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The Worst Thing You Want To Do Is Panic And Take An Offer That You Just Never Thought You’d Take

It’s Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. “After two lucrative summers, Jeanette Robinson said seasonal reservations are trickling in much slower for her Falmouth bed and breakfast. ‘The rental market is totally flooded,’ said Robinson, who has owned the Frederick William House for 20 years. ‘Occupancy [on the Cape] is down because we have so much inventory.’ ‘Pricing is going to have to come down,’ said Blake Decker, CEO of Pretty Picky Properties. ‘It’s a consistent conversation I’m having with homeowners who are used to getting a certain amount of dollars per week.’ Robinson believes some of the newer Cape Cod property owners will eventually unload their rental properties to invest in other things. ‘I do think some of these rental units, the people who purchased them during COVID, I think they’re going to end up selling,’ Robinson said.”

“Cassie Brewer said her home, in St. Petersburg’s Yacht Club Estates, was dropped by Citizens after $200,000 in upgrades drove the cost to rebuild the property over $700,000. Brewer and her husband then were forced into the private insurance market, where they said their insurance costs have reached $14,000 a year. ‘Where does it stop? If it goes any higher, we’re probably going to have to sell’ like several neighbors, she said. John Hendrick, of Madeira Beach, said a December 2022 law requiring Citizens policyholders to also carry flood insurance beginning in April 2023 would force him to drop his Citizens policy in June. ‘Seniors are being eaten alive financially,’ he said.”

“The state’s chief financial officer Jimmy Patronis called the state’s insurance crisis a ‘manmade’ one caused as suing insurers became a ‘very profitable business.’ Reforms enacted in 2022 and 2023 aimed at removing the profit motive are starting to work, he said.”

“On the west coast of Florida, housing supply is surging, sellers are cutting their asking prices and the time it takes to sell a home is soaring—all at a faster rate than anywhere else in the U.S. The story is similar in parts of Texas. ‘The sharp ascent in Florida housing prices in recent years has driven a lot of homeowners to cash in on their equity, but some of them are having a hard time adjusting to the fact that it’s a buyer’s market,’ said Eric Auciello, a local Redfin sales manager. ‘My advice to sellers is to price your home fairly; the comps from six months ago don’t exist now. And if you’re a buyer, know that the odds of getting an offer accepted below market value are pretty high.'”

“Connie Durnal, a Redfin Premier real estate agent in Dallas, said her market has also been sluggish. ‘Last year was by far the slowest market I’ve seen in my 20 years as a real estate agent,’ Durnal said. ‘Move-up buyers are almost nonexistent. Even though a lot of homeowners have built up a ton of equity, many don’t want to sell because their monthly payment would double or triple due to high mortgage rates.'”

“Landlord and tenant groups made their cases before the Rent Guidelines Board on Thursday ahead of a key preliminary vote next week that will help determine potential rent increases for roughly 2 million rent-stabilized New Yorkers. ‘Without sufficient rent adjustments, these buildings have no future,’ said Jay Martin, executive director of the Community Housing Improvement Program. ‘The reality is that no one is forced to be a landlord of a rent-stabilized building,’ said Leah Goodridge, a former tenant representative on the board and a tenants’ rights attorney. ‘A lot of the framework that’s provided is this sort of equivalency of someone [who] is facing homelessness, can’t afford the rent [versus] someone [who] has made a business decision that isn’t generating profits.'”

“A vacant downtown D.C. office building is being delivered to its lender, setting the stage for a residential conversion. Starwood Property Trust filed a foreclosure affidavit Wednesday for 1200 K St. NW, seeking to take control of the 390K SF property from Brookfield Properties. On Starwood’s fourth-quarter earnings call in February, CEO Barry Sternlicht said he visited 1200 K St. NW, calling it a beautiful building. He said the firm plans to convert it to residential. ‘It’s an unimaginable amount of equity our borrowers have lost, unfortunately,’ Sternlicht said of the K Street asset.”

“The Swig Company has created a new benchmark for Downtown L.A. office sales — $94 a square foot, The Real Deal has learned. The firm sold 617 West 7th Street, formerly the headquarters for Union Oil, for $20.5 million, or roughly 47 percent less than what it bought it for more than a decade ago, according to property records filed with L.A. County. The deal marks the lowest price for an office tower in Downtown L.A. on a per square foot basis over the last four years. The last tower to trade was the AON Center, which sold to Carolwood for about $134 a square foot. Swig also had to pay $1.2 million to the City of Los Angeles, under the city’s 5.5 percent transfer tax on sales over $10 million, according to the deed.”

“New Jersey’s top loan officer based on volume and his former assistant have been charged for their involvement in a mortgage fraud scheme, the U.S. Department of Justice said. Christopher Gallo, 44, of Old Tappan in Bergen County, and his former assistant Mehmet Elmas, 32, a U.S. citizen who lives in Turkey, were each charged with one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud. The Justice Department, citing court documents and statments made in court, said from 2018 through October 2023 Gallo and Elmas were involved in a scheme to falsify loan origination documents sent to different mortgage lenders including their former employer to get mortgage loans approved fraudulently. They are also accused of fraudulently obtaining cheaper mortgage rates by not disclosing that the mortgage loans were intended for the purchase of rental or investment properties, as opposed to primary residential homes.”

“Mauro Quattrochi is facing a decision shared by many in Toronto: commit to a ‘wallet-bursting life in the city, or a car-bound, almost-as-expensive life outside it?’ Quattrochi, an engineer living in downtown Toronto, says the mortgage cost on his condominium townhouse will skyrocket upon renewal next year. ‘We’re staring down the barrel of an economic gun,’ Quattrochi told CTV News Toronto. Brad Burgess, born and raised in Toronto, gave up city living with his wife late last year and bought a home in the Maritimes. Burgess returned with his wife to her childhood province of New Brunswick, purchasing a home in Moncton that was mortgage-free. ‘What I don’t miss, number one, is the outrageous cost of living and number two, the crime,’ he said.”

“Cottage owners looking to sell are scrambling to close deals before proposed changes to the rules on capital gains take effect and potentially leave them on the hook for much higher tax bills, realtors say. While it is nearly impossible for individuals to list a property and close the sale before the tax changes, those with cottages already on the market are pushing to move up closing dates, said Barb Williams, a realtor with Baumgartner Realty Group in Haliburton, Ont. ‘It’s chaos,’ Ms. Williams said, adding that a number of clients have told her the changes have upended their financial plans. ‘All the people that decided to put their house for sale a month ago and made the decision at the time that this is the year they’re going to sell based on the numbers their accountant gave them, now the rug is pulled [out from] underneath.'”

“‘It’s a really good position, as a buyer, to approach an owner in Muskoka, or anywhere, if those gains are significantly large,’ said David Bemmann broker at Sotheby’s International Realty Canada. Mr. Bemmann said it is best to stay calm and seek the advice of realtors and tax experts. ‘The worst thing you want to do is panic and take an offer that you just never thought you’d take.'”

“The phone calls were coming on an almost daily basis. Lawyers, real estate agents and people with cash in hand, all looking to purchase Rod Pratt and Diana Paquette’s Mexican time-share at a handsome price. It seemed like a godsend to the Edmonton couple. On their first trip to Mexico, for a 2016 wedding, they had made a snap decision to invest in a beachfront property in Nuevo Vallarta, on the Pacific coast, just north of the resort town Puerto Vallarta. But nothing was as it appeared. ‘Anything you look at and touch, it’s got a dollar tag on it,’ said Pratt, 65. ‘It’s definitely not all-inclusive.'”

“By the spring of 2019, they were desperate to unload the time-share. So when a broker from Atlanta cold-called and said he had a client willing to pay $155,000 US, Pratt pounced. ‘They have, like, these fees and stuff they wanted for opening and closing… all kinds of little ones,’ he said. ‘Anywhere from maybe $1,500 US to $10,000.’ The Jalisco New Generation Cartel (known by its Spanish initials CJNG) has existed for only 15 years, yet ranks one of Mexico’s largest and most powerful criminal organizations. It operates in at least 27 of the country’s 32 states, with affiliates across the globe. Its home base is Puerto Vallarta. No one is sure just how much CJNG is earning from its time-share frauds; just as it’s not known for certain if the cartel was behind the bogus offers made to Pratt.”

“Rod Pratt and Diana Paquette have been busy packing up their Edmonton home, preparing to move and heading for a divorce. ‘All I was really trying to do was get some money back for my wife and for my life,’ Pratt said, tearing up. ‘I would gladly trade the trips to Mexico for a life back,’ he said. ‘I wish we would have never went to Mexico.'”

“Malaysia is scrambling to save its $100 billion city of the future. Forest City, the brainchild of China’s troubled property giant Country Garden, located in southern Malaysia’s Johor has Sultan Ibrahim Iskandar as one of its major stakeholders. Billed as a paradise with turtles and white-sand beaches, Forest City aimed at housing 700,000 people across 7,000 acres on four reclaimed islands upon completion in 2035. But many years into construction, the joint venture between Country Garden and a private Malaysian company backed by the Sultan of Johor and the state government, remains home to less than 10,000 people.”

“Spread over 7,000-acres and overlooking Singapore, it was originally aimed at luring Chinese middle-class buyers. But things quickly went downhill. A combination of scant sales, Chinese controls on capital leaving the country, a pandemic shutdown that all but closed the border and public anger at China’s growing influence in Malaysia left the project in dire straits. Nazmi Hanafiah, an IT engineer and former Forest City resident, told the outlet that the project was a ‘ghost town.’ ‘I didn’t care about my deposit, I didn’t care about the money. I just had to get out,’ Hanafiah said. ‘It’s lonely around here— it’s just you and your thoughts. There is nothing to do here.'”

“Things are difficult on the ground. A Malaysian man named Ozzy, speaking to Foreign Policy, said he was on the hunt for a place in Malaysia. But Forest City is not on his list. ‘Look at how empty this place is,’ he said. ‘I’d only be able to rent it out for one or two months a year. … When I visited in 2018 this place was packed. Now there’s no one here. It’s like it’s haunted.'”

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This Post Has 86 Comments

  1. From the redfin press release:

    SUPPLY: Of the 10 metro areas that posted the largest year-over-year increases in supply, six are in Florida and two are in Texas. Cape Coral, FL saw the biggest jump in homes for sale (51%), followed by North Port-Sarasota, FL (48%), Fort Lauderdale, FL (30%), Tampa, FL (29%), McAllen, TX (25%), Orlando, FL (23%), Knoxville, TN (23%), Dallas (20%), West Palm Beach, FL (20%) and Cincinnati (17%).

    PRICE DROPS: Of the 10 metro areas where sellers were most likely to cut their list prices, five are in Florida and two are in Texas. In North Port-Sarasota, 48% of listings had a price cut—the highest share in the country. Next came Tampa (44%), Indianapolis (43%), Cape Coral (41%), Denver (37%), Orlando (35%), Portland, OR (34%), Houston (33%), San Antonio (33%) and Jacksonville, FL (33%).

    2. Those are some of the cities that will have the biggest busts and the most foreclosures. Many of them can be considered the usual suspects since this wont be the first time they’ve been clobbered. If any of you have had your eye on any of those places, be patient and save up some cash. Cash is king when it all goes to sh!t.

  2. ‘Without sufficient rent adjustments, these buildings have no future,’ said Jay Martin, executive director of the Community Housing Improvement Program. ‘The reality is that no one is forced to be a landlord of a rent-stabilized building,’ said Leah Goodridge, a former tenant representative on the board and a tenants’ rights attorney. ‘A lot of the framework that’s provided is this sort of equivalency of someone [who] is facing homelessness, can’t afford the rent [versus] someone [who] has made a business decision that isn’t generating profits’

    Leah is right Jay, nobody put a gun to yer head when you bought these money losing airboxes.

  3. ‘The last tower to trade was the AON Center, which sold to Carolwood for about $134 a square foot’

    So they got schlonged.

    ‘Swig also had to pay $1.2 million to the City of Los Angeles, under the city’s 5.5 percent transfer tax on sales over $10 million, according to the deed’

    That’s the spirit, after taking an epic a$$ pounding, hit them with a whopping tax!

  4. ‘The Justice Department, citing court documents and statments made in court, said from 2018 through October 2023 Gallo and Elmas were involved in a scheme to falsify loan origination documents sent to different mortgage lenders including their former employer to get mortgage loans approved fraudulently. They are also accused of fraudulently obtaining cheaper mortgage rates by not disclosing that the mortgage loans were intended for the purchase of rental or investment properties, as opposed to primary residential homes’

    Senator running deer heap angry.

    1. Senator Running Deer’s staffers continue to cash the fat checks her campaign is raking in from the very same banksters she rails against.

  5. ‘I do think some of these rental units, the people who purchased them during COVID, I think they’re going to end up selling,’ Robinson said.”

    Die, speculator scum.

  6. ‘It’s a really good position, as a buyer, to approach an owner in Muskoka, or anywhere, if those gains are significantly large’

    Grab that falling knife Dave!

  7. ‘All the people that decided to put their house for sale a month ago and made the decision at the time that this is the year they’re going to sell based on the numbers their accountant gave them, now the rug is pulled [out from] underneath.’”

    Cry me a river, greedheads.

  9. ‘The worst thing you want to do is panic and take an offer that you just never thought you’d take.’”

    He who panics first, panics best.

  10. The SFH market here in SWFL is a sight to behold. Countless homes that were flooded in hurricane Ian are now listed for sale as “fully remodeled”, “new AC, new water heater” ect. with no mention of the fact that they had 5 feet of water inside them. Nope, they just remodel them with cheap materials and put them up for sale at double what they were selling for before Ian showed just how vulnerable these houses are. I guess having high-water marks on the walls adds to the value. When the crash comes SWFL will once again be Ground Zero.

  11. When I visited in 2018 this place was packed. Now there’s no one here. It’s like it’s haunted.’”

    When property speculator dreams of effortless wealth die in the arse, does this create ghosts trapped in the dimension between flopped developments and whatever afterlife awaits departed Yellen Bux valuations?

    1. “Malaysia is scrambling to save its $100 billion city of the future. Forest City, the brainchild [brainchild, or brainfart?] of China’s troubled property giant Country Garden, located in southern Malaysia’s Johor has Sultan Ibrahim Iskandar as one of its major stakeholders. Billed as a paradise with turtles and white-sand beaches, Forest City aimed at housing 700,000 people across 7,000 acres on four reclaimed islands upon completion in 2035. But many years into construction, the joint venture between Country Garden and a private Malaysian company backed by the Sultan of Johor and the state government, remains home to less than 10,000 people.”

      “‘… When I visited in 2018 this place was packed. Now there’s no one here. It’s like it’s haunted.’”

      \\

      “Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded.” – Yogi Berra

      – China is exporting “ghost cites” now?

      – How’s that workin’ out?

      – Central planning is an economic pox on the globe.

      1. – China is exporting “ghost cites” now?

        I’m confident the locals in charge were happy to get the investment.

        After all, there are hundreds of millions of Chinese with lots of money, and Malaysia and everyone else wants a piece.

  12. “They are also accused of fraudulently obtaining cheaper mortgage rates by not disclosing that the mortgage loans were intended for the purchase of rental or investment properties, as opposed to primary residential homes.”

    Pick any mortgage brokerage anywhere and you’re going to find this. Been going on forever. They can be busting originators until Armageddon comes if they really want to go down this rabbit hole.

    1. If the loans were not federally guaranteed, it wouldn’t be in the lender’s financial interest to do this.

      1. Back when I was doing it all the wholesalers were bundling and selling off to investors. We all know how that works now after seeing the Big Short. All they cared about was making it look good on paper. And there’s dozens of ways to disguise and hide this. When I was being trained as a LO in the late 90’s the owner of the brokerage I started with trained me that the only time you call it an investment or rental property is when there’s no possible way of getting around it. I wouldn’t do it and ticked a lot of people off for standing my ground. But it was just common practice…..and pure fraud. I’m sure nothing has changed.

      2. “If the loans were not federally guaranteed, it wouldn’t be in the lender’s financial interest to do this.”

        – Other people’s (taxpayer’s) $.

        The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money [to spend].” – Margaret Thatcher

  13. “Cassie Brewer said her home, in St. Petersburg’s Yacht Club Estates, was dropped by Citizens after $200,000 in upgrades drove the cost to rebuild the property over $700,000.”

    Why does that necessitate cancellation? Couldn’t insurers simply increase premiums to cover higher rebuilding costs or greater risk a claim will be made?

    I don’t really understand the exit of insurance companies from California, either. I suspect the state government meddling in the market explains it.

    2. $200,000 in upgrades drove the cost

      Maybe upgrades aren’t supposed to be part of an insurance claim.

  14. [This non-housing related article is from Down Under.]

    People don’t believe renewables are cheap anymore, so activists pretend they never said it was.

    The sore losers of the renewable-fantasy hope you don’t expect them to apologize

    https://joannenova.com.au/

    We are at the beginning of the big-flip. The activist pundits are suddenly realizing that renewables aren’t cheap and worse, that the public know it. Without blinking, they’re switching from telling us how cheap renewables are to saying of course, it’s going to be difficult, like everyone knows this and they haven’t been completely wrong for twenty years and wasted trillions of dollars.

    They hope of course to erase the past, skip the apology, and slide the public straight into acceptance — that the transition will cost more, of course.

    Take Peter Lewis, of Essential Polling. He writes snidely in The Guardian:

    Here’s the truth: energy transition is hard. Not everyone gets a pony
    The climate crisis has long been defined by its lies: From the original sin of science denial, to Tony Abbott’s confected carbon tax panic, to the latest yellowcake straw man. But the most damaging porky of all might be that the transition to renewable energy will be easy.

    Did you see what he did there? He blamed and named conservatives and then pretends they were the ones selling the lie that the transition would be easy? It’s writing like this that makes The Guardian the tabloid trash can of history. The most damaging porky may well be that wind and solar would be cheap, but it was a progressive fantasy and Mr Lewis himself was practically on the sales team. Pity he doesn’t have the honesty to admit it.

    Here’s the same Peter Lewis in 2017 — smug, wrong, and condescending to the end

    Clean energy is plummeting in cost, and the smart technology solutions that will make it work are proving themselves. The coal club can huff and puff but it’s too late to blow the renewable house down.

    The new reformed Peter Lewis now says the transition is “hugely disruptive”:

    Both gloss over the hard truth that fundamentally changing the way Australia produces, shares and uses energy is hugely disruptive, particularly in the regions where new infrastructure is earmarked for land and sea.

    Given Peter Lewis’s childishly patronizing attitude, and dishonesty, we have to wonder how biased are those “Essential Polls”?

    The reason he’s flipped is that the latest polls show most people don’t believe renewables are cheap anymore:

    And, as this week’s Guardian Essential Report shows, one of the fundamental building blocks driving this narrative is unstable: people don’t believe renewables are cheaper.

    When asked to rank energy sources in order of cost, renewables are rated the most expensive. Fossil fuels are seen as a cheaper solution, while nuclear is preferred by those who don’t support the transition anyway.

    Polling, renewables, cost, expense, fossil fuels.
    …

    Back in 2015 fully 47% of the voters, or almost half, thought renewables were the cheapest source of electricity, but that’s fallen to 34%. In 2015 only 20% of people thought fossil fuels were cheaper. Now 33% do. And 40% say renewables are the most expensive of all.

    Things are shifting fast — last October 28% of Australians thought fossil fuels were the most expensive, but six months later, that has fallen to 24%.

    So get ready to hear them say “we always knew it would be expensive”. It’s coming. They’re going to want to stuff “renewables are cheap” down the memory hole.

    Never let them forget. We need those grovelling apologies, and with letters of resignation.

    1. “The activist pundits are suddenly realizing that renewables aren’t cheap and worse, that the public know it. ”

      I read up on renewables a LOT circa 2006-2010. Back then, the true believers were well aware that renewables were too expensive and they were already trying to hide it. If you dared ask: “So, how much to run my house by solar panels, total out-the-door ballpark?”, you never got a straight answer. Instead, they gave you a song an dance about how to read your electric bill, guilting you into finding pockets of conservation (like make your kids pedal a bike in order to power any TV they watch), or gushing about the latest tax break du jour. Anything and everything to distract you from discovering that it would cost $60K+ (in 2008 dollars) to do what the grid already did. And that was for an average house, not Al Gore’s Manse of Hypocrisy. But at least the solar folks didn’t outright lie, and they seemed sincere in their cause.

      Now the activist pundits are realizing that not only does the public know that renewables a scam; but that the public knows that activists themselves are a scam. It might take another election cycle, but it’s turned a corner.

    2. “Clean energy is plummeting in cost, and the smart technology solutions that will make it work are proving themselves.”

      Circa 2017, the libs thought that solar panels would do what technology like laptops and cell phones did: plummet in cost as tech matured and factory processes were optimized to produce at scale.

      But that doesn’t work for energy. Solar panels did not plummet in cost because of process efficiency or smart technology solutions. Solar panels plummeted in cost because circa 2017, *the Chinese flooded the world with slave-built panels below cost to drive out competition.* The panels themselves were never cheaper to build.

      Secondly, renewables simply don’t scale large enough. If EVERYbody goes renewable, you quickly run out of raw materials. It’s kind of like the tree huggers in Mother Earth News bragging how they run their cars with used fry oil, or charging their car at night because they could take advantage of “off-peak” rates. Yeah, that doesn’t work when everyone does it. There’s not enough fry oil to go around, and when everyone charges a car at night,* there is no off-peak time.

      —————
      *assuming every car has a dedicated parking spot next to a wall.

      1. equating to a loss of $130,000 per vehicle sold,

        At a loss of 130K per vehicle, would it be cheaper to just give them to a non-profit and take the tax deduction?

  16. Ok, the POPE ,in summary in US interview ,calls Climate Change Deniers “fools”.
    Pope Francis also urged people to get the Covid 19 vaccine, calling it ” an act of love.”

    A POPE calling climate change deniers “fools”, reminds me of the ongoing attack on the non vaccinated, who didn’t want to take the expiermental fake vaccine.
    So, the Pope is a Scientist that can determine scientific truths. The name calling is a low blow from a POPE, if you ask me. What Scientific facts did he offer . …..nothing.
    And urging people to take killer vaccines, as being a ” act of love”, didn’t turn out so good did it.

    1. I know that when I want answers to complicated scientific questions I look straight to the Pope.

  17. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CLhqjOzoyE
    Dr. Michael J. Burry at UCLA Economics Commencement 2012
    UCLA 97K subscribers

    872,415 views Jun 20, 2012
    2012 UCLA Department of Economics Commencement featuring Dr. Michael J. Burry as keynote speaker
    Keywords: Dr. Michael Burry, UCLA, Economics, Graduation 2012, Scion Capital Group, LLC

    \\
    https://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/04/opinion/04burry.html
    [Firewalled article. Can find at other websites.]
    The Opinion Pages | OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
    I Saw the Crisis Coming. Why Didn’t the Fed?
    By MICHAEL J. BURRY
    APRIL 3, 2010

    Back in 2005 and 2006, I argued as forcefully as I could, in letters to clients of my investment firm, Scion Capital, that the mortgage market would melt down in the second half of 2007, causing substantial damage to the economy. My prediction was based on my research into the residential mortgage market and mortgage-backed securities.

    After studying the regulatory filings related to those securities, I waited for the lenders to offer the most risky mortgages conceivable to the least qualified buyers. I knew that would mark the beginning of the end of the housing bubble; it would mean that prices had risen — with the expansion of easy mortgage lending — as high as they could go.

    Instead, our leaders in Washington either willfully or ignorantly aided and abetted the bubble.

    And even when the full extent of the financial crisis became painfully clear early in 2007, the Federal Reserve chairman, the Treasury secretary, the president and senior members of Congress repeatedly underestimated the severity of the problem, ultimately leaving themselves with only one policy tool — the epic and unfair taxpayer-financed bailouts.

    Now, in exchange for that extra year or two of consumer bliss we all enjoyed, our children and our children’s children will suffer terrible financial consequences.

  18. – A snapshot in time for posterity. Is the Fed right this time? Is it different this time?

    \\

    https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/24/economy/stocks-week-ahead-fed-recession-coming-years/index.html
    Business / Economy
    Here’s why the Fed doesn’t see a US recession in coming years
    Analysis by Bryan Mena, CNN
    5 minute read
    Published 7:30 AM EDT, Sun March 24, 2024

    The Federal Reserve’s policymaking committee of 19 officials released a new set of economic projections last week, showing that they now expect economic growth in 2024, 2025 and 2026 to be even stronger than they previously thought.

    That optimism seems to be the consensus among analysts, including Goldman Sachs’ chief economist: The ruthless economic pains of a recession, such as mass layoffs and tepid consumer spending, probably won’t happen anytime soon.

    “The economy is strong, the labor market is strong and inflation has come way down,” Fed Chair Jerome Powell said Wednesday.

  19. [The Left is eating its own.]

    Journalists critical of their own companies cause headaches for news organizations

    https://apnews.com/article/journalists-nbc-npr-times-critics-db9a3ea36ac1f5bf9fe71ddcf3eae9a0

    NEW YORK (AP) — This spring, NBC News, The New York Times and National Public Radio have each dealt with turmoil for essentially the same reason: journalists taking the critical gaze they deploy to cover the world and turning it inward at their own employers.

    Whistleblowing isn’t unique to any industry. Yet the contrary outlook baked into many journalists — which can be a central part of their jobs — and generational changes in how many view activism have combined to make it probable these sort of incidents will continue.

    In the past few weeks, NBC reversed a decision to hire former Republican National Committee chief Ronna McDaniel as a political contributor following a revolt by some of its best-known personalities. An NPR editor was suspended and then quit after critiquing his company’s willingness to tolerate diverse viewpoints and an internal probe provoked by Gaza coverage ended at the Times.

    Journalism as a profession attracts people who are anti-authoritarian, who see themselves as truth-tellers. Many believe the way to make an organization better is by criticizing it, said Tom Rosenstiel, co-author of “The Elements of Journalism” and a professor at the University of Maryland.

    “We’re taught to hold power to account,” said Kate O’Brian, president of news for the E.W. Scripps Co.

    IT’S IN THEIR NATURE
    So was it really surprising to see Chuck Todd, who spent years questioning politicians on “Meet the Press,” do the same to his bosses when there was resistance to putting McDaniel on the payroll? MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, Joy Reid, Joe Scarborough, Jen Psaki, Nicolle Wallace and Lawrence O’Donnell all joined a protest that was extraordinary for how it played out on the network’s own airwaves.

    National Public Radio editor Uri Berliner didn’t receive much internal support for his complaints, but that actually reinforced his point. He said NPR had become too one-sided in promoting a liberal point of view, and that he went public with an essay in another news outlet when his concerns went unanswered by his superiors.

    NPR management says he is wrong. But Berliner quickly became a hero among conservatives who hold the same belief.

    Journalism history has many examples of meaningful internal protests. Women journalists sued in the 1970s to force The New York Times and The Associated Press to confront gender discrimination. Los Angeles Times journalists exposed a deal their company made to share profits with a sports arena from a special issue. A Chicago TV news anchor quit to protest her station’s hiring of talk show host Jerry Springer as a commentator.

    The 2020 death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police was a significant moment, forcing news organizations across the country to confront how they covered racial issues, both past and present, often at the prodding of their staff. It also forced a look at a lack of diversity in newsrooms.

    There are several reasons why many journalists are more apt now to go public with complaints they may once have kept to sharing with colleagues down at the corner bar. Among them is the likelihood that their outlet is owned by a faraway hedge fund instead of a local family, said Joel Kaplan, associate dean for graduate studies at Syracuse University’s Newhouse communications school and a former Chicago Tribune reporter.

    A generational change also has emboldened many young journalists. In his own classroom, Kaplan sees more young journalists questioning traditional notions of objectivity that keep them from expressing opinions. Many believe they have the right to state their beliefs and support causes, he said.

    “Now you have journalists that are advocates,” Rosenstiel said. “That reflects something of a culture war that is happening inside of journalism.”

    Debates over coverage of the Trump administration had a similar galvanizing effect.

    “There are some journalists who say, ‘I’m not interested in covering conservatives because they are not interested in the truth,’” Rosenstiel said.

    A BACKLASH TO THE BACKLASH
    Some traditionalists, like former Washington Post editor Marty Baron, have despaired over some of these changes. Battles with young staff members over how they express their opinions over social media left him despondent, a factor in his eventual retirement.

    “Never have I felt more distant from my fellow journalists,” he wrote about a staff meeting on the topic in his 2023 book, “Collision of Power.”

    One of the most prominent thinkers on this issue, journalist Wesley Lowery, has written that some defenders of objectivity are more interested in inoffensiveness and appearance, less so on journalistic rigor.

    “In pursuing objectivity, we silence the marginalized,” a Harvard student, Ajay V. Singh, wrote at the height of the debate. “In silencing the marginalized, we tip the narrative of ‘truth’ into the hands of the powerful.”

    The New York Times frequently has been at the forefront with journalists questioning their organization. In 2020, the newspaper’s editorial page editor resigned after the newspaper disowned an opinion piece written by U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton about Floyd-related protests, following a staff protest. Some Times staff members also have spoken out intensely against the newspaper’s coverage of gender issues.

    Its executives, however, appeared to have lost patience with a debate surrounding another contentious issue: the war in Gaza.

    They launched an internal investigation into who leaked material to an outside publication, the Intercept, about a podcast based on a late December article about Hamas and sexual violence. The podcast was never done. That angered some staff members who were concerned the Times was striking back against employees for doing something that its own reporters do on a regular basis: write stories based on leaked material.

    Yet management of the Times viewed the action as a violation of trust, particularly the sharing of what was essentially drafts of material that never saw the light of day.

    “Reporters, editors and producers need to be able to have candid exchanges and disagreements about the best way to tackle a difficult piece of journalism with the understanding that those exchanges will strengthen the story, not become the story,” Joe Kahn, Times executive editor, said in a memo to staff on April 15. He said the probe concluded without determining who leaked the material.

    Against this backdrop is another truth: The media itself and how it covers news are issues that interest the public more than in the past, creating the market for just the sort of material that Kahn was talking about — and for this story as well.

    Because of the interest, and because of the journalism DNA that courses through the debate, there’s likely to be no shortage of sources for such news, Rosenstiel said.

    “Newsrooms,” he said, “are full of people who are often disgruntled.”

    1. Plain and simple: journalists on the MSM are facing stiff competition from much smarter journalists on alternative media. Any attempt at canceling those upstarts has been foiled by Elon Musk. The MSM is starving and has resorted to cannibalism.

    2. Journalists today are not much different than guards at concentration camps in the 40’s.

  20. A reader sent these in:

    Southwest Airlines will shed around 2,000 employees globally as part of a cost cutting drive

    https://twitter.com/MacroEdgeRes/status/1783540118927638976

    Food delivery pioneer FreshDirect may be nearing its expiration date as money-bleeding parent Getir looks to dump the Big Apple grocer, they employ about 3,200 people

    https://twitter.com/MacroEdgeRes/status/1783520121647943896

    PCE prices soared in Q1 per the BEA as a preemptive December Powell pivot has created a perfect storm for stagflation and the labor market

    https://twitter.com/MacroEdgeRes/status/1783479150059176394

    A pair of NJ loan officers arrested for mortgage fraud – systematically originating loans for investment properties while labeling them as primary residences to get the lower rates.

    You can rest assured this is the tip of the iceberg. Only question is whether the DOJ has the will to unpeel the onion.

    https://twitter.com/dfwaaronlayman/status/1783325144980607308

    New Jersey had a very low supply of homes. DOJ just arrested loan officers for using Agency Owner Occupied loans subsidized by the taxpayer to buy 1.4 BILLLION in AirBnBs

    https://twitter.com/GRomePow/status/1783620802338009490

    Take this, multiply it by 100, multiple that by every city in America. Now we know what happened to housing during Covid.

    https://twitter.com/GRomePow/status/1783631667963314212

    Price cuts just keep soaring. Redfin has them hitting 6%. Realtor is showing a *53%* YoY increase in price cuts as of last week

    https://twitter.com/artimidore/status/1783576844911960399

    Here’s the chart of year-over-year list prices in Realtor data going back to 2017.

    Actually, reexamining the data, YoY list prices have NEVER been as low as they got last week–they bottomed out at -0.9% YoY in June and July 2023…We’re already in the thick of it, my friends

    https://twitter.com/artimidore/status/1783529967311053268

    This is a notable miss. Expectations were for Q1 core PCE at 3.4%.

    After the March CPI and PPI, Wall Street forecasters were expecting core PCE rose around 0.27% in March, which would have implied a 2.7% 12-month increase.

    https://twitter.com/NickTimiraos/status/1783491683595743518

    A Fed nightmare. When GDP (economic activity) slows down, yet prices continue rising (stagflation), and the government refuses to curb reckless deficit spending, this puts the Fed and Treasury in an impossible position that no matter what they do, it will lead to issuing more and more Federal Debt. This leads to the need to monetize the debt with more money printing, inflation surges, rates rise, and we do it all again.

    https://twitter.com/jameslavish/status/1783507386931859609

    ❖ U.S PCE PRICES (Q1) ACTUAL: 3.4% VS 1.8% PREVIOUS

    ❖ U.S GDP PRICE INDEX (QOQ) (Q1) ACTUAL: 3.1% VS 1.7% PREVIOUS; EST 3.0%

    ❖ U.S CORE PCE PRICES (Q1) ACTUAL: 3.70% VS 2.00% PREVIOUS; EST 3.40%

    https://twitter.com/DeItaone/status/1783474396490826076

    Not one criminal in Congress is calling for lower government spending and deficits amid a 3.7% PCE reading

    The United States is a dinosaur walking around with a blindfold on

    https://twitter.com/DonMiami3/status/1783482443783139804

    Hertz Global now plans to sell 30,000 EVs in 2024 as part of disposition plan, an increase of 10,000 vehicles from its original target.

    https://twitter.com/DiMartinoBooth/status/1783464257754992889

    ‘Almost 120,000 corporate positions have vanished from Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco combined during the past year. White-collar payrolls also declined in smaller hubs such as Phoenix and Seattle.’

    https://twitter.com/jessefelder/status/1783539482874233168

    That $META earnings call was an absolute disaster. Zuck tried to convince his investors that AI is the future, when there’s no real clear path to how it makes profit.

    Then he tried to tie it into the metaverse.

    At that point I bet a lot of people got PTSD, because the selling accelerated further…

    https://twitter.com/Mayhem4Markets/status/1783264183129133466

    ‘As higher rates weigh on voter sentiment, some Democratic strategists say it is time for Mr. Biden to emulate former President Donald J. Trump, who routinely browbeat the Fed chair, Jerome H. Powell, to lower rates.’

    https://twitter.com/jessefelder/status/1783206184922853800

    YELLEN: THERE COULD BE REVISIONS TO GDP DATA

    https://twitter.com/DeItaone/status/1783495885751480443

    Fun fact: The Volcker Fed started cutting rates even as inflation resurged above 10% cause the economy was heading into recession.
    And it’s the recession that got rid of inflation.

    https://twitter.com/NorthmanTrader/status/1783480733304050116

    So basically subtract that massive deficit and organic real GDP growth is running nearly negative.

    But great economy everyone.

    https://twitter.com/NorthmanTrader/status/1783476243880415598

    2 year back to 5%

    https://twitter.com/WinfieldSmart/status/1783653427676946801

    “For the first time in our nation’s history, a 30 year old isn’t doing as well their parents were at 30. They see exceptional wealth across my generation… and we’re running it up on their credit card.” Scott Galloway

    https://twitter.com/WinfieldSmart/status/1783209611194999048

    WARNING: Home buying conditions have fallen off a cliff

    Current levels have NEVER been seen since in the last 60+ years

    https://twitter.com/WinfieldSmart/status/1783246743653474680

    Stock purchases by retail investors have fallen to their lowest level since late 2020

    https://twitter.com/WinfieldSmart/status/1783450606918611187

    Don’t look at the FHA if you don’t like this. 1/3 of new borrowers with DTI > 50%

    https://twitter.com/trader_mtg/status/1783346099471986720

    We used to find solace in knowing that our housing market was a mess, but at least it wasn’t as dysfunctional and busted as the situation in countries like Britain and Canada. Then our charts started to look like this. “Why is the birth rate so low???” Gee I wonder why.

    https://twitter.com/JeffWeniger/status/1783662528368619911

    This is going to breed resentment.

    Picture a 35-year-old couple, 2nd baby just born, can’t keep waiting for interest rates to decline. They’re in at $2,843 per month. Next door neighbor, also 35, also 2 kids, same household income, house looks just like theirs, in for $1,400.

    https://twitter.com/JeffWeniger/status/1783611655005384929

    It’s one thing if you’re young and your mortgage payment is double the neighbor’s because that person is Gen X or Boomer and bought in 2005. It’s quite another when the 2024 buyer pays double the 2021 buyer. I’m just saying: the longer this persists, the resentment builds.

    https://twitter.com/JeffWeniger/status/1783611657643799025

    RBA should have gone harder on rate rises .

    Now we have a problem.

    A very big problem

    https://twitter.com/great_martis/status/1783683824658031060

    RBA has a big problem.

    Bond erosion accelerating.

    Funding costs exploding .

    PPI resurgence.

    https://twitter.com/great_martis/status/1783679787334246722

    BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF daily inflow hits $0 for the first time

    https://twitter.com/WhaleFUD/status/1783365327620829248

    78% of household wealth in real estate? Fingers crossed that the epic real estate bubble doesn’t burst.

    https://twitter.com/MichaelAArouet/status/1783471113571344505

    “All of the socks and underwear are now locked up at my Target.”

    Let’s send another $100 billion overseas!

    https://twitter.com/RudyHavenstein/status/1783332912269762700

    The purpose of CPI/PCE etc. math models is to understate the real-world, constant cost of living hikes endured by 335 million Americans.

    https://twitter.com/RudyHavenstein/status/1783171812576370846

    If you’re feeling sad, just watch this over and over again until 4pm EST.

    https://twitter.com/RudyHavenstein/status/1301896028757655552

    “They’re not targeting 2% anymore, they just can’t tell anyone they’re not targeting 2% anymore.”

    https://twitter.com/RudyHavenstein/status/1783513649921061140

    1. “Don’t look at the FHA if you don’t like this. 1/3 of new borrowers with DTI > 50%”

      50% DTI is doomed for failure. Sorry rate daters, you’ve been schlonged.

    2. “Picture a 35-year-old couple, 2nd baby just born, can’t keep waiting for interest rates to decline. They’re in at $2,843 per month. Next door neighbor, also 35, also 2 kids, same household income, house looks just like theirs, in for $1,400.”

      They’re lucky. The starter home in my neck of the woods will run $3500 per month with 80k down. All that with a median household income of 82k per year.

  21. “…..energy transition is hard.”
    Well, even more than energy transition being hard, its genocidal and suicide.
    Ever notice that debate over what the solutions to so called Climate Change should be is never debated.
    The UN 2030 Sustainable Earth Agenda was a blueprint that they just made up basically.
    If they ever implemented the Zero policy CO2 by 2050 it would cause disaster world wide.

    The solutions they are trying to force would cause mass famine, freezing, deprivation of global populations , and turn earth into a brown desert.

    IMHO, this is just a ploy to advance a One World Order using emergencies to advance this power grab.
    Just like the fake Covid Vaccines were forced as the solution to the concocted Covid Panademic, Climate Change solutions are equally ridiculous.

    For your information some Professor way back in 50’s had a theory that maybe Co2 affects the weather. The professor ( I forget name) denounced his own theory before he died. But one of his students Al Gore took that ball and ran with it.

    If your saying that Co2 emissions cause doomsday Climate Change , than your saying that the emissions from life forms, are the culprit in causing
    this doom they fear monger.
    Its not geo engineering affecting weather, its not the sun cycles, or oceans, its Co2, the stuff of life that makes the planet greener.
    Seriously, they have to attack CO2 because that’s what plants, animals and humans and fossil fuels emit.
    These narratives are ridiculous and its obivious that they were pre planned and devised to alter humans into deprived slaves, forced to comply with
    this epic fraud.

    1. Also, the new pesticides they are spraying are riddled with venom of every sort.
      They are using venomous substances in many pharmaceutical also.
      I always thought that Covid was some kind of poison delivered to get the Panademic going. Venom side effects can be respiratory, losing smell etc.
      THE MOTH IN THE IRON LUNG, a book by Forrest Maready, is a researcher that traces the 1894 Polio outbreak to Gypsy Moth spraying they were doing. That moth was invading in a massive and destructive way, and they did a massive spraying to combat it. In same location, the polio broke out.
      Most people are more familiar with the polio outbreak that came way later after DDT spraying.
      The author was on dark horse podcast rumble.
      Just saying .

  22. ““Rod Pratt and Diana Paquette have been busy packing up their Edmonton home, preparing to move and heading for a divorce. ‘All I was really trying to do was get some money back for my wife and for my life,’ Pratt said, tearing up. ‘I would gladly trade the trips to Mexico for a life back,’ he said. ‘I wish we would have never went to Mexico.’””

    Diana doesn’t love you like you think she did, Rod. Which I am sorry for. Women are horrible things.

    2. ‘Anything you look at and touch, it’s got a dollar tag on it,’ said Pratt, 65.”

      Including that woman you married when you were staring down the barrel of 60 years old, Rod.

    3. Women are horrible things.

      They are when society allows and encourages them to behave horribly. In the framework of a benevolent patriarchy, women are awesome.

      1. Which would be fine if 100% of women were average intelligence or below, tended toward subservience, and really wanted babies. Unfortunately, only ~70% of women are like that, and only then if they are given sufficient love and security by that patriarchy. It’s the other 30% of women that are an issue.

        1. So you think any woman that decides to be a stay at home Mom, who supports a husband in his endeavors, and strives for a happy home life for raising children must by your definition be of average or below intelligence?
          That is not a very intelligent view.

  23. Report: Groups Organizing College Protests Funded by Soros-Tied Entities

    NICK GILBERTSON
    26 Apr 2024

    Several groups involved in organizing anti-Israel protests that have broken out at college campuses since last week have received money from organizations funded by left-wing billionaire George Soros, according to a report.

    And at least one of the groups is paying radicals they dub fellows thousands of dollars to head up “campaigns led by Palestinian organizations,” the New York Post reported Friday.

    One group is Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), whose satellites helped organize encampments at Ohio State University, Berkeley, Harvard, Yale, and Emory, per the report.

    https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2024/04/26/groups-organizing-college-protests-funded-soros-tied-entities/

  24. SALES COLLAPSE? 🚨 | Canada Real Estate
    Angry Mortgage Podcast

    10 hours ago

    The reality of no Bank of Canada Drop in March & April knocked down Home Sales in 2 of Canada’s most populous provinces making everyone wonder where did the Spring Real Estate Market go? Another blow to a shrinking Canadian Economy? Or are Home Buyers just that incredibly sensitive to Mortgage Rates? The easy answer in the 2 most expensive places in Canada to buy homes? Absolutely YES

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gCbmslYnc0

    6:49.

  25. ‘Pricing is going to have to come down…It’s a consistent conversation I’m having with homeowners who are used to getting a certain amount of dollars per week’

    I’ve heard it called talking them down out of their tree Blake.

  26. ‘The state’s chief financial officer Jimmy Patronis called the state’s insurance crisis a ‘manmade’ one caused as suing insurers became a ‘very profitable business.’ Reforms enacted in 2022 and 2023 aimed at removing the profit motive are starting to work’

    Trial lawyers will strangle the economy if they aren’t slapped down from time to time.

  27. ‘Last year was by far the slowest market I’ve seen in my 20 years as a real estate agent…Move-up buyers are almost nonexistent. Even though a lot of homeowners have built up a ton of equity, many don’t want to sell because their monthly payment would double or triple due to high mortgage rates’

    I’ve heard it’s good to fast Connie. I don’t do that myself, but I see things on the internet.

  28. ‘It’s an unimaginable amount of equity our borrowers have lost, unfortunately’

    They’ll figure it out by tax time Barry.

  29. ‘I would gladly trade the trips to Mexico for a life back…I wish we would have never went to Mexico’

    Yer not the first and won’t be the last to say that Rod. But old mehico has really gone to sh$t nowadays.

  30. ‘told the outlet that the project was a ‘ghost town.’ ‘I didn’t care about my deposit, I didn’t care about the money. I just had to get out…It’s lonely around here— it’s just you and your thoughts. There is nothing to do here’

    See folks, that’s how it happens. A little adversity and the weak hands give it away.

    1. Anecdotal: Electrical is flourishing in some specific areas now, while others mostly commercial are slowing down to a crawl. The demand is out there, but if your business, or your personal skill set, can’t pivot, you may fall behind.

      Things are really slow now at the company I left a month ago, they are almost entirely commercial…

  32. Multiple Offers Now? Think Twice
    Karrasch Real Properties

    4 hours ago

    If you are in the market to buy this Spring, do not get caught up in a multiple offer situation. The market is slowing, inventory is piling on and you shouldn’t feel an urgency or fear of missing out, regardless of some marketing strategies being used to stimulate activity.

    In today’s video, Surrey Real Estate Specialist, Steve Karrasch of Macdonald Realty discusses what he is seeing this Spring in the Surrey real estate market and cautions buyers not to panic and get caught up in FOMO when looking to buy this Spring 2024.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cn1jmbI_kN0

    7:14.

  34. Sarasota’s Market Shift Has Arrived
    Ben Grieco

    1 hour ago

    Southwest Florida’s Housing Market Continues to evolve as inventory grows. Today I am joined by Siesta Key expert Real Estate Agent Ryan Vlasic to discuss the changes he is seeing on the Key and surrounding areas.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLF0GE3TzY0

    19:12.

      2. CityLab
        Economy
        Plunging Home Prices, Fleeing Companies: Austin’s Glow Is Fading
        – Oracle is moving to Nashville to be closer to health sector
        – Austin suffering a slowdown in growth after pandemic boom

        Even a slowing Austin economy is still hot enough to be the envy of a lot of other places.Photographer: Sergio Flores/Bloomberg
        By Shelly Hagan and Amanda Albright
        April 25, 2024 at 9:28 AM PDT

        Oracle Corp. is moving its headquarters out of the city. Tesla Inc. is pulling back after a rapid expansion. Almost a quarter of commercial office space is vacant, and nowhere in the country have residential real estate prices fallen further from their pandemic peak.

        Austin, the cosmic cowboy paradise that became a Covid-era economic superstar as it lured Elon Musk and a host of California refugees with its low taxes and sunny weather, had become accustomed to a steady drumbeat of good news. But lately that’s changed. And on Tuesday, Larry Ellison announced that his software company will shift its headquarters from the Texas capital to Nashville, Tennessee. It was a brief marriage — Oracle only arrived in Austin in 2020 — but getting jilted is never easy.
        …
        https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-04-25/larry-ellison-s-austin-snub-adds-to-city-s-housing-office-woes

      3. Yahoo
        Fortune
        The outlook for home prices has changed drastically in just the past month as Fed rate cuts look more and more distant
        Fortune· Mandel Ngan—AFP via Getty Images
        Jason Ma
        Sun, Apr 21, 2024, 10:44 AM PDT
        3 min read

        In this article:

        Forecasts for U.S. home prices suddenly look a lot different compared to just a month ago, according to Freddie Mac’s latest outlook.

        Price will increase only 0.5% in 2024 and 2025, the mortgage giant said Thursday. That’s down sharply from its forecast in March, when it predicted home prices would rise 2.5% in 2024 and 2.1% 2025. The view for 2024 has suffered especially compared to the start of the year, when prices were seen rising 2.8%.

        To be sure, a less aggressive trajectory for home-price gains sounds like good news for prospective buyers. But when combined with still-limited inventory and higher-for-longer rates, the overall picture isn’t a major improvement.
        …
        https://finance.yahoo.com/news/outlook-home-prices-changed-drastically-174437713.html

        1. “Price will increase only 0.5% in 2024 and 2025, the mortgage giant said Thursday.”

          Getting dangerously close to negative territory…especially given that prices are already falling in numerous markets.

        2. “The view for 2024 has suffered especially compared to the start of the year, when prices were seen rising 2.8%.”

          Why are so many REIC spokesmen BRagainst affordable housing? The federal government tells me that is a desirable objective.

          1. …
            “Currently, middle-income households are struggling to secure affordable housing and homeownership is out of reach for many Americans. Rents have also been climbing over the past decade and many lower-income families are being priced out of their current neighborhoods. Meanwhile, these families are blocked from renting in higher income neighborhoods due to absence of smaller, more affordable housing options and housing discrimination.

            The United States has arrived at this moment after decades of exclusionary zoning and land use regulations that have limited housing choice and supply. Fortunately, states and localities across the country have been actively working to reverse this history, taking action to modernize their land use and zoning rules and enact new policies that build more housing that is accessible to a wider array of income levels. In addition to more better paying jobs and full funding for housing vouchers, which are vital to ensuring stable housing, these efforts to increase supply can help to relieve economic and housing capacity pressures from the housing shortage. Policy changes occurring across the country can serve as test cases for enhancing housing affordability and provide guidance for federal efforts to increase housing stock, while enhancing economic freedom.”
            …
            https://www.jec.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/democrats/issue-briefs?ID=E8828FC9-8B30-45FE-9F03-49385C95BE79

  35. Population Map Reveals States Growing, Shrinking the Quickest
    Published Apr 25, 2024 at 5:00 AM EDT
    Updated Apr 25, 2024 at 2:56 PM EDT
    By Robyn White
    Nature Reporter

    A new interactive map of the U.S. shows which states are growing in population the fastest and which are shrinking the quickest.

    The data, which draws on statistics from the State Data Center, a U.S. Census Bureau partner, tracks numbers per state since four years ago. While some states gained many more people in this period, others did not. So why?

    Demography expert Dudley Poston, an emeritus professor of sociology at Texas A&M University, told Newsweek that the numbers are “most interesting.”

    These numbers are calculated from April 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic started. Census data from last year reported that population trends had returned to pre-pandemic norms. This is because the numbers of yearly deaths decreased throughout 2022, while migration reverted to patterns seen before 2020.

    Poston said some of the largest population shifts per state occurred between 2022 and 2023. Texas, for example, saw the largest increase between 2022 and 2023, over 470,000.

    “I expect Texas will continue to grow, from just over 30 million today, and maybe reach 45, maybe even 50 million by the year 2050,” Poston said.

    In fact, Texas was not the only fast-growing state in the country. Kaufman County, outside of Dallas, was the “fastest growing county in the entire U.S.,” Poston said. The county saw a population change of about 7.5 percent.

    The next state to grow the most was Florida, by 370,000, followed by North Carolina and Georgia with gains of around 100,000.

    The states that lost the most population were New York, down around 100,000, and California, which lost 75,000.

    “Most of the growth or decline in all the states is due to domestic migration, people moving from/to other states. Some states grew, others declined, for many of the same reasons,” Poston said. “Here are the main reasons people move: people move from one state to another for jobs, lower cost of housing, lower state taxes, better levels of living. Here Texas and Florida have all the benefits, and California and New York don’t.”
    …
    https://www.newsweek.com/population-map-reveals-states-growing-shrinking-1893641

    1. MCalifornia, News
      California experiences increasing trend of people leaving state
      (Kaylen Ho/Daily Bruin)
      By Eugenie Chang
      Jan. 29, 2024 6:39 p.m.
      This post was updated Jan. 30 at 10:04 p.m.

      The 2023 U-Haul Growth Index indicated that California is facing the greatest out-migration of any state for the fourth consecutive year.

      The U-Haul Growth Index measures changes in state populations by correlating population decline to an increase in U-Haul’s transactions of moving equipment in one direction. Although this index alone cannot capture the full extent of population changes, it reflects the fact that California has faced negative domestic migration for nearly 20 years.

      According to the Public Policy Institute of California, the state experienced a decline in overall population for the first time in 2021. The institute also reported that California is increasingly losing residents to nearby states, such as Arizona, Nevada and Texas.

      Affordability challenges are one of the main factors contributing to California’s net migration loss, said Maximilian Buchholz, an assistant professor in the Department of City & Regional Planning at UC Berkeley and a former UCLA postdoctoral fellow. He added that a combination of increasing housing costs and decreasing wages is responsible for the trends of out-migration.

      “Wages for people who don’t have college degrees have essentially not grown at all in the last 40 years,” Buchholz said. “In fact, in LA, … real wages have actually declined a little bit for people who don’t have college degrees.”
      …
      https://dailybruin.com/2024/01/29/california-experiences-increasing-trend-of-people-leaving-state

    1. Yahoo
      Business Insider
      Investors are ramping up their exits from Cathie Wood’s ARK after an epic 72% decline in her flagship fund
      Matthew Fox
      Tue, Apr 23, 2024, 7:12 PM PDT
      2 min read
      Cathie Wood
      Photo by Marco Bello/Getty Images

      – Investors are ramping up outflows from Cathie Wood’s ARK funds after a three-year decline.

      – The suite of ARK ETFs has seen net outflows of $2.2 billion so far this year, triple the outflows in 2023.

      – A string of bad bets and missed opportunities have led to a 72% decline in ARK’s flagship fund.
      …
      https://finance.yahoo.com/news/investors-ramping-exits-cathie-woods-021208974.html

      1. Insider Monkey
        10 Cathie Wood Stocks Insiders are Selling
        Fahad Saleem
        Fri, Apr 26, 2024, 3:32 PM PDT
        9 min read

        In this article:

        In this article, we will take a detailed look at the 10 Cathie Wood Stocks Insiders are Selling. For a quick overview of such stocks, read our article 5 Cathie Wood Stocks Insiders are Selling.

        There was a time Cathie Wood talked about her famous “five-year investment horizon” with confidence, giving investors hope that the high-growth, cash-burning companies she was betting on would pay off in the future. But those profits remain elusive as the innovation-focused investor’s funds bleed assets and experience brutal exodus of investors. Cathie Wood’s flagship ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK) is down about 12% so far this year through April 26, compared to S&P 500’s 7% gain in the same period.

        ARK ETFs See Funds Exodus as Investors Begin to Get “Frustrated”
        …
        https://finance.yahoo.com/news/10-cathie-wood-stocks-insiders-223235246.html

      2. Yahoo
        Business Insider
        Cathie Wood’s Ark Invest has destroyed $14 billion in wealth over the past decade, Morningstar says
        Matthew Fox
        Thu, Apr 25, 2024, 4:59 PM PDT
        2 min read
        Cathie Woods has managed to lose money in a bull market.
        Photo by Marco Bello/Getty Images

        – Cathie Wood’s Ark Invest has destroyed $14 billion in wealth over the past decade.

        – A Morningstar analysis found that Ark Invest topped the list of wealth destroyers among other investment companies.

        – “These funds managed to lose value for shareholders even during a generally bullish market,” Morningstar said.

        Cathie Wood’s Ark Invest has destroyed an estimated $14.3 billion in wealth over the past decade, according to a recent Morningstar analysis.

        Ark Invest was all the rage in 2020 and 2021, when its concentrated bets on highly speculative technology companies paid off in a big way thanks to low interest rates and a boom in risk appetite among retail investors.

        Ark’s flagship innovation ETF, ARKK, soared nearly 150% in 2020, and that massive outperformance helped drive a surge of inflows into its funds right near its peak.

        The firm attracted nearly $30 billion in assets in 2020 and 2021, which were then decimated during the 2022 bear market when its flagship fund plunged 67%.

        The ARKK ETF destroyed $7.1 billion in wealth, while its healthcare-focused ARK Genomic ETF destroyed $4.2 billion in wealth, according to Morningstar.

        Across all fund families that have destroyed wealth over the past decade, Ark Invest topped the list — and its losses were more than double the next firm on the list.

        What’s striking is that Ark’s massive wealth destruction occurred during a favorable time for the stock market.

        “These funds managed to lose value for shareholders even during a generally bullish market,” Morningstar analyst Amy Arnott said.
        …
        https://finance.yahoo.com/news/cathie-woods-ark-invest-destroyed-223315637.html

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