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We Are Going To Have To Sell, It’s Devastating

A report from Boston.com in Massachusetts. “The housing market in suburban Boston is ‘crazy.’ That’s the description Laura Semple and Beth Hettrich, agents in Sudbury, gave. ‘We listed one house at $1.1 million based on comparable sales that had 12 offers and sold for $1.26 million in one day,’ Semple said. ‘That house was valued at $975,000 just two years ago.'”

“‘I’m a little concerned about the sudden escalation of prices, but I think we have a long way to go before we’re in the danger zone,’ said Tim Warren, CEO of the Warren Group. ‘When the bubble burst in 2006, we had seen six straight years of price appreciation at 10 percent or more. Now we’re only a year or so into that kind of appreciation.'”

“‘There’s a different dynamic now with pent-up demand and not enough housing rather than a mentality of buying while the market is hot,’ said Helen Tarantino, a realtor in Boston. ‘When the bubble burst before there were too many houses being built. We’re not in any danger of oversupply now.'”

From CBS Boston in Massachusetts. “For the first time in a long time, it’s good to be a renter in Boston and surrounding cities. CEO of Boston Pads Demetrios Salpoglou said, ‘In theory for certain apartments you could put down as little as moving in with one month’s rent to get in and that’s historically unheard of in Boston. Any place you had a high student population or a high concentration of corporate relocation, short term rentals, Airbnbs, a lot of that was decimated.'”

“Gabriel Bonilla is an agent with Douglas Paul Real Estate in Cambridge. One of his clients is Haley Euting, who recently signed a lease for an apartment in the South End. ‘I had no broker’s fee and no security deposit due,’ she said. Another one of Bonilla’s clients, Andrea Salazar, recently found a place in Somerville. Salazar has a dog and wanted a parking spot, so initially she wasn’t sure what the inventory would be like.”

“‘The rent was much lower than I think it would’ve been normally and I think definitely on the pet issue the landlords were more willing to play ball with that,’ she told WBZ. According to Zumper, the average rent price for a one bedroom in Boston is down 16-percent compared to last year.”

From Mansion Global. “Few experts at this point deny that smaller U.S. markets are experiencing severe imbalances, due to high demand and disappearing inventory. But the disparity doesn’t seem to portend a potential crash, so much as an ongoing squeeze for local buyers. Unlike periods of rapid price acceleration in the past, buyers this time around don’t seem to be stretching beyond their means in order to purchase.”

“As for the wealthy out-of-town buyers, don’t expect most to rush to sell properties once they head back to the office. ‘The amount of second-home owners [based] in San Francisco has skyrocketed,’ said Vanessa Gamp of Corcoran Global Living. ‘We’re a city where there is just money here. And that’s not the kind of person that needs to liquidate.'”

The Jewish Voice on New York. “Jocelyn Wildenstein, a socialite known for her looks following extensive plastic surgery, had her residence sold by creditors. As reported by the NY Post, one of three condo units she owned at the Trump World Tower in Midtown Manhattan has been sold. An administrator appointed by her creditors sold the single unit on the 51st floor of the Midtown East tower for $2 million. Wildenstein, formerly a big spender, had owned three units at the luxury tower and combined the units.”

“Swiss-born Wildenstein, 80, had been married to the late billionaire and art dealer Alec Wildenstein. The couple had a messy divorce in 1999, and she was reportedly awarded a whopping $2.5 billion in the divorce settlement. Somehow, she made it from billionaire to bankrupt.”

The New York Post on California. “Even for billionaires, $35 million is a pretty steep discount. The Hearst estate is scheduled to be re-listed today for $89.75 million, more than half off its $195 million asking price in 2016. Only last month, it was listed at $119 million — about $30 million more than its current asking price. ‘This property now has a motivated seller and is priced to sell,’ listing broker Anthony Marguleas told The Post.”

“The 1926 pink stucco mega-mansion also called the Beverly House has been in bankruptcy since 2019 and has been on and off the market since 2007 as the owner, litigator Leonard Ross, tried to stave off a forced sale, even turning to crowdfunding. He purchased the house for $2 million in 1976, but he now owes an estimated $65 million against the property, the Real Deal reported.”

The Los Angeles Times in California. “In interviews with The Times, property owners and managers said they understood the unprecedented nature of the crisis but that they are absorbing too much of the cost. Many said they or their clients are dipping into savings to keep properties afloat and delaying maintenance or repairs because they can’t afford them. Some said they probably can’t or won’t hold on much longer under these circumstances.”

“‘I am hoping something will turn around [so] I don’t have to sell,’ said Beverly Rowe, who manages her family’s Los Angeles triplex, an asset she is proud to have secured to ensure her parents’ financial security in old age and to pass down wealth. That asset, hard-earned for many Black households like hers, is now at risk. Rowe said a tenant owes $30,000 in rent payments missed over the last year.”

“One property owner in her 60s said she is considering taking a second job to avoid having to sell her two 20-unit buildings because she’s having difficulty keeping up with mortgage payments. An owner in his 80s said he’s already told his lender he can no longer meet payments and anticipates handing the 200 units he owns back to the bank. A new survey offers more specific insight into the pandemic’s effect on landlords in Los Angeles: More than half of 1,300 property owners surveyed in December last year said their business would face financial distress within six months if their situations didn’t improve.”

“Before March 2020, 4% of owners with more than 30 units reported problems with paying the mortgage, compared with 7.3% of owners with six to 30 units and 10% of owners with five or fewer units. Irma Vargas, the chief financial officer at property management firm RST & Associates, said two of her clients who own a few units each had to sell their respective properties recently because they couldn’t afford to keep them. ‘The little small mom-and-pops are getting burned on this one,’ she said.”

“For some, losing business properties risks a backslide from the economic mobility that getting into the housing market once promised — a particularly painful development for Black Americans whom the government once barred from access to homeownership. ‘We are going to have to sell,’ Rowe said. ‘That means we cannot pass this property down…. There will be no generational wealth to continue in our family.'”

“After moving in with her 85-year-old mother to help care for her, Rowe worried about bringing COVID-19 home and stopped working her usual job as a physician assistant. She said she has burned through savings to cover the mortgage and repairs at the Mid-City triplex after the tenant stopped paying rent there. With cash tight and no income from the property, Rowe said she is scrambling to pay for the supportive care her mother needs after a heart attack. Offloading the triplex looks increasingly necessary. ‘It’s devastating,’ she said.”

“Even some landlords with less immediate financial pressures are taking a hit. Jef Vander Borght, 69, owns two fourplexes in Burbank and Glendale with his wife that they bought roughly 20 years ago to help them through retirement. Vander Borght said his tenants had fallen more than $12,000 behind in rent since last spring. He understands they have lost work and can’t pay in full, and doesn’t want to evict them.”

“He criticized governments as failing to adequately help struggling residents and in turn landlords like himself, citing a tenant of his who got help from a county program for the first time last month. The local aid reduced the debt he is owed to around $7,000. ‘I never, ever imagined we would be in a position just to be told to house people for free and ‘good luck getting help — help will eventually appear,’ he said.”

“David Haas, managing broker with Ernst and Haas Management Co., said he has clients selling preemptively. The Long Beach firm specializes in managing one- to four-unit properties for mom-and-pop owners. They are ‘liquidating because of the fear of the laws that are protecting only tenants,’ Haas said, ‘fear that their tenant could go into default and they won’t be able to do anything.'”

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This Post Has 103 Comments

  1. ‘The rent was much lower than I think it would’ve been normally and I think definitely on the pet issue the landlords were more willing to play ball with that’

    That’s the spirit!

    1. Sorry landlord. My gaggle of indoor geese are also technically my support animals. So they will stay.

  2. ‘We’re a city where there is just money here. And that’s not the kind of person that needs to liquidate’

    Jeebus these bay aryans are annoying.

    ‘Somehow, she made it from billionaire to bankrupt’

    DONG! Rich people bail faster than poor people.

    ‘An owner in his 80s said he’s already told his lender he can no longer meet payments and anticipates handing the 200 units he owns back to the bank’

    Wa? 200 units in California and he’s walking away? Red hotcakes dammit!

    1. “DONG! Rich people bail faster than poor people.”
      In the last crisis I worked for a TBTF bank in Mortgage. Our $1.0 MM+ portfolio properties had Delinquencies (DQ) as high a 13.9%, and was in the 12-13% range for extended periods of time. Freddie Mac’s DQ was in the 4-5% range most of the time.

    2. “Rich people bail faster than poor people.”

      +1 The smart rich are tactical with money during a downturn, i.e., they choose the strategic default. They’re the first to bail, and they’re the first to buy again when the economic winds shift. That’s why they’re rich.

      The Sixpacks, on the other hand, struggle to hang on to their shack usually exhausting their retirement savings and their marriage along the way. They’re emotionally invested.

      1. “emotionally invested”

        Divorce, bankruptcy, and suicide are the next stops on your financial road to ruin.

  3. ‘I’m a little concerned about the sudden escalation of prices, but I think we have a long way to go before we’re in the danger zone,’ said Tim Warren, CEO of the Warren Group. ‘When the bubble burst in 2006, we had seen six straight years of price appreciation at 10 percent or more. Now we’re only a year or so into that kind of appreciation’

    ‘‘We listed one house at $1.1 million based on comparable sales that had 12 offers and sold for $1.26 million in one day…That house was valued at $975,000 just two years ago’

    Nothing to see here Tim.

    1. So this douche thinks 10% a year for 7 years is doable? Perhaps he doesn’t realize that’s a double. Math is hard.

      1. The 20 Hardest Places To Sell a Home

        20. Ventura, CA

        -Median list price in 2020: $910,546

        -Median sale price in 2020: $657,492

        -Difference between list price and sale price: $253,054

        -Average number of homes on the market in 2020: 1,646

        -Median days on market: 16

        -Percentage of listings with price cut: 12.73%

        -Median price cut in 2020: 2.17%

        12. Dallas-Fort Worth, TX

        -Median list price in 2020: $351,506

        -Median sale price in 2020: $286,034

        -Difference between list price and sale price: $65,472

        -Average number of homes on the market in 2020: 30,021

        -Median days on market: 29

        -Percentage of listings with price cut: 16.27%

        -Median price cut in 2020: 1.90%

        -Median sale price in 2020: $657,492

        -Difference between list price and sale price: $253,054

        -Average number of homes on the market in 2020: 1,646

        -Median days on market: 16

        -Percentage of listings with price cut: 12.73%

        -Median price cut in 2020: 2.17%

        https://finance.yahoo.com/news/20-hardest-places-sell-home-150000199.html

        If shacks were selling in 16 days, why would you slash yer price? You wouldn’t. Somebody is a lion.

        1. “If shacks were selling in 16 days, why would you slash yer price? You wouldn’t. Somebody is a lion.”

          All flash, no cash.

          Just another day in the life of a broke, crippled down DebtDonkey.

        2. They’re “slashing” prices the same way that they would at JC Penney’s: set the price high and maybe there will be a stupid buyer. If not, slash the price to something more realistic and buyers will think they’re getting deal.

        3. Dallas – Average number of homes on the market in 2020: 30,021;

          There’s currently 3500 or so. 10% of the 2020 avg.

          1. Wow. LA inventory still higher than average, but lower than 2020. There was definitely some kind of memo that went out at Christmas telling sellers not to re-list in the new year if they could help it. Then the “hotcakes” articles started. Desperate manipulation.

      2. He must be missing how far out of reach housing is to buy a place to live in for most American families, thanks to Housing Bubble 1.0, plus the Fed’s reflation campaign after it popped to return prices to euphoric heights.

        1. And that reflation campaign has lasted longer than the original bubble (2013-21 vs. 2002-7.) Insane.

  4. Brewster’s Billions! Well done

    “Swiss-born Wildenstein, 80, had been married to the late billionaire and art dealer Alec Wildenstein. The couple had a messy divorce in 1999, and she was reportedly awarded a whopping $2.5 billion in the divorce settlement. Somehow, she made it from billionaire to bankrupt.”

    1. “Somehow, she made it from billionaire to bankrupt.”

      She should’ve fired her plastic surgeon!

        1. No thank you, Sir. This has all been a bad dream. Could I please select waterboarding or sleep deprivation instead?

        2. Dare I ask, is she that “cat” lady I see the grotesque photos of her in latter days? The above before/after is not as NSFL as the current photo I saw of her…..

  7. “‘I’m a little concerned about the sudden escalation of prices, but I think we have a long way to go before we’re in the danger zone,’ said Tim Warren, CEO of the Warren Group.

    Realtors are liars.

    1. Real Journalists are reluctantly reporting more “buyer regret” articles now.

      Entitled millennial first time buyers, that used house you overpaid for is now your financial prison.

  8. A report from Boston.com in Massachusetts. “The housing market in suburban Boston is ‘crazy.’ That’s the description Laura Semple and Beth Hettrich, agents in Sudbury, gave. ‘We listed one house at $1.1 million based on comparable sales that had 12 offers and sold for $1.26 million in one day,’ Semple said. ‘That house was valued at $975,000 just two years ago.’”

    “‘I’m a little concerned about the sudden escalation of prices, but I think we have a long way to go before we’re in the danger zone,’ said Tim Warren, CEO of the Warren Group. ‘When the bubble burst in 2006, we had seen six straight years of price appreciation at 10 percent or more. Now we’re only a year or so into that kind of appreciation.’”

    “‘There’s a different dynamic now with pent-up demand and not enough housing rather than a mentality of buying while the market is hot,’ said Helen Tarantino, a realtor in Boston. ‘When the bubble burst before there were too many houses being built. We’re not in any danger of oversupply now.’”

    and

    From Mansion Global. “Few experts at this point deny that smaller U.S. markets are experiencing severe imbalances, due to high demand and disappearing inventory [Fed and GSE intervention in the housing markets]. But the disparity doesn’t seem to portend a potential crash, so much as an ongoing squeeze for local buyers. Unlike periods of rapid price acceleration in the past, buyers this time around don’t seem to be stretching beyond their means in order to purchase.”

    – Central Banks are a one-trick pony; think a bubble blowing machine at the party. There’s no indication that they’re even thinking about thinking about taking away the punchbowl. “Party on, Garth! John Law would be proud! Reminder: Bubbles always burst. Recall 2000, 2008.

    – Related quotes. There are many, but here’s a small selection…

    “When the music stops, in terms of liquidity, things will be complicated. But as long as the music is playing, you’ve got to get up and dance. We’re still dancing.” – Chuck Prince, former chairman and CEO of Citigroup (told to the Financial Times on July 10, 2007).

    “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.” – Richard P. Feynman

    “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” – Upton Sinclair

    “The four most dangerous words in investing are: ‘this time it’s different.'” – Sir John Templeton

    “Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.” – Charles Mackay

    “Nations, like individuals, cannot become desperate gamblers with impunity. Punishment is sure to overtake them sooner or later.” – Charles Mackay, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds

    “Money, again, has often been a cause of the delusion of the multitudes. Sober nations have all at once become desperate gamblers, and risked almost their existence upon the turn of a piece of paper.” – Charles Mackay

    “I can calculate the motion of heavenly bodies, but not the madness of people.” – Isaac Newton

    “the speculative episode always ends not with a whimper but with a bang.” – John Kenneth Galbraith, A Short History of Financial Euphoria

    “It’s déjà vu all over again.” – Yogi Berra

    1. “ We’re not in any danger of oversupply now.’”

      We will see.

      Relative works for mortgage services doing pre-foreclosure inspections. Current workload is 200 a month he is being told to expect a 1,000 a month when moratorium ends.

        1. What would prevent the Democrats from continuing the foreclosure and eviction moratoriums right up until when the Republicans are back in power?

          1. The only Federal moratorium is coming from the CDC, and they can’t cry pandemic for much longer. In fact they’ve already been defeated twice in court. It will be a state-by-state issue.

        2. The eviction moratorium from the CDC was supposedly to stop the spread of the virus. Now all we hear from pols is that they have to extend it because of all of these poor people who are making more on UE than they were when working will lose their place to live and become homeless. So it appears it has nothing to do with the virus anymore. Nothing like moving the goal post around as the kick is in the air.

  9. ‘When the bubble burst in 2006, we had seen six straight years of price appreciation at 10 percent or more. Now we’re only a year or so into that kind of appreciation.’

    Every housing mania in the history of U.S. real estate has seen six straight years of 10 percent or more appreciation. So it’s pretty much certain to happen again that way this time around.

  10. What’s interesting is despite the supposed low inventory, sales are very much higher. See this google search: https://www.google.com/search?q=existing+home+sales+chart

    These two links talk about inventory, which is reported as very low, the end of a downtrend:
    3rd chart: http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/consumer_rates/971650.aspx
    3rd and 4th chart: https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/housing-market-euphoria-craziest-decades-inventory-sinks-new-low

    This doesn’t include new houses which have been steadily increasing as well. This all indicates to me transactions are occurring very quickly. I see this in the bellwether zip codes I monitor. Not that there are insufficient houses, but transactions have become more and faster.

    1. When houses are selling in bid wars sixteen days after listing, thanks to artificially stimulated demand and suppressed supply due through government intervention, it makes sense that inventory is low.

    2. I’ve seen MANY more flips since covid, and completed/ready to resell in record time. That might account for the fast sales pace. Wasn’t there a post here last week where a flipper was saying banks were throwing money at flippers (at 7% interest lol)?

  11. Institute Behind ‘WELL Health Safety Seal’ Ad Has Massive Ties To China, CCP

    by National File
    April 6th 2021, 6:39 am

    Americans were surprised recently when they turned on their televisions to see an advertisement featuring celebrities like Lady Gaga, Robert De Niro, Michael B. Jordan, and Jennifer Lopez, urging US businesses to get the “WELL Health-Safety Seal” from the International Well Building Institute.

    “Look for the WELL Health-Safety Seal,” said each spokesperson.

    Former Goldman Sachs partner and founder of IWBI’s $800 million parent company Delos, Paul Scialla, appeared in the video and claimed that the safety rating is informed by “years of research and input” from leading epidemiologists, virologists, health professionals, and public health experts.

    In order for a building to get the Well Health-Safety Rating, it must meet strict criteria related to “sanitization procedures, emergency preparedness programs, air and water quality, and health service resources.” Additionally, businesses would have to pay thousands of dollars (depending on building size and revenue) to get the rating.

    One individual missing from the video would be President of IWBI Asia, Xue Ya. According to her biography on the IWBI website, Ya is “a well-recognized business leader promoting collaborations between China and the United States, is a driving force for sustainability in human health through built environments in Asia” and “has extensive experience in real estate development, sustainability, international investment, China-US business and cultural exchange, and government relations.” She also founded the Fusion Management Group,
    which helped “Chinese companies go global, positioning Chinese firms and executives to significantly grow their business with United States, often bringing Chinese investment and technology to the US.”

    https://www.infowars.com/posts/institute-behind-well-health-safety-seal-ad-has-massive-ties-to-china-ccp/

    1. The country of wet markets, tainted baby formula, and deadly dog food is lecturing the US about sanitation?

  12. If prices level off, or even decline, we’ll find out who bought the house because they could afford it and liked it and wanted to live in it, and who bought it primarily for appreciation purposes.

    1. “If [when] prices level off, or even decline, we’ll find out who bought the house because they could afford it and liked it and wanted to live in it, and who bought it primarily for appreciation purposes.”

      – I think you mean this quote:

      “You never know who’s swimming naked until the tide goes out.” – Warren Buffett

      – Right now the “greater fool” concept is in play as housing bubble 2.0 continues apace.
      – What the Fed is doing by continuing to purchase U.S. Treas. & MBS at $120B/mo. and holding rates to the zero bound is criminal. Meanwhile, Congress is doing… nothing, because it’s all about self-enrichment. I’m sure this will end will, just like on Bastille Day in France…

  13. Evanston, IL Housing Prices Crater 18% YOY On Soaring Mortgage Defaults As US Housing Demand Grinds Lower

    https://www.movoto.com/evanston-il/market-trends/

    As a noted economist said so eloquently, “liquidate everything and eliminate all debt and hold onto every dollar you’ve got…. You’re going to need every last one of them.”

  15. He criticized governments as failing to adequately help struggling residents and in turn landlords like himself, citing a tenant of his who got help from a county program for the first time last month.

    So, getting $1000+ a week for unemployment, which the guberment suddenly decided isn’t taxable after all, plus over $3000 in stim checks, wasn’t enough?”

  18. Headline from the Dumver Post:

    “We have never seen this much money”: Federal cash pours into Colorado’s cities and counties

    Those pensions will be made whole.

    1. Rising interest rates will also help. The central bankers’ endless period of extraordinary accommodation is pension plan kryptonite.

    2. “Under the new law, money must be spent one of four broad ways: responding to the pandemic and its negative economic impacts; helping essential workers; restoring lost revenue; or making investments in water, sewer and broadband infrastructure. It cannot pay for pensions or be used to cut taxes; the latter provision has frustrated conservatives.”

      I could understand water infrastructure.

      1. It cannot pay for pensions

        I’m sure some accounting tricks can circumvent that. If they could stuff the ballot box, how hard could this be?

        Anyway, I wouldn’t be surprised if my little burg ends up going on the $100M spending spree that voters shot down in 2019. There was some major butthurt at city hall over that.

    1. Sure, I trust the CCP to keep private financial transactions private…

      CPO Magazine – News, Insights and Resources for Data Protection, Privacy and Cyber Security Leaders

      Digital currency coin on top of Chinese Yuan showing privacy protection for Digital Yuan

      Data Privacy News · 3 min read
      China’s Digital Yuan Offers Privacy Protection for “Small Transactions”
      Scott Ikeda·April 5, 2021

      The People’s Bank of China has announced that its variation of cryptocurrency, the “digital yuan,” will allow anonymous transactions in small amounts. The move is meant to address the inherent contradiction between individual privacy protection and government needs found in a nationalized cryptocurrency, but it remains to be seen whether this protection will extend to any degree beyond third-party access to transaction records.
      …

      1. If the Fed is smart, they will keep issuing good old fashioned greenbacks. I can’t see government controlled Chicoin becoming a serious contender to Uncle Buck in the informal economy, due to fears about Winnie the Pooh’s oversight.

  20. Derek Chauvin’s trial is getting really messy.

    Friend of George Floyd Seeks to Avoid Testifying

    An attorney for Morries Hall, who was with George Floyd on the day of his death and has been accused of giving him drugs, said he would plead the Fifth if asked to testify in Derek Chauvin’s murder trial.

    MINNEAPOLIS (CN) — George Floyd’s acquaintance Morries Hall appeared in court Tuesday morning seeking to avoid taking the witness stand in the murder trial of Derek Chauvin, who knelt on Floyd’s neck after arresting him last Memorial Day.

    Before testimony began for the day, Judge Peter Cahill held a hearing on a motion by Hall to quash a subpoena. Hall was in the car Floyd was apprehended in on May 25, 2020, and both sides have requested his testimony. Hall appeared via Zoom from the Hennepin County Public Safety Center, across the street from the courtroom. He’s been held there since March 21, awaiting a June 9 court date for charges related to domestic abuse and violation of a protection order.

    Hall left town after Floyd’s death, heading to Texas. He eventually returned to Minnesota after being apprehended by Texas Rangers.

    His reasons for leaving the state were among the things Chauvin’s attorney Eric Nelson wanted to ask about. Those also included Floyd’s drug use on the day he died and behavior inside the Mercedes-Benz where he, Hall and Shawanda Hill were first apprehended.

    Hall’s attorney, Adrienne Cousins, said her client would not testify about any of that. He would plead the Fifth Amendment, she said, as to any of the events of May 25 and any questioning about Floyd’s drug use up to and including that day or his relationship to Floyd.

    Cousins pointed out that Minnesota’s third-degree murder statute has a broad reach when it comes to drug-related deaths. The statute allows third-degree murder convictions for “directly or indirectly, unlawfully selling, giving away, bartering, delivering, exchanging, distributing or administering a controlled substance” to someone who dies as a result. If Chauvin’s defense team prevails on its theory that Floyd died not because of Chauvin’s conduct but because of drug use, she said, Hall’s testimony could put him on the hook for Floyd’s death.

    “At this point in time, Mr. Hall has no immunity. He has been provided no immunity, no protection for his testimony whatsoever,” Cousins said. “I cannot envision any topics that Mr. Hall would be called to testify on that would be both relevant to the case [and] that would not incriminate him.”

    She said that Hall’s mere confirmation that he was with Floyd at the time could lead to prosecution for drugs allegedly found in the car and in the squad car officers attempted to put Floyd in. Floyd’s girlfriend Courteney Ross testified last week that she believed Hall had provided drugs to Floyd before.

    Nelson pushed for Hall to testify, but made little argument beyond outlining the issues he hoped to raise with Hall. Those included his decision to go to Texas, his apprehension, and several questions about his relationship with Floyd, Floyd’s drug use and the events of May 25. He noted that Hall had provided a fake ID to police on that day, and at some point after police arrived had been seen on a security camera throwing something away.

    Reluctant to rule out testimony completely, Cahill gave Nelson what he called “homework,” requesting a list of the questions Nelson intended to ask Hall so that he could rule on which would and would not be subject to Fifth Amendment privilege. Several of the issues Nelson brought up in court were straight out, he said, but potential testimony about Floyd falling asleep in the car before officers arrived could walk the line. “There’s really a very small, narrow line of topics that might be permissible,” the judge said.

    That followed a brief discussion with Cousins, prodding at Hall’s boundaries.

    “If we totally avoid the word drugs, and just have Mr. Hall say, ‘I was the passenger in the car’– which is already clear, there is video evidence…. Would you agree that that’s not incriminating?” Cahill asked.

    Cousins said that still put Hall in close proximity to Floyd around the time he ingested drugs, and could be sufficient to incriminate him on drug-related charges by virtue of his being in the car.

    Assistant Attorney General Matthew Frank said he was most interested in making sure these negotiations stayed behind-the-scenes. “Our dog in the fight is a fair trial for Mr. Chauvin — one trial,” he said. “And what we can’t have is invocation of this privilege in front of the jury.”

    He argued that placing Hall on the stand would likely violate Hall’s rights and allow Nelson to frame him as an alternate perpetrator.

    “Here there is a legitimate link in the chain from what he’s going to be asked about and quite a few potential crimes, not just the third-degree murder,” Frank said.

    https://youtu.be/7gfIAOW9fxY

    1. None of this even matters.

      Burn Loot Murder and Pantifa will be carjacking and murdering random motorists in every city all summer long, and anyone who dares to legally defend themselves will be the only ones going to jail.

      1. The jury was given reasonable doubt yesterday. Don’t expect Chauvin to be convicted of murder.

      2. Tl:dr

        MSM won’t cover this. I made it as easy as possible: excerpt with bolded text.

  21. The assistant attorney general wants to exclude potentially exculpatory evidence for a law enforcement officer to protect a serial criminal?! This is far from a fair trial for Derek Chauvin. Grounds for appeal are piling up.

    1. That should have been a reply to my previous post about Derek Chauvin’s trial, which is awaiting moderation.

    2. If the appeals hold sway, we may get to see the Sword of Damocles fall in the form of BLM riots in every major U.S. city.

    3. If Hall pleads the Fifth in front of the jury, there’s the jury’s reasonable doubt.

  22. I live next to Boston and my lowly renter status shall continue for the foreseeable future. Woo hoo! All the “owners” I know are giddy with what their houses are now reportedly worth, and what a great “investment” buying a house is. The real status symbol in my circles is being a small landlord and having tenants although it has been, ahem, a bit harder to find them lately. One landlady I know had to lower her asking rent significantly and took a few months to fill a vacancy.

    Sorry folks, I’ll sit this mania out, thank you very much. I’m still saving by renting even in my very desirable zip code. It’s OK, I am not “throwing my money away”. And gosh, I’ve made a lot in my IRA and other investments for 30 years but I don’t brag about it. According to this article, since I’m a R.E. “amateur”, I’m making the right decision:

    “Frankly, this is not the time for amateurs,” said Dana Bull, a Boston area real estate agent. “This is the big leagues here.”

    https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/05/competitive-housing-market-squeezing-real-estate-brokers.html

    1. a Boston area real estate agent

      Even the dregs of society in Boston are haughty.

  23. Markets
    If You Sell a House These Days, the Buyer Might Be a Pension Fund
    Yield-chasing investors are snapping up single-family homes, competing with ordinary Americans and driving up prices
    By Ryan Dezember
    The Wall Street Journal
    April 4, 2021 10:00 am ET

    A bidding war broke out this winter at a new subdivision north of Houston. But the prize this time was the entire subdivision, not just a single suburban house, illustrating the rise of big investors as a potent new force in the U.S. housing market.

    D.R. Horton Inc. built 124 houses in Conroe, Texas, rented them out and then put the whole community, Amber Pines at Fosters Ridge, on the block. A Who’s Who of investors and home-rental firms flocked to the December sale. The winning $32 million bid came from an online property-investing platform, Fundrise LLC, which manages more than $1 billion on behalf of about 150,000 individuals.

    The country’s most prolific home builder booked roughly twice what it typically makes selling houses to the middle class—an encouraging debut in the business of selling entire neighborhoods to investors.

    “We certainly wouldn’t expect every single-family community we sell to sell at a 50% gross margin,” the builder’s finance chief, Bill Wheat, said at a recent investor conference.

    From individuals with smartphones and a few thousand dollars to pensions and private-equity firms with billions, yield-chasing investors are snapping up single-family houses to rent out or flip. They are competing for houses with ordinary Americans, who are armed with the cheapest mortgage financing ever, and driving up home prices.

    “You now have permanent capital competing with a young couple trying to buy a house,” said John Burns, whose eponymous real estate consulting firm estimated that in many of the nation’s top markets, about one in every five houses is bought by someone who never moves in. “That’s going to make U.S. housing permanently more expensive,” he said.
    …

    1. “You now have permanent capital competing with a young couple trying to buy a house,”

      So how long until Wall St. tries to corner the grocery market? On the surface, that sounds impossible: if food prices rise then farmers will just produce more, right?

      But who would have thought that that the housing market could get cornered? What differentiates bubble 2.0, at least in my little burg, is that prices are sailing into the stratosphere, but new construction, unlike last time, has been much less active. Last time, new subdivisions were popping up all over town. This time, not so much.

      So, who says that Wall St. won’t find a way to curb food production, creating artificial scarcity? Sure, you can grow carrots and lettuce in your back yard, maybe even build a chicken coop, assuming the city allows you to do that. But you won’t be able to grow everything you need..

    2. You will own nothing and you will be happy. And note that they are buying up SFH, not condo buildings. It’s the land!

      1. “It’s the land!”

        And when today’s crop of greater fools is underwater and drowning in their leveraged bets after the next crash, collapsed land values will be one of the factors keeping them underwater.

    3. “That’s going to make U.S. housing permanently more expensive,” he said.

      Pottersville

    1. There’s plenty of non-black liberal arts college graduates that’ll swallow their pride and start paying down their college loans the old fashioned way!

    2. All my kids have worked in fast food service right through the pandemic, except for when they were laid off due to closed operations in a couple of instances. One of them was given the choice at one point of working or sitting at home for equivalent pay. I talked him into continuing to work: why miss out on the work and social experience, if given the choice?

  26. Corporate stooge Mitch McConnell tells his puppet masters to “stay out of politics” as he tries to masquerade as a populist. Not buying it, Mitch the Wall Street Bitch.

    ‘Stay out of politics,’ Republican leader McConnell tells U.S. CEOs, warns of ‘consequences’

    https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-georgia-mcconnell/stay-out-of-politics-republican-leader-mcconnell-tells-u-s-ceos-warns-of-consequences-idUSKBN2BS1R8

    WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell lashed out at corporate America on Monday, warning CEOs to stay out of the debate over a new voting law in Georgia that has been criticized as restricting votes among minorities and the poor.

    1. ‘We’re seeing widespread frothiness, bubbles, risk-taking and leverage,’ warns ‘Dr. Doom’ on state of stock-market
      Published: April 6, 2021 at 10:34 a.m. ET
      By Mark DeCambre
      Roubini sees trouble ahead if 10-year Treasury hits 2%.

      ‘We’re seeing widespread frothiness, bubbles, risk-taking and leverage…Lots of players have taken too much leverage and too much risk and some of them are going to blow up.’
      — Nouriel Roubini,

      That is prominent academic Nouriel Roubini, a professor of economics at the New York University Stern School of Business, explaining in an interview with Bloomberg TV that aired Tuesday that risk-taking on Wall Street is reaching dangerous levels, in his view.

      He told the business network that liquidity swirling in financial markets and aggressive use of borrowed money was likely to create further problematic episodes in markets where investors gorged on leverage to the detriment of the broader market.

      Roubini’s comments follow the meltdown of Archegos Capital Management, about two weeks ago, which sent ripples through markets, briefly and has so far resulted in Credit Suisse AG taking a $4.7 billion charge from lending to the family office run by Bill Hwang.
      …

      1. The Financial Times
        US interest rates
        US markets shift to price in Fed rate rise next year
        Analysts warn timetable is too ‘aggressive’ even as economy quickly recovers
        Colby Smith in New York yesterday

        The quickening US economic recovery has markets pricing in a Federal Reserve rate rise as soon as next year, but analysts warn this accelerated timetable is far too “aggressive”.

        Recent data pointing to a strong recovery in the labour market and leading indicators signalling rapid growth in both the services and factory sectors have prompted traders to sharpen their bets that the US central bank will lift interest rates from near-zero sooner than previously anticipated.

        Eurodollar futures, a closely tracked measure of interest rate expectations, now indicate the Fed will initiate lift-off by the end of 2022, with three additional interest rate increases pencilled in by early 2024. That stands in sharp contrast to what Fed officials have recently signalled, which is for rates to stay tethered to zero until at least 2024.

        “Because of the growth outlook, it makes sense that people are pricing in a rate hike before what the Fed’s [forecasts] are projecting, but 2022 seems particularly early,” said Seema Shah, chief strategist at Principal Global Investors. “The Fed has given very clear communication on its intention to let the economy run super hot.”

        Given the central bank’s commitment to its new approach to monetary policy — which involves it allowing inflation to run above its longstanding 2 per cent target to make up for prolonged periods of undershooting it — Shah expects the Fed will remain on hold until at least 2023.
        …

  32. WaPo’s problem isn’t with cancel culture ruining livelihoods. It’s with the term itself.

    By Didi Rankovic
    Posted 1:49 pm
    April 6, 2021

    The term “cancel culture” has been slowly but surely acquiring a negative connotation, even among those who in reality promote and execute it. This is evident when individuals or companies canceling somebody are at the same time quick to disassociate themselves from the phrase itself.

    The Washington Post appears to be aware of this shift as well, and has now mounted a curious defense of the phrase by accusing conservatives and people who use it to describe something that’s negative “culturally appropriating” the term from African Americans – only to be making it less and less appealing with every passing day.

    The problem that people have with cancel culture, though, doesn’t have to do with linguistics or race, but with it resulting in online mobs gathering too often unfairly and without proper reason, in knee-jerk fashion, destroying people’s reputations and livelihoods. Of course this was going to start acquiring negative overtones to more and more people, regardless of their politics or race.

    So the Washington Post seems like it’s eager to deflect from the real issue – namely, cancel culture – to dive into semantics instead.

    https://reclaimthenet.org/wapo-using-the-term-cancel-culture-is-cultural-appropriation/

    2. “culturally appropriating”

      It’s what everyone who came to America has been doing for centuries. The WaPo just hates America and Americans and wants us to hate each other.

  33. All these Monopolies in conjunction with corrupted Government and Agencies that have unleashed this fraudulent and criminal power grab on the US and the World, using a fraudulent Pandemic, as the evidence would show, should be condemned because of the massive harm they have caused to the World.
    The next shoe to drop will be the Mutant variant strain to keep the fraudulent looting and power grab going. Congress should conduct trials on proof of all their fake assertions.
    I would be interested in how the High Court would rule on Big Corporations right to discrimate and ban any non vaccinated person from right to engage in commerce, like right to buy food. Basically if Corporations assert this discrimination they are taking away the right to life if you don’t take some untested vaccine jab on a fraudulent Pandemic. Where is the proof of all their assertions, because fake news Monopoly isn’t proof along with censoring counter data.
    I don’t know how successful these Powerful Entities are going to be in the long run with this criminal and fraudulent power grab using a fake Pandemic to usher in medical tyranny and a looting of the populations with untested vaccines that got by FDA approval by a emergency Pandemic declared by inaccurate tests and fake Pandemic deaths declared . The data on deaths for 2020 do not show that a extra 400 thousand died from a new Pandemic in the
    US, and its more like 30 thousand, with 15 thousand being due to increased suicide deaths. This is how Insurance Companies have always determined the death rate of a Pandemic by comparing the Pandemic year with years before to deduce the death rate.
    So, you would think eventually this assault on Peoples Constitution protections will eventually make it to the High Court as to what powers these criminal fraudster Monopolies can assert.

    1. in the
      US, and its more like 30 thousand, with 15 thousand being due to increased suicide deaths.

      Don’t forget the 40,000 more deaths by drug overdose.

      1. There has got to be laws against the Government failing to do their duty and prevent a Monopolist Corporate takeover of the Country. Monopolies have merged with Government to divide and conquer the USA . Discrimination against Churches, crushing small business, going after White people as if they are breaking the law just existing with the false racist narratives. Refusing to apply equal justice under the law. Government condoning unlawful attacks on segments of the population that are law abiding Citizens, fraudulent Medical Tyranny, on and on. Monopoly control of the news.

        We must have laws on the books that can be asserted.

        1. going after White people as if they are breaking the law just existing

          I’m all for love, but gird yourself.

        2. going after White people as if they are breaking the law

          You don’t get it, do you. There must be 400 years of discrimination just to break even. That’s reparations.

  35. You don’t get it .
    There has been thousands of years of abuse to all races in the course of human history where most the populations were nothing more than slaves.
    Reparations 160 years after trillion spent in welfare , affirmative action for 50 year is not inclusive to all races that suffered the tides of misfortune, including Whites.
    All races were treated like slaves during the Monopolist period from 1850 to 1915 until laws were enacted where people got more than slave treatment. The Great Depression and World War 11 wiped out all races and some were exterminated.
    Reparations at this point isn’t inclusive enough to other races that have suffered the tides of misfortune, including Whites.
    Current Whites are being prejudiced and called racist and abused when all races deserve reparations for the injustices of history.

    The racist story is designed to take the heat off the current Robber Barons who are looting the Country dry and are causing all this division.

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