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All Of Us Are Facing Bankruptcy, Are Facing Foreclosure, Short Sale

A report from KOLO in Nevada. “Last year, State Farm alone canceled 70,000 policies in California. Denise Bremer, the President of Incline Village Realtors, explains that our proximity makes us the logical next step. ‘Because we do border California, they see that we’re forested and say ‘guess you’re the next community,’ Bremer said. Without insurance, many homeowners can find themselves in big financial trouble. ‘Lenders aren’t going to lend on anything that’s not insurable,’ said Bremer. ‘Housing prices will go down is the bottom line. If you can’t get insurance, you won’t buy, and if you put your house on the market the value will go way down because there are no buyers,’ said Bremer.”

WFTV in Florida. “Some Orlando condo owners say they may soon be priced out of the homes they’ve lived in for years. Owners at the Regency Gardens Condominiums got notices saying their board plans to pass a special assessment on May 15th. According to the notice, the smallest homes in the condo will need to pay $11,148.42 for the assessment, and the largest homes will need to hand over $22,104.69. Many residents say they will now need to quickly sell their homes or could face foreclosure. ‘It’s going to be impossible. You’re going to see 60 or 70 percent of the people living here out within 6 months,’ said condo owner Bryan Pricher.”

The San Francisco Chronicle in California. “The talk of the town in Orinda — the small, affluent city nestled on the eastern side of the wooded Berkeley Hills in Contra Costa County — is not about a recent spate of home burglaries or the downtown movie theater going dark two nights a week to save on electricity. Instead, the buzz is all about the California home insurance crisis — a far drier subject, but a particularly dire one in Orinda. A Chronicle analysis of data provided by State Farm to the state Department of Insurance found that 1,700 homeowners in Orinda will lose their State Farm coverage — the most in any ZIP code in the state. The non-renewals affect about 55% of Orinda homeowners with State Farm policies, the largest percentage in the Bay Area.”

“Carl, 76, an Orinda resident who’s been a State Farm customer for 50 years, said he was so angered by the non-renewal notice that he penned a letter to the company’s CEO, Michael Tipsord. ‘I got a letter back from somebody saying ‘Tough s—-, we’re canceling your liability insurance and earthquake insurance as well,’ he said.”

The Real Deal on California. “Ilan Kenig, the CEO behind FMB Development, has lost his home in Pacific Palisades to his lender — and allegedly owes more than $500,000 in unpaid credit card debt. Kenig signed a deed-in-lieu of foreclosure, handing over the nearly 7,000-square-foot property at 1355 Berea Place to lender VIG Private Lending, according to documents filed with Los Angeles County in February. The foreclosure comes as Kenig is suing four former partners, including Rabbi Yoshiyahu Yosef Pinto, once an adviser to high-profile New York real estate players who was convicted on bribery charges in Israel, claiming a multimillion-dollar fraud scheme that left Kenig with nothing but debt bills. Kenig’s default on his home is one of many. He has filed for bankruptcy on at least six FMB multifamily projects, and has claimed in legal documents that ‘almost all’ of FMB’s projects are in default. TRD reported on a Van Nuys project that filed Chapter 11 in November.”

NBC Chicago in Illinois. “Several Chicago-area residents were left wondering if a popular home-flipping business was a bad business model or a Ponzi scheme as iFLIP Chicago has been targeted in several lawsuits, accusing the company of luring inexperienced investors into predatory loans. The loans have led to financially devastating consequences for dozens of families in the Chicago area. They were approved for hard-money loans by Envision Funding. The loans were short-term with had high interest rates. Loan statements from Tatianna Barnett, a realtor who signed up for the iFLIP Bootcamp in 2021, showed that thousands of dollars were repeatedly transferred out of her loan account to another LLC she’d never heard of. She later learned that LLC was owned by another iFLIP joint venture participant who had also signed onto a loan with Ramo Bey. Barnett said she has no idea where the money is, and told NBC Chicago that she has lost $169,000.”

“NBC 5 Responds has been contacted by several other iFLIP investors who made the same allegations. ‘All of us are facing bankruptcy, are facing foreclosure, short sale. My mom’s 401k is in this investment and we are at risk of losing over $200,000,’ said Ameera Haamid, an emergency room physician. After Haamid’s loan matured in Februrary, she said she tried to refinance her loan with a new lender, but was told her debt was too great and the home’s value wasn’t worth what it once was. Mortgage documents show at least seven other iFLIP joint venture properties are also currently in foreclosure, including Barnett’s. Sandra Robinson lives next to the home Haamid was never able to finish renovating. ‘It’s an eyesore, a disturbing eyesore. I hope something gets to be done,’ longtime Woodlawn resident Sandra Robinson said.”

The Daily Record in New Jersey. “Morris County’s 2023 Development Activity Report indicates the residential ‘building boom’ of recent years, fueled by towns required by the state to build more affordable housing, may be cresting, even as previously approved projects with hundreds of units can be seen rising now in Parsippany, Hanover, Montville, Lincoln Park and elsewhere. The county’s commercial real estate landscape, however, continued a startling transformation last year as developers demolished vacant office properties. ‘When you look at these complexes that have been vacant for 10 years,’ said County Commissioner Stephen Shaw, who now runs Shaw Construction out of a home office. ‘It’s eerie when you drive through the parking lots and there’s weeds coming up through the cracks.'”

The Philadelphia Inquirer in Pennsylvania. “For the last few years, Center City District has focused on measuring the strength of Philadelphia’s downtown compared to what it was before the COVID-19 pandemic. Prema Katari Gupta, chief executive officer of Center City District, said looking back at Center City’s successes and challenges over the last four years is important, but ‘it might be time to stop talking about recovery.’ ‘Maybe our cities will never go back, no matter how hard we will them, to where we were in 2019. And it’s time to embrace the unanticipated strengths but also the exposed vulnerabilities and really work hard to build a downtown that our region needs and that also is the sort of place that it should be,’ Gupta said.”

Brunswick News in Canada. “The developer of the stalled 99 King St. construction project is adding new fencing and screens as he hopes to get the project off the ground. The site of the former Woolworths building has sat empty since it was demolished in June 2021, with plans pivoting from mixed residential and office space to a full residential building. Saint John’s growth committee heard an update on the project Monday after council received a letter from resident Adam Pottle saying wire mesh fences and ‘tattered signage’ around the perimeter are unsafe. Deputy mayor John MacKenzie called it ‘unfortunate,’ and said at the meeting he appreciates the repairs, saying the site can’t be accessible or visible. ‘We want this project to go ahead. But at the same time, it can’t be an eyesore any longer,’ he told Brunswick News. ‘They’ve got to fix it up and prevent people from being able to access it and see that ugly hole.'”

“Developer Percy Wilbur said that the installation of new fencing would start Wednesday. He said the cost of filling in the site would be north of $500,000 and would only ‘add to the burden’ on the project. ‘I can appreciate that it’s an eyesore,’ Wilbur said. ‘It was never my intention to tear down one eyesore to create another one. I’m working exclusively on this project to move it forward.'”

This Is Money in the UK. “House prices fell for the second month in a row, according to Nationwide. Aside from higher mortgage rates, a glut of homes coming onto the market is also thought to be behind the downward pressure on house prices. Jonathan Hopper, chief executive of Garrington Property Finders, said: ‘Two things lie behind the market’s about turn on prices. The first is mortgage interest rates are heading in the wrong direction. The second is the oversupply of homes for sale in many areas. The flurry of activity seen at the start of the year opened the floodgates for many would-be movers who had been holding off on putting their home on the market. The current surge in supply, coupled with wobbling demand from buyers whose affordability is being stretched to the limit by stubbornly high mortgage interest rates, is pushing prices down in many parts of the country.'”

“Jeremy Leaf, north London estate agent and a former Rics residential chairman, added: ‘We are not surprised by the small drop in property prices. The increase in listings is resulting in more choice for buyers and some heavy negotiations on the ground which means only realistic sellers are proving successful.'”

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This Post Has 78 Comments

      1. You know there’s massive skim happening in these deals, even the skim is being skimmed. Zelensky is the fall guy if it goes sideways while the skimmers will move on to the next cost authority.

  2. ‘NBC 5 Responds has been contacted by several other iFLIP investors who made the same allegations. ‘All of us are facing bankruptcy, are facing foreclosure, short sale. My mom’s 401k is in this investment and we are at risk of losing over $200,000’

    This is unbelievable clusterfook of a story.

    1. Money transferred from her [the realtor’s] bank account to an LLC she has never heard of? Unlikely. Unlikely victim.

      1. “Money transferred from her [the realtor’s] bank account to an LLC she has never heard of? Unlikely. Unlikely victim.”

        [Searching the link, we find this:]

        “Buried in the hundreds of pages of documents they signed during closing were four sentences in the loan agreement that put them on the hook for Ramo Bey’s debts.

        “It was part of a ‘cross default and cross collateralization’ clause’ that meant if Bey went delinquent on any of his own loans, the lender would charge what Bey owed to the loans he held with other iFLIP participants, like Haamid and Barnett.

        “’It essentially says that if anybody that’s signing on this loan has more accounts with this lender, they can utilize any of your payments to satisfy those past due balances. And Ramo had several past due balances,’ Haamid said.

        “Financial documents from both women showed that Bey’s debts were being charged to their loans.”

        1. You’d think using an account with $200,000 to invest would encourage this person to hire a lawyer to read over the fine print.

          1. “You’d think …”

            Lol. There is no longer any need to think. Others (your betters) will do all the necessary thinking for you.

    2. You invest 401K money into something called iFlip because of your insatiable greed and then you expect help getting your money back?

      Those dumba$$ protesting student have nothing on you Einstein.

  3. Some Orlando condo owners say they may soon be priced out of the homes they’ve lived in for years.
    Florida is finished

  4. ‘Many residents say they will now need to quickly sell their homes or could face foreclosure. ‘It’s going to be impossible. You’re going to see 60 or 70 percent of the people living here out within 6 months’

    It’s a good thing you can always sell Bryan.

  5. ‘Ilan Kenig, the CEO behind FMB Development, has lost his home in Pacific Palisades to his lender — and allegedly owes more than $500,000 in unpaid credit card debt….Kenig’s default on his home is one of many. He has filed for bankruptcy on at least six FMB multifamily projects, and has claimed in legal documents that ‘almost all’ of FMB’s projects are in default’

    Are we there yet?

    1. Just starting‼️
      Banks lend money they don’t have, then pull ‘loans’ and keep properties they never bought.
      What a scam.

    1. Yakima Herald-Republic
      AP wire
      The average long-term U.S. mortgage rate climbed this week to its highest level since late November, another setback for home shoppers in what’s traditionally the housing market’s busiest time of the year
      Mortgage Rates
      An “Under Contract” sign is displayed at a home in Wilmette, Ill., Thursday, March 28, 2024. On Thursday, April 25, 2024, Freddie Mac reports on this week’s average U.S. mortgage rates. Nam Y. Huh – staff, ASSOCIATED PRESS▲
      ALEX VEIGA Associated Press
      Updated Apr 25, 2024

      LOS ANGELES — The average long-term U.S. mortgage rate climbed this week to its highest level since late November, another setback for home shoppers in what’s traditionally the housing market’s busiest time of the year.

      The average rate on a 30-year mortgage rose to 7.17% from 7.1% last week, mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday. A year ago, the rate averaged 6.43%.

      Borrowing costs on 15-year fixed-rate mortgages, popular with homeowners refinancing their home loans, also rose this week, lifting the average rate to 6.44% from 6.39% last week. A year ago, it averaged 5.71%, Freddie Mac said.

      When mortgage rates rise, they can add hundreds of dollars a month in costs for borrowers, limiting how much they can afford at a time when the U.S. housing market remains constrained by relatively few homes for sale and rising home prices.

      The average rate on a 30-year mortgage has now increased four weeks in a row. The latest uptick brings it to its highest level since November 30, when it was 7.22%.

      After climbing to a 23-year high of 7.79% in October, the average rate on a 30-year mortgage had remained below 7% since early December amid expectations that inflation would ease enough this year for the Federal Reserve to begin cutting its short-term interest rate.

      Mortgage rates are influenced by several factors, including how the bond market reacts to the Fed’s interest rate policy and the moves in the 10-year Treasury yield, which lenders use as a guide to pricing home loans.

      Home loan rates have been mostly drifting higher after a string of reports this year showing inflation remaining hotter than forecast, which has stoked doubts over how soon the Fed might decide to start lowering its benchmark interest rate.

      The uncertainty has pushed up bond yields.

      Top Fed officials themselves have said recently they could hold interest rates high for a while before getting full confidence inflation is heading down toward their target of 2%.

      The rise in mortgage rates in recent weeks is an unwelcome trend for home shoppers this spring homebuying season. Sales of previously occupied U.S. homes fell last month as homebuyers contended with elevated mortgage rates and rising prices.
      …
      https://www.yakimaherald.com/ap/business/average-long-term-us-mortgage-rate-climbs-for-fourth-straight-week-to-highest-level-since/article_aed26ee6-3ce2-56a1-b982-e662a874ab5d.amp.html

      1. “…another setback for home shoppers in what’s traditionally the housing market’s busiest time of the year.”

        I don’t get the official narrative that claims that rising rates are the buyer’s problem. It seems like higher rates constrain demand, gradually reducing the market value of homes to ever more affordable levels (exhibit A: Austin). Falling market values work to the advantage of patient buyers, especially at a point when lawmakers are considering measures to kick the institutional casino gamblers out of residential real estate.

        Higher-for-longer interest rates are a win for the housing market. How can real journalists persistently miss this obvious fact?

        1. Real journalists are only interested in drama and speculation and easy profits. They don’t want an economy based on productive work and patience, that’s just boring.

          1. +1

            Training my 20 year old apprentice today how to run one line 2″ EMT.

          3. A reality TV show based on hard work and thrift would not be very popular

            A time lapse of waking up, working, cooking at home, depositing excess money monthly into a savings account. Rinse and repeat for a few decades.

        2. Higher-for-longer interest rates are a win for the housing market. How can real journalists persistently miss this obvious fact?

          I tried explaining this to my dad, but he wasn’t happy since I implied maybe his Zillow Estimate is not real. Extrapolate that across America where a majority are homeowners. It’s offensive to imply nominal prices need to go down.

          1. I tried explaining this to my dad, but he wasn’t happy since I implied maybe his Zillow Estimate is not real.
            I know a guy just like that. He’s nuts. Appraised in BK hearing at about 250k 5 years now worth $750K per Zillow. Not likely, and the d@mn thing needs a he$$ or a lot of more work than it did 5 years ago..
            I

        3. California House Prices Slashed in Multiple Cities
          Published May 02, 2024 at 6:45 AM EDT
          Updated May 02, 2024 at 7:13 AM EDT
          By Giulia Carbonaro
          US News Reporter

          Sellers in some of California’s biggest cities are slashing the price of their homes listed for sale on Zillow, according to the latest data on the real estate marketplace’s app

          One site shows 15 per cent of all properties listed in the state had price reductions, aimed at attracting hesitant buyers.

          As of Thursday morning, there were a total of 83,093 properties—including single- and multi-family homes, townhomes, apartments, condos and lots—in California listed by agents on Zillow, and 3,822 listed by owners and others. Of these, 13,311 listed by agents and 319 listed by owners had a price reduction—roughly 15 percent of all homes for sale in the Golden State.

          But the rate of properties for sale with a price reduction was even higher in some of California’s major cities, including Los Angeles, San Francisco, Oakland, San Diego and Sacramento.
          California housing market

          In Los Angeles, one of the most expensive housing markets in the entire country, there were a total of 6,039 properties listed for sale on Zillow, 971 of which had a price reduction. That’s about 16 percent of all homes for sale in the metropolis.

          In another very expensive city, San Francisco, there were 1,358 homes listed for sale on Zillow as of Thursday morning, 216 of which had a price reduction—nearly 16 percent of the total.

          In Oakland, a city which has seen an increase of violent crime and other felonies in 2023, there were 888 properties for sale on Zillow, 158 of which had a price reduction—about 18 percent of the total.

          In San Diego, the percentage of homes for sale with a price reduction was 19 percent, for 286 out of 1,494 listed on Zillow.

          In Sacramento, 21 percent of all homes listed for sale on Zillow had a price reduction as of Thursday, for a total of 183 out of 859.

          These are the top five cities in California with the largest number of homes for sale and the number of homes with a price reduction. But not all these cities’ housing markets are facing the same situation. In some of these cities, house prices are dropping year-over-year; in others, they’re climbing.
          …
          https://www.newsweek.com/california-house-prices-slashed-multiple-cities-1896435

          1. “California House Prices Slashed in Multiple Cities”

            That is great news, and certainly a promising development following a period when Wall Street greedheads funancialized the housing market and drove prices out of reach for almost everyone.

            Hopefully sellers will keep slashing, right up until the point when affordable prices are restored.

          2. Fox Business
            Markets
            Published April 29, 2024 6:19pm EDT
            Wall Street has spent billions buying homes. A crackdown is looming
            Lawmakers say investors that scooped up hundreds of thousands of houses to rent out are driving up home prices

            Wall Street went on a home-buying spree. Now, more lawmakers want to stop it from ever happening again.

            Democrats in the U.S. Senate and House have sponsored legislation that would force large owners of single-family homes to sell houses to family buyers. A Republican’s bill in the Ohio state legislature aims to drive out institutional owners through heavy taxation.

            Lawmakers in Nebraska, California, New York, Minnesota and North Carolina are among those proposing similar laws.

            While homeowner associations for years have sought to stop investors from buying and renting out houses in their neighborhoods, the legislative proposals represent a new effort by elected officials to regulate Wall Street’s appetite for single-family homes.

            These lawmakers say that investors that have scooped up hundreds of thousands of houses to rent out are contributing to the dearth of homes for sale and driving up home prices. They argue that investor buying has made it harder for first-time buyers to compete with Wall Street-backed investment firms and their all-cash offers.

            Investors of all sizes spent billions of dollars buying homes during the pandemic. At the 2022 peak, they bought more than one in every four single-family homes sold, though more recently their activity has slowed as interest rates rose and supply became tighter. Two of the largest home-buying firms, Invitation Homes and AMH, are publicly traded companies, while a number of other companies, backed by private equity, hold portfolios of tens of thousands of homes nationwide.
            …
            https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/wall-street-spent-billions-buying-homes-a-crackdown-is-looming.amp

          3. “Wall Street has spent billions buying homes.”

            How did buying houses become such a surefire bet that vampire squids decided to glom on?

    2. The Treasurys Market Is Getting Squeezed From All Sides
      Inflation and deficits are lifting yields and jarring the stock market
      Emil Lendof/The Wall Street Journal, iStock
      By David Uberti
      May 2, 2024 8:00 am ET

      Pressure keeps building in the bond market.

      Stickier-than-expected inflation this year has boosted yields on U.S. debt enough to dent the stock-market rally. Soaring spending by Washington shows few signs of slowing. And the latest plan to finance it all promises a flood of Treasurys in the coming months that will need to find buyers.
      …
      https://www.wsj.com/economy/central-banking/the-treasurys-market-is-getting-squeezed-from-all-sides-ab33d612

    2. Starbucks items are priced like they’re at the airport, so no surprise when their shares loose some of that frothiness.

  9. Massive truck accident closes I 95 in both directions in my home town, Norwalk CT 10 min great video,

    Someone doesn’t know how to merge, exit ramp goes into an exit only exit 14….

  13. “Housing prices will go down is the bottom line.”

    Careful! You’ll be labeled a doomer!

  14. All these luxury bunkers that billionaires are building to shelter themselves if the shit hits the fan is obnoxious.
    I wonder if there is a listing service for underground luxury bunkers.
    I had a friend back in the 50’s who had parents who were trying to decide if they should get a underground bunker or a swimming pool. They ended up getting the swimming pool, good choice at the time.
    The Russians are going to nuke us, is what I grew up with. As if all those drills at school of ducking under the desks would of prevented the fallout from being nuked by the Russians.
    No doubt this fear mongering probably contributed to the attitude of “live for today”.
    Probably a whole generation of baby boomers mentality damaged by the fear mongering of those times. Now its Panademics, Climate Change and radioactive fallout.
    But I remember eventually you become immune to the threats because on a daily basis the threats get in the way of living life.
    The damage those Covid lockdowns did to the younger people was off the charts. And the insanity of the fact that Biden might enact Climate Change emergency measures, that would damage the minds of the vulnerable youth ,is obnoxious.

  15. Also, in nature you never have a small species be able to invade the greater biological balance.
    The under 1% who want to take over the human bee hive would never happen in nature.
    These Entities that are the “One World Order” are like a small group of invasive plant species that think they can wipe out the greater whole.
    And they think they can replace humans with AI and robots and render humans obsolete and useless.

  16. A trio of crimes involving Democratic lawmakers has put the spotlight back on public safety in the Golden State, an issue on which experts warn the party’s candidates could be vulnerable in November.

    In the span of a week, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass was the victim of a burglary at Getty House in Windsor Square, Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank) had his suitcase stolen out of his car in the Bay Area, and a plainclothes police officer protecting San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan was punched by a pedestrian during a television interview.

    All three incidents were ready-made fodder for Republican critics who often lambast California’s approach to public safety. They have also renewed concerns that how California voters think about crime could affect some Democrats in swing districts in November.

    “Voters are thinking: You’ve got to be kidding me,” said Darry Sragow, a longtime Democratic strategist. “Adam Schiff isn’t safe, Karen Bass isn’t safe — if they’re not safe, who is?”

    https://www.yahoo.com/news/crime-ballot-vulnerability-california-democrats-100024917.html

    2. Lawmakers becoming crime victims is step one towards action to address the rampant crime problem.

  17. Update: Austin-Travis County Emergency Medical Services reported 67 opioid overdoses between 9 a.m. Monday and noon Wednesday, EMS Capt. Darren Noak said. Eight overdose deaths were reported Monday and Tuesday, and that number did not increase by noon Wednesday.

    More than 50 people overdosed Monday and Tuesday, resulting in the suspected deaths of eight people, in what city officials called an “outbreak” of opioid overdoses in Austin.

    The overdose emergency calls began in downtown Austin at 1 a.m. Monday and began cropping up in North, South and East Austin shortly thereafter, until 4 a.m. Tuesday, Travis County Medical Examiner Dr. Keith Pinkard said at the news conference. Many patients were found in cardiac arrest, White said.

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/eight-dead-over-50-affected-in-largest-austin-opioid-overdose-outbreak-in-years/ar-AA1nVPXz

  18. Self-driving cars have been crowned the future of the automotive industry, but in their current form, the software powering those vehicles is stuck in the present.

    One significant flaw in the self-driving systems has yet to be worked out, according to experts. When there’s potential for an accident, the systems often returns control to the human driver without enough time for someone to avoid a collision, automotive industry experts told CBS MoneyWatch. In other words, the software does not know how to react when the unexpected happens, such as an animal darting onto the road.

    The major flaw came to bear earlier this year when a Ford Mustang Mach-E SUV crashed into a 56-year-old Texas man who was driving a Honda CR-V. The Mach-E had its partially self-driving feature — which Ford calls BlueCruise — activated during the crash, in which the CR-V driver was killed.

    The NHTSA investigations are proof that even though autonomous driving is considered the next competitive frontier for automakers, the technology still hasn’t matured enough for widespread usage, Robert Sumwalt, CBS News’ transportation safety analyst told CBS MoneyWatch.

    “It’s not a perfect science yet,” said Sumwalt, a former chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board. “Right now it’s like trying to send a rocket to the moon in 1910 when the Wright Brothers were still working on their planes.”

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/the-main-reason-self-driving-cars-are-not-ready-for-prime-time/ar-AA1nZHtz

    1. Why not take advantage of 1+ billion Chinese people as human guinea pigs to test the self driving car concept?

    2. The arrival of self driving cars has been imminent for ten+ years.

      If you don’t want to drive, take a cab

  19. A reader sent these in:

    Respect the lag?

    https://twitter.com/DonMiami3/status/1785705120749048149

    Clueless Janet said her ONLY regret as Fed chair was “low inflation.” @SecYellen was the #1 advocate for massive QE & ZIRP, leading to hundreds of thousands of homes owned by corporations. She said NOTHING as the Fed massively distorted housing by buying $2.7 TRILLION of MBS.

    https://twitter.com/RudyHavenstein/status/1785377753799520482

    🔴 OVERLEVERED SPECULATORS PREPARED FOR TOMORROW’S FED DECISION.

    https://twitter.com/RudyHavenstein/status/1785330863401783649

    YELLEN: PEOPLE GENERALLY ARE BETTER OFF DESPITE PRICE INCREASES

    https://twitter.com/DeItaone/status/1785335345984290867

    The US Bond Market has now been in a drawdown for 45 months, by far the longest bond bear market in history.

    https://twitter.com/charliebilello/status/1785508562694766611

    The change of homebuyers since 2015

    https://twitter.com/burrytracker/status/1785394757553762357

    Fortress is initiating a nearly $1 billion foreclosure against the Cohen Brothers portfolio which includes a South Florida hotel, NY office space, and more

    https://twitter.com/MacroEdgeRes/status/1785645455990301050

    QT is a JOKE.

    https://twitter.com/RudyHavenstein/status/1696936658418151533

    Bernanke (2008): QE is temporary and the Fed’s balance sheet will soon be lower than when we started.

    Powell (2024): It’s now appropriate to slow the pace of QT.

    Well… we gave it a shot! @federalreserve

    https://twitter.com/Geiger_Capital/status/1785744282227245501

    Emergent BioSolutions is closing several manufacturing facilities and cutting hundreds of jobs as part of a restructuring as the company narrows its focus on products, including Narcan nasal spray.

    https://twitter.com/DiMartinoBooth/status/1785816497908064327

    Really ?

    https://twitter.com/ofer_rubin/status/1785759605739429999

    No comments necessary on this one

    https://twitter.com/DonMiami3/status/1785819757352026535

    POWELL: DON’T REALLY UNDERSTAND WHERE TALK OF STAGFLATION SCENARIO IS COMING FROM GIVEN U.S. DATA

    https://twitter.com/DeItaone/status/1785745474030338181

    Airbnb, like Crumbl, hasn’t seen a real recession. Both should be fun to watch.

    https://twitter.com/i5_HotShot/status/1785836457896141139

    Uh oh

    https://twitter.com/jesse_z06/status/1785722268431053044

    Boeing whistleblowers keep suddenly dying.

    https://twitter.com/matthewstoller/status/1785811211876995531

    Want to solve the housing crisis overnight? End the 1031 exchange giving speculators 1 year to sell their properties at a reduced tax rate.

    https://twitter.com/GRomePow/status/1785793021570871413

    ‘I paid 100 grand for this car. It should open and close when I tell it to’: Cybercuck says his Tesla Cybertruck’s cover for truck bed stopped working

    ‘Nobody would accept this level of bad quality from a Ford or Honda.’

    https://twitter.com/tweetmyinbox/status/1785788575310586071

    I paid a hundred grand for this car. Tells us all we need to know

    https://twitter.com/tyutchev/status/1785806936681718099

    AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile fined nearly $200 million for sharing customer location data without their consent, per Axios.

    https://twitter.com/unusual_whales/status/1785633263962423397

    What changed was the risk model when loan regulations relaxed and allowed AirBNB type loans to look at projected income which injected absurd levels of liquidity into the market that was otherwise unprecedented.

    But if market goes down… risk model is broken. Then boom.

    https://twitter.com/JacobAMathison/status/1785727771785957509

    Many people had this dream of owning airbnb properties. Traveling nurses was a huge boom in our area. I’m assuming this has normalized and the market will implode.

    https://twitter.com/WvSmith/status/1785724004688421178

    Treasury buybacks are mostly irrelevant when analyzing the overall liquidity situation.

    But the fact that the Treasury has to provide liquidity for what is supposed to be the most deep and liquid market in the world, and that serves as the world reserve asset, is notable.

    https://twitter.com/LynAldenContact/status/1785708673538359551

    2. So you want to end the housing shortage crisis ? A real quick lesson for the educated elites of this nation. You simply reduce the demand for housing by deporting (forcibly if necessary) the illegal immigrants that have invaded our nation in the last 25 years. They have shown complete and total disrespect for our Nation, our laws , the citizens of our Nation, and the citizens of the world that have shown they are willing to honor and respect our Nation by properly applying for the opportunity to become an American Citizen. Less demand for housing means more availability for those who need to rent housing. I know the next howling we will hear-BUT___What about the Chilren ??? Lets not forget that the Parents are the primary and principal caregiver for those children. Even tho’ they were born on American soil, the parents will be deported, and the parents will have to make the choice.
      1. Take the children with you when you return to your native country.
      2. leave the children with a responsible party.
      3. Allow your children to be placed in foster care with a responsible party.
      The illegal immigrants have tasted and experienced the benefits of living in a Free nation, let them return home and work hard to improve their nation to come near or equal the benefits and freedom that the United States has to offer it’s citizens.
      Nations have borders to keep safe and protect its citizens, the time has come to hold our elected officials’ feet to the fire. let’s not forget that elections have consequences, let your voice speak for you in these next elections.

      2. Sounds easy, but the money flowing to institutional purchases of SFRs doesn’t come from across the border. It’s an inside job.

  20. The lead article quotes This Is Money in the UK (Para 12) which says “mortgage interest rates are heading in the wrong direction” but then also mentions “buyers whose affordability is being stretched to the limit by stubbornly high mortgage interest rates”.

    Interesting . . .

  21. Denver7 — Polis signs bill to assign firearm code to gun, ammo purchases (5/1/2024):

    “A new law in Colorado will track firearm and ammunition purchases across payment networks, a move gun reform advocates say will help track suspicious purchases that could precede a mass shooting.

    Gov. Jared Polis signed the bill into law on Wednesday. It requires card payment companies to apply a specific code to gun and ammo transactions in the state — something already done for other retailers, like grocery stores or gas stations.”

    https://kdvr.com/news/politics/colorado-firearm-code-track-gun-ammo-purchases-credit-cards/

  22. ‘I got a letter back from somebody saying ‘Tough s—-, we’re canceling your liability insurance and earthquake insurance as well’

    You have to roll with it Carl.

  23. ‘When you look at these complexes that have been vacant for 10 years…It’s eerie when you drive through the parking lots and there’s weeds coming up through the cracks’

    You live in a sh$thole Steve. Other than that, a little pre-emergent herbicide three times a year will stop that.

  24. ‘it might be time to stop talking about recovery.’ ‘Maybe our cities will never go back, no matter how hard we will them, to where we were in 2019. And it’s time to embrace the unanticipated strengths but also the exposed vulnerabilities and really work hard’

    Acceptance <- Prema you are here.

  25. ‘We want this project to go ahead. But at the same time, it can’t be an eyesore any longer…They’ve got to fix it up and prevent people from being able to access it and see that ugly hole’

    ‘I can appreciate that it’s an eyesore,’ Wilbur said. ‘It was never my intention to tear down one eyesore to create another one’

    You got a real mickey mouse operation there Percy.

  26. ‘The second is the oversupply of homes for sale in many areas. The flurry of activity seen at the start of the year opened the floodgates for many would-be movers who had been holding off on putting their home on the market. The current surge in supply, coupled with wobbling demand from buyers whose affordability is being stretched to the limit by stubbornly high mortgage interest rates, is pushing prices down in many parts of the country’

    I’ll remember I stole ‘would be movers’ from you Jon. Probably not.

  27. The Culture of War | Paul Fussell (1994)
    misesmedia

    5 months ago MISES INSTITUTE

    “The truth is that very few people know anything about war. In an infantry division, for example, fewer than half the troops actually fight. That is, with rifles, mortars, machine guns, grenades, and trench knives. The others, thousands on thousands of them, are occupied with truck driving, mimeograph machine operating, cooking and baking, ammunition and ration supplying, and similar housekeeping tasks. Now, those things are no doubt necessary, but they’re hardly bellicose. And they hardly provide the sort of experience which can issue as trustworthy testimony about what the word war might mean.”

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g05t87avKNw

    29 minutes.

  28. This Seller Was Screwed From The Start (York Region Real Estate Market Update)
    Team Sessa Real Estate

    1 hour ago VAUGHAN

    In this episode we take a look at the current Vaughan Home Prices, Richmond Hill Home Prices & Markham Home Prices and real estate market trends for week ending April 24, 2024. We discuss why overpaying for a home just for the sake of making sure you get the home you want, may not open out when it comes time to sell.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQNSVGW1lY0

    14:24.

  30. Business News and Finance
    Florida real estate struggles as ‘motivated’ sellers flood market
    Published Wed, May 1 2024 8:47 PM EDT
    Updated Wed, May 1 2024 9:08 PM EDT
    Taylor Craig

    KEY POINTS

    – According to the latest Redfin data, the number of homes for sale in Florida has surged after homebuilders rushed to accommodate newcomers.

    – There are more than 5,600 active listings in Florida that include the keyword “motivated” in the description on Zillow.

    Once a red-hot destination for out-of-state homebuyers, Florida is seeing its inventory of homes for sale skyrocket and price growth stagnate.

    “Florida is very unique,” Redfin’s chief economist Daryl Fairweather told CNBC’s “Last Call” on Wednesday. “It was one of the only markets that actually sustained price growth after interest rates went up, so I think this correction is a bit overdue.”

    According to Redfin, the median time a Florida home spent on the market was 57 days in March. Two years earlier, that time span was just 24 days.

    “It’s also coming at a time when HOA (homeowner association) fees are going up and insurance costs are going up, and people don’t want to pay these higher property taxes,” Fairweather said. “More new listings are coming on the market right now, too.”

    There are more than 5,600 active listings in Florida that include the keyword “motivated” in the description on Zillow.
    …
    https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2024/05/01/florida-real-estate-struggles-as-motivated-sellers-flood-market.html

    1. “…‘motivated’ sellers flood market…”

      We sure could use some of those in California!

    1. Bonds
      Bill Gross: Look for 10-year yields to rise above 5% over the next 12 months
      The latest from the Bond King
      Adam Button
      02/05/2024 | 17:49 GMT-0
      US 10-year yields

      US 10-year yields have reversed lower today after an earlier climb. That turn is weighing on the US dollar and boosting stocks.

      PIMCO co-founder Bill Gross doesn’t believe it will last. The 80-year-old former Bond King released a rare investment outlook today where he warns against betting on falling Treasury yields, in large part due to larger US deficits.

      “Those that argue for lower rates have to counter the inexorable upward climb in Treasury supply and the likely Sisyphean decline in bond prices,” Gross writes. “Look for 5% plus 10-year yields over the next 12 months — not 4.0%.”
      …
      https://www.forexlive.com/news/bill-gross-look-for-10-year-yields-to-rise-above-5-over-the-next-12-months-20240502/amp/

    2. What message is the yield curve sending?

      The bear steepening might be good news because of growth expectations but also bad news because of inflation.

      Giuseppe Dellamotta
      02/05/2024 | 13:28 GMT-0

      Short term treasury yields are down on the day while long term yields are up. On a day-to-day basis that could be noise but the day after the FOMC decision, it could be a signal. When long term yields rise faster than short term ones it’s called a “bear steepener”.

      The message that the bond market is sending could be of growth expectations where short term yields remain more or less anchored around 5% due to the Fed’s unwillingness to either cut or hike and long-term yields advancing towards the same level on growth prospects.
      …
      https://www.forexlive.com/news/what-message-is-the-yield-curve-sending-20240502/amp/

    3. Financial Times
      FT Alphaville Global Economy
      Who’ll buy all the Treasuries?
      You’ll buy all the Treasuries
      Ft. Bad some news for the non-US Anglosphere
      Toby Nangle 53 minutes ago

      Barclays’s annual Equity Gilt Study dropped on Tuesday. Equities and gilts barely get a mention. What Anshul Pradhan and his co-authors really really want to talk about are US Treasury bonds. Specifically, they want to talk about the forthcoming ‘Treasury tsunami’ and what it might mean for . . . well, everything.

      To be fair, the Treasury market is the most important capital market in the world. And supply is projected to be pretty huge over the next few decades. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office forecasts that government debt-to-GDP is on an explosively upward path:

      [MEGA ALARMING FIGURE]

      But, according to Barclays:

      “While these projections are alarming, in our view they are actually quite rosy.”
      …

  32. Money
    Mortgage Rates Increase for Prospective Buyers: Today’s Mortgage Rates for May 3, 2024

    A handful of major mortgage rates increased. Here’s what experts say is next for the housing market this year.
    Our Experts
    Katherine Watt Laura Michelle Davis

    The average for a 30-year fixed-mortgage is 7.36% today, up 0.07% compared to one week ago. The average rate for a 15-year fixed mortgage is 6.76%, which is an increase of 0.06% compared to a week ago. For a look at mortgage rate movement, see the chart below.

    Given that inflation data hasn’t been improving, the Federal Reserve has been pushing off rate cuts. Though mortgage rates could still go down later in the year, housing market predictions change regularly in response to economic data, geopolitical events and more.
    …
    https://www.cnet.com/personal-finance/mortgages/mortgage-rates-increase-for-prospective-buyers-todays-mortgage-rates-for-may-3-2024/

  33. Macro Matters
    In the Market: Economic surprises are messing with the market’s favorite recession predictor
    By Paritosh Bansal
    April 29, 2024 3:59 AM MDT
    Updated 4 days ago
    Scenes near Wall Street and the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), in New York

    April 29 (Reuters) – A bond market anomaly that has reliably predicted a U.S. recession in the past may normalize this year in a highly unusual manner. It’s a worry for markets.
    The market signal, called a yield curve, has been upside down since early July 2022, with investors getting less to lock up their money for longer periods than they are for shorter durations. The benchmark U.S. curve shows yields on 2-year Treasuries are about 30 basis points higher than 10-year bonds.

    In the past, yield curves typically become right-side up as an economic slowdown leads the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates, bringing down yields on near-term bonds that are sensitive to policy rates, a phenomenon called bull steepening.

    This time around, though, it is starting to look like the curve may normalize because longer-term bond yields would rise in a bear steepening, interviews with half a dozen investors and other market experts show. That is due to pressure on longer-term rates from increasing U.S. debt, while a surprisingly robust economy and sticky inflation keep the Fed from cutting rates.

    A bear steepening, which briefly reared its head in October, could resume at some point this year, leading the yield curve back to normal through a rarely trodden path.

    “What we saw in the later stages of 2023 was the beginning of that curve normalization,” said Dan Siluk, a portfolio manager at Janus Henderson. “We’ll get a continuation of that theme through the back end of 2024.”
    Both the shape of the curve and the reasons for its steepening have important implications for the real economy and Wall Street. The yield on 10-year Treasury bonds would have to rise above 5% for the curve to normalize, the investors estimated, which raises interest costs of businesses and consumers. Inflation would remain sticky in a bear-steepening scenario.
    …
    https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/market-economic-surprises-are-messing-with-markets-favorite-recession-predictor-2024-04-29/

  34. The Fed announced a big change today. And no, we’re not talking about interest rates
    Analysis by Nicole Goodkind, CNN
    5 minute read
    Updated 9:48 PM EDT, Wed May 1, 2024

    New York CNN —

    Wednesday’s Federal Reserve policy decision was fairly boring for investors — officials kept interest rates the same, just as they have since July 2023.

    But some savvy traders are excited about another key decision. The Fed announced that it will significantly curtail its quantitative tightening (QT) program — that’s the selling off of its assets to decrease money supply and increase interest rates — beginning in June.

    US Treasury yields fell on the news. Yields on the 10-year and 2-year both dropped by .05 percentage points.

    What’s happening: The Fed bought a ton of government-backed bonds between 2020 and 2022 to help support economic recovery after the pandemic-induced recession. Those purchases ended up pushing down interest rates in certain parts of the economy, like housing and auto sales.

    In mid-2022, as inflation soared higher, the Fed reversed that and began unloading those bonds.

    The Fed currently lets up to $60 billion in Treasuries mature each month without replacing them, reducing the amount of money circulating in the economy. The idea is that QT can help exert some downward pressure on prices.

    But there’s also some downside to the practice — changing the amount of liquidity in the economy and redirecting that money could have some major consequences.

    As JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon pointed out in his annual letter to shareholders last month, “we have never truly experienced the full effect of quantitative tightening on this scale.” The current pace of QT is draining more than $900 billion in liquidity from the system annually, he said, adding, “I am more worried [about it] than most.”

    QT reduces the amount of money in the banking system, leading to higher interest rates and tighter monetary conditions, but last time the Fed implemented such a program in 2019, some banks fell very short of reserves.

    That led to a “repo crisis”, where the interest rates for overnight loans between banks spiked unusually high. The Fed had to intervene and provide liquidity to bring down those repo rates.

    Fed Chair Jerome Powell doesn’t want a repeat of 2019 and said at his last press conference that QT would be scaled back soon.

    On Wednesday, officials announced that they will lower the rate of QT to $25 billion, more than half of where it currently sits.

    What it means: “May 1 is set to be a big day in the bond market,” Evercore ISI’s Krishna Guha and Marco Casiraghi wrote in a recent note.

    If the Fed does ease up its tightening policy, “financial markets will likely see the taper of the QT program as bullish for riskier investments like stocks and bonds at the margin,” wrote Bill Adams, chief economist for Comerica Bank, in a note on Tuesday.

    That’s because a taper should send bond prices higher, and interest rates lower.

    The risk, wrote Bank of America analysts on Tuesday, “is skewed to the upside for stocks, in our view, especially given a potential QT taper announcement.”
    …
    https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/01/investing/premarket-stocks-trading/index.html

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