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We Can’t Sell Up And We Can’t Rent Out, We’re Literally Being Held To Ransom

A report from Yahoo Finance. “The Federal Reserve chairman this week doused any hope homebuyers had that mortgage rates would soften anytime soon. Instead, rates jumped above 7% after Jerome Powell said inflation was taking longer to come down to the Fed’s intended target, a sign that any rate cuts investors were betting on may not arrive soon this year — if at all. That sent the 10-year Treasury yield, which mortgage rates follow, above 4.5% ‘with some pundits talking about getting to 5% and even debating the possibility of no rate cuts at all,’ Mark Fleming, chief economist at First American Financial Corp., told Yahoo Finance. That puts a wrench in buyers’ plans. Many were ready to swallow elevated rates now, with the expectation that they could refinance to a lower one when those rate cuts came to pass. That playbook is now out the door.”

“What should a buyer do? For those who have the financial wherewithal to withstand higher rates, they may be in luck, said Danielle Hale, chief economist for Realtor.com. ‘They may see a little bit less competition in the market right now, and that might make it easier to have an offer accepted,’ she said. ‘As mortgage rates start to tick up, we are seeing more sellers make price reductions on their homes than we typically do at this time of year,’ said Hale. ‘I think the data suggests that sellers are approaching with more moderate or realistic expectations as the higher mortgage rates go.'”

From Bankrate. “The National Association of Realtors (NAR) agreed to new rules around real estate commissions as part of a lawsuit settlement in March. Agent fees come out of the seller’s proceeds at closing, but it’s reasonable to assume that the seller adjusts their price accordingly — it’s baked into the home’s sale price. And so it’s the buyer who ultimately pays it, just not directly to their agent: That extra 5 percent is rolled into the sale price. If commissions no longer come out of the seller’s proceeds, the thinking goes, buyers won’t have an additional $7,500 or $10,000 to pay an agent. ‘Most of those buyers are scraping the barrel to the bottom to come up with a down payment,’ says Dave Liniger, chairman of RE/MAX.”

The Manistee News Advocate. “‘Now buyers would have to either pay their agents themselves, or they have to negotiate that into the purchase in some way, shape or form,’ said Kellen Keck, owner of City2Shore Port City Associates, which primarily covers the housing market along the west coast of Michigan’s Lower Peninsula. ‘It’s not that nobody’s getting paid — it’s just the way that specifically from the buyer’s agents side, they may have to negotiate that … or if they can’t then they have to figure out if they have the funds available to pay their buyer’s agents out of their own pocket and directly at the time of close.'”

The Idaho Statesman. “Jeff Jones of Boise’s 208 Premier Real Estate has also focused on ways to lower home prices for buyers — most notably by cutting out buyers agents. Jones charges 3% as a seller’s agent, but he doesn’t charge for the buyer’s agent as is traditionally done, he said, and he recently sold a home without a commission for the buyer’s agent. His business also offers up to a $3,000 rebate home buyers for anything from closing costs to escrow. Jones said there’s a lot of confusion around who pays for the buyer’s agent. Many homebuyers — whether they were told by agents or others — mistakenly believe that buyer’s agents are free or that there’s no financial incentive to skip having one, but that’s not quite true, he said.”

“Homebuyers generally pay the buyer’s agent in a roundabout process. Normally, the homebuyer will pay the seller the agreed-upon price for the house. The seller will pay 6% to the listing agent, who will then pay 3% to the buyer’s agent. ‘The buyer is actually paying everyone’s commissions,’ Jones said.”

From Fortune. “Florida used to be the place for wealthy retirees to move to enjoy the state’s healthy dose of sunshine—and a massive break on taxes. But now that the housing supply on the west coast of Florida is surging, sellers are cutting asking prices, and the time a home is on the market is soaring, according to a Redfin report. For example, the number of homes for sale in Cape Coral and North Port, Fla. surged about 50% year-over-year in March. Prices are more negotiable in parts of Florida, especially if they’ve been sitting on the market for at least 180 days, Erin Sykes, chief economist with Nest Seekers International, tells Fortune. But sellers are hesitant to drop publicly listed prices since ‘aggressive buyers are the only ones active in the market right now,’ she says. Still, these buyers are submitting offers that are about 10% below the asking price. ‘It’s a buyer’s market due to low transaction volume, despite list prices holding stable,’ Sykes says. ‘Now is the time to get a deal.'”

The Star Tribune in Minnesota. “Lisa Mabley was laid off a year ago from her job as a software engineer at a Twin Cities software company. Over the course of five months, she sent her résumé to nearly 300 companies. She received just two offers at the end. ‘The one that I did not accept has [since] had layoffs,’ said Mabley, who lives in Minneapolis. ‘If I had taken the other job, I would perhaps be unemployed again.’ Those months were stressful for Mabley, who was the only person in her household working at times. In September, she began working remotely for a tech startup based in Los Angeles. Mabley and other tech workers have come face-to-face with an unexpected reality: The industry — that for so long has been filled will promises of unending opportunity — is now oversaturated with candidates.”

“The environment Mabley found herself in was far different from when she switched careers eight years ago to become an engineer. Then, recruiters solicited her at least once or twice a day. ‘I guess I thought I had it made after that point,’ Mabley said. ‘I was like, ‘The demand is so high in the field. I will never have to work hard to find a job again.'”

“Susan works in software product management. Abby is a user-experience researcher. Susan was laid off from a tech startup in L.A. a year ago. Aside from a three-month contract this winter, she’s been unemployed. Abby has been looking for a job the past 10 months. User-experience researchers, whose jobs are primarily to study the market and determine if there’s a product fit for a software or device, are one of the positions hit the most in this layoff atmosphere, she said. Abby has seen starting salaries decrease by as much as $30 an hour.”

“The industry shift has affected sales at Horizonal Talent, a St. Louis Park IT digital and creative staffing company. In the second half of 2022, the company saw client requests plunge by 38%, said Jeremy Langevin, co-founder and chief executive. There was an additional drop of 52% last year, with requests falling below pre-pandemic, early 2020 figures. Langevin said inflation anxiety and interest rate hikes crept into the minds of decisionmakers, leading to a hiring pullback. Horizonal had two rounds of layoffs itself in 2023. ‘I started getting nervous,’ Langevin said.”

“The pullback follows a hiring spree. In 2021, Horizonal Talent had a 78% increase in requests to fill positions, with thousands of people fast-tracked into the interview and hiring process as many companies grew their tech payroll. Many companies appear to have misjudged the sustainability of their post-pandemic staffing needs, Langevin said. The emergence of remote work has also allowed companies to expand their hiring pool nationwide and offshore jobs to people in India, Latin America and parts of Europe. The emergence of remote work has also allowed companies to expand their hiring pool nationwide and offshore jobs to people in India, Latin America and parts of Europe. Employers can pay $40,000 to someone in India, where the going rate in the U.S. is $140,000, he said.”

Bisnow on California. “More than one-fifth of the Bay Area’s life sciences facilities are vacant, according to new data from CBRE. In the five submarkets that comprise the region’s once-booming life sciences sector, Oakland, the I-680 Corridor, Silicon Valley, the San Francisco Peninsula and the city of San Francisco, vacancy increased to 20.4% in Q1, according to CBRE Research. The regionwide vacancy rate stood at 8.3% in the first quarter of 2023. But at the region’s occupancy peak in 2017, Bay Area life sciences properties were only 5% vacant, according to CBRE.”

“A few factors are causing occupancy issues for owners of life sciences facilities, according to James Bennett, vice chairman at CBRE. Over the past two years, a handful of local biotech companies have laid off employees and are also subleasing space. This happened after a number of new large biotech projects already started construction. ‘Increased demand during the pandemic dramatically raised land, construction and tenant improvement costs, so newer developers who entered the market in that time frame have a much higher cost basis, which makes it harder to lower rents,’ Bennett told Bisnow.”

“Joel Marcus, executive chairman of Alexandria Real Estate Equities, expects the Bay Area life sciences sector to stabilize within the next two years. ‘Stabilization in the weakest submarket of South San Francisco happens over the next 24 months but some foolish developers who have no clue about life science will be negatively impacted for years to come,’ Marcus told Bisnow.”

Bloomberg on Canada. “Politicians are desperate for developers in Vancouver to build more homes to alleviate pressure in one of the continent’s most expensive real estate markets. There’s just one problem — not enough buyers are showing up. With mortgage rates still near their highest levels in more than a decade, some condo developers are struggling to generate enough early interest in projects to get them built. Homebuilders in the province of British Columbia are constantly against the clock: it has a law that gives them just 12 months to market their projects, collect enough deposits and secure the financing to build.”

“They can ask for more time — but at that point, consumers may also be able to ask for their money back. New home sales dipped 20% in metro Vancouver last year, while inventories have climbed in recent months. New concrete condominiums jumped to 6,672 in the fourth quarter — up about a third from the previous quarter, according to the Urban Development Institute, an industry association. Unsold wood-frame condos were up 12% on the quarter, and 45% more than the prior year.”

“AJ Delisle, RBC’s vice president of real estate in BC, told an audience in Vancouver that the REDMA time limit makes pre-sales difficult when compared to other cities like Canada’s biggest, Toronto, where developers can market properties for years before construction finally begins. ‘We are seeing quite a lot of requests coming in to the bank saying: ‘Hey AJ, we can’t meet our pre-sale requirement. What can we do to rejig the loan so that we can qualify, hit our REDMA deadline and get the loan done? And then we’ll keep selling after. That happens almost on every single deal right now.'”

Metro in the UK. “People living in a London block of flats have been told they must pay an extra £5,000 a year for their service charge due to flammable cladding. They say it is bad enough to be living in a building deemed at risk of fire, but are now expected to pay thousands of pounds extra ‘for nothing’. Dad-of-three Hamid Elouahabi, who lives in the building in Earls Court operated by a housing association, thought the increased annual figure of £7,370.22 was a typo when he first read it. He told Metro.co.uk the monthly charge for his wife’s shared ownership flat has trebled from £205 to £614.29. ‘I know £500 a month is not a lot to some people, but to us it’s a huge amount,’ he said. ‘There are some people in the building where it could affect what they can eat on a weekly basis.'”

“Hamid also feels ‘trapped’ as he says it would be impossible to find a buyer not put off by the cladding and willing to stump up for the service charge, but even if he and his wife could, few lenders would be willing to provide a mortgage. He initially considered simply refusing to pay the extra money, but was told anyone who did this would be in breach of contract and risk court action. ‘If I get a job opportunity abroad, we can’t sell up and we can’t rent out,’ he said. ‘We’re literally being held to ransom.’”

The Sydney Morning Herald in Australia. “Households have an average of $10,300 less per year to spend on non-essentials such as eating out, holidays and entertainment after the worst cost of living crunch in decades as those mortgages were left short by more than twice that amount. Those with a mortgage are the hardest hit; that group has had an average of $21,300 a year slashed from non-essential spending compared with 2020, the study by economic consultancy Polis Partners shows. Renters have an average of $13,300 less a year to spend on non-essentials compared with 2020.”

“Polis Partners economist and report author Rob Tyson said a financial ‘sugar hit’ experienced by households due to generous income support and near zero interest rates during pandemic disruptions in 2020 had given way to a sustained deterioration in spending power. ‘This cost of living squeeze has been the steepest and most prolonged period of deteriorating household finances since the start of the time series in the early 2000s,’ he said.”

“Mac Karnecki and Stephanie Quirk borrowed to buy their first home at Mount Warrigal near Wollongong in late 2022 after ‘scrimping it’ for several years to save a deposit. Five interest rate hikes since that purchase, coupled with high inflation, means Karnecki is now ‘always looking out for bargains and cheaper ways to buy stuff.’ The couple and their three children have sacrificed holidays, forgone new clothes, reduced meat consumption and let gym memberships lapse to reduce costs. A plan to buy a second car ‘just hasn’t happened.’ Karnecki, a fire protection system designer, aims for ‘as close to zero waste as possible’ from the family food shop to help with savings. ‘We used to get a coffee every day, but that’s gone, now we might buy a coffee once a week as a treat,’ he said.”

“Tyson said the speed at which disposable income declined during the past two years has affected the way consumers feel about their finances. ‘Many people came off a time during COVID where they had the most cash they’ve ever had,’ he said. ‘I think that may have heightened how people perceive the current crunch – there’s a real sense that just a couple of years ago, they were a lot better off.'”

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This Post Has 67 Comments

  1. ‘It’s not that nobody’s getting paid — it’s just the way that specifically from the buyer’s agents side, they may have to negotiate that … or if they can’t then they have to figure out if they have the funds available to pay their buyer’s agents out of their own pocket and directly at the time of close’

    ‘Normally, the homebuyer will pay the seller the agreed-upon price for the house. The seller will pay 6% to the listing agent, who will then pay 3% to the buyer’s agent. ‘The buyer is actually paying everyone’s commissions’

    And it was all being borrowed, often including the down payment.
    Sound lending!

    1. “Most of those buyers are scraping the barrel to the bottom to come up with a down payment”

      Sound lending, indeed.

    2. ‘The buyer is actually paying everyone’s commissions’

      It doesn’t have to go down that way. For example, a seller could part with a property for 20% below their wishing price and generously pay the buyer plus everyone’s commissions. And in a higher-for-longer rates environment with falling prices, it could become challenging to figure out who is paying what to whom, as the lender’s share of the pie got much larger since December 2020, when thirty year mortgage rates dipped to 2.65%.

  2. ‘sellers are hesitant to drop publicly listed prices since ‘aggressive buyers are the only ones active in the market right now,’ she says. Still, these buyers are submitting offers that are about 10% below the asking price’

    That’s the spirit Erin, low ball those greedy bashtards!

  3. ‘As mortgage rates start to tick up, we are seeing more sellers make price reductions on their homes than we typically do at this time of year,’ said Hale. ‘I think the data suggests that sellers are approaching with more moderate or realistic expectations as the higher mortgage rates go’

    Wa happened to my shortage Danielle?

  4. ‘I know £500 a month is not a lot to some people, but to us it’s a huge amount,’ he said. ‘There are some people in the building where it could affect what they can eat on a weekly basis’

    ‘now ‘always looking out for bargains and cheaper ways to buy stuff.’ The couple and their three children have sacrificed holidays, forgone new clothes, reduced meat consumption’

    If you people expect to eat expensive food, yer never going to be a winnah!

  5. “Jeff Jones of Boise’s 208 Premier Real Estate has also focused on ways to lower home prices for buyers — most notably by cutting out buyers agents.

    The whole notion of “buyers’ agents” is inherently fraudulent. Both agents in a shack transaction have a vested interest in ensuring the highest possible price is paid for a shack to boost their commissions, and neither has the slightest intent of honoring fiduciary obligations to their “clients.”

    1. On the other hand, unless fraud is somehow involved with inflating the loan amount, higher-for-longer interest rates are greatly shrinking the potential sales proceeds out of a given buyer’s future earnings, as a much larger slice of the sales transaction pie is going to the lender on a 7% 30-year mortgage than back when rates were below 3%.

      All told, it seems like the market is in the denial stage of grief over a crash about to happen.

    2. Buyer’s agents are going to zero or on a pay to play. (1 house visit costs X, 1 offer writing costs X, etc).

      And once buyer’s realize that, seller’s agents are going to go down too. It’s not like you are getting anything for it, it was always just a mafia tax. It costs 6% to play. Now it’s cut to 3, pretty quickly people are going to fill that back in . X to do a listing, Y for photos, Z for a showing, etc.

      It should reduce the cost of housing, but probably won’t, but it is certainly going to break realtor’s incomes and their monopoly of doing nothing. (that will be reserved for government employees only)

    1. from the link
      “Yay … we’re going to solve the housing shortage by just making all of the lower income people homeless … ”

      WHAT?

      Who is “we”?
      Aren’t “we” tired of socialism and paying for other peoples’ welfare housing? Government public money to prop rents — including for newdcomers — is a HUGE part of the problem.

  7. User-experience researchers, whose jobs are primarily to study the market and determine if there’s a product fit for a software or device, are one of the positions hit the most in this layoff atmosphere, she said.

    Jobs that were only possible in a world awash with Yellen Bux are going away as the long-deferred financial reckoning day slouches closer.

      1. Most engineers have a grandmother who they’d like to see accomplish basic tasks without having to RTFM.

        FWIW, Windows PowerShell command line is second to none when a specific highly granular setting requires tweaking.

  8. The emergence of remote work has also allowed companies to expand their hiring pool nationwide and offshore jobs to people in India, Latin America and parts of Europe.

    Isn’t globalist grand?

      1. When the speculators fold the fed.gov will likely buy the underlying MBS in order to produce a controlled descent. The choice is inflation or deflation, and we all know preferred choice.

    2. “When will Gen-Zs…”

      Her landlord may own the property outright, but the government has likely raised its property taxes as asset values have been ginned up.

    1. Markets
      Mortgage Rates Jump Up And Over 7.5% After Inflation Surprise
      By: Matthew Graham
      Thu, Apr 25 2024, 3:50 PM

      Interest rates care about quite a few different things, but inflation and Fed policy are two of the biggest considerations. One of the Fed’s favorite ways to track progress on inflation is the PCE price index which comes out every month, but also every quarter.

      Oddly enough, the quarterly comes out a day before the monthly data on the 4 days of the year where a new quarter is reported. Today was one of those days and the quarterly data showed a big surge in inflation. The implication is that there’s a much bigger risk that tomorrow’s monthly inflation number also proves to be higher than expected.

      Bonds/rates don’t like inflation to begin with, but it’s even more problematic when it has a direct bearing on Fed policy decisions. This particular news is seen as pushing the Fed even farther into the future for its first rate cut of this cycle. In other words, both the data, and the Fed implications were bad news for rates today.

      The average lender jumped immediately higher by roughly an eighth of a point. This brings the top tier conventional 30yr rate index over 7.5% for the first time since November 13th. Tomorrow could add insult to injury, but it’s also worth noting that markets are expecting worse news now, so if it’s only a little worse, the injury might not be that bad.
      …
      https://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/markets/mortgage-rates-04252024

    2. 8% ??? Let’s see 10 11 12% rates.

      “You gotta pump those numbers up. Those are rookie numbers in this racket”

  11. The New York Post, and every other Murdoch owned publication (Fox, Daily Mail, News Dot Com Au), are controlled opposition, globalist scum, America last.

    New York Post — The new $61B aid package for Ukraine is merely a good start (4/27/2024):

    “I was elated on Saturday night as I watched the House of Representatives wrap up its vote on a $61 billion aid package for Ukraine.

    Even six months after President Biden proposed the increased aid, bringing the bill up for a vote took historic courage and leadership from House Speaker Mike Johnson, who could still lose his job for defying the will of the majority of House Republicans who oppose aid.

    It should start to stabilize the front in eastern and southern Ukraine, where Moscow is currently poised to break through, and help Ukrainians shore up their defenses in anticipation of the Russian thrust that many expect in coming months as spring sunshine hardens the muddy ground between the two armies.

    What the package is unlikely to do is enable Kyiv to go on the offensive, turning the tide of the war and positioning Ukraine to win.

    The House bill takes a step in the right direction, mandating that future US aid include long-range ATACMS missiles — a weapon the administration has so far been loath to send. But this is only the beginning of what’s needed.

    What’s our vision beyond stabilizing the front?

    What’s our strategy for the long haul – a few more months of stalemate and perhaps, over the coming year, a gradual increase in incoming European weaponry?”

    https://nypost.com/2024/04/27/opinion/the-new-aid-for-ukraine-is-merely-a-good-start/

    What’s our vision? You are fighting World War I and you are losing, badly. But as long as All The Right People get their brown envelopes (stolen from U.S. taxpayers), the war will continue, forever.

    $35 trillion of national debt is “merely a good start” to these globalist vermin merchants of death.

    1. The demoralization will continue.

      Russia Today — Zelensky downplayed true scale of Kiev’s losses – WaPo (4/28/2024):

      “Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has knowingly deceived the public about the true extent of his country’s military losses in its conflict with Russia, the Washington Post reported on Saturday, citing sources. Zelensky did so to offset panic amid a struggling mobilization campaign, the paper claimed.

      In February, after months of silence on Ukrainian casualties, Zelensky claimed that 31,000 troops had been killed in the two years since the start of the conflict, without disclosing the numbers of those wounded.

      Russia, on the other hand, claims that Kiev has suffered devastating losses during the conflict. Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu has estimated Ukraine’s losses at nearly half a million troops.

      An unnamed Ukrainian lawmaker said in an interview with the Post that Zelensky had “vastly downplayed the war’s true toll.” He argued that it “had to be presented as lower to avoid disrupting an already-struggling recruitment and mobilization drive.”

      https://www.rt.com/russia/596717-zelensky-downplayed-ukraine-losses/

      Nearly half a million?

      That’s a “jobs program” your betters inform. All of which paid for by U.S. taxpayers.

    2. The demoralization will continue. U.S. taxpayers, you are being robbed.

      Russia Today — Ukraine lost over 8,000 soldiers in a week – Russian MOD (4/27/2024):

      “Kiev’s losses of military personnel have surpassed 8,000 over the past week amid Moscow’s continued offensive in Donbass, the Russian Defense Ministry said in a series of Telegram posts on Saturday. The nation’s military seized two settlements from Ukrainian forces and has gained ground across the region, it stated.

      Kiev also lost around a dozen tanks and several dozen armored fighting vehicles, along with hundreds of other pieces of military equipment. The list includes at least one US-made Paladin self-propelled 155mm howitzer, as well as almost 30 Western-supplied artillery systems, according to Moscow.

      Russian forces also destroyed eight Ukrainian multiple rocket launchers, including US-made HIMARS and Czech-supplied RM-70 Vampire systems. The nation’s Air Force and air defense systems shot down Ukrainian MiG-29 fighter jet and Su-25 close air support aircraft, along with more than 1,600 drones, the ministry said.

      Earlier this week, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said that Moscow’s forces had seized the initiative in the Ukraine conflict and “dispelled the myth of the superiority of Western weapons.”

      https://www.rt.com/russia/596697-ukraine-lost-soldiers-week-russian/

      1. Ukraine Sidelines Abrams Tanks After Russian Drone Attacks – AP

        https://libertarianinstitute.org/news/ukraine-sidelines-abrams-tanks-after-russian-drone-attacks-ap/

        [snip]

        The Ukrainian military has opted to withdraw its US-supplied M1 Abrams main battle tanks from the front lines due to the threat posed by Russian drones, American officials told the Associated Press. Kiev has reportedly lost several of the tanks since their long-delayed deployment in February.

        The decision came as Moscow increasingly relies on UAVs for ‘round-the-clock surveillance and air strikes, making the Abrams “too difficult… to operate without detection or coming under attack,” the AP reported on Thursday. The tanks have been removed from the fight for an unspecified period as Kiev and Washington work to “reset tactics,” Joint Chiefs of Staff Vice Chairman Adm. Christopher Grady told the outlet.

        “When you think about the way the fight has evolved, massed armor in an environment where unmanned aerial systems are ubiquitous can be at risk,” Grady added. “Now, there is a way to do it. We’ll work with our Ukrainian partners, and other partners on the ground, to help them think through how they might use that, in that kind of changed environment now, where everything is seen immediately.”

  12. ‘If I get a job opportunity abroad, we can’t sell up and we can’t rent out,’ he said. ‘We’re literally being held to ransom.’”

    The freedom that renting gives one is vastly underrated. Not just potential quality of life issues but also career issues.

    1. Agreed. People that are living from paycheck to paycheck should have never been approved for a mortgage.

  13. ‘I guess I thought I had it made after that point,’ Mabley said. ‘I was like, ‘The demand is so high in the field. I will never have to work hard to find a job again.’”
    I feel for her. I felt the exact same way back in the early 80’s with the oil industry. Oh well, good luck.

  14. If commissions no longer come out of the seller’s proceeds, the thinking goes, buyers won’t have an additional $7,500 or $10,000 to pay an agent. ‘Most of those buyers are scraping the barrel to the bottom to come up with a down payment,’ says Dave Liniger, chairman of RE/MAX.”
    Bottom of the Barrel, really? That does not sound like solid lending to me.

  17. A reader sent these in:

    Retail bought $10bn of stocks this week. That’s 99% of all time weekly buying. 98% of their buying was in the SPY and Tech ETFs and single names. It was the single biggest week of retail buying since January. Tight financial conditions…

    https://twitter.com/rev_cap/status/1783988933761605849

    Where in the cycle?

    https://twitter.com/DonMiami3/status/1783948677599429106

    This was my CRE “oh sh*t” moment.

    https://twitter.com/PikerCapital/status/1784048112035651717

    I’m sure this time is totally different

    https://twitter.com/GRomePow/status/1784013036644336007

    Hollywood, California

    https://twitter.com/ClownWorld_/status/1783732548004352466

    Blackstone has sold 1740 Broadway in New York for a $420 million loss.
    They purchased the property for $605 million in 2014 and it sold for just $185 million.

    https://twitter.com/MacroEdgeRes/status/1784277266421137831

    Still in shambles

    https://twitter.com/AlessioUrban/status/1784148615444705650

    All the central banks pivoted too early in false hope of beating inflation. Many now reversing it. Australia starting process

    The December pivot & 1Q23 easing were such massive mistakes. But let them make the mistake. Now live with the consequences. Rest of year gonna be tough

    https://twitter.com/rev_cap/status/1784173060494336055

    The opportunity cost of being a “common sense investor” right now is astonishing.

    https://twitter.com/PikerCapital/status/1783890578104525211

    “Canada is struggling”

    “Canadians born and raised here are crying and not really knowing how to cope with the expenses”

    “The main reason why we’re leaving Canada after living here for 6 years is because of the high cost of living”

    “I have been waiting for a doctor’s appointment for 9 MONTHS”

    “The rent has gone up astronomically”

    Justin Trudeau has really crushed Canada.

    🚨🚨🚨

    https://twitter.com/WallStreetSilv/status/1784329356204032403

    You thought Michelle Obama was a tranny?

    You thought maybe Macron’s wife was a tranny?

    This is German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s wife.

    https://twitter.com/WallStreetSilv/status/1784321662906712386

    1. This was my CRE “oh sh*t” moment. Look at the chart

      Folks knew what was going on – they did not want to pay principle or put big downpayments. If prices continued to rise – great, otherwise jinglemail.

      Banks didnt care as the pension funds and bond holders were the ones that are going to lose.

    2. “That’s 99% of all time weekly buying. 98% of their buying was in the SPY and Tech ETFs and single names. It was the single biggest week of retail buying since January.”

      This will end well… Not!

    3. “The December pivot & 1Q23 easing were such massive mistakes. But let them make the mistake. Now live with the consequences. Rest of year gonna be tough.”

      Central Bank induced whiplash is painful.

    4. “Blackstone has sold 1740 Broadway in New York for a $420 million loss. They purchased the property for $605 million in 2014 and it sold for just $185 million.”

      Now that’s a Marsellus Wallace style shagging!

  19. One Belt, One Road Disaster! 500 Ghost Towns in Cambodia, Billions Invested Lost
    China Observer

    2 hours ago

    A Chinese blogger In Sihanoukville, Cambodia couldn’t help but sigh: “It’s all unfinished buildings, failures before they even begin. The tall ones over there are all unfinished buildings.”

    You wouldn’t believe it without seeing it. Chinese investors spent billions in Cambodia, but all the properties lie abandoned. It’s reported that there are over 1,000 unfinished buildings in Sihanoukville alone. Do they have no intention of completing them? This is the seaside in Sihanoukville, and the scenery here is still quite nice. However, in contrast, the abandoned buildings on the other side are quite bleak.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHK3Ei-2GDY

    17:28.

    2. Oh my diety!

      300K out of 350K people in Sihanoukville were Chinese – looking to make it rich on legalized gambling, housing etc. Now it is less than 15K Chinese there.

      If only they could finish the half constructed buildings. You hear about Chinese ghost towns – who would have thunk it in Cambodia

  20. Is this the week when Powell goes full Volcker and crushes Wall Street hopes for near term rate cuts?

  22. ‘Now buyers would have to either pay their agents themselves, or they have to negotiate that into the purchase in some way, shape or form…they may have to negotiate that … or if they can’t then they have to figure out if they have the funds available to pay their buyer’s agents out of their own pocket and directly at the time of close’

    The way I see it Kellen, the trick is going to be how to cover up the subprime, more than 100% loan thing that this lawsuit exposed. Good luck you bunch of crooks, couldn’t have happened to more deserving people.

  23. ‘Mabley and other tech workers have come face-to-face with an unexpected reality: The industry — that for so long has been filled will promises of unending opportunity — is now oversaturated with candidates…‘I guess I thought I had it made after that point,’ Mabley said. ‘I was like, ‘The demand is so high in the field. I will never have to work hard to find a job again’

    Dave Ramsey says you should consider delivering pizza Lisa.

    2. I get recruiting postcards and letters in the mail 1-2 times a month. Contractors get your name from the open state registry of professional licensure status.

  24. ‘Over the past two years, a handful of local biotech companies have laid off employees and are also subleasing space. This happened after a number of new large biotech projects already started construction. ‘Increased demand during the pandemic dramatically raised land, construction and tenant improvement costs, so newer developers who entered the market in that time frame have a much higher cost basis, which makes it harder to lower rents’

    You had to be in it to win it Jim.

  25. ‘Unsold wood-frame condos were up 12% on the quarter, and 45% more than the prior year’

    We’ll count the months until a bunch of people burn up in one of these thing.

    ‘We are seeing quite a lot of requests coming in to the bank saying: ‘Hey AJ, we can’t meet our pre-sale requirement. What can we do to rejig the loan so that we can qualify, hit our REDMA deadline and get the loan done? And then we’ll keep selling after. That happens almost on every single deal right now’

    Even morer sound lending AJ.

  26. Concerned Citizen
    @BGatesIsaPyscho

    🚨🇮🇪 Ballina, Ireland Protest

    In the small Irish town of Ballina (population 10,000), hundreds of residents take to the streets today in protest of the Irish Government continual dumping of asylum seekers across their community.

    Ireland is being destroyed by the Globalists.

    · Apr 20, 2024

    https://x.com/BGatesIsaPyscho/status/1781730625633825226

  28. 0:33

    Andy Ngô 🏳️‍🌈
    @MrAndyNgo

    At a far-left rally for Gaza at George Washington U @GWtweets
    , an extremist on the microphone says: “There’s only one solution, intifada revolution. We must have a revolution so we can have a socialist reconstruction of the United States of America.”

    Apr 26, 2024

    https://x.com/MrAndyNgo/status/1784015839299051910

    1. The “Movement” has been infiltrated by Marxists, every lefty one always will be.

      Chicago DNC this summer gonna be lit AF…

      1. Chicago DNC this summer gonna be lit AF…

        I lived in Chicago in 1968 and my dad took us on vacation for 2 weeks around the DNC convention that year. He didn’t want us to be around it. Nothing happened in our neighborhood but I still remember us getting the he$$ out of town.

  29. Employers can pay $40,000 to someone in India, where the going rate in the U.S. is $140,000, he said.”
    Only the Rajah of a Rajasthan makes that kind of money in India. Most would kill to make 4 dollars an hour as engineers, and the vast majority barely make 100-200$ a month.

    2. Employers can pay $40,000 to someone in India, where the going rate in the U.S. is $140,000, he said.”

      Back about 15 years ago Corp. charged our unit about $80K/year for an Indian Based developer and 110K/year for domestic developer.

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