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A Growing Number Of Somewhat Sketchy Lending Practices

A report from CBC News. “While he did not describe what kind of actions he would take to stimulate jobs without overstimulating housing, Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem said the bank would keep a close eye on the housing market and think about how to contain a housing bubble that could lead to future trouble. ‘What we get worried about is when we start to see extrapolative expectations, when we start to see people expecting the kind of unsustainable price rises we’ve seen recently go on indefinitely, and they’re basing their decision on those kinds of assumptions,’ he warned.”

“‘When we see people starting to buy houses solely because they think prices are going to go up, that is a warning sign for us,’ he told the audience. ‘We are starting to see some early signs of excess exuberance.'”

From Better Dwelling. “Canada’s central bank isn’t really that worried about real estate, it appears. Bank of Canada governor Tiff Macklem dismissed concerns about an overheated housing market. In fact, he welcomed its contribution to the economy as something needed. ‘I think right now the economy is weak… I think we need the support.’ Further adding, ‘We need the growth we can get.'”

“He asked rhetorically, ‘Are people expecting the kind of unsustainable house prices we’ve seen?’ Answering himself, ‘if people start to think those [price gains] go on indefinitely, that becomes a concern.’ Must have been his first day looking at Canada’s real estate market.”

The Globe and Mail. “An economist recently put together a chart on housing that some people view as sign of impending apocalypse. Other are thrilled about what they see. Displayed under the headline Your House Makes More Than You Do, the chart tracks house prices in the town of Woodstock, Ont., since the mid-2000s The interesting part comes right at the end – an almost vertical line showing a 31.7 per cent increase in prices in the past year. According to a survey by the human resources consulting firm Morneau Shepell, salaries this year will increase by 1.9 per cent.”

“The chart is like a Rorschach Test of housing in that people see different things when they look at it. I found that out after attaching the chart to a tweet recently. ‘Yup,’ one enthusiastic Twitter user commented. ‘And, don’t forget it’s tax-free.’ Others are worried. ‘It’s all out of balance,’ one said. ‘Looks like a bitcoin [chart],’ said another. ‘Probably just as sustainable, too.'”

“The economist behind the chart, Sal Guatieri, said asset prices normally start to raise red flags when they consistently come in ahead of growth in incomes. But that’s exactly what’s happening in cities across Canada, notably in Ontario. ‘Draw your own conclusions,’ Mr. Guatieri said.”

From KREM in Idaho. “The average sale price of a home in Kootenai County was $415,000 in January, a 33% increase from January 2020, according to the Association of Realtors. RedFin reported that the median sales prices of a home in Coeur d’Alene rose to $509,000, a 50% increase from a year ago. ‘The market continues to be a frenzy of buyers,’ said Kristen Johnson, president of the Coeur d’Alene Association of Realtors.”

“Rathdrum and Spirit Lake, generally areas with lower housing costs, are seeing high prices and low inventory. ‘Just drive up Highway 41 and look at the prairie full of new homes with more on the way,’ Johnson said.”

The Denver Channel in Colorado. “‘It’s almost like the market is drunk,’ said Chad Nash, senior real estate adviser with Compass. Nearly all of our experts agree there’s no looming bubble like 2008. ‘I don’t see a bust this year,’ Nash said. Nash does have a warning, however. He sees a growing number of somewhat sketchy lending practices popping up, like ads promoting the idea you only need $1,000 down.”

From Mortgage Professional America. “Originators now must work in an economy where credit blemishes are far more common than before. Laid off workers who might have had solid incomes and assets, had to draw down on credit to make it through the roughest early months. Borrowers who would have qualified for agency loans pre-pandemic, even those who have gotten their income back, are being shut out by these blemishes. Originators need to use different tools to secure loans for these borrowers. The solution may lie in non-QM.”

“‘It’s important to understand the premise of non-QM as a broader ‘non-agency’ offering, which typically has met the needs of those borrowers with some credit challenges who still have the ability to repay,’ said Tom Hutchens, executive VP of production at Angel Oak Mortgage Solutions. ‘One of the outcomes of COVID-19 is certainly more people are going to have more blemishes, perhaps than ever before. We went from a record low unemployment to record high unemployment in a span of 60 days. Not everybody’s prepared for unemployment that quickly. We believe that non-QM is going to be the solution for those borrowers that were directly impacted by COVID-19.'”

“‘We’ve always said that non-QM is common sense lending,’ Hutchens said. ‘It’s not just black and white, we work a lot in the gray areas. We make credit decisions around not just whether we believe this borrower has the documented ability to repay, but do we believe they will repay us.'”

The Huffington Post. “A landlord in Albany, New York, is facing kidnapping charges after he allegedly tied up two of his tenants, covered their heads with pillowcases and left them at a snowy cemetery. Albany Police arrested 48-year-old Shawn Douglas on Monday afternoon and charged him with second-degree kidnapping in connection with the incident on Sunday morning, according to the Albany Times-Union. Douglas had been frustrated as he was unable to evict the tenants due to COVID-19 restrictions, the Times-Union reported.”

The Wall Street Journal. “Brooklyn property developer Yoel Goldman’s All Year Holdings Ltd. placed a luxury apartment building under bankruptcy protection after rental income fell since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. Monday’s bankruptcy filing covers Evergreen Gardens Mezz LLC, a subsidiary tied to one of two buildings comprising the Denizen luxury apartment rental complex. The chapter 11 filing followed All Year’s failed negotiations with a lender that threatened to foreclose.”

Related Posts

Sellers Were Overpricing Because They Could Get It

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPAs0FfXS3s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZWoVegZRoI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eYXOAWZ0z0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZjRsEmOiqY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBiSwleTClQ

This Post Has 92 Comments

  1. Isn’t that what Bitcoin is for?

    ““‘When we see people starting to buy houses solely because they think prices are going to go up, that is a warning sign for us,’ he told the audience. ‘We are starting to see some early signs of excess exuberance.’”

  2. A top banker who thinks overpriced shacks help grow an economy…

    What could go wrong?

    “Bank of Canada governor Tiff Macklem dismissed concerns about an overheated housing market. In fact, he welcomed its contribution to the economy as something needed. ‘I think right now the economy is weak… I think we need the support.’ Further adding, ‘We need the growth we can get.’”

    1. At least a plantation owner had to wait for the harvest before calculating the profits. These bankers are collecting their fees before the seeds are planted.

    2. He is all but admitting that they want to drive up inflation to deal with unemployment – but it is only helping the speculators for now.

      —
      “Macklem noted that the unemployment rate had been unusually low for an extended period of time before the pandemic, and yet inflation never took off. It could have been a fluke. But in case it wasn’t, Macklem indicated that he and his deputies on the Governing Council agreed to probe the limits of their previous understanding of the relationship between employment and inflation. The pre-pandemic experience suggests the central bank needn’t fear inflation quite as much as it has in the past, which would allow policy-makers a freer hand to stoke economic growth.”

  3. ‘Macklem dismissed concerns about an overheated housing market. In fact, he welcomed its contribution to the economy as something needed. ‘I think right now the economy is weak… I think we need the support.’ Further adding, ‘We need the growth we can get’

    We’ve been over this a number of times. From time to time it’s helpful to see where we’re at. To start with these central bankers are lying dogs. They don’t give a damn about who gets their a$$es kicked.

    The economy is in the sh$tter. Oh but shacks make more than you do! There’s a number of problems. One persons windfall is some suckers 30 year loan – with interest. Artificially high prices seriously distort markets like construction. And you end up with gluts of crap no one needs. (No concern about pollution when it comes to building useless, empty airboxes, you’ll notice).

    Having done this for a long time, I mainly want to know what’s actually happening. You can use history:

    May 25, 2018

    “In his corner of American finance, where hard selling meets hard luck, Angelo Christian is a star. Each time Christian sells a home loan, the company he works for, American Financial Network Inc., takes as much as 5 percent. Many of Christian’s customers have no savings, poor credit, or low income—sometimes all three. Some are like Joseph Taylor, a corrections officer who saw Christian’s roadside billboard touting zero-down mortgages. Taylor had recently filed for bankruptcy because of his $25,000 in credit card debt. But he just bought his first home for $120,000 with a zero-down loan from Christian’s company. Monthly debt payments now eat up half his take-home pay. ‘If he can help me, he can help anyone,’ Taylor says. ‘My credit history was just horrible.’”

    “Christian can do this kind of deal because he is, in effect, making the loan on behalf of the federal government through its most important affordable housing program. It’s a sweet deal: He gets his nearly risk-free commission. Taylor puts no money down. If things go south, the government ultimately bears the risk. Many borrowers ‘are living paycheck to paycheck and, if they lose their jobs, they go into default immediately,’ says John Burns, a housing consultant.”

    “One reason more borrowers may be stretching: Real estate prices are soaring again.”

    http://thehousingbubbleblog.com/?p=10443

    1. 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

    2. from Vancouver. There is so much wierdness going on – for instance nothing houses going for 500K over asking – because they are on an old-fashioned (i.e. large) lot.

      “A so-called unregistered “shadow” mortgage broker responsible for securing more than half a billion dollars’ worth of home financing through the use of altered tax and bank documents says there will always be a demand for the services of people with his skills.

      Fake mortgage broker case reveals widespread problems
      He is estimated to have earned $6 million in fees related to 900 deals fronted by registered mortgage brokers in the decade before regulators raided his offices in 2018.
      https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/shadow-mortgage-broker-money-laundering-1.5926924?fbclid=IwAR2xM8Z657xdB1KnbNtPYh27GDN9CQjc8Wdcsqehgawxq5jiGMxvE7wIjOo

  5. Just wait until the buyer gets money back at closing with 120% LTV loans…

    “He sees a growing number of somewhat sketchy lending practices popping up, like ads promoting the idea you only need $1,000 down.”

  6. Is this a code for not paying your mortgage or rent for 9 months…?

    “Laid off workers who might have had solid incomes and assets, had to draw down on credit to make it through the roughest early months.”

  7. ‘It’s not just black and white, we work a lot in the gray areas. We make credit decisions around not just whether we believe this borrower has the documented ability to repay, but do we believe they will repay us’

    It’s probably been a year and a half since I found a report of no-doc lending in Tennessee, and if it’s offered in one place, it’s everywhere. These “gray areas” will be the future tales of woe.

  8. ‘he allegedly tied up two of his tenants, covered their heads with pillowcases and left them at a snowy cemetery’

    The person who sent this article in added, ‘that’s the spirit!’

  9. More of this is coming…just smarter.

    If anyone here has grown up in a poor neighborhood, landlords have “friends” who gently make deadbeats understand that paying your rent is a healthy thing to do.

    Accidents, small fires, crazy methheads, etc all have an effect on coughing up da rent.

    Note: Woked snowflakes who purchased and rented places out in “gentrification” neighborhoods are fooked.

    “Douglas had been frustrated as he was unable to evict the tenants due to COVID-19 restrictions, the Times-Union reported.”

  11. “…asset prices normally start to raise red flags when they consistently come in ahead of growth in incomes.”

    That’s been happening in U.S. stonks and housing for how many years already!?

  12. “He sees a growing number of somewhat sketchy lending practices popping up, like ads promoting the idea you only need $1,000 down.”

    Like this?

    Realtor.con
    Finance
    What Is a Micromortgage? The Loan That Can Help You Buy a Home With Zero Down Payment
    By Lauren Sieben | Feb 3, 2021
    Young [blackish] couple buying a new house
    valentinrussanov/Getty Images

    For many hopeful first-time home buyers, the barriers to purchasing a house are high.

    If you’re a potential home buyer and you qualify for a conventional loan, you still need thousands of dollars in cash for a down payment, closing costs, and other expenses. If you have only limited credit, you may not qualify for a mortgage at all.

    In both cases, you may end up renting when you would rather build wealth by purchasing a home.
    …

    1. Yeah, I’m seeing more REIC slant on the race thing:

      “We see it happening to young folks and communities of color,” says del Rio. “This is an opportunity to build wealth—you can’t buy $100,000 in stocks for $3,000 down. But you can buy a home worth that for a few thousand dollars out of pocket.”

      It also says:

      ‘Unlike conventional or FHA loans, micromortgages are 100% financed, which means there’s no down payment required’

      OK, enough with the BS. VA loans are zero down. And VA did away with limits a few years ago! That’s right, a coast guard guy can buy that million $ shack in San Diego with no money. And here’s that pesky HBB memory again: last decade VA loans were 2% of the US market. Now it’s more like 12%.

      And don’t forget FHA where you can rolling closing costs into the loan and basically end up underwater from day one. The fact is most US loans are subprime and have been all along. That’s how we got here. But it’s groundhog day for the REIC, who will follow every “frenzy” comment that lending is rock solid dammit!

      1. Next up:

        Predatory lenders marketed subprime loans to peoples of color, in order to keep their households poor and prevent them from joining whitey in affluent society.

        I’ve seen this movie before
        And I have to admit it’s no bore
        But the lying, the dying, the late night crying,
        It makes me want to watch it no more.

    2. Munger needs to save his ire for the hedgies, who gamble in stonks a thousand times worse than the Reddit crowd ever did.

        1. Bitcoin Options Market Sees Low Odds of Sky-High Rally in 2021
          Bitcoin’s options market sees only a 12% probability of prices rising above $100,000 by the end of December.
          (Shutterstock)
          Omkar Godbole
          Feb 11, 2021 at 4:41 a.m. PST
          Updated Feb 11, 2021 at 6:40 a.m. PST

          Bitcoin’s options market is assigning a low probability of prices rising above $100,000 this year despite widespread expectations for a meteoric rally in the wake of Tesla’s recent purchase of the top cryptocurrency.

          At press time, the options market is pricing 12% odds of the cryptocurrency trading in seven figures before the end of December, according to data source Skew. The probability of a break above $70,000 is around 21%.

          “With the extreme volatility of the past two months, the market isn’t showing a lot of conviction on how bitcoin will trade for the rest of the year,” Sui Chung, CEO of CF Benchmarks, told CoinDesk.
          …

    1. Inspired by 2banana’s rent collection post.

      Suzanne : I been comin’ here for six years, and for six years ya been stickin’ it to me, an’ I wanna know how come!

      Deplorable : Ya don’t wanna know!

      Suzanne : I wanna know how come!

      Deplorable : Ya wanna know?

      Suzanne : I WANNA KNOW HOW!

      Deplorable : OK, I’m gonna tell ya! You had the talent to make an honest living, but instead of that, you become a Liar for some cheap, second rate Century 21 office!

      Suzanne : It’s a living.

      Deplorable : IT’S A WASTE OF LIFE!

      https://youtu.be/20n-cD8ERgs

    1. I remember in late 2008 early 2009 the figure was 800,000/month and everybody looked all serious. Now it can’t even grab a headline away from orange man still bad.

      Who are the people losing their jobs now? I guess they were people working skeleton shifts at 25-50% capacity but now the PPP money finally ran out and the store went under for good. I hope most of them are rehired in the fall.

      1. “Now it can’t even grab a headline away from orange man still bad.”

        LOL! The MSM has already dropped him, now that his bully pulpit has been taken away.

        2. MSM has already dropped him”

          Maybe the MSM has dropped him, but Orange Man Bad is still rampant amount the CNN cultists.

  17. Having been at least vaguely aware of what happened in the financial markets in the runups to stock market crashes in 1987, 1991, 2000, and 2008, I can say that it feels like we are once more in the pre-crash euphoria stage, where everyone believes that stock ownership is the sure path to riches.

    At some point within the next couple of years, we can expect a massive muppet reaping to wipe out Millennial day traders, followed by a period of soul searching on Wall Street where the bears come out of hibernation to predict decades to come of subpar performance in stonks.

      2. Muppets have been deemed to be racist.

        Seeing the disclaimers Disney shows before playing some Muppet Show episodes is a not so gentle reminder that Clown World is moving forward at full speed.

        When I look at the guest star list for the episodes I’m sure that most are unknown to Gen Z’ers and even to some Millenials. Ruth Buzzi?

        My Disney+ is cancelled, and should go dark in about a week. Meanwhile, I’m binge watching the Muppet Show.

          2. Interesting, as Bunsen and Beaker still appear in contemporary Muppet programming. I suspect that for the younger pups The Muppets are from a thousand years ago.

          3. When I was living in NYC, I bought the VHS set of all The Muppet Show episodes. God only knows where they are now! It was funny watching them as an adult and seeing things you didn’t as a child, e.g., how neurotic Kermit is.

          4. Being able to watch them in order, you can see some of the characters evolve, especially Miss Piggy. In the first episode she’s almost unrecognizable. Others, like Waldorf and Statler (the hecklers) hardly changed.

  18. “‘We’ve always said that non-QM is common sense lending,’ Hutchens said. ‘It’s not just black and white, we work a lot in the gray areas. We make credit decisions around not just whether we believe this borrower has the documented ability to repay, but do we believe they will repay us.’”

    non-QM loans = Subprime loans

    1. believe = hope?

      Who cares if they pay or not. They will offshoot these toxic loans to some MBS and sell them to the FED

  20. Free sh*tters gonna free sh*t:

    “Let’s be clear about another thing. Biden absolutely has the legal authority to use executive power to cancel all federal student debt. Congress granted this authority decades ago as part of the Higher Education Act. It’s even been put to the test: in response to the Covid pandemic, Donald Trump and his former education secretary, Betsy DeVos, used that authority three times to suspend payments and student loan interest.

    But the Biden administration should, and can, do much more. Biden should cancel all student debt using executive authority. It is the simplest way the new administration can help tens of millions of people who are being crushed by the double whammy of unpayable loans and an economy-destroying pandemic.”

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/feb/25/joe-biden-student-debt-american-students

    The question nobody asks is WHAT DID YOU MAJOR IN?

    If the subject of your degree contains the word “studies” your degree is worthless. You learned nothing that you could have taught yourself for free from the public library or watching YouTube.

    The only ones who benefited from your worthless degree are the bloated administrative staff of the worthless 3rd and 4th tier universities you attended.

    1. As usual, news stories were long on opinion and short on real information. It took me 10 minutes of duck-duck-going to find even one article which pointed to the actual text in the Higher Education Act which would allow student loan cancellation without a law from Congress.

      Evidently there’s a clause about “compromise and settlement,” basically where the Department of Education can simply say “meh, we don’t feel like collecting student loans for certain people.” Betsey DeVos used this language when she and Trump suspended student loan payments because of the pandemic. Biden’s cancellation would just make the suspension permanent, which is also not new. Loans are already being cancelled for disabled veterans. But the sheer scale of cancelling trillions in debt is pretty iffy. If those student loans payments are used as revenue for the Federal Government, then OMB would have to write that off somehow. The IRS might come knocking. Biden would also have to make sure that the forgiven debt is not taxed per 1099, which would definitely trigger the IRS. And this only covers federal debt. Private bank loans are not affected.

      For a lib perspective on it: https://prospect.org/day-one-agenda/cancel-student-debt-dept-education/

      Related question: I’ve been out of the college loan game for quite a while. But when I was in undergraduate school in the early 90s, I was allowed to borrow $12,000, total over four years, from the federal government. Has the allowable amount of federal loans really increased up to $50K?

      1. Evidently there’s a clause about “compromise and settlement,” basically where the Department of Education can simply say “meh, we don’t feel like collecting student loans for certain people.”

        It’s nothing personal, just politics.

      2. “The idea of making individuals and families pay out of pocket for something that’s a right and public good is wrong,” says Ann Larson, co-founder of the Debt Collective, an organization that advocates for student debt cancellation.

        Is that in the Bill of Rights?

      3. You only get so much from Sallie Mae, but Citi, Chase, Wells and a thousand other banksters are willing to fund the college experience you deserve,whatever you deem it to be, at a nominal 6%, 29% if you default, which approximately 1/3 of students do.

        Enjoy your chains, peon.

        1. “…29% if you default…”

          Once the “universal default” trap has been triggered all of their debt’s interest rates leap to these high levels from which their is no way out.

  21. The Hill — Majority of Republicans say 2020 election was invalid (2/25/2021):

    “More than two-thirds of Republicans say the 2020 presidential election was invalid, according to a new survey.

    The poll from the R Street Institute, a free markets group, found that 67 percent of Republicans view the past election as invalid, compared to 23 percent who believe it was valid.

    About half of all Republicans said they believe their votes were counted, while 42 percent said the system is corrupt and that their vote “probably doesn’t get counted anyway.”

    https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/540508-majority-of-republicans-say-2020-election-was-invalid-poll

    And here some bonus content from 2019 in which Joe Biden is heckled to “stop touching kids”

    https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/dont-touch-kids-you-pervert-biden-slammed-by-protesters-at-campaign-rally

    1. half of all Republicans said they believe their votes were counted

      It is entirely possible to believe the overall election was invalid while also believing your specific vote was counted. A Republican vote in Wyoming was certainly counted. A Republican vote in Pennsylvania, not so much.

    1. I just did a DuckDuckGo search on “Biden groping compilation.”

      You can click through the different tabs of search results from All to Images to Videos to News to Maps (Epstein Island?) to Shopping (yes, shopping. I’ve read that using Bing might be better, that DuckDuckGo is basically the same thing as Google.

      Nobody’s getting nuked unless Obama is in the room.

      1. I wonder if the football is empty, and the Joint chiefs have unofficially taken over that responsibility.

  25. One advantage — I think — of duckduckgo is that when I made it my default, suddenly I don’t get any ads on YouTube videos. But maybe I’ll go to bing if I’m looking up something likely to trigger Teh Cancel. Bill Gates doesn’t seem to care as much as censorship as he does about bug protein.

  26. What a joke.

    https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/25/airbnb-abnb-earnings-q4-2020.html

    “The company posted a net loss of $3.89 billion in the fourth quarter. That was down up 1,005% from a loss of $352 million a year prior. Airbnb attributed much of the loss to charges related to the company’s initial public offering in December.

    Revenue fell to $859 million, down 22% year over year from $1.11 billion. Fourth-quarter revenue was also down nearly 36% from $1.34 billion in the third quarter.”

  27. Are rising bond yields crushing your tech stock HODLings?

    I thunk Uncle Jerome and Aunty Janet were planning to pin interest rates to the mat forever. Do the bond vigilantes disagree with the plan?

    1. The Financial Times
      Markets Briefing
      Sovereign bonds
      Nasdaq slides 3.5% as government bond rout accelerates
      Tech stocks have worst day since October as 10-year Treasury yield rises above 1.5%
      A seven-year Treasury auction drew the lowest level of investor demand since at least 2009
      © REUTERS
      Eric Platt and Aziza Kasumov in New York and Naomi Rovnick in London 4 hours ago
      Be the first to know about every new Coronavirus story

      A violent sell-off in US government bonds ricocheted through markets on Thursday, sending share prices lower and handing tech stocks their worst day since October.

      The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury rose as much as 0.23 percentage points to exceed 1.5 per cent for the first time in a year. The five-year yield, which is considered to be more sensitive to monetary policy shifts, jumped 0.21 points to 0.82 per cent, the second-largest one day rise seen over the past decade.

      The sell-off in the bond market jolted equities, pushing the broad S&P 500 down 2.5 per cent. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite closed 3.5 per cent lower, its worst day since late October.
      …

    2. Asia Markets
      Japan, South Korea markets drop more than 2% following overnight Wall Street plunge
      Published Thu, Feb 25 2021 7:16 PM EST
      Updated Thu, Feb 25 2021 7:57 PM EST
      Eustance Huang
      Key Points
      – Investors monitored bond yields during Friday’s session after that of the benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury note briefly crossed the 1.6% level, its highest level in more than a year.
      – Investors also kept an eye on technology stocks in Asia-Pacific after the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite dropped 3.52% overnight on Wall Street to close at 13,119.43 — its biggest sell-off since Oct. 28.
      …

    3. “I thunk Uncle Jerome and Aunty Janet were planning to pin interest rates to the mat forever.”

      Easy, just buy a hole [sic] lot more Treasurys. Keep digging!

      1. It will be interesting to see what they do. Will they allow market forces to prevail or will they go full MMT?

  28. Munger compares bitcoin to what Oscar Wilde said about fox hunting
    Ethan Wolff-Mann
    Wed, February 24, 2021, 11:52 AM·3 min read

    Berkshire Hathaway Vice Chairman Charlie Munger once again minced no words in his opinion on bitcoin at the Daily Journal (DJCO) annual meeting on Feb. 24, streamed on Yahoo Finance.

    “I don’t think bitcoin is going to end up the medium of exchange for the world,” he said in response to a question about new technology disrupting the banking system. “It’s too volatile…to serve well as a medium of exchange.”

    Munger is the executive chairman of the Daily Journal, a technology and publishing company that owns newspapers and owns judicial software.

    The reason, Munger said, was that central banks like controlling their own banking system and their own money supplies.

    “It’s really kind of an artificial substitute for gold,” he said.

    Munger, as has been made clear by decades of running Berkshire Hathaway with Warren Buffett in addition to his position at the Daily Journal, does not like gold.

    “Since I never buy gold, I never buy any bitcoin, and I recommend other people follow my practice,” he added.

    Bitcoin, Munger said, reminded him of an old Oscar Wilde quote about fox hunting: “the pursuit of the uneatable by the unspeakable.” (The quote is actually: “Fox hunting is the unspeakable in pursuit of the inedible,” from the play “A Woman of No Importance.”)
    …

    1. Looky here:

      After a customer requests a cash offer from Zillow, a Zillow employee will inspect the home, provide a list of needed repairs and an adjusted final offer, and the homeowner can pick a closing date. Zillow charges sellers a fee of about 7.5 percent on average.

      Nice try, Zillow. This sounds like a scam to hoodwink the homeowner into doing a full $70K renovation under the guise of “needed repairs,” just to meet the existing Zestimate. Then Zillow will flip the house for a little higher, pocketing the 7.5%. All realtors love homeowners who do a reno. The realtor pockets 3% of the reno value-add, without any effort.

      Hmmm… This could blow this up in Zillow’s face, and in Realtors’ faces too. Zillow is basically opening themselves up to being a free inspection and realistic appraisal service. It won’t be long before buyers and mortgage companies refuse to believe the website Zestimate and instead demand to see the real, adjusted Zestimate. Not to mention, once the adjusted zestimate becomes known, house prices will drop instantly. For example, Zillow currently thinks my house is worth $100K more than I think it is. If I called Zillow to come and look, they would immediately demand $50K in reno and write a final offer (post reno?) of only $25K more than I think. Suddenly, house prices on my block just dropped $75K.

  32. Never understood the excitement about rising house prices.
    1) If you’re young and renting, it sucks
    2) If you own and want to upsize, it’s barely a wash (nice downpayment but a higher mortgage)
    3) If life has handed you lemons – moves/medical/job/divorce issues, raising prices just pile on the pain and discrepancy between you and your more fortunate peers.
    3) If you have young adult kids you can feel their frustration (see #1), second-hand
    4) Great if you’re downsizing and cashing out. Too bad it’s often to late to enjoy it, especially after a 30-year treadmill of mortgage payments.

    1. Part of the appeal is cashing out during a refi. Can’t afford the $1000 a month payment on a Lexus? No problem, just cash out. Your mortgage payment increase won’t even be close to $1000. Also works for boats, motorcycles, RV’s, expensive vacations, boob jobs, etc.

      Sure, you’ll never pay off the house, but hey, you only live once. When you retire to a trailer park, you’ll have all those fond memories of living it up to console you.

      2. A Canadian crew did a fascinating documentary on Trailer park life. I strongly encourage everyone to take the time to watch this truly important case study on the end game of Socialism.

        Trailer Park Boys

  33. Are you buying the baby bear dip in stonks? Better hurry up and buy now, as soon we will be back to the races, and you’ll be priced out of stonks and cryptocoin forever!

    1. The Financial Times
      Markets Briefing
      Sovereign bonds
      US government bonds steady after heaviest sell-off since March turmoil
      European stocks under pressure after Treasury rout hits Wall Street equities
      © Getty Images/iStockphoto
      Leo Lewis in Tokyo, Daniel Shane in Hong Kong and Leke Oso Alabi in London 10 minutes ago
      Be the first to know about every new Coronavirus story

      US Treasuries steadied in European trade on Friday after the most turbulent day for the world’s biggest bond market since the height of coronavirus-induced ructions last March.

      Five-year Treasuries, which were at the centre of a fierce rout in US government debt on Thursday, ticked higher in price on Friday. The yield slipped 0.06 percentage points to 0.76 per cent, after surging more than 0.2 percentage points in the previous session. The 10-year Treasury yield also followed suit, slipping 0.06 percentage points to 1.47 per cent after jumping as high as 1.6085 per cent on Thursday.

      “Yesterday proved to be nothing short of a rout in global markets, with the sell-off in sovereign bonds accelerating as investors looked forward to the prospect of a strengthening economy over the coming months,” said Jim Reid, research strategist at Deutsche Bank.
      …

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