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Checks And Balances Are Supposed To Be In Place, But A Lot Of Them Don’t Work

A weekend topic starting with Bisnow New York. “Cushman & Wakefield Vice Chair Joanne Podell, a veteran retail broker in New York City, speaks about the future of luxury strips like Fifth Avenue. ‘There are two kinds of landlords,’ she said. ‘The landlords that are not overleveraged and the landlords that are really about to lose their buildings, unfortunately.'”

From Ms. Magazine on New York. “Midtown Manhattan as been called a ‘ghost town’ so many times that you’d expect to see tumbleweeds rolling through Bryant Park. Back in July, the New York Times declared that the commercial district was in a ‘purgatorial phase zero’ of reopening. Months later, things have not improved much. Occupancy rates on city hotels, like those in Midtown South tied to tourism and corporate travel, have plunged below 10 percent. And most significantly, the workers who once crowded sidewalks on their way to the office have stayed away.”

“Commercial broker CBRE found that just 10 percent of Manhattan workers have returned as of Sept. 18. Similar scenes of silenced streets are playing out in downtown business districts across the U.S. and beyond as the fall pandemic inches towards record infection levels. But perhaps nowhere does the mass abandonment of the office seem so viscerally real as the heart of Manhattan.”

“‘People aren’t willing to take on risk now,’ says Paimaan Lodhi, senior vice president of the Real Estate Board of New York. ‘That’s the big question mark. At some point people will come back and do projects in New York City, but I’m not sure when that’ll be.'”

From Multi-Housing News. “While alternative lenders, including debt funds, finance companies and mortgage REITs, pulled back dramatically early on, many are back in the market and competing for borrowers in need of construction and bridge loans. Dan Palmier, CEO of UC Funds—which is privately financed by family offices and wealthy individuals, and has closed 18 to 20 multifamily deals during the health crisis. Of the deals underwritten during COVID-19, Palmier said 65 percent to 75 percent came from opportunities in the multifamily sector where the lender stopped funding construction loans on development projects that were anywhere from 20 percent to 95 percent built.”

“On acquisitions, Crescit can go as high as 85 percent of cost, though typically that debt level is reserved for properties with turnaround situations and discounted payoffs. ‘So we’re hoping that values are going to be over time much lower than that—that’s the whole play,’ Joseph Iacono, CEO of commercial real estate alternative lender Crescit Capital Strategies explained. ‘Once the property is stabilized, that will be closer to 65 percent to 70 percent of value.'”

From The Advocate in Louisiana. “Kimble Development, a local real estate developer with more than two dozen commercial sites across Louisiana in its portfolio, is now looking to sell some of those properties after it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in September. More than a dozen properties, including several in Baton Rouge, are also in receivership after the company defaulted on its mortgage, which means those sites may also be sold. Kimble Development’s mortgage dating back to 2014 was due in late 2019. The company owes at least $27 million to U.S. Bank when default interest is included.”

From Bisnow on Texas. “Austin real estate investor Nate Paul, who has been facing a whirlwind of bad publicity about his interactions with Attorney General Ken Paxton in the wake of an FBI raid of Paul’s home and business last year, is now facing the prospect of losing properties that made up his firm’s $1B-plus real estate portfolio, KXAN out of Austin reports. Both men have been caught up in a yearlong saga involving federal authorities investigating a laundry list of criminal complaints, including bribery and corruption.”

“Now, in the wake of the publicity storm, Paul’s firm is facing signs of financial distress. The real estate investor, who was named to the Forbes ’30 Under 30′ list back in 2016, amassed a $1B-plus real estate empire under his World Class Capital Group firm, including the 717 Harwood skyscraper in Downtown Dallas. As recently as this week, a firm controlled by World Class that used an Austin shopping center to collateralize a loan landed in a lawsuit over the borrower’s failure to make loan obligations, KXAN reports.”

“The lawsuit follows on the heels of news reports from the Austin American-Statesman that assert Austin properties owned by Paul and World Class were recently sold in a Travis County foreclosure auction, according to KVUE. Paul’s firm reportedly defaulted on more than $250M in debt by the end of October, according to the Austin American-Statesman.”

The Puget Sound Business Journal in Washington. “It’s going to take some time for the economy to recover from the Covid-19 crisis, the Downtown Seattle Association reaffirmed in an economic impact summary. It’s full of dispiriting data — and even those points that show improvement, it is mediocre at best. Based on cellphone location data from Placer.ai, employee presence downtown during weekday office hours was down 82% year over year in October. At its lowest point in April, it was down 86%.”

“This has been disastrous for small businesses. The Downtown Seattle Association (DSA) has tracked 214 permanent street-level business location closures in Seattle this year, with 152 downtown. (DSA said its tracking is not a complete inventory and can only assume most closures are Covid-related.) CoStar forecasts that for the first time since 2000, which is as far back as the company’s data goes, the number of downtown renter households will decrease, with the number of occupied units falling by 1,488.”

“During the second and third quarters, downtown lost an estimated 1,750 apartment households. For context, the previous worst quarter on record showed an occupancy decrease of only 42 units. Downtown apartment vacancy rates are expected to rise from 5.1% at the end of 2019 to 11% at the end of 2020, with rents down 8.3% year over year. Apartment vacancy is expected to peak at 17.2% by 2022. (The figure includes new units; not including new units, vacancy is expected to peak at 12.5%.)”

“CoStar expects downtown office vacancy rates will reach 10% by the first quarter of 2021 and remain at that level for several years. This is up from a low of 4.9% in the third quarter of 2019, the lowest since 2000. Total hotel revenue downtown has been down more than 90% nearly every day since mid-March. From April through July, hotel monthly revenue was down 95% each month compared with the same month in 2019. In the most recent monthly data available (October), revenue was down 87%.”

“Restaurant revenues are falling again. By March 16, daily restaurant revenue in the city had dropped by about 80% from comparable days the previous year. In the following weeks, revenue recovered to be down between 40% and 45% year over year. The most recent Rally for Restaurants data ending Nov. 29, showed revenue was down 60% from the 2019 baseline.”

The Marina Times in California. “‘The easy story has been to say ‘real estate plunges as everyone flees cities,’ but the reality is nuanced,’ said Matt Fuller, a past president of the San Francisco Association of Realtors. But ‘2020 has been the year of getting off the fence and procrastinating no more.'”

“Inventory remains high. According to Fuller, in October the number of sales across the city was up slightly year-over-year (550 sales in 2019, 608 in 2020) but the big change for buyers was that the number of active homes for sale during the same month went from 739 in 2019 to 1,097 in 2020 — a massive increase.”

“The median price for a single-family home in October was $1,637,550, down 0.8 percent from last year, and the median price for a condo or loft during the same period was $1,177,000, down 12.5 percent from 2019. What can we expect going forward in San Francisco? Fuller offers some insight.”

“‘In the past, a strong rental market virtually guaranteed a seller could always rent their home at a profit if they couldn’t get their desired sales price,’ he said. ‘But with rents down, will the inability to cover costs with market-based rents encourage sellers to reduce prices? Or will sellers take a long-term view and a short-term loss, banking on San Francisco’s historic trend of underbuilding homes and overbuilding jobs?'”

From Bloomberg on Canada. “Canada’s hottest housing markets are slowing down as unsold condos pile up with more people fleeing dense downtown living for the suburbs. In Vancouver, which has Canada’s most expensive real estate, home sales slid 17% on an unadjusted basis compared with a month earlier, the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver said.”

“The recent slowdown is a sharp reversal from the months after the initial pandemic lockdown ended and pent-up demand, fueled by low mortgage rates, pushed prices to new heights. In the City of Toronto, the number of condos listed for sale doubled in November compared to the same month last year, causing average prices to fall 3% according to the TRREB data. The benchmark price for an apartment in Vancouver registered a 1% decline in November from the previous month.”

From Toronto Storeys in Canada. “According to the newest report from RBC, the entire country saw strength in its housing market throughout November, except for in one area — downtown condos in large urban areas. Condo listings have skyrocketed 194%. As the report concludes, it’s ‘no wonder downtown Toronto condo prices are beginning to soften.’ At the same time, the month saw market conditions tightened in many single-family market segments, resulting in double-digit year-over-year increases in selling prices for detached houses, semi-detached houses, and townhouses.”

“According to John Pasalis, President at Realosophy Realty: ‘I think we are at the point where people don’t truly appreciate how insane a 24% increase in house prices really is. It’s a big problem when policy makers have raised absolutely zero concerns about the rapid acceleration we are seeing in Toronto’s housing market.'”

The University of Texas News. “Much has changed in the U.S. financial system since the most recent financial crisis. But one thing hasn’t changed, according to a new study from a financial researcher at The University of Texas at Austin: potential for fraud in asset-backed securities. Without stronger penalties to discourage it, widespread concealment and falsification of information could potentially lead to another crash.”

“In the study, John Griffin, a finance professor in the McCombs School of Business at UT Austin, found that the role of fraud has been underestimated in the home mortgage meltdown of 2007-2009. He synthesized more than 80 papers, along with legal settlements by 11 banks with the U.S. Department of Justice, to document its scale and its effects.”

“‘A lot of academics think that conflicts of interest and fraud are things the media like to talk about, but they’re not of major economic importance,’ he said. ‘This paper and all the research that it summarizes says the opposite. That they did play a major role in the financial crisis. Checks and balances are supposed to be in place, but a lot of them don’t work.'”

“The biggest fraud potential, Griffin said, is no longer with home mortgages. It’s with other kinds of securitized assets, such as commercial mortgages. For collateralized loan obligations (CLOs), a kind of security backed by business loans, he’s found evidence that the underlying loans are riskier than the CLOs’ ratings reflect. Such weaknesses can be hidden by a strong economy but get exposed in a weak one, he said — such as during a sudden pandemic.”

“‘The coronavirus is a different cause, but it may have the same effect, revealing the same forces that were at work in the pre-financial-crisis period,’ Griffin said. ‘Market corrections have a way of revealing fraud and structural problems.'”

Related Posts

The Numbers Are Painting Our Future

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHE1TIhglfY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJPWv85RiJ8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hou7Ea7M1jM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xymm4o55dfI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sURdPvTeBA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quvyuJ-7tmE

This Post Has 99 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

      https://everylegalvote.com/country

      https://hereistheevidence.com/

      “Dominion-izing the Vote”

      https://www.bitchute.com/video/qlEUbPLvW98w/

      Eric Coomer Explains How To Alter Votes In The Dominion Voting System

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtB3tLaXLJE

      Eric Coomer, Dominion’s head of product and strategy, has disappeared.

      ‘Representatives from Dominion also did not attend a court hearing in Pennsylvania on November 19. Its US headquarters in Denver was also suddenly closed and moved away. Their employees deleted their names from LinkedIn.’

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

      https://www.theepochtimes.com/poll-watcher-describes-pennsylvania-election-irregularities-including-47-missing-usb-cards_3594549.html

      Here’s the testimony on video:

      “Baggies of USBs” – PA Witness Gives Explosive Testimony

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

      Dem Ballot Inspector Says She Was Threatened with Violence for Speaking Up About Suspicious Activity

      “The majority inspector threatened to slap me in the face,” said Olivia Jane Winters, a registered Democrat and minority ballot inspector in Pennsylvania, testifying to Pennsylvania State Republicans Wednesday that she had been threatened and harassed by other election officials after she asked about suspicious activities during the 2020 election.’

      https://www.bitchute.com/video/_KrpyDlHTe8/

      Crowd Gasps after Finding out about Absurd Spike of Votes in Favor of Biden

      https://www.bitchute.com/video/jmNUAx8wQYdO/

      Sen. Doug Mastriano closing remarks PA state legislature meeting.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIqujobvDFI

      https://censoredbyjack.com/channel/evidence-of-widespread-election-fraud

      https://www.deepcapture.com/2020/11/election-2020-was-rigged-the-evidence/

      ”We began to look and realized how easy it is to change votes.”

      ‘Election security expert @RussRamsland
      has performed many investigations on US election machines.’

      ‘The most *shocking* thing about this interview is it took place just days BEFORE the election. Watch’

      https://twitter.com/kylenabecker/status/1327511568993701888

      Col Phil Waldron Confirms Experts Witnessed Dominion Communicating with Frankfurt on Election Day

      https://www.bitchute.com/video/n7j5lg9fYyzz/

      1. ‘KRAKEN is DOD cyber warfare program.’

        ‘They cheated & got caught!’

        Sidney Powell
        🇺🇸
        ‘Who knew?’

        https://twitter.com/SidneyPowell1/status/1331435411286192128?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1331435411286192128%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fheadlines360.news%2F2020%2F11%2F24%2Fsidney-powells-kraken-is-department-of-defense-cyber-warfare-program%2F

        I did some digging around and found this (WARNING) PDF:

        https://www.dacis.com/budget/budget_pdf/FY20/RDTE/F/1203110F_294.pdf

        It’s dated Feb. 2019. If you word search Kraken (‘respond’ category), you’ll find it twice on page 4. This unit 305 person is in the affidavits in Powells lawsuit.

        WARNING PDF with filing:

        https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mied.350905/gov.uscourts.mied.350905.1.15.pdf

        Zuckerberg on page 15. Obammie on page 8.

        ‘Response: Yes, our “White Hat” hackers – they have that traffic and the packets.”

        https://twitter.com/themodalice/status/1333505965857984512

        ‘Ruby Freeman Makes Video of herself Showing MOUNTAINS of GA ABSENTEE BALLOTS With NO RETURN ADDRESS’

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFYaxvxdfXY&feature=youtu.be

        Example

        Note the vote spike at the Atlanta treason:

        https://twitter.com/EricTrump/status/1334812236322381826/photo/1

        1. I had a poster thank me for putting this info out this morning. IMO the question is how on Earth did we get to a place where a blanket globalist scum blackout of information is occurring in the United States? I don’t want to be doing this but these dogs are trying to kill us all. So if anyone ever asks me what did you do when the Chinese Communist Party tried to take over the US, I can say I did all that I could.

          4. It would be justified to have one of those old west style hangings, where they all go at once. So many traitors, we might have to do 40 or 50 at a time. Firing squads are too good for them.

          7. When the video of them putting the votes under the table at 8:30 am the day before that were pulled out at 1am and counted the next day after everyone was sent home do to a “water main break” it should make Barr get off his fat @ss and change his no fraud on a scale large enough to change results statement from last week.

            VIDEO EVIDENCE: Caught Red Handed, TRUMP WON Georgia

            | Rudy Giuliani | Ep. 92
            131,530 views•
            Dec 4, 2020

            https://youtu.be/PchtaUsRH70?t=484

          9. It would be justified to have one of those old west style hangings, where they all go at once.

            Yep. You do a couple of those and nobody even thinks twice about flouting the law again. These people are trying to destroy our country from within.

          10. it should make Barr get off his fat @ss and change his no fraud on a scale large enough to change results statement from last week.

            As I’ve said, I think this guy’s a deep state mole. I really do.

          12. “So if anyone ever asks me what did you do when the Chinese Communist Party tried to take over the US, I can say I did all that I could.”

            I had t-shirts made up that say “The deadliest pandemic is tyranny. Stop it before it spreads.” We are on the precipice of a global North Korea. The illuminated at the top of the pyramid don’t want the uninitiated breathing their air, drinking their water, eating their food, or taking up space on their planet and they are making their move. Jesus help us.

          13. Kyle Bass

            From that tweet: I couldn’t believe we allowed these purchases under CFIUS.

            CFIUS Overview

            People in our government have been and still are selling us out to the CCP.

          14. People in our government have been and still are selling us out to the CCP.

            Absolutely. Because they’ve been bought off by the CCP. Check their finances and it will all come to light.

          15. Also from the Tweet:

            This ranch land also sits on the US border with Mexico and boasts a 30,000 sq ft lodge and a private runway which helps the Chinese owners ferry people and cargo in and out of the border region with limited to no oversight by US authorities. This must STOP

            Sounds like it’s to run their fentanyl, oxy and heroin. The CCP has its tentacles deep within the US.

          16. I remember decades ago when hearing that the CCP were financing our deficit, thinking hmmm…I wonder how that money will come back? My assumption was that it would come back in the form of buying up out farmland, ports, factories, etc. I never really considered that it might come back in the form of buying politicians and elections.

          17. The CCP has its tentacles deep within the US.

            They’re still holding $1Trillion in U.S. Treasury notes, so anything goes.

  2. ‘I think we are at the point where people don’t truly appreciate how insane a 24% increase in house prices really is. It’s a big problem when policy makers have raised absolutely zero concerns about the rapid acceleration we are seeing in Toronto’s housing market’

    This guy sometimes makes a lot of sense for a REIC. Yes, a 24% increase is either not true, a sign of massive appraisal fraud, or some combination of the two. But either way, it’s a sign of mucho problemos. Yet you’ll see it kicked around by UHS everyday.

    4. [we have been in downtown Toronto the past year]

      Dont forget
      1. irrational purchasing by upper middle class that wanted to upsize homes in light of the pandemic. This was enabled by appraisers – but is not considered a problem by the industry if you put 20% down. I dont have evidence but that the suspicion is that entry level homes are not selling – so there is a skew to the higher end.
      2. foreign money continues to come in. A unit on our floor was just purchased by a eastern european family (nice – but they dont really speak english or french)

      1. foreign money continues to come in

        Of all places, why Canada, especially Toronto? The winters are brutal and it’s a Marxist sh!thole.

        2. because Canada has a very lenient criteria for immigration.

          1. If you get a college degree from a CDN university, you get an automatic work visa. Once the son/daughter gets citizenship (after 3-5 years), they can sponsor their parents and siblings.
          2. If you are willing to invest just less than $1M in a business, you can get approved for permanent residency
          etc.

  3. ‘For collateralized loan obligations (CLOs), a kind of security backed by business loans, he’s found evidence that the underlying loans are riskier than the CLOs’ ratings reflect. Such weaknesses can be hidden by a strong economy but get exposed in a weak one, he said — such as during a sudden pandemic’

    I didn’t save the link, but I’d bet this is the same UT guy who put out a report last spring on CMBS saying appraisals were inflated up to 40%, and these clowns were refinancing like mad. BTW, that was a one and done report in the WSJ. Who are globalist scum. Notice the huge Morgan apartment fraud scandal disappeared?

    1. Morgan apartment fraud scandal

      Last I heard, Morgan settled with the SEC over the summer and still has a Federal case to be heard in 2021.

  4. Since we live in groundhog day, let’s revisit:

    ‘The biggest fraud potential, Griffin said, is no longer with home mortgages’

    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

  5. ‘the median price for a condo or loft during the same period was $1,177,000, down 12.5 percent from 2019’

    Eat yer crowz Thornberg.

    ‘In the past, a strong rental market virtually guaranteed a seller could always rent their home at a profit if they couldn’t get their desired sales price…But with rents down, will the inability to cover costs with market-based rents encourage sellers to reduce prices? Or will sellers take a long-term view and a short-term loss’

    The reason I started following the apartment bubble was I could see rents were short of finance costs. Now with rents cratering all over the world, it’s blow up time.

  6. So how can a Texas billionaire lose it all? More common than you think:

    ‘A new indictment in the corruption case involving former Los Angeles City Council member Jose Huizar adds five defendants to the criminal case, including former Los Angeles Deputy Mayor Raymond Chan and two developers with pending projects in Huizar’s district.’

    ‘The U.S Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California announced Monday that Chan, along with Wei Huang, chairman and president of the China-based company Shenzhen Hazens, and Dae Yong Lee, a Los Angeles-based developer, were also named.’

    “As the indictment alleges, Huizar, Chan and their network of associates repeatedly violated the public trust by soliciting and accepting numerous cash bribes and other financial benefits, turning Huizar’s City Council seat into a money-making criminal enterprise,” United States Attorney Nick Hanna said in a statement.’

    ‘Key details from earlier court filings indicated that Chan, Huang, Lee and the two developments were part of the corruption case, but they had not previously been charged.’

    ‘Chan, who was deputy mayor of economic development for a year under Mayor Eric Garcetti and the general manager of the city’s Department of Building and Safety for two years before that, has been charged with conspiring to violate the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. Federal officials say Chan was part of Huizar’s “criminal enterprise,” which allegedly arranged for and accepted money in exchange for supporting new developments in Huizar’s district, which included Downtown LA. ‘

    ‘Chan also faces charges of bribery, honest services fraud and lying to federal agents. Huang is charged with bribery, honest services fraud and Travel Act violations. Lee is facing charges of bribery, honest services fraud and obstruction.’

    ‘One of Huang’s companies, Shen Zhen New World I, which owned the LA Downtown Hotel and submitted plans to redevelop it into a 77-story skyscraper, was added as a defendant in the racketeering case. The fifth defendant added was Lee’s company 940 Hill, which was the owner of a site at that address in Downtown LA and the applicant for plans to build a residential tower on the property. The companies face the same charges as their respective leaders.’

    https://www.bisnow.com/los-angeles/news/economic-development/huizar-city-hall-corruption-ray-chan-rico-106945

  7. Did you know there are half built airboxes all over the US?

    ‘Of the deals underwritten during COVID-19, Palmier said 65 percent to 75 percent came from opportunities in the multifamily sector where the lender stopped funding construction loans on development projects that were anywhere from 20 percent to 95 percent built’

    ‘On acquisitions, Crescit can go as high as 85 percent of cost, though typically that debt level is reserved for properties with turnaround situations and discounted payoffs. ‘So we’re hoping that values are going to be over time much lower than that—that’s the whole play’

    I’m not sure, but I think this might be what’s know as ‘loan to own’. It’s a tough world out there.

  8. ‘Similar scenes of silenced streets are playing out in downtown business districts across the U.S. and beyond’

    Look at the Seattle numbers above. These Marxists are killing millions of businesses all over the country. It’s by design. They must be stopped.

    2. The Plot Against the Small Businesses.

      https://humanevents.com/2020/12/03/the-plot-against-the-small-businesses/

      If one were to consider the upward transfer of wealth and market share to Big Business since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, one would think such economic changes were intended. After all, it’s no secret that the interests of politicians and the corporate elite align more often than not.

      As we near a year of lockdowns and sheltering in place, the long-term effects of pandemic policy on the economy are becoming clearer. Almost every piece of legislation ostensibly designed to curb the spread of the coronavirus and protect workers has wreaked devastation on small businesses—while benefiting the largest corporations. Roughly 100,000 small businesses have permanently closed due to COVID-19, while big-box retailers, tech giants, and pharmaceutical manufacturers have seen record profits.

  10. Florida Preps for Distress Deals
    Tony Arellano and Devlin Marinoff of DWNTWN Realty Advisors talk about distressed deals and related topics in this Q&A.

    ‘Tony Arellano and Devlin Marinoff are co-founders and managing partners of Miami-based DWNTWN Realty Advisors. The firm focuses on urban core transactions ranging from $3 million to over $20 million. GlobeSt.com caught up with them to discuss the long-awaited arrival of distressed assets on the market.’

    https://www.globest.com/2020/12/02/florida-preps-for-distress-deals/

    1. Appraisal fraud.

      Theres no other way to get there. It’s not like construction cost magically doubled or tripled. On fact construction costs are falling.

      1. ‘How much did that full renovation cost? $70K?’

        Yeah, I saw that detail after a little more looking. What are costs of new roof and septic + flooring +misc. for a trailer type home? Maybe $40k in costs total? That is to bring it to market pricing. So, I don’t know, flippers get their two year minimum residence requirement out of it and try to sell and pocket some federal tax-free gains? There is a lot of land and houses in western Virginia. I like the idea of being near the Blue Ridge, even more so than the mountains of NH in terms of hiking access and year round use.

  12. The unholy Trinity of the globalist oligarchs, the CCP, and the Deep State, with the Democrats serving as their treasonous political Quislings, becomes more evident by the day despite the corporate media’s journalistic omertà on the subject.

    Globalist “Great Reset” Author Klaus Schwab Received Chinese Foreign Honor in 2018

    https://bigleaguepolitics.com/globalist-great-reset-author-klaus-schwab-received-chinese-foreign-honor-in-2018/

    The author of a book outlining the “Great Reset” received a Chinese state foreign honor in 2018.

    Klaus Schwab, the author of “COVID-19: The Great Reset” and the executive director of the globalist World Economic Forum, received the China Reform Friendship Medal for his role in integrating Communist China into the world economy.

    Schwab is cited as a “promoter of China’s international economic exchanges and cooperation” in a Chinese state media report on his state honor, which was provided to ten leading western globalists for their role in outsourcing jobs to the Communist-mercantilist nation. Chinese communist leader Xi Jinping personally bestowed the China Reform Friendship Medal to Schwab in a 2018 Beijing ceremony.

  14. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

    Leader of the Pro-Black ‘NFAC’ Militia Arrested and Charged by Feds

    https://www.vice.com/en/article/v7m7yd/leader-of-the-pro-black-nfac-militia-arrested-and-charged-by-feds

    A former DJ-turned-founder of an all-Black armed activist group is facing federal charges for allegedly pointing a rifle at law enforcement officers during a protest in September.

    John Fitzgerald Johnson, known to many as the influential producer and rapper “Grand Master Jay,” was arrested at his home and charged by federal agents Thursday, according to the Department of Justice. The 57-year-old National Guard and Army veteran is accused of pointing his gun at law enforcement officers who were deployed on rooftops at a September protest in Louisville, Kentucky.

      2. 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

        Now that’s some of the funniest narration ever!

        That dumb fawk let his feet do the walkin and mouth do the talkin.

  16. Oh dear – I would never have imagined that Chinese firms deemed ‘safe’ by regulators as scrupulously honest and vigilant as our own would turn out to be riddled with fraud and crooked accounting.

    China State Firms Once Deemed ‘Safe’ Now Rocked by Defaults

    https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/china-state-firms-once-deemed-200000352.html

    (Bloomberg) — Rising defaults by China’s state firms are showing the need for bond investors to be much savvier about those borrowers — no easy feat in a country where government decisions and business operations lack transparency.

    Five state-linked companies — from a coal miner to a top chipmaker and an auto firm with ties to BMW AG — have defaulted for the first time in the onshore bond market this year. That’s the most since 2016. In the secondary market, the average yield of more than 700 riskier bonds of local state-owned enterprises jumped to 17% from 13.4% after a payment failure by Yongcheng Coal & Electricity Holding Group Co., Bloomberg-compiled data show. Last month’s defaults helped send debt issuance costs to a 2020 high for top-rated SOEs, as sovereign bond yields also climbed.

  18. I’m on the summit of a 9,000 foot mountain in the Front Range foothills. So many scared, masked people on the trail today. They should really just stay in Denver and stay home.

    2. “So many scared, masked people on the trail today.”

      Haha…but ‘ya have to give ’em credit for being able to hike trails at 9,000-ft MSL while wearing a mask. Maybe it was to limit the cold air intake on the lungs?

      I’ve been road cycling wearing an insulated wind-blocking balaclava with a mouth and nose filter barrier designed for fitness in sub-freezing weather.

  21. Denver minimum wage is scheduled to rise to $14.77 on Jan 1st. So unfortunate that many, if not most of the small businesses that would be paying that new wage will have been driven out of business and won’t have any employees at all. But don’t forget, Mayor Hancock and his Marxist friends like Cindi CdeBaca care a great deal about your well being!

    The new statewide minimum wage will be $12.33

    1. The growing tent encampment under the I-25 bridge over South Broadway wasn’t there a few months ago.

      It’s getting pretty bad down here.

    2. Don’t forget about the $20.00 an hour worker who is going to say if that kid is worth $14.77 an hour then I am worth at least $30.00 an hour.

      2. Or being able to speak fluent English, make change and deliver good happy customer service skills, will weed out those who should still be paid less then $9 hr……Ive noticed that.

  24. I have spent decades scrolling past comments on blogs and forums which don’t interest me, but have never felt a need to make an announcement about it. Is it “all about you” or something?

        1. The only ones who will be surprised by rigged elections are “white bread” Americans. Everyone else around the planet knows better.

  30. I almost posted a Social Distortion song until I read about this incident in the comments under the video.

    Just like the Antifa punks this POS frontman is a tough guy when his opponent is out numbered and being held from behind.

    No more Social Distortion for me.

    Social Distortion Frontman Mike Ness Accused Of Attacking Trump Supporter

    By Angela Greenwood
    August 15, 2018 at 3:12 pm

    SACRAMENTO (CBS13) — A Trump supporter claims he was attacked by the lead singer of a punk rock band when he jeered the frontman’s political statements.

    Tim Hildebrand of Galt says the attack happened at a Social Distortion concert at the Ace of Spades in Midtown. Hildebrand says he grew up listening to the band’s music and was excited to attend one of their shows, but never thought he’d leave bloody and bruised at the hands of a famous musician.

    “I wasn’t able to defend myself because people in the crowd were holding me back,” he said.

    Hildebrand says he the singer gave him two black eyes, a busted lip, a concussion and almost knocked out one of his teeth. The chaos broke out at a concert on July 17, but before things turned physical, Hildebrand says the show turned political.

    Hildebrand says the singer started badmouthing President Trump and America and the Republican farmer from Galt didn’t like it. (the dude who got attacked said the lead singer was calling Trump and all of his supporters racist but that needed to be sugar coated by the Real Journalist writing this story)

    https://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2018/08/15/social-distortion-mike-ness-beating/

    1. Treason is a good word for what is going on. Coin shortage everywhere. What are they up to ? This is such a blatant stealing of a election with fake Covid lock downs.

      1. Coin shortage everywhere

        Did I mess it up? I deposited $100 in coins at the bank this week….so it should be all good and liquid now!

        2. Yeah coin shortage real, I needed quarters for doing laundry and meters and banks were out for a long time. Finally was able to snag a bunch.

        3. Our Walmart has a coin counting machine in the Customer Service lobby. I converted two 5-gal buckets of pennies and nearly a dozen former cashew jars filled with nickles, dimes and quarters into paper cash a couple of months ago.

    2. “lead singer of a punk rock band”

      Um, no. Lead singer of a woke rock band of sellouts who cheerlead for gloablists.

      The Sex Pistols’ Johnny Rotten (11/04/20):

      “I’m working-class English,” Mr. Lydon said. “It makes complete sense to me to vote for a person who actually talks about my kind of people.”

      “I’ve watched what the Democrats have done to California, let alone this entire West Coast, and it’s utterly disgusting,” Mr. Lydon said.

      “The politics of left-wing is utter ‘confusionism,’ and I despise them for it”

  31. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (11/30/20):

    “The cost of the lockdowns are born by working-class people. The benefit is to the Zoom-class, the upper-income people who can work from home. Not everyone can do that. You have to go out.”

    Yup. The Zoom-class, the Reddit obese (redundant, I know), blue checkmark Twitter, all think that food grows itself inside of a Uber Eats delivery bag, all engaged in a massive virtue signal circle jerk of upvotes and karma points and re-tweets.

    F* these people and their sense of entitlement.

    1. California Sheriff Has Some Choice Words for Newsom Regarding the Latest Lockdowns (12/05/20):

      “Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco is blasting Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) in a new video statement after the governor threatened to withhold funding to counties refusing to enforce the governor’s latest round of coronavirus lockdowns.

      Sheriff Bianco accused the governor of being both hypocritical and dictatorial, and said the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department would not be “blackmailed, bullied, or used as muscle against Riverside County residents.”

      “The dictatorial attitude toward California residents while dining in luxury, traveling, keeping his business open, and sending his kids to in-person private schools is very telling about his attitude toward California residents, his feelings about the virus, and it is extremely hypocritical,” said the sheriff.

      https://townhall.com/tipsheet/bronsonstocking/2020/12/05/california-sheriff-has-some-choice-words-for-newsom-regarding-the-latest-lockdowns-n2581113

    1. Because they don’t seem to care about small business going BK, I’m assuming they plan on having big business run everything in a Globalist way.
      Whatever this is , it’s a takeover of the economic systems using this fake Covid 19 lock downs to usher in some new system.
      Big Corporations invading America with some crazy reset where they call the shots. This is no different than a invasion by a army.
      We haven’t had capitalism for a while now with all the fake Monopolies and casino markets.
      Klaus Schwab and George Soros should be arrested as enemies of the State for a attempted takeover of the US and other Countries.

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