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I’ve Got This Impending Date, I Keep Looking At It, Then Not Wanting To Look At It, We’re In This Black Void

A report from the Seattle Times in Washington. “‘Spring 2020 is going to be a perfect time to sell your house!’ That’s the advice public-school employees Kristine Nelson and her husband, Will, received when they decided late last year to sell their Vashon Island home. They planned to list it in the mid-$500,000s, a competitive price point. Then the pandemic hit, and early 2020’s white-hot housing market cratered. The Nelsons might be stuck with two mortgages if they can’t find a buyer for their Vashon Island home.”

“In late March, near the apex of the spring buying frenzy, they put a successful offer on a new house, in Tacoma’s Point Ruston neighborhood, after being outbid on nine other homes. ‘The minute a house dropped, we would drop everything and go see it,’ Nelson said. ‘We would make offers on houses we hadn’t even seen yet. It felt like a frenzy. We would wake up at 3 a.m. and think, ‘What are we doing?'”

“But by the time they listed their Vashon Island home, for $550,000 on April 2, buyer interest had tanked, according to NWMLS data on home showings. Despite lowering the price, they haven’t had any offers. Only one potential buyer has toured. If the market doesn’t pick up, come July, they might be stuck with a double mortgage bill, nearly $6,000. ‘For us, that’s a car,’ Nelson said.”

“It’s become harder to get any type of mortgage as lenders tighten underwriting standards to hedge against the rising risk of borrower default — but the availability of jumbo loans, which in King County start at $741,750, has been especially reduced, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association, as lenders shy away from issuing mortgages not guaranteed by the government.”

“Linda Sikora bought her Bryn Mawr house in 2017. When the pandemic hit, most of the clients at her market research firm backed out of their contracts. Sikora’s wife has been furloughed from her job as a pet groomer. Until Sikora is approved for a federal small business loan, ‘we have no income coming in,’ she said. Her lender, First Savings Bank, agreed to defer her mortgage payments for three months, but told her that ‘on the first day of that fourth month, I would owe all three months of mortgage plus the current balance,’ Sikora said — $11,000, an amount she knows she can’t pay.”

“‘I’ve got this impending date. I keep looking at it, then not wanting to look at it,’ she said. ‘We’re in this black void.'”

The Washington Post. “When it launched condominium sales in February, the Towers of the Waldorf Astoria in Manhattan was already girding for market headwinds. After years of excess, home sales on the island were slipping, declining in eight of the past nine quarters, according to housing data from Miller Samuel Real Estate Appraisers & Consultants. Amid a glut of new luxury towers and a shrinking foreign-buyer pool, sales in the fourth quarter of 2019 reached its lowest level in the past decade.”

“But just weeks after its sales launch the coronavirus struck the United States and dealt a shock to the global economy. Since then millions of Americans have lost their jobs, millions more are staying home and wealthy New Yorkers are seeing their stock portfolios dwindle.”

“‘It’s virtually impossible for something like this not to severely impact every facet of the luxury sector of the housing market,’ says Jonathan J. Miller, the president of Miller Samuel. ‘And the longer this goes on the longer it will take to see anything resembling a recovery.'”

“Brokers from expensive pockets across the country say they are already seeing signs that wealthy buyers are pausing as the pandemic unfolds. The Los Angeles real estate market started strong this year, but as the pandemic grew in Southern California, sales shrank as a flood of buyers pulled out of the market. Fifty-four percent of real estate agents in California had clients back out from a home purchase in March due to the coronavirus outbreak, according to a survey by the California Association of Realtors. Forty-five percent of those surveyed said they had a client back out from a home sale.”

The San Francisco Chronicle in California. “In early March, Bay Area shelter-in-place orders did not include real estate as an ‘essential’ business and all showings came to a halt. ‘Buyers seem to enjoy private showings more than open houses,’ said Bebe McRae, who sells properties in the East Bay. They are also enjoying the more ‘transparent’ pricing that realtors are now recommending to their clients, McRae said. The thought is that if open houses are out, the chances of multiple offers dwindle. So, pricing a home low in order to elicit a bidding war no longer makes as much sense.”

“‘Since we are trying to limit the access, I have recommended to all of my selling clients to raise the price closer to a price they are willing to accept,’ agreed East Bay realtor Deidre Joyner.”

“It’s too soon to tell how sales prices will ultimately be impacted by the new restrictions. But, looking back to the last financial crisis of 2008, Neal Ward, who specializes in selling such homes in San Francisco, said his well-heeled sellers would likely just sit out the spring season rather than rush to sell in a down market. ‘I do not feel that we will see properties coming onto market on the northside due to financial distress of the sellers. We did not see this in 2008 and I feel we won’t see it now,’ he said.”

From Business Den in Colorado. “After a full month of stay-at-home order restrictions, Denver’s residential real estate market is feeling the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. Total home sales volume in April was $1.8 billion, down 25 percent from March and 30 percent from April 2019, according to the Denver Metro Association of Realtors’ monthly market trend report. At month’s end, 3,280 homes were under contract, down 45.8 percent year over year.”

“Only 17 luxury condos sold in April, in comparison to the 32 sold in April 2019. The sold volume dropped 32 percent month over month from $38.3 million to $26.2 million, the report reads. ‘We have lost a lot of sources for jumbo loans, as those were what lenders started to drop and tighten up right away, which is a huge impact,’ said Jill Schafer, chair of the market trends committee at DMAR. “And as the economy has gotten a little bit insecure, people are realizing they don’t need to spend as much, and so perhaps, they’re not looking at these higher-end properties as much.'”

The Houston Chronicle in Texas. “Houston home sales plunged more than 20 percent in April from year-ago figures as sellers took properties off the market and buyers stayed home through the coronavirus-induced shutdown, a housing economist said Tuesday, citing an early estimate. ‘It does look like buyers are anxious to buy, but they’re just delaying it,’ said Jim Gaines, chief economist of the Texas A&M Real Estate Center.”

“Lenders, though, are being more stringent. JPMorgan, for example, said last month it would increase its minimum lending standards requiring borrowers to have at least 20 percent to put down and a credit scores of at least 700.”

The Pensacola News Journal in Florida. “Caleb Leitch’s wife passed away unexpectedly in 2013, six months after they bought a new home in Beulah. Leitch, now 31, has spent the last few years putting himself through school, working as a counselor for folks trying to quit tobacco and raising his elementary school-aged son. The last thing on his mind was his homeowners association fees.”

“Now, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, he is about to lose his $230,000 home over an $8,800 debt to his HOA and its attorneys. According to Leitch’s attorney, the First Judicial Circuit appears to be one of the few court systems in Florida that is proceeding with lien foreclosures despite an executive order from Gov. Ron DeSantis suspending foreclosures and evictions while more than one million Floridians are out of work.”

“Christine Kelly Fausel, a senior attorney for Legal Services of North Florida, is representing Leitch in his foreclosure case. Kelly Fausel said she believes this case and others are moving forward based on a hyper-literal interpretation of the governor’s order, an interpretation she thinks is both legally flawed and contrary to the spirit of the document. ‘Obviously the intent is not to have people homeless during COVID-19,’ Kelly Fausel said.”

“However, the governor’s order contains no explicit prohibition on ‘lien foreclosures.’ That process allows homeowners’ associations and condominium associations to place liens on the homes of members with unpaid fees and assessments. The process can ultimately result in a ‘lien foreclosure’ where the home is auctioned off to pay the HOA or COA.”

“In a press conference Friday, DeSantis said that he was not aware lien foreclosures were happening, and that he would have to find out more details before addressing any specific case. Speaking generally, however, DeSanits said, ‘We obviously put that in, in order to give people a reprieve. It didn’t mean that they never have to pay their mortgage again. We were very clear about that. But just given the circumstances, you may have had people who all of a sudden, if the economy stops, they didn’t have the ability to put food on the table. So we wanted to be doing things that recognize that hardship and weren’t compounding it.'”

“When Leitch and his wife, Amy, bought their home in quiet, idyllic Blackberry Ridge, they knew it was probably a bit more than they could afford. ‘We were young, so we were a little bit above our means, but hopefully growing into it,’ Leitch said. ‘I was finishing up school within the next year and hopefully getting a better job. So we knew we were going to be in a little bit of a bind for little while, but we’d be able to get our bills paid.'”

“His house is going up for auction Thursday, and with COVID-19 social distancing cutting his hours as a smoking cessation coach, Leitch said there’s virtually no chance he’ll be able to pay off what he owes in time. ‘I’m honestly not getting almost any hours at all,’ Leitch said. ‘I did file for unemployment, but because I’m considered a personal contractor, they denied me for employment. … So it’s been it’s been a rough couple months, that’s for sure.'”

The New Orleans Advocate in Louisiana. “Loree Stickles, who lost her Lafayette-area job and whose husband’s hours were drastically cut, sought delayed payments on her mortgage as a precaution amid the coronavirus crisis. But she’s still paying on the loan to avoid being hit with a lump-sum bill for $4,212 in July when the three-month forbearance period is over.”

“For New Orleans resident Cristina Sanchez Tyson and her husband, the lump sum would have been $6,000, so they decided against mortgage forbearance and are continuing payments to a lender that refused to move the payments to end of their loan. In Baton Rouge, yoga teacher and massage therapist Noura Skakri has been making partial mortgage payments as best as she and her husband can, even though forbearance was approved by their lender. She’s doing some online sessions but mostly is out of work because of the state-imposed shutdown of nonessential businesses and stay-at-home order issued in mid-March to contain the spread of the coronavirus pandemic.”

“To keep mortgage payments going, the homeowners are cobbling together savings, unemployment checks or federal relief funds they’ve received to prevent being hit with a huge lump-sum bill, which could potentially be avoided if lenders eventually are willing to alter the terms of their mortgages. ‘This seems to entirely defeat the purpose and does not offer financial relief. If I were to not have the amount for one month, what makes them think that I could come up with the amount for three months if the hardship continued?’ said Tyson, who works remotely in her job but whose husband’s restaurant hours were severely cut. ‘If we had really lost our second income completely, it would have been very stressful and challenging to afford the balloon payment.'”

“An estimated 3.8 million homeowners across the country are living not only on borrowed money but also borrowed time. About 7.5% of home mortgages across the U.S. were in forbearance as of April 26, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association national survey, a big jump from the less than 1% of mortgages in forbearance in early March before the onslaught of the coronavirus pandemic. And that number is expected to grow in May.”

“State-level data was not available, but the two largest independent mortgage servicers in Louisiana — GMFS LLC and Assurance Financial — estimate that more than 5% of their loans have been approved for forbearance so far. The issue for most homeowners is that despite efforts from the federal government to help ease the burden of mortgage payments amid stay-at-home orders and shuttered businesses, many are worried about what happens in weeks or months when the forbearance periods end. Even if borrowers are off the hook for payments right now, the money is still due.”

“‘Those payments are contractually still due at the end of the 90 days. The borrower either pays all three months or they are evaluated for further forbearance and various loan modification options,’ said Tee Brown, chief financial officer of Baton Rouge-based GMFS LLC.”

“Money is already tight and many of the Stickleses’ bills, ranging from flood insurance to groceries, are getting put on credit cards. Loree Stickles said she recently started receiving unemployment benefits and the couple received federal stimulus checks of $1,200 each. The couple has been making mortgage payments to avoid the lump-sum option using the stimulus money. Loree Stickles is looking for another job in the meantime.”

“Just in case, she’s already thinking of other options in a worst-case scenario, including tapping her retirement accounts. ‘I’m not even thinking foreclosure at this point,’ Stickles said.”

“The naturalist educator, who doesn’t expect to go back to work until August, and her husband, a crane operator in the hard-hit offshore oil and gas industry, actually have two mortgages right now. The other is on an old house the couple has been trying to sell, but the market has been down. Fortunately, the delayed mortgage payments for that house are being moved to the end of the loan by its mortgage servicer.”

“GMFS’ leadership expects the coronavirus pandemic to cause more borrowers to seek forbearance than after the 2016 flood in Louisiana, when about 7% of its mortgages were in forbearance. That’s the trend Assurance Financial is seeing as well. ‘We are seeing more demand for forbearance relief today than during that disaster,’ said Kenny Hodges, CEO of Assurance Financial. ‘We are expecting numbers between 12% to 18% when it’s all said and done.'”

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This Post Has 119 Comments

  1. ‘Then the pandemic hit, and early 2020’s white-hot housing market cratered’

    Tom? Tom?

    Bueller?

    ‘The Nelsons might be stuck with two mortgages if they can’t find a buyer for their Vashon Island home’

    Major point: the Seattle area UHS say prices are up! So why are these people so fooked? Because these are just statistics, and you know what they say about that. Median prices are a lagging indicator. And you can have waves of foreclosures underway and the median can still be going up. We saw that in Denver in 2006.

    ‘In late March, near the apex of the spring buying frenzy, they put a successful offer on a new house, in Tacoma’s Point Ruston neighborhood, after being outbid on nine other homes. ‘The minute a house dropped, we would drop everything and go see it,’ Nelson said. ‘We would make offers on houses we hadn’t even seen yet. It felt like a frenzy. We would wake up at 3 a.m. and think, ‘What are we doing?’

    Click!

    1. ‘In late March, near the apex of the spring buying frenzy, they put a successful offer on a new house, in Tacoma’s Point Ruston neighborhood, after being outbid on nine other homes. ‘The minute a house dropped, we would drop everything and go see it,’ Nelson said. ‘We would make offers on houses we hadn’t even seen yet. It felt like a frenzy. We would wake up at 3 a.m. and think, ‘What are we doing?’

      And this was in late March of 2020, less than 2 months ago, when lockdowns were already in effect for a virus which had an outsized impact on Washington state, causing much paranoia there. This is also two years after the market was showing signs of weakness in the greater Seattle/Tacoma area. And yet this is the mentality people still had – bidding wars and offers without even viewing properties.

      This bubble is worse than the last, by far. The duration is much longer, more properties have sold at bubble prices, and we now have a whole generation of millennials sucked into it. It cannot go away soon enough. It’s truly nauseating.

  2. ‘his well-heeled sellers would likely just sit out the spring season rather than rush to sell in a down market’

    These ‘well-heeled’ people will be the first to lowball your a$$ Neal, and the first to hand the keys back.

    ‘I do not feel that we will see properties coming onto market on the northside due to financial distress of the sellers. We did not see this in 2008 and I feel we won’t see it now’

    Click again!

    1. Yeah, I guess prices in the “well-healed” areas of SF didn’t fall after 2008….

  3. ‘social distancing cutting his hours as a smoking cessation coach’

    ‘The naturalist educator’

    ‘yoga teacher and massage therapist’

    ‘public-school employees’

    And two public-school employees got two nose-bleed loans. But lending is tight!

    1. Don’t forget ‘pet groomer’. It’s fine to have jobs like these, but it certainly highlights the enormous cavern between what things (like housing, education, and healthcare) cost and what people can actually pay. I don’t know how the high cost of everything has been maintained this long.

      1. I don’t know how the high cost of everything has been maintained this long.

        Eleven years of Keynesian monetary fraud, especially artificial suppression of interest rates to punish savers and the responsible. In addition, fake Chinese-style CPI data that willfully understated the true extent of the inflation caused by the Fed’s debasement of the currency.

  4. Hi I’m here….peoples’ “opinions” of things like prices are going up, staying steady, ‘cratering’, etc. are not of interest to me. People are wrong all the time in their opinions. I’m looking for DATA that shows that PRICES (sales prices best, but nice to see ‘asking’ prices fall too) are actually falling.

    Still early in the game. Few sales means not much price discovery, as you know.

    You guys should go after housing BULLS and shills…you are wasting your time with me.

    1. ‘cratering’, etc. are not of interest to me’

      You sure seem to get your tightie whities in a wad when somebody says it.

      1. C’mon, Ben, go easy on Tom. He said he’s one of us. It’s not like any realtor would ever be disingenuous enough to pose as a housing bear and try to infiltrate the HBB to try and influence the weak-minded.

  5. ‘When it launched condominium sales in February, the Towers of the Waldorf Astoria in Manhattan was already girding for market headwinds’

    The Chinese guy who bought this was on a spree, going around New York and pointing at towers, “I want that one, and that one.”

    He’s doing a 18 year sentence in China BTW.

    ‘After years of excess, home sales on the island were slipping, declining in eight of the past nine quarters, according to housing data from Miller Samuel Real Estate Appraisers & Consultants. Amid a glut of new luxury towers and a shrinking foreign-buyer pool, sales in the fourth quarter of 2019 reached its lowest level in the past decade’

    Wa happened to my safe deposit boxes in the sky New York?

  6. ‘DeSanits said, ‘We obviously put that in, in order to give people a reprieve. It didn’t mean that they never have to pay their mortgage again. We were very clear about that’

    I said early on these guvnahs can’t cancel contracts they weren’t even a party to. This lump sum thing keeps coming up too.

    1. If the last 10 years has shown anything, it’s that the rules can and will be changed mid-game. See: state-wide foreclosure moratoriums, extensions of interest-only periods in loans, heloc rollovers, mortgage modifications with principal reductions.

      My prediction about this lump sum debacle is that the early people will get screwed and lenders will foreclose with impunity, then the subsequent outrage (and panic at the numbers of new foreclosures) will force lawmakers to “save” the rest with new moratoriums on foreclosures, forgiveness of lump sum payments, TARP3 and so on. Like previous efforts, many borrowers “helped” will redefault, but it’s not about them; it’s about keeping the avalanche of affordable houses off the market.

        1. …of the banks, by the banks and for the banks.

          This should be the national motto nowadays.

    2. Almost nothing any of these mayors or governors have done during this “crisis” has any legal basis. As long as people comply, the trampling of rights will continue. The US is not exempt from this universal principle. The amount of tyranny people will tolerate is precisely the amount of tyranny they will get. There is no limit to the suffering, destitution, depravity, starvation, enslavement, and death the power mad will inflict on a compliant populace.

  7. ‘Early look at data from 100 New York hospitals shows that 66% of new admissions related to the virus are people who were at home, Cuomo said.’

    ‘Most new Covid-19 hospitalizations in New York state are from people who were staying home and not venturing much outside, a “shocking” finding, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Wednesday. ‘

    ‘The preliminary data was from 100 New York hospitals involving about 1,000 patients, Cuomo said at his daily briefing. It shows that 66% of new admissions were from people who had largely been sheltering at home. The next highest source of admissions was from nursing homes, 18%.’

    “If you notice, 18% of the people came from nursing homes, less than 1% came from jail or prison, 2% came from the homeless population, 2% from other congregate facilities, but 66% of the people were at home, which is shocking to us,” Cuomo said.’

    “This is a surprise: Overwhelmingly, the people were at home,” he added. “We thought maybe they were taking public transportation, and we’ve taken special precautions on public transportation, but actually no, because these people were literally at home.”

    ‘Cuomo said nearly 84% of the hospitalized cases were people who were not commuting to work through car services, personal cars, public transit or walking. He said a majority of those people were either retired or unemployed. Overall, some 73% of the admissions were people over age 51.’

    ‘Cuomo said state health officials had thought a high percentage of people who were hospitalized would be essential employees, like health-care workers or city staff, who are still going to work.’

    “Much of this comes down to what you do to protect yourself. Everything is closed down, government has done everything it could, society has done everything it could. Now it’s up to you,” Cuomo said.’

    https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/06/ny-gov-cuomo-says-its-shocking-most-new-coronavirus-hospitalizations-are-people-staying-home.html

    What an a$$-hat.

      1. ‘This is a surprise: Overwhelmingly, the people were at home. We thought maybe they were taking public transportation, and we’ve taken special precautions on public transportation, but actually no, because these people were literally at home’

        We completely destroyed the New York economy – for nothing…

        1. Not to be outdone:

          ‘California will have a budget shortfall of $54.3 billion because of the economic devastation wrought by the coronavirus, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration announced Thursday, a stunning reversal for a state that had a $21 billion surplus a year ago. The state has been under a mandatory stay-at-home order since mid-March, forcing nonessential businesses to close and prompting more than 4 million Californians to file for unemployment benefits.’

          ‘After recording record low unemployment of 3.9% at the start of the year, the Newsom administration now predicts a jobless rate of 18% for the nation’s most populous state — 46% higher than the height of the Great Recession a decade ago.

          ‘Newsom hinted at the bleak numbers on Wednesday when he called the unemployment figures “Depression-era numbers.”

          “These numbers are jaw dropping,” Newsom said. “I just hope that people are preparing themselves … for the effort that we all need to engage together to undertake to unwind that and get back on our feet.”

          https://www.fox10phoenix.com/news/california-doom-staggering-54-billion-budget-deficit-looms

          ‘Meanwhile, lawmakers are already being asked to bail out the state’s essential industries. California hospitals say they have lost up to $14 billion by postponing elective surgeries and other procedures to make room for an anticipated surge of coronavirus cases that never happened. On Monday, the California Hospital Association asked lawmakers for more than $1 billion in aid.’

          ‘Local governments, reeling from disappearing sales and hotel tax revenue as millions of people stay inside, are also asking lawmakers for billions in aid.’

          ‘California already is in line to receive more than $26 billion in federal aid because of the coronavirus, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office. But in a memo released Thursday, the Newsom administration says the state’s bleak financial outlook “underscores the necessity of further federal stimulus to help states and local governments.”

          How are those $300,000 pensions looking now?

          1. Retired and current cops, firemen and teachers are gonna be out pecking shit with the chickens.

          2. How are those $300,000 pensions looking now?

            You just know they’re gonna get a Federal bailout.

          3. Huge government employee pensions are at thing of the past. Pretty much every California jurisdiction has reduced pensions multiple times. I’m on my county’s “tier 4” plan. If I work till I’m 67 I’ll get a pension of under 60K — and I’m one of the county’s highest paid workers.

          4. But the best part about this? Gov Gruesome and Gasbag Cuomo was told flat out, no bailout… Declare bankruptcy.

            Line up creditors and “retirees” and be prepared to accept cents on the dollar.

            How bout it….. 🤣

          7. If I work till I’m 67 I’ll get a pension of under 60K — and I’m one of the county’s highest paid workers.
            Yeah. that’s 5K per month on income. Really nobody gets that much in Social Security Income…some people get mid 3.5K but I don’t think they get 5K/month even if they made six figures during career?

          8. MFJM… You didn’t mention anything about the health coverage you’re due to get.

            60K is a lot more than I’m getting from the Air Force as a retiree. But fortunately it is paid by the people who own the dollar printing presses.

          9. Black swans are so dense in the sky that you can barely see the sun anymore. And yet Mr Market keeps the Wall Street party going like it’s 1999. Go figure!

          10. “Retired and current cops, firemen and teachers are gonna be out pecking shit with the chickens.”

            Priceless

          11. “But fortunately it is paid by the people who own the dollar printing presses.”

            Copy that!

        2. We completely destroyed the New York economy – for nothing…

          Cuomo has become something of a national celebrity over his daily fireside chats, but in NY we still don’t like him much. He’s teaming up with Bill Gates now to “reimagine” K-12 education into tele-schooling long term. This team of gangsters last brought us the “common core” fiasco. Teachers are not impressed.

          1. And still no one will address the school to prison pipeline where the average inmate reads at an 6-8th grade level coming into jail, and about the same leaving , hence a 70% recidivism rate.

        3. “Overwhelmingly, the people were at home.”

          Plot twist: they weren’t at home.

          My office is in the front of my house facing the street. Every home in view has people leaving, usually multiple times a day, mine included.

          1. ‘they weren’t at home’

            You got a link for that? We aren’t talking about your neighborhood, but New York. They track the movements of patients. Most were elderly.

          2. “You got a link for that?”
            No.

            “They track the movements of patients.”
            They were tracked before being admitted? I’m thinking people are telling interrogators (after being admitted) what they want to hear.

            “Most were elderly.”
            From the article, it says 73% were over 51. That’s not elderly.

          3. Fact are facts. This is life or death. I’m pretty sure they had an interest in accuracy.

          4. I’m in NY. I’m getting close to my three score and ten. I have stayed at home alone. Except for two doctor’s visits, one car repair, trips to the pharmacy, hardware, grocery store, take out food, UPS drop off, post office, daily walks, took some N95 masks to a friend, and the young man next door helping me lift something. Oh, and the day I drove to CT to retrieve my grandson.

            We haven’t been in actual quarantine, not even close. The economy has been closed though. Nobody has died in the entire county. One on record because he owns property here but wasn’t physically here.

          5. were over 51. That’s not elderly.

            Apparently some time during the last few days or so, anyone 50+ is now considered high risk for this bug. 🙁

            BTW, I have an elderly woman living in the unit next to me. I see at least one person visiting her every day, sometimes there are multiple visits in a given day. I know she has a phone, people could check on her by calling instead of visiting.

            Perhaps those people in NY were telling the truth: they didn’t go out anywhere. They simply left out the bit about people visiting them.

          6. “Fact are facts”
            My apologies in advance if my sarcasmeter isn’t working accurately today but seems they left out some details. It might be a fact that they told doctors they stayed home, if that’s how the data presented was derived. The truth might be otherwise.

            “I have stayed at home alone. Except for…”
            Exactly. You have “largely” been at home yet Cuomo would be “shocked” if you got the virus. I’ve “largely” been home too, as have my neighbors. Pretty much has to be all or nothing. There’s simply no way to know who’s coming or going. Well, there might be a way but no one’s interested in that.

            “They simply left out the bit about people visiting them.”
            Also plausible, though I doubt NYers are any different than other places. Meaning, it’s likely both.

            FWIW, my 75ish year old neighbor just left for his daily bike ride. He did have a mask so maybe he’s good? I do like him though, so I’ll probably not be putting in a call to Kate Brown. (/s)

    2. All these CV models came from the same crowd that gave us the climate change models. If you think the CV disaster is bad, wait till the climate change brigade comes town. You’ll need a government permit to reproduce if they haven’t already sterilized you. You’ll get to eat 4 oz of meat each year. Maybe something good will come out of this if people can see that the central planners are deranged anti-human malcontents.

      1. “You’ll need a government permit to reproduce if they haven’t already sterilized you.”

        That would solve a lot of societal problems.

      2. If you think the CV disaster is bad, wait till the climate change brigade comes town.

        Citizen! Do not blaspheme the gospel according to St. Greta! Our globalist overlords have made great strides in having WrongThink declared evidence of mental illness, just as they did in the glorious former USSR. Go watch ten episodes of “The View” as penance, and genuflect before the icon of St. Greta that should hang in a place of honor in every household! Forward!

    3. Ok, here are some stats I got off the web on studies of nursing homes that were done years before C19.

      One study of nursing homes said the average length of stay before death was 13.7 months, while the median was 5 months.

      53 percent of nursing home people died within 6 month
      Most common infection was Respiratory infection.

      Another 3 year study of nursing homes found the following,

      Medium survival rate was 2.2 years. The yearly death rate was 31.8 percent.

      Doesn’t this information give a slightly different perspective on the 40% death ràte from C-19 that is happening in nursing homes.

      It seems to me like nursing homes are more like hospice type places where the death ràte is high every year.

      We closed down the entire Nation because of a death rate that was slightly elevated from a normal year.

      According to the study the death rate was highest with people over 80.

      1. Ok, I’m not saying that people in nursing homes should not of been protected because they were sitting ducks for this virus. But, they never targeted these homes for extra protection .

        1. They torpedoed the nursing homes here. ER virus cases were sent back to the nursing home.

          1. That’s terrible. Though I would argue that if the nursing home doesn’t have a quarantine protocol, it’s on the nursing home.

      2. I’ve been wondering if we destroyed the economy mostly to save people who likely would have died within two years anyway. The stats Ben posted dovetail with that idea.

    4. “If you notice, 18% of the people came from nursing homes, less than 1% came from jail or prison, 2% came from the homeless population, 2% from other congregate facilities, but 66% of the people were at home, which is shocking to us,” Cuomo said.’

      I have the perfect Democrat statist remedy: Let’s transfer the nursing home population to the penitentiary system so we can drop their infection rate down to 1%.

        1. Mmmm….work will set you free. Or maybe it’s just a cheap bullet to the head.

    5. Now it’s up to you

      Apparently, staying at home doesn’t protect me. So I guess I’ll just go on an extended camping and hiking trip in the boonies, no matter what Gov. Sisolak thinks of it. 🙂

    6. The only thing that can explain people getting the virus sheltering at home is maybe the got it when they went to the grocery store.

      Or, maybe high rise apartment buildings share the same air vent system or plumbing system in some regard. Or maybe they get exposed in the lobby.

      2. Or, maybe high rise apartment buildings share the same air vent system or plumbing system in some regard.

        Happened in China. I’m concluding that anybody that shares a building or enclosed transportation with an infected person is at risk, even if there’s a wall or two separating you. And anybody wearing a mask outside while keeping space between themselves and other people is wasting effort. It’s an indoor disease.

      3. To reiterate what I posted a minute ago, perhaps they did stay home. But received visitors in their home, any one of whom could have been carrying the virus.

        As I can see looking around my rental community, a lot of people just haven’t grasped that they should not socialize with anyone who isn’t part of their household.

  9. ‘In late March, near the apex of the spring buying frenzy, they put a successful offer on a new house, in Tacoma’s Point Ruston neighborhood, after being outbid on nine other homes’

    The winnah!

    1. Not seeing how they could have even thought they’d won. Going from Vashon Island (one of the coolest places in the entire country) to Tacoma hardly seems like an upgrade.

      3. Vashon isn’t bad, but having to rely upon a ferry to get to anywhere worth going is not ideal, which is why you see people like her moving across the water. Further, Vashon Island has the worst arsenic contamination from the old Tacoma smelter of any place in western Washington. Like gardening? Better wear gloves when you dig your toxic soil.

        https://apps.ecology.wa.gov/dirtalert

  10. Son: “Daddy, what is FOMO?”

    Mr. Banker: “In short, it is a demonstration of emotions overcoming common sense. Here, let me give you an example of what I mean …”

    (From the above article)

    “In late March, near the apex of the spring buying frenzy, they put a successful offer on a new house, in Tacoma’s Point Ruston neighborhood, after being outbid on nine other homes.”

    They got outbid on nine other homes. These outbidding events mentally prepared them to “Buy the next house at any price!”. The chances are good that other people were outbid on many other houses which also put them into the mental conditioning of “Buy the next house at any price!”. How interesting (and delightful) it must be for the seller to have a few of these FOMO buyers show up and begin their bidding wars.

    ” ‘The minute a house dropped, we would drop everything and go see it,’ Nelson said. ‘We would make offers on houses we hadn’t even seen yet. It felt like a frenzy. We would wake up at 3 a.m. and think, ‘What are we doing?’”

    A nation of dummies. The dumbest bidder is the highest bidder and the price will reflect this.

    And then what? This highest and dumbest price then becomes the new going price; This new going price becomes the benchmark for future prices to rise from.

    2. “…This highest and dumbest price then becomes the new going price; This new going price becomes the benchmark for future prices to rise from…”

      This is the exact same perverse thinking that corporate BOD’s use to calculate CEO salaries.

      They retain highly paid “consultants” who graph out what other CEO’s are making.

      When asked how a single CEO can justify a salary of $50mm, the BOD response was “we don’t want to lose all that talent, he [the CEO] might leave and go somewhere else”

  11. ‘San Ramon housing developer Landsea Homes has announced its newest property acquisition in the region, which will consist of 34 new homesites located at the luxury view home community of Wilder in Orinda. ‘

    “The town of Orinda is one of three communities collectively referred to in the Bay Area as ‘Lamorinda,’ including Lafayette, Moraga and Orinda. With its small-town charm mixed with urban sophistication, Orinda offers everything from farmers markets to fine dining, eclectic boutiques to supermarkets, and everything in between,” Landsea officials said in a statement.’

    https://www.danvillesanramon.com/news/2020/05/05/san-ramon-developer-acquires-new-property-in-orinda

    Comments:

    ‘If you want to see a nightmare atrocity of a development wildly out of character with the neighborhood, check out Abigail Place by Landsea in Danville. They can’t even sell them. Good luck Orinda.’

    ‘Looks like their Danville properties aren’t selling because they are creepy and overpriced.’

    ‘Just another company building 34 units in just under 12 months. Talk about cutter corners and cheap construction building materials. Good luck to the poor souls that buy these rushed construction homes.’

  13. You can’t come up with the current payment of $3,000 nor $11,000 later. Where’s your emergency fund when you have a $3,000 a month mortgage?

    If you pay $482,000 for a house in 2017, you should be able to come up with a few months of mortgage payments 3 years later. If not, you never really could afford the home at that price in the first place.

    1. Where’s your emergency fund when you have a $3,000 a month mortgage?

      It got spent on the shiny late model pickup/SUV in the driveway, the top of the line iPhones, the 70 inch 4K TV. etc.

      1. “…It got spent on the shiny late model pickup/SUV in the driveway, the top of the line iPhones, the 70 inch 4K TV. etc…”

        Yes, but, but, but, What are the neighbors going to think if we don’t have all that expensive junk? They will probably start talking about us behind our backs. We wont’ get invited to the 4th July HotDog party. Our kids will be shamed and bullied.

        As Mr. Banker noted in another post [above] “A nation of dummies”

        Any better way to put it?

    3. ‘If you pay $482,000 for a house in 2017, you should be able to come up with a few months of mortgage payments 3 years later. If not, you never really could afford the home at that price in the first place.‘

      That’s basically how I think. As we’ve seen prices fluctuate so extremely in CA the past 20 years, I feel like the people who buy at or close to the top do so because they have a lot of faith that they’re on the right side of inflation. We have some friends who bought their house at the peak in 2005. One of their parents was a realtor for years and believes that any time is the right time to buy. Yet 15 years later, the mortgage payments are still a burden for this couple. If they bought in 2012, would have probably been a different story.

  14. About 7.5% of home mortgages across the U.S. were in forbearance as of April 26, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association national survey

    Things are gonna get interesting in July. I wouldn’t be surprised if there is some sort of bailout for anyone who can resume making payments, but not the balloon payment. Of course that will rile the 92% who did make their payments, so maybe more checks for everyone will be coming (mine arrived yesterday), which does concern me as it could lead to a permanent UBI.

    1. I’m beginning to feel like a sucker paying my rent on time. Maybe I should’ve mortgaged myself to the hilt and made it society’s problem.

      1. Yeah, it’s like every single thing has become too big to fail – at least collectively. I guess it’s nice that the little people get some crumbs this time, but I agree it’s also very worrying.

        1. The little people didn’t get any crumbs, they were set up to catch falling boulders. That token $1,200 was shut up money while the corrupt politicians and their puppet masters looted the US Treasury. I saw somewhere that the $1,200 actually cost each person over $30,000 future dollars.

          1. actually cost each person over $30,000

            I told my son that my bill will be attached to his.

      2. I’m beginning to feel like a sucker paying my rent on time.

        I don’t. Integrity is the one thing nobody can take from you – you can only give that away. In a time of universal fraud and deceit, holding on to your integrity and honor are paramount.

    2. My traditional beliefs and leanings would abhor the notion of an UBI.

      But Uncle Sugar is gonna keep bailing out undeserving entities, even at the cost of debasing the currency and adding trillions to the national debt. And no one with a chance of being elected will even suggest doing anything to dial all this back. So, I’ll take a mini-bailout every month, thanks.

  16. ‘Leitch, now 31, has spent the last few years putting himself through school, working as a counselor for folks trying to quit tobacco and raising his elementary school-aged son. The last thing on his mind was his homeowners association fees.”’

    Uhm, why is this here? This doesn’t sound like a typical poor victim unjustly getting kicked out of his home during the covid crisis. It sounds like he had stopped paying his HOA for awhile. And the legal fees? That didn’t all happen in the last few months. Why would he even need legal fees? ‘Oh, I’m a few years past due paying HOA fees. I’m sorry. I forgot. Let me work out a payment plan to pay back….’ or ‘I guess I can’t afford this. I better sell while the market is hot.’ …. or ‘I can’t afford this. So I’m going to hire a lawyer and spend even more money I can’t afford to fight this.’

  17. People in Seattle are so Smug in that article from Seattle times, all claiming housing will not go down there because of low inventory and ” Microsoft and Amazon” high earners and stock options…

    anyway, you’d think that area as a whole will be hit as will de rest of the country. They’re not special regardless…but what do I know!

    P.S. I don’t live anywhere Seattle and I will never move to that depressing place.

      2. Probably something to do with the 9 months of low cloud cover and lack of sun. Even some born and raised can’t handle it. Turns out a lot of people like the sun and warm weather.

      3. It’s nice all green and nature wise, the trees and all that. But, I can’t tolerate that much rain with grey skies. Add in a bunch of commies and druggies. No thanks, but that’s just me.

  19. “‘Spring 2020 is going to be a perfect time to sell your house!’ That’s the advice public-school employees Kristine Nelson and her husband, Will, received when they decided late last year to sell their Vashon Island home.

    Taking “advice” from realtors. That was their first mistake.

  20. ‘The minute a house dropped, we would drop everything and go see it,’ Nelson said. ‘We would make offers on houses we hadn’t even seen yet. It felt like a frenzy. We would wake up at 3 a.m. and think, ‘What are we doing?’”

    “Stupid is as stupid does.” — Forrest Gump

  21. “‘I’ve got this impending date. I keep looking at it, then not wanting to look at it,’ she said. ‘We’re in this black void.’”

    We’re all in this together, Linda.

    No, wait, we’re not. I’m a renter and can watch FBs who overpaid get sucked into the black void from afar. And finally being vindicated after all these years of being a voice in the wilderness warning this was coming.

    2. Jeez. I have some compassion and empathy for some of these people that just want a place to live and a roof over their heads. they just got caught out in the FOMO and the TV Media aholes creating this dystopian housing situation, and some people are just not smart enough to see the details.

      Investors, flippers, wanna be airbnb kings… I have disdain and I hope they get burned

  22. Since then millions of Americans have lost their jobs, millions more are staying home and wealthy New Yorkers are seeing their stock portfolios dwindle.”

    The wealthy New York oligarchs will be taken care of by the Fed. The rest of you are SOL.

  23. ‘Buyers seem to enjoy private showings more than open houses,’ said Bebe McRae, who sells properties in the East Bay.

    The thing I’m enjoying most of all is the cratering, Bebe.

  24. ‘It does look like buyers are anxious to buy, but they’re just delaying it,’ said Jim Gaines, chief economist of the Texas A&M Real Estate Center.”

    It’s dead, Jim.

  25. “When Leitch and his wife, Amy, bought their home in quiet, idyllic Blackberry Ridge, they knew it was probably a bit more than they could afford. ‘We were young, so we were a little bit above our means, but hopefully growing into it,’ Leitch said.

    And just like that, POOF goes the victim narrative.

  26. Funny that Movoto has removed month to month stats including avg listing price per square foot figures. Just showing YOY which of course shows in many places a nice bump in their favor.

  27. ‘This seems to entirely defeat the purpose and does not offer financial relief. If I were to not have the amount for one month, what makes them think that I could come up with the amount for three months if the hardship continued?’ said Tyson, who works remotely in her job but whose husband’s restaurant hours were severely cut.

    Christina cracks the code.

  28. “Just in case, she’s already thinking of other options in a worst-case scenario, including tapping her retirement accounts. ‘I’m not even thinking foreclosure at this point,’ Stickles said.”

    Your lender certainly is.

  29. The globalist oligarchs and their Democrat minions must be distraught that Americans who read the writing on the wall and don’t trust government at any level to provide for their security are gunning up in record numbers. Hey Biden, that’s millions of voters who are going to be giving you and your designated gun grabber, Comrade Beto, the middle finger come Election Day.

    https://www.foxbusiness.com/lifestyle/gun-sales-coronavirus-spiked-april

  32. Precious metals are surging as the Fed prepares to reach into its bag of Keynesian tricks and pull out negative interest rates and a new orgy of money printing that exceeds even what Zimbabwe Ben and Yellen the Felon presided over.

    http://www.kitco.com/market/

  33. ‘Murica! Land of the Free, Home of the Brave…where militarized police with automatic rifles and armored vehicles deploy in force to raid a bar that stayed open despite lockdown orders.

    https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/megan-fox/2020/05/06/texas-sheriff-raids-bar-protest-with-military-style-assault-vehicle-swat-team-arrests-and-outrage-ensue-n388366?utm_source=pjmedia&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl_pm&newsletterad=&bcid=e5d2786c658f583f6246f8d0665a9409&recip=5311129

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