It’s No Good Having A High Price If No One’s Going To Pay It
A report from the Wall Street Journal. “Randy and Robin Landsman had been trying to sell their Manhattan penthouse for over a year when they turned to the auction market this summer. First listed for $12.2 million, their triplex in the sought-after Tribeca neighborhood came with more than 2,000 square feet of terraces, a floating staircase and a private elevator. At auction the property sold for $5 million, less than half of what they had originally asked and little more than they paid for it two decades ago. ‘It was obviously a stupid mistake,’ Randy said of deciding to auction the home.”
“Misha Haghani, founder of real-estate auction house Paramount Realty USA, said he frequently counsels prospective auction clients that they have been too aggressive in their original pricing. By the time a property comes to auction, it has likely already undergone at least one price reduction, said Haghani. ‘When they come to us, hopefully they’ve had some sense knocked into them,’ he said of sellers. ‘They’re tired, they’ve had enough. They say, ‘As long as the offer is decent, as long as it’s fair, I’m going to take it even if it’s not exactly what I wanted before.’”
“Rather than listing their East Hampton estate, financial services executive Erik Stern and his wife, Michelle Stern, went straight to auction. Erik said they expected that the house was worth around $20 million or more, based on the 3-acre parcel of land alone. The Sterns said Concierge representatives didn’t want to put a reserve price on the property because they believed it would stifle momentum, but the couple were assured there was a high level of interest. The auction ended in minutes and closed at $15 million, far less than the Sterns had expected. ‘I think I vomited and blacked out,’ Michelle said. The Sterns were offered $100,000 by Concierge to settle their claims that Concierge had misled them; the settlement agreement contained a confidentiality provision that would have prevented the Sterns from speaking negatively about Concierge. They declined.”
The Sun Sentinel in Florida. “A Broward County panel on Wednesday warned that senior citizens in particular are struggling with mounting condo assessments — and the problem could grow as costs rise and owners cannot sell their homes. ‘For lower-income seniors, it really is impossible for them to pay these assessments,’ said panelist Charlotte Mather-Taylor, the CEO of the Area Agency on Aging of Broward County. . ‘We’re looking at people who actually are potentially looking at not eating as well, not purchasing their medications, things that they need on a daily basis to be able to survive having to say, ‘Well, can I get this money together to pay the assessment.’”
“‘A lot of buyers are deciding to sit it out,’ said panelist Beth Daly, a RE/Max realtor. Some buyers are not ready to purchase because they believe ‘the prices are going to come down. In the buildings that have deferred maintenance they are coming down hard and fast.’ In one building where homes would normally sell for the $600,000-$700,000 range, there was a $200,000 assessment and a unit just sold for $200,000, she said. Some of the blame should be assigned to condo boards who haven’t been doing proper maintenance, she said, and now unit owners have to pay the bills. ‘I have sat with elderly people. … And they’ve cried and said, ‘Beth, I cannot afford my blood pressure medicine, I’m cutting my pills in half, how am I going to pay for this?'”
“Experts urged the audience to advocate for policy changes to support condo owners. But legislators said there is no appetite in Tallahassee for a quick fix. ‘There is no state bailout coming,’ warned State Sen. Jason Pizzo to the audience Wednesday.”
The Tampa Bay Times. “After a year of slowing home sales, the Tampa Bay housing market may dip even further over the next few months as consumers grapple with fallout from back-to-back hurricanes, real estate experts say. In the past five years, that price shot up nearly 65%, from $248,000 to $408,990. ‘Florida is no longer the deal it once was, especially with the rising cost of insurance and property taxes,’ said Daryl Fairweather, chief economist for the real estate firm Redfin. ‘So you’re not getting as many of those out of state buyers.’ Even sellers whose homes weren’t severely damaged are thinking twice about listing. Some fear it will be harder to find a place to move. Others, like local real estate investor Josh Streeter, are worried about getting the best price for their properties.”
“Streeter had planned on selling two rental homes he owns in St. Petersburg. Now he’s holding off. The homes are located in the floodplain but did not sustain damage. Still, ‘If somebody hears they have to pay flood insurance right now … I don‘t know what that will do to the value,’ Streeter said. ‘I think these storms are going to be on people’s minds for a long time.’ Listings for storm-damaged homes being sold ‘as is’ or ‘for land value’ are already popping up locally. Some may even sell at a loss. Take, 1843 Oregon Ave. in St. Petersburg’s Shore Acres neighborhood. The owner paid $511,000 in 2022. They previously listed it for sale in September, before the hurricanes, with an asking price of $535,000. That listing was removed. Now, it’s been back on the market for about two weeks with an asking price of $385,000. Streeter said he’s starting to hear about off-market short sales for the first time since the 2008 housing market crash.”
“Working out a cash deal with an investor may be a good option for some homeowners who are looking to get out quick. But Beggins said the market is flooded with bad actors making low-ball offers. ‘Some people are just so damn scared, they’ll take anything,’ said Craig Beggins, CEO of Century 21 Beggins Enterprises. ‘We don’t want our customers falling prey to that.'”
The Telegram & Gazette. “A contingent of Central Massachusetts homeowners have been living what they described as a ‘nightmare’ for the last seven years, when the first among them discovered their foundations had been poured with tainted concrete and now are crumbling to dust, their homes in danger of collapse. As they discussed the issue, several of them shouted out what they had paid to mitigate the problem. One said $280,000, another $250,000, a third $162,000. And it’s all out of pocket as homeowners insurance does not routinely cover foundations.”
“‘There is no way to recover the cost,’ said Michelle Loglisci of Monson, adding that because of the extent of the structural damage and the possibility of imminent collapse of the home, banks will not issue a loan to cover the costs as the building loses all value. ‘It’s daunting. We can’t change jobs, can’t downsize, can’t sell the home,’ Loglisci said. ‘This is not just a Western Massachusetts or Central Massachusetts issue,’ said Loglisci, noting that homeowners in Dracut and Bedford have found their foundations are crumbling as well. ‘This is a massive loss to the community,’ Loglisci said.”
“Karen Riani, a Holden resident, said she and her husband discovered the damage when they took down a wall in their basement. The homeowners called in basement repair specialists for the 19-year-old foundation. One offered a $30,000 ‘fix’ with no guarantees, another said it was a ‘bad pour’ and a third suggested they call a structural engineer. The walls were bowing in Riani’s home. The couple paid $280,000 for repairs, which came to 80% of what they had paid for the house in 2013. They spent down their savings, took funds from their 401(k) accounts and even dipped into retirement savings. ‘It was a crisis,’ Riani said, adding that the longer the delay in mitigating the problem, the worse the damage becomes. As if loss of the equity was not anxiety-provoking enough, homeowners live in fear of imminent collapse of their homes.”
The Daily Mail. “A California family has filed a lawsuit claiming a real estate developer botched the construction of their dream home, forcing them to live in rental properties because they do not feel safe inside. Jill and Matt Spaulding purchased their $1.6 million four-bedroom, three-bath dream home at 3250 Lama Ave in Long Beach in the spring of 2022. But after closing on escrow – a decision they said they were pressured into – the couple discovered horrific defects in the property. ‘This story is so much worse than a bad flip or a contractor cutting corners. It is a story of our family being exposed to many toxic health hazards that we may be dealing with for years to come,’ Jill told The Orange County Register.”
“The parents no longer felt comfortable letting their children – now ages 5, 3, and 7 months – live in the house, so they bounced around between hotels and Airbnbs until settling into a rental property in Los Alamitos in May 2023. ‘The amount of hardship that this flipper and his businesses have created for our family cannot be put into words. The effect this has had on us physically, financially and emotionally is indescribable,’ said Jill. The Southern California News Group reported there are no records of building permits issued to RS Real Estate Plus for renovations at the Spaulding’s home.”
The Union Tribune in California. “A couple of years ago, life science companies were fighting for office leases and developers couldn’t meet the demand fast enough. But now, that hunger for square footage has diminished, and the region’s available office and lab buildings have swelled to an all-time high. It’s a stark contrast to the beginning of 2022, when San Diego’s life science vacancy rate hit an all time low of 1%, or 188,000 square feet. The scarcity of available space in San Diego’s life science core had businesses fighting for leases and paying top dollar.”
“‘San Diego went through an unprecedented amount of construction as it related to life sciences,’ said Taylor DeBerry, senior associate of JLL’s life science group. ‘So really, what happened is we just oversubscribed on space and landlords just started building like crazy.’ DeBerry said the current situation can be traced back to that period of overexuberance. A big part of this construction boom stems from record levels of venture capital financing in 2021 that led to unprecedented growth for life science companies. During the third quarter of this year, San Diego recorded about 3.8 million square feet of life science space under development. In the third quarter of 2019, there was just under 700,000 square feet in development.”
Bisnow on California. “The 289-key Radisson Oakland Airport hotel’s valuation plummeted in October, with its value falling from $75M in January 2018 to $15M. It is the latest Bay Area hotel to exhibit signs of financial distress in an economic landscape dramatically changed by the pandemic. The new appraisal represents a 70% decline in value and covers only about half of the $28.2M CMBS loan’s current exposure, Morningstar wrote in a report. The property’s diminished value moves the loan collateralized by it one step closer to foreclosure, Morningstar Credit Analytics’ Senior Vice President David Putro said in an email. It was used as a temporary shelter for homeless residents during the worst of the pandemic but resumed normal operations by August 2023. Since the property’s value is so low, Putro said the borrower probably has little incentive to remain involved with the property ‘as any workout would require a capital injection. In the short-term, I assume the hotel will function normally,’ Putro said. ‘The servicer has likely (or is likely in the process of) putting a receiver in place, so they’d operate the hotel and make sure bills are being paid, etc.'”
Business in Vancouver in Canada. “As a tight provincial election reveals a deeply divided electorate, the pace of new home construction is stagnant, pointing to significant challenges, and choices, ahead for the next B.C. government. ‘When projects get cancelled and less homes are being built, the price is going to be sticky and won’t go down,’ said Rick Ilich, CEO of Townline Homes Inc. Another factor in B.C.’s housing starts is the Real Estate Development Marketing Act, which gives developers a limited window in which to secure pre-sales. Ilich said the audience for pre-sales has shrunk due to legislation targeting Airbnb operators and non-resident owners.”
“‘As a rule of thumb, if I have a $100 million loan on a project, the bank is going to want to see close to $100 million of pre-sales in place [in order to unlock unconditional financing], which will often equate to 65 per cent of the number of homes,’ he said. ‘The likelihood of that happening under current marketing conditions over the last couple of years is zero. Consumers are worried about value, and there’s no question that jobs and incomes have not kept up with the rapid cost of construction. The mood’s off. Pre-sale campaigns are very slow. The amount of people coming through pre-sale centres is shockingly low, and so all of that equates to the industry slowing down construction, not starting more projects.'”
The Vancouver Sun. “American interest in Canadian real estate increased this summer as the U.S. presidential election campaign kicked off, according to a new report from Royal LePage. The real estate company said after months of regular traffic U.S. visitors to its Canadian real estate site surged 104 per cent in the week of June 16 to 22 compared with the previous week before the first presidential debate between U.S. President Joe Biden and then-presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump. Traffic further increased the following week on the heels of the debate, hosted by CNN on June 27, that ended with calls for Biden to step down after a disastrous performance, with an additional four per cent jump.”
“‘The polarization that has occurred in American life around elections in particular has caused more people to feel distressed and search for some kind of therapeutic outlet,’ said Phil Soper, president of Royal LePage. ‘Call it a bit of online therapy. Look at a house in Vancouver and say, ‘Oh God, I could live in Vancouver and get away from it all’. Clearly the increase in volume is coming from Democrats who view Canada as a great big blue state.’ Despite the recent spike, Soper is skeptical the numbers translate to actual immigrants. ‘There’s a huge difference between aspiration and action,’ said Soper, adding he doubts many visitors have even looked into immigration requirements set out by Ottawa let alone take steps to apply. ‘Americans make up a relatively small percentage of Canadian immigrants,’ he said. ‘And elections in the past haven’t led to a material increase in that regard.'”
Domain News in Australia. “House prices in several Victorian tree-change and sea-change towns have dropped over the past year due to home buyers’ increased borrowing costs and gradual return to CBD offices. The local government area that recorded the steepest decline was the Yarriambiack Shire, in northwestern Victoria, down 22.9 per cent in 12 months, to a median of $185,000. It was followed by the LGA of Corangamite, down 11.9 per cent to $415,000. House prices in Mansfield (down 10.9 per cent), Strathbogie (down 9 per cent), Bass Coast (down 8 per cent), Hepburn (down 6 per cent) and the Surf Coast (down 4.6 per cent) also fell.”
“Michael DeVincentis, director at BigginScott in Daylesford, said he is experiencing an oversupply of listings in the Hepburn region. He said many sellers are expecting to sell at pandemic prices, but this is deterring buyers. ‘It’s no good having a high price if no one’s going to pay it… That’s starting to adjust as buyers aren’t willing to meet those expectations,’ he said. ‘Some people locally have had their mortgage repayments go up by 50 per cent making it difficult to cope because the rents haven’t gone up that much. [People are] finding that their holiday accommodation is not getting booked as much as well,’ he said.”
“KPMG regional economist Terry Rawnsley said the decline in regional prices are reflective of a ‘cooling-off period post-COVID.’ ‘You have a big influx of people, remote workers, coming into these places during that COVID period. But after a period of time, some people might want to return to Melbourne and there’s no new big city buyers coming in to sort of keep the prices up,’ Rawnsley said. Rawnsley said many who purchased ‘weekender’ homes in coastal areas when interest rates were low are now re-evaluating their investments. ‘With interest rates increasing over the last few years, people might have been having to sell properties into the market. So there’s probably a bit more of a lack of demand for higher-end properties in those locations.'”
From Bloomberg. “China Vanke Co. suffered another loss in the third quarter, underscoring the property developer’s challenges even after the government rolled out stimulus measures to support the sector. The Shenzhen-based company reported a net loss of 8.1 billion yuan ($1.1 billion), bringing its combined losses for the first nine months of the year to 17.9 billion yuan, according to a statement to the Hong Kong exchange on Wednesday. State-backed Vanke’s debt troubles show how even the highest quality developers have been ensnared by the unprecedented slowdown, now in its fourth year.”
“‘Vanke’s solvency in 2025 and 2026 could be increasingly at risk of an unrelenting sales slide,’ Bloomberg Intelligence analysts Kristy Hung and Monica Si wrote in a note on Thursday. ‘The developer’s contracted sales could be poised for an extended slump as its intensifying cash crunch sabotages its project pipeline. Vanke’s cash burn rate is a fire alarm for policy rescue,’ Hung and Si said in the note.”
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Some of the blame should be assigned to condo boards who haven’t been doing proper maintenance, she said, and now unit owners have to pay the bills. ‘I have sat with elderly people. … And they’ve cried and said, ‘Beth, I cannot afford my blood pressure medicine, I’m cutting my pills in half, how am I going to pay for this?’”
Just lower that salt intake and pay up
Fasting is a great way to lower bp, while also joining the winnahs’ circle.
Keto/carnivore diet is supposed to lower blood pressure, if high blood pressure is caused by inflammation.
As for condo boards not doing maintenance, are they forgetting that the condo boards weren’t collecting HOA fees to do the maintenance either. Residents would have had to pay up either way.
Deferred maintenance has been the way of condos for decades. They shoulder FULL blame for the crisis THEY created.
But see, these people were hoping to sell out/leave before the bill came due. That’s what they are complaining about. Not that the bill is due, but that they got caught holding the bag and have to pay it.
In the 55+ units you’re absolutely right.
“Keto/carnivore diet is supposed to lower blood pressure, if high blood pressure is caused by inflammation.”
BP medication is among the cheapest out there. It should not be avoided as high BP can lead to serious renal issues.
‘It’s a stark contrast to the beginning of 2022, when San Diego’s life science vacancy rate hit an all time low of 1%, or 188,000 square feet. The scarcity of available space in San Diego’s life science core had businesses fighting for leases and paying top dollar…‘San Diego went through an unprecedented amount of construction as it related to life sciences…So really, what happened is we just oversubscribed on space and landlords just started building like crazy’
Gosh Taylor, I hope no one overpaid in such an environment!
“During the third quarter of this year, San Diego recorded about 3.8 million square feet of life science space under development. In the third quarter of 2019, there was just under 700,000 square feet in development.”
Free office space for everyone!
[I mentioned this a few months ago]
Look out for Boston area – anything a few miles from MIT. There were a ton of spec – turn-key operations that already had genome sequencers and other equipment (and would lease out part of the labs and officespace). Someone on this forum asked why turn-key – it is because they got venture $s, hired PhDs and wanted to get started right away and the setup for everything could take up to 1 year or 1.5 years.
Aside. Funny story. The Hyatt Regency near MIT started converting a minor number (guessing 20%, but could be wrong) of their rooms to temporary housing with full maid and meal service for some of these bio-tech folks (albeit at the same room rate as nightly – but for the full term of the lease – 2 or 3 months). Apparently, bio-tech procurement did nor read the agreements well. There was an automatic grautity (dont know the rate) which also include ordering drinks from at the bar and charging to the room. The staff was super happy. Expense managers were not happy.
‘The developer’s contracted sales could be poised for an extended slump as its intensifying cash crunch sabotages its project pipeline. Vanke’s cash burn rate is a fire alarm for policy rescue’
‘Burn rate’ for airbox builders bloomberg? Wa happened to my last minute payment?
‘Since the property’s value is so low, Putro said the borrower probably has little incentive to remain involved with the property ‘as any workout would require a capital injection. In the short-term, I assume the hotel will function normally,’ Putro said. ‘The servicer has likely (or is likely in the process of) putting a receiver in place, so they’d operate the hotel and make sure bills are being paid, etc’
Not only does the loanowner say take back the property, they won’t even pay to keep the lights on while it’s foreclosed. Classic good money after bad response.
At auction the property sold for $5 million, less than half of what they had originally asked and little more than they paid for it two decades ago.
True price discovery is asserting itself, and the wipeout of fake wealth created by fake money is going to be epic. Got popcorn?
‘little more than they paid for it two decades ago’
All Time High Larry.
Realtors are liars.
And every closing is a crime scene.
“Get up in their face,” Senator Maxine Waters screeched to the DNC’s unhinged Red Guards. Now the globalists & DNC are losing control of the rabid leftists they sought to weaponize against Trump supporters, and it’s glorious to see them disrupting Comrade Kamala’s campaign events with their pro-Palestinian rage.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14022969/Kamala-Harris-swing-state-speeches-derailed-hecklers-Im-speaking.html
Our “blind in the left eye” DoJ and FBI will never investigate systemic Democrat election fraud, but rare journalists with integrity will still call out the neo-Bolshevik apparatchiks engaged in such activity.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/10/brutal-colorado-news-anchor-shreds-jena-griswold-live/
“A contingent of Central Massachusetts homeowners have been living what they described as a ‘nightmare’ for the last seven years, when the first among them discovered their foundations had been poured with tainted concrete and now are crumbling to dust, their homes in danger of collapse.”
[Tainted concrete? What is tainted concrete?]
“25 Investigates: Tainted concrete aggregate may have been distributed by at least one Mass. quarry.”
https://www.boston25news.com/news/local/25-investigates-tainted-concrete-aggregate-may-have-been-distributed-by-least-one-mass-quarry/4BS666G57BGWJGRNBMPFSBC6QM/
[snip]
The primary source for that tainted material is believed to be a quarry in Willington, Connecticut. But as more Massachusetts homes – including a couple as far east as Holden and Grafton – test positive for pyrrhotite, experts are now looking into the possibility that Massachusetts may have at least one pyrrhotite tainted quarry of its own, 25 Investigates has learned.
A pyrrhotite-tainted foundation not only destroys a home’s value but can ruin the homeowner’s finances. Now, thousands of homeowners face a difficult and costly decision – what to do about their compromised foundation?
Few know the devastation of learning your home is ruined by pyrrhotite like Mike Milanese. The basement of his Wales, MA home is cracking and crumbling.
“These walls are bowing, they’re bowing in. So I put these up as a kind of a band-aid to prolong the agony,” he told investigative reporter Ted Daniel pointing to the wood logs he placed across his basement to prop up the walls.
The retired union carpenter says his foundation was poured in the early 90s with concrete aggregate from a Willington, CT quarry. The quarry sits on a large vein of pyrrhotite that runs along the northeast into Canada. Rock from that quarry was also trucked across state lines into Massachusetts.
Pyrrhotite is a mineral that ended up in certain batches of concrete poured into foundations of homes. It is considered a geohazard in concrete because over time – typically 15 to 20 years – pyrrhotite begins to expand and break apart in the presence of water and air.
So far, it has been detected in nearly 2,000 homes in Central Massachusetts towns along the Connecticut border. Recently, homes containing pyrrhotite were discovered in Holden and Grafton.
“Nothing appeared for 20 years. To the day, 20 years later, we noticed all these little cracks in the wall,” Milanese recalls. “It basically blows up and falls apart, and that’s what’s happening.”
Former Employees Say Concrete Company’s Practices Contributed to Crumbling Foundations.
https://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/local/former-employees-say-concrete-companys-practices-contributed-to-crumbling-foundations/106295/
Published August 12, 2016 • Updated on December 12, 2016 at 10:04 pm
John Soucy drove a concrete truck for the Joseph J. Mottes Company of Stafford for nearly a decade.
He is one of several former employees from the 1970s, 80s and 90s who said the company’s regular practices had a direct impact on the quality of the concrete used for residential foundations.
“They didn’t want to throw anything away, so if a mixer came back with a yard or two of concrete on it, they would just load on top of it,” said Soucy
Frank Willis drove a mixer for Mottes for 8 years.
He said he’d often make seven deliveries or more in a day, and that the company added water all day long to keep the older concrete from hardening in the truck.
“If you got three yards on and they put seven yards on top of you, do a foundation or whatever, that concrete is junk, just junk. Mottes was making 100 percent profit off of leftover concrete, so they wouldn’t have you get rid of it,” said Willis.
Willis went on to work for at least two other Connecticut concrete operations.
“Most companies tell you throw it away. Mottes, they’d just keep adding to it all day long,” said Willis.
We spoke with two other longtime J.J. Mottes employees who chose not to appear on camera. They echoed the same details about the company’s daily operation.
Over the past year, hundreds of homeowners across Hartford, Tolland and Windham Counties have discovered they have crumbling foundations. Every one who’s either spoken to NBC Connecticut Troubleshooters or has filed a complaint with the state, that knows the source of the concrete, said it’s from J.J. Mottes.
Since the NBC Connecticut Troubleshooters brought the problem to light last summer, Mottes officials have repeatedly placed the blame on the foundation installers for adding too much water to make the concrete easier to work with. We reached out to company spokesman John Patton again this week and he sent this statement:
“In the 15 years since we took over the management of the Joseph J. Mottes company, we have adhered to rigorous standards set forth by the American Concrete Institute and the State of Connecticut. We continue to cooperate with the ongoing state investigation so that homeowners can get the answers and real solutions they deserve. One thing that is clear to us is the extensive media and governmental scrutiny has led to another issue arising – in addition to homes affected by damage, there are now large numbers of homeowners and potential home buyers who do not have problems but are being told they will.”
Preliminary results from the state’s investigation show an iron sulfide mineral called pyrrhotite is present in each of the crumbling foundations. Pyrrhotite oxidizes or rusts when exposed to air and water which causes the foundation to deteriorate.
Contractors said the problem cannot be fixed, forcing homeowners to replace the entire foundation at a cost of 100 thousand dollars and up. Insurers have denied most of the claims.
Colin Lobo, Vice-President of the National Redi-Mix Concrete Association, said traditional tests will not detect pyrrhotite in the stone aggregate, but the presence of the mineral isn’t catastrophic in and of itself.
“Water is the problem that causes or deteriorates the quality of the concrete,” said Lobo. “The weaker you make the concrete, the more water, the more access the mineral has to oxygen and water.”
These days, John Soucy works as an installer, and is now replacing foundations he poured himself years ago. We asked him why as a Mottes driver, he continued to use the old concrete, if he knew it was wrong.
“I never agreed with it, but had I said anything at that point, I wouldn’t have had a job,” he said.
All the former company employees we interviewed agree on one more thing, in light of their experience working for Mottes, they believe many more foundations will fail.
“How many homes do you think in this part of Connecticut will be impacted by the crumbling foundation problem? I’d be afraid to guess. You think it’s hundreds? Thousands. Thousands? Thousands.”
The Attorney General’s office responded to our investigation saying that the state vetted extensive testimony about the use of excess water and that even if they could prove that excess water was added, there’s no way to determine who added it, and at which point in the process.
The Joseph J. Mottes Company has agreed to temporarily stop using stone aggregate from Becker’s Quarry in Willington for residential foundations, while the state investigates. To date, 301 homeowners have filed complaints with Department Consumer Protection, but we should get a better idea of the scope of the problem when the State Insurance Department releases data collected from the insurance companies about how many crumbling foundation claims have been filed.
“The Attorney General’s office responded to our investigation saying that the state vetted extensive testimony about the use of excess water and that even if they could prove that excess water was added, there’s no way to determine who added it, and at which point in the process.”
This tawdry piece reads like a game of musical chairs.
Was Biden’s outburst about “garbage” Trump supporters late-stage dementia in action, or a calculated FU to the Kamala campaign to repay his DEI hire VP for her treachery in overthrowing him in the DNC’s palace coup?
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/donald-trump-wears-garbage-vest-critical-swing-state-rally
The auction ended in minutes and closed at $15 million, far less than the Sterns had expected. ‘I think I vomited and blacked out,’ Michelle said.
Must.not.laugh.
Yer stomach acid can do a lot of damage to yer teeth Michele.
I’ll have a blue Christmas without you
I’ll be so blue just thinking about you
Decorations of red on a green Christmas tree
Won’t be the same dear, if you’re not here with me
And when those blue snowflakes start falling
That’s when those blue memories start calling
You’ll be doing all right
With your Christmas of white
But I’ll have a blue, blue, blue, blue Christmas
You’ll be doing alright
With your christmas of white
But I’ll have a blue, blue, blue, blue Christmas
You’ll be doing all right
With your Christmas of white
But I’ll have a blue, blue, blue, blue Christmas
I’ve got a lot of overflow crater I’m going to start posting in the comments:
Google’s Parent Company Shells Out $607M To Cut Office Space
Alphabet, the parent company of Google, is forking over hundreds of millions of dollars to reduce its office space across the globe, part of the company’s ongoing effort to drastically scale back its real estate footprint.
Through the end of the third quarter, the tech giant paid $607M in impairment charges to shed office properties it no longer needs and reallocate its capital to other top priorities like artificial intelligence, CoStar News reported. The company leases or owns roughly 50M SF of office and flexible space around the world, according to CoStar data.
Last year, Alphabet paid $1.8B to get out of leases globally, incurring $269M in accelerated rent and depreciation.
The continued reduction in office space is a reversal for the company from its prepandemic days when it scooped up real estate around its Mountain View, California, headquarters and elsewhere in the state and the country. The company employed roughly 181,270 people by the end of September, down from the more than 190,230-person workforce it had the year prior, according to CoStar.
https://www.bisnow.com/national/news/office/googles-parent-company-shells-out-607m-to-cut-office-space-126557
I’ve got a lot of overflow crater I’m going to start posting in the comments:
Talk dirty to us, Ben.
+1 Make It Hurt
‘For lower-income seniors, it really is impossible for them to pay these assessments,’ said panelist Charlotte Mather-Taylor, the CEO of the Area Agency on Aging of Broward County.
Cry me me a river. Boomers – the most feckless generation in human history – have left massive messes for younger generations to clean up due to their selfishness and presiding over our 50-year decline into a corrupt banana republic. So now “deferred maintenance” is coming back to bite them – I am Jack’s utter indifference to their plight.
Just exactly what messes generated by those evil and greedy boomers have younger generations cleaned up (or even attempted to clean up) so far?
cleaned up
Sorry, they’re not interested. It would require thinking about what caused a problem, too much effort. Assigning blame and then hate on a group of others is so much easier.
What do you suggest the younger generations should do to clean up the messes left by the older generations?
A lot of these buildings will have to be demolished and started over. The ones that can be fixed will have huge assessments followed by higher dues. The younger generations can pay those higher dues and not complain about them.
Crying broke is what got them into the situation in the first place. A properly run COA doesn’t have these issues…and there are a lot of them.
They should have been paying, maybe 200 or 250 more each month for the last 25-30 years
Maybe 60,000 to 90,000 and taken care of maintenance instead of living beyond their means.
Are mortgage rates winding down, following the Fed’s supersized rate cut?
KMarkets
Neuberger Warns of ‘Sustained’ Move Higher in Treasury Yields
– Fed may pause its interest rate reductions, Bhatia says
– Yield on US five-year may climb to 4.50% over three months
Stocks Need to ‘Wake Up’ to Bond Yield Moves: Morgan Stanley’s Shalett
By Anchalee Worrachate
October 29, 2024 at 8:38 AM PDT
Neuberger Berman warned against buying US Treasury bonds on dips, saying the recent selloff could be the beginning of a “surprisingly sustained” move higher in yields.
The risk of the Federal Reserve pausing its interest rate reductions, heightened volatility and resilient US growth as well as sticky inflation could push yields on five-year Treasury notes up to about 4.50% over the next three months, said Ashok Bhatia, the firm’s co-chief investment officer for fixed income. They’re yielding about 4.13% now.
…
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-10-29/neuberger-warns-of-sustained-move-higher-in-treasury-yields?
Fidelity SPAXX show me the money.
Bloomberg
Markets
‘Magnificent Seven’ Crushed at End of Strong Month: Markets Wrap
– Stocks fall as Microsoft, Meta hit on disappointing outlooks
– Key US inflation gauge and spending pick up in solid economy
Goldman Sachs Says Share Buybacks to ‘Peak’ in 2024
Bloomberg
By Rita Nazareth
October 30, 2024 at 3:37 PM PDT
Updated on October 31, 2024 at 6:37 AM PDT
Stocks fell on the last day of a solid month, with Microsoft Corp. and Meta Platforms Inc. weighing heavily on Wall Street trading after disappointing outlooks.
Equity investors grappling with a raft of corporate results, sent the S&P 500 down by almost 1%. It was still on pace for its longest monthly winning streak since 2021. Treasuries headed toward their biggest monthly selloff in about two years as traders trimmed bets on aggressive rate cuts by the Federal Reserve with the economy showing signs of strength.
…
Real Estate
Mortgage demand stalls as interest rates surge higher ahead of election
Published Wed, Oct 30 2024 7:00 AM EDT
Updated Wed, Oct 30 2024 7:45 AM EDT
Diana Olick
Key Points
– Applications to refinance a home loan dropped 6% for the week.
– Applications for a mortgage to purchase a home increased 5% for the week.
– The average rate on the 30-year fixed mortgage rose to the highest level since July.
…
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/10/30/mortgage-demand-stalls-as-interest-rates-surge-higher-ahead-of-election.html
S&P 500 tumbles for a second day, dragged lower by Microsoft and Meta: Live updates
Hakyung Kim
Brian Evans
Traders react after the closing bell on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, U.S., March 20, 2024. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
Stocks slid on Thursday as Wall Street digested weaker-than-expected earnings reports from megacap technology names and awaited further results.
The S&P 500 tumbled 0.7%, while the Nasdaq Composite lost 1.2%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slid 183 points, or about 0.4%.
Microsoft shares slid 5% after the tech giant’s revenue guidance disappointed investors and overshadowed a quarterly earnings beat. Meta Platforms dropped more than 1% after the Facebook parent after missing the Street’s expectations for user growth and warning that capital expenditures will significantly rise in 2025. To be sure, Meta managed to beat on both top- and bottom-lines in the third quarter.
…
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/10/30/stock-market-today-live-updates.html
The Fed’s Ponzi markets are down bigly this morning. It would be a darn shame if the long-deferred financial reckoning day showed up on Kamala’s watch.
I suspect that means Mr. Market is admitting that their darling, Cameltoe, is going to lose.
Dropped-off my ballot today; 100% garbage!
Plan to convert downtown Sacramento office buildings into housing stalls as developer backs out
Last year, Gov. Gavin Newsom and Sacramento city leaders announced a plan to convert multiple office buildings along the Capitol Mall downtown into housing. However, on Wednesday, the California Department of General Services told KCRA 3 that the developer backed out of the project, leaving the plan in question.
The buildings included the Employment Development Department headquarters at 800 Capitol Mall, the EDD Solar Building at 751 North St. and the State Personnel Board Building at 801 Capitol Mall. The project’s announcement was welcomed by downtown businesses, which have seen fewer visitors since the pandemic.
Mayor Darrell Steinberg had said 1,000 new units were expected from the project. Assemblymember Kevin McCarty also said at least 20% of the housing would be set aside as affordable.
The project had named McCormack Baron Salazar as the developer last year.
But in August, the developer informed the state that it could not proceed with the project.
According to the DGS, McCormack Baron Salazar began predevelopment work and expressed concern for the viability of their proposed adaptive reuse concept. It indicated it wanted to secure predevelopment funding to prove that it was feasible before it proceeded with the project.
However, the DGS said there was no state funding available. The DGS, the California Department of Housing and Community Development and the developer worked to try to find alternative sources of funding, but none emerged, ultimately leading to the project stalling.
The DGS said there was no agreement or contract in place.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/realestate/plan-to-convert-downtown-sacramento-office-buildings-into-housing-stalls-as-developer-backs-out/ar-AA1teqVT
Scams like this only work as long as there is endless gooberment money to fund it. Clownifornia is broke as a joke, and all the stake holders know it, hence why they are all quietly backing out.
“The couple paid $280,000 for repairs, which came to 80% of what they had paid for the house in 2013.”
10+ years is long enough to build up some equity. Would it have been feasible for them to simply tear the house down and rebuild with a smaller cheaper pre-fab? Or perhaps sell the property for the land value and start over somewhere else? Paying $280K just to return to status quo seems like the worst of the options.
10+ years is long enough to build up some equity.
Which probably got “liberated”. I’ll bet the missus had some surgery and now has an awesome rack. Maybe a boat in the driveway and a pair of luxury vehicles too.
UP lumber mills go to bank auction months after sale to private equity firm
After a failed effort to keep a long-time lumber operation in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula running by selling it to a Florida-based private equity firm, the fate of the company’s six properties could be determined this week at a bank auction.
The move comes about three months after Besse Forest Products Group of Gladstone shut the company’s two Michigan mills, closed four more in eastern Wisconsin, laid off over 100 workers and ended Besse’s 58 years as one of the larger timber buyers in the UP.
Besse does “not generate sufficient cash flow to pay … operating expenses,” according to the breach of contract lawsuit filed in September by Fifth Third Bank in the US District Court for the Western District of Michigan.
The bank seeks to recoup $15.8 million in unpaid loans.
The situation facing Besse spotlights increasing concerns about Michigan’s $26 billion forest products industry as it struggles amid a downturn in hardwoods sales, a dip that also affects demand for state-owned timber.
Nationwide lumber prices peaked in 2021, before plummeting 66% by summer 2024.
“Over the last year and a half, a lot of hardwood has fallen in demand,” said Justin Knepper, executive director of Michigan Association of Timbermen.
Across the US, hardwood lumber production in 2023 dropped to its lowest levels since 1950, according to the National Hardwood Lumber Association, and it remains at historically low levels.
The global housing slowdown affects the lumber market, with lower supplies needed for wood cabinets and flooring. Exports also have slowed, including to China, one of the leading destinations for US hardwood.
Even the style of home products plays a role, like the popularity of composite furniture and vinyl plank flooring, Knepper said.
“All those things are crashing down on companies like Besse,” Knepper told Bridge. “We’ve seen a tremendous amount of that across the United States in the last two years.”
https://www.bridgemi.com/business-watch/lumber-mills-go-bank-auction-months-after-sale-private-equity-firm
Lender Takes Control of Hell’s Kitchen Luxury Condos as Developer Goes Bankrupt
An affiliate of real estate company BH3 Management has acquired 51 condominium units at luxury development Bloom on Forty Fifth for $50 million from Xin Development Group, the US division of Chinese developer Xinyuan Real Estate, Commercial Observer first reported.
The developer completed the 92-unit building at W45th Street and 10th Avenue in 2020, but was unable to sell a majority of units due to the unfavorable market conditions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
It stands on the site of the old Hess/Speedway gas station, once the busiest gas station in America — and is best-known in the neighborhood as the home of a 29,000 sq ft Target store, alongside Bond Vet, Diamond Braces and The Dermatology Specialists.
Xin Development filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Protection in early 2024, after BH3 Management acquired $79.7 million in loans on the property last April and began pursuing foreclosure.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/realestate/lender-takes-control-of-hell-s-kitchen-luxury-condos-as-developer-goes-bankrupt/ar-AA1t81Ii
Hell’s Kitchen Luxury Condos
I never imagined seeing those words strung together.
But Beggins said the market is flooded with bad actors making low-ball offers.
Hey greedheads, those lowball offers from “bad actors” are as good as it gets as Housing Bubble 2.0 implodes. Have fun chasing the market down as you wait for the mythical Spring Miracle Revival.
What do these “bad actors” do? Threaten you with violence if you don’t accept their offer?
These bad actors are killing the vibes.
As creepy as Joe Biden is, the Democrat-Bolshevik True Believers who present him with their children are even creepier.
https://x.com/liz_churchill10/status/1851787583422108071
Homelessness / Vagrant issues are typically associated with large urban areas like LA, San Francisco, Seattle, NY, Chicago, etc. However, it appears to be a problem everywhere. Here in Pensacola FL, known as the “World’s Whitest Beaches”, there are many areas you just don’t go unless you have to. The story below relates to the area where I grew up in the 60’s and 70’s and was just another lower-income working-class neighborhood. It makes me sad driving through that area now. As kids, we used to play in a large patch of woods that is now a big homeless encampment.
https://weartv.com/news/local/escambia-county-property-manager-says-homeless-people-are-becoming-safety-concern#
I strongly suspect that the nationwide number of homeless people is vastly underreported and the problem is far worse than we are being told. Anyone remember the videos of the huge Hooverville in Anaheim and Santa Ana, along a massive drainage channel? That was years ago. Those people were evicted, but they didn’t stop being homeless, and I’ll bet their numbers have surged since them
My little burg is quietly adding shelters and other homeless outreach programs. One scenario involves a private group purchasing a church property from a nearly dead “Disciples of Christ” (First Christian Church) congregation and converting it into a homeless center. The nearby neighborhood is vehemently opposing it, as they fully understand what will happen should the change go through.
Are any of these homeless employable and recoverable? For example, can they be moved to are an area where there are apparently jobs and housing galore? Like Springfield, OH? What about people living in RVs and cars? Those are the ones we should be spending money on.
The addicts, well, I don’t know what to do with them.
We all know
NO one is allowed to even say
You can die detoxing from alcohol or barbituates.
You won’t die detoxing from fentanyl or meth, but it will be painful, and best served writhing on the floor of a jail cell.
See also: the drug corner by my neighborhood grocery store.
https://ibb.co/nmWB3db
I think we are importing illegals instead of rehabilitating and help our fellow countrymen.
The globalist imports who ruined their own countries are wasting no time bringing their jihadi ways to their new host countries.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14023061/Chicago-Jewish-man-shot-migrant-Abdallahi-hate-crime.html
“As long as the offer is decent, as long as it’s fair, I’m going to take it even if it’s not exactly what I wanted before.’”
In my best Clint Eastwood voice, “fair has got nothing to do with it.”
The notion of possibly leaving some money on the table kills most sellers.
During the previous crash a relative’s house wasn’t selling and he was getting worried. He had room to lower the price. I told him that if he didn’t undercut the neighbors who were also selling that he would end up chasing the market down. He grudgingly lowered the price, against his UHS advice, and lo and behold, his house quickly sold.
He later thanked me, telling me that had he hung on he would have lost his shirt as his neighborhood cratered.
The prior crash got me a condo previously selling for $150,000 for just $18,000. Didn’t need anything but paint and floors. I sold the place for $50,000. Do you know just 6 months later they were up over $100K again? Do you think I have any regrets about selling?
“Nobody ever lost money taking a profit.” —Bernard Baruch
Another thing sellers don’t get is that if you have to wait to see evidence that the market has dropped then you’re already too late for that price drop. You have to be 5 to 10 percent below recent comps. My mother did that in the last crash with her house. I’d beg her to get ahead of the market but she would just wait and see and then price accordingly. Even her realtor at the time was saying the same thing. Some just won’t listen.
“But Beggins said the market is flooded with bad actors making low-ball offers.” – I’m not a bad actor, but I have been know to make a few low-ball offers. I’ve had a realtor ask me, “how would you feel if you were the seller and received that low of an offer”? Me: “But, I’m not the seller”.
Exactly! Feelings have got nothing to do with it. It ain’t personal, it’s business. Once you get emotions involved in any financial transaction you’re done.
“…I’ve had a realtor ask me, “how would you feel if you were the seller and received that low of an offer”? …”
WOK sensibilities have now invaded the REIConplex.
So we are all supposed to overbid millions of dollars because we are afraid of hurting some greed heads feelings? What about the poor, neglected property tax collector who won’t collect all the taxes needed to fund those underfunded government pensions so all those government workers can retire with 6-figure pensions?
Cry me a river.
[Note: This post has absolutely nothing to do with housing.]
Just like that: World Bank bureaucrats lost track of $24 to $41 billion “fighting climate change”
https://www.joannenova.com.au/
The World Bank is the largest climate funding multinational blob on Earth, and the world is about to end, the oceans are about to boil, but no one at the World Bank can explain where billions of dollars worth of the Earth saving funds have ended up. It’s almost as if no one there gives a toss about the climate. Indeed, if the World Bank was a giant parasitic squid feeding off the taxpayers of the West, it might look just like this.
A new Oxfam report shows that over six years, $24,000 million dollars (at least) has probably gone missing off the balance sheets, but it could be as much as $41 billion. Essentially, the World Bank budgeted to spend a lot of money, but no one bothered to track whether that money was spent, whether the budget blew out, or whether it never happened and the team went surfing in Costa Rica. Imagine if we could do our taxes this way? Indeed, it’s a bit rich to say the money was “missing off balance sheets” because apparently there weren’t any balance sheets, not for expenditures.
Oxfam can only guess at the missing sums because they investigated other World Bank projects and found the final cost differed from the planned cost by between 26 to 43%. So they used that to come up with a ballpark figure of the size of the missing millions. It’s that bad. We can’t even say how much is missing. One insider told the New York Post, “it could be twice or ten times more”.
The supranational unaccountable entities like the World Bank, the UN, are surely the great attractor of global freeloaders. Like a supermagnet for people who like spending other people’s money:
World Bank bureaucrats lost track of at least $24B in funds fighting climate change: ‘Could be twice or 10 times more’
By James Franey, New York Post
What if it wasn’t bungling — who would know?
Bungling World Bank bureaucrats lost track of at least $24 billion bankrolling the battle against climate change, according to a bombshell report by a left-leaning charity group.
An investigation by Oxfam revealed “poor record-keeping practices” by the DC-based international lender that resulted in anywhere between $24 billion and $41 billion in misplaced funds.
The agency’s audit showed “a lack of traceable spending” over the past seven years — partly because of an oddball accounting practice in which the bank accounts for its climate financing at the time of a project’s approval rather than at the time of project completion,…
In the report: Climate Finance Unchecked Oxfam discovered that it was extremely difficult to get simple answers:
“We had to sift through layers of complex and incomplete reports, and even then, the data was full of gaps and inconsistencies. The fact that this information is so hard to access and understand is alarming —it shouldn’t take a team of professional researchers to figure out how billions of dollars meant for climate action are being spent.
This could all be sorted out in five minutes. All it would take is for our governments to say “No more money for the World Bank until it sorts out reporting”, and next thing you know the World Bank would be filling out tax returns. But the odds of this happening are like an asteroid strike — unless Donald Trump wins the US election (above the margin of cheating). Mere mortal politicians who ask hard questions, not only risk their post-political Blob career with the UN-WEF-World-Bank-IMF-FAO-WHO-IAEA-or-OECD, they might feel the force of a World Bank report telling their citizens how they mismanaged their own economy, and who wants that?
The amounts of money are mind-blowing
The Oxfam writers, bless them, are slightly baffled. With the world in dire straits (as they see it) they can’t figure out why the World Bank is not treating every dollar like a diamond.
…the sums needed are vast and growing: According to the UN’s Adaptation Gap Report 2023, the amount needed for
adaptation finance alone stands at between US$215 billion and US$387 billion a year.
There is so much potential. If the World Bank got what it asked for, and spent 90% in an honest way, there would still be $30 billion dollars left to throw parties. But if no one is tracking any of it, why not think big?
“This is the wild, wild west of finance,” said Mark Joven, Philippines Department of Finance undersecretary, who represents the country at U.N. climate talks. “Essentially, whatever they call climate finance is climate finance.”
“You cannot really follow the money, track the money, track the impact,” said Romain Weikmans, a senior research fellow specializing in climate finance at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs.
–“Rich nations say they’re spending billions to fight climate change. Some money is going to strange places.” Reuters.
Big Government feeds Bigger Government
The Globalist Blob not just The Promised Land for political grifters, on a practical basis, the more they can siphon from the people towards the blob — the more friends they make in the international blob-glitterati, and the better chance they have of being offered the next great blob job offer.
Medium level domestic bureaucrats are surely looking to the land of milk and honey, which is where taxpayer funds escape the event horizon of audits and elections. Only there, can the parasites do whatever they want with other people’s money.
The wine merchants and hookers demand to be paid.
“risk their post-political Blob career with the UN-WEF-World-Bank-IMF-FAO-WHO-IAEA-or-OECD”
Parasites.
A reader sent these in:
Gold pulling a Sept & Oct 2007 redux … 🔽
https://x.com/market_sleuth/status/1851447254931919286
Market update
https://x.com/great_martis/status/1851475480006025350
“To help spur demand and address affordability, we are continuing to use incentives such as mortgage rate buy-downs and we have continued to start and sell more of our smaller floor plans”
– Paul J. Romanowski, CEO of D.R. Horton, said on their earnings call today
https://x.com/NewsLambert/status/1851412187782545719
Crown, defence begin fraud trial of Fortress Real Developments co-founders
https://x.com/BenRabidoux/status/1851248292971053116
This Is Totally Nuts! A $3B Bribe To Vote For Doug & He Uses Our MONEY To Pay For It
But wait there’s MORE!
We get to pay INTEREST on the Bribe forever
Yep, the Bribe is tacked on to the deficit
Galen Weston gets $200
Thompson Family gets many $200s
Doug gets $200
https://x.com/ronmortgageguy/status/1851370583776473188
Same owner willing to take a loss on these houses at asking prices…
2190 SHAFTON PLACE, West Van
Bought 2017: $3,920,000
Asking: $3,788,000
3519 MATHERS AVENUE, West Van
Bought 2016: $4,800,000
Asking: $3,880,000
>$1 million loss at asking prices…
https://x.com/mortimer_1/status/1851428650354425940
Cow poop wars 🤢
https://x.com/ClownWorld_/status/1851408842288218363
OMG!! Democrats have created an economic miracle…I guess I better vote for Kamala 🤡🌎
https://x.com/GeorgeGammon/status/1851600994620084407
So job openings (JOLTS numbers yesterday) are plummeting to lowest levels since 2021 with previous data being revised downward but job creation is skyrocketing?
https://x.com/GeorgeGammon/status/1851603719122530813
We’ve really come full circle on the EV thing.
https://x.com/DonMiami3/status/1851643730773598668
Germany unemployment (at COVID highs) looking a lot like Canada – both ECB & BoC wanting to crank rates lower.
https://x.com/DonMiami3/status/1851636179432579554
Dropbox is letting go 20% of its workforce as the cloud company undergoes what CEO Drew Houston calls a “transitional period.”
https://x.com/MacroEdgeRes/status/1851631698926063680
Super Micro Computer’s Independent Auditor Ernst & Young Resigns Over Governance And Transparency Concerns, Citing Doubts On Board’s Integrity And Reliability Of Financial Statements
https://x.com/MacroEdgeRes/status/1851629436828868943
🤔Super Micro shares plunge 35% as auditor resigns after raising concerns months earlier
https://x.com/dailyjobcuts/status/1851618077701542369
“Keep your eye on one thing and one thing only: how much government is spending. Because that’s the true tax. If you’re not paying for it in the form of explicit taxes, you’re paying for it in the form of inflation or borrowing.” – Milton Friedman
https://x.com/charliebilello/status/1851618950695530516
1. Stocks: all-time high
2. Home Prices: all-time high
3. Gold: all-time high
4. Bitcoin: all-time high
5. National Debt: all-time high
6. Core CPI Inflation: >3% for 41 straight months, longest period of high inflation since early 1990s
7. Fed: cutting rates again next week
https://x.com/charliebilello/status/1851413710692122863
National debt all time high.
credit card debt all time high.
Emergency withdrawals from investments all time high.
Buy now pay later all time high.
Mortgage debt all time high.
https://x.com/randywtwf/status/1851438790142824585
If everything is at ATH, maybe it’s because the dollar’s purchasing power is at All-time low
https://x.com/truflation/status/1851425050362044766
Job openings: 44 month low
Existing home sales: same level at 2008
Mortgage rates: back above 7%
Continued jobless claims: 35 month high
Consumer debt vs savings: largest spread in history.
Biden: “I did that”
https://x.com/brett_eth/status/1851557552116449366
Inflation all time high
Deficit all time high
Unaffordable all time high
Demonization all time high
Crime all time high
Men playing woman sports all time high
DEI all time high
https://x.com/danmahoney49/status/1851454188691341426
US TREASURY: WE PLAN TO CONDUCT WEEKLY LIQUIDITY SUPPORT BUYBACKS OF UP TO $4 BLN PER OPERATION.
https://x.com/financialjuice/status/1851622354239013082
Someone got concerned about the rise in yields.
https://x.com/NorthmanTrader/status/1851627434665202116
Food banks in key swing states are reporting record-level increases in the number of people in need of basic food items as the presidential election looms on the horizon.
https://x.com/MacroEdgeRes/status/1851682105664639415
“We have never seen this level of need in the 43 years we have been serving this community. It is significantly higher than during Covid and has pressed us beyond our capacity,” said Estelle of Feeding America Western Michigan.
“It’s a hunger crisis,” said Joe Arthur, who runs the Central Pennsylvania Food Bank, which has seen a more than 50% increase in demand since 2021. “The need that we’re seeing in our localities is actually as high as it was at the peak of the pandemic, yet there are less resources for those families today.”
https://x.com/MacroEdgeRes/status/1851682367003328673
Where will the accountability be for SMCI analyst crooks that were hyping pixie dust?
https://x.com/DonMiami3/status/1839347750816923675
This is an awesome economy! Is it awesome for everyone? No, but if we let the current trend run, the benefits will accrue to more and more folks in the form of real wage gains. I don’t see why we would rock the boat now.
https://x.com/JonathanJLevin/status/1851686281769886188
This is the scripted narrative rn
https://x.com/INArteCarloDoss/status/1851693847513817230
The economy posted another great quarter. Real GDP grew by close to 3% annualized in the third quarter, and is up about the same over the past year. Consumers continue to spend and businesses invest strongly. And all this growth is happening with unemployment holding steady at a low near 4% and inflation moderating to the Fed’s 2% target. This suggests the economy’s potential growth is also a strong near 3%, thanks to immigration and healthy productivity gains. It is to hard to see the economy performing better. Of course, many lower and middle income Americans are not benefiting like they should. Changing this is what the next President and Congress need to focus on.
https://x.com/Markzandi/status/1851679462519353565
The big drop in JOLTS openings that I expected in October occurred in September. The job openings rate now stands at 4.5%, exactly the level that Fed Governor Christopher Waller has identified as the tipping point for rising unemployment.
https://x.com/PeterBerezinBCA/status/1851321030238777613
Another fishy ADP report. The seasonally adjusted print was stronger than in a typical October but the raw print without any adjustments was much weaker. Something doesn’t add up.
https://x.com/PeterBerezinBCA/status/1851717538482196740
This is problematic since high-end US consumers are the only part of the global economy that have been doing well lately.
https://x.com/PeterBerezinBCA/status/1851206085816078806
QUEBEC TO STOP PERMANENT IMMIGRATION ENTIRELY IN THE COMING MONTHS -RADIO-CANADA
Quebec has special immigration powers other Provinces do not.
https://x.com/Tablesalt13/status/1851766636702802218
@KamalaHarris given unprecedented housing inflation, do we really want to subsidize the housing industry when they got billions in taxpayer money just a few years ago via ppp stimulus?
https://x.com/REWatchman/status/1851772951638499540
There are 40,000 new condos and 14,000 resale condos on the market now.
With massive reduction to immigration numbers, I don’t see how this ends any way other than a correction the likes we have never seen in 🇨🇦 before.
https://x.com/ShaziGoalie/status/1851811043279777909
“From Deal to Disaster: The $2M Toronto Real Estate Nightmare Unfolded 📉🏡💥
https://x.com/ShaziGoalie/status/1851795354393473513
📢 Trouble in Toronto
Toronto, ON 🇨🇦
In 2022, buyers of this Toronto duplex home walked away after agreeing to pay nearly $2M.💸
The seller took the buyers to court for breach of contract ⚖️ , and the buyer responded by registering a Certificate of Pending Litigation 📜 on the property, essentially preventing the sellers from reselling it.
Bold move!💥
The judge eventually sided with the sellers and awarded them the deposit of $53K .💰
The home was just sold for $1.4M, a $430K loss compared to the previous sale price. 📉
So, can the sellers go after the original buyer now? 👀
Is there a statute of limitations on breach of contract in Ontario? 🕑
https://x.com/ShaziGoalie/status/1851613217501442440
Toronto Dog Crate Condo Prices: How Low Can It Go? Pretty Damn LOW Maybe Lower Than We Could Guess
Because this isn’t just a “wait until prices get down & buy” thing
This may be a “I don’t want to buy a Dog Crate Condo at all” thing
That’s oversimplification but……….
https://x.com/ronmortgageguy/status/1851618842557993143
Far too many of the “Dog-Crate” Condos were never intended to be lived in. They were build specifically as AirBNB income properties, so the comparison was never to other home options….it was to hotel rooms. The question not being asked is why did City Planners allow it?
https://x.com/Wontevertweet27/status/1851636162235875481
19 LLCs.
19 foreclosures.
one person behind them all.
we are now up to $12.6M due and owing for properties in broward county. plaintiffs listed below. multiple motions for summary judgment pending.
and many loans with a personal guarantee.
https://x.com/kristinbjornsen/status/1851678384008450515
Dropbox is letting go 20% of its workforce as the cloud company undergoes what CEO Drew Houston calls a “transitional period.”
Unicorns always overhire. Then when their rosy projections don’t pan out, it’s mass layoff time.
We have never seen this level of need in the 43 years we have been serving this community
And the increased demand isn’t coming from the EBT crowd, it’s coming from middle class households that don’t qualify for EBT.
QUEBEC TO STOP PERMANENT IMMIGRATION ENTIRELY IN THE COMING MONTHS -RADIO-CANADA
Quebec has special immigration powers other Provinces do not.
Where have they been these pas 9 years?
“National debt all time high.
credit card debt all time high.
Emergency withdrawals from investments all time high.
Buy now pay later all time high.
Mortgage debt all time high”
Paul Krugman muh best economy ever.
Martin County residents seek solutions at Hurricane Milton recovery workshop
Crowds of Martin County residents recovering from tornado impacts are desperately searching for answers about the help they have available.
On Wednesday, dozens of people impacted by Hurricane Milton came together at the Blake Public Library in Stuart.
“I applied for a small business loan for disaster and I just got a phone call today after work that all decision have been suspended because they’re out of money and they’re waiting on congress to reallocate more money,” stated Bonnie Keys.
Others are tracking down solutions about denied FEMA assistance and going through the appeals process.
“When we got the FEMA letter it says that you have 60 days to appeal form the time that you file with FEMA,” shared Sarah James Owens. “But 60 days just isn’t a reasonable amount of time to appeal if your insurance company doesn’t cover you.”
https://www.wptv.com/news/region-martin-county/stuart/martin-county-residents-seek-solutions-at-hurricane-milton-recovery-workshop
TAMPA, Fla. — Weeks after hurricane Milton carved a path of destruction across the Tampa Bay area, roofing companies are now fielding a storm of calls from homeowners needing roof repairs.
At Roof X in Tampa, Chief Operations Officer Dakota Frady says as the jobs stack up, it could be a years-long process for Milton repairs to be completed for home and business owners.
Roof X Vice President Johnathan Finley says every homeowner with damage is in a different situation, because every homeowner has different coverages that determine how much, if any of the damage will be covered.
“Each insurance job is its own personal beast,” said Finely. “So, each customer, they have different amounts for their hurricane deductible. Some are low. Some are very high. Also getting with those people on the difference situations that their insurance may be saying they are covering or they are not covering.”
Finley says if you had a roof damage this hurricane season, vet the roofing company before hiring them, and make sure it is well versed at handling complicated insurance claims.
https://baynews9.com/fl/tampa/news/2024/10/30/a-flood-of-roof-repairs-now-across-the-bay-area-
Out here you have a mild hailstorm and roofers start banging on your door, offering “free inspections”
Beachgoers contact WPTV after Singer Island condo damaged
Beachgoers on Singer Island wonder if damage to a 19-story condo is dangerous.
It’s a sign of continuing vigilance over concerns about beachside condominiums three years after the deadly collapse of a condo in Surfside in Miami-Dade County.
WPTV investigative reporter Dave Bohman went to the beachside front of Ocean Edge Condominiums. WPTV was there just after Riviera Beach’s building inspector took a look at it Wednesday morning.
While the damage looks extensive, building inspector Michael Grim told Bohman it is largely cosmetic, and that the main support columns that hold up the building show no signs of corrosion or weakness.
The damage is to the hard-pack sand that has the consistency of concrete and fills the space between the columns.
Grim spoke to the engineer of the building project who told him that the condo was designed to withstand occasional tidal flooding.
The high-rise was built in 2008, which means it is not subject to the rigorous inspection that many older condos must pass under new state law.
https://www.wptv.com/wptv-investigates/beachgoers-contact-wptv-after-singer-island-condo-damaged
Check out the photo of the beach area.
Check out the photo
Right at water’s edge. Brilliant.
It’s ok, because the sand, that those little supports are on is just like concrete.
The pilings must be embedded in bedrock. In addition to tidal erosion the design would also have to account for wind loading. I toured a pier in California that was designed for off-loading oil tankers, and there was no sign of oxidation anywhere on it despite already being there nearly 20-yrs!
This southeast Texas town ranks as one of the worst small cities in the U.S.
Port Arthur, on the Gulf Coast 90 miles east of Houston, is one of the worst small cities in the United States.
That’s according to a new ranking from WalletHub, a personal finance website that compared more than 1,300 cities with populations of 25,000 to 100,000. The cities were ranked based on 45 indicators of livability, from housing costs and crime rates to the percentage of adults with adequate leisure time and the number of restaurants per capita.
In Texas, only Fort Cavazos, formerly known as Fort Hood, received a lower score than Port Arthur. The U.S. Army town between Austin and Waco is dealing with affordability issues as well as quality of life concerns.
The worst small city in the U.S., according to WalletHub, is Isla Vista, Calif., just north of Santa Barbara. While the location is generally considered desirable, higher costs have taken a toll on the economic health of residents.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/this-southeast-texas-town-ranks-as-one-of-the-worst-small-cities-in-the-us/ar-AA1td6qC
Car buyers face a daunting market, even among falling prices for used vehicles
The gap between the average price of a new and used vehicle has eclipsed $20,000, according to data out from Edmunds. That’s the widest gap since the site started tracking it in 2004 and comes as used car prices are finally falling, though the market is still daunting.
Early in the pandemic, the shortage of new cars drove up demand and prices for used ones. Things are starting to normalize, according to Ivan Drury, director of insights at Edmunds.
“Because there’s finally those cars that are available on the new car market that’s putting that downward pressure on prices,” he said.
Though there’s still not that much downward pressure. Even after a 6% drop in the third quarter, according to Edmunds, the average price of a used car is still over $27,000.
“For anyone who has context, who has bought a vehicle at any point before COVID, this number seems unreal,” Drury said.
https://www.marketplace.org/2024/10/30/used-car-prices-falling/
Meanwhile, new inventory is piling up, while dealers try to keep sale prices at MSRP.
I’m grateful that I bought my car when I did. I think I’ll be one of those original owners who keeps my car for 15 years. I still have 7-8 years to go.
San Francisco program helps family with new water heater after plumbing nightmare
Life’s little routines have returned for one San Francisco family after a plumbing nightmare upended their world, and it’s in part thanks to a city program.
“From February until July, We couldn’t live in our home,” Jolie Goorjian said. “So, we’d have to go back and forth to get clothes and things. My mom lives in a one-bedroom flat.”
She and her son had no hot water for months because the plumbing problem ruined her gas-powered water heater.
“To replace it with just another gas one was between $3,000-$5,000,” she said.
But after some research, Goorjian, an educator, figured out that an event that set her back would actually propel her forward in terms of making her home more energy-efficient and climate-friendly, at no cost.
She met the criteria for a program the San Francisco Climate Equity Hub is running right now, where they’ll install heat pump water heaters for free, for qualifying residents.
California is moving away from gas-powered appliances, and some of the first to be phased out in the Bay Area are gas-powered water heaters. The Bay Area Air Quality Management District banned the sale and installation of them starting in 2027.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/san-francisco-program-helps-family-with-new-water-heater-after-plumbing-nightmare/ar-AA1tesWv
Milpitas political candidates targeted in hate crimes
MILPITAS, Calif. – For a second time in less than a week, two political candidates have been targeted with hate crimes.
Anti-Asian graffiti was found on campaign posters in the 500 block of Jurgens Drive in Milpitas.
“No Asians” was written across a campaign poster for Bill Chaun, partially covering a picture of his five-member family. A campaign sign for Hon Lien had, “No No,” is red ink written across its face.
“It is sad to see in a city that is so diverse, we still experience hate crimes,” said Lien, a mayoral candidate among four. Chuan, who is competing for one of two at-large city council seats, said, “I was in shock and disbelief at what had just happened.”
After their signs were first vandalized on Oct. 24, both candidates replaced them, only to discover the repeat crime on Wednesday afternoon.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/milpitas-political-candidates-targeted-in-hate-crimes/ar-AA1teoOT
It is sad to see in a city that is so diverse, we still experience hate crimes,”
When the left believes they have total control, they turn on each other. Plus we all know the Asians are “white adjacent”, so they don’t count as DEI.
“…the Asians are “white adjacent”…”
Tight knit families and strong work ethic make it difficult for the democrats to spread their message.
East Bay family’s terrifying encounter with man in underwear trying to get into their car on I-880
An East Bay husband and father shares dashcam video and describes terrifying encounter with man wearing only underwear on Interstate 880 in Oakland.
https://www.ktvu.com/video/1540439
So the driver, the father, is “traumatized” and taking time off of work.
Nothing happened!
His wife was driving, IIUC. Clearly, he has never encountered a violent situation in his life. Time to, “Man Up!”
Nick Bosa could face fines for ‘MAGA’ hat display after game
San Francisco 49ers star Nick Bosa could be fined by the league for displaying his ‘MAGA’ hat during his teammates’ postgame interview.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/nick-bosa-could-face-fines-for-maga-hat-display-after-game/vi-AA1tebK2
Let’s not be naïve, there are no easy solutions for Canada’s productivity problem
Canada and other advanced economies are experiencing a historic slowdown in productivity growth. This is in no small part owing to a lack of investment, excessive red tape and compounded policy errors, which a growing chorus of leaders in science, business and policy are rightly calling out. But amid this sea of constructive criticism, it’s also worth considering the limits of innovation policy, and what makes it so difficult in the first place.
Even a somewhat parsimonious view of where innovation comes from suggests substantial challenges in raising total factor productivity (TFP), which is the measure economists use for the joint productivity of labour and capital. To grow our productivity, we can either produce more ideas, or we can address the misallocation of resources across sectors, businesses and regions.
Seems intuitive enough. But there’s only so much policy makers can do to put a dent in the production of useful knowledge. As Nicholas Bloom of Stanford University and his co-authors show, good ideas are simply getting harder to find.
This may sound sacrilegious in an age of artificial intelligence (AI) optimism and tech booms but the data is stubborn. Even in the United States, which is an outlier in its relatively strong productivity growth over the last few years, it has taken an exponential increase in research and development (R&D) resources across fields to barely maintain U.S. TFP growth around 2 per cent over five decades. This time period includes major developments such as the invention of the internet, nuclear energy and our mapping of the human genome. As the Nobel Laureate Robert Solow presciently pointed out in 1987, “you can see the computer age everywhere except in the productivity statistics.”
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/commentary/article-lets-not-be-naive-there-are-no-easy-solutions-for-canadas-productivity/
Gee, maybe the lack of productivity is because they pay millions and millions of people to do absolutely nothing of value, or nothing at all.
When I go out in the world half the workers are looking at their phones.
lets’ not forget importing 10’s of millions of 80IQ useless eaters.
Federal government to stop paying B.C. woman for job she doesn’t have
There appears to be an end in sight for the strange predicament of a B.C. woman who was being paid by the federal government for a job she was hired for but never actually did.
Vanita Lindsay said that she has been told the bi-weekly payments – which have amounted to nearly $9,000 since they started appearing in her bank account over the summer – will stop.
A frustrated Lindsay told her story to CTV News Tuesday, and on Wednesday she got a call from a manager at Employment and Social Development Canada.
“She told me that I wasn’t going to get paid at the next cycle,” Lindsay said, adding that she was also told she would be receiving a letter soon about how to pay the money back.”
Paying back the $8.816.20 won’t be a problem.
“I put it all into a different account because it’s not my money,” said Lindsay.
But she still has some unanswered questions, including if she will be issued a T4 and if she will be charged interest.
“It would be upsetting if they wanted interest,” Lindsay said.
CTV News asked a tax lawyer for her opinion.
“The short answer is no,” said Fayme Hodal, with KSW Lawyers.
Hodal says because Lindsay never asked for that money and has never worked for the agency, there is no basis in her opinion for interest to be applied to the repayment.
However, anything could happen. “Might a wrongful payor of funds attempt to charge interest? Very possibly,” said Hodal. “I’d like to hope not. I’d certainly like to think in this situation that the answer will be ‘no’ but it is absolutely not impossible.”
Lindsay is hoping once the money is repaid she will be able to move on, without any further issues from the feds. “It would be really annoying because this isn’t my fault, they paid me,” said Lindsay. “I didn’t ask for the pay because I quit.”
In July, Lindsay was hired for a work from home position with Canada Pension Plan. She changed her mind about taking the job before it started but received six paycheques before reaching out to CTV News.
https://bc.ctvnews.ca/federal-government-to-stop-paying-b-c-woman-for-job-she-doesn-t-have-1.7093220
International students face uncertainty amid permit cuts and immigration changes
MILTON – Jubin Thomas, a marketing specialist in Canada, is one of many former international students now facing an uncertain future after recent changes to the country’s immigration system.
Thomas arrived in Canada as an international student, driven by ambition and a desire for a better life. During the pandemic, he worked in essential roles to support the economy, while pursuing his professional goals. But in mid-2023, things took an unexpected turn when the federal government introduced category-based immigration draws, prioritizing specific job sectors. Thomas’s profession did not make the list.
“Despite being a strong candidate in the pool, I now find myself in a difficult position, unsure of what the future holds,” Thomas said. “Every day, I go to work with a deadline hanging over my head, wondering what’s next.”
Thomas emphasized that he respects Canada’s immigration process and acknowledges the privilege of working in the country. “I’m grateful for the opportunities I’ve had here, but the recent changes have left many of us in limbo through no fault of our own,” he said.
Priya Patel moved to Canada with great ambition two years ago. She wanted to be an engineer and stay here for a better future and higher education. However, after the Canadian government announced it would cut the number of international student permits by 10 per cent in 2025—issuing 437,000 permits compared to 485,000 in 2024—she feels her career is in jeopardy.
“My father is a farmer. He sold his two acres of land to afford my study expenses,” she said, tears rolling down her cheeks. “My family’s dreams will also shatter if I have to go back to my native village in Indian Punjab. There is no university, college or even a better school,” Priya shared. After a few words, her voice broke. “For many of us, studying in Canada was a pathway to permanent residency and a better future. Now, with these new restrictions, our dreams are slipping away.”
Carlos Mendez, a business diploma student from Mexico at Sheridan College, said, “The Canadian government could have announced this policy with effect from some future date. Those who arrived here should have been given a chance to work and apply for permanent residence. I don’t think this policy will work anymore, with more voices coming from across the country against this discriminatory attitude towards international students.”
https://www.barrietoday.com/around-ontario/international-students-face-uncertainty-amid-permit-cuts-and-immigration-changes-9733157
“My father is a farmer. He sold his two acres of land to afford my study expenses,” she said, tears rolling down her cheeks. “My family’s dreams will also shatter if I have to go back to my native village in Indian Punjab
I’m gonna go out on a limb and guess that part of her “family’s dreams” involve chain migration and many winding up on the dole.
Are there no universities or jobs for grads in India? I’m sure that the tuition is much, much lower than in Canada, and maybe they wouldn’t have had to sell the farm to pay for it.
Council’s last-ditch scramble to halt housing for 1,000 asylum seekers
Last-ditch efforts are being made to block a large-scale centre for asylum seekers in Athlone, following hours of intense talks on Tuesday night.
But the Government is refusing to back down on its controversial plan to house 1,000 male asylum seekers in Co. Westmeath, insisting work will start within weeks to ensure the first 100 arrivals can move in.
Local councillors met on Tuesday night with a senior representative of the Department of Integration, which is overseeing the plans, after they claimed that the lack of consultation is ‘disgraceful’ and ‘an insult’ to the role of local government.
But the department was adamant on Tuesday night that the scheme would go ahead.
It has said there will be security at the centre in Lissywollen, which will be fenced along the perimeter, with staff on site 24 hours a day. It also said that while people are free to leave and return, they must sign in and out of the facility.
The initial plans say ten men will be occupied in each tent, with potentially up to 150 tents on site in the short term. The plan is to have modular units on site at a later date.
Local Sinn Féin TD Sorca Clarke on Tuesday night told the Irish Daily Mail she is opposed to the plan as services are already stretched in the town, adding that the issues raised in Lissywollen were ‘very well-founded’.
‘A thousand people is a huge amount of people for a town where there is already a shortage of supply for dentists, doctors and taxis even,’ she said.
Ms Clarke said the lack of consultation from the Government with small communities ‘is what is happening time and time again’.
She said: ‘This centre would be very well-established within the town, but it’s the number that people are finding hard to grasp.
‘How is this even being considered? Where did the 1,000 figure come from?’
https://www.msn.com/en-ie/news/world/council-s-last-ditch-scramble-to-halt-housing-for-1000-asylum-seekers/ar-AA1tbqpv
They are being replaced. The Irish age, don’t have kids and die off. The invaders will reproduce like rabbits. It’s only a matter of time until you will only find heritage Ireland in history books.
Global Affairs won’t confirm reports Canadian dead in Russia was foreign fighter
Global Affairs Canada says it is aware of the death of a Canadian citizen in Russia.
But the department won’t confirm reports the Canadian was among four foreign fighters who had crossed into Russia to fight for Ukraine.
The Globe and Mail reported today that four foreigners, including at least one Canadian, were killed on Sunday in a firefight in Russia’s Bryansk region, which borders Ukraine.
Russia’s embassy in Canada forwarded The Canadian Press a statement from Russia’s security service saying “four saboteurs” were killed by border agents and soldiers in the Bryansk region on Sunday.
The statement says the four killed were in possession of “foreign-made weaponry” and personal items, including a Canadian flag and a prayer book written in Polish.
It added that one of the soldiers killed had a tattoo suggesting he had been a member of a U.S. army parachute regiment.
https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/global-affairs-wont-confirm-reports-canadian-dead-in-russia-was-foreign-fighter/ar-AA1tdNfp
here is that tribeca penthouse condo
https://streeteasy.com/building/11-vestry-street-new_york/7
Cuban immigrant joins Medicaid racket in Miami but flees back to island with loot, feds say
On paper, a Cuban immigrant by the name of Joel Regino Diaz Martin became a millionaire by declaring in corporate records that he was the owner of a Miami-area mental health clinic that collected about $4 million from Medicaid, the state’s health insurance program for low-income people.
In reality, most of the clinic’s ill-gotten profits from bogus bills to Medicaid were siphoned off to the actual owner of New Behavior Health Direction, Jose Davila Nunez, who paid off Diaz Martin to be his company’s “nominee owner,” according to court records.
Davila, a 51-year-old U.S. citizen who emigrated from Cuba, was sentenced in October to more than five years in prison after pleading guilty to a healthcare-fraud conspiracy charge. He was ordered to reimburse the federally funded Medicaid program for its losses. He is scheduled to start his prison term in January.
Two of Davila’s associates also pleaded guilty to conspiring to pay kickbacks to hundreds of patients who purportedly attended mental health sessions at three other Miami-area clinics that raked in about $12 million from Medicaid. The associates, Jesus Rojas, 44, and Luis Rivero, 50, were each sentenced to prison terms in the two-year range.
Rojas surrendered to prison authorities in August. Rivero, who shared profits from the three psychotherapy clinics with Davila, will surrender to prison next month.
But federal prosecutors have not forgotten about Diaz Martin — Davila’s nominee owner of New Behavior in Hialeah Gardens. Diaz Martin returned to Cuba in the fall of 2020 after funneling millions of dollars from the mental health company through a half-dozen bank accounts to his boss while keeping a portion of the money for himself, according to court records.
In the annals of Medicare and Medicaid rackets in South Florida, hundreds of Cuban immigrants like Diaz Martin have come to South Florida to participate in multimillion-dollar healthcare billing schemes — only to flee back to the island nation or another Latin American country when federal agents are on their trail. It’s a trend that was documented in a Miami Herald story called the “Rogues of Medicare” in 2018, the year that Diaz Martin arrived here.
To help move the tainted Medicaid payments around, Davila directed Diaz Martin to open a half-dozen corporate bank accounts at TD Bank, Regions Bank and Truist Bank, where Davila kept $1.7 million of illicit proceeds that were seized by federal authorities.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/cuban-immigrant-joins-medicaid-racket-in-miami-but-flees-back-to-island-with-loot-feds-say/ar-AA1tfNLG
Who Is the Real Colin Allred?
Who is Colin Allred? A native of Dallas, he received a scholarship to play for Baylor as a linebacker. He was signed by the NFL Tennessee Titans in 2006 and played in less than half their games between 2007 and 2010. After a serious injury in that final year, he left the NFL and attended the leftist UC Berkeley School of Law. He then worked for Obama’s Department of Housing and Urban Development and moved on to the controversial Perkins Coie law firm, who were involved with the notorious Steele dossier.
In 2018, he ran for Congress and defeated GOP incumbent Pete Sessions. From 2019 to 2023, he voted with Nancy Pelosi 100% of the time and then with Biden after her term ended as Speaker. In 2019, he co-sponsored the Women’s Health Protection Act, which would have made no restrictions on abortions into Federal law. Minnesota Congressman Tim Walz also co-sponsored the bill as well as Senator Kamala Harris in the Senate, but it died there in committee.
In 2021 and 2022, he co-sponsored and voted for the Act again, along with Walz, but in 2022 it only failed in the Senate because of the 60-vote filibuster, which then-Vice President Kamala Harris promised (but failed) to get 51 votes to eliminate the long-standing rule in order to pass the bill.
Allred has not only voted twice for no exceptions on abortion, but more troubling is his vote in 2023 against the Born-Alive Survivors Protection Act, also known as the “Born Alive Act,” which would have required a health care practitioner to provide care for any child born alive after a failed abortion attempt. It’s currently in limbo in the Senate. Walz had cruelly voted against the bill in 2015 when it was first proposed, and Kamala Harris did in 2020 (just months before becoming Vice President). It passed the House that year but died in committee in the Senate.
As for the Southern border, Allred has always supported keeping it open, and even vowed to tear down that “racist wall.” But after the Biden/Harris White House proposed an election-year border bill, which was doomed to failure because it would have allowed nearly two million to cross into the country each year (and even two of its three co-sponsors voted against it) Allred now attacks Cruz and Trump for its failure to pass.
And before their recent debate earlier this month, Cruz’s campaign correctly pointed out that Allred had voted for (and publicly supported) same-sex sports in schools. Suddenly, four days before the debate, Allred’s campaign claimed he did not support that (in spite of his record) and his campaign is now running ads with Allred falsely claiming he never supported same-sex sports and saying Cruz is lying and “is full of it.”
https://townhall.com/columnists/ronkolb/2024/10/31/who-is-the-real-colin-allred-n2647016
The American Climate Corps Faces an Uncertain Future If Trump Wins
Standing on ladders and wielding flashlights, four people are bringing a dark, dank restroom at the San Joaquin County Fairgrounds into the energy-efficient future.
Their mission is to remove old fluorescent lighting throughout a sprawling fairgrounds building in Stockton, California, and rewire the fixtures for LEDs. They’re members of a state service organization, but the project is also now part of the work of the American Climate Corps (ACC), a nationwide program geared at placing young people in temporary jobs while giving them a pathway to federal service and climate-related careers.
A long-held ambition of the Biden administration, the Climate Corps launched earlier this year and now boasts some 15,000 members. They’ve been deployed doing everything from cleaning up after wildfires to helping people make their homes more energy efficient. It’s all part of a plan to pick up the torch from the Civilian Conservation Corps, a New Deal program whose members transformed farmland and natural spaces across the country.
But with a US election looming, the fate of the Climate Corps is an open question. Republican members of Congress are openly critical of it, and Donald Trump would have the authority to end the program if he returns to the White House.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/the-american-climate-corps-faces-an-uncertain-future-if-trump-wins/ar-AA1tdeWm
Their mission is to remove old fluorescent lighting throughout a sprawling fairgrounds building in Stockton, California, and rewire the fixtures for LEDs.
Aren’t fluorescents already energy efficient? This sounds like make work. Obviously whoever runs the fairgrounds didn’t think it was worth spending their own money doing it.
Aren’t fluorescents already energy efficient?
Oh, but they have like .000001 mg of mercury in them, which is bad for the planet or something, so out they go.
When I was a kid we used to break the thermometers in school to get the mercury and would coat silver dimes with it using our fingers. Some spheres of the mercury would dance around on the floor and they stayed there.
Schwarzenegger: ‘I’ll be back’-ing Kamala Harris
California’s most famous Republican figure today threw his might behind Vice President Kamala Harris less than a week before Election Day.
Former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger dropped a lengthy X post telling his millions of fans he’s voting for Harris, even though he doesn’t like Democrats or Republicans right now.
“It is probably not a surprise that I hate politics more than ever, which, if you are a normal person who isn’t addicted to this crap, you probably understand,” Schwarzenegger said.
(Apologies for the slight burn to our fellow politics obsessives.)
Schwarzenegger was biting in his assessment of former President Donald Trump — not even diet soda came away unscathed.
The former governor called Trump a “candidate who won’t respect your vote unless it is for him, a candidate who will send his followers to storm the Capitol while he watches with a Diet Coke, a candidate who has shown no ability to work to pass any policy besides a tax cut that helped his donors and other rich people like me but helped no one else else.”
Schwarzenegger joins a group of Republican leaders publicly backing Harris because of their distaste for Trump. Former Vice President Dick Cheney and his daughter, former Rep. Liz Cheney, are perhaps the most well-known members of this club.
https://www.politico.com/newsletters/california-playbook-pm/2024/10/30/schwarzenegger-harris-endorsement-00186400
Since he has nowhere left to go he can drop the mask and show who he really was all along.
Sgt. Harris wanted Biden’s D.O.R.
Joe: “I ain’t gonna do it.”
Sgt K: “I want your D.O.R. !”
Joe : “I AIN’T GONNA DO IT !!”
Sgt K : “Say it, Biden: D.O.R. !!!”
Joe: “DON’T YOU DO IT.. DON’T YOU DO IT! NO! NO!! I GOT NOWHERE LEFT TO GO . . . ”
I got nowhere . . . left . . to go
Maybe here is on the list
‘The worst scenario you could have’
Throughout the West Wing this week, aides have been repeating a simple mantra for President JOE BIDEN’s — and their collective — objective for the final week before Election Day: “Do no harm.”
But on Tuesday evening, White House aides who attended KAMALA HARRIS’ “closing argument” speech at The Ellipse left the rally and reentered cell phone coverage areas only to learn that the president’s comment on a call with Latino activists, on which he seemed to refer to DONALD TRUMP supporters as “garbage,” was starting to dominate their social media feeds.
The positive energy from the rally as well as the pre-election jitters that the rousing speech had helped calm were overwhelmed by a new anxiety: that the same Biden inability to communicate clearly that led to Harris replacing him atop the ticket in July was creating new landmines for her in the campaign’s final critical stretch.
“Our motto was ‘do no harm’ this week,” said one White House official granted anonymity to share their personal feelings about the matter. “This is probably the worst scenario you could have if that was your goal for the week.”
Of course, it’s not clear how much harm Biden’s latest gaffe will do. While Trump and everyone else in the MAGA media ecosystem immediately seized on the comments to animate a base driven largely by grievance, swing voters, who aren’t watching much cable news, may not care about the comment, if they even hear about it. Though Biden is notably slated to travel twice to Pennsylvania — once to Philadelphia on Friday, then to his hometown of Scranton this weekend — before the election.
“Biden isn’t the candidate,” one former administration official said. “It’s been a long time since most of these people cared about anything he’s said.”
https://www.politico.com/newsletters/west-wing-playbook/2024/10/30/biden-days-without-incident-0-00186365
‘It’s been a long time since most of these people cared about anything he’s said’
It’s been over 90 days since he was the candidate!
The lights are on, but nobody’s home.
Four More Items in the Wages Outpacing Prices Debate
Dean Baker
Ben Casselman had a useful piece in the New York Times examining the extent to which wages have outpaced prices since the pandemic. While he notes that for most people, they almost certainly have, there are people for whom this is likely not the case.
In fact, this will always be the case, even in the best economy, which arguably is what we are seeing now, or at least best in half a century. But there are some additional points to the ones Casselman raised that are worth keeping in mind.
First, Casselman notes that not everyone consumes the same basket of items. For lower income people, food is a larger share of their budget and food prices have risen more than the overall rate of inflation since the pandemic.
This is true, but it is important to keep in mind that the lowest paid workers have seen the largest wage gains since the pandemic. To take an example, non-supervisory workers in hotels and restaurants had a 32.0 percent increase in their average hourly pay from before the pandemic. Their pay averaged $14.92 an hour in February of 2020. It had risen to $19.69 an hour in September of this year.
That easily outpaced the 25.8 percent increase in food prices. No one would try to claim that someone earning $19.69 an hour today is doing well, but they are doing better than the person earning $14.92 an hour at the start of 2020. It would be hard not to score this person as being better off.
Casselman notes that the widely derided increase in house prices has not been bad news for everyone. Specifically, the two-thirds of households that own their home might actually be feeling pretty good that the value of their house has risen.
However, there is another aspect to this picture that is also worth noting. More than 14 million homeowners refinanced their mortgages, taking advantage of the low mortgage rates we saw from the start of the pandemic until the Fed began raising rates in March of 2022.
Those that didn’t borrow additional money with a cashout refinance are saving an average of $2,500 a year in interest payments. That would be a big deal for a family with an income around $80,000. For some reason these savings for a large number of middle-class families rarely get mentioned in discussions of people’s well-being.
Inflation-adjusted purchases of restaurant meals was 10.5 percent higher last quarter than before the pandemic. Purchases at fast-food restaurants was 10.1 percent higher last quarter than before the pandemic. It’s hard to believe that the rich are driving spending at McDonalds and Subway.
In short, if we look at what people are spending, they do seem to be considerably better off than before the pandemic. Again, this is not true for everyone. Some people have lost jobs and are now forced to work for lower pay. Some people have become disabled and may be able to work less (often because of the pandemic), or not at all. But if we are trying to look at the big picture, consumption patterns seem to be telling us that people feel they are better off today than they were before the pandemic.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/10/31/four-more-items-in-the-wages-outpacing-prices-debate/
Ben Casselman had a useful piece in the New York Times examining the extent to which wages have outpaced prices since the pandemic. While he notes that for most people, they almost certainly have,
Soaring consumer debt and loan delinquencies say otherwise.
There is no way anyone in my sphere of living has had a wage increase anywhere near the actual cost of everyday items of survival, like food!
I was on NPR with the writer Dean Baker talking about housing bubbles in 2007.
Should You Buy in a Sliding Real Estate Market?
June 25, 2007 10:00 AM ET
Heard on Talk of the Nation
There’s more bad news for the housing market, with sales and prices of existing homes falling again in May. But the market varies from one region of the country to another. Should You Still Buy?
Guests:
Ilyce Glink, publisher of the Web site ThinkGlink.com and author of the nationally syndicated newspaper column “Real Estate Matters”
Dean Baker, economist and co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research
https://www.npr.org/2007/06/25/11361676/should-you-buy-in-a-sliding-real-estate-market
30 minutes. My part starts at 20 minutes and ends at 23. It was a call in show, but my thing was scheduled. It was interesting hearing what all these callers thought in 2007 knowing what we know now.
[From the transcript]
CONAN: Joining us now is Ben Jones. He blogs about the effects of the price boom for his website, thehousingbubbleblog.com. And he joins us from his home in Sedona, Arizona. Nice to have you on the program.
Mr. BEN JONES (Blogger, http://www.thehousingbubbleblog.com): Thank you, Neal.
CONAN: And Sedona, Arizona, is that one of those places in Arizona that has just boomed the last decade?
Mr. JONES: Yes, it did. Actually, I think in the first part of 2005, the median price went up to 60 percent just in a – I believe – four months.
CONAN: In four months?
Mr. JONES: Right.
CONAN: And what’s happening now?
Mr. JONES: Well, like much of the country, we’ve got way too much supply on the market, buyers are resistant, and we’re starting to see foreclosures.
CONAN: And are prices dropping as well?
Mr. JONES: I think they are – not the official numbers, but that’s because of the flaws in the median, the statistics.
CONAN: When you say not the official numbers, what do you mean?
Mr. JONES: Well, the numbers that come from the realtor organizations.
CONAN: Oh. So they might want to keep the price looking artificially high and they might want to sell a little lower.
Mr. JONES: I don’t think they’re purposely manipulating it. No. I think it’s just a flaw in the median whenever a market is in transition. The statistics – and even the California realtors are admitting that now that prices are really falling, but the median isn’t.
CONAN: The median price isn’t.
Mr. JONES: That’s correct. That statistic isn’t.
CONAN: So that means that lower valued prices are selling more than higher…
Mr. JONES: It’s actually, it’s the…
CONAN: Or the other way around?
Mr. BAKER: The other way around.
Mr. JONES: The other way around.
CONAN: All right. This is why I’m in radio and I don’t think teach arithmetic.
(Soundbite of laughter)
CONAN: So I’m wondering at this point, what are people saying on your blog about buying and renting?
Mr. JONES: Well, they’re all – folks are pretty happy that they’ve made the choices that they have made, and that they’re not in a same boat as some of their neighbors and friends that bought at the peak.
CONAN: So the people who bought at peak are – these are the people being exposed to foreclosure, you would think?
Mr. JONES: That’s correct. Yeah. I think on record levels actually.
CONAN: Record levels? Well, Sedona is one of those places that’s so new, it’s – almost everything is a record, isn’t it?
Mr. JONES: Well, Yeah. We haven’t seen a ton of foreclosures here. It’s a fairly affluent second home market. But down in Phoenix, it’s building up pretty big and its – even in the Midwest, I think the Mortgage Bankers Association came out and said that foreclosures in Ohio, Michigan and Indiana were higher than the Texas, the numbers in Texas, during the bust in the ’80s.
CONAN: Mmm.
Mr. JONES: That’s pretty shocking, aren’t they?
CONAN: So at this point, if people are going on your blog to talk about buying or renting, what are you telling them?
Mr. JONES: Well, I don’t make recommendations. But I think that the consensus is that rents are wildly out of line with home prices and in some cases, buying a home as twice as much. And another thing people need to consider about the rent is, what kind of loans are we talking about? Are they actually paying any principle down? And if you’re only paying interest only, you’re really just renting it forever from the bank.
CONAN: Mm-hmm. Thanks very much, Ben.
Mr. JONES: Thank you.
CONAN: Ben Jones blogs about the effects of the price boom for his Web site, thehousingbubbleblog.com. And he was talking to us today from his home in Sedona, Arizona.
“But I think that the consensus is that rents are wildly out of line with home prices and in some cases, buying a home is twice as much.”
I think we are back to the same consensus today.
“It was interesting hearing what all these callers thought in 2007 knowing what we know now.”
If you could afford to buy in 2007 and held on until now, you would have made a lot of money, thanks to a decade+ of Quantitative Easing that nobody could have seen coming, including the massive Pandemic liquidity bomb that sent housing prices skyward.
The wild card from here on out is whether U.S. housing prices face a day of reckoning ahead, like China has already experienced. Time will tell.
What I find most interesting is that a number of those in that conversation had a clear view of the incipient housing bust as of 2007. Similarly, a number of people posting to this blog at the time offered dire predictions of how severe the suborime mortgage collapse would turn out.
Others, such as future economics Nobel Prize winner Ben Bernanke, were utterly clueless about what was coming their way, until it ran them over.
“Others, such as future economics Nobel Prize winner Ben Bernanke, were utterly clueless about what was coming their way, until it ran them over.”
These master manipulators are too far removed from the pink slips, repo tow trucks and wife beatings.
Misinformation Is Turning American Disasters Into Toxic Battlegrounds
When recovery workers with the US Federal Emergency Management Agency arrived in Boone, North Carolina, after Hurricane Helene and began setting up temporary housing in a local park, it prompted a backlash in the storm-wracked town: “We had folks that were literally protesting FEMA out at the site,” says Tim Futrelle, Boone’s mayor.
Nearby in Swannanoa, on the outskirts of Asheville, there were rumors that officials were covering up the true death toll from the storm. The deputy fire chief took to Facebook and begged the public to stop sharing “sensationalized” information.
Misinformation about disasters and their aftermath is becoming more prevalent in the US, thanks to deep political polarization, weakened trust in institutions and a lack of content moderation on social media that allows false claims to flourish. Experts say the kind of crisis that followed Helene is likely to happen again, especially as climate disasters affect parts of the country that didn’t previously experience them often.
FEMA acknowledges that Helene was a wake-up call of sorts. Jaclyn Rothenberg, the agency’s director of public affairs, describes it as a “collective moment” for emergency managers and others to “really take a hard look and understand what misinformation does” in disaster scenarios.
Consequently, FEMA set up a rumor control page on its website for the first time, addressing specific falsehoods head on, says Rafael Lemaitre, a former head of the agency’s communications. “It became standard practice for the agency to do that after major disasters,” he says. And between disasters, the agency has started to train staff on how to proactively find and respond to false claims.
The White House also stepped in, holding press briefings with the top official at FEMA, Deanne Criswell, and launching a Reddit account to post fact checks and updates. Carrie Speranza, chair of FEMA’s National Advisory Council and a former emergency management official for the District of Columbia, says she can’t think of another recent time when an administration was so “proactive in the counter-narrative, from the very top, very early on and continuously so.”
While the research catches up, intelligence agencies that already monitor social media for threats tied to political misinformation could be “an untapped resource” after disasters, Speranza says, by flagging emerging rumors and false narratives in real time.
“It’s a supply and a demand-side issue,” says Jennie King, director of climate disinformation research and policy at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), a nonprofit that advocates for policies to fight extremism. “Yes, there are people who are flooding the zone with deliberate false and misleading content,” King says. But there’s also strong demand for what they’re supplying — “a desire among the general public to consume this kind of content.”
In the fight against misinformation, says ISD’s King, “just strengthening the good is not going to be enough if you don’t weaken the bad.”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/misinformation-is-turning-american-disasters-into-toxic-battlegrounds/ar-AA1tcBDf
policies to fight extremism
Apparently FEMA embezzled the funds for political programs. Is it extreme to discuss that?
From some ads I saw during the recent sportsball series, being against any abortion or lgbxyz “rights” makes you a radical. And yes, that was the word used: “radical”. I guess being “far right” doesn’t pack enough punch anymore. Now you’re a Nahtzi, end of discussion.
I saw a headline on CNN’s business page claiming that Trump’s economic policies are highly inflationary, which is rich coming from the clowns who gave us the biggest price inflation and cost of living crisis since the 1970’s.
The deputy fire chief took to Facebook and begged the public to stop sharing “sensationalized” information.
Note than “sensationalized” does not mean “false” or “fake” and that he steered clear of saying that the information was bogus.
Consequently, FEMA set up a rumor control page on its website for the first time
Maybe they should focus more on helping Americans, as opposed to illegals. If they did that there would be no need for propaganda pages on their websites.
no need for propaganda pages
and no need to staff a Department of Truth.
What Trump Has Asked Me To Do
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
3 hours ago
I’m going to clean up the corruption and end the pervasive conflicts of interest in our government health agencies and return those agencies to their rich tradition of gold-standard, evidence-based science.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWTTakPUAXA
2:26.
‘Randy and Robin Landsman had been trying to sell their Manhattan penthouse for over a year when they turned to the auction market this summer. First listed for $12.2 million, their triplex in the sought-after Tribeca neighborhood came with more than 2,000 square feet of terraces, a floating staircase and a private elevator. At auction the property sold for $5 million, less than half of what they had originally asked and little more than they paid for it two decades ago. ‘It was obviously a stupid mistake,’ Randy said of deciding to auction the home’
Randy and Robin, I’ve been saying for years, whatever you do, don’t give it away!
‘We’re looking at people who actually are potentially looking at not eating as well, not purchasing their medications, things that they need on a daily basis to be able to survive having to say, ‘Well, can I get this money together to pay the assessment’…‘I have sat with elderly people. … And they’ve cried and said, ‘Beth, I cannot afford my blood pressure medicine, I’m cutting my pills in half, how am I going to pay for this?’
Every time you hear these stories think the words ‘kick the can’. Because this is what you get. And of course, because human nature has a poetic cruelty, at the worst possible time.
‘A lot of buyers are deciding to sit it out,’ said panelist Beth Daly, a RE/Max realtor. Some buyers are not ready to purchase because they believe ‘the prices are going to come down. In the buildings that have deferred maintenance they are coming down hard and fast.’ In one building where homes would normally sell for the $600,000-$700,000 range, there was a $200,000 assessment and a unit just sold for $200,000′
It’s a good thing everybody put 80% down Beth!
‘In the past five years, that price shot up nearly 65%, from $248,000 to $408,990. ‘Florida is no longer the deal it once was, especially with the rising cost of insurance and property taxes’
Yer right Daryl, it’s forgotten how much shack and airbox gambling was encouraged by minor respiratory illness and how it’s fooking people left and right now.
‘Streeter had planned on selling two rental homes he owns in St. Petersburg. Now he’s holding off. The homes are located in the floodplain but did not sustain damage. Still, ‘If somebody hears they have to pay flood insurance right now … I don‘t know what that will do to the value’
It’s smart to focus on being a winnah! Josh. Block out the roadblocks.
‘Listings for storm-damaged homes being sold ‘as is’ or ‘for land value’ are already popping up locally. Some may even sell at a loss. Take, 1843 Oregon Ave. in St. Petersburg’s Shore Acres neighborhood. The owner paid $511,000 in 2022. They previously listed it for sale in September, before the hurricanes, with an asking price of $535,000. That listing was removed. Now, it’s been back on the market for about two weeks with an asking price of $385,000. Streeter said he’s starting to hear about off-market short sales for the first time since the 2008 housing market crash’
It’s coming from a low base.
‘There is no way to recover the cost’…banks will not issue a loan to cover the costs as the building loses all value. ‘It’s daunting. We can’t change jobs, can’t downsize, can’t sell the home…This is not just a Western Massachusetts or Central Massachusetts issue,’ said Loglisci, noting that homeowners in Dracut and Bedford have found their foundations are crumbling as well. ‘This is a massive loss to the community’…Riani, a Holden resident, said she and her husband discovered the damage when they took down a wall in their basement. The homeowners called in basement repair specialists for the 19-year-old foundation. One offered a $30,000 ‘fix’ with no guarantees, another said it was a ‘bad pour’ and a third suggested they call a structural engineer. The walls were bowing in Riani’s home. The couple paid $280,000 for repairs, which came to 80% of what they had paid for the house in 2013. They spent down their savings, took funds from their 401(k) accounts and even dipped into retirement savings. ‘It was a crisis,’ Riani said, adding that the longer the delay in mitigating the problem, the worse the damage becomes. As if loss of the equity was not anxiety-provoking enough, homeowners live in fear of imminent collapse of their homes’
Ladies, I can assure you it was still way cheaper than renting.
‘purchased their $1.6 million four-bedroom, three-bath dream home at 3250 Lama Ave in Long Beach in the spring of 2022. But after closing on escrow – a decision they said they were pressured into – the couple discovered horrific defects in the property. ‘This story is so much worse than a bad flip or a contractor cutting corners. It is a story of our family being exposed to many toxic health hazards that we may be dealing with for years to come…The parents no longer felt comfortable letting their children – now ages 5, 3, and 7 months – live in the house, so they bounced around between hotels and Airbnbs until settling into a rental property in Los Alamitos in May 2023. ‘The amount of hardship that this flipper and his businesses have created for our family cannot be put into words. The effect this has had on us physically, financially and emotionally is indescribable’
What’s even worse Jill is you bought at the minor respiratory illness peak. You are way underwater.
‘When projects get cancelled and less homes are being built, the price is going to be sticky and won’t go down’
This is why you make the big bucks Rick.
‘As a rule of thumb, if I have a $100 million loan on a project, the bank is going to want to see close to $100 million of pre-sales in place [in order to unlock unconditional financing], which will often equate to 65 per cent of the number of homes’
That’s a nice little profit Rick and the banks have built in there.
‘The likelihood of that happening under current marketing conditions over the last couple of years is zero. Consumers are worried about value, and there’s no question that jobs and incomes have not kept up with the rapid cost of construction. The mood’s off. Pre-sale campaigns are very slow. The amount of people coming through pre-sale centres is shockingly low’
Let us remember that when the many tens of thousands of K-dn airboxes that were sold pre-construction and have been freshly delivered or soon will be, they sold out quickly. So the degenerate gamblers need to unload to a ‘moods off’.
‘The polarization that has occurred in American life around elections in particular has caused more people to feel distressed and search for some kind of therapeutic outlet,’ said Phil Soper, president of Royal LePage. ‘Call it a bit of online therapy. Look at a house in Vancouver and say, ‘Oh God, I could live in Vancouver and get away from it all’. Clearly the increase in volume is coming from Democrats who view Canada as a great big blue state’
Remember when California was going to become part of K-da in 2016? I still see it as a win-win.
‘he is experiencing an oversupply of listings in the Hepburn region. He said many sellers are expecting to sell at pandemic prices, but this is deterring buyers. ‘It’s no good having a high price if no one’s going to pay it… That’s starting to adjust as buyers aren’t willing to meet those expectations,’ he said. ‘Some people locally have had their mortgage repayments go up by 50 per cent making it difficult to cope because the rents haven’t gone up that much. [People are] finding that their holiday accommodation is not getting booked as much as well’
It all usually goes to sh$t at the same time Mike.
Now Your Price Makes No Sense (York Region Real Estate Market Update)
Team Sessa Real Estate
51 minutes ago VAUGHAN
In this episode, we look at the current Vaughan Home Prices, Richmond Hill Home Prices & Markham Home Prices and real estate market trends for the week ending Oct 23, 2024. We also discuss how some seller’s are just not adapting to current market prices.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSWeD4mkOIk
16:49.
Throwback Thursday — Tom Vu Edition:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kzsSpDyBc_4&pp=ygUSdG9tIHZ1IHJlYWwgZXN0YXRl
[A comment associated with your post …]
@jubbybrab
1 year ago
Tom Vu, you have changed my life. After following your course, I am now a criminal facing up to 20 years for fraud and tax evasion. #ThanksTomVu
Does the huge spike in commercial real estate foreclosures worry you?
Commercial Real Estate Foreclosures Soar by 48% Nationwide While California Sees a 238% Surge
Claire Shefchik
Thu, October 31, 2024 at 12:57 PM PDT 3 min read
Commercial real estate foreclosures are surging across the U.S., with foreclosures climbing 48% in September year-over-year. California’s numbers are especially striking, with a massive 238% increase, per ATTOM’s recent report, as detailed by Business Insider. This spike points to growing pressures in the sector. This trend is likely influenced by rising interest rates and lingering effects from post-pandemic shifts in demand, particularly for office spaces. States like New York and Florida are also seeing big foreclosure increases, up 48% and 49%, respectively.
The broader economic shifts are weighing heavily on commercial real estate. Debt continues to mature while demand remains weak. Office spaces have been hit particularly hard as businesses adapt to hybrid work models. Many are downsizing or shedding traditional office space. This transformation leaves landlords with vacancies they may struggle to fill. The dynamic, combined with stricter lending terms, is creating a perfect storm of financial stress for property owners. It could explain the rise in foreclosures.
…
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/commercial-real-estate-foreclosures-soar-195735846.html
I understand the concept of mortgage balances that are larger than the amount a home will sell for, but how do you get underwater on a car loan?
We’ll keep driving our fully paid off 100K+ beaters while pondering the underwater car loan situation.
Autos
American consumers are increasingly underwater on their car loans
Published Tue, Oct 15 2024 11:38 AM EDT
Updated Tue, Oct 15 2024 1:31 PM EDT
Michael Wayland
Key Points
– A growing number of Americans with auto loans owe more than their vehicles are worth, according to a report Tuesday from Edmunds.com.
– The average amount owed on upside-down loans climbed to an all-time high of $6,458 during the third quarter, according to the company.
– Upside-down car loans are not necessarily dire on their own, but a growing number of consumers being underwater is another indication of pressure on American consumers.
…
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/10/15/american-consumers-are-increasingly-underwater-on-their-car-loans.html
“…but how do you get underwater on a car loan?”
Back in my repo life, I used to see loans where the loan balance from a previous vehicle trade-in was rolled into the current loan. Hence, they were waaay upside-down at the get-go.
The typical scenario: The previous vehicle was out of warranty and was in need of an expensive repair that the owner couldn’t afford. What to do? Buy a new car! The dealership would initiate the repair, process the trade-in and tack all of the expenses on the new loan, which had factory finance guarantees. Then, the loan is bought and bundled into securities by Wall street, which are then sold to investors. It all works like magic until that new car driver gets a pink slip from their employer.