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In Light Of The Exorbitant Rise In Prices For Over Ten Years, A Phase Of Price Correction Is Entirely Appropriate

A report from Newsweek. “Completed new-home construction soared in February, the Commerce Department said on Tuesday. Privately owned housing completions skyrocketed by nearly 20 percent last month compared to January and were up about 10 percent from a year ago to more than 1.7 million. For single-family properties, they were up by 20 percent for the month to more than a million new homes. The multi-family segment – properties with at least five units – also saw a rebound. Completions in this area of the market jumped to 644,000 in what was the highest recorded figure in half a century, Yelena Maleyev, a senior economist at KPMG, pointed out, while the single-family segment saw the highest completions since 2007.”

Arlington Now in Virginia. “Question: Can you explain Friday’s news about the National Association of Realtor’s settlement over real estate commissions? Answer: I see this change as an overwhelming loss for most home buyers, including: Most first-time homebuyers. Veterans using VA loans to take advantage of buying with little or no money down. FHA and other low down payment programs that support those with fewer financial resources and/or lower credit scores. Anybody who benefits from having buyer agency representation/advocacy and cannot afford the cash needed to pay for it themselves (buyer agent commission can’t be rolled into a mortgage).”

KXAN in Texas. “The Austin Board of Realtors said on Friday the settlement announcement was ‘a critical development.’ Jennifer Martin, a broker associate at Twelve Rivers Realty, said the changes may deter some first-time homebuyers who already have a difficult time in this market. ‘If you don’t have representation, and you don’t understand the complexity of the legal document that you’re signing, first-time homebuyers could get in significant financial distress,’ she said. ‘Especially if they’re having to come out of pocket to pay for services that previously they weren’t having to come out of pocket to pay.'”

My San Antonio. “A recent report from the Texas Realtors shows one city inching toward becoming a buyer’s market with many options at a smaller price. The Four Rivers Association of Realtors released the quarterly report for New Braunfels Wednesday, March 13. Homes are sitting on the market for around three months, 94 days to be specific. The average cost per home is $316,643, which is 7.6% lower than last year’s first-quarter report. As listings rise by 30.5% and sales begin to take a pause with a 5.2% drop, local realtor Sydney Blue says, ‘It is nothing in comparison to the decline that other cities are seeing nationally.’ According to Rocket Homes, buyers in New Braunfels are able to get a good deal as 75.6% of signers are able to secure a home below the asking price in February.”

Local 10 in Florida. “Several residents at a Miami-Dade County condo community have come forward, concerned for their safety. Floors are soaked, there is water dripping from the walls and even from underneath a smoke detector. There are structural cracks, exposed rebar and a corroded water valve in disrepair. Those are just some of the structural concerns leading Miami-Dade County officials to deem multiple buildings unsafe at the Jade Winds condos on Northeast 191st Street. Resident Vanessa Ortiz told Local 10 News it comes as no surprise. ‘I can’t sleep, I can barely eat,’ she said. The young mother said she’s been complaining to management for months. ‘A big chandelier just fell from the roof,’ said Ortiz. A notice posted on residents’ doors states the complex failed its 50-year re-certification.”

The Miami Herald in Florida. “The never-inhabited Coconut Grove townhouses previously sold and double sold and triple sold at increasing prices to unsuspecting buyers by a developer accused of fraud are for sale. Again. The houses, selling at twice their original prices from three to five years ago, do not have certificates of occupancy and nobody can move in until they do. Receiver Alan Fine has asked Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Tom Rebull to allow the sale of 12 Grove townhouses on Coconut Avenue — priced at $2.7 to $3.3 million — despite code violations, liens and purchase contracts dating from 2018 to 2023.”

“Original buyers ensnared in those very issues since they signed contracts had hoped Fine would sit down with them and negotiate a discounted price for their long-awaited homes, but he never offered, they said, after he initially asked if they would be interested in purchasing the homes at current market rate, which they couldn’t afford. ‘Those houses are cursed. Who would want to buy it out from under us?’ said Alan Lombardi, another original buyer. ‘Greed took over and everyone forgot about the families who were planning their future. We’re not investors making a business transaction. We’re not loan companies collecting predatory interest. Yet we’re being treated the same as those creditors; we’re paying the same consequences as a lender or investor who failed to do their due diligence.'”

Hoodline in California. “A Bay Area real estate company honcho has been slapped with charges of wire fraud and aggravated identity theft, according to the office of United States Attorney Ismail J. Ramsey. Vikram Srinivasan is accused of duping an investor out of $125,000 in a fraudulent real estate investment scheme. The FBI’s Robert Tripp also confirmed Srinivasan’s indictment, which was made public today. The 31-year-old Fremont resident allegedly masterminded the operation through Paragon Holdings, LLC. Srinivasan is said to have exacerbated a prior real estate deal for an individual only identified as ‘R.K.’ As per the indictment, instead of recovering the victim’s funds, Srinivasan transferred a chunk to his personal account for his own use and lied about where the money was held.”

“Furthermore, Srinivasan is accused of conning R.K. into sending additional funds for a supposed real estate transaction in Pleasant Hill. According to the indictment, this transaction was non-existent and instead the funds were transferred to Srinivasan’s account. Two other victims, named ‘B.R.’ and ‘A.S.’ in the indictment, also had their identities unlawfully used during the scheme.”

Global News in Canada. “On paper, Kingston, Ont., is doing everything the provincial government has asked it to do on housing — and more. The city was told to get building work underway on 587 new homes in 2023 as part of the province’s push to build 1.5 million new homes. By the end of the year, Kingston had achieved 250 per cent of its target, with 1,465 housing starts. Average listing prices in the city peaked at just under $750,000 in early 2022. While that number has dropped to $543,800 in 2024, it still sits far above historical rates. Through much of 2015 to 2018, listing prices in Kingston sat between $250,000 and $350,000. Active listings are up 21 per cent, with more homes on the market overall.”

“Erin Finn, president of the Kingston and Area Real Estate Association said she has found new builds are ‘not moving as quickly’ in Kingston as older properties being resold, with many in the higher price brackets. ‘As far as new builds go, there’s still quite a bit of inventory for those right now,’ she said. Finn said first-time buyers in Kingston are looking at homes around or under $450,000. She said homes above $800,000 are ‘not moving very quickly.'”

The Daily Record. “The collapse of the Stewart Milne Group in January led to a swathe of workers losing their jobs after the house builder went into administration. As the weeks went by another group hit by the fall of the firm came to light. Across Scotland homeowners have been left living on half-finished schemes with piles of materials abandoned. Estates in Edinburgh and the Lothians have not been immune. Perched on the outskirts of Haddington, Letham Views is one such incomplete project. Half-built houses dominate the skyline while holes dug by workers who never returned pockmark the terrain. Untouched piles of building materials are visible behind lopsided fences.”

“An unfinished road snakes around the estate with broken kerbs while homeowners complain of snagging issues on occupied buildings. A skeletal block of flats faces out onto mud-churned groundworks where driveways were due to be crafted. Further on are deserted work sheds and unemptied skips. Around another corner, piles of piping and sets of concrete steps protrude from mounds of earth. Recent rainfall, meanwhile, has turned foundation channels into muddy lakes. Interwoven with eerie, half-finished blocks of flats are finished homes with residents moved in. Yet roads interlinking the estate end abruptly, with fencing preventing unsuspecting motorists from driving onto dirt tracks.”

The Local. “Prices fell by 10 percent after adjusting for inflation – particularly sharply in Stuttgart and Mainz – according to the annual report published by Postbank together with the Hamburg Institute of International Economics (HWWI). The downward trend in property prices in Germany spiked in 2023 and also spread to rural areas, where they had previously remained stable. Prices fell particularly sharply in 2023 in the ‘Big 7,’ Germany’s seven largest metropolises. Stuttgart recorded the biggest drop in flat prices, which fell by around 16 percent, more than in Munich, Hamburg or Frankfurt.”

“Prices also declined by a similar amount in the surrounding areas and in the Rems-Murr district. Catch-up effects in smaller cities surrounding big cities was also evident: of the cities surrounding the Big 7, prices have fallen the most in Mainz, also by around 16 percent. The downward trend has affected almost all of Germany. According to another study published in February, prices for German residential real estate fell more sharply in 2023 than they have in at least 60 years. The price of condominiums fell by 8.9 percent, single-family homes by 11.3 percent and apartment buildings by 20.1 percent, according to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW). ‘The speed and extent of the current fall in real estate prices in Germany are historically unprecedented,’the report stated. ‘Never before since the expert committees began collecting purchase prices in the 1960s have property prices fallen so quickly.'”

“However, the recent dip in prices was preceded by a price rally, or a sustained period of increase, which was also unparalleled in historical terms and began around 2009. Since then, prices have risen three to fourfold, depending on the real estate segment, before an abrupt market crash began in 2022. ‘In light of the exorbitant rise in prices for over ten years and a new interest rate environment, a phase of price correction is entirely appropriate and is not a cause for concern for the economy as a whole, even at the current level,’ said IfW President Moritz Schularick.”

South China Morning Post. “The latest Hong Kong ‘starter homes’ put up for sale by the Urban Renewal Authority (URA) on Monday drew a lukewarm response from buyers and analysts highlighted would-be property owners had a bigger choice in the private sector since property market cooling measures were ditched last month. Just 19 prospective buyers for the 260 flats at eResidence Tower 3 on Chun Tin Street, Hung Hom, visited the sales office on the first day of purchases after 60 of them were selected at random from 3,669 applications. One man, who bought a desirable high-floor three-bedroom flat, said he wanted to move with his family to a new home and that the flats were being sold at a reasonable price and inside his budget.”

“‘The location is also convenient with good transport networks,’ the buyer, who asked not to be named, said. ‘I believe the property market has its ups and downs. Compared to properties in the private market, this flat still has some discount. I would agree that it is a great deal if the property market recovers later.'”

“The flats were put up for sale at 22 per cent off on last September’s market prices – between HK$4.08 million (US$521,767) and HK$9.64 million. But Wai Chi-shing, the URA’s managing director, said the discount figure was adjusted to about 13 per cent earlier this month because of a downward trend in the market. Owners of the ‘starter homes’ cannot sell or let the properties within five years from the date of the first assignment. Gary Ng Cheuk-yan, a senior economist with corporate and investment bank Natixis, said buyers could opt for similar flats in the same neighbourhood given the narrowed discount and restrictions. ‘Buying a home is a big decision for most residents – the 13 per cent discount is not big enough to offset the risks at the current juncture,’ he said.”

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This Post Has 68 Comments

  2. ‘I can’t sleep, I can barely eat,’ she said. The young mother said she’s been complaining to management for months. ‘A big chandelier just fell from the roof,’ said Ortiz. A notice posted on residents’ doors states the complex failed its 50-year re-certification’

    Better get some boxes Vanessa.

  3. ‘The location is also convenient with good transport networks,’ the buyer, who asked not to be named, said. ‘I believe the property market has its ups and downs. Compared to properties in the private market, this flat still has some discount. I would agree that it is a great deal if the property market recovers later’

    Buyer, you are a winnah! No eating though.

  4. ‘Those houses are cursed. Who would want to buy it out from under us?…Greed took over and everyone forgot about the families who were planning their future. We’re not investors making a business transaction. We’re not loan companies collecting predatory interest. Yet we’re being treated the same as those creditors; we’re paying the same consequences as a lender or investor who failed to do their due diligence’

    You are the same Alan, just another FB with yer hand out.

  5. ‘By the end of the year, Kingston had achieved 250 per cent of its target, with 1,465 housing starts. Average listing prices in the city peaked at just under $750,000 in early 2022. While that number has dropped to $543,800 in 2024’

    Keep building Erin!

  6. ‘Across Scotland homeowners have been left living on half-finished schemes with piles of materials abandoned. Estates in Edinburgh and the Lothians have not been immune. Perched on the outskirts of Haddington, Letham Views is one such incomplete project. Half-built houses dominate the skyline while holes dug by workers who never returned pockmark the terrain. Untouched piles of building materials are visible behind lopsided fences’

    ‘An unfinished road snakes around the estate with broken kerbs while homeowners complain of snagging issues on occupied buildings. A skeletal block of flats faces out onto mud-churned groundworks where driveways were due to be crafted. Further on are deserted work sheds and unemptied skips. Around another corner, piles of piping and sets of concrete steps protrude from mounds of earth. Recent rainfall, meanwhile, has turned foundation channels into muddy lake’

    They’ve got photos if you want to see what a broken kerb looks like.

  7. How did you lose yer shack Hans?

    In light of the exorbitant rise in prices for over ten years and a new interest rate environment, a phase of price correction is entirely appropriate.

  8. The New York Times is the enemy of the American people.

    New York Times — Chasing Clicks in the Jungle: Right-Wing Influencers Descend on the Darién Gap (3/20/2024):

    “As immigration becomes a dominant issue in the 2024 presidential race, right-wing media has been awash in gritty and often deceptive videos of migrants emerging from the Darién Gap, a roadless stretch of Panamanian jungle that has become a bottleneck for thousands of people on their way to the United States.

    The clips are presented as proof of what Republicans often describe as an “invasion” of Muslim terrorists, Chinese spies and Latin American criminals. Posted widely on social media, the videos blame President Biden for the migration and suggest, falsely, that Democrats are encouraging it to create new, illegal voters. International aid organizations are cast as profiteers making money off human misery.

    Videos and other content made by the visitors have come to serve as a kind of B-roll footage accompanying conversations about immigration on Fox News, Tucker Carlson’s online show and even for Mr. Trump himself.

    Clips of migrants in Panama have become weapons in the information battle being waged over immigration, experts said. The content, looped again and again online, is highly effective, particularly in creating the perception of the threat of violence, said Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera, a political science professor at George Mason University who has studied social media’s impact on immigration.

    The images, she noted, tend to focus on young men while excluding women and children, who might generate more sympathetic responses. The migrants are often referred to as “military-aged men” and “invaders” and their claims of political or religious persecution at home are often dismissed as scripted falsehoods.

    Critics warn that inflammatory coverage of these complex problems only serves to aggravate a humanitarian crisis.

    “The misrepresentation of the migrants crossing the gap as invaders or illegals puts their life at risk,” said Sandie Blanchet, UNICEF’s representative in Panama. “It can justify harsh treatment and even violence against them.”

    https://archive.is/b1his

    The New York Times wants you replaced.

    You are being replaced.

  9. Don’t worry, because your federal income taxes will be paying for ALL of this. Nothing will stop the unelected occupation regime in the White House from replacing you. Nothing.

    Washington Post — Democratic cities that welcomed migrants are starting to roll back aid (3/20/2024):

    “When a wave of migrants began arriving in Democratic-run cities far from the Southern border two years ago, officials welcomed them with open arms. Now they’re limiting aid to new arrivals as their instinct for compassion confronts hard budgetary realities.

    In recent days, New York and Chicago — two of the nation’s largest cities — have instituted substantial changes to their shelter policies. In Chicago, the city began evicting migrants who had overstayed a new 60-day time limit, saying it did not have the resources to meet the need.

    Similar dynamics are unfolding elsewhere: In Denver, officials began closing some migrant shelters in recent weeks and reinstated time limits for stays. In Massachusetts, which has also seen an influx of migrants, the legislature is moving toward instituting a cap on how long people can stay in shelters.

    For deep-blue cities with long histories of embracing immigrants, the latest influx of newcomers — many of them seeking asylum — has produced a sometimes-painful reckoning with their stated values. The impulse to welcome new arrivals is “deep-rooted, but it’s expensive,” particularly in cities with steep housing costs, said Muzaffar Chishti, a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute.

    Democratic-run cities and states have begged for more help from the federal government, including pushing for a legislative deal to overhaul the immigration system. In January, nine Democratic governors wrote to President Biden that cities and states “cannot indefinitely respond” to the influx without congressional action.”

    https://archive.is/BMLHp

    You will be replaced.

    And short of a revolution or civil war, there is NOTHING you can do to stop it. NOTHING. Because you sure as hell won’t be voting your way out of it.

    1. The impulse to welcome new arrivals is “deep-rooted, but it’s expensive,” particularly in cities with steep housing costs, said Muzaffar Chishti, a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute.

      These guys are re-discovering the first law of economics: Desires are infinite, resources are finite.

  10. “I see this change as an overwhelming loss for most home buyers, including: Most first-time homebuyers. Veterans using VA loans to take advantage of buying with little or no money down.”

    Don’t forget the children, who will also face an overwhelmming loss!

    1. “…buying with little or no money down…”

      Kinda’ like buying a big boat.

      If you don’t have the cash, you can’t afford it.

  11. The Cloward Piven Strategy:

    “Michael Reisch and Janice Andrews wrote that Cloward and Piven “proposed to create a crisis in the current welfare system – by exploiting the gap between welfare law and practice – that would ultimately bring about its collapse and replace it with a system of guaranteed annual income. They hoped to accomplish this end by informing the poor of their rights to welfare assistance, encouraging them to apply for benefits and, in effect, overloading an already overburdened bureaucracy.”

    Note that this is now extended to include an illegal population that has no legal rights to welfare assistance.

    As a United States citizen, your alleged rights are secondary to those of illegals, you are a second class citizen in your own country.

    1. There seems to be no question that those in power are pushing a collapse. It’s so obvious

    2. Note that this is now extended to include an illegal population that has no legal rights to welfare assistance.

      The irony is real immigrants, such as those with green cards, cannot file for any form of assistance. And rightfully so — they immigrated, they ought to be self-sufficient. But the illegals just prove some animals are more equal than others.

  12. ‘Squatter hunter’: For a price, this California man will rid your home of ‘unwanted guests’

    https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/squatter-hunter-price-california-man-102300149.html

    Flash Shelton, 57, has made a career out of his singular talent for “squeezing out squatters.”

    The California native, who identifies as an “anti-squatter activist, squatter hunter, squatter remover,” says he just does whatever he has to to help people get squatters out of their homes. And sometimes that means using these “unwanted guests’” own strategies against them.

    Shelton’s passion for the cause started back in 2019 when his father died. His mother decided to sell her Northern California home, but while the house was empty and on the market, seven strangers moved in — even bringing in their own furniture.

    Local law enforcement told Shelton there was nothing they could do so he decided to take matters into his own hands.

    As Shelton explains to KTLA, squatters sometimes have a fake lease, and so his first move was to have his mother prepare him a phony lease for the property. Then, when the group left one day, he snuck in through an open window and put up cameras, ensured they couldn’t get back in and moved their belongings out onto the driveway.

    “I figured out that if they can take a home, I can take a home.”

    And now taking homes back has become his full-time gig, with fees starting at $5,000. Social media posts for his business rack up millions of views as he shares clips of confronting squatters or reclaiming possession of a property.

    He’s even petitioning to have the laws around squatting changed.

    KTLA emphasizes that Shelton always works with police and “does his homework to assess the threat” before he moves into a property, but his strategy does put him at risk of physical harm or injury.

    However, there’s clearly a need for his services. Headlines of serial squatters or “professional tenants” are commonplace these days. Countless management companies have even created resources for landlords or property managers to help them spot scammers.

    For the “mom-and-pop” landlords in the U.S. — many of whom are just trying to secure a little extra stability for their retirement — getting targeted by serial squatters is a worst-case scenario.

    2. Financial Times
      Bitcoin
      Bitcoin tumbles from record high as Grayscale ETF outflows hit $12bn
      Cryptocurrency down 16% from its peak as net fund flows turn negative
      Bitcoin stickers in a bar
      Bitcoin has surged to record highs this year after US regulators approved spot bitcoin ETFs in January
      Scott Chipolina in London 3 hours ago

      Bitcoin has fallen 16 per cent from its all-time high last week, as the investor flows into new stock market funds that had driven a huge rally this year go into reverse.

      The world’s largest cryptocurrency, which hit $73,800 last Thursday, dropped as low as $60,760 on Wednesday before recovering to just under $64,000.

      Its decline comes as outflows from the 11 new bitcoin exchange traded funds hit nearly $500mn in the last two days, according to data compiled by CoinShares, an asset management group. The greatest outflow was at Grayscale, the largest bitcoin ETF, which has had more than $1bn withdrawn from its fund this week.
      …

      1. “Its decline comes as outflows from the 11 new bitcoin exchange traded funds hit nearly $500mn in the last two days,…”

        Go on, take the money and run…

    1. In a rational world, Jamie Ratskin would be found guilty of treason and would be dealt with harshly. It amazes me what these people are allowed to get away with.

  16. Texas Pulls $8.5 Billion Investment From BlackRock Over ESG Push

    by Kelen McBreen
    March 20th 2024, 9:36 am

    Texas State Board of Education Chairman Aaron Kinsey told Fox News on Tuesday the state will be terminating an $8.5 billion investment with globalist investment firm BlackRock due to its relentless promotion of ESG (environmental, social and governance) guidelines.

    “BlackRock’s dominant and persistent leadership in the ESG movement immeasurably damages our state’s oil & gas economy and the very companies that generate revenues for our PSF. Texas and the PSF have worked hard to grow this fund to build Texas’ schools. BlackRock’s destructive approach toward the energy companies that this state and our world depend on is incompatible with our fiduciary duty to Texans.”

    https://www.infowars.com/posts/texas-pulls-8-5-billion-investment-from-blackrock-over-esg-push

  17. A reader sent these in:

    Arizona has one of the highest ratios of realtors per capita in the country!

    https://twitter.com/JohnWake/status/1769890263730930159

    You know what else affected housing for decades?
    The @FederalReserve buying over $2.7 TRILLION of MBS when they owned $0 in 2008.

    https://twitter.com/RudyHavenstein/status/1769810563784143102

    Austin is building housing like crazy. Rents are down 7%. But rather than frame this achievement as a win for renters—or for the arg that housing prices respond to supply growth—WSJ frames it pretty clearly as bad news across the board.

    https://twitter.com/DKThomp/status/1769711405190537704

    Developers in Austin, Texas are giving away up to 3 months of free rent right now to attract tenants. People are always hating on CA regulations, but they certainly create a moat. Limited supply of land and tough regulations can be your friend long term

    https://twitter.com/BrandonMBlum/status/1769801410843963658
    If realtors don’t want to work for less than 6%, who’s going to tell me the important facts like:
    – bedroom count and square footage listed on Zillow
    – hardwood floors throughout
    – what a great school district it is as shown on Zillow
    – why backing up to a freeway isn’t that big of a deal

    https://twitter.com/Lifeinvestmoney/status/1769491366424232056

    Where are we in the bubble?

    https://twitter.com/DonMiami3/status/1770200716214141113

    Wells Fargo is reportedly cutting jobs around the country today in legal, technology, business banking, internal investigations, and more

    https://twitter.com/MacroEdgeRes/status/1770140836111524121

    A $345.0 million CMBS loan backed by 8 hotels has defaulted, per Trepp.

    https://twitter.com/MacroEdgeRes/status/1770135508678517145

    Buy now pay maybe firm ShopBack is eliminating 24% of its workforce amid a slowdown in consumer demand for its BNPL products

    https://twitter.com/MacroEdgeRes/status/1770117058878947753

    Consumer goods giant Unilever has announced that it will be eliminating 7,500 jobs – mainly “office based jobs”

    https://twitter.com/MacroEdgeRes/status/1770058187074351438

    US Bancorp reportedly began a significant round of job cuts today, impacting areas like talent acquisition and technology

    https://twitter.com/MacroEdgeRes/status/1769922971680886837

    The 1,003 room Los Angeles Airport Marriott has been added to the CMBS default watchlist, backed by a $130mm+ loan, per Trepp

    https://twitter.com/MacroEdgeRes/status/1769845828884058416

    Powell doing QT while Yellen just issues Bills

    https://twitter.com/passedpawn/status/1769773396236050553

    In 2023 revised total job growth is 2.111 million, versus 3.131 million originally
    1 million jobs off estimates and anyone believes these?

    https://twitter.com/MacroEdgeRes/status/1769746794504769565

    Surprised no one in the media reached out over this.
    To be clear, Canadian banks are giving mortgages for new condos at +100% LTV which r going on the books at sub-80% LTV and somehow @OSFICanada is okay with the practice. I have the proof. This isn’t hard to suss out.

    https://twitter.com/BenRabidoux/status/1770135906101399569

    🇨🇦 house price temperature check. Prices nationally remain 14% below peak (-22% in REAL terms). AB, SK and Newfoundland are still at record highs. Ontario is almost 18% off peak….or -26% in real terms
    😬💀

    https://twitter.com/BenRabidoux/status/1770090331167449453

    Ok boomer

    https://twitter.com/NipseyHoussle/status/1770079636145193048

    1. “Developers in Austin, Texas are giving away up to 3 months of free rent right now to attract tenants. People are always hating on CA regulations, but they certainly create a moat. Limited supply of land and tough regulations can be your friend long term.”

      1) This hypothetical moat is useless against the invading hordes that you’ve invited to stay.

      2) The state of CA is driving away a massive amount of business and capital with this so called moat.

      3) Texas is growing like crazy while California is in decline.

      With tough regulatory ‘friends’ like that, who needs enemies?

  18. Communism, Fascism, not vetted invasion of US border , censorship of free speech, ONE World Order, would be a insurrection against the US Constitutional protected Respresentive Government.
    A 2030 UN Sustainable Earth Agenda blueprint or WHO treaties to override Sovereignty of Countries and representation and protections of Citizens is a insurrection by forces taking over the World.
    It was a infiltration of World Governments to collude with Monopoly Corporations, Rich Elites, Banks, Big Pharmacy , UN and WHO and foreign enemies to create a One World Order Dictorship.

    Fraudulent narratives of Global emergencies to justify a One World Order dictorship and Great Reset of current systems has been launched by Forces intent on ruling the world.
    Solutions dictated by these psychopaths are fraudulent, dysfunctional, insane, genocide, and are fake narratives for the purpose of forming a more perfect One World Order of total enslavement over humanity.
    The corrupted UN and WHO want to supersede all Countries and individual rights and Constitutional protections and force compliance to the dictates of a insurrection by UN and WHO, with co conspirators of the WEF and other enemies of the World.
    All solutions by these fraudulent invaders of globe are false, genocidal, nonsensical, dysfunctional, and a form of warfare against humanity for a end goal of deprived enslavement.
    Censor free speech, disperse gain of function disease, than disperse fake killer expiermental vaccines, remove co2 as a false solution to a false climate doomsday manufactured narrative.
    They use racism to divide and conquer. Transgender attack on minors trying to take parental rights to protect against sex change of minors and inappropriate sexual graphics and teachings.I really don’t think a 7 year old need to learn how to perform anal sex.
    Destruction of women’s sports by transgender males is attack on real females wanting to compete.
    Invasion of US Borders by not vetted people and US tax payers paying for countless benefits given to the invaders who have been given incentives, that US citizens wouldn’t get. Bribed replacement populations , not vetted, with Biden Administration in collusion with this treason.
    Economic attack by destruction of small business, inflation by Fed Reserve money printing, unsustainable debt, rigged systems, outsourcing of jobs and manufacturing, Monopoly Corporations destroying competition, fraudulent lending, transfer of risk to gov., etc etc.
    Big Pharmacy and Medical system already captured, engaged in fraud, genocide and end goal of world wide medical tyranny and murder.
    Crime increase by criminal increase of crime with limited protection of law abiding Citizens.
    On and on.

    So, the One World Order forces are the insurrection and the enemy .

  19. Unless the DOJ steps in the NAR loss will be mostly mitigated. See the following from the WSJ

    Under the settlement, the NAR will pay $418 million over roughly four years. It has also agreed to bar seller agents from advertising a blanket offer of compensation to buyer agents on an MLS. But the settlement notably doesn’t bar seller agents from advertising buyer broker commissions on other home-selling platforms, including those operated by its members. Nor does it forbid buyer brokers from steering clients away from homes whose sellers pay lower or no commissions.

    This may not be the end of the legal challenges to the NAR business model, and it shouldn’t be. The Justice Department last month objected to a similar rule change in a different settlement between home sellers and a regional MLS. Justice said that settlement “makes cosmetic changes” that will perpetuate “stubbornly high broker fees” because it “still gives sellers and their listing brokers a role in setting compensation for buyers’ brokers.”

    Justice could still intervene to stop last week’s ballyhooed settlement. since collusion may be less obvious but still exist in many markets. The savings for consumers may be far less than meets the media hype. There’s a reason the NAR boasted in a statement that Friday’s settlement will “protect our members to the greatest extent possible.”

  20. A committee of Federal Reserve officials voted Wednesday to keep interest rates at a 22-year high after unexpectedly high job gains and inflation delayed plans for possible rate cuts.

    The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), the panel of Fed officials responsible for setting borrowing costs, voted to keep its baseline interest rate at the range of 5.25 to 5.5 percent set last July. The FOMC voted unanimously to hold rates steady.

    “We believe that our policy rate is likely at its peak for this tightening cycle, and that if the economy evolves broadly as expected, it will likely be appropriate to begin dialing back policy restraint at some point this year,” Fed Chair Jerome Powell said at a press conference Wednesday.

    “Inflation has eased substantially while the labor market has remained strong. And that is very good news,” Powell said. “But inflation is still too high. Ongoing progress in bringing it down is not assured. And the path forward is uncertain.”

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/fed-holds-off-on-rate-cuts-after-hot-jobs-inflation-data/ar-BB1keI6U

  21. NYC Mayor Proposes Distributing Asylum Seekers Throughout the U.S. as City Struggles with Flows

    New York City Mayor Eric Adams has called the federal government to help dealing with the constant influx of asylum-seekers, as authorities struggle to meet their basic needs. Concretely, he proposed it implement a “decompression strategy” which would distribute migrants across the country rather than seeing most of them in certain cities.

    “Cities should not be handling a national crisis of this magnitude,” said Adams. “We’re going to start seeing the visualization of this crisis. We’ve done a great job, but we can’t continue to sustain this.”

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/nyc-mayor-proposes-distributing-asylum-seekers-throughout-the-u-s-as-city-struggles-with-flows/ar-BB1kePu7

    2. We’ve done a great job

      We’re a sanctuary until you get here. Somebody else needs to pay for this.

      1. It’s rather clear that they were not expecting the invaders to land on their doorsteps.

        So Hizzonor wants to ship the invaders to other communities. Good luck with that. The invaders don’t want to go to resource poor Podunk, they want to stay in Nueva York.

        1. Every time Adams disparages the illegal invaders he either gets raided by the FBI or someone from decades ago claims sexual abuse. I’m wondering which will collapse first, NYC or Eric’s career.

  23. The Murrieta Police Department in California is taking a creative approach to its social media content under a new state law.

    On Jan. 1, a law preventing police from sharing photos of individuals accused of nonviolent crimes took effect. The Murrieta Police Department’s social media pages are now filled with arrest photos replacing real faces with Lego heads in order to remain compliant.

    “The Murrieta Police Department prides itself in its transparency with the community, but also honors everyone’s rights & protections as afforded by law; even suspects,” the department wrote via Instagram. “In order to share what is happening in Murrieta, we chose to cover the faces of suspects to protect their identity while still aligning with the new law.”

    Other images used by Murrieta to replace faces include emojis, the Grinch, Barbies, Where’s Waldo and Shrek.

    The measure, AB 994, also specifies officers must “use the name and pronouns given” by a suspect. Police may only deviate from this rule if using another alias would “assist in locating or apprehending the individual or reducing or eliminating an imminent threat to an individual or to public safety.”

    Asm. Corey Jackson, D-Perris, introduced the measure. The assemblyman was also an outspoken advocate of ACA-7, a measure which critics say creates “state-sponsored racial discrimination” by diminishing the impacts of Proposition 209, a 1996 law guaranteeing equal treatment for all Californians.

    “[Proposition 209] has substantially limited the state’s ability to address disparities in business contracting, education, housing, wealth, employment, and healthcare, which are deeply embedded in laws, policies, and institutions that perpetuate racial inequalities,” Asm. Jackson said.

    https://idahonews.com/news/nation-world/police-department-using-lego-heads-to-hide-suspects-identities-under-new-california-law-murrieta-corey-jackson-gavin-newsom-crime-public-safety-law-enforcement

  24. ‘Privately owned housing completions skyrocketed by nearly 20 percent last month compared to January and were up about 10 percent from a year ago to more than 1.7 million. For single-family properties, they were up by 20 percent for the month to more than a million new homes. …the single-family segment saw the highest completions since 2007’

    A million new shacks. It’s a good thing everybody is putting 20% down!

  25. ‘Anybody who benefits from having buyer agency representation/advocacy and cannot afford the cash needed to pay for it themselves (buyer agent commission can’t be rolled into a mortgage)’

    It’s a lot more than the buyers commission being rolled into the mortgage Eli.

    ‘If you don’t have representation, and you don’t understand the complexity of the legal document that you’re signing, first-time homebuyers could get in significant financial distress,’ she said. ‘Especially if they’re having to come out of pocket to pay for services that previously they weren’t having to come out of pocket to pay’

    Jen this is where UHS professionalism and ethical business practices are really going to pay off for you guys. You’ve always been so balanced in yer approach. You didn’t use yer monopoly of the mls to fook people year after year, on a never ending campaign of boosterism and cartoonish propaganda! All that goodwill you’ve built these decades will rescue the UHS now because we owe you that, as yer business model just collapsed.

    1. If you don’t have representation, and you don’t understand the complexity of the legal document that you’re signing

      Twice I’ve used an attorney when buying a house. It cost only a few hundred dollars. UHSers are not lawyers.

  26. ‘According to another study published in February, prices for German residential real estate fell more sharply in 2023 than they have in at least 60 years…‘The speed and extent of the current fall in real estate prices in Germany are historically unprecedented,’the report stated. ‘Never before since the expert committees began collecting purchase prices in the 1960s have property prices fallen so quickly’

    What Jerry did was unprecedented, he said so at the time. Now he’s broken it off in yer a$$ Germany.

    1. Now he’s broken it off in yer a$$ Germany.

      The Germans have been getting a lot of that, lately. It svcks to be a vassal.

    1. Yahoo Finance
      Zillow responds to viral Tik Tok video claiming housing market manipulation
      Amy Poulter
      Mon, Sep 27, 20215 min read
      In this article:

      The popular real estate website Zillow was criticized on social media after a TikTok video decrying an unnamed real estate company’s potentially nefarious business strategies went viral.

      Las Vegas-based real estate agent Sean Gotcher (@seangotcher) posted a two-and-a-half minute video to TikTok earlier this month, describing a scenario where a so-called iBuyer uses its massive, user-generated database to scheme the local housing market. An iBuyer, according to Zillow, is “a company that buys homes almost instantly by relying on technology to determine a market-based cash offer.”
      …
      https://finance.yahoo.com/news/zillow-tiktok-video-real-estate-housing-211403123.html

    2. Newsletter
      How Zillow’s Grand Home-Buying Ambitions Imploded
      America’s premier home-pricing app dreamed big and lost big.
      Photographer: Tiffany Hagler-Geard/Bloomberg
      By Craig Giammona
      November 5, 2021 at 3:45 AM PDT

      Hi, it’s Craig on Bloomberg’s real estate team in New York. Zillow is trying to sell thousands of homes. But first…

      Zillow got burned

      It was the startling culmination of a turbulent few weeks for America’s most famous real estate company: Zillow Group Inc. was pulling the plug on its tech-powered home-flipping business.

      Not content with telling people how much their friends’ homes were worth, Chief Executive Officer Rich Barton, a well-known tech founder, had staked the Seattle-based company’s future on “iBuying,” a new way to buy and sell homes. This week, it shuttered the program.

      Zillow’s share price is down by more than one-third since Monday, raising questions about where the company goes from here, how it will grow beyond its core business of using real estate listings to sell ads to brokers and agents, and how it will shake off the bad reputation it acquired on platforms like TikTok.

      Barton’s home-buying program was nothing if not ambitious. For the entrepreneur, who also founded Glassdoor Inc. and Expedia Group Inc., the idea behind iBuying was that Zillow’s data scientists could power a business that bought and sold thousands of homes a month. Homeowners would gravitate to the site, which would offer a faster and easier way to sell a property.

      As recently as August, Barton was touting the popularity of the service, telling investors that the traditional way of selling a home was so “dreadful and dreaded” that customers were willing to bypass potential bidding wars to sell to Zillow “in this sizzling-hot sellers market.”

      But signs of trouble had emerged by Oct. 17, when Bloomberg reported that Zillow was halting new offers on homes for the rest of the year as it worked through a backlog of properties it had under contract. It blamed a shortage of workers who could make repairs before the company put the homes back on the market.

      In the coming weeks, though, it became clear that Zillow had actually overpaid for homes. Amid the frothy pandemic housing market, the company had tweaked its algorithms to make more aggressive offers—just as real estate prices were cooling slightly.

      The collapse was swift. On Nov. 1, Bloomberg reported the company was marketing about 7,000 homes for roughly $2.8 billion. A day later, the board of directors decided to shut down the operation.

      While conspiracy theories about price manipulation circulated on platforms like TikTok, Zillow’s more fundamental problem was that it’s very hard and very risky to scale a business based on predicting U.S. home prices.

      “We believe there are better, broader, less risky, more brand-aligned ways of enabling all of our customers who want to move,” Barton wrote in a letter to investors. “We now plan to focus our offerings on asset- and capital-light solutions.” The company said it was taking writedowns of more than $500 million on the inventory as it unwinds the business in coming months.
      …
      https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2021-11-05/how-zillow-s-grand-home-buying-ambitions-imploded

    3. North America
      Share Price Drops for Zillow and Redfin After Commission Lawsuit Court Ruling
      by Harvey Hancock
      November 1, 2023

      Share prices for Zillow and Redfin took a major hit yesterday after a jury ruled that brokerages and The National Association of Realtors (NAR) were guilty of illegally inflating their agents’ commissions.

      A Kansas City jury found that the NAR, HomeServicesofAmerica and Keller Willams were all guilty of colluding to inflate high commission rates in violation of the ethical bindings of the NAR’s Clear Cooperation Rule, which states that “the public marketing of a listing indicates that the MLS participant has concluded that cooperation with other MLS participants is in their client’s best interests.”

      This rule requires listing agents to make the same offer to buyer agents about how much commission they will receive when closing the sale of a house. In the US, this typically sits between 5-6%, with half going to the buying agent.

      But an 11-day trial found that the NAR, HomeServicesofAmerica and Keller Willams knowingly broke antitrust rules to maintain high commission.

      The jury found that plaintiffs had been forced to pay more for real estate brokerage services when selling their homes than if the conspiracy hadn’t existed.

      The judgment now opens the door to follow-up lawsuits in different states (this court case is in Missouri only) after the jury found that the conspiracy “had the purpose or effect of raising, inflating, or stabilizing broker commission rates paid by home sellers.”

      Anywhere Real Estate and RE/MAX were named as defendants in the original lawsuit filed in 2019, but both brokerages settled for a combined $139M while also agreeing to update their business practices

      They were the lucky ones. The remaining defendants will now pay damages of $1.78Bn dollars—which will be trebled to $5.3Bn under US law.

      A spokesperson for the NAR said the trade group will be appealing the jury’s verdict and will also ask the court to reduce damages, while Keller Williams and HomeServices have released similar statements.
      …
      https://www.onlinemarketplaces.com/articles/major-share-price-drops-for-zillow-and-redfin-after-groundbreaking-court-ruling/

    1. They just need to figure out how to trade sheep farts to boost the GDP. Might be a good use for the Ether platform. P2P Sheep Farts for exponential GDP gains! It’s a new paradigm.

  32. Do you currently enjoy the good fortune to earn 80% more than your 2020 pay rate?

    I don’t.

    1. Real Estate
      Trending
      US families need to earn a staggering 80% more than they did in 2020 to ‘comfortably afford’ a home nowadays — despite the median income only going up 23% in that time
      But there are still creative ways to achieve home ownership.
      A young couple pose in front of a home.
      Mar. 19, 2024
      Homebuyers today need to bring in over six figures a year to “comfortably afford” a home in America — an 80% jump from just four years ago.

      A new Zillow report found the typical household needs to make more than $106,000 a year — assuming a 10% down payment and 30% of their income going toward housing.

      That’s an 80% jump from January 2020, when the typical household needed to earn just $59,000 a year to comfortably afford a home. This surge in cost is attributed to higher prices and borrowing costs.
      …
      https://moneywise.com/real-estate/80-percent-more-household-income-needed-to-buy-home

      1. But there are still creative ways to achieve home ownership.

        Within my metro, given amenity preferences and neighborhoods, as a first time buyer I need between 180k – 200k to make the payments acceptable.

        We gave up the toast and coffees. We save like crazy. The current 5%+ gains on cash-equivalents are awesome. We are almost there. We can make it. It takes sacrifice.

        We keep saving.

        I smile at old people who question why I don’t own a house. Most older Yankees do not understand math, like most American citizens and Newcomers. Also, according to averages, most older Yanks own dogcrap in terms of IRAs, Roth IRAs, 401(digits)s, brokerage, and cash.

        Talking about money with older generations is painful.

  33. “The Austin Board of Realtors said on Friday the settlement announcement was ‘a critical development.’ Jennifer Martin, a broker associate at Twelve Rivers Realty, said the changes may deter some first-time homebuyers who already have a difficult time in this market. ‘If you don’t have representation, and you don’t understand the complexity of the legal document that you’re signing, first-time homebuyers could get in significant financial distress,’ she said. ‘Especially if they’re having to come out of pocket to pay for services that previously they weren’t having to come out of pocket to pay.’”

    I’ve been a saver and renter my whole life. So sincere question — why can’t I just hire a lawyer to help me with the minutiae? I imagine the costs are several hundreds dollars for an hour or two of their professional time. Nowhere near the 3% for a house that costs let’s assume above $400k.

    1. Financial Times
      Bitcoin tumbles from record high as Grayscale ETF outflows hit $12bn
      Cryptocurrency down 16% from its peak as net fund flows turn negative
      Bitcoin stickers in a bar
      Bitcoin has surged to record highs this year after US regulators approved spot bitcoin ETFs in January
      Scott Chipolina in London
      13 hours ago

      Bitcoin has fallen 16 per cent from its all-time high last week, as the investor flows into new stock market funds that had driven a huge rally this year go into reverse.

      The world’s largest cryptocurrency, which hit $73,800 last Thursday, dropped as low as $60,760 on Wednesday before recovering to just under $63,000.

      Its decline comes as outflows from the 11 new bitcoin exchange traded funds hit nearly $500mn in the last two days, according to data compiled by CoinShares, an asset management group. The greatest outflow was at Grayscale, the largest bitcoin ETF, which has had more than $1bn withdrawn from its fund this week.

      Bitcoin has surged to record highs this year after US regulators approved spot bitcoin ETFs in January following a decade of rejections. Money has surged into some of the new funds, with BlackRock’s bitcoin ETF the fastest ETF in history to reach $10bn.

      “The fact there’s regulated entities providing investment options into bitcoin is something that gives investors confidence, but it doesn’t alter the fundamental nature of bitcoin itself,” said Laith Khalaf, head of investment analysis at investment platform AJ Bell in London.

      “There aren’t any fundamentals to bitcoin which give an anchor to the price, which makes it more vulnerable than other assets to major swings,” he added. “There is nothing there that you can use as a base for a valuation.”
      …

  35. Collin Rugg
    @CollinRugg

    NEW: TikToker is going viral by telling illegal immigrants how to “invade” homes in America thanks to progressive squatting laws

    Remarkable.

    “We can invade a house in the USA, what do you think about this new law?” a video from one TikTok user read.

    The man said he has African friends who have successfully taken over 7 homes thanks to squatting laws.

    “My African friends have told me that they have already taken about 7 homes.”

    Mar 20, 2024

    https://x.com/CollinRugg/status/1770486545214251441?s=20

    1. When banks have empty inventory on their balance sheets…

      HOUSING SHORTAGE!

      I don’t know who I hate more at this point.

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