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It Didn’t Matter Whether You’re Priced At Yesterday’s Price Or Today’s Price, So Many Buyers Are Still Making Offers Much Lower Than Asking

It’s Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. “A blazing-hot housing market has chilled in Northeast Colorado. ‘We’re getting more creative,’ said Wendy Jerman, Realtor at Town Square Realty in Sterling.. ‘More agents are sending out email blasts about reduced pricing – the new term is price improvement. We haven’t had to market in the past. Now, we must.’ ‘There’s more new listings and they’re staying on market longer,’ said Stacey Martindale, a Realtor at Cornerstone Brokers. ‘We are not seeing homes go under contract as fast. You put homes on the market and hope someone will go see it to make an offer for the seller.'”

“The number of single-family homes sold in the Pioneer Valley fell 20% last month. ‘The market has definitely slowed,’ said Dan Moriarty, CEO of Monson Savings Bank. ‘We are in a different environment. It’s not like you can list a house and two days later have 40 or 50 people interested. Those days are over.’ ‘Many homeowners are waiting until market conditions improve to sell their home, while other sellers are increasingly cutting prices and offering concessions to attract a greater number of buyers,’ the state association said.”

“Spokane County’s housing market continued to cool off in October. The median closing price for homes and condos on less than 1 acre was $395,000 in October, a 6.8% increase over October 2021’s median of $370,000, according to the Realtors association. The median price, however, has dropped considerably from the all-time high of $450,000 recorded in May. Ken Sax, a broker who oversees about 770 licensees in Washington, agreed that interest rates are impacting the local housing market. ‘We are definitely not where we were eight to nine months ago with 10 offers on a house,’ Sax said. ‘Sellers right now are having to realize that they aren’t going to get what they’ve gotten eight to nine months ago.'”

“The latest data from the Austin Board of Realtors shows a continuing trend of stabilizing home prices and supply in Round Rock, Pflugerville and Hutto. According to the ABoR’s monthly report for October, the median price of a home sold across the three cities in October was $457,876. While a slight increase over September’s median price of $450,000, that price is still lower than the prior two months—$475,000 in August and $476,458 in July. ‘The 2021 housing market numbers we saw were an anomaly compared to previous years, so anything different from those numbers can appear significant,’ said Jim Gaines, an economist at the Texas Real Estate Research Center. ‘Homes that are coming on the market are not staying active for long, but they are also not flying off the shelves or going into a bidding war like they used to.'”

“According to a report from the North State Building Industry Association, Yuba County continued to sell more new homes for the month of October while Sutter County actually reported negative sales. Officials with the building association said the negative sales for Sutter County were reported because of ‘more previous transactions being canceled than new sales reported during the month.'”

“To find places where home prices are dropping the most, GOBankingRates used Zillow’s May and August 2022 median sale data prices for the 100 largest metro areas to find the numerical and percent change in median sale prices over those three months. All cities identified have had a -5% or more change in home sale prices, which, sometimes, adds up to more than $100,000. Stockton, California : 3-month change in sale price ($): -$27,000. 3-month change in sale price (%): -5.07%.”

“Seattle is known as one of the most expensive places to live in the U.S. However, home prices have recently dropped over 7%. Although buying a home in San Francisco will take some pretty deep pockets, sale prices there have dropped almost 10% as of late. San Jose is hard to beat for other reasons. But it’s not cheap to live there, even with the recent decrease in home sale prices of almost 9.9% — amounting to a $150k discount. Winston-Salem, North Carolina: This city of approximately 250,000 is unique in that it straddles the line between hometown friendliness and international appeal. What’s more is that its previously affordable home prices have recently dropped more than 10%.”

“799 College St., No. 205, Toronto: This July, agent Robin Pope expected this one-bedroom unit might be difficult to sell, especially with other vacancies in the same six-storey building. The reality was even worse – the unit was almost completely ignored. ‘After being on the market for two weeks, there hadn’t been a showing, which was unusual,’ said Mr. Pope. ‘But the market was changing. Buyers were not motivated to pull the trigger.’ The price was lowered from $649,990 to $619,900 and then to $599,990 over about three weeks in August. Then, an offer came through on the first day of September for the full, reduced price.”

“‘It didn’t matter whether you’re priced at yesterday’s price or today’s price, so many buyers are still making offers much lower than asking,’ Mr. Pope said.”

“For 14 years, Muhammad Azam has been waiting for construction to start on a five-bedroom luxury villa he bought on the largest — but least developed — of Dubai’s famous palm-shaped artificial islands that jut out into the Persian Gulf. An unexpected email from Nakheel PJSC in September confirmed it never would. Dubai’s real estate regulator apparently had decided months earlier to cancel the project on Palm Jebel Ali, and the government-backed developer told him they would refund less than a quarter of what Azam had paid for the villa in the secondary market shortly before construction had got off the ground.”

“Cypriot businessman Azam, 44, wasn’t alone. He’s among hundreds of investors who bought homes on Palm Jebel Ali that have never been built. Saudi resident Mahmoud, who works in the oil and gas industry, says he also bought a Signature Villa for 6.7 million dirhams in 2005. He says he paid 2.7 million dirhams worth of installments to Nakheel and 1 million dirhams directly to the seller. Nakheel, he says, is now offering him a 2.7 million refund or a 4 million dirham credit note. ‘Contracts in Dubai aren’t worth the ink they’re written with,’ he said. ‘What’s the value of a contract if it can be cancelled without even informing us?'”

“A property expert has offered a grim prediction for The Block’s last remaining unsold house. Real estate pro Chris Bellesini says it’s highly unlikely Jenny Heath and Dylan Adams’ home will find a buyer willing to come close to its $4.08million reserve. Bellesini told Now to Love the show’s producers ‘lost touch with reality’ when they set the reserves so high. Dylan and Jenny’s house is currently listed on the Domain website for just $1.63million, which is less than half its reserve.”

“Mr Bellesini said the three homes that sold at auction two weeks ago ‘were at inflated prices’, and their sales did not reflect actual market behaviour. ‘These sales weren’t real. Three were sold to Danny [Wallis] for his ego and the fourth to Adrian [Portelli in a post-auction sale] to promote his business ventures,’ he said. ‘It just comes down to at what point in time will Channel Nine and the vendors be happy to cut their loses and accept a price well below what they originally wanted,’ he added. Dylan and Jenny are said to be ‘battling’ to offload their home after becoming the only couple who couldn’t find a buyer either on or after auction day.”

“The dominoes continue to fall, triggered by this FTX saga. Major crypto lender Genesis Capital suspended withdrawals on its lending business yesterday. If there is one thing that crypto investors know by now, it is this: once that fateful decision to suspend withdrawals is taken, the jig is up. This is a big deal. Genesis had $2.8 billion of active loans as of Q3 in 2022, while it originated $8.4 billion over the course of the quarter. That’s a hefty chunk of change.”

“The firms join BlockFi in suspending withdrawals, yet another crypto lender in desperation mode following the FTX collapse. The firm is reportedly ready to layoff workers and file for bankruptcy. There is a big difference between what is happening at all these companies and FTX, however. Sure, all the firms are employing reckless risk management, a complete lack of diversification and have been asking for all this mayhem.”

“As Sam said in one of his stream-of-consciousness tweet threads (which have only served to throw gasoline on all this fire), ‘that risk was correlated – with the other collateral, and with the platform. And then the crash came…and at the same time there was a run on the bank.'”

“Riddle me this, Sam. How does an entity that is not a bank suffer from a run on the bank? I keep saying FTX was an exchange because it is vitally important. Customers should deposit cash to exchanges, before either leaving it there as cash, or buying crypto assets. Then, when they go to withdraw, it should just be…there.”

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This Post Has 91 Comments

  1. Officials with the building association said the negative sales for Sutter County were reported because of ‘more previous transactions being canceled than new sales reported during the month.’

    That’s some red hotcakes right there.

    1. Officials with the building association said the negative sales for Sutter County were reported because of ‘more previous transactions being canceled than new sales reported during the month.’”
      Wonder how Months supply is going to be calculated here.

    2. Similar to your comment on MA as most likely having pockets of serious crater, I think we can safely extrapolate that to all states. Sutter County is mostly all farmland. It is far from any good bubble jobs and no one from the bay area is trying to escape to Sutter County. We are seeing the predictable results of credit being curtailed.

      1. This is based on memory. Around 2005 Massachusetts headed down. Back then there were lots of tiny newspaper websites reporting on it local. It became carnage and set the table for what was to come, quickly followed by Florida.

  2. “A blazing-hot housing market has chilled in Northeast Colorado.”

    Northeast Colorado, is that the area nestled up against the Rockies? Or is it the area around Aspen? Oh wait, it’s high plains middle of nowhere scrubland? Imagine that.

    1. That is funny! I ski Colorado and ride off road motorcycle’s there every summer, Taylor park, gunnison,sargents area…I love Colorado. But I’ve always called everything east of the front range Kanas. Lol.

  3. Some good news for a Friday.

    Aurora-based American Financing lays off more than half of its workforce:

    “American Financing, a mortgage banker based in Aurora, is laying off more than two-thirds of its workforce, according to a letter submitted under Colorado’s WARN Act.

    The company announced Wednesday that 194 of its 305 employees would have to find a new job due to “unforeseeable business circumstances.” The company says it did not expect the “speed or extent” its sales would decline in the past month and a half.

    https://www.denver7.com/news/front-range/aurora/aurora-based-american-financing-lays-off-more-than-half-of-its-workforce

    1. “Anyone that works in that industry might want to get out of the industry, because, you know, we may not have the patience, or the finance, to go through a downturn,” Padilla said.

      Yo homie, try capital.

      1. try capital

        That’s going to be tough for a whole generation that hasn’t been exposed to the concept.

  4. The Joe Biden economy.

    60% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck heading into the peak shopping season:

    “As of October, 60% of Americans were living paycheck to paycheck, according to a recent LendingClub report. A year ago, the number of adults who felt stretched too thin was closer to 56%.

    Not only are day-to-day expenses higher, but inflation has also caused real wages to decline.

    Real average hourly earnings are down 3% from a year earlier, according to the latest reading from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

    https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/18/60percent-of-americans-live-paycheck-to-paycheck-heading-into-2022-holiday.html

    1. (a gift of a snip)

      “Credit card debt is easy to get into and hard to get out of,” he said. “High inflation and rising interest rates are making it even harder to break free.”

      1. 60% living pay to pay has been going on for years! It’s not new.
        True and I bet if everyone made 100K+ you would still have 50% of the people living paycheck to paycheck.
        “You can’t fix stupid.” Ron White

    3. It’s down a heck of a lot more than 3%. If average inflation is 8.x% and avg wage increase is like 3%…….that’s at least 5% and it’s worse than that since the inflation number is total BS.

  6. ‘We’re getting more creative,’ said Wendy Jerman, Realtor at Town Square Realty in Sterling.. ‘More agents are sending out email blasts about reduced pricing

    Stop spamming me, annoying realtors. I’m not remotely interested in buying until the full carnage plays out following the implosion of the Fed’s Everything Bubble.

    1. So in Real Estate biz, an annoying intruding email ‘blast’ is considered ‘creative’? Such bereft imaginations.

  7. An unexpected email from Nakheel PJSC in September confirmed it never would. Dubai’s real estate regulator apparently had decided months earlier to cancel the project on Palm Jebel Ali, and the government-backed developer told him they would refund less than a quarter of what Azam had paid for the villa in the secondary market shortly before construction had got off the ground.”

    Gosh, I hope this doesn’t erode investor confidence in the RE sector.

    1. a quarter of what Azam had paid

      Azam’s casino bet was a bust in 2008. He’s lucky the government over there is offering to send him at least some blow money.

  8. “Riddle me this, Sam. How does an entity that is not a bank suffer from a run on the bank? I keep saying FTX was an exchange because it is vitally important.

    Riddle me this, FTX baggies: where were the regulators in all this? Oh right: in our crony capitalist wonderland, captured, complicit regulators turn a blind eye to swindles concocted by politically-connected Democrat-Bolsheviks.

    1. where were the regulators

      Wasn’t a key argument for Bitcoins (of all names) that they weren’t controlled by the Central Government?

    2. Regulators like Gary Ginsler did not turn a blind eye to it they were clandestine in their favored complicity. SEC Gary Ginsler was a former employee of Sam’s father, mathematics professor at MIT. These grifters knew the numbers and set it up that way.

      1. I now realize that these Crypto Amish types are brilliant criminal masterminds who are tightly coordinating their world takeover, but isn’t there maybe the slightest possibility that Mr. Gensler didn’t expect his respected colleague’s brilliant daughter and her savior/genius boyfriend to be pathological liars? During the Madoff scandal it was shown with a high degree of accuracy that the SEC is completely useless and they were all busy surfing porn but in between his busy schedule of monitoring various tubes and hubs, would he have ever wondered if his friend’s daughter (and bf) were actually lying thieving meth addicted tramps? I’m thinking not but it is probably starting to dawn on him and now he has a huge credibility problem that he is probably not very happy about. If only there was a way to identify these types before we give them all of our money.

        1. If only there was a way

          “You can’t cheat an honest man. Never give a sucker an even break or smarten up a chump.”

          Larson E. Whipsnade

  10. As Murica’s descent into a corrupt banana republic accelerates under the Brandon regime, I expect we’ll be seeing a lot more “unprecedented failures” as our captured, worthless regulators and enforcers (D) are either complicit or criminally negligent.

    Crypto company FTX’s new boss condemns ‘unprecedented failure’

    https://www.news.com.au/finance/business/other-industries/crypto-company-ftxs-new-boss-condemns-unprecedented-failure/news-story/1a5891bbf948d707559ac7a184c85ac0

    The US insolvency expert who has taken over the crypto exchange has labelled the failure as “unprecedented” adding he hadn’t seen anything this bad ever.

  15. As the globalists escalate their looting and asset-stripping of formerly productive economies, while central bankers relentlessly debase their currencies, the proles better look for new ways to tighten their belts and adjust to the destruction of their purchasing power & standard of living. You’ll wear headlamps, and you’ll like it.

    https://www.news.com.au/finance/money/costs/i-force-my-family-to-wear-headtorches-and-we-only-heat-the-house-once-a-week/news-story/472860b3b88f71ce5312c4877a4d4fce

  17. In our corrupt banana republic, regulators (D) are there to facilitate fraud, not prevent it. Especially when the ill-gotten profits flow into Democrat-Bolshevik party coffers and further enrich the globalist puppetmasters.

    SEC chair Gary Gensler ‘is in a corner’ as Congress demands to know how his agency MISSED signs that FTX was about to collapse – despite 45-minute Zoom call with Sam Bankman-Fried where they discussed a NEW trading platform

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11438875/Questions-SEC-chair-Gary-Gensler-agency-miss-signs-FTX-collapse.html

  18. reduced pricing – the new term is ‘price improvement’….. Since you put it that way, that’s a good thing for sellers?

  19. The UK sheeple keep electing globalist stooges, then scratch their throbbing lobotomy scars and wonder why their standard of living and financial futures are being destroyed.

    We’re going nowhere! First time buyers say they are frozen out of housing market and will wait to get on property ladder as house prices are set to fall £26,550 in a year after Jeremy Hunt’s Autumn statement

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11444059/First-time-buyers-say-frozen-housing-market-wait-property-ladder.html

  27. Winston-Salem, North Carolina: This city of approximately 250,000 is unique in that it straddles the line between hometown friendliness and international appeal. What’s more is that its previously affordable home prices have recently dropped more than 10%.”
    I have noticed for Sale signs hanging around a lot longer than earlier this year. No knowledge of prices.

    1. Please explain the international appeal part to me. Who writes this stuff? I did get some very tasty and reasonably priced BBQ there once but I never got the impression of international appeal. Not even a tinge.

      1. I don’t know about Winston-Salem, but when I was in Raleigh earlier this year, the place was crawling with furriners from the four corner of the globe, many clearly on H1-B visas

    1. “In economics, things take longer to happen than you think they will, and then they happen faster than you thought they could.”

      – Rudiger Dornbusch

  29. ‘that risk was correlated – with the other collateral, and with the platform.
    This is the same problem with what happened to Mortgage in 2006-2008. Layered risk. All risks strongly correlated and one thing goes, they all go.

  30. Existing home sales fell for the 9th month in a row


    Home sales declined for the ninth straight month in October, as higher interest rates and surging inflation kept buyers on the sidelines.

    Sales of previously owned homes dropped 5.9% from September to October, according to the National Association of Realtors. That is the slowest pace since December 2011, with the exception of a very brief drop at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic.

    The October reading put sales at a seasonally adjusted, annualized pace of 4.43 million units. Sales were 28.4% lower year over year.
    …
    While sales are dropping now across all price points, they are weakening most in the $100,000 to $250,000 range and in the $1 million plus range.

      1. “Inventory levels are still tight, which is why some homes for sale are still receiving multiple offers,” said Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the NAR. “In October, 24% of homes received over the asking price. Conversely, homes sitting on the market for more than 120 days saw prices reduced by an average of 15.8%.”

    2. 12,000 gallons of water is about one-half of the average swimming pool. At 8 pounds/gallon, that is 48 tons of water.

      “Leroy, we’re gonna need a bigger truck!”

    1. Axios
      Updated 55 mins ago – Economy & Business
      Bearish bets build in the stock market
      Matt Phillips, author of Axios Markets
      Data: CBOE, FactSet; Chart: Axios Visuals

      The market is actually up this month, but bearish bets are building fast.

      The big picture: A measure of sentiment from the options markets shows that bets on falling stock prices have sharply outpaced those expecting prices to rise.

      – This measure, known as the CBOE U.S. equity put/call ratio, has hit the highest — or most bearish — level on record in recent days.

      How it works: The measure is a ratio of bets on falling prices, or “puts,” versus bets on rising prices, known as “calls.”

      – During the zaniest days of the meme stock boom in January 2021, the put/call ratio fell to some of the lowest levels on record.
      – That reflected near-manic levels of optimism, especially among retail investors, who were dominating the market.
      – Now, the put/call ratio is telegraphing incredibly depressed expectations for the stock market.
      …
      https://www.axios.com/2022/11/18/bearish-bets-stock-market

    2. The U.S. Treasury Yield-Curve Recession Indicator Is Flashing Red
      Yield-curve inversion is at its most extreme since the 1981-82 recession.
      Tom Lauricella
      Nov 17, 2022

      Even as stock investors cheer signs of inflation peaking, the bond market’s best-known predictor of recessions is showing its clearest signal yet that there is trouble ahead for the U.S. economy.

      It’s known in Wall Street lingo as an inverted yield curve, and in recent days it has moved to its most extreme levels since the 1982 recession thanks to a big drop in long-term bond yields. When this dynamic has been in place over the last two decades, in each case a recession has followed. (For a look at the history of yield curves and recessions, see our earlier story here.)

      While an inverted U.S. Treasury yield curve isn’t known as a predictor of how deep or how long a recession may last, or even when a recession will begin, market watchers say the current message is unmistakable.

      “Historically, when you get a sustained inversion like this … it’s a very reliable indicator of a recession coming,” says Duane McAllister, a senior portfolio manager at Baird Advisors.
      …
      https://www.morningstar.com/articles/1125971/the-us-treasury-yield-curve-recession-indicator-is-flashing-red

      1. It’s interesting that housing prices are already widely reported falling, at a point of near record low unemployment.

        Any thoughts on how a recession would impact the situation?

  33. Carvana has dropped 97% from their all time high, and are now cutting 8% of employees. Interesting that they had this new fangled model (just like the iHomes companies) that could accurately price from afar. Just like other companies it seems to be mostly in corporate and technology groups – line workers should be ok
    (Reuters) -Carvana Co on Friday announced another round of job cuts that will impact about 1,500 employees, or 8% of its workforce, as it attempts to cut costs amid waning demand for used cars on the back of rising interest rates.

    The company’s chief executive officer, Ernie Garcia, said in an internal memo obtained by CNBC that the company faced economic headwinds from higher financing costs.

    Carvana also “failed to accurately predict how this would all play out and the impact it would have on our business,” added CNBC, which first reported the job cuts, citing the memo.

    1. Sooner the better all these useless, capital destructive, gimmick companies bite the dust, the better.

      That includes Carvana, WeWork and all the cryptos.

      I am sure HBB’ers can add many to this list.

  37. “It was around July 2020, when we were all locked down and not knowing what was going on with our lives, our personal economies, our health, and our families, when I realized that the Federal Reserve had doubled the size – or even more so — of its book of assets. It had created about $5 trillion worth of money in a very short period of time.

    During that time, the markets went from being very afraid and down to being very, very high. A lot of people said, well, we’re all at home using Zoom, so therefore the market just rebounded by so much. But that was just a small part of it. The bigger part was that money became available at such an immense level and therefore the distortion between where money goes in the financial markets and where it doesn’t go in the real economy became permanent. At that moment I saw that this can happen in any amount, at any time. There’s no restriction, no transparency, no responsibility.”

    Nomi Prins interviewed by Lynn Parramore, You’re Living in a World Wrought by the Fed, 17 November 2022

    https://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com

    1. Sydney is facing a likely 20% peak-to-trough decline in home values this cycle

      It’s not the kind of cycle you think Mr. Leith.

  39. From today’s Colorado Sun:

    Lauren Boebert narrowly wins reelection in Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District after Adam Frisch concedes.

    Boebert’s slim margin of victory over Democrat Adam Frisch shocked the Colorado political world given the 3rd District’s heavy Republican lean

    Translation: the vote for her exceeded the margin of cheating. The Dems did their best to stuff that ballot box, but it just wasn’t enough to defeat the hated MAGA hat wearing congresswoman.

    1. I read that Colorado’s 3rd was recently redistricted which accounts for some of the change. No mention of that with respect to the “slim” margin of victory?

      (sorry, tried to find before+after maps but failed)

      1. From wikipedia:

        Following the 2020 U.S. census and associated realignment of Colorado congressional districts, the 3rd congressional district lost Jackson County, Routt County, and most of Eagle County to the 2nd district as well as Custer and Lake counties to the 7th district. It also gained Las Animas and Otero counties from the 4th district. This configuration of the district took effect starting from the 2022 elections.

        There was some serious gerrymandering involved. Sorry, Jared Polis, but it didn’t work.

  40. ‘It didn’t matter whether you’re priced at yesterday’s price or today’s price, so many buyers are still making offers much lower than asking’

    That’s the spirit!

    1. The Financial Times
      The Big Read
      Cryptocurrencies
      FTX: inside the crypto exchange that ‘accidentally’ lost $8bn
      The chaotic collapse of Sam LFried’s company has revealed a lack of basic security controls and bookkeeping
      Joshua Oliver, Nikou Asgari and Kadhim Shubber in London 8 hours ago
      It was all an $8bn accident. Or so says Sam Bankman-Fried.

      As FTX, the crypto business led by the 30-year-old, quickly collapsed at the end of last week, many of its employees fled the Bahamas, the Caribbean country where the company was based. Some simply abandoned their cars at the airport.

      Within the space of a few days, FTX had gone from being the vanguard of a new crypto economy, with a valuation of $32bn and celebrated by celebrities and politicians, to a humiliating bankruptcy.

      As details of FTX’s finances and chaotic bookkeeping have been revealed this week by the FT and others, the focus of the investigations and legal battles is now on the gaps in the crypto exchange’s balance sheet — and especially $8bn of missing customer deposits.

      The most innocent version of events that Bankman-Fried can present is that the missing customer funds were simply an oversight.

      The MIT graduate, whose signature look combined unkempt hair and scruffy cargo shorts, acknowledged that FTX sent customer money to Alameda Research, the private trading firm he also controlled.

      Bankman-Fried told the FT that the hole in FTX’s balance sheet was largely money shifted to Alameda, but that the move took place “accidentally”. (In a document shared with investors shortly before bankruptcy, the funds were listed as being in a “hidden, poorly internally labled ‘fiat@’ account”.)

      In an interview with Vox, he described realising that the money intended for FTX had ended up at the trading firm: “oh fuck, people wired $8bn to Alameda and oh God we basically forgot”.
      …

    2. The Financial Times
      The Big Read
      Cryptocurrencies
      FTX: inside the crypto exchange that ‘accidentally’ lost $8bn
      The chaotic collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried’s company has revealed a lack of basic security controls and bookkeeping
      Joshua Oliver, Nikou Asgari and Kadhim Shubber in London
      8 hours ago

      It was all an $8bn accident. Or so says Sam Bankman-Fried.

      As FTX, the crypto business led by the 30-year-old, quickly collapsed at the end of last week, many of its employees fled the Bahamas, the Caribbean country where the company was based. Some simply abandoned their cars at the airport.

      Within the space of a few days, FTX had gone from being the vanguard of a new crypto economy, with a valuation of $32bn and celebrated by celebrities and politicians, to a humiliating bankruptcy.

      As details of FTX’s finances and chaotic bookkeeping have been revealed this week by the FT and others, the focus of the investigations and legal battles is now on the gaps in the crypto exchange’s balance sheet — and especially $8bn of missing customer deposits.

      The most innocent version of events that Bankman-Fried can present is that the missing customer funds were simply an oversight.

      The MIT graduate, whose signature look combined unkempt hair and scruffy cargo shorts, acknowledged that FTX sent customer money to Alameda Research, the private trading firm he also controlled.

      Bankman-Fried told the FT that the hole in FTX’s balance sheet was largely money shifted to Alameda, but that the move took place “accidentally”. (In a document shared with investors shortly before bankruptcy, the funds were listed as being in a “hidden, poorly internally labled ‘fiat@’ account”.)

      In an interview with Vox, he described realising that the money intended for FTX had ended up at the trading firm: “oh fuck, people wired $8bn to Alameda and oh God we basically forgot”.
      …

    3. Justin Bieber bought a Bored Ape NFT in January for $1.3 million that’s likely worth about $70,000 in the wake of the FTX collapse
      Aaron Mok
      Nov 17, 2022, 11:09 AM
      Justin Bieber purchased a Bored Ape NFT for $1.3 million that’s now worth $70,000. Bellocqimages/Bauer-Griffin/ Getty Images

      – Justin Bieber’s bought a Bored Ape NFT for $1.3 million in January. It’s now probably worth $70,000, according to NFT Price Floor.
      – The 95% drop in valuation comes after Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX collapsed and caused crypto prices to crash.
      – Bored Ape isn’t the only ethereum-fueled NFT collection impacted by the crypto crash.

      Pop star Justin Bieber started off the year purchasing his first Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT for 500 ethereum, a blockchain currency, equivalent to $1.3 million.

      But the market value, or “price floor,” of individual NFTs from the Bored Ape collection has tanked to 58 ethereum, or $70,0000, as of Thursday morning — a 95% drop in value, according to data from NFT Price Floor.

      Sinking NFT prices follow the collapse of crypto exchange giant FTX earlier this month as the Sam Bankman-Fried scandal reportedly lowered overall crypto prices and hurt Bored Ape Yacht Club’s NFT valuations. That’s because NFT owners panic-sold them to avoid prices from dropping even further, according to a report from crypto news site Decrypt.

      Bored Ape, which comprises more than 10,000 NFTs depicting cartoon monkeys wearing different outfits, is one of the most successful NFT art collections, valued at more than $1 billion.
      …
      https://www.businessinsider.com/justin-bieber-bored-ape-nft-value-dropped-after-ftx-collapsed-2022-11

    4. Your Money
      FTX investors fear they lost everything, and wonder if there’s anything they can do
      November 18, 20222:13 PM ET
      Chris Arnold 2016 square
      4-Minute Listen

      Jake Thacker in Portland Ore. had about $70,000 worth of investments in his account on FTX. He may have lost it all.

      FTX spent big money to make trading crypto popular and gain people’s trust. The company had an arena in Miami named after it and aired scores of TV commercials with superstars like Tom Brady and Steph Curry.

      “I’m not an expert and I don’t need to be,” NBA champion Curry says in one ad. “With FTX I have everything I need to buy sell and trade Crypto safely.”

      Trade Crypto safely? Apparently not.

      Terri Smith is an architect in the Seattle area who says she may have lost about $30,000 in the FTX implosion. “I was devastated really,” she says. “That’s a huge chunk of money for me.”

      Smith and a wave of other investors scrambled to try to withdraw billions of dollars from FTX after panic spread that the company was on shaky ground. But with a run on the exchange underway, FTX froze accounts, quickly filed for bankruptcy, and now many customers could lose some or all of their money.

      “It feels like someone stealing your money,” Smith says. “It feels like theft.”

      Terri Smith is an architect in the Seattle area who was semi-retired and working part time. Now, with the FTX collapse combined with the decline in stock and bond markets, she’s thinking of going back to work full time to make more money.

      Investing in crypto is inherently risky. But people didn’t lose money this time because bitcoin or some other cryptocurrency plunged in value.

      It was because the FTX trading platform itself imploded. Sort of like if you were investing in stocks using E-trade or Schwab or Fidelity and the company said “oops, sorry we’re declaring bankruptcy and you can’t withdraw your money.” (Of course that hasn’t happened.)

      Nick Howard didn’t think he was making speculative bets on crypto. He worked for an overseas startup video game company that he said preferred to pay him in a cryptocurrency called USDT that’s supposed to just match the value of the U.S. dollar.

      “And they were like, we suggest you use FTX,” he says his employer told him. “That’s a well known high profile company, they seem to be really good, really stable.”

      He says he had $16,000 worth of paychecks still in his account on FTX when it imploded. At 33 years old, he says that was about half of all the savings he had.

      “I feel like I am in the middle of, you know, a trauma response,” Howard says. “It’s kind of a numb feeling for me right now.”

      Nick Howard says his employer paid him in cryptocurrency. He’s afraid he’s lost about $16,000 worth of paychecks that he had in his account on FTX.

      Jake Thacker in Portland, Oregon, may have lost a lot more money.

      “Roughly $70,000 dollars in FTX when it all came crashing down,” he says.

      Thacker is 40 years old and works in the tech industry. He’s traded crypto for a couple of years. He says he started out cautiously, got advice from investing groups, and managed to make about $200,000.

      Then he heard the news that FTX was melting down. He tried logging into his account.

      “I went in, looked at where some of my account balances were, it didn’t seem to be right,” Thacker says. “Everything was frozen, there were all kinds of error issues. I was definitely in freak-out mode.”

      He tried messaging and calling FTX but couldn’t find out much of anything.

      “I got my lawyer involved,” Thacker says. “He was kind of like, I don’t really know, Jake. I don’t know what’s going to happen here.”

      “It ain’t lookin’ good, “says Charlie Gerstein, an attorney with the firm Gerstein Harrow, who has filed class action lawsuits against other cryptocurrency companies.

      The bankruptcy filings state FTX could owe money to upwards of 1 million people. And the basic facts are pretty grim. Gerstein says FTX told investors it would keep their assets safe. So if it can’t give people their money back, he says it probably broke the law by doing something else with it.

      “The company is short $8 billion dollars,” Gerstein says. “And there’s only two conceivable categories of explanation for what happened to that $8 billion. The first is they traded it in speculative investments and lost it.”

      In other words he says, the money’s gone. “Or they stole it.”
      …
      https://www.npr.org/2022/11/18/1137492483/ftx-investors-worry-they-lost-everything-and-wonder-if-theres-anything-they-can-

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