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The Simple Truth Is That Housing Is Not Investment

A weekend topic starting with Honolulu Civil Beat in Hawaii. “Since the pandemic began, veterans and service members have been utilizing Department of Veterans Affairs home loans at historically high rates. Dropping prices and legislation that loosened restrictions on VA home loans have both contributed to a nationwide boom in troops and veterans using their benefits. That’s making an impact in Hawaii, historically an expensive housing market. In Honolulu, VA loans from April 1 to June 30 were up 206% from the same time last year. That marks the largest increase for a major metro area in the United States.”

“The VA itself doesn’t give out loans, but issues guidelines and guarantees loans that qualify under the program. The loans can be used both for purchasing and refinancing homes. In Honolulu VA loans for refinancing have increased 403% so far from last year. ‘Pretty much every veteran is refinancing right now because they’d be stupid not to,’ said Elias Halvorson, a Honolulu VA loan specialist and Air Force veteran.”

“Every county in the U.S. has a conforming loan limit, which is a cap on the size of a loan that the federal government will guarantee. Loans above this limit are known as ‘jumbo loans.’ Until recently, if a home price was over the county loan limit the buyer had to make a 25% down payment. In 2019 the conforming loan limit for a single family unit in Honolulu was $726,525. The Blue Water Navy Vietnam Veterans Act of 2019, which took effect at the start of 2020, eliminated home loan limits.”

“With the new legislation, VA Loans don’t require mortgage insurance or down payments even if a loan is over the county limit. That’s a big deal in Hawaii, one of the most expensive housing markets in the nation. ‘Those two things make taking out a loan much more possible,’ said Halvorson.”

“Last year housing prices for a family home on Oahu hit a record high. But according to Zillow, Honolulu home values have declined 1.8% over the past year and Zillow predicts they will fall 3.4% within the next year. Halvorson noted that when it comes to housing prices, a drop of a few percent makes little difference in a place like Texas where home values tend to be lower. But in Hawaii, even a slight fluctuation can mean thousands of dollars.”

“‘What’s interesting and exciting is that millennial veterans are really driving this increase in Honolulu,’ Birk noted. Purchases by millennial veterans in Honolulu are up 22% from last year, while millennial veteran homeowner refinances are up 659%. Millennials by and large have struggled to enter the housing market. ‘Younger service members are able to just because of this opportunity that they’ve earned,’ Birk said.”

From WAMU on Maryland. “Some homeowners in Prince George’s County are grappling with the current recession while still mired in debt from predatory home loans from the last recession. The 2008-2009 subprime mortgage crisis left thousands of homeowners in Maryland — which was third in the country for foreclosures — strapped with loans that were initially low before ballooning dramatically.”

“Black homeowners — particularly in Prince George’s County which was hardest hit in the state for foreclosures — were often targeted for these loans. Many didn’t find out about the high cost of the loans until receiving a notice for intent to foreclose, years after the housing crisis had supposedly ended. And when they try to seek help to avoid foreclosure, they’re mostly told to get a hard-to-obtain modification or declare bankruptcy.”

“Experts with the county’s NAACP says that a large majority of the more than 3,000 foreclosure cases in 2019 were due to subprime loans. The county reached its peak in foreclosures in 2010 with more than 12,700. Maryland still remains high on the national list for foreclosure, even though there’s a moratorium on evictions for government-backed mortgages.”

“Zalee Harris, 63, spent almost a decade trying to save her home. She bought her Temple Hills’ home with her husband in 1988, when they were newly married and first-time home buyers. Later in 2006, they refinanced the house with their lender, HSBC. The couple didn’t realize they couldn’t afford the ballooning mortgage payments until 2010. For the first two years of their loan, their monthly payment was about $2,600. Then the interest rate almost doubled, and, by 2008 they had a balloon payment of more than $8,500 a month.”

“‘We found out then that we was in trouble,’ Harris said. It wasn’t until 2014 that the couple received a notice with intent to foreclose. ‘The court proceeded with the foreclosure,’ she said. ‘The judge rubber-stamped the whole process.'”

“In 2017, they hired Attorney Phillip Robinson to help them with their case pro-bono. A year later, they lost their case in circuit court and got an appeal. By early 2019, they were getting eviction notices. Harris says she already saw many of her friends and neighbors get evicted and didn’t want to go through the same process. The couple moved to a rental house in Charles County just south of Prince George’s. They lost their appeal in August of 2019 even with evidence showing that the bank didn’t have the Harris’s note or right to foreclose on them, according to Robinson.”

The Wall Street Journal. “Federal Reserve officials’ promises to hold interest rates very low for a long time could pose a dilemma once the pandemic is over: how to deal with the risk of asset bubbles. Those concerns flared when Dallas Fed President Robert Kaplan dissented from the central bank’s Sept. 16 decision to spell out those promises. The Fed committed to hold short-term rates near zero until inflation reaches 2% and is likely to stay somewhat above that level—something most officials don’t see happening in the next three years.”

“‘There are costs to keeping rates at zero for a prolonged period,’ Mr. Kaplan said in an interview. He added that he worries such a commitment ’causes people to take more risk in that they know it’s much less likely that they’re going to be able to earn on savings.'”

“The question of whether the Fed should raise rates to prevent bubbles from forming has long vexed officials. Mr. Kaplan’s concerns show how the lack of consensus could one day sow doubts over the central bank’s ability or willingness to follow through on the new lower-for-longer rate framework Fed Chairman Jerome Powell unveiled last month.”

“Financial-stability concerns motivated Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren to vote against three separate interest-rate cuts last year. He has warned for years of potential excesses building in commercial real estate that would worsen a downturn, a prophecy he worries the pandemic will fulfill. ‘People reach for yield in commercial real estate when interest rates get quite low, and you start doing riskier projects, and when the economy hits a shock—in this case, it was a pandemic—it means that big losses are going to likely occur,’ Mr. Rosengren said.”

From Forbes. “A recent column by CNN markets reporter, Paul La Monica, wrote of housing as an ‘undeniable bright spot’ that’s ‘holding up’ the U.S. economy. La Monica gets it backwards. Housing is consumption. It’s the opposite of abstinence. Nothing against putting a roof over one’s head, but the simple truth is that housing is not investment. The purchase of a house isn’t going to help hatch the next Microsoft, or the next Grail meant to discover cancer well before it spreads.”

“While the act of saving expands the capital base for entrepreneurs eager to change how we do things, the purchase of housing logically shrinks it. When we buy a house we consume, as opposed to save, thus limiting the amount of resources that entrepreneurs can potentially access. Progress stalled.”

“Worse is that top realty executives are starting to exhibit hubris. Recently one exulted that housing supply at present is like the supply of ‘toilet paper’ back when the lockdowns began. Oh dear….”

“Those in the realty business mistakenly believe that housing consumption drives the economy. So does La Monica. Both are incorrect. Consumption doesn’t power economic growth; rather it’s a consequence of it. Think about it. Savings and investment are what boost productivity, and it’s obviously our production that enables consumption. Call consumption the harvesting of past economic growth.”

“Nothing against housing. It’s an essential market good. We must have roofs over our heads. But the consumption of what shelters us will not rush the future into the present. Housing’s exuberance is a perilous sign, not a positive one.”

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This Post Has 88 Comments

  1. ‘Until recently, if a home price was over the county loan limit the buyer had to make a 25% down payment. In 2019 the conforming loan limit for a single family unit in Honolulu was $726,525. The Blue Water Navy Vietnam Veterans Act of 2019, which took effect at the start of 2020, eliminated home loan limits’

    ‘With the new legislation, VA Loans don’t require mortgage insurance or down payments even if a loan is over the county limit’

    Remember this? No limit at all. Zero down.

    1. The REIC would have you believe there is no subprime. But VA loans went from 2% of the market last decade to 12% before the CCP virus. It’s likely far higher now.

      1. Well, having a disability, i can get a VA loan for zero down and no origination fee, so the only out of pocket would be miscellaneous closing costs. Then take the cash for the cost of the house and buy a high dividend stock (exxon @ 10% yield) and that would more than cover the payments and upkeep on the house. Then pray the stock doesn’t drop while living in the house with no cost. Just sayin…

    2. Don’t forget that Quantitative Easing is also Unlimited now, which I guess means the future housing bailouts will have no limits.

      The many channels through which limits have been eliminated during the present episode have the potential to sow the seeds of future financial chaos.

  3. ‘Zalee Harris, 63, spent almost a decade trying to save her home’

    But shadow inventory is a conspiracy theory.

  4. ‘There are costs to keeping rates at zero for a prolonged period,’ Mr. Kaplan said in an interview. He added that he worries such a commitment ’causes people to take more risk’

    Like borrowing hundreds of thousand$ when foreclosures jumped past last decade and tens of millions lost their jobs?

    1. Those first in line become obscenely rich.

      For the rest you you.

      You get $800,000 crack shacks, $75,000 per year college and 24% credit cards.

      1. …… And falling housing prices.

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

        1. I don’t think The Donald is a good person, but he isn’t stupid. I once compared Gallup poll data on how much they like the President with how much debt was rising as a percent of GDP.

          The more debt was rising, and the more consumption exceeded production, the more they liked him.

          Later? Hopefully someone else is stuck with the bill.

          1. Most people didn’t like the man so much when he was just a professional ass. What we wanted was a rude fighter who wasn’t afraid of or owned by the corrupt establishment, and would volunteer to roll his sleeves up for us. He has consistently. It has been amazing and there is much more to do. The thing I think that most people miss is that this is not a beauty pageant.

      2. And 20k a year in health insurance for a family of 4. Madness everywhere you look as the culture circles the drain.

        No wonder there are millions who have thrown in the towel and are living in tents from sea to shining sea.

        2. Healthcare costs put us at a huge comparative disadvantage. Healthcare should be provided as the public good it is. We already cover and pay for the two most expensive groups (old people and poor people). Medicare for all is a no-brainer.

          1. That must be why my relatives in the UK have private insurance, instead of fully relying on the NHS.

          2. Medicare for all is a no-brainer.

            OK, no brainer. I paid into that account for 45 years to get coverage for the last few years of my life, when I wasn’t working anymore. You think giving this for free to everyone from the cradle is obvious. Where does the money come from?

  5. ‘Worse is that top realty executives are starting to exhibit hubris. Recently one exulted that housing supply at present is like the supply of ‘toilet paper’ back when the lockdowns began’

    Click!

    It’s clear what’s going on. The central bank is using Joe Blow as a “trade-off” to keep this sh$t-cart afloat.

  6. Did you read the contract?
    Did you sign the contract?
    Did you make your monthly payments?
    Or do you expect to be treated like a child because you are black?

    “Black homeowners — particularly in Prince George’s County which was hardest hit in the state for foreclosures — were often targeted for these loans. Many didn’t find out about the high cost of the loans until receiving a notice for intent to foreclose…”

    1. There’s not much excuse for Harris. They had already bought the house a 16 years before, so it’s not as if they had no idea how a mortgage worked. A $2600 mortgage payment that ballooned to $8500? That’s, what, a half-million dollar cash-out refi with I/O or possibly neg-am.* What did they do with the money?

      And then it took them two years to figure out they couldn’t afford $8500/month? That’s more than my take-home pay now. And then it looks like they squatted for another 5+ years after that. If you ask me, they’ve been coddled enough. Get some boxes.

      ——————–
      *I know HBB likes to change the definition du jour of “subprime” to mock me. This is why I stay with facts like: I haven’t seen a new I/O or neg-am mortgage since late 2007. Harris would never get such a loan today.

      1. Subprime is anything that’s not prime. That’s pretty clear isn’t it? I haven’t changed any definition: the REIC did. Most of their loans are subprime, have been for years.

        1. 90%+ of all mortgages made since 2010 are in fact subprime.

          I presume that is common knowledge here by now.

      2. exactly what I was thinking ….they are not “Victims” ,just working the system and living rent free ,looks like

      4. It doesn’t even matter what you call the loans, since most of the defaults last time were “prime.” This whole thing is going to blow up and take down every type of loanowner.

        1. The defaults were “primes” who cash-out refi’d for more than they can afford. They could be making $100K/year and have an 800 FICO, but if they buy a house for $500K in 1997 and then in 2006 cash-out to a million (easy to do in CA), and only afford the payments with an I/O with a two-year reset, it doesn’t matter a whit to me whether they are “prime” or “subprime” or “chopped liver.” I’m tired of playing word games.

          1. I’m tired of playing

            You’d be chopped liver too if your house was worth half of what you owe on it, even if you are tired.

  7. March 26, 2020

    “As America heads into a deep recession, the $11 trillion residential-mortgage market is in crisis. Investors who buy home loans packaged into bonds are dumping even those with federal backing because of panic that millions might not make their payments. Yet one risky sector had started to show cracks long before the coronavirus pandemic sparked the worst financial meltdown in 12 years: the federal government’s largest affordable-housing program, whose lenient terms are geared toward marginal borrowers.”

    “As real estate prices soared in recent years, working-class adults everywhere have increasingly relied on mortgages backed by the Federal Housing Administration — and U.S. taxpayers. Since 2007, the FHA’s portfolio has tripled in value to more than $1.2 trillion, almost 11% of the market. While private lenders make these loans, they are packaged into Ginnie Mae bonds, common in mutual funds and pensions.”

    “Before Covid-19 started roiling China, a November FHA report found that 27% of borrowers last year spent more than half their incomes on debt, a level it describes as ‘unprecedented.’ The share of FHA loans souring in their first six months has doubled over the last three years to almost 1%.”

    “Not long ago, Alex Castillo drove his shiny black Infiniti SUV through an office park north of the San Antonio airport, along a busy seven-mile stretch of highway that loan officers call ‘Mortgage Row’ because of its abundance of small independent mortgage companies that dominate FHA lending. Castillo, who has the words ‘The Dream Starts Here’ stitched into his jacket, works for Pennsylvania-based American Residential Lending. Oddly, amid the pandemic, his business is booming. His customers locked in FHA mortgages after interest rates plunged this month — adding to federally backed mortgage debt.”

    “‘If the government tells me you’re good enough to get a loan, I have to trust and believe in the government,’ Castillo said. ‘Then we just hope and pray that the client doesn’t get foreclosed on.’”

    “In downtown San Antonio, scores of investors stood on a parched lawn beside the city’s historic granite-and-red-sandstone courthouse. It was the first Tuesday of February, the day of the foreclosure auction. Matt Badders, a San Antonio lawyer who represents lenders, auctioned off two houses. The failed mortgages remind him of the run-up to the financial crisis 12 years ago, when lending to customers with spotty credit nearly brought down the world’s financial system. ‘We’re almost back to 2007, when mortgage originators are waking people up on park benches, saying sign here,’ Badders said.”

    “At the auction, the crowd bid on 338 homes, a third with FHA mortgages, according to Roddy’s Foreclosure Listing Service. One house had dual master bedrooms, a game room and granite kitchen counters. It sold for $202,000 — $52,000 less than the homeowner borrowed only two years ago. The taxpayer-backed FHA insurance fund will take a loss.”

    “Dave Stevens, FHA commissioner under President Barack Obama and former chief executive officer of the Mortgage Bankers Association, said a recession will expose hidden risks in home lending. ‘This should be an alarm bell to policymakers,’ Stevens said. ‘Sometimes you get blinded by a good economy and suddenly look at it and see a bubble of defaults coming.’”

    “The federal government has decided it doesn’t want to pursue — and has asked a judge to dismiss — a lawsuit against Utah-based Academy Mortgage Corp. The judge refused. The suit claims the company’s staff would repeatedly feed information into an automated federal underwriting system, manipulating it until the computer gave the green light. ‘Decline is a curse word,’ Plaintiff Gwen Thrower, a former underwriter, quoted a manager as saying. ‘We don’t use it.’”

    http://housingbubble.blog/?p=3070

    1. Even the brokers don’t believe the bullsh!te…

      “If the government tells me you’re good enough to get a loan, I have to trust and believe in the government,’ Castillo said. ‘Then we just hope and pray that the client doesn’t get foreclosed on.’”

      1. “Even the brokers don’t believe the bullsh!te…”

        It doesn’t matter whether the broker believe the bullsh1t or not, it only matters that the targeted schmucks believes the bullsh1t.

  8. or…

    If you just made your payments and never refinanced…

    You could have had a completely paid off house years ago.

    “Zalee Harris, 63, spent almost a decade trying to save her home. She bought her Temple Hills’ home with her husband in 1988…”

    1. Right – did you refinance to get a better rate? Or did you refinance to ‘extract equity’?

      i hate that the REIC implies that that is earned money and you can spend it.

      1. This is from the WAMU article:

        ‘One person that’s been able to help people like Harris is Liz Johnson with the county’s NAACP’s Strategic Housing Solutions. Johnson has had her own issues with predatory lending which led her to be an advocate for others.’

        ‘Johnson started Strategic Housing Solutions in 2017 out of a personal need to figure out what the banks were doing with homeowners loans that originated several years earlier. Johnson was in the process of constructing a new home in St. Mary’s County in March 2010 when the bank foreclosed on it before she could move in or make her first payment. Johnson lost the house.’

        ‘She then decided to put her own home in Temple Hills, that she bought in 1974 and refinanced in 2007, up as collateral for an experiment.’

        “I’ll use my own house as a guinea pig. I figured I don’t have any babies at home. If need be, I can drink muddy water, sleep in a hollow log,” Johnson said. “I’ve got to figure out what [the banks] are doing.”

        ‘She stopped paying her mortgage in 2010. “I wanted to see what would happen,” she said.’

        I think this is public radio or some such horse-sh$t. An experiment? Jeebus these people will throw out any kind of crap.

        1. She didn’t need to use her house as an “experiment.” There are plenty of court documents from 2008-2012 she could have looked up to find what’s happening without resorting to sleeping in a log. Or heck, she could have just read HBB. My guess is she’s trying to get one of those human-interest sob stories.

          Oh, and I’m pretty sure she won’t be able to drink muddy water. At least not for very long.

        2. ‘She stopped paying her mortgage in 2010. “I wanted to see what would happen,” she said.’

          Foreclosure is rayciss, yo.

  9. ‘If rental assistance isn’t in the next stimulus, there will be bankruptcies, foreclosures | Opinion’

    ‘I say to Congress, “Rental assistance, WTF!?” WTF stands for “Where’s The Funding?”

    ‘Assuming that Congress doesn’t care about larger landlords, or even tenants for that matter, perhaps they will look to help small mom-and-pop landlords who own 50% of the rental housing stock in this country. If rental assistance does not come in this next round of stimulus, we will see massive numbers of bankruptcies and foreclosures, retirement savings destroyed and college funds evaporated. This is because many small landlords invest everything they have into these properties with the hope that they will someday provide the necessary funds to retire or put their kids through college.’

    ‘So Congress, when contemplating rental assistance, please make the right choice so the people of this country no longer have to say WTF (Where’s The Funding) but rather “TFTF,” (Thanks For The Funding) and thanks for saving my home, my business, my life savings and our economy.’

    ‘David Brogan is the executive director of the New Jersey Apartment Association, the largest trade association in New Jersey, which represents the owners, managers and vendors of the apartment industry.’

    https://www.nj.com/opinion/2020/10/if-rental-assistance-isnt-in-the-next-stimulus-there-will-be-bankruptcies-foreclosures-opinion.html

    Again, these idiots are counting on a slice of free cheese to sustain a multi-trillion dollar business.

    1. ‘Generally, landlords, like any other business, offer a service in exchange for money essential to any business. Larger landlords may have the resources to weather several months of deferred rent. Smaller landlords don’t have that advantage – they often operate on shoestring budgets and live much closer to bankruptcy or foreclosure than most people realize. These smaller landlords are typically ineligible to receive federal and state assistance and instead have become collateral damage in the push for increased tenant protections during the pandemic.’

      ‘Under Ducey’s current executive order, Arizona’s affordable housing crisis, which existed long before COVID-19, will only worsen. As landlords lose out on month after month of rent payments, many could be forced into foreclosure. These foreclosures will result in less affordable housing, which could have been prevented if the governor’s executive order allowed landlords to secure even partial payment of rent.’

      https://azcapitoltimes.com/news/2020/10/02/arizonas-eviction-ban-raises-serious-constitutional-questions/

    2. Free cheese never goes to mom and pop businesses.

      They don’t give enough to the right politicians or have any lobbyists.

    3. This is because many small landlords invest everything they have into these properties with the hope that they will someday provide the necessary funds to retire or put their kids through college.’

      Going all in on Red is not smart.

  10. The Harrises have been doing what the majority of people renting from the bank have been doing for 2decades now…. Cash out refinancing just to make more payments to the bank.

    That’s why the number of outstanding mortgages continues to go up and never decrease.

  11. . “Some homeowners in Prince George’s County are grappling with the current recession while still mired in debt from predatory home loans from the last recession.

    If lenders refuse to extend credit to “disadvantaged minorities” with terrible credit, they’re rayciss. But if they do extend credit on terms that reflect the risk of lending to the manifestly non-creditworthy, such loans are “predatory.” Got it.

    #KnowYourNarrative

    2. I think The Narrative is that the banks should take all the money that the Federal Reserve is giving them and redistribute it to POCs. Working is for chumps.

  12. “Federal Reserve officials’ promises to hold interest rates very low for a long time could pose a dilemma once the pandemic is over: how to deal with the risk of asset bubbles.

    The “risk” of asset bubbles? Since 2009 the Fed and its easy-money policies have blown the most gargantuan asset bubbles in human history. Americans are going to pay a terrible price for turning over their money issuance to this criminal private banking cartel.

  13. “A recent column by CNN markets reporter, Paul La Monica, wrote of housing as an ‘undeniable bright spot’ that’s ‘holding up’ the U.S. economy. La Monica gets it backwards.

    La Monica, like all Real Journalists, is a corporate shill and tout. Working hand in glove with the REIC to set up the sheeple to be fleeced is the stock in trade for CNN and the rest of the globalist media.

  14. Here’s another article that talks about The Great Reset the Movers & Shakers of the world want to inflict upon the rest of us. I will post a snip but I suggest everyone click on the link and give the intire article
    A close read.

    Introducing the ‘Great Reset,’ world leaders’ radical plan to transform the economy | TheHill
    https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/504499-introducing-the-great-reset-world-leaders-radical-plan-to

    (here’s a snip)

    “For decades, progressives have attempted to use climate change to justify liberal policy changes. But their latest attempt – a new proposal called the “Great Reset” – is the most ambitious and radical plan the world has seen in more than a generation.

    “At a virtual meeting earlier in June hosted by the World Economic Forum, some of the planet’s most powerful business leaders, government officials and activists announced a proposal to ‘reset’ the global economy. Instead of traditional capitalism, the high-profile group said the world should adopt more socialistic policies, such as wealth taxes, additional regulations and massive Green New Deal-like government programs.

    “’Every country, from the United States to China, must participate, and every industry, from oil and gas to tech, must be transformed,’ wrote Klaus Schwab, the founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum, in an article published on WEF’s website. ‘In short, we need a ‘Great Reset’ of capitalism.’

    “Schwab also said that ‘all aspects of our societies and economies’ must be ‘revamped,’ ‘from education to social contracts and working conditions.’

    “Joining Schwab at the WEF event was Prince Charles, one of the primary proponents of the Great Reset; Gina Gopinath, the chief economist at the International Monetary Fund; António Guterres, the secretary-general of the United Nations; and CEOs and presidents of major international corporations, such as Microsoft and BP.

    “Activists from groups such as Greenpeace International and a variety of academics also attended the event or have expressed their support for the Great Reset.

    “Although many details about the Great Reset won’t be rolled out until the World Economic Forum meets in Davos in January 2021, the general principles of the plan are clear: The world needs massive new government programs and far-reaching policies comparable to those offered by American socialists such as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) in their Green New Deal plan.

    “Or, put another way, we need a form of socialism — a word the World Economic Forum has deliberately avoided using, all while calling for countless socialist and progressive plans.”

    Again this was just a snip of the article and again I urge everyone to click on the link and carefully read the entire thing.

    1. After the 2009 bail out for the lending crooks, they did nothing to prevent it happening again.

      At least after the 1929 crash they didn’t bail out the system and they conducted hearings to determine the cause of the Crash, and created good laws to prevent such a crash again

      Than the Politicians sold out in 1996 to the Fat Cats, and they got rid of the time tested regulations. It only took about 7 years for the financial systems to crash as a result of the Political sell out. They bailed out the culprits, and didn’t do anything to prevent future risk.
      So, they actually doubled down on Ponzi Schemes with the Government being the bail out set up. They furthered credit that just raised prices .
      So now Big Business has Big Government as their puppet, while the Commie insurrection is in everyone’s face.
      There was great Moral hazard to that Bail Out of 2008 because it only served to create many greater evils that are playing out today.
      They aren’t even talking about the true issues and the Fat Cats are doing everything in their power to distract from the true issues of the true remedies to the Political sell out to the Fat Cats.
      This just plays into the Commies gaining power, while the Fat Cats Loot and the Commies want to loot also and take over.
      No other solution but to take out the Politicians and get back to the way this Country should be.

  15. Hey Biden, even globalist media flagship the NYT has admitted that “insurrectionist anarchists” are more than an “idea” – they’re a highly organized destructive force being deployed by faceless controllers against American cities and businesses. Of course, being real journalists, the NYT hacks won’t delve into who is financing and directing these Black Bloc Antifa scum.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/30/opinion/anarchists-protests-black-lives-matter.html

    1. This is why I use archive dot is when posting links to the NYT or WaPo. I can’t read either of those sites with adblock, but if I’m going to share a link, I won’t give them any clicks or revenue.

      And yes, I used to receive the paper Wall Street Journal, because I believed I was getting my money’s worth.

    2. they’re a highly organized destructive force being deployed by faceless controllers against American cities and businesses.

      These people are neither nameless nor faceless. It’s the world’s globalist billionaires. George Soros, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, etc. Let’s start calling them who they are, instead of acting like there’s some invisible bogeyman out there.

  16. It’s interesting to see the click-bait clowns and MSM screaming ‘rents are falling in San Francisco and New York!’

    Rents have been falling in those two cities since 2016. I’ve documented every bit of it. You know what that takes? Years of reading and posting the results. And that’s reading every single day, for years.

    1. Pshaw, Ben Jones, you horse-faced pony soldier. Shirley if rents had been tanking since 2016, the hard-boiled investigative journalists of the MSM would’ve been all over this story years ago to alert their readership, who they care about deeply, in a timely manner.

      1. I discovered it partly through MSM reports. But more important were relatively obscure RE/business websites. Some of this is reading between the lines. For instance I still read all the time that “it’s red-hotcakes, but we’re getting 2 or 3 offers instead of 10”. Then you’ll see price reductions mentioned. Why would anyone reduce prices if they had 2 or 3 offers? They wouldn’t.

  17. “Black homeowners — particularly in Prince George’s County which was hardest hit in the state for foreclosures — were often targeted for these loans.”

    Did the evil lenders who targeted these people for high cost loans also put guns to their heads to force them to sign the loan agreements?

    “Many didn’t find out about the high cost of the loans until receiving a notice for intent to foreclose, years after the housing crisis had supposedly ended.”

    Even though they kept up with their loan obligations by faithfully making their monthly payments, the lenders nonetheless foreclosed on them?

    This journalist is a lion.

    1. “Did the evil lenders who targeted these people for high cost loans also put guns to their heads to force them to sign the loan agreements?”

      Someone, who was likely of the same race and attended the same church, neglected their fiduciary responsibilities and drowned their clients in debt in pursuit of the god almighty commission.

      1. I’m sure they later dropped some of their loan commission proceeds into the collection basket at church.

  18. I’ve been lucky with my rentals, nobody’s skipped a payment. But it’s not so much luck as it is due diligence. I screen like crazy and am extremely picky. One thing I learned from another landlord long ago is to look for people who work for the govt, health care or are in the military as they are virtually guaranteed to never be laid off. I also only rent to people with perfect or near perfect credit. People who COULD buy but choose not to for whatever reason, vs people who WANT to buy but can’t. It can be hard to find these people. Sometimes it takes a while and that means losing some rent as the property sits empty. But I gladly make that trade off to minimize the risk of non payment for 6 months. And I build these worst case assumptions into my calculations when deciding what to buy and at what price.

    So while I have some sympathy for landlords who are getting stiffed, part of me also thinks they brought it upon themselves by not doing their due diligence with tenant screening. Part of it, I think, is people buy properties to rent assuming it will be rented 100% of the time and barely break even. They have no margin for error and rent to the first person who shows up with a deposit. When I read these stories about someone on the verge of bankruptcy because they’re missing a few months rent, my reaction is, well then you shouldn’t be in this business.

    Making money as a landlord is possible. I’ve been doing it for a long time. But it’s also very easy to lose money if you don’t know what you’re doing.

    1. Screening is important, and it’s biting people in the a$$ now. There are some large new properties that just wanted to “fill up” to please lenders, that are stuck with deadbeats. Operating on very thin or no margin is another.

      I’ve mentioned before that I briefly flirted with raising rents a few years ago, only to see the folly of it and lowering them again. Tenants know my prices are the best in town and rarely leave. A landlords single biggest expense is vacancy, historically. Now, lots of things have been turned on their heads. Expect massive defaults, cuz that’s baked in the cake.

      None of the properties I manage have any debt. Yes, leverage is the magic fairy dust on the way up, like cap rates. But when it turns negative, look out.

      1. My landlord could easily raise my rent by $200 and maybe even more to bring it in line with prevailing rents in my zip code. However, he’s been renting to me for years now, and knows me to be an excellent, trustworthy tenant who takes good care of his house and always pays on time and in full, regardless of pandemics or gub’mint-sanctioned stiffing of landlords. So it’s a mutually beneficial arrangement, as it should be.

    2. “Making money as a landlord is possible. I’ve been doing it for a long time. But it’s also very easy to lose money if you don’t know what you’re doing.”

      Your business model works because there are likely few investors and/or property managers between you and your renters.

      And I agree with everything you’ve said. Kudos!

    3. Just be nice and pay the landlord first. Thats what my father taught us. And when your landlord is 85 years old you get up at 7 am and help him shovel the snow off the porch and driveway. There are almost no kids anymore in a lot of older areas to pay. growing up we used to get 125-150 kids on Halloween, now almost none

      1. Halloween, particularly “trick or treating” is one of the dumbest things ever, especially in this day and age. It should be done away with.

    4. Reading those 2 posts by Small Landlord and Ben Jones reminded me of some very successful business men I have had the privilege of listening to over the years,

      Paraphrasing a line from Neil Diamond, except for the names and a few other changes, the story’s the same one.

    5. +1…Thats one of the best analysis of what being a prudent small investor/landlord that I have seen in quite some time and I 100% agree…

  19. Big Government, Fat Cats and Commies running America today , with the fake media cheerleading these treasonous entities.

    They will take your Freedom of speech, they will take your guns, they will take your business and make you beg for a hand out. They will require you bow down to BLM, while your forced to bail out whoever they want.

    What could be more corrupt than the power plays that prevent true correction of what went awry here in the USA, that set us on this destruction course.
    Does anybody think that the reset the FAT CATS would propose would be anything that wouldn’t be self serving to them with the Big Government picking up the tab .
    Trump walked into the biggest mess in history, but at least they have shown their true colors.
    They have to be taken out and their Globalist plan for misery and control over people’s life be defeated , just as Germany had to be defeated along with Japan.

    2. “They will take your Freedom of speech, they will take your guns, they will take your business and make you beg for a hand out. They will require you bow down to BLM, while your forced to bail out whoever they want.”

      ‘Nobody can force me to say something I don’t want to’: Armed Louisville store owner explains why he refused to bow down to BLM mob when they demanded he repeat ‘Black Lives Matter’

      By KAREN RUIZ and JAMES GORDON

      PUBLISHED: 23:33 EDT, 28 September 2020

      https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8783595/Louisville-store-owner-says-wasnt-intimidated-free-man-BLM-mob-tried-him.html

  21. In addition, I’m now thinking that it’s possible that China did unleash this virus on the USA on purpose. Just look at the timing of it all.

    Trump was going to win based on a good economy.
    China unleashed this virus mayhem, yet Trump is blamed for this airborne virus that closed down commerce.
    Than the equally destructive attack by the Commie looter mobs attacking law and order with their insane attempt to undermine the fabric of the USA, with the FAT CATS supporting these USA haters.
    At the same time the Big Government is making a power grab to transform the USA into a even more oppressive puppet of these forces of evil that gained control , along with the Globalist and their media outlets.
    I track the betrayal by Politicians to around 23 years ago under . Agenda 21, treasonous trade agreements, getting rid of banking regulations that unleashed Ponzi Schemes, further allowance of outsourcing of jobs without penalty, Climate Change false narratives , One World Order BS , Globalism that looted America, and now false racism narratives , Gov aiding Monopolies and rigged pricing , and now Big Corporations suppressing free speech as well as the Commie education system.

    They want to stack the Court and make a one party system ,like the one that is destroying California.
    Even people that benefit by the corrupted systems now won’t benefit in the long run.

    1. If they didn’t make it this time they will next time seeing how effective it is in crippling free economies.

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