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There Are No Viewings And No Offers, Homes Are Just Sitting There

A report from the Naples Daily News in Florida. “Year-to-date, single-family home sales are down 15% over the year in Lee County, the county hardest hit by Ian. In the city of Cape Coral, they’re off by 20%, said Denny Grimes, a long-time Realtor. As of August, prices were down 7% in the Cape from last year, compared to 4% countywide. Now, it’s more of a buyers’ market in Lee County, which means more room for negotiating. Recently, he said, a seller refused to accept $500,000 for his home – $25,000 below the asking price, then had to sell for $460,000, based on the next-best offer. ‘We are going to see more downward pressure,’ Grimes said. ‘Inventory is rising.'”

The Orlando Sentinel in Florida. “One year after Hurricane Ian doused the Orlando region with historic rainfall, dozens of condo owners at the Dockside at Ventura are still not back home. Today, the complex of more than 250 condominiums is a construction site with numerous units stripped down to the studs as crews work to do repairs. Including interest, residents are on the hook for a monthly assessment that would total more than $32 million over the 12-year life of the loan. ‘It means I have an extra $917 a month for the next 144 months,’ said Jason Buhi, who purchased his condo two years ago. ‘I’m going to pay more in the special assessment than I am the retail price of my condo.’ Frustrated condo owners rallied in September to recall board members in hopes of stopping the assessments. They wonder if the loan is an effort to drive them into foreclosure. ‘I think they’re trying to get our condos,’ Buhi said.”

From WKRN. “Middle Tennessee State University’s (MTSU) second quarter housing report is out, and real estate in the Greater Nashville area is showing mixed results. ‘What you have here is a kind of standstill in housing market,” said Dr. Murat Arik, the director of the BERC at MTSU. ‘Think about the fact that the builders [are] also constrained by the higher interest rate. They cannot simply go to the shopping spree to build homes. They also have to also carefully assess their own unique situation.’ Arik said we could see the mortgage industry and builders come up with new, creative mortgage products in the next year to help with affordability.”

From DS News. “ATTOM has released its Q3 2023 U.S. Home Affordability Report showing that median-priced single-family homes and condos are less affordable compared to historical averages in 99% of counties around the nation. The typical $2,053 cost of mortgage payments, homeowner insurance, mortgage insurance and property taxes nationwide exceeds $2,000 for the first time ever. It now consumes 34.6% of the average annual national wage of $71,214. That is up from 32.3% in Q2 of 2023 and 28.4% the third quarter of last year, to the highest level since 2007.”

“‘This pattern really jumps out,’ said Rob Barber, CEO for ATTOM . ‘While lenders will often push the 28 percent rule, especially if buyers have lots of financial resources outside of wages, we now are seeing fully three-quarters of markets around the country pushing the basic lending benchmark.”

Mansion Global on California. “In San Francisco, sales of luxury new development units have continued their downward spiral, causing prices to fall and thwarting plans for new projects. Prices are 10.3% lower than last year and down 3.1% from 2019, said Krysen Heathwood, senior managing director, Compass Development Marketing Group, West. Gregg Lynn of Sotheby’s International Realty – San Francisco Brokerage noted that there are no new luxury high-rises in the pipeline and that many units remain unsold at new luxury projects. The pace of sales for new-construction condos has been decreasing for years, Lynn said, laying part of the blame on the pandemic and the resulting option for remote working that people embraced and are loath to give up.”

“Heathwood added that buyers who tend to favor developments with the best and most amenities are in a good position to bargain right now. ‘Prices are negotiable in most developments, and prices and incentives are the best they have been in years,’ she said, adding that this situation is likely to be short-lived as the market picks up. ‘Many buyers are jumping in now to take advantage of the lower prices and will refinance later.'”

The Commercial Observer. “Southern California is now home to another example of sharply deflated office values. Pendulum Property Partners, an affiliate of Los Angeles-based asset management firm Ares Management (ARES), sold One Pacific Plaza, a 70 percent leased, 394,000-square-foot office campus in Huntington Beach for $42 million. That’s 66 percent less than the $124.5 million that it traded for almost five years ago. According to Trepp, the property is still encumbered by $90 million of debt from SunTrust Bank, which remains from a $97 million acquisition loan in 2018. Newmark told the Orange County Business Journal that the deal is the first notable lender-facilitated office sale in Orange County in the wake of the pandemic.”

“The deal joins other sales that indicate a generational drop in the value of traditional office real estate in Southern California, including but not limited to Orange County. For example, Terreno Realty acquired an office in Santa Ana for the same price it traded for six years ago, and plans to spend another $41 million converting it into an industrial property. Kearney Real Estate also plans to build a 164,000-square-foot industrial center in place of the Elevate@Harbor office campus nearby, and Blackstone notably sold another Santa Ana high-rise office at a 36 percent loss in April.”

The Dallas Morning News. “The number of North Texas office buildings listed for sale is growing. But so far in 2023, few have sold. Almost two dozen office properties — ranging from huge suburban campuses to small single buildings — are up for grabs in Dallas-Fort Worth. So why aren’t the deals flowing? It’s because of uncertainty about pricing and the future of the office sector, analysts say. With only about 60% of North Texas workers back in the office since the pandemic, companies are scaling back on space needs, causing leasing activity to dwindle.”

“At the same time, interest rates for loans to buy buildings have more than doubled as the Federal Reserve fights inflation. No surprise that office building values are heading down, bringing declining sales with them. About $500 million in D-FW offices changed hands through the end of August. That compares with almost $4.7 billion in North Texas office buys last year. Recent sales prices are about 12% below where they averaged at the peak in mid-2022. ‘Prices have got to come down, and you have this stalemate,’ said Susan Gwin Burks, senior vice president with Avison Young. ‘It wasn’t that long ago that buyers were borrowing in the sub 4% and low 4% range. Now we are in the 8.5% range. That changes the value of an asset considerably.'”

“Office owners faced with expiring debts are working with lenders for a solution — either a new loan or property sale, said Evan Stone with Goodwin Advisors. ‘Every lender I’ve talked to doesn’t want the property back,’ Stone said. ‘What are they going to do with it?'”

Bisnow New York. “Barberry Rose Management has sold a portfolio of rent-stabilized apartment units mostly in Manhattan’s Inwood neighborhood — but at a price well below what the multifamily owner paid in 2016. The 16 properties sold to Coney Realty for $47M, a 44% discount from the $83.6M price that Barberry Rose paid for the portfolio in 2016, The Real Deal reported. ‘That’s just a reflection of where the market is,’ Cignature Realty’s Lazer Sternhell, who brokered the deal along with Peter Vanderpool, told The Real Deal.”

The Globe and Mail. “Even the Bank of Canada’s crack forecasters can’t foretell inflation with a high degree of long-term accuracy. ‘And it’s the largest such team, the best trained, has every shred of data that’s available,’ former Bank of Canada governor Stephen Poloz told me in an interview earlier this year. The bank’s staff constantly engage in ‘a major debate about the pluses and the minuses and what the risks are – a very informed debate,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t get any better than that. That’s not the same as saying it’s accurate.’ ‘I think any economist, if you really pin them down on this, will tell you, the confidence intervals around the things … are pretty wide,’ Mr. Poloz said. ‘Weather forecasters are better than economists by a long shot.'”

From The I News. “Britain’s housing market has ‘stalled’ as homebuyers struggle to save large deposits and afford sky-high mortgage rates. Government data shows that property sales in August were 16 per cent lower than last year. This has resulted in sellers having to reduce the asking price by tens of thousands of pounds as the market contracts. Estate agents and mortgage brokers have told i that they are usually very busy in September after the summer holidays, but this month, instead, there has been a ‘market dead drop.'”

“‘I recently spoke to one of of the best, most professional agents I’ve ever worked with and they said this year’s autumn market, which is normally very busy, has not happened,’ said Charlie Landin, founder of property website BestAgent. ‘This person is 66 years old, they’re a veteran agent who has seen the last two housing market downturns. They are completely blindsided by this one, because it’s so sudden. They rang me up and said there are no viewings and no offers. Homes are just sitting there.'”

“One property in Clapton, east London, has been reduced by £75,000 since July. The property, now on the market for £600,000, still cannot be sold. On X, one user posted about a four-bedroom semi-detached home on the Kent and Surrey border that had been reduced by £175,000 in August of this year. Mr Lamdin believes the full scale of the issues in the market may not become apparent until next year or the years after, due to the eight-month time lag between agreed sale prices and when these prices can registered with the land registry data.”

“He fears that growing numbers of people will find themselves in negative equity with unaffordable mortgages. ‘This reporting time lag is creating a horrible trap,’ Mr Lamdin told i. ‘Buyers are at risk of overpaying because they are unaware of falling house prices because of it. For people with large mortgages this could be devastating. I’ve spoken to people who bought two years ago and fixed for five years who are realising that when they remortgage in 2025, they a) might not be able to afford their repayments and b) are looking at serious negative equity.'”

Mansion Global. “The growth couldn’t last forever. For the last two decades, Germany has worked to revive its automotive manufacturing and export industry. But times are changing. Rising energy prices, Covid-19-related supply chain disruptions and inflation have all made Germany more vulnerable. The German housing market has followed suit. Residential home prices fell by 9.9% year over year in the second quarter—the steepest drop since 2000, according to government data released Friday. Berlin’s home prices have fallen the least of any of Germany’s major cities, declining 5% compared to a year ago, according to Ziegert Group. The median price of an apartment there is €5,238 (US$5,528) per square meter.”

“In Dresden, the median home price in the second quarter of this year was €3,077 per square meter, down 3.5% from the same time last year. Munich isn’t immune to the housing woes plaguing the rest of the country. The asking price for apartments in Munich has dropped from a high of €9,750 per square meter to just under €9,000, according to recent data from Christie’s. Hamburg, traditionally known as a port city, has become a hub for some of Germany’s major aeronautics and biotech firms. Home prices fell 7.3% in the second quarter of 2023 compared to 2022, according to data from Dr. Klein, a construction financing company. Apartment prices were down 14.5%.”

From Newsweek. “The Chinese government has denied any knowledge of the legal quandary facing Hui Ka Yan, the founder and CEO of Evergrande who was put under police control this week in the latest episode in the mega developer’s years-long fall from grace. China’s Evergrande Group announced on Thursday that Hui, its chairman, was suspected of unspecified ‘illegal crimes,’ and that mandatory action had been taken in line with the law. The statement also said trading in the firm’s shares would be halted until further notice and advised securities holders and potential investors to ‘exercise caution.'”

“Hui joins a list of half a dozen tycoons to be investigated for financial crimes in the last decade, coinciding with Chinese President Xi Jinping’s rise to power and his far-reaching anti-graft campaign in the public and private sectors. As much as 70 percent of household wealth in China is tied up in property, according to estimates cited in an August joint report by the Asia Society Policy Institute and the Stanford Center on China’s Economy and Institutions. Meanwhile, property accounts for about 30 percent of China’s GDP.”

“While Evergrande was overleveraged, and the three red lines compounded the market’s woes, ‘the most important driver behind China’s boom-bust has been a weakening in the fundamentals in housing demand for the longer term, just as the housing bubble was heating up,’ Guonan Ma, a senior fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute, told Newsweek. No company was ‘too big too fail’ in China, said Gary Ng, an economist with the international financial services provider Natixis, and that he doubted any bailout was forthcoming coming for the troubled property giant “

The Sunday Times on China. “Farmer Chen Mei spent all her savings and borrowed from family and friends to cobble together 346,000 yuan (S$65,000) to help her son buy a flat in Kunming, capital of south-western Yunnan province. The flat was supposed to be ready in 2021, but construction stopped after the developer ran out of money. Madam Chen, 53, told The Sunday Times: ‘I cried for days, and my son and husband had to console me and watch over me to stop me from doing anything silly. I’m also too ashamed to face my relatives and friends, even though they said that they understand my situation and do not pressure me into paying them back.'”

“A slump in China’s property sector has had ripple effects across its economy, puncturing consumer and business confidence, and leaving many ordinary citizens like Madam Chen and her son high and dry. At their peak in the late 2010s, home prices in Shanghai were as high as London’s; even in cities less developed than Shanghai such as Chongqing and Tianjin, double-digit increases in the price of homes yearly made them out-of-reach for many locals. But good times for the developers unravelled three years ago.”

“In cities from Guangzhou to Xi’an, home owners made headlines when they staged a protest by moving into their unfinished apartments in bare-bones buildings, where they survived on limited water and electricity. In Kunming, Madam Chen’s son and hundreds of other home buyers are doing the same to put pressure on the authorities to do something about their situation. Madam Chen worries that without a flat, her son’s prospects of marriage would be slim. ‘How is my son going to find a wife or have kids if he doesn’t have a flat?'”

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This Post Has 103 Comments

  1. homeowner insurance, mortgage insurance and property taxes nationwide exceeds $2,000 for the first time ever. It now consumes 34.6% of the average annual national wage of $71,214. That is up from 32.3% in Q2 of 2023 and 28.4% the third quarter of last year, to the highest level since 2007′

    ‘This pattern really jumps out…While lenders will often push the 28 percent rule, especially if buyers have lots of financial resources outside of wages, we now are seeing fully three-quarters of markets around the country pushing the basic lending benchmark’

    That’s some sound lending right there Rob.

    2. “Arik said we could see the mortgage industry and builders come up with new, creative mortgage products in the next year to help with affordability.”

      “Creative mortgage products” = Subprime……can we finally call it what it is?

      1. Creative mortgage products

        I remember those from the early 80’s. They often involved balloon payments.

    3. ‘It now consumes 34.6% of the average annual national wage of $71,214. That is up from 32.3% in Q2 of 2023 and 28.4% the third quarter of last year, to the highest level since 2007′

      Wasn’t there a complete implosion of the lending industry in 2007, thanks in part to the erosion of sound lending?

  3. ‘We are going to see more downward pressure,’ Grimes said. ‘Inventory is rising.’”

    You stick to yer guns, greedheads! Your listing is special – don’t be giving it away! Stand firm until the Spring Miracle Revival, and you will be rewarded!

  4. ‘Every lender I’ve talked to doesn’t want the property back,’ Stone said. ‘What are they going to do with it?’

    Parks?

  5. They wonder if the loan is an effort to drive them into foreclosure. ‘I think they’re trying to get our condos,’ Buhi said.”

    News flash, FBs: nobody wants your defect-ridden condos.

  6. ‘its chairman, was suspected of unspecified ‘illegal crimes’

    Should have stuck to the legal crimes Hui.

  7. ‘It means I have an extra $917 a month for the next 144 months,’ said Jason Buhi, who purchased his condo two years ago. ‘I’m going to pay more in the special assessment than I am the retail price of my condo’

    It’s still cheaper than renting Jason.

    1. the next 144 months

      A gross of payments.

      I wonder if the repairs can be completed before the next flood.

  8. ‘Recently, he said, a seller refused to accept $500,000 for his home – $25,000 below the asking price, then had to sell for $460,000, based on the next-best offer’

    Just like that Denny, yer giving it away.

      2. Collectivist mentality. Shaming. Financial and economic illiteracy. I bet s/he votes Democrat.

      1. IIRC, the winners promised to stop supporting Ukraine in the war. Though I do wonder just how much aid puny Slovakia was sending to begin with.

  11. “He fears that growing numbers of people will find themselves in negative equity with unaffordable mortgages.

    But…but…muh real estate agent and every REIC shill said levering up on debt to get up on that housing ladder was the cornerstone to building up generational wealth!

  12. China’s Evergrande Group announced on Thursday that Hui, its chairman, was suspected of unspecified ‘illegal crimes,’ and that mandatory action had been taken in line with the law.

    Nothing spells contrition quite like donating one’s organs.

    1. To anybody who thinks Third Reich analogies are excessive, or distasteful, too f*ing bad.

      This is a MEDICAL GENOCIDE, and Anthony Fauci is responsible for the deaths and maimings of hundreds of millions more than Josef Mengele ever was.

      Justice isn’t gonna happen. Need some “lone wolf” types (waves at Glowie) to step up and do their duty, and know that their list of targets does include journalists 🙂

      1. We didn’t defeat Nazism. It went underground with a number of countries, the US included, importing and fostering it.

  15. A reader sent these in:

    Cost of living for rent and food has gotten too far ahead of real income. It doesn’t matter if inflation is down a bit. People are already underwater at current levels.

    https://twitter.com/WallStreetSilv/status/1708171956804063257

    I met Senator Diane Feinstein once, in the lead up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. She had just recently been assigned to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (in 2001), and it was in that capacity that she had a senior staffer from the committee ask me to come to Washington DC to brief her on Iraqi WMD and the allegations being made by the Bush administration that Iraq continued to possess them. We met in a secure conference room in the Capital building—me, the Senator, and a half dozen staffers and aides. It was a polite, professional affair, with the Senator asking questions and taking notes. Eventually she confronted me—“Your position is causing us some difficulty. You are making the US look bad in the eyes of the world.” I replied that my analysis and the underlying facts were rock solid, something she agreed with. I said that while I knew she couldn’t reveal sensitive intelligence, if she could look me in the eye and say she has seen unequivocal proof that Iraq retained WMD, I’d shut up and go away. She looked at her retinue, and then me. “I have seen no such intelligence,” she replied. She thanked me for the briefing, and said it provided her with “food for thought.”
    On October 11, 2002, Senator Feinstein voted in favor of the resolution authorizing war with Iraq. Later, she said she had been misled by the Bush administration and bad intelligence.
    I will forever know Senator Feinstein as someone who had been empowered by the truth, and lacked the moral courage to act on it. The blood of thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis stains her soul. I hope when she stands in judgment before her maker, she is punished accordingly.

    https://twitter.com/RealScottRitter/status/1707760992300490794

    Teachers Federal Credit Union announcing new tightening on Auto loans. ~$9B credit union, major player in NY / NJ regions. Credit is getting tougher and tougher.

    https://twitter.com/GuyDealership/status/1707895913606210027

    Reports of Ford cancelling Lightning EV orders across the country (dealer stock) Unclear just how wide-spread this is ATM. Going to disclaim this post as *unconfirmed* until I get more details.

    https://twitter.com/GuyDealership/status/1707896186667933781

    Ally Bank, a major player in auto lending space, is beginning headcount reductions. Email below from its President of Dealer Services:

    https://twitter.com/GuyDealership/status/1707869653848952864

    I just watched a mortgage industry coaching platform video highlighting a loan officer’s “Winning strategies in today’s market.” Here is what I heard:

    -Show the client our conviction in rates dropping and refinancing in the next 12-18 months.
    – Showing low down payment financing (5%) and then showing the future refinance @ 4.875%.
    – Cost of Waiting – “If you wait until rates drop, prices will be higher. You’ll save so much more by doing it now.”
    – Don’t draw attention to the rate. Have the client focus on cash out-of-pocket and payment.
    – Label rate buy-downs as “Lower Payment” or “Lowest Payment” essentially avoiding the points discussion.
    – Rate buydown recapture – they compared payment savings to cash outlay difference vs including additional principal paid w/ lower rates.

    More evidence that, unfortunately, most loan officers view themselves as salespeople. The idea is to come up with key phrases and sales pitches that move people through the sales funnel.

    There is another side to everything mentioned above that should be discussed because these points aren’t all bad, and could easily become true. I would have added:

    – Rates might not drop. In fact, refinance rates are dramatically higher than FTHB rates. (EVERYONE is missing this story when comparing this inevitable future refinance)
    – You might not be able to refinance if you just put 5% down. Prices may plateau and push lower. The old days of “No-Cost Refinances” using lender credits may not come back for many years meaning closing costs are real costs.
    – Prices might not go higher as rates push lower. Every area is different but lower rates in an environment of economic weakness and potential job loss could see prices remain flat to slightly down. Key word “could”
    – Alternative to buying: Renting at a reduced monthly cost (area and property type dependent) while your down payment funds earns 5% in a money market. (Again, rarely discussed)

    I think too many people in the real estate and mortgage industry today have only experienced markets that go one direction…up. Many are so young that their experience in life has been the same. 10-13 years of an economic expansion and housing prices that only go up.

    Before you jump in and fall for sales tactics to purchase a home, be sure to consider the other side of the story.

    Ask questions like, “What if [the opposite of what they say will happen] happens?”

    or

    “What is your view based on? Why do you believe that [sales pitch item] will happen? Would could happen that would change that potential outcome?”

    https://twitter.com/AdvisorJohn/status/1707429360842473750

    This home sold in Bend Oregon, a massive ski boom town in April 2022 during the bid up craze for $775k. It just had another price reduction today to $675k as the out of town investor can’t rent it and wants it “off the books”.

    https://twitter.com/jimmydean197/status/1707449226135765366

    US commercial bank lending has slowed to a crawl, with 6-month annualised growth falling from 14.7% in August 2022, to just 0.6%. This highlights the major impact of the Fed’s tightening, and that further rate hikes aren’t needed to tame inflation.🧵

    https://twitter.com/steveanastasiou/status/1707326704036020451

    About that “excess savings” narrative… “Americans Saved $1.1 Trillion Less Than Thought” “Americans stashed away an average 8.3% of their disposable income annually from 2017 through 2022, down from a previously estimated 9.4%.”

    https://twitter.com/DiMartinoBooth/status/1707455881367945603

    What you get when the Fed inhales a third of MBS market.

    https://twitter.com/DiMartinoBooth/status/1707427943927148814

    The uptick in September was due to another sharp increase in the delinquency rate for loans backed by office properties…

    https://twitter.com/HayleyKeenPR/status/1707406256682537155

    Neel Kashkari tells CNBC that policy may not be tight enough because autos and housing are turning up. Meanwhile, the August data showed housing starts -11.3%, NAHB housing index -10%, new home sales -8.7% and auto sales -4.6%. What is he talking about??

    https://twitter.com/EconguyRosie/status/1707044425598226473

    Barron’s with the most expensive words in finance. “It’s different this time” (almost remarkable how predictable)

    https://twitter.com/Will_DeCotiis/status/1708237749143158824

    Record liquidation volume in the t-bond market this week as the global bond market goes totally bidless. CBs will abandon their inflation fight when things start to break. By which, I mean every thing. By that time, stock gamblers will be buried.

    https://twitter.com/SuburbanDrone/status/1708185599218180274

    Due to the rising cost in food prices, the 5 second rule has now been extended to the 10 second rule.

    https://twitter.com/dougboneparth/status/1708113274363859131

    Yatchs and Private Jets on the company balance sheet may well be red flags

    https://twitter.com/sunchartist/status/1707660771784577393

    Most of the easy money is gone in the bond market at this point. The asset that is now so clearly overvalued is stocks. 50%+ outperformance of stocks vs long bonds in last 3 years is not sustainable. Closing that gap will be extremely painful to most investors.

    https://twitter.com/BobEUnlimited/status/1707216938663817290

    1. “Cost of living for rent and food has gotten too far ahead of real income.”

      If not the French Revolution, then what? (nobody wants socialism)

      The concentration of ownership of assets by the non-producing Parasite Class is something that needs to be addressed, one way or another.

      If you’re going to church this Sunday, go read the parts of your Bible that talk about usury, money lending, charging of interest, et cetera.

      It was enough of a problem 6,000 years ago, 2,000 years ago, that somebody got inspired to #Notice and write it down.

      Get right with the Lord, folks, bad times are coming…

        1. Unlike biological sex, it is not binary.

          The concept of Western Liberal Democracy, in its current form, has failed.

          This country has enough arable land, energy and other natural resources for its citizens to have a standard of living that equals or exceeds that of the 1950s to early 1970s, the latter of course being the pivot point when real wages stopped rising in tandem with rising productivity.

          Something’s gotta break, because this sh*t isn’t working.

          1. it is not binary

            Hubby would argue that there are only two forms of government: republic or authoritarian.

          2. “Something’s gotta break, because this sh*t isn’t working.”

            Fair enuf.

            But watch out what you wish for. Most revolutions over the course of history led to much worse societal conditions for those who expected to benefit.

            The Beatles – Revolution
            https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BGLGzRXY5Bw

        2. Nobody wants dictatorship

          Yet you pull the D lever. Perhaps you should stop listening to MSM, study some history (notably the Bolshevik and Cultural Revolutions), and look at how people act before deciding who you think the wannabe dictator is.

          2. Recommended reading:

            Rule and Ruin: The Downfall of Moderation and the Destruction of the Republican Party, From Eisenhower to the Tea Party
            Geoffrey Kabaservice

            Emperor of Rome: Ruling the Ancient Roman World by Mary Beard, Profile Books £30/Liveright $39.99 512 pages

            Big Caesars and Little Caesars: How They Rise and How They Fall — From Julius Caesar to Boris Johnson by Ferdinand Mount, Bloomsbury £20, 304 pages

          3. of the Republican Party

            I don’t subscribe to the left-right paradigm. I don’t like or want globalists in our government.

      2. If not the French Revolution, then what?

        Let’s have the American Revolution.

        We already have the handbook.

        2. You mean when the American Founding Fathers cast off the yoke of King George?

          What I don’t understand is why so many freedom loving people are attracted to leaders who clearly want to crush democracy in favor of dictatorship. ‘Tis a puzzlement!

          2. Who were the ones mandating the jabs? Who were the ones censoring opposing voices? Those are your authoritarians.

          3. “Who were the ones mandating the jabs? Who were the ones censoring opposing voices? Those are your authoritarians.”

            Desperate times breed desperate measures. It wasn’t just Democrats who did this, but also communist dictators like Pooh Bear.

          5. Desperate times breed desperate measures

            Create the problem to impose the solution. Please tell me you still don’t believe SARS-CoV-2 came from a bat.

          6. “The people always have some champion whom they set over them and nurse into greatness. This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector.” —Plato, Republic

    2. “What is your view based on? Why do you believe that [sales pitch item] will happen? Would could happen that would change that potential outcome?

      Most won’t ask these questions because they’d rather believe the fairy tale.

    3. “I just watched a mortgage industry coaching platform video highlighting a loan officer’s “Winning strategies in today’s market.” Here is what I heard:”

      My suggestion to anyone planning on sitting down with a loan officer anytime soon should take out their phone, set in on the LO’s desk and ask if you can record the conversation. Because I’m pretty sure some of the sales tactics described in that post are criminal.

      1. Show the client our conviction in rates dropping and refinancing in the next 12-18 months.

        Like lying? “Show the client our conviction in rates dropping and refinancing in the next 12-18 months.” Our conviction?!?!

    4. “This home sold in Bend Oregon, a massive ski boom town in April 2022 during the bid up craze for $775k. It just had another price reduction today to $675k as the out of town investor can’t rent it and wants it “off the books”.

      Bend, as well as every other high desert boomtown in the rain shadow of the Cascades and the Sierras, is beginning its epic decent into Craterville. I’m currently south of Reno. It’s happening.

    5. “On October 11, 2002, Senator Feinstein voted in favor of the resolution authorizing war with Iraq. Later, she said she had been misled by the Bush administration and bad intelligence.”

      The jooz were champing at the bit to get some payback from Saddam, and the civilian population, for launching scud missiles on Israel, but they couldn’t do it themselves. Enter the U.S., a cabal infested state department and their fantasy inclined Evangelicals who would eventually piss away $7,000-billion dollars, and walk away with nothing.

        1. In a previous incarnation as a civilian federal government contractor, I worked with some people who were in Iraq on active duty.

          One guy told me that you could effectively do procurement over there by writing a contract on a napkin if that’s all you had.

          The endless pallets of $100 bills shipped to Bagram AF Base, that money didn’t go to Halliburton, but it sure went somewhere.

          $33 trillion dollar national debt (and growing)…

    6. “Barron’s with the most expensive words in finance. “It’s different this time” (almost remarkable how predictable)”

      Great quote. Anyone who hears that line should run for the hills.

    2. This is so true. It’s ridiculous and sad at this point that STILL all these people have just closed their eyes and are playing pretend. On literally every single subject. AT this point i hope they all boost up.

  17. “Arik said we could see the mortgage industry and builders come up with new, creative mortgage products in the next year to help with affordability.”

    Maybe they could revisit some of those creative mortgage products that showed up circa 2004, just before the subprime lending industry burned to the ground.

      1. That’s a great opportunity for Democrat politicians to offer bailout assistance to the victims who were put on the path to foreclosure by Democrats’ affordable housing policies.

  18. Bloomberg
    Markets
    Once Unthinkable Bond Yields Now the New Normal For Markets

    – Dramatic bond selloff reinforces shift from easy-money era

    – Larry Fink sees ‘embedded inflation’ pushing US 10-year to 5%

    Bloomberg
    By Alice Gledhill and Michael Mackenzie
    September 30, 2023 at 7:00 AM PDT
    Updated on September 30, 2023 at 11:46 PM PDT

    It was the week that bond markets finally seemed to grasp what central bankers have been warning all year: higher interest rates are here to stay.

    From the US to Germany to Japan, yields that were almost unthinkable at the start of 2023 are now within reach. The selloff has been so extreme it’s forced bullish investors to capitulate and Wall Street banks to tear up their forecasts.
    …

  19. Are your unaffordable mortgage payments preventing you from enjoying the highest returns on cash savings in a generation?

    1. Brett Arends’s ROI
      Washington’s blunders create a ‘Duck Soup Windfall’ for savers
      Last Updated: Sept. 30, 2023 at 12:21 p.m. ET
      First Published: Sept. 29, 2023 at 11:43 a.m. ET
      By Brett Arends
      Government in action
      Courtesy Everett Collection

      Don’t say America’s political class never does anything for you: Their mishandling of inflation, the economy and the federal budget has produced some of the best saving and investment opportunities seen in generations.

      Call it the “Duck Soup Windfall” — so named after the Marx Brothers’ classic movie about government insanity in the fictitious republic of Freedonia.

      U.S. Treasury bonds and certificates of deposit are now paying rates of interest that were unimaginable just a year or two ago. Ditto corporate bonds. Annuity rates are way up. Inflation-protected Treasury bonds (a favorite topic, and the only bonds I own) are now paying guaranteed rates of interest, on top of inflation, that market experts were saying until recently that we’d never see again.
      …
      https://www.marketwatch.com/story/washingtons-blunders-create-a-duck-soup-windfall-for-savers-fe70d8b4

      1. BFD, I’m getting 5% meanwhile everything is going up at 10%. I”m still falling behind but not as fast as everyone else. It’s still not really a win.

  22. RE: China’s Evergrande Group announced on Thursday that Hui, its chairman, was suspected of unspecified ‘illegal crimes,’

    Ah, that’s the crux of the problem. A crime, in order to be acceptable, must be legal like the fiat (legalized counterfeit) money fraud perpetrated by the Central Banks all over the world . . .

  23. Have you noticed the increased number of Chinese migrants trying to escape Pooh Bear’s collapsing real estate empire?

    2. Immigration
      Seeking protection and opportunity, more Chinese migrants take treacherous journey to San Diego-Mexico border
      Asylum-seekers from China wait to be processed by U.S. Border Patrol agents after crossing the border with Mexico on Sept. 26, 2023, near Jacumba Hot Springs.
      (Denis Poroy / For The San Diego Union-Tribune)
      Though Chinese migrants account for just a fraction of the people arriving at the Tijuana-San Diego border, their presence has grown noticeably in recent months
      By Alex Riggins
      Oct. 1, 2023 5 AM PT

      As she waited in the trash-strewn dirt and brush between two border walls west of the San Ysidro Port of Entry, there was little about her appearance that hinted at the long journey she had taken to reach the doorstep of the United States from China.

      She wore a denim jacket over a black T-shirt and loose fitting gray pants, with her dark hair pulled into a ponytail behind her youthful face. But a single gray hair stubbornly sprouting in a different direction bore testament to her stressful travels. When she slipped one foot out of its rubber clog to scratch an itch, a toe protruded from a hole in her deteriorating lace sock, betraying the difficult route she’d trekked to arrive, nearly, to her final destination.

      The 35-year-old woman, speaking through a Mandarin interpreter last month, asked to be identified only by her initial H because she feared for her safety and had not told her family about her travels.

      She said she began her journey with a friend in July when they flew from China to Turkey to Ecuador — which does not require visas for Chinese citizens. They traveled by foot, horse, boat and bus through Colombia and Central America.
      …
      https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/immigration/story/2023-10-01/chinese-migrants-journey-san-diego-mexico-border

  24. Do you worry that a soveriegn debt crisis will soon plunge the global economy into a state of chaos?

    1. Billionaire Ray Dalio expresses concerns about US economy: ‘Going to have a debt crisis…’
      2 min read 01 Oct 2023, 10:35 PM IST
      Livemint
      Ray Dalio remarks come just a day after the Senate passed a last-minute bill to keep the spending on till at least the next 45 days, avoiding a complete shutdown
      Ray Dalio, Bridgewater’s Co-Chairman and Co-Chief Investment Officer (REUTERS)

      Billionaire investor Ray Dalio expressed concerns about the US economy in a recent CNBC interview. The Bridgewater Associates founder spoke about the dire fiscal situation of the United States and said we may have a debt crisis in the country. The remarks come just a day after the Senate passed a last-minute bill to keep the spending on till at least the next 45 days, avoiding a complete shutdown.

      The national debt of the United States touched record levels in September as it crossed the massive $33 trillion mark. In the past few years, there has been a significant surge in debt levels, particularly following a substantial 50% rise in federal expenditures between 2019 and 2021, as substantiated by information provided by the US Department of the Treasury.

      “We’re going to have a debt crisis in this country,” news platform Moneycontrol quoted Ray Dalio from the interview.
      …
      https://www.livemint.com/economy/billionaire-ray-dalio-expresses-concerns-about-us-economy-going-to-have-a-debt-crisis-11696176382394.html

    2. Bloomberg
      Markets
      Treasury Yields Climb After US Deal Returns Focus to Rate Hikes
      – Traders mull expectations for a rate hike in November
      – Bond yields pushed higher across the curve on Monday
      By Ruth Carson
      October 1, 2023 at 6:30 PM PDT

      Treasuries began the week on the back foot after a US government shutdown was averted, eliminating a point of uncertainty for traders and returning their focus to the path ahead for interest rates.

      Yields climbed across the curve in Asia trading Monday, with those on 10-year debt rising as much as five basis points to 4.62%. Five-year yields rose by a similar amount to 4.66%, approaching once more a 16-year high.
      …
      https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-10-02/treasury-yields-climb-after-us-deal-returns-focus-to-rate-hikes?leadSource=uverify%20wall

    1. “As long as it takes” over there and “that’s not my concern” what happens back here in USA.

      90,000 Ukrainians Lost to Meat Grinder: “Western Idiots Pushing Us Towards WW III,” Russian Ex-President Warns (10/1/2023):

      “Western “idiots“ are “actively pushing us towards World War III,” former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev wrote on Telegram Sunday. Ukraine’s October counteroffensive plan is “camouflage for Zelensky’s scheme to steal more money from the West,” Sputnik News quotes former State Department liaison Lt. Scott Bennett as Ukrainian casualties top 90,000 since June 4.

      https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/10/90000-ukrainians-lost-meat-grinder-western-idiots-pushing/

      90,000 is that a lot?

      Steal more money from the West, that sounds about right.

      Declaring a ceasefire, NOW, today, and beginning negotiations needs to happen. Because the West can’t win this one, I’m sorry, but you just can’t win this.

      And if combat and war continue, with the support of the West, my greatest hope for the outcome of this is that Zelensky and his skank wife are taken alive by the Russians.

      He’s a war criminal, and he’s not even ethnically Ukrainian (globalists gonna globe). There is a special place in Hell waiting for Zelensky and all the other war pigs.

      1. Related article.

        White House prepares to fight for Ukraine aid after shutdown averted (9/30/2023):

        “While the Speaker and the overwhelming majority of Congress have been steadfast in their support for Ukraine, there is no new funding in this agreement to continue that support,” Biden said in a statement. “We cannot under any circumstances allow American support for Ukraine to be interrupted. I fully expect the Speaker will keep his commitment to the people of Ukraine and secure passage of the support needed to help Ukraine at this critical moment.”

      2. “…Zelensky and his skank wife…”

        Isn’t she just playing the bottle blonde, arm candy role, or does she have human lampshades in her house?

        1. Makes one wonder if she and the children are just props.

          Once this farce ends and Zelensky slithers away into exile in London or even the USA, I expect that she will quietly go away.

  27. ‘It wasn’t that long ago that buyers were borrowing in the sub 4% and low 4% range. Now we are in the 8.5% range. That changes the value of an asset considerably’

    The magic pixie dust of cap rates continues to work in reverse.

  28. LOL@ remember even back when Kimg Obama we wuz kangs and you could buy a full bag of groceries for less than $20 right?

  29. ‘The deal joins other sales that indicate a generational drop in the value of traditional office real estate in Southern California’

    How the mighty have fallen.

  30. Great Travel Reset: Poll: 41% of French population favors restricting EVERYONE to ONLY 4 airplane flights in their ENTIRE LIFE to ‘fight against global warming’

    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/10/01/great-travel-reset-poll-41-of-french-population-favors-restricting-everyone-to-only-4-airplane-flights-in-their-entire-life-to-fight-against-global-warming/

    Engineer Jean-Marc Jancovici, an expert on climate change, once again called for drastically limiting plane travel, and declared the need to establish a quota of 4 flights per person in a lifetime…

    HERE and the CSA Institute have just carried out a survey among the French on a possible restriction of the use of airplanes to fight against global warming and to anticipate the depletion of resources. Questioned by the CSA institute, 64% of French people aged 18 and over say they are in favor of reducing their use of airplanes in the medium term for environmental reasons.

    Philippine van TICHELEN, General Director of HERE. “These figures show a very clear majority in favor of a reduction in the use of the plane. Ecological awareness is obvious in a context where natural disasters worsened by global warming (extreme heatwaves, fires, etc.) themselves have repercussions on the vacation plans of the French in Greece and Italy in the very short term.”We once again find a higher score among those under 35 (48%)…and this rises to 59% of 18-24 year olds.

    This study was conducted by the CSA Institute and carried out online, on July 18, 2023, with a representative sample of 1,010 French people aged 18 and over, constituted using the quota method.

    1. 64% of French people aged 18 and over say they are in favor of reducing their use of airplanes in the medium term for environmental reasons

      You can’t save people who want to be enslaved.

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