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They Were Designed For Flipping, Now Many Speculators Are In A Bind

It’s Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. “More homes have become available in Spokane and Coeur d’Alene, but the sales pace continues to remain muted compared to the chaos of the local economy as it emerged from the coronavirus pandemic. Mostly gone are the multiple cash offers over asking price that marked the past few years. Sellers are again finding they likely have to add that coat of paint or new floor to get full asking price, said Tom Hormel, immediate past president of Spokane Realtors. ‘We have to have those tough conversations with sellers that we weren’t having for a few years,’ Hormel said. During the housing rush, most home buyers did not have to upgrade their homes with new kitchen countertops or flooring before listing them to sell. ‘Now it needs to be. If you are going to price at the high end of the market, you better have all your ducks in a row and it better be right,’ Hormel said.”

“Don and Denise Rowlett have called the Pinehurst Inn home since 2008. For several years they ran the inn as a business; now the six-bedroom dwelling serves as a private residence for the couple and their family. Built in 1895 and extensively renovated in 1987, the property has always been difficult to insure. This spring, the Rowletts received a letter from their insurance company. ‘It basically said they would keep us insured until the end of the month then we were on our own after that,’ says Don Rowlett. Russ Schweikert, their agent and a partner at Ashland Insurance himself is not immune to the trends. After the premium on his rental property shot up 86%, he sent a ‘WTF’ to his own agent. ‘She said, ‘Write the check before they change their mind’. The good news in Oregon is that we’re not California.’”

“Just after dawn on the Ides of March 2024, Frisco real estate agent Courtney Benson got a text message from a client who wanted to halt his home sale. The client had just read a New York Times story that said a $418 million lawsuit settlement against the National Association of Realtors might ‘blow up the housing market.’ She wasn’t sure how to warm her client’s suddenly cold feet. Later that morning, another client also asked to withdraw a home listing as other outlets covered the news with similar breathlessness. Dallas agents I spoke with say confusion remains among their clients about the new rules of real estate, which will take effect August 17. Will commissions cascade? Will agents go broke?”

“The change has prompted some panic among potential buyers because these agreements could require buyers to pony up for buyer’s agent commissions if those commissions are not fully paid—or paid at all—by sellers, who have up until now typically covered commissions in full. ‘A lot of my buyers don’t have an extra bundle of money sitting there to pay a buyer’s agent,’ says Ann Stewart, a Richardson-based agent with Ebby Halliday. The Highland Parker I spoke to who haggled his commissions down also saved big on his $4 million, 6,000-square-foot home on Turtle Creek. He slashed 20 grand off his overall costs. He expects people in his tax bracket will continue to haggle, not because of the new NAR rules on commissions but because that’s what the wealthy have always done. ‘I don’t really see this as changing anything in the Park Cities or Preston Hollow,’ he says. Then he adds, impolitely: ‘Maybe it’ll matter more for those low-end homes in the M Streets or over by White Rock or way up in Prosper. But who cares about people who buy there?'”

“The term caveat emptor, or ‘buyer beware,’ has perhaps never been more important in the housing market than it is now. That’s because more and more buyers are being asked to sign contracts linking them to the real estate agents helping them find a house. One of the worst contracts was the draft from the California Association of Realtors, one of the largest and most influential groups in the country. Law professor Tanya Monestier of the University of Buffalo Faculty of Law evaluated the document at the CFA’s request, and found that the CAR draft contract was ‘virtually unreadable. No layperson will be able to understand and appreciate the terms they are agreeing to.’ She concluded that the contract ‘disguises the obligation of the buyer to pay his agent’ and that it ‘telegraphs how Realtors plan to circumvent the NAR settlement’ — referring to the class action lawsuit resolution signed by the National Association of Realtors in March.”

“Not every buyer-broker contract is worth trashing, though. The CFA holds out one from eXp Realty as exemplary, saying it could serve as a model for other groups’ contracts. ‘The contrast between the CAR and eXp contracts could not be sharper,’ says Stephen Brobeck, a CFA senior fellow. ‘The eXp contract is written with the buyer in mind. The CAR contract is written with the interests of the Realtor in mind.'”

“A New York-based real estate developer has agreed to pay back its foreign investors for two Queens real estate projects after allegedly committing fraud. Richard Xia and his company, Fleet Financial, have come to an agreement with the Securities and Exchange Commission to pay $272M for allegedly defrauding Chinese investors seeking green cards, The Real Deal reported. The SEC claimed Xia misled EB-5 investors between 2010 and 2017 to procure more than $228M in financing from 400 individuals for the two projects. The projects were Eastern Mirage, planned as an 18-story mixed-use medical center and hotel in Flushing, and Eastern Emerald, a 25-story hotel and condo development near LaGuardia Airport with a Japanese restaurant led by a Michelin-starred chef and a performing arts center.”

“The EB-5 program is a green card-granting mechanism for foreign investors who put at least $800K toward job-creating projects in the U.S. But the program has been plagued by fraud and has seen waning interest in recent years, driven by a drop-off in Chinese investors, the Government Accountability Office found.”

“The signs of distress are everywhere. Many of Vancouver’s priciest condos are being offered at big discounts. One downtown condo that was bought for almost $3 million is now on the market at $2.3 million. Many of these condos have been aimed at the international market. As Vancouver’s Steve Saretsky says, there has been a drastic drop in what was once an ‘unprecedented Chinese appetite to take capital out of the reach of the Chinese government’ — mostly by investing in Western real estate. ‘Globalization is now reversing,’ says Saretsky. ‘What happens if further Chinese wealth destruction necessitates Chinese liquidation of foreign housing ownership?'”

“The Canadian condo scene now comes with trans-Pacific turbulence, to say the least. At the elite, funky Alberni, designed by starchitect Kengo Kuma, an ‘extremely high’ inventory of 26 condos is for sale, says realtor David Hutchinson. Hutchinson says many of the scores of pricey condos that are now going on to the Vancouver market were originally ‘sold in presentation centres offshore.’ Most, Hutchinson believes, were snapped up as pre-sales. They were designed for flipping. Now many speculators are in a bind.”

“Toronto’s real estate market is suddenly inundated with a record number of homes that nobody wants to buy. Pouyan Safapour, president of Devron, explained that the disconnect between developers and the ‘end-users’ — those who eventually live in the completed units — begins at the pre-construction level. ‘There’s this misconception that it is hard to design and sell to the end user, and if we’re not designing and selling to the end user, who appreciates and cares about features and sizes of the suites, we’re going to be selling to investors,’ Safapour said. ‘Investors want something that is smaller and easy to transact, and so we developers fall prey to this way of thinking.'”

“Safapour believes that for the first time in a long time, the wants and needs of end-users in the condo market aren’t being buried by inflated investor demands. ‘What’s happening right now is quite healthy, because it’s become a buyer’s market and the consumers’ preferences are actually being seen,’ Safapour said, ‘and they’re saying, ‘We don’t just want small units.'”

“Ten years ago a slew of new words entered London’s property lexicon: oligarch, ultra-prime, and UHNWI (ultra-high net worth individuals). The centre of London — rebranded as ‘prime central London’ or PCL — had come roaring out of the global financial crisis. International buyers converged on Kensington, Knightsbridge, and Mayfair from every corner of the globe in search of a trophy London home. Richard Gutteridge, co-head of PCL at Savills, said buyers were flooding into London from every corner of the globe. ‘There was definitely a sense that people felt they were buying into a city that was top of the charts in terms of popularity, and demand was incredibly strong,’ he said.”

“But ten years is a very long time in the luxury property market. A series of unforeseen events today makes those homes look like very bad investments. Earlier this year, it was reported that the British billionaire and trading director of budget retailer B&M sold his London home for a loss making £23.4 million. Bobby Arora had paid £34 million for the Belgravia house a decade ago. The result is owners either mothballing their homes or cutting prices to the bone. ‘There are some contemplating selling their properties at a loss just to move forward with their lives,’ said Amir Eshtehardi of Wilfords Kensington.”

“More than 20,000 families have been forced to sell their homes in distress sales in Queensland. Queensland is the worst in the country for distressed listings, which is when properties hit the market due to forced circumstances. More than 20 per cent of mortgage holders in Australia have been forced to switch to interest-only repayments in the last two years as they face mounting financial pressure from 13 interest rate rises and increasing cost of living pressures.”

“Banks are struggling to sell defaulting borrowers’ collateral, primarily real estate, to recover the debts since the property market is sluggish. A State-owned lender recently decreased the reserve price of a 160sq.m house in Hà Nội’s old quarter to around VNĐ50 billion from the VNĐ70 billion it had sought in an auction in August 2022. In the last two years, it has held numerous auctions but has not been successful in finding a buyer for the property. Another lender is currently trying to auction land in a residential project in Nha Trang and slashed the reserve price by over VNĐ20 billion but it unable to find a buyer. Various resort properties and hotels in sought-after locations such as Hội An, Đà Nẵng and Phú Quốc Island are also being offered at discounts by banks.”

“With 70 per cent of its collateral comprised of real estate, the banking industry is grappling with non-performing loans worth VNĐ224.14 trillion as of the end of last March. Adding to the challenges to selling mortgaged real estate was the arrest in late 2022 of Trương Mỹ Lan, the chairwoman of Vạn Thịnh Phát. She is now on death row for financial fraud and other crimes.”

“The idea of China outstripping the United States to become the world’s largest economy has been a fixation for policymakers and economists for decades. Predictions of when exactly China would steal the US crown have come thick and fast ever since the 2008/9 financial crisis. As if the pandemic — which led to strict lockdown measures that brought the economy to its knees — wasn’t enough, the Asian powerhouse was also plunged into a real estate crash. The apparent change of fortunes for the Chinese economy was so stark that a new term emerged about a year ago: ‘Peak China.’ Wang Wen from Renmin University of China’s Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies told DW that the notion of Peak China was a ‘myth,’ adding that China’s total economic output reached almost 80% of the US output in 2021.”

“Other economists, however, believe that the issues that sparked the Peak China narrative were likely building for several years. ‘The Chinese economy grew so fast in the early 2000s because of high productivity,’ Loren Brandt, economy professor at the University of Toronto, told DW, adding that productivity was responsible for about 70% of GDP growth during China’s first three decades of reform, initiated in 1978. ‘After the financial crisis, productivity growth just disappeared. It’s now maybe one-quarter of what it was before 2008,’ the expert in the Chinese economy added.”

“The big fear is that all these factors could see China’s economy go the way of Japan. After World War II, Japan experienced an economic miracle, marked by decades of high growth that caused a massive stock market and real estate bubble. At its peak, Japan was predicted by some economists to overtake the US as the world’s largest economy. Then in 1992, the bubble burst, fortunes were lost, and the economy went into a tailspin. Japan has since failed to make up for several decades of lost growth.”

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This Post Has 80 Comments

  1. It’s not very often multiple articles come out on the same day about the effects of Chinese money laundering on real estate. Or in the case of London, all sorts of money laundering. London was the capital of that crime, which peaked there in 2014 and it’s been sinking like a turd in a well ever since.

  3. Three things:

    1. The NYT is globalist scum media that exists to influence, not inform.

    2. In the year 2024, only slack-jawed morons are still relying on the garbage legacy media for news and information.

    3. Housing Bubble 2.0 isn’t cratering because of the lawsuit against the NAR racketeers. Rather, this unsustainable Fed-blown asset bubble is going to implode under the weight of its own debt, fraud, and mark-to-fantasy accounting.

    1. “1. The NYT is globalist scum media that exists to influence, not inform.

      “2. In the year 2024, only slack-jawed morons are still relying on the garbage legacy media for news and information.”

      Glenn Greenwald: How The NY Times Serves As A Mouthpiece For The Government

      https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2023/10/06/glenn_greenwald_how_the_ny_times_serves_as_a_mouthpiece_for_the_government.html

      [snip]

      Even in the subheadline, you see exactly the same formulation, because this is what the New York Times exists to do. Imagine if you had U.S. state media that was not like the New York Times or CNN, but state media that admitted it was state media and that it was there to be the propaganda arm of the government. What state media would do is go on TV every day, or into the pages of their newspapers every day, and say: “The government today proclaims the following, the government today announces this, the government today has decreed that they want you to know the following.” That’s what the New York Times is. That’s what the New York Times does.

  4. ‘We have to have those tough conversations with sellers that we weren’t having for a few years,’

    Don’t forget to also have that conversation that doubling your money in four years is called a huge bubble.

  5. ‘A lot of my buyers don’t have an extra bundle of money sitting there to pay a buyer’s agent,’ says Ann Stewart, a Richardson-based agent with Ebby Halliday.

    Remind me again what services realtors provide that is worth the extortionate commissions they charge.

    1. Where I live, and want to buy, you need a realtor to view the pocket listings. By the time properties are on the MLS and public, they are mostly contingent due to this practice, especially if they are not a total tear-down or off a major road.

      Some would call this illegitimate, anti-market behavior. Others would say it is just realtors being realtors.

  6. ‘What happens if further Chinese wealth destruction necessitates Chinese liquidation of foreign housing ownership?’”

    Wut? Didn’t ABQ Dan assure us that China’s central planners had invented a perpetual wealth creation machine?

    1. If we were a nation of laws, we would’ve seen countless indictments of Biden’s globalist handlers for elder abuse.

      1. IIRC, the cross dressing suitcase thief got off with a slap on the wrist. Granted, he is small potatoes compared to the real crimes being committed .

    2. They should have kept Joetato in the basement. Too late, now that they have been parading him everywhere. They can’t put the toothpaste back into the tube.

      1. And everyday that they infight is another day that they can’t print ballots with a replacement name.

        Ben Shapiro, among other pundits, are saying that this is best case scenario for T. Biden is doing just well enough to not be forced off the ticket, but not well enough to change the minds of the independent voters who are still reeling over the debate.

        1. but not well enough to change the minds of the independent voters who are still reeling over the debate.
          My buddy just send me an tiktok from some “expert” saying Biden’s Detroit speech was Biden’s best ever and one of the best he has ever heard. the denial is fierce out there.

    3. “Vice President Trump? LOL!!”

      As far as I know, there is no word in on whether Vice President Trump is a black woman or not.

      Biden says he’s ‘first black woman to serve with a black president’ in latest gaffe

      By Emily Crane
      July 5, 2024

      The 81-year-old president made the slip up as he struggled to find the right phrasing while being interviewed Thursday on Philadelphia’s WURD black radio station as part of an Independence Day media blitz a week on from his train-wreck debate performance.

      “By the way, I’m proud to be, as I said, the first vice president, first black woman, to serve with a black president,” he told host Andrea Lawful-Sanders.

      https://nypost.com/2024/07/05/us-news/biden-says-he-is-first-black-woman-to-serve-with-a-black-president-in-latest-gaffe/

  8. They were designed for flipping. Now many speculators are in a bind.”

    Die, speculator scum.

  9. “Toronto’s real estate market is suddenly inundated with a record number of homes that nobody wants to buy.

    I fear this could put downward pressure on shack prices, forcing over leveraged speculators and FBs into distress sales that only accelerate the velocity and magnitude of the cratering. This is my “gravely concerned” face.

  10. Tanya Monestier of the University of Buffalo Faculty of Law evaluated the document at the CFA’s request, and found that the CAR draft contract was ‘virtually unreadable.

    Surely self-described Champion of the Middle Class Fauxahontus will descend in all her fury to use the powers of her Committee to right this egregious wrong against home buyers. We should see this happen any day now, as our other “representatives” fight the good fight on our behalf.

    I slay me….

    1. “CBS News President Ingrid Ciprian-Matthews said Wednesday she’s resigning after less than a year in her role, and CNN announced that it was eliminating approximately 100 jobs in continued signs of upheaval for the media business.”

      I need a trench dug on my jobsite next week. Pick up a shovel with those baby soft, city boy hands, and DIG, Real Journalists.

  12. “More than 20,000 families have been forced to sell their homes in distress sales in Queensland. Queensland is the worst in the country for distressed listings, which is when properties hit the market due to forced circumstances.

    Heckova job, RBA. I’m guessing 19,990 of those families made purchasing decisions based on “expert” advice from the REIC shills in the globalist scum media. Outside consultant Flounder has been brought in to console those who f*cked up by trusting the manifestly untrustworthy.

  13. In the last two years, it has held numerous auctions but has not been successful in finding a buyer for the property.

    I’m no Economics Major like AOC, but methinks if you have an auction where Mr. Market sets the reserve price, you’ll manage to offload that land parcel.

  14. Adding to the challenges to selling mortgaged real estate was the arrest in late 2022 of Trương Mỹ Lan, the chairwoman of Vạn Thịnh Phát. She is now on death row for financial fraud and other crimes.”

    Imagine a country where they execute the really big criminals, instead of giving them top cover to defraud and commit felonies with impunity.

  15. ‘Maybe it’ll matter more for those low-end homes in the M Streets or over by White Rock or way up in Prosper. But who cares about people who buy there?’”

    Some fine day the riffraff from White Rock & Prosper might be converging on your opulent ‘hood with pitchforks & torches, sociopathic “elites.”

  16. “The idea of China outstripping the United States to become the world’s largest economy has been a fixation for policymakers and economists for decades.

    Commentators in the globalist scum media and policymakers affiliated with the CCP’s ideological junior partners in the Democrat Party have been in thrall to the wonders of central planning for decades – while willfully disregarding the inherent tyranny, fraud, and misallocation of resources that are a feature, not a bug, of ideology-driven central planning.

  18. a new term emerged about a year ago: ‘Peak China.’

    Centralized planning at its best.

    1. Speaking of which, China has built millions of cheap, junky EV’s that no one wants. Of course it doesn’t help that few want any sort of EV, period. But some central planner(s) decided that building millions of them for export was a good idea.

      1. Those PRC central planners likely helped lobby politicians in the USA and EU to mandate EVs. It all backfired spectacularly though.

        With that said, I was in China earlier this year, and there are EVs everywhere, from cheap ones for the poor to beautiful big luxurious ones for the people who matter. Huawei doesn’t just make telecom equipment anymore!

      2. “….But some central planner(s) decided that building millions of them for export was a good idea…”

        And even if [China] gave EV’s away for free, there is still no widely available infrastructure for battery charging.

        Appears China central planning has a hole in the middle.

        You just can’t make this stuff up.

        1. ‘even if [China] gave EV’s away for free’

          It’s worse than that. The ADV China guys have followed this for a long time. The cars are heavily subsidized by the CCP. They are flooding Europe with cars and they lose money one every single one. I guess they think they can corner the market.

          1. Taking a loss to eliminate competition is their MO. They did the same with solar panels years ago.

    1. California Hit by Mass Layoffs
      Published Jul 11, 2024 at 6:50 AM EDT
      Updated Jul 11, 2024 at 6:24 PM EDT

      By Giulia Carbonaro
      US News Reporter

      Intuit, the California software company known for products like TurboTax, Credit Karma and Mailchimp, announced on Wednesday that it is laying off 1,800 employees, or 10 percent of its entire workforce, as it prepares for the “AI revolution.”

      Local news outlet SFGATE reported that nearly 600 employees will lose their job in California, including 384 in Mountain View and 215 in San Diego.

      Newsweek contacted Intuit for comment by email on Thursday morning.

      It is not the first time that the tech sector has faced mass layoffs in recent years, with the pandemic sparking a sudden downturn for the industry. In 2023 alone, more than 260,000 people lost their jobs in the sector, as reported by NPR.
      …
      https://www.newsweek.com/california-hit-mass-layoffs-1923704

      1. is laying off 1,800 employees, or 10 percent of its entire workforce, as it prepares for the “AI revolution.”

        We’ll see how that works out.

  20. To the tune of Thirsty Boots:

    These houses were made for flippin
    And that’s just what they do
    And one day these houses
    Are gonna flip all over you

    Houses…Get Flipping!

  23. Condo CRAZY Town | Canada Real Estate

    Angry Mortgage Podcast

    5 hours ago

    Would You Pay $270K to NOT Own A Condo? That’s right, people who bought a Pre-Construction Condo 4 years ago: 512 Square Foot for $770K. It’s finished now but last week’s appraisal was only a $600K Value & a RE Agent said a quick sale price would be $550K to $565K but there would be expenses to close the initial purchase and then a lot more commissions & expenses to sell it, oh & a mortgage would be needed to close the initial. Developer’s offer pay $270K and walk away… What would you do?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnbMWNXuka8

    6:51.

    1. $270K and walk away

      Plus their deposit. Very little chance these Canadians have anywhere near that kind of cash to buy their freedom, so most will just go bankrupt.

    2. “Condo: 512 Square Foot for $770K.”

      The definition of insanity could not be any more succinct.

      1. Honey, how did you lose our house?

        I gambled on a 512 ft2 room with money we didn’t have.

    3. 512 Square Foot for $770K.

      My first apartment was 540 sq ft. With frugal design it was a comfortable one-bedroom.

      1. With the monthly nut on $770k due every 30-days I’d be squirming like a bot fly larva rather than sleeping.

  24. Silicon Valley hasn’t been this upset since Elon Musk bought Twitter. And Hollywood hasn’t been this verbose since Quibi’s disastrous debut. Over the past week, following Joe Biden’s ruinous debate with Donald Trump, discontent has surged through both industries, with influential figures and everyday workers alike expressing their frustration and disbelief at Biden’s refusal to step down. The widespread sentiment is that Biden’s defiant decision is not only jeopardizing the political landscape but also threatening the future of the country, with blame pointed in every direction: at Biden himself, at the big tech and Hollywood donors who have enabled him, and at the people in Bidenworld who refuse to press the president to step down—thus risking handing the country back to Trump.

    “Every Democrat outside the Beltway knows he’ll lose,” a major Silicon Valley founder told me. “Hilariously, Biden thinks it’s the ‘elites’ who want him out when it appears some of them may be the only ones who want him in!” He added: “Here’s the reality: On Election Day, Trump supporters will vote for Trump in heaps, and previous Biden supporters will stay home, load up on anti-depression meds, and watch the Democrats get blitzed across the ballot.”

    Another tech founder who has advised the White House in the past told me it’s clear that Biden’s inner circle is not being honest with anyone, in a cynical attempt to preserve their power and professional standing. “They are selfish, selfish people who have chosen their job over country,” this tech founder told me. A venture capitalist was similarly irate over how Biden and his team of “enablers” were acting. “I genuinely hope he loses in a crushing defeat and the Dems burn for it,” he said, himself a lifelong Democrat. “Cowards stacked on cowards” is how he described the Biden administration and Jill Biden for supporting the president’s behavior since his disastrous debate performance.

    Despite the growing backlash, the reality is that the clock is ticking. Even if Biden were to step down, the logistics of finding a replacement candidate who could unite the Democratic base in such a short time frame seems insurmountable, although not impossible—yet. If Biden were to step down, most pundits believe that Kamala Harris would be the nominee, and has a better chance of beating Trump. There’s also the possibility of a mini-primary blitz, where anyone from Pete Buttigieg to “The Rock” could try to take the helm, though it’s unclear if that could happen in such a short time.

    One thing is clear: Biden’s staunch refusal to consider stepping aside complicates matters further, leaving the Democratic Party in a precarious position with less than four months until Election Day, and polls that keep surging increasingly toward Trump, which will give an alternative candidate little opportunity to fight back. The VC I spoke with argued that it’s ironic how angry everyone is now when it’s been obvious for so long that Biden wasn’t up for the job.

    Hollywood has been a bastion of Democratic support, rallying behind nominees with unwavering enthusiasm (and money). From hosting lavish fundraisers with fancy cocktails, where guests get to rub shoulders with A-list celebrities and studio heads, to helping create impactful campaign ads, Hollywood’s support has been a cornerstone for Democratic campaigns. Stars and executives alike have often aligned themselves with the Party’s nominee, regardless of the candidate’s individual appeal or potential shortcomings. But this time feels different. One award-winning director I spoke with this week joked that Hollywood execs have applied the same strategy to this election cycle that they often do to the industry: “Why would all these donors be upset? It’s an old Hollywood tradition: pump a ton of money into a lifeless product and hope the American people are dumb enough to buy it.” (Ouch!)

    https://www.vanityfair.com/news/story/hollywood-tech-biden-trump-2024

    1. “pump a ton of money into a lifeless product and hope the American people are dumb enough to buy it”

      At least 50 million actually will.

      “The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter” — Winston Churchill

    2. *”There’s also the possibility of a mini-primary blitz, where anyone from Pete Buttigieg to “The Rock” could try to take the helm, though it’s unclear if that could happen in such a short time.”

      oh NoSiree: The Rock is farrr too busy doing this, that, places to be, things to do, for himself (as the Irish say) to be running for any sort of “Presidency”.. . . at least that’s what Jack Black sez.

      hilarious impression. always cracks me!

  25. Ozy Media co-founder Carlos Watson was betrayed by a top deputy who lied to investors and forged documents to hide the startup’s dire finances, a defense lawyer said on Thursday during closing arguments in the former news anchor’s fraud trial.

    Watson, a former cable news anchor and investment banker, and Ozy are charged with securities fraud and wire fraud conspiracy. Prosecutors say they falsified information about Ozy’s finances and audience size, fabricated contracts and inflated its earnings projections to dupe investors.

    Watson and Ozy have pleaded not guilty. Ozy Media was a buzzy, California-based news and entertainment company founded in 2013. It imploded in 2021 after news reports questioned its audience numbers and revealed that a top executive had impersonated a YouTube executive during a bizarre call with Goldman Sachs bankers.

    Watson’s lawyer Ronald Sullivan told jurors on Thursday that Ozy co-founder and former Chief Operating Officer Samir Rao is to blame.

    “At the beginning of this trial, I told you this case was about a crooked co-founder named Samir Rao who lied to, who undermined and who betrayed Carlos Watson. The evidence has borne that out in this case,” Sullivan said.

    Rao and Suzee Han, Ozy’s former chief of staff, pleaded guilty to fraud and conspiracy charges in February 2023. Both testified against Watson during the six-week trial.

    The case stems from the dramatic downfall of Ozy, which raised more than $70 million from investors and promised to deliver smart news coverage to a young, diverse audience.

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/ozy-media-s-carlos-watson-was-betrayed-by-lying-co-founder-lawyer-says-as-new-york-fraud-trial-closes/ar-BB1pOJtM

  26. Newer immigrants are struggling as the Canadian labour market goes through a rough patch.

    The unemployment rate for recent immigrants – those who became permanent residents within the last five years – was 12.6 per cent in June, an increase of four percentage points from a year earlier, according to Statistics Canada. (All figures in this piece are three-month moving averages, unadjusted for seasonality.)

    It’s a very different story for those born in Canada. Their unemployment rate was 5.5 per cent last month – up slightly from 5 per cent in June, 2023.

    The gap in jobless rates between these groups is the largest since August, 2014.

    “The record surge in immigration has meant that even the healthy pace of job growth over the past year has fallen well short of what would have been needed to keep the unemployment rate steady,” Royce Mendes and Tiago Figueiredo, economists at Desjardins Securities, said in a research note on Tuesday.

    It’s not only newcomers bearing the brunt of a weaker job market. The youth unemployment rate has risen to 13.6 per cent, the highest level since the spring of 2016, not including the initial pandemic years of 2020 and 2021. For Black Canadians between the ages of 25 and 54, their unemployment rate was 11.9 per cent in June, up 4.4 percentage points over a year.

    “The labour market is fairly solid for those who already have a job, but it’s become extremely tough for those looking for work,” the Desjardins economists said.

    https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-recent-immigrants-suffer-in-canadas-weakening-job-market/

      1. Reminds me of the toast my mother made at my grandparents (who famously didn’t get along) 50th wedding anniversary – “Here’s to 50 years of wedded bliss.” Response was uproarious laughter 🤣

    2. “newcomers”

      Unfortunately for Canada, they’ll all be staying, forever.

      DJT gets back at the helm of USA and we need to deport 10-20 million. Get them out. Just get out, and don’t come back.

        1. Eisenhower did it. This is so much bigger.
          I have heard several people say Obama deported 3.0MM. So 5MM shouldn’t be impossible

          1. The problem with Venezuela is the U.S. has imposed crippling economic sanctions for years that have been passed down to the little people. In the distant past we exercised assassination programs, and installed loyalist strongmen, which yielded immediate results without the exodus of little people.

  27. Uh-oh. The Prime Minister says he has full confidence in his finance minister. Sounds like Chrystia Freeland is dangling at the end of a thread.

    You might recall the moment in August, 2020, when sources said Mr. Trudeau’s previous finance minister, Bill Morneau, might no longer be the person the Prime Minister wanted in the post.

    That’s when the Prime Minister’s Office put out an official statement saying that Mr. Trudeau had “full confidence” in Mr. Morneau and he would keep up the important work he was doing. A week later, he was gone.

    On Thursday, The Globe and Mail cited sources saying that the Prime Minister’s Office is concerned that Ms. Freeland, also the Deputy Prime Minister, is an ineffective communicator for the government’s economic message and there have been discussions about the possibility of replacing her with former Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney.

    The PMO put out an eerily similar statement to the one they issued for Mr. Morneau four years earlier. It must be stapled to the file on messy scenes with finance ministers.

    In 2020, Mr. Trudeau had sought behind the scenes to recruit Mr. Carney to replace Mr. Morneau before he eventually settled on Ms. Freeland. This time, he was not exactly covert.

    “I have been talking with Mark Carney for years now about getting him to join federal politics,” he told reporters at the NATO summit in Washington, stressing the word “years.” “I think he would be an outstanding addition at a time when Canadians need good people to step up in politics.”

    He might as well have tapped his foot impatiently and declared it is time for Mr. Carney to come to the aid of the party he hopes to eventually lead.

    On Thursday, Mr. Trudeau didn’t take the simple step of saying clearly that Ms. Freeland will remain as Finance Minister.

    That must be uncomfortable for Ms. Freeland, putting her tenure in charge of the public finances into question.

    But rest assured, it is all part of a cunning plan. Mr. Trudeau and his PMO apparently think it might be time to put a new face on the Liberal government’s economic message and changing the cabinet’s most prominent minister.

    And that’s exactly what many Liberals wanted Mr. Trudeau to do. A year ago. Before the Liberals’ slide in the polls became a downward spiral that now appears to spell political disaster.

    Replacing Ms. Freeland doesn’t seem like enough of a game-changer now. Liberal support has fallen deeper, the party suffered the shock of losing a safe riding in the Toronto-St. Paul’s by-election, irritation with Mr. Trudeau has spread wide. Ms. Freeland’s style comes across as condescending to some, but that’s a subset of irritations with Trudeau government that are now personified by Mr. Trudeau.

    It wouldn’t be a simple plan, however. For one thing, if Mr. Carney has balked at joining Mr. Trudeau’s government for years, it seems unlikely that it would be a much more appetizing prospect now, when the government’s popularity has sunk and there have been calls from Liberals for Mr. Trudeau to quit.

    Of course, Ms. Freeland could be replaced at finance by another MP in a shuffle. There might be more changes to the team. A year ago, a number of Liberals were hoping Mr. Trudeau and his inner circle would formulate an assertive plan for a reboot. Now there’s just desperation to do something.

    https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/opinion/article-a-cunning-plan-to-leave-the-finance-minister-dangling-by-a-thread/

    1. Liberals were hoping Mr. Trudeau and his inner circle would formulate an assertive plan for a reboot. Now there’s just desperation to do something.

      And it only took the Canucks nine years to figure out that Trudeau and his minions were running the country into the ground

  28. A reader sent these in:

    The price of this beauty just dropped by $2 million. 👇🏼

    https://x.com/MauiBoyMacro/status/1811543223795614069

    $350k price drop today on this Waimea small acreage property on the Big Island. This is an incredible location FWIW. My question is, if we are seeing such significant price drops on properties like this now, what is ahead?

    https://x.com/jimmydean197/status/1811403357480796477

    Ok @jimmydean197, I see your Haena property and raise you this amazing Kula property with a $1 million price decrease. 👇🏼

    https://x.com/MauiBoyMacro/status/1811794996997292060

    OK @MauiBoyMacro I see you Maui home and raise you a Haena REO. $2.8 mil price drop and now up for auction.

    https://x.com/jimmydean197/status/1811792806882816024

    1. Yahoo
      Benzinga
      ‘Warren Buffett Indicator’ Sounds Alarm: Stock Market Levels Now Surpass Dot-Com Bubble, Great Financial Crisis
      Aaron Bry
      Thu, Jul 11, 2024, 3:00 PM PDT
      3 min read

      Few investors have more market experience than Berkshire Hathaway Inc CEO Warren Buffett, who’s seen his fair share of over-extended bull markets. After the Dot-Com Bubble crash in 2000, Buffett noted that comparing the market capitalization of stocks to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is the best indicator of whether equities are overvalued or undervalued at current prices.

      Trouble Brewing? The indicator, dubbed as the ‘Warren Buffett Indicator’ is calculated by looking at the ratio of the total market index compared to the GDP of the U.S. The total market index is tracked by the Wilshire 5000, which is a market-cap-weighted index tracking all U.S. publicly traded companies, comprised of more than 3,000 companies.

      JUST IN 🚨: Warren Buffett Indicator hits 195%, the highest level in history, surpassing the Dot Com bubble, the Global Financial Crisis, and the 2022 Bear Market
      …
      https://finance.yahoo.com/news/warren-buffett-indicator-sounds-alarm-220009350.html

    2. Can you recall another stock market crash that was repeatedly predicted, only to never come?

      I do recall back in 1998 hearing smart, well-connected insiders predict a crash. But it took a couple more years before it kicked in, with a vengeance, because “nobody could have seen it coming.”

  30. ‘We have to have those tough conversations with sellers that we weren’t having for a few years,’ Hormel said. During the housing rush, most home buyers did not have to upgrade their homes with new kitchen countertops or flooring before listing them to sell. ‘Now it needs to be. If you are going to price at the high end of the market, you better have all your ducks in a row and it better be right’

    So take on a bunch more debt to unload the shack, got it Tom.

  31. Note to real financial journalists who skipped math and economics training:
    A drop in the inflation rate is not a drop in prices.

    At a 3% inflation rate, prices are still increasing and the dollar loses half of its purchasing power in 24 years (3 × 24 = 72), even if inflation is lower now than it was last year.

    1. Business / Investing
      A big change could come to the US economy in September
      Analysis by Krystal Hur, CNN
      Published 8:30 AM EDT, Fri July 12, 2024
      …
      Prices fell in June for the first time since the start of the pandemic

      Americans weighed down by fast-rising prices for three years just received more encouraging news on the inflation front, reports my colleague Alicia Wallace.

      The Consumer Price Index, a measurement of the average change in prices for a commonly purchased basket of goods and services, dropped 0.1% from May, which helped to slow the annual rate of inflation to 3% from 3.3% in May, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ latest report.
      …
      https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/12/investing/premarket-stocks-trading-fed-september-cut/index.html

  32. ‘After the premium on his rental property shot up 86%, he sent a ‘WTF’ to his own agent. ‘She said, ‘Write the check before they change their mind’

    Yer kinda over a barrel Russ. It’s a good thing you kept rents low so yer tenant can eat this.

  33. ‘A lot of my buyers don’t have an extra bundle of money sitting there to pay a buyer’s agent’

    Especially the FHA folks Ann. And with the low or no down payments, borrowing that commission by rolling it into the loan was putting them underwater from the get go. You got caught with yer pants down.

    ‘The Highland Parker I spoke to who haggled his commissions…but because that’s what the wealthy have always done. ‘I don’t really see this as changing anything in the Park Cities or Preston Hollow,’ he says. Then he adds, impolitely: ‘Maybe it’ll matter more for those low-end homes in the M Streets or over by White Rock or way up in Prosper. But who cares about people who buy there?’

    I included this because it’s an example of the long true Highland Park shack snobbery.

  34. ‘evaluated the document at the CFA’s request, and found that the CAR draft contract was ‘virtually unreadable. No layperson will be able to understand and appreciate the terms they are agreeing to.’ She concluded that the contract ‘disguises the obligation of the buyer to pay his agent’ and that it ‘telegraphs how Realtors plan to circumvent the NAR settlement’

    ‘The contrast between the CAR and eXp contracts could not be sharper,’ says Stephen Brobeck, a CFA senior fellow. ‘The eXp contract is written with the buyer in mind. The CAR contract is written with the interests of the Realtor in mind’

    Now you got another lawsuit on yer hands.

  35. ‘Hutchinson says many of the scores of pricey condos that are now going on to the Vancouver market were originally ‘sold in presentation centres offshore.’ Most, Hutchinson believes, were snapped up as pre-sales. They were designed for flipping. Now many speculators are in a bind’

    Is that like those pictures we see of Chinese standing around 3 foot models with a high pressure sale person in their ear Dave? Jack McCabe once said condo go up last and crash first. Same thing is happening in Toronto at the exact same time!

    1. “Jack McCabe once said condo go up last and crash first.”

      Indeed. The proverbial canary in the coal mine has keeled-over!

  36. ‘There’s this misconception that it is hard to design and sell to the end user, and if we’re not designing and selling to the end user, who appreciates and cares about features and sizes of the suites, we’re going to be selling to investors,’ Safapour said. ‘Investors want something that is smaller and easy to transact, and so we developers fall prey to this way of thinking’

    ‘Safapour believes that for the first time in a long time, the wants and needs of end-users in the condo market aren’t being buried by inflated investor demands. ‘What’s happening right now is quite healthy, because it’s become a buyer’s market and the consumers’ preferences are actually being seen,’ Safapour said, ‘and they’re saying, ‘We don’t just want small units’

    Yer right Pouyan, mistakes were made, let’s look to the future. You didn’t already build these, did you?

    1. selling to investors

      Would these be the flippy units where the doors don’t close and the toilets don’t flush?

  37. ‘Ten years ago a slew of new words entered London’s property lexicon: oligarch, ultra-prime, and UHNWI (ultra-high net worth individuals). The centre of London — rebranded as ‘prime central London’ or PCL — had come roaring out of the global financial crisis’

    Yes they had to come up with new words to explain why these dreary money pit UK shacks were suddenly worth way more than any time in history. What happened after the GFC? Well a boat load of QE, especially the Chinese. But in London you had yer A-rab buyers, African money launderers, Russian oligarchs. Johnny Depp!

    ‘International buyers converged on Kensington, Knightsbridge, and Mayfair from every corner of the globe in search of a trophy London home. Richard Gutteridge, co-head of PCL at Savills, said buyers were flooding into London from every corner of the globe. ‘There was definitely a sense that people felt they were buying into a city that was top of the charts in terms of popularity, and demand was incredibly strong’

    Wait for it Dick…

    ‘But ten years is a very long time in the luxury property market. A series of unforeseen events today makes those homes look like very bad investments. Earlier this year, it was reported that the British billionaire and trading director of budget retailer B&M sold his London home for a loss making £23.4 million. Bobby Arora had paid £34 million for the Belgravia house a decade ago. The result is owners either mothballing their homes or cutting prices to the bone. ‘There are some contemplating selling their properties at a loss just to move forward with their lives’

    After 10 years of eating overhead in a drafty shack and now they are giving it away Amir?

  38. It’s Just Too Good To Be True (Peel Region Real Estate Market Update)

    Team Sessa Real Estate

    42 minutes ago MISSISSAUGA

    In this episode we take a look at the current Brampton, Mississauga, Ajax, Whitby, Pickering Real Estate home prices and market trends for week ending July 3, 2024. We also discuss why it’s important to do your due diligence because often times things are too good to be true.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GM5KqgL96Fc

    13:17.

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