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We Expect There To Be A Lot Of Blood In The Water

A report from the Washington Examiner. “The price of everything is up since 2020, but in absolute terms nothing has gone up more than mortgages. With the 2024 presidential contest coming into focus, housing affordability will be among the economic issues at play. ‘We are seeing people hold off — they might be looking, oops the rates went up one more time, and they’re like, ‘I’m out,’ Minneapolis-based real estate broker Patty Zuzek told the Washington Examiner’s Zachary Halaschak.”

The Miami Herald in Florida. “Rising housing costs burden half of all homeowners and renters in Miami-Dade County. And the situation is getting worse. Thousands quit looking or moved elsewhere. Data from U.S. Census Bureau reported Miami-Dade had a population loss of 28,000 residents from 2020 to 2022, the biggest decline for any county in the state.”

Bisnow South Florida. “A wave of new arrivals helped insulate South Florida from much of the pressures facing the commercial real estate sector, but an influx of wealth and people to the region hasn’t been enough to overcome the weight of interest rates. There are $100B in multifamily loans maturing across the country next year, said Anthony Candela, vice president at Slate Asset Management, said at Bisnow’s South Florida CRE Finance conference, with many of those loans underwritten in 2021 on properties that have seen capitalization rates nearly double. ‘We expect there to be a lot of blood in the water,’ he said. ‘I think the market just needs a reset. We’ve basically stopped looking at new acquisitions and have shifted focus to distressed.'”

“With the Fed’s benchmark interest rate now between 5.25% and 5.5%, the highest in more than two decades, many deals don’t make financial sense. ‘For a lot of the buyers right now, that four-cap or five-cap deal just no longer makes sense, versus 18 or 24 months ago when people were fighting for those deals,’ said Tomas Sulichin, president of the commercial real estate division at Related ISG Realty.”

“Ray Cleeman, principal and head of capital markets at Miami-based Pensam Capital, has also been fielding calls from debt funds looking for cash to help carry them through. Many are seeking to prop up their collateralized loan obligations to keep the debt from coming back onto their books, curtailing their ability to transact, he said. ‘We’ve seen cracks in the dam, but we haven’t yet seen the water coming through,’ he said. ‘Over the next six, nine, 12 months, the dam will break and we will see real estate trade, because it has to trade.'”

The Advocate in Louisiana. “Will renters in Metairie be rushing to pay as much as $3,250 a month for units in the new ‘Metro at Clearview’ apartment complex at the Clearview shopping center site? Atlanta-based Audubon, the developers of the $55 million, 270-unit residential block, have bet they will and have started to sign up tenants to move in next spring when the interiors and landscaping are completed. Gina Winters, a real estate agent for Latter & Blum, said other factors that should favor The Metro include a weak home-buying market. The steep increase in interest rates over the last two years has cooled off the housing market nationally and in the Greater New Orleans area, where the median sale price in the 10 months through October was down 2.2%, according to the New Orleans Metro Association of Realtors. Amid all the uncertainty, many people are choosing to stay on the sidelines and rent, resulting in a 21% decline in home sales through October. ‘It’s a good market for leasing right now because of all the uncertainty we’re having in the home sales market,’ said Winters.”

The Mercury News in California. “A $2,000-a-month studio apartment might not be considered a good deal in most parts of the country. But in the Bay, it might be — especially if the landlord throws in a sweetener. As thousands of new units hit the market around the Bay Area, concessions — such as free rent or free parking — are becoming more common, especially in apartment complexes. As of October, two in five apartment listings in the San Francisco and Oakland metro areas were offering concessions, and half of listings in San Jose offered them, according to Zillow.”

“The new units are a result of a mini building boom that hit the Bay Area during a time of low interest rates during the COVID pandemic, primarily concentrated in urban centers like Oakland and San Jose. In 2022, 3,158 new multifamily units were completed in Oakland, and 1,314 in San Jose, according to data from the California Department of Housing and Community Development. The Skylyne, a 402-unit, 24-story building that opened in 2020, reached 95% occupancy last year, but it is still offering concessions during the slower holiday season to compete with neighboring apartments. ‘Even during renewals, we’re offering two or three months free,’ said Isabella Easton, assistant community manager. ‘It’s keeping residents, and it’s getting them through the door.'”

The Real Deal on New York. “A decade after breaking ground, mired in delays and facing a 2025 deadline to complete its affordable housing, Brooklyn’s controversial Pacific Park is slipping away from its developer. Greenland is set to lose control of the delayed second phase of the 22-acre development formerly known as Atlantic Yards. The company has defaulted on nearly $350 million worth of loans tied to the six rental development sites of Pacific Park’s Phase 2, The Real Deal has learned. The lender has moved to foreclose on the sites. Greenland USA, a subsidiary of China’s state-owned Greenland Group, has been in default for roughly a year on two loans totaling $349 million. The loans cover the six incomplete sites at Pacific Park (out of 15 project sites in all) that are slated for more than 3,200 units — if they are ever built.”

“Greenland borrowed the money in 2014 from Nick Mastroianni’s U.S. Immigration Fund, which had raised capital through the cash-for-visas EB-5 program. The developer defaulted on the loans when they matured last November and in January, according to an offering memo from Newmark. Greenland has faced trouble elsewhere. Last year the company was forced to take a $200 million loss when it sold its 59-story Thea at Metropolis apartment building in Downtown Los Angeles.”

From CBC News in Canada. “While facing a housing crisis, the City of London will see fewer building permit applications this year, a situation builders said is mainly due to high interest rates cooling the market for new homes. City staff reports coming to a council’s planning committee show the number of building permits issued in 2023 is down sharply from the previous year. The main factor holding back building permits is high interest rates and a general belief that they will come down, at least a bit, in the new year, said Mike Wallace, head of the London Development Institute (LDI), which represents most of the city’s largest developers. ‘The buying public for new homes, they’re sitting on the sidelines,’ he said. ‘It’s a risk for a builder to pull a building permit and start the building process and then not have a buyer for it.'”

From The Local. “As early as 2021, Deutsche Bank predicted that the boom cycle in the German real estate market would come to an end in the near future. The expiry date they gave: 2024. Half a pandemic and an energy crisis later, their analysis seems all but certain. With Germany on the verge of sliding from a technical recession into a very real one in the fourth quarter, it seems only logical that the housing market will follow suit. The biggest bust is currently unfolding in the construction sector. The Ifo Institute for Economic Research recently reported that the number of construction project cancellations hit a new high in October, with 22 percent of companies saying they had to scrap projects.”

“‘It keeps on getting worse, and more and more projects are failing due to increased interest rates and rising construction costs,’ says Klaus Wohlrabe, head of Ifo’s survey department. These additional costs are weighing heavily on the sector, as many previously lucrative construction projects have become unprofitable. After peaking in 2022, home prices have now fallen by more than ten percent. ‘The new economic environment will make it impossible for more and more people to buy real estate,’ says ING chief economist Carsten Brzeski. ‘Rising interest rates have pushed about half of all potential buyers out of the real estate market.'”

ABC News in Australia. “Bipartisan support for temporary extra government spending to preserve businesses and jobs through JobKeeper was one of the few positive outcomes from the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s worth considering now whether the same logic could be applied to create a ‘HomeKeeper’ program, especially given Reserve Bank Governor Michele Bullock’s recent message that interest rates could stay higher for longer than expected. The latest Roy Morgan survey of stress among owner-occupied mortgagors showed near-record numbers of people ‘at stress,’ numbering 1,514,000, or over 30 per cent of mortgage holders. Nearly a million of them (967,000) are considered ‘extremely at risk.'”

“RedBridge pollster Kos Samaras has been regularly drawing attention to the extent of mortgage stress in social media posts all year. By mid-2023, Samaras says, ‘over 1.1 million borrowers in just NSW and Victoria were experiencing negative cash flow’ — that is, ‘income not enough to meet repayments and other expenses.'”

From Stuff. “New Zealanders are withdrawing money from their KiwiSaver schemes to help them through financial hardship at twice the rate of last year – and one supervisor says it’s largely because of rising interest rates. Data from Inland Revenue shows that there was $21.5 million withdrawn from KiwiSaver accounts for reasons of financial hardship in October, up from $10.3m in October 2022. That is compared to an increase from $77.7m to $104.7m million over the same period for first home withdrawals. David Callanan, general manager of corporate trustee services at Public Trust, said there had been a ‘crazy’ increase in the number of applications being received. ‘We’re clearing more than a thousand a month regularly now and that would have been absolutely unheard of before Covid. That’s just becoming absolutely the norm now.'”

“If the year-to-date data was extrapolated for the whole year, it would mean more than 13,000 applications processed, or twice that of the 2022 year. He said it used to be that a change in employment circumstances was the main driver for an application. Now, many people were still in the same jobs but struggling with things like higher interest rates. ‘They were not prepared, have not budgeted… their home loan rolls over and payments go up, and they’re just not able to cope.'”

South China Morning Post. “Homebuyers in Shenzhen have shown interest in upgrading their homes after the local government eased some policy measures, agents said, but expectations of lower incomes amid slower economic growth, which means people are still hesitant about big-ticket purchases, continue to be a key hurdle. ‘The policy merely lures home upgraders who have spare money to purchase another home,’ said Cao Jiayong, an agent in Shenzhen. The easing will not spur the overall market, because it is still difficult for the vast majority of Shenzhen residents to buy a second home, Cao said. ‘[Right] now, this is a buyer’s market in Shenzhen,’ said Andy Lee, Centaline’s China CEO. ‘More homeowners are urgently selling, rather than buying another home.'”

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This Post Has 107 Comments

  1. At this link above:

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/money/301018828/kiwisaver-hardship-withdrawals-double-as-new-zealanders-struggle

    …you’ll find a 2:36 video with this caption:

    ‘The O’Sullivan’s have cancelled almost every subscription they have, stopped KiwiSaver contributions, and might sell their car to keep up with their rising mortgage repayments’

    They say they make their own laundry soap. That’s not going to be enough to make you winnahs! Yer gonna have to stop eating.

  2. ‘Data from U.S. Census Bureau reported Miami-Dade had a population loss of 28,000 residents from 2020 to 2022, the biggest decline for any county in the state’

    I have already posted this, but think back to that period: every media pie hole was telling us the entire east coast was moving to Miami. It was a flat out fabrication, people were leaving by the thousands.

    1. Not really. The population has been replaced by luxury and high end real estate. Low income people have moved by the droves to the Walton and Oskaloosa counties in the panhandle, sraying in Florida but escaping the extreme heat as they no longer afford a/c and/or tgeir housing was razed to make room for luxury towers in Miami. The wealth that has moved into Miami is astounding.

  3. ‘The buying public for new homes, they’re sitting on the sidelines,’ he said. ‘It’s a risk for a builder to pull a building permit and start the building process and then not have a buyer for it’

    Wa happened to my igloo shortage Mike? Let’s see: shortage, new igloo but no buyer. Could it be the price?

  4. ‘[Right] now, this is a buyer’s market in Shenzhen…More homeowners are urgently selling, rather than buying another home’

    Dan:

    via GIPHY

  5. “’With the Fed’s benchmark interest rate now between 5.25% and 5.5%, the highest in more than two decades, many deals don’t make financial sense. ‘For a lot of the buyers right now, that four-cap or five-cap deal just no longer makes sense, versus 18 or 24 months ago when people were fighting for those deals,’ said Tomas Sulichin, president of the commercial real estate division at Related ISG Realty.’”

    [Related to this ^ is this:]

    For the third time this year, streaming giant Spotify is implementing employee layoffs to fast-track its drive toward profitability. 

    Spotify Chief Executive Daniel Ek told employees in a 1,000-word letter on Monday morning that 17% of its workforce will be laid off by the end of the day on Tuesday. The cuts will affect about 1,500 people. 

    “Today, we still have too many people dedicated to supporting work and even doing work around the work rather than contributing to opportunities with real impact,” Ek said in the letter. 

    He said, “The Spotify of tomorrow must be defined by being relentlessly resourceful in the ways we operate, innovate, and tackle problems,” adding, “Being lean is not just an option but a necessity.” 

    [Here is the essence of this post:]

    Ek admitted that Spotify took advantage of “lower-cost capital” in 2020-21 while also expanding its workforce, but now is reversing course: 

    https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/grinch-spotify-fires-17-workforce-christmas

    1. From Wikipedia: Zombie Companies

      “Zombie companies are indebted businesses that, although generating cash, after covering running costs, and fixed costs (wages, rates, rent) only have enough funds to service the interest on their loans, but not the debt itself. As such, they are generally dependent on the refinancing of maturing debt for their continued existence and may face solvency risks should interest rates rise or investors withdraw from further financing.”

      (snip)

      “The term has also seen an increased amount of usage in 2022, with concern over a number of ‘zombies’ possibly going bankrupt or needing to layoff workers due to a spike in interest rates.”

    2. The laid off are going to have a devil of a time finding a new job that pays the same. This is when they will find out that they don’t actually have any marketable skills and they aren’t qualified to be a shift manager at Mickey D’s.

    3. And that came from 401K, IRA, and pension funds where voting rights are held by the fund manager. No chance of collusion there.

  6. Reposting this from a previous thread. When someone tells you there’s “zero credible evidence” of voter fraud in the 2020 election, show them this:

    https://election-integrity.info/2020_Election_Cases.htm

    Many cases were dismissed on procedural or jurisdictional rather than substantive grounds.

    Trump prevailed in 4 out of 8 cases decided on the merits

    GOP Plaintiff prevailed in 15 out of 18 cases decided on the merits.

    GOP Defendant prevailed in 3 out of 4 cases decided on the merits.

    Trump and/or the GOP plaintiff prevailed in 23 out of 31 cases decided on the merits.

    2. How can it be that someone who supposedly got 81 million votes yet almost no one even wants him to run 2 years later, while President Trump is stomping toward reelection? It’s almost like those 81 million voters never existed.

      1. As demand for EVs plummets, Biden’s green fantasy is pummeling US auto dealers

        From inflation to gas-stove bans, it’s clear President Biden and his top officials are living in an alternate reality. Perhaps no issue proves this point more than their unrealistic mandate for electric-vehicles, a multibillion-dollar effort to force Americans into cars they simply don’t want and can’t afford.

        But facts are stubborn things, and now more than 3,000 auto dealers are finally speaking up. Although not widely covered, Ford, GM, Chrysler, Volkswagen, and others have collectively laid off thousands of workers this year, due in large part to cratering demand for electric vehicles. Ford admitted this summer that its electric vehicle business will lose $4.5 billion this year. Globally, the number of jobs lost due to Biden’s mandated electric vehicle transition sits at 80,000. So much for “creating” jobs.

        https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/as-demand-for-evs-plummets-biden-s-green-fantasy-is-pummeling-us-auto-dealers/ar-AA1kVNqo

        1. There is no way they are doing an about face on this. Just as how Joetato’s people insist the economy is the best it’s ever been, they will also insist the EV sales are kicking butt.

          Plus they don’t care if no one is buying an EV, because they don’t want us to have cars to begin with.

        2. 2/3 of all vehicle sales to be electric? The ONLY way I can see this happening is to pack the bottom 50% of the population into 15-minute cities and 2/3 of the elite would show off their Cybertrux.

          ——————
          “Earlier this week, a group of U.S. car dealers warned the Biden Administration that most U.S. car buyers aren’t interested in purchasing electric vehicles, incentives or not.

          In a letter addressed to U.S. President Joe Biden, the group asks the Administration to pump the brakes on federal regulations that would require two-thirds of all vehicles sold in the United States in 2032 to be electric—because it simply isn’t what car buyers want, even with the current incentives.”

          https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Consumer-Reports-EVs-Are-Less-Reliable-Than-Gasoline-Cars.html
          ——————

          1. Hey car dealers, didn’t you get the memo? They don’t want us to have cars. If that means you will go out of business, so be it.

          1. Just like how they want you to replace your furnace with a heat pump, so you can go broke freezing in the winter.

        2. This is where once again, President Trump running for one of the 2 party spots pays off. It’s difficult in the 2 party system to change candidates this late. Everybody is saying well we can’t run this guy! The first primary dates are just a few weeks. If yer gonna pull a switcheroo, yer running out of time.

          1. Knowing how unpalatable Newsom is nationally, Ds will save him until the last possible minute for a switcheroo.

          2. But the 2 party system no likey such a scenario. A big chaotic party conference with back room deals won’t look good. I only watched a snip of the debate but yer guvnah looked like a stuck goose. And Ron is no debate giant. Good luck with all that.

          3. Newsom’s unquestionably despicable but he’s a D darling. Plenty of our elections have been stolen. I don’t see why next year would be any different.

          5. Let’s hope his ex-wife and Don Jr’s girlfriend, Kimberly Guilfoyle, has some really good dirt on him.

          6. Technically, Kimberly is Don Jr’s fiancé.

            I don’t think there needs to be dirt on Gavin. San Francisco’s dirt speaks for itself. In his recall, Gavin only received 60% of the vote … in ultra liberal California. How would that 60% translate to, for example, Pennsylvania? Last I checked, Philly’s got a homeless problem too. Gavin will get less than Joe ever did.

            Not that I would object to a “small hand” joke in there somewhere. 🤪

          7. “Newsom’s unquestionably despicable but he’s a D darling.”

            Back in the seventies and early eighties the Cranston family were California royalty until the Savings & Loan scandal and subsequent taxpayer bailout. Today, nobody recognizes the name.

    3. 🚩: Anyone trying to summarize complex legal issues in a short phrase or single sentence.

          1. Law has more caveats as opposed to science and medicine where “life” throws predictability out the window.

        1. That explains why we have so many lawyers, tax accountants, and realtors!

          No offense meant to lawyers and tax accountants. 😁

  7. The Atlantic has a piece titled “Inflation Is Your Fault” because the poors won’t stop buying.

    So confused, are they supposed to stop or buy more?

    The Atlantic, LOLZ.

    3. I have tried this app it works. 1/2 price foods. last date of sale. I always look for managers specials. yesterday 60% off purdue breasts so that what we had for dinner…..my mom was a serious couponer guess it wore off.

      https://www.flashfood.com/

  8. The price of everything is up since 2020, but in absolute terms nothing has gone up more than mortgages.

    So the Fed raises rates to counteract inflation, but then raising rates causes mortgages to go up, causing more inflation?

    1. Raising rates causes the price of a mortgage to go up. That should lead to deflation of house prices, but real estate is sticky on the way down.

  10. The Climate Sumit taking place with Frausters of the Climate Change Doomsday narrative wanting to speed up Climate Change solutions, because it’s so “dire”.
    One Scientist of Climate who is opposing the Climate Change emergency, in summary said the solutions they propose are “preposterous. “. The withdraw of co2, by withdraw of fossil fuels, crop production, killing animals, etc, would create a
    disaster of mass die off of anything alive, and create a baren desert like earth.
    But in spite of the absurdity of the solutions to Climate Change, any opposition to it is censored, buried, with refusal to debate the ever increasing opposition to the bizarre narratives.
    Likewise, the bizarre fake vaccine countermeasure to Covid, killed over 20 million and injured more so far, with a cure worse than the so called disease.
    No other explanation for this other than a means by a group of Entities to take over the World, and force humanity into slavery and forced deprivation, and massive depopulation by their ” preposterous ” solutions.
    But you can’t question any of their great narratives or their great solutions. The poison killer shots remain on the market. Withdraw of co2 as culprit of doomsday, is “dire”, according to King Charles .
    The evidence shows they planned these made up narratives over half a century ago . JUST MADE IT ALL UP.

    1. The poison killer shots remain on the market.

      And celebrities continue to endorse them, even though most people have wised up and no one wants them.

      When I ask people why they aren’t getting the latest booster, most hem and haw. Some will admit that everytime they were jabbed they felt like they were going to die. I have several colleagues that missed multiple days of work after getting jabbed.

      Some, but very few, will very quietly admit that we were right and the jab is neither safe nor effective and they know someone who was gravely injured by it.

      1. Ok, so also talking heads ,like Tom Renzt, is saying a pneumonia is emerging as a result of the vaccines.
        I have a friend who took the vaccines who just got out of hospital who just had pneumonia . He is also suffering from a infection in his leg. This friend has gotten one thing after another since he took those jabs.
        I have another friend who took 5 jabs, who got heart problems after the 5th jab. Also this friend has gotten Covid twice so far.
        These friends are in denial because the medical cartel is gaslighting them. While both these friends say they aren’t going to take anymore vaccines, they still are in denial about what’s happening to them. ANOTHER PERSON I know who is 77 just got lung cancer, but that could happen at 77, so they don’t relate it to the vaccine.
        My Neice and her boyfriend got Covid in spite of taking the shots.
        The fact that people are also getting Covid 2 or three times is also odd.
        But, they insist that the jabs keep you from dying, even if you get Covid, or can transmit covid after getting the jab. The actual data shows that no reduction in death occurred by taking the jab, and they just made that shit up that jabs would keep you from dying.
        And don’t forget it’s Climate Change that is causing all the heart attacks, not the vaccines.

        1. While both these friends say they aren’t going to take anymore vaccines, they still are in denial about what’s happening to them.

          Like I said, some will very quietly admit we were right. The others are still in denial, though their current rejection of further boosters shows that the gears are turning in their heads, they just don’t want to publicly admit that they were bamboozled and possibly made a terrible mistake.

          2. I have a friend that developed afib right after 4th jab, I asked him to do some research first, and he said he didnt believe the conspiracy theories and he actually pumped his fist in the air when he said he was getting the third booster. A couple weeks later he fell out of his golf cart and nearly died.
            I know two others with unexplained fast resting heart rate,
            All jabbed.
            If you like seeing interviews about this, I have found Del Bigtree to be the best.
            The newest interview episode “the $600 million dollar man” will blow your mind about what we are up against.

            https://thehighwire.com/

            Most probably know this guy, but Del Bigtree on his Highwire website and his ICAN team are fighting this.

          3. A couple weeks later he fell out of his golf cart and nearly died.

            So is he still getting the next booster?

          5. weeks later he fell out of his golf cart

            One thing I find missing from the conversation…the shots didn’t prevent anyone from getting the bug. All these boosted people could have been suffering from the bug. There is no way to know. High resting heart rate is associated with the sickness and the shot.

            My only point is that what we actually know is full of holes.

        3. they insist that the jabs keep you from dying

          This is very simple. Every thing they said previously is now an obvious lie.

    2. “a group of Entities to take over the World, and force humanity into slavery”

      The Parasite Class.

      Because we will call them what they are: Parasites. The Language Police™ don’t get to dictate how we describe them. They are non-producers, they produce nothing. Parasites, blood suckers, and vermin.

    1. I believe that the last of the mortgage forbearances ended a week ago or so. I guess that’s where some of this 401K money is going. And it seems that all the hidden wells of money have finally run dry:

      Cutting corners on Netflix and SBUX
      Stimmie chex
      Mortgage and student loan forbearances
      Headroom at the top of the CC limit
      Those $40K personal loans that I keep getting spam email for (are those real?).
      Cash-out HELOCs and refinances (I’m sure there was a ton of cash-out during the two years ago during the 3% re-fi frenzy)
      And now years of savings in the 401Ks.

      One thing I haven’t heard about was withdrawals from the Roth IRA. Contributions can be taken out at any time penalty-free, so people would drain that first. Then again, how many people even have a Roth? I really don’t know.

      2. Cutting corners on Netflix and SBUX

        Since many SBUX “coffees” have as many calories as a milkshake, that might not be a bad idea.

        1. I just bought some SBUX whole beans at $8 for 12 oz. It’s proly enough to make 2 cups of good coffee a day for 36 days = 72 cups × $3 / cup = $216.

          1. There’s a few liquidation places near us and my brother checks them out from time to time. He just showed up here with a dozen bags of Starbucks whole bean, which he bought for $1.00 each. Last time, in a different place, it was Peet’s, same price. They are slightly past exp date, but taste fine to me, as no air has gotten into them and are very tightly wrapped.

          3. There has been an SBUX in situ at the local King Soopers and Safeways for quite some time. Both have been recently remodeled and enlarged. I guess people are still paying $6+ for a coffee. You’d think that after seeing the grocery bill that they would just walk past the SBUX.

  14. Yahoo Finance
    Warren Buffett’s Financial Plan To Eliminate America’s Debt: ‘I Can End the Deficit in 5 Minutes’
    Sean Fisher, AI Editor
    Mon, December 4, 2023 at 12:00 PM PST·3 min read

    Warren Buffett, renowned investor and business tycoon, is no stranger to sharing his insights on various economic and fiscal issues. In an interview with Becky Quick on CNBC, Buffett proposed a daring strategy for addressing the persistent problem of America’s deficit.

    Buffett stated, “I could end the deficit in five minutes. You just pass a law that says that anytime there is a deficit of more than 3% of GDP all sitting members of congress are ineligible for reelection.”
    …
    https://finance.yahoo.com/news/warren-buffett-financial-plan-eliminate-200013178.html

    1. And if those same members of Congress tried to balance the budget, they would have to slash Social Security and Medicare, and they would lose re-election anyway. Catch-22.

      1. they would have to slash Social Security

        And so many other agencies, programs and entitlements. And wars.

  15. Markets
    Published December 4, 2023 4:23pm EST
    JPMorgan predicts a grim outlook for the stock market next year
    JPMorgan warns S&P 500 could plummet 8% over course of 2024
    By Megan Henney FOXBusiness

    The sizable rally in the U.S. stock market over the past month is likely to fizzle out by the end of next year amid a number of growing economic headwinds, according to JPMorgan Chase.

    Dubravko Lakos-Bujas, the chief global equity strategist at JPMorgan, said in a recent analyst note that slowing economic growth, the rapid depletion of household savings and ongoing geopolitical turmoil could trigger a steep decline in the S&P 500 over the course of 2024.

    “Absent rapid Fed easing, we expect a more challenging macro backdrop for stocks next year with softening consumer trends at a time when investor positioning and sentiment have mostly reversed,” Lakos-Bujas wrote in the note.
    …
    https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/jpmorgan-predicts-grim-outlook-stock-market-next-year

    1. “S&P 500 could plummet 8% over course of 2024”

      Has that ever happened before?

      Seems like when stocks drop, they drop by more.

  16. When you look at a house online and then go to Street View to check out the hood and notice big trees in the yard and a plumbing truck out front. I’m sure any issues would be disclosed, right?

  17. ‘We’ve seen cracks in the dam, but we haven’t yet seen the water coming through…Over the next six, nine, 12 months, the dam will break and we will see real estate trade, because it has to trade’

    That’s the spirit Ray!

    1. “Over the next six, nine, 12 months, the dam will break…”

      That’s excellent news. Why buy now, when you can buy later at the bottom of the CR8R?

      1. Hubby was trying to convince me last night how Poway is different, that lots of people from more northern blue sh!tholes wanting to stay in CA are moving here, and that we should just buy now. Good thing I control the biggest purse strings!

          1. He offered no supporting evidence but quickly dismissed all of my economic, financial, geopolitical and real estate (national and local) research. 😠

        2. that lots of people from more northern blue sh!tholes wanting to stay in CA are moving here

          Supposedly selling homes with lots of equity to which I asked who’s buying them (given ow sales volume and worst affordability ever) and what bank is lending (given the contraction underway). He must think that I watch gardening videos all day.

  18. ‘Even during renewals, we’re offering two or three months free’

    No not new suckers, existing tenants are getting 2 or 3 months free.

    How do those 4% cap rates look now Isabella?

  19. Downtown Train – LIVE – BEST Version (Official Audio) Tom Waits New Edit
    Oddities&Rarities
    9 months ago

    Downtown Train from the official audio of the Album “Storytellers”. Performance from the TV show VH1 Storytellers. Recorded near Bob Hope Airport, Burbank, California on April 1, 1999. Edited so that it is only the music, without the story at the start and with video footage.
    I consider this one of Tom Waits’ best performances of all time. A personal favourite, really beautiful.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6j8sGQLETY

    4:19.

    1. 😆😬 Before Joe’s gone I’d love to see someone confront him about his lies and pervy ways, and make his head explode. Detroit auto worker X 2 would probably do it.

  22. Shifting from FOMO to FOGO with peak prices in the rearview mirror. The stupid tagline on today’s realtor flyer: “SELL YOUR HOME FOR THE HIGHEST RESULT.”

    2. THE HIGHEST RESULT

      That phrase is not American English, nor any Western English. Sounds like it was written by a scammer in Southeast Asia or Africa, those same scammers who write the spammy financial advisor names in Youtube comment sections.

      1. I was perplexed by it. We’re clearly passed peak so getting the highest result isn’t happening. Does he mean he’ll get the best price for seller? How can he know that? We don’t have an alternate universe where another realtor completes the same transaction.

    1. LIVE UPDATES
      Stock Market Today: Futures Slip; Chinese Stocks Sink
      Major U.S. indexes had pulled back modestly on Monday.
      Last Updated:
      Dec. 5, 2023 at 5:41 AM EST

      China’s economy is in a funk.

      That appears to be the verdict of stock investors, who sent the CSI 300 Index down 1.9% to its lowest level in almost five years. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index also skidded.

      Adding to the gloom: after Chinese markets closed, Moody’s Investors Service cut its outlook on the country’s credit rating to negative. The ratings company said financial lifelines extended by the government to distressed regions and companies are harming the economy.

      China’s lackluster growth since the end of pandemic lockdowns has weighed on the stock market: The CSI 300 has fallen about 12% this year. U.S. investors should pay attention, too. As of July, 7.6% of the S&P 500’s revenue came from China, per FactSet, a share that rose to 27% for semiconductor companies.
      …
      https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/stock-market-today-dow-jones-12-05-2023

      1. Financial Times
        Chinese economy
        Moody’s cuts China’s credit outlook to negative
        Rating agency cites increasing risks to growth and a property sector crisis
        Residential buildings under construction in China
        Moody’s said there was rising evidence that the Chinese state would provide financial support to weak regions
        Cheng Leng in Hong Kong 3 hours ago

        Rating agency Moody’s Investors Service cut its outlook on China’s sovereign credit rating to negative on Tuesday, citing growing risks of persistently lower mid-term economic growth and the overhang from a crisis in the property sector.

        Moody’s said there was rising evidence that the government and state companies would provide financial support to weak regions, “posing broad downside risks to China’s fiscal, economic and institutional strength”.

        The agency’s cut in outlook comes as China struggles to address multiple economic challenges this year, with Beijing under pressure to tackle a slowdown in the country’s cash-strapped property sector, a debt crisis in weaker provinces and a slowdown in the broader economy.
        …

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