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Buyers Have A Freedom Of Making Offers, Negotiate, Pick While Sellers Are Listening To The Offers As Never Before

It’s Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. “The sale of the 851-square-foot, one-bedroom unit of the Lumina tower at 201 Folsom Street has just closed escrow with a contract price of $999,000. But as the unit was purchased for $1.2 million July of 2016, according to a review of its deed, its value has dropped 16.75 percent on an apples-to-apples basis while the Case-Shiller index for Bay Area condo values overall is up 14.1 percent over the same period of time. And the ‘median sale price’ is up as well. A signature two-bedroom on the same floor, unit #16C, traded for 1.3 percent below it 2016 price two years ago.”

“In Manhattan, median rents have dropped below $3,000 for the first time in a decade, and the borough’s rental listing inventory reached a 14-year high, according to the September 2020 Elliman Report. The situation is similar in San Francisco, which has seen the largest drop in rents in the country. On the sales side, overall inventory of homes in San Francisco has hit a two-decade high, with 31% of homes on the market in October offering price reductions. Similarly, in Manhattan, listing inventory increased by 22% and prices have dropped by 5.3% year-over-year in October.”

“‘Sellers are nervous. Those multi-million dollar units are not going out the door, and buyers have more power than they have for the last 8 to 10 years,’ said Patrick Carlisle, chief market analyst with Compass. ‘If you’re interested in a new condo, go find the property you love most and be aggressive in your negotiations.’ Zhane Dikes, a broker with The Agency in San Francisco said: ‘On the sales side, the question is, will buyers continue to stay out, and are sellers going to pull their listings or let them continue to sit? I’ve got more agents calling me asking how my listings are doing than buyers calling me at the moment.'”

“Elliot Bogod talks about the Upper West Side, New York City, NY real estate market performance in 2020: Prices of Upper West Side condos, coops, and townhouses have been reduced by many buyers in order to be attractive and to get buyers’ attention. COVID deals mostly have been happening and steeply discounted deals signed during that time. Upper West Side has tripled the number of available inventory and sellers are more negotiable than ever. Buyers are expecting discounts and getting them in many instances. Currently NYC real estate market is in the midst of the correction and everything is on sale. It’s truly a buyer’s market and buyers have a freedom of making offers, negotiate, pick while sellers are listening to the offers as never before in the previous cycle.”

“In 2018, Amazon’s HQ2 announcement jump-started the Northern Virginia housing market. The pandemic has shown that this area can’t sustain a blistering pace forever as more sellers finally enter the market. As of August 2020 (our latest available sales data), month’s supply was up 106% year-over-year. In October, Arlington County had 405 condos condos listed for sale, up 27% compared to October 2018 just before the announcement, and six times as many condo listings as in February. Adding to an uncertain future in this market, sellers who expected a massive influx of buyers looking for homes near HQ2 may find that those buyers don’t materialize.”

“There were 134 total third-quarter sales in Crozet in 2020. The average price for a detached home fell in the quarter, dropping 5% to $509,000. This drop is due in part to a higher percentage of these sales being lower cost re-sales. There were 41 attached sales in the quarter, up a third from the 31 sales in 2019. Twenty-one of these were for new construction. The average price for these new builds dropped slightly to $419,000, reflecting a 7% decrease in size. There were 20 resale properties sold in the quarter, at an average price of $312,000. The resale market will continue to face competition from new construction, especially now with Pleasant Green in full swing.”

“This week shows yet another decrease in Seattle condo inventory. The question we need to ask, is ‘why?.’ In the last 90 days, there have been 65 units that have expired. In addition to that, there were 109 owners that cancelled their condos from being listed on the market. That is a grand total of 174 units that were removed in the last 90 days. So what this shows us is that frustrated Sellers have thrown their hands up and removed their units from the market.”

“As condo sales in downtown Toronto slowly creep lower as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, would-be investors might be thinking that now’s the time to make their move on the market. John Pasalis, President at Realosophy Realty, notes that resale prices are indeed on the decline, but only by ‘a little bit.’ Rents, on the other hand, have decreased by the double-digits; nearly 20% in some cases. ‘Certainly, if you’re a savvy investor, you might find some value,’ he says. ‘There’s no rule necessarily, but it doesn’t seem right to be paying peak prices — 2020 prices — for rents that are at 2018 levels.'”

“Calgary is currently a paradise for renters seeking the latest and greatest new places to rent, a new report shows. The city has seen 17 launches from Jan. 1 to Sept. 30, or 2,174 more units. ‘That’s a lot of new supply to a city adding to consistent over-supply,’ says Andie Daggett, manager of rental market data for Alberta at Urban Analytics. ‘A few years ago developers were looking at Calgary and saying, ‘Wow, we need more rentals!’ she says. But planning, approval and construction take years. ‘So by the time you break ground, three years later, you could still have another two years of building if it’s high-rise concrete.'”

“Property experts think the writing is already on the wall for the ‘mini-boom’. Tom Wilson, a director of King West – Chartered Surveyors, Land & Estate Agents, based in the East Midlands, said in the Rics survey: ‘Sentiment has taken a hit with regional lockdowns and negative economic commentary. Most have their eyes on next year now and beware the falling knife.'”

“There’s a worrying sign in the Australian housing market with one state seeing prices fall at more than double the rate of the 2008 US housing crash. As of the most recent comparable data, we have almost 50 per cent more debt than the Americans did during the absolute height of their pre-global financial crisis debt binge. With the advent of the coronavirus pandemic and more than five million people being supported by the government’s JobKeeper or JobSeeker programs, there are signs that the Aussie property market may be following the same trajectory as the Americans did during the GFC.”

“PEXA, an E-conveyancing firm made up by the various privatised land registry offices, recently authored a report into the direction of housing prices in our two most populace states, New South Wales and Victoria. According to PEXA, from the start of the year until the end of September, housing prices in NSW are down 9 per cent and in Victoria, prices were down a whopping 14 per cent. Commercial property in NSW also fared extremely poorly, with prices down 14 per cent in the first nine months of the year.”

“In NSW, prices are falling 37 per cent faster than America’s were when they were crashing in 2008. For Victoria, the numbers are even more concerning, with prices falling at more than double the rate of the US housing crash. For a nation like Australia that eats, sleeps and breathes property and property investment, these figures are practically blasphemous. Even with more than 3.5 million workers being supported by JobKeeper, hundreds of thousands of mortgages and business loans in deferral and unprecedented support from the Morrison government, PEXA’s data shows prices falling at an alarming rate.”

“If your mortgage has been in forbearance and the window for that protection is ending, don’t panic. Whether your loan is serviced by a private lender or owned by one of the government-backed mortgage giants, there are options for how to proceed, even if you’re still in a tough financial spot. ‘We’re here to support you, don’t let it impact your credit negatively,’ said Jennifer Kouchis, senior vice president of real estate lending at VyStar Credit Union in Jacksonville, Florida. ‘If we don’t hear back from you, we don’t have a choice in the next step of the process.'”

“If your forbearance period is ending, that doesn’t mean you’re about to lose your house, even if you still can’t afford your mortgage payments. Stay in touch with your lender and see what options are available to you. ‘It’s better to call and think through options instead of hiding under a rock,’ said Marina Walsh, vice president of industry analysis at Mortgage Bankers Association.”

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This Post Has 101 Comments

  1. The Mechanics Behind the Electronic Vote Steal Operation

    https://www.bitchute.com/video/OJrljwQFcIvc/

    https://twitter.com/tom2badcat/status/1325126091460268032

    https://archive.vn/KPwUa

    Michigan @ 45:20. And on. 5 out of 5 states.

    Another poster added:

    ‘At 31:30 in the video, he explains how Trump was comfortably ahead in all the 5 key battleground states, and suddenly all 5, AT THE SAME TIME, quit counting and went offline for 3 hours.’

    ‘Then when they came back, suddenly there were massive numbers of found votes and were all for one candidate and one candidate only (Biden). Statistically impossible.’

    1. ‘Election officials in Georgia’s 159 counties are undertaking a hand recount of the presidential race stemming from a “risk-limiting audit” that is required by state law, which when completed will be the largest hand re-tally in the history of the United States.’

      ‘The law requires that one race be audited by hand to check that the machines counted the ballots accurately. Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger chose to audit the presidential race and said the tight margin, with Democrat Joe Biden leading President Donald Trump by 14,072 votes—means a full hand count is needed.’

      ‘The audit is a new requirement that was included in a 2019 law that also provided guidelines that the state used to purchase a new election system from Dominion Voting Systems for more than $100 million.

      ‘President Donald Trump claimed in a tweet that Dominion software “DELETED 2.7 MILLION TRUMP VOTES NATIONWIDE.” The president’s reelection campaign announced that it will file a lawsuit in Michigan that, besides alleging voting irregularities, will seek a review of the Dominion software, which has been linked to issues in several states, including in several counties in Georgia that saw voting machines crash.’

      ‘Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel and other GOP officials claimed that a glitch in the Dominion software switched 6,000 GOP votes to Democrats in Michigan, a switch that was spotted and later corrected.’

      https://www.theepochtimes.com/largest-hand-re-tally-of-ballots-in-us-history-gets-underway-in-georgia_3577531.html

      1. ‘A U.S. Postal Service whistleblower was questioned by agency investigators in a way that was designed to undermine his allegations of voter fraud, according to a veteran FBI agent.’

        ‘The whistleblower, Richard Hopkins, had told investigative journalism nonprofit Project Veritas that he overheard a USPS postmaster pull aside a supervisor to tell them that they “messed up” in marking a ballot “for the 4th, instead of the 3rd, because they were supposed to put them for the 3rd,” referring to Nov. 3, Election Day.’

        ‘Hopkins deduced the officials were talking about backdating ballots that arrived late so they could still be counted in the election. He affirmed what he told Project Veritas in an affidavit.’

        ‘During the subsequent questioning by two USPS investigators, Hopkins said they got him to question himself. He acknowledged that he didn’t hear the entire conversation and that it’s possible he misunderstood what the officials were talking about, according to Hopkins’s recording that captured at least half of the interview.’

        ‘After the interview, he made it clear he stands by his original allegations.’

        ‘From the recording, it appears the investigators were using interrogation methods normally used to extract a confession rather than to interview a witness, according to Mark Ruskin, a 27-year veteran of the FBI and former assistant district attorney in Brooklyn, New York.’

        ‘An expert interrogator himself, he called the behavior of the investigators “nothing short of outrageous.”

        ‘One of the investigators, identified by Veritas as Russell Strasser, a special agent in the USPS Inspector General’s Office, mentioned during the interview that he’s a polygraph examiner. That means “expert interrogator,” Ruskin said.’

        “That’s his basic job. So the fact that they selected him to handle this job right away tells you that this was not an ordinary investigation.” The agent’s mission “clearly was to do damage control,” rather than probe whether election fraud occurred, Ruskin said.’

        ‘The agent told Hopkins at the beginning of the questioning that his allegation has caused a “storm” and he was there to “reel it back in before it gets really crazy.”

        https://www.theepochtimes.com/questioning-of-usps-whistleblower-clearly-sought-to-weaken-voter-fraud-claim-fbi-veteran-says_3576905.html

        1. “During the subsequent questioning by two USPS investigators, Hopkins said they got him to question himself. He acknowledged that he didn’t hear the entire conversation and that it’s possible he misunderstood what the officials were talking about, according to Hopkins’s recording that captured at least half of the interview.”

          …aka Gaslighting.

          1. I wonder if Hopkins had the option for legal representation during the interrogation. I would not knowlingly talk to an FBI agent without legal representation. And maybe not even then, if I could help it.

      2. ‘President Donald Trump claimed in a tweet that Dominion software “DELETED 2.7 MILLION TRUMP VOTES NATIONWIDE.”

        Is that a lot? Seems like a very specific number. Maybe they watched the videos and looked into it. Or were monitoring it real time?

        1. Nope sorry, I’m not buying the Tom2badcat twitter thread. Not until there’s more hard evidence. All we have so far is a bunch of affidavits, and some minor cases which freed up a handful of votes. I won’t be impressed until I see actual states be overturned.

          2. I won’t be impressed until I see actual states be overturned.

            That means you won’t be impressed until Trump wins.

          4. Arent you the one that walks around with a mask/shield taped to your face? And you need stats to be convinced of something? Oh, you mean stats from the lamestream media.

            You cant fix stupid – Ron White

          5. twitter thread

            DJT was quoting a reporter. One that asks real questions at press briefings.

            https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1326926226888544256: “REPORT: DOMINION DELETED 2.7 MILLION TRUMP VOTES NATIONWIDE. DATA ANALYSIS FINDS 221,000 PENNSYLVANIA VOTES SWITCHED FROM PRESIDENT TRUMP TO BIDEN. 941,000 TRUMP VOTES DELETED. STATES USING DOMINION VOTING SYSTEMS SWITCHED 435,000 VOTES FROM TRUMP TO BIDEN.”
            @ChanelRion @OANN

          7. If it’s any comfort, I still wear the N-95 but I ditched the tape. And I’m not too particular about touching things, except to douse my hands with a little rubbing alcohol after leaving the store. If I get COVID, I figure it will be a mild case from a low inoculum.

            Remember I’m trying to not get my hopes up for Trump. I’m waiting for real results. Georgia is the key. If Georgia gets close or flips, it will be difficult for the other states to refuse recounts.

          8. Washington Post is predicting that Biden is winning the hand recount in Georgia. There are rumors that they still aren’t letting Republicans into the hand recount. How is this possible?

          9. Just saw this on Blaze, quoting WSJ:

            The Journal reported that Trump campaign attorneys said they are no longer asking a court to intervene in the presidential race in Arizona. Trump’s campaign realized and admitted that the few number of ballots at stake — approximately 200 — would have no impact on the results of the election. Biden currently leads Trump by 11,000 votes.

            What does this mean? Only 200 ballots at stake in AZ? Why would Trump even contest AZ over 200 votes?

        2. I had it figured they got rid of 3 to 4 million votes of Trump’s.
          I think Trump would of had a landslide.

          1. If they ditched 3 million votes for Trump and manufactured 2 million for Biden, you’re getting pretty close to Trump winning the popular vote.

      3. MORE than $100 million?? at some point it would be cheaper & more reliable IMNHO to simply use paper ballots and counting by hand. It is not as if the USA doesn’t have enough unemployed people to do this.

          1. ‘It’s as if we didn’t learn anything from Battlestar Galactica’

            Don’t kill a Cylon, they only get reborned?

  2. ‘as the unit was purchased for $1.2 million July of 2016, according to a review of its deed, its value has dropped 16.75 percent on an apples-to-apples basis while the Case-Shiller index for Bay Area condo values overall is up 14.1 percent over the same period of time. And the ‘median sale price’ is up as well’

    Groundhog day. Bay aryan prices have been sinking like a turd in a well for years.

  3. ‘Adding to an uncertain future in this market, sellers who expected a massive influx of buyers looking for homes near HQ2 may find that those buyers don’t materialize’

    Check out the graph. You guys are fooked.

    https://rdceconomics.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Condo-Listings-YY-by-Price-Tier.png

    ‘The resale market will continue to face competition from new construction, especially now with Pleasant Green in full swing’

    They’ll bury the resale market. Look at Calgary.

  4. ‘If we don’t hear back from you, we don’t have a choice in the next step of the process’

    But we’re all in this together?

    ‘It’s better to call and think through options instead of hiding under a rock’

    That’s right loanowners, call, think! How can I get out from under this rock?

  5. ‘‘Sellers are nervous. Those multi-million dollar units are not going out the door, and buyers have more power than they have for the last 8 to 10 years…If you’re interested in a new condo, go find the property you love most and be aggressive in your negotiations’…‘On the sales side, the question is, will buyers continue to stay out, and are sellers going to pull their listings or let them continue to sit? I’ve got more agents calling me asking how my listings are doing than buyers calling me at the moment’

    Wa? But WSJ?

    Home Prices Are Rising Everywhere in the U.S.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/home-prices-are-rising-everywhere-in-the-u-s-11605220823?mod=hp_lead_pos10

    Somebody is a lion.

  6. How bout some tight lending?

    November 13, 2020

    ‘Key takeaways:

    -The sharp upward trend in the share of appraisal waivers continued this month. In September, 47% of Freddie’s loans used a waiver, as did 42% of Fannie’s loans.’

    -Waiver usage by loan purpose continued to increase across the board in September, with each posting series’ highs. No cash-out is at 68%, cash-out at 31%, and purchase at 12%. ‘

    https://www.aei.org/research-products/report/prevalence-of-gse-appraisal-waivers-september-2020-originations/?mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiTURreVptRTBNREUzWkRVMCIsInQiOiI3Y2JXbzJ4alBPNjFnTjUwbTRkZWpqbU1ROHNKK1BuMU03eWFIMGhOR2R5anBFTElibVVWVUg2VElNWnFYUlNqZXRFQjY0c09rMmRGVjJobUZXOEhPWTJmUWhKNkZ4dXlTU1c3eUtnRzNFUDBnYmlOajFCXC8zbEpOMjR6MG5yWUkifQ%3D%3D

    1. Why do some patients with advance stage colon cancer live 20 years and others die in 3 months? Or, why do some people who have the same type of myocardial infarction never make it out of the Emergency Department while others recover and go on to live out their lives? It’s the same question with every disease, there’s nothing special about Covid-19.

    1. CRE is cyclical, but the downside of the cycle moves very slowly.

      It will be interesting to see where and when folks will predict the bottom to occur.

    1. What a fraud and still totally acceptable to the Chicago electorate. I have been giving the city a wide berth on my road trips for that very reason. Wide, as in going through Michigan’s Upper Peninsula when I go west & north of the Mississippi River.

      2. We LOVE the U.P. Great camping and lots of forest. Some of those town and stores feel like going back in time. Too bad there are no jobs there and the ones that are pay minimum wage.

    2. Heavy lockdowns coming in the blue states and cities. Case count is a joke with the lame inaccurate testing thats being done. Trump turns up the heat on voter fraud and all of a sudden its look – a squirrel! And its name in this case is Covid.

      Something big is about to go down, you can feel it.

    1. If Nessel did that, she should be immediately removed from office. Unfortunately, much of the Michigan electorate is or would be in complete agreement with her actions if they learned about them.

  12. “There’s a worrying sign in the Australian housing market with one state seeing prices fall at more than double the rate of the 2008 US housing crash. As of the most recent comparable data, we have almost 50 per cent more debt than the Americans did during the absolute height of their pre-global financial crisis debt binge. With the advent of the coronavirus pandemic and more than five million people being supported by the government’s JobKeeper or JobSeeker programs, there are signs that the Aussie property market may be following the same trajectory as the Americans did during the GFC.”

    – We’re on it Australia. We didn’t learn the lesson from housing bubble 1.0 and so we’re working hard on housing bubble 2.0. Don’t worry, it will all work out for the best. It’s fine. /s “Keep calm and carry on.”

    – How’d we get here? I think this article, although dated, is still apropos and relevant. Selected excerpts here.

    https://realmoney.thestreet.com/articles/06/23/2015/how-fed-has-distorted-and-screwed-our-economy-and-markets
    Home / Investing / Financial Services

    How the Fed Has Distorted and Screwed Up Our Economy and Markets

    Its protracted zero interest rate policy has put short-term rewards ahead of long-term risks.

    By DOUG KASS
    Jun 23, 2015 | 09:30 AM EDT

    *  Borrowing from the future: The Zero Interest Rate Policy (ZIRP) has borrowed past and present sales from the future, underscoring the challenge of future economic growth.

    *  Unknown consequences of policy: No one knows the consequences of an extended period of ZIRP “punch bowls,” often resulting in aberrant behavior and hangovers.

    *  Making no sense: Indeed, if there were no consequences to ZIRP, interest rates could have been held at zero forever in the past, as well as in the future.

    The Federal Reserve’s extended six-year policy of injecting massive amounts of system liquidity and stabilizing interest rates at near zero has been a powerful force on our capital markets and on stimulating rate-sensitive economic sectors (e.g., housing and autos).  But, in maintaining monetary indulgence for such a lengthy period of time, our central bank has now distorted and screwed up our economy and our markets — perhaps for some time to come.

    In time (and from my perch), the benefits of “free money” began to lose their positive marginal impact on energizing economic growth and have begun to sow the seeds of potential problems “down the road.”

    We now stand more than six years from the collapse of global growth and from the Generational Bottom of the U.S. stock market. At best, monetary policy is arguably no longer providing the fuel for economic growth. At worst, as I will explain, low rates are sowing the seeds for economic and stock market problems.

    Like Popeye’s Wimpy the Moocher, central bank policy has put a premium on short-term rewards at the expense of longer-term risks. 

    “I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.” — J. Wellington Wimpy

    Where are the emerging problems (and bad behavior) that has emanated from aggressive central bank policies that are about to boomerang and could weigh on our economy and markets?

    An “Exclusive” Prosperity: Stated simply, those with large balance sheets — of real estate and equity holdings — have been outsized beneficiaries of monetary largesse. The social and economic ramifications of an imbalanced recovery will linger for years — it is no longer a concession of the U.S.  The world’s lower- and middle-income classes have grown increasingly aspirational, accelerated by a flat, networked and interconnected world that lessens previous and historic opaqueness and expands transparency. It seems to me that the pendulum of an imbalanced recovery might soon begin to move and favor employees over corporations, with company (now elevated) profit margins being imperiled after years of expansion. In other words, Main Street may begin to prosper more than Wall Street, reversing the more than decade-long trend.

    The Disadvantaged Savings Class: Monetary policy has devastated the savings class, which has already been suffering from Screwflation — a state in which the costs of the necessities of life have increased while wages and salaries have lagged. Further complicating and depressing growth has been the demographic shift towards an aging America. When faced with little yield, a large demographic has cut down personal expenditures and has hoarded cash — just the opposite intention desired by monetary authorities. With interest rates likely to rise only moderately, this headwind will continue to dampen economic growth prospects.

    Monetary Policy Distorts Markets: With rates anchored at zero, there is limited price discovery in the bond and equity markets. Indeed, it is the unstated (and sometimes stated goal) of central bankers to encourage the investment in long-dated assets. At some point this ends — badly.

    Pulling Forward Growth at the Expense of Future Activity: Fed policy is designed to pull forward economic activity. The two best examples of borrowing from the future have been in housing activity and automobile sales. Housing has benefited from record-low mortgage rates and autos by plentiful available money (especially of a subprime kind). In doing so, peak housing and peak autos seem to be headwinds to the future economic growth outlook.

    The Seeds of Malinvestment Begin to Sprout: Low rates increase the supply of “stuff” (e.g., the mushrooming growth of shale oil), sustaining those companies (and countries) that should not be sustained and elevating the prices of financial assets against limited progress in the real economy.  Lending standards are dropped (e.g., the proliferation of covenant-lite debt offerings), fear is obliterated and complacency proliferates.

    Housing’s Prospects are Worsening: In part by encouraging speculative (institutional) investments in residential real estate (“buy to rent”), ever-lower interest rates have served to spur higher home price gains over the last five years. The downside — despite record-low mortgage rates, there are headwinds to affordability. But the prospective problems may run deeper than affordability and could especially hurt mid-priced housing sales activity going forward. Here I disagree with Jim “El Capitan” Cramer, as, at this point, interest rates have to rise only slightly to hurt housing, as many homeowners are locked into low-rate adjustable mortgages and teasers. They simply can’t afford to move and are less likely to move up to larger and more expensive homes as they no longer can replace their low-cost mortgages. Moreover, mortgage credit is not as freely available — as was the case eight years ago — as mortgage standards having been raised materially, so yesterday’s no doc/lo doc mortgage of $250,000 (with rates near zero) is the equivalent to today’s $450,000 mortgage when normalizing the terms. All this, coupled with changing demographic forces (a rental nation), a weak jobs market for young adults and lower household formation, will likely keep the supply of available housing stock at low levels.

    Time Value of Money at Zero Rates:  With subpar growth and a zero time value of money, corporations have been in no rush to seek the benefit of making capital investments. If global growth continues to disappoint and rates remain relatively low, the outlook for capital spending will likely continue to be blurred. [Think stock buybacks vs. Cap. Ex. investment, so little to no productivity gains, which benefit workers.]

    Access to Zero Cost Capital Places a Premium on Financial Engineering: In its extreme, low interest rates give a fictitious and fleeting cover for buybacks. Over history, corporations buy high and sell low. The most recent behavior is no change from this pattern, though it has been on steroids as access to low-cost debt to cover buybacks has been the direct result of intended Fed policy. Indeed, more than $460 billion in repurchases were announced in the first quarter of 2015 and companies sold almost $500 billion in bonds during the past three months to fund some of those buybacks. Over the last six years S&P companies have repurchased $2.75 trillion in stock. Buybacks at ever-higher prices have borrowed from future returns by elevating stock prices above valuations that can be justified by fundamentals and by the state of the real economy.  
    Market Expectations Have Grown Unrealistic: Zero interest rates dull volatility, limit price discovery and raise market expectations. As a result, complacency — few now expect a meaningful correction or bear market — becomes the mindset, setting up for the possibility of a “Minsky Moment” and disappointment in the event adverse outcomes arise.

    The Bottom Line: Our central bank may have “screwed the pooch” — a term popularized by Tom Wolfe in “The Right Stuff” and used as a slang expression for doing something very much the wrong way. And our economy and our markets will likely suffer in the years ahead.

    1. more than five million people being supported by the government’s JobKeeper or JobSeeker programs

      Holy Cannoli. That half of Australia’s workforce.

    2. The Bottom Line:

      👀 Wall.$treet.+.Wanker.Banker$.of.Today live off the deeth.carca$$e$ of Future.American.Taxpayer$.Obligation$.

      “I’ll gladly pay you in 50 year$ for a “UNLIMITED+” vacation today.” — J. Wellington Wimpy

      Quasi.$ocialist.$ephan Munchin: ” …as a Bonu$, eye.funded yer travel credit.card with x23+ Trillion$ 💰💲💵,💰💲💵💰,💲💵💰,💲💵💰,💲💵💰,💲💵💰,💲💵💰 of “unaudited” 🙊🙉🙈 ca$ino $pending monie$!

      (Enjoy today what able, absolutely you’ll be dead bye the time the snail.mail bill arrives!) … Indemnified! & $till winning!👏🎉🎆

  13. uttt OH just the beginning “RTI now seeks to improperly take back these promised retirement benefits contrary to their promises, contracts, and obligationshttps://www.restaurantbusinessonline.com/financing/bankrupt-ruby-tuesday-tells-court-retirees-pension-funds-are-ours

    1. Stakeholders have flooded the oversight court’s inbox with filings pertaining to three retirement plans that were established 35 years ago as perks for select executives and employees.

      I was wondering who was in line for a pension. It couldn’t have been any of the drones that actually worked in the restaurants.

  16. “In NSW [New S. Wales], prices are falling 37 per cent faster than America’s were when they were crashing in 2008. For Victoria, the numbers are even more concerning, with prices falling at more than double the rate of the US housing crash. For a nation like Australia that eats, sleeps and breathes property and property investment, these figures are practically blasphemous. Even with more than 3.5 million workers being supported by JobKeeper, hundreds of thousands of mortgages and business loans in deferral and unprecedented support from the Morrison government, PEXA’s data shows prices falling at an alarming rate.”

    – Australia, like many Western/OECD (or just housing OCD?) countries are experiencing a housing bubble. Some, like Au, are farther along the trajectory than others, but the end result for all will be the same.

    – BTW, like Au, with so much of the global economy dependent on RE, isn’t that like “putting all of your eggs in one basket?” Where’s the diversification? That’s like monoculture. Recall the Irish potato famine, as a reference point.

    – It’s a bubble. The emperor has no clothes. Central banks will deny it, but however one says it, this is the economic reality. If it walks like a duck…

    – Globalization generated immense profits for the globalists (capital), but employment and wages declined for workers (labor). RE was a nefarious scheme to placate these (millions of) displaced workers, however bubble-nomics isn’t a sustainable solution, and bubbles always pop. Many who bought into the lie will be worse off on the other side.

    “The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is.” – Winston Churchill

    – Reference here. Note: This isn’t new, or rocket science.

    Adam Smith (1723–1790)
    Wealth of Nations (March 9, 1776)
    Book II / IV. Of Stock Lent at Interest

    “The ordinary market price of land, it is to be observed, depends everywhere upon the ordinary market rate of interest. The person who has a capital from which he wishes to derive a revenue, without taking the trouble to employ it himself, deliberates whether he should buy land with it, or lend it out at interest. The superior security of land, together with some other advantages which almost everywhere attend upon this species of property, will generally dispose him to content himself with a smaller revenue from land, than what he might have by lending out his money at interest. These advantages are sufficient to compensate a certain difference of revenue; but they will compensate a certain difference only; and if the rent of land should fall short of the interest of money by a greater difference, nobody would buy land, which would soon reduce its ordinary price. On the contrary, if the advantages should much more than compensate the difference, everybody would buy land, which again would soon raise its ordinary price. When interest was at ten per cent. land was commonly sold for ten or twelve years purchase. As interest sunk to six, five, and four per cent. the price of land rose to twenty, five-and-twenty, and thirty years purchase. The market rate of interest is higher in France than in England, and the common price of land is lower. In England it commonly sells at thirty, in France at twenty years purchase.”

    – The Fed is full of… (PhD’s), and yet, they appear ignorant of basic principles of economics. I would argue that they’re willfully and intentionally ignorant in order to further their goals and objectives in the service of their globalist masters and the banking cartel, and at the expense of everyone else.

    https://mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKCN1LR2AV
    Tue Sep 11, 2018 / 2:56 PM EDT
    Breakingviews – Chancellor: The mother of all speculative bubbles
    Edward Chancellor

    LONDON (Reuters Breakingviews) – In 1776, English man of letters Horace Walpole observed a “rage of building everywhere”. At the time, the yield on English government bonds, known as Consols, had fallen sharply and mortgages could be had at 3.5 percent. In the “Wealth of Nations”, published that year, Adam Smith observed that the recent decline in interest had pushed up land prices: “When interest was at ten percent, land was commonly sold for ten or twelve years’ purchase. As the interest rate sunk to six, five and four percent, the purchase of land rose to twenty, five-and-twenty, and thirty years’ purchase.” [i.e. the yield on land fell from 10 percent to 3.3 percent].

    Smith explains why: “the ordinary price of land … depends everywhere upon the ordinary market rate of interest.” That’s because the interest rate discounts and places a capital value on future income. All the great speculative bubbles in the past – from the tulip mania of the 1630s through to the global credit bonanza of the last decade, have occurred at times when interest rates were abnormally low.

    The trouble is that after the Lehman Brothers collapse, central bankers refused to accept this fact. The position of Ben Bernanke’s Federal Reserve was that the real-estate bubble was caused by lax regulation rather than his predecessor Alan Greenspan’s easy money. If this were true, then taking short-term rates down to their lowest level in history – to zero in the United States and negative in Europe and Japan – was sensible. But if Smith was correct, then monetary policy in the wake of Lehman’s bust was a case of the hair of the dog.

    Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers once observed the American economy only expands when bubbles are inflating. Both U.S. corporate profits and GDP growth are responding to changes in household net worth. It should be the other way around. Yellen was wrong. The United States is a “bubble economy”, no sounder in its fundamentals than the one which collapsed in the subprime debacle.

  17. Things are heating up between the “progressive” wing of the Democrats and the entrenched corporate wing that controls its lucrative patronage and graft rackets. Since the corporate wing exemplified by Comrades Pelosi and Biden represents only their .1% donors, they are vulnerable to attacks from those being shafted by the corporatocracy and the globalist oligarchs.

    https://www.foxnews.com/politics/bernie-sanders-blasts-corporate-democrats-attacking-progressive-policies

  18. Well isn’t this special – BLM’s Communist co-founder thinks she can dictate demands to globalist stooges Biden and Harris. BLM might not react well when they belatedly figure out they got played, and blacks will get from Biden exactly what they got from Obama: nothing.

    ‘We want something for our vote’: BLM co-founder demands meeting with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris saying the black vote ‘won this election’ and they want group’s agenda to be ‘prioritized’

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8942119/We-want-vote-BLM-founder-requests-meeting-Joe-Biden-Kamala-Harris.html

  19. Under a Biden administration, Facebook and the rest of the Oligopoly’s creepy tech giants are going to get a lot more Stalinist in their censorship of “misinformation,” i.e. content or truth-tellers that dispute globalist-approved narratives.

    Pelosi says she’s ‘not a big fan of Facebook’ as she pans company on political misinformation: ‘Big part of the problem’

    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-election-2020/nancy-pelosi-facebook-election-misinformation-b1722600.html

  20. “In 2018, Amazon’s HQ2 announcement jump-started the Northern Virginia housing market. The pandemic has shown that this area can’t sustain a blistering pace forever as more sellers finally enter the market. As of August 2020 (our latest available sales data), month’s supply was up 106% year-over-year. In October, Arlington County had 405 condos condos listed for sale, up 27% compared to October 2018 just before the announcement, and six times as many condo listings as in February. Adding to an uncertain future in this market, sellers who expected a massive influx of buyers looking for homes near HQ2 may find that those buyers don’t materialize.”

    Eat yer crows taypayers

    1. Missed the last part of her tweet because of all the hyperlinks:
      .@realDonaldTrump has all the evidence
      @RudyGiuliani
      @BernardKerik
      @replouiegohmert

        1. Nope, still not seeing it. Like Dems are going to be swayed by a bunch of emails? We’ve been to that rodeo before and the horses didn’t even bother to show up. Foreign funding? Meh, conspiracy theory. Unleash the Kraken? How do you prove IT is faked when it’s easy to fake that fake IT? Yeah, funny how every “bombshell” has the impact of a birthday candle.

          Notice that dozens of accusations of sex crimes didn’t stick to Trump, but Al Franken was brought down by ONE photograph. People need hard evidence. Where are the fake ballots with only one bubble filled out for Biden filled out? Where are the filled-in addresses? Where are the dead people? I was told there were enough dead people to flip Michigan without any other fraud. Where are late ballots being segregated and invalidated? Where’s the video of those out-of-state plates. Again, HARD evidence. I see none.

          Right now all I’m seeing is a recount in Georgia where it’s rumored that observers are STILL not allowed in. If that Georgia recount goes for Biden, the country is done. A Biden win in Georgia means that the software is “good” and they can use it forever.

          1. You’ve been successfully gaslighted then. The Bread Report tweet has as close to a smoking gun as you’re going to see.

          2. they can use it forever. Unless & until the state legislators make a decision to do away with computerized voting. That is solely their responsibility, barring the meddling of an activist judiciary. Choose your representatives wisely. Start now by kicking your incumbents in their collective rear ends for being asleep at the wheel during the Coronapanic.

        1. I took it to mean that she’s pointing out that people are willfully ignorant, intellectually lazy and don’t want to be bothered. I agree. The American people have been duped and most of them don’t even care.

        2. I’m sorry Ben, 😔 but everything so far looks like the usual stuff from conspiracy theories. None of this will convince a court or flip a state to Trump. The country is just too divided.

          1. The country is just too divided. I agree, but that is a separate problem. There are ways to unite a divided country, and some of them are extremely painful, e.g. grid and internet collapse, shutdown of truck deliveries, and cessation of routine banking operations. Something along those lines was happening the day FDR was sworn in.

      2. “Nobody gives a sh!t Rredhead.”

        That’s right!

        And nobody gives a sh#t about the absurd claim that Joe Biden telling the Ukrainian government to fire the prosecutor investigating Burisma, the company he son with absolutely no qualifications was paid $85k a month to be a board member or they wouldn’t get $1 billion in United States Tax Payer guaranteed aid.

        Here is a 2019 article written by a real journalist debunking that ludacrist claim that even has a photo of Joe and Hunter together.

        Then US Vice President Joe Biden (R) tours a Hutong alley with his son Hunter Biden (L) in Beijing, China, 05 December 2013.

        https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/10/03/what-really-happened-when-biden-forced-out-ukraines-top-prosecutor/3785620002/

        Nobody gives a hoot about Hunter’s business partner Tony Bobulinski who met two separate times with Joe Biden to discuss business deals with the communist government of China either.

        Hunter Biden’s business partners feared release of China story

        This is a rush transcript from “Tucker Carlson Tonight” October 28, 2020. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

        But when Adam Schiff and the Joe Biden for President Campaign accused Tony Bobulinski of participating in a Russian disinformation effort, he felt he had no choice. That was a slander against him and against his family. So Bobulinski came. He arrived with heaps of evidence to bolster the story he was telling. He brought contemporaneous audio recordings, text messages, e- mails, many financial documents.

        Well, today a Senate Committee confirmed it. The Senate reported this afternoon that all of Tony Bobulinski’s documents are in fact real. They are authentic. They are not forgeries. This is not Russian disinformation.

        It is real.

        https://www.foxnews.com/transcript/hunter-bidens-business-partners-feared-release-of-china-story

    2. Yeah, and my sister’s college roommate dated a guy who’s brother interned at the FBI and he said that he overheard some people getting coffee…

      you have nothing.

    3. It’s ironic that the gaslight media called Georgia for the Dems just as an historic hand recount was starting.

      1. I’m looking to invest in a start-up that will make custom-fitted rat cages to put on the faces of Les Deplorables, a la Winston in “1984,” once they vanish into the gulag. Order now and avoid the rush!

    1. Excellent find indeed. Love this comment: “Resistance is Futile, you will be assimilated.” said no Red Blooded American Patriot.

    2. It doesn’t make any sense to do more severe lockdowns with the announcement of a vaccine.
      So, many odd things happening like.

      (1) Reports of Covid 19 tests registering false positives. Lawyer from Germany filing lawsuit that test isn’t accurate.
      (2) Evidence shows mask wearers still get Covid.
      (3) They didn’t care about criminal Looters protestors spreading the virus, but small business and Churches treated unequal.
      (4) Suppression of viable meds that treat Covid.
      (5) Evidence of Covid death count inflated and more money paid to medical if deemed a Covid death.
      (6) world lock down over a Virus that has a 99.4 survival rate . Never a shut down before on 1957, 1968, 2009, or even the 1918 flues. All these flues were worst in that they hit younger age groups.
      (7) Evidence coming out that Africa isn’t getting high death rate. Also strange they didn’t get this high death rate among the homeless that you would of expected.
      (8) Deaths hitting the old, that have a high death rate for decades by respiratory. High death rate in nursing homes for decades based on 80% due to Respiratory.
      (9) China carrying on like they don’t have a pandamic anymore in spite of Covid coming from them.
      (10,) fauci and Dem talking heads at first talking like the Covid was no big deal, than going into opposite reaction.
      (11) Data that lock downs don’t work and create more damage. Evidence that masks don’t stop the virus and they are obstructive to breathing. Evidence of people not getting treatment for other ailments causing deaths because of the fear mongering.
      (12) Bail outs to Big Business, and small business losing out. Peanuts to the public on relief .
      (13) Blaming the Pres for 200 thousand deaths by a airborne virus unleashed from China. Again transferring blame .
      (14) Media having a narrative of never being able to be normal again, when history wise populations returned to normal and even thrived after the plagues burned out.
      (15) Evidence Covid was used to change voting laws to rig a election by mail in ballots fraud and chaos.
      (16) Media and Big Tech controlling narratives with delection of valid counter data to the narrative. Sweden not shutting down yet having reasonable death numbers, along with other countries. Lack of the United States using the usual quarantine method of flare ups control of outbreaks , instead total population lock downs.
      (17) Obsession with mass testing when cases ending up in hospital resulting in death is the important figure . Fear mongering. Also evidence Covid was man made with weird timing on release.
      (18) Evidence Dr Fauci has financial ties to Big Pharma vaccines.
      Look, I could go on and on and much more can be added.

      From day one nothing has made sense in terms of logical response to something that should of been a more isolated response to very old sick people, not a shut down to the entire world.We don’t know how much information is entirely false.

      I don’t know anyone that has gotten Covid. I wear a stupid mask because I can’t get into grocery store without it. If I’m older than it’s up to me to protect myself more, not the whole World shutting down .Note that they never cared before about a lot of seniors dying for decades by flU, hospital germs, etc….why now?
      Nothing rings logical or sane about this, or that it even resembles a historical response to a flu . Next they might control you by requiring proof of vaccine.
      In light of the big Reset the Goldfinger Globalist have planned , than this attempt to control populations would make sense as a plan.

  26. Funny how The Narrative always gets set forth by the ADL first, before being disseminated in every globalist media outlet. The ADL decrees that if you oppose Biden’s victory, you are, ipso facto, a “right-wing extremist.” By extension, anyone with legitimate concerns about the integrity of our voting process, which is fundamental to any democracy, is also a “right-wing extremist.” Looks like we’re going to need a bigger gulag for all those dangerous right-wing extremists.

    https://www.adl.org/blog/right-wing-extremists-react-to-president-elect-bidens-victory-with-anger-and-vague-threats-of

    1. Whenever they start naming a enemy that is false, than it’s a typical Hilter like creating a enemy, like the Jews, to justify the insane.

      Oh, voting for someone like Trump on a ballot is now considered a viflyed group even when there was 7i to ,75 million of them. Like it wouldn’t be normal to not want open borders, Commie programs, taking away gas and millions of jobs, higher taxes, destruction of freedoms, capitalism, for top down control by the Hilter/Stalin like nuts.
      What they did to Trump they think they can do to his voters as a smear . Outrageous, these people are evil and nuts.

    1. BLM and Antifa are considered good groups in spite of criminal attack and looting, just peaceful protestors.
      Good law abiding Citizens are the enemy just because they exercised the right to vote?

      The narrative gets crazier by the minute.

      1. IIByHousing

        I’m taking bets on how long until you change your handle to IIIByHousing.

        I’m easily amused.

        1. Ha ha, I accidentally touch that thing all the time. Thinking of changing my name to just H.W., but I have had current name long time.

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