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As The Fed Ends The Era Of Free Money, More Levered Speculators And Unscrupulous Behavior Get Exposed For What They Always Were

A report from Click Orlando in Florida. “Orlando resident Jeriah Owens is searching to buy her second home. She told News 6 that as a single mom especially, it’s been a little frustrating with the up and down interest rates and the pricing on homes. ‘When I was searching two years ago, the same type of houses I’m looking at right now, they were like $250,000 – $300,000 — 2 years ago and now minimum they’re like $450,000 and they are the same type of houses.’ Owens said she knows it also depends on how much buyers are willing to spend right now. ‘If I go higher, of course, there are houses everywhere,’ Owens said. ‘I would say there are still a good amount of selections, just not affordable.’ In December of last year, the report showed the inventory for single-family homes was at 4,900, compared to a little more than 1,900 homes available in December 2021.”

The Orlando Sentinel in Florida. “Orlando’s hot housing market cooled in the second half of 2022, with sales and prices dropping and inventory rising. The median home price in metro Orlando in 2022 was $365,000, a record high for a year, according to the recap report by the Orlando Regional Realtor Association. Home prices hit a peak in June of $387,000 before falling to $353,200 in December. Lisa Hill, incoming president of the association says she wouldn’t be surprised if people who bought high in the last couple of years can’t get the same price when they try to sell. ‘A lot of those buyers were offering tens of thousands of dollars over list price,’ said Hill. ‘There probably will be people who take a loss because they came in heavy with cash.'”

Boston.com in Massachusetts. “The Greater Boston Association of Realtors reported Tuesday that sales in the region had fallen by a third year over year for single-family homes and condos. The sales total is the lowest for December in more than a decade, according to the report. ‘Compared to the torrid sales pace of the last two years, it was a much quieter December than we’re used to, as more buyers than normal chose to take a step back to evaluate the market this fall,’ said Alison Socha, GBAR president. ‘Among single-family homes, the median sales price declined 1.2 percent on an annual basis, from $749,000 in December 2021 to $740,000 last month,’ the GBAR found. ‘In the condominium market, prices fell even more, declining on an annual basis by 2.4 percent from a median selling price of $624,950 last December to $610,000 in December 2022.'”

Axios Des Moines in Iowa. “‘We’re entering a bit of a recovery phase right now,’ says broker Jen Stanbrough with Jen Stanbrough Real Estate. ‘We’re back to an even market — it’s not a seller’s market or a buyer’s market.’ Over the summer, Stanbrough recalls going into houses where there may have been 15 other people looking at a house or waiting on the doorstep. ‘I had to tell my clients, ‘If you want this house, you have to make an offer today,’ she says. ‘We saw a lot of bus remorse. We’re not seeing that now.'”

From Detroit Business. “‘A return to seasonality in the market contributed to the drop in home sales over last year. As we see a return to a more balanced market, buyers and sellers are able to negotiate, and sellers no longer have the solid upper hand they had the past couple of years,’ says Jeanette Schneider, president of RE/MAX of Southeastern Michigan.”

“The median sales price dropped from $263,875 to $257,975, or 2.2 percent, year-over-year. The price drop was more significant month-over-month, dropping from $271,685. The median price fell 17.2 percent in the city of Detroit, from $80,000 to $66,250. Oakland County fell from $320,000 to $300,000, or 6.3 percent. Wayne County fell from $170,000 to $162,000 — 4.7 percent — and Macomb County fell 2.4 percent from $225,500 to $220,000.”

Las Vegas Business Press. “It’s no secret that Southern Nevada’s real estate market in 2022 was a tale of two markets. The year started on a tear that was a powerful continuation of the pandemic-crazed market. Then, and not unexpectedly, the shift hit in late April, early May, and our market quickly became a balanced-to-buyer’s market from a strong seller’s market. For-sale inventory quadrupled while sales halved, ultimately impacting home prices and giving back the entire 11 percent appreciation realized through April. Buyers have come to accept higher (but still low) rates and sellers are recognizing the gravy train has stopped and the need for realistic pricing has taken its place.”

The Denton Record Chronicle in Texas. “A large round of year-end discounting by local home builders helped push pending sales to basically flat from a year ago. Those inventory discounts and promotions also helped push home prices lower. The median price of a home in the city of Denton fell $20,000 in December. That put local home prices down $55,000 (13.4%) from their summer peak. Denton home prices gave up nearly all their gains for 2022. Prices for December were up just 1.4% year-over-year.”

“There are many DFW buyers who purchased in the spring and summer of 2022 who are now sitting in homes that are worth less than they paid for them. It turns out that home prices can and do sometimes fall. They can fall rather precipitously when your central bank is forced to reverse decades of easy money policy. Once reality set in, the reaction function was sharp. Median percent of list in Denton went into a freefall during the last half of the year as sellers woke up to the reality that homes aren’t worth as much when interest rates double.”

“The reality is there are too many agents chasing clients. The inevitable purge and consolidation coming for the industry will ultimately be good for consumers. The pandemic boom and bust exposed how many agents were willing to ignore fiduciary duty to make a buck. As the Fed tightens policy and ends the era of free money, more levered speculators and unscrupulous behavior get exposed for what they always were. From crypto to real estate, the theme has been the same. If sunlight is a good disinfectant, real rates have a similar benefit.”

From Market Place. “‘Usually, San Francisco is so solid that you just know things are going to roll along,’ said Cynthia Cummins, principal agent with Kindred SF Homes. ‘Now, everything has changed.’ Cummins said median sale prices for single-family homes in San Francisco are similar to where they were at the beginning of 2022. But between then and now, there’s been a lot of movement. ‘Things went crazy in April and May, and then there was this sharp drop-off,’ she said.”

“Similarly, the number of buyers interested in property in the Lake Tahoe region has shrunk significantly, according to David Westall, an agent with Sierra Sotheby’s International Realty in Tahoe City, California. ‘There’s a lot of fear, uncertainty and doubt, which always created hesitation for buyers,’ he said.”

“‘It’s like a faucet was turned all the way to the right,’ said Mindy Palmer, an agent with Berkshire Hathaway Montana Properties, referring to the flow of people moving in over the past couple of years. ‘And right now, there’s a drip. Things are still happening, but it’s a real head turner — if not a head-spinner — for people,’ she said. With fewer buyers coming in, Palmer said there’s been a shift in power from sellers to buyers. ‘The sellers that were on the fence just a few months ago are shocked to find that they don’t have quite the same power that their predecessors did,’ she said.”

The Palm Springs Post in California. “While both home prices and sales in the Coachella Valley typically see a seasonal rise this time of year, analysts tracked another steady – and puzzling – decline last month. The median price of a detached home in the valley declined to $640,000, down almost 10% from the peak of $710,000 a few months ago. Palm Springs is the only valley city that saw a year-over-year price decrease, with the median home price now sitting at $1.14 million, compared to $1.19 million last year.”

“The reason for the decline in prices, the housing report says, is a little more complicated than an abundance of supply over demand. Instead, the change from a ‘premium market’ to a ‘discount market’ could account for much of the average price decline. For example, ‘homes which sold for 2% over list now sell for 2% under,’ the report said. ‘With no change in list price, this accounts for a 4% decline.’”

From Bloomberg. “Some of the biggest investors in US commercial real estate are looking to cash in before property values slide further. A group of property funds for institutional investors ended last year with $20 billion in withdrawal requests, the biggest waiting line since the Great Recession, according to IDR Investment Management. ‘It’s like the nightclub where everybody lines up to get in and then lines up to leave when it closes,’ John Murray, head of global private commercial real estate at Pacific Investment Management Co.”

Insauga in Canada. “One expert – Mississauga real estate mogul Sam McDadi – believes 2023 will be a much different year, and a challenging one at that. ‘This is the first time in a long time we’ve started seeing ‘power of sales’ because property prices have adjusted downward. We’ve seen [price drops] anywhere from 10 to 25% depending on location,’ said McDadi. A power of sale, different from a foreclosure, refers to a situation in which a homeowner defaults on their mortgage and the mortgage lender opts to possess and sell the house.”

“‘We tell a lot of buyers who were unfortunate when they bought during the bidding war frenzy during the first quarter: Don’t worry, the market will always come back, the GTA is resilient. But as long as you haven’t sold it, you haven’t accrued a loss.’ One notable example of a property selling at a major loss involved a Brampton home which traded in the first quarter of 2022 (the height of the market) for $2,650,000. Towards the end of 2022, the same property sold under power of sale for $1,850,000 – a stark difference of $800,000 within the span of six to eight months.”

From Reuters. “House prices in South Korea fell 1.98% in December from a month earlier, the fastest drop since data releases began in late 2003 and a seventh consecutive month of decline, according to data from the Korea Real Estate Board. That follows a 1.37% loss in November and marked a 4.68% decline for 2022, turning around from a 9.93% gain in 2021, the board said in a statement. House prices were falling sharply around the world as central banks have quickly raised interest rates to fight inflation, cooling the economy and pushing up mortgage rates.”

The New Zealand Herald. “It’s a home buyers’ bonanza but a grim time for sellers with house prices falling in almost every region and taking an especially big tumble in two major cities. New Real Estate Institute data showed sales plummeted 39 per cent year-on-year, and Auckland house prices fell 18 per cent to a median $1.05 million. The median sale price has decreased nationally over the year by 12.2 per cent to $790,000. The median price in Wellington last month was $790,000, down 20.2 per cent.”

“ANZ suggested New Zealand was two-thirds of the way through the downturn. ‘Prices are now around 15 per cent below their November 2021 peak,’ ANZ economists said. ‘We maintain our forecast for a peak-to-trough decline of 22 per cent.’ Increases in borrowing rates to date will take some time to work their way through the housing market, Westpac added. ‘We’re still seeing a drop-off in new listings, as property owners choose to hold back rather than sell at a loss. That tends to slow the process of finding the new equilibrium price level, and suggests that we’ll see further falls in sale prices over the coming months.'”

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This Post Has 151 Comments

  1. Too many sh$tholes rolling over YOY to mention.

    ‘‘When I was searching two years ago, the same type of houses I’m looking at right now, they were like $250,000 – $300,000 — 2 years ago and now minimum they’re like $450,000 and they are the same type of houses’

    I realize this is anecdotal. But would it be a surprise? Things did get batsh$t crazy during CCP virus. Good luck walking this all back Jerry.

    1. The minute Jerry and his cohorts at the FED were caught day-trading their future policies and front-running Wall St. (no doubt feeding info to Jamie Dimon and all their buddies), they should have been arrested. Again, there is no rule of law anymore. The US has turned into a banana republic, for all intents and purposes.

  2. ‘she wouldn’t be surprised if people who bought high in the last couple of years can’t get the same price when they try to sell. ‘A lot of those buyers were offering tens of thousands of dollars over list price…There probably will be people who take a loss because they came in heavy with cash’

    Wa? Those were my winnahs! Lisa?

  5. 𝗠𝗼𝘂𝗻𝘁 𝗣𝗹𝗲𝗮𝘀𝗮𝗻𝘁, 𝗡𝗖 𝗛𝗼𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗣𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗲𝘀 𝗖𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝟮𝟬% 𝗬𝗢𝗬 𝗔𝘀 𝗥𝘂𝗿𝗮𝗹 𝗟𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗔𝗻𝗱 𝗛𝗼𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗣𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗲𝘀 𝗖𝗿𝘂𝗺𝗯𝗹𝗲

    https://www.movoto.com/mount-pleasant-nc/market-trends/

    𝘈𝘴 𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭 𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘦𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘰𝘮𝘪𝘴𝘵 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘥, “𝘏𝘰𝘶𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘱𝘳𝘪𝘤𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘤𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦. 𝘌𝘷𝘦𝘯 𝘪𝘯 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘵𝘰𝘸𝘯.”

    1. The previous Sinaloa cartel, under El Chapo, concentrated only on the drug smuggling business and didn’t do any killing/burning unless it interfered with drug smuggling. The new cartels just love being criminals in every way. Drug smuggling, murder, corruption, trafficking, avocado trade, whatever. The new cartels are now fighting to get into the border towns so they can continue their rampages inside the US. Looks like Biden gave them exactly what they wanted.

  9. ‘A lot of those buyers were offering tens of thousands of dollars over list price,’ said Hill. ‘There probably will be people who take a loss because they came in heavy with cash.’”

    Die, speculator scum.

  10. A reader sent these in:

    New Zealand business confidence fell even more in Q4: -70% vs. -42% prior

    https://twitter.com/ForexLive/status/1615092312962465795

    Lisa Abramowicz

    NYU’s Nouriel Roubini said inflation is going to run hotter than even the Fed is expecting, causing the Fed to have to hike rates well above 5.25%, perhaps past 6%. He predicts the ECB will raise rates past 4%. This is why he rejects the “short and shallow” consensus idea.

    https://twitter.com/lisaabramowicz1/status/1615461700756439044

    The Empire State survey laid another egg, coming in at 32.9 for January. This is akin to the old readings from the Global Financial Crisis. With the S&P 500 trading at 4,000, the Street anticipates that its earnings will rise from $200 in 2022 to $225 in 2023. I disagree.

    https://twitter.com/JeffWeniger/status/1615460578323046413

    A historic number of newly built homes will flood the market into the worst demographics in US history. What could go wrong?

    https://twitter.com/GRomePow/status/1615453758263267329

    Welcome to the most expensive “new bull market” we’ve ever seen. The current Shiller PE ratio is 29.24. The mean is 17 and median 15.91. Most bottoms start in the teens or lower…

    https://twitter.com/Mayhem4Markets/status/1615132477370032130

    Buy a house they said…pay $421K over list…don’t worry they said…rates are low and will stay that way…Tiff said so, they said…you will be fine…is reality setting in…list below market in a desperate plea to attract offer less than 2 years later. 🤔🤔🫣🫣#TORE

    https://twitter.com/Baystboy/status/1615353282381103106

    Danielle DiMartino Booth

    To clarify…again. Actual subprime rate at record high “In Dec 7.11% of subprime loans were severely delinquent, increasing from 6.75% prior month. The subprime severe delinquency rate was 163 basis points higher than a year ago & Dec rate was highest in data series back to 2006”

    https://twitter.com/DiMartinoBooth/status/1615431874167377920

    Three years ago Price Per Square Foot for Condos in San Francisco hit their peak. Then covid hit.

    https://twitter.com/mikesimonsen/status/1615429433640521728

    Listed for $1 in Oshawa. This is how you get multiple offers. 🤦🏼‍♀️

    https://twitter.com/REWoman/status/1615343079459885061

    World Economic Forum: “We desperately need to disrupt our approach to retirement saving” “Many people will want to work past mandatory retirement age…others will need to work longer to remain financially resilient in later life.”

    https://twitter.com/kenklippenstein/status/1615374421782560769

    Rick Palacios Jr.

    Nationally, just 16% of home builders haven’t had to drop prices since the market peaked in March 2022. Most builders have dropped prices -6% to -10%. Very different story when you break it out by region however…Looking at home builder price reductions regionally since March 2022, it’s very clear correction so far is in California, Southwest, Texas, and Northwest. Plenty of orange and even some red bars for these regions, indicating double-digit price declines.

    https://twitter.com/RickPalaciosJr/status/1615413290192232449

    The Chetrit Group financed an 8,600+ unit multifamily portfolio with floating-rate debt at LIBOR + 500. The all-in interest rate on their portfolio is over 10% now with 24% vacancy. Goons.

    https://twitter.com/MultifamilyMad/status/1615025244271419394

    A great tale of two very different FHLB borrowers. Signature Bank to tap Home Loan bank advances in crypto pullback

    https://twitter.com/KarenPetrou/status/1615411394962198542

    GTA months of inventory is taking off in early 2023. Currently at 5.06 vs 3.21 just a few weeks ago. 1/4

    https://twitter.com/rob_siglio/status/1615119093471780865

    Across the city of Boston, 17.6 percent of office space sat empty in the fourth quarter, according to research from Colliers International — the highest rate in the more than three decades Colliers has tracked data.

    https://twitter.com/danjmcnamara/status/1615389261242707968

    Nasma Ali

    Seeing a big proportion of estate sales being listed. More than usual. May be because less can afford to hold onto the house after the relative passes due to rates.

    https://twitter.com/nasmadotali/status/1615381851941511171

    You see a new bull market. I see the last gasp of the biggest and stupidest bubble in the history of the world. We are not the same

    https://twitter.com/BomsteinRick/status/1615379639882420224

    Ryan Lundquist
    @SacAppraiser
    Hello there 2023 stats. The black line represents the median price during the first couple of weeks this year in the Sacramento region (closed sales). I’ll keep adding to the visual throughout the year. Here’s to following closely and understanding the story of the market.

    https://twitter.com/SacAppraiser/status/1615473588357980162

    The BOJ is furiously printing, trying to hold the line…The first domino to fall in the global sovereign debt crisis

    https://twitter.com/peruvian_bull/status/1615436840382910464

    While I think there is more upside in short term, I think the next bear market leg will be very different from those we saw in 2022. It may feel more like 2008 with mega cap stocks getting completely decimated and TSLA pulling a Carvana out of its a..

    https://twitter.com/xtrends/status/1615428265711370240

    CarDealershipGuy

    People are not paying their car loans. Auto loans delinquent (overdue) by MORE than 60 days are now up *26.7%* from a year ago. Not a crisis just yet but watch this trend closely.

    https://twitter.com/GuyDealership/status/1615372496399732736

    Another day. Another bunch of people arrive at:

    https://twitter.com/dampedspring/status/1615366740678184961

    For all the talk about rampant pessimism, retail still loves stocks. Household equity exposure remained above its long-term average all of last year and has increased over the past two months.

    https://twitter.com/WillieDelwiche/status/1615328141894946820

    Financial Conditions

    https://twitter.com/WallStJesus/status/1615343859168579584

    “Digital assets.” Imagine how g*ddamn dumb you would have thought that phrase sounded a decade ago. Now imagine it’s a decade later than that, it actually is that f*cking dumb, but also everyone just totally fell for it for like three years.

    https://twitter.com/coloradotravis/status/1615560533671043073

    Was talking to a mortgage broker this week. Said has some people coming in who are underwater on mortgage payments asking to get a line of credit when they don’t even qualify for their current mortgage. Some folks desperate enough to use CC cash advances to pay mortgage.

    https://twitter.com/cap_zay/status/1615407349430358016

    “A group of property funds for institutional investors ended last year with $20 billion in withdrawal requests, the biggest waiting line since the Great Recession.” 😳😳 Wow. “The UBS Trumbull Property Fund had a $7.2 billion queue for withdrawals — 40% of its value.”

    https://twitter.com/dana_marlane/status/1615471836346687501

    This could get messy

    https://twitter.com/texasrunnerDFW/status/1615365521981018112

    1. “People are not paying their car loans.”

      Dealer used car financing is roughly 8.25%, and that’s only for 36 months with 20% down! To qualify you need a FICO of 720 or better. Otherwise, you’re off to skid row used car lots with $500 down and 24% financing.

  12. The median price of a home in the city of Denton fell $20,000 in December. That put local home prices down $55,000 (13.4%) from their summer peak.

    Is that a lot?

  15. “‘We’re entering a bit of a recovery phase right now,’ says broker Jen Stanbrough with Jen Stanbrough Real Estate. ‘We’re back to an even market — it’s not a seller’s market or a buyer’s market.’

    Stop lying, realtor skank. The bursting of the Fed’s Everything Bubble hasn’t yet begun in earnest, but by the time the carnage plays out, the wipeout of fake wealth created by fake money is going to be epic – especially in the housing market.

  16. ‘When I was searching two years ago, the same type of houses I’m looking at right now, they were like $250,000 – $300,000 — 2 years ago and now minimum they’re like $450,000 and they are the same type of houses.’

    I’ve been saying this for two years, and nothing has changed. I’m still here twiddling my thumbs waiting for any of this to change.

      1. I have no idea. My husband and I got married in 2021 and were planning to buy within two years, so I was completely new to the property world and I was and am still learning. I just know I watched a neighborhood with homes that were between $250k and $270k start going for over $400k and sometimes around $500. Many of these homes are now just sitting. I did see one home that was listed for $450 go pending and then show as sold for $270 on Zillow, so I have no idea what the heck is going on. I still don’t fully understand how the appraisal thing works because I don’t have any actual experience with it.

        1. I did see one home that was listed for $450 go pending and then show as sold for $270 on Zillow

          That looks encouraging.

          I’m seeing very few price reductions so far in my little burg. But 2023 is still very young.

          1. It is. Lots of things are selling for 10-20 grand under asking, but the prices are still WAAAAYYY too high.

            There is still equity flowing in from California and the NE. Every time I think it’s going away it starts right back up, but the fact that things are now going under asking is certainly in the right direction.

        2. The only way shack prices get appraised up so much in such a short time is widespread appraisal fraud IMO. If that’s the case we gotta a far bigger problem that shack prices. It would cast doubt on the entire MBS system and all the players (GSE’s/banks/non-banks).

          1. Everyone and the entire system is corrupt–the MSM, Federal Government, State and local governments, the FEDS and every single financial institution. In the meantime the NWO and WEF are laying the groundwork to controlling the masses by eliminating fossil fuels, the current food production and distribution systems and outlawing free speech.

            You will own nothing.
            You will eat worms.
            You will think nothing.
            You will be happy.

          2. Appraisals should’ve been abolished a long time ago, at least in the manner we’ve grown accustomed to. There’s no reason for it! In this day and age there is every resource available for lender to value a property in-house without them. And even better, access the property risk based on market conditions which appraisals do not do. When I was in the biz 15 years the reputable wholesale lenders we brokered to would do appraisal reviews, which is basically an in-house appraisal. And often they would throw the appraisal out based on their findings and research. Back then it dawned me why are we even ordering and charging for these things if you guys are just basically go through the whole process again in house? But most lenders aren’t like that, and in my opinion (which ain’t worth %@#), the only reason they still want this to stay the same is that without a third party to manipulate it would be tougher to run the corrupt system we know today. Call me a conspiratorial theorist, but that’s where my mind goes. Oh, and back then there were a few lenders that did in-house appraisals. It can be done.

        3. It is very confusing when you don’t have the wider perspective of price history. You’re beginning to see ‘the forest for the trees’ but you will need a bit more patience. It can be very frustrating when you’re in the wrong part of the cycle and you feel stuck but you can see the process is grinding it’s way towards a big bust. It’s going to be epic. If you stand your ground you will be treated to some of these places going for 25% of what they hit at the peak. These will be ‘off menu’ treats that the MLS doesn’t show but there will be long lists of them if you know where to look.

          The thing about the bear phase is that no one wants to admit they are bankrupt and they will generally try everything to extend and pretend until they are forced to admit it. Right now there are sh*tloads of people in the extend and pretend phase. It takes time to clear them out and then comes multiple phases within the phase where inventories of properties have to be disposed of. It’s a clearing process that takes a number of years to work itself out. When you are new to the market you don’t have that perspective because you haven’t experienced it yet. Your goal should be to try to visualize it in your head. You will see that there is a reasonable time component at work and that it can be estimated.

          How tenacious do you want to be? Do you have a solid set of parameters of what you want in a house? Are you willing to hammer nails and paint? If so, you could score a very nice home for under 100k in about 4-5 years from now. Right now that seems like a fantasy but just as prices go too high there is an equal and opposite reaction where a significant portion will go too low in the trough of the bust. We are still at the top of the cliff but you can see that the path of least resistance now is down. That is going to cause a lot of problems for a lot of people! The lows of this bear market will present one of the best opportunities you will ever see if you can keep your nesting instinct from jumping in too soon. If you really want to you could be an all cash buyer at the bottom and low ball like a boss to be mortgage free. That is what I did at the previous bottom and it has made an enormous difference in my quality of life.

          1. It wasn’t at the bottom, but I lowballed “like a boss” on a house that lenders wouldn’t touch, because it was half way through a renovation.

            and it has made an enormous difference in my quality of life.

          2. ‘Increases in borrowing rates to date will take some time to work their way through the housing market, Westpac added. ‘We’re still seeing a drop-off in new listings, as property owners choose to hold back rather than sell at a loss. That tends to slow the process of finding the new equilibrium price level, and suggests that we’ll see further falls in sale prices over the coming months’

          3. -25% barely brings them down to 2020, and 2020 was already the peak of a massive bubble. what happened between 2020 and 2022 is just insanity that will be discussed over the centuries the same way we discuss tulip mania today.

        4. I’ve been waiting to buy since 2005 and dealing with prices 5x higher. Personal circumstances haven’t coincided with the real estate cycle. Things weren’t allowed to correct after 2008. Perhaps someone can find and post the housing rollercoaster video.

          2. For the record, I had to leave San Diego to make it happen and it was worth it. Your mileage may vary.

          3. Your mileage may vary.

            Incomes and autism services means we’re here for at least 10 more years.

      1. “The WEF is a real world version of SPECTRE, but there is no 007 to counter it.”
        —
        https://vigilantcitizen.com/moviesandtv/the-disturbing-and-deeply-irritating-globalist-agendas-in-the-james-bond-movie-no-time-to-die/

        The Disturbing (and Deeply Irritating) Globalist Agendas in the James Bond Movie “No Time to Die”

        “The story of “No Time to Die” revolves around a DNA-targeting virus that’s oddly similar to monkeypox. Considering the fact that the movie was completed around 2019, the coincidence is rather unsettling. Is the movie another case of predictive programming? Also, what is wrong with James Bond?”

        Published 6 months ago on August 3, 2022
        By Vigilant Citizen
        —
        ‘May you live in interesting times.’ – Sir Austen Chamberlain

        2. I think the Davos Globalists just aren’t being honest about anything.
          I think they think peak oil and peak farming has taken place in witch more population would collaspe the food and energy systems…
          I don’t think climate change is what is actually bothering them . I think they are
          heavy into this idea of genocide of billions ,
          and they are the stakeholders that will control all resources.
          They want the farmland, control of energy, etc and they live in the lap of luxury, while they set up this control or deprivation of
          resources for humanity..
          .

          You could debate peak oil or peak farm production,, but its clear that the One World Globalists Cult doesn’t want
          Humanity to have any choice in solutions or their future. .

          Mass genocide, you will eat bugs , , you will own nothing,,,Cult forced hacking and injections.
          This Cult that meets in Davos are just dangerous criminal that think they are
          above the law

          1. There’s one problem with your theory. After the big shots and WEF leaders kill off billions, destroy the fossil fuel industry, collapse the food production and distribution networks, etc, who will be producing their food, energy and so forth as they live a life of Riley in their hill top mansions? In reality, the ability to be self-sufficient is inversely proportional to a person’s monetary income. How many Wall Street CEOs can change out the automatic transmission in their cars? How many Silly Con valley billionaires grow and preserve their own food? You get the idea.

            The fact of the matter is that IF all of the necessities and luxuries are destroyed by the current attack on the capitalist system, the rich will be the first to die of starvation. People like Bill Gates and Oprah don’t even know where their local supermarket is, much less how to get free range chickens, foie gras, vine ripe tomatoes and live Maine lobsters. Hell, Oprah can’t even change a flat tire on her car.

            In the old days, the feudal lord reigned supreme over the serfs living within his kingdom. He had a castle/fort to protect his reign and the little people to grow his food and produce all the necessary goods for sustaining his rule. But today in the modern world, the super rich and powerful can’t even manage to cook their own meals or shop and acquire all the necessities that they demand.

            So when the SHTF, the masses will storm the compounds of the Elite–in this country 10,000 armed to the teeth citizens will clean out every single home of the rich and powerful in Silly Con valley.

            The WEF is the place where people go to Jack-o** and live in their perverted realty. It’s where they go to feel important and it makes them feel as if they really matter. Living in Fantasy Land is not a sign of power or real mental health.

        1. Quite possible. That brings up the question: who is behind them? The Rothschild clan? Or someone far more sinister?

          1. There’s nobody behind these clowns. They became self-appointed monsters because of the way this corrupt New World Order just worked out. You don’t need any sinister plots or controlling entities. George Orwell predicted all of this a long time before anything happened. Nothing like this has ever happened because modern technology didn’t exist and there were no government or economic entities to make anything like this from happening.

            We’re living in this madness because that what human beings do–the little experiment of liberty and freedom that was born called the United States of America is a singular aberrant society/nation in World History. Think about it, name me all of the societies in history that were like America. There are none.

            The normal evil processes have been working to take things back to “normal”. Things were going fine until Donald Trump came along and all of his MAGA supporters.

          2. AFAICT, the Luciferian Rothschild clan is at the top of the pyramid or bottom of the rabbit hole whichever you prefer.

          3. George Orwell

            I vaguely recall seeing that Orwell had ties to British intelligence. Here are a few dots I just came across.

            Via Britannica, “Orwell won scholarships to two of England’s leading schools, Wellington and Eton, and briefly attended the former before continuing his studies at the latter, where he stayed from 1917 to 1921. Aldous Huxley was one of his masters, and it was at Eton that he published his first writing in college periodicals.”

            Eton College Notable Alumni

            George Orwell
            Ian Fleming
            Aldous Huxley
            Prince William
            Prince Harry
            Former British Prime Ministers and Politicians

            🤔

          5. George Orwell predicted all of this a long time before anything happened.

            It is worth remembering that in ‘1984’, the public had no idea of who really ran Oceania. The Party fabricated “Big Brother” and most of the masses thought he was real.

  18. The pandemic boom and bust exposed how many agents were willing to ignore fiduciary duty to make a buck.

    Realtors have been ignoring fiduciary duty since time immemorial. Caveat emptor.

  19. “‘We tell a lot of buyers who were unfortunate when they bought during the bidding war frenzy during the first quarter: Don’t worry, the market will always come back, the GTA is resilient. But as long as you haven’t sold it, you haven’t accrued a loss.’

    The lemmings who base their financial decisions on “advice” from REIC shills deserve everything that’s going to happen to them.

    1. The Financial Times
      World Economic Forum
      Norway fund chief warns at Davos of ‘very, very low’ returns for stocks
      New cycle of Federal Reserve rate rises is ‘not that unlikely’, according to
      Nicolai Tangen
      Nicolai Tangen said US inflation could be poised to reaccelerate before this summer, in part because of the reopening of China
      Katie Martin in Davos 3 hours ago

      The stress for investors is not yet over after stock markets cleared out the “crap” that built up after the outbreak of Covid-19, with a long period of drab returns still lying ahead, the chief executive of Norway’s sovereign wealth fund has warned.

      US inflation could be poised to reaccelerate before this summer, in part because of the reopening of China, Nicolai Tangen said in an interview with the Financial Times.

      A new cycle of US interest rate rises is “not that unlikely”, Tangen said, and “not in anybody’s estimates”. Investors are expecting that the Federal Reserve will raise its main interest rate to 4.9 per cent this spring, from a range of 4.25 to 4.5 per cent currently, according to trading in federal funds futures.

      Aside from inflation, further pressure on markets could come from the damaging impact of the market declines of 2022. “We have not seen the secondary effects of the $30tn in wealth destruction we saw last year,” he said. “We haven’t seen it popping up anywhere. We haven’t seen any Japanese insurance companies going bust.”

      Taken together, that means that last year’s tough environment for investors, with simultaneous declines for stocks and bonds, is not over, Tangen warned. “I think we will see a long period of time with very, very low returns,” he said. “I think it takes a long time to sweat it out.”
      …

    2. Wall Street’s big predictions for 2023 are already crashing and burning
      Linette Lopez
      Jan 18, 2023, 5:53 AM
      illustration of the wall street bull looking into a shattered crystal ball with a crack that looks like a plummeting trendline
      From a US recession to a big China bounce back, Wall Street experts’ big predictions for 2023 are already going awry. Marianne Ayala/Insider

      Across Wall Street, finance workers of all stripes are returning to work after skiing, gallivanting around the Caribbean, or just visiting Mom for the holiday season. But as they settle in at their desks and turn on their trading terminals, they’re in for a rude welcome: The market is already making a mockery of their big predictions for 2023.

      Around the time everyone starts listening to Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” Wall Street’s phalanx of analysts and economists participate in their own annual tradition: rolling out long jargon-packed reports predicting what’s to come in the year ahead. These forecasts are supposed to make everyone involved — the analysts, the firms, the clients — look and feel as if they have some grasp on the future. They help create a veneer of stability: “Keep giving us your money; we’ve got this under control.” And when the world is actually stable, some of these predictions may hold up for a quarter or more. Some analysts may even get a call or two totally correct. 

      But 2023, like the past few pandemic-afflicted years, is already proving to be not a normal, stable year, and some of finance’s biggest predictions are souring as quickly as a carton of milk.

      Rates and recessions

      Wall Street’s collective predictions for the US economy paint a general picture of overaction and overreaction. Most analysts expect that the Federal Reserve’s campaign to get inflation under control by raising interest rates will prove effective but overzealous, triggering a recession during the first half of the year. This economic stumbling, the consensus goes, will force the Fed to drastically reverse course and lower interest rates in the second half of the year to avoid a more severe economic meltdown and massive job losses. And while the first part of that equation will be bad for the stocks, the support the Fed will have to inject into the system will (eventually) help the market get on better footing toward the end of 2023.

      In short: Thanks to the Fed’s clumsiness, things will get very bad for the market and the economy for a while, and then they will get much, much better. Or as the prognosticators at Amundi Asset Management put it, 2023 will be a “two-speed year.” Deutsche Bank’s analysts broke it down similarly: “The recession we have now been anticipating for nine months draws nearer. Our expectation for a recession in the US by mid-2023 has strengthened on the back of developments since last spring.” Bank of America was even more blunt: “Going into 2023, one expected shock remains: recession.”

      But reality is not acquiescing to these proclamations. Instead of a series of painful swings, the data is pointing to a smoother cooldown. This month we learned that the US economy added 223,000 jobs in December, job openings are sticking near record-high levels, and, despite headlines from the tech industry, layoffs remain incredibly low — not exactly a recipe for a recession. Plus, the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta is forecasting that fourth-quarter GDP could come in at as high as 4.1%. This kind of growth, taken together with lower energy prices and softening inflation data, is good news and certainly doesn’t scream “recession is coming.”

      That takes care of one half of the prediction. In Wall Street’s telling, the Fed is going to ratchet up interest rates until they break the economy and get forced into a hasty retreat. Take it from BlackRock Investment Institute’s forecasters: “A recession is foretold; central banks are on course to overtighten policy as they seek to tame inflation.”

      But there are clear signs that the price surges are already easing up. The latest consumer-price-index report said prices actually declined by 0.1% in December from the month before and were up by 6.5% from the year before — high, but well below the peak of 9.1% in July. And instead of making gung-ho proclamations about breaking inflation’s back, some Fed officials were already softening their stances after the CPI report, suggesting the central bank could hike by just 0.25% at its meeting in late January instead of a half percentage point, which isn’t the series of extremes Wall Street is predicting.

      Of course, there’s some uncertainty in all this, and Wall Street could still be proved right. After all, the Fed is unlikely to declare “mission accomplished” until inflation gets down to its 2% target and stays there. As the Apollo Global Management economist Torsten Slok pointed out in a recent note, if the market “concludes that ‘inflation is coming down, so everything is fine,'” the Fed may have to hike rates more aggressively to ensure prices don’t start ticking back up again. Raphael Bostic, the Atlanta Fed president, told reporters he wants to see the labor market and wage growth cool off some more before the Fed stops hiking rates. 

      But in order for Wall Street’s dramatic hike-then-cut prediction to come true, the Fed would have to jack up rates so high that something in the economy breaks, forcing an immediate course reversal. That could still happen, but we’re not seeing that strain in the data yet. 

      Already some Wall Street economists are revising their predictions given the strong economy, even if they’re not backing off their priors quite yet. At Bank of America, the economics team revised its forecast on Tuesday, writing that its “outlook still includes a mild recession, but we now expect it to start later and come with lower peak unemployment” due to “durability in consumer spending, strong labor markets, excess saving, declining energy prices, and easier financial conditions.”

      A weird world

      The world’s weirdness — pandemic, war, commodity-price convulsions, energy scarcity — has also prompted Wall Street to take a very dim view of the economic outlook for Europe, going so far as to forecast a deep recession. Analysts at Goldman Sachs think US resilience will contrast with a recession in the European Union. Fidelity described a recession in the UK and Europe as “almost certain.”

      It’s hard to blame these analysts given the striking change that Russia’s war on Ukraine has brought to the continent, principally the spike in energy prices. What the data is showing us so far is that eurozone economic activity is still slow, yes, but not as slow as analysts feared. Early this month the region’s S&P purchasing managers index, a composite of business activity, came in at 49.3 — still below 50, which shows a contraction, but above November’s reading of 47.8 and analysts’ expectations of 48.8. We’re still in the woods, but they may not be as dark and deep as we thought, especially if commodity prices continue their slide downward and weather in Europe remains unseasonably warm.

      Perhaps the one place where Wall Street is too sanguine is the Chinese economy. Like swallows returning to Capistrano, Wall Street is yet again predicting a return to normality for Beijing, a song it has found a reason to sing for years now. This time the bull case rests on the idea that the end of Beijing’s zero-COVID policy means the Chinese economy will fully bounce back from the pandemic and investing in the country — the China trade, as it’s called — is back on.

      Bank of America’s forecast argued that while recessions would grip the rest of the world, China’s bounce-back would be a “notable exception,” adding that the country’s reopening would be a “reprieve.” Pictet Asset Management called for a “China rebound.” Principal Asset Management ventured to say the rebound would be “strong.” Schroders recommended buying Chinese and Hong Kong equities.

      There are a couple problems with this idea. First, without “zero COVID,” China is just left with COVID. The pandemic is still suppressing growth. Officials claim that cases have peaked in large cities, but it’s impossible to know with certainty because they’re not releasing case numbers. The evidence we have of the pandemic’s ravages is anecdotal — satellite imagery showing crowds forming outside busy crematoriums, and rural doctors saying they’ve never seen so many sick people before.

      What’s clear is that the government is looking desperate when it comes to the economy. In a recent note, China Beige Book pointed out that China’s most worrisome long-term economic problems remain. Its largest growth engine and asset class, property, is still getting slammed. That has all sorts of ripple effects throughout the economy, such as starving local governments (which sell land to property developers) and depressing commodity prices for construction. So, in response to the pandemic, Beijing has eased restrictions it had placed on the property industry to stop it from overheating and taking parts of the country’s financial system with it. It’s a risky move.

      Desperate economic times call for desperate economic measures. It may take years to get the Chinese consumer, on which Wall Street has placed so many hopes, back to the strength of yesteryear. As the China Beige Book analysts wrote, “economic acceleration is not imminent and, when it does begin in the second quarter, will come from a low base by the standards of the past 40 years.”
      Don’t hatchet your chickens before they count
      …
      Linette Lopez is a senior correspondent at Insider.
      …
      https://news.yahoo.com/wall-streets-big-predictions-2023-105300313.html

    3. The Financial Times
      Technology sector
      Microsoft to cut 10,000 jobs in push to bring down costs
      Tech giant is the latest to trim staff following post-pandemic recruitment sprees
      Microsoft said its cost-cutting actions would result in it taking a $1.2bn charge in its second quarter
      Richard Waters in San Francisco an hour ago

      Microsoft has become the latest large tech company to reverse a pandemic-era recruitment spree in the face of a slowing economy, as it announced plans to shed 10,000 workers by the end of March, or nearly 5 per cent of its staff.

      The cuts extend the sharp correction that has swept through the tech sector in recent weeks as the historic boom in digital demand caused by Covid-19 has faded.
      …

    4. The Financial Times
      Amazon.com
      Amazon prepares to make about 10,000 job cuts to corporate workforce
      Ecommerce group grapples with slowing growth and rising costs in latest sign of Big Tech belt-tightening
      Amazon headquarters in Seattle
      Amazon headquarters in Seattle, Washington. Corporate job cuts have been rare at the ecommerce company
      Dave Lee in New York
      November 14 2022

      Amazon is planning to cut about 10,000 jobs from its corporate workforce as part of its effort to cut loose lossmaking or underperforming units of its business, a person familiar with its plans said.

      The person said the precise number had yet to be finalised. A cut of about 10,000 jobs would represent around 3 per cent of Amazon’s corporate workforce.

      It comes as part of a review into the ecommerce and cloud group’s performance, led by chief executive Andy Jassy.
      …
      https://www.ft.com/content/19cb5d06-f60e-41a3-aab6-0fcc060e2604

    5. Does it seem like the slightest reminder the Fed has taken away the punchbowl is all it takes to CR8R stocks?

      1. Stock Market Today: Dow Drops 613 Points After Hawkish Fed Talk
        Stocks initially opened higher, but swung into negative territory around lunchtime.
        By Karee Venema
        published 1 hour ago

        Stocks started Wednesday trading higher thanks to another encouraging reading on inflation. 

        However, the major benchmarks couldn’t sustain this early lead as dismal retail sales data stoked recession concerns and a Federal Reserve official threw support behind more interest-rate hikes. 

        Starting with the good news: The Labor Department this morning said its producer price index – which measures how much suppliers are charging businesses for goods – was up 6.2% year-over-year in December. This was down from November’s 7.2% rise and was the lowest annual increase since March 2021. Core CPI, which excludes volatile energy and food prices, increased 4.6%, a slower pace of growth than what was seen in November. Month-over-month, headline PPI fell 0.5%, while core PPI rose 0.1%.

        Today’s PPI echoes what was seen in last week’s consumer price index – that inflation is indeed easing as a result of the Federal Reserve’s aggressive interest-rate hiking campaign. However, inflation is cooling because the Fed’s rate hikes are slowing the economy. And this was seen in today’s retail sales report. Specifically, the Commerce Department said retail sales were down 1.1% from November to December, marking a second consecutive monthly decline.

        And while today’s economic reports might have led investors to believe the Fed could ease up on the scale of future rate hikes, St. Louis Fed President James Bullard said earlier at a Wall Street Journal event that he expects the benchmark rate to reach 5.25% to 5.5% by the end of 2023. This compares to the current rate of 4.25% to 4.5%, and is above market expectations for the benchmark rate to reach no higher than 5.0%, according to CME Group. 

        At the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 1.8% at 33,296, the S&P 500 was off 1.6% at 3,928, and the Nasdaq Composite was 1.2% lower at 10,957.
        …
        https://www.kiplinger.com/investing/stocks/stock-market-today-011823-dow-drops-613-points-after-hawkish-fed-talk

  22. “Buyers have come to accept higher (but still low) rates and sellers are recognizing the gravy train has stopped and the need for realistic pricing has taken its place.”

    Come on man, my benz payments don’t make by themselves!

  23. The Denton Record Chronicle in Texas. “A large round of year-end discounting by local home builders helped push pending sales to basically flat from a year ago. Those inventory discounts and promotions also helped push home prices lower.”

    “The pandemic boom and bust exposed how many agents were willing to ignore fiduciary duty to make a buck. As the Fed tightens policy and ends the era of free money, more levered speculators and unscrupulous behavior get exposed for what they always were. From crypto to real estate, the theme has been the same. If sunlight is a good disinfectant, real rates have a similar benefit.”

    – Home buyers are at the whims of 1) unscrupulous Realtors (but I repeat myself), and b) the unscrupulous Federal Reserve System (aka the Fed). Realtors represent themselves and their commissions. The Fed represents capital (banks and corps.). No one represents labor. Don’t expect different outcomes under the current system.
    – Trading shacks has replaced the real economy. Now that the bubble is bursting, what’s left? Few.
    – Between a rock and a hard place.
    – Real (inflation-adjusted) rates are still negative. Inflation is eating your family’s lunch. Recall that inflation starts with an increase in the money supply. Price follows with a delay.
    – From boom to bust and back again.
    – What’s left of the middle class (bourgeoisie) is under constant assault. Congress does nothing (positive) for citizens. Taxation without representation all over again.

    “The surest way to destroy a nation is to debauch its currency.” – Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

    “The way to crush the bourgeoisie is to grind them between the millstones of taxation and inflation.” – Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

    “The establishment of a central bank is 90% of communizing a nation.” – Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov Lenin

    “Fiat money eventually always goes back to its intrinsic value – zero.” – Voltaire

    “When you destroy the money, you destroy the glue that holds society together.” – Tony Deden

    “The tendency of an inconvertible paper money is to create fictitious wealth, bubbles, which by their bursting, produce inconvenience.” – Lord Liverpool

    “Nations are not ruined by one act of violence, but gradually and in an almost imperceptible manner by the depreciation of their circulating currency, through its excessive quantity.” – Nicolaus Copernicus

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMAIsqvTh7g
    Stuck in the Middle with you – Stealers Wheel
    9,235,802 views Nov 12, 2008

    “Stuck In The Middle With You”

    “Trying to make some sense of it all
    But I can see it makes no sense at all
    Is it cool to go to sleep on the floor?
    Well, I don’t think I can take anymore
    Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right
    Here I am, stuck in the middle with you”

    1. I have a friend who texted me this morning. She wanted some info on getting help caring for her grandmother who has dementia.
      I asked her what she was planning to do with her grandmother. Her family’s finances are already strapped, and she told me that she and her husband are thinking about adding a mother-in-law suite onto their house. Apparently her grandmother has a lot of money.

      Sounds more to me like they see grandma as their get out of debt scheme and another way to add equity to their home.

      1. They’ll have to watch her like a hawk. There’s a reason why memory care homes are like prisons. They are also very expensive.

      2. They look back 5 years to see if any of her assets were transferred to you………should have put her house in your name years ago

        The MIL idea could work if you lock her in securely or have a high fenced-in yard with locks on the gate….

      3. I hope their intentions are good. It takes a lot out of you. I’ve read stories about caregivers that died before the person they were taking care of did.

        1. My parents picked up and moved to the old homestead to take care of my grandmother in her later years. She wasn’t in very good shape. Her doctor told my mom a little while after that they had probably added ten years to her life.

          My mom: Oh my God, what have I done?

          It was hard on them. Nana lived to 104.

          1. LOL. I helped take care of my grandfather (died 102). One day I came along just in time to stop him from sawing off the corner of a kitchen cabinet. He had bumped his head on it and wanted to make sure it didn’t happen again.

        2. His solution to the cabinet problem seems reasonable to me! I’m not in my 100’s yet but if I make it that far I’m pretty sure I won’t GAF and will promptly remove any obstacles to my survival. I will probably keep a big heavy hammer and a sawzall nearby for such issues and you meddling kids better not interfere with my project or I’ll poke you in the ribs with my cane.

      4. It’s very compassionate of them. Respect for elders is certainly more of an old-fashioned idea these days.

    1. I just got into a mini-discussion in a YT comment section [paraphrase]:

      —————–
      Dude on YT: Banks are adopting crypto. It’s gonna change the world.

      oxide: Nobody has adopted crypto. True full adoption is when a country totally REPLACES its currency, like what happened with the Euro in 2002.

      Dude on YT: Oh yeah what about the banks who are adopting XRP for cross-border payments? It’s gonna replace SWIFT.

      oxide: Stop saying adoption. These banks just have a payment system for converting crypto into and out of dollars at point of sale, not replacing dollars entirely.

      Dude on YT: but the transactions are so much easier, you just don’t know that much about it.

      oxide: CBDCs will solve all the transaction friction too. Without full adoption, Bitcoin/crypto has no intrinsic value as a currency. And even with regulation, Bitcoin/crypto never had and never will have any type of value as an asset. Crypto is just not going to make it.

      Dude on YT: Go educate yourself. That is all.
      ——————-

      Oh well. At least he didn’t tell me to have fun staying poor.

      2. You guys may know I am a fan of crypto but I also work in the conventional payment space. I don’t see how any of the proposed crypto specs procees well at scale.
        “But XRP is so fast man….” LOL it uses this ancient thing called batching which we as payment processors are trying hard to get away from. Still at JPBorgan….also more upcoming layoffs

  25. Former CNN Mouthpiece Brian Stelter Leads Panel on “Disinformation” at World Economic Forum:

    “Brian Stelter, who had a show on CNN but no longer works at the once renowned “Fake News” outlet, led a panel discussion today at the World Economic Forum on “Disinformation”.

    Stelter was the king of “Fake News” at CNN and the laughing stock of those on the right who knew the facts that he was constantly trying to label disinformation. Whether it was about the Mueller sham, COVID or whatever, Stelter was always on the side of Fake News.

    America’s Constitution protects free speech. But EU official Vera Jourova believes that she has a better idea than free speech.

    The U.S. will “soon” have “illegal hate speech laws,” said European Union official Vera Jourova at a World Economic Forum (WEF) panel.

    Jourova participated in Tuesday’s WEF panel on “the clear and present danger of disinformation,” alongside former CNN Host Brian Stelter, Massachusetts Democratic Rep. Seth Moulton, New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger and media executive Jeanne Bourgault.

    https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/01/cant-make-former-cnn-mouthpiece-brian-stelter-leads-panel-disinformation-world-economic-forum/

    1. WEF == SPECTRE

      Yeah, they don’t have any space lasers, but they have patiently and quietly infiltrated almost every western government and more than a few third world ones as well. I’m sure the plan is to replace some of the older conservative Supremes with puppets, who will reinterpret the First and Second amendments in ways convenient for the WEF.

      There is clearly no voting our way out of this

      1. “no voting our way out of this”

        If they’re not a Fed or any elected official, creative solutions will be needed. Many Minecraft gaming strategies circulate on 4chan on this topic.

        Be safe out there kidz!

  26. 𝗦𝗽𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗩𝗮𝗹𝗹𝗲𝘆, 𝗖𝗔 𝗛𝗼𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗣𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗲𝘀 𝗖𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝟭𝟲% 𝗬𝗢𝗬 𝗔𝘀 𝗗𝗼𝘂𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗗𝗶𝗴𝗶𝘁 𝗣𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗲 𝗗𝗲𝗰𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀 𝗕𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗸𝗲𝘁 𝗦𝗮𝗻 𝗗𝗶𝗲𝗴𝗼 𝗖𝗼𝘂𝗻𝘁𝘆

    https://www.movoto.com/spring-valley-ca/market-trends/

    𝘈𝘴 𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘚𝘢𝘯 𝘋𝘪𝘦𝘨𝘰 𝘣𝘳𝘰𝘬𝘦𝘳 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘢𝘯𝘰𝘯𝘺𝘮𝘰𝘶𝘴𝘭𝘺, “𝘈𝘱𝘱𝘳𝘢𝘪𝘴𝘢𝘭 𝘧𝘳𝘢𝘶𝘥 𝘪𝘴 𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘸𝘦 𝘨𝘦𝘵 𝘣𝘶𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘴 𝘥𝘰𝘯𝘦.”

  28. “Buyers have come to accept higher (but still low) rates”

    Sales are down 50% but buyers are accepting the rates. Makes perfect sense.

    1. They’re “accepting” that interest rates have doubled. Doesn’t mean they are going to buy anything.

    2. If there were no people accepting the rates, then sales would be down 100%, not 50%. I guess these geniuses figure they can always “refinance later.” Just like 2005.

      2. From what I’ve read most current buyers are getting interest rate buydowns. So I don’t think even the record low number of buyers are accepting the rates.

        1. rate buydowns

          Which I think are imprudent. Realtors get a commission on it and the buyer will pay RE taxes on it. Just lower the price.

  29. Home Prices Break Through Floor – Jan. 2023 LA Housing Market Update
    Mike Weber Real Estate
    Jan 3, 2023
    In this episode, we finally see LA County median prices fall through the year over year floor they seemed to not want to break through for a while. In addition, days on market ticks up quite a bit and we experience the lowest number of pending and closed sales we’ve seen for a long time.

    Watch the video to find out what’s happening with pending sales, closed sales, median prices, and the supply of inventory.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsJhoEe11hg

    5:37.

    1. “In this episode, we finally see LA County median prices fall through the year over year floor they seemed to not want to break through for a while.”

      – Yeah, no one wants to sell at a loss, but anyone that needs to sell for various reasons – and people do, those comps are the new price. Comps work both on the way up and on the way down. Honey badger don’t care.
      – Enter the slow grind down as Housing Bubble 2.0 deflates.
      – The Spring selling season should be telling. Get out there and catch yourself a falling knife. /s
      – Think about it. Not rocket science. Mortgage rates went up by over 2x. House price is inversely proportional to rates, because it’s the payment that matters really. Do the maths. Unless rates go back to 3% or less – which seems unlikely – then prices are going lower. Welcome to the slow-motion train wreck of Housing Bubble 2.0 bursting.
      – There’s plenty of blame to go around for the bubble-nomics now called our economy. Start with the Fed and those that enable them.
      – Don’t forget “the five stages of grief.”
      – QE is ultimately deflationary, as the bubble that it inflated always bursts. The Everything Bubble, aka The Central Bank Bubble bursting should be one for the record books, since stonks, bonds, and RE.
      – Take your pick: Comforting lies or uncomfortable truths. I chose the red pill… 🙂

    1. Even the formerly teflon areas of central valley and far north have joined the big city sh$tholes in rolling over YOY.

      It’s most definitely different this time.

  34. ‘We tell a lot of buyers who were unfortunate when they bought during the bidding war frenzy during the first quarter: Don’t worry, the market will always come back, the GTA is resilient. But as long as you haven’t sold it, you haven’t accrued a loss.’

    That;s right Sam, hold yer ground, don’t give it away.

    ‘One notable example of a property selling at a major loss involved a Brampton home which traded in the first quarter of 2022 (the height of the market) for $2,650,000. Towards the end of 2022, the same property sold under power of sale for $1,850,000 – a stark difference of $800,000 within the span of six to eight months’

    Well fudge.

  36. “For all the talk about rampant pessimism, retail still loves stocks. Household equity exposure remained above its long-term average all of last year and has increased over the past two months.”

    Same story as every bubble burst in history.

    “Don’t worry, the market will always come back, the GTA is resilient. But as long as you haven’t sold it, you haven’t accrued a loss.”

    This is why most traders lose. The reason they don’t lose in RE is because we bankrupted the country with decades of insane monetary/fiscal/tax distortions to keep them and their money together for a while longer.

  37. ‘If you want this house, you have to make an offer today…We saw a lot of bus remorse’

    Good advice Jen!

    ‘We’re not seeing that now’

  38. ‘The median price of a detached home in the valley declined to $640,000, down almost 10% from the peak of $710,000 a few months ago. Palm Springs is the only valley city that saw a year-over-year price decrease…the reason for the decline in prices, the housing report says, is a little more complicated than an abundance of supply over demand. Instead, the change from a ‘premium market’ to a ‘discount market’ could account for much of the average price decline. For example, ‘homes which sold for 2% over list now sell for 2% under,’ the report said. ‘With no change in list price, this accounts for a 4% decline’

    I’ll just let that one hang out there.

    1. I remember when Palm Springs was supposed to be some glitzy place in the desert, a separate haven where Hollywood’s elite could go to get away from it all. I have never been there, but from what I have seen in youtube videos it looks pretty much the same as the rest of SoCal. I also saw a video of a house that was unoccupied that once belonged to a celeb, Dean Martin perhaps. It looked very ordinary, small and unassuming.

      2. So funny, Tucker Carlson had a segment tonight on the World Economic Forum. . .He was mocking them, calling them wackos and morons.
        Apparently Al Gore showed up screaming about Climate Change, saying the seas are going to boil and rain bombs everywhere etc ,etc.
        Seriously Al Gore is such a con artist fraudster, that it isn’t even funny. . All those Cult members at the WEF are self serving power mongers that want to harm the human race.

      3. Summers in Palm Springs are unbearable. It’s basically a town in the desert where well off people go to die. They buy homes in one of the estates (planned communities) which all have golf courses. After a few years, the old folks can’t play golf anymore, they can’t even visit the clubhouse. Then they die.

        It’s a very depressing place for anyone who is less than 50 and healthy.

    2. With no change in list price

      Admitting that they don’t even talk about what a house sells for, only the asking price?

  41. Does ‘commercial real estate’ include single-family housing that was snapped up by institutional investors to rent it out while waiting for the price to go up?

    “Some of the biggest investors in US commercial real estate are looking to cash in before property values slide further. A group of property funds for institutional investors ended last year with $20 billion in withdrawal requests, the biggest waiting line since the Great Recession, according to IDR Investment Management.”

  43. Is it a bad sign for stock HODLers if Treasury bonds rally as stocks tumble?

    This situation has traditionally been known as a flight to quality.

    1. Bonds
      10-year Treasury yield tumbles below 3.44% after producer prices decline by more than expected
      Published Wed, Jan 18 2023 1:59 AM EST
      Updated Wed, Jan 18 2023 2:16 PM EST
      Samantha Subin
      Tanaya Macheel
      Elliot Smith

      U.S. Treasury yields fell on Wednesday as December’s producer price index hinted that inflation may have reached its peak.

      The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note dropped 14 basis points to 3.388%, its lowest level since September. The yield on the 30-year Treasury bond shed 9 basis points to 3.553%. Yields move inversely to prices.
      …
      https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/18/treasury-yields-fall-as-traders-assess-data-fed-outlook.html

    2. हिंदी में पढ़ें

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      Business News » Global Markets News
      US Stock Market Today: Dow Jones closes over 600 points lower, Nasdaq declines 138 points

      US Stock Market Today News: The S&P 500 fell 1.6% after having been up as much as 0.6% in the early going. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 1.8% and the Nasdaq composite slid 1.2%.

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      US Stock Market Today: Dow Jones closes over 600 points lower, Nasdaq declines 138 points
      US Stock Market Today: Dow Jones closes over 600 points lower, Nasdaq declines 138 points Pic: Reuters

      Wall Street had its biggest pullback of the year Wednesday after a broad slide for stocks wiped out much of the benchmark S&P 500 index’s gains from last week. The S&P 500 fell 1.6% after having been up as much as 0.6% in the early going. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 1.8% and the Nasdaq composite slid 1.2%, ending a seven-day winning streak. The losses are reversal for the market, which kicked off the year with a two-week rally.
      …

    1. The Financial Times
      Cryptocurrencies
      Crypto broker Genesis prepares to file for bankruptcy as soon as this week
      Firm could become the latest casualty from turmoil in the digital asset sector following FTX’s collapse
      The Genesis website on a smartphone
      Genesis and its owner, SoftBank-backed crypto conglomerate Digital Currency Group, have been in negotiations with creditors since mid-November
      Nikou Asgari in London and Joshua Oliver in New York yesterday

      Crypto broker Genesis is preparing to file for bankruptcy as soon as this week, according to people familiar with the matter, as the company works towards a deal with creditors after months of wrangling.

      A filing would make Genesis the latest crypto casualty to follow the implosion of Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX exchange, which has sent shockwaves through the digital asset industry.

      Genesis and its owner, SoftBank-backed crypto conglomerate Digital Currency Group, have been in negotiations with creditors since mid-November. Genesis owes creditors more than $3bn, the Financial Times previously reported, including $900mn to customers of Gemini, the crypto exchange of Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, and €280mn to Dutch exchange Bitvavo.

      A pre-packaged bankruptcy deal for Genesis is being negotiated with creditors and would include cash and equity in DCG, one of the people said. It could be finalised as soon as this week.

      Genesis and DCG did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

      Genesis’ troubles began soon after the collapse of FTX. The company, which was one of the biggest lenders in the crypto market, halted customer withdrawals citing “unprecedented market turmoil” and liquidity issues. It has since been scrambling unsuccessfully to find fresh funding.

      Negotiations with creditors burst into public this month after Cameron Winklevoss called for DCG’s board to sack its chief executive, Barry Silbert, accusing him of bad faith tactics in negotiations with creditors. Winklevoss’ exchange, Gemini, used Genesis as its main lending partner on a crypto “earn” programme that gave retail investors high yields in return for lending out their coins.

      A Genesis bankruptcy would be a significant blow for Silbert’s crypto group, which includes trade publication CoinDesk and asset manager Grayscale.

      CoinDesk, which also runs one of the largest annual crypto conferences, Consensus, on Wednesday hired Lazard as investment bankers to explore a sale of all or part of the company, according to people briefed about the matter. CoinDesk has been privately seeking a deal for months.

      News of a potential sale of CoinDesk was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.
      …

    2. Forbes
      Money
      950 More Employees To Lose Their Jobs As Coinbase Goes For Another Round Of Layoffs
      Q.ai – Powering a Personal Wealth Movement
      Contributor
      Making wealth creation easy, accessible and transparent.
      Jan 18, 2023, 02:21pm EST

      Key takeaways:
      – It was announced on Jan. 10, 2022 that Coinbase would be slashing its workforce by about 20% (which translates to 950 employees) in an effort to reduce overall operating expenses by 25%.
      – This is the second round of layoffs for the crypto exchange, as they laid off 18% of the workforce last June as the crypto winter sets in and the space attempts to recover from the disastrous year.
      – Many analysts feel that we’re in for a long crypto winter after the collapse of Luna and the FTX implosion. The recent layoffs indicate that it could take significant time for the crypto space to rebound to the levels it reached in 2021.
      …
      https://www.forbes.com/sites/qai/2023/01/18/950-more-employees-to-lose-their-jobs-as-coinbase-goes-for-another-round-of-layoffs/?sh=48ddc7cf2a29

    3. Markets News Report
      Genesis Parent DCG Halts Dividend Payments to Conserve Liquidity After FTX Implosion
      By Shraddha Sharma
      18 January 2023, 11:00 GMT+0000
      Updated by Kyle Baird
      18 January 2023, 11:00 GMT+0000

      In Brief
      – Digital Currency Group has said it is halting quarterly dividends to conserve funds.
      – This month, DCG also wound down its wealth management division.
      – The FTX implosion has impacted Barry Silbert’s DCG.

      Digital Currency Group, the parent of ailing cryptocurrency company Genesis Global, has said it is halting quarterly dividends to conserve funds.

      The company’s letter to shareholders stated that the group is committed to enhancing its balance sheet by reducing operational costs and cash management.

      DCG Reeling Under Financial Stress

      According to reports, the group shut down its wealth management business HQ Digital earlier this month, It became yet another victim of the FTX implosion. Since the FTX collapse, the Digital Currency Group has been employing drastic cost-cutting measures.

      According to reports, the Grayscale parent laid off 30% of the employees at cryptocurrency lender Genesis and closed its headquarters. It owes more than $3 billion to creditors. DCG’s subsidiary is reportedly considering selling off assets from its sizable venture portfolio to obtain money.

      BeInCrypto previously reported that Genesis is on the verge of filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. In a letter published on Jan. 10, CEO Barry Silbert told the shareholders, “Bad actors and repeated blow-ups have wreaked havoc on our industry, with ripple effects extending far and wide.”

      Gemini Targets Genesis CEO

      The letter was in response to Gemini co-founder Cameron Winklevoss asking Genesis to address the issues of Gemini Earn. Winklevoss published a second letter targeting the Genesis CEO.

      Winklevoss described a complex intertwining of transactions between DCG’s Genesis and Three Arrows Capital (3AC). He also accused DCG of accounting fraud and disseminating misinformation about the firm’s financial standing.

      Meanwhile, Grayscale is locking horns with the US Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) regarding its ETF offering.

      The bankrupt exchange recently told creditors that cyber-attacks resulted in the theft of around $415 million.
      …

    5. Tech
      Cryptocurrency
      Don’t be fooled: Crypto is going up because of market manipulation
      Whenever you see cryptocurrency prices suddenly rise, that’s probably why.
      By Matt Binder on January 17, 2023
      Crypto market manipulation
      A handful of big players pull all the strings when it comes to the cryptocurrency market.
      Credit: GETTY

      We’re not just a couple of weeks into 2023 and crypto prices are spiking. Seeing number go up might entice you to throw some money into Bitcoin or Ethereum. After all, maybe this is the beginning of another crypto bull market? You wouldn’t want to miss out!

      Well, just wait a minute. Consider this first: Why are crypto prices suddenly rising?

      There are plenty of analysts out there trying to make logical sense of the recent bump in cryptocurrencies value – inflation is slowing, belief that the Federal Reserve is done with hiking interest rate hiking, bullish news on crypto – but no, that’s not really it. 

      There’s been no big positive news in the industry. There aren’t reports of some new, mainstream avenues of adoption. Sure, the stock market is up a bit right now in the new year, but not at the same level cryptocurrency is. 

      So, what’s going on here? Market manipulation.

      Bitcoin is riding high, but isn’t heading to the moon anytime soon

      Bitcoin is hovering over $21,000 as of mid-January, a price that has not been seen since early November 2022. That was before the collapse of FTX, one of the largest crypto exchanges in the world. Crypto took a pounding in 2022, as major stablecoins, lenders, and other crypto companies failed, causing domino effects throughout the industry. 

      However, things are not looking up. Even though one of the most tumultuous years for crypto is behind us, 2023 thus far has not treated crypto much better with the failure of Gemini Earn and crypto lender Nexo’s offices being raided over allegations of illegal activity. There’s no good news on the horizon. In addition, the majority of retail inventors now view cryptocurrency as too risky, so who’s buying?

      As longtime cryptocurrency writer and critic David Gerard explains: The big players in the industry are “buying” in order to control the market.

      “The bitcoin price is whatever the large players need it to be,” writes Gerard. “The market is very thin and trivially manipulable with the billions of pseudo-dollars in unbacked stablecoins on the unregulated offshore exchanges. The price needs to be high enough so the big boys’ loans don’t get liquidated; but it needs to be low enough so that the bagholders don’t attempt to cash out.”

      John Reed Stark, a former SEC official, concurred with Gerard’s assessment. 

      “​​A recent Forbes analysis of 157 crypto exchanges found that 51 percent of daily bitcoin trading volume being reported was likely bogus,” tweeted Stark, referring to a Forbes report from last summer.

      Who is doing the buying? It’s not clear

      A more recent study from the National Bureau of Economic Research found that “wash trades accounted for up to 70 percent of all transactions on non-compliant crypto exchanges, suggesting most trades on these platforms are fraudulent.”

      Wash trading is basically when an investor trades with itself in order to make it look like there is activity in the market in order to boost value. Basically, it’s market manipulation.

      So when you hear investment advice from people like Anthony Scaramucci, the guy who worked as communication director for Trump’s White House for about 10 days in 2017, proceed with caution. Scaramucci now heads up an investment firm called SkyBridge Capital and recently told CNBC that 2023 will be a “recovery year” for Bitcoin, with prices skyrocketing backup to new highs in two or three years.

      It’s important to note that 30 percent of SkyBridge Capital was bought out by FTX about two months before the exchange collapsed. The firm made significant crypto investments with the tens of millions from that deal, right before crypto tanked even further. Scaramucci recently said that he’s hoping that SkyBridge can buy back the stake it sold to FTX. So, it’s not too shocking for Scaramucci to be putting “good vibes” out there for crypto so the firm can make a return on their investments.

      It’s just yet another way the big crypto companies and investment funds manipulate the market.
      …
      https://mashable.com/article/crypto-prices-up-market-manipulation-bitcoin

    6. The Financial Times
      Opinion Cryptocurrencies
      The clowns of cryptoland haven’t given up
      Making money out of failure is morally bankrupt
      Jemima Kelly
      Illustration of a tower made from cards looking like it is about to topple over, with its peak tilting to the right
      Jemima Kelly 4 hours ago

      You would be forgiven for thinking that, with Sam Bankman-Fried awaiting trial over the allegedly “epic” fraud at FTX, the collapse of a raft of crypto platforms and US regulators suing two major crypto firms for selling unregistered securities, the clowns of cryptoland might try to stay below the parapet for a while. But, sadly, you would be wrong.

      This week the giggles and groans came courtesy of a new venture calling itself “GTX”, whose co-founders, Su Zhu and Kyle Davies, are none other than the co-founders of the bankrupt crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital. The fund collapsed last year, dragging many other crypto firms down with it. It is being investigated in the US over whether it broke rules by misleading investors about the health of its balance sheet.

      But this new venture, which is seeking to raise $25mn “ASAP by end of February” according to its pitch deck, is not just any old crypto exchange. Zhu and Davies are partnering with the co-founders of CoinFLEX, an exchange that filed for debt restructuring last year as it sought to recover losses of $84mn. Their aim is to set up an exchange that allow customers to trade their crypto bankruptcy claims.

      That’s right: these men — who, to be fair, can pretty safely be considered experts in bankruptcy — are offering you the chance to trade in your claim to get your money back from the likes of FTX and Celsius (another crypto platform that collapsed last year and whose founder is being sued for fraud). All you need do is hand over your claims to these people and in return they will give you their shiny new crypto money to play with, which will apparently be called “USDG”. Why are they calling the venture GTX you might ask? “Because G comes after F”, one of its pitch decks says.

      After widespread mockery across the internet, CoinFLEX has now said this was just a “placeholder” name. But whatever the new exchange is called, what they are attempting to do here is clear: make money from the very failings that they have themselves been associated with, and which have caused financial ruin to so many.

      Zhu even told the Wall Street Journal that some Three Arrows creditors — who are collectively owed an eye-popping $3.5bn by the firm — would “have the option to convert their claims into equity in the new claim-trading company”.

      You have to admire the sheer brazenness of these people. But surely they can’t get away with this?

      The lamentable thing is that, in the Wild West of crypto, they may just be able to. The market is showing signs of life, with bitcoin having clawed back some of its losses and trading up over a quarter so far this year. And they wouldn’t be the first founders of a collapsed crypto project to go on and set up another and even to make a lot of money from it. Do Kwon, the founder of the collapsed Terra/Luna “algorithmic stablecoin” project that at one point was worth more than $41bn, and who now faces legal action in several countries, had previously been the co-founder of a rather similar stablecoin named Basis Cash, which had itself collapsed in 2021.

      “There are two sides to crypto — the shysters and the suckers,” finance and economics commentator Frances Coppola tells me. “The shysters, when they walk away from one failed venture, they’ll just set up another one . . . If you can do it all again, why not?”
      …

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