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A Sense Of Deja Vu That It Is 2006 All Over Again

A report from ABC News in Australia. “There is a construction boom taking place around the world, as governments look to build themselves out of the pandemic’s economic woes. Master Builders chief executive Denita Wawn said the federal government’s HomeBuilder Scheme had created a lot of work but had caused ‘extreme pressures in the supply chain.’ ‘We’ve got a [building] boom across the entire country which is very unusual,’ she said. ‘It’s putting a huge amount of pressure on the supply chain as whole, as not only Australia but the world is using housing to stimulate economies.'”

The Bradenton Herald in Florida. “Hey, we just sold our home in this crazy market. Ironically, selling it was more challenging than I expected, and hopefully, it closes by June 2, 2021. I’m moderately conservative regarding risk, and I did not buy a replacement property in advance. Good move because, to my horror, I had about the only home in Manatee County that took more than a year to sell.”

“Now the cost of a decent replacement home has gone up sky-high. Homes are selling for more than asking price and in just hours after being listed. I have a sense of deja vu that it is 2006 all over again. My wife Jeannine has her heart set on a gorgeous 55 and over community in South Manatee County. She likes the Cascades because it’s gated, has an incredible clubhouse and top-notch amenities.”

“Scary, but a two-bedroom, two-bath with a den St. Kitts model in the Cascades that went for $290,000 in December is now approaching $420,000.”

“I’m getting stressed out. Many home prices have increased by 18 percent or more for Manatee County in the last 12 months. I remember 2008 when a hot market collapsed practically overnight. Back then, I remember a home valued at $720,000 declining to $450,000, dropping in value by 40% in a few months.”

From New Jersey.com. “Jasco Management, which owns dozens of small apartment houses in Jersey City, keeps a ledger that illustrates how New Jersey’s coronavirus eviction moratorium has hammered landlords. Flip the page to revenues and there’s a list of 50 tenants who haven’t paid rent for more than a year. They run the gamut from low income-families who clearly are struggling to make ends meet to well-heeled millennials, according to Dennis Branflick, vice president of Jasco.”

“‘I’ve got someone who owes me $26,000 and it goes down from there,’ said Branflick, browsing a list that totals $500,000 in unpaid rents. ‘I have a few tenants with large balances and they haven’t really paid anything since the start of the pandemic. They stopped answering calls and have not applied for rental assistance.'”

“New Jersey tenants owe as much as $2 billion in back rent, according to the New Jersey Apartment Association estimates. Landlords, who still are required to make payments on their loans and financing, have been prohibited by state and federal mandates from evicting renters in arrears for more than a year now.”

“Lawyer Allen Hammer, who owns and manages thousands of apartments in New Jersey, New York and eastern Pennsylvania, said his investment company has the resources to manage non-payments by 10% of its tenants. That’s not the case for small landlords who depend on rents for their own monthly household income, he said.”

“‘The landlords who have been serving the poorer tenants, those landlords are being hit pretty hard. Many won’t survive,’ he said. ‘Anybody who believes all this money is going to be paid by tenants is mistaken. They are just going to move out at night and just disappear.'”

The Real Deal on California. “Mohamed Hadid’s controversial and soon-to-be-demolished Bel Air spec mansion has found a buyer after four months on the market. Developer Bruce Lifton is under contract to buy the home for $8.5 million, court records show. The saucer-shaped home — partially built and pegged at 30,000 square feet — was put into receivership. The New York Post first reported the sale, but did not identify the buyer.”

“The long and contentious battle that pitted Hadid against his neighbors and the city over the property at 901 Strada Vecchia Road appears to be approaching its end. Lifton signed a conditional contract in February, but bids were still being accepted until Wednesday morning. In 2019, an L.A. court ordered Hadid to demolish the mansion and put it up for sale, siding with neighbors who alleged the construction — derisively dubbed by some ‘Starship Enterprise’ — violated city codes and was an ‘imminent’ danger to the public. Neighbors worried the whole building could slide down the side of the hill it was being built on.”

“The court-appointed receiver tried to pitch the property to a neighbor, who declined to pay more than $5 million — about what it will cost to demolish the structure. The sale is expected to close shortly after July 1, provided the court approves. If the deal falls through, the property could be auctioned off, the receiver told the court.”

“Hadid has been embroiled in a legal battle over the development for years. He is estimated to have poured $50 million into its construction and had intended to sell the completed mansion for over $100 million. Hadid won’t see any of the proceeds from the sale. Some of it will go toward the demolition cost, and the remainder will settle administrative fees and pay off property liens, according to records.”

“‘Demolish this house? Never!’ Hadid said during an interview with Town & Country in 2017. ‘That would be insane. This house will last forever. Bel Air will fall before this will.'”

From Better Dwelling. “The Canadian economy is picking up speed, and so is the number of consumer insolvencies. Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy (OSB) data shows March saw a sudden increase in filings. The unexpected monthly increase was the biggest in almost a decade. Consumer insolvencies are now at the highest level since the pandemic first began.”

“Canadian consumer insolvencies, which include consumer proposals and bankruptcies, made an abrupt climb. Creditor programs and government aid helped delay, or even drop, insolvency filings. However, just because lenders defer payments, doesn’t mean people can pay them later. It buys enough time to fix some household debt issues, but for many, it only delays the filings.”

“‘They remained low over the last twelve months with government aid programs and creditor flexibility helping many people who were already facing insolvency delay the inevitable. Now it seems we are starting to see that backlog emerge,’ said Mark Rosen, chair of CAIRP, an industry group representing insolvency professionals.”

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This Post Has 113 Comments

  1. ‘not only Australia but the world is using housing to stimulate economies’

    Not new to HBB readers, but out in the open fer sure. These guys have screwed up royal.

    ‘Scary, but a two-bedroom, two-bath with a den St. Kitts model in the Cascades that went for $290,000 in December is now approaching $420,000’

    Now that’s some sound lending! If this is remotely true, the shack market is doomed. I see similar stuff all around the US now.

      1. Not to mention the wallet draining, resource consuming depreciation at a rate of $4 per square foot… Year after year after year.

    3. Here in desirable neighborhoods in the Salt Lake-Provo Metro, townhome prices went from around 300k last year to 400k now, and houses from 400k to 600-700k. It’s all supply and demand I’m told, plus everyone here has a VP job at Adobe or something.

      Lots and lots of construction though, thousands of units on tiny lots as far as I could see in the Eagle Mountain area. A realtor told me I’d better buy now because prices will just continue to go up because of that supply and demand curve. We walked around the neighborhoods and didn’t see many kids despite it being a sunny Saturday spring afternoon. I’m not sure what to think.

      1. didn’t see many kids despite it being a sunny Saturday spring afternoon

        In Salt Lake-Provo Metro?!?!

        1. Yep, it was shocking to see so few kids in that area. We were driving and walking around Eagle Mountain Saturday for at least four hours. I counted 3 kids in total.

          Maybe all the kids were inside? It was a sunny, warm day though, temps high 70s.

          Lots of construction trucks filled the streets though, doing home renovations I guess.

          My wife thinks it’s a ghost town, I tend to agree. The realtors (aka liars) told us it’s a tough market, houses sell immediately, and there are no vacancies. The open houses were relatively empty though and there were not many listed on the sign-in sheet.

          1. “We walked around the neighborhoods and didn’t see many kids despite it being a sunny Saturday spring afternoon. I’m not sure what to think.”

            Once you get a “Bishop Recommend” the frosty wall magically melts.

            (LDS: inactive)

          2. Once you get a “Bishop Recommend” the frosty wall magically melts.

            I once met some non LDS who moved to Park City. They told us that the LDS welcome wagon arrived days after they moved in and informed them which ward they belonged to. They informed the welcome wagon folks that they were parishioners at the local Catholic parish.

            They did mention that after that encounter things became “chilly” with their LDS neighbors.

      2. I’m not sure what to think.

        Millions lost their jobs during the Plague Year. Yet the real estate market boomed. This indicates this current market frenzy is driven by the wealthier types.

        Also, while the number of home sales – transactions – increased dramatically ( http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/data/home-sales-existing.aspx?showCompleteHistory=true ), the number of houses listed for sale was lower: https://www.businessinsider.com/housing-inventory-real-estate-market-40-percent-fewer-homes-2021-4

        So, eventually, that top group is going to become satiated, leading to reduced sales. The economy is going to boom once covid lifts. Slowly, those people who were suppressed from listing will list. Then combined with satiation from the smaller group of wealthier people – 10 to 20 million households perhaps (pulling that number out of the air but almost 7 million houses sold in 2020: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/22/existing-home-sales-in-2020-were-highest-since-in-over-a-decade.html ) – should slow the transaction rate while pushing up inventory.

        THEN, on top of that, I saw a report that “equity growth among homeowners will prevent defaults and foreclosures by allowing them to sell at a profit” instead of walking away because the have to bring money to the table: http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/05172021_home_equity.asp

        To me, this indicates the current frenzy will ease as inventory increases just as the sales pace slows and forbearance periods end.

        On top of that, market psychology change due to the covid lift – the work at home folks will be doing less work at home, as well as the non WFH folks – September 4th, the extended unemployment benefits run out, pushing people back into the labor force: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/11/unemployed-americans-worry-about-getting-cut-off-from-benefits-early-.html

        That means less surfing Zillow and moving the daily concerns to more prosaic issues.

        Again, another indicator suggesting abatement of the current frenzy.

        It seems hard to believe – we’ve been conditioned by the past 10 years, since 2011, to see the housing market as a juggernaut that only gets pricier and more sales and more bidding wars, leading to this current vertical-price increase frenzy. I see the same movements you do in house prices and inventory. And especially with the pedal-to-the-metal by the government – low interest rates, vast MBS buying by the Fed, and whatever others ministrations they are applying to the bond market gears to keep mortgage rates low.

        But we also have seen the market is capable of a turnaround, especially after a superheated phase. They say the lending is sound – I’m inclined to believe it – and a 2.2 trillion chunk of the outstanding mortgages is on the Fed’s balance sheet: https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/h41/current/h41.htm – out of 10 trillion outstanding mortgage debt ( https://www.newyorkfed.org/microeconomics/hhdc.html ). So even if there are widespread foreclosures, 20 pct of the mortgages are already on the Fed’s balance sheet and it will quickly gobble up whatever the market wishes to unload.

        And then, with a booming economy, there’s inflation. We saw “transitory” 4.2 YOY report earlier this month. How transitory is it going to be? Maybe the Fed will raise rates in response? The raising and lowering of rates is like a bellows to the housing market. But if they are also seeing these same headwinds, and continue to try and keep the pedal to the metal to… what, drive the market yet higher prior to a slowdown? But then… don’t slowdowns have their own momentum? The Federal Funds Rate is at essentially zero. Mortgage rates are again at 3 pct. They are lower in various places in Europe, so perhaps they can be pushed lower? I don’t know.

        Anyway, I suspect the frenzy will start to abate in 4th quarter 2021, if not sooner. OTOH, I have been wildly wrong about the housing market for a long time, so caveat emptor. But perhaps that rare moment of correctness will happen this year. Regardless, these are (hopefully accurate) data points to consider.

      3. With no supply constraint on new building, local housing bubbles in Utah tend to quickly self destruct.

        1. Utah:
          If you look on newhomesource and zillow, there is sooo much SFH/town homes and apartments being built between Ogden to Payson, and in St. George. Seems like a bit too much and could spell t-r-o-u-b-l-e for builders as the interest rate creeps higher… The builders and their subs- electricians, sheet rockers, etc, were creamed during the last bust in Utah and many weren’t saving their $ and lost their own homes in foreclosure.

          I’ve been looking for rentals (in Riverton, Bluffdale and South Jordan – same product as Eagle Mountain) and it seems like a lot of the new construction goes up for rent before the homes are finished being built. My guess is investors are buying these homes, not families with lots of… kids.

          About 6 weeks ago I noticed the beginning of price drops, back-on-market and “accepting backup offers”. Before this, it “seemed” like 98% of all listings went pending within days – so terribly discouraging!
          This is what I started hearing from realtors about 6 weeks ago
          1) My ReMax realtor friend told me she started noticing a slow-down, then another agent in the office saw it, then by week’s end, the entire office all saw it. She didn’t know why it was slowing, all she said was, “maybe higher inventory and less buyers”.
          2) We went to go see this home Home at 14818 S Pristine Dr
          What do you think of this 5 bds • 5 ba • 6,344 sqft home I found on Zillow? https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/14818-S-Pristine-Dr-Draper-UT-84020/12937896_zpid/?utm_campaign=androidappmessage&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=txtshare
          Original ask 1.5m, drop to 1.35m, drop again to 1.28m. The carpet all over the house was filthy and stained and the basement smelled like… sewage. Kind of a busy road behind house so noise & traffic pollution. This house isn’t worth a penny over 750K, maybe 900K in a very over-inflated market…
          Realtor says she doesn’t understand why they haven’t received a single offer (uh, maybe because it stinks?!). Realtor also says, “was that just an anomaly? Did California suddenly stop moving here?”
          3) At another open house the weekend before Mother’s Day, realtor tells me “the market above 800K are cooling off.” Why I ask? She says, “prices are too high so buyers aren’t coming up with the down payment.”
          4) I work with about 8 to 10ish title companies who have been sending my company property requests to find out if the homes/lots in escrow have any outstanding HOA dues, water payments, or liens that need to be collected or settled before closing. These property requests have been coming in from these title companies non-stop for the last year. About 3 weeks ago, the requests stopped. I’ve had 1 single request in 3 weeks. Weird! So I asked 2 different title companies if the market is slowing gown? They both said, “yes.” I asked why? They both said they weren’t sure, but maybe it’s lower inventory. Yeah, inventory is low, but I’ve been watching it rise and it’s higher than it’s been all year… (I’ll ask the other 6 or so title companies what’s up this week…)
          5) Today, a client came into the office who owns 2 rental properties. The client’s sister is a realtor who told her the market is starting to calm down. Our client also said she has a realtor client who also told her last Thursday that the market is calming down.

          I’m watching the new listings above 600K. Up until last week these listings were being listed at $200+/sq ft, but now some listings are starting to list around $175/sq ft. Slightly more reasonable. A realtor told me, some appraisers are favoring buyers and aren’t approving these insane ask prices. He said, if the appraiser has been in the business for 30 years, he will refer to pre-covid prices and appraise the value closer to that number rather than these detached-from-reality prices.

          I’ll keep watching for developing trends…

          I’m seeing Tesla’s everywhere. Lambo’s and Ferrari’s too – in Utah? What the? Mega cash-out-refi’s is my best guess… I remember in 2008 while living in Redondo Beach, CA, BMW’s and Mercedses were everywhere (that’s mostly normal in CA anyway) but when the economy collapsed, the beamers and Benz were lined up all along busy streets with for sale signs in the windows. I’ll be expecting Tesla’s and Audi’s to be lined up around the streets of Draper when this thing goes belly-up.

          Most realtors around here agree, local Utah’s aren’t paid well enough to afford these house prices. There are worker jobs in Utah but very little high paying leadership and management positions. Adobe is the only big tech company in Utah. Most of the tech jobs in Utah are start-ups involved in web, database, ancestry, and accounting software jobs. This doesn’t even compare to Seattle tech, San Jose tech, Southern Cal tech. When things start heading south, start-up investors pull the plug on their $ real quick.

          1. Interesting insight!
            I definitely see a LOT of Teslas everywhere in Denver too.
            Also homes selling for an overpriced $650k in January, painted white, and now pending for a way overpiced $1M.

  2. ‘The landlords who have been serving the poorer tenants, those landlords are being hit pretty hard. Many won’t survive,’ he said. ‘Anybody who believes all this money is going to be paid by tenants is mistaken. They are just going to move out at night and just disappear’

    But we’re all in this tagethah? Note that the guberments say “oh sure we got a buncha money headed yer way.”

    DONG – it ain’t coming!

    1. DONG – it ain’t coming!

      A lot of Victim’s Studies graduates are still waiting for their student loan jubilee. The were counting on $50K, then lowered their expectations to $10K. Now even that seems to be going nowhere.

      1. Now even that seems to be going nowhere.
        Let’s hope it goes nowhere. How unfair would it be to the students who worked through college and graduated a year or two later because they did not want huge student loan debt not to mention the parents that paid for college.

  3. ‘He is estimated to have poured $50 million into its construction and had intended to sell the completed mansion for over $100 million. Hadid won’t see any of the proceeds from the sale’

    Could it be? His California shack is worth less than zero? He was forced to give it away!!

    BTW, that’s some fine building inspection you guys have out there.

    1. Like WTF?

      Are they using gold plated bulldozers?

      “who declined to pay more than $5 million — about what it will cost to demolish the structure.”

    2. “California shack is worth less than zero?”

      … and that’s the thing with rapidly depreciating assets like houses. A stock can go to zero and your losses are defined. A house? Housesgo negative.

      Enjoy your “investment”!😂😂😂👍

    3. I just talked to a long time friend of mine in San Diego. She told me she can’t take California any more and put a deposit on a house in Texas. She raised her kids here, is devout in her faith, and has been a pillar of her community for decades…just throwing in the towel, packing up, and leaving. Cognitively, it’s been obvious for a while that CA is disintegrating, but I somehow I never really felt it at an emotional level until today. So sad.

      1. Cognitively, it’s been obvious for a while that CA is disintegrating

        I noticed that 25 years ago. Friends who still live there tell us that it has become far worse than I can possibly imagine.

  4. Are you concerned that the value of your cryptocurrency investments could melt away like the Wicked Witch of the West did in The Wizard of Oz?

    2. I’M MELTING!

      When the Wicked Witch (Margaret Hamilton) sets The Scarecrow (Ray Bolger) on fire, Dorothy (Judy Garland) accidentally kills the witch with water.

    3. Speaking of the Wizard of Oz, did you catch Musk’s latest Bitcoin tweet? It’s almost like he is trying to stick a fork in the grandaddy of cryptocurrencies.

      Tech News
      Bitcoin price drops sharply after Musk teases selling
      A potential sale comes just days after Musk said the company planned to hold rather than sell the bitcoin it already has.
      Elon Musk in Los Angeles on June 13, 2019. Mike Blake / Reuters file
      May 16, 2021, 3:55 PM PDT / Updated May 16, 2021, 3:57 PM PDT / Source: CNBC.com
      By Jessica Bursztynsky, CNBC

      Tesla CEO Elon Musk implied in a Twitter exchange Sunday afternoon that the electric vehicle maker sold or may sell the rest of its bitcoin holdings, sending the price of the cryptocurrency down.

      Bitcoin dipped nearly 8 percent to around $44,000 per coin.

      A Twitter user who goes by @CryptoWhale said, “Bitcoiners are going to slap themselves next quarter when they find out Tesla dumped the rest of their holdings. With the amount of hate @elonmusk is getting, I wouldn’t blame him…”

      Musk replied, “Indeed.”

      A potential sale comes just days after Musk said the company planned to hold rather than sell the bitcoin it already has and intended to use it for transactions as soon as mining transitions to more sustainable energy.
      …

      1. The price should be RISING as eager buyers jump at the opportunity to snap ’em up as they become available. After all, they aren’t making any more bitcoins (with a delay).

        So much for inherent value.

      2. as soon as mining transitions to more sustainable energy.

        Along the same lines, how about you stop producing those fancy Elon golf carts until their energy balance is positive?

      3. Has it ever occurred to you that cryptos may be just another Rothschild scam to vacuum up more fiat currency from the sheep?

        1. A dark conspiracy is not required when the simple stupidity of the victims can entirely explain.

          1. Satoshi Nakamoto: Does he exist? Where does he live? Why does he not go public and bask in the glory of his creation?

            Questions like this cast doubt on the origins of cryptos.

          2. “Satoshi Nakamoto: Does he exist?”

            Precisely.

            Start digging into the backgrounds of so called market experts and others who speak with authority and they lead to a dead end. No joking. I found this out back in 2015 or so.

          3. You just need a few soundbites to separate greater fools from their money, such as, “Bitcoin is the new gold.”

          4. I find it decidedly interesting that “BitCoin” has “Coin” as part of it’s name. Not BitShares, BitMoney, BitCerts, but, BitCOIN. You don’t have to be a Psychologist to see it’s a pretty transparent, psychologically manipulative tactic to indicate it has some intrinsic value to prospective buyer(s). This seems to ring even more true when you look at the color of fabricated coin itself, which is, you guessed it…GOLD. “Gee, ain’t it purty? It gotta be wurth sump’n!”

          5. when you look at the color of fabricated coin itself

            Similar to the pictures of some of the gals I met through online dating years ago. The picture isn’t the real thing.

      1. Is 23% alot?

        How about 35%?

        The crypto market has lost 23% of its value in just the last 5 days
        Carla Mozée
        May. 17, 2021, 01:18 PM
        — The market capitalization of global cryptocurrencies has dropped by 23% in just the last five days, according to data on CoinMarketCap.
        — The Bitcoin has fallen roughly 35% since hitting all-time high in mid-April.
        — Tesla CEO Elon Musk has been responsible for recent swings in the cryptocurrency as he laments the amount of energy used to mine.
        …

          2. Not if the money was never there except in imagination.

            It would be interesting to find out just how many USD (and other currencies) were used to purchase a pattern of ones and zeroes.

  5. “Scary, but a two-bedroom, two-bath with a den St. Kitts model in the Cascades that went for $290,000 in December is now approaching $420,000.”

    Were seeing comparable (40 percentish) gains in the prices homes sell for in our area compared to BC (Before Covid) pricing, when a typical 40 years old 4br place would have gone for around $800,000. Recent numbers for comparables have been “from the low millions.”

    Clearly the pandemic stimulus is working!

    1. Or better, if you prefer housing to be affordable for people who just want a place to live in rather than a mania driven investment property.

      1. No question. But I come at this from the stand point that these bubbles shouldn’t happen to begin with. The government constantly with its fingers on the scale has buttf-cked this country

      2. Isn’t debt a trickle up financial product?

        Person doesn’t have enough cash so he takes out debt to get a thing. He gets the loan from someone with excess cash. Then spends X amount of time paying it back. Money they could have spent on other stuff. The person receiving the debt payment is passively making money on money he didn’t immediately need anyway as it was sequestered away for lending.

        The PTB love encouraging debt. Seems awfully trickle-up though.

        I heard a commentator cheering the frenzied housing market saying homeowners come out of a sale with a “big check in their pocket”. But because everything else has appreciated similarly, they plow that check right back into real estate and take on another (probably large) mortgage. But I’m sure the commentator knew that.

        1. “The PTB love encouraging debt. Seems awfully trickle-up though.”

          It gets wonky when rates are near zero…

          1. …requiring federal guarantees and Fed securitization of mortgages in order for current levels of mortgage lending to happen. The private market for loanable funds would deliver far less mortgages at these low interest rates, supersized loan sizes, and shoddy customer credit ratings.

    3. There is nobody I want to see suffer more than millennial used house buyers.

      And no, you don’t win a participation trophy this time.

    4. “Last year, homeowners spent an average of $13,138 on household projects, according to HomeAdvisor’s new 2020 State of Home Spending report.”

      Nothing like throwing money away on maintenance… My investment funds don’t have holding costs that high.

      1. Last year, homeowners spent an average of $13,138 on household projects

        That’s a lot of granite countertops

        1. I think 2020 will be an anomaly year for home improvements. Lots of spending on home offices and basement expansions. And I bet a lot of gardens.

    5. All of the foreclosed FBs and cratered 401(k)s will be the bankers’ burnt offerings to their god, Moloch.

  8. The 2020 election was stolen.

    Joe Biden will never be the legitimately elected president of the United States.

    1. Ask people what the odds are that 89% of WI turned out to vote. Natural odds (sigma) of that event is 1 in 3.2 million chance. The people who hate Trump don’t even care that the election results strain any credibility. Just sweep it under the rug

    2. apparently landlords have to do nothing but apply (unless i am reading the article incorrectly). So the property bubble goes on thanks to the US fed taxpayers.

      1. So is the plan for U.S. federal taxpayers to chip in order to make California landlords whole?

        “We’re all in this together.”

  10. An MT Skull leads to MT Pockitz. And that’s where the “we” comes into play with ‘we’re all in this together.”

  11. Why is it that the MSM studiously ignores the role that Democrat malgovernance and hug-a-thug DAs play in emboldening the criminal element and spurring the “pandemic-related” exodus out of urban centers?

    Suspect, 18, in New York subway slashing spree ‘is caught with a bloodied knife and one of the victim’s backpacks’ after four passengers were randomly stabbed including one in the eye’

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9585249/Suspect-18-New-York-subway-slashing-spree-caught-bloodied-knife.html

    A suspect in Friday’s terrifying New York subway slashing spree that saw four people randomly stabbed and a fifth sucker punched was caught with a bloodied knife and a victim’s backpack, prosecutors say.

    Joseph Foster, 18, was charged Sunday with first-degree robbery, two counts of second-degree robbery and criminal possession of a weapon over his alleged role in the shocking attacks which left one victim blind in one eye.

  12. “‘Demolish this house? Never!’ Hadid said during an interview with Town & Country in 2017. ‘That would be insane. This house will last forever. Bel Air will fall before this will.’”

    The Titanic is unsinkable!

  14. The hypocrisy of the Soros scum and their Democrat-Bolshevik ideological fellow travelers is breathtaking.

    BLM co-founder, with $3M real estate portfolio, says Black homeownership is a way to ‘disrupt white supremacy’

    https://www.foxbusiness.com/real-estate/blm-co-founder-3m-real-estate-portfolio-black-homeownership-disrupt-white-supremacy

    Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors, who has a real estate portfolio worth more than $3 million, on Saturday shared a report about the history of racism in the housing market.

    “Black Americans And The Racist Architecture of Homeownership,” is part of an NPR documentary series, “We Hold These Truths,” on American democracy.

    1. 1. Get there 4 hours early
      2. Get offered an extra 30k for a f-ing lot from other idiot
      3. Turn down making 6500 an hour bc Muh Beautiful View someday
      4. Live in a place which will run out of water for SURE leaving you with essentially nothing.

      1. Live in a place which will run out of water for SURE

        It’s going to be epic when it happens.

  21. It just gets more and more ridiculous!

    From NPR, Coronavirus FAQ: Should I Get My Antibodies Checked After I Get Vaccinated?

    “[T]he Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) does not recommend checking for antibodies after vaccination. Their reasoning includes the fact that, while there are several COVID-19 antibody tests being used by commercial labs, most look for [anti-nucleocapsid] antibodies that are different than the ones produced by the vaccines in use, so they won’t offer much information.”

    Increasingly however, Ostrosky tells NPR, labs are also producing tests that can detect antibodies to the spike protein.

    These still are largely too premature to use, says Dr. Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at the Baylor College of Medicine. “The test results will show the number of antibodies the person has to the spike protein, but we have no idea yet how many antibodies a person needs to be protected.”

    Labs are currently working on understanding the level of antibodies that indicate protection, says Ostrosky. Since the tests are authorized by the FDA, commercial labs can and are making the tests available to individuals, but for now the tests come without enough context, says Ostrosky. “Someone could have no antibodies, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they have no protection against the virus. It could be that if exposed, other helper cells, such as B and T cells, would come to the rescue as a result of vaccination.”

    1. Anyone in my sphere that attempts to legitimize the coronascam hobgoblin promptly gets told to STFU or GTFO.

      Short menu.

    2. Fauci is out there claiming that the reason the flu disappeared is because people were wearing masks. But somehow wearing masks did not make covid disappear. Now the masks can distinguish between the influenza virus and SARS Cov2. It is >95% effective against influenza but didn’t do squat to stop the covid pandemic. This nonsensical lunatic is going to single handedly destroy the credibility of the medical science for a hundred years to come.

      1. Seriously, does ANYONE bother to do ANY thinking around here? 🙄 Flu and COVID are not the same disease, so they do not spread the same way. Flu spreads by touching your nose with contaminated fingers. COVID spreads on aerosolized droplets. I’m pretty sure a mask knows the difference between a finger and a microdroplet.

        1. Yet again you impress us with your formidable biomedical intelligence and knowledge. If flu does not spread by droplets, how does wearing masks, as Fauci claims, totally wipe out the flu? These two things can’t both be true.

          1. formidable biomedical intelligence and knowledge

            PSA: She didn’t know anything about the immune system in February 2020. I was posting dumbed-down YT videos for her.

        2. High infectivity and pathogenicity of influenza A virus via aerosol and droplet transmission

          This reference title is for you Oxide. You can search for the paper in pubmed, read it, and then get back to us with an update on your comment above.

          1. Wait, did Fauci say that flu does not spread by droplets? 🙄 Of course flu spreads by droplets:

            1. Inhale a small droplet
            2. Inhale a large droplet
            3. Hand transmission of a large droplet onto a surface, followed by hand transmission of that large droplet into mucosal cavity.

            As for the paper you cited, the abstract is incomplete. The abstract implies that flu spreads ONLY by inhalation and not surface transmission, which of course is misleading, as hand-to-surface transmission is well-known. The paper does mention hand-to-surface transmission at the end of the discussion:

            “…Surface-to-hand-to-mucosa contacts were not considered in this study. … further studies of exposure are needed, to determine … most importantly, the role of contaminated surfaces in transmission of influenza.”

            Of course, even the flimsiest mask will prevent surface transmission, which is what my comment was about. That is, masks will filter out the fraction of total flu that is transmitted by hand-to-surface and not by droplets. That fraction is still not known, and this paper didn’t study it. However, we DO know that COVID does NOT spread through surfaces. So I will update my comment to say that masks directly DO distinguish between COVID and SOME of the flu.

            The paper goes on to state that larger flu droplets are more likely to cause symptoms or severe illness than small droplets because large droplets impart a larger inoculum. Smaller droplets are more likely to go through a mask; however, they seem to cause fewer symptoms because of the smaller inoculum.

            Given that, there could be a second way that a mask could prevent flu while not preventing COVID. Imagine someone who wears a mask and also has a flu shot. The mask filters out the large droplets which cause symptoms, and the partial immunity from the shot can attack the small amount of virus in the small droplets which pass through the mask. The result of that combination would be fewer overall cases of flu. So while the mask doesn’t “know” which virus it’s filtering out, the mask DOES play a part in preventing more flu cases than preventing COVID cases.

        3. “A 2018 study from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) also discovered infectious influenza virus particles in “fine-aerosol samples” from exhaled breath and spontaneous coughs. Though more research needs to be done, researchers say that the virus be found in “aerosol particles small enough to remain suspended in air and present a risk for airborne transmission.””

          Ordinary masks do not filter out virus particles. Only N95 rated masks (or better) will eliminate virus particles. There are no observational studies or experiments that demonstrate that the wearing of non-rated masks and ordinary medical masks prevents the spread of airborne viral diseases in populations.

          Masks are virtue signaling devices.

          1. Its always interesting to me that a common expression from the medical community is that more studies are needed on a subject matter. This is really interesting when I remember studies like this going on a half century ago .

            So funny that all of a sudden they are in the dark about well know established medical facts and they have to subject populations to trial and error masks and lock downs , as if we just came out of the dark ages.
            Big Pharmacy proposes they have a vaccine solution to a virus, but they didn’t know that lock downs and masks weren’t effective in stopping transmission.
            In spite of people not being sick not considered a virus spreader before, PCR inaccurate tests establish that non sick people are super spreaders of a condition affecting a small percentage of the population. If this was true you would of had millions dying of this flu .
            The regular flu totally vanishing is just evidence of fraud of the PCR tests, and the fraud associate with incentives given to lable any death Covid. Masks didn’t eliminate the regular flu, and Fauci insults the intelligent of any thinking person.

            This tall tale of letting people go in droves to the grocery store , but being 6 feet apart with useless masks, but the rest of the time your locked down, defies any logic. This is when I knew it was a medical fraud to rig the election , push vaccines as the only solution, destroy small business, loot the tax coffers, and provide A diversion so other objectionable power grabs could be pulled off.
            The exact timing of censorship of any news that disputes the ridiculous narratives, is a dead give away of a massive fraud done for this insurrection by forces that want to rule.
            I predict that fake news will go to racial narratives this summer triggering riots, as the let up on the mask and lock downs take place which will be equal!y effective in making life adnormal and threatening.
            At least half the Country Citizens will be demonized as White Terrorist. Than they will go back to the threat of the new variant strains requiring lock downs again.
            Whatever these Entities are planning to do, they have to have control of the populations in one way or another, to keep normal from coming back.

            And Big Pharmacy, that doesn’t seem to care about killing 250 thousand a year in the US by meds taken exactly as percribed, will continue with their Medical Tyranny.
            The best that could come out of this would be a final analysis of the medical frauds and a rejection of the harm and fraud of Big Pharmacy.
            Its a fake Pandemic that was pre planned to stop the popular movement of people taking back the US from the corrupted Government working on behalf of a One World Order insurrection power grab.

          2. more studies are needed on a subject matter.

            Common code for “we need more grant money.”

      2. With about 50% of the people at the NIH refusing to be vaccinated against Covid-19, I think the credibility of the medical establishment in this country is about minus 99 percent.

        What do the physicians, PhDs, technical staff and others at the NIH know that the rest of the world doesn’t know? Even an idiot would be suspicious of the Government if half of the people at the HQ of the World’s leading medical establishment (the NIH) refused to be vaccinated.

        1. NIH headquarters is in Maryland. As of today, 2/3 (66%) of Maryland adults have received at least one vaccine dose. Given that vaccine supply became widely available only 3 weeks ago, it’s still too soon to determine who is still “waiting” to be vaccinated and who is “refusing” to be vaccinated. And IIUC, gov agencies aren’t keeping track of how many employees are being vaccinated, so I don’t know where you’re sourcing the specific numbers for NIH.

          1. so I don’t know where you’re sourcing the specific numbers for NIH

            Fauci before Congress.

          3. Since agencies aren’t asking, Fauci didn’t specifically know. So he used ~60%, which is where the state of MD was at the time.

    3. Redpilled Redhead:

      thanks for the links to the CA Math Equity question from earlier. (yesterday’s post)

  23. From reddit/r/denver:

    “I’ll wear a mask in any public situation for the foreseeable future. I’m concerned about variants that can get past the vaccine protection and frankly of catching other diseases like the flu now that everyone is going to go maskless…”

    “I’ve always wanted it to be socially acceptable to wear a mask in public. I will continue to wear one until the point its so uncommon that I start to draw attention to myself.”

    “I agree in general that it’s no big deal and will definitely be incorporating mask wearing for the rest of my life”

    Reddit is a cuck website. These people believe Joe Biden won the election. They worship their CCP Flu masks, Lord Fauci is their savior, and they have a “work from home job” that enables them to stay home all day and watch their wife get plowed by her bull.

    1. Denver is rife with high-testosterone feminist Democrats who by all means should continue to wear the mask.

    2. Meanwhile, the infection rate continues to tumble, even though fewer and fewer are wearing masks.

  24. Once enough folks have undergone the jab to achieve herd immunity, new cases will slow.

    Of course they will slow faster if everyone keeps wearing masks until new cases dwindle to zero…

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