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Look, We Need To Sell

A report from KOMO-TV in Washington. “According to Redfin, luxury home prices dropped by double digits in several west coast cities. San Francisco saw the biggest loss of more than 12.7% in a year. Seattle is close behind at a 12.3% drop. Why the big dip? Tech-heavy towns like Seattle and San Francisco saw some of the largest price increases over the last few years. Now, they have farther to fall. ‘We’re not seeing multiple offers,’ said Redfin Premier agent Bliss Ong ‘A lot of luxury can pay cash, so they are paying cash, but if they are paying cash they do want some kind of a discount.'”

The San Francisco Examiner in California. “It’s getting cheaper to buy a house in San Francisco. The City saw some of the biggest year-over-year housing price declines in recent years, a new study from SmartAsset found. According to the company, The City’s typical home value went down from roughly $1.46 million in 2022 to $1.27 million this year, a 13.3% decrease. Oscar Wei, deputy chief economist at the California Association of Realtors, said he believes that San Francisco’s year-over-year decline in typical home value will continue in small increments throughout the year, especially as the traditional home buying season wraps up in the fall.”

The Marina Times in California. “According to the San Francisco Association of Realtors, the median price for a single family home in San Francisco in June was $1,700,000, down 11.6 percent from June 2022. The median price for a condo was $1,218,274, down just 5.5 percent from the previous year. ‘An inescapable frustration seems to have imbued life in San Francisco,’ said Matt Fuller, cofounder at Jackson Fuller Real Estate. ‘People feel frustrated and want change: They are tired of vandals and vagrants on sidewalks, police that are absent or too aggressive, ineffective city leadership, the expensive cost of living, and the continuing closure of longtime favorite restaurants, breweries, and shops.’ He asked rhetorically, when all is said and done, ‘Is the juice of San Francisco worth the squeeze?’ It all adds up to an exhausting real estate market. But perhaps there is hope in a famous proverb, dating back to at least 1650, that says, ‘It’s always darkest before the dawn.'”

The Commercial Observer on Texas. “On the surface, everything appears to be as smooth as oil in Houston. Still, all is not well in The Bayou City — especially in the city’s sprawling downtown and central business districts, and in its office sector in particular. San Felipe Plaza, a 959,000-square-foot office tower built in 1982, sold for $83 million in March, half of the $165 million the building was sold for in 2005 and a fraction of the $219 million value the building had been appraised at prior to the pandemic. A vast majority of Houston’s 30 million square feet of downtown office product was built prior to 1986, so not only is the office product relatively obsolete, but so are the surrounding neighborhoods and streets that lack residences or mixed-use living spaces. ‘There’s just a lot of buildings where you can put any rent number on there and no one would be interested,’ said Matthew Werner, managing director of REIT strategies at Chilton Capital Management.”

“But if the office sector is bleeding out, then the multifamily world is turning into a dangerous laceration. Over the past four years, Jay Gajavelli’s Applesway Investment Group borrowed $230 million to create a Houston rental empire of more than 3,200 units. Swapnil Agarwal’s Houston-based firm Nitya Capital created a 20,000-unit portfolio valued at $1 billion within 10 years of his 2013 entrance into the market. But the swiftest interest rate increase in 40 years in 2022 and 2023 spoiled the plans these syndicators had for a never-ending stream of easy investor dollars fueled by the promise of permanent rent spikes and quickly flipped properties. A series of articles by the Wall Street Journal portrayed Gajavelli and other multifamily syndicators as acquisition companies masquerading as landlords.”

“‘You had players that came into multifamily that didn’t understand how to operate properties, so the bad deals came from speculation,’ said Daniel Oney, research director of the Texas Real Estate Research Center at Texas A&M University. ‘There’s a lot of talent and skill that goes into maintaining an apartment complex, keeping it up, promoting it, and some of the deals that have gone bad you saw people focused on the financing side, but they didn’t think about the operation side, and now they’re getting bitten because the property is less desirable.'”

From Reuters. “Commercial real estate investors and lenders are slowly confronting an ugly question – if people never again shop in malls or work in offices the way they did before the pandemic, how safe are the fortunes they piled into bricks and mortar? Cities like London, Los Angeles and New York are bloated with buildings local populations no longer want or need. ‘Employers are beginning to appreciate that building giant facilities to warehouse their people is no longer necessary,’ Richard Murphy, political economist at the UK’s Sheffield University, told Reuters. ‘Commercial landlords should be worried. Investors in them would be wise to quit now.'”

“Charles-Henry Monchau, Chief Investment Officer at Bank Syz likened the impact of aggressive rate tightening to dynamite fishing. ‘Usually the small fishes come to the surface first, then the big ones – the whales – come last,’ he said. ‘Was Credit Suisse the whale? Was SVB the whale? We’ll only know afterwards. But the whale could be commercial real estate in the U.S.'”

From Politico. “Oh, Switzerland — that beautiful land of financial stability, reliability and everything being just a little dull. Not anymore. As Credit Suisse, Europe’s 19th biggest lender, goes down the tubes, becoming the most dramatic banking casualty since the 2008 financial crisis, the worry now is it turns out to be the first domino in a chain that stretches round the world. After all, we’ve been here before and it wasn’t pretty. And if boring, safe Switzerland can’t save its banks, then, well, who the hell can?”

“In a bid to calm nerves after the Swiss decision, a trio of European oversight bodies — the Single Resolution Board, the European Banking Authority and the ECB’s supervisory arm — released a joint statement to reassure investors that in case of a bank collapse in the EU, shareholders would suffer first. And the Bank of England jumped on the bandwagon. ‘Holders of such instruments should expect to be exposed to losses in resolution or insolvency in the order of their positions in this hierarchy,’ it said. In other words: Please don’t start panicking.”

From ABC News. “Brisbane real estate agent Jett Jones is busy reselling properties that have only recently changed hands. ‘A lot of the first-time buyers that might have overextended the budget have come back and said, ‘Yeah, look, we need to sell,’ Ms Jones explains. ‘Or a lot of the time as well we’ve had investors that have said, ‘Yeah, we want to retire,’ or, ‘We need to get rid of it because it’s costing too much for us to keep the property now.’ Almost 14 per cent of homes sold across Australia in April had previously changed hands within the three years prior. Hobart had the highest portion of properties resold within three years, at almost 16 per cent, followed by Brisbane (15.2 per cent) and the ACT (13.9 per cent).”

“‘We’ve seen these short-term loss-making resales of two years or less go from 3.4 per cent of loss-making resales in the March quarter of 2022 to over 12 per cent in the March quarter of 2023,’ says CoreLogic’s head of Australian research, Eliza Owen. ‘So a lot more short-term sellers are willing to sell at a loss at the moment.’ She believes that is indicative of an increase in forced sales, as people who purchased at ultra-low interest rates during the pandemic period find they can no longer keep up with surging mortgage repayments. ‘You might infer that it could be people having no choice but to sell into a market that’s not as strong as when they purchased,’ she says. ‘So that could be because of issues of mortgage serviceability.'”

“Ms Owen says the top five local government areas for loss-making quick resales are Brisbane, the Gold Coast, the Central Coast north of Sydney, Parramatta in Sydney’s west and Fairfield in the city’s south-west. Most of those areas also appear at the top of Domain’s list of ‘distressed listings,’ which is based on key terms in property advertisements such as ‘urgent sale,’ ‘desperate seller, ‘mortgagee in possession’ or similar.”

The South China Morning Post. “Struggling to scrape together enough cash, local officials from some of China’s most debt-ridden regions feel as though they’ve exhausted all options – and some have even posted about their plights online, in hopes of garnering much-needed assistance from the central government. But such comments have been quickly removed. Deteriorating finances across the country, particularly in its poorest provinces such as Guizhou, have raised the spectre of a looming local government debt crisis. Beijing sees the potential for a meltdown in China’s predominantly state-owned banking system as a ‘grey rhino’ risk – big, obvious and neglected.”

“Fears continue to mount over possible defaults in the listed market by local government financing vehicles (LGFVs), hybrid entities that are both public and corporate and were created to skirt restrictions on local government borrowing and have proliferated since the global financial crisis in 2008. In the mid-1990s the central government implemented budget laws to stop local authorities from accumulating large piles of debt. In response, regional governments crafted LGFVs as a workaround. There are now thousands of such vehicles in China, driving investments in bridges, roads, homes and industrial parks, and boosting the country’s gross domestic product (GDP).”

“But at the same time, tales of extravagantly wasteful spending in white-elephant projects, including ‘ghost cities,’ have made headlines and raised eyebrows across China, in some cases enraging local residents. Li Xunlei, chief economist and head of research at Zhongtai Securities, estimated that the aforementioned Guizhou – one of China’s poorest and most indebted provinces – had built a total of 8,331km of highways by the end of 2022. In comparison, Japan’s expressways span about 7,800km, while Guizhou’s GDP is less than one-fifteenth of Japan’s.”

“The International Monetary Fund estimated that the total debt amassed by China’s LGFVs had swollen to a record 66 trillion yuan (US$9.23 trillion) this year – more than doubling since 2017, when the total was 30.7 trillion yuan. There has not yet been a default among LGFVs traded in the exchanges, but Guangfa Securities estimated that there were a total of 73 defaults in LGFVs sold in private transactions in the first quarter this year – a record high since the brokerage started collecting such data in 2018. These were mostly vehicles in Guizhou and Shandong provinces.”

The Wall Street Journal. “While the rest of the world tussles with inflation, China is at risk of experiencing a prolonged spell of falling prices that—if it takes root—could eat into corporate profits, sap consumer spending and push more people out of work. Some economists see alarming parallels between China’s current predicament and the experience of Japan, which struggled for years with deflation and stagnant growth. In the 1990s, a collapse in stock markets and real-estate values in Japan pushed companies and households to drastically cut back spending to service burdensome debts—a so-called balance-sheet recession that some see taking shape in China today.”

“In Shanghai, Liu Wang has held off on plans to upgrade his apartment because he is worried about sinking more money into a property whose value he believes could keep dropping. ‘The economic condition is highly uncertain now,’ said Liu, who works at a logistics firm that is shifting its focus toward domestic business after its export business weakened. In his hometown of Qufu in China’s northeastern Shandong province, demand for homes has been tepid despite a drop in prices, he said. ‘The housing bubble is still quite large,’ Liu added. ‘I don’t see any reason why prices will go up.'”

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This Post Has 99 Comments

  1. ‘Ms Owen says the top five local government areas for loss-making quick resales are Brisbane, the Gold Coast, the Central Coast north of Sydney, Parramatta in Sydney’s west and Fairfield in the city’s south-west. Most of those areas also appear at the top of Domain’s list of ‘distressed listings,’ which is based on key terms in property advertisements such as ‘urgent sale,’ ‘desperate seller, ‘mortgagee in possession’ or similar’

    How about died in the arse Eliza? That’s a tell.

    1. Weren’t these people recently telling us shacks were going up 1000 Australian pesos a week?

      1. Yes, they were making predictions. I would like to make a prediction, to add to my previous predictions, and this new prediction is that my previous predictions as well as this new prediction, will be wrong.

    1. I remember the endless dramatic stories of people
      “FIGHTING FOR THEIR HOME!” repeated ad nauseum from the last downturn in 2008

      always leading off with a single mother tear jerker
      every. freakin. time

    1. “public health officials and health-care providers could potentially increase uptake of the new vaccines by communicating a new and simple message this fall: Covid vaccines are likely going to become a routine part of protecting your health moving forward.”

      How does NO sound?

      The majority of Americans know someone personally who was maimed, disfigured, crippled from the mRNA poison, and many know someone who died from it.

      1. Covid vaccines are likely going to become a routine part of protecting your health moving forward

        Not if I refuse to roll up my sleeve.

        1. Covid vaccines are likely going to become a routine part of protecting your health moving forward

          I had a routine video visit by a nurse practitioner in preparation for my annual exam. At the end he said that there was a vaccine that I could get for free: It was the Covid booster shot. I politely declined, and the NP was not surprised at all. No sales pitch or anything. I think that nobody is opting to get the booster.

    2. yeah, umm that’s a no from me.

      I’ve taken my last shot of any kind, ever. Since i can’t guarantee what’s in it; It’s not going in me.

      Way to throw away ALL of your trustworthiness medical industry.

      1. Since i can’t guarantee what’s in it; It’s not going in me.

        Sad, but true. There is no way of knowing if old school vaccines like flu, tetanus, etc. are swimming with mRNA poison or not.

    3. The article uses the word “confused” seven times. It’s clear that the health authorities think we need to be educated on what’s good for us. And their strategy is to say: “You don’t have to think about four types of vaccines and priority lists anymore. We have it all figured out for you. There’s only one type of vaccine now; and you take it once a year along with your flu shot, nice and easy, no confusion anymore.”

      Yeah, eff ’em.

      BTW, you guys might want to stop calling it the “clot shot.” That phrase was coined for the J&J vaccine, which is no longer available at all.

      1. That phrase was coined for the J&J vaccine, which is no longer available at all.

        Perhaps, but that doesn’t mean the mRNA shots don’t cause clots. It was interesting to read the European report about how 3% of the jabbed have myocarditis. I’ll bet if you aggregate all the covered up serious adverse effects that at least 10% are affected. Heaven knows what the long term effects will be.

      2. The entire concept of creating mRNA vaccines is seriously flawed. People are understandably suspicious and don’t trust the government and experts since we’ve been working on vaccines for all kinds of diseases forever and have failed. For example, AIDS vaccine. Or malaria–one that really works. The new Malaria vaccine is only partially effective and it’s a recombinant vaccine funded by BILL GATES! Completely transparent and generous, what would we do without Bill Gates experimenting with poor children from Africa.

        So when a NEW disease appears (Wuhan Flu) and a new novel vaccine is ready almost immediately, it’s rather shocking. Almost like they had been working on this vaccine for years. But how could they have known about the Wuhan Flu if it hadn’t jumped to humans from bats yet. Maybe the “Bat Lady” already knew all about the Wuhan Flu because the Wuhan Lab created it.

        And then a disaster occurs–the Wuhan Lab has a leak and people are being infected left and right. What does China do? They do nothing and allow their citizens to travel back to Europe (mainly Italy where they work making clothing), America and every place else.

        But this is all just conspiracy theorist talk…….

        1. Almost like they had been working on this vaccine for years.

          They had been. It was a total failure.

      3. TY, Oxide, but I like “Clot Shot”. It’s much more PC than my previous moniker (stolen shamelessly from Zev Zelenko, God rest his soul):
        “Poison Death Shot”. Every time I said that, my wife gave me the stinkeye.

  5. ‘A series of articles by the Wall Street Journal portrayed Gajavelli and other multifamily syndicators as acquisition companies masquerading as landlords’

    I’ve been saying since 2014 these clowns weren’t making money.

    ‘You had players that came into multifamily that didn’t understand how to operate properties, so the bad deals came from speculation…There’s a lot of talent and skill that goes into maintaining an apartment complex, keeping it up, promoting it, and some of the deals that have gone bad you saw people focused on the financing side, but they didn’t think about the operation side, and now they’re getting bitten because the property is less desirable’

    That’s the thing Dan. Almost nobody in a syndication knows what they’re doing. And if the main guys don’t yer fooked.

    1. “There’s a lot of talent and skill that goes into maintaining an apartment complex, keeping it up, promoting it”

      LOL

      1. “There’s a lot of talent and skill that goes into maintaining an apartment complex, keeping it up, promoting it”

        The blue collar guys who do the appliances, carpeting, electrical, plumbing, etc., who are tasked with rebuilding and refurbishing the actual rental units do have real skills.

  6. ‘Li Xunlei, chief economist and head of research at Zhongtai Securities, estimated that the aforementioned Guizhou – one of China’s poorest and most indebted provinces – had built a total of 8,331km of highways by the end of 2022. In comparison, Japan’s expressways span about 7,800km, while Guizhou’s GDP is less than one-fifteenth of Japan’s’

    Oh yeah, the roads to nowhere. Posted lots of that. Thousands of luxury hotels no one can afford, wind farms with no one at the end to use the electricity, we’ve seen it all.

    ‘Fears continue to mount over possible defaults in the listed market by local government financing vehicles (LGFVs), hybrid entities that are both public and corporate and were created to skirt restrictions on local government borrowing and have proliferated since the global financial crisis in 2008. In the mid-1990s the central government implemented budget laws to stop local authorities from accumulating large piles of debt. In response, regional governments crafted LGFVs as a workaround. There are now thousands of such vehicles in China’

    This is funny. I even saw one globalist scum media say ‘LGFV’s saved the global economy after the housing bubble.’ Well that’s died in the arse too. Is 9 trillions a lot?

    1. Oh yeah, the roads to nowhere. Posted lots of that. Thousands of luxury hotels no one can afford, wind farms with no one at the end to use the electricity, we’ve seen it all.

      Same as the Chinese High Speed rail system. Much of it has no passengers. And most Chinese can’t afford a ticket anyways. The tremendous growth seen in China in the last 30 years has just been a mirage.

  7. ‘We’re not seeing multiple offers…A lot of luxury can pay cash, so they are paying cash, but if they are paying cash they do want some kind of a discount’

    Also recently UHS were saying ‘all cash buyers are bidding up shacks’, and now you say they’re handing out a$$ pounding Bliss?

    Sacré bleu!

      1. Somehow luxury living and sh!t on the sidewalk don’t mesh well.

        Kind of like having a $3,000,000 house next door to an illegal duplex house with 24 residents. All those illegals got to go somewhere–we can’t just ship them back to their home countries!

    1. Fauci = Josef Mengele.

      “Nicknamed the “Angel of Death” he performed deadly experiments on prisoners at the Auschwitz II (Birkenau) concentration camp, where he was a member of the team of doctors who selected victims to be murdered in the gas chambers, and was one of the doctors who administered the gas.”

    1. ‘Is the juice of San Francisco worth the squeeze?’

      “Magic 8 ball says no Matt.”

      \\

      The Marina Times in California. “‘An inescapable frustration seems to have imbued life in San Francisco,’ said Matt Fuller, cofounder at Jackson Fuller Real Estate. ‘People feel frustrated and want change: They are tired of vandals and vagrants on sidewalks, police that are absent or too aggressive, ineffective city leadership, the expensive cost of living, and the continuing closure of longtime favorite restaurants, breweries, and shops.’”

      \\

      The San Francisco Examiner in California. “It’s getting cheaper to buy a house in San Francisco. The City saw some of the biggest year-over-year housing price declines in recent years,”

      \\

      – “Democracy is the the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.” – H. L. Mencken

      – Smart Asset Fund = Captain Obvious. (Captain Underpants?).

      – And in other news, water is wet.

      – Can someone please explain to these idiots exactly why SF is devolving into a 3rd world sh*thole? It’s not rocket science…

      – Oh and BTW, 3rd world sh*thole real estate isn’t really worth that much, housing bubble or not.

      1. Can someone please explain to these idiots exactly why SF is devolving into a 3rd world sh*thole? It’s not rocket science…

        They’ll tell you that you’re wrong and that they just need to give Marxism a chance. And that the only reason it has always failed in the past is because it was implemented incorrectly and thus wasn’t true Marxism.

          1. “Because they did it wrong”. Of course they can’t tell you what they did wrong, just that they did it wrong. It is an act of faith that Marxism will save humanity. While they will deny it, Marxism is their religion. There is no reasoning them out of it.

            They remind me of Tom Parsons in Nineteen Eighty-Four. Even after his children betray him for saying subversive things as he slept (and probably didn’t say at all), he remains a true believer in IngSoc and states that he could do “good work” in the gulag where he is being sent,

          2. Of course they can’t tell you what they did wrong, just that they did it wrong

            Don’t you know the reason for all of this homelessness, drug abuse and violence? These poor people have been outcast by society and all they need is proper housing, education and medical treatment. Among the homeless are future doctors, Nobel Prize winning physicists, engineers and farm workers.

            “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs”

      2. Matt Fuller, cofounder at Jackson Fuller Real Estate. ‘People feel frustrated and want change: They are tired of vandals and vagrants on sidewalks, police that are absent or too aggressive

        This cvck votes blue.

        1. Too aggressive in SF?

          Move to Portland. They allowed 100 consecutive nights of Fentanyl Floyd riots in the “summer of love” 2020.

          2. Fentanyl is a gift from heaven for the homeless as it takes the bite out of the damp cold concrete sidewalk.

  10. The Swiss National Bank said on Monday it lost 13.2 billion Swiss francs ($15.14 billion) in the second quarter, despite raking in interest income of nearly 900 million francs on emergency loans to Credit Suisse and UBS.

    Switzerland’s central bank lent 168 billion francs to first support Credit Suisse and then ease the fallen bank’s takeover by UBS in a state-orchestrated deal in March.

    https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/swiss-national-bank-hit-by-15-billion-second-quarter-loss/ar-AA1ezRd1

    1. The Swiss National Bank said on Monday it lost 13.2 billion Swiss francs ($15.14 billion) in the second quarter
      What’s a few billion. This is chump change for the NWO.

      1. But if he were a 90 year old man with incurable cancer and also was a conservative wearing a MAGA hat, they would haul is @ss out to the nearest field and shoot him.

  12. Russia Today (7/30/2023):

    “The threat of nuclear annihilation is no more serious than the threat of climate change, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has claimed. Blinken’s critics argue that Washington is risking nuclear war by arming Ukraine.

    In an appearance on 60 Minutes Australia on Sunday, Blinken was asked whether nuclear war or climate change represented “the greater threat to humanity.”

    “Well, you can’t, I think, have a hierarchy,” he replied. “There are some things that are front and center…including potential conflict, but there’s no doubt that climate represents an existential challenge to all of us.”

    “So for us, this is the existential challenge of our times,” he continued, adding that this “doesn’t mean that in the meantime there are not severe challenges to the international order like Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.”

    https://www.rt.com/news/580573-nuclear-war-blinken/

    1. Don’t they have white papers that state we will not only survive, but win a nuclear exchange with Russia?

  13. RE: But perhaps there is hope in a famous proverb, dating back to at least 1650, that says, ‘It’s always darkest before the dawn.’”

    On the other hand, there is a lesser-known proverb which says “it is always dark before it gets even darker” . . .

    1. “…it is always dark before it gets even darker” . . .”

      And another “Don’t try coming up for air, because there isn’t’ any”

      1. My grandmother said, “God is blessing us” or “God is punishing us,” depending on the circumstances.

  14. “San Francisco saw the biggest loss of more than 12.7% in a year. Seattle is close behind at a 12.3% drop.”

    12.7% doesn’t seem like very much.

    “The City’s typical home value went down from roughly $1.46 million in 2022 to $1.27 million this year, a 13.3% decrease.”

    $0.19 doesn’t seem like much.

    “million”

    Oh. I guess they actually meant to say $190,000. That does seem like much.

    1. That does seem like much

      It isn’t. The slide to the bottom hasn’t even started yet. Think downtown Tokyo during their Bubble. In 20 years nobody is going to want to live in San Francisco. It will become like Detroit. Once the businesses leave and the wealthy resident go bye-bye, then the shops and supermarkets close. Then the ordinary people take off as well. Lots of American cities have gone this route. Why can’t San Francisco?

  16. Look, We Need To Sell …

    You can always sell, though you will probably have to bring a check to closing.

    1. It is interesting how emboldened these “refugees” are. It’s almost like someone told them: go ahead and do whatever you want, you won’t be arrested and if you are you will be turned loose immediately. You have nothing to fear. Oh, and here is some free cash and a phone.

      1. You can now carjack a get away vehicle after a shoplifting spree and drive it off a cliff in SF and they will release you without charges. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

        “Two people arrested on suspicion of a recent carjacking and crash in San Francisco that went viral on social media are not being charged at this time pending further investigation, District Attorney Brooke Jenkins said.”

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8INHTK8aKg

        1. Brand new Venice Beach restrooms destroyed by homeless

          Brand new restrooms next to a playground on the beach, which controversially cost over $2 million to build, are now closed to the public due to damage from people living in the stalls and repeatedly setting fires.

          https://www.bitchute.com/video/mwZJP2NHdcOF/

          3 minutes.

          1. I’m not even going to look at the video. This is just too sad. What has life in America become? Is there no longer any respect or decency left in these people?

            In Japan I saw a video by NHK that was about the part of Tokyo where the government buildings are. Hardly any tourists or even locals. They go into this men’s bathroom–it’s huge–there’s an old lady cleaning the urinals. The place is spotless like a hospital. The old lady says she doesn’t want the place to look dirty.

            Out in the countryside at unattended railroad stations, local citizens volunteer to regularly clean the toilets, replace toilet paper and tend to the landscaping. This is a “civilized” country.

          2. “Brand new restrooms next to a playground on the beach, which controversially cost over $2 million to build, are now closed to the public due to damage from people living in the stalls and repeatedly setting fires.”

            A good friend toured several cities in China on a vacation, and he never saw any graffiti or vandalism.

          3. A good friend toured several cities in China on a vacation, and he never saw any graffiti or vandalism.

            A very good friend of mine who is from Shanghai said that crime in “China is low because the penalties are so harsh”. That’s the understatement of the year. Same for Japan. In Japan 95% of the people arrested “confess”. And in court the government wins 99% of its cases. Japanese prisons make Marine boot camp here look like a picnic. So that’s why crime is so low there.

  18. For the past 20 years, monetary and fiscal policy, through artificially low interest rates, money printing (quantitative easing) and outright “free” money via “economic stimulus” has given buyers more dollars to purchase chickens and eggs, but the sellers still have the same number of chickens and eggs.

    1. but the sellers still have the same number of chickens and eggs

      And perhaps fewer. I have read that automakers have indicated they prefer fewer sales if it means that will keep vehicle prices in the stratosphere, and that they will choose to idle production lines rather than swamp dealers with cars and trux that will need hefty discounts to move.

      1. They said that, but they are just talking their books and are FOS. It costs them more to maintain production capacity but idle those lines than it does to just cut prices.

        1. It won’t take too long to find out if they are BS’ing. In a few more months the dealers won’t have anywhere left to park the unsold cr@p. And cr@p it is. The current vehicles are chock full of tech that will be expensive as hades to repair when it breaks.

  21. ‘deputy chief economist at the California Association of Realtors, said he believes that San Francisco’s year-over-year decline in typical home value will continue in small increments throughout the year’

    Oscar is a well known stopped clock, far right racist anti vax Putin puppet gain of function lab leak conspiracy theorist election denying perma bear. That list just keeps getting longer!

  22. ‘But the swiftest interest rate increase in 40 years in 2022 and 2023 spoiled the plans these syndicators had for a never-ending stream of easy investor dollars fueled by the promise of permanent rent spikes and quickly flipped properties’

    via GIPHY

  23. ‘Usually the small fishes come to the surface first, then the big ones – the whales – come last,’ he said. ‘Was Credit Suisse the whale? Was SVB the whale? We’ll only know afterwards. But the whale could be commercial real estate in the U.S’

    You know Chuck, I’ve never been dynamite fishing, so thanks for the tip and keep up the good work!

  25. ‘So a lot more short-term sellers are willing to sell at a loss at the moment…You might infer that it could be people having no choice but to sell into a market that’s not as strong as when they purchased’

    One of these things is not like the other Eliza.

    1. high-end estates in commie-controlled municipalities

      Should we start calling them “dachas”?

  27. This Chinese deflation story shows how big this upcoming recession is going to be. Worldwide recession coming with no China to the rescue this time.

  28. My city, San Dimas, California is one of the few bastions of sanity in the Los Angeles area. They are forcing us to build a five story homeless shelter in a city with no five story buildings. The backlash has been fierce. The middle class is fighting back.

  29. So many weather stories in the news I think the media is prepping Americans with horror and fear about climate change and then have Gavin Newsom ready to run for president since hes climate guy. Biden will be put out to pasture. And harris 🤣🤣

  30. Are you an under-40 investor who decided to ditch traditional investments, like stocks and bonds, in favor of alternative investments, like crypto and real estate?

    All ye following this strategy, heed my warning:

    A day of reckoning awaits you, and it won’t be pretty.

    1. Yahoo
      Benzinga
      Young, Rich Americans Don’t Trust the Stock Market, So They’re Turning to Alternative Assets to Amplify Their Wealth
      Jeannine Mancini
      Mon, July 31, 2023 at 12:55 PM PDT·3 min read

      A fresh wave of investors is veering away from the tried-and-true stocks and bonds, opting to venture into alternative assets. Gen Z and wealthy young investors are increasingly drawn to alternative investments rather than conventional choices.

      Based on a survey conducted by Lansons, it was found that less than 10% of the entire American population has invested in alternative assets. However, among the younger generations, there is a more significant interest in alternative investments, with 30% of Gen Z and 25% of millennials either investing in such assets or possessing knowledge of platforms that facilitate these investments.

      A study by Bank of America further reveals that 75% of Americans aged between 21 and 42 doubt the possibility of achieving above-average returns solely through traditional stocks and bonds. From May to June 2022, a total of 1,052 high-net-worth investors, each possessing at least $3 million in investable assets, were surveyed by the firm.

      But what exactly are these alternative investments that have caught the attention of young investors, and what draws them to these unconventional choices? Alternative investments encompass a diverse range of assets beyond the typical stocks, bonds, and cash. Examples include real estate, private equity, cryptocurrencies, and commodities like gold and oil. Although these investments may be less liquid and perceived as riskier, they also offer the potential for higher returns.
      …
      https://finance.yahoo.com/news/young-rich-americans-dont-trust-195517169.html

      1. “Examples include real estate, private equity, cryptocurrencies, and commodities like gold and oil.”

        All of these are risk assets that benefited from the central bankers’ decade of extraordinary accommodation relative to sovreign debt. If inflation remains uncontained, they may continue to shine.

        “Although these investments may be less liquid and perceived as riskier, they also offer the potential for higher returns.”

        What gives them this higher earnings potential?

        1. Reuters
          Business
          Commercial real estate investors risk painful losses in post-COVID world
          By Sinead Cruise, Lucy Raitano and Lewis Jackson
          July 30, 2023 6:14 PM PDT
          Updated a day ago
          Office buildings are seen in downtown San Francisco as the city struggles to return to its pre-pandemic downtown occupancy rate, falling behind many other major cities around the country,

          LONDON/SYDNEY, July 31 (Reuters) – Commercial real estate investors and lenders are slowly confronting an ugly question – if people never again shop in malls or work in offices the way they did before the pandemic, how safe are the fortunes they piled into bricks and mortar?

          Rising interest rates, stubborn inflation and squally economic conditions are familiar foes to seasoned commercial property buyers, who typically ride out storms waiting for rental demand to rally and the cost of borrowing to fall.

          Cyclical downturns rarely prompt fire sales, so long as lenders are confident the investor can repay their loan and the value of the asset remains above the debt lent against it.

          This time though, analysts, academics and investors interviewed by Reuters warn things could be different.

          With remote working now routine for many office-based firms and consumers habitually shopping online, cities like London, Los Angeles and New York are bloated with buildings local populations no longer want or need.
          …
          https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/commercial-real-estate-investors-banks-buckle-up-perfect-property-storm-2023-07-30/

        2. Forbes
          For Commercial Real Estate Investors, “Urban Doom Loop” Is Both Crisis And Opportunity
          Zenger News
          Contributor
          The first digitally native newswire, restoring trust in the news.
          Jul 31, 2023, 09:29pm EDT
          By Chris Zarpas, Zenger News

          Commercial real estate investors face a lot of headwinds these days — remote work emptying downtown offices, ravaging inflation, rising interest rates, shrinking family sizes — but they may not be hedging for another “Great Migration.” Of course, commercial estate investors see their business as cyclical, managing costs as markets bottom and bullishly chasing them when they climb. Real estate markets crash at varying velocities, and return, often with even greater vigor than before, as if by some natural law. But another “Great Migration” would be outside the natural swing of real estate markets.

          A rapid decline in quality-of-life is draining American cities of its people and bleeding the revenue of both governments and investors. There are many reasons to leave major U.S. cities: surging violent crime, failing schools, climbing taxes, soaring housing costs, a sidewalk-occupying army of homeless.

          The pandemic opened the door for remote work, which got many office workers asking “Why do I have to live within commuting distance?” Brooklynites have discovered that when they move to the Hudson Valley that they no longer have to pay New York City income tax, Manhattanites have discovered that sheltering in a Bucks County farmhouse means that honking horns no longer burst through their bedroom windows. Many more have discovered Florida, where they can trade away snow and state income taxes for humidity and hurricanes.

          All of these revelations have produced the greatest exodus from America’s declining “super-cities” in more than 50 years. Fifty-four of the 88 largest-population U.S. cities reported population losses between 2020 and 2021, according to Brookings Institution data. By the end of 2022 only 37 of the largest cities reported ongoing losses, but among them were Los Angeles, Portland (Oregon), Seattle, and every major Northeast city — from Philadelphia to Boston, according to the Economic Innovation Group. City centers have hollowed out, with half-vacant hotels and acres of empty offices and storefronts. Offices now lead the distressed property category, surpassing even enclosed malls and suburban hotels. A new “Great Migration” is now underway.
          …
          https://www.forbes.com/sites/zengernews/2023/07/31/for-commercial-real-estate-investors-urban-doom-loop-is-both-crisis-and-opportunity/?sh=206f162eaf11

    2. Business
      Stock market today: Wall Street returns to rallying following reports on profits and inflation
      FILE – A visitor take a photo of the New York Stock Exchange, Friday, Sept. 23, 2022, in New York. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer, File)
      By STAN CHOE
      Updated 2:09 PM PDT, July 28, 2023

      NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street’s rally got back on track Friday following more encouraging profit reports and the latest signal that inflation is loosening its chokehold on the economy.

      The S&P 500 rose 1% to its highest close in more than 15 months. The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 176 points, or 0.5% after breaking a 13-day winning streak the day before. The Nasdaq composite jumped 1.9% as Big Tech stocks led the market.

      Stocks have been rising recently on hopes high inflation is cooling enough to get the Federal Reserve to stop hiking interest rates. That in turn could allow the economy to continue growing and avoid a long-predicted recession. The S&P 500 closed out its third straight winning week and its ninth in the last 11.
      …
      https://apnews.com/article/stock-markets-rates-japan-yield-bonds-247008f7fc0cbf5d8b7fb85a4b15dfd4

      1. There may be an extra hyphen or two in that question. Between jet lag, a trip to the ER before dawn to pick up my husband, and a glass of wine this evening, my grammar is highly questionable.

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