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We Increase Prices Without Understanding That It Will Backfire On Every Single Part Of The Industry

A report from Market Watch. “‘Our prices have come off of their irrational highs of the last 18 months. It’s kind of a rebalancing,’ Dave Walsh, manager of Compass Realty San Jose, told MarketWatch. At open houses in the Bay Area, multiple buyers are turning up — but the lines are nowhere near as long as they were during the pandemic years. ‘That was just off the tracks,’ Walsh, a four-decade housing-industry veteran, said. ‘We’ve never had a year like 2020 in many of my years in being in the business.'”

The Orange County Register in California. “Orange County home prices are 5.1% off their peak after the worst July sales on record. Basically, Orange County homebuying has cooled 38% in a year as house hunters were scared off by 48% higher house payments. The median: $1 million for all homes was down 2.4% in a month while increasing 11% over 12 months. Record O.C. high? $1,054,000 set in May. So, prices are 5.1% off their peak.”

The New York Post. “Homeowners in markets that boomed when the real estate sector was red-hot during the COVID-19 pandemic are now forced to slash prices due to dwindling demand, according to Redfin. The trend was at its worst in ‘pandemic home-buying boomtowns’ such as Boise, Idaho, where a whopping 69.7% of homes for sale slashed listing prices in July. Other overheated markets included Denver, with a 58% of price drops, and Salt Lake City, with a 54.8% share of cuts.”

“‘Individual home sellers and builders were both quick to drop their prices early this summer, mostly because they had unrealistic expectations of both price and timelines,’ Boise-based Redfin agent Shauna Pendleton said. ‘They priced too high because their neighbor’s home sold for an exorbitant price a few months ago, and expected to receive multiple offers the first weekend because they heard stories about that happening.'”

From Mansion Global. “Home sales plunged 19.3% year over year in July, the biggest annual drop in more than a year, according to Redfin. Month over month, sales dipped 4.1%, marking the sixth consecutive month of declines. In fact, last month’s sales were at their lowest level since the very beginning of the pandemic. San Jose, California, in Silicon Valley, registered a 44.2% year-over-year decline in sales, the largest drop since last year, the figures show. Home sales in Boise, Idaho, and San Diego declined by 42% and 41.2%, respectively. The report looked at 90 metro areas.”

“In North Port, Florida, the number of homes for sale was up 58% year over year, the biggest increase in active listings of any of the metro areas covered in the report. Austin, Texas, and Nashville, Tennessee, followed, with inventory jumps of 37% and 33%, respectively. ‘The buyers who are still in the game are finally getting a break from bidding wars, which means they can be picky,’ Pam Lewis, a Raleigh, North Carolina-based Redfin agent, said in the report. ‘They have some choices. They don’t want a home if it doesn’t have the fenced-in yard or guest room on their wish list, and they want a $20,000 price reduction if a home has been on the market for more than a week.'”

KTAR in Arizona. “Zillow released a report showing the typical home value in metro Phoenix falling 2.8% from June to July, putting the average price at $470,800. Nicole Bachaud, a senior economist for Zillow, told KTAR News 92.3 FM the change represented a decline of about $14,000. Zillow’s report shows that Valley inventory increased by 11.3% from June to July and prices were reduced on 28.8% of homes listed. ‘There’s more options. There’s more availability of homes. It’s easier to negotiate prices. You have less competition from other buyers,’ Bachaud said.”

From Florida Realtors. “The housing market has slowly started to rebalance as less buyer frenzy and higher interest rates help soften it, forcing sellers to adjust to a more normal market. It’s still a seller’s market, South Florida real estate agents stress, though it’s not the torrid one of six months or a year go where bidding wars were common, homes flew off the market in a matter of days and buyers waived inspection just to get into a home.”

“‘Sellers kind of have a fear of missing out and they know the market has changed,’ said Alex Platt with Compass in Boca Raton. ‘We are lucky that prices are still what they are today, but they just aren’t going to get into the same bidding war as they could a few months ago.’ It was common for buyers to waive inspection periods, but that has started to change as the market cools. According to Dave Gunther, real estate agent with Lang Realty in Delray Beach, in the past, every third contract would have an inspection period waiver on a fast-moving property, but now he’s only seen one contract like that in the past six months.”

From KHOU 11. “It’s not a ‘buyer’s market’ yet, but it’s definitely not the ‘seller’s market’ we were seeing just several months ago. In Austin, the monthly change in the median home price went down for the first time in 2022, dropping from $550,000 in May to $537,475 in June. It helps to put a damper on prices when more homes for sale are on the market. We’re seeing that happen in a big way in big Texas cities. In June, there were more months of housing inventory in each of the largest metros.”

Houston Agent Magazine in Texas. “The share of ‘stale’ Houston listings, or homes that were listed for 30 days or longer without going under contract, increased by 10.2% year over year in July. Overall, 60% of Houston listings remain on the market for over a month. ‘The market did a 180-degree turn from early spring to late spring, with buyers backing out because of high mortgage rates. A lot of sellers are telling me they feel that they’ve missed out on the hot market,’ said Christopher Johns, a Redfin agent in Houston. ‘I’m reminding prospective sellers that we’re not in a housing-market crash; it’s a correction. If sellers list their home for slightly less than they would have five months ago, they’re still likely to get a solid offer.'”

The Real Deal on New York. “Manhattan’s luxury market hit a summer slump last week, with just eight contracts signed at $4 million and above. That’s the worst performance in the luxury market since the week of Aug. 3, 2020, when just six contracts were signed, according to Olshan Realty. The report also marks the second time in recent weeks the market hit a slump reminiscent of 2020. The priciest home to enter into contract was 17/18A at 100 Eleventh Avenue, asking nearly $15 million. The seller bought the unit from the sponsor in December 2009 for $19.4 million and it was listed in November.”

“Out of the eight contracts signed last week, five were for condos and three were for townhouses. The median asking price was $6.7 million, and the units spent an average of 457 days on the market, with an average discount of 6 percent.”

From Newsweek. “Some independent mortgage lenders feeling the brunt of increased lending rates are declaring bankruptcy and have already laid off hundreds of employees in certain instances. Some lenders have already downsized or closed permanently, Bloomberg reported. Susan Wachter, professor of real estate and finance at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, told Newsweek that there are ‘some similarities and stark differences’ between what happened 15 years ago and what is taking place today—alluding to mortgage origination dropping by 50 percent.”

“Wachter, who co-authored a book called The Great American Housing Bubble about the 2008 recession, said if mortgage rates continue to rise significantly, there may be ‘a hard landing’ economically. It’s compounded by the fact that the Fed will likely keep raising rates until inflation comes down. ‘It will hit mortgage markets even worse because housing will become even less affordable,’ she said. ‘We will see housing prices not just decelerate; we will see housing markets fall….I see no silver lining for the mortgage industry in this coming period. The wave, the problems that took the industry down are likely to worsen. Expect independent mortgage companies to be even more challenged.'”

A press release. “‘Buyer sentiment changed virtually overnight as growing geopolitical concerns and spiralling inflation destabilized global markets, leaving the Bank of Canada little option but to raise interest rates,’ says Christopher Alexander, President, RE/MAX Canada. ‘Those fast and furious incremental increases placed downward pressure on housing sales and prices, improving affordability on one hand, but eroding it on the other.'”

“RE/MAX found that second quarter values in the GTA were 10 to 15 per cent below Q1 levels in Durham (-14.6 per cent), York (-12.9 per cent), Halton (-12.7 per cent), Dufferin (-12 per cent) and Peel (-11.2 per cent). Seventy-five per cent of markets in Greater Vancouver, however, experienced a downturn in Q2 median values, coming off peak levels reported in the first quarter of the year. Most of the declines reported were below 10 per cent, with one outlier – Whistler/Pemberton, which fell by just over 16 per cent ($3,020,000 vs. $3,622,500).”

ABC Business. “After witnessing four decades of boom-to-bust cycles in Australia’s residential property industry, experienced Gold Coast developer Soheil Abedian puts the construction industry’s current woes down to one simple reason: greed. In fact, it’s ‘massive greed,’ he says, that is a product of ‘the capitalist system that we have in Australia and the Western world — that everybody would like to have more and more profit.'”

“‘Who is to blame? All of us,’ the Persian-Australian property developer told ABC News in an exclusive interview. ‘Every single person that is taking part in the industry. We increase the prices without understanding that, ultimately, it will backfire on every single part of the industry. And we see that now. Let me say that the collapse of construction companies has just started.'”

“One of the many builders to recently collapse is Langford Jones Homes. But when it went under on June 30, it left many consumers, including San Remo resident Donna Taylor, in limbo. ‘It’s heartbreaking,’ Ms Taylor told ABC News, breaking down in tears over the home that never got built. ‘It’s just wrecked my life. And there’s so many more people that are like me that it’s just ruined.'”

“Langford Jones Homes founder Bruce Langford-Jones told ABC News in a written statement that the company’s customers were covered by warranty insurance. ‘Our family have lost everything — my son has lost his house. My wife and I have lost our family home and holiday house,’ Mr Langford-Jones said. The problem, he argues, was that ‘the government’s fuelling the market with grants [and this] is creating a demand/supply issue.'”

“Regulators also know that moving too hard on rates could tip borrowers like Queensland couple Stacey and Anthony Ashton into financial stress. The couple’s journey to build their dream home has been an ordeal, starting in late 2019 when they bought their first home in Cedar Creek. They contracted builder PlanBuild in 2020, but the company went into insolvency in April 2021. It happened the day before their wedding.”

“‘It was quite stressful and quite upsetting – there were a few tears,’ Ms Ashton said. ‘And then our honeymoon was essentially ruined, because we were just trying to find a new builder as soon as we could to get our home started.’ Mr Ashton urges Australians to be careful when signing contracts. ‘I would just say there’s no gentlemen’s agreements anymore,’ he said. ‘There’s no pride in people’s work. All you can rely on is contracts these days. And that’s the sad thing about the market at the moment. Every promise is broken.'”

The Guardian. “China is in a rocky economic period marked by rolling Covid clampdowns. The timing is awkward, given China is in the run-up to the 20th National Congress of the Communist party in November, which is expected to extend president Xi Jinping’s grip on power. But the issues go beyond the pandemic and notably include a deflating property bubble.In July, almost all the data, from retail sales and manufacturing to investments, missed expectations, says Raymond Yeung, ANZ’s chief economist for greater China. ‘My biggest worry is employment,’ he says, pointing to the 20% youth unemployment in cities, the highest on record.”

“Michael Pettis, a professor of finance at Peking University’s Guanghua School of Management, has long warned about the dangers created by 30 years of rising property prices. Pettis recently noted that developers are yet to deliver about 40% of the homes they sold in advance between 2013 and 2020 – in relatively good times.”

“‘Property developers had historically depended on rising home prices and surging sales to justify massive leverage and overbuilding,’ he wrote. ‘But once the bubble began to deflate last year, these over-leveraged property developers ran into serious liquidity and credit constraints that made it impossible for them to complete their construction projects.'”

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This Post Has 108 Comments

  1. ‘In North Port, Florida, the number of homes for sale was up 58% year over year, the biggest increase in active listings of any of the metro areas covered in the report’

    That’s the first time I’ve seen this former smoldering hole mentioned in a while.

  2. ‘Wachter, who co-authored a book called The Great American Housing Bubble about the 2008 recession, said if mortgage rates continue to rise significantly, there may be ‘a hard landing’ economically’

    I didn’t know you wrote a book Suze. I recall you were saying a bubble was unpossible well into the bust.

    ‘We will see housing prices not just decelerate; we will see housing markets fall….I see no silver lining for the mortgage industry in this coming period. The wave, the problems that took the industry down are likely to worsen’

    Yer a doom and gloomer now Suze.

    1. ‘It will hit mortgage markets even worse because housing will become even less affordable,’

      Technically, if housing prices decline, don’t they become more affordable?

      Perhaps she’s speaking to the howmuchamonth people’s concerns…

  3. ‘they want a $20,000 price reduction if a home has been on the market for more than a week’

    Larry, yer 6 month thing is unraveling fast.

    ‘It was common for buyers to waive inspection periods, but that has started to change as the market cools. According to Dave Gunther, real estate agent with Lang Realty in Delray Beach, in the past, every third contract would have an inspection period waiver on a fast-moving property, but now he’s only seen one contract like that in the past six months’

    Somebody’s been a lion.

  4. ‘It’s heartbreaking…It’s just wrecked my life. And there’s so many more people that are like me that it’s just ruined…Our family have lost everything — my son has lost his house. My wife and I have lost our family home and holiday house’

    Sad pandaville is located where in Australia?

    ‘The problem, he argues, was that ‘the government’s fuelling the market with grants [and this] is creating a demand/supply issue’

    Right oh Bruce. Shot yerself in the fook.

    2. ‘It’s heartbreaking…It’s just wrecked my life. And there’s so many more people that are like me that it’s just ruined…

      It would take a heart of stone to read these FB tales of woe without laughing.

  5. Does the bursting Everything Bubble leave you feeling like there’s nowhere to hide? As though it isn’t a question of whether you lost money, but how much despite recent rebounds?

    Not to worry…in the long run, stocks, bonds, housing, and cryptocurrencies go up. And inflation will soon return to a tolerable two percent annual rate.
    Or so I have been told…

    1. The Financial Times
      Opinion Markets Insight
      Bubble bursting shows the need for ‘confidence diversification’
      Too many investor portfolios were one-way bets on euphoria across asset classes
      GameStop logo is seen in front of displayed Reddit logo
      Consumed by this year’s challenges, we’ve all but forgotten the wild excesses that preceded them, such as the retail investor frenzy that drove up obscure stocks such as GameStop to extreme heights
      Peter Atwater yesterday
      The writer is an adjunct lecturer at William & Mary and author of the forthcoming book “The Confidence Map”

      After the sharp sell-off in stocks, bonds, real estate and most other major asset classes this year, many investors will be asking hard questions about their portfolios.

      Even for conservative investors it isn’t a question of if they lost money, but how much despite recent rebounds. Money managers have plenty of exogenous events and macroeconomic factors to point to to help explain this: the war in Ukraine, soaring inflation, a European energy crisis, a global slowdown, not to mention the lingering supply chain impacts of Covid-19, a soaring dollar and rising geopolitical tensions. There’s a long and all-too-familiar list of “who could possibly have imagined” reasons.

      Likely to be missing from this summer’s discussions, though, will be any mention of 2021. Consumed by this year’s challenges, we’ve all but forgotten the wild excesses that preceded them: the retail investor frenzy that drove up obscure stocks such as GameStop to extreme heights, how some $18tn of bonds were trading at one stage with negative yields, the rush to invest in blank-cheque Spac investment vehicles. Remember dogecoin, a cryptocurrency designed as a joke that surged 15,000 per cent before crashing?

      This may seem like an uncomfortable walk down memory lane, but it wasn’t all that long ago that pundits were suggesting we were at the climax of an “Everything Bubble”. And there are reasons we should keep such times in mind.
      …

    2. leave you feeling like there’s nowhere to hide?

      That’s how I was feeling during the “no jab, no job” mandates. I was fortunate enough to have escaped that calamity intact and remained a pureblood.

      1. I have friends who did the same, one of them an employee of Gavin Newsom’s People’s Republic of California. There’s almost always somewhere to hide, if you are sufficiently resourceful.

    3. Something else to consider before jumping in on the tail end of Wall Street’s summer drunkfest: Milton Friedman once commented that “monetary actions affect economic conditions only after a lag that is both long and variable.”

      What this means is that today’s series of Fed rate hikes won’t affect the real economy until some unpredictable point in the future. You ain’t seen nothing yet…

      1. What’s a ‘bear trap’? Analysts issue warning not to get swept away by the recent market rally
        BY Tristan Bove
        August 23, 2022 at 4:29 AM PDT
        Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange during afternoon trading in August 2022
        Is the bear market over? Or is this a bear trap?
        Michael M. Santiago—Getty Images

        Is it a bear market or not?

        Technically, the U.S. stock market has been in a bear market downturn for months, since the S&P 500 dropped 20% from its last peak and officially entered a bear spiral.

        Since then, the market appears to have taken a turn for the better. Between the index’s mid-June low and last week, the S&P 500 rebounded by over 17%, building on several weeks’ worth of consistent gains.

        But does this mean the bear market is drawing to a close and it is time to buy? Maybe not, according to analysts from investment and wealth management firm Glenmede.

        The recent bounce is looking alarmingly similar to historical “bear traps”, the Glenmede analysts from the firm’s investment strategy division wrote in a Monday note to clients, warning investors that we have seen this type of market rally before, and investors should continue being cautious about how they interact with this cloudy market.

        “The 17% rally off the June 16th low seems consistent with historical bear market rallies, on average returning over 17.8% before reversing course and hitting new market lows,” the Glenmede analysts wrote.
        …
        https://fortune.com/2022/08/23/stock-market-bear-trap-analysts-issue-warning-after-recent-rally/

  6. As I review all these articles, I am struck with a realization that we could very well see another housing bubble bust similar to 2007 within our lifetimes.

    1. “… that we could very well see another housing bubble bust similar to 2007 within our lifetimes….”

      2007 could be pretty mild compared to what’s coming down the pike.

      How many trillions of fake dollars were printed compared to 2007 and now?

        1. “…When they [Japanese] bought Pebble Beach Golf Course the top was in….”

          Remember that very well.

          Total MSM hysteria.

          Endless MSM articles about how the Japanese were going to own all the LA commercial real estate and California golf courses.

          I am sure if you looked hard enough you could find a MSM article about how the Japanese were creating a ‘shortage’ of golf courses.

          The LA times even had an editorial cartoon [by Conrad] titled “Hirohito’s revenge’ showing a drawing of a large bomber dropping Japanese cars all over USA.

          1. “Total MSM hysteria.”

            Indeed. Even the top business colleges around the country were touting Japanese business methodology and considering integrating it into their education programs. Then…

          2. I was in Business grad school at the time(91-93) and yes, the Japanese were the be all and end all in business.
            To their credit, they sure as hell improved the Cars. I won’t buy an “American car.”

          4. I’ve never been inclined to buy a car from folks that tried really really hard to kill my dad.

    1. The Financial Times
      Opinion Markets Insight
      Beijing is tanking the domestic economy — and helping the world
      Lower demand from China for imported goods is easing inflationary pressure elsewhere
      Matthew C Klein
      The pace of homebuilding in China is at its slowest since 2009
      Matthew C Klein August 16 2022
      The writer is the founder of The Overshoot and the co-author of Trade Wars Are Class Wars.

      China’s crackdown on property developers and its draconian “Covid Zero” policies are bad news for most of its people, as well as businesses abroad hoping to make money from Chinese customers.

      But China’s internal troubles have an upside: lower demand for imported metals, energy, food and capital goods is alleviating inflationary pressures in the rest of the world. For the first time in decades, the country’s enormous trade surplus is a boon for workers elsewhere.

      The downturn in the housing market began last summer in response to government restrictions on mortgage borrowing and developer leverage. Homebuilders sold an average of 156mn sq m a month of residential floor space from April to June 2021. This year in the same period, Chinese developers have sold just 106mn sq m a month.

      The plunge in demand has flowed through to new building, with the amount of “residential floor space started” in April-June 2022 down by nearly half compared to last year. The pace of homebuilding has not been this slow since 2009.

      The result is extra supply for the rest of the world. Iron ore, metallurgical coal and copper are essential materials for making construction steel, household appliances and electrical wiring. Before the recent downturn, China consumed about two-thirds of the world’s iron ore and metallurgical coal and about 40 per cent of the copper. Lower demand means lower prices. Compared with the recent peak in July 2021, iron ore futures are down by half, while Chinese metallurgical coal prices are down by about a third. Global copper prices have dropped by a quarter despite the expected tailwind of additional climate-related green investments in the US and Europe.

      This has broader ramifications. Residential real estate is also the only asset class broadly available to Chinese savers outside of bank deposits, dwarfing the value of Chinese stocks and bonds. Until recently, Chinese consumers borrowed from banks to buy new homes — which had yet to be built — as investment properties. Now, developers are failing to finish their projects for lack of cash, some would-be homebuyers are refusing to pay their mortgages, and some local banks are stiffing depositors.

      On top of that, China’s provincial and local governments had relied on revenues from land sales to cover about a third of their spending. That money is no longer coming in. According to China’s ministry of finance, local government revenues from land sales so far this year were 31 per cent lower than in the first six months of 2021.

      While local government bond issuance is soaring — the amount raised in May and June 2022 was the largest two-month sum ever — this mostly reflects cash flow shortfalls rather than new investment spending. Desperation is leading some local governments to raise money at around 9 per cent yields from household savers even though the central government issues 10-year bonds at yields under 3 per cent.

      The impact of China’s housing crash is being compounded by the government’s Covid-related restrictions. Chinese consumer spending in the first half of 2022 was barely higher than in the first half of 2021 after accounting for inflation, and is now running more than 10 per cent below the pre-pandemic trend. Chinese oil refiners have been processing 10 per cent less crude oil since April compared with last spring thanks to the plunge in petrol demand. Electricity consumption, which had been expanding by about 7 per cent a year before the pandemic, is now growing just 2 per cent. China’s weakness has been a potent counterweight to the strain on global energy supplies caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

      China’s domestic weakness is crushing demand for goods from the rest of the world. In dollar terms, spending on imports has been flat since the end of last year. Factor in rising prices, and China’s real import demand is down about 8 per cent since the lockdowns began, according to estimates from the Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis. China’s exports continue to rise, however, providing foreign consumers and businesses with the goods they need.
      …

      1. Interesting. The Global auto industry (VW, Toyota, even GM) has been spending a ton in their joint ventures in China to build/sell cars. Who is going to buy all the luxury Audi’s now?

        Chinese oil refiners have been processing 10 per cent less crude oil since April compared with last spring thanks to the plunge in petrol demand. Electricity consumption, which had been expanding by about 7 per cent a year before the pandemic, is now growing just 2 per cent. China’s weakness has been a potent counterweight to the strain on global energy supplies caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

        1. Who is going to buy all the luxury Audi’s now?

          Not sure about those pricey Audi’s, but my neighbor totaled his Subaru Forrester a few months ago. He’s still on a waiting list to get a new one.

          1. “…Subaru Forrester…”

            The turbocharged models are tough to find, but worth the wait for you mile-high folks!

          2. I believe he will take any trim level he can get. He said that he was stunned at the insurance payout, almost what he paid for the car originally. Then he found out that what he wanted was a lot more expensive and unobtanium. They are a retired couple, and they do have another car, so he will wait to get his dear Forrester.

      1. GOP vowed to hold Dr Fauci accountable for Covid response.

        Probably the most damage that has been done by a single individual in a Government Health Agency is Dr Fauci.

        A 40 year career of corruption of Science and shill for Big Pharmacy who funded the very creation of the Corona Bio- Weapon with a foreign Country.

        And fake news , paid for by Big Pharmacy, and guys like Bill Gates and WEF members , defrauded the Nation into a contrived Pandemic of death and destruction , with killer unsafe new technology vaccines, useless lockdowns and masks , with fake PCR testing. Deliberate suppression of valid cheap safe meds that cured Covid , for killing protocols approved by captured health regulatory agencies.
        All the Entities that colluded with Fauci , to pull off these crimes against humanity, need to be held accountable.
        All money profit and looting done needs to be taken back and all culprits to face criminal justice.
        A total purge of the current Gov Health Agencies with its conflict of interest, and a rejection of the corrupted WHO.
        A immediate withdrawal of immunity on vaccines, and a suspension on children mandated vaccines . A investigation into Big Pharmaceutical advertising obstruction of informed consent , that created false narratives to fear monger and deceive a Nation into taking killer toxic poisons, the destruction of small business and the looting of tax coffers by Mega Corporations under the WEF .
        Actually the crimes committed are so epic , but the vaccines are still on the market , with more to come .

        I really credit Steve Kirsch with blasting the truth out on Tucker, when he went off script, that Fox news wasn’t pleased about.

        The capture of the news and the first amendment by Big Pharmacy and all entities that col!uded with this fraud are public enemy number one.
        I predict that if the right holding accountable is done, the Big Pharmacy Cartel and the WEF , guys like Bill Gates etc should be criminally indicted. That’s what should happen , with a lot of pitchforks.

    2. Is Joe Biden still alive?

      Makes you wonder if he’ll kick the bucket one day, and we won’t be told until the end of the month.

      1. Try to the end of the term. Or maybe even his second term, since he won’t be required to campaign or even show his face. Though I hear AOC may be his replacement. God help us, and I mean that literally.

  10. This taxpayer funded smile you’re on candid camera @sswhipping handed out by three Arkansas police officers does not seem to be garnering as much national attention as other recent incidents.

    Why is that?

    3 Arkansas officers suspended after video captures beating

    Aug 22, 2022

    https://youtu.be/GVPpnru76Zs

  11. Where have the unicorns gone? The IPO window has slammed shut
    By Paul R. La Monica, CNN Business
    Published 7:37 AM EDT, Sun August 21, 2022
    ‘Shark Tank’ investor warns market hasn’t hit rock bottom yet

    New York CNN Business —

    Unicorns, the nickname for multi-billion dollar startups looking to go public, are starting to become an endangered species on Wall Street. (Of course, unicorns are also fictitious beasts. But you catch our drift.)

    The market for initial public offerings, as well as for SPACs – companies debuting through mergers with blank-check special purpose acquisition companies – often dries up in the summer. But there has been an even more pronounced dearth of IPOs this year due to the volatility in the broader market.

    According to data from Renaissance Capital, a firm that researches and invests in IPOs, there have been only 53 IPOs so far this year, down more than 80% from the same period in 2021. What’s more, only 94 companies have filed for IPOs in 2022, a decrease of 70% from a year ago.

    This means that there may not be a meaningful pickup in new stocks making their Wall Street debuts anytime soon. Still, experts are hoping that some unicorns could hit the market later in 2022.
    …
    https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/21/investing/stocks-week-ahead/index.html

    1. “Unicorns, the nickname for multi-billion dollar startups looking to go public,…”

      I don’t think that’s a proper definition.

      1. Better definition:

        What Does Unicorn Mean?

        … privately owned startup companies in the tech sector that have achieved a valuation of more than $1 billion. The valuations that have been assigned to these companies often bear little to no relation to the company’s fundamental metrics, such as profitability, cash flow or assets. The term became widely used after Aileen Lee, a venture capitalist and founder of CowboyVC first coined it in her article, “Welcome to the Unicorn Club: Learning from Billion-Dollar Startups” that was published in 2013.

        https://www.divestopedia.com/definition/5114/unicorn

    2. multi-billion dollar startups

      I do understand that this is the current definition of a “start up”, but it seems like an oxymoron. Most successful businesses never get that big (billions). It’s like these “start ups” are born 9/10 of the way between 3rd and home plate and yet many never make it to home. Some seem to not even know where it is and which way they have to run.

      1. “The valuations that have been assigned to these companies often bear little to no relation to the company’s fundamental metrics, such as profitability, cash flow or assets.”

        That’s the part I don’t get. Why does it make sense to dump money on businesses that never showed evidence that they would someday become profitable? I’m thinking about companies that sell pet food, lease desks, etc. I guess so long as someone is waiting in line to pay a higher price for the stock, it doesn’t matter if a company perpetually loses money.

        1. Why does it make sense to dump money on businesses that never showed evidence that they would someday become profitable?

          Investors typically expect a detailed business plan with market research and financial projections. For valuations, see Startup Valuation: Everything You Need to Know. The last few years saw profitability thrown out the window in favor of growth.

  13. “Basically, Orange County homebuying has cooled 38% in a year as house hunters were scared off by 48% higher house payments. The median: $1 million for all homes was down 2.4% in a month while increasing 11% over 12 months. Record O.C. high? $1,054,000 set in May. So, prices are 5.1% off their peak.”

    1-(1000000/1054000)^6 = 27% annualized rate of price decline, and
    27% of $1,000,000 is $270.000.

    Try not to catch yourself a falling knife buying near the peak in The OC.

    2. I have lived in The OC for over 43 years now, and the only things currently increasing exponentially are:

      1) The homeless

      2) Gridlock traffic

      3) BS/Hysteria from the local REIConplex

      4) Living costs of all types – Groceries, utilities, insurance.

      5) Crime. Especially noticeable here in Irvine.

      20/30/40 years ago, things were pretty bucolic around here. Now The OC is well on its way to becoming just another ghetto.

      So what happened. The old saying – ‘Be careful who/what you vote for, you might actually get it’

      1. “5) Crime. Especially noticeable here in Irvine.”

        That’s too bad. Irvine is one of the better areas, IMHO.

  15. Did you see these tweets from Peter Schiff? Great way to summarize the situation – that counters CNBC hype. Next show to drop – labor demand.


    @PeterSchiff
    July new home sales crashed 12.6%, a much bigger fall than was expected. YoY sales have collapsed 29.6%. New home sales have now dropped during 6 of the last 7 months, and are at the lowest level since Jan. of 2016. The supply of unsold new homes is its highest since March 2009.

    So the last time new homes were this unaffordable the nation had just experienced a financial crisis, the U.S. economy was in the worst recession since the Great Depression, and the S&P was at the bottom of a 48% bear market decline. Yet “experts” claim now the economy is strong.

  16. At open houses in the Bay Area, multiple buyers are turning up — but the lines are nowhere near as long as they were during the pandemic years.

    Those aren’t buyers. Those are homeless junkies wanting to drop a deuce in the comfort & privacy of those nice clean bathrooms.

  17. The trend was at its worst in ‘pandemic home-buying boomtowns’ such as Boise, Idaho, where a whopping 69.7% of homes for sale slashed listing prices in July.

    is that a lot?

  18. “Home sales plunged 19.3% year over year in July, the biggest annual drop in more than a year, according to Redfin. Month over month, sales dipped 4.1%, marking the sixth consecutive month of declines.

    Gosh, so it seems when REIC shills talk about a “shifting” market, what they really mean is a cratering market. What happens if the downward trajectory reaches terminal velocity? I fear that in such a scenario there is a real possibility speculators and greedheads could be financially devastated. This is my “deeply concerned” face.

  19. ‘There’s more options. There’s more availability of homes. It’s easier to negotiate prices.

    There’s only one SMART option: settle into your lawn chair with a bemused smirk and watch the carnage play out like a morality tale, rather than trying to catch a falling knife.

    1. There seems to be a subset of the population which is fully convinced that they have no choice but to buy a home as soon as possible, if there is any possible way for them to finance a purchase. And there is a cadre of real financial journalists who endorse and encourage this perspective, to the financial detriment of those who believe this way and act accordingly.

  20. Globalist imports are wasting no time turning formerly safe cities like London into crime-ridden dystopias where anyone who flaunts their wealth is fair game.

    Armed thieves strike again on the streets of Lawless London: Moment thugs hold woman at knifepoint in Chelsea and ‘steal her watch’ – hours after moped robber smashed £3m Bugatti to steal £110,000 Rolex

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11137645/Armed-thieves-strike-Lawless-London-thugs-hold-woman-knifepoint-steal-watch.html

    This is the terrifying moment a man and woman are robbed at knife point in broad daylight while walking through an upmarket borough of central London – in the latest violent crime to shock the lawless capital this summer.

    Video footage taken on Monday shows the female victim laying in a doorway in Pond Place, Chelsea, while kicking her legs as an attacker donning a black balaclava and hoodie stands over her.

    Her screams billow down the street as a second attacker, also in a black hoodie, repeatedly punches her male companion just yards away.

    1. I’ve mentioned before that I last visited London on 2017. The place already felt dangerous back then. The London Bridge attack happened while I was there. I can only imagine what it must be like now.

  21. I chatted with some Euro-colleagues this morning. I asked them if they were concerned about an energy crisis this winter.

    Their response was textbook whistling past the graveyard. They told me that unless everything goes wrong, they’ll be fine. they’ll just have to tighten their belts and consume less.

    “Consume less” … could that be code for “freezing in the dark”?

  22. UK cucks let their globalist Quisling government disarm them. Now only criminal gangs of globalist imports have firearms. No surprise that the Democrat-Bolsheviks would like to disarm the law-abiding here, too, to give their vibrant and globalist import accomplices free rein to cavort with impunity.

    Liverpool gun wars’ innocent victim: Girl, nine, who was shot dead is pictured as police reveal hitman in black balaclava forced his way into her home while chasing other man off the street before opening fire also wounding her mother

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11137799/Olivia-Pratt-Korbel-named-nine-year-old-girl-shot-Liverpool.html

  23. Buying the Narrative.

    Did you know that Big Pharmacy makes advertising deals in contracts on what news outlets can and can’t say. Than they get their talking points and they all repeat the fraud and absurd narratives over and over.

    The name calling and false accusations directed at US Citizens was absurd , designed to cause division.

    Your A racist
    Your a anti vaxxer, this is a disease of the unvaccinated
    Your a white terrorist insurrectionist
    Your a climate denier
    Your a Russian operative
    Your a evil gun owner
    Your a Science denier
    Your anti transgender
    Maxism/fascism is equity
    US Constitution is outdated
    Technology rules, and freedom is over.
    Praying Christians are a threat
    Liberal World Order, according to Biden , the US should lead in, and build back better. ( another word for One World Order nobody voted for)

    And the taking of the first amendment, by censorship of dispute to the fraud narratives, with the lable of disinformation , was deliberate and evil.
    You were forced to take poison vaccines if you didn’t want to comply with Biden mandates.
    Mega Corporations under WEF , including Big Pharmacy in collusion to take over, enslave the populations , shoot them with poison vaccines, and feed you bugs, while you own nothing.
    Save the earth and kill the humans because Dr Harari proclaims that the vast majority of population isn’t needed, and they are useless eaters.

  24. A reader sent these in:

    Compass laying of 10% (+ more in Oct)
    Redfin – 8% cut
    Ribbon Home – 40% cut
    Flyhomes – 20% cut
    Homeward – 20% laid off
    Zumper – 15% cut
    Homelight – 19% cut
    Bungalow – 35% cut
    Loft – 12%
    Side – 10% cut
    Keller Williams – 4 layoff cycles this year
    + more….

    https://twitter.com/menlobear/status/1561828964393488384

    US existing home sales are in free fall… and this time it is hardly due to lack of inventory… there is already a large glut of unsold new homes…

    https://twitter.com/WallStreetSilv/status/1561684617727315968

    1. “Compass laying of 10% (+ more in Oct)
      Redfin – 8% cut
      Ribbon Home – 40% cut
      Flyhomes – 20% cut
      Homeward – 20% laid off
      Zumper – 15% cut
      Homelight – 19% cut
      Bungalow – 35% cut
      Loft – 12%
      Side – 10% cut”

      There’s the real estate recession we keep reading about, sans details.

  26. How will globalist-sponsored, Democrat-enabled unchecked vibrancy affect property values in Democrat-Bolshevik malgoverned cities and states?

    PICTURED: Three teenage girls who robbed two male street vendors at knifepoint and are terrorizing NYC neighborhood as cops offer $3,500 reward</strong?

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11137811/Three-young-women-terrorize-NYC-neighborhood-robbing-male-street-vendors-knifepoint.html

    Three teenage girls allegedly robbed two male vendors at knifepoint in New York City and told them to ‘go back to Mexico.’

    The girls, who appear to be in their teens, reportedly robbed two vendors, 37 and 38, in a parking lot around 3.30pm on August 12 on River Avenue and East 157th Street in the Bronx, near Yankee Stadium.

    1. saw 70% of criminal suspects released on $0 bail commit new crimes: DA
      I am guessing the actual number is well over 70%. It is just that some of the others just haven’t been caught yet.

  28. Ok, so over a 1000 Scientists of merit coming out and disputing Climate Change narrative. No doubt they will be censored and labeled disinformation , like the censorship of the Doctors and Scientist , who disputed the Covid Scam . .

    These fraudsters want to kill cows, take fossil fuels, and deprive humans of all that sustains them, based on false premise of Climate Change. Just as fraudulent as the response to the Covid Scam.

    Contrived emergencies as a weapon of mass destruction to bring on genocide and enslavement of humans, that has been in the planning stages for about a century.
    You can see tapes with Rockerfeller in speeches being committed to a depopulation agenda. These people have been talking about this plan for decades and decades. They are now in operational stage of this plot against humanity.
    They need to be taken down once and for all , because they have always been a menace to Society, with their fraud, rigged systems, parasite looting, and infiltration of Governments , to screw the people.

  33. Cracks develop in the housing market
    CNBC Television
    Aug 23, 2022 CNBC’s Diana Olick joins ‘The Exchange’ to report on cracks that are beginning to develop in the housing market, as new home sales were down sharply in July. She discusses signs of easing in the rental market, as well.

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

    1:43. She said the supply of new shacks is soaring!

    New home sales fall by 12.6% in July, lowest since January 2016
    Yahoo Finance
    Aug 23, 2022
    Yahoo Finance Live anchor Dave Briggs details the latest drop in new home sales and the overall housing market.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_PFckKIBd8

    1:53.

    1. Canada reporter on Stew Peters Podcast reporting that now its up to 28 sudden Doctor Deaths following the mandatory 4th
      Jab in that one Province alone in Canada.

      We need to have a investigation by the GOP on Big Pharmacy killing and injuring people in the millions ,, and why killer vaccines are still on the market.
      The Dr Fauci funding of a bio weapon in a foreign Country is important, but what followed in terms of fraud and crimes against humanity by Big Pharmacy and all entities that colluded, is what needs to be investigated.

      1. And those are just the ones we know about. Now imagine how many Canucks have bitten the dust after getting their booster. It’s just the tippity tip of the iceberg.

        The PTB will continue trying to cover this up, and that probably includes arm twisting insurance companies to STFU about highly increased life insurance claims.

  35. Maybe this is divine retribution for all the abominations the globalists & their Quislings have been pushing in the Eurozone.

    Europe is facing its worst drought for 500 years with two thirds of the continent in a state of alert or warning

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11138791/Europe-facing-worst-drought-500-years-two-thirds-continent-state-alert-warning.html

    Europe is facing its worst drought in at least 500 years, with two-thirds of the continent in a state of alert or warning – reducing inland shipping, electricity production and the yields of certain crops, a European Union agency said on Tuesday.

    The August report of the European Drought Observatory (EDO), overseen by the European Commission, said 47 per cent of Europe is under warning conditions, with clear deficit of soil moisture.

    They also added that 17 per cent of Europe is in a state of alert, in which vegetation is affected.

  38. Denver is a Democrat Party sh*thole city.

    DPS Student shot while riding home from school with mom (8/23/2022):

    “Police said the shooting happened around 4 p.m. near 14th Avenue and Downing Street. According to DPD, the boy’s mother was driving and stopped quickly when a suspect walked into traffic. She continued eastbound on 14th Street and as she drove away, heard several gunshots from behind her car.

    “I told him to get out of the road. He was yelling. I told him to get out of the road your gonna get hit. Apparently, he didn’t like that,” the boy’s mother Kiri told FOX31’s Vicente Arenas.

    She said the man was making strange loud noises.

    “He let us drive by. He stepped into the middle lane. I kept going on the side lane and he just shot at us like 17 times,” Kiri said.

    https://kdvr.com/news/local/dps-student-shot-while-riding-home-from-school-with-mom/

    Stolen wire leads to RTD using shuttles for A Line (8/23/2022):

    “The Regional Transportation District will be replacing A Line rides with shuttle buses due to emergency repairs.

    RTD reported wire being stolen from the tracks on Sable Boulevard and Chambers Road crossings. The missing wires have caused the crossing gates to fail. Crews are on site, working to repair the issue.”

    https://kdvr.com/news/local/rtd-using-shuttle-buses-during-a-line-repairs/

    I worked on a vandalism repair job that was at least $1000 to repair what the tweakers broke to get away with enough copper to get $5 from a scrap yard.

    “They’re not sending their best”

    1. Denver Bars and Restaurants Struggle With Graffiti (8/23/2022):

      “We’ve had people break in, and others spray-paint the shop,” says Kerry O’Brien, who opened Bar 404 at 404 Broadway late last year. “One of the last vandalism occurrences was someone spray-painted our windows with some sort of acid that ate into the window. We had three companies come in to try and fuss it out, but this particular paint went so deep into the window that when they tried to clean it, the window turned into a foggy mess. The worst part is that every time we repair them, someone comes back and spray-paints all over again.

      It costs around $200 to try and buff out this type of paint, but often the process leaves the glass foggy or does not erase the work at all. Businesses are then left to decide whether they want to drop over $500 on window replacements, or leave the damage as is. Frequently, businesses choose the latter, as chances are the business will be tagged again.

      https://www.westword.com/restaurants/denver-graffiti-bars-restaurants-14819919

      Vote like California, become California.

      1. It ain’t just Denver.

        Tucker opened his show tonight with the story below along with others from cities around the country including the Biden Administration sponsors 1 month violin lesson programs that expunge the criminals record so they can carjack, assault, loot and rob again and again.

        Carjacking victims upset after Mayor Cantrell in court in support of attacker’s family

        Survivors also told Eyewitness News their attacker was given a lesser sentence.

        Author: Eleanor Tabone
        Published: 10:11 PM CDT August 19, 2022

        NEW ORLEANS — September 11, 2021 is the day Madison Bergeron will never forget. Bergeron told Eyewitness News she had just pulled into the driveway, and was grabbing some things in her car, when she says she felt someone tugging on her handbag. She says she turned around and her attacker pulled a gun.

        “He pulled the weapon out, he said give me everything you have,” said Bergeron.

        She says the attacker took her car, along with everything else inside it.

        Meanwhile over in Mid-City, that same day, another victim who asked us to protect her identity said she had just gotten home from running an errand, when the exact same thing happened.

        “There was a white car catty-corned blocking me in and next thing I turn and there’s yelling, and there’s a gun barrel in my face. The kid is yelling to get the “F out the car, get the F out the car,” or else he’ll shoot, so thinking I might die in that moment, my life flashed before my eyes, I complied.”

        This survivor was a victim of the same attacker who carjacked Bergeron. The women said the juvenile was sentenced to three years probation. New Orleans District Attorney, Jason Williams said in part, “It was abundantly clear based on the facts, evidence, and circumstances that serious jail time was required…. “We are extremely disappointed in the sentence that was ultimately handed down.”

        But it was more than just the sentence that didn’t sit right with the victim, it was the high profile figure sitting alongside the attacker’s family that had the survivors confused and angry.

        “The mayor is sitting by their side, consoling his family and it just kind of makes you think, whose side is the city on? Like, are they on your side? Do they care about victims?”

        The woman who asked to remain anonymous said, “She was sitting on the side of the attacker. She was sitting next to his mom. She was there for his mom and she wasn’t there for us. She was there for the crime.”

        https://www.wwltv.com/article/news/local/new-orleans-mayor-latoya-cantrell-upsets-carjacking-victims-with-court-appearance/289-dc0de561-0270-42a1-a9cc-cf9d5f8f31dc

      2. It’s like living in Gotham, except there’s no Batman.

        As I mentioned above, the universal state of lawlessness and crime is getting noticed outside the US.

        1. Foreign guests to my workplace have shared with me the fears their compatriots expressed over the thought of visiting a dangerous country like the USA.

    2. “I worked on a vandalism repair job that was at least $1000 to repair what the tweakers broke to get away with enough copper to get $5 from a scrap yard.”

      I know right.

      I’ve seen enough effort put into stripping all the copper from a new modest house that was ready to drywall that would have netted the thieves 20 x the $ amount had they just got a GD job and gone to work.

      1. “…had they just got a GD job and gone to work.”

        The problem is that job takes-up all your time.

    2. You left off this part of the tweet: MAGA Republicans are against the rule of law.

      I listen to Bannons War Room. He knows liberals love clipping him out of context.

      1. “He knows liberals love clipping him out of context.”

        Newsmax just hit on that last night showing clips from Biden, Kamala and the usual MSM suspects repeating Trump actually said “there were good people on both sides”‘ while leaving out what he said immediately before… I’m not talking about the Neo Nazis or the White Supremacists they should be punished.

        Repeat a lie often enough and people will believe it.

  40. Any thoughts on why stock HODLers are so glum? Are they worried that Powell might actually stay the course on bringing down inflation?

    1. LIVE UPDATES
      Updated Wed, Aug 24 2022 12:13 AM
      Stock futures are lower following the S&P 500′s third straight losing day
      Yun Li

      Stock futures fell in early Wednesday morning as investors await more guidance from Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell on the central bank’s tightening path.

      Futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average were down 120 points. S&P 500 futures fell 0.4% and Nasdaq 100 futures were down 0.49%.

      Both the Dow and the S&P 500 declined for a third straight session Tuesday amid relatively thin trading volumes. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite finished Tuesday little changed. The S&P 500 is about flat on the month after rallying more than 9% in July.

      The three-day Jackson Hole economic symposium starts Thursday with Powell slated to speak Friday morning. Fed watchers expect him to reinforce the central bank’s goal of squashing inflation and keeping expectations about future prices gains in check.

      “Financial markets will remain in choppy waters until Fed Chair Powell’s Jackson Hole speech on Friday,” said Edward Moya, senior market analyst at Oanda. “He may struggle to convince markets that he is comfortable with tightening policy and triggering a recession. The economy is clearly slowing but it is still too early for the Fed to signal that they will be less aggressive with tightening policy.”
      …
      https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/23/stock-market-futures-open-to-close-news.html

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