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These Days, A Skambud May Not Actually Be Too Shameful

A report from KPBS. “Southern California home sales, including those in San Diego County, hit one of the lowest levels ever last month, according to CoreLogic. San Diego real estate agent Voltaire Lepe said he and other agents have been feeling the pinch, especially over the last few months. ‘I’ve been in real estate for 20-plus years. This is probably the hardest year that I’ve gone through,’ he said. Lepe’s sales are down about 50%. ‘The current state of the housing market today, I would say, is on a downward trend as far as less sales. And I believe prices are also going to drop, or are dropping right now slightly, because demand is down,’ he said.”

KUTV in Utah. “Makers Line, the construction arm of Q Factor, a Salt Lake development firm whose entities have been shedding employees — may be out of business. An electrical subcontractor said Makers Line told him last week it was no longer involved in a series of projects on the Wasatch Front. A contractor for a Makers Line project in Ogden — an unfinished apartment building on 25th Street, known as Union Walk — said he’s owed $300,000, and he’s filed a lien on the property. ‘We just kind of got promised and promised, and told the check is in the mail,’ said Landon Moyes, of Moyes Glass. ‘It was just a joke.'”

“Meantime, Ogden City has stepped up its scrutiny of the project, with a city building official citing ‘additional dangerous conditions,’ including ‘sagging floor joists…bearing weight overload…and roof trusses tilting.’ ‘You are hereby ordered to obtain the proper demolition permit and commence to completion the demolition of the building,’ said a city stop work order, ‘or present plans to Ogden City to repair the building and abate all dangerous conditions.'”

KVUE in Texas. “Those looking for a place to rent or up for renewal may find a better deal soon. Austin Investor Interests, LLC tracks multi-family housing in the Austin metro area. ‘… occupancy rates continued their downward trend for the eighth consecutive quarter, falling .8% to 90.3%, marking the lowest point since 2009.’ ‘The last three years, we just had a euphoric market with so many tenants moving in from the East and the West Coast. And so developers, of course, recognized this demand. They all jumped in there. Everybody’s building. Now we have over 60,000 units currently under construction, and this amounts to nearly 20% of our current inventory,’ Robin Davis, the Owner of Austin Investor Interests, LLC, said.”

“‘The sales market is a little bit precarious right now because I think that we’re seeing a lot of the investors’ loans coming to maturity, and so to consider refinancing at the current rates is going to force some owners into selling. Anybody who has bought over the last couple of years, you know they may have a significant challenge ahead of them to let go of that real estate without a loss,’ Davis said.”

From Bisnow. “After a year of slow rent growth and high interest rates, apartment owners that have enjoyed years of profitability are seeking improved efficiency through the increased use of technology to centralize operations. In an effort to keep costs under control, many landlords are looking to make their operations more efficient. ‘If you had a problem property a year ago, you could just sell it,’ said Lucas Haldeman, CEO of SmartRent, a proptech firm. ‘Now, I can’t sell it, so I have to manage it. The tenor of multifamily has absolutely shifted to expense control and ancillary revenue, two things we didn’t talk about when rents were skyrocketing.'”

The Real Deal on New York. “Rent-stabilized heavyweight City Skyline just took another punch. After defaulting on loans tied to five rent-regulated buildings this summer, the firm, headed by Douglas Peterson, was hit by pre-foreclosure filings from Fannie Mae on 11 buildings in Upper Manhattan and the Bronx, court records show. Peterson’s latest defaults total $72 million, bringing the firm’s distressed debt to $108 million. That’s about one-third of City Skyline’s $316 million portfolio, according to landlord tracker Who Owns What. As more foreclosure filings have hit public records, brokers say agency lenders have been quick to foreclose. ‘They don’t seem to be willing to work with their borrowers,’ Alpha Realty’s Lev Manashev told The Real Deal in September.”

“The industry expects rent-stabilized distress to spread. Valuations have fallen between 20 and 45 percent and brokers say even buildings priced to sell have not moved. A few months back, Manashev said he was working to sell 735 East 182nd Street, a fully stabilized building in the Bronx that backs an agency loan. ‘I’m trying to talk to [loan] servicers, I’m trying to let them know, ‘Hey, we’re marketing this; here’s the bids we’re getting.’ But they don’t seem to be cooperative.’ The lender filed to foreclose on the building in June.”

From WFTV 9. “A Central Florida family is facing foreclosure after the house they thought would be their forever home, turned out to be a lemon. A lawsuit claims it’s uninsurable, full of leaks, and has a rotting wood frame that wasn’t disclosed during the sale. They’re suing the seller, the agent who worked with them, and the appraiser who looked over the property before the sale. They cannot sell the house because they now owe more than what it will appraise for. The home was once an assisted living facility, based in Maitland. Lori Cerceo worries that any day now, the locks will be changed on what she expected to be her forever home. ‘We have the bank telling us that we’re in default,’ Cerceo said. ‘We moved to an apartment, so we basically have an uninsurable home, and uninhabitable home, that is just sitting here.'”

“Inside, it’s musty and vacant, and the kitchen cabinets are ripped out. Photos show that the family hadn’t even fully unpacked when a leak prompted them to tear the place apart, revealing the house an appraisal told them was concrete block was actually a wood frame, which Cerceo says was rotting and making her children sick. The defendants have argued in court records that the transaction was an ‘as-is’ sale, stating that the family agreed to rely solely on the representations of the seller and an inspection, which did point out rot around all the windows and doors, but only on the exterior.”

From CP 24. “A new report says Toronto’s condo market could be headed for a slowdown amid high interest rates and a dearth of buyers. The report looked at nearly 100 communities in seven major Canadian condo markets and found that despite stronger sales in recent months, sales numbers and price are still down when you compare January to August this year with the same period last year. ‘Opportunities exist in the current environment as a growing number of assignments come to market,’ the RE/MAX report said. ‘Many of these buyers purchased condominiums during the pre-construction phase at a time when interest rates were at record lows. As the buildings near completion, many are unable to qualify at new interest rate levels, leaving them no choice but to sell their units.'”

The Globe and Mail. “Toronto developers have delayed launching almost 14,000 condo units this year, as demand has waned because of higher borrowing costs and economic uncertainty. Sales of preconstruction condos have slowed significantly this year as interest rates have climbed, pushing up costs for both buyers and builders. ‘Sales are slow,’ said Yousaf Iqbal, the head of Canadian operations for IQI Global Real Estate, a firm that caters to Asian buyers. Mr. Iqbal said it is not just borrowing costs that are weighing on buyers: Now that some developers have had to cancel projects or have been taken over by a court-appointed receiver, some buyers are leery about committing to preconstruction condos that are years away from completion.”

“In the third quarter, 42 per cent of the condo units launched were sold, according to Urbanation. Although that was similar to levels seen over the past 12 months, it is well below the 70-per-cent level achieved in that period before interest rates started rising in March, 2022. ‘Elevated interest rates and heightened market uncertainty continued to grip the new condominium sector,’ Urbanation president Shaun Hildebrand said in a news release announcing the third-quarter numbers. ‘Many projects have been unable to make an economic case for proceeding in the current market,’ said Mr. Hildebrand, adding that developers have shelved projects because of their ‘inability to sell at required price to earn an acceptable profit.'”

The Evening Standard in the UK. “Given there’s never a good time to be house hunting, I feel relatively lucky to be pounding the pavements now. I’m also happy not to be competing in a hot market – homes I viewed weeks ago are still listed, often with 10 or 20 per cent knocked off the price I viewed them at. It feels faintly luxurious to be able to deliberate over second viewings. The stumbling block – because with the London property market there has to be one – is that so far, there’s barely anything that warrants more than five minutes of my time, let alone schlepping out to see it for a second time.”

“In my price bracket at least, the bulk of sellers seem to be landlords, shifting unprepossessing, unloved properties, most of which need a good £100,000 spent on them. And I’m not looking for perfection, just an energy-efficient, well laid out, pleasantly liveable home. These homes aren’t shifting fast, but several estate agents I’ve been dealing with have suggested that they’ll likely sell to another landlord who can pay cash and so won’t be impacted by mortgage rate rises. We’re only at the start of the slump so perhaps market reality will catch up with those who really need to sell.”

From The Local.”When a property is put up for sale in Sweden, it usually comes with an advertised utgångspris (asking price), the minimum price for which sellers are supposedly willing to accept offers. In times gone by when the Swedish property market was at its peak, you could usually expect that the actual selling price would be higher than the asking price as buyers would push the price up in their attempts to outbid each other. But the current economic slump means that sellers are often happy to get even just one person interested in their property, with many homes advertised for months before anyone snaps them up.”

“The state of the market is such that if you’re a buyer, you may even be able to haggle about the price and put in an offer lower than the asking price. That’s where the word skambud comes in. It used to be seen as a little bit cheeky to offer to pay less than the asking price, so it’s perhaps no surprise that the compound word is made up of ‘shame’ (skam) and ‘bid’ (bud). It refers to an offer that’s so low it’s almost an insult. ‘For shame!’ a seller might cry in response. It also used to be pointless, as in nearly all cases you would quickly be outbid by other buyers. But these days, a skambud may not actually be too shameful.”

“In fact, many estate agents advise that if the asking price is just above what you’re able to pay, you may be able to successfully put in a lower offer, due to the slow housing market – although if you’re doing it in good faith it’s arguable whether it classifies as a skambud or not. The history of the word skam is debated, but it may be related to an old Germanic word that meant to cover something up which then grew to refer to the embarrassing thing you wish to cover up. Examples: Tror du jag kan komma undan med ett skambud? Do you think I can get away with an offer below the asking price? Ingen vill köpa vårt hus – vi har inte ens fått ett skambud! No one wants to buy our house – we haven’t even received an offer below the asking price!”

From Bloomberg. “In a leafy neighborhood in Dusseldorf, Milena and Manuel David planned to break ground this summer on a new home, a milestone that was going to get them out of a cramped apartment where they share a bedroom with their two kids. But during the 16-month wait for a permit, mortgage rates had tripled and their building costs rose by €85,000 ($90,000). The couple crunched the numbers again before facing the fact that their dream of building their own home had collapsed as part of Europe’s worst construction crisis in decades. Similar struggles are playing out across much of the continent. ‘I spent so many nights lying awake,’ said Milena, a 37-year-old teacher, overlooking the overgrown shrubs and weeds where her kids were supposed to be playing. ‘What makes me angry is that we were so close.'”

“The hardest-hit countries are among the wealthiest. New building permits in Germany have fallen more than 27% in the first half. Permits in France are down 28% through July, and UK home building is expected to drop more than 25% this year. Sweden is suffering its worst slump since a crisis in the 1990s, with building rates less than a third of what’s deemed necessary to keep up with demand. The downturn is affecting single-family homes — like the one the Davids were planning — as well as large housing projects.”

“The construction crash has led to calls for incentives and industry support, but governments have limited appetite for additional spending after the Covid pandemic and amid efforts to rein in inflation. The result is a wave of company failures and restructuring cuts that risk reducing long-term building capacity. In the UK, about 45,000 residential property builders have shuttered over the past five years. In Sweden, 1,145 companies in the construction industry filed for bankruptcy in the first 10 months of this year, an increase of 35% from 2022, according to data from Creditsafe.”

The Investor in Vietnam. “Manipulation of the real estate market should be strictly banned as it is no less dangerous than stock market manipulation, said Trinh Xuan An, a legislator representing the southern province of Dong Nai. Commenting on the draft Law on Real Estate Business at the ongoing session of the National Assembly, Vietnam’s highest-level legislative body, An said the Penal Code already has regulations on the manipulation of the stock market but does not have the same for the property market. ‘Manipulation in the real estate market has become very sophisticated, leading to bubbles and sky-high prices. Therefore we need specific regulations to eliminate the act,’ the delegate said.”

“According to the lawmaker, this tactic includes bidding at high prices and then giving up deposits, and using the price of one project to boost the price of another. ‘If we do not handle this properly, it will create bubbles and even incidents similar to the collapse of Evergrande in the Chinese market,’ he stressed. According to parliament member Nguyen Huu Thong representing the central province of Binh Thuan, it is necessary to clarify the act of collusion in auctions of land use rights to inflate land prices in surrounding areas. This has become common and makes it difficult for people with a real need for housing and real estate. In the nine months, the number of new transactions was only about 50% compared to the same period in 2022 and about 20% of the figure in the period of overheated development due to a lack of social and affordable housing.”

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There’s Just No Buyers

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This Post Has 91 Comments

  2. ‘Now we have over 60,000 units currently under construction, and this amounts to nearly 20% of our current inventory…The sales market is a little bit precarious right now because I think that we’re seeing a lot of the investors’ loans coming to maturity, and so to consider refinancing at the current rates is going to force some owners into selling. Anybody who has bought over the last couple of years, you know they may have a significant challenge ahead of them to let go of that real estate without a loss’

    How do those 5% cap rates look now Rob?

    1. Austin might actually be cheap soon. I think they will be offering 3 months free and begging people to rent before long. Might be a good option since it could take a few months just to get a good handle on the lists of foreclosures they are going to have there. I predict the Austin area is going to be one of the best markets for bottom feeders at the trough of the bust. Only drawback is you’d have to live in Texas. There are worse places but Texas is a pain in the *ss in so many ways.

  3. ‘Given there’s never a good time to be house hunting, I feel relatively lucky to be pounding the pavements now. I’m also happy not to be competing in a hot market – homes I viewed weeks ago are still listed, often with 10 or 20 per cent knocked off the price I viewed them at’

    That’s the spirit! Let em twist in the wind.

  4. ‘Lori Cerceo worries that any day now, the locks will be changed on what she expected to be her forever home. ‘We have the bank telling us that we’re in default,’ Cerceo said. ‘We moved to an apartment, so we basically have an uninsurable home, and uninhabitable home, that is just sitting here’

    You are in default Lori. What does it matter if they change the locks? Let me guess: you didn’t put 20% down.

    1. “You are in default Lori. What does it matter if they change the locks? Let me guess: you didn’t put 20% down.”

      – 20% down payment (80% LTV), DTIs of <30%, median house price / median income ~3x, one income nuclear family living in primary residence with no second homes, no portfolio of STRs: That’s so 20th Century! How gauche for asking! 😀

      – Through the “marvels” of central banking, feminism, and other forms of social engineering, the world is a better place. On the road to serfdom. You are being priced out of the American Dream. You will indeed own nothing. All is going according to plan. 🚫 🏠 for you! Financialization is the new slavery.

    2. “The defendants have argued in court records that the transaction was an ‘as-is’ sale, stating that the family agreed to rely solely on the representations of the seller and an inspection,”

      You, Mr. Buyer, are totally fooked! Welcome to schlongville and the world of uneducated real estate investing. Sue all you want, Mr. Buyer. But neither you or your lawyer are gonna receive a dime.

  5. ‘‘I’ve been in real estate for 20-plus years. This is probably the hardest year that I’ve gone through…The current state of the housing market today, I would say, is on a downward trend as far as less sales. And I believe prices are also going to drop, or are dropping right now slightly, because demand is down’

    Voltaire: The sun don’t shine on the same dog’s ass all the time. Catfish Hunter

  6. ‘If you had a problem property a year ago, you could just sell it…Now, I can’t sell it, so I have to manage it. The tenor of multifamily has absolutely shifted to expense control and ancillary revenue, two things we didn’t talk about when rents were skyrocketing’

    I know Lucas, it just seemed like rents would go up – forevah.

  7. Lepe’s sales are down about 50%. ‘The current state of the housing market today, I would say, is on a downward trend as far as less sales.

    Thank you for that astute observation, Captain Obvious.

    1. A downward trend? Sure. But that doesn’t really matter because it’s always a good time to but, or sell, real estate.

  8. “Meantime, Ogden City has stepped up its scrutiny of the project, with a city building official citing ‘additional dangerous conditions,’ including ‘sagging floor joists…bearing weight overload…and roof trusses tilting.’

    Did the last honest, competent inspectors get driven out of the construction business in the late 1990s? Serious defects & structural issues, as well as shoddy workmanship in general, seems to be the norm for all bubble-era multifamily structures and condos.

    1. It sounds like they ran out of money, quit paying people and the elements started to ruin incomplete construction. Inspectors can’t change that.

    2. There are few competent workers left. The younger kids are dumb as bricks and the old world master craftsman types are rare. So it’s illegals or meth heads and tweakers doing half a days work for a few bucks.

      1. Anyone who knows what they are doing have been charging an arm and a leg. Hence those $30K hallway bathroom remodels for a new tub, toilet, sink and tiles. You used to be able to get a nice new car for $30K

  10. The current market reminds me of 2007 when sellers were stubbornly clinging to 2005/2006 prices and buyers were staring them down and not blinking. I believe this correction will be worse due to the huge increase in outstanding residential and commercial debt, much higher interest rates, and debtors likely inability to continue servicing that debt. Also, as someone mentioned yesterday, all those zombie companies barely kept alive by tube-feeding from the sweet nectar of near zero interest rates.

  11. On a totally unrelated topic:
    I am in Panama City Panama where protest have been occurring for about the last 10 days. There have been road closures by my hotel and ranting and raving in a crowd maybe 1/4mile away but nothing really effected me. Last night that all changed. About 10;15 I hear what sound like shot gun blasts. I hear about 3 over a minute of so. I get up look out the window, nothing. go back to bed. Hear a few more random blast but nothing major, then I hear, in rapid succession 12-15 what I believe are shot gun blasts. I get up and look out the window, I see a huge cloud of dust and handful of people running down the road away from the cloud. Turns out they were tear gas blasts.
    I spoke to the front desk clerk who stays here and she said it was scary and she hopes they don’t come back again, but then she says “We take good care of you, you are safe on the 15th floor.” Anyway, no burnings, no looting and hell, there wasn’t even any graffiti on the buildings near my hotel.

    2. Keep us updated. First hand experience in the third world is really interesting stuff the news media ignores.

      1. Panama is a LatAm outlier. Uncle Buck is their legal tender. The canal of course is crucial to their economy and it’s some sort of LatAm financial hub. The brouhaha over the copper mining deal doesn’t seem like something the proles would get ruffled about.

    1. IIRC, the Babylon Bee was going to post satire about this, but the regime beat them to the punch.

  15. * ” . . but then she says “We take good care of you, you are safe on the 15th floor.” Anyway, no burnings, no looting and hell, there wasn’t even any graffiti on the buildings near my hotel.?”

    ahem. World Trade Center

  16. “‘I’ve been in real estate for 20-plus years. This is probably the hardest year that I’ve gone through,’ he said. Lepe’s sales are down about 50%. ‘The current state of the housing market today, I would say, is on a downward trend as far as less sales. And I believe prices are also going to drop, or are dropping right now slightly, because demand is down,’ he said.”

    We knew a couple of real estate families who both were in the business for well over a decade. They both cashed out their home equity and left the state by 2022, having correctly understood the proverbial handwriting on the wall.

    1. Business
      San Diego home sales nosedive, median price drops
      Pacific Beach.
      Home sales dropped significantly in September. Pictured: Ingraham Street runs through the Crown Point area of Pacific Beach in San Diego in mid-October
      (K.C. Alfred/The San Diego Union-Tribune)
      There were 2,101 home sales in San Diego County in September, one of the lowest ever recorded. Price was also down
      By Phillip Molnar
      Oct. 31, 2023 5:30 AM PT

      San Diego home sales in September hit one of the lowest levels ever as mortgage rates continue to affect buyers.

      There were 2,101 home sales last month, according to CoreLogic data released Tuesday, the lowest ever recorded for a September in records dating to 1988. It wasn’t just low for September — usually a big sales month — but the eighth-lowest sales month ever recorded with a 20 percent drop from August.

      Tight inventory had pushed up the median home price for months, despite rising mortgage rates, but prices dropped 1.2 percent monthly to $830,000 in September. The median — which combines resale and newly built single-family homes, condos and townhouses — is still up 5.1 percent annually.

      In the last week of September, the average interest rate for a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage was 7.31 percent, said Freddie Mac. That was up from 6.7 percent at the same time last year.
      …
      https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/story/2023-10-31/san-diego-home-sales-nose-dive-median-price-drops

      1. Buyers need to accept that prices will never fall. Soon enough they’ll realize the folly of waiting and they’ll come to their senses to buy buy buy.

    2. 2022 was when I was officially cashed out of real estate. Last time around I was cashed out at the end of ‘05. Started investing again at the end of 2010. So this game does take patience.

  17. https://nitter.poast.org/texasrunnerDFW/status/1720070647609466934#m:

    🔥Colorado is trying to pass a bill to tax Airbnbs at a 27.9% tax rate 🔥

    MASSIVE JUMP from the 6.7% currently used for residential properties 😳

    Raise your hand if you underwrote this expense into your DSCR loan…

    Short-term rental owners show up in force to oppose Colorado lawmakers’ plan to tax their homes at a much higher rate
    Iterations of the idea have failed at the Capitol in recent years, but the 2024 version has the backing of Gov. Jared Polis and comes after Proposition HH opened the door for the change

    1. “Raise your hand if you underwrote this expense into your DSCR loan…”

      – 😂😂😂

      – I’m for completely banning STRs just like NYC. Everywhere. F AirBnB.

      – STRs are hotels without a front desk in resi. zoning. Should be in commercial zoning. No front desk. No supervision, wrong zoning. Not actually legal, and yet here we are…

      – I’m totally in favor of taxing secondary and tertiary residences at much higher tax rates and banning corporate landlords from purchasing SFHs. Stop the bullsh*t!

      – Bedford Falls or Pottersville? Let hardworking Americans decide. BTW, Congress doesn’t have your back. Taxation without representation. F Congress. Is that redundant? 😀

  18. You will eat nothing.

    CNBC (11/2/2023):

    “Target CEO Brian Cornell says shoppers are pulling back, even on groceries, as they feel stressed about their budgets.

    In an interview with CNBC’s Becky Quick that aired Thursday morning, he emphasized that the retailer has posted seven consecutive quarters of declining sales of discretionary items, such as apparel and toys, in terms of both dollars and units.

    “But even in food and beverage categories, over the last few quarters, the units, the number of items they’re buying, has been declining”

    https://www.cnbc.com/2023/11/02/target-ceo-says-shoppers-are-pulling-back-even-on-groceries.html

    Do you remember what you were paying for FOOD four years ago?

    Four years ago before CCP Flu was intentionally released in November 2019 in Communist Party China?

    How much new money has been printed since the “deadliest virus ever known” was created in a lab and intentionally released?

    1. I haven’t been to a target since the tranny bathing suits in the kids section. I had a red card for 15 year and did all my shopping there. When I canceled my card, the guy in the phone noticed how old my account was. He asked me why I was canceling it. I said you know why. He said yes I do know why, but you need to see it so I can copy it down. So I said it.

      Honestly, I don’t miss Target one bit. I find other ways to purchase household goods at other stores.

      1. I think it’s been over 5 years since I set foot in one, and even back then it was a rare occasion. They’ve been controversial for a long time. I remember when they refused to donate to parochial schools because “they aren’t part of the community”.

        They can doom loop until they liquidate, for all I care.

  19. Federal income taxes.

    Russia Today (11/2/2023):

    “Ukraine will not make any progress in its fight against Russia unless some new technology emerges to give it a decisive advantage, the country’s top military commander, General Valery Zaluzny, told The Economist this week.

    He conceded, without the appearance of a ‘wunderwaffe,’ that Moscow is in the better position, given its larger population and greater resources.

    “Just like in the First World War, we have reached the level of technology that puts us into a stalemate,” he said of the ongoing conflict, as quoted by the British magazine on Wednesday.

    Despite the hopes of Kiev supporters and Ukrainian officials, “there will most likely be no deep and beautiful breakthrough,” he predicted. The conflict may “drag on for years” and “wear down” the country.

    https://www.rt.com/russia/586406-zaluzhny-ukraine-stalemate-economist/

    Russia is winning.

    And you, the U.S. taxpayer, are losing. Remember, you’ll never be seen as anything more than cattle tax slaves to these globalist war pigs.

    1. ‘given its larger population and greater resources’

      I did mention that at the beginning.

      ‘you, the U.S. taxpayer, are losing’

      I don’t see it that way. USA-ans never even paid for WW2. We’re not paying for anything literally. Let the federal reserve notes go to zero. The neoliberal globalist scum are never going to live this proxy war down.

      1. ‘given its larger population and greater resources’

        IIRC, we were told that people united in a fight for their country could overcome this.

        1. Someone posted a foreign channel here and I’ve followed it closely cuz you won’t hear truth from globalist scum media. Some things I’ve noticed. It wasn’t just the fighting spirit of these natzies that was going to do the trick, it was massive money and arms from unca sugar and the eurostainians that would do it. Guess what? Russia blows up those multi-million peso tanks as soon as they show up with a $1000 drone. So the money isn’t the advantage it used to be. The financial drain will force Putin to withdraw they said. Now Germany is the sick man of europistan and those countries are crawling with muslims. They’re back to burning coal to keep the lights on too.

          And here comes the inflation. No more free money pentagon. So using money instead of might is a losing option. That means you gotta get out there and actually fight instead of pushing a button. The Russians have good moral and are fighting for their way of life, unlike the dancing cowgirl natzies, who have an average age of 40 now.

          All sorts of things are dropping by the wayside. Every morning now I see multiple cities are clearing out the bums, telling illegal aliens to get lost. Net zero pipe dreams are dying. And the EV’s themselves are suddenly not selling.

          1. Apparently several big city mayors (Dumver included) want to meet with Joetato to ask for refugee money. Something tells me they won’t get a dime.

          2. a foreign channel

            The Duran with the two Alexes? They were my go-to guys in the early days of the conflict.

          3. It’s called Military Summary. As I said a poster dropped it here and I’ve followed since. Usually two videos a day.

          5. I have long appreciated your blog. I used to visit here during the last housing bubble but have long since forgotten my user name. And
            People here seem to change their names frequently anyways. It’s your comments and observations like this comment above really capture the mood of this blog and the comments section. Thank you. I’ll tip soon, I promise

        2. we were told that people united in a fight for their country could overcome this

          How many military aged men fled Ukraine when the war began?

    2. we have reached the level of technology that puts us into a stalemate

      Right? Fighting on foot and in trenches. That’s high tech for you.

  20. Property taxes.

    Colorado Sun (11/2/2023):

    “Colorado students who are transgender and go by a name that’s not their legal one would have the right to use their preferred name at school, and teachers who disregard their wishes could face disciplinary action.

    That’s the proposal outlined in draft legislation that has received preliminary approval from a committee of state lawmakers and was brought forward by high school students who are part of the Colorado Youth Advisory Council.”

    https://coloradosun.com/2023/11/02/colorado-transgender-preferred-names-pronouns-schools/

    Because under Marxism, children are the property of the State.

    Keep paying those property taxes.

  21. Shoppers Beware: Rates On Credit Cards At Record Highs

    https://www.investors.com/etfs-and-funds/personal-finance/credit-cards-see-interest-rates-soar/?src=A00220

    (Some snips from the article …)

    Shopping with plastic is pricier than ever — interest rates on credit cards are hitting fresh record highs. And the timing couldn’t be worse.

    Let’s get the bad news out of the way first. The national average annual percentage rate (APR) on all credit cards is a record 20.72%, says Bankrate.com.

    (Yikes.)

    Store-branded cards with a retailer’s name on them charge even higher rates. The average rate on these retail credit cards recently hit a record high of 28.93%. Many store-only cards, which can only be used at a single store, topped the 30% barrier.

    (YIKES!)

    “Rates are the highest we’ve ever seen since we started tracking in the mid-1980s,” said Ted Rossman, senior industry analyst at Bankrate. And if Wall Street is right and the Fed keeps rates higher for longer, credit cards rates will remain elevated for a while as well.

    That’s an issue for those who carry a balance. It means they’re being hit with high rates typically reserved for deep subprime borrowers, or those with credit scores of 580 or lower, adds Rossman. Nearly half (47%) of cardholders carry a balance month to month, up from 39% two years ago, according to Bankrate.

    (What a bunch of dummies.)

    With borrowing rates at peaks never seen before, Rossman sees trouble on three fronts for users of credit cards. The problems especially hit those who carry a balance or get snared in credit card offers that end up hitting them with deferred interest.

    First, people are carrying more debt for longer periods of time. Six of 10 cardholders who carry a balance have been in credit card debt for at least a year, up from just 50% two years ago, according to Bankrate. So, for those already carrying balances on their cards, interest costs will rise even higher.

    Next, total credit card debt is on the rise. It topped $1 trillion for the first time in the second quarter of 2023, according to the Federal Reserve. The average debt per borrower was $5,947, up 13% from the same period in 2022. That’s 23% higher than the second quarter of 2021 when Americans were flush with Covid-19 stimulus cash, says second-quarter 2023 data from credit reporting agency TransUnion.

    More recently, as stimulus money was spent down, “it’s been pretty much a straight-line upward jump in balances,” said Rossman.

    And lastly, inflation is forcing people to pay more for things they buy. That is giving many people a cash-flow crunch that forces them to use credit cards to pay for daily essentials. All this amps up the debt-servicing burden if balances aren’t paid in full each month.

    “Oftentimes, it’s buying something very practical that gets people into credit card debt,” said Rossman. “When you think about more debt, higher rates, higher prices, it all kind of feeds off itself.”

    What’s spiking the hike in costs of using plastic is the 11 interest rate hikes from the Federal Reserve since March 2022 in its fight against sky-high inflation.

    1. This 34-Year-Old Had $23,000 In Credit Card Debt. Now She’s Sharing Her Hacks For Paying It Off.

      https://www.yahoo.com/news/34-old-had-23-000-131836743.html

      (A snip or two from the article …)

      A recent survey found that nearly 43% of Americans admit they are hiding substantial credit card debt from their partners, and we’d guess there are lots more of us who don’t want anyone to know how much money we owe.

      “I went through six months of my historical spending,” she told us. “I had fallen into this pattern where I just wasn’t looking [at my credit card statements]. If I didn’t look, it didn’t exist.”

  22. Oregon just dropped all graduation standards, failing all of its students in the name of ‘equity’

    https://thehill.com/opinion/education/4288044-oregon-just-dropped-all-graduation-standards-failing-all-of-its-students-in-the-name-of-equity/

    In public education’s latest blunder, the Oregon Department of Education has just decided that basic reading, writing and math skills are not required for students to graduate with a high school diploma.

    Prior to the passage of Senate Bill 744 in the Oregon Legislative Assembly’s 2021 session, the state’s “Assessment of Essential Skills” requirement for high school graduation was sensible: “read and comprehend a variety of text, write clearly and accurately,” and “apply mathematics in a variety of settings.” Students were required to demonstrate these skills by “earning at or above a cut score on the Oregon Statewide Summative Assessment test.”

    Citing the effects of COVID-19 school closures, however, SB 744 required the state to review “requirements for high school diploma options.” To address learning-loss throughout the pandemic, the bill led to the suspension of Oregon’s essential skills proficiency requirement through the 2023-24 school year.

    Last month, Oregon’s State Board of Education voted unanimously to adopt an additional extension of this suspension through the 2027-28 school year. Board members, alongside Oregon Department of Education leadership, argued that requiring students to complete standardized tests both presented a “harmful hurdle for historically marginalized students” and represents a misuse of state tests.

    The Oregon Education Association (OEA), the union representing more than 40,000 teachers throughout the state, is a like-minded opponent of standardized testing. “Standardized tests are inaccurate, inequitable, and don’t accurately measure student learning and growth,” it declares. Further, the union labels standardized tests like Oregon’s Statewide Summative Assessment as “instruments of racism and a biased system.”

    With this in mind, the OEA’s role in the development of SB 744 is unsurprising. The OEA Special Education Committee “helped to develop…and helped OEA pass…Senate Bill 744 during the last legislative session.” Further, the union brags that SB 744 “passed with OEA member support in the 2021 session” due to “several equity concerns” surrounding Oregon’s essential skill requirements.

    Since Oregon abandoned its essential skill requirements for high schoolers, graduation rates have skyrocketed. With a graduation rate of 81.3 percent, Oregon’s class of 2022 set a record for the second highest four-year graduation rate ever recorded in the state. Unfortunately, this is not indicative of student skills. Only 43 percent of students in that year’s graduating class were proficient in English, and less than 31 percent were proficient in math.

    The OEA’s mission statement is clear. In addition to representing its members, the union makes a commitment to “ensure quality public education for students in Oregon.” By advocating for policies that do not require students to learn basic language and math skills in order to graduate, the OEA, alongside the State Board of Education, has placed Oregonian graduates at a significant disadvantage while substantially lowering the quality of public education.

    The OEA’s falling membership rate — down 4.4 percent from 2020 to 2022 — indicates that teachers in Oregon have begun to realize the destructive impact of teachers’ unions that consistently prioritize ideology over the success of teachers and students.

    As Oregon considers additional changes to public education, parents and teachers should hold the state accountable while paying close attention to groups like the OEA, which are not only complicit in but actively contributing to the bleak

    1. I’m a part time Oregonian, spending the better months on the coast. Oregon is amazing country. But how it ever become the haven of choice for stupid, ignorant and inbred white people is something I haven’t dug into (and yes….I’m very white). Seriously, Oregon has the corner on white trash.

      2. “Seriously, Oregon has the corner on white trash.”

        Stopped in on Co-Motion bicycles on Eugene, OR recently. The city core is a sh!thole of criminal and drug addled street people. Drove north another hour to Albany to spend the evening.

  27. On Nextdoor:

    Hey neighbors! We are selling both of our family cabins in case anyone is in the market for a vacation home or you know someone who might be 🙂 We are having open houses for the properties this weekend (Garner Valley) and first week of December (Big Bear).
    They are both meticulously maintained, beautiful, peaceful properties. They have been used as vacation rentals and so they are both spruced up and have had numerous improvements added to them. Let me know if you’re interested or have any questions!

    BIG BEAR CITY – 3 bed, 2 bath – $699,000 (OPEN HOUSE DEC 2)
    https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/442-Wagon-Wheel-Rd-Big-Bear-City-CA-92314/79568018_zpid/?fbclid=IwAR2Hs_A0MrMhEIsWSkV3N1tEdtFg5K6U1i2W2uU_wNRlGpsVM_yhpotfvAM

    IDYLLWILD – 3 bed, 3 bath – $849,000 (OPEN HOUSE Sat, Nov 4 2PM-4PM)
    https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/60725-Table-Mountain-Rd-Mountain-Center-CA-92561/18049222_zpid/?utm_campaign=iosappmessage&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=txtshare&fbclid=IwAR1s6Q6uzC1GS8R5UTKlCJKbCKDrcQu_Wcu0JPKMG_nv3eXw9hlGg85N8sQ

    1. BIG BEAR CITY – 3 bed, 2 bath – $699,000 (OPEN HOUSE DEC 2)

      10/28/2023 Price change $699,000
      10/11/2023 Price change $724,000
      9/8/2023 Listed for sale $749,000
      7/15/2021 Sold $640,000

      IDYLLWILD – 3 bed, 3 bath – $849,000 (OPEN HOUSE Sat, Nov 4 2PM-4PM)

      10/29/2023 Price change $849,000
      10/18/2023 Price change $874,000
      8/10/2023 Listed for sale $899,000
      12/10/2018 Sold $560,000

  28. A 28-year-old with over $36,000 in credit card debt moved back home with her parents. In 3 months, she’s already paid off thousands.

    https://www.yahoo.com/news/28-old-over-36-000-174502178.html

    (Some fun snips …)

    Brittney Reynolds accrued $36,227 in credit card debt due to careless spending, she said.

    After finally hitting a “breaking point,” she asked her parents to move back in to focus on paying it off.

    Her journey has gone viral on TikTok, and she’s using the moment to minimize “shame” about debt.

    A 28-year-old California brand marketer has gone viral and gained roughly ten thousand TikTok followers in one month after deciding to document her journey of climbing out of $36,227 in credit card debt.

    In August, Brittney Reynolds made the tough call to move back in with her parents — from the Bay Area to Temecula, California — to accelerate the mission. It’s been isolating and thrown her life into something of a “limbo,” she told Insider, although she’s grateful to her parents and she’s encouraged to see her balances plummeting.

    And while she doesn’t have friends in town, she’s found community on TikTok, she said, where thousands tune in to her daily financial updates, rooting for her to defeat her debt. On September 18, she shared her first video about her journey to 1.1 million viewers.

    “We’re setting goals,” she said. “Ideally, we’re going to meet them; sometimes we won’t — it’s fine.”

    Reynolds told Insider the sum didn’t accrue in “one moment” but “slowly kept accumulating” over the past six to eight years. Specifically, after she was approved for a Chase credit card. “I had no business having a $19,000 credit line at 22,” she said.

    Her biggest poisons? Splurges on Airbnb solo travel, a $4,100 Joybird couch, and a glitzy skincare routine, as well as an excess of tattoos and food deliveries. Earlier this year, Reynolds moved in with an ex in the Bay Area, who shortly thereafter lost her job. Reynolds became solely responsible for their $2,770 rent, which became an unsustainable sum on her $88,000 salary, she said.

    “As far as overspending, I just really didn’t care,” Reynolds told Insider of her former habits. “I didn’t think about the long-term impact.”

    Reynolds said the dissolution of her relationship was the “breaking point” that led her to phone her mom and ask to move back home. “I don’t want to enter into my thirties feeling this way,” she remembers thinking.

    Since posting her first viral video, followers have resonated with Reynolds’ vulnerability.

    “Im on this journey too and I can’t explain how comforting it is to hear other people going through this again,” one viewer wrote. “We got this!”

    “Can we start like a support group or something cause i need daily encouragement 😭😭,” another shared. “Started with 17k. Down to 10k but won’t be done until like July.”

    Reynolds also breaks down her paychecks on TikTok, aiming to allocate roughly $3,500 to $4,000 per month to her credit cards from roughly $5,000 in monthly take-home pay. Her debts are spread across the aforementioned Chase card as well as two Wells Fargo accounts.

    Since August, she’s seen the numbers drop from $36,227 to $29,000, according to a tally that she’s now sharing uber- publicly on her TikTok bio. Her most recent paycheck breakdown was posted on Halloween.

    “I’ve never seen the numbers drop this quickly,” she said. Her credit score has also risen from 609 in her first video to 634 in her most recent update.

    Reynolds allocates roughly $700 a month to expenses like groceries, her phone bill, and car insurance — and $300 to savings, she told Insider. She’s even started making money on TikTok, which goes into the savings pile, too. She aims to move to her own place in Los Angeles by next summer after her debts are completely cleared.

    And while financial advice is a hot topic on TikTok, Reynolds said she sees her content as different from resident experts, including Caleb Hammer and Dave Ramsey, whose content she believes can lack empathy. “Not everyone needs that slap-you-in-the-face wake-up call,” she said. “People want you to just be a human.”

    And if she’s provided support and inspiration to viewers, they’re returning it in kind.

    “It’s very isolating to live here,” Reynolds said, “so it’s nice to have that sense of community and understanding and helping people work through that shame and debt trauma.”

    1. “…As far as overspending, I just really didn’t care,” Reynolds told Insider of her former habits. “I didn’t think about the long-term impact….”

      I will take AirHead for $1000, Alex.

      Bonus question: Define ‘long-term’.

      Air head rings in: ‘Anything over 15 minutes’

    2. It’s very isolating to live here

      Have you said that out loud to your parents, who let you live there out of love, for free?

      1. Have you said that out loud to your parents, who let you live there out of love, for free?

        Some parents are horrible. They take payment in abuse.

        But yes, move out and shun bad parents. Become self-dependent. Not as easy as the headline. Try buying a used vehicle lately???

        The HBB makes it clear government policy makes it hard to be self-dependent.

  29. ‘‘They don’t seem to be willing to work with their borrowers…I’m trying to talk to [loan] servicers, I’m trying to let them know, ‘Hey, we’re marketing this; here’s the bids we’re getting.’ But they don’t seem to be cooperative’

    I only have experience with single family, but when fannie or freddie are passing on bids, it’s because legally they have a chump on the hook and they have to run out the clock.

  30. ‘Many projects have been unable to make an economic case for proceeding in the current market,’ said Mr. Hildebrand, adding that developers have shelved projects because of their ‘inability to sell at required price to earn an acceptable profit’

    Get used to that hole in the ground.

  31. ‘at its peak, you could usually expect that the actual selling price would be higher than the asking price as buyers would push the price up in their attempts to outbid each other. But the current economic slump means that sellers are often happy to get even just one person interested in their property’

    There’s a country song in there somewhere.

      1. I foresee a problem going forward with this bitcoin ETF proposal.

        Little beknownst to Wall Street masters of hype and their disciples, while putting lipstick on a pig may conceal the animal’s identity to the unobservant, the stubborn fact remains that under the shiny, glossy lipstick is a pig.

      2. Q. How do you make a small fortune?

        A. Invest a large fortune in cryptocurrency, then wait a while.

        1. Financial Times
          Opinion Lex
          Bitcoin: trial of SBF is no match for ETF enthusiasm
          But without an infusion of new money, the latest price rally is unsustainable
          A bitcoin in front of a price chart
          Rewards for bitcoin miners are expected to drop by 50% in early 2024
          October 31 2023

          The collapse of cryptocurrency exchange giant FTX marked the depths of the crypto downturn. Yet the ensuing trial of founder Sam Bankman-Fried, accused of defrauding customers, has not dragged crypto prices down further. Despite negative publicity, the price of bitcoin has doubled in the past year.

          This has been attributed to two things. In early 2024, rewards for bitcoin miners are expected to drop by 50 per cent. The result is a tightening of supply that could lift prices. At the same time, the US could be on the cusp of regulatory action that confers new legitimacy on to digital assets.

          Next year, bitcoin buyers expect the US Securities and Exchange Commission to give BlackRock and other financial companies permission to launch exchange traded funds that invest directly in bitcoin. This, they believe, could spur more adoption by institutional investors and act as a challenge to nefarious, unregulated crypto platforms.

          Both assumptions are wrong, even if the SEC grits its teeth and grants approval. ETFs may be more appealing than setting up wallets and buying tokens directly from unregulated exchanges, but their existence does not eliminate scams and volatility that investors find off-putting. When ProShares launched the first ETF that tracked contracts speculating on the future price of bitcoin in late 2021, bitcoin prices rose. The ETF finished its first day of trading at close to $42. It now trades at $17.50.

          The global cryptocurrency market cap has fallen from a $3tn market cap to about $1.3tn. Elon Musk, an outspoken supporter of digital assets, has not opted to expose his electric car company Tesla to further price swings. Tesla invested $1.5bn in bitcoin in early 2021 to “maximise returns on our cash”. At the last count, its digital assets were just $184mn.
          …

          1. “A bitcoin in front of a price chart”

            The MSM is still displaying fake photos of money which is literally invisible?

          2. “But without an infusion of new money, the latest price rally is unsustainable”

            Is this somehow different from a Ponzi scheme?

          3. Forbes
            Leadership
            Leadership Lessons From Bitcoin Founder Satoshi Nakamoto
            Sally Percy
            Contributor
            Leadership and management journalist
            Oct 31, 2023,04:00am EDT
            Statue Honors Bitcoin Inventor ‘Satoshi Nakamoto’ In Budapest Park
            A statue of the visionary bitcoin inventor Satoshi
            Getty Images

            Fifteen years ago today, a mysterious coder named Satoshi Nakamoto published a white paper titled Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System. That paper, which is considered seminal not just for bitcoin, but for the wider cryptocurrency movement, effectively kickstarted the world’s most successful cryptocurrency.

            Was there a reason why Nakamoto chose to publish the paper on Halloween? That is not clear. But there is no doubt that plenty of observers around the world regard bitcoin as a horror – not least some regulators, commentators and finance leaders in the developed markets who consider it little more than a giant Ponzi scheme that facilitates money laundering and fraud.

            On the other hand, bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are gaining traction in highly inflationary markets, such as Argentina, Pakistan and Turkey, where people see them as a way to protect and conserve wealth. Meanwhile, for refugees, cryptocurrencies can be a financial lifesaver, enabling them to efficiently move money across borders.
            …
            https://www.forbes.com/sites/sallypercy/2023/10/31/leadership-lessons-from-bitcoin-founder-satoshi-nakamoto/?sh=537a4733b2f6

        2. “…Invest a large fortune in cryptocurrency…”

          Crypto has just got to go down as the biggest fraud in the history of the world..

          Sam Bankman-Fried, NAR commisions fraud, Luxury Student Housing are mere scratches in the sand compared to Crypto.

          What’s fascinating and perplexing is how smart people with lots of money get sucked up into such a scheme.

          But then again, in 1975, Gary Dahl sold $15 million worth of Pet Rocks @$3.95 a rock.

          As I write this, I did an Ebay search for ‘pet rock’

          Here is a sample:

          Official PET ROCK Genuine Pedigreed Minions Stone
          Brand New
          $17.95
          Save up to 20% when you buy more
          Free shipping
          Free returns
          472 sold

          No shortage of rock heads out there.

  33. (An interesting non-housing related article …)

    The Army Suddenly, and Chaotically, Told Hundreds of Soldiers They Have to Be Recruiters Immediately

    https://www.yahoo.com/news/army-suddenly-chaotically-told-hundreds-200550394.html

    (An interesting snip …)

    The mad dash to fill its recruiter ranks has the Army dismissing minimum standards to send soldiers to the school, including getting rid of requirements that they have passing fitness scores and be in compliance with body weight standards, according to an internal email reviewed by Military.com. Some soldiers who were set to be drill sergeants will be reassigned as recruiters.

  34. (I find this article to be most amusing …)

    Women are seeking ‘lazy girl jobs’ because they’re experiencing burnout at higher rates than men, new Gallup survey finds

    https://www.yahoo.com/news/women-seeking-lazy-girl-jobs-110005326.html

    (A particularly amusing snip …)

    The so-called “lazy girl” job trend went viral on TikTok this year and accumulated over 35 million views on the platform. It was first popularized by TikToker Gabrielle Judge who encourages women to seek low stress, highly paid jobs so they can prioritize their personal life and wellbeing over work.

    “I want people to understand that they have autonomy in their work,” Judge told Insider previously. “I want people to understand that they deserve flexibility and remote working if they choose to do that.”

    Judge additionally told Insider: “I really want people to understand our time is so valuable and should be focused on efforts that are most aligned with their individual priorities, not a company.”

  35. Dave Matthews – Ants Marching

    https://youtu.be/GhswH1bLMy8?si=sVj071yoHcFpy08O

    Under the Table and Dreaming is the debut studio album from the Dave Matthews Band, released on September 27, 1994.
    “Ants Marching” is considered to be the definitive and most recognizable Dave Matthews Band song by many of their devoted fans. The song is centered on the idea that people get caught up in the monotony of their everyday lives and forget to focus on what is truly important. The metaphor used is that people are like marching ants in the line, “All the little ants are marching, red and black antennae waving, they all do it the same, they all do it the same way.”

  36. Southern California home sales, including those in San Diego County, hit one of the lowest levels ever last month, according to CoreLogic.

    So is SoCalJim famished these days?

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