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A Lot Of These Sellers Are Not Accepting The Reality Of What’s Happening

It’s Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. “Already recent housing-market data has shown the massive effect the surge in rates has had on home buyers. ‘The pandemic boom in home sales is over, and activity is back at pre-pandemic levels,’ wrote Mizuho Securities U.S. economist Alex Pelle and chief U.S. economist Steven Ricchiuto.”

“Brokers are also seeing some signs of a cool-down. ‘Things do seem to be leveling off,’ said Kristina Loper, a Keller Williams agent in Tacoma. Loper listed a ‘great town house’ in University Place that only drew one offer. ‘I was shocked,’ she said.”

“Bob Goodall, the president of Goodall Homes, has been building homes in Middle Tennessee since 1983. ‘We are definitely seeing a bit of softening in the market. When you when you raise prices as much as prices have been raised over the past couple of years, when you raise interest rates — and the prospect of continued rising interest rates — historically, it always affects the market and that’s what it’s made to do. It feels like we’re in the ninth inning. We were probably getting there pre-Covid, and then with Covid, all this money flushed into the economy extended it.'”

“It costs a lot more to build a house than it did two years ago, but residential developers are shielded thanks to skyrocketing home prices.  Some builders are concerned that shield is about to break. ‘I think there’s some definite fear,’ said Eric White, Atlanta division president for Toll Brothers Inc. ‘If you’re looking at a $500,000 home, with the interest rate jump we saw recently, that adds $500 or $600 a month [to a mortgage payment].'”

“Raleigh Mayor Pro Tem Nicole Stewart said she’s seen her own neighborhood affected by corporate landlords buying single-family houses. ‘Their home was put on the market with an exorbitant price tag — without any improvements done to the property — resulting in the home sitting vacant for a year. The corporate investor is finally having renovations done, but in the meantime, a home that previously provided housing in my neighborhood is now sitting vacant, along with at least three other vacant and move-in ready homes nearby,’ she said. ‘How — one might ask — can homes sit vacant for this long, in this housing market?'”

“Last summer Stewart asked how many vacant homes are in Raleigh, with staff still working to get that information. ‘One figure I have heard recently from Coastal Federal Credit Union is that 13,000 homes in Wake County are owned by these investment companies and that only about half of them are being rented,’ Stewart said.”

“More mortgage firms are starting to let workers go as demand for mortgage refinancings falls off a cliff. Employees at American Financing Corp. in Aurora experienced the harsh new reality facing the mortgage industry Monday when they were called to a Zoom meeting titled ‘Our Future Includes You.’ For a large, but undisclosed number, that description wasn’t entirely accurate. ‘The mortgage market is starting to normalize after being incredibly hot for the past two years. We explored many angles but unfortunately had to lay off some of our employees.,’ said Susan Cahill, president at American Financing in an email.”

“Subtracting out points and other items, rates on 30-year loans are actually closer to 5.5%, said Lou Barnes, a capital markets analyst in Boulder with Cherry Creek Mortgage. ‘The industry capacity is so bloated by the two years of COVID-19,’ he said. ‘No matter how disciplined you are, everybody is going to get caught.'”

“Prospective homebuyers saw clear signs of a cooling Toronto market in April as the region’s real estate board reported sales dropped by about 41 per cent since last year and 27 per cent from a month earlier. ‘We’ve seen a change in the market … business is still happening, but it’s not as crazy,’ said Despina Zanganas, a Toronto Realtor with PSR Brokerage. ‘What I’ve seen is a lot of properties just sitting on the market.'”

“Months ago, it was hard for her to even secure a booking to visit some condos listed for sale, but now viewings have plunged. She often sees condos receive only one or two visits a day from prospective buyers. The slowing is most pronounced in the area surrounding Toronto known as the 905, which includes municipalities such as Mississauga, Brampton, and Markham. Zanganas believes it is taking time for sellers to adjust to the market’s current conditions.”

“‘A lot of these sellers are not accepting the reality of what’s happening, so they’re still overpricing their properties and expecting like $200,000 over,’ she said.”

“Domain Chief of Research and Economics, Dr Nicola Powell, said prices peaked in June last year. Powell said Sydney’s rate of growth was flatlining after an extreme property boom and this was also reflected on the Central Coast. ‘Flattened house prices and declining unit prices has made Sydney’s price growth rate one of the most significant slowdowns of all the capital cities,’ she said. A year ago, house prices were rising at 46 times the current pace, and at the same time unit prices were also increasing. This indicates that Sydney’s steepest upswing on record has ended.'”

“New Zealand‘s building industry admits it’s facing one of its biggest challenges ever as costs spiral and procurement challenges mount. It comes after Wellington company Armstrong Downes Commercial went into liquidation, sparking fears more could follow. Grant Thornton liquidators said two of Armstrong Downes’ largest projects were suffering substantial losses as a result of being fixed-price contracts. Those problems were expected to impact the cooling residential market too.”

“‘In the medium term, it’s going to mean there’s much less of an appetite by developers for actually want to build because they’re not going to be able to build for the price the market’s prepared to pay for a property,’ housing commentator Ashley Church said.”

“Residents of Beijing fretted on Friday over dozens of new COVID-19 cases reported daily and over the possibility of more restrictions on movements as China’s leaders threatened action against critics of their zero-COVID policy. ‘We will try to cooperate,’ said 42-year-old Beijing finance worker Hu, giving only her surname. ‘But I also hope that the government can introduce some policies that will not affect the overall life of citizens. After all, we all have mortgages and car loans.'”

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This Post Has 83 Comments

        1. Are builders building for the low end? That seems like a bad business decision. I suspect they’re building for a generation that’s not procreating.

          1. building for a generation that’s not procreating.

            Maybe they’re building for the next wave of WFH city escapees.

    2. ‘Housing market numbers are going to puke when they come out in a month or two.’

      Nobody could have seen it coming!

      1. get ready for an onslaught of excuses.

        #1 is: “Like everyone else, ______”

        insert bad circumstance due to just gosh-darn, plain ‘ol bad luck! never, NEVER due to greedy & bad personal choices. wah wah wahhhh.
        bang those pots & pans! stamp those feet!

        HOWEVER, if you make da $$$$ why, unlike everyone else, yer a freaking disruptive woke eco badazz genius!!

        hit the like button or next time I’ll be forced to insert 10 commercials for 5 minutes of video, the first 3 minutes filled w/screaming rock or annoying rap.

        eaybuddy tryin’ to front. full ‘o sound & rage. don’t mean a thang, dog. ya’ feel me?

    4. That post was preceded by #ThanksJerome. A great reply: “Did you also thank him when he gave you all those free refi applications? So easy to complain, yet so hard to appreciate the easy ride you were given for years.”

    5. Why don’t these guys just encourage their clients to make lowball offers until they find a seller who needs to sell and can’t afford to wait forever? May as well get the capitation process started sooner than later.

    1. Russia Today — Is the West at war with disinformation or dissent? (5/5/2022):

      “As populism rises in the West, so do crackdowns on narratives that deviate from those of the state.

      The appetite of Western nations to ensure that their citizens are only fed information that they control through their own highly concentrated government or corporate subsidized media isn’t new. It’s just getting more voracious. Perhaps it’s because the more authoritarian their agenda becomes, the more populist sentiment increases and gives rise to events such as Brexit or the election of Donald Trump, as well as trends such as opposition to US-backed conflicts, the rise in popularity of various populist political parties in Europe, and demonstrations against pandemic mandates, which just happen to be associated with government-issued QR codes.

      Dissent is the enemy of authoritarian ambition. Supposedly free countries have manipulated their citizens into believing that censorship of certain views is for people’s own safety and security – hence why the military in Canada, the UK, and France, and now Homeland Security in the US, are involved in narrative policing. In reality, their efforts seem to be more about ensuring citizens’ compliance with their own agenda.”

      https://www.rt.com/news/554978-us-disinformation-governance-board/

      President Donald J. Trump was, in fact, correct, when he stated that “the media is the enemy of the American people”

  3. ‘One figure I have heard recently from Coastal Federal Credit Union is that 13,000 homes in Wake County are owned by these investment companies and that only about half of them are being rented’

    How do those 5% cap rates look now?

    1. This is what happens when you turn houses into speculative widgets whose values are rising over $10,000 per month – house hoarding. The deep pockets could afford to eat the vacancy losses because they were more than offset by the gains. Sickening on many levels.

  4. ‘residential developers are shielded thanks to skyrocketing home prices. Some builders are concerned that shield is about to break. ‘I think there’s some definite fear’

    Wa?

  7. This is a urine soaked mattress article.

    Huffington Post — What Should You Do If Someone Confronts You About Wearing A Mask? (5/4/2022):

    “Walking home just now, three men yelled, ‘Coronavirus is over’ at me because I was wearing a mask …

    “What hurts even more is, as I turned around to stare at them, they were laughing while they walked away …

    “They looked like they were going out for the night. They are probably having a great time as we speak. They have certainly forgotten me.”

    https://www.huffpost.com/entry/confronted-over-mask_l_627044dee4b0cca67558ca89

    Sounds like a Mass Formation Psychosis.

    “They’re not sending their best”

    2. From the article:
      ———
      …“But it was obvious he was trying to explain to me, like I was a child ― I’m 49 ― that omicron was not as contagious and I didn’t have to live my life in fear… I raised my palm, and announced, ‘Unsubscribe,’” [Caren] Gussoff Sumption said.
      ————

      Omicron not as contagious? Either she got it wrong, or he got it wrong and she didn’t correct it. Maybe she does need to be explained to as a child. Oh, and I guess “unsubscribe” is some kind of new insult. Wow, I’m literally shaking.

    3. they were laughing while they walked away

      OF course they were, she no doubt looked ridiculous.

  8. ‘Things do seem to be leveling off,’ said Kristina Loper, a Keller Williams agent in Tacoma. Loper listed a ‘great town house’ in University Place that only drew one offer. ‘I was shocked’

    ‘A lot of these sellers are not accepting the reality of what’s happening’

    There’s people out there that have no idea how much interest rates have gone up.

    1. ‘A lot of these sellers are not accepting the reality of what’s happening’

      – 5 stages of grief:
      Denial. <—. Here
      Anger
      Bargaining
      Depression
      Acceptance. <—. It’s a long way down from “here.”

      – “It’s different this time.”
      – Asset bubbles always burst.
      – Enjoyed the boom? Now enjoy the bust.
      – All of this courtesy of ridiculous monetary and fiscal policies from central banks and governments. It’s almost like they planned this. Another opportunity for a crisis enabling further massive wealth transfer and solidifying power and control…
      – The slow-motion train wreck of the bursting of “The Everything Bubble” continues apace.

    2. And there’s ALOT of other people who do know how much interest have gone up, but have no clue about the implications for the consequentual collapse of home purchase demand among wannabe debt-financed owner-occupied buyers.

      And then there’s also many people who are smart enough to understand what is happening, but are either lying or in denial about it.

      In short, there’s a plethora of ignorance, lying, and denial at present, with boatloads of pain in store. And Wall Street has sniffed it out already, as evidenced by six straight weeks of cratering stock prices.

  9. Bob Psani (CNBC) just said that peak realestate is long gone. Of course, late to the game, but they are getting there.

    Zillow was down 10% yesterday. Down 66% off 52week high. Yet forward PE still 38 – so they are in a lot of trouble.

    1. ‘Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has limited the authorized use of the Janssen COVID-19 Vaccine to individuals 18 years of age and older for whom other authorized or approved COVID-19 vaccines are not accessible or clinically appropriate, and to individuals 18 years of age and older who elect to receive the Janssen COVID-19 Vaccine because they would otherwise not receive a COVID-19 vaccine.’

      ‘In making the determination to limit the authorized use of the Janssen COVID-19 Vaccine, the agency considered that reporting rates of TTS and TTS deaths following administration of the Janssen COVID-19 Vaccine are not appreciably lower than previously reported. Furthermore, the factors that put an individual at risk for TTS following administration of Janssen COVID-19 Vaccine remain unknown. The FDA also considered that individuals with TTS may rapidly deteriorate, despite prompt diagnosis and treatment, that TTS can lead to long-term and debilitating health consequences and that TTS has a high death rate.’

      https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/coronavirus-covid-19-update-fda-limits-use-janssen-covid-19-vaccine-certain-individuals

      1. So, everyone is restricted from getting J&J, except for those people who say “I’m 18 years of age and I want J&J.”

        So, who, exactly, is restricted from getting J&J again? Kids under age 18? They were always restricted because J&J never requested approval for them in the first place.

        This is just a do-nothing hit piece from the FDA, likely Brought To You By Pfizer.

        (and FYI, the chance of a [preventable] clot is one in 311,000, which is about the same as it was a year ago.)

        🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄

        1. Okay Oxide, I have to give you credit on this posting. One of the very rare times I can concur with your position w.r.t. WuFlu. Definitely a hit piece, and brought to us by the Corruptocrats of the FDA. Clearly done for the benefit of the “Poison Death Shot”, aka “Clot Shot”, aka experimental gene therapy injection. Or just the vexxine, as i affectionately refer to it. My personal feeling is that as more time goes on, despite the thrombocytopenia risk and possible clotting danger, Janssen will probably prove to be one of the least dangerous vexxines along with AZ.

    2. At the risk of seeming racis’, Chinese people sometimes do some weird sheeyat.

    1. I’m sure the not friendly foreign press is having a field day with images of barricaded DC.

      I can see tourists sharing their snap shots on social media: And here’s the barricaded White House, and this is the barricaded Capitol building and this is the barricaded Supreme Court, and here is a heavily armed patrol unit (don’t they look sharp in their uniforms?) …”

    1. $45,000 doesn’t even touch what it actually costs. Once a house has been condemned by the county as a meth lab, you have to do things such as remove the top 3″ of soil on the entire property. You have to wrap the entire house in a protective balloon while working on it so as not to harm the neighbors. It has to be gutted to the studs, etc.

  14. As always, follow the money to see who the string-pullers are for BLM, Antifa, & the rest of the termites in the foundation.

    BLM co-founder Patrice Cullors chairs ‘dark money’ non-profit that received $2.5m from woke Silicon Valley fund whose previous donors include Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings, Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10790085/Nonprofit-chaired-BLM-founder-pulled-4-2m-donations-Silicon-Valley-foundation.html

  15. ‘Things do seem to be leveling off,’ said Kristina Loper, a Keller Williams agent in Tacoma. Loper listed a ‘great town house’ in University Place that only drew one offer. ‘I was shocked,’ she said.”

    Shocked? B…b…but I thought realtors were always experts on the local area RE markets.

  16. The corporate investor is finally having renovations done, but in the meantime, a home that previously provided housing in my neighborhood is now sitting vacant, along with at least three other vacant and move-in ready homes nearby,’ she said.

    Die, speculator scum.

  17. ‘We’ve seen a change in the market … business is still happening, but it’s not as crazy,’ said Despina Zanganas, a Toronto Realtor with PSR Brokerage. ‘What I’ve seen is a lot of properties just sitting on the market.’”

    Pretty soon you’ll see FBs sitting on the curb in front of their foreclosed shacks, drinking Night Train out of a brown paper bag.

    1. The modern craft era has brought cheap alcohol to the masses. A 16oz 9% stout or Belgian sells for $4 by me. Cheaper than a 40oz of nasty malt liquor.

  18. ‘We will try to cooperate,’ said 42-year-old Beijing finance worker Hu, giving only her surname. ‘But I also hope that the government can introduce some policies that will not affect the overall life of citizens. After all, we all have mortgages and car loans.’”

    You can’t comply your way out of tyranny, Hu.

    1. 42-year-old Beijing finance worker Hu

      Hu is going to learn what it means to live in a dystopian tyranny. The CCP will destroy China to save it. How long until every major metro in China is locked down? What happens after Shanghai has been under home arrest for months? How long can they survive of packages of near zero calorie vegetables?

      1. Maybe not anymore. Even Chinese mothers didn’t trust Chinese formula; they are willing to pay big bucks for American baby formula. Formula smuggling and shortages have been going on for years.

        BTW, take a look at the ingredient list for “sensitive baby” formula for supposedly lactose intolerant babies. Main ingredients are corn syrup solids and/or soybean oil. It’s basically Coffee-mate. And these are the kids that are getting fat.

        1. basically Coffee-mate

          It’s been three and a half decades since there were infants in my house, but we didn’t give them any of this crap

  22. ‘A lot of these sellers are not accepting the reality of what’s happening’

    Yet lying realtors played the central role in why it happened in the first place…….

    Got appraisal fraud?

    Orange, CA Housing Prices Crater 11% YOY As Mortgage Defaults And Foreclosures Ravage Southern California

    https://www.movoto.com/ca/92705/market-trends/

  23. Credible Lending Services i.e. a mortgage finance company did a story in my Fox News source on my phone. [They] claim that Mortgage delinquency rates hit a record low in March, data shows 2.8% “Strong Post forbearance performance” they claim. So let me get this straight! A few million forbearance loans that came due in Jan 2022 are now magically all caught up. We are talking easily 5 figure delinquencies that went poof?!? Was it the robust employment? The student loan deferrals?

    The story goes on to say that “The number of homes actively in foreclosure increased annually in March by 7,000 units marking the first annual foreclosure increase in nearly 10 years” So which one is it?

    This same BS-MSM drab also has, a minimum of 4 paragraphs intermingled telling struggling mortgage holders Visit Credible to see if you qualify for a lower interest loan or you are entering early-stage of delinquency.

    1. We are talking easily 5 figure delinquencies that went poo

      They were probably rolled back into the loans.

      I strongly suspect that when the stagflationary recession hits and hits hard, that there will be all kinds of forebearance programs. Anything to keep a tsunami of foreclosures from washing up on the beach.

    2. Biden forced servicers into extend and pretend under threat of fines and loss of license. Borrowers were mostly willing to take the loan mods because the price of housing was going up. I have a foreclosure attorney friend and he says the industry is the slowest it’s ever been.

  24. Another Friday, another week of tumbling further down into the bottomless CR8R…

  25. Liberals like to brag about killing people when they are not lecturing on racism and diversity.

    Former US officials and diplomats in recent days have sharply criticized the Biden administration over a New York Times report based on conversations with senior officials that said US intelligence was helping Ukraine kill Russian generals.

    “Shut up about it,” John Sipher, a former CIA officer who served in Russia, said in a tweet on the Times report.

  26. The Orwellian creepiness by the globalists and their Democrat-Bolshevik minions is going to get a lot worse now that our corrupt DoJ & FBI will harass and intimidate any parent who stands up to “woke” school boards.

    Arizona parents sue woke school board which ‘compiled a dosser containing their social security numbers, mortgage records and Facebook posts’ after they complained about CRT in classrooms

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10790165/Arizona-parents-sue-woke-school-board-labeled-compiled-dossier-labeled-wackos.html

      1. With the majority of the population being declared enemies of the state, the “state” has a big problem.

        1. I had figured that once it became obvious that the Deep State is targeting children that the people would rise. So now we have the biggest name in family entertainment defending groomers and while people are angry, maybe angrier than ever, still nothing has happened. Heck, the groomers’ Theme Parks are packed. And the Deep State is forming a Ministry of Censorship.

          1. the groomers’ Theme Parks are packed

            The groomed don’t understand that they’re being groomed. Parents choose their battles.

    2. CRT is easily explained in one sentence……. Never ever, ever talk about black people’s behavior, so what’s left? Race.

  27. Violent Seattle pro-abortion activists assault their own side at protesthttps://youtu.be/M1fsI8DDcEw

      1. Not surprising. These are inherently violent people. Mentally ill and wicked.

  28. “Brokers are also seeing some signs of a cool-down.”

    Time to get alot broker.

  29. “More mortgage firms are starting to let workers go as demand for mortgage refinancings falls off a cliff. Employees at American Financing Corp. in Aurora experienced the harsh new reality facing the mortgage industry Monday when they were called to a Zoom meeting titled ‘Our Future Includes You.’ For a large, but undisclosed number, that description wasn’t entirely accurate.”

    It’s going to get ugly very soon, and seems likely to resemble the subprime mortgage industry collapse that played out from 2007-2009 when eventually seen theough history’s rear view mirror.

  30. Might I suggest “The Great Unraveling” to describe the current global economic picture?

    It might also represent the ultimate unwind of the Greenspan era at the Fed.

    ‘History has not dealt kindly with the aftermath of protracted periods of low risk premiums.’

    — Sir Alan Greenspan

    1. The Financial Times
      Markets Briefing Equities
      US stocks suffer longest streak of weekly losses in over a decade
      Equities close lower after days of tumultuous trading surrounding central bank tightening
      People look at the Wall Street bull statue
      Market bullishness after the Fed implemented a half-point interest rate rise was quickly overshadowed by nerves about how far borrowing costs would have to increase
      © Getty Images
      Joe Rennison and Francesca Friday in New York and Naomi Rovnick in London yesterday

      US stocks have suffered the worst streak of weekly losses in more than a decade after days of tumultuous trading surrounding the Federal Reserve’s decision to raise interest rates by half a percentage point.

      The Nasdaq Composite, chock full of interest-rate-sensitive tech stocks, slipped 1.4 per cent on Friday after another whipsaw trading session while the S&P 500 fell 0.6 per cent. Benchmark Treasury yields that underpin borrowing costs across the globe moved higher.

      The stock market moves meant both indices lost ground over the full week, each notching their fifth straight week of declines. That represents the worst streak since June 2011 for the S&P 500 and November 2012 for the Nasdaq, when markets were being pummelled by the eurozone debt crisis and the aftermath of the global financial crash.

      Trading this week was marked by strong rallies on some days but even sharper sell-offs on others as puzzled investors tried to position themselves for the end of the easy money policies embraced by central banks during the first two years of the pandemic.

      “I think there is a lot more pain to come,” said James Masserio, co-head of equities for the Americas at Société Générale, who pointed to a “generational shift in inflation” and a “decade-long shift in monetary policy across the globe”.
      …

        1. FT Alphaville
          US equities
          Buckle up
          The ‘what happened, why it happened and what it means’ post
          George Steer and Robin Wigglesworth yesterday

          Yesterday, CNBC was able to roll out its “MARKETS IN TURMOIL” package, and honestly, it felt appropriate. Stocks went into a sudden and mysteriously violent tailspin on Thursday.

          After rising 3 per cent on Wednesday after Federal Reserve chair Jay Powell indicated that the central bank wasn’t contemplating raising rates by more than 50 basis points at a time, the S&P 500 then tanked 3.6 per cent on Thursday.

          It is interesting to see that various analysts, investment managers and financial journalists have been better able to say what happened yesterday — and present myriad arguments for what it means — than exactly why it happened.

          Our colleagues Robert Armstrong and Ethan Wu did a great job exploring some of the potential explanations in Unhedged, but here is what some other people are saying.

          What happened?

          Tellingly, the pain yesterday was most intense in US technology stocks, and especially its frothiest corners, deepening a sell-off that started when the Fed first made a hawkish pivot last autumn.

          The Nasdaq tumbled almost 5 per cent on Thursday, completely unravelling Wednesday’s 3 per cent gain. This follows a similar pattern in late April, when another 3 per cent plus one-day gain came immediately undone the following day.
          A red day for markets happened to coincide with Karl Marx’s birthday © posted by u/shivamYe on r/wallstreetbets

          Sharp reversals like this are actually deeply unusual, as Bespoke Investment Group’s George Pearkes highlighted in an overnight note.

          Aside from one occurrence in 2020, you have to go back to the financial crisis of 2008 and the dotcom bubble bursting in 2000-01, to see such reversals. And there have only been seven since at least 1971 — two of which have now happened in the last two weeks.

          Elsewhere, US Treasury yields rose across the curve, but not uniformly in magnitude. While two-year US government bond yields rose 8 basis points to 2.71 per cent by the end of Thursday, the yield on the 10-year note jumped by 14 bps to 3.06 per cent, and the 30-year Treasury yield climbed about 16 bps to 3.16 per cent.

          According to Jay Barry, managing director for interest rate strategy at JPMorgan, there have only been six instances in the past decade during which 30-year bond yields rose more than they did on Thursday.
          …

    2. The Financial Times
      Capital markets
      Crashing through barriers
      Fixed income markets suggest regulators may have tested the financial system for the wrong stresses.
      Meyrick Chapman
      May 5 2022

      In the original Jurassic Park, Jeff Goldblum’s chaos theory mathematician has one of the film’s more arresting quotes: “Life will not be contained. Life breaks free, it expands to new territories, and crashes through barriers painfully, maybe even dangerously, but, uh, well, there it is.”

      The financial universe is undergoing some painful barrier-crashing of its own. Inflation is rampant for the first time in four decades. Stock and bond investors have lost money — some of them a lot of money. Foreigners who owe dollars are hurting. Yesterday, the Federal Reserve lifted interest rates by half a percentage point for the first time since 2000, and signalled signal that it will do the same at the next two meetings.

      Yet, weirdly, there is actually little real sign of market stress.

      Perhaps the reforms put in place after the global financial crisis of 2008 have really made the financial world a safer place? After all, nothing major broke as the Covid-19 pandemic closed the world’s economy. In fact, the regulators who pushed through the reforms were so pleased with how the system behaved in 2020 they’ve been crowing about it ever since. But have we battened down all the right hatches? Will something break free?
      …

  31. Morehead City, NC Housing Prices Crater 21% YOY As Outer Banks and Coastal Carolina Housing Inventory Soars As Panic Selling Begins

    https://www.movoto.com/morehead-city-nc/market-trends/

    As one coastal Carolina broker explained, “Our entire market is vacation homeowners and 95% of want out right now. They see the handwriting on the wall.”

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