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The Losses Reflected The Reckoning

A report from the News Press in Florida. “To date, the number of new listings that came to the Bonita Springs and Estero markets in 2021 was 270, which was higher than the 193 total listings that came to market during the same time period during 2020. ‘While it is still a competitive landscape, properties are coming to the market daily,’ stated Erin McDonald, Managing Broker, Premier Sotheby’s International Realty, Bonita Springs, Captiva and Sanibel.”

From KITV 4 on Hawaii. “At first glance, the 43-story Ke Kilohana condominium in the Ward Village area developed by the Howard Hughes Corporation comes with a host of amenities. The 2-year-old building on Halekauwila Street is outfitted with modern furniture, a movie theater, karaoke room, as well as a sky lanai overlooking downtown Honolulu. But occupants of the mixed-use residential condo argue its looks are deceiving. ‘Since pretty much the move in, we’ve experienced lots of issues related to safety and security of the building,’ resident Vlad Melnik said. ‘I don’t feel safe living in the building.'”

“From small parking spaces, a railing on the sky lanai residents deem dangerously short, to a 50 percent maintenance fee hike — some unit owners regret purchasing their homes at the high-rise.”

The Associated Press on California. “Caitlin Foster fell in love with San Francisco’s people and beauty and moved to the city a dozen years ago. But after repeatedly clearing away used needles, other drug paraphernalia and human feces outside the bar she manages, and too many encounters with armed people in crisis, her affection for the city has soured. ‘It was a goal to live here, but now I’m here and I’m like, ‘Where am I going to move to now?’ I’m over it,’ said Foster, who manages Noir Lounge in the trendy Hayes Valley neighborhood.”

“A series of headline-grabbing crime stories — mobs of people smashing windows and grabbing luxury purses in the downtown Union Square shopping district and daytime shootings in the touristy Haight-Ashbury — has only exacerbated a general feeling of vulnerability. Residents wake up to news of attacks on Asian American seniors, burglarized restaurants, and boarded-up storefronts in the city’s once-vibrant downtown.”

“Brian Cassanego, a San Francisco native, owns the lounge where Foster works. The day before he moved, Cassanego stepped out to walk his dogs and saw a man who ‘looked like a zombie,’ with his pants down to his knees and bleeding from where a syringe was stuck on his hip. A woman cried out nearby in shock. ‘I went upstairs, and I told my wife, ‘We’re leaving now! This city is done!’ he said.”

The Oregonian. “Allora is a northern Italian hideaway in the Pearl. A heartfelt puttanesca on a warm summer night. An open mic for the unfiltered personality of owner Paolo Parrilli, and an ongoing toast to his perseverance. The ristorante has shouldered through the pandemic. It outlasted the protestors who spent the summer of 2020 outside its front door on Northwest Ninth Avenue, setting fires and vandalizing the building across the street in which Mayor Ted Wheeler owned a two-bedroom condo.”

“You would hope that history, that affection, that sense of belonging, would be enough to keep Allora’s doors open downtown. But maybe not. Not when your guests don’t feel safe in the Pearl. Not when panhandlers routinely hassle the customers, and your servers are aggressively confronted by the homeless at the restaurant door.”

“When he was in Italy in September, Parrilli says, ‘I didn’t see this. I didn’t feel the anxiety of filth on the streets. It was so discouraging to come back to Portland and walk around. Garbage everywhere. Syringes. Now, they’re shooting (up) in front of you, and people don’t care anymore.'”

“City Hall is boasting of progress downtown. Parrilli hasn’t seen it: ‘The city is doing absolutely nothing. I don’t understand it. The camping gets worse every day. Because Portland is so giving, and keeps giving, and (the homeless) want more and more. They control the city now. That’s discouraging when we’re the ones paying the taxes.'”

From Stuff New Zealand. “Homes.co.nz chief data scientist Tom Lintern says the first signs of a market change may be appearing in the data, with the website’s median house price estimates plateauing across the country, reflecting a serious slowdown from the rapid gains. These ‘HomesEstimates’ are created by an algorithm that takes into account sales data and the estimated values on the website. Lintern says the council-supplied sales data is usually two-three months old, suggesting a shift may have already occurred and hasn’t registered yet. Lintern says feedback is starting to come back to Homes.co.nz that individual house price estimates online are starting to be higher than what properties actually sell for, also suggesting a market fall.”

“Ray White Carpenter Realty, franchisee owner, Glenn Carpenter, says he too feels a market downturn may be on the cards. Carpenter had been watching other company’s auctions, and saw one close on Tuesday with only six properties out of 25 sold, and another where only 5 out of 27 sold. ‘So there are some lower results creeping in. Definitely there’s more stock on the market, that’s probably the biggest change.'”

“Carpenter says realtors are already seeing ‘some of the cream come off the top,’ and fewer examples of astronomical sale prices. ‘I see it as a good thing, it was fairly unbalanced before, and I think buyers have got a better shot, and I think people who are moving within the market – they might not achieve a crazy price when they sell, but they’re not having to pay a crazy price when they buy.'”

The Sydney Morning Herald in Australia. “Potential home buyers are trimming their expectations as a new lending clampdown leaves many with smaller budgets, cutting borrowing capacity by as much as 15 per cent. The maximum amount of money buyers can borrow was reduced last month as the bank regulator tries to ensure homeowners only take on manageable debts. Separately, banks have been proactively limiting the level of debt compared to incomes they will allow, nervous about potential new rules covering this measure.”

“It comes after a year of soaring property price growth, with prices up 21.7 per cent across the capital cities in the year to September according to figures released this week, which prompted the Reserve Bank to warn of the need for borrowers to have adequate buffers. New borrowers must now be able to pay back their mortgage if interest rates rise 3 percentage points, under changes to the serviceability buffer.”

“Many banks have stopped lending more than six times a borrower’s income in debt, after the share of new loans in this category reached 23.8 per cent by the September quarter, according to Australian Prudential Regulation Authority figures. It’s an eye-watering level of debt, especially compared to previous generations – Baby Boomers had an average debt to income ratio of 2.6 times and spent 26.9 per cent of their income on monthly repayments, a Canstar analysis found.”

“A Gen Z buyer with a good job looking at buying now would face a debt to income ratio of 6.6 times and spend 40.2 per cent of their income on repayments. ‘If the bank that is the best for their situation has adopted a six times debt-to-income [policy], then it’s a really significant decrease in buying power,’ Shore Financial chief executive Theo Chambers said.”

“Loan Market’s Daniel Koutzamanis has seen a roughly 5 to 10 per cent cut in borrowing capacity, depending on the client. ‘The debt-to-income and that [serviceability] buffer, that would obviously reduce what clients can borrow which is going to then reduce what they can spend up to at auction.'”

The South China Morning Post. “Lui Che-woo, one of Hong Kong’s wealthiest men, met his match in late 2016 when his company lost a bidding war to a Chinese airline that was on a land grab in the world’s most expensive real estate market. The HNA Group, a conglomerate built around Hainan Airlines, paid a record HK$8.84 billion (US$1.13 billion) for a residential land plot at Hong Kong’s former Kai Tak airport, paying substantially over the market’s valuation. It was the opening salvo in a HK$27.22 billion shopping spree over four months that ended with HNA owning four parcels of prime land, each setting a fresh price record.”

“Elsewhere in Hong Kong, mainland developers were busily grabbing land, parking their capital in the city’s fixed assets to get ahead of what was then a depreciating renminbi. The tide has since turned, as a crackdown by China’s central bank and financial regulators forced HNA to dispose of all of its assets. The group went bankrupt in January and had its sprawling operations broken into different parts, while its founder Chen Feng was detained by police for investigation into unspecified ‘suspected crimes.'”

“Aoyuan, based in the Guangdong provincial capital, had been holding fire sales of its Hong Kong assets. The developer last month sold 86 per cent of a 54-year-old residential building at Robinson Road at the Mid-Levels for HK$900 million, reporting a loss of HK$176.6 million from the disposal. It’s also offering to sell an industrial building called the AOffice46 in Kwai Chung for HK$800 million, a discount of nearly 16 per cent from its 2018 purchase price of HK$950 million.”

“The losses reflected the reckoning for Chinese developers, who preferred to subdue their rivals by paying way over market valuations. HNA’s first Kai Tak plot in November 2016 was a staggering 153 per cent over the most recent transaction in the neighbourhood two years earlier. Kaisa’s first land plot in Tuen Mun was bought last year for HK$3.5 billion, 20 per cent more than the next bid at HK$2.88 billion, according to records released by the Lands Department. The developer had wanted to show Hongkongers what Kaisa was made of, regardless of the cost, a former employee said, speaking on condition of anonymity.”

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This Post Has 50 Comments

  1. ‘Since pretty much the move in, we’ve experienced lots of issues related to safety and security of the building…I don’t feel safe living in the building’

    It was still cheaper than renting Vlad.

  2. ‘The developer had wanted to show Hongkongers what Kaisa was made of, regardless of the cost, a former employee said’

    The winnah! I think HNA was the one with the boss going to NYC, looking out of a glass elevator saying, ‘I want that one, and that one.’

  3. ‘Cassanego stepped out to walk his dogs and saw a man who ‘looked like a zombie,’ with his pants down to his knees and bleeding from where a syringe was stuck on his hip’

    Did he comment on the nice weather Brian?

    1. ‘Garbage everywhere. Syringes. Now, they’re shooting (up) in front of you, and people don’t care anymore…The city is doing absolutely nothing. I don’t understand it. The camping gets worse every day. Because Portland is so giving, and keeps giving, and (the homeless) want more and more. They control the city now’

      It’s a sh$thole Paolo. Enjoy the taxes and yer pending bankruptcy.

      1. “SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Caitlin Foster fell in love with San Francisco’s people and beauty and moved to the city a dozen years ago.”

        OMG, another snowflake named Caitlin? Regarding the needles and zombies, ‘ya gotta roll with it!

        3. Lived there in 1995 and fled…it is a gloomy place after you get over the visual charm of the landmarks and terrain. Fog every morning and then sun like NASA describes space…instant sweat when it hits you, then chills when you turn a street corner and go into shade.

          1. The shadows cast are certainly long in winter, but I’ve cleaned windows on high-riser’s sunny side in a tee shirt in December!

            I liked San Francisco as a single guy, but I couldn’t imagine the challenge of raising a family there, out in the avenues of course with today’s expenses.

      2. Portland is so giving, and keeps giving, and (the homeless) want more and more. They control the city now. That’s discouraging when we’re the ones paying the taxes.’”
        Ah Keep Portland Weird!! Utopia.
        Nothing against Portland, i bet it was a great place to hang out and party before you wanted to grow up.

          1. Stay there. DO NOT come to Florida.
            Don’t kid yourself,
            Having lived in Fort Lauderdale Florida for years and spent some time In Miami and Jacksonville Beach, Rest assured that Florida has more than its fair share of “people who don’t want to “grow up.” And yeah, Florida has its fair share of great places to hang out (like the beach) if you don’t want to grow up. (From what I could tell, Daddy’s money, or a sugar Daddy was very helpful.)

      1. I heard a DC-based libtard on YT in October call Florida, “a lawless wasteland of plague and blight.” She and her husband canceled their trip to Universal Studios’ Halloween Horror Nights because of COVID even though they’re both jabbed.

        1. Universal Studios’ Halloween Horror Nights

          I doubt Universal’s Halloween gig is even half as scary as what goes on in DC.

          1. I haven’t been to downtown DC in years; even pre-pandemic I was staying away. When I moved to the burbs, I told myself that I would travel to the downtown at least once every six months. Well, that fell by the wayside when the Metro subway went to heck and the museums started closing one by one for big renovations. Then the downtown was full of Trump hate. Then the pandemic. Now it’s all one big protest, and is the Capitol still walled up? Next spring I might make a trip down there just to see what is new. But I’m not enthused.

    3. . . . but don’t anyone DARE point out the obvious decline of San Francisco on “another site” or the blogger goes-off on a tangent on the poster!

      (I live 90 miles away & have been going to SF since the 70’s: can personally confirm the horrific urban decay, which is a shame, a crime really, amidst the spectacular natural beauty of the bay area)

  4. ‘created by an algorithm that takes into account sales data and the estimated values on the website…a shift may have already occurred and hasn’t registered yet…feedback is starting to come back to Homes.co.nz that individual house price estimates online are starting to be higher than what properties actually sell for’

    Magic 8 ball fails again?

    ‘If the bank that is the best for their situation has adopted a six times debt-to-income [policy], then it’s a really significant decrease in buying power’

    6 times income is still batsh$t crazy Theo.

    1. Short answer: we don’t really know.

      The word from South Africa is that natural immunity from Delta infection only protects ~60(?) % from Omicron. That’s how different the two variants are. If Delta can’t protect against Omicron, then can Omicron protect against Delta? Maybe not. If they protect against each other only marginally, it’s entirely possible that we could have two separate diseases circulating. In that case, between the natural immunity and vaccines we’ll all eventually get two mild flus.

  9. “ “From small parking spaces ……, to a 50 percent maintenance fee hike — some unit owners regret purchasing their homes at the high-rise.”

    Standard practice in new condos.
    A reduced unrealistic monthly fee to induce and once the condos are sold, the price escalates.

    Other sneaky schemes are rampant like the builder/owner not paying property taxes and dumping those on the buyer, who signs on the dotted line without noticing.

    1. And builder/owner not putting each units reduced monthly fee in general escrow until sold so that there is a shortfall on each unit. The amount varies depending on the sale date, screwing all buyers to varying amounts.

  10. “ manages, and too many encounters with armed people in crisis, her affection for the city has soured. ”

    WTH? Armed people in crisis?
    What the hell is that? Leftie speak? Someone please translate.

  11. CNN rapes kids:

    “A CNN producer who worked alongside former host Chris Cuomo has been arrested and charged with luring minors to his home for sexual activity. The accused pedophile wanted to “train” his victims to be “sexually submissive.”

    John Griffin, 44, worked alongside disgraced CNN host Chris Cuomo on ‘New Day’, and most recently served as producer for John Avlon, the liberal network’s senior political analyst. Outside of work, however, the Connecticut man’s interests were dark and disturbing, and Griffin was arrested on Friday and charged with three counts of attempting to entice minors to engage in unlawful sexual activity.

    In June he allegedly told one mother that her nine- and 13-year-old daughters should be “trained properly,” and paid $3,000 for the woman and the nine-year-old to fly from Nevada to Boston. From there he is accused of driving them to his house in Ludlow, Vermont, where “the daughter was directed to engage in, and did engage in, unlawful sexual activity.”

    https://www.rt.com/usa/542903-cnn-producer-sex-abuse/

      1. Oh yes it is. And our blog host does not censor discussion about: Real Journalists raping kids, Jussie Smollet race crime hoaxes, Governor Cuomo creepshow behavior covered up by his brother Chris Cuomo working for CNN, the Bill Clinton rapes, the Hillary Clinton murders, the 2020 stolen election, and the whole CCP Flu plandemic that has been a fraud since the day “Doctor” Anthony Fraudci released this thing from the bat soup lab.

        There will be trials.

        There will be convictions.

        There will be executions.

        Globalists, welcome back to Nuremburg 1946 🙂

    2. This story is just starting to break into American media, the New York Post has picked it up, a Mediaite piece is linked from Revolver, Zerohedge has a piece, but not even Gateway Pundit, Breitbart, or Fox are reporting it.

      Real Journalists have obviously not touched the story, because there is a code of silence about the culture of pedophilia and rape that has come to define the Democrat Party.

      Democrat Party = the party of raping kids.

      1. It’s not confined to the D party. Fox News via Tucker Carlson’s interview with Kyle Rittenhouse launched a coordinated smear campaign against Lin Wood, who’s been speaking out very publicly and very loudly about child sex trafficking.

        1. Lin Wood on Telegram:

          My list of Deep State individuals exposed by republishing the maliciously false accusations by Kyle Rittenhouse against me and #FightBack without ever seeing the TRUTH from me or #FightBack:

          Tucker Carlson
          Sheriff David Clarke
          Marjorie Taylor Greene
          Jack Posobiec
          Sebastian “Fake Accent” Gorka
          Dan “Bongo Bongo” Bongino
          Charlie Kirk
          Ashleigh Bandfield
          Sean Hannity

          I don’t have access to Twitter or Facebook. So please let me know if I am missing anyone!!!

          1. Defamation lawsuits, Lin Wood’s specialty, are in the works. I suspect this is his preliminary list of defendants.

    1. Someone would not ride with me today because my brother and myself would be in the vehicle and we were not vaccinated. Instead they drove their own less desirable vehicle over an hour and a half round trip and social distanced outside with a mask on while we were at the function.

  13. PICTURED: Five of the six Amazon workers killed after Illinois tornado destroyed warehouse – including Navy vet who died trying to save colleagues – while Bezos throws weekend PARTY at Beverly Hills mansion
    By Michelle Thompson for Dailymail.Com
    15:50 EST 12 Dec 2021 , updated 16:50 EST 12 Dec 2021

  16. Oh dear….

    Abandoned Projects Shatter Confidence in China’s Housing Market

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-12-12/abandoned-projects-shatter-confidence-in-china-s-housing-market?sref=ibr3A0ff

    Construction cranes stand idle in China’s Yunnan Province, on the easternmost edge of the Himalayas. Building has ground to a halt on Hainan, off the coast of Vietnam, and up in Heilongjiang, along the Russian border.

    Across China, tens of millions of square feet of unfinished apartment buildings — the legacy of a real estate boom gone awry in 2021 — are derailing countless dreams of owning a home.

  18. Today is Monday, December 13th and Joe Biden is not the legitimately elected president of the United States, because the 2020 election.

    We are the leaderless resistance, and we are taking this country back.

    Globalists, know that this will not end well for you…

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