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Once The Music Stops And The Buyers Stop Coming Out, That Price Looks Ridiculous

A report from Business Insider. “‘Someone turned out the light on our sales in June,’ an Atlanta homebuilder said in the survey. Meanwhile, a homebuilder in Austin said, ‘Sales have fallen off a cliff. We’re selling one-third of what we sold in March and April.'”

From Newsweek. “‘All across the country, builders are telling me now that traffic is slowing down. They’re telling me that they’re having people talk about canceling existing contracts,’ said Jerry Howard, the CEO of the National Association of Home Builders. ‘It is a pretty grim outlook right now from where I sit.”

From Fortune. “‘Peak euphoria is behind us. We are giving back some of the euphoria pricing that was rolling over every housing market,’ says Rick Palacios Jr., head of research at John Burns Real Estate Consulting.”

The Connecticut Post. “‘The housing market has changed drastically in the last month because higher rates make homes even more expensive than they used to be. At the same time, fewer people can afford pricey homes because of the volatile stock market,’ Redfin agent Joanna Rose said. ‘In the early spring, every home was selling over its asking price with multiple bids. Then the number of people attending open houses dropped from 20 to two, and now some homes are sitting on the market for over a month and selling for under asking price. Supply is starting to pile up.'”

Erie News Now in Pennsylvania. “No one was spending, so the Federal Reserve slashed interest rates to nearly zero. ‘All of a sudden, it transitioned into a seller’s market,’ said Realtor Marsha Marsh. ‘Sellers were thrilled. People were selling their houses that didn’t really need to sell or wanted to sell but thought they better sell.’ But easily available money spurred rampant inflation, so rates are now rising to re-settle the market. ‘People think that’s the way it’s always going to be, and when it corrects itself, which is what’s happening now, then people get panicked,’ she said of the rise in rates.”

The Colorado Sun. “It’s not looking like the funny-money housing market collapse of 2008, but more of a slow deflation as the number of homes available for sale falls after nearly two years of frantic buying and selling. Jim Renshaw, the vice-president of Land Title Guarantee Co., which has 50 offices around the state, started seeing a slowdown in deals a couple months ago. Many homes in down-valley communities like Eagle and Gypsum are selling for more than $1 million, setting records. That’s prodding many residents to list their homes ‘as they are trying to capture the high prices and cash out,’ Renshaw said.”

“Prices in Aspen and Snowmass continue to explode, with the average home in 2022 in Aspen selling for $18.7 million, compared with $12.7 million in the first five months of 2021. Average home prices in Aspen through May 2022 are up 21%. But sales are collapsing, with the number of home sales closed in June 2022 down 43% compared with June 2021. The 36 deals closed in June is close to the number that closed in June 2019, which was 32. ‘This likely indicates more of a market normalization,’ Renshaw said.”

The Press & Courier in Indiana. “On the surface, Evansville’s housing market, which has boomed over the last two years, is continuing its hot streak. But there are signs that the market is starting to slow down. Stacy Stevens with Landmark Realty & Development and fellow Realtor Becky Demastus, both acknowledged that ‘aggressive’ listing prices that price homes above their market value aren’t quite selling like they were even four to five months ago.”

“‘I think that when a seller prices their home where it needs to be that we are still seeing multiple offers and over-list price offers,’ Demastus said. ‘But on houses where they just start way too aggressively, they do not sell right away and they are having to do price reductions.’ Stevens likened it to a game of musical chairs, with sellers seeing their neighbor’s home go for $50,000 above market value. They think they can sell their home for $60,000 or $70,000 more than it’s worth. ‘Once the music stops and the buyers stop coming out, that price looks ridiculous.'”

The Denton Record Chronicle in Texas. “Home sales in the city of Denton continued to slide in June. Closed sales were down 9% year over year. Pending contracts managed a 5% gain with inventory now rising quickly from the pandemic lows. Median and average home prices in Denton were up 19.9% and 17.6% from last year. That still leaves them below the highs we saw a few months ago. In terms of prices per square foot, average Denton home prices have dropped 7.5% from their peak back in March.”

“The number of homes for sale in Denton was up 51% from June of last year. Months of inventory has grown 67%. Good homes that are fairly priced are still selling, but it’s a dramatically different market than what we were experiencing earlier this year. Denton County inventory is up 80% from a year ago. With the decline in sales, the number of months of inventory has spiked 90% from a year ago. Months of inventory for new construction in Denton County is up 15% from a year ago. That’s nothing compared with what’s going on in Prosper.”

“Home prices in Prosper skyrocketed to a ridiculous high in May, then subsequently collapsed over $125,000 last month as 6% mortgage rates sent them crashing back to reality. New home inventory in Prosper (months of inventory) is now the highest since the Great Recession back in 2007. People are finally questioning the sanity of spending exorbitant sums of money for shelter that was selling for 60-80% less before the pandemic.”

“I have seen price reductions of 10-20% on some recent listings when the sellers and agents completely misjudged the market and what they are actually selling. What these agents aren’t telling their clients is that overpricing your home and missing the market is a perfect recipe for equity destruction. When the market is heading away from you, time is not your friend. Inventory, and the competition that comes with it, is growing by the day.”

“The inflated (empty) promises and listing price cuts will continue until it becomes clear to most sellers that the housing market correction is real. The price you can get for your home with rates at 6% is simply not the same as a market with rates below 3% and your central bank pumping $120 billion per month into the financial system. The golden goose has been cooked, flipped and manipulated into a colossal mess of unaffordable real estate.”

From Fox 5 in California. “After months on the rise, the median home price in San Diego County has recently dropped an estimated 2.9%, according to one real-estate official. ‘We’re finally starting to see a slow down in home prices,’ said Phillip Molnar, a business writer for the San Diego Union-Tribune. ‘They’ve been on a tear for about two and a half years.’ Molnar says that the current median home price is now $825,000, down from the May 2022 price of $850,000. The nearly 3% drop from May to June represents the biggest decrease in Southern California in recent history, according to Molnar.”

“‘We kind of expected home prices to go down at the start of the year, but unfortunately, what happened for a lot of buyers is people are nervous about interest rates going up so they rushed into the market and bought whatever they could, doing these crazy deals going over asking price and all that stuff,’ Molnar said.”

From WOOD TV. “Higher interest rates are leading to slimmer staffing at some banks in West Michigan. Last week, Grand Rapids-based Northpointe Bank confirmed it recently laid off 43 employees. Northpointe Bank CEO Charles Williams said severance packages were given to all affected workers. ‘As a national lender, we have been impacted by the large rise in interest rates coupled with the lower mortgage volume, among other factors,’ Williams stated.”

“In April, Troy, Michigan-based Flagstar Bank announced it had cut 420 jobs from its mortgage department, about 20% of that department’s total workforce. Lee Smith, president of mortgage at Flagstar Bank, said the company used layoffs and attrition to trim his department in the face of ‘unprecedented increases in interest rates and a significantly smaller mortgage market than what we experienced in 2020 and 2021.'”

From Global News in Canada. “Calgary’s hot housing market is following the lead of many others across the country and cooling off. Local realtor Curtis Prokopchuk couldn’t catch his breath for months. Now there’s been a definite shift in the market, he told Global News. ‘I’ve seen already a significant amount of price decreases,’ Prokopchuk said. He added that many sellers were basing the listing price on what other homes in the neighbourhood sold for earlier in the year. But he said most homes aren’t selling for way above asking anymore.”

Bloomberg on Canada. “Home contractor Anthony Sayers thought he had a budget of C=$160,000 for a home renovation project he had agreed to do in Toronto. Then the housing market turned and his client cut that almost in half. ‘The realtor came in and basically showed them that the market is done,’ he said, explaining that the clients had been depending on the sale of another property to fund the renovation. ‘It has turned down, and the money that they put in, they might not get back.'”

“‘People are afraid,” said Roman Orlov, a home renovation contractor in Toronto, who says new business inquiries have dropped about 40% in the last few months, and he’s heard the same thing from colleagues who do landscaping, painting, and pool work. ‘There is a downturn in the volume of inquiries.'”

China Digital Times. “‘If tens of thousands of homebuyers really stop paying their mortgage, the real estate companies will soon collapse because they have no liquidity,’ Dan Wang, chief economist at Hang Seng Bank China, told Nikkei Asia. ‘There are huge risks for banks, particularly local banks, whose assets are mainly in the housing market, and there is no way that the central bank could save all of them,’ she added.”

“Braving the risk of incurring bad credit, many homebuyers remained defiant in their boycott. In one online homebuyers’ group, after someone expressed concern about how ceasing to make payments might affect their credit score, another responded, ‘If you can’t even afford to eat, do you really care about your credit score?‘ The homeowners of one real-estate project in Zhengzhou declared in a unanimous statement, ‘At a time when we are desperate and fighting for survival, a credit score is just a paper tiger to us, a pair of shackles that can be discarded at any time. This is the helpless cry of millions of ordinary citizens like us.'”

“Some on social media have taken to using “Camel” Xiangzi, the aspirational but ill-fated protagonist of Lao She’s 1937 serialized novel “Rickshaw Boy,” as a stand-in for duped and frustrated homebuyers. A now-deleted WeChat article (“Xiangzi Decided to Stop Pulling the Rickshaw,” archived by CDT Chinese editors) included a poignant comment posted below a Douyin video filmed by a young couple in Zhengzhou, whose joy at purchasing a home had turned to anxiety about shouldering an expensive mortgage on a stalled housing project. The comment, which resonated with many social media users, read: “Xiangzi thought that if only he worked hard at pulling the rickshaw, someday he could own a rickshaw of his very own.”

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This Post Has 123 Comments

  1. The first 15 minute video:

    Massive Rate Hike Freezes Toronto Real Estate
    Team Sessa Real Estate
    Toronto Real Estate Market Report for the week of July 7 – July 13, 2022. This video will focus specifically on Toronto

    The second 15 minute video:

    Jul 19, 2022 It’s been a busy week with a shocker of a 1% interest rate hike from the Bank of Canada (Tiff Macklem), CREA (Canadian Real Estate Association) statistics showing ongoing slowing sales and national average price drops of $150,000, and talk of 50 year mortgages.

    1. talk of 50 year mortgages

      Notice how there’s always some financial product waiting in the wings to allow people to overpay?

  2. For some reason this video will not embed, so here:

    Expectations in the market shift for buyers and sellers
    Jul 18, 2022 In a shifting market it can be challenging to change your mindset if you’ve been a buyer or a seller over the past couple of years, but it’s so important to understand these expectations now that things are changing in the housing market.

    Buyer Expectations:
    Buyers are starting to have a little bit more leverage in this shifting market, which is part of the reason we are seeing an increase in “sale fails”. There is an opportunity to be a little bit more picky, but another big reason for this is that people were not locked into their mortgage rates..

    Also, you may think that the grass is greener on the other side of that house you just put an offer in, but trust us, it’s often not.

    Seller expectations:
    Recently we had nearly twice as many listings come onto the market in Portland, OR than homes sold so there is a lot of competition right now. If you are a seller you may need to be less picky about repairs and even more conscious about pricing. A year ago you might have been able to price on the high end of the comparable sales, but that’s really not the case anymore.

    It’s time to meet in the middle!

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mczUjOm8jkA

  3. Raleigh, NC Housing Prices Crater 19% YOY As Debt Crippled Speculators Panic And Inventory Soars Across The Carolinas

    https://www.movoto.com/nc/27606/market-trends/

    As one national broker conceded, “We’ve been scraping the bottom of the buyer barrel for 15 years or more. Why do you think mortgage defaults are 600% higher than long term trend?”

  4. ‘Home prices in Prosper skyrocketed to a ridiculous high in May, then subsequently collapsed over $125,000 last month as 6% mortgage rates sent them crashing back to reality. New home inventory in Prosper (months of inventory) is now the highest since the Great Recession back in 2007. People are finally questioning the sanity of spending exorbitant sums of money for shelter that was selling for 60-80% less before the pandemic.’

    ‘I have seen price reductions of 10-20% on some recent listings when the sellers and agents completely misjudged the market and what they are actually selling.’

    This is written by Aaron Layman. It’s worth reading in full. I said this was gonna happen to Prosper. All those shacks north of Dallas.

    ‘In another comical example of the financial media spin, industry players took a fake headline recently and ran with it for a 24-hour news cycle. When seemingly favorable Freddie Mac mortgage survey results were printed on July 7, major media outlets ran with it. They failed to mention the Freddie Mac survey results are a lagging indicator of rates, and particularly misleading in a volatile market. The media headlines were so absurd, Mortgage News Daily addressed it with a specific post.’

    “This week’s misleading headlines are invariably a result of Freddie Mac’s weekly mortgage rate survey. This is the longest-running and one of the most highly regarded records of interest rate movement over time. A majority of news organizations rely on it as the primary source for their once-a-week coverage of rates. In another comical example of the financial media spin, industry players took a fake headline recently and ran with it for a 24-hour news cycle.’

    ‘When seemingly favorable Freddie Mac mortgage survey results were printed on July 7, major media outlets ran with it. They failed to mention the Freddie Mac survey results are a lagging indicator of rates, and particularly misleading in a volatile market. The media headlines were so absurd, Mortgage News Daily addressed it with a specific post.’

    “This week’s misleading headlines are invariably a result of Freddie Mac’s weekly mortgage rate survey. This is the longest-running and one of the most highly regarded records of interest rate movement over time. A majority of news organizations rely on it as the primary source for their once-a-week coverage of rates. During more normal times, this strategy is good enough. The mainstream consumer of financial news doesn’t particularly need a new update on rates every day (unless they’re home shopping). And Freddie’s data does a great job of capturing the broad, long-term trends in rates. “Unfortunately, it does a terrible job of capturing rate changes when bonds are experiencing high volatility, especially if that volatility occurs during the last 3 days of the week.”

    ‘If you are in the market to buy or sell a home, timely, accurate information is important. We are in a volatile market with a housing market correction in its early stages. Instead of reporting up-to-date factual information, industry players are grasping at straws to pump more sales. Last week ended with rates over 50 basis points higher than what was cited by many major media outlets.’

    ‘So much for journalistic integrity.’

    2. “President Martell provided context to the drastic Vision 2025 plan during the conference call: “As we all know, the mortgage market is experiencing extraordinary and rapid change in 2022. Coming off two unprecedented years where originations totaled approximately $8 trillion, which were fueled by ultralow interest rates, home price appreciation and supply and demand imbalances, among other factors, the market decline in 2022 has been particularly sharp and abrupt, compared with past cycles. The Mortgage Bankers Association is projecting total originations to be down by approximately 40% in 2022 from 2021 levels. Refinancing transactions, which composed the majority of loanDepot’s origination business in both 2020 and 2021, are projected to be down almost 70%. The purchase market this year is expected to remain largely in line with last year, although volumes are expected to be somewhat below prior year levels over the final two quarters of this year. Looking ahead to next year, the Mortgage Bankers Association is currently projecting lower origination volumes in 2023, compared with 2022 levels.”

      1. projecting total originations to be down by approximately 40% in 2022 from 2021 levels. Refinancing transactions, which composed the majority of loanDepot’s origination business in both 2020 and 2021, are projected to be down almost 70%

        I just read somewhere that RV sales are in a similar boat.

        “This svcker could go down.”

        -George Bush II

  6. ‘On the surface, Evansville’s housing market, which has boomed over the last two years, is continuing its hot streak. But there are signs that the market is starting to slow down. Stacy Stevens with Landmark Realty & Development and fellow Realtor Becky Demastus, both acknowledged that ‘aggressive’ listing prices that price homes above their market value aren’t quite selling like they were even four to five months ago’

    Yer gonna regret letting this run wild in every nook and cranny of the US Jerry.

  10. Few things are more satisfying than watching “woke” companies suffer the consequences of their financial support to Democrat-Bolsheviks and other radical-left causes.

    Wake up and smell the coffee! Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz slams woke leaders for ‘abdicating their responsibility’ to fight crime causing his chain to shutter string of profitable stores because of assaults on staff

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11031077/Starbucks-CEO-blames-leaders-abdicating-responsibility-fight-crime-causing-store-closures.html

    The CEO of Starbucks is shuttering 16 profitable stores nationwide over disruptions that he’s blamed on the cities’ woke leaders for ‘abdicating their responsibility’ to fight crime.

    Howard Schultz said ‘America has become unsafe’ after he announced that 16 stores will close in several left-leaning cities across the country because staff are being attacked and reports of drug use at the popular cafés.

    1. Howard Schultz said ‘America has Democrat malgoverned sh!tholes have become unsafe’

    2. “s shuttering 16 profitable stores nationwide ”

      I smell a bs here. I doubt they were profitable.

    3. Watched a couple of Jodi Shaw’s YT clips last evening. She’s a very liberal former employee from Smith College in Massachusetts who helped push for equity and inclusion policies, and then was forced out herself, guilty of her whiteness.

      1. Love it. There’s hardly anything more stupid than a woke white woman parroting “reparations” and all that nonsense.

  11. “Multiple systemic failures” is a predictable consequence of putting Democrat-Bolsheviks in critical public safety positions. Learn something, Uvalde.

    Uvalde School District ‘is set to fire its embattled police chief Pete Arredondo at Saturday meeting’ after he held officers back for more than an hour while teen gunman massacred 19 children at local elementary school

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11030237/Uvalde-School-District-expected-fire-embattled-police-chief-Pete-Arredondo.html

    1. The School District is firing the police chief? Isn’t that the job of the Mayor or the City Council?

    2. ** here, I’ll save y’all the trouble & advise thin-skins, Karens, Democrats, & my ex wife to go ahead and put me on ignore right now. **

      not to make light of the Uvalde tragedy, just a little gallows humor, but old time native Texans say:
      “we’re fixin’ ” to, not “set to . . . ”

      I’m fixin’ to open a can o’ whoopazz
      we’re fixin’ to go swimmin’ in the tank
      she’s bringin’ poundcake n’ all the fixin’s.
      (ok, not the last one. haha!)

      God Bless Texas

  12. Telling the truth is rayciss per the Comrades of Proven Worth (D) at globalist propaganda outlets.

    After making racist statement, S.F. school board member apologizes

    https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/After-making-racist-statement-S-F-school-board-17315991.php

    A San Francisco school board member apologized Tuesday after she made a racist statement, saying one of the biggest challenges in educating Black and brown students was their “unstable family environments” and “lack of parental encouragement to focus on learning.”

    2. well, that’s true the average inmate reads at a 5th-grade level so who will ever hire them. Immersing the vibrants in the English language will save lives and keep them off the school-to-prison pipeline. yet black criminal lives matter are nowhere to be found.

      Also, we need to eliminate parole dates, early release, and good behavior, and the test would be read and explain your arrest warrant and why you were convicted in front of the parole board. No sense letting you out early if you can’t read.

      1. How do you “immerse them” when the ruling class declares that’s raycis? Expecting ANYTHING from them is raycis.

        Anecdote: I was in Dumver yesterday evening, driving southbound on Quebec. I was going to make a right turn, using a dedicated right turn lane. It was in the middle of twilight, when it’s hard to see, but fortunately I saw it: there was an obese vibrant, standing in the middle of the lane about 30-40 ft from the crosswalk. Given the time of day, it would have been easy to not see her and run her over. I’m sure her mindset was “I’m *protected class*, so I don’t have to follow the rules, I’ll just cross eight lanes of traffic here.”

          1. She seemed pretty aware of me. As soon as I went around her she began her dash across Quebec.

    3. UPDATE: Top S.F. official calls for resignation of school board member after racist comment

      “Ann Hsu, who was appointed by Mayor London Breed to fill a vacancy after the February recall of three board members, made the comments in a candidate questionnaire for a parent group endorsement process for the November election.”

      I hope the San Francisco’s “yella fellas” rally behind her.

  13. A reader sent these in. Ron is in K-da:

    Ron Butler

    Mortgage Anxiety Rising
    We operate a call center: people contact us about their mortgage needs and often have questions and issues
    The calls about: WHAT DO I DO!! about these rate increases are going off the charts
    They fall into several categories

    https://twitter.com/ronmortgageguy/status/1549401870887800835

    Steve Saretsky

    Canadians household interest costs as a percentage of disposable income are expected to hit record highs in the coming months.

    https://twitter.com/SteveSaretsky/status/1549553276416192512

    US consumers now expect housing price declines over the next 12 months and a 1% growth over the next five years.

    https://twitter.com/SoberLook/status/1549322821133864962

    Diana Olick

    CEO of @BankofAmerica says home equity line of credit originations are way up now, as homeowners finally start to pull money out. #housing wealth is currently at a record high.

    https://mobile.twitter.com/DianaOlick/status/1549110046033940480

    1. Canadians household interest costs as a percentage of disposable income are expected to hit record highs in the coming months.

      Isn’t “disposable income” what you have left after paying obligations and necessities, like the mortgage? Perhaps they meant percentage of after tax income?

    2. “home equity line of credit originations are way up now, as homeowners finally start to pull money out”

      Po’ people, they must pretend to be rich….

  14. The San Antonio Texas Real Estate Market Is Starting To SHIFT!
    Jul 19, 2022 The San Antonio Texas Real Estate Market Is Starting To SHIFT!

    Higher home prices, mortgage rates, and property taxes are changing the game for the real estate market in San Antonio! In this video I’ll be discussing the changes taking place in the San Antonio housing market and the overall Texas real estate market as well.

    The days of selling your home with several multiple offers, selling for 10’s of thousands over list price, and appraisal waivers are OVER! San Antonio home buyers and those selling a home in San Antonio are coming to terms with a more balances market.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wk0bLn8AGbQ

    11 minutes.

  15. BONNEY LAKE
    Hitting the Bullseye when pricing your home in Today’s Shifting Market
    Jul 19, 2022 Pricing your home to sell is crucial in today’s market. As the average market time to sell a home in Pierce and King counties is now approaching 1 month, it’s important to not overprice your home. We’re seeing more homes listed now than we’ve seen in the past 3 years, so there’s more competition and mortgage rates are moderating the market.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrLwUgMUkzA

    1:10.

          2. Hello RPRH,
            Yes, the listing agent got greedy, but think about the schlonged FBs. OMG, the stupid, it hurts!
            –Geezer

          3. schlonged FBs

            Future neighbors at 40-50% off. 🤞 Two of those are comps for the house I have my eye on.

      2. Closed 23% below original asking price!

        Still utterly overpriced. What’s the property tax? $20,000 a year?

  20. Austin housing market returning to pre-pandemic levels, report shows
    KXAN
    Jul 19, 2022 The Austin-area housing market is “decelerating” and beginning to return to how it was before the pandemic, a new mid-year report from the Austin Board of Realtors shows.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPcJmPrABPU

    3 minutes.

    1. Bumpy landing? More like touching down with no landing gear, sliding of the runway and bursting into flames.

  22. Metro Denver Real Estate Update
    Jul 19, 2022 Here’s the rundown on what’s happening in the Metro Denver’s real estate market this month.

    The hot topic this month is inventory. Here’s a stat for you – the amount of homes available today is 65% higher relative to just one month ago. That’s a massive increase in homes on the market.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzGLQ71gHHo

    2 minutes. 40% of shacks got slashed in the last month.

  23. You take talking points away from Pete Buttigieg and all you have is a guy that can’t fill potholes in South Bend Indiana.

    RNC Research
    @RNCResearch
    ·
    Follow
    Biden Transportation Sec. Pete Buttigieg: “The more pain we are all experiencing from the high price of gas, the more benefit there is for those who can access electric vehicles”

    1:32 PM · Jul 19, 2022

    https://twitter.com/RNCResearch/status/1549447070817337347?s=20&t=fOpvOlhOxzGnNZ7DHV4okA

    RNC Research
    @RNCResearch
    ·
    Follow
    .@RepThomasMassie: “The average household uses 1,870 kWh/year for air conditioning. If that average household plugged in electric cars…it would take FOUR TIMES as much electricity to charge the average household’s cars as the average household uses on air conditioning.”

    12:10 PM · Jul 19, 2022

    https://twitter.com/RNCResearch/status/1549426389320884225?s=20&t=d2cLWPAoW7WqIAWsJWdfOw

    1. it would take FOUR TIMES as much electricity to charge the average household’s cars as the average household uses on air conditioning

      Meanwhile, Tesla owners in Texas got a message telling them to not charge their cars. It’s already happening, just as was predicted: Where will the juice to charge all those cars come from?

      I also hear all these claims about how it’s soooo much cheaper to charge the car than fill up the tank. If it takes four times as much as running the A/C, then operating an electric car can cost a king’s ransom, especially in places like California.

      1. “it would take FOUR TIMES as much electricity to charge the average household’s cars as the average household uses on air conditioning”

        I have not looked this up but is this in KWH? i.e. charging the car for one hour and running the AC for the next hour? The car charge used 4x the amount of KWH? That seems a bit extreme

        1. In Co. Did you see the Ford lightning and Chevy PU 6,000 lb trailer tow from Longmont to the springs head to head comparison? The Ford had to leave the trailer in Castle Rock and head back. Great for getting some local groceries or a sheet of plywood but anything one would typically buy a PU for? BZZZZ!

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-e55Vued028

          1. In my case, the boat batteries get charged when I run the air conditioning. None of us are Average.

          2. “Such statements are useless”
            ?? How do you mean?
            An AC compressor unit has a standard energy draw that can be measured per KWH as would a home EV charging unit. You saying it can’t be measured?

          3. saying it can’t be measured?

            Not at all. I’m an engineer. We measure stuff for a living, and do estimates based on assumptions. The person who says “It’s four times” didn’t measure or estimate squat. That’s all I’m saying.

            If I had an EV, it would be to take me the 1.0 miles to the grocery store. It would be a scooter or a golf cart. I don’t A/C my house at all. I go out on my boat.

            Your situation is different I’m sure. Your EV charging can be estimated and your A/C usage should be known if you keep a budget. If it is 4x or something else does it really matter to you?

            Anyway, did you buy a Tesla?

      2. Let me also add that PG&E as well as Southern Ca Edison have a tier system for rate charges. Once you reach the 3rd Tier of monthly usage the KWH rate goes up by 3x per KWH. Ooof! AC + EV charging in the summer months one can easily spend over a grand per month for electricity.

        1. Perhaps that’s from where the writer came up with 4X. We don’t have tiered where I live, just a flat 9 cents a KWH, Anyway, once the lights go out, it’s moot.

          2. “SOLD: $515,000 Sold on 05/29/20 ZESTIMATE: $696,500”

            Zillow must’ve sprinkled magic fairy dust on that parcel.

          3. on that parcel

            35% appreciation in the last two years is probably on the lower end here.

    1. The acceleration of this crash really feels like it is way more pedal to the metal than the 05-08 crash.

      1. I recall that the Canucks quickly propped up their bubble via super low interest rates. Of course, last time they didn’t have 10% inflation.

  25. “If you can’t even afford to eat, do you really care about your credit score?”

    Boom. Quote of the decade, soon to be heard around the world.

    1. “Xiangzi thought that if only he worked hard at pulling the rickshaw, someday he could own a rickshaw of his very own.”

      Maybe I spoke too soon. That one might have even larger implications. The Chinese are on a roll today.

    2. soon to be heard around the world

      Already being heard, even if the MSM is doing its best to memory hole it.

      How many people will the Globalists starve to death?

    3. “If you can’t even afford to eat, do you really care about your credit score?”

      Brandon and Co. will tell you that you’re not hungry, that you don’t need to eat as much.

      FJB

  26. Does anyone have any good sources on Big Finance’s exposure to all these failing Chinese real estate endeavors? Looking to see what if any sorts of involvement blackrock, blackstone, goldman sachs, et al have to the contagion coming out of China.

    1. They have a stake in everything, just like Warren Buffett. If you buy something – anything – chances are Warren is getting a cut.

    1. soybean futures

      Looks like Mr. Market has factored in the WEF’s depopulation plans.

  28. Sorry that this is so long, but might be something to send out to people you know.

    Subject: very interesting read + Newsom (Ron Pelligini’s response)
    You might need to know this in the near future.
    Facts:
    He was born on September 14, 1978, in Jacksonville, Florida.

    [1] He is of Italian descent.

    [2] His family moved to Orlando, Florida, before relocating to Dunedin, Florida, when he was six years old.

    [3] In 1991, he was a member of the Little League team from Dunedin National that made it to the Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.

    (4] After graduating from Dunedin High School in 1997, he attended Yale University. He was Captain of Yale’s varsity baseball team and joined the Delta Kappa Epsilon Fraternity.

    [5] On the Yale baseball team, he was an outfielder; as a senior in 2001, he had the team’s best batting average at .336.

    [6] He graduated from Yale in 2001 with a B.A. Magna Cum Laude in History.

    [7] He then spent a year as a History Teacher at the Darlington School.

    [8] He attended Harvard Law School, graduating in 2005 with a Juris Doctor Cum Laude.

    [9] He received his Reserve Naval Officer’s commission and assignment to the Judge Advocate General’s Corps (JAG) in 2004 at the U.S. Naval Reserve Center in Dallas, Texas, while still a student at Harvard Law School.

    [10] He completed Naval Justice School in 2005.

    [11] Later that year, he received orders to the JAG Trial Service Office Command South East at Naval Station Mayport, Florida, as a Prosecutor.

    [12] In 2006, he was promoted from Lieutenant, Junior Grade to Lieutenant. He worked for the Commander of Joint Task Force-Guantanamo (JTF-GTMO), working directly with detainees at the Guantanamo Bay Joint Detention Facility.

    13] In 2007, he reported to the Naval Special Warfare Command Group in Coronado, California, where he was assigned to SEAL Team One and deployed to Iraq with the Troop surge as the Legal Advisor to the SEAL Commander, Special Operations Task Force-West in Fallujah.

    [14] He returned to the U.S. in April 2008, at which time he was reassigned to the Naval Region Southeast Legal Service.

    [15] The U.S. Department of Justice appointed him to serve as an Assistant U.S. Attorney at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Middle District of Florida.

    [16] He was assigned as a Trial Defense Counsel until his honorable discharge from active duty in February 2010.

    [17] He concurrently accepted a reserve commission as a Lieutenant Commander in the Judge Advocate General’s Corps of the US Navy Reserve.

    [18] He was awarded the Bronze Star Medal, the Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal, the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, and the Iraq Campaign Medal.

    [19 He represented Florida’s 6th Congressional District in the US House of Representatives from 2013 to 2018.

    This former Navy Lieutenant is Ron DeSantis, Governor of Florida. 😊

    Gavin Newsom ( Ron Pelligrini’s response after receiving above)

    But what about this guy?…

    1/ born in San Francisco – son of a state appeals court judge who was also an attorney for Getty Oil.

    2/ he attended Ecole Notre Dame Des Victoires, a French-American bilingual school in San Francisco, and Notre Dame des Victoires, another private school in Marin County.

    3/ he graduated from Santa Clara University…having a partial scholarship for baseball, and spent a year studying abroad, in Santa Clara’s overseas study program in Rome.

    4/ funded in large part by Gordon Getty…his father’s good friend…he was one of the founding partners of the Plump Jack Group. PlumpJack was the name of an opera written by Getty, who invested in 10 of Newsom’s 11 businesses.

    5/ While running for Mayor of San Francisco…hand-picked by then Mayor Willie Brown as his heir apparent…who, at the time was also helping Kamala Harris sleep her way into the SF District Attorney’s office…he married Kimberly Guilfoyle…she of Court TV and Fox fame. Their marriage lasted almost 5 years!

    6/ his primary campaign funds came from the Getty Family…the Fisher Family (GAP)…the Pritzger Family (Hyatt Hotels)…the Swig Family (SF real estate)…you get the drift…all Getty croanies.

    7/ as mayor of San Francisco he accomplished nothing…did nothing…for eight years. Except ensuring that the homeless population and the number of illegal immigrants allowed to stay in San Francisco grew at rates never seen before. And supporting local labor unions as they held hotels and restaurants hostage.

    8/ did I mention his aunt is married to Nancy Pelosi’s brother-in-law???

    9/ then he became Lieutenant Governor of California…serving under Jerry Brown…The Lieutenant Governor serves as a voting member of the Board of Regents of the University of California, the Board of Trustees of the California State University system, and the Board of Governors of the California Community Colleges system. The Lieutenant Governor also sits on the Calbright College Board of Trustees.

    How are those schools doing? Not so good…

    10/ and then he inherited the governor’s office from Jerry Brown…and closed our schools and small businesses…watched billions of dollars of Covid aid be stolen by fraudulent unemployment scammers…failed to provide any National Guard support at the height of the pandemic…and yet still survived a recall.

    Our next president!!!
    Gavin Newsom

    1. Children are dying.

      And it’s being sent to the memory hole.

      Imagine being a parent and finding out you were hoodwinked and your child died because of the jab. You go to the press, hoping to warn others, and find that they are not interested in your story at all and tell you to f*ck off. You can’t even form a support group on Fakebook, as it would no doubt be cancelled.

      It’s only through stories like this that slip through the cracks that we can see what is really happening. And it’s horrific.

      1. My autistic son had an autistic preschool classmate who drowned at 4 years old, survived by his autistic twin brother and separated parents. The father was in custody when the boy eloped and drowned. That was a difficult funeral. I don’t ever want to see another small coffin.

  32. “Molnar says that the current median home price is now $825,000, down from the May 2022 price of $850,000.”

    How many more one month $25,000 drops will it take to get down to $0? About 33 (less than 3 year’s worth)?

      1. ‘When it comes to inventory, Zillow senior economist Tucker thinks current conditions favor buyers. “Is this the time to buy? ” he asked, and then answered, “These are better buying conditions than buyers have seen in a long time. They won’t be forced into a bidding war nearly as often as they would have even just five or six months ago.”

        Tucker said the better question is if they can afford the still considerably high prices. “The prices are still very, very high. And mortgage rates are also very high. So those are two things that are still not great news for buyers,” Tucker said. “I think some buyers, putting those together, may still say ‘I can’t afford a mortgage at these rates and these prices, so I’ll still have to kind of sit on the sideline for a while.'”‘

        Try not to catch yourself a falling knife.

    2. “How many more one month $25,000 drops will it take to get down to $0?”

      If that’s a fixed percentage of the remaining balance they’ll never see $0, but close enough to be effective.

    3. One YT realtor took the monthly drop and just multiplied by 12 to annualize it. 🤦‍♀️ I almost posted the video so that you could correct him.

  33. I hear realtors say we might have a small price improvement. Truth is there’s already a major downturn. Prime South Orange County ranch style listings that were $1.7m in May were going 200K over, so 1.9m. Now similar listings pop up for 1.6m and then price cut 150K and still sit. So in a sense 1.9 is now 1.45. All that new homeowner sweet 20% equity wiped out in less than 60 days! Good luck with that refi!

    1. Oh I forgot. If you have to sell add another 75K in commissions and instead of paying closing costs to buy, you get to pay closing costs to sell and make repairs. But hey you won and got to boast at the Memorial Day BBQ.

      1. There are many fundamental truths related to housing my good friend…
        –Houses depreciate rapidly
        –Land is only worth a few hundred an acre
        –Construction costs for an SFR are $50/sq ft irrespective of location

        But the one core fundamental truth that precedes all others is….

        Realtors are liars

  34. I don’t follow the crypto chatter on here closely, but I thought HBBers might be interested to learn that Tesla sold 75% of its Bitcoin for $936M last quarter. Without the sale, free cash flow (FCF) was negative. FCF provides insight into an organization’s financial health.

    1. FCF ex-Bitcoin, ex-ZEV = ($659M) 💰🔥

      Parantheses indicates a negative amount.

  35. House Democrats Block Motion to Prohibit Biden from Selling U.S. Oil to China

    JORDAN DIXON-HAMILTON
    20 Jul 2022

    he proposed motion would have prevented U.S. oil from being sold to entities “under the ownership, control, or influence of the Chinese Communist Party” or entities that would get the oil and then turn around and export it to China.

    Valadao’s motion comes just weeks after reports revealed that Biden sold nearly one million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to a CCP-owned gas company with financial ties to Hunter Biden.

    https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/07/20/house-democrats-block-motion-to-prohibit-biden-from-selling-u-s-oil-to-china/

    1. The Financial Times
      Chinese business & finance
      Chinese city Zhengzhou sets up bailout fund as mortgage boycott spreads
      The homebuyer revolt over stalled projects is aggravating a property sector crisis
      Blocks of flats under construction in Guangzhou, China
      Hundreds of thousands of homebuyers in China have threatened in open letters to halt mortgage payments on unfinished homes
      Cheng Leng in Hong Kong yesterday

      China’s Zhengzhou city is creating a property developer bailout fund as increasing numbers of homeowners join a nationwide boycott of mortgage payments on unfinished houses.

      The bailout, one of the first to deal with the intensifying mortgage revolt in China, will be jointly established by Henan Asset Management and developer Zhengzhou Real Estate Group, according to a statement from the asset manager. The two entities are backed by the financing arms of the local government.

      Bailout measures for the property sector are being closely watched by investors after hundreds of thousands of homebuyers threatened in open letters to halt payments, aggravating a property sector crisis that is weighing on China’s economic growth.

      Presales, where homebuyers typically take out a mortgage to pay for a property that has not yet been completed, are widespread across China. Anger is growing among buyers who have already paid for homes that developers have failed to deliver because of financial difficulties.

      The boycott has spread to more than 300 property projects in China as of Sunday from 200 projects last week, according to a crowdsourced document titled “WeNeedHome”. Evergrande, the world’s most indebted developer, Sunshine City, Sunac and Kaisa are among the developers hit by the boycott.

      The action has raised concerns of default risk at banks. Last week, financial regulators rushed to stamp out the broad panic over the system’s financial health by asking banks to disclose the degree of their mortgage exposure. Sixteen listed banks revealed that a small portion of loans were vulnerable to damage.

      The Zhengzhou city fund aims to help “revitalise problematic property projects and rescue developers with difficulties”, Henan Asset Management said, without revealing the fund’s size.

      Zhengzhou, the capital city of Henan province, is the most exposed to the mortgage revolt out of 91 affected cities, according to data compiled by researchers at E-House China Enterprise Holdings, a real estate services company.

      Over the weekend, the country’s banking watchdog urged banks to boost lending to developers to help them finish projects and pledged to step up co-ordination with the central bank and housing regulator to “guarantee the delivery of homes”.
      …

    2. The Financial Times
      The Big Read Chinese economy
      China reckons with its first overseas debt crisis
      The Belt and Road Initiative has seen a surge in loans going bad, prompting Beijing to issue countries with emergency credit
      James Kynge in London, Kathrin Hille in Taipei, Ben Parkin in Colombo and Jonathan Wheatley in São Paulo an hour ago

      The 350m Lotus Tower that looms over the skyline in Sri Lanka’s capital Colombo is one of the tallest buildings in South Asia. Funded by a Chinese state bank and designed to look like a giant lotus bud about to burst into flower, it was intended to be a metaphor for the flourishing of Sri Lanka’s economy and the “brilliant future” of the bilateral co-operation between Beijing and Colombo.

      Instead, the tower has become a symbol of the mounting problems facing China’s overseas lending scheme, the “Belt and Road Initiative”. The construction suffered from lengthy delays and an allegation of corruption levelled by Sri Lanka’s then-president Maithripala Sirisena against one of the Chinese contractors. Now, three years after its official launch, the tower’s amenities including a shopping mall, a conference centre and several restaurants stand either unfinished or largely unused while outside on the streets outrage over Sri Lanka’s financial mismanagement has boiled over into popular protests.

      “It is something we would have done better without,” says Athula Kumarasiri, a bookshop owner, as he motions towards the tower. “What is the need for this? It is a complete white elephant.”

      Sri Lanka is one of dozens of countries in the developing world that hoped to take advantage of the surge in Chinese overseas lending over the past decade under the Belt and Road Initiative — a scheme that ranks not only as Beijing’s biggest foreign policy gambit since the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949 but also the largest transnational infrastructure programme ever undertaken by a single country.

      However, a large number of projects, such as the tower, have failed to yield a commercial return while the huge loans it takes to build such infrastructure can exacerbate financial pressures on vulnerable governments.

      Those pressures have converged in Sri Lanka, which defaulted on its sovereign debt in May, the first Asia-Pacific country to do so for more than two decades.

      Such cases are becoming much more common. A Financial Times examination of the financial health of the Belt and Road Initiative — once hailed by Chinese leader Xi Jinping as the “project of the century” — has uncovered a mountain of non-performing loans.

      In several countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America, the project risks metastasising into a series of debt crises. The issue is of crucial importance to the developing world because of the vast scale of the Belt and Road Initiative. Since the programme was first proposed in 2013 the value of China-led infrastructure projects and other transactions classified as “Belt and Road” in scores of developing countries had reached $838bn by the end of 2021, according to data collected by the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington-based think-tank.

      But the loans that finance those projects are now turning bad in record numbers. According to data collected by Rhodium Group, a New York-based research group, the total value of loans from Chinese institutions that had to be renegotiated in 2020 and 2021 surged to $52bn. This was more than three times the $16bn of the previous two years.
      …

      1. “However, a large number of projects, such as the tower, have failed to yield a commercial return while the huge loans it takes to build such infrastructure can exacerbate financial pressures on vulnerable governments.“

        à la Confessions of an Economic Hit Man?

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