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Buyers And Sellers Are Getting Used To A New Reality And They Are Leaving The Craziness Behind

A report from the Sun Sentinel. “Businesses tied to the real estate industry say they’ve started to feel the effects of the housing market slowing down in South Florida. ‘It’s a ghost town,’ says Bruce Gubnitsky, the owner of BG Appraising and Consulting, of the ‘steady decline’ in business. ‘This is the third or fourth time that I have seen this happen,’ said Adam Zipper, with Strock & Cohen, Zipper Law Group. ‘It’s the ebb and flow of the business. We had a few years of unsustainable increases and now we are seeing unsustainable decreases.'”

Fox 13 in Florida. “Big changes to the federal interest rate rocked Tampa Bay’s housing market over the last six months. Realtor Amy Heckler said she’s noticed the market turn on its side. Heckler said it’s like someone flipped the switch on real estate. ‘So it’s definitely gone from one extreme to another almost, and we’ve seen quite a change in the market,’ she explained. ‘None of us have a crystal ball, however, we do and have seen the prices drop dramatically.'”

Boston 25 News in Massachusetts. “One Boston-based realtor says things are looking a lot better for prospective home buyers. ‘We’re seeing a lot of inventory come on the market. There’s definitely less closing and more properties that are not going under agreement,’ realtor Mike Urban said. ‘Now you can really negotiate the sale price down.'”

The Longview News Journal. “The East Texas housing market is changing as interest rates have climbed., ‘I think it’s kind of leveled off to the pre 2020-21 market,’ said Jessica Holmes, chairwoman of the Longview Area Association of Realtors, adding that the past 18 months have been ‘good for buyers.’ Every home that went on the market had multiple offers, with offers above asking prices and cash offers common. Sellers, though, are wondering why their homes are still on the market after a couple of weeks. She said in the past two years sellers weren’t having to reduce prices.”

“‘Now, I’m seeing price reductions,’ along with more incentives, such as help with closing costs, Holmes said. Homes generally are selling for listing price or less, she said.”

From Realty Biz News. “The real estate market has been a challenge to navigate during the past few years, and New Jersey is no exception. Housing prices are gradually starting to come down, as the market transitions from a seller’s market to a buyer’s market. Prospective home buyers no longer feel the urgency to make high offers on houses before they are snapped up. Real estate analyst Dennis Lynch has noticed home sales have fallen significantly during the past year.”

“Alpine has the largest available housing supply compared to any other town in the state. Alpine is estimated to have nearly a year’s worth of inventory on the market. Several other townships have large inventories of houses available. For example, Loveladies also has nearly seven months of inventory available. In addition, both Saddle River and Far Hills have more than five months of supply available. According to Lynch, one of the side effects of increasing interest rates is that foreclosures will go up as well. Some people may have taken out adjustable-rate mortgages—as a result, the interest rates on their mortgages might begin to go up, and they might be forced to foreclose on their homes.”

“In August, New Jersey had the fourth-highest rate of foreclosures in the country. Some housing markets most vulnerable to foreclosures include New York and Philadelphia suburbs; this includes Passaic, Camden, Gloucester, Bergen, Essex, and Sussex counties.”

Bisnow New York. “Inflation, interest rates and a very cloudy view on the return to offices mean the nation’s biggest landlords are navigating how to run their properties with little to guide them, all while battling dipping values and a perception problem. ‘There’s very little new stuff coming to the market,’ Savanna Managing Partner Chris Schlank said. ‘On the office side, any office building that comes to market now gets punished, because anybody that brings an office building to market now, the market perceives as distress. There’s an upside-down capital market there.'”

“Even market-rate apartments in a supply-constrained market, where landlords can feel confident that rents won’t bottom out, Meridian Investment Sales Executive Managing Director Helen Hwang said the market is still a starkly different environment from the start of the year, when buyers were accepting capitalization rates below 4%. ‘What is really shocking is, we took a survey in first quarter of this year and there was so much optimism and the investor psyche was totally different,’ she said. ‘It was a different world then. Fast-forward to today, and rent growth is so muted and basically just matching expenses.'”

“CBRE Investment Management Senior Managing Director Sondra Wenger said there is capital on the sidelines for both debt and equity — it is just unclear when exactly they will get back in the game. ‘There’s no liquidity crisis,’ she said. ‘There’s a great pricing restructuring that we’re all having to sort of swallow. And I think that’s the real challenge. What we’re struggling with on the office front is just transparency of return to office.'”

From Market Watch. “Well, technically — the National Realtors Association (NAR) said it’s expecting the commercial real-estate market to experience a ‘slight decline in prices’ in 2023. ‘Nationwide, we are beginning to see some decline in commercial appraisal values,’ Lawrence Yun, chief economist at NAR, said over the weekend. ‘Cap rates simply cannot match up with higher borrowing costs, especially among people who need to refinance their properties.’ ‘Offices are the most vulnerable to these price decreases,’ Yun said.  ‘We are seeing a rise in office vacancies in many cities, driven by a preference for remote work,’ he added. Before the pandemic, San Francisco saw an office vacancy rate of just 6%, he noted. Now, it’s more than 15%.”

“According to Green Street’s commercial property-price index, rising rates have pushed property prices down by 13% from a peak this year. ‘It’s a simple story: higher yields on Treasury bonds equals higher cap rates,’  said Peter Rothemund, co-head of strategic research at Green Street. Offices saw a drop in prices of 17.5%, the company said in its report. ‘And as large as the decline in pricing has been, I don’t think we’re out of the woods,’ he added. ‘If the 10-year note stays above 4%, property prices are likely to keep falling.'”

The Globe and Mail. “Private mortgage lenders are having a harder time accessing capital and are making it more difficult for borrowers to get a loan, choking off a major source of funds for those unable to qualify at a Canadian bank. Some private mortgage lenders, also known as alternative or subprime lenders, are requiring borrowers to have higher down payments or more equity in their homes to qualify for a private mortgage. The higher standards are being rolled out as Canadian banks clamp down on lending in the face of falling home prices and rising interest rates. That has sent a flood of new borrowers to private lenders and shored up their business.”

“As a mortgage investment corporation, or MIC, the lender uses capital from investors, as well as funds that have been repaid by its borrowers to provide new mortgages. ‘When we need capital, we don’t just go down to the trading floor and organize an extra billion dollars. It’s all directly from private clients,’ said Rob Pirie, MCF Mortgage’s chief executive officer. ‘Sometimes we just run out of capital, it just takes a few weeks or a month to sort of build that new capital up. It’s not anything that was concerning at all.’ The two-week October suspension was only its second suspension in nearly five decades in business.”

“Home values have lost at least 20 per cent of their value in areas that appreciated the most, including Toronto suburbs and smaller cities in Southern Ontario.”

From Mansion Global. “The U.K.’s property market isn’t coming back to Earth, it’s plummeting back to Earth, according to a report Monday from Rightmove. The frenzied market of the past two years has turned into a more normal market more abruptly and less smoothly than we were expecting,’ Tim Bannister, Rightmove’s director of property science, said in the report. Looking ahead, ‘the plethora of predictions about what might happen to prices next year comes at a time when much is still uncertain,’ Mr. Bannister said. ‘But what is certain is that the exceptional price growth of the last two years is unsustainable against the economic headwinds and growing affordability constraints.'”

The NL Times. “Recently, people buying a home in the Netherlands have become less prone to bidding above the seller’s asking price, said the large online broker Makelaarsland. The situation has begun to return back to the level of 2018, which is another signal that the housing market in the Netherlands is rapidly cooling down. About one in three bids was above the asking price, at Makelaarsland last month. By comparison, in the first half of this year more than three-fourths of all bids were still higher than the seller was seeking.”

“‘In terms of figures, it has been a long time since such a situation has occurred,’ said Makelaarsland director Gijs van Wijgerden. ‘The year 2018 was the last time that we had to deal with these kinds of percentages. At the time, the percentage of bids above the asking price was slightly lower at 30 percent.’ Earlier figures showed that housing prices have been falling in recent months. At the beginning of this year, the largest price increases in decades were measured. The reason for the turnaround are the rising interest rates, which means that buyers are no longer able to obtain higher mortgages.”

“Van Wijgerden of Makelaarsland tried to reassure people. ‘You can wonder whether the current hysteria in the housing market is justified. 2022 was not a bad year if you look back further than 2021. That year was extreme; this year the market is stabilizing again,’ he indicated. ‘It seems that buyers and sellers are getting used to a new reality in the housing market and that they are leaving the craziness behind a bit.'”

From Reuters. “The New Zealand house price index saw its largest drop in 30 years last month and sales activity was particularly soft, fuelling expectations that prices might fall further than many economists had previously forecast. The house price index, which measures changes in house prices on a like for like basis, fell for the 11th consecutive month and is now down 10.9% on October last year, according to data released by the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand on Tuesday. The median house price was down 7.9% on October last year. House prices in New Zealand rose roughly 40% over the pandemic before peaking last November.”

The Daily Mail. “Devastated Australians say they have lost everything after investing in cryptocurrency with some seeing their marriages break down and others left contemplating suicide as a result. Another Aussie said: ‘I had 95% of my life savings in Celsius as I was made to believe that it was a safe and secure account where I could earn 1% interest on my bitcoin. I have suicidal thoughts and the only reason I hadn’t already taken my life was the burden that would leave my family. I have lost 15% of my body weight in 6 weeks from the stress of suddenly losing everything that I’ve spent my entire life building. Worst of all, my mother split my home with me so if I default on the home she’ll be homeless at 60 years of age. I just don’t see a way where I can recover.'”

“A 40-year-old father-of-three added: ‘This has had an immense impact on my life and my financial future looks extremely grim. ‘I feel humiliated, angry, anxious and have had many sleepless nights coming to the realisation the all my funds I have been saving for my children’s future for the past 20+ years has been gambled away by a liar and a fraud.'”

“While a 42-year-old single parent said: ”The plan was to work a ridiculous amount of hours and live in a very cheap run down property to maximise savings. The end game was to buy a house for myself and my child. I have no family over here and nobody to fall back on so I had to come up with a plan. I have lost everything. How can I explain this to my son? I feel ashamed at myself.'”

From Bloomberg. “In hindsight, Sam Bankman-Fried’s April interview with Bloomberg’s Odd Lots podcast was a harbinger of his epic collapse last week. He described a ‘box’ that has value only because other people put money in it, and, when confronted with the idea that he described a Ponzi scheme, admitted there was a ‘depressing amount of validity’ to that.”

“As for Serum, it and other crypto projects are a long way removed from the ‘summer of DeFi’ that it declared in a white paper around mid-2020. That was just as digital assets were on the brink of an epic boom that spawned Super Bowl ads, stadium naming rights and crypto bandwagoners who were all-too-eager to tell non-believers to ‘have fun staying poor.'”

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This Post Has 123 Comments

  1. ‘When we need capital, we don’t just go down to the trading floor and organize an extra billion dollars. It’s all directly from private clients…Sometimes we just run out of capital, it just takes a few weeks or a month to sort of build that new capital up. It’s not anything that was concerning at all’

    Sure, subprime lenders run out of money after prices drop 20%, it’s just a bad hair day!

  2. ‘A 40-year-old father-of-three added: ‘This has had an immense impact on my life and my financial future looks extremely grim. ‘I feel humiliated, angry, anxious and have had many sleepless nights coming to the realisation the all my funds I have been saving for my children’s future for the past 20+ years has been gambled away by a liar and a fraud’

    Don’t be so hard on yerself Dad.

    1. ‘This has had an immense impact on my life and my financial future looks extremely grim. I feel humiliated, angry, anxious and have had many sleepless nights coming to the realisation the all my funds I have been saving for my children’s future for the past 20+ years has been gambled away by a liar and a fraud’

      https://youtu.be/AGUsRGuZb6k?t=36

      3. “I feel humiliated, angry, anxious and have had many sleepless nights coming to the realisation the all my funds I have been saving for my children’s future for the past 20+ years has been gambled away by a liar and a fraud.”

        What ever happened to diversification?

        1. What ever happened to diversification?

          The lure of crazy appreciation, plus stonks sagging, drew him in.

  4. ‘The East Texas housing market is changing as interest rates have climbed…adding that the past 18 months have been ‘good for buyers.’ Every home that went on the market had multiple offers, with offers above asking prices and cash offers common’

    If you’ve never driven through this sh$thole, you may not know there should never be multiple offers on anything.

    1. I dont think there ever was multiple offers. If the cash buyers were plentiful six months ago, what’s stopping them now? Houses are actually cheaper by at least 10% from the peak, they can deploy the cash, no? See there never were many cash buyers to begin with.

      Just like, there never was this mythical multiple offerings. It may have happened to a house or 2 in handful of locations. They talk like this was the norm not the exception. Just adding to the fomo narrative..that’s all.

      1. That, or you live in a country with the word “Democratic” in its name. Of course, that too is a mistake, but one that can be next to impossible to remedy.

    1. FTX says it could have over 1 million creditors in new bankruptcy filing
      Now that’s funny,
      Larry the Cable Guy “I don’t care who you are, that’s funny!”

    2. Buy crypto, they told me. You can bypass banks, they told me. It’s safe, they told me. It isn’t speculative.There’s a limited amount of it, so it’s value will never fall, they told me.

    3. We can lay the “stupid kid with Apergers” theory to rest now that we know that they were stealing money from FTX investors and funneling it into Almeda Research and then using the funds to buy and front run new issue crypto tokens before they became available on FTX and then sell those tokens back to the FTX customers where they stole the money from in the first place.

      The financial malfeasance is so epic they are going to need a cover story to feed the gullible public. Here is what they are going to tell us: The kid in the t shirt and baggy pants, the dumpy nasally nerd with the man tits and charisma of a salamander was such a charming genius Svengali that he ran circles around all these sophisticated experienced well heeled investors and convinced them that this was their once in a life time opportunity to flush their money down the toilet in this torrential Montezuma’s revenge $#!t show. They’ll probably even make a movie about it.

      But here’s what most likely happened. This was Jeffrey Epstein 2.0 and a significant number of people were blackmailed into participating in this heist.

      A lot of money will be lost but we can be thankful at least that the whole crypto fantasy world has collapsed. This guy is to the crypto monetary utopians what Charles Manson was to the psychedelic peace and love flower power movement. The illusion is pierced and can never be restored. It’s over. No more BS about how this new money has special powers and can save us just because it’s now a computer. No more BS about the perfect technology that can’t be corrupted. Sure there are still some people religiously listening to their bootleg grateful dead concert tapes on an old reel to reel but it’s just nostalgia now. The crypto dream is over. Bankman Fried and company murdered it like it was Sharon Tate.

      2. The illusion is pierced and can never be restored. It’s over.

        Yet the inflows into crypto after this scam was uncovered are the highest in 14 weeks. Never, EVER underestimate the level of greed and stupidity out there.

        1. What can I say? I have a flair for the dramatic I guess. Time will tell. A lizard will keep moving its eyes around like nothing happened for 5 or 10 minutes after it’s head is cut off.

          1. Like junkies, gamblers never stop until they die. They will literally spend every penny they can get their hands on until it’s all gone, then they go jump off the tallest building.

          2. “then they go jump off the tallest building.”

            It had three small rooms just another shanty anyways.
            She was out shopping houses with a realtor on a saturday.
            And at dinner time she signed a contract on a shack in suburban DC.
            The realtor hollered Hey theres no need to stamp your little feet.
            Then he said I got some news this morning from Rocket Mortgage.
            Today you’re deep in mortgage debt so go and jump from the nearest bridge.

            https://youtu.be/nv33eaygVDQ
            Bobby Gentry – Ode to Billy Joe

            Alliance, OH Housing Prices Crater 14% YOY As National Housing Bust Rolls Through The Mid-West

            https://www.movoto.com/alliance-oh/market-trends/

            As one real estate economist explained, “With 25 million excess empty and defaulted houses out there, it’s no mystery why housing prices are falling everywhere.”

      3. You’re giving him way too much credit. It has come out that he has enthusiastically promoted the use of meth in the past. This is generally not the drug of choice for the smart and sophisticated. It is the drug of choice for people with mental issues.

        But ‘he went to MIT’ I can hear you saying. MIT attracts all manner of weirdos. Some of them go on to lead total train wrecks of a life. He is one of those.

        I suspect his parents have always been absentee helicopter parents but these days they use a Lear Jet when their little retard needs help. While they are now Lear Jet Parents (LJP’s), it is unlikely his parents ever intended to commit financial crimes and they are probably mortified at what he has done. You can bet their private conversations are extremely strained this week. This guy is NOT a mastermind, he is an a**clown.

        The reason they kept a skeletal crew is not because they were so shrewd it is because normal people couldn’t work with them. The developing news on that front just gets more and more absurd. This is the kind of completely outrageous stuff you only see at major cycle tops.

        What do you guys think about his gorgeous evil genius girlfriend? She is so smart and sophisticated that she is allegedly trying to get to Dubai to lay low. Those camel jockeys are probably going to cut her hands off! They’re both so brilliant!!

        You have to laugh at the pic of SBF with his arm around Maxine Waters, the chair of the House Financial Services Committee, while both smiling for the camera. While some people see two smart sophisticated winners, I see things that wouldn’t be fit to post here. My private critique is much more scathing than I am able to share, however, I contend at the core of this scandal is a sheltered aspie with a drug problem not a criminal mastermind. It is an insult to genuine criminal masterminds to associate him as one.

        1. She is so smart and sophisticated that she is allegedly trying to get to Dubai to lay low. Those camel jockeys are probably going to cut her hands off! They’re both so brilliant!!

          I find it hilarious that a Jew would be trying to get to the UAE, whose official religion is Islam. These people hate each other.

        2. an insult to genuine criminal masterminds

          Jail is for those who will not, or can not obey the law. Your psychoanalysis doesn’t matter. He is a thief, or so I gather.

        3. Not quire. These two messy nerds were chosen fronts. Her parents wirk at Stanford so she attended for free. His parents at MIT specialize in obfuscation. Data Analytics received millions, his mother’s company that feeds data to government agencies and in turn government agencies release that info to the public to create, manipulate and alter PERCEPTION. Example, 15% of xxxx population does ‘thus’. Zap. Perception created.

          2. Her parents wirk at Stanford so she attended for free.

            Her dad is an MIT economist and former boss of now SEC Chairman.

      4. He can’t be an a$$clown with Asperger’s at the same time as being responsible for a multibillion dollar money laundering scheme like this. So the question is who was responsible? That’s point here. If it’s so easy for a stupid a$$ clown to set up a multibillion dollar trading platform, please tell about your crowning achievements that demonstrate how you are so much smarter and more capable then this guy. How many other multibillion dollar trading platforms are set up by a$$clowns with Asperger’s? It must happen all the time because there are plenty of @$$ clowns with Asperger’s around.

        1. Did you even read any of the links you posted for me the other day? I did. One of your best links for a similar one of these masterminds had multiple sources saying he had severe mental issues and was an autist.

          Here is a quote from the story on the founder of the effective altruism scam:

          In fact, for a man who’s spent the past few years thinking about how humanity might permanently derail its future, he’s surprisingly cheerful. He’s just returned from a week of surfing with his partner Holly Morgan on the south coast of England. After years of suffering from depression and anxiety, he now prioritizes sleep, exercise, and meditation. He enjoys swimming outdoors, playing the saxophone, and holding “fire raves” in fields with friends, dancing around a bonfire to house music until the early hours. “There are many things in my life I care about for intrinsic reasons,” he says, “not because I’ve done some 12-dimensional maths about how it contributes to the greater good.”

          Yep, sounds like another over achieving brilliant scholar to me.

          In regards to the WEF FTX page, I could make a similar page in about 5 minutes and would be happy to do so if you paid me upfront and promised me an ongoing cut. This is a 10 minute phone convo followed by 5 minutes of effort. These things aren’t hard to put together.

          All of these geniuses seem to be following a very similar path of mental issues and they are attracted to crypto for similar reasons. My inquiry into SBF’s mental state isn’t to excuse his crimes, it is to try to understand how someone with his upbringing would turn out to be such a complete P.O.S. If you take the time to do more than just a cursory dive on what he has done, you will see that he is not anywhere near the international man of mystery that you would like to think he is. He will most likely be attending prison soon along with members of his ‘brilliant’ team.

          P.S. I don’t have these kind of achievements to share with you because I am not a criminal. I have been unable to invest in crypto because my mental state is apparently too healthy to allow it. Believe me, I have wasted plenty of time looking into it.

  6. ‘a starkly different environment from the start of the year, when buyers were accepting capitalization rates below 4%. ‘What is really shocking is, we took a survey in first quarter of this year and there was so much optimism and the investor psyche was totally different,’ she said. ‘It was a different world then. Fast-forward to today, and rent growth is so muted and basically just matching expenses’

    Below 4%. How do those cap rates look now?

    1. Just wow. Hollywood can’t compete with this kind of quality tale. The altruistic billionaire who drives a beater bought a mansion on a sandbar in the middle of the ocean to have meth fueled orgies with his polycule of misfits. My mind is officially changed! This is definitely both smart AND sophisticated!! Where do I send my bailout fund donation?

    2. It just goes to show you can never judge a book by its cover. She looks like the biggest straight-laced, goody-two-shoes geek imaginable, but she’s a meth using crypto fraudster who lets guys pull a train on her.

  9. ‘Nationwide, we are beginning to see some decline in commercial appraisal values…Cap rates simply cannot match up with higher borrowing costs, especially among people who need to refinance their properties’

    Larry is saying these people are fooked. It’s a great big sh$t sandwich Larry, dive in.

  10. “He described a ‘box’ that has value only because other people put money in it, and, when confronted with the idea that he described a Ponzi scheme, admitted there was a ‘depressing amount of validity’ to that.”

    SBF deserves credit for his honesty.

    And his investors deserve credit for failing to pay attention. Too much blaim is getting heaped on SBF, and not enough credit is given to those who failed to conduct due diligence.

    1. The Wall Street Journal
      17 hours ago
      Why Hasn’t ‘Crypto Contagion’ Spilled into the Stock Market?
      By Eric Wallerstein
      A trader works on the trading floor at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in Manhattan, New York City, U.S. ANDREW KELLY/REUTERS

      Crypto’s monetary policy-driven suffering this year has only worsened from the fallout of one of its biggest exchanges, and figureheads.

      The stock market has mostly ignored it.

      – From its high-water mark of $3 trillion about a year ago, crypto’s total market capitalization has fallen by about 73%, wiping out about $2.2 trillion in fiat currency terms.

      – Elsewhere, the U.S. equity market added over $2.7 trillion to its market cap between last Thursday and Friday, according to FactSet. U.S. stocks had a roughly $43 trillion total market cap while global equities were at $96 trillion as of Friday.

      “Two trillion or so in crypto losses pales in comparison to the moves in $100 trillion global equity markets,” said Bob Elliott, founder and chief investment officer of Unlimited.

      For the general economy, crypto and the FTX debacle may be more of a spectacle than a genuine concern.

      “Roughly five times as many Americans hold stocks than have invested in crypto assets at any point,” said Mr. Elliott. “The recent stock market rebound is far more important to U.S. households than this year’s crypto losses.”
      …

      1. “The recent stock market rebound is far more important to U.S. households than this year’s crypto losses.”

        That’s why it was manufactured just in time for the midterms.

    2. Donating even a single dollar to the Democrat-Bolsheviks is a dead giveaway of moral bankruptcy. SBF was the #2 Democrat bankroller after George Soros. Anyone who entrusted their money to this scumbag purely and simply deserved to get defrauded. This is poetic justice at its finest.

    3. And his investors deserve credit for failing to pay attention. Too much blaim is getting heaped on SBF, and not enough credit is given to those who failed to conduct due diligence.

      Sure, kind of like Bernie Madoff got “too much blame.” Give me a break.

  11. “Home values have lost at least 20 per cent of their value in areas that appreciated the most, including Toronto suburbs and smaller cities in Southern Ontario.”

    But…but that means winners of bidding wars are already underwater. Oh dear….

    1. Housing market should brace for mortgage rates hitting 10% in 2023, investment banker says
      Provided by Dow Jones
      Nov 9, 2022 11:54 AM PST
      By Joy Wiltermuth
      Home prices could give up all pandemic gains, says Whalen

      Even if Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and his cohorts stopped hiking policy rates soon, the 30-year fixed mortgage rate still would climb to 10%, according to Christopher Whalen, chairman of Whalen Global Advisors.

      That’s because the Fed’s torrid pace of rate increases in 2022 takes time to seep back into mortgage rates, especially with the fed-funds rate already jumping to a 3%-3.25% range in late September, from almost zero a year before.

      “Lenders only slowly adjust their rates,” Whalen told MarketWatch. “They are not used to seeing rates moving this fast, and typically would change rates only once a month or once every other month.”
      …
      https://www.morningstar.com/news/marketwatch/20221109652/housing-market-should-brace-for-mortgage-rates-hitting-10-in-2023-investment-banker-says

      1. Judging by the events in last 2 weeks, Whalen is wrong. Inflation is ‘cured.’ Rate cuts are the next thing. We will see 3% mortgage by summer ’23.

          1. Will the Greater Depression be over by then?

            As long as we don’t get any more “New Deals” in the process, quite possibly.

        2. Judging by the events in last 2 weeks, Whalen is wrong. Inflation is ‘cured.’ Rate cuts are the next thing. We will see 3% mortgage by summer ’23.

          Every single thing you post has been dead wrong, butters. Give it up, there is no pivot coming.

    2. The Financial Times
      The Big Read Markets volatility
      The cracks in the US Treasury bond market
      The meltdown in UK gilts exposed the vulnerability of large bond markets. Could the biggest of them survive a wave of selling?
      Kate Duguid in New York and Tommy Stubbington in London yesterday

      Buying and selling in the world’s biggest bond market is supposed to be easy. However, for most of this year, says Gregory Whiteley, a bond portfolio manager at DoubleLine Capital, it has been anything but straightforward.

      Whiteley says a trader used to be able to get hold of $400mn of US Treasury bonds — not an outsize quantity in this $24tn market — as a routine matter. But now that typically involves breaking up the order into smaller chunks; perhaps doing $100mn of the trade electronically, he explains, and then picking up the phone to see if they can prise the rest of the debt from the hands of Wall Street’s trading desks over the course of a day.

      The US Treasury bond market suffered a huge scare at the start of the coronavirus pandemic when fears about a collapse in the global economy led to a sudden slump in prices and liquidity.

      Now as the Federal Reserve battles to rein in inflation, a recession looms and most asset prices have faced a dramatic sell-off, the world’s most important bond market is creaking once again.

      Liquidity in the market — one crucial measure of how well it is functioning — is at its worst levels since March 2020 after a dramatic decline in the past year. Market depth, a measure of liquidity which refers to the ability of a trader to buy or sell Treasuries without moving prices, is also at its worst level since March 2020, according to Jay Barry at JPMorgan.

      “Markets are in a much more fragile place, with terrible liquidity,” says Greg Peters, co-chief investment officer at PGIM Fixed Income. “The way I think about fragile market function is that the odds of a financial accident are just higher.”
      …

      1. wall st. definition of liquidity: nobody wants to sell or buy your stock/bond at the price you want to buy/sell at.

        There’s plenty of money sloshing around (which is the definition of liquidity in the rest of the world) but no one wants to buy/sell at the price they have offered.

        1. Definition of credit crunch:
          1. The absence of liquidity
          2. Nobody wants to sell at the price buyers are willing to pay, and nobody wants to buy at sellers’ offer prices.

          1. Absent government (e.g Fed) intervention, in a standoff between budget-constrained buyers and greedy sellers expecting last year’s price, the buyers eventually win.

  13. Another Aussie said: ‘I had 95% of my life savings in Celsius as I was made to believe that it was a safe and secure account where I could earn 1% interest on my bitcoin.

    “Made to believe”? You were greedy & stupid, degenerate gambler. The least you can do now is accept some accountability for your bad decisions.

  14. ‘This has had an immense impact on my life and my financial future looks extremely grim. ‘I feel humiliated, angry, anxious and have had many sleepless nights coming to the realisation the all my funds I have been saving for my children’s future for the past 20+ years has been gambled away by a liar and a fraud.’”

    SBF’s financial largess to Democrat-Bolsheviks would’ve been a huge red flag for any decent person. Absolutely zero f*cks given for the degenerate gamblers who “invested” money with this fraudster. If they all end up insolvent and living in Bidenville homeless encampments, that’s poetic justice for funding the termites in the foundation.

  15. A reader sent these in:

    I’m a licensed mortgage lender in 18 states. Many areas are still drinking the cool aid – “lack of inventory will maintain the values”. I don’t think so. So many of the listings are vacant and staged.

    https://twitter.com/mjloans/status/1592387356426141696

    The share of consumers who think now is a good time to buy a house just hit a new low.

    https://twitter.com/housing_alex/status/1592162689081806848

    Ali Wolf

    Our database tracks price changes daily. This feed came through this morning from Austin (base prices starting in the $600Ks). Makes sense as inventory rises and year-end approaches.

    https://twitter.com/AliWolfEcon/status/1592264460626165761

    Lance Lambert

    Back in June, RedfinNow bought this North Las Vegas home for $457,000. In August, Redfin listed it for $449,000—which was cut to $399,900 by late September. Before re-listing it (@ $395,000), it was briefly listed for rent ($2,410). It remains unsold.

    https://twitter.com/NewsLambert/status/1592317317907877889

    CarDealershipGuy

    Big news: Used car prices are *about* to fall below the year-ago average price. This is excellent news for consumers. Wholesale prices have gotten crushed in the past 30-60 days, but now Retail prices are finally starting to catch up.

    https://twitter.com/GuyDealership/status/1592226485401968640

    It’s tempting to believe that the FTX meltdown is the biggest Ponzi scheme of this era, however, in markets we are witnessing extreme complacency in the face of extreme risk. One volatility event and FTX is merely the Madoff Fund vs. the Global Financial Crisis.

    https://twitter.com/SuburbanDrone/status/1592224423804821507

    Oops… 🔥🔥🔥 Sorry … lost all of our (your) money. Without some safeguards, regulations, investor insurance (example: SIPC $500,000 coverage for stock investors) for brokerage failures … average people will avoid crypto.

    https://twitter.com/WallStreetSilv/status/1592280906735423488

    SBF Ponzi novelty?
    Step 1: Convince people an investment from you is incredibly valuable
    Step 2: Insist startups do all their banking with you as a condition of your investment
    Step 3: Pilfer the startups’ funds to make other investments
    Step 4: Bro down

    https://twitter.com/DoombergT/status/1592322934777212929

    Danielle DiMartino Booth

    An absolute must read if you’ve missed it as I did traveling today. Take the time. “It is an absolute no-no to tap into client funds for company activities…”

    https://twitter.com/DiMartinoBooth/status/1592274518982426625

    Imagine being working class, struggling with the basic cost of living, opening twitter… and seeing privileged Silicon Valley workers argue that eliminating catered lunches and free wine is rolling back workers rights. 🙄

    https://twitter.com/StephenPunwasi/status/1592222420488056833

    Realtors seeing drop massive drop in sales/commissions

    https://twitter.com/GRomePow/status/1592235677793779713

    Ryan Lundquist

    The median price is normally down about 4% at this time of year, but it’s down 12% this year in the Sacramento region. It’s basically dropped about 2.5% each month for five months in a row (NOTE: this doesn’t mean every property has lost 2.5% each month).

    https://twitter.com/SacAppraiser/status/1592250383036211200

    SOFTBANK IS SAID TO EXPECT ABOUT $100 MILLION LOSS ON FTX STAKE

    https://twitter.com/Investingcom/status/1592073370639671297

    Bubbleinfo.com

    New post (Inventory Watch) has been published on http://bubbleinfo.com – https://bubbleinfo.com/2022/11/14/inv

    https://twitter.com/Bubbleinfo/status/1592194071073681408

    Trepp

    The national median apartment rent fell by 0.7% on a month-to-month basis in October, the second consecutive month to report a decline. (@ApartmentList)

    https://twitter.com/TreppWire/status/1592199175109844993

    The median sales price for homes in the US is down 8.4% from the peak in June. The 3.2% year-over-year increase is the slowest YoY growth rate we’ve seen since July 2020.

    https://twitter.com/charliebilello/status/1591992636738510848

      1. Translation: Get that buyers? You’re the problem. Never mind cratered prices are best for you. I need my commission!

        1. Never mind cratered prices are best for you. I need my commission!

          Funny how even though this happened last time many did not learn their lesson. Of course, it doesn’t take much to be a realtor, and when the good times roll the getting is really good.

        2. Not everyone made it through the part of freshman microeconomics where the topic of budget constraints is covered. It’s not like the buyers are choosing to not reach for the sky in accepting sellers’ offer of last year’s price. They simply cannot afford it.

          2. As in they are being turned down for their loans.

            Exactly. It’s not like they are not trying, they are just being told “you only qualify for $x,” which doesn’t even buy a single wide in a park where you don’t own the land.

            Which just goes to show this entire thing was, once again, a fookin’ credit bubble by the FED and banks. It’s really disgusting how they’ve ruined this country and pricing.

        3. Used home agents might have better luck talking sellers down from the ledge where last year’s crazy price appreciation left them standing, than trying to talk buyers into spending money they don’t have and can’t afford to borrow at today’s rates.

          Of course recent buyers and owners who HELOCked themselves to the max may be underwater and in no position to reduce their asking price to a level in line with current market values.

          And hence there’s a lack of liquidity in today’s housing market.

  16. Huntsville Housing Market Report Q3 | Huntsville, Alabama Real Estate
    Matt Curtis Real Estate
    Nov 14, 2022
    The Huntsville and Madison County market is starting to shift but is it as bad as the headlines are reading? Median sales prices rose 14.9% year over year. However, we have seen a 1% drop from Q2 to Q3. 73% of the homes sold in Q3 sold at list price or above, which means 27% of the houses were negotiated upon. That’s an increase from 15% back in Q2 and I expect that number to increase in Q4.

    Madison County’s population is now above 400,000. Inventory is up 95% so there are more homes to choose from. Affordability, however, continues to take a hit as a significant portion of the new inventory is coming in that $300,000 to $800,000 price points. The average days on market is up to 12 days and the average supply is up to 1.1 months. I expect to see that increase over the next quarter as well.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7T-yDiZxxrs

    1:10.

  18. At least we’re not a small country and we don’t rely on a single export.

    banana republic

    [ buh-nan-uhri-puhb-lik ]

    noun Usually Disparaging.

    1: a small, poor country, often reliant on a single export or limited resource, governed by an authoritarian regime and characterized by corruption and economic exploitation by foreign corporations conspiring with local government officials.

    2 : any exploitative government that functions poorly for its citizenry while disproportionately benefiting a corrupt elite group or individual.

    https://www.dictionary.com/browse/banana-republic

    1. “Sign in to confirm your age”

      They want me to sign in and confirm my age to watch that video yet a Democratic poll worker would have done that for me and filled out my ballot had I voted in Detroit, Philadelphia or Maricopa County.

    3. Nothing says “flipper house” like new grey paint and new LVP flooring.

      That stuff (LVP) is EVERYWHERE. It’s too bad cuz most of the product is actually pretty good if you live in your home but it’s EVERYWHERE. massively overdone. Good thing most of it is floating installs (it’s just sitting there) so it will come up fast.

      3. “Good thing most of it is floating installs…”

        I recently laid a higher priced vinyl plank floor in our main bathroom, and its closed cell neoprene insulates really well against the cold of the concrete slab on grade. The bird was henpecking me daily this summer to get it done. Phew!

        1. The bird was henpecking me daily this summer to get it done.

          “Sweetie, here’s $500, go have some fun this weekend and stay at your friend’s place while I do it (so I can have some peace and quiet).”

          1. I wasted almost a week to get the 25-yr old glue off of the concrete slab. I put brute force into it for 3-days before stopping to research the problem before stumbling upon a wallpaper steamer.

          2. wallpaper steamer

            I used a wallpaper solvent on the master bathroom in the Encinitas house not knowing the walls were paperboard. Needless to say, my mother was not happy.

          4. The energy required to convert liquid to steam is reversed as the steam condenses back into its liquid form while imparting the energy into the dried glue which almost curdles allowing it to be easily scraped up.

          5. reversed as the steam condenses back into its liquid form

            This amazing principle can be used to drive a piston engine, sort of in reverse from how a gasoline engine runs. It started the Industrial Revolution.

  22. I am still dumbfounded by what people are paying for houses in central Florida. The 1,200 square foot house behind me just sold for $300,000 and it wasn’t on the market very long at all.

    Funny story, during hurricane Ian the previous owner was outside hammering his siding back on because it was coming off. The people who bought the house have license plates from Washington and Oregon.

    2. Discrepancies in AZ Gov Vs. AZ Treasurer Races Suggest FRAUD, Say Pundits

      Infowars.com
      November 15th 2022, 6:06 pm

      Political commentators are crying fraud after vote tallies show more people voted for the Republican candidate in Arizona’s Treasurer race than voted for the GOP candidate in the state governor’s race.

      The bizarre discrepancy can be observed in official vote tallies from the New York Times, which receives its election results from the Associated Press.

      Evidently, according to vote totals, Republican incumbent Kimberly Yee received 1.37 million votes, securing her the state Treasurer’s seat against Democrat opponent Martin Quezada by over 278,000 votes.

      Bizarrely, however, the same enthusiasm for the GOP was not seen in the state’s hotly contested governor’s race, where Arizona’s top election official Katie Hobbs managed to squeak out a Democrat victory against GOP rival Kari Lake. Hobbs won by 19,273 votes against Lake.

      Whereas Yee received 1.37 million votes in her race, Lake curiously only managed to receive around 1.25 million, a discrepancy of close to 120,000 votes.

      The discrepancy in vote totals set off alarm bells for pundits on social media, who rightfully questioned why more voters would vote Republican in a lower-profile election like the treasurer’s race than the closely-watched governor’s race.

      The anomaly was also taken as evidence the governor’s race was fixed, with many suggesting the real outcome of the race should have reflected the Treasury election’s results.

      Time will tell whether Lake chooses to call for an audit of the election results, which may filter out some ballots that were illicitly cast for Hobbs.

      https://www.infowars.com/

  26. $259,900 3 bd 3ba 1,748 sqft
    7136 E Stetson Dr, Kingman, AZ 86401

    https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/7136-E-Stetson-Dr-Kingman-AZ-86401/87809592_zpid/

    Price history
    Date Event Price
    11/15/2022 Price change $259,900 (-19.5%) $149/sqft

    10/14/2022 Listed for sale $323,000 $185/sqft

    10/8/2022 Pending sale $323,000 $185/sqft

    10/7/2022 Price change $323,000 (-6.4%) $185/sqft

    8/31/2022 Price change $345,000 (-4.3%) $197/sqft

    8/16/2022 Price change $360,500 (-1.4%) $206/sqft

    7/25/2022 Price change $365,500 (-0.7%) $209/sqft

    7/8/2022 Price change $368,000 (-0.5%) $211/sqft

    6/15/2022 Price change $370,000 (-2.1%) $212/sqft

    6/8/2022 Price change $378,000 (-0.5%) $216/sqft

    5/13/2022 Listed for sale $380,000 (+146.9%) $217/sqft

    4/7/2017 Sold $153,900 (-3.8%) $88/sqft

    2/22/2017 Pending sale $159,900 $91/sqft

    2/3/2017 Listed for sale $159,900 (+10.4%) $91/sqft

    10/16/2014 Sold $144,900 $83/sqft

    8/27/2014 Listing removed $144,900 $83/sqft

    8/12/2014 Listed for sale $144,900 (+44.9%) $83/sqft

    6/2/2010 Sold $100,000 (-11.1%) $57/sqft

    10/20/2009 Sold $112,500 (+73.1%) $64/sqft

    7/31/2006 Sold $65,000 (+154.9%) $37/sqft

    5/26/2006 Sold $25,500 $15/sqft

  28. Does anyone besides me find the US stock market rally in the face of Cryptogeddon and the latest tech stock implosion somewhat curious?

    1. Lead
      2 Vital Lessons From the Implosions of FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried and Twitter’s Elon Musk
      Don’t let a charismatic leader dazzle you into propping up an unsustainable business.
      By Peter Cohan, Founder, Peter S. Cohan & Associates

      Beware of charismatic leaders who put your brain on hold. Despite compelling stories that bring this vital lesson to life, people often don’t heed it. Time and again, employees, customers, and investors are unable to resist the magnetic pull of such a leader, risking their careers, businesses, and capital to be in the orbit of one.
      …
      https://www.inc.com/peter-cohan/lessons-implosion-ftx-sam-bankman-fried-twitter-elon-musk.html

    2. Pro Bankruptcy Distress
      BlockFi Prepares for Potential Bankruptcy as Crypto Contagion Spreads
      BlockFi, financially entangled with the now-bankrupt FTX, is planning to lay off workers and exploring a bankruptcy filing itself, people familiar say
      A bankruptcy filing would make Jersey City, N.J.-based BlockFi the latest casualty of the sudden collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto empire, which comprises FTX, FTX US, trading firm Alameda Research and others.
      Photo: Jakub Porzycki/Zuma Press
      By Alexander Gladstone ,
      Vicky Ge Huang and
      Soma Biswas
      Updated Nov. 15, 2022 1:38 pm ET

      Cryptocurrency lender BlockFi Inc. is preparing a potential bankruptcy filing after halting withdrawals of customer deposits and acknowledging it has “significant exposure” to bankrupt exchange FTX, people familiar with the matter said.

      BlockFi paused withdrawals and limited activity on its platform last week, saying it couldn’t operate business as usual given the uncertainty about FTX. BlockFi is now planning to lay off some of its workers while the troubled firm prepares for a possible chapter 11 itself, people familiar with the matter said.
      …
      https://www.wsj.com/articles/blockfi-prepares-for-potential-bankruptcy-as-crypto-contagion-spreads-11668534824

    3. Does anyone besides me find the US stock market rally in the face of Cryptogeddon and the latest tech stock implosion somewhat curious?

      I find the whole stock market rally the past month or whatever curious. But I especially find the crypto rally curious in the face of this giant PONZI. We’ve heard nothing but CRICKETS since.

  29. Missiles hitting inside of Poland is a very convenient distraction from the collapse of FTX and the reveal of its money laundering operations in Ukraine.

    #FalseFlag

  30. Anyone have Redfin’s October market data?

    Seems quite past due unless they were hoping not to throw the election for their Bay Area misinformers.

  33. “I’ve always been crazy but it’s kept me from going insane
    Nobody knows if it’s something to bless or to blame
    So far I ain’t found a rhyme or a reason to change
    I’ve always been crazy but it’s kept me from going insane”

    Waylon Jennings

    1. The Financial Times
      Chinese business & finance
      Optimism builds for China’s property sector after state financial package
      Analysts divided over whether move is a turning point or only short-term relief for debt-ridden industry
      Thomas Hale in Shanghai and Cheng Leng in Hong Kong yesterday
      A woman rides a scooter past the China Evergrande Group Royal Peak development in Beijing
      An unfinished residential development by Evergrande in Beijing. China’s property crisis blew up when the developer defaulted on its international debts last year © Bloomberg

      Chen Jian, a 35-year-old in the city of Wuhan, is one of many victims of China’s property crisis. He bought an apartment in 2020, but the developer behind it collapsed, leaving him and his family unable to move into an unfinished home.

      Across China, an industry that contributes more than a quarter of economic growth has languished for more than a year, mired in construction delays after many developers ran out of cash. Now, a government support package unveiled over the weekend has provided a rare glimmer of optimism for those caught up in its woes.

      “I hope the new measures can work out a solution for us,” said Chen. “We are under great pressure.”

      The 16 measures, signed off by the central bank and the main banking regulator, require banks to roll over their loans to the property sector, providing builders with more time to complete unfinished projects. They also offer fundraising and exit plans for unsold apartments.

      In addition, banks are encouraged to give homebuyers more time to repay their mortgages. In China, where apartments are often purchased before they are completed, the crisis has led to mortgage payment boycotts.

      Although it falls well short of a bailout, the government’s new package — in an environment where the economy has also struggled under zero-Covid restrictions — has had an immediate impact on sentiment.

      “I think this is a turning point for the market,” said Michelle Lam, greater China economist at Société Générale, who described the measures as a “housing rescue package”.

      “We should expect a rebound in housing sales and investment from here onwards, especially in the second half of next year,” she said.

      Tao Wang, chief China economist at UBS, agreed. “Senior policymakers have taken a more decisive step in easing financing to the property sector,” she said. “The latest move reaffirms our view that property sales and starts should stabilise in the next few months.”
      …

    2. Seems like another hair-of-the-dog hangover cure in play, as nothing has fundamentally changed with regard to boatloads of debt and ghost cities filled with shoddily constructed half-built empty highrise apartment towers.

      But so long as porcine beauticians sing the praises of the rescue effort and persuade investors to pour in money once again, I guess all is well.

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