thehousingbubble@gmail.com
Blog

The Normal Waterfall Of Events

A report from the Record Eagle in Michigan. “Linda Witulski fell in love with Elk Rapids about 15 years ago on a vacation. She bought a home in the Lake Michigan shoreline village and turned it into a short-term rental about a decade ago. But now she’s worried a proposed new zoning code in Elk Rapids may harm her ability to operate or even sell her short-term rental business, should she wish. ‘Why they are determined to do it, we don’t really understand,’ Witulski said.”

“Village Manager Bill Cooper said officials have for a while been concerned about over-saturation of STR units in residential neighborhoods, basically operating homes as businesses that are left shuttered and dark during winter months. But officials haven’t been able to yet quantify the magnitude of the problem, he said. ‘We had no idea how many places are being used as short-term rentals,’ Cooper said.”

From 8 On Your Side in Florida. “The move by Governor Ron DeSantis to extend the moratorium on evictions and foreclosures until August 1 is meant to help Floridians struggling to make ends meet. But, it is also taking a toll on landlords in Tampa Bay who may have missed out on more rent checks when the calendar flipped to July. Landlord Michelle Fields told 8 On Your Side she tried to evict one tenant shortly after he moved in back in February for reasons unrelated to the pandemic or recession. Now, she said he is exploiting the situation at her expense.”

“‘They have several deliveries through Amazon and FedEx,’ Fields said. ‘They’re just having a good time on my dime. They owe me about five months of rent right now.'”

From Realtor.com. “‘House Hunters’ is one of HGTV’s most popular shows. In this episode, married couple Ralph and Cindy hire their son to find them a waterfront mansion. While their budget is already high at $1.5 million, they end up falling in love with a house priced at $1,825,000! Undeterred, Ralph manages to negotiate the price way down to $1.35 million. That’s almost a half-million in savings!”

“When the comedians learn of this price reduction, they’re stunned. ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ star J.B. Smoove calls Ralph a ‘straight baller,’ proving that with home prices, the number you see on the listing is often just a starting point.”

The Dallas Morning News in Texas. “Summer is a good time to catch great deals on homes, said Keith Conlon, general manager for Allie Beth Allman & Associates. ‘You will usually see a price drop during the summer on homes that were listed earlier in the year and have been sitting waiting for buyers,’ said Conlon.”

“But don’t delay too long, he said. Homes with lower prices are snatched up quickly in the hot Dallas market, especially with such low inventory and active buyers. Here are five homes with recently lowered prices that Allman associates recommend.”

From NBC New York. “Landlords are dealing with more vacancies than they ever anticipated. And it’s not just market-rate apartments that are being impacted, as even those with rent-regulated units are heading for the ‘burbs. ‘New York’s housing market teeters on the edge of an abyss. Lawmakers continue to use renters and small building owners as their piggy bank through exorbitant and unfair taxes. It’s clear renters are fed up, and owners are unable to continue to shoulder the tax burden for the entire city,’ said CHIP Executive Director Jay Martin. ‘We cannot continue this delusion that people will throw themselves into bankruptcy just for the privilege to live in the Big Apple.'”

From Real Estate Weekly on New York. “Manhattan apartment sales fell by 54 percent during the second quarter of this year. Median sales price dropped 17.7 percent to $1,000,000; Price per square foot declined 6.8 percent to $1,642; Average sales price decreased 10.2 percent to $1,881,512. ‘It’s almost impossible to talk about the market during the second quarter; there barely was a market,’ said Frederick Peters, a veteran apartment sales broker and CEO of Warburg Realty.”

“Barbara Fox of Fox Residential is telling her clients to be reasonable as they go into the third quarter. ‘Sellers should be reasonable in terms of pricing their property. What it could have sold for a year ago may well be notably higher than what they are able to get today. This ought to influence them both in setting their asking price and conducting the resulting negotiations.’ Fox added, ‘When an offer does come in – even one that is at a level well below their expectations – rather than trivializing the offer, sellers should instead consider themselves fortunate to have received interest in an evolving market.'”

The Los Angeles Times in California. “Donald Simon, son of late billionaire Norton Simon, just bagged $25 million for his regal home in Beverly Hills. The impressive estate first surfaced for sale last year at $42 million, but a January price cut brought it down to its most recent asking price of $38.5 million.”

The Wall Street Journal on California. “Developer Nile Niami looked every bit the king of the city’s megamansion scene. ‘Seven years ago, I had an idea to create the biggest, most expensive house in the urban world,’ he boasted in a video. Almost. The house—a mammoth, roughly 100,000-square-foot Bel-Air spec mansion listing for $500 million—is still unfinished. Originally slated for completion three years ago, the home, called ‘The One,’ has been beset by years of financing and construction delays. The pool is an empty concrete hole, the video shows; the moat carved into the perimeter is also dry.”

“Promoting such a pricey home before it is completed is an unusual move, but Mr. Niami is in unusual circumstances: He faces an October repayment deadline for an $82.5 million loan on the property. Mr. Niami hasn’t sold a major project since 2017. He has at least five other unsold megamansions, each seemingly more extravagant than the last. Building these palatial estates, collectively valued at roughly $700 million, has left him shouldering hundreds of millions in outstanding loans, mortgage records show.”

“In April, a lender on his 14,000-square-foot West Hollywood house situated just above the Sunset Strip filed a notice of default against Mr. Niami, property records show, and the developer has already turned the keys over to his lender on Opus, a Beverly Hills mansion that came on the market for $100 million in 2017. ‘Money was chasing him. It was too easy to get the money,’ said Stephen Shapiro of Westside Estate Agency, a Southern California agent who doesn’t represent Mr. Niami.”

“Following the completion of the project, Mr. Niami said he’s getting out of the real-estate business, ‘I may do one or two more houses after this but I’m not going to do the level of houses I’m doing now. It’s too much stress,’ he said. ‘I’m exhausted.'”

From DS News. “Stanley Middleman is the CEO of Freedom Mortgage Corporation. Following the Great Recession, he was able to transform his company into a market leader in VA mortgages and government insured lending. How can the mortgage industry best assist homeowners coming out of forbearance?”

“First of all, we’ve been able to help, I guess, in excess of 85,000 consumers defer their payments or be eligible to defer their payments as a result of this COVID-19. The second thing that could happen is that we could modify their loan, and it just becomes part of their new loan at a lower interest rate, and we go through the normal waterfall of events. Another thing that could happen is that that loan amount, whatever it was that was deferred, gets added onto the end of the loan, and then at the end of the loan, interest free. And then that loan will come due, as stipulated in the CARES Act. Now, exactly how that all happens and the rules that have not been released by the FHA, it’s not as clear yet, but that’s the way it would work for a conforming loan.”

Related Posts
This Post Has 100 Comments

  1. ‘Sellers should be reasonable in terms of pricing their property. What it could have sold for a year ago may well be notably higher than what they are able to get today. This ought to influence them both in setting their asking price and conducting the resulting negotiations. When an offer does come in – even one that is at a level well below their expectations – rather than trivializing the offer, sellers should instead consider themselves fortunate to have received interest in an evolving market’

    Foot rubs Babs, don’t forget those.

  2. ‘the developer has already turned the keys over to his lender on Opus, a Beverly Hills mansion that came on the market for $100 million in 2017. ‘Money was chasing him. It was too easy to get the money’

    Yellen bucks looking for a place to die is a real phenomenon.

    1. “Building these palatial estates, collectively valued at roughly $700 million, has left him shouldering hundreds of millions in outstanding loans, mortgage records show.”

      Without actually selling these places, how is it possible to know their collective value?

      1. The builder had a reasonable expectation that with the trillions of Yellen Bux being gifted to the Fed’s Wall Street grifter accomplices, there would be a strong market for $100 million mega mansions.

  3. ‘we’ve been able to help, I guess, in excess of 85,000 consumers defer their payments or be eligible to defer their payments as a result of this COVID-19’

    What a sweetheart of a guy! It’s not his money, but hey!

    ‘The second thing that could happen is that we could modify their loan…Now, exactly how that all happens and the rules that have not been released by the FHA, it’s not as clear yet’

    Making it up as you go along, eh Middleman?

  4. And in today’s edition of STUPID MEDIA (hang with me here):

    “WHO discontinues hydroxychloroquine and lopinavir/ritonavir treatment arms for COVID-19”

    I won’t post a link because any google search will bring up numerous articles with the same headline. So, it appears that even the WHO has given up on HCQ, along with the FDA. Time to go publish another 6 articles ridiculing Trump.

    Wait.

    From the WHO:
    ————
    “These interim trial results show that hydroxychloroquine and lopinavir/ritonavir produce little or no reduction in the mortality of hospitalized COVID-19 patients when compared to standard of care… This decision applies only to the conduct of the Solidarity trial in hospitalized patients and does not affect the possible evaluation in other studies of hydroxychloroquine or lopinavir/ritonavir in non-hospitalized patients or as pre- or post-exposure prophylaxis for COVID-19.
    ————-

    🙄 Pro tip: if you see the word “hospital” in an HCQ study, you can stop reading. You know HCQ is going to fail. In other words, the WHO figured out that HCQ doesn’t work in the hospital (too late). Gee, ya THINK? But at least the WHO is still looking at HCQ for mild cases, which is what they should be doing. YAYYY! They haven’t given up yet. Come one, WHO, get us some real results ASAP. Thousands of lives depend on it.

    But will the media even distinguish between HCQ early and HCQ late? Of course not. They haven’t yet, and they won’t start now. They have an election to meddle in.

    1. Housing.

      Carolina Beach, NC Housing Prices Crater 14% YOY As Coastal Property Market Turns Toxic On Rampant Mortgage Fraud

      https://www.zillow.com/carolina-beach-nc/home-values/

      *Select price from dropdown menu on first chart

      A noted economist stated, “A housing ‘recovery’ is falling prices to dramatically lower and more affordable levels by definition.”

    3. You seem pretty wrapped around the axle about HCQ.

      If it were a super effective treatment, don’t you think at least a few newspapers would report it?

      1. The few “anecdotal” papers out there are reporting 90%+ cure rate within 7-10 days.

        Honestly, I think that’s it’s just very hard to test a drug for a disease with such a wide range and crapshoot of symptoms. It’s easy to control dosages and monitoring for hospital patients. For home patients, it’s hard to even prove that HCQ is doing the work and not just the patient recovering.

        What we really need is a study on that small cohort of patients who are still sick after, say, 2-3 weeks but not needing the hospital. They are the ones who need a cure the most.

        1. I find it hard to imagine the entire medical research community deliberately ignoring a promising treatment for purely political reasons. Perhaps I am naive about just how universally evil and corrupt our political system has become?

          1. Perhaps I am naive about just how universally evil and corrupt our political system has become?

            Are other countries using HCQ to treat Covid 19 patients? If not, then I’d suggest it’s not just US politics at work here.

          2. I find it hard to imagine the entire medical research community deliberately ignoring a promising treatment for purely political reasons.

            You underestimate the depths of Trump Derangement Syndrome and his threat to the globalists.

          3. Not just the political system. It’s Big Pharma and their desire to develop a savior drug that they can dispense for $3000+ per. Not to mention a vaccine.

        2. Who’s to say those not-so-sick patients would not have just pulled through with only minor supportive measures, without the need of a malaria drug that has known side effects. Giving patients a drug that might possibly help but more than possibly cause other problems is not necessarily a good way to go. Human beings are biological beings. All kinds of biochemical things happen inside of us and we do not all respond in the same way. One preexisting condition can be essentially nothing to worry about, another preexisting condition could mean the patient is dead or in the ICU. The real scientific study is a double blind placebo vs drug. So you need a whole lot of covid 19 patients with similar severity in their symptoms (sick, but not needing hospitalization) willing to go through the whole thing not knowing if they are taking a real drug or a sugar pill. You need them to consent to this and to see it through. It is very difficult to run studies that are really scientific in the current context. Most are done on the run, and most of them will be considered barely precursors of real science when this thing is figured out, for the simple reason that real trials take a lot of time. You can do them faster, but the hurry makes them less airtight and we are all in a hurry these days. I am not saying this drug works or doesn’t, and I am not a huge fan of WHO these days, but if you look at it the reality is we know very little about this virus. I have my chips on prudence and social distance without righteousness for now. It’s no guarantee but I am very happy I could shop for a new pair of sneakers today and felt the shop kept nice protocols without stupid overkill. My birkenstoks were totally, and I mean totally finished. I still can’t bring myself to put them in the trash.

          1. My birkenstoks were totally, and I mean totally finished. I still can’t bring myself to put them in the trash.

            Send them in for a rebuild. Back in the day, I had new cork as soles installed, and was quite happy.

          3. I did NOT know you could repair birkenstoks! Thanks for the tip. The top part is decent enough. The soles are totally shot.

      1. Study finds hydroxychloroquine treatment associated with lower mortality rate for COVID-19 patients
        By Stephanie Weaver
        Published 2 days ago
        Coronavirus
        FOX TV Digital Team

        LOS ANGELES – A surprising new study found that the controversial drug hydroxychloroquine was associated with a significant reduction in mortality among sick patients hospitalized with COVID-19.

        A team at Henry Ford Health System in Detroit, Michigan studied 2,541 patients hospitalized with a COVID-related admission between March 10 to May 2.

        “Our analysis shows that using hydroxychloroquine helped saves lives,” said neurosurgeon Dr. Steven Kalkanis, CEO, Henry Ford Medical Group and Senior Vice President and Chief Academic Officer of Henry Ford Health System.

        “As doctors and scientists, we look to the data for insight. And the data here is clear that there was benefit to using the drug as a treatment for sick, hospitalized patients,” Kalkanis said.
        …

        1. Was there a control group, was it a blind study, etc.?

          “Correlation does not imply causation.”

          1. control group, was it a blind study,

            They are working on those randomized control trials right now. But since HCQ is a very old and very cheap drug with very low risk, what is the harm in giving it to people while the trials are going on? You could save some folks.

          3. There’s no risk of any side effects whatsoever?
            Now & then drug trials using placebos wind up with the placebos causing more side effects than the drug being tested.

          4. From the article: “The study found 13% of those treated with hydroxychloroquine alone died compared to 26.4% not treated with the drug.”

            It was a retrospective study and not really the gold standard. But they did look at controls. Also note that these patients got the drug within 48 hours of admission, not as a Hail Mary at the end of life. The researchers did not include zinc; with zinc, the outcomes might be even better. None of the 2541 patients exhibited any abnormal heart rhythms.

            So, control studies, comparatively early on in the infection, death rate almost cut in half, no heart-related side effects. Anybody want to ring up the FDA?

        2. Remdesivir costs $3500 a treatment and has shown little value in treating COVID-19. The FDA gave it rapid approval as the CDC recommended. Just by coincidence a number of the CDC experts have ties to Gilead( developer of Remdesivir). HCQ and zinc costs $10 a treatment . The government is now purchasing a billion or twos worth of Remdesivir. Makes perfect sense.

        3. “ “Our analysis shows that using hydroxychloroquine helped saves lives,”

          Was there something more specific? Didn’t see anything in the article.

          1. You could, you know, look up the actual paper. It’s not difficult. And it was a peer-reviewed paper, unlike that trash in The Lancet.

            Alan, if it makes you feel better, Trump stockpiled millions (21 or 60 million I don’t remember which) of doses of HCQ, in case it is ever needed.

          2. You could, you know, look up the actual paper.

            There’s a link in the article. 🙄

      2. Did the article mention that the 17-year old was obese, a cancer survivor, had an autoimmune disorder, and probably got a HUGE initial inoculation of virus? I won’t be easy to implicate the HCQ in this case.

  6. Also from the WSJ:

    ‘Irish architect Paul McClean, who designed a number of Mr. Niami’s homes, said the developer “correctly identified” an emerging market for ultra-high-end contemporary homes. His properties were tricked out with more over-the-top amenities and gadgets than other expensive homes. “The timing was super fortuitous,” Mr. McClean said. “He was struggling to finance his projects back in 2011, but by the time they came on the market they were selling like hot cakes.”

    Nobody needs a 500M shack. It’s speculative. the only reason you would buy one is you expect to sell it for double.

    There was a big mania in super expensive shacks which peaked in 2016. Around the same time as super expensive airboxes, what a coincidence! Here’s what the media misses. People built way more of these things than there was ever demand for, all over the planet.

    BTW, these big media outfits have followed this buffoon around for years while he defaults let and right.

    1. BTW, these big media outfits have followed this buffoon around for years while he defaults let and right.

      No doubt blowing smoke up his asz like he’s some sort of prophet.

  7. So, a women “falls in love with” a town, buys a home there, and … rents it out to other people without living in it herself? I’m baffled.

    1. Vacation location. They use it 2-4 weeks a week a year.

      It is actually (was? used to be?) pretty common in Michigan for people to have a ‘cottage up north’ that you would go to during summer vacation or in the fall when deer hunting season opened. The cottages would be left closed up the rest of the time.

      With the era of AirBnB, people like her decided to take up it a notch in tourist towns away from the major cities and mostly along the great lakes. Have a place to go to when they can take vacation time from their job near Detroit, and have it make money for them the rest of the time.. except for the winter months that is.

      All those little tourist towns were managing ok until the internet, AirBnB and TV like HGN brought a million wannabe real estate moguls pouring in to build their rental empires ‘under the radar’ of the local governments.

      The pushback by local government is happening all over the place and the virus situation is just making it easier for pent up issues caused by people like her to be dealt with.

      1. Last week I returned from spending 2 weeks in the Elk Rapids MI area. There I learned that Black Flies Matter.

          1. It has it’s really nice moments – and I grew up there. The winters have always been tough, but decades ago the summers didn’t used be as hot as they are now.

            Climate-wise, I’ll take this pocket of cool and mild I live in here in the PNW over anywhere else in the continental US.

      2. I stayed at an Airbnb over July 4th. Other than business trips where someone else pays, I almost always use Airbnb. If it’s a family trip, there is no decision to be made. For the cost of a decent hotel room you get a condo or house. I wouldn’t want to be a host, but as a consumer it’s amazing.

  9. She plans to move to the house one day when she retires.. In the meantime let renters pay the mortgage.

        1. Or how about drug manufacturers?

          Meth house busts can leave property owners with hefty clean-up bills
          by Genevieve Grippo | Newschannel 3
          Sunday, November 17th 2019
          KVET officers in Kalamazoo County say they have arrested a man with a large amount of meth.
          Photo, credit: KVET.

          KALAMAZOO, Mich. — Records show the number of properties being busted for meth-related activities are on the decline, but experts said if the homes aren’t properly cleaned, the hazards left behind by dangerous chemicals can stick around for years.

          According to a list provided by the Kalamazoo County Health Department, more than 1,100 properties, including homes, apartments, motels and cars, have been busted for meth since 2004. County Environmental Health Director Lucus Pols said busted homes are condemned and stay that way until they’re cleaned to the county’s standards.
          …

          1. County Environmental Health Director Lucus Pols said busted homes are condemned and stay that way until they’re cleaned to the county’s standards.

            The standards are so strict that it’s nearly impossible to make money on a rehab unless you pick it up almost free. I know in a county I used to live in, you had to remove all drywall, essentially gutting the house to the studs. You also had to take the top 3″ of soil off the entire property. And, the house had to be enclosed in a some sort of bubble while you were doing all of it.

          2. “…you had to remove all drywall, essentially gutting the house to the studs. You also had to take the top 3″ of soil off the entire property. And, the house had to be enclosed in a some sort of bubble…”

            Wouldn’t in be cheaper/better outcome just to bulldoze and be done with it?

    1. Thanks for the reminder about that song I used to enjoy. Had forgotten about it…and yes RIP.

      1. Aww man. That’s too bad. Long Haired Country Boy and Uneasy Rider were my anthems for a while.

  14. But now she’s worried a proposed new zoning code in Elk Rapids may harm her ability to operate or even sell her short-term rental business, should she wish. ‘Why they are determined to do it, we don’t really understand,’ Witulski said.”

    Why? If you ever really live there, Linda, then you will know. The locals never intended for the town to be a crop to be harvested by people like you. And they are the ones that make it a nice place to visit or live…not you.

    1. The locals never intended for the town to be a crop to be harvested by people like you.

      The Founding Fathers never intended the American Republic to be turned into a Goldman Sachs looting colony, but that’s what we let happen.

    1. The couple appear to have hired security personnel, as around a dozen ‘men in plain clothes’ were seen surrounding the property.

      Sounds like they understand that they won’t be the last to be eaten by the mob, despite their credentials.

    1. “Public pensions assume an average annual investment return of 7.2% and taxpayers make up the difference when returns fall short.”

      And don’t you want to be a taxpayer in a city and/or state that has a huge shortfall? Not.

    2. “The gains eased the risk that states and cities will be hit with a steep increase in pension contributions just as they’re contending with the coronavirus recession that’s promising to cut hundreds of billions of dollars from their tax revenue.”

      It must be exhausting manipulating the free market.

    1. Larry Fink is a crony capitalist whose head should roll down Wall St. with the rest of them.

    1. How many “victims” who can’t pay their rent have $1000 cell phones?

      Probably a lot of them.

    2. Never understood super expensive cell phones. My $100 cell phone makes calls, takes photos, and even accesses the internet just fine.

    3. NYPD Seeking Information in Multiple Broad-Daylight Executions

      By Dan Lyman Monday, July 06, 2020

      Police in New York City are asking for information in at least two deadly shootings which unfolded in broad daylight during recent days.

      Both killings, which appeared to be deliberate, were captured on video and shared to social media by NYPD Chief of Detectives Rodney Harrison.

      https://www.newswars.com/nypd-seeking-information-in-multiple-broad-daylight-executions/

      1. If the blacks succeeded in starting a race war with the whites, they would be exterminated completely.

  21. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black…

    The Financial Times
    Coronavirus business update 30 days complimentary
    Opinion Instant Insight
    China’s stock market surge is fuelled by liquidity not fundamentals
    Remember 2015? A rally not accompanied by climbing industrial profits can end in tears
    James Kynge
    China’s CSI 300 index jumped 5.7% on Monday to a five-year high
    © AFP/Getty
    James Kynge 8 hours ago

    Beware a sudden sentiment-fuelled Chinese stock market rally.

    While China’s state-backed media celebrates the country’s biggest stock market rally in more than a year, investors with longer memories may recall a painful lesson from 2015: stock price surges that are not accompanied by climbing industrial profits can end in tears.

    Back then, a chorus of official cheerleading and easy money bid up the main Shanghai stock index by about 150 per cent between June 2014 and June 2015. But then it collapsed and within less than a month it had slumped by 32 per cent.

    Then, as now, industrial profits were lacklustre. “Equity prices are rising far above levels implied by their historical relationship with earnings,” Thomas Gatley, an analyst with Gavekal Research, a research company, wrote on Monday. “The prospects for year-on-year earnings growth cannot justify this exuberance.”

    The country’s CSI 300 index of Shanghai- and Shenzhen-listed shares jumped 5.7 per cent on Monday to a five-year high. But this boom contrasted with a fall of 51 per cent in non-financial corporate earnings in the first quarter of the year, Mr Gatley said.

    Even though industrial profits are now bouncing back — rising 6 per cent year on year in May — they are likely to remain modest on a full-year basis. “Even if industrial profits grow 10 per cent year on year for June-December, profits for the year will remain below 2019 levels,” Mr Gatley added.
    …

  22. What is the utility of a 10pm restaurant curfew? Does COVID-19 transmission risk go up after 10pm?

    My son won’t miss his late night fast food shift much, as he already gave notice that tomorrow is his last day.

    1. Newsom Says He Expects San Diego to Halt Indoor Restaurant Dining as Cases Rise
      Posted by Debbie L. Sklar on July 6, 2020 in Politics

      With the county now on the state’s coronavirus watch list thanks to the rising rate of positive cases, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Monday he anticipates local health officials acting shortly to comply with recently enacted ordered, including the closure of indoor dining spaces.

      The county was officially added to the state’s monitoring list — which now includes 23 counties across the state — over the weekend, primarily due to the region’s rising rate of cases per 100,000 residents.

      Ahead of the Fourth of July weekend, Newsom ordered counties that have been on the list for at least three days to shutter indoor operations at businesses such as restaurants, wineries, movie theaters, zoos, museums and cardrooms.

      On Monday, Newsom noted the addition of San Diego and several other counties to the state’s monitoring list, and said he is awaiting an order from local health officials in each of those counties to issue an order enacting the measures, which are expected to remain in effect for at least three weeks.

      Counties on the list were also ordered to close all bars, a move San Diego County had already taken ahead of the holiday weekend. The county issued a 10 p.m. curfew for restaurants.
      …

      1. There’s nothing baffling about almost $4 TRILLION in liquidity. That’s nearly half the entire market cap of the DOW.

  24. “New York’s housing market teeters on the edge of an abyss.”

    Houses in my neighborhood sold for the current dollar equivalent of about $364,000 in the mid-1990s, compared with $2.1 million recently. Let’s say the price were to fall to $600,000. Would that be the abyss?

    How about if rents fell by half. Would that be the abyss?

    Everyone seems to have forgotten that on the coasts soaring housing prices were considered a crisis six months ago.

    “The stock market is poised for a 40% drop, warns economist who says the current climate feels a lot like 1929.”

    I’d like to see an 80 percent drop, matching 1929.

    1. I just got to town last Friday evening
      Sure as hell didn’t mean to stay
      I was on my way back to Louisiana
      Had a powerful thirst and six months pay

      I met a peroxide blonde in a bar on D-ville
      I was flying high and feeling mean
      Poured down a bottle and a half of red eye
      I dropped 35 dollars in the slot machine

      And the boys in the back was dealing 7 card
      I set down and won me a 110
      I was raking in chips like Grant took Richmond
      Till big Johnny Lee come a strolling in

      He ripped off the table like a 707
      Pretty soon he done won all of my bread
      I accused him of cheating he reached for a pistol
      I grabbed a chair and went upside of his head

      Then I took off a running like a motorcycle
      Heard the bullets whining and sirens wail
      But it took half the cops in Dallas County
      Just to put one coonass boy in jail

      So call up Trudy on the telephone
      Send her a letter in the mail
      Tell her I’m hung up in Dallas
      And they won’t let me outta this jail

      And if she asks you how I’m fairing
      Tell her I’m just about to lose my mind
      Worried about old Johnny Lee Walker
      And the girl I left behind

  26. This sounds like a very bad experience.

    I got Covid-19 two months ago. I’m still discovering new areas of damage — Richard Quest
    By Richard Quest, Business editor-at-large, CNN
    Updated 6:31 AM ET, Tue July 7, 2020
    Richard Quest reveals positive coronavirus test during his show

    (CNN) The cough has come back, without warning and seemingly for no reason; so has the fatigue. True, neither are as debilitating as when I had the actual virus, but they are back.

    Like many others, I am now coming to realize that I am living and suffering from the long tail of Covid-19.
    I got infected back in mid-April. The onset of symptoms came quickly. I suddenly noticed I was feeling very tired and I had a new cough. I got tested and the morning after I received a phone call from the medical center, I had tested positive for coronavirus.

    The virus is like a tornado. When it lands, it swirls through the body, causing chaos, confusion, coughs, wreaking damage to each organ it touches. Some won’t survive its visit. For those that do, when it has gone, one surveys the damage to the human landscape and realizes it’s much greater than first thought. My symptoms were on the milder side: I never had breathing difficulties, or loss of sense or smell. I was wiped-out tired and I always had “the cough,” which has now returned.
    …

    2. These are the “long haulers,” as nicknamed by Peak Prosperity. It’s a small portion (5-10%) of COVID cases, but it’s scary enough to drive me to tape on an N-95 mask and goggles on every time I get out of my car.

Comments are closed.