A weekend topic starting with the LA Daily News. "Q. Am I wrong to suggest…
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From the first 7 minute video:
Housing Inventory JUMPS 151% in Boise, Idaho. HOME Prices Falling Fast.
Good News Real Estate
Jan 11, 2023
Boise Idaho Real Estate December 2022 Update housing market update. (Boise Regional REALTORS®)
MBA (Mortgage Bankers Association) Home Application Drop 42%.
REDFIN-Pending home sales dropped to the lowest since 2015
The Idaho housing market is in BIG trouble as virtually every metric shows a slowdown in the Idaho real estate market. For example, the median sold price in the Boise Idaho area has now declined by 15% over the past 6 months alone. In addition, prices only decreased by -5.5% on a year-over-year basis in November and that’s the first year-over-year change in the median sold price for negative sales in December. Meanwhile, housing supply in the Boise, Idaho area surged by 151.2% compared to December of 2021 yet pending home sales plunged by 38.6%. This is your latest Boise, Id real estate market update based on a brand new report from the Boise Regional REALTORS® (BRR) and Landpro DATA.
Homebuilders are driving the decline in home prices in the Boise housing market while sellers are trying to stay competitively priced. Homes are coming off the housing market, builders are no longer building, and homes are staying up for sale longer, which has caused new construction home inventory to be the highest since 2008 in Canyon County Idaho. New home builders are racking up the staggering cost of inventory, and a possible foreclosure wave could hit the Treasure Valley here in Boise Idaho. Developers are starting to rack up on vacant lot inventory as builders stop buying lots. CBH homes, Boise Hunter Homes, Hubble Homes, Toll Brother homes, and Biltmore homes. Affordable homes in Boise, Idaho? It looks more like a possibility.
The second 14 minute video:
How’s the Market in 92127 (Rancho Bernardo, 4S Ranch, Del Sur, Rancho Santa Fe)?
Eric and Deva Edelman – San Diego Homes
Jan 11, 2023
We’re comparing what’s happening now to the peak of the market, around April 2022. Market times are much longer, and median prices have come down.
The third 2:22 video:
Wanna know what’s happening in your local real estate market?
Tanja Odzak, Realtor, Our East Bay Home
Jan 11, 2023
With the state of the housing market quickly changing, it can be confusing it can be if you are a seller or buyer trying to decide if NOW is the right time to buy or sell. 🏡
The fourth 7:16 video:
Sacramento Housing Market Update | Homebuyers QUIT & Home Prices DROP
Xpert Homebuyer
Jan 11, 2023
The fifth 8:43 video:
Oakville, Burlington, Milton & Georgetown ALL Struggling with Home Prices
Honest real estate talk
Jan 12, 2023
Oakville, Milton, Burlington and Georgetown real estate market update for December 2022. House prices in Oakville and all of Halton dropped again in December.
The sixth 14 minute video:
How Far Will Home Prices Fall In Vaughan, Richmond Hill & Markham Real Estate? – Jan 4
Team Sessa Real Estate
Jan 12, 2023
Vaughan Home Prices, Richmond Hill Home Prices & Markham Home Prices for the week of Dec 29 – Jan 4, 2022.
Sam Bankman-Fried said he did not steal money and blamed the collapse of his now-bankrupt FTX exchange on a broad crash in cryptocurrency markets, in a highly unusual blog post on Thursday, a month after his arrest on U.S. fraud charges.
Federal prosecutors in Manhattan in December said Mr. Bankman-Fried stole billions of dollars from FTX customers to pay debts for his crypto-focused hedge fund, Alameda Research, purchase lavish real estate and donate to U.S. political campaigns.
He has pleaded not guilty. The Substack blog post – a rare public statement by a U.S. criminal defendant – amounts to a preview of the defence case Mr. Bankman-Fried may present when his trial begins on Oct. 2.
“I didn’t steal funds, and I certainly didn’t stash billions away,” Mr. Bankman-Fried wrote.
Defense lawyers typically advise clients to stay silent before trial because prosecutors may use their comments against them in court.
A spokesman for Mr. Bankman-Fried declined to comment. A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s office in Manhattan declined to comment.
In the post, Mr. Bankman-Fried did not directly address many of the other charges brought against him by federal prosecutors in Manhattan last month, namely that he misled investors and lenders about the financial conditions of FTX and Alameda. He wrote that he had “a lot more to say.”
The 30-year-old onetime billionaire wrote that Alameda failed to hedge against an “extreme” crash in the crypto markets, which ultimately came to pass last year.
“As Alameda became illiquid, FTX International did as well, because Alameda had a margin position open on FTX,” Mr. Bankman-Fried wrote.
Last month, two of his closest associates pleaded guilty to defrauding the trading platform’s customers and agreed to co-operate with prosecutors’ investigation.
In the post, Mr. Bankman-Fried also said FTX’s U.S. wing is “fully solvent” and that its international unit has many billions of dollars in assets.
“If it were to reboot I believe there is a real chance that customers could be made substantially whole,” he wrote.
The comments came after a lawyer for FTX on Wednesday told a federal bankruptcy court in Delaware that the exchange had located more than US$5-billion in liquid assets, and that the company plans to sell non-strategic investments that had a book value of US$4.6-billion.
That does not include assets seized by the Securities Commission of the Bahamas, where FTX was based and where Mr. Bankman-Fried lived before he was extradited to the United States. Bahamian authorities say they have seized US$3.5-billion, but FTX says those funds are worth as little as US$170-million.
On Wednesday night, Mr. Bankman-Fried replied on Twitter to a user named @wassielawyer who said a sale of the FTX exchange was viable. “yup my sense is that is and always has been the best recovery scenario for customers,” Mr. Bankman-Fried wrote.
a rare public statement by a U.S. criminal defendant
Not heeding his Miranda rights. I pity his attorneys.
North American Savings Bank exits consumer direct lending
National Mortgage News|19 hours ago
The move, which comes with an unspecified number of layoffs, is expected to cost the company between $3.8 million to $4.6 million in pre-tax charges in the second quarter.
Mayor Eric Adams unveiled a record-breaking $102.7 billion budget proposal Thursday that would increase planned city spending by nearly 1.6% — without accounting for the estimated $1 billion-plus cost of the ongoing migrant crisis.
Officials also warned of a looming “perfect storm of slowing revenue and rising costs” that will leave yawning budget gaps as high as $6.5 billion in coming years.
“Although the economy has been strong, it is slowing,” Adams said during an afternoon address from City Hall. “In order to keep moving forward while preserving the programs and services we value, we must be careful and make the best use of our resources.”
Adams said he anticipated that revenues would be reduced in coming months because “real estate sales have slowed, due to rising interest rates,” while “office vacancy rates remain at a record high” because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“This weakens the commercial office market and has a negative impact on the property tax, the city’s largest single source of revenue,” he said.
without accounting for the estimated $1 billion-plus cost of the ongoing migrant crisis
Virtue signalling can be pricey
Payments unicorn Stripe has cut its internal valuation by 11% to $63 billion, The Information reported, citing a source familiar with the matter. Even at that valuation, the San Francisco-based company remains one of the most highly valued private companies in the world. But its latest cut is indicative of the falling valuations for unicorn startups over the past year as companies and investors reset their expectations.
Global venture funding in 2022 fell 35% year over year (though still topped 2020 and every other year before). Late-stage startups have been particularly hard hit as public market turmoil stalls the IPO pipeline.
Stripe’s latest cut comes after it already trimmed its internal valuation last year by 28%, from $95 billion. Competitor Checkout.com slashed its internal valuation by 70% to $11 billion last year. Other unicorns, including cybersecurity startup Snyk and AI/ML platform developer Dataiku, have raised new money but at lower valuations, in what’s known as a down round. In one of the more dramatic examples, fintech unicorn Klarna last year saw its valuation plummet 86% to $6.7 billion in a new funding round.
Yen bonds of a distressed Japanese hotelier are pricing in increased default risk after concerns about its finances mounted since the issuer was cut further into junk territory in late December. The hotel chain’s notes maturing in November 2023 and May 2024 also reached all-time lows after the sixth reduction by JCR since September 2020, the data show. The Japanese rating agency also slashed the rating of Unizo’s bonds to CCC from B+.
The Tokyo-based company’s bonds have been trading at distressed levels since the pandemic hurt its hotel business after Japan tightened border controls to overseas visitors. Unizo became embroiled in a hedge fund fight in 2020 and was subject to a Lone Star-financed management buyout.
Any default would be the first in Japan since Takata Corp., a maker of faulty air bags, failed in 2017, according to a report earlier this month by Daiwa Securities. Unizo has 61 billion yen of bonds outstanding.
One of the world’s most important short-term lending benchmarks has climbed back to a level last seen before the onset of the global financial crisis in 2008. The three-month London interbank offered rate for dollars climbed 1.5 basis points on Thursday to 4.82971%, exceeding the peak of 4.81875% it reached in October 2008 when credit markets were in disarray following the shock collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. The last time it was higher was in 2007.
The spread of Libor over overnight index swaps — a barometer of funding pressure — was at 16.3 basis points on Thursday versus 17 basis points the prior session.
Much of the recent surge in Libor, which is set to be phased out on June 30, has been driven by expectations for Federal Reserve policy tightening. The benchmark is moving in sympathy with many other short-term rates, but there are other elements that feed into the daily setting, including the backdrop for commercial paper transactions and broader credit conditions.
“It is supposed to reflect bank funding costs,” said Priya Misra, head of global rates strategy at TD Securities. “As reserves are falling, banks are paying up for funding.”
From the first 7 minute video:
Housing Inventory JUMPS 151% in Boise, Idaho. HOME Prices Falling Fast.
Good News Real Estate
Jan 11, 2023
Boise Idaho Real Estate December 2022 Update housing market update. (Boise Regional REALTORS®)
MBA (Mortgage Bankers Association) Home Application Drop 42%.
REDFIN-Pending home sales dropped to the lowest since 2015
The Idaho housing market is in BIG trouble as virtually every metric shows a slowdown in the Idaho real estate market. For example, the median sold price in the Boise Idaho area has now declined by 15% over the past 6 months alone. In addition, prices only decreased by -5.5% on a year-over-year basis in November and that’s the first year-over-year change in the median sold price for negative sales in December. Meanwhile, housing supply in the Boise, Idaho area surged by 151.2% compared to December of 2021 yet pending home sales plunged by 38.6%. This is your latest Boise, Id real estate market update based on a brand new report from the Boise Regional REALTORS® (BRR) and Landpro DATA.
Homebuilders are driving the decline in home prices in the Boise housing market while sellers are trying to stay competitively priced. Homes are coming off the housing market, builders are no longer building, and homes are staying up for sale longer, which has caused new construction home inventory to be the highest since 2008 in Canyon County Idaho. New home builders are racking up the staggering cost of inventory, and a possible foreclosure wave could hit the Treasure Valley here in Boise Idaho. Developers are starting to rack up on vacant lot inventory as builders stop buying lots. CBH homes, Boise Hunter Homes, Hubble Homes, Toll Brother homes, and Biltmore homes. Affordable homes in Boise, Idaho? It looks more like a possibility.
The second 14 minute video:
How’s the Market in 92127 (Rancho Bernardo, 4S Ranch, Del Sur, Rancho Santa Fe)?
Eric and Deva Edelman – San Diego Homes
Jan 11, 2023
We’re comparing what’s happening now to the peak of the market, around April 2022. Market times are much longer, and median prices have come down.
The third 2:22 video:
Wanna know what’s happening in your local real estate market?
Tanja Odzak, Realtor, Our East Bay Home
Jan 11, 2023
With the state of the housing market quickly changing, it can be confusing it can be if you are a seller or buyer trying to decide if NOW is the right time to buy or sell. 🏡
The fourth 7:16 video:
Sacramento Housing Market Update | Homebuyers QUIT & Home Prices DROP
Xpert Homebuyer
Jan 11, 2023
The fifth 8:43 video:
Oakville, Burlington, Milton & Georgetown ALL Struggling with Home Prices
Honest real estate talk
Jan 12, 2023
Oakville, Milton, Burlington and Georgetown real estate market update for December 2022. House prices in Oakville and all of Halton dropped again in December.
The sixth 14 minute video:
How Far Will Home Prices Fall In Vaughan, Richmond Hill & Markham Real Estate? – Jan 4
Team Sessa Real Estate
Jan 12, 2023
Vaughan Home Prices, Richmond Hill Home Prices & Markham Home Prices for the week of Dec 29 – Jan 4, 2022.
Sam Bankman-Fried said he did not steal money and blamed the collapse of his now-bankrupt FTX exchange on a broad crash in cryptocurrency markets, in a highly unusual blog post on Thursday, a month after his arrest on U.S. fraud charges.
Federal prosecutors in Manhattan in December said Mr. Bankman-Fried stole billions of dollars from FTX customers to pay debts for his crypto-focused hedge fund, Alameda Research, purchase lavish real estate and donate to U.S. political campaigns.
He has pleaded not guilty. The Substack blog post – a rare public statement by a U.S. criminal defendant – amounts to a preview of the defence case Mr. Bankman-Fried may present when his trial begins on Oct. 2.
“I didn’t steal funds, and I certainly didn’t stash billions away,” Mr. Bankman-Fried wrote.
Defense lawyers typically advise clients to stay silent before trial because prosecutors may use their comments against them in court.
A spokesman for Mr. Bankman-Fried declined to comment. A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s office in Manhattan declined to comment.
In the post, Mr. Bankman-Fried did not directly address many of the other charges brought against him by federal prosecutors in Manhattan last month, namely that he misled investors and lenders about the financial conditions of FTX and Alameda. He wrote that he had “a lot more to say.”
The 30-year-old onetime billionaire wrote that Alameda failed to hedge against an “extreme” crash in the crypto markets, which ultimately came to pass last year.
“As Alameda became illiquid, FTX International did as well, because Alameda had a margin position open on FTX,” Mr. Bankman-Fried wrote.
Last month, two of his closest associates pleaded guilty to defrauding the trading platform’s customers and agreed to co-operate with prosecutors’ investigation.
In the post, Mr. Bankman-Fried also said FTX’s U.S. wing is “fully solvent” and that its international unit has many billions of dollars in assets.
“If it were to reboot I believe there is a real chance that customers could be made substantially whole,” he wrote.
The comments came after a lawyer for FTX on Wednesday told a federal bankruptcy court in Delaware that the exchange had located more than US$5-billion in liquid assets, and that the company plans to sell non-strategic investments that had a book value of US$4.6-billion.
That does not include assets seized by the Securities Commission of the Bahamas, where FTX was based and where Mr. Bankman-Fried lived before he was extradited to the United States. Bahamian authorities say they have seized US$3.5-billion, but FTX says those funds are worth as little as US$170-million.
On Wednesday night, Mr. Bankman-Fried replied on Twitter to a user named @wassielawyer who said a sale of the FTX exchange was viable. “yup my sense is that is and always has been the best recovery scenario for customers,” Mr. Bankman-Fried wrote.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/international-business/article-ftx-founder-sam-bankman-fried-says-he-didnt-steal-funds-in-unusual/
a rare public statement by a U.S. criminal defendant
Not heeding his Miranda rights. I pity his attorneys.
North American Savings Bank exits consumer direct lending
National Mortgage News|19 hours ago
The move, which comes with an unspecified number of layoffs, is expected to cost the company between $3.8 million to $4.6 million in pre-tax charges in the second quarter.
Mayor Eric Adams unveiled a record-breaking $102.7 billion budget proposal Thursday that would increase planned city spending by nearly 1.6% — without accounting for the estimated $1 billion-plus cost of the ongoing migrant crisis.
Officials also warned of a looming “perfect storm of slowing revenue and rising costs” that will leave yawning budget gaps as high as $6.5 billion in coming years.
“Although the economy has been strong, it is slowing,” Adams said during an afternoon address from City Hall. “In order to keep moving forward while preserving the programs and services we value, we must be careful and make the best use of our resources.”
Adams said he anticipated that revenues would be reduced in coming months because “real estate sales have slowed, due to rising interest rates,” while “office vacancy rates remain at a record high” because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“This weakens the commercial office market and has a negative impact on the property tax, the city’s largest single source of revenue,” he said.
https://nypost.com/2023/01/12/eric-adams-pitches-102-7b-nyc-budget-without-money-for-migrants/
without accounting for the estimated $1 billion-plus cost of the ongoing migrant crisis
Virtue signalling can be pricey
Payments unicorn Stripe has cut its internal valuation by 11% to $63 billion, The Information reported, citing a source familiar with the matter. Even at that valuation, the San Francisco-based company remains one of the most highly valued private companies in the world. But its latest cut is indicative of the falling valuations for unicorn startups over the past year as companies and investors reset their expectations.
Global venture funding in 2022 fell 35% year over year (though still topped 2020 and every other year before). Late-stage startups have been particularly hard hit as public market turmoil stalls the IPO pipeline.
Stripe’s latest cut comes after it already trimmed its internal valuation last year by 28%, from $95 billion. Competitor Checkout.com slashed its internal valuation by 70% to $11 billion last year. Other unicorns, including cybersecurity startup Snyk and AI/ML platform developer Dataiku, have raised new money but at lower valuations, in what’s known as a down round. In one of the more dramatic examples, fintech unicorn Klarna last year saw its valuation plummet 86% to $6.7 billion in a new funding round.
https://news.crunchbase.com/fintech-ecommerce/stripe-cuts-valuation-unicorn-shares/
Yen bonds of a distressed Japanese hotelier are pricing in increased default risk after concerns about its finances mounted since the issuer was cut further into junk territory in late December. The hotel chain’s notes maturing in November 2023 and May 2024 also reached all-time lows after the sixth reduction by JCR since September 2020, the data show. The Japanese rating agency also slashed the rating of Unizo’s bonds to CCC from B+.
The Tokyo-based company’s bonds have been trading at distressed levels since the pandemic hurt its hotel business after Japan tightened border controls to overseas visitors. Unizo became embroiled in a hedge fund fight in 2020 and was subject to a Lone Star-financed management buyout.
Any default would be the first in Japan since Takata Corp., a maker of faulty air bags, failed in 2017, according to a report earlier this month by Daiwa Securities. Unizo has 61 billion yen of bonds outstanding.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/distressed-japanese-hotelier-bonds-show-220000217.html
One of the world’s most important short-term lending benchmarks has climbed back to a level last seen before the onset of the global financial crisis in 2008. The three-month London interbank offered rate for dollars climbed 1.5 basis points on Thursday to 4.82971%, exceeding the peak of 4.81875% it reached in October 2008 when credit markets were in disarray following the shock collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. The last time it was higher was in 2007.
The spread of Libor over overnight index swaps — a barometer of funding pressure — was at 16.3 basis points on Thursday versus 17 basis points the prior session.
Much of the recent surge in Libor, which is set to be phased out on June 30, has been driven by expectations for Federal Reserve policy tightening. The benchmark is moving in sympathy with many other short-term rates, but there are other elements that feed into the daily setting, including the backdrop for commercial paper transactions and broader credit conditions.
“It is supposed to reflect bank funding costs,” said Priya Misra, head of global rates strategy at TD Securities. “As reserves are falling, banks are paying up for funding.”
https://ca.news.yahoo.com/libor-eclipses-peak-reached-wake-130730190.html
𝗕𝗼𝘆𝗻𝘁𝗼𝗻 𝗕𝗲𝗮𝗰𝗵, 𝗙𝗟 𝗛𝗼𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗣𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗲𝘀 𝗖𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝟮𝟲% 𝗬𝗢𝗬 𝗔𝘀 𝗗𝗼𝘂𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗗𝗶𝗴𝗶𝘁 𝗣𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗲 𝗗𝗲𝗰𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀 𝗕𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗸𝗲𝘁 𝗙𝗹𝗼𝗿𝗶𝗱𝗮
https://www.movoto.com/boynton-beach-fl/market-trends/
𝘈𝘴 𝘢 𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘦𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘰𝘮𝘪𝘴𝘵 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘴𝘰 𝘦𝘭𝘰𝘲𝘶𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘭𝘺, “𝘈 𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘢 𝘳𝘢𝘱𝘪𝘥𝘭𝘺 𝘥𝘦𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘪𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘦𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘦𝘮𝘱𝘵𝘪𝘦𝘴 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘸𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘵 𝘪𝘵 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 𝘥𝘢𝘺 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘰𝘸𝘯 𝘪𝘵.”