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Sellers Are Starting To Come To Terms With Market Realities

A report from WKRN on Tennessee. “There’s more good news for everyone looking to buy a home. There are almost 25 percent more homes for sale in Nashville than there were a year ago. ‘Homes are tending to sit on the market a little bit longer than they used to particularly at that high end of the market. At the same time, I think there is this sense in the air among home sellers that, now is the last opportunity to sell before the housing market starts to slow down,’ said Aaron Terrazas, Director, Economic Research.”

“And prices are already starting to fall. Terrazas said, ‘If you think about what sellers have been doing the past couple of years, it’s just been such a market in their favor that they’ve been able to list at pretty much whatever price they want, and the market seems to take it. Now that’s starting to show up in listings with the price cut. They’re starting to come to terms with market realities.'”

From KRON on California. “Mortgage Consultant Chris Hudson with C2 Financial in Walnut Creek says in recent months, the housing market has shifted in the buyer’s favor. ‘Sellers are lowering prices, maybe $30,000-$40,000 below where they want,’ Hudson said. ‘In order to create a buying frenzy to then bid the price back up to what they originally had in mind in terms of, of a sales price.'”

The Arizona Daily Sun. “After a record number of housing sales earlier this year, the Flagstaff market seems to have shifted substantially as the number of houses sold in town is down for the fourth consecutive month. During the month of October, there were 109 houses sold, which is 11 percent fewer sales than October 2017, according to data gathered by Stephen Brighton of Century 21 Realty.”

“This drop comes after a similar reduction in September and the whole third quarter of this fiscal year. In September housing sales were down 38 percent, and sales were down 16 percent throughout the third quarter.”

“‘Every time the interest rate goes up, it reduces the buyer’s purchasing power,’ said Jessica Garard, a realtor with Re/Max Peak Properties. Garard also pointed to the issue of housing inventory as another potential reason for the lack of sales, especially in the price range of under $400,000.”

“At the moment, there are only about 77 single family homes under that price, and Garard said at least 40 percent of those are likely still under construction.”

“By the end of June, for example, the number of houses for sale in Flagstaff reached its height at 640 on the market. However, the number has come down since then to 605 at the end of September, according to Century 21 Realty’s website. This is still well above the lowest point this year, when there were only 395 houses on the market in January.”

“But that low number of houses on the market earlier this year didn’t stop a record-breaking number of housing sales for the first quarter of the fiscal year, which is normally the slowest time for the housing market. This may have been in part due to a dryer winter and concern on the part of buyers that prices would go up as the year went on.”

From Crain’s Chicago Business in Illinois. “Developers are the life of the real estate party, grabbing all the attention by taking bold risks and building swanky high-rises. But they can be unwelcome guests, spoiling the fun for everyone else by building too much. When real estate booms end, overbuilding is often the culprit. Demand for space falls as supply soars, pushing vacancies up and rents down.”

“That has yet to happen in the Chicago area, and broadly speaking, there are few signs of major trouble on the horizon. But the risks posed by overbuilding are rising, depending on the property type and location. The South Loop apartment market is getting especially crowded, and downtown office landlords could feel the pinch if developers kick off new office towers anchored by Salesforce and BMO Harris.”

“During the last real estate boom, residential developers got carried away with condominiums. It didn’t end well. This time around, they’re going gaga over apartments. Developers have built more than 15,000 apartments in downtown Chicago over the last five years, with an additional 8,400 on tap for 2019 and 2020, according to Integra Realty Resources.”

“With so many apartments opening over the next two years, rent growth may flatten out, but don’t expect a major glut, says Integra Senior Managing Director Ron DeVries. Still, that outlook could change if the economy falters. And overbuilding is a concern in one neighborhood: the South Loop, where developers will complete 2,200 apartments in 2019 and 2020 on top of 650 this year.”

“The biggest project there, Nema Chicago, a 76-story, 800-unit skyscraper at the southwest corner or Grant Park, opens in the spring. ‘That’s going to be a very competitive market for the next 12 to 18 months,’ DeVries says.”

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  1. ‘When real estate booms end, overbuilding is often the culprit’

    If you visit this link you’ll see they have overbuilt everything:

    ‘OFFICE: ‘AT A FORK IN THE ROAD’ Developers are pushing the boundaries of what the office market can absorb…Now developers are pressing their luck deep in a real estate cycle with 2.6 million square feet of offices under construction, CBRE data show. And that figure doesn’t include the redeveloped 2.5 million-square-foot Old Main Post Office, set to open next year. Pile on deals in the works for new office skyscrapers at Union Station and Wolf Point, with BMO Harris and Salesforce as their respective anchor tenants, and some downtown landlords could soon go wanting.’

    ‘Rather than suffering from too much supply, Chicago retail landlords are coping with a different problem: not enough demand. As chains like Toys R Us, Sports Authority and Sears have shrunk or gone out of business, they’ve left behind big chunks of retail space. New tenants, including fitness centers and bowling alleys, have filled some of the holes. But not enough brick-and-mortar retailers are expanding these days to fill them all. The upshot: The local retail vacancy rate has risen above 11 percent, up from a previous low of 8.6 percent in 2013, according to CBRE.’

    ‘Downtown Chicago is stocked with 29 percent more hotel rooms today than it had a decade ago…There’s more supply on the way, however: After a 13 percent jump in inventory, or about 6,000 new rooms, between 2014 and 2017, Chicago is slated to get 2,700 more rooms by the end of next year, according to city tourism bureau Choose Chicago.

    And the battle for heads in beds has already gotten tougher now that the 1,205-room Marriott Marquis and 466-room tri-branded Hilton next to McCormick Place are hogging more convention and trade show visitors that used to spread throughout downtown, says Stephen Sotoloff, senior principal at Chicago-based Walton Street Capital, which owns the Thompson Chicago hotel in the Gold Coast.’

    ‘The big fallout from the supply boom, he says, has been newcomers watering down room rates to get people in the door. “They’re filling up the rooms, but they’re doing it at a discounted rate,” Sotoloff says. “It’s a concern.”

    ‘INDUSTRIAL: SOME BIG EMPTY BOXES…in far southwest suburbs like Joliet and Romeoville, where developers have built a bunch of huge warehouses on a speculative, or “spec,” basis, without signing tenants in advance.

    Seven buildings exceeding 700,000 square feet—about 12 football fields—are available for lease along Interstates 55 and 80, according to Colliers. The I-80 corridor had the highest vacancy rate, 11.8 percent, among all Chicago industrial submarkets, according to Colliers. “I don’t think it’s a complete overbuilding or a sign of impending doom, but it’s definitely a little eyebrow-raising,” says Steve Groetsema, partner of the Midwest region for Chicago-based Bridge Development Partners. “It’s just a little bit more than you’d like to see.”

  2. ‘And prices are already starting to fall. Terrazas said, ‘If you think about what sellers have been doing the past couple of years, it’s just been such a market in their favor that they’ve been able to list at pretty much whatever price they want, and the market seems to take it’

    But, appraisers?

    1. “There are almost 25 percent more homes for sale in Nashville than there were a year ago.”

      It seems like most MSM observers miss the causal link between falling prices and the rapid buildup of inventory. Owners who were holding on for appreciation are trying to offload before the reverse wealth effect vaporizes their home equity wealth. And noting a risk of losing money by purchasing while prices are falling, would-be buyers sit on the sidelines and watch.

      A rapid swell of new listings combined with too few greater fools available and willing to make purchases quickly leads to a glut, with accelerating price declines.

      For an idea of the effect on prices, check out a recent Bitcoin price chart.

  3. ‘Garard also pointed to the issue of housing inventory as another potential reason for the lack of sales, especially in the price range of under $400,000. At the moment, there are only about 77 single family homes under that price, and Garard said at least 40 percent of those are likely still under construction’

    I get Stephen’s monthly update and the ebola hit Flagstaff a few months ago. These builders are undercutting the existing market. And they are doing it in developments that folded in foreclosure last decade – some irony there.

    ‘that low number of houses on the market earlier this year didn’t stop a record-breaking number of housing sales for the first quarter of the fiscal year, which is normally the slowest time for the housing market. This may have been in part due to a dryer winter and concern on the part of buyers that prices would go up as the year went on’

    California speculators. They’ll walk away.

    1. “California speculators. They’ll walk away.”

      +1 Especially the well-off speculators with lawyer friends… nothing personal, just business.

      1. The number of people in Flagstaff who can afford a $400,000 house wouldn’t fill a large restaurant. I’m already getting foreclosures for-sale emails and invites to bid on REO work up there.

        1. “The number of people in Flagstaff who can afford a $400,000 house wouldn’t fill a large restaurant.”

          This is an extremely salient point which has been ignored for far too long. Most families can’t even afford a $200,000 house. I can still remember when a $250k house was reserved for professionals and high income earners.

    2. How do interest rates effect developers? I think they hold relatively short term $ so rate increases begin to bite immediately. Their unsold potatoes are getting hotter all the time.

  4. The last downturn had its “Lehman Moment”. Will this downturn have a “Goldman Moment”? Watch the 1MDB Malaysian fraud case unfold. https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-11-01/ex-goldman-banker-will-plead-guilty-charges-related-1mdb-scandal

    https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-11-22/goldmans-blankfein-met-privately-corrupt-malaysian-banker-center-1mdb-probe

    I have no idea how much exposure Goldman has to housing, but it probably doesn’t matter. The contagion could be epic. I always thought it would be Deutsche Bank. Then again, maybe this time it’ll be a two-fer.

    Reinstate Glass-Steagall.

    1. LMFAO. Blankfein “has no recollection.” What a bald-faced liar. If anybody should have swung from the gallows during the past meltdown, it’s that turd. Oh, that’s right, he’s “doing God’s work.”

    2. “Of course, nearly six years later, Low is now international fugitive, accused of being the mastermind in a multibillion-dollar fraud involving a Malaysian government investment fund.

      Needless to say, this is problematic for the recently retired Blankfein, who left the bank on Oct. 1, coincidentally just one month before the DOJ started handing down indictments to Goldman bankers, one of whom has agreed to cooperate against the bank).

      Why? Because it undercuts the bank’s PR line that the bribes paid in furtherance of a massive money laundering scheme were the work of a handful of “rogue employees.” The meeting was described as a “one-on-one” sitdown between Blankfein and the corrupt Malaysian banker, who reportedly played a central role in bribing officials in Malaysia, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.”

      This is no different than the the hit on Khashoggi by bin Salman. When it’s time to pay, the underlings are forced to take all the blame while the responsible party who orchestrated the entire thing is unaccountable. We need more executions of top officials. It’s the only way. And I do believe it should be done in public. “Oh, but we are more civilized than that!” they all cry. No, we’re not, as all of these guilty parties have proven.

      1. We need more executions

        And so, you object to the execution of Khashoggi on what basis? It is clear that making a statement by killing is not outside your mores.

        I find the Khashoggi thing ironic. I haven’t heard one mention of the US snuffing people around the world for a very long time and on a very large scale. Why is it Assange wouldn’t walk into a US Embasy?

        1. I don’t want the French revolution (so no public beheadings), nor do I want the despotism and extremism of the Wahhabi state that is Saudi Arabia. The Khashoggi situation is tragic and nasty. One of the true tragedies and I believe it will take on a larger-than-life significance as time goes on. That Trump is willing to look the other way because of oil and defense and aerospace deals is truly sad. It marks a low point in his presidency in my opinion. We don’t have to severe all ties, but there should have been some pressure put on the state to signify that this type of cruelty is beyond the pale.

        2. I don’t see anywhere in my post where I objected to the killing of Khashoggi. I was using it as an example to show that when the rich and powerful commit a crime, they don’t pay for it.

          Try to keep up.

          1. Further, there is a vast difference between a law-abiding citizen who supports the death penalty, and a cold-blooded killer.

          2. People have been killed by Saudi Arabia quite often. Why is it now a concern but not before? Why are not those killed by America a concern? What is our moral high ground? How would it be different if we let you execute whomever you choose?

  6. Nothing on the horizon to end the party in Chicago?

    Insane taxes?
    Corruption beyond measure?
    Shrinking population?
    Out of control crime?
    Failing schools?
    The end of cheap and easy money?
    Riding interest rates?
    Businesses fleeing?

    *******

    ““That has yet to happen in the Chicago area, and broadly speaking, there are few signs of major trouble on the horizon.”

  7. ‘Commercial real estate has been going through its own market correction due to numerous vacancies. Reacting to the pullback from high rents by retailers themselves, the owners have miraculously self-corrected by dropping rents and cutting many deals.’

    ‘Some 15 of 17 corridors have dropped asking rents over the last three years with three lowering rents more than 20 percent and 10 of them more than 30 percent, according to the Real Estate Board of New York Fall 2018 Retail Report.’

    ‘The most luxe area of Fifth Avenue between 49th and 57th streets saw average asking rents fall year-over-year by 24 percent, to $2,973, due to the size, shape and number of storefronts now available. Its high average was $3,683 in the spring of 2015.’

    ‘Madison Avenue north of East 57th Street experienced its seventh consecutive year-over-year fall in average asking rents, to $1,160 per square foot — with some brokers whispering to me about taking rents in the $600-per-square-foot range. Its high of $1,709 per square foot was in the fall of 2014.’

    ‘Overheated areas along West 14th Street in the Meatpacking District have had rents drop to $303 a square foot, and the previously hot blocks along Broadway in Soho saw rents fall to $508 per square foot as both corridors experienced the sixth year-over-year decline in average asking rents. In the spring of 2015, the Meatpacking average had been at $377 a square foot and Broadway had topped $977.’

    ‘As Bleecker Street has gone from luxe to pop-up, rents have fallen 17 percent, to $293 per square foot, from $351 last fall. They were at $484 in the autumn of 2014.’

    1. ‘some brokers whispering to me about taking rents in the $600-per-square-foot range. Its high of $1,709 per square foot was in the fall of 2014’

      Almost a two-thirds slashing. You don’t hear much about the CRE bubble popping do ya?

    1. Happy Thanksgiving to the jeffster, to Ben and all the folks on the HBB.

      (I always love jeff’s clips, good one!)

  9. “Sellers Are Starting To Come To Terms With Market Realities”

    I’ve been patiently waiting for the seller’s Anger stage of grief.

  10. ‘After years of a competitive market characterized by the lack of homes for sale, inventory increased on an annual basis in October. There were 3 percent more homes for sale across the country than there were a year ago, according to Zillow. High cost markets that had been among the nation’s hottest saw some of the biggest gains in inventory. San Jose, California, saw the biggest annual increase in inventory, adding about 1,500 homes to the market to increase inventory by 93.1 percent from last October, when it reached its lowest recorded level. San Diego, San Francisco and Seattle also saw big gains in the number of homes for sale.’

    “In yet another sign that the housing market is cooling, we’re finally starting to see inventory return after several years of annual declines,” said Zillow Senior Economist Aaron Terrazas.’

    1. ‘we’re finally starting to see inventory return after several years of annual declines’

      They talk about it like it’s herds of wildebeest or something. These REIC people are twisting like pretzels to explain how all this “inventory” suddenly appeared out of nowhere. These are shacks. They were there all along. There was never and never will be a shortage of shacks.

        1. manipulated

          It didn’t have to be manipulated. It was financialized. Shacks held as speculative commodity leveraged “investments”. A massive winter kill of these specuvestors will be very good for the rest of us.

      2. There was never and never will be a shortage of shacks.

        For an industry of dissemblers, REIC professionals are surprisingly maladroit when it comes to putting out convincing lies or keeping their stories straight. You’d think the NAR have some kind of Supreme Committee for the Propagation of Lies and Spin to make themselves sound less like disingenuous tools.

        1. ‘Sellers are lowering prices, maybe $30,000-$40,000 below where they want,’ Hudson said. ‘In order to create a buying frenzy to then bid the price back up to what they originally had in mind in terms of, of a sales price.’

          1. The former Iraqi Information Minister, Baghdad Bob, would blush with shame if asked to put across such whoppers.

          2. sorry mr greedbag but that trick has been worn out, we will continue watching you drop your price until your at your weakest point and then squeeze you a little tighter to get you even lower. That or we will just watch the bank pull the rug out from under your shacking legs.

        2. “REIC professionals are surprisingly maladroit when it comes to putting out convincing lies or keeping their stories straight.”

          They all seemingly attended the CNN school of reporting.

  11. ‘HUGE PRICE REDUCTION: KAANAPALI HILLSIDE’S BEST VIEWS!’

    ‘This custom 3,398-square-foot home at 129 Mauli St. on Kaanapali Hillside’s “front row” offers stunning panoramic twin-island and year-round sunset views, with whales breaching in season.’

    ‘Sold furnished and ready to move in now, or remodel to your personal taste. This home is now even more competitively priced at $1,298,000 – less than smaller Kaanapali homes with inferior views and locations.’

    Oh dear…

  12. Looks like our shambolic regulators are rousing themselves from their comas long enough to belatedly “investigate” whether Bitcoin’s price was illegally propped up. Stand by for the usual insincere mea culpas, followed by slap-on-the-wrist fines (but no criminal indictments, ever) of low-level malefactors. The really big manipulators, as usual, are cackling with glee as they count their ill-gotten loot and ensure their continued impunity by mailing fat checks to the Republicrat duopoly tools in charge of “overseeing” the financial sector.

    https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/20/regulators-investigate-whether-bitcoin-price-was-propped-up-illegally.html

    1. ‘One such blow to bitcoin and the wider cryptocurrency sector came from Benoit Coeure, a European Central Bank Executive Board member, who was speaking at the Bank for International Settlements in Basel. Coeure labeled bitcoin “a combination of a bubble, a Ponzi scheme, and an environmental disaster,” it was reported by Bloomberg.’

      1. Anyone who speaks sensibly about the absurd notion of cryptocurrency investing is labelled by the MSM as ‘outspoken. ‘

        …
        Elsewhere, U.S. economist Nouriel Roubini, an outspoken critic of bitcoin and decentralized cryptocurrencies, said bitcoin was headed for a price of zero.

        “I could gloat about bitcoin collapsing 10% in a day to $5700. But that is still some way to zero where bitcoin belongs. Actually, since bitcoin is The Mother of All Toxic Pollutions & Environmental Disasters its true fair value is highly negative with the right externality tax,” Roubini, who teaches at New York University’s Stern School of Business and is chairman of Roubini Macro Associates LLC, an economic consultancy firm, told bitcoin news site AMB Crypto.
        …

        1. “I could gloat about bitcoin collapsing 10% in a day to $5700. But that is still some way to zero where bitcoin belongs. Actually, since bitcoin is The Mother of All Toxic Pollutions & Environmental Disasters its true fair value is highly negative with the right externality tax,”

          This is the absolute perfect summation of Bitcoin, and all “cryptocurrencies.” They are worth LESS THAN ZERO.

      2. Bitcoin B-K…but the shills are yacking louder than ever, so clearly a bottom is not yet in.

        Business
        Washington bitcoin pioneer seeks Chapter 11 protection
        Originally published November 21, 2018 at 4:14 pm Updated November 21, 2018 at 6:01 pm
        Workers in February were building special “pods” for GigaWatt’s high-end computer servers used by cryptocurrency “miners” at the Pangborn Memorial Airport Business Park in Douglas County. Construction has since ceased and the company has filed for bankruptcy protection. (Don Seabrook / Wenatchee World)

        Mired under heavy debts, GigaWatt, one of the earliest players in Central Washington’s bitcoin boom, has filed for bankruptcy protection, the latest casualty in an industry hammered by falling prices.

        https://www.seattletimes.com/business/washington-bitcoin-pioneer-seeks-chapter-11-protection/

        1. It’s not your grandfather’s Ponzi scheme.

          Cryptocurrencies
          Let’s Not Talk About Bitcoin’s Deadly Spiral This Thanksgiving
          By Justina Lee
          November 21, 2018, 4:02 AM PST
          Updated on
          November 21, 2018, 6:27 AM PST

          That cousin who peddled Bitcoin to you last Thanksgiving will have some explaining to do tomorrow.

          This time last year, recent adopters were bragging of their good fortunes at the dinner table as the cryptocurrency was in the middle of a bull run that would see it more than double to a record $19,511 just before Christmas. Analysts estimated that the popular retail exchange Coinbase added at least 300,000 users in the week after the holiday.

          Instead of paeans to the virtues of digital money over turkey and pumpkin pie, any discussions this year around the slide that pushed Bitcoin to as low as $4,051 Tuesday risk turning heated. On Twitter, aside from the usual FUD-blaming (fear, uncertainty and doubt), users are joking about having chicken nuggets for Thanksgiving, touting weed stocks and chatting about the weather instead of fielding questions from their grandfathers.

          https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-11-21/let-s-not-talk-about-bitcoin-s-deadly-spiral-this-thanksgiving

          1. Down $700 billion and counting, and still no capitulation by the HODLers to show for it. Some people just can’t ever quite satisfy their desire for punishment.

            Crypto Losses Near $700 Billion in Worst Week Since Bubble Burst
            Eric Lam
            Nov 22 2018, 7:52 PM
            Nov 22 2018, 8:37 PM

            (Bloomberg) — The great cryptocurrency crash of 2018 is heading for its worst week yet.

            Bitcoin sank toward $4,000 and most of its peers tumbled on Friday, extending the Bloomberg Galaxy Crypto Index’s weekly decline to 25 percent. That’s the worst five-day stretch since crypto-mania peaked in early January.

            After an epic rally last year that exceeded many of history’s most notorious bubbles, cryptocurrencies have become mired in a nearly $700 billion rout that shows few signs of abating. Many of the concerns that sparked the 2018 slump — including increased regulatory scrutiny, community infighting and exchange snafus — have only intensified this week. Even after losses exceeding 70 percent for most virtual currencies, Oanda Corp.’s Stephen Innes has yet to see strong evidence of a capitulation that might signal a market bottom.

            “There’s still a lot of people in this game,” Innes, head of trading for Asia Pacific at Oanda, said by phone from Singapore. If Bitcoin “collapses, if we start to see a run down toward $3,000, this thing is going to be a monster. People will be running for the exits.”

            https://www.bloombergquint.com/business/crypto-losses-near-700-billion-in-worst-week-since-bubble-burst#gs.ZfRLe9A

        3. 07 November
          US State of Texas Issues Emergency Orders Against Two Crypto Mining Companies
          AWS Mining, based in Australia, and Canadian EXY Crypto targeted Texas’ citizens illegally, the local securities regulator has said.
          by Marin Marinov
          3 min

          Texas State Securities Board (TSSB) has issued emergency cease and desist orders against two foreign-based cryptocurrency mining companies, Australian AWS Mining, and Canadian EXY Crypto, for working without registration in the state and engaging “in frauds.” Both companies used social media as the main channel to promote their activities among Texans with misleading information, TSBB said on Tuesday.

          AWS Mining, which is based in Sydney, offered crypto mining power contracts and guaranteed “200% profit, TSBB explained. The company used various social media to advertise its investment offerings to Texans. Moreover, it has a program for hiring sales agents without having the required registration. AWS Mining also owns MyCoinDeal, a wallet that investors were supposed to utilize if they wanted to participate in the project.

          https://cryptovest.com/news/us-state-of-texas-issues-emergency-orders-against-two-crypto-mining-companies/

        4. We’ll see how long this lasts.

          Yesterday
          Bitmain Rolls Out US Bitcoin Mining Center Despite BTC Crash
          The world’s largest Bitcoin (BTC) miner has invested $20 million in the new facility located in the State of Washington.
          Bitcoin News
          by Marin Marinov
          3 min

          The Chinese mining hardware giant Bitmain has opened a new data center in the small US town of East Wenatchee, located 240km (150 mi) from Seattle in the State of Washington. The company will use the $20 million investment to mine Bitcoin (BTC), local public radio station KNKX reported on Monday.

          The data center has six buildings and will consume 12 megawatts electricity. The project will hire around 20 people from the town, which has approximately 13,000 residents. According to Jeff Stearns, Bitmain’s director of operations for North America, the recent BTC price crash is not a concern for his company, but an opportunity, and therefore the firm is continuing with its BTC investments.
          …

        5. It’s sad that so many people got caught up in this scam.

          Rockdale: The Tiny Texas Town That’s Turning To Bitmining
          By Paul Flahive • Oct 15, 2018
          – The now-shuttered Alcoa power plant sits in front of the smelter Bitmain announced it would move into.
          – The now-shuttered Alcoa power plant sits in front of the smelter Bitmain announced it would move into.
          Paul Flahive / Texas Public Radio

          Rockdale, Texas, was chosen as the site for what some describe as the biggest bitcoin mine in the country. A Chinese company plans on bringing 400 jobs, while investing $500 million in the mine, which is where rows of computer processors solve complex computations and are awarded digital currency. This comes after a series of booms and busts for this town of 5,600 people.

          Last year, the power plant that had been limping along closed. Between the smelter and the plant 1,700 jobs were gone. The largest employers in Milam County were now closed, and it lost 30 percent of its tax revenue.

          “It made a hit on Rockdale. It hit us hard,” Charles Miles said. “You lose people. You lose income. You lose tax base. You lose a lot.”

          http://www.tpr.org/post/rockdale-tiny-texas-town-thats-turning-bitmining

    2. Suddenly Bitcoin mining no longer seems to pencil out. Are we nearing the maximum supply of Bitcoin that will ever be HODLed due to the prohibitively high expense of mining any more compared with the collapsed price?

      Bitcoin price crash causes bankruptcy and mass cryptocurrency mine closures
      Tens of thousands of mining rigs have been shut down in China
      Anthony Cuthbertson
      10 hours ago

      Bitcoin mining operations in the US and China are facing closures after the plummeting price of bitcoin means they may no longer be profitable.

      The world’s most valuable cryptocurrency is currently trading at around $4,500, having lost almost a third of its value in the space of a week.

      https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/bitcoin-price-crash-cryptocurrency-mining-bankrupt-china-bitmain-giga-watt-a8646821.html

      1. Nov 21, 2018,7:54 am
        Blow To Norway’s Bitcoin Industry As Miners’ Subsidies Suddenly Scrapped
        Billy Bambrough, Contributor
        Crypto & Blockchain
        I write about how bitcoin, crypto, and fintech are changing the world.

        Bitcoin miners around the world have been wrestling with a huge cryptocurrency sell-off that has wiped 30% from bitcoin’s value in seven days, and now Norway’s bitcoin miners are facing a further blow after the country’s government moved to end electricity subsidies for bitcoin and crypto miners.

        https://www.forbes.com/sites/billybambrough/2018/11/21/blow-to-norways-bitcoin-industry-as-miners-subsidies-suddenly-scrapped/#6be97f0c43a6

    1. But at least in SF you can walk out your front door and step in human feces. That’s good, right? Oh, wait…

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