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Because So Many Are Competing For The Same Group Of Buyers, Sellers May Find Their Properties Languishing On The Market

A report from KING TV in Washington. “‘January 1, of 2022 was a high water mark, the real estate market was red hot. Houses were selling for a half million bucks over the asking price. January 2023, is a whole different world and the values have actually gone down,’ said King County Assessor John Wilson. ‘Last year especially on the east side, it was not unusual for us to see values go up, oh, 30%, 35%, 40% or more. That’s simply not sustainable economically over a repeated number of years, so what you’re seeing is market course correction.'”

“Meg Barlament, real estate broker for Windermere, tells first-time homebuyers to be patient. ‘It is definitely not a sprint. It’s a marathon. What I like to tell people is if they don’t get the house that they put an offer in and it goes to someone else just know that just means your house isn’t on the market yet,’ Barlament said. Values of commercial office buildings fell by 15% to 20%, reflecting the impact of a transition to less in-office work activity.”

From Realtor.com. “As you might have guessed, a buyer’s market favors homebuyers, not sellers. But what, exactly, does that mean? ‘If you are in the market for a new home, it’s an ideal time to make your move,’ says Jordan Skurnik, a licensed real estate salesperson at Citi Habitats in New York. Why? ‘You may be able to use the excess inventory to your advantage and secure your dream home for a lower price,’ Skurnik says. ‘With little competition, buyers can negotiate with sellers to include a home warranty, cover part of the closing costs,’ says Candice Williams, a Re/Max Space Center realtor in League City, TX. Plus, buyers in this situation typically control the closing date, she says.”

“As you can imagine, a buyer’s market is not a particularly good time for sellers. ‘Because so many other sellers are competing for the same group of buyers, sellers may find their properties languishing on the market, sometimes for a year or more,’ says Dolly Hertz, licensed associate real estate broker at Engel & Völkers New York Real Estate.”

The Real Deal. “Airbnb hit back in court as New York City looks to enforce Local Law 18. The short-term rental company filed two lawsuits against the city on Thursday, Crain’s reported. One listed the company as a plaintiff and the other was filed on behalf of three local hosts, but both want the same ending: an injunction against the law while the cases are being litigated. Enforcement technically began last month, but the city hasn’t wielded its ax against payment transactions yet. Still, the freeze cast across short-term rentals in the city is significant — only 29 units were registered as of May 3.”

“‘Airbnb will have to cancel thousands of registrations,’ company attorney Karen Dunn told the outlet. ‘New York City will be the Grinch who stole summer.'”

Bisnow Washington DC. “Monday Properties is the largest office owner in Rosslyn and one of the largest in the region. It will now try to save its portfolio through the special servicing process. The landlord can try The owner went into monetary default on a $150M mezzanine loan backing the 2.1M SF portfolio after it failed to make its May payment, according to information shared with Bisnow. Monday Properties’ $691M senior loan is expected to go to special servicing as it hasn’t been able to refinance it ahead of the June 9 maturity date. to reach an agreement to restructure the loans and avoid handing the properties back to the lender.”

“‘They can work with the special servicer to get some concessions, change the payment stream, find a way to put some dollars in,’ said Morningstar Credit Head of CRE Analytics David Putro. ‘So it’s not necessarily an indication that they would walk away, but up against a hard maturity date there’s really no alternative. They’re not unique in saying, ‘Let it go to special servicing and we’ll attempt a workout from there.'”

From Politico. “The next risk looming over the nation’s banks is in plain sight: the $20 trillion commercial real estate market. Some $1.5 trillion in mortgages will come due in the next two years, a potential time bomb as higher interest rates and spiraling office vacancies push down property values. The pandemic-induced rise of remote work has hammered offices. The office vacancy rate hit 18.6 percent in the first quarter of 2023 — well above the pre-pandemic level — according to an estimate from Cushman and Wakefield, which doesn’t expect vacancy rates to stabilize until 2024.”

“‘That could be a train wreck waiting to happen,’ warned Dan Tarullo, a former top Fed official who overhauled bank regulations in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. ‘All you have to do is walk through the downtown of a major American city.’ ‘The way these loans are structured, you’re mostly paying interest, not principal, so you have to roll over most of the loan’ when it comes due, said Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh, a Columbia Business School professor of real estate and finance. ‘The bank will say, no, the interest rate is now 6 percent instead of 3 percent 10 years ago, which means that your building is now worth 40 percent lower.'”

The Globe and Mail. “The second-floor apartment of Italian artist and author Chiara Rapaccini faces what used to be a tranquil street in the heart of Monti, a bewitching little quarter near the Roman Forum and Colosseum that has existed since ancient times and, until about 15 years ago, felt as serene as a Tuscan village. Today, tourist hell would be a better description. Ms. Rapaccini’s cobblestone street buzzes all day and night with tourists stumbling in and out of bars, shabby restaurants that cater to visitors, not locals, and Airbnbs. On a few nights, she finds the noise so unbearable that she drags a small mattress into her kitchen, at the back of the apartment, where it is quiet enough to sleep. ‘We are new to this confusion, this chaos,’ she told me from her nearby art studio. ‘The worst are the Americans. They get drunk outside and make a lot of noise.'”

“Nathalie Naim, an Italian-Canadian municipal councillorfor the historic centre of Rome – she lives in Monti – has been fighting the degradation of her neighbourhood for years. She has fought the new liquor licences that allow businesses that normally don’t sell booze, such as art galleries, to do so. Her pitch for laws that would slow or stop the proliferation of Airbnbs has so far gone unheeded, though she is picking up political allies. ‘Italy has no brakes for short-term rentals,’ she said. ‘It’s all about making money.'”

“London imposed an annual cap of 90 days for which hosts can rent out their properties. The limit in Paris is 120 days. In Amsterdam, entire homes can be rented out for only 30 days a year. In Rome, zero limits. Ms. Rapaccini sees Monti taking the same route. She invented a word for its transformation: Trasteverizzato, a play on Trastevere and terrorized. ‘It’s impossible to change this situation in Rome,’ she said. ‘It’s all about money, money, money, not preservation. More tourism, more alcohol, more Airbnbs. I am so sad about this.'”

From News.com.au. “An Airbnb host’s ‘ridiculous’ list of rules — including restrictions on toilet paper, luggage allowances and an off-limits washing machine — has gone viral as thousands of Aussies complain the platform has become overrun with ‘entitled’ hosts. ‘This is mainly short stay place, so we don’t expect much luggage with the guest,’ the list began. ‘If you have more than 2 big items with each guest, you have to keep in external storage. Visitors strictly not allowed, without prior permission from me! No use of washing machine or kitchen for guests staying less than 4 days. Washing machine use only once every 4 days for long term guests.’ And it continued: ‘Working or studying from home not allowed. WIFI only adequate for making video calls or light internet use. Toilet roll supplied only on first day. No cooking or washing machine use for guests staying less than 4 days. Long stayers will have to do their own cleaning and buying rolls and consumables.'”

“‘Your thoughts?’ the Reddit user who shared the list asked. The post attracted more than 3000 commenters — many of whom, it turned out, had strong opinions. In fact, several said growing host ‘entitlement’ was turning them away from Airbnb. ‘Want to pay the same rate as a hotel for 25 per cent of the amenities? We got an app for that,’ one person joked. ‘I really don’t understand why people still put up with Airbnb. All of these ridiculous rules are just not worth the headache of staying there,’ another said.”

Vietnam Investment Review. “Minister of Planning and Investment Nguyen Chi Dung, speaking at a meeting of the National Assembly on June 1 to discuss the current socioeconomic situation, said a recent report from the ministry (MPI) on business registration suggested that the real estate business continues to be the most adversely affected sector. Minister Dung said, ‘Around 143,000 enterprises from all industries withdrew from the market last year, an increase of 19.5 per cent on-year. Some sectors saw a higher percentage than others, with real estate companies representing a 42 per cent jump and finance, banking and insurance witnessing a 35 per cent increase in withdrawals.'”

“On average, four real estate companies dissolve each day, and the larger real estate companies are also struggling. Novaland has just announced its profit projection for 2023, down more than 90 per cent on-year, and Vinhomes is considering selling some of its projects in Hanoi, Hung Yen, and Haiphong to foreign investors.”

From Reuters. “China’s new home prices fell for the first time in four months in May and home sales slumped, according to a private survey. Home sales by value by property developers fell 18.8 per cent from a month earlier, the independent real estate research firm said in a separate statement. Demand remains bleak in small cities as consumers are still cautious about big ticket spending amid concerns over incomes and jobs as a post-pandemic economic recovery loses steam.”

“‘We see no sign of a new round of big easing/stimulus for the property sector yet, even markets have been increasingly worried about the weakness of the property markets and its spillover effect,’ said Nomura in a research note. These (bearish) property market data will likely further weigh on China-related assets in the next couple of weeks,’ said Nomura.”

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This Post Has 94 Comments

  1. ‘Houses were selling for a half million bucks over the asking price. January 2023, is a whole different world and the values have actually gone down…Last year especially on the east side, it was not unusual for us to see values go up, oh, 30%, 35%, 40% or more. That’s simply not sustainable economically over a repeated number of years’

    I’ve been making that point John. If prices go up 40% one year, then 30% the next, what does that add up to?

    Sound lending!

      1. Maybe this time is different, but the last time interest rates were anywhere near the all-time historic lows of the pandemic were the early 1960s.

        Sixty years is a long time to wait for low rates to return!

      2. You can only refi if the home value is higher than the loan balance. If you don’t have at least 20% equity, you get to pay PMI, which can be $200-300 a month.

  2. ‘Because so many other sellers are competing for the same group of buyers, sellers may find their properties languishing on the market, sometimes for a year or more’

    Et tu, Dolly?

    1. A home sitting on the market for over a year is a sure sign of a seller in denial who is unwilling to acknowledge that the market has shifted and no buyers are willing to pay their wishing price.

      I suggest these sellers either permanently take their homes off the market, or else incrementally lower their asking prices at frequent intervals until an offer is received.

      1. Here’s a fun new listing: 16623 Avenida Florencia, Poway, CA 92064 $2.2M for 2 bathrooms and a 2-car garage!

        This one’s taking a long time to close: 12904 Stone Canyon Rd, Poway, CA 92064
         It went pending 4/28.
        02/01/2023 Listed $2,200,000 $763
        11/28/2022 Listing removed
        10/27/2022 Listed $2,200,000 $763
        10/26/2022 Listing removed

        This one just cut the price $80K: 17732 Del Paso Dr, Poway, CA 92064
        06/02/2023 Price Changed $2,320,000 $672
        03/25/2023 Listing removed
        03/24/2023 Listed $2,400,000 $695
        12/06/2022 Listed $2,420,000 $701

        2. This home looks like it has plenty of storage, e.g., the pantry and the laundry room cabinetry. But I didn’t see any walk-in closets. 🙁 The kitchen’s stove needs a serious hood over it that moves air, lots of air! That front door looks folksy like Mr. Ed could visit for an apple and whistle at the missus in a summer dress. A huge turn-off is that oily asphalt driveway. WTF? How about concrete, or better yet, a hand set stone driveway? Lots of thirsty foliage around there.

          1. Mismatched cool and warm tones throughout. Pool seems tiny. Nice lot and location though.

          1. Ugh, another asphalt driveway. There’s zero curb appeal to that place. The modernist interior is overdone; imagine a hangover in there, nothing calming or soothing.

      1. I’ll join in.
        One place in the neighborhood listed 5/18/2023 at $574,950.
        Dropped $75K in one fell swoop 6/5/2023 to $499,900.
        Source: GLVAR #2496538

  3. ‘On average, four real estate companies dissolve each day, and the larger real estate companies are also struggling. Novaland has just announced its profit projection for 2023, down more than 90 per cent on-year, and Vinhomes is considering selling some of its projects in Hanoi, Hung Yen, and Haiphong to foreign investors’

    And Vietnam is probably the strongest horse in the Asian glue factory.

    1. People I know with relatives in Vietnam say the real estate there costs more than in the US and Europe.

  4. “it was not unusual for us to see values go up, oh, 30%, 35%, 40% or more”

    Respiratory virus?

    Gotta be that respiratory virus.

    1. The Wall Street Journal
      Opinion
      Review & Outlook
      The Fed’s Long-Tail Housing Market
      A new New York Federal Reserve study shows how easy money has kept home prices high.
      By The Editorial Board
      May 16, 2023 6:17 pm ET
      You may also like
      Wonder Land: Whether it’s the border, the economy or crime, the progressive way of governance is that no policy mistake can change—ever.
      Images: AP/AFP/Getty Images Composite: Mark Kelly

      If inflation proves to be stubborn, the Federal Reserve can blame in part the impact on the housing market of the long and variable lags of its pandemic easy money. As a New York Federal Reserve Bank analysis this week shows, low interest rates fueled a refinance boom, which continues to support home prices and consumer spending.
      …

      1. “A new New York Federal Reserve study shows how easy money has kept home prices high.”

        This discovery is right up there with the wheel.

      2. But I was told the price explosion was due to 1) work from home, 2) unbridled Millennial demand, and 3) shortage.

        Easy money was not a factor at all. Those billboards advertising all cash loans from Homie Cash off I-15 did not cause a spark in Boise, no sir!

  5. That’s simply not sustainable economically over a repeated number of years, so what you’re seeing is market course correction.’”

    Gosh, what if we’re really seeing a bursting housing bubble?

  6. “Meg Barlament, real estate broker for Windermere, tells first-time homebuyers to be patient. ‘It is definitely not a sprint. It’s a marathon. What I like to tell people is if they don’t get the house that they put an offer in and it goes to someone else just know that just means your house isn’t on the market yet,’ Barlament said.

    “Buying into a bursting housing bubble would be a financial calamity,” said no realtor ever.

  7. . ‘Because so many other sellers are competing for the same group of buyers, sellers may find their properties languishing on the market, sometimes for a year or more,’ says Dolly Hertz, licensed associate real estate broker at Engel & Völkers New York Real Estate.”

    But…but…Suzanne assured me that this listing was special.

  8. “‘Airbnb will have to cancel thousands of registrations,’ company attorney Karen Dunn told the outlet. ‘New York City will be the Grinch who stole summer.’”

    Die, speculator scum!

    1. Governments need to crack down on STR in residential neighborhoods. It’s one thing to have them in tourist areas like Disney World or the beach, but there’s no reason to have them in Phoenix, Dallas, or Atlanta. Maybe the HOA’s can ban them if the government won’t. I’d like to see the RE parasites eradicated

  9. “The next risk looming over the nation’s banks is in plain sight: the $20 trillion commercial real estate market. Some $1.5 trillion in mortgages will come due in the next two years, a potential time bomb as higher interest rates and spiraling office vacancies push down property values.

    The wipeout of Yellen Bux “value” from cratering CRE in commie-controlled cities is going to be downright Biblical. Got popcorn?

  10. “‘We see no sign of a new round of big easing/stimulus for the property sector yet, even markets have been increasingly worried about the weakness of the property markets and its spillover effect,’ said Nomura in a research note.”

    They could just as well be describing US property markets as China.

    The game is over, boys. Time to take your ball and go home.

    1. POLITICO
      FINANCE & TAX
      The next big threat hovering over the U.S. economy
      Some $1.5 trillion in mortgages will come due in the next two years, a potential time bomb as higher interest rates push down property values.
      A view of office buildings in San Francisco, Calif.
      The pandemic-induced rise of remote work has hammered offices.
      | Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
      By KATY O’DONNELL
      06/05/2023 04:30 AM EDT

      As the federal government strives to contain financial market turmoil, the next risk looming over the nation’s banks is in plain sight: the $20 trillion commercial real estate market.

      Some $1.5 trillion in mortgages will come due in the next two years, a potential time bomb as higher interest rates and spiraling office vacancies push down property values.

      And because 70 percent of bank-held commercial mortgages sit on the balance sheets of regional and smaller lenders, a write-down in commercial loans could spell big trouble for the financial system and spill over into the larger economy just as the 2024 presidential campaign gets underway.

      With the country careening toward a possible recession, the financial system is especially vulnerable to shocks as the turbulence sparked by the collapse of three regional banks showed. Adding a commercial real estate market slide to the mix would be particularly perilous. It’s a concern that’s top of mind for policymakers in Washington — even as they acknowledge there’s not a lot they can do to fend off a crisis.

      “Am I worried? The short answer is yes,” Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), a senior member of the Senate Banking Committee, said in an interview. “The long answer is hell yes.”

      “I hope the Federal Reserve and the banking regulators are worried as well, and I hope they won’t be caught flat-footed like they were with the bank failures that we’ve had so far,” Kennedy said.
      …

      1. “Some $1.5 trillion in mortgages will come due in the next two years, a potential time bomb as higher interest rates push down property values.”

        The agreement would suspend the debt limit through January 1, 2025, allowing Biden and lawmakers to set aside the politically risky issue until after the November 2024 presidential election.

        It’s contained.

    2. POLITICO
      FINANCE & TAX
      How the Fed’s rate hikes helped drive up mortgage payments
      Mortgage payments rise based on a number of reasons, but a big factor is that the Fed has raised interest rates 10 times since March 2022.
      By KATY O’DONNELL
      05/03/2023 06:08 PM EDT

      The Federal Reserve’s decision Wednesday to raise its key interest rate to the highest level in 17 years could drive mortgage rates, currently at 6.4 percent for a 30-year fixed mortgage, still higher.

      Mortgage rates have more than doubled since the Fed’s first rate hike in March 2022, and the average monthly mortgage payment for a “typical” home has risen 50 percent over that period, according to data from Zillow, which estimates the value of a typical home based on an average of homes in the middle 30 percent.

      Overall mortgage costs rise based on a number of factors, including home price appreciation — which has been dramatic since the onset of the pandemic. But mortgage rates also rose last year at the fastest clip in 40 years.

      The combination of more costly homes and higher rates has led to dramatically higher monthly mortgage payments, pricing many would-be buyers out of the market.
      …

      1. ‘…the average monthly mortgage payment for a “typical” home has risen 50 percent over that period, according to data from Zillow,…’

        Obviously incomes don’t instantaneously increase in direct proportion with rate hikes. Certainly what they actually meant to say is that the offer price for a “typical” home has fallen by 1 – 1/1.5 = 33%.

    3. Yahoo
      Business Insider
      Billionaire investor Jeff Greene made $800 million betting against the last housing bubble. He just rang the alarm on US real estate.
      Theron Mohamed
      Mon, June 5, 2023 at 12:33 PM PDT·2 min read
      Jeff Green wearing a suit and tie while speaking into a microphone with his fighter raised in a room with an American flag and a leafy green plant.
      Jeff Greene.Chris O’Meara/AP

      – The property billionaire Jeff Greene has sounded the alarm on commercial real estate.

      – He said that offices would be hit hard if recession struck and AI eliminated some white-collar jobs.

      – Greene pocketed about $800 million by predicting and betting against the mid-2000s housing bubble.

      A real-estate billionaire who made a fortune shorting the mid-2000s housing bubble is bracing for another painful downturn.

      “We are heading into a very frightening time in the entire real-estate industry,” Jeff Greene warned in a Fox Business interview on Friday. He said many businesses and consumers would fall behind on their rent and mortgage payments because of higher interest rates and struggle to secure financing as banks pull back from lending.

      Greene said that the pain in commercial real estate was only just beginning. Some parts of the heavily leveraged sector face crippling debt costs and a credit crunch, pressure on asset values, and a structural shift toward remote and hybrid working.

      “What’s happening in office space today? This is before the slowdown,” he said. “Wait until we have the recession.”

      The real-estate tycoon added that historic amounts of fiscal and monetary stimulus during the pandemic were still shoring up demand and employment in the US economy, staving off a surge in late payments and foreclosures. However, he said that companies would pare their workforces and office spaces as the economic picture darkened and higher borrowing costs squeezed them.

      “How about when AI starts to kick in?” he added. “That’s gonna be a sledgehammer to white-collar jobs.”

      Greene raked in an estimated $800 million profit by betting roughly $50 million on a tidal wave of defaults on subprime mortgages in 2006 and 2007, according to Forbes. He got the idea to buy credit-default swaps on mortgage-backed securities from the hedge-fund manager John Paulson, who made about $15 billion for his clients from similar wagers.

      Michael Burry, the investor of “The Big Short” fame, employed a similar strategy to cash in when the housing bubble burst.

      Greene’s latest comments echo those of the “Shark Tank” investor Barbara Corcoran, who recently said that corporate tenants were starting to fall behind on their monthly payments, which could spell trouble for commercial real estate overall.

      “I don’t see that turning around,” she said. “I think it’s going to be a bit of a bloodbath before it gets better.”
      …
      https://finance.yahoo.com/news/billionaire-investor-jeff-greene-made-193339342.html

    4. The Financial Times
      Property sector
      US banks prepare for losses in rush for commercial property exit
      Lenders prepare to offload debt at a discount even when borrowers are up to date on payments
      Montage of bank logos and San Francisco skyline
      Some lenders are willing to take losses on so-called performing property loans after multiple warnings that the asset class is the ‘next shoe to drop’
      Stephen Gandel, Joshua Chaffin and Eric Platt in New York and Joshua Oliver in London June 4 2023

      Some US banks are preparing to sell off property loans at a discount even when borrowers are up to date on repayments, a sign of their determination to reduce exposure to the teetering commercial real estate market.

      The willingness of some lenders to take losses on so-called performing real estate loans follows multiple warnings that the asset class is the ‘next shoe to drop’ after the recent turmoil in the US regional banking industry.

      “The fact that banks want to sell loans is coming up in a lot of conversations,” said Chad Littell, an analyst at CoStar, a research company focused on commercial real estate. “I am hearing more about it than any time in the past decade.”

      HSBC USA is in the process of selling hundreds of millions of dollars of commercial real estate loans, potentially at a discount, as part of an effort to wind down direct lending to US property developers, said three people familiar with the matter.

      Meanwhile, PacWest last month sold $2.6bn of construction loans at a loss. And a clutch of other banks are making it easier to execute similar sales in the future by changing the way they account for commercial real estate debt.

      Typically, banks are reluctant to accept losses on big blocks of loans that will retain their full value as long as borrowers make repayments on time. But some are being convinced to take the plunge amid fears of an increase in delinquencies — especially on debt secured against office properties that have experienced falling demand because of the enduring popularity of working from home.

      Meanwhile, a slowdown in demand for commercial mortgage-backed securities has left banks of all sizes holding on to more property debt than they or regulators would like.

      While the practice of offloading performing loans is not as prevalent as it was during the 2008 crisis, many market participants expect the volume of deals to increase this year and next.

      As banks prepare to close the second quarter “they are super focused on keeping a clean loan book”, said David Aviram, a principal at Maverick Real Estate Partners, a private fund that specialises in commercial real estate loans. “The banks don’t want to raise the concerns of regulators or investors.”
      …

      1. “US banks prepare for losses in rush for commercial property exit”

        Don’t let the door hit yer arses on the way out.

    1. China is a vast open-air prison camp.
      How are automatic tickets for Jaywalking different for automatic tickets from Red light cameras. We “ain’t” much freer than China.
      And wait until “they” control your car starting in 2026. I am Buying a brand new car in late 2024.

    2. The Skynet will also automatically deduct your social credit points, and your fine from your digital Wallet – WeChat pay.

      1. Some people will believe anything they read on the internet. China can’t find their a$$ with both hands. It’s like those German sissies: I haven’t eaten one bug, never will. I own more than I ever have. But some people get up every day repeating their hogwash after two years! Guess what? They talk big but do nothing. It’s just demoralization. Don’t fall for it.

        1. They can do it if the majority go along with it. That is where we have to wake the sheeple up to the globalist plans. Who would have thought they would be shutting down thousands of Dutch farms at a time of such high food inflation? Why isn’t 80% of the Dutch population out there protesting and burning down government buildings?

          1. IIRC they are recently moving into or are in the majority in their parliamentary system.

            Farmers’ protest party win shock Dutch vote victory
            Published 16 March

            A farmers’ party has stunned Dutch politics, and is set to be the biggest party in the upper house of parliament after provincial elections.

            The Farmer-citizen movement (BBB) was only set up in 2019 in the wake of widespread farmers’ protests.

            But with most votes counted they are due to win 15 of the Senate’s seats with almost 20% of the vote.

            “This isn’t normal, but actually it is! It’s all normal citizens who voted,” said leader Caroline van der Plas.

            The BBB aims to fight government plans to slash nitrogen emissions harmful to biodiversity by dramatically reducing livestock numbers and buying out thousands of farms.

            But its appeal has spread rapidly beyond its rural heartland, on a populist platform that represents traditional, conservative Dutch social and moral values.

            Shocked by the scale of their success, Ms van der Plas told supporters that voters normally stayed at home if they lost faith in politics: “But today people have shown they can’t stay at home any longer. We won’t be ignored any more.”

            A left-wing Green-Labour alliance is also on course to win 15 Senate seats, while Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s four-party coalition is poised to fall back to 24 – down eight seats.

            Turnout in Wednesday’s vote, estimated at 57.5%, was the highest for years and the biggest loser of the night was the far-right Forum for Democracy party.

            For rural voters, the main incentive for backing the BBB was to protest against cuts in nitrogen emissions, according to an Ipsos poll for public broadcaster NOS.

            https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-64967513

        2. “China’s Skynet publicly shames jaywalkers by putting their Pictures and ID numbers on big screens for everyone to see.”

          Before I read this my first thought was, they’re going to, “The Island!” 🙂

    1. It’s not like Canaduh has a shortage of regular oil in the ground. I suppose the allure of the tar sands is that no drilling is required.

      1. There’s trillions of dollars worth of oil in the tar sands. If they can figure out how to extract it economically, it’s a jackpot.

          1. If they can extract it, they will find a way to get it to the refineries. If pipelines are banned, Uncle Warren owns plenty of rail companies.

          2. If the deposit is big enough, could they simply build a refinery on site? Or design a semi-mobile refinery that can be disassembled and moved to the next site.

          3. They still need to transport the final product by pipe, rail, or truck. Pipe is the cheapest and least energy intensive. The greens want it transported by diesel locomotives or trucks. Uncle Warren makes big bucks transporting oil by railcars.

          4. All they needed was the Keystone Pipeline, which Brandon cancelled during his first breath in the Oval Office.

  14. June 2, 2023, 10:04 AM
    California Home Owners ‘Going Naked’ as Wildfires Hit Insurers
    Eliyahu Kamisher
    Max Reyes
    Bloomberg News
    Biz Carson
    – State Farm, Allstate flee as they push state for rate hikes
    – The state is already struggling with an exodus of residents

    Californians looking to buy a house face some of the country’s most expensive real estate prices and wildfires that threaten scores of housing tracts. Now there’s another obstacle: finding an insurer willing to cover their dream home.

    State Farm General Insurance Co. said it’s no longer accepting new applications for property and casualty coverage in California last week, a year after Allstate Corp. also paused new policies, worsening what FAIR Plan, a state-mandated insurance pool, called a “looming insurance unavailability crisis.”

    “We have a lot of people going naked, which means they have no insurance,” said Bill Dodd, a …
    …
    https://news.bloomberglaw.com/insurance/california-home-owners-going-naked-as-wildfires-hit-insurers

    2. Surprise, Surprise, Surprise

      So how many years has the HBB and it readers have been warning about ever increasing holding costs? A decade?

      So unless you can self-insure or buy an assigned-risk (state issued) policy your SOL.

      So just wait until insurers start jacking up rates for other real or imaginary problems.

      There will be a time when actual boat anchors will start looking pretty cheap.

      1. Like taxes, astronomical shack/airbox prices make this worse. If you have a cluster of wooden shanty’s supposedly worth 1 million pesos each, that’s a lot of risk. There’s a bit of an earthquake with coastal insurance going on. Big increases in Florida and the collapse response laws are going to kick in. But rates are going up big north from there too.

        A related note: this Arizona water thing stinks to high heaven. It’s Maricopa county specific – for now, but it looks like a grab to lock up ground water (which Arizona has plenty of, don’t let them fool you). So who will save us with surface water? Look. It’s the Salt River Project riding over the hill – with the peoples water – and now they have a monopoly!

        1. BTW this means they and the Maricopa mafia decide what land can be developed and what can’t. Based on an artificial shortage.

  15. MarketWatch — Americans are ‘more afraid of running out of money than death’ (6/4/2023):

    “A new survey finds that 61% of us are more afraid of running out of money in our old age than we are of dying itself.

    The findings emerged from a survey of a representative sample of 1,000 middle-class Americans aged 25 and over. (Those surveyed either had $150,000 or more of investable assets, or incomes of $50,000 a year if single and $75,000 a year if married.)

    Meanwhile, in a testament to our volatile modern era, 56% of those surveyed told Allianz they now consider regular “financial crises” to be an integral part of their retirement planning. And 46% say their retirement planning has been derailed by the most recent crisis, which has been rolling since March 2020.

    The people getting hit the hardest, it seems, are Generation X — which might also be called the Forgotten Generation or the Overlooked Generation, sandwiched as they are between the high-profile boomers and millennials.”

    https://www.marketwatch.com/story/americans-are-more-afraid-of-running-out-money-than-death-ee5e22e9?mod=home-page

    1. “The people getting hit the hardest, it seems, are Generation X —”

      GenX is not getting “hit hardest.” It’s just that ONLY GenX is of the applicable age to *not know* what their retirement will look like. Boomers have already benefitted from 15+ years of a steadily rising market (thanks Fed), or they’re so poor that they’re on on gov assistance). Millenials are still to young to form any opinion at all. Selection bias.

      GenX could still go either way. On the one hand, the Fed won’t bother to lower rates and juice the market for us, because there aren’t enough of us to vote. On the other, right about now we’re stepping into the high-pay jobs that Boomers left behind and Millenials will take care of our SS.

      1. “ONLY GenX is of the applicable age to *not know* what their retirement will look like”

        OIL CITY, Colorado.

        And from the ashes of the pit, He Is Risen.

        1. I’ve been in CO. To sum up: not enough to drink and too much sh#t to fall off of. No thanks.

  16. Has planet crypto returned to normal, now that the collapses of FTX and Silvergate Bank are ancient history?

    1. The Financial Times
      FT Alphaville
      Digital currencies
      Those Binance charges in full (updated)
      “Yikes”
      FT Alphaville 2 hours ago

      The Securities and Exchange Commission has filed 13 charges against Binance and its founder Changpeng Zhao. 🍿

      The full complaint from regulators is a 136-page document, which looks to be absolutely full of juice about the world’s biggest crypto exchange.

      Here’s the SEC’s chosen topline:

      Charges include operating unregistered exchanges, broker-dealers, and clearing agencies; misrepresenting trading controls and oversight on the Binance.US platform; and the unregistered offer and sale of securities.

      There are many things to be said at this point, but perhaps we should simply echo this comment, on page 64, from one unnamed employee of BAM Trading, Binance’s operator: “Yikes”.
      …

      1. ‘housing migrants’

        That’s a really cute turn of a phrase.

        So NY State (not the city I am guessing) will be paying $75 million a year to the government of Pakistan channeled through the hospital network for a few illegal immigrants to have free luxury digs. What’s not to like? Will there be grift and kickbacks? You betcha.

        I guess my share is about $20.

    2. Chicago Turns Daley College into Shelter for 400 Border Crossers

      JOHN BINDER5
      Jun 2023

      Chicago, Illinois officials have turned Richard J. Daley College into a migrant shelter where now roughly 400 border crossers and illegal aliens are living.

      Despite opposition from local residents, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson (D) is housing 400 border crossers and illegal aliens in Daley College and another 400 more in Wilbur Wright College at least through the summer.

      https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2023/06/05/chicago-turns-daley-college-shelter-400-border-crossers/

  19. Ex-Target Executive Reveals the ‘One Item’ That Sparked Boycott Calls

    By Jack Phillips
    June 4, 2023

    Jack Phillips is a senior reporter for The Epoch Times based in New York. He covers breaking news.

    Former Target Vice Chairman Gerald Storch said in a Sunday interview with Fox News that a number of retailers, including Target, have sold pro-LGBT merchandise over the past several years and claimed that “everybody carries that stuff.”

    But he noted that Target appeared to go a step further this year by carrying a “tuck swimsuit” that targets transgender people. In mid-May, conservative commentators made note of the swimsuit and claimed that it was being marketed for children, but Target officials pushed back and said that the item was only sold for adults.

    1. “Finally a swimsuit bottom made with you in mind! Feel confident and sexy at the beach or poolside with this fabulous feminine design. For the transgender woman and AMAB body. Full back bikini with interior tucking compression panel to keep your tuck in place all day – in comfort.”

      Hide your junk?

  20. Do limits on investor redemptions at major REITS give you the urge to dump your real estate HODLings?

    1. Yahoo
      Benzinga
      Blackstone REIT Continues Trend Of Bad News For Real Estate Investors
      Eric McConnell
      Mon, June 5, 2023 at 12:37 PM PDT·5 min read

      Blackstone real estate investment trust (BREIT) is known as one of America’s largest and most dependable privately held REITs when it comes to delivering investor returns. However, 2023 has proven to be a difficult year for real estate investors, and Blackstone is not immune. As of May 1, 2023, Blackstone announced it is limiting investor withdrawals from its REIT, which is worth an estimated $70 billion.

      This move is not a new trend, as Blackstone has been limiting monthly investor withdrawals since November. A clause in Blackstone’s standard shareholder agreement allows the company to limit withdrawals if the total amount of the withdrawal requests exceeds 5% of the fund’s net asset value. In what can be seen as a sign of the times for the troubled real estate market, Blackstone hasn’t released an estimate on when it may fulfill all investor redemption requests.

      Blackstone investors requested a combined $4.5 billion in redemptions in April, but the fund only approved the release of $1.3 billion (29%) of the total requests. In March, investors also requested a total of $4.5 billion in redemptions, only for the fund to release $666 million in funds or 15% of the total amount.

      So, it’s not necessarily that Blackstone isn’t paying out at all, it’s that investors heading for the exit doors may have to wait in line before they can cash out. It’s understandable that Blackstone exercises the limitations clause on investor redemptions, but the news comes as a severe blow to investors, many of whom have been dealing with the effects of a declining real estate market for the last several months.
      …
      https://finance.yahoo.com/news/blackstone-reit-continues-trend-bad-193739975.html

      1. STOCK ALERT
        Blackstone Stock Drops as Palo Alto Networks Is Added to S&P 500
        By Andrew Bary
        June 5, 2023 5:43 pm ET

        Blackstone stock fell Monday on evident disappointment that it will have to wait to join the S&P 500.

        While there has been speculation that Blackstone (ticker: BX) would soon be included in the index, S&P Dow Jones Indices said Friday that security software maker Palo Alto Networks (ticker: PANW) was instead chosen to replace Dish Network (DISH) as part of its quarterly rebalance. The change will begin before the start of trading June 20.

        …
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        MEMORIAL DAY SALE: $1 PER WEEK

        https://www.barrons.com/amp/articles/blackstone-stock-price-s-p-500-db8cb09d

        1. Any thoughts on why Blackstone is so eager to go public at this point?

          Given their unrequited BREIT withdrawal requests, the timing certainly is interesting.

          At least they have their UC partnership to help them through turbulent times in the real estate sector.

          1. 04.24.2023
            United States
            Capital Education
            The University of California Is Bailing Out Private Equity Giant Blackstone
            By Matthew Cunningham-Cook

            Amid a housing crisis that is leaving thousands of its students and employees homeless, the University of California is bailing out private equity behemoth Blackstone, siphoning billions of dollars to privatized student housing and corporate landlords.
            …
            https://jacobin.com/2023/04/university-of-california-private-equity-blackstone-corporate-real-estate-investment

    2. The Financial Times
      Property sector
      Half of big multinationals plan to cut office space in next three years
      Survey shows how companies are adapting their property portfolios to changed working patterns
      A worker places chairs on tables as he cleans an office in the City of London
      Larger organisations are aiming to reduce office space by 10 to 20%, a Knight Frank survey found
      Joshua Oliver 38 minutes ago

      About half of large multinationals are planning to cut office space in the next three years as they adapt to the rise of homeworking since the pandemic.

      A Knight Frank survey of executives in charge of real estate at 350 companies round the world that together employ 10mn people found that, among major groups cutting their footprint, the largest number was aiming to reduce space by 10 to 20 per cent.

      “Better but less space is probably the strap line for the larger organisations,” said Lee Elliott, a commercial real estate expert at Knight Frank. “It is not the death knell of property markets because what you are seeing is a shortfall of supply, and therefore an increase in rents, for the prime buildings.”

      The prospect of big companies making further cuts to office space has prompted worries about the future of older buildings and unpopular locations, as the commercial property market negotiates a painful downturn prompted by higher interest rates.

      Nearly half of the companies surveyed are also planning to change their headquarters in the next three years. However, a majority of smaller companies are planning to expand their office space.

      Elliot said many companies had paused real estate decisions in the past three years, waiting to assess post-pandemic working habits. Many would still have to wait for their leases to expire before making changes, he added.

      “There have been lots of people talking up change, but we haven’t seen a lot of evidence of it. I think we are now at that tipping point,” he said. “Change in the occupier market is a 3-6 year play, not a 3-6 month play.”
      …

  21. Wall Street’s rocky road
    Wall Street’s insistence on clinging to the past is about to screw over a lot of investors
    Linette Lopez
    Jun 4, 2023, 3:29 AM PDT

    Wall Street desperately wants the stock market to go back to the good ol’ days. You know, like during the pandemic, when interest rates were at zero, the government was mailing checks everywhere, and it seemed everyone had so much real money, they were using it to buy fake money. In that environment, any idiot — or anyone on Wall Street — could buy almost any asset, sit back, and watch its value increase. Stocks didn’t just go up, they soared.

    Wall Street has even concocted a fairly convincing story for how the market will get back to this state: The Federal Reserve’s rapid interest-rate hikes will cause the financial system to seize up, they will blow holes in the real-estate sector, and layoffs — which have already hit industries like tech and media pretty hard — will spread across the economy. This will, in turn, usher in a recession that forces the Fed to reverse course and cut rates to juice the economy again. After a few months of turmoil, the market will settle back into the low-interest-rate environment that defined the pre-pandemic decade and stocks will be on cruise control once more. A return to normalcy.

    There’s only one problem with Wall Street’s story: It’s completely backward.

    “I think one of the great mispricings of the markets right now is the idea that we’re going to cut rates by the end of the year,” Justin Simon, the managing director of the hedge fund Jasper Capital, told me. “For that to happen we’d have to have a crisis, and I don’t see that.”

    Consider instead what the world would look like if higher rates don’t break the US economy but just bend it into a different shape. In this scenario, growth persists, albeit at a slower rate. Consumers keep pulling their weight, and we don’t have a recession. There is pain in some pockets of the economy and inflation remains a concern — but there’s no immediate crisis that forces the Fed to reverse course. In this scenario, the stock market gets choppy. Some stocks will win and others will lose. Charts will look ugly. The market may go sideways. Wall Street’s stock pickers may have to sweat a bit to make their clients happy.

    “There’s going to be a slowdown here and an acceleration there,” one legendary fund manager told me, “but it kind of feels like the economy is just grinding on.”
    …
    https://www.businessinsider.com/stock-market-chaos-screw-over-wall-street-investors-money-recession-2023-6

    1. A Recession Alarm Is Ringing on Wall Street
      An inversion of the bond market’s yield curve has preceded every U.S. recession for the past half century. It is happening again.
      By Joe Rennison
      Published July 21, 2022
      Updated July 22, 2022

      Wall Street’s most-talked-about recession indicator is sounding its loudest alarm in two decades, intensifying concerns among investors that the U.S. economy is heading toward a slowdown.

      That indicator is called the yield curve, and it’s a way of showing how interest rates on various U.S. government bonds compare, notably three-month bills, and two-year and 10-year Treasury notes.

      Usually, bond investors expect to be paid more for locking up their money for a long stretch, so interest rates on short-term bonds are lower than those on longer-term ones. Plotted out on a chart, the various yields for bonds create an upward sloping line — the curve.

      But every once in a while, short-term rates rise above long-term ones. That negative relationship contorts the curve into what’s called an inversion, and signals that the normal situation in the world’s biggest government bond market has been upended.

      An inversion has preceded every U.S. recession for the past half century, so it’s seen as a harbinger of economic doom. And it’s happening now.
      …
      But which part of the yield curve matters?

      On Wall Street, the most commonly noted part of the yield curve is the relationship between two-year and 10-year yields, but some economists prefer to focus on the relationship between the yield on three-month bills and 10-year notes instead.

      That group includes one of the pioneers of research into the yield-curve’s predictive power.

      Campbell Harvey, an economics professor at Duke University, remembers being asked to develop a model that could forecast U.S. growth while he was a summer intern at the now-defunct Canadian mining company Falconbridge in 1982.

      Mr. Harvey turned to the yield curve, but the United States was already roughly a year into recession and he was soon laid off because of the economic climate.

      It wasn’t until the mid-1980s, when he was a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Chicago, that he completed his research showing that an inversion of the three-month and 10-year yields preceded recessions that began in 1969, 1973, 1980 and 1981.

      Mr. Harvey said he preferred to look at three-month yields because they were close to current conditions, while others have noted that they more directly capture investors’ expectations of immediate changes in Fed policy.
      …
      https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/21/business/yield-curve-inversion.html

  23. The Nation
    Society
    American Dream
    Economic development
    The Case Against Homeownership
    Instead of perpetuating the Ponzi scheme of private property for some, we should be demanding economic security for all.
    By Jane Chung
    Yesterday 5:30 am
    Urban sprawl, Las Vegas, Nev.
    (Marli Miller / UCG / Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

    Homeownership is a uniquely American scam. Of course, homeownership itself is not unique to the United States. Yet “the emphasis Americans place on homeownership sets us apart from many other nations of the world,” according to Mel Martinez, who was President George W. Bush’s secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

    In a 2002 speech at a Black church in Atlanta, Bush himself boldly proclaimed, “If you own your own home, you’re realizing the American Dream.” Mere weeks earlier, Bush had announced the establishment of National Homeowners Month.

    Martinez claimed in front of Congress that homeownership not only “provides financial security for families” but also “generates economic strength that fuels the entire nation.” In the previous decade, President George H.W. Bush’s HUD Secretary, Jack Kemp, was known to frequently proselytize for homeownership as something that could “save babies, save children, save families and save America.”

    These narratives date back to President Herbert Hoover, one of the most consequential champions of homeownership in America, who claimed that homeownership could “change the very physical, mental and moral fiber of one’s own children.” Homeownership, according to its proponents, not only makes one an American, but also a good and moral American, with ownership of residential property becoming “a primary factor for evaluating the citizen’s allegiance to the state.”
    …
    https://www.thenation.com/article/society/case-against-home-ownership/

    1. That article offers a lot of food for thought.

      ‘Homeownership, however, is not as valuable a financial investment as it appears—or as we have been led to believe. While we may have forgotten since 2008 that homeownership can be risky, some critics go so far as to describe homeownership as a Ponzi scheme, “a massive up-front transfer of wealth from younger people to older people, on the implicit promise that when those young people become old, there will be new young people willing to give them even more money,” according to housing analyst Daniel Kay Hertz.

      “Of course,” Hertz continues, “as prices rise, the only young people able to buy into this Ponzi scheme are quite well-to-do themselves.”’

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