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It’s Possible The Global Housing Boom Is Coming To An End

A report from My Northwest in Washington. “‘This was a good time for price correction,’ outlined Juliet Beard, a Seattle real estate broker. ‘Homes were inflated in Seattle and this is the bubble.’ The most significant home price change is in Seattle, where prices are still up year-to-year, but down as much as 14% month-to-month. None of the realtors we spoke with wanted to be associated with the concept that crime continues to hurt the central Seattle market. They echo the position that until that is under control, the housing market will continue to decline.”

Sarasota Magazine in Florida. “‘The broad thought is that we’re moving toward a more normal market,’ says Adam Hancock, owner of The Sunshine State Company. ‘What we’re seeing day to day is if homes are priced appropriately and the home fits the price, they’re still going fast. But we’re not correcting to 2019. Whatever that new median price is, we’ll level off, but we’re not going to go back to what it was three-plus years ago. There’s still plenty of buyers, but people buying out of scarcity was out of whack and now there’s more of a wait-and-see attitude.'”

Arlington Now in Virginia. “Bad news sells… keep that in mind as you get your daily/weekly dose of headlines that the housing market is collapsing under the weight of high interest rates and overinflated prices. With that said, I’m not about to deliver a rosy picture of the Arlington real estate market. Have Prices Gone Down? The short answer is ‘yes,’ prices have come down from their 2022 peak. By how much? That is a very difficult question to answer and there’s no reliable way for us to know at this point.”

“The prices we saw in the first half of this year are out of reach, in most cases. We’re just experiencing a more dramatic version of seasonality because of the sharp interest rate increases that have paralleled the traditional seasonal slowdown and because of where we’re coming from — insane demand for nearly two years.”

The Real Deal on New York. “Rupert Murdoch’s One Madison unit recently topped Manhattan’s luxury contracts, but the condo traded at a $2.5 million loss. Unit 57A, which asked $16 million, sold for $12.5 million, public records filed Monday show. The sale came in $3.5 million below ask and $2.5 million less than the $15 million the media mogul paid for it in 2014.”

The Union Tribune. “San Diego County’s median home price fell for a fourth month in September, down 6 percent from its peak in the spring. Mauricio Perez-Vazquez, an agent with Twenty Four Seven Realty, said some sellers understand that the market is on the decline, but it is OK because home prices have appreciated so much in the last few years they don’t feel bad about selling right now. However, he said some sellers are having a hard time accepting their home isn’t worth as much as it was a few months ago. Almost all of Southern California saw price drops from August to September. Orange County dropped the most, 3.5 percent, to a median of $950,250. It was followed by Los Angeles County, dropping 2.3 percent to $806,000; Ventura County down 2.2 percent to a median of $762,500.”

The Orange County Register in California. “Real estate agents are having ‘the talk’ with their clients, trying to explain that a two-year run of bidding wars and overpaying for homes ended last summer. ‘We try to educate (the sellers) the prices aren’t where they were last year,’ said Manny De Silvia, an agent with Century 21 Now Realty in Corona. But sellers are reluctant to lower their prices. ‘Their attitude is, if they really want my house, they can pay for it,’ De Silvia said. ‘I try to explain that what you bought last year for $700,000, with the (higher) interest rates you can only afford a $400,000 home now if you want the same payment.'”

From Fortune. “‘Housing’s stunning downfall in one chart: Prices have plunged in 51 of these 60 cities, and there’s much further to fall,’ a new report by Fortune’s Shawn Tully, answers that question. The top three cities that have seen the biggest declines: ‘San Jose suffered the biggest fall, tumbling 10.8% through September from its apex in April. The next top losers from their record highs are San Francisco (-8.5%) [and] Seattle (-8.2%),’ Tully writes.”

From Forbes. “So far, mortgage rates have skyrocketed from less than 3% during the pandemic to a 20-year high of nearly 7%—pushing affordability to the worst level in decades and effectively ‘taking a wrecking ball to the housing market,’ says James Stack of InvesTech Research. ‘The message today is eerily similar to [the] warning in 2005,’ says Stack. ‘It would be difficult to argue that the U.S. housing market isn’t heading for a hard landing.'”

From CBC News in Canada. “It was a housing project with promise: a subdivision of unique homes in picturesque Meaford, Ont., advertised as “Mike Holmes Approved.” Mike Holmes is a contractor and television personality known for rescuing homeowners from botched construction jobs. In 2016, Myles Johnson and Andrea Hart of Toronto, who were looking for a place to retire, bought in. But things didn’t go right, according to Hart and Johnson. The couple said after their home was finished in 2018, they discovered it was riddled with defects — including mould and structural problems — which they say the builder didn’t adequately address. ‘It’s been a nightmare,’ said Johnson, 70. ‘[Our retirement plans] just sort of imploded and you just sort of say, ‘What in hell happened?'”

The Evening Standard. “The political and economic chaos raging in the UK is boiling over into the London property scene as chains collapse, buyers put plans on hold and the capital’s housing market regresses into a pre-Covid state of malaise. Author Bex Burn-Callander, 39, is feeling the real effects of this turbulence. She has always lived in London but is now trying to sell her £550,000 three-bedroom Lewisham flat with roof terrace to buy a multi-generational house in Yorkshire.”

“Burn-Callander is a carer for her mother, who lives in Pimlico on the other side of London, so with her husband Patrick and their two small children, they are moving north to buy a bigger place all together. ‘The plan is to sell both our homes and buy a place together around York,’ the author says. First, they must sell the two flats, in very different parts of the capital, which has got harder since the mini budget. ‘It’s a nightmare. We listed our property more than two weeks ago and haven’t had a single viewing. Our estate agent, Sebastian Roche, says the market is ‘extremely challenging,’ she says. ‘It seems like no one is looking to buy now because mortgage rates are sky-rocketing — everyone is waiting for a bit of political stability.'”

Stockhead on Australia. “This morning, Sydney home values are down over 10% – or about $116,500 on average – since prices in the City that’s Pretty topped out at the record average highs of February earlier this year. The property data firm has Melbourne values down some 6.4% since January, while BrisVegas home values have fallen 6.1% in just four months. Hobart is down -4.7%. Canberra is depressing. And it’s down -4.4%. Ha!”

“And while Sydney property is still ‘highly overvalued’ it doesn’t classify as a property bubble according to UBS and their annual global property thingy. UBS, BTW, after studying up house price growth across 25 of the world’s most capital cities, came to the utterly shocking conclusion that it’s possible the global housing boom is coming to an end. It’s not the answer to Life, The Universe and Everything, but it’s very close to 42.”

From Bloomberg. “Profits and losses aren’t usually thought of as a consideration for central banks, but rapidly mounting red ink at the Federal Reserve and many peers risks becoming more than just an accounting oddity. The accounting losses threaten to fuel criticism of the asset purchase programs undertaken to rescue markets and economies, most recently when Covid-19 shuttered large swathes of the global economy in 2020. Coinciding with the current outbreak in inflation, that could spur calls to rein in monetary policy makers’ independence, or limit what steps they can take in the next crisis.”

“‘The problem with central bank losses are not the losses per se — they can always be recapitalized — but the political backlash central banks are likely to increasingly face,’ said Jerome Haegeli, chief economist at Swiss Re, who previously worked at Switzerland’s central bank. RBA Deputy Governor Michele Bullock said in response to a question last month about the Australian central bank’s negative-equity position that ‘we don’t believe that we are impacted at all in our capacity to operate.’ After all, ‘we can create money. That’s what we did when we bought the bonds,’ she noted.”

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This Post Has 103 Comments

  1. ‘Have Prices Gone Down? The short answer is ‘yes,’ prices have come down from their 2022 peak. By how much? That is a very difficult question to answer and there’s no reliable way for us to know at this point’

    Eat yer crowz taxpayer.

    1. No one should be surprised that those who have zero representation in our current system are becoming more radicalized and militant. Judging by the slew of pearl-clutching documentaries being released by globalist propaganda outlets, “Christian nationalists” are the next bugbear we all must fear. Not a fan of that movement – think it’s being led by grifters and charlatans, and the Bible itself is very clear on the separation between the spiritual realm and the temporal, earthly realm. That said, you have to consider that the controlled opposition – the craven sellouts of the Establishment GOP – have been completely ineffectual when it comes to resistance against the alien collectivist ideology and #ClownWorld agenda being imposed on the former America by the globalists & their Democrat-Bolshevik Quislings. So the rise of a hardline, militant religious-based opposition might be the only effective bulwark against what the elites have in store for us.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdUmwX7CGzQ

  3. Oh dear…Aussie FBs are about to learn the crucial difference between “homeowner” and “mortgage payer.”

    Fears inflation will see spike in mortgage repayments ahead of RBA interest rate call

    https://www.news.com.au/finance/economy/interest-rates/fears-inflation-will-see-spike-in-mortgage-repayments-ahead-of-rba-interest-rate-call/news-story/dbf1725ed38a856f198a04d8d6f392af

    There are warnings Wednesday’s jump in inflation will cause another huge expense for Aussies to rise to alarming levels.

  4. This is the part where Aussie FBs get to reap the consequences of electing a globalist Quisling regime that have their central bank free rein to create insane asset bubbles. I have zero pity.

    Kiwi households walloped by rising mortgage rates

    https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2022/10/kiwi-households-walloped-by-rising-mortgage-rates/

    Statistics New Zealand reported that household interest costs soared by 39% in the year to September, from an index level of 897 in September 2021 to 1,249 in September 2022:

  5. Oh dear. Trillions in make-believe Yellen Bux valuations are evaporating as the chimera of debt-based “growth” falls prey to a little something called true price discovery.

    Online furniture firm Made.com stops taking orders as rescue attempts fall flat and company that was worth £775million two years ago is now valued at £2million

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11356117/Furniture-firm-com-stops-taking-orders-rescue-bid-fails-store-drops-773m-value.html

    1. Isn’t that how little meat Brits already eat. The UK relatives have been eating meat substitutes (like Quorn) for years.

        2. I consider a hamburger to be a meat substitute.
          Sort of my thought too. Something to eat when her grandkids are around

  10. Mass Formation Psychosis.

    Washington Post — For those still trying to duck covid, the isolation is worse than ever (10/26/2022):

    “Some members of the masked minority have reorganized their lives indefinitely.

    Pelofsky and Grimaldi are among the Americans who are still going very far out of their way to avoid the virus. They don’t dine indoors at restaurants. They continue to practice social distancing. They wear highly protective masks if they must visit a doctor or stop at a pharmacy. Some are home-schooling their kids. Others are refusing to return to the office. They comprise the dozens of social media groups whose members identify as “Still COVIDing.”

    It’s called Mass Formation Psychosis, you freaks.

    “Many of them would like the unmasked masses to know this isn’t easy, and that it’s only gotten harder.

    “I feel like an outlier for doing the things that were standard just a short while ago,” says Grimaldi.”

    You are a hypochondriac freak.

    “2019 is gone. It’s gone. And it’s not coming back,” says Kara Darling, the moderator of that group and several others like it. “So at my house we’ve had a lot of long conversations about what makes a life worth living.”

    Ariella Cohen Coleman does harbor some resentment.

    “We’d be more comfortable going out into the world if people would just show people some respect and put on a mask,” says Cohen Coleman”

    https://archive.ph/WDJCK

    Makes life worth living?

    We’ve moved on. We don’t care about your delusions and psychosis.

    1. “We’d be more comfortable going out into the world if people would just show people some respect and put on a mask,” says Cohen Coleman”

      Eat a bag of dicks, Ms. Cohen.

    3. I don’t even think about the coof anymore. What a terrible thing it must be to be addicted to fear.

    4. They wear highly protective masks if they must visit a doctor
      I had a Dr. visit today where masks are mandatory. I forgot how tough it was to breathe with that damn thing on. It also caused the “glasses” fog problem. What an annoyance.

      1. My new GP doesn’t requires masks, but when I went to the lab to get blood drawn, they still required them.

  12. Sarasota Magazine in Florida. “‘The broad thought is that we’re moving toward a more normal market,’ says Adam Hancock, owner of The Sunshine State Company. ‘What we’re seeing day to day is if homes are priced appropriately and the home fits the price, they’re still going fast. But we’re not correcting to 2019. Whatever that new median price is, we’ll level off, but we’re not going to go back to what it was three-plus years ago. There’s still plenty of buyers, but people buying out of scarcity was out of whack and now there’s more of a wait-and-see attitude.’”

    – I call bullsh*t!
    – apparently all Realtors are lying scum.
    – It’s another freaking housing bubble bursting. This is becoming the obvious and mainstream narrative now. Whistling past the graveyard is delusional.
    – “The emperor has no clothes.”

    1. There are still homes listed for insanely high prices, and some of them are selling.

      Interestingly enough, I saw one home that was way over priced. It was first listed for $385,000. It went pending at $335,000. It is now listed as sold for $303,000. I expect more of that to start happening. Hubby and I are stashing away any cash we can so that we can hopefully slap a wad of cash down on a home when the guano really hits the fan.

      1. I’ve been watching Ft. Meyers and the fools are already rushing in. Realtards are even making videos about going there to bid on shacks. However, the council is threatening to demand that most of them be torn down if they aren’t up to current code. Eventually the fools will run out of other peoples money and then the real fun begins.

  13. The Orange County Register in California. “But sellers are reluctant to lower their prices. ‘Their attitude is, if they really want my house, they can pay for it,’ De Silvia said. ‘I try to explain that what you bought last year for $700,000, with the (higher) interest rates you can only afford a $400,000 home now if you want the same payment.’”

    – The five stages of grief:
    1. Denial. <—. You are here.
    2 Anger
    3 Bargaining
    4. Depression
    5. Acceptance
    – This is just getting started friends. Long way to go.
    – PHS data out on Fri. Leading indicator.

  14. Real Journalists.

    Proud Boys protests over drag performers are turning violent — and now they’re targeting kids (10/26/2022):

    “Drag Queen Story Time is a kiddie event, where drag queens and little kids bask in their shared love of flashy clothes and acting goofy. Indeed, one of the performers is an 11-year-old drag enthusiast-turned-performer who has regularly turned out to entertain the other kids.”

    https://www.salon.com/2022/10/26/proud-boys-over-drag-performers-are-turning-violent-and-now-theyre-targeting-kids/

    Remember, when you buy a house, your property taxes are paying to promote this in the public schools.

    And if you object you will get tossed in the January 6th gulag.

    1. “Drag Queen Story Time is a kiddie event, where drag queens and little kids bask in their shared love of flashy clothes and acting goofy. Indeed, one of the performers is an 11-year-old drag enthusiast-turned-performer who has regularly turned out to entertain the other kids.”

      Do they have any idea how this sounds to any sane person? It’s enough to give even the usual useful idiots pause.

    2. I can’t even imagine the hubris of bringing a controlled substance with me into a foreign country. That is just asking for trouble. No doubt Griner thought she could play the race card.

      This reminds me of a news story I saw decades ago when I still lived in San Diego. Some American vibrants had been busted for something in Tijuana and were demanding that the judge release them, because they were Americans. Let’s just say that the judge was not amused and he curtly reminded them that they were not in the United States.

    3. During her detention so far, Griner’s reading material has reportedly been books by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, a Russian writer whose work was marked by his harrowing experiences in the country’s penal system, after he was sentenced to four years’ hard labor in Siberia. Dostoyevsky once wrote: “The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.”

      Wonder if she’ll kiss the tarmac, if and when she returns?

      1. I’ve been plowing through Dostoyevski’s greatest works for a couple of months now: “The Idiot”, “Crime and Punishment” and currently “Demons”. These pretty much predicted our current Great Cultural Revolution.

  16. I would like to see John Fetterman and Joe Biden try to do Abbott & Costello’s Who’s On First

    Curtis Houck
    @CurtisHouck
    ·
    ABC27’s Dennis Owens: “What qualifies you to be a U.S. Senator?”

    John Fetterman: “Hi, goodnight, everybody. I’m running to serve Pennsylvania. [@DrOz] is running to use Pennsylvania. Here’s a man that spent more than $20 million…to try to buy that seat.” #PASen

    https://twitter.com/CurtisHouck/status/1585061462925611010?s=20&t=yZs1h4tc6ozp_MnfW1LfaA

    Abbott & Costello Who’s On First

    https://youtu.be/kTcRRaXV-fg?t=88

  18. Incoming:

    Back when AirBnB started it was like natural hosts renting out their cute homes and being like, “There’s craft beer for you in the fridge!” and now it’s someone’s 80th rental property with plastic Ikea furniture and it’s also out of soap.

    https://twitter.com/Wiglette/status/1537923488714924034

    The most memorable one was in LA and it was some bro’s bungalow who clearly never lived there. And the only soap available was a half-used bar in the moldy slimy tub we referred to as “d*cksoap”. I also got pinkeye afterwords 😭

    https://twitter.com/Wiglette/status/1537924165172224000

    Ali Wolf

    I had a builder tell me recently that baby boomer shoppers were more willing to walk from the deposits. They said some were walking from $40K, 50K, and even 80K deposits just because they’d rather lose that money than buy at what they perceived to be the wrong time

    https://twitter.com/AliWolfEcon/status/1584983344680677376

    Three-month annualized ⁦@CoreLogicInc home prices are down double-digits in six US cities.

    https://twitter.com/carlquintanilla/status/1584939413557198849

    Absolute no difference than what your local syndicator would say. Who would have thought!

    https://twitter.com/Vinny_Daniel0/status/1585044480771489794

    When the last housing bubble peaked in Feb 2007, prices fell 26% nationally. The same decline today would only bring home prices back to Sep 2020 levels. That’s a reflection of how much prices have gone up in the last phase of the current bubble, a 40% increase in just two years.

    https://twitter.com/charliebilello/status/1584912275709755393

    Every city in the Case-Shiller 20-city index saw a decline in home prices in August. The last time all 20 cities were down in a single month was in March 2011. San Francisco is showing the largest decline in prices thus far, -8.2% from its peak in May.

    https://twitter.com/charliebilello/status/1584934773734408194

    *US residential home prices fell -3.3% in Aug ~ its sharpest decline in a decade. But prices will fall further (and should) after the Fed poured gas on housing post-2020. As Mises said: The bigger the boom, bigger the bust.

    https://twitter.com/RadicalAdem/status/1585069946622849024

    And voila, another sizeable monthly drop in US house prices in August. You’d have to go back to 2009 to see house prices behaving like this – and there is no reason to expect sharp upside reversals in the short term. Housing market analysts still in La-La Land.

    https://twitter.com/MacroAlf/status/1584898246430064641

    Rick Palacios Jr.

    Apartment market is clearly slowing. Could get interesting given supply wave coming. Charts below are #Denver & #Austin, but many markets look similar.

    https://twitter.com/RickPalaciosJr/status/1584661947525439489

    A friendly reminder of how insane property prices are. Here is 400 years of data from Amsterdam. We’re living through the biggest real estate bubble ever.

    https://twitter.com/ValuablOfficial/status/1584613443419586560

    The Mortgage Bankers Association has offered their totally unbiased forecast that the average 30y fixed will be 6.2% by March 2023 and 5.4% by December 2023. This is the same entity that one year ago predicted that it’d be 4% in Q4 2022 (i.e. now). Only 330 BPS off target…

    https://twitter.com/kmasonrealtor/status/1584647671117008896

    Finally some truth on BBC… 🤣🤣🤣

    https://twitter.com/WallStreetSilv/status/1584951610232696832

    Danielle DiMartino Booth

    This is as toxic as the optics get. A few months ago, I warned that the Powell punching bag would quickly switch from an inability to fight inflation to a job destroyer. This blatant flouting of the Fed’s independence 14 days before the Midterms is as bad as it gets.

    https://twitter.com/DiMartinoBooth/status/1584990491976044544

    Senate Banking Committee Chairman Sherrod Brown (D., Ohio) asks Jay Powell to slow down interest rate rises in a letter one week before the FOMC meeting (and two weeks before congressional elections)

    https://twitter.com/NickTimiraos/status/1584976284400373760

    These clueless tw*ts just keep going from insult to injury. This kind of vacuous posturing only makes Powell’s job (and the JOB of the Fed) that much harder, feeding the junk-food cravings of a market as devoid of leadership as our elected pantheons. He needs to SHUT THE F*CK UP.

    https://twitter.com/Stimpyz1/status/1584983384077783040

    Drunk Monetary Policy Cum Lorde Award

    https://twitter.com/INArteCarloDoss/status/1584960735863799808

    1. ‘They said some were walking from $40K, 50K, and even 80K deposits just because they’d rather lose that money than buy at what they perceived to be the wrong time’

      Wa happened to my winnahs!?

      1. They went quiet except for the faint sound of boo hooing. They realized they got swindled… bamboozled.

      2. 1. No problem, they’ve got more where that came from. Let the grandkids pay for their own $40K cars, $500K student loans, and $1M houses.

        2. Remember the stock market swoon in fall of ’18? Boomers were giddy at watching their 401(k)s annihilated because it made Orange Man look bad.

        1. I had a friend tell me that their finances are tight and they are house poor. “This house was definitely a need and not a want, but my grandma gave us $40,000 to put down towards this house.”
          This is the same person whose husband’s grandparents gave her and her husband $20,000 towards paying off their student loans.

          After $60,000 in money from grandma and grandpa they are still in a tight place financially because they weren’t happy with their 1,900 square foot house.

          2. Actually, that’s literally the case. They were scared they’d never have that opportunity again to live on that house in that neighborhood. That’s fair, but their original house was literally across the yard. We’re not talking the last chance to get out of the ghetto. We’re talking the last chance to move into the house across the street.

    2. Senate Banking Committee Chairman Sherrod Brown (D., Ohio) asks Jay Powell to slow down interest rate rises in a letter one week before the FOMC meeting (and two weeks before congressional elections)

      So the Democrats are begging the FED to continue to destroy the poor? Weird, I thought libs were for the little guy.

    1. They feel like innocent victims of the central bank’s fight against inflation. “Who is responsible for the inflation in the first place?” Ahmad asked. “Why should I be paying for all these mistakes? The Bank of Canada is punishing us for something that we didn’t do.”

      Yuk yuk

  23. “Almost all of Southern California saw price drops from August to September. Orange County dropped the most, 3.5 percent, to a median of $950,250.”

    It’s easier to grasp the 3.5% one month price drop on as annualized rate of decline:

    1-(1-3.5/100)^12 = 34.8%.

    1. English language translation:

      If prices continue at their current rate of decline for a full year, the value will have dropped by 1/3.

      1. ‘I try to explain that what you bought last year for $700,000, with the (higher) interest rates you can only afford a $400,000 home now if you want the same payment.’

        Exactly.

      2. If prices continue at their current rate of decline for a full year, the value will have dropped by 1/3.

        While that’s a good start, prices need to fall more than 75% in most areas at current interest rates to get back to being affordable based upon local wages.

  25. “…rapidly mounting red ink at the Federal Reserve and many peers risks becoming more than just an accounting oddity. The accounting losses threaten to fuel criticism of the asset purchase programs undertaken to rescue markets and economies, most recently when Covid-19 shuttered large swathes of the global economy in 2020.”

    I guess they can’t use the electronic printing press to fill the hole in their own balance sheet.

    It reminds me of something my freshman economics professor said on day one of class: ‘There’s no such thing as a free lunch.’

  26. “It’s Possible The Global Housing Boom Is Coming To An End”

    With inflation running at 1970s levels and the Fed’s balance sheet bleeding red, it might be harder for them to repeat the hair-of-the-dog Housing Bubble reflation plan they implemented after the Great Recession.

  27. I missed some puddle watching links:

    Just a few short months ago, U.S. house prices were increasing at more than 20% annualized rate. Per the latest FHFA house price report released today, house prices have nearly fallen at a 5% annualized rate from May through August 2022.

    https://twitter.com/lenkiefer/status/1584926240695529472

    It shows how stupid people are at times. Lots of bad housing news but it’s only credible when the lagging, and poor, Case-Shiller falls sharply.

    But much worse to come as the series has sales from late May, June and July. Just wait for September’s numbers!

    https://twitter.com/PPGMacro/status/1584925480817676294

    Ben Rabidoux

    Toronto new single-family home sales fall 96% y/y in September. New condo sales down 89%.

    https://twitter.com/BenRabidoux/status/1584916442763370497

    Danielle mentions someone working at a bank telling her about lots of car loans where the customers never made payments for over 6 months, and will soon be required to start making payments.
    These can be quite large and the value of used cars has plummeted.
    Will they pay or walk?

    https://twitter.com/Johnonstocks/status/1584772274804006912

    There’s a brewing credit crisis in car loans 🚗, according to @DiMartinoBooth

    Borrowers are now walking away from their cars because they know they can’t pay the loan back.

    https://twitter.com/ForwardGuidance/status/1584900566949453825

  29. Las Vegas Housing Market Update
    Randy Milmeister- Realtor & Probate Specialist
    Oct 26, 2022 The market is so strange right now here in October 2022. Let’s take a look at what happened in our local market with all these crazy things going on in the news, and How this is affecting our prices in our market here in Las Vegas.

    Fortune magazine’s recent headline was “Boise, Las Vegas, and Phoenix look like housing busts…”
    However, our Local paper Las Vegas Review Journal included a report from Las Vegas Realtors association that the median price of existing single-family homes sold in Southern Nevada through its Multiple Listing Service during September was $450,000. That’s unchanged from August, but down from the all-time record price of $480,000 in May. The median home price is still up 10.7% from $406,500 1 year ago. Does that sound like a “bust” to you?

    LVR President Brandon Roberts said “It’s interesting to see local home prices level off … Home prices and sales had generally been declining since mortgage interest rates started rising,”, “The good news for buyers is that it has been at least 3 years since we’ve had this many homes available for sale.”

    At the end of September, LVR reported 9,970 single-family homes, condos, and town-homes listed for sale without any an offer… and a total of 2,554 local homes, condos & town homes sold in September. So, the absorption rate, a measure of supply & demand, is under a 4-month supply of properties.

    LVR reported that short sales and foreclosures combined accounted for 0.1% of all existing local property sales in September. That compares to 0.4% a year ago, 1% of all sales 2 years ago, and 5.2% 5 years ago. So, there are less foreclosures than any time in the last decade.

    Local home prices are still nearly 4 times higher than during their post-recession bottom in January 2012, when the median single-family home price in Southern Nevada was $118,000. So, look… you’re going to see a lot of fear based & inaccurate news. We’ll see less buyers in the market because of affordability, as Buyer demand has been squeezed, along with Less total sales & less new homes coming to the market.

    Here’s a simple example-

    $500K home, 10% down, would be a $450K loan

    With 4% interest rate in April 2022, payment would be $2,148

    At 6.5% rate in September would make it $2,844…a $700 per month payment difference.

    With the average wealth of American households… last year it was possible to afford to buy 60% of the properties on the market. Today this percentage has dropped to 45%. Buyers really started exiting the market when interest rates went from 3% to 4%.

    No doubt these higher rates hurt housing affordability. Nevertheless, apart from borrowing costs, rents also rose at their highest pace in nearly 4 decades. It’s true…it costs more to buy a home today than it did last year, but the same is true for renting. This means, either way, you’re going to be paying more. The difference is, with homeownership, you’re also gaining equity over time, which will help grow your net worth. The question is…what makes most sense for you?

    Finally, let’s keep an eye on this trend, and why Las Vegas ought to do a little better – license surrenders. There’s still a positive net license surrender…meaning out of state driver license ID’s…of almost 4,000 per month, with about 40% moving here from California. After this current phase of interest rates causing a pause in the market, we will likely see a similar problem next year, as we experienced last year… with low inventory.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dK7lqLQBCGg

    4:26

  34. Unfortunately Redpilled was dead right about this and impressively so I might add.

    So as bass ackwards as it seems, the NY State Supreme Court decision will be appealed to a higher appellate court in NY.

    New York City appeals judge’s ruling that could reinstate fired unvaccinated employees

    WABC
    Tuesday, October 25, 2022 5:37PM

    And as it has in the past, the city is appealing. Until that court rules, the vaccine mandate remains in effect.

    https://abc7ny.com/covid-vaccine-nyc-mandate/12376163/

    Redpilled Redhead
    October 25, 2022 at 1:59 pm
    NY State Supreme Court

    “In NY, contrary to its name, the Supreme Court is the trial court. Appeals can then be made to the Appellate Division then to the Court of Appeals. I wouldn’t be so quick to celebrate.”

  40. A nation of broke-assed losers …

    “Teetering On The Brink: 63% Of Americans Are Living Paycheck-To-Paycheck”

    https://www.zerohedge.com/personal-finance/teetering-brink-63-americans-are-living-paycheck-paycheck

    (snip)

    We have reached a point where nearly two-thirds of all Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. So what happens if millions of those people suddenly lose their paychecks during the severe economic downturn that is ahead of us? In 2008, unprecedented numbers of Americans found themselves unable to pay their mortgages when the recession struck, and foreclosures surged to absolutely shocking levels. Unfortunately, we have set ourselves up for the same thing to happen again. Most Americans are literally teetering on the brink of financial disaster, and it won’t take much to push them over the edge.

    According to a survey that was just released, 63 percent of Americans were living paycheck to paycheck in September…

    As rising prices continue to outpace wage gains, families are finding less cushion in their monthly budget.

    As of September, 63% of Americans were living paycheck to paycheck, according to a recent LendingClub report — near the 64% historic high hit in March. A year ago, the number of adults who felt strained was closer to 57%.

    Why aren’t more people alarmed by the fact that nearly two-thirds of the entire country is just barely scraping by from month to month?

    If you do not have anything to fall back on, you are just one major setback away from extreme financial distress.

    A job loss, an auto accident or a serious illness could hit at any time. If you suddenly experienced such a tragedy, how would you make ends meet?

    A different survey that was recently conducted found that two-thirds of all working adults in the United States believe that they are “worse off financially” than they were 12 months ago…

    As inflation pressures continue, two-thirds of working adults said they are worse off financially than they were a year ago, according to a recent report by Salary Finance.

    To make ends meet, many are dipping into their cash reserves or going into debt.

    Nearly three-quarters, or 72%, of consumers have less in savings than last year, a jump from 55% who said the same in February, the report found. And 29% said they have wiped out their savings entirely. The report is based on a survey of 500 adults in August.

    So most of us are living paycheck to paycheck, and most of us are also doing worse than we were in 2021.

    Isn’t that just great?

    If things are this bad already, what will these numbers look like six months from now?

    We continue to get even more evidence that we are plunging into a very painful economic downturn. For example, on Tuesday we learned that U.S. business activity has now contracted for 4 months in a row…

    U.S. business activity contracted for a fourth straight month in October, with manufacturers and services firms in a monthly survey of purchasing managers both reporting weaker client demand, the latest evidence of an economy softening in the face of high inflation and rising interest rates.

    S&P Global said on Monday its flash U.S. Composite PMI Output Index, which tracks the manufacturing and services sectors, fell to 47.3 this month from a final reading of 49.5 in September.

    And just like we witnessed in 2008, home prices are starting to crash at an alarming rate.

    In fact, it appears that prices are going down particularly fast in the western portion of the nation…

    The study was conducted by Ed Pinto—director of the American Enterprise Institute’s Housing Center. Pinto told Fortune that he predicts that the ‘damage’ will spread for the Northeast, with low and middle-markets being hit the worst.

    It’s Northern California that leads the way, with San Jose experiencing a drop of 10.8 percent since September, followed by San Francisco at 8.5 percent, then it’s Seattle at 8.2 percent, Denver at 5.8 percent, San Diego 5.2 percent, Portland 5.1 percent, Las Vegas 4.8 percent and Phoenix at 4.4 percent.

    Unfortunately, millions of Americans that purchased homes at or near the peak of the market could soon find themselves “underwater” on their mortgages.

    Do you remember the last time such a thing happened?

    It was a complete and utter nightmare. Countless homeowners ended up simply walking away from their mortgages, and that caused a giant mess for our financial institutions that took many years to finally sort out.

    In so many ways, what we are going through right now is reminiscent of what we experienced in 2008 and 2009.

    And just like we witnessed in 2008, most Americans are completely and utterly unprepared for what is ahead.

    To me, that is quite strange, because at this point what is happening to the economy should be apparent to everyone.

    We are enduring the worst inflation crisis in decades, the housing market is starting to come apart at the seams, and economic activity is slowing down all around us.

    The state of the U.S. economy has become a top issue during this election season, and pessimism about the future seems to be permeating just about everything.

    In fact, at this point Americans are even becoming more pessimistic about the long-term future of their children…

    Americans have as little optimism as they have had at any time in nearly three decades about young people’s chances of having greater material success in life than their parents. In all, 42% of U.S. adults think it is very (13%) or somewhat (29%) likely that today’s youth “will have a better living standard, better homes, a better education and so on.” This marks an 18-percentage-point drop since June 2019 and is statistically tied with the previous low in 2011.

    But even though there is so much pessimism in our society right now, most people are still not getting prepared for a full-blown meltdown of the system.

    And that is because most of the population does not think that it is going to happen.

    After everything that has transpired, most Americans still have a tremendous amount of faith in the fundamental soundness of our system.

    Overall, there is still an overwhelming consensus that most of the severe problems that we are facing right now are just “temporary” and that things will “return to normal” eventually.

    It would be wonderful if that assessment was true.

    Sadly, our leaders have really messed things up this time, and we are all going to experience a tremendous amount of pain as a result.

    1. “63% Of Americans Are Living Paycheck-To-Paycheck”

      Isn’t that group also known as Mr. Banker’s best customers?

    2. 63 percent of Americans were living paycheck to paycheck in September

      Ironically, that’s the labor participation rate.

    3. “Why aren’t more people alarmed by the fact that nearly two-thirds of the entire country is just barely scraping by from month to month?”

      They’re so broke they can’t even pay attention. 🙂

      1. They’re so broke they can’t even pay attention.

        That’s what happens when you have a $1000 a month payment on the vehicle.

    4. “It’s Northern California that leads the way, with San Jose experiencing a drop of 10.8 percent since September, followed by San Francisco at 8.5 percent, then it’s Seattle at 8.2 percent, Denver at 5.8 percent, San Diego 5.2 percent, Portland 5.1 percent, Las Vegas 4.8 percent and Phoenix at 4.4 percent.”

      Don’t forget Boise, ID. These progressive rainbow transplants from the coast need to lose their equity and then some.

  42. Former Dem Candidate Who Said ‘I Don’t Give A F**k What Happens to Anti-Vaxxers’ Died Suddenly While Walking Dog

    by Adan Salazar
    October 26th 2022, 3:25 pm

    Screen grabs show Rowe, who received his first Pfizer jab on August, 12, 2021, was bothered by people who refused to take the jab, at one point declaring, “Let Darwin do his work.”

    Earlier in the year, in July, Rowe described his contempt for people who refused to wear face masks and who tune into Fox, Trump and OANN, again saying, “I DO NOT CARE what happens to you.”

    He also made additional posts in September arrogantly dismissing anti-vaxxers’ concerns, suggesting he received a second vaccine that month.

    In an interesting turn of events, Rowe died the following month, with a friend of his claiming he died unexpectedly while walking his dog.

    https://www.infowars.com/posts/former-dem-candidate-who-said-i-dont-give-a-fk-what-happens-to-anti-vaxxers-died-suddenly-while-walking-dog/

  43. ELECTION ALERT! 250,000 UNVERIFIED New Pennsylvania Voters Were Sent Ballots Days Before Midterms

    by Jamie White
    October 26th 2022, 5:26 pm

    “Due to the 2018 directive from your office instructing counties to register voters without verification of identity, the need to verify the identity and eligibility of mail and absentee ballot applicants is even more critical to the integrity of our elections. As of October 21, 2022, records of 2022 Mail Ballot Data shows that counties have already mailed over 240,000 unverified ballots,” the letter states.

    The letter notes two contradictory statements: one by Deputy Secretary for Elections and Commissions Jonathon Marks who testified in court that unverified ballots can still be mailed out to applicants, but wouldn’t be counted officially in the election until ID was produced.

    The other by the State Department itself, who claimed that ballots cannot be sent out until ID is first provided.

    “Either the ballots are mailed to unverified applicants, or ballots are not mailed to unverified applicants but both statements cannot be true,” the letter notes. “Due to this conflicting information, conscientious election workers could unknowingly accept and count ballots for which no verification has ever occurred.”

    The letter goes on to claim their figure of 240,000 came from the Pennsylvania State Department’s own data, and that the mailed ballots must be set aside in accordance with Pennsylvania law.

    “According to the DoS data, as of October 21, 2022, a staggering 240,000 ballots are ‘NOT VERIFIED.’ That is an enormous number of ballots, which, according to the law, must be set aside and not counted for the 2022 General Election unless the voter produces ID,” the letter says.

    https://www.infowars.com/

    1. The Financial Times
      Markets Briefing Equities
      US tech shares close lower after Alphabet and Microsoft disappoint
      Shares in two tech bellwethers suffer biggest one-day drop in two years
      A Google store in Manhattan, New York
      Google parent Alphabet reported a sharp slowdown in its search ads business
      Nicholas Megaw in New York and George Steer in London 6 hours ago

      Weak third-quarter results from Microsoft and Google parent Alphabet weighed on US markets on Wednesday, after the big tech groups warned of weakness in crucial business lines that investors had hoped would be resilient to an economic slowdown.

      Alphabet closed down 9.1 per cent, while Microsoft finished 7.7 per cent lower. Both suffered their worst one-day declines since early in the coronavirus pandemic in March 2020.

      The weak reports dragged the tech-dominated Nasdaq Composite down 2 per cent, while the broader S&P 500 slid 0.7 per cent in choppy trading.
      …

    2. The Financial Times
      Meta Platforms
      Meta’s value plunges more than $65bn amid falling sales and rising costs
      Facebook parent’s earnings add to gloom surrounding Big Tech as advertisers pull back
      A car passes the Meta logo on a sign at the company headquarters in Menlo Park, California
      Facebook’s parent company Meta has faced scrutiny for expanding headcount rapidly through the coronavirus pandemic
      Hannah Murphy in San Francisco
      4 hours ago

      Investors wiped more than $65bn from Meta’s market capitalisation on Wednesday after the Facebook owner reported another quarter of declining revenues and failed to convince investors that big bets on the metaverse and artificial intelligence were paying off.

      Shares in Meta dropped 19 per cent in after-hours trading as the world’s largest social media platform joined other Big Tech groups in warning that an economic slowdown was hammering its advertising businesses as brands spend less on marketing.

      On top of the wider macroeconomic woes, Meta faces a confluence of challenges, including rising competition for its Instagram platform from rivals such as short-form video app TikTok and difficulties in targeting and measuring advertising because of Apple’s privacy policy changes.
      …

      1. They ran half their audience off out of spite and then tried to kill the other half with vaccines. I’m shocked that they are losing money! But seriously, we all know Zuck is a big fat liar so I’m sure the real numbers are much worse. For starters we could inflation adjust their ‘results’ and that alone makes things much worse. LULZ, FMZ.

    3. The Wall Street Journal
      Real Estate
      New-Home Sales Fell Nearly 11% in September Amid Rising Interest Rates
      Drop follows other recent data signaling market’s weakness after a nearly two-year housing boom
      Sales of newly built homes fell 17.6% in September from a year ago.
      Photo: stefani reynolds/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
      By Nicole Friedman
      Oct. 26, 2022 1:31 pm ET

      Sales of newly built homes dropped sharply in September from the previous month, the latest sign that rising interest rates are causing an abrupt slowdown in the housing market.

      New-home sales fell 10.9% in September from August to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 603,000, the Commerce Department said Wednesday. From a year earlier, new-home sales fell 17.6%.

      While new-home sales figures can be volatile and are often revised, the decline in September marks the fourth time in 2022 that these sales have fallen by 10% or more from the prior month. The September decline was the biggest since a 12.4% drop in April.

      The decline in new-home sales follows other recent data signaling the market’s weakness after a nearly two-year housing boom. Existing-home sales have fallen for eight straight months.

      Mortgage applications to purchase homes also fell 42% from a year earlier in the week ended Oct. 21, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association, while a measure of home-builder confidence has steadily weakened in recent months.

      Home-buying demand has sunk in recent months as higher interest rates raised mortgage payments for many prospective buyers by hundreds of dollars a month.

      New-home sales are likely to fall further because mortgage rates have risen in recent weeks. The average rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage was 6.94% last week, up from 3.1% at the end of last year, according to Freddie Mac.

      Sales of new homes, which make up about 10% of all U.S. home sales, are tracked when contracts are signed, while existing-home sales are tracked when contracts close. That makes new-home sales a leading indicator of where the market is headed.

      The median new-home sales price rose to $470,600 in September, up 13.9% from a year earlier, the Commerce Department said. The price increase was partly due to a shift toward sales of higher-priced homes.

      “We expect new home prices to ease in the months ahead as builders cut prices to clear inventory,” Oxford Economics said in a note to clients.

      A measure of U.S. home-builder confidence fell for the 10th straight month in October to the lowest level since May 2020, according to the National Association of Home Builders. Many builders are cutting prices, and some have canceled or renegotiated deals to acquire land.

      Builders have also slowed construction activity. Single-family housing starts fell 18% in September from a year earlier, according to the Commerce Department.
      …

    4. The Financial Times
      Live news updates from October 26: Meta shares plummet, US mortgage rates hit 21-year high
      US home mortgage rate tops 7% for first time since 2001
      …
      10 hours ago
      Meta shares fall after warning of ‘near-term challenges’ to revenue
      Hannah Murphy in San Francisco
      © AP

      Meta reported a deepening slowdown and warned that fourth-quarter revenues could come in lower than expected, as Big Tech groups continue to face a reckoning from a brutal digital advertising slump and tough macroeconomic conditions.

      Shares in Meta dropped more than 12 per cent after the world’s largest social media platform said that it expected its current-quarter revenue to be in the range of $30bn to $32.5bn, compared with analyst expectations of $32.2bn.

      The social media group’s revenues in the third quarter fell 4 per cent, to $27.71bn, after a 1 per cent decline last quarter. This was just above analyst estimates of a 5 per cent drop to $27.4bn. Net income fell 52 per cent from a year ago to $4.4bn, below consensus estimates for $5bn, according to S&P Capital IQ.

      Meta is the latest Big Tech group to post lacklustre results and an even bleaker outlook, as a wider economic slowdown and soaring inflation continue to batter businesses that rely on advertising, with brands tightening their belts and slashing marketing spend.

      “While we face near-term challenges on revenue, the fundamentals are there for a return to stronger revenue growth,” said Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s founder and chief executive.

      He said Meta was “approaching 2023 with a focus on prioritisation and efficiency that will help us navigate the current environment and emerge an even stronger company”.
      …
      13 hours ago11:01
      US tech shares fluctuate after weak Alphabet and Microsoft earnings

      Nicholas Megaw in New York and George Steer in London

      Weak third-quarter results from Microsoft and Google parent Alphabet weighed on US markets on Wednesday, after the big tech groups warned of weakness in crucial business lines that investors had hoped would be resilient to an economic slowdown.

      Alphabet dropped as much as 9 per cent in early trading, and was down 7.8 per cent by mid-afternoon. Microsoft fell 6.3 per cent.

      The weak reports dragged the tech-dominated Nasdaq Composite as much as 2.2 per cent lower on Wednesday morning, though it recovered some of its losses to trade 1.5 per cent lower by mid-afternoon.

      The broader S&P 500 index swung between gains and losses in choppy trading, but was 0.4 per cent lower by mid-afternoon.

      Alphabet’s results, published after markets closed on Tuesday evening, showed a sharp slowdown in growth in its core search advertising business. Smaller rival Snap warned last week about advertising challenges, but many investors had hoped Google’s business would be less vulnerable to an economic downturn.

      Facebook owner Meta will provide a further closely watched update on the state of digital advertising after markets close on Wednesday. Its shares were down 5.1 per cent by mid-afternoon.

      Microsoft, meanwhile, said it expected growth in its cloud computing business — which investors had been counting on to offset weakness in the PC market — would slow in the fourth quarter.

      Elsewhere on Wednesday, prices on US government bonds rallied as investors continued to scale back expectations for how far the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates. Futures markets were pricing in a peak rate of 4.85 per cent in May, down from 5 per cent last Thursday.

      A smaller-than-expected rate rise from the Bank of Canada, and comments from governor Tiff Macklem that the central bank is approaching the end of its monetary tightening cycle, added to views policymakers might soon dial back their aggressive fight against inflation.
      …
      Alphabet and Microsoft lead Big Tech sell-off after disappointing results
      George Steer in London

      US stocks fell on Wednesday following disappointing quarterly results from tech groups Alphabet and Microsoft, both of which reported slower revenue growth across core parts of their businesses.

      Google parent Alphabet reported a severe slowdown in its search advertising business, sending its shares down as much as 7.6 per cent. Microsoft’s stock fell 7.8 per cent after it warned that revenue growth from cloud computing had fallen. Shares in Meta, which reports later on Wednesday, shed 4 per cent.

      Wall Street’s broad S&P 500 index opened 0.5 per cent lower, erasing some of its gains over the past fortnight, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite fell 1.8 per cent. Investors are scouring corporate results for signs that high inflation and slowing economic growth are hitting company profits.

      In government bond markets, the yield on benchmark 10-year US Treasuries fell 0.043 percentage points to 4.06 per cent.

      The dollar softened 0.5 per cent against a basket of six other currencies and has now erased its gains since the start of the month.

      In Europe, the regional Stoxx Europe 600 index slipped 0.4 per cent and Germany’s Dax traded flat. The moves came as Deutsche Bank, the country’s largest lender, reported its highest third-quarter pre-tax profit since before the financial crisis, thanks in part to rising interest rates.

      The European Central Bank will meet on Thursday and is widely expected to raise borrowing costs by 75 basis points for the second month in a row, to 1.5 per cent, to tame inflation that hit 10 per cent in the year to September.
      …
      19 hours ago
      US home mortgage rate tops 7% for first time since 2001
      Steff Chávez in Chicago
      Homes in Meridian, Idaho, US in June 2022
      MBA’s vice-president said that rising interest rates have continued to depress mortgage application activity © Bloomberg
      Average US home mortgage rates topped 7 per cent for the first time in more than two decades, weighing down on mortgage applications, in response to the Federal Reserve’s aggressive campaign to tame high inflation.

      The average interest rate for a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage increased to 7.16 per cent for loans worth $647,200 or less, from 6.94 per cent the previous week, the Mortgage Bankers Association said on Wednesday.

      That is the highest level for the rate since 2001, said MBA vice-president Joel Kan in a statement. The mortgage rate for loans above $647,200 increased from 6.31 per cent to 6.53 per cent.

      Other mortgage trackers have reflected the soaring cost of borrowing as the central bank tightens monetary policy. The average US mortgage rate topped 6 per cent in September, according to Freddie Mac, and has continued to rise.

      Last week, Freddie Mac said high rates were “adversely impacting the housing market in the form of declining demand”, and noted that homebuilder confidence had dropped to half its level from six months ago. The government-backed mortgage group’s next weekly survey is released on Thursday.

      “The ongoing trend of rising mortgage rates continues to depress mortgage application activity, which remained at its slowest pace since 1997,” said Kan.
      …

    5. Economy
      Powell again is facing political pressure as worries mount over the economy
      Published Wed, Oct 26 2022 3:27 PM EDT
      Updated Wed, Oct 26 2022 9:32 PM EDT
      Jeff Cox
      Key Points
      – Sen. Sherrod Brown this week sent a letter to Fed Chair Jerome Powell, expressing concern about the impact interest rate hikes could have on employment.
      – “Potential job losses brought about by monetary over-tightening will only worsen these matters for the working class,” the Ohio Democrat said.
      – The last time the Fed raised interest rates, from 2016 to December 2018, Powell withstood withering criticism from former President Donald Trump.
      – Powell has in the past been generally dismissive when asked if political pressure can factor into decision making.
      …
      https://www.cnbc.com/2022/10/26/powell-again-is-facing-political-pressure-as-worries-mount-over-the-economy.html

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