials have yet to face criminal consequences.

    “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” — George Orwell, “Animal Farm”

    https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/01/breaking-newly-released-foia-documents-reveal-former-fbi-chief-andrew-mccabe-lied-to-fbi-investigators-on-his-role-of-leaking-to-media/

  21. Prediction

    Stanford law professor Pamela Karlan whose joke “The Constitution says there can be no titles of nobility, so while the president can name his son Barron, he can’t make him a baron,” which fell flat will never allow video of herself flying anywhere be released again.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WG3sNxIgg4

  22. https://www.realtor.com/advice/buy/what-is-a-buyers-market/

    Quote from article:

    But don’t get too excited. No one’s giving their home away in a buyer’s market. While you may get a deal, you may not get a steal.

    “If your budget allows for $800K, don’t aggressively go after million-dollar properties,” warns Daniele Kurzweil, a licensed real estate salesperson with the Friedman Team at Compass in NYC. It’s still smart to stick to your budget, so you can avoid financial trouble if the markets shift in the future.

    Link at bottom of same page:

    ADVICE
    Dream Big: 6 Reasons Why You Should Look at Homes Outside Your Price Range

  24. My husband insists we buy in overpriced Ann Arbor this year, so I predict intense strife in my life. I wanted to buy in 2013 but he was a little unsure about his work. Just after that things started getting overpriced again and we’re old and I don’t want to blow the money we’ve saved by renting cheaply on an overpriced PoS shack but we have to leave our current good deal rental. It’s still cheaper to rent than buy even as high as rents are here, and there is so so much new housing coming in that despite apparent area job growth I can’t believe it is sustainable. Nothing I say works. Should I just divorce and thusly force a change of his plans lol?! I just showed him how taxes are considerably higher than Taxachussetts where he grew up and it still doesn’t work. He wants to max out money down, plunk down 30 or 50 percent to reduce monthly by a little and he won’t even try to understand why that’s a bad idea right now. Even the realtors tell him, when he asks, what do you think of buying now, well i don’t have a crystal ball lol but interest rates are low. In the past when we’ve looked they’ve been far more lyingly positive lol. I tell him let’s rent for a while longer and save save and wait And see but he won’t have it.

    1. The price increase momentum temptation to buy at the peak has never been stronger. Good luck with balancing financial prudence with marital stability in the 2020s!

    2. “It’s still cheaper to rent than buy even as high as rents are here, and there is so so much new housing coming in that despite apparent area job growth I can’t believe it is sustainable.”

      Well said. Do you get ignored when you explain this to your husband?

      How does he think the market might evolve if stellar labor market conditions ever weaken?

      1. He completely ignores it. He is insisting we buy but asking me questions like “is 400k too much in x township”? Not apparently willing to use the monthly payment Calculators but willIng to lay down 200k down to “reduce “ the payment some while leaving 10k a year in property taxes and actual real debt of 100s of Ks more and leaving ya little cushion. Essentially rent is a little more than property tax plus insurance and a little upkeep or condo fees and so the only way this makes any sense is if you have cash you’d like to toss away which we do not or are betting on serious appreciation which seems so unlikely given where prices are right now. The savings we have go towards and will continue to go toward kids state school tuition plus Max retirement contributions and we wouldn’t have been able to squirrel nearly as much away if we’d bought at almost all points at which we could have in the past. And he wAnts to just toss it now. I think he doesn’t think Ann Arbor can ever be a bad bet because it does do better than surrounding areas. When I resort to sarcasm and say sure in 5 years that shack will go for 500k he says well maybe not but it doesn’t matter, the house will go up and down and who cares which may be true but why creAte for yourself an incredible amount of debt by buying high? People have come to think of houses like stocks and it’s so head-messing! He can’t seem to wrap his head around it as a credit card purchase essentially where you can buy it at scalper prices or wait for the inevitable sale price or at least REFUSE to feed the scalpers given that there are other options. But he tells me he will not accept us renting going forward.

        1. he will not accept us renting going forward

          Quite the ultimatum. Are you really willing to call his bluff?

        2. Just say no. He cant get the loan without your signature, but do it surreptitiously by never getting to the point of signing papers. Work your cute little butt off in bed and find a great rental that’s less than the mortgage and taxes would be. Point out the opportunity cost of the 200k down payment at even 3% interest. Go willingly and excitedly to every open house/tour he schedules, but fi d something catastrophically wrong with each house, but dont overdramatize, just plant the seed of doubt. Remind him that hes getting older and ask how much mainte6work hes willing to do that he hasn’t had to do. Adding a bj to every great argument you sweetly make will also program him to listen. Note: I’m a married woman. This s*it works.

      1. Thanks for that link lol I’m going to have to study that! He does prefer female agents and is prone to falling under their spell. I.e. will listen straight faced and moon eyed when they lie about all manner of things. I prefer male agents who I think lie less in real estate lol. Women appear to be modally comfortable lying about nest type things like houses while men get antsy about it, while men are totally comfy-seeming lying about machines like cars while women are generally less at ease on that count lol.

  25. I think this is a blow off top but based on my past predictions I don’t know what I’m talking about… I bought a house in 2012 figuring it will go down a little and it went up , I sold some stock in my company predicting it won’t go past 16 its at 76 now, I sold mutual funds and moved to short term bonds and cash and the market went up over 25% last year… 35 % for the extended market fund I sold.

    I can predict I won’t get promoted and probably get a sh$$y raise.

    1. Well 2012 was a great time to buy! I wanted to then, it was long enough after 2009 to feel like okay the bottom feels sorta established by whatever means it happened lol, prices were not too bad and rates were good. Selling *some* stock is okay, right, profit taking happens and can be strategic. That may actually be partly why my husband will not listen to anything I say— I convinced him once to take some profit on a fund and sell *some* of it. It stagnated a while and then went up again and he never stops talking about it. He thinks I am just wrong always or fearful but I don’t like losing money, I regret loss more than losing out on some gain true enough but he has always been debt averse on many things but not with this and it’s such a big ticket item! Cars too, he hates the idea of buying used and only “approved” me doing it once lol. I Have to pretend buying now is ok if I want to stay married it seems, but it’s going to feel like a hostage situation all around and I can see it all breaking bad.

      1. My neighbor wants to sell because he thinks his house will go lower in the next few years, fear is setting in.

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