Two reports from Domain News on Australia. "Sydney is in the middle of the steepest…
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From the first 12 minute video:
OCT 2022 – Phoenix Housing Market & How to still get a 3% Interest Rate
Amy Gerrish
Oct 9, 2022 Have you ever heard of an FHA Arbitrage?
The second 7 minute video:
Housing crash in Florida? I’ve got the latest housing market update and you don’t want to miss it.
Oct 9, 2022 #housingcrash #floridahousing #housingmarket
Will there be a housing crash in Florida? I’ve got the dirt on what’s happening in the housing market, including a forecast for the probability of a crash by economist and second quarter reports on what’s happening in the Florida housing market. I also provide a snap shot break down for the Treasure Coast real estate market.
The last 13 minute video:
Unfinished Buildings Handed Over, Birth of Tofu-Dreg Projects | A Show Before the 20th Congress
China Observer
Premiered Oct 9, 2022 Since the summer of 2020, China’s real estate developers have been experiencing a succession of debt crises that have led to the collapse of developments and a sharp decline in real estate investment, housing sales and new construction. The owners who were unfortunate enough to purchase unfinished units have tried fighting for their rights in various ways. Some have moved into the broken buildings and some have refused to pay their mortgage. As the 20th National Congress is to be held on October 16, the authorities are shouting the slogan of “guaranteeing the delivery of buildings” for the purpose of maintaining stability, and local government officials are also trying their best to get housing companies to resume work in an attempt to alleviate the property market crisis and protect their official positions. But experts say that China’s real estate market has entered a cold winter, the phenomenon of broken buildings may become more intense. The authorities’ plan to resume work are only a show before the 20th Congress.
To be clear, most of the home flippers and analysts Fortune spoke with think the current market for home flippers isn’t anywhere near as bad as it was in 2007. That said, they believe choppy waters lie ahead.
Auction.com’s Blomquist said that he has seen a rise in smaller home flippers on his platform over the past few years and that if flippers continue to be “overly speculative” in the current challenging market, there is definitely going to be “fallout.”
“It’s a potential catch-a-falling-knife type of environment that they’re going to be reselling into in the next three to six months,” he said.
Along with Douglas Diamond and Philip Dybvig, Ben Bernanke was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics today. The three have written extensively on the need to bail out the banks in times when the economy is in corrective mode, generally after a long period of monetary injections. Bernanke was Chairman of the Federal Reserve when he pushed for the latest round of bank bailouts in 2007-2009.
Bernanke’s research concentrated on the Great Depression and argued that the banks needed to be bailed out in the 1930s in response to the collapse of the stock market and the severe correction in the US economy. Diamond and Dybvig have also written on the implications of bank failures on the US economy. All three have latched onto the idea that banks take in deposits which are redeemable short term, but they make loans that are longer term and are thus susceptible to bank runs.
Their work is highly suspect from the view of economic theory and is derived from the point of view of history and the social sciences. They neglect the overall situation they are trying to explain, the role of institutions, and the basics of government intervention. For example, Bernanke’s work does not explain why the “situation” occurred in the first place, what the government did from the outset, or how it could be prevented in the future, except for ever-increasing government and Fed intervention.
Their research amounts to little more than an excuse to bail out the banks. Therefore, if you are a member of the privileged financial elites, the Housing Bubble and the ensuing Financial Crisis was an unmixed blessing. You made big money all throughout the housing and stock market bubbles and then your banks received several bailouts and special privileges during the bust, including borrowing at zero interest rates on loans, capital infusions, Quantitative Easing 1 & 2, and interest payments on “excess reserves.”
Of course, most importantly, you had your man in charge of the Federal Reserve, the man who literally “wrote the book” and dissertation, on how the Fed must bailout the banks in times of economic trouble. No matter how badly everyone else fared, you could depend on Bernanke to bailout the banks, whatever the costs to others.
The Great Depression is a pivotal event in American history, and it is also crucial in terms of economic theory and policy. Bernanke’s writings are pivotal in terms of redirecting government bailout policy from monetary policy to bank bailouts.
“No matter how badly everyone else fared, you could depend on Bernanke to bailout the banks, whatever the costs to others.”
The vast baby-boom generation provided the fed with lots of breadwinners to skim from, but going forward demographics are much different.
the need to bail out the banks in times when the economy is in corrective mode, generally after a long period of monetary injections
The solution to too much free money is more free money. Pure genius.
Toll Brothers co-founder Robert Toll dies
The Real Deal|18 hours ago
Robert Toll, who co-founded Toll Brothers and helped turn the housing builder into a national development firm, died at 81 in New York.
Three Latino members of the Los Angeles City Council and a top county labor official held a conversation last fall that included racist remarks, derisive statements about their colleagues and council President Nury Martinez saying a white councilman handled his young Black son as though he were an “accessory,” according to a recording of the meeting reviewed by The Times. Martinez referred to the councilman’s child as “ese changuito,” or that little monkey, soon after.
During the conversation with Councilmembers Gil Cedillo and Kevin de León and Los Angeles County Federation of Labor President Ron Herrera, Martinez also described Councilmember Mike Bonin at one point as a “little bitch.” De León appeared to compare Bonin’s handling of his child to Martinez holding a Louis Vuitton handbag. He also referred to Bonin as the council’s “fourth Black member.”
from what I read MArtinez resigned as COuncil president but is on the council.
I also suspect Councilman Mike Bonin will find himself ostracized by the Council’s Hispanic majority. even though he is a good little prog.
This week’s Liberal Media Scream shows the ridiculous spin liberal flacks are eager to use to deflate the Hunter Biden scandal story as the congressional midterm elections near.
Psaki said on Meet the Press, “As much as there was so much news happening in Washington this week, it doesn’t always translate — and often doesn’t translate — to what voters are talking about in states. And I think that’s what we’re seeing currently.”
Brent Baker, vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explains our weekly pick: “How ridiculous. Some newspapers covering local news on their front pages do not prove a major development in the Hunter Biden scandal is not newsworthy. Newspapers carry more than one story. But it is true that the media’s power to ignore is its most insidious power, a power which most often benefits Psaki and her allies as the media agree with her news priorities and suppress news harmful to President Biden. So it’s rich to see her citing her media allies for vindication.”
To better understand where home prices might be headed, Fortune reached out to CoreLogic to see if the firm would provide us with its updated October assessment of the nation’s largest regional housing markets. To determine the likelihood of regional home prices dropping, CoreLogic assessed factors like income growth projections, unemployment forecasts, consumer confidence, debt-to-income ratios, affordability, mortgage rates, and inventory levels. Then CoreLogic put regional housing markets into one of five categories, grouped by the likelihood that home prices in that particular market will fall between August 2022 and August 2023. Here are the groupings the real estate research firm used for the October analysis.
Where are home prices falling the fastest? The biggest declines are occurring in the West Coast, Southwest, and Mountain West markets.
“Markets already posting monthly declines are generally concentrated in the West and Mountain West, particularly in Washington, Idaho, California, Utah, Colorado, Oregon, Montana, Nevada, and Arizona, and have seen relatively larger run-up in prices since the onset of pandemic,” Hepp says.
The sharpest home price corrections can be found in one of two groups. The first group includes high-cost tech hubs like Seattle and San Jose. Not only are those high-end housing markets more rate sensitive, but so are their tech sectors. The second groups are frothy housing markets like Austin, Boise, and Phoenix. Those frothy markets, which saw home values go far beyond what local incomes can support during the Pandemic Housing Boom, reach levels that local incomes are struggling to support.
“This October assessment finds 335 markets have a greater than 50% chance of notching a negative year-over-year reading (i.e., markets in either the “high” or “very high” risk groups) over the next 12 months. In August, only 125 markets had a greater than 50% chance of falling home prices. In July, there were 98 markets at risk. In June, 45 markets were at risk. In May, just 26 markets fell into those “high” or “very high” risk camps.”
Almost like falling dominoes.
Homebuilder William Romm III was given a two-and-a-half-year federal prison sentence on Thursday for defrauding the bankruptcy system, marking the second time in the last week that someone from the local real estate community has been convicted of a financial crime.
In Romm’s case, his punishment stems from his concealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from the trustee during his personal bankruptcy proceedings and spending money that should have gone to creditors on personal items such as two boats.
The 44-year-old Henrico County resident was charged by federal authorities on April 8 and pleaded guilty to a single count of mail fraud on April 26. “The defendant’s creditors wanted to be made whole – but the defendant decided he would like a boat. The United States Trustees requested a truthful accounting – but the defendant decided he would like a bigger boat,” prosecutors wrote.
Should he end up in the Petersburg prison, Romm would likely be serving his sentence with Moe Mathews, a local real estate agent and investor who was sentenced last week to 41 months for defrauding the federal Paycheck Protection Program.
“The defendant’s creditors wanted to be made whole – but the defendant decided he would like a boat.”
Back in the 2008 bust a member of my wife’s extended family lost his job, but was giving a generous profit sharing departure check. Literally, on the way home from losing his job, he stopped at boat dealer and bought a brand new Ski Nautique water skiing boat for use in Discovery Bay, CA. This was a guy with a wife and three daughters, but living like Tom Vu.
The global PC market saw its steepest decline on record as economic uncertainty and a glut of unsold inventory dented shipments for the fourth quarter in a row. Worldwide shipments of desktop and laptop computers fell by 19.5% in the third quarter of 2022 compared with the year-ago period, according to research firm Gartner. It was the biggest drop Gartner has documented in more than two decades of tracking the market, echoing data compiled by Canalys, which released similar figures showing double-digit declines.
“The rapid deterioration in demand across all segments is a worrying sign not only for vendors, but for stakeholders across the supply chain,” Canalys senior analyst Ishan Dutt said. “Intel and AMD are facing headwinds from weakness in their PC businesses, and smaller makers of components from ICs to memory are cutting production and lowering earnings forecasts.”
“Rates are still rising, and will continue to rise here on out,” Christine Cooper, chief U.S. economist and managing director at CoStar Group, told MarketWatch in an interview.
But with home prices continuing to be elevated, that has really hurt affordability, she added, and pushed buyers out, which will hurt home sales.
And “it’s going to continue until we’re gonna see some price declines,” Cooper said. “And we’re seeing signs already.”
Shares of Rivian Automotive Inc closed 7.3 per cent lower on Monday after the electric-vehicle maker recalled nearly all its vehicles, heightening investor concerns that the company may not be able to meet its 2023 production target.
Rivian’s market capitalization dropped more than $2 billion to $31.1 billion in a single day, compared with automakers such as Ford Motor Co and General Motors Co, which are valued at $45.67 billion and $47.08 billion, respectively.
Amazon-backed Rivian on Friday recalled about 13,000 vehicles due to a possible loose fastener that could cause the driver to lose steering control. Rivian’s shares have fallen 67.3 per cent this year, following a cut in production outlook and a selloff in equities driven by an uncertain macro-economic environment.
While steel mills typically restock iron ore supplies before the National Day holidays at the start of October, their profit margins are also languishing and they’re limiting purchases to a needs-only basis. Meanwhile, September saw China’s purchasing managers’ index rising only marginally to 46.6 — a reading below 50 suggests contraction in the steel industry.
“It’s certainly the worst autumn since 2015,” Tomas Gutierrez, analyst at Kallanish Commodities, said in emailed comments. “Real estate is far too big a part of the whole economy and no other sector can expand rapidly enough to make up for lost construction steel demand.”
Everywhere you turn, the biggest players in the $23.7 trillion US Treasuries market are in retreat. “We need to find a new marginal buyer of Treasuries as central banks and banks overall are exiting stage left,” said Glen Capelo, who spent more than three decades on Wall Street bond-trading desks and is now a managing director at Mischler Financial. “It’s still not clear yet who that will be, but we know they’re going to be a lot more price sensitive.”
Treasuries dropped again on Tuesday in Asia. The yield on 30-year US bonds jumped nine basis points to 3.94%, the highest since 2014, while that on 10-year notes climbed seven basis points to 3.95%.
“Since the year 2000, there has always been a big central bank on the margin buying a lot of Treasuries,” Credit Suisse Group AG’s Zoltan Pozsar said during a recent live episode of Bloomberg’s Odd Lots podcast.
Now “we’re basically expecting the private sector to step in instead of the public sector, in a period where inflation is as uncertain as it has ever been,” Pozsar said. “We’re asking the private sector to take down all these Treasuries that we are going to push back into the system, without a glitch, and without a massive premium.”
“The Fed and other central banks had for years been the ones suppressing volatility, and now they’re actually the ones creating it,” Mischler’s Capelo said.
Why Redfin Stock Was Getting Crushed Yet Again Today
The stock is down 87% so far in 2022. There was no specific news out today to cause the slump. However, the housing market is getting hammered right now.
In an effort to boost its revenue, real estate listings giant Zillow Group Inc. started a home-flipping business that it believed would create an alternative revenue stream to just marketing properties online.
That strategy didn’t last long after Zillow lost a ton of advertising revenue from agents and agencies who saw it as a competitor.
Amid a slumping market, real estate agencies are expanding beyond their purview to find alternative revenue streams as rising interest rates result in plummeting home sales.
For example, agency franchise giant Keller Wiliams Realty is training some of its 190,000 agents in 1,100 offices around the world to provide real estate planning and wealth management services to their customers.
If you think that a real estate agent taking a quick class to manage your finances might not be the best idea, you aren’t alone. Jim Crider, CEO of San Antonio, Texas-based financial planning firm Intentional Living FP, told the Texas Real Estate News, “Frankly, this industry is a really easy industry to get in — debatably too easy.”
He said the danger is that insufficiently trained “real estate planners” may squander the trust they built as agents if they overreach in their new role as financial planners.
“That strategy didn’t last long after Zillow lost a ton of advertising revenue from agents and agencies who saw it as a competitor.”
Starving dogs fighting over scraps.
Tech Earnings Matter More Than Ever as the Bubble Deflates
Investors in technology companies are focused more than ever on profits, following an era when low interest rates drove a speculative frenzy in money-losing companies. A basket of money-losing tech companies compiled by Goldman Sachs Group Inc. has plunged 57% in 2022, including a drop of 0.3% on Monday. To compare, an exchange-traded fund focused on dividend-paying companies in the industry has fallen 22% on a total-return basis, and the Nasdaq 100 Index has dropped 32%.
“Profitability has become much more important,” said Anthony Saglimbene, chief market strategist at Ameriprise Financial. “There may come a time where unprofitable companies outperform again, but I don’t think Fed policy or the market backdrop will favor them anytime soon. I think they’re in for more pain until we see inflation moderate and the Fed slows its pace of hikes.”
The focus on profitability represents a sharp about-face from pandemic-era trends, when ultra-low rates and economic stimulus fueled outperformance in hyper-growth stocks. Goldman’s basket soared more than 400% between a low in March 2020 and a peak hit less than a year later. It has since dropped 73% from the high.
“There’s been a complete 180 in the market backdrop compared to 2020, with rates going up and the economy slowing,” said Patrick Burton, a portfolio manager at Winslow Capital Management, which oversees about $26 billion. “Not only has the cost of capital skyrocketed and the math stopped working for stock compensation, but these companies should see slower growth. That makes us think they have more room to drop.”
The collapse in Meta Platforms Inc.’s stock shows no sign of stopping. The Facebook parent closed Friday at its lowest since January 2019, extending a slump that has erased 60% — and about $577 billion — off its market value this year. Last week’s drop of 1.6% represented its fourth straight negative week, and it stood in contrast to the gains posted by Apple, Microsoft, Amazon.com, and Alphabet, as well as social-media peers Pinterest Inc., Snap Inc., and Twitter Inc.
Today’s roundup of savagely unhealthy feet stampin.’
Lower has a round of layoffs to “weather upcoming rate hikes”
HousingWire|13 hours ago
Ohio-based mortgage lender Lower imposed a round of layoffs last week due to market conditions, affecting 6% of its workforce, according to a spokesperson for the company.
BayFirst Financial closing Maryland offices amid shuttering of national mortgage business
The Business Journals|23 hours ago
BayFirst Financial Corp. will lay off 20 employees in Maryland as a result of shuttering its nationwide residential mortgage lending business.
Angel Oak Home Loans cuts 15% of its workforce
HousingWire|9 hours ago
The latest jobs cut was at Angel Oak Home Loans, which reduced its headcount by 57 employees, comprising 15% of the total, a spokesperson told HousingWire.
These Texas companies have laid off over 5,300 workers so far this year
Dallas Morning News on MSN.com|15 hours ago
Texas employers have laid off more than 5,300 workers so far this year, according to notices filed with the Texas Workforce Commission. The notices are required under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act
Twilio lays off 930 employees: 5 big things to know
Computing|21 hours ago
And now, I also own the decision to become more focused – resulting in this layoff,” says CEO Jeff Lawson. Twilio is laying off nearly 1,000 employees, as the cloud communications specialist says …
Moody’s Withdraws Ratings on China Evergrande Group, Kaisa Group
MarketWatch|3 hours ago
By Clarence Leong Moody’s Investors Service has withdrawn its credit ratings on Chinese real-estate developers China Evergrande Group and Kaisa
From the first 12 minute video:
OCT 2022 – Phoenix Housing Market & How to still get a 3% Interest Rate
Amy Gerrish
Oct 9, 2022 Have you ever heard of an FHA Arbitrage?
The second 7 minute video:
Housing crash in Florida? I’ve got the latest housing market update and you don’t want to miss it.
Oct 9, 2022 #housingcrash #floridahousing #housingmarket
Will there be a housing crash in Florida? I’ve got the dirt on what’s happening in the housing market, including a forecast for the probability of a crash by economist and second quarter reports on what’s happening in the Florida housing market. I also provide a snap shot break down for the Treasure Coast real estate market.
The last 13 minute video:
Unfinished Buildings Handed Over, Birth of Tofu-Dreg Projects | A Show Before the 20th Congress
China Observer
Premiered Oct 9, 2022 Since the summer of 2020, China’s real estate developers have been experiencing a succession of debt crises that have led to the collapse of developments and a sharp decline in real estate investment, housing sales and new construction. The owners who were unfortunate enough to purchase unfinished units have tried fighting for their rights in various ways. Some have moved into the broken buildings and some have refused to pay their mortgage. As the 20th National Congress is to be held on October 16, the authorities are shouting the slogan of “guaranteeing the delivery of buildings” for the purpose of maintaining stability, and local government officials are also trying their best to get housing companies to resume work in an attempt to alleviate the property market crisis and protect their official positions. But experts say that China’s real estate market has entered a cold winter, the phenomenon of broken buildings may become more intense. The authorities’ plan to resume work are only a show before the 20th Congress.
To be clear, most of the home flippers and analysts Fortune spoke with think the current market for home flippers isn’t anywhere near as bad as it was in 2007. That said, they believe choppy waters lie ahead.
Auction.com’s Blomquist said that he has seen a rise in smaller home flippers on his platform over the past few years and that if flippers continue to be “overly speculative” in the current challenging market, there is definitely going to be “fallout.”
“It’s a potential catch-a-falling-knife type of environment that they’re going to be reselling into in the next three to six months,” he said.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/home-flippers-trouble-again-210545480.html
Along with Douglas Diamond and Philip Dybvig, Ben Bernanke was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics today. The three have written extensively on the need to bail out the banks in times when the economy is in corrective mode, generally after a long period of monetary injections. Bernanke was Chairman of the Federal Reserve when he pushed for the latest round of bank bailouts in 2007-2009.
Bernanke’s research concentrated on the Great Depression and argued that the banks needed to be bailed out in the 1930s in response to the collapse of the stock market and the severe correction in the US economy. Diamond and Dybvig have also written on the implications of bank failures on the US economy. All three have latched onto the idea that banks take in deposits which are redeemable short term, but they make loans that are longer term and are thus susceptible to bank runs.
Their work is highly suspect from the view of economic theory and is derived from the point of view of history and the social sciences. They neglect the overall situation they are trying to explain, the role of institutions, and the basics of government intervention. For example, Bernanke’s work does not explain why the “situation” occurred in the first place, what the government did from the outset, or how it could be prevented in the future, except for ever-increasing government and Fed intervention.
Their research amounts to little more than an excuse to bail out the banks. Therefore, if you are a member of the privileged financial elites, the Housing Bubble and the ensuing Financial Crisis was an unmixed blessing. You made big money all throughout the housing and stock market bubbles and then your banks received several bailouts and special privileges during the bust, including borrowing at zero interest rates on loans, capital infusions, Quantitative Easing 1 & 2, and interest payments on “excess reserves.”
Of course, most importantly, you had your man in charge of the Federal Reserve, the man who literally “wrote the book” and dissertation, on how the Fed must bailout the banks in times of economic trouble. No matter how badly everyone else fared, you could depend on Bernanke to bailout the banks, whatever the costs to others.
The Great Depression is a pivotal event in American history, and it is also crucial in terms of economic theory and policy. Bernanke’s writings are pivotal in terms of redirecting government bailout policy from monetary policy to bank bailouts.
https://mises.org/wire/ben-bernankes-nobel-prize-committee-rewards-arsonist-claiming-fight-fire-he-started
“No matter how badly everyone else fared, you could depend on Bernanke to bailout the banks, whatever the costs to others.”
The vast baby-boom generation provided the fed with lots of breadwinners to skim from, but going forward demographics are much different.
the need to bail out the banks in times when the economy is in corrective mode, generally after a long period of monetary injections
The solution to too much free money is more free money. Pure genius.
Toll Brothers co-founder Robert Toll dies
The Real Deal|18 hours ago
Robert Toll, who co-founded Toll Brothers and helped turn the housing builder into a national development firm, died at 81 in New York.
Three Latino members of the Los Angeles City Council and a top county labor official held a conversation last fall that included racist remarks, derisive statements about their colleagues and council President Nury Martinez saying a white councilman handled his young Black son as though he were an “accessory,” according to a recording of the meeting reviewed by The Times. Martinez referred to the councilman’s child as “ese changuito,” or that little monkey, soon after.
During the conversation with Councilmembers Gil Cedillo and Kevin de León and Los Angeles County Federation of Labor President Ron Herrera, Martinez also described Councilmember Mike Bonin at one point as a “little bitch.” De León appeared to compare Bonin’s handling of his child to Martinez holding a Louis Vuitton handbag. He also referred to Bonin as the council’s “fourth Black member.”
https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/newsletter/2022-10-10/la-council-members-make-racist-remarks-leaked-audio-todays-headlines
from what I read MArtinez resigned as COuncil president but is on the council.
I also suspect Councilman Mike Bonin will find himself ostracized by the Council’s Hispanic majority. even though he is a good little prog.
This week’s Liberal Media Scream shows the ridiculous spin liberal flacks are eager to use to deflate the Hunter Biden scandal story as the congressional midterm elections near.
Psaki said on Meet the Press, “As much as there was so much news happening in Washington this week, it doesn’t always translate — and often doesn’t translate — to what voters are talking about in states. And I think that’s what we’re seeing currently.”
Brent Baker, vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explains our weekly pick: “How ridiculous. Some newspapers covering local news on their front pages do not prove a major development in the Hunter Biden scandal is not newsworthy. Newspapers carry more than one story. But it is true that the media’s power to ignore is its most insidious power, a power which most often benefits Psaki and her allies as the media agree with her news priorities and suppress news harmful to President Biden. So it’s rich to see her citing her media allies for vindication.”
Rating: FOUR out of FIVE SCREAMS.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/liberal-media-scream-psaki-says-if-media-doesn-t-cover-hunter-biden-isn-t-news/ar-AA12Nu9M?cvid=c366c67926dd4b4ea981d53bf4594751
To better understand where home prices might be headed, Fortune reached out to CoreLogic to see if the firm would provide us with its updated October assessment of the nation’s largest regional housing markets. To determine the likelihood of regional home prices dropping, CoreLogic assessed factors like income growth projections, unemployment forecasts, consumer confidence, debt-to-income ratios, affordability, mortgage rates, and inventory levels. Then CoreLogic put regional housing markets into one of five categories, grouped by the likelihood that home prices in that particular market will fall between August 2022 and August 2023. Here are the groupings the real estate research firm used for the October analysis.
Where are home prices falling the fastest? The biggest declines are occurring in the West Coast, Southwest, and Mountain West markets.
“Markets already posting monthly declines are generally concentrated in the West and Mountain West, particularly in Washington, Idaho, California, Utah, Colorado, Oregon, Montana, Nevada, and Arizona, and have seen relatively larger run-up in prices since the onset of pandemic,” Hepp says.
The sharpest home price corrections can be found in one of two groups. The first group includes high-cost tech hubs like Seattle and San Jose. Not only are those high-end housing markets more rate sensitive, but so are their tech sectors. The second groups are frothy housing markets like Austin, Boise, and Phoenix. Those frothy markets, which saw home values go far beyond what local incomes can support during the Pandemic Housing Boom, reach levels that local incomes are struggling to support.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/updated-odds-falling-home-prices-212455018.html
“This October assessment finds 335 markets have a greater than 50% chance of notching a negative year-over-year reading (i.e., markets in either the “high” or “very high” risk groups) over the next 12 months. In August, only 125 markets had a greater than 50% chance of falling home prices. In July, there were 98 markets at risk. In June, 45 markets were at risk. In May, just 26 markets fell into those “high” or “very high” risk camps.”
Almost like falling dominoes.
Homebuilder William Romm III was given a two-and-a-half-year federal prison sentence on Thursday for defrauding the bankruptcy system, marking the second time in the last week that someone from the local real estate community has been convicted of a financial crime.
In Romm’s case, his punishment stems from his concealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from the trustee during his personal bankruptcy proceedings and spending money that should have gone to creditors on personal items such as two boats.
The 44-year-old Henrico County resident was charged by federal authorities on April 8 and pleaded guilty to a single count of mail fraud on April 26. “The defendant’s creditors wanted to be made whole – but the defendant decided he would like a boat. The United States Trustees requested a truthful accounting – but the defendant decided he would like a bigger boat,” prosecutors wrote.
Should he end up in the Petersburg prison, Romm would likely be serving his sentence with Moe Mathews, a local real estate agent and investor who was sentenced last week to 41 months for defrauding the federal Paycheck Protection Program.
https://richmondbizsense.com/2022/10/11/henrico-homebuilder-sentenced-to-30-months-in-prison-for-bankruptcy-fraud/
“The defendant’s creditors wanted to be made whole – but the defendant decided he would like a boat.”
Back in the 2008 bust a member of my wife’s extended family lost his job, but was giving a generous profit sharing departure check. Literally, on the way home from losing his job, he stopped at boat dealer and bought a brand new Ski Nautique water skiing boat for use in Discovery Bay, CA. This was a guy with a wife and three daughters, but living like Tom Vu.
The global PC market saw its steepest decline on record as economic uncertainty and a glut of unsold inventory dented shipments for the fourth quarter in a row. Worldwide shipments of desktop and laptop computers fell by 19.5% in the third quarter of 2022 compared with the year-ago period, according to research firm Gartner. It was the biggest drop Gartner has documented in more than two decades of tracking the market, echoing data compiled by Canalys, which released similar figures showing double-digit declines.
“The rapid deterioration in demand across all segments is a worrying sign not only for vendors, but for stakeholders across the supply chain,” Canalys senior analyst Ishan Dutt said. “Intel and AMD are facing headwinds from weakness in their PC businesses, and smaller makers of components from ICs to memory are cutting production and lowering earnings forecasts.”
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/pc-shipments-plummet-macroeconomic-worries-040725060.html
“Rates are still rising, and will continue to rise here on out,” Christine Cooper, chief U.S. economist and managing director at CoStar Group, told MarketWatch in an interview.
But with home prices continuing to be elevated, that has really hurt affordability, she added, and pushed buyers out, which will hurt home sales.
And “it’s going to continue until we’re gonna see some price declines,” Cooper said. “And we’re seeing signs already.”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/realestate/when-will-house-prices-go-down-these-economists-see-a-e2-80-98prolonged-slowdown-e2-80-99-e2-80-94-and-predict-dramatic-declines-in-home-values/ar-AA12NMCJ
Perma bear Ho Chi Zando chimes in.
Shares of Rivian Automotive Inc closed 7.3 per cent lower on Monday after the electric-vehicle maker recalled nearly all its vehicles, heightening investor concerns that the company may not be able to meet its 2023 production target.
Rivian’s market capitalization dropped more than $2 billion to $31.1 billion in a single day, compared with automakers such as Ford Motor Co and General Motors Co, which are valued at $45.67 billion and $47.08 billion, respectively.
Amazon-backed Rivian on Friday recalled about 13,000 vehicles due to a possible loose fastener that could cause the driver to lose steering control. Rivian’s shares have fallen 67.3 per cent this year, following a cut in production outlook and a selloff in equities driven by an uncertain macro-economic environment.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/international-business/article-rivian-shares-skid-after-ev-maker-recalls-nearly-all-its-vehicles/
While steel mills typically restock iron ore supplies before the National Day holidays at the start of October, their profit margins are also languishing and they’re limiting purchases to a needs-only basis. Meanwhile, September saw China’s purchasing managers’ index rising only marginally to 46.6 — a reading below 50 suggests contraction in the steel industry.
“It’s certainly the worst autumn since 2015,” Tomas Gutierrez, analyst at Kallanish Commodities, said in emailed comments. “Real estate is far too big a part of the whole economy and no other sector can expand rapidly enough to make up for lost construction steel demand.”
https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/china-building-season-flop-dents-020537073.html
Everywhere you turn, the biggest players in the $23.7 trillion US Treasuries market are in retreat. “We need to find a new marginal buyer of Treasuries as central banks and banks overall are exiting stage left,” said Glen Capelo, who spent more than three decades on Wall Street bond-trading desks and is now a managing director at Mischler Financial. “It’s still not clear yet who that will be, but we know they’re going to be a lot more price sensitive.”
Treasuries dropped again on Tuesday in Asia. The yield on 30-year US bonds jumped nine basis points to 3.94%, the highest since 2014, while that on 10-year notes climbed seven basis points to 3.95%.
“Since the year 2000, there has always been a big central bank on the margin buying a lot of Treasuries,” Credit Suisse Group AG’s Zoltan Pozsar said during a recent live episode of Bloomberg’s Odd Lots podcast.
Now “we’re basically expecting the private sector to step in instead of the public sector, in a period where inflation is as uncertain as it has ever been,” Pozsar said. “We’re asking the private sector to take down all these Treasuries that we are going to push back into the system, without a glitch, and without a massive premium.”
“The Fed and other central banks had for years been the ones suppressing volatility, and now they’re actually the ones creating it,” Mischler’s Capelo said.
https://www.yahoo.com/now/most-powerful-buyers-treasuries-bailing-110000179.html
Why Redfin Stock Was Getting Crushed Yet Again Today
The stock is down 87% so far in 2022. There was no specific news out today to cause the slump. However, the housing market is getting hammered right now.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/realestate/why-redfin-stock-was-getting-crushed-yet-again-today/ar-AA12N6Gg
“The stock is down 87% so far in 2022.”
Hmm, is that a lot?
Yes
In an effort to boost its revenue, real estate listings giant Zillow Group Inc. started a home-flipping business that it believed would create an alternative revenue stream to just marketing properties online.
That strategy didn’t last long after Zillow lost a ton of advertising revenue from agents and agencies who saw it as a competitor.
Amid a slumping market, real estate agencies are expanding beyond their purview to find alternative revenue streams as rising interest rates result in plummeting home sales.
For example, agency franchise giant Keller Wiliams Realty is training some of its 190,000 agents in 1,100 offices around the world to provide real estate planning and wealth management services to their customers.
If you think that a real estate agent taking a quick class to manage your finances might not be the best idea, you aren’t alone. Jim Crider, CEO of San Antonio, Texas-based financial planning firm Intentional Living FP, told the Texas Real Estate News, “Frankly, this industry is a really easy industry to get in — debatably too easy.”
He said the danger is that insufficiently trained “real estate planners” may squander the trust they built as agents if they overreach in their new role as financial planners.
https://news.yahoo.com/real-estate-agencies-scrambling-alternative-194525594.html
‘may squander the trust they built as agents’
Jim is a comedian!
“That strategy didn’t last long after Zillow lost a ton of advertising revenue from agents and agencies who saw it as a competitor.”
Starving dogs fighting over scraps.
Tech Earnings Matter More Than Ever as the Bubble Deflates
Investors in technology companies are focused more than ever on profits, following an era when low interest rates drove a speculative frenzy in money-losing companies. A basket of money-losing tech companies compiled by Goldman Sachs Group Inc. has plunged 57% in 2022, including a drop of 0.3% on Monday. To compare, an exchange-traded fund focused on dividend-paying companies in the industry has fallen 22% on a total-return basis, and the Nasdaq 100 Index has dropped 32%.
“Profitability has become much more important,” said Anthony Saglimbene, chief market strategist at Ameriprise Financial. “There may come a time where unprofitable companies outperform again, but I don’t think Fed policy or the market backdrop will favor them anytime soon. I think they’re in for more pain until we see inflation moderate and the Fed slows its pace of hikes.”
The focus on profitability represents a sharp about-face from pandemic-era trends, when ultra-low rates and economic stimulus fueled outperformance in hyper-growth stocks. Goldman’s basket soared more than 400% between a low in March 2020 and a peak hit less than a year later. It has since dropped 73% from the high.
“There’s been a complete 180 in the market backdrop compared to 2020, with rates going up and the economy slowing,” said Patrick Burton, a portfolio manager at Winslow Capital Management, which oversees about $26 billion. “Not only has the cost of capital skyrocketed and the math stopped working for stock compensation, but these companies should see slower growth. That makes us think they have more room to drop.”
The collapse in Meta Platforms Inc.’s stock shows no sign of stopping. The Facebook parent closed Friday at its lowest since January 2019, extending a slump that has erased 60% — and about $577 billion — off its market value this year. Last week’s drop of 1.6% represented its fourth straight negative week, and it stood in contrast to the gains posted by Apple, Microsoft, Amazon.com, and Alphabet, as well as social-media peers Pinterest Inc., Snap Inc., and Twitter Inc.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/tech-earnings-matter-more-ever-101957671.html
Chipmaker Rout Engulfs TSMC, Samsung With $240 Billion Wiped Out
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/chip-stocks-fall-across-asia-005029650.html
Wa happened to my money losing concept stocks?
A press release:
Opendoor Technologies Inc. Investors with Substantial Losses Have Opportunity to Lead Class Action Lawsuit
https://www.benzinga.com/pressreleases/22/10/b29209434/investor-deadline-opendoor-technologies-inc-investors-with-substantial-losses-have-opportunity-to-
Today’s roundup of savagely unhealthy feet stampin.’
Lower has a round of layoffs to “weather upcoming rate hikes”
HousingWire|13 hours ago
Ohio-based mortgage lender Lower imposed a round of layoffs last week due to market conditions, affecting 6% of its workforce, according to a spokesperson for the company.
BayFirst Financial closing Maryland offices amid shuttering of national mortgage business
The Business Journals|23 hours ago
BayFirst Financial Corp. will lay off 20 employees in Maryland as a result of shuttering its nationwide residential mortgage lending business.
Angel Oak Home Loans cuts 15% of its workforce
HousingWire|9 hours ago
The latest jobs cut was at Angel Oak Home Loans, which reduced its headcount by 57 employees, comprising 15% of the total, a spokesperson told HousingWire.
These Texas companies have laid off over 5,300 workers so far this year
Dallas Morning News on MSN.com|15 hours ago
Texas employers have laid off more than 5,300 workers so far this year, according to notices filed with the Texas Workforce Commission. The notices are required under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act
Twilio lays off 930 employees: 5 big things to know
Computing|21 hours ago
And now, I also own the decision to become more focused – resulting in this layoff,” says CEO Jeff Lawson. Twilio is laying off nearly 1,000 employees, as the cloud communications specialist says …
Moody’s Withdraws Ratings on China Evergrande Group, Kaisa Group
MarketWatch|3 hours ago
By Clarence Leong Moody’s Investors Service has withdrawn its credit ratings on Chinese real-estate developers China Evergrande Group and Kaisa