When You Present The Comps To A Seller, It Feels Like A Cold Splash Of Water
A report from NPR. “The final figures for home sales last year are in, and the story is quite grim: 2024 was the slowest year for existing home sales in nearly three decades. At least there’s some good news in terms of supply. Last year was a good one for the completion of more housing: An estimated 1.63 million housing units were completed in 2024, according to Census data, or 12.4% above the 2023 figure. As existing home sales have slowed, sales of new homes have become a larger part of the market — about 30%, says Danushka Nanayakkara, assistant vice president for forecasting at the National Association of Homebuilders. There’s now significantly more inventory of new homes for sale than there is of existing homes for sale.”
From Redfin. “Home purchases fell through at the highest December rate on record, which likely contributed to the decline in pending sales. Nearly 40,000 home-purchase agreements were canceled in December, equal to 16.2% of homes that went under contract that month. That’s the highest December percentage in records dating back to 2017 and is up from 15.1% a year earlier.”
KUTV in Utah. “A big goal of 35,000 starter homes in five years was set by Gov. Spencer Cox in his State of the State address. ‘It is a very aggressive goal,’ said Steve Waldrip, the senior advisor for housing strategy in the governor’s staff. “It’s about double what we would naturally produce in a normal market, and right now we are actually in a bit of a down market as far as construction goes.’ Waldrip acknowledged we are in a housing crisis, saying lots of people are priced out of the market. ‘It’s people making over $100,000 year who can’t afford housing,’ he said.”
Florida Today. “Florida’s condo market, long a source of affordable housing, now faces a crisis. Many of the state’s 1.1 million condo units over 30 years old are in dire need of repair. These buildings, often constructed during the 1970s and 1980s, were a cornerstone of middle-class housing. Yet, while these structures aged, many associations prioritized short-term savings over long-term planning. For some boards, this was driven by denial. For others, it was about appeasing residents unwilling to pay higher assessments. Whatever the reason, the result is decades of neglect that have left Florida’s condo market teetering on the edge. Some assessments exceed the value of the homes themselves, forcing owners to sell, face foreclosure, or abandon their properties entirely. The hard truth is that many buildings — and, tragically, some residents’ life savings — are beyond saving. No amount of reform or repair funding can change the fact that some properties are simply too far gone.”
CBS News Miami in Florida. “Families in Sunrise are on the verge of being put out of their condominiums because their buildings are not safe and they’re blaming the homeowners’ association. ‘There’s no transparency,’ said resident Claudia Foreo. ‘We have no money to pay for this — $30,000 on each owner on top of our association fees already is impossible.'”
Sarasota Magazine in Florida. “At the end of 2024, the real estate market in Sarasota and Manatee counties showed signs of stabilization after the frenzy of the pandemic years. Sarasota and Manatee counties both saw year-over-year price declines affecting all property types. Sarasota County’s townhouse and condo market faced sharper declines. The median sale price dropped 6.5 percent, to $383,500. Manatee County experienced an 8.9 percent decrease in condo and townhome sales. The median sale price declined 6.8 percent, to $338,990. ‘Many seller conversations boil down to this: ‘If I can get the price I want, I’ll move,’ says John Forberger, a local realtor with Douglas Elliman. ‘There’s an increasing lack of urgency. When you present the comps to a seller, it’s a reality check—it feels like a cold splash of water. It’s shocking for some people to realize how far we are from the pandemic buying spree.'”
“Forberger also points to the need for sellers to adapt. ‘I think sellers may have to adjust expectations even more going into quarter two of 2025,’ he says. ‘The mindset of a lot of sellers is that the record-breaking buying frenzy [of the pandemic years] is still on, but the open house volume and data show it has ended. We’re constantly faced with that.'”
ABC 7 in California. “Twelve-thousand homes, businesses and more were destroyed by the SoCal wildfires. Entire communities are now in ruins. Most people say they want to rebuild. They might have insurance, but is it going to be enough? ‘Over the years, three decades now and counting, two-thirds of wildfire victims find themselves underinsured,’ said Amy Bach from United Policyholders. ‘You want the amount of insurance on your home, your dwelling to look right, if you paid a million bucks for your house a year ago, and you’re insured for $500,000, that’s not right. Something there is off, right?'”
Colorado Springs Gazette. “Good news, renters. The cost of renting an apartment in the Denver metro area fell during the last quarter of 2024 and may be the largest price drop for the region ‘ever,’ according to the Apartment Association of Metro Denver. While the winter season is typically the slowest time of the year, it was the ‘softest quarter I’ve seen in the 20 years I’ve been doing this,’ said Apartment Insights researcher Cary Bruteig. For apartment owners, however, vacancies climbed as developers delivered some 20,000 units last year. Even though it was a quarterly drop in prices, more often seen in the winter time, the report found it’s the third time in recent Denver history when prices dropped annually. The last two times were after the 9/11 terror attacks coinciding with the dotcom bubble bursting in the early 2000s, and the 2008 housing bubble. ‘Winter arrived, because finally we got the big surge in the number of completed units,’ Bruteig said. Absorption was about negative 4,800 units in the fourth quarter.”
The Globe and Mail. “As a growing number of Canadians retire with mortgages, some are turning to reverse mortgages to tackle that debt. Reverse mortgages are still a niche product, but the business has grown rapidly in the past five years, as seniors who want to remain in their homes struggle amid higher interest rates and soaring living costs. ‘We’re seeing a lot more people using [reverse mortgages] for mortgage repayment, but in general just a lot more seniors being interested in reverse mortgages,’ said Mahima Poddar, senior vice-president and group head of personal banking at Equitable Bank.”
“At HomeEquity Bank, roughly half of all reverse mortgage holders in 2024 used the funds to tackle their debts – a 10-per-cent increase since 2021. At Equitable Bank, that figure is even higher, with 70 per cent of clients using reverse mortgages to consolidate debt. Both institutions said a large portion of that is mortgage debt. Statscan data show that households led by individuals 55 to 64 had $315.7-billion in mortgage liabilities in the first quarter of 2024, up 29 per cent from $244.2-billion in 2020. For those 65 and older, mortgage liabilities grew 45 per cent, from $97.2-billion to $141.2-billion, over the same period.”
“On top of that, 1.2 million Canadians are set to renew their mortgages this year, and 85 per cent of those loans were secured when interest rates were at historic lows. While it isn’t clear how many seniors face higher renewals, both Equitable Bank and HomeEquity Bank cited higher renewal rates as a key reason why clients are using reverse mortgages.”
The Jerusalem Post. “A new report from Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics reveals a surprising downturn in apartment sales during the final months of 2024. Even after accounting for seasonal adjustments – considering summer as the peak buying season – the decline remained significant at 14.7%, marking a stark contrast to the steady increases seen throughout early 2024. The inventory of unsold new apartments reached approximately 71,040 units by November’s end, with an estimated 21.4 -month supply – a notable increase from October’s 69,730 units. This inventory has been growing by an average of 1.4% monthly since April 2022.”
“The Tel Aviv District holds the largest share of unsold inventory at 32.2% (22,880 units), followed by the Central District with 24.4% (17,290 units). Among major cities with populations exceeding 100,000, Tel Aviv-Yafo leads with about 8,470 unsold units, while Jerusalem follows with approximately 6,220 units.”
Business Mirror in the Philippines. “Aside from the mismatch in the demand and supply issue highlighted by the more than 60,000 unsold inventory, property developers have to hurdle the pricing issue of condominiums, an official of a major property management company said. ‘It’s a very simple solution, there’s a mismatch in the demand and supply but it’s really due to pricing which is at least 20-40 percent overvalued. Those units could be sold off in a year if priced ‘to market,’ KMC Chairman Michael McCullough told the BusinessMirror.”
“He also pointed out that developers continue to build unaffordable vertical housing because their job is simply to maximize returns. Although building condominiums benefits some sectors like the construction industry, McCullough stressed building condominiums is not rosy as before because it no longer offers affordability, convenience, capital appreciation, or value. ‘That’s why demand has moved to the suburbs, open space, community, and fresh air,’ he said.”
“Meanwhile, McCullough said the office market in Metro Manila remains resilient despite high vacancy rates and declining rents. He said the information technology-business process management (IT-BPM) sector continues to support the demand, contributing to a positive net take-up of office space. ‘However, with an additional 500,000 sq. m. of office space expected to enter the market by the end of 2025, vacancy rates are projected to remain above 20 percent,’ he said.”
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‘An estimated 1.63 million housing units were completed in 2024, according to Census data, or 12.4% above the 2023 figure. As existing home sales have slowed, sales of new homes have become a larger part of the market — about 30%, says Danushka Nanayakkara, assistant vice president for forecasting at the National Association of Homebuilders. There’s now significantly more inventory of new homes for sale than there is of existing homes for sale’
That’s a heck of a shortage Danushka.
The Left’s Post-Election Come-to-Jesus Moment – a six-minute video.
https://patriotpost.us/videos/113888-the-lefts-post-election-come-to-jesus-moment-2025-01-24
‘There’s no transparency,’ said resident Claudia Foreo. ‘We have no money to pay for this’
Loanowner = broke a$$ loser.
‘Over the years, three decades now and counting, two-thirds of wildfire victims find themselves underinsured…You want the amount of insurance on your home, your dwelling to look right, if you paid a million bucks for your house a year ago, and you’re insured for $500,000, that’s not right. Something there is off, right?’
That’s some sound lending right there Amy.
[An interesting and informative read …]
Wikipedia: List of California wildfires
[snip]
Lack of common sense forest managment has lengthened the fire season and made it more extreme from the middle of the 20th century.[4][5]
Since the early 2010s, wildfires in California are growing more dangerous because of the accumulation of wood fuel in forests, higher population, and aging and often poorly maintained electricity transmission and distribution lines, particularly in areas serviced by Pacific Gas and Electric.[6][7][8] United States taxpayers pay about US$3 billion a year to fight wildfires, and big fires can lead to billions of dollars in property losses.[9] At times, these wildfires are fanned or made worse by strong, dry winds, known as Diablo winds when they occur in the northern part of the state and Santa Ana winds when they occur in the south. However, from a historical perspective, it has been estimated that prior to 1850, about 4.5 million acres (17,000 km2) burned yearly, in fires that lasted for months, with wildfire activity peaking roughly every 30 years, when up to 11.8 million acres (47,753 km3) of land burned.[10][11] The much larger wildfire seasons in the past can be attributed to the policy of Native Californians regularly setting controlled burns and allowing natural fires to run their course, which prevented devastating wildfires from overrunning the state.[10] There are conservation issues that aren’t allowing as many controlled burns necessary to lessen the damage for when a wildfire starts.[12]
If your lot is worth 500K .then that’s about right ….Insurance won’t cover the value of the land ….
exactly. it’s cost to rebuild the structure, not what you paid. And a million dollar home in socal is a tract home, maybe 300/400k to put up.
esp considering all the taps and foundation will still be there.
Russian President Vladimir Putin: “2020 Election Victory Stolen” From President Trump – Acknowledges Ukraine War Never Would Have Happened Under Trump.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/01/russian-president-vladimir-putin-2020-election-victory-stolen/
Russian President Vladimir Putin has broken his silence on the 2020 Presidential Election between President Trump and Joe Biden. In a recent interview, Putin stated the President Trump had his victory “stolen” from him and that “perhaps the crisis in Ukraine that arose in 2022 wouldn’t have happened” if he had been re-elected.
The Russian leader also called out the previous “United States administration,” presumably Joe Biden, for refusing to “communicate” with Russia, stating that he had “business-like and pragmatic” relationship with the Trump administration before.
In a clip from an interview, Putin stated:
“I’d like to say that Russia never refused to come into contact with the United States administration and it is through no fault of ours that the previous administration refused to communicate. I always had business-like relations with the previous US President, that were very business-like and pragmatic. But there was trust as well.
If he had been the President, if the victory wasn’t stolen from him in 2020, maybe the Ukrainian crisis that arose in 2022 would have [appeared]”
President Trump has often asserted that the invasion into Ukraine would have never happened under his leadership. Earlier this week, The Gateway Pundit reported that President Trump on Truth Social called for Putin to “MAKE A DEAL” and urged that no more lives should be lost:
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said he will need “at minimum” 200,000 troops from the EU in order to sustain any peace agreement with Russia while ruling out the Kremlin’s demand to reduce Ukraine’s military to one-fifth the size of its current alleged 800,000 troops.
“Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said he will need “at minimum” 200,000 troops from the EU…”
ROTFLMFAO!! Next?
Zelensky should be planning on bugging out to a villa in the Mediterranean. Perhaps DJT will let him come to the US if he coopertes.
Video: Davos Globalists Admit ‘We Have Lost To Trump’.
“This is a phenomenon we shouldn’t try to understand only in the terms we traditionally accept.”
https://modernity.news/2025/01/23/video-davos-globalists-admit-we-have-lost-to-trump/
A panel of globalists at the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos remarkably admitted that President Trump and his America first movement has defeated their agenda.
In a segment of their discussion focusing on Trump’s election victory, former Defense Department official Graham Allison, now a professor at Harvard, remarked “We shouldn’t normalize Trump. Trump has done something no person in the world has ever done before. A dead man, a dead politician, has risen.”
“This is the greatest comeback in political history for a politician, and therefore he thinks he can do anything. There’s a supreme confidence now about that,” Allison continued.
“This is a phenomenon we shouldn’t try to understand only in the terms we traditionally accept. We should say something strange, new, and amazing is happening here, and we should study it,” Allison further urged.
Yale University Professor Walter Reed emphasised “I think we need to also factor in not only who has won (Trump) but also who has lost, which is to say us.”
“By ‘us,’ I mean the general intellectual, professional, managerial people who believed history was over, and we were merely administering and managing things according to clear and known rules,” Reed explained.
“Something new, not necessarily better, but new, is moving into the center,” he added.
Ian Bremmer, president of political consulting firm Eurasia Group remarked “Anti-establishment forces in the United States are growing, and their momentum is undeniable.”
Trump himself addressed the globalists at Davos today by video link and put them on blast that America is back.
“I’m pleased to report that America is a free nation once again,” Trump announced, adding “On day one, I signed an executive order to stop all government censorship.”
“No longer will our government label the speech of our own citizens as misinformation or disinformation, which are the favorite words of censors and those who wish to stop the free exchange of ideas and, frankly, progress,” Trump asserted, adding “We have saved free speech in America, and we’ve saved it strongly.”
Trump also stated that “With another historic executive order this week, I also ended the weaponization of law enforcement against the American people and frankly, against politicians, and restored the fair, equal, and impartial rule of law.”
Klaus Schwab sounded like he was biting his own tongue off when announcing Trump as the President of the United States.
Here are Trump’s full comments.
[A video appears here. Go to the link if you want to watch it.]
Nazispolozza: The Left’s Third Reich Mania Collapses Into Comedy.
https://jonathanturley.org/2025/01/23/nazispolozza-the-lefts-third-reich-mania-collapses-into-comedy/
Below is my column in the New York Post on the latest attack on Elon Musk from the left. There is a mania on the left in calling people with opposing views “Nazis” and referencing the Third Reich. The left has jumped the Nazi shark in this rhetoric as the public tunes out these increasingly hysterical voices.
Here is the column:
One of the least successful efforts of the left and many in the media this election was to paint Republican voters as “Nazis” hellbent on destroying democracy.
While once verboten as a political comparison, liberal politicians and pundits have developed something of a Nazi fetish, where every statement and gesture is declared a return of the Third Reich. It seems like each news event presents a Rorschach test where every inkblot looks like a Nazi.
That mania reached absurd, even comedic, levels with the attack on Elon Musk over an awkward gesture during the inauguration celebration.
An exuberant Musk told the crowd, “My heart goes out to you. It is thanks to you that the future of civilization is assured.” As he gave those words, he placed his right hand on his chest and stretched his arm outward, his palm facing the floor. He then repeated the gesture before putting his hand on his chest again.
It was all done in a matter of seconds, but it was enough for the usual mob to erupt in faux outrage.
Pundits insisted that Musk had chosen the moment to come out as a Nazi on national television. The Washington Post breathlessly reported this week how the “Nazi-style salute” had “invigorated fans on the far right.” The usual liberal professors were rolled out to offer a patina of authority to the ridiculous claim.
Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a professor of history at New York University, declared, “Historian of fascism here. It was a Nazi salute and a very belligerent one too.”
Mike Stuchbery went on X (the company owned by the man he now suggests is a Nazi reenactor) to declare, “I studied the Nazis at university, taught the history of Nazi Germany on two continents and wrote for major newspapers about Nazi Germany. I am internet famous for fact-checking chuds [gross people] on the history, ideology and policy of Nazi Germany. That was a Nazi salute.”
Well, that settles it.
As the outrage continued, any doubt or dissent was denounced as evidence that you are obviously a Nazi as well.
That became a bit embarrassing when the leading Jewish organization, the Anti-Defamation League, stated the obvious: This was not a Nazi salute but rather an “awkward gesture.”
The core principle of liberal mob tactics is that there can be no divergence, even by a group like the ADL. The way to deal with opposing ideas or writings is by making someone persona non grata. If you do not cancel others, you will be canceled.
So the ADL was effectively declared soft on Nazis by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY): “Just to be clear, you are defending a Heil Hitler salute that was performed and repeated for emphasis and clarity. People can officially stop listening to you as any sort of reputable source of information now. You work for them. Thank you for making that crystal clear to all.”
We’ve reached a level of absurdity where Jewish advocates are treated like they are virtual Nazi sympathizers.
This is not the first time the Democrats have labeled Trump and his supporters “Nazis.”
It started years ago as Democrats repeated analogies of Trump to Hitler and his followers to brownshirted neo-Nazis. Defeating Trump has been compared to stopping Hitler in 1933, and media personalities like Rachel Maddow went on the air with a hysterical claim that “death squads” were authorized by the Supreme Court.
When Trump held a massive rally in New York’s Madison Square Garden before the election, the media were apoplectic and immediately declared it … you guessed it … akin to a Nazi rally. From the Washington Post to the New York Times, the media formed an affinity group meeting to fret over “echoes of 1939.” In case anyone missed the message, Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz emphasized “a direct parallel” with the Nazis.
Over at the Nation, David Zirin treated Madison Square Garden (known for everything from cage fights to dog shows) as an almost Vatican-like space: “With his fascist New York City rally, Donald Trump has befouled what many believe to be a sacred space: Madison Square Garden.”
So Trump is a Nazi. Musk is a Nazi. Half the country are Nazis.
The problem is that, if you say everyone is a Nazi, then no one is a Nazi. It loses its meaning.
That includes Ocasio-Cortez, who appears to have joined the ranks of the Reich after critics posted her making a Musk-like gesture during a speech.
There was no torrent of media fretting about how the gesture reflected the extremism of AOC’s questioning need for a Supreme Court, seeking to bar Trump and dozens of Republicans from ballots, or supporting censorship. AOC is a certified Nazi hunter, a license that seems only to be available to figures on the left.
Of course, labeling political opponents as diabolically evil fanatics and seeking to bar candidates from ballots sounds a lot like … well … it sounds familiar.
There is an alternative. We can put the rage rhetoric aside and have honest debates over differences on politics and laws. In other words, we can fight over policy … and leave the Nazis out of it.
Realtors are liars.
Wow! This is a lot of crater for a Saturday morning!
how about a fun song for today. written by Lou Christie read the comments
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Er8PN385PEA
A liberal friend of mine threw the Hilter BS at me yesterday.
I give up because this person is just brainwashed by fake news. Not even going to argue with this person anymore.
Take your friend out for breakfast, a Denver Omelette with a side dish.
reverse morgages used to be called “unlocking equity” …..so you can spend more …..I’d call it a debt trap.
Desperation move.
“It’s people making over $100,000 year who can’t afford housing,’ he said.”
It’s really quite simple. Either incomes go up 50% or housing drops 50%. Which is more likely?
It’s okay for housing to drop by 50% as long as MBS don’t!
Alberta task force recommends halt of COVID-19 vaccines in new report
An Alberta government task force has recommended that the use of COVID-19 vaccines be halted unless more information is provided about risk, in a report rife with suggestions that run counter to mainstream scientific consensus.
The $2-million task force’s final report, released Friday, touched on several points common with disinformation campaigns such as the effectiveness of public health restrictions and masking, while also recommending some government authority over media.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, in the fall of 2022, directed the government’s then-health minister to strike a panel to review pandemic data and provide recommendations. The Globe and Mail, in April, first revealed details about the task force, which was led by Gary Davidson, a physician who claimed the province manipulated statistics to introduce restrictions and exaggerated pressure on hospitals during the height of the pandemic.
The task force’s composition and report reflect Ms. Smith’s skepticism toward how governments around the world responded to the pandemic. The final report, for example, revealed that Jay Bhattacharya was among its 13 panelists. U.S. President Donald Trump nominated Dr. Bhattacharya to run the National Institutes of Health. In 2020, Dr. Bhattacharya co-authored the Great Barrington Declaration, which argued against public-health measures such as lockdowns.
The 269-page report is a sweeping criticism of the government’s response and defence of contrarian arguments, such as the value of drugs such as ivermectin, which scientists determined were ineffective in warding off and treating COVID-19.
The task force took aim at vaccines, which Alberta and other Canadian jurisdictions required in order to access public gatherings and businesses. Alberta launched a vaccine passport system in September, 2021, and while it ended in early 2022, physicians still recommend booster shots.
The task force “recommends halting the use of COVID-19 vaccines without full disclosure of their potential risks, ending their use in healthy children and teenagers, conducting further research into their effectiveness, establishing support for vaccine-injured individuals, and providing an opt-out mechanism from federal public health policy,” the report said.
Ms. Smith, prior to becoming premier, railed against Alberta’s management of the pandemic, particularly vaccine mandates and restrictions on gatherings. She promoted drugs, such as the antiparasitic drug ivermectin, and also travelled to the United States to receive Janssen’s single-dose shot because she was skeptical of mRNA vaccines.
The task force concluded federal and provincial health authorities took a “restrictive approach” to certain drugs including ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine, which is used to treat malaria.
The panel said Alberta should protect “public discussion of alternative medical treatments” under the provincial Human Rights Act and advised the government to prevent regulatory bodies from using “professionalism or codes of conduct” to obstruct the use of approved medications for off-label use.
It also recommended halting disciplinary action against health care workers for promoting or using these medications.
The task force took aim at both Alberta Health Services and the health ministry on its collection of data to inform the need for booster shots. The group stated that there is no “quality data” that supports the idea that vaccines provide better protection from severe disease than natural exposure to circulating variants. Ultimately, it was recommended that public health information “avoid ideological bias geared toward maximizing vaccine coverage.”
The panel also suggested that the media is politically or financially compensated by public health or pharmaceutical contracts and said the government should require the press to publicly disclosure any affiliations.
“When reporting on health-related matters, require media to cite levels of supporting evidence and publicly disclose any political or financial competing interests that may influence their reporting, including publicly disclosing the dollar value and conditions of their public health and pharmaceutical contracts,” the report said.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-alberta-releases-secret-report-into-the-provinces-covid-response/
unless more information is provided about risk
It’s four years later and big pharma still won’t release the data.
But as another poster here says: the wall of lies is crumbling. Relatives who tripped over each other to get the jab are now regretting it, realizing they were duped, or worse they were coerced by FJB mandates,
evergreen:
Nobody regrets not getting it.
Covid vaccines are poison.
Prince Harry could be deported by Trump if he lied about past drug use
Prince Harry may be forced to leave the United States — if it is proven he lied about past drug use when emigrating from the U.K.
U.S. President Donald Trump is being pressured to release the Duke of Sussex’s immigration file, and its contents could prompt his deportation.
Trump had previously pledged during his 2024 campaign that he would take appropriate action in response to any false claims on official forms — after Harry revealed in his 2023 memoir Spare that he took cocaine, cannabis and psychedelic mushrooms.
A federal judge ruled against any disclosure of Harry’s application papers last year, but the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation wants Trump to override the court’s decision to keep the records sealed.
“I’ll be urging the president to release Prince Harry’s immigration records and the president does have that legal authority to do that,” Nile Gardiner, director of the foundation’s Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom, told the Post .
Harry revealed in his book that he tried cocaine for the first time when he was 17, writing that he wanted “to feel different” after the death of his mother, Princess Diana.
“Of course I had been taking cocaine at that time,” he wrote. “At someone’s house, during a hunting weekend, I was offered a line, and since then I had consumed some more.”
In March 2024, Trump said he would “have to see” if Homeland Security was aware of the admission, which came years after Harry, wife Meghan Markle and son Archie moved to Montecito, California in 2020. Their daughter Lilibet was born the following year.
“If they know something about the drugs, and if he lied, they’ll have to take appropriate action,” Trump vowed at the time.
Gardiner suspected that the Biden administration gave Harry “special treatment” to prevent the release of Harry’s records after the couple’s Archewell Foundation donated $250,000 check to first daughter Ashley Biden’s Philadelphia-based nonprofit for women affected by trauma, according to tax filings disclosed in December 2024, the publication reported.
“Donald Trump is ushering in a new era of strict border control enforcement, and Prince Harry should be held fully to account as he has admitted to extensive illegal drug use,” Gardiner added. “My firm expectation is that action will be taken.”
https://www.msn.com/en-ca/politics/government/prince-harry-could-be-deported-by-trump-if-he-lied-about-past-drug-use/ar-AA1xOqgJ
“Prince Harry may be forced to leave the United States — if it is proven he lied about past drug use when emigrating from the U.K.”
What about his contribution to our economy from the long hours he devotes to start-up, BetterUp, as its chief impact officer?
We Interviewed 6 New EV Buyers. One Year Later, Do They Regret It?
Change is hard, especially for something so ingrained in the day-to-day lives of people around the world, and American culture specifically. But when those panic headlines are published by otherwise reputable news sources and based on insufficient evidence, that’s when we have a problem.
It’s this sort of alarmism that led us to interview seven Americans who recently purchased EVs at this time last year. We wanted to understand, after experiencing all-electric driving for one to six months, were they as disappointed in their purchase as some outlets claimed? Were their hopes and dreams for EV ownership dashed by the realities of insufficient charging infrastructure, range anxiety and technological mishaps?
Do you have a memorable moment with the vehicle (good or bad) from the past year?
A memorable moment was when we went car camping and slept in the car. Having the AC running and no mosquitoes buzzing around made it a surprisingly great experience. The Model 3 is a little tight for this kind of thing, but it worked. I think a Model Y or a Rivian SUV would be even better for camping.
On the other hand, I learned the hard way that you can go through tires very quickly if you’re not careful. After puncturing one, I found out that I had completely worn out the original set in six months. Replacing them set me back about $1,500 at Costco. The acceleration is so much fun — it’s like a toy — but that fun comes with a cost. A year later, the novelty of the acceleration hasn’t worn off, but I’ve dialed it back because I don’t want to replace my tires every six months.
After a full year of driving, are you feeling better or worse about your vehicle? What have been the major positives and negatives?
We are approaching 18 months of experience with the EV. Range anxiety is a real thing, and we were reluctant to take drives of over 100 miles without extensive planning. In 2023 there weren’t enough chargers available! This year we see a lot more chargers and we better understand how many miles the car can go on a charge.
In September, I drove up north (a 250-mile one-way drive) and recharged a couple of times with no issues. Since then, several more charging stations have opened, including in Rochester, so the anxiety has significantly decreased. The next big challenge is a drive to the Park Rapids area for a weeklong vacation in June. As of today, there are no DC fast-charging stations near the lake, so we may still need to take the old gas-powered vehicle.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/autos/electric-cars/we-interviewed-6-new-ev-buyers-one-year-later-do-they-regret-it/ar-AA1xOLVe
Target becomes latest company to backtrack on DEI initiatives
Target is ending its diversity, equity and inclusion program this year, the retailer said on Friday, the latest U.S. corporation to step away from such policies in the face of severe scrutiny from conservative groups.
Over the last year, several major companies, including Walmart, Amazon, and Meta, have rolled back their DEI policies, and earlier this week, President Donald Trump directing federal agencies to terminate DEI programs and urged private companies to end “illegal DEI discrimination and preferences.”
But the Minneapolis-based retailer’s decision met with notable criticism, with some noting the company’s reputation for inclusiveness has helped it attract a younger, more diverse consumer base.
“For Target, with an inclusive audience, this is their version of brand suicide,” said Eric Schiffer of Los Angeles-based Reputation Management Consultants, which advises U.S. corporates and Hollywood celebrities.
Target also said it was ending its Racial Equity Action and Change (REACH) initiatives this year, under which it had pledged to invest over $2 billion with Black-owned businesses by the end of 2025. The initiative included plans to add more than 500 Black-owned brands and a funding program from its in-house media company, Roundel, to increase exposure of diverse-owned brands through paid media.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/target-ends-3-diversity-equity-180451214.html
https://x.com/Oilfield_Rando/status/1882185731189416130?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&mx=2
Oilfield Rando @Oilfield_Rando
You might be confused as to why agencies would fight so hard to keep DEI officers in place.
It’s totally understandable if you haven’t accepted the fact that DEI officers are actually communist political commissars.
End Wokeness @EndWokeness · Jan 22
The ATF was just caught rebranding their Chief Diversity Officer to Chief Officer to circumvent President Trump’s order.
Time to clean house. All of it.
4:57 PM · Jan 22, 2025 · 105K Views
A report from NPR. “The final figures for home sales last year are in, and the story is quite grim: 2024 was the slowest year for existing home sales in nearly three decades. At least there’s some good news in terms of supply. Last year was a good one for the completion of more housing: An estimated 1.63 million housing units were completed in 2024, according to Census data, or 12.4% above the 2023 figure. As existing home sales have slowed, sales of new homes have become a larger part of the market — about 30%, says Danushka Nanayakkara, assistant vice president for forecasting at the National Association of Homebuilders. There’s now significantly more inventory of new homes for sale than there is of existing homes for sale.”
– And…
https://www.axios.com/2024/08/12/new-existing-home-price-difference
Business
New houses now cost less per square foot than old houses
Sami Sparber | Aug 12, 2024
New U.S. homes are selling for $3.50 less per square foot than old ones, the widest gap in at least six years, according to a recent Zillow report.
https://www.investopedia.com/the-housing-market-is-so-weird-new-homes-cost-less-than-used-ones-8669638
News Personal Finance News
New Homes Cost Less Than Used Ones, and That’s Not Normal
By Diccon Hyatt | Updated June 27, 2024 | 11:01 AM EDT
“The median price for a newly built single-family house sold in May was $417,400 according to the Census Bureau, while the median single-family existing homes sold for $424,500, data from the National Association of Realtors showed. Existing homes costing more than new builds is a rare occurrence—it’s only happened in 14 months since 1968, most recently in 2021, and only twice since 1982.”
“The fact that new homes are cheaper than used ones serves as “a sign of how contorted the housing market is,” Robert Frick, corporate economist with Navy Federal Credit Union, wrote in a commentary.”
– The articles I could find don’t really tell the reader the real reasons why new construction now costs less than existing homes.
– Builder incentives, including mortgage rate buydowns, upgrades, and outright price reductions are the reason.
– Builders have to move product, while existing home sellers are holding out for pandemic pricing, when mortgages were at sub-3% rates. Now rates are about 7%.
– Lots of new home inventory means more builder incentives, and lower prices coming.
– The problem is that a lot of the new build quality is crap. Illegal aliens from Guatemala, etc. don’t have the skills, but it’s cheap labor.
– The U.S. Federal .gov did this via the GSEs, the Fed, and somehow, Congress’ complicity in all of this, probably through campaign contributions from the real estate lobbies, aka corruption.
– The U.S. housing market is FUBAR. Trying to fix it with the same .gov intervention that got us here is only going to make it more FUBAR.
– Related principles in this article.
https://themarket.ch/meinung/bureaucracy-vs-corruption-two-sides-of-the-same-coin-ld.12814
Bureaucracy vs. Corruption – Two Sides of the Same Coin
Alexander M. Ineichen | 16.01.2025, 03.32 Uhr
“Bureaucracy conjures thoughts of slow, rigid administrative processes, while corruption suggests illicit exchanges of power for personal gain. At first glance, they seem worlds apart – bureaucracy represents lawful administrative order, while corruption symbolizes criminal misconduct.”
“However, upon closer examination, these two phenomena share a crucial similarity: both lead to a profound misallocation of capital, impeding economic efficiency and undermining societal trust.”
“Any allocation of capital other than productive is a form of corruption, benefitting individuals at the expense of society as a whole, thereby creating stresses that will eventually be its undoing.” – Andrew Lees, British economist (*1967)
“Bureaucracy and corruption both distort economic decision-making, diverting resources away from their most productive uses.”
“The quest for equality is often the road to tyranny.” – Friedrich A. Hayek, Austrian-British economist (1899–1992)2
“In “The Road to Serfdom”, Friedrich Hayek warns against expanding bureaucratic control, noting that centralized planning inevitably leads to inefficiency.”
“Thomas Sowell, in works like “Knowledge and Decisions”, discusses how corruption short-circuits the market’s natural processes by replacing merit-based outcomes with patronage.”
“Nassim Taleb, in “Skin in the Game”, emphasizes the importance of accountability in decision-making, particularly in engineering and infrastructure. He argues that when decision-makers lack personal risk– i.e., “skin in the game” –, the likelihood of catastrophic failures increases.”
“Bureaucracy and corruption may seem like opposites, but they are united by their ability to misallocate resources, distort economic incentives, and erode public trust. Reducing bureaucratic excess and corruption is essential for fostering a free, prosperous, and just society.”
https://www.oftwominds.com/blogjan25/extremes-revert1-25.html
Extremes Become More Extreme, Then Revert to the Mean
Charles Hugh Smith | Of Two Minds Blog
January 20, 2025
A fatal bout of runaway instability becomes inevitable when “extraordinary emergency measures” become permanently essential to keep the bubbles from popping. ”
“A funny thing happens as policies intended to fill financial potholes transition from “temporary emergency measures” to “we need to keep doing this to stabilize the status quo”: extremes get more extreme as what were once viewed as extraordinary policy measures required to keep the rickety system from collapsing become the “New Normal.” ”
“ Of course the Federal Reserve continues suppressing interest and mortgage rates even after the financial crisis has passed, because if they stopped, the system would revert to crisis and collapse.”
“I’ve assembled a few charts of extremes becoming more extreme as a consequence of “emergency policies” becoming not just normalized but the keystone of the entire economy. What were desperate expediencies at first are now the lifeblood of the economy: withdraw them and the economy collapses in a heap.”
“What’s extraordinary is the systemic nature of the current extremes. New heights of precarity are being reached across the entire spectrum of the economy, not just in stock market bubbles but in the concentration of “wealth” in risk-on speculative assets–the very assets most prone to destabilization and reversion to the mean, the statistical dynamic in which outlier metrics eventually return to their starting point. ”
“When the economy becomes dependent on ever more extreme financial trickery to maintain the illusion of stability, a death loop becomes normalized: as instability leaks through the extreme policies, then even more extreme measures are instituted, generally behind the scenes. Obscure methods of expanding liquidity are normalized, bank credit and other mechanisms (repos, etc.) are jacked up, all of which serve the goal of duct-taping the system to appear stable to unknowing eyes.”
”The problem with this financial fentanyl is that it’s impossible to detect the lethality of the dose until it’s too late. That’s the current situation in American and global markets. ”
– Central planning and a command and control economy are the stuff of Communism. One can say “Socialism,” but there’s really no difference.
– Based on the historical record, this never ends well. Reference (former) USSR, Cuba, Venezuela, and CCP China’s “minor” current housing and general economic conflagration due to said intervention and also their failing demographics due to their grossly misguided one child policy.
– Free markets work, but politicians want power and control, and prefer the graft and corruption of Communism / Socialism.
“If a private business is run poorly, it will be shut down. If a government organization is run poorly, it will be expanded” – Milton Friedman
“The enduring lesson of the 20th century is that socialism is a failure, and free markets are a success. But the politicians keep advocating just a little more socialism.” – Milton Friedman
Op-Ed: Trump’s DEI actions send clear message to corporations: Stop discriminating or pay the price
President Donald Trump has dropped a bombshell on corporate Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programs.
On day one, he delivered the two DEI-related executive orders that most political observers expected. The opening salvo made clear that the incoming president planned to eliminate all funding and participation in DEI throughout the federal government, establishing a robust meritocracy to replace the legally suspect regime of race and gender-based personnel considerations.
But day two was when President Trump landed what could be the knockout blow to DEI. In “Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity,” President Trump overturned several previous executive orders – including one highly weaponized holdover from the Johnson administration – and extended the battle lines to federal contractors, federally funded educational institutions, and the private sector itself.
For years, the federal government has misused its power over federal contractors – which account for $759 billion of the federal budget – by pressuring them to comply with DEI-related mandates (based on race, sex, and other characteristics) as the price of doing business with the government.
Now, that equation is flipped 180 degrees. The new executive order requires each agency to include a term in every contract that acknowledges that noncompliance with Federal anti-discrimination laws will affect the government’s payment decisions and to certify that they do not have DEI programs that violate the law. There is little doubt that the Trump administration will take an aggressive stance on what violates these orders.
And for good reason. At its core, DEI is discrimination repackaged. It’s an ideology that treats some people worse than others based on skin color, biological sex, and religion. If that sounds illegal, it’s because it is. In a 2023 ruling that set the stage for the legal and cultural demise of DEI, the U.S. Supreme Court held that race-conscious admissions programs at Harvard and University of North Carolina violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment or Title VI.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/op-ed-trump-s-dei-actions-send-clear-message-to-corporations-stop-discriminating-or-pay-the-price/ar-AA1xOKLG
Ritchie Torres’ deportation flip-flop
In 2021, Democratic Rep. Ritchie Torres led an effort to eliminate funding for a controversial Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s program that facilitated collaboration between local law and federal authorities.
Just four years later — as he eyes a run for New York governor — his views couldn’t be more different.
“When I first entered politics, I was on the left on the question of migration,” Torres said during a press conference at his district office this morning.
Now, Torres is advocating for undertaking some deportations, telling his more than 200,000 followers on X that “even though law enforcement should prioritize the most violent criminals for deportation, I will no longer put myself in the position of defending anyone who commits any crime.”
“I had no concept of what it was like to live in a border state. But the waves of migration that we saw since 2022 were so overwhelming that it was deeply destabilizing to the city,” he told reporters today.
His ramping up of rhetoric on immigration comes as Gov. Kathy Hochul — whom he’d be trying to unseat if he enters the race — has also embraced calls to deport migrants who have committed crimes.
“If someone breaks the law, I’ll be the first one to call up ICE and say, ‘Get them out of here,’” Hochul said in November.
Torres is now fiercely opposed to the construction of a 2,200 bed temporary men’s shelter in the South Bronx for migrants.
“Stop treating the Bronx as a dumping ground,” he said. “The city’s decision to single out the Bronx for the siting of a 2,200 bed migrant men’s shelter is typical of the second class treatment the Bronx has historically been given.”
“No other community anywhere in this state is expected to absorb the impact of a men’s shelter on the scale of 2,200 beds,” he said and called the shelter “destructive” to the Bronx due to potential violence and organized crime.
He was also willing to end the city’s “right to shelter” law for people who aren’t long-term residents of New York City.
“The notion that anyone, anywhere on earth could come here and then be automatically guaranteed permanent shelter, that’s not something we can afford,” he said. “New York City does not have unlimited resources for unlimited migration. We’re not the Garden of Eden.”
When Torres was asked if he still supports his 2021 push to cut funding for the program that allowed ICE to collaborate with local officials, he responded by saying the circumstances are different today, something he blamed Hochul for.
“The single greatest difference between then and now is a $10 billon migrant crisis, which has fundamentally reshaped how most New Yorkers, including myself, view the issues of immigration and border security,” he said in a statement.
“Kathy Hochul’s catastrophic mismanagement of the migrant crisis contributed heavily to the Democratic Party’s defeat in the 2024 election. Unlike Kathy Hochul, whose name at the top of the ticket in 2022 cost Democrats five Congressional seats, I have an interest in learning from our party’s failures and winning elections.”
https://www.politico.com/newsletters/new-york-playbook-pm/2025/01/24/ritchie-torres-deportation-laken-riley-kathy-hochul-00200474
Ratings agency Moody’s on Friday raised Argentina’s long-term foreign currency sovereign credit rating to “Caa3” from “Ca”, citing the government’s forceful policy shift that has helped address economic challenges and stabilize external finances.
Argentina achieved a record $18.9 billion trade surplus in 2024, according to official data released on Monday, which largely coincided with libertarian President Javier Milei’s first full year in office, reflecting the impact of his economic policies.
Milei’s administration inherited spiraling inflation, depleted international reserves, and extensive economic imbalances that led to a very high probability of a credit event, according to Moody’s.
“Decisive fiscal adjustment, alongside measures to halt monetary financing were put in place and have proven effective in addressing imbalances,” it said.
Argentina’s financial markets have been buoyant due to Milei’s tough “zero deficit” policies, cooling inflation and the government’s commitment to meet its debt obligations.
Moody’s upgraded Argentina’s credit rating for the first time in five years, following a downgrade in 2020 as disrupted debt restructuring talks amid the global pandemic increased the country’s risk of slipping into default.
Argentina’s outlook has also been revised to “positive” from “stable” on Friday, as the government continues to make progress on its macroeconomic stabilization program.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/economy/moody-s-raises-argentina-s-rating-for-the-first-time-in-five-years/ar-AA1xP4Qw
Trump says Canada is a bad trade partner. Are his tariff threats justified?
Canada is bracing for the impact of Trump’s threats to levy blanket tariffs of 25 per cent on all goods entering the U.S. from Canada and Mexico, with much being said about price hikes for certain consumer goods if the tariffs come into force, but little attention paid to what possible solutions, like opening up the market, could mean.
“I’m not going to sugarcoat it, there will be job losses if we open up those protected industries,” says Ian Lee, associate professor at Carleton University’s Sprott School of Business.
“But prices will go down, not up, and businesses can go on to much greater success [in an open market].”
At the heart of this trade battle is a list of long-held U.S. grievances. The behemoth south of the border wants access to Canadian markets for all kinds of goods and services, namely telecoms and banking. This could have positive results for Canadians in terms of purchasing power — but if Ottawa doesn’t meet Trump at the negotiating table, the ramifications of a trade tit-for-tat could be far more devastating.
“We cannot get into a trade war. If we do, we will be slaughtered,” Lee says.
Trump is known for his long-held beef with Canada’s protectionist industries — particularly supply management, which protects the country’s dairy, egg and poultry industries. But he’s not the first U.S. president to clash with Canada on trade. Instead, he may just be the most vocal about it.
“I don’t really see Trump raising any particular trade issues relative to Canada that aren’t widely held in the United States,” Mark Warner, a principal at MAAW Law in Toronto says.
“The irritants were always there. Trump is acting on them when past presidents did not.”
This week, the Liberal government threatened a “dollar for dollar” response to Trump’s tariffs, which could come into effect as early as Feb. 1, but now look more likely to be put in place in April. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau insists tariffs would not only harm Canadian industries but also increase costs for American consumers, particularly in sectors like automotive, lumber, and oil — so retaliation must be “strong.”
But, experts say, the size disparities of the two countries make this an uneven, if not disastrous fight.
“That’s absolutely absurd… no country can stand up to this might against this juggernaut,” Lee says.“Our strategic objective is the elimination of all tariffs… It’s not to get to show a bunch of angry voters that we went and socked Donald Trump in the face or kicked him in the shins to make us feel better.”
Which is why the “Team Canada” approach is splintering. While Canadian voters overwhelmingly believe fighting fire with fire is the best option, several provincial leaders, including the premiers of Quebec, Saskatchewan and Alberta, have refused to adopt the retaliation narrative.
Trump continued his taunting during a virtual address to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Thursday, where he lashed out at several allies but saved much of his ire for Canada — saying he didn’t need Canadian cars, lumber or oil.
He maintained that it’s “not fair” that the U.S. has a trade deficit with Canada to the tune of $200 billion or $250 billion.
That claim may be erroneous — the U.S. goods and services trade deficit with Canada was about $40.6 billion in 2023, according to the U.S. government’s Bureau of Economic Analysis, and much of it is caused by the U.S. importing Canadian oil, which keeps costs at the pump down for Americans — but his laundry list of perceived trade infringements are not.
Canada is currently on the USTR (United States Trade Representative) watch list because of concerns over its enforcement of intellectual property rights, particularly around high levels of online piracy, inadequate border controls against counterfeit goods, and a perceived lack of strong penalties for copyright infringement.
But Trump, and previous U.S. administrations, harbour a long list of grievances that extend well beyond those issues.
Softwood lumber is one source of contention — a decades-long bilateral back-and-forth — as are banking and telecom monopolies, Canada’s controversial digital taxes levy and its liquor and energy industries.
Lee says Canada also needs to move forward with the CUSMA review, currently set for 2026, and eliminate digital taxes. He also suggests increased spending on military “overnight — I don’t mean 10-year promises we’ve been giving the Americans.”
Canadian businessman Kevin O’Leary, who says he has visited Trump “multiple times” at his Mar-a-Lago estate and is currently jostling with other mega-rich entrepreneurs in the U.S. to buy the U.S. arm of TikTok, agrees.
O’Leary says he attended a dinner party at the Trump estate where the conversation turned to the potential for an “economic union” between the two countries, focused on an EU-like passport to allow freedom of movement, a common currency and the elimination of all tariffs — meaning protections such as supply management must go.
https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/politics/trump-says-canada-is-a-bad-trade-partner-are-his-tariff-threats-justified/ar-AA1xPQsA
Poll shows Fort Myers voters tiring of subsidizing apartment construction
As real estate experts point to a glut of Fort Myers apartments, a new poll shows the public concerned about plans for more units.
St. Pete Polls found 76% of voters in the city do not believe Fort Myers needs more apartment complexes. Moreover, more than 89% of those surveyed oppose public subsidizing of such projects or any guarantee of profits to developers.
The numbers came out as Fort Myers city officials consider the future of a 11.4-acre site that once served as home for the News-Press and which could become apartment towers or be part of an effort to create a regional park amenity near downtown.
But the St. Pete Polls findings suggest little public appetite for an apartment-heavy development on the land. It also suggests a desire among voters for the city to shift its focus from residential construction to economic development.
Pollsters asked voters about the city’s current plan to add 6,800 new apartment units in the city. Nearly 90% of voters would prefer the city fund economic development, which receives no funding at all right now, while just 10% want a focus on increasing apartment inventory.
The poll findings also follow a market report by CoStar saying the Fort Myers multi-family housing market is “facing significant supply headwinds that will impact fundamentals over the next few years.” It suggested renter demand is still up in the city but not growing at the same rate new apartments are being constructed.
https://floridapolitics.com/archives/716523-poll-shows-fort-myers-voters-tiring-of-subsidizing-apartment-construction/
Colliers is facing a second lawsuit over an alleged scheme to defraud investors involved in medical office acquisitions in Utah and Texas.
A group of 17 investors is suing Colliers, five current or former Colliers brokers, and others, accusing the group of lying to retirees and inexperienced investors in a $10M scheme involving inflated property values and a bankrupt tenant.
The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah, centers around the sale of tenant-in-common interests of a medical office that the investors believed had an anchor tenant in place on a long-term lease.
Rent payments from the tenant would go to the investors monthly while a property manager handled operations, they were told. The passive income payouts would range from $1,430 per month to $8,170 per month, depending on the ownership share.
Using Colliers’ branding and marketing material, the defendants advertised the medical office in South Jordan, Utah, as worth roughly $10M — a valuation that the investors allege shifted across pitch decks.
In reality, the suit says, the property was valued at $2.6M, with much of the remaining cash raised from investors going to the brokerage team. The medical tenant, pain management company Neuragenex, never moved into the property and eventually filed for bankruptcy, all without investors’ knowledge, according to the suit.
Cheryl Tomac, 75, invested just under $326K in the Utah property. Tomac had been a family law attorney for nearly two decades before a stroke forced her into retirement, she told Bisnow.
She sold her legal practice’s property in 2023, and her broker recommended she invest in the medical office as part of a 1031 exchange to allow her to defer paying taxes on the sale. The roughly $1,700 per month in payments she would receive from the investment would provide a reliable source of income in retirement, she thought.
For three months, the deal seemed to be working out. But then the payments dropped to $200 a month after Neuragenex filed for bankruptcy, cutting into Tomac’s budget as she battles macular degeneration and cares for a husband with dementia.
Most of the investors were over 65, according to court records.
https://www.bisnow.com/national/news/commercial-real-estate/colliers-faces-second-suit-from-angry-investors-over-alleged-property-fraud-scheme-127666
Lenders go after Madison Equities owner’s house, one of few profitable properties
Banks are seeking control of a house and a St. Paul shopping center tied to the widow and business partner of a former downtown real estate titan after their company, Madison Equities, fell into financial distress.
When Jim Crockarell died a year ago, Rosemary Kortgard was left as St. Paul’s largest property owner. The couple had expanded the Madison Equities portfolio through the decades to include some of the capital city’s most recognizable buildings.
Many of those properties are now embroiled in litigation for defaulting on mortgages and other loans, a number of which Kortgard guaranteed personally. New documents and testimony in a bankruptcy court hearing last week provided a glimpse at interactions among the many entities affiliated with the Madison Equities properties.
Earlier this month, Merchants Bank asked a judge to appoint a receiver to manage Kortgard’s North Oaks house through the foreclosure process. The complaint alleged that Kortgard defaulted on her mortgage by failing to make timely payments.
Another lender, Minnwest Bank, is fighting for the right to foreclose on Kortgard’s Hillcrest Center subsidiary, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in December on the eve of a potential receivership order.
The East Side shopping center, on the 1600 block of White Bear Avenue, might be one of Kortgard’s few profitable properties. Unlike many of the others, the building was paying its taxes and making principal and interest payments.
“She was using Hillcrest Center, the only solvent company that she had, to plug holes in the debts of the other one as this little empire is crumbling,” Cynthia Hegarty, a lawyer representing Minnwest, said during last week’s hearing. “And I think that’s what’s most concerning because that’s my client’s collateral.”
In a separate bankruptcy case tied to the Park Square Court building, a trustee is investigating four banks to determine whether the subsidiary made similar illicit payments. A filing last week alleged the fraudulent movement of $245,000 via TruStone Financial Credit Union.
Kim Vu-Dinh, a Mitchell Hamline School of Law professor specializing in real estate and property law, said she thinks Madison Equities’ fallout is a sign the company took an unusual amount of risk.
“Frankly, it’s just cavalier management,” she said. “It’s not like this unavoidable market feature. This is overspeculation, overleverage.”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/realestate/lenders-go-after-madison-equities-owner-s-house-one-of-few-profitable-properties/ar-AA1xJY1L
Tyler & Catelynn Baltierra Finally Sell $400k Octagon House After Near-Foreclosure
Your chance to own a Teen Mom property has come and gone, as Tyler and Catelynn Baltierra have finally sold their octagon house. And it comes just in the nick of time, as the reality stars were nearing foreclosure.
According to In Touch, the property’s Zillow listing says the property is “under contract,” suggesting a deal is just being finalized. While Tyler and Catelynn have attempted to offload the Michigan home before, they most recently put it back on the market on December 16, 2023, suggesting it didn’t take long to find a buyer this time around.
They initially tried selling the home in September 2023 for $459,000, half a year after they bought a larger property in Lexington, Michigan for slightly less at $435,000. They slashed the asking price by $10k by December 2023, but took it off the market in September 2024 due to a lack of interest. However, someone clearly took the bait, as it was back for sale just before the holidays.
Catelynn and Tyler have a reported net worth of $1 million, though they’ve had financial issues in the past, like several other Teen Mom stars, including Leah Messer, who was recently hit with another tax lien, bringing her total debt to over $700,000. The reality stars were once making six-figures a season with the Teen Mom franchise, though the pay has reportedly changed now that it’s merged into one show and the stars don’t get equal screen time.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/realestate/tyler-catelynn-baltierra-finally-sell-400k-octagon-house-after-near-foreclosure/ar-AA1xKXLE
Rockland investors try to recoup from real estate setbacks
Business tried to convert office building to apartments
A bankrupt Rockland real estate investment company that says it lost control of a housing project, because a bidder defaulted on a deal, has sued to keep a $500,000 security deposit.
Diamond Elite Park LLC, Spring Valley, accused a stalking horse bidder, Strategic Real Estate Management LLC, Monsey, of breach of contract, Jan. 6 in U.S. Bankruptcy Court, White Plains.
The object of the dispute is a vacant four-story office building in Phoenix, Arizona that Diamond Elite tried to convert to apartments.
Diamond Elite, which describes itself in court records as a group of New York investors led by Yehoishiah Rubin, of Spring Valley, bought the office building in 2022 for $10 million.
Rezoning the property took longer than anticipated, and the costs of renovations exceeded expectations. In 2023, Okoa Capital, a Utah company that loaned $6.8 million for the project, declared a default and foreclosed on the property.
The foreclosure prompted Diamond Elite to file for Chapter 11 reorganization in White Plains bankruptcy court, automatically stopping the foreclosure. It declared $10 million in assets and $15.4 million in liabilities.
Diamond Elite made a deal with Strategic Real Estate to submit a $7 million stalking horse bid for the Phoenix property. The stalking horse method establishes the opening bid for a property, in effect, encouraging competitors to bid higher.
Strategic Real Estate agreed to make a $500,000 “good faith deposit.” It paid $350,000 right away and was supposed to pay $150,000 when the bankruptcy court approved the contract.
In March 2024, the court approved the contract, but Strategic Real Estate allegedly failed to pay the $150,000 balance.
Then Strategic Real Estate terminated the contract, according to the lawsuit, and Diamond Elite had to turn the property over to Okoa Capital.
Diamond Elite is demanding that the $350,000 deposit be released from an escrow account and that Strategic Real Estate pay the remaining $150,000 pledged for the deposit.
Meanwhile, U.S. Bankruptcy Trustee William Harrington asked the court to convert the Chapter 11 reorganization case to a Chapter 7 liquidation, or to dismiss the case all together.
Diamond Elite had not properly maintained the property, the trustee said, and as of 2023 it was “in a state of extreme disrepair.” The property is not generating revenue, the company has failed to pay quarterly bankruptcy fees, and monthly operating reports have not been filed since July. “Thus, conversion to Chapter 7 is in the best interest of creditors and the estate.”
Diamond Elite objected, stating that it has fixed or will fix the problems the trustee cited. And if it can recover the deposit “it will have the funds to propose a feasible plan of reorganization.”
https://westfaironline.com/courts/rockland-investors-try-to-recoup-from-real-estate-setbacks/
Council faces threats over 17-story condos, Fort Myers Beach town manager resigns
FORT MYERS BEACH, Fla. —
The town of Fort Myers Beach is beginning the process of searching for a new manager after Andrew Hyatt suddenly announced he’s stepping down.
Mayor Dan Allers revealed that the resignation was triggered by an angry resident’s threats to his family.
“It’s a little concerning when people go outside the realm of trying to find people’s personal information and track them down in their hometown,” Mayor Allers said. “I don’t blame the town manager for being worried for his safety at all. I would be just the same as someone was doing that to my wife.”
This incident is part of a larger wave of backlash the town council has faced since approving plans for 17-story condo towers at the site of the former Red Coconut RV Park. Angry calls, emails, and, yes, even personal threats have poured in from angry residents.
Council Member John King shared that he’s also received threatening messages, including hurtful comments about his wife and family. Just a couple examples of comments from emails he forwarded NBC2 were, “Please step down before you are forced out of office and town due to your narrowminded self-serving attitude threatens your well being,” and “I hope your next meal gives you heart burn & you wake up tomorrow with athlete’s foot.”
https://www.nbc-2.com/article/council-threats-fort-myers-beach-manager-resigns/63518035
SCAMMED POST-STORM: Cape Coral man loses $10K to unlicensed contractor
The contractor quoted them $27,000 for a new pool cage.
Carlos Rivera, trusting the process, paid a deposit of $10,500 on the spot.
According to the contract, installation would take 21 to 24 weeks—a delay Rivera understood, given the circumstances after the storm.
However, months went by with no progress. “For eight months, nobody from Alumabay LLC came back to the house or answered my calls,” Rivera said. Eventually, the company’s owner, Aaron Hardgrove, appeared—and this time, he demanded an additional $3,000 to complete the job.
Rivera’s concerns grew when Hardgrove insisted on being paid in cash.
“I asked him about other options like a bank note or money order,” Rivera said. “He told me, ‘No, I only take cash.’ That’s when red flags started going up. I got online to verify his license—and found out he doesn’t have one.”
A closer look into Hardgrove’s record revealed a troubling history. Court documents show he has been arrested twice in Charlotte County on charges of fraud and unlicensed contracting during a state of emergency. His Better Business Bureau profile lists an “F” rating and numerous complaints from other victims – some of whom claim they lost as much as $24,000.
Rivera, resigned to the fact that he will likely never recover his $10,500, has shifted his focus to warning others. “I’m hoping to expose this person,” he said. “People need to be careful and do their research.”
https://www.fox4now.com/cape-coral/scammed-post-storm-cape-coral-man-loses-10k-to-unlicensed-contractor
Cape Breton lawsuit ruled case of ‘homebuyer’s remorse’
A Cape Breton couple who sued for $25,000 over issues they found with the house they purchased aren’t entitled to compensation for a case of buyer’s regret, according to a Small Claims Court of Nova Scotia adjudicator.
Edward Leppert and Rose McPherson purchased a home from Leo Gillis and Donna Gillis in 2023.
They did not view the property in person prior to purchase, instead relying on a video tour. The buyers were presented with a property disclosure statement then entered into an agreement of purchase and sale, followed by a professional inspection in March 2023. They had no major concerns with the inspection or disclosure statement and took possession of the property in June.
After moving in Leppert and McPherson claim they discovered issues that make the property disclosure statement negligent or fraudulent. As a result they sued the sellers for the small clams limit of $25,000.
The priciest problem was a sewer line repair, while other issues included the age of the kitchen appliances, the capacity of the electrical panel, leaks, drywall damage, a broken washing machine and faulty blinds.
When he was cross-examined, Leppert testified that the inspection report noted the sewer line was cast iron and susceptible to leakage. He waived the conditions and the problem arose seven months after the inspection and four to five months after closing.
Small Claims adjudicator Raffi A. Balmanoukian said he found no evidence that the sellers concealed any known defect with the sewer line.
“In contrast, it was clear to me that this was an aged cast-iron system that fails from the ‘inside out,’ and can do so with little or no warning,” he wrote.
Leppert’s issue with the kitchen appliances stems from the listing, which described the kitchen as “new” but makes no reference to the appliances. During the hearing, Leppert affirmed that the home is approximately 59 years old, and the kitchen is approximately 16 to 17 years old. He testified to it appearing “modern,” “looking new,” and that it “looked great.” Although the cabinets and countertops are noted in the inspection report as being in good condition, there is no reference to the age of appliances in the agreement of purchase and sale or the property disclosure statement.
Balmanoukian said the reference to “new kitchen” in the listing is not part of the contract. “The buyers had an opportunity to see the kitchen in person (or have a local associate do so), and did not do so. They chose to view the property virtually. There is no indication that they did not get what they saw, albeit with appliances more ‘senior’ to what they expected. They did in fact get what they saw, and were satisfied with the kitchen’s modernity.”
He dismissed the claim by Leppert and Rose McPherson, saying they had failed to prove the sellers are liable under the property disclosure statement or other components of the agreement of purchase and sale.
He chalked it up to a case of homebuyer’s remorse.
“No doubt they have found elements of disappointment in their purchase of this home which is well along in its economic lifespan. Disappointment or buyer regret does not in itself result in recovery,” he wrote.
“The claim is dismissed.”
https://www.msn.com/en-ca/family-and-relationships/general/cape-breton-lawsuit-ruled-case-of-homebuyer-s-remorse/ar-AA1xjBsZ
oh my an actual case of common sense prevailing
People want an old house in an old neighborhood but completely new inside. And even then fail to do due diligence.
Wait until they find out that new homes have issues too
Victorian beach boxes: why experts say the Victorian status symbols are a coastal dream you might regret
They’re colourful, coveted and some cost more than houses – but are Melbourne’s beach boxes a dream buy or a financial disaster waiting to happen? Find out what the experts think.
Scoring a Victorian beach box might seem like hitting the coastal jackpot, but beneath the pastel paint exteriors, experts suggest the investment might not be worth the picture-perfect views you’re paying for them.
With nearly 2,000 beach boxes dotting the state’s shores, with around 1,000 of these on the Mornington Peninsula alone, in hotspots such as Mount Martha, Rosebud, and Mount Eliza, according to Marine and Coasts Victoria.
But as house prices dip and investors retreat, property pundits have debated whether these colourful status symbols are a dream buy — or just a vanity splurge.
In Blairgowrie, Boatshed 13 sold for $900,000 in February 2024, and more than double its $425,000 reserve.
In Mount Martha, a beach box at 4 South Beach, fetched a record $650,000 in 2021, while a listing in Portsea is asking between $910,000 and $1m — higher than Melbourne’s December 2024 median house price of $780,000.
Warimont Nutt Mount Martha’s Tammie Coadie said beach boxes might be a good investment as they tended to increase in value over time but shared her caution over purchasing them.
“They’re not the kind of investment you’d use to leverage or build wealth — they’re more personal and lifestyle-driven” Ms Coadie said.
“My family had one when I was a child, and while it’s worth significantly more now – I’d probably choose a boat to invest in, a boat’s movable a beach box isn’t.”
Annual license fees for Mornington Peninsula beach boxes range from $855 to $1,100, depending on size, and sellers are hit with transfer fees of 6.5 per cent of the box’s capital value or $3,830 — whichever is greater.
Owners also face strict heritage restrictions, particularly in Brighton, where the structures’ historical significance means alterations are heavily regulated.
Melbourne buyers advocate Cate Bakos dubbed purchasing a beach box ‘illogical’.
“Buying a beach box is, quite frankly, an illogical purchase,” Ms Bakos said.
“You’re essentially paying for a license to use it, not the land it’s on – they’re not insurable, and you can’t even rent them out for income. It’s entirely cash out with no financial return, from an investment perspective, it’s an absolute no-go.”
For buyers dreaming of a budget waterfront lifestyle Ms Bakos shared her advice on their viability. “You think it’s Instagram-worthy, but it’s just a glorified shed,” she said. “If they considered the tax implications, maintenance costs, and limited use, they’d think twice.”
https://www.news.com.au/national/victoria/victorian-beach-boxes-why-experts-say-the-victorian-status-symbols-are-a-coastal-dream-you-might-regret/news-story/f3ea12fdb35c9543e3b9ba4271279b61
Victorian beach boxes
Sounds like a money pit
There’s lots of photos at the link. They are just brightly painted sheds.
a million dollar (aus) brightly painted shed.
nope, no bubble here.
So, what exactly makes then “Victorian”?
or a steam punk torture chamber
Doesn’t a collapse in sales volume normally presage a collapse in prices? Observing this process play out in the housing market is way slower than watching paint dry.
“Observing this process play out in the housing market is way slower than watching paint dry.”
Of course, thanks to the fed’s meddling in the debt markets.
The Haitian near the end of the video 0:37 gets my vote for illegal of the week.
SubX.News®
@SubxNews
I’m not going back to Haiti. F*ck Trump! You feel me? Yo, Biden forever, bro! Thank Obama for everything he did for me, bro!
Breaking911
6:47 PM · Jan 23, 2025
·
https://x.com/SubxNews/status/1882575922676773012
So if drastically lower interest rates during the Pandemic led to a 50% runup in housing prices, shouldn’t an increase to historically normal mortgage rates lead to more than full reversion to affordable housing prices? I guess homeowners have to come to grips with financial reality for this to happen, which apparently is a very gradual process.
Deported migrants arriving back in Mexico issue warning: ‘I don’t recommend to cross’
New York Post
1 day ago
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced Friday that “deportation flights have begun,” releasing photos of people boarding military aircraft.
“President Trump is sending a strong and clear message to the entire world: if you illegally enter the United States of America, you will face severe consequences,” she wrote on X.
It is not immediately clear who was boarding the planes or where the images were taken.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYvQiq0xQhg
1:13.
+1 spread the word primo
La migre!
Is there any truth to the folk wisdom that every bubble ends badly?
Markets
A renowned market bear who called the dot-com bubble shares 3 charts showing why US stocks are in historically dangerous territory: ‘Every bubble ends badly’
William Edwards Jan 25, 2025, 1:50 AM PST
stock trader panics
REUTERS/Lucas Jackson
Albert Edwards, the famously bearish strategist at French investment bank Societe Generale, has seen his share of euphoric episodes in financial markets.
He called the dot-com bubble in the US leading up to 2000, when the S&P 500 began its 50% decline. He also predicted a bubble in Japanese stocks in the late 1980s that finally popped in 1990.
Today, Edwards continues to sound the alarm about an ever-growing bubble in US stocks as investors remain giddy about artificial intelligence.
In a January 21 client note, Edwards laid out a few charts that fuel his concerns.
First is the fact that US stocks now make up 75% of global market cap. High concentration in one country could signal its market is over-bloated, like during the Nifty Fifty bubble in the US that ended in the 1970s, or the aforementioned Japanese bubble.
Then there’s the tech sector’s dominance within the US. IT stocks make up 35% of the market’s value, exceeding levels seen during the dot-com bubble peak in 2000.
Investor exuberance is also at its highest levels in at least the last 40 years. The Conference Board’s gauge on investor optimism (red), which historically tracks with S&P 500 price movements, is well ahead of where the market sits.
“This extreme high in US households’ optimism on the equity outlook is a clear sign of froth, especially as that optimism has run well ahead of price performance,” Edwards wrote. “Normally any divergence occurs after recessions where a price rebound from bear market lows has little impact on still shell-shocked investor sentiment, eg 2021 & 2010,” he added, the emphasis his.
The story around why stocks will continue to outperform may prove plausible. As companies adopt AI technology in the years ahead, their profits could very well grow robustly. How things actually play out, and whether reality can live up to investors’ high expectations, remains to be seen.
Either way, Edwards isn’t buying it.
“My own extremely jaundiced view of US equity market exceptionalism is born from decades of hearing similar beguiling stories, be it the Nasdaq bubble in the late 1990s or before that the Asian economic ‘miracle’ of the mid-1990s,” Edwards wrote. “Each and every bubble has a compelling narrative that only in retrospect is exposed as nonsense — most recently the 2008 Global Financial Crisis where the consensus view was that there was no bubble to burst.”
He added: “Each and every bubble ends badly, and this one will be no different.”
…
https://www.businessinsider.com/stock-market-crash-ai-tech-dot-com-bubble-socgen-edwards-2025-1
Retirement
Brett Arends’s ROI
Opinion: Vanguard’s U.S. stock-market call is even more shocking than you realize
Last Updated: Jan. 25, 2025 at 6:56 a.m. ET
First Published: Jan. 24, 2025 at 4:26 p.m. ET
By Brett Arends
Flipping “60/40” to “40/60” is only part of it
Do you and I even need to own U.S. stocks in our retirement portfolios?
And if so, do we need to own the S&P 500 SPX — the benchmark index of large-company stocks that is the bedrock of almost every portfolio?
Those are the shocking questions raised by the recent asset-allocation paper from Vanguard, of all firms.
Not only does the firm reckon that bonds will probably do better than stocks over the next decade, but it expects that U.S. large-company stocks, and especially U.S. large-company growth stocks, will look even worse.
And market developments since Vanguard ran these calculations make the numbers today even more appalling.
It’s especially remarkable that this should come from Vanguard, the investor-owned index-fund giant. The firm and its legendary founder, the late Jack Bogle, are famous for recommending buy-it-and-forget-it, passive, long-term investments in U.S. stocks.
…
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/vanguards-u-s-stock-market-call-is-even-more-shocking-than-you-realize-98cbc11e
A US stock market crash is brewing
By John Rapley
How much longer will the boom last? Credit: Getty
January 25, 2025 – 5:00pm
Market timing may be a mug’s game, as the Wall Street adage has it. Still, we do seem to be drawing near to a moment of reckoning for US stocks.
Wall street has been having its best first week of a presidency since Ronald Reagan. But by virtually every standard metric, the US market has reached price levels that typically precede a fall. On a price-to-sales ratio, it’s the most expensive market of the modern era. Ditto price-to-earnings, which has reached levels last seen before the 2000 dotcom crash. Compared to European companies with similar earnings, they’re attracting nearly double the price, and so are sucking capital from all over the world. Relative to government bonds, you’d have to go back a quarter century to find similar levels of valuation.
Given that buying stocks exposes all you to all the risks associated with private capital, whereas government bonds are virtually risk-free, the logic of the market continuing to rise is hard to see. Why make investments which could keep you up at night when you could make even more money sleeping easy?
…
https://unherd.com/newsroom/a-us-stock-market-crash-is-brewing/
Yahoo Finance
Will a Stock Market Correction Happen Under Trump?
David Nadelle
Thu, January 23, 2025 at 5:01 AM PST 4 min read
With the election over and President Trump in office, investors are waiting to see how the new administration’s policies could impact capital markets in 2025. Many believe a market pullback is on its way, but it might have very little to do with what happened on Nov. 5.
“The odds of a correction occurring during Trump’s second term are high, not because the risk is necessarily higher or lower given the Trump administration’s likely policies, but because stock market corrections are simply common occurrences,” said Robert R. Johnson, PhD, CFA, CAIA, professor of finance at Heider College of Business, Creighton University.
…
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/stock-market-correction-happen-under-130128404.html
Is the 30-year Treasury yield set to cross the 5% Rubicon?
Marketwatch
2-year Treasury yield ends lower after Trump’s ‘demand’ for lower interest rates
Last Updated: Jan. 23, 2025 at 3:50 p.m. ET
First Published: Jan. 23, 2025 at 6:25 a.m. ET
By Vivien Lou Chen
The 2-year Treasury note rallied modestly on Thursday, sending its yield lower for the first time in four sessions, after President Donald Trump displayed a willingness to pressure Federal Reserve officials into cutting interest rates.
What happened
The yield on the 2-year Treasury fell 1.3 basis points to 4.284%, from around 4.297% on Wednesday.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose 3.6 basis points to 4.636%, from 4.6% on Wednesday.
The yield on the 30-year Treasury rose 5.1 basis points to 4.868%, from 4.817% on Wednesday.
Thursday’s closing levels for 10- and 30-year rates were the highest since Jan. 15, based on 3 p.m. Eastern time figures from Dow Jones Market Data.
…
Do you worry that Chinese deflation could prove globally contagious, just like COVID-19 did?
Bloomberg
Markets
China Starts Lowering Price Goals to Match Deflationary Reality
Most provinces cut their target to 2% after two sluggish years
National goal for price growth above 3% for over two decades
Pedestrians in the Wangfujing shopping area in Beijing. Bloomberg
By Bloomberg News
January 24, 2025 at 12:18 AM PST
Almost all Chinese regions have lowered their inflation targets for this year, in what’s likely a prelude to a decision in March to lower the national goal below 3% for the first time in over two decades.
With the world’s second-biggest economy struggling to emerge from deflationary pressure, authorities around China are starting to concede that faster price growth will be a challenge after consumer inflation reached only 0.2% in 2023 and last year.
…
How many years can the experts issue a stopped-clock announcement that it’s a good time to buy bonds before they accidentally get it right?
Reuters
Third time lucky for ‘Year of the Bond’ call?
By Jamie McGeever
January 22, 2025 11:29 PM PST
Updated 3 days ago
Traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, U.S., December 10, 2024. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
ORLANDO, Florida, Jan 22 (Reuters) – After two years of significant underperformance by bonds, investors may have a hard time swallowing claims that 2025 will be the “year of the bond”. But there are compelling reasons to believe this will be a case of third time lucky.
Fixed income assets, particularly U.S. Treasuries and other government bonds, have struggled to recover from the historic pounding they took in 2022, when central banks hiked interest rates to quell the burst of inflation that followed the pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The last time Treasuries posted double-digit annual gains was 2008, when the ICE BofA U.S. Government Bond Index returned 14%. Treasuries eked out modest gains in 2023 and 2024, and corporate bonds performed notably better, but both trailed the S&P 500’s sizzling 24% and 23% gains by a wide margin.
Wall Street has survived – and indeed thrived – despite elevated borrowing costs, thanks to resilient U.S. growth and the AI boom. But bonds have badly lagged, creating a narrative that they are a poor investment when interest rates are high.
This narrative has gained acolytes as U.S. debt and deficit dynamics have deteriorated. Washington’s interest payments, borrowing and spending are all elevated, and many investors are skeptical the Trump administration will get public finances in order.
Little wonder then that the ‘term premium’ is the highest in a decade. That’s the compensation investors build into the 10-year Treasury yield for taking the risk of lending to Uncle Sam over the long term rather than rolling over short-term loans.
This is why Treasuries are no longer a natural hedge against a potential equity selloff. Or so the narrative goes.
Chris Iggo, chair of the AXA IM Investment Institute, disagrees. A look back at the past 40 years suggests bond yields at current levels are associated with positive total returns over the following 12 months. Iggo notes that the Bloomberg Aggregate U.S. Government Bond Index has delivered positive monthly total returns 90% of the time since 1985 when the yield on the index has been 4.6% or higher.
Some recent history supports this view. The cost of credit in the decade before the Global Financial Crisis was notably higher – the 10-year yield mostly fluctuated in a 4-7% range, and real yields and the term premium were consistently more elevated than they are today.
Yet the ICE BofA U.S. Government Bond Index doubled in value and delivered positive returns in all but one of these years. The S&P 500 index also doubled but had to ride out three straight years of double-digit annual losses, during which time it halved in value.
The post-GFC, bond-friendly era of zero interest rates may be over, but that does not mean bond investors should be fearful. Liquidity is ample, default risk is low, investors can earn attractive income, and demand is high – look at the record demand at French and Spanish debt sales this week.
Capital flows show investors still believe in bonds. U.S. bond funds drew record inflows of $435 billion last year, according to TD Securities. That trend could certainly continue this year, given the strength of global demand for U.S. fixed income, juicy yields and the strong probability that the U.S. economy will continue to enjoy a soft landing.
What’s more, bonds appear cheap by many measures. Analysts at Citi calculate that the selloff in U.S. Treasuries over the last month is in the 85th percentile going all the way back to 2000.
This is especially true in relation to equities. The ‘equity risk premium’ – the earnings yield on the S&P 500 minus the 10-year Treasury yield – is the lowest in a quarter of a century and negative in certain cases.
Even in the investment grade corporate bond market, where spreads are historically tight, it’s a similar picture. Angel Oak Capital Advisors estimate that the S&P 500 earnings yield is almost two percentage points below the average return for the Bloomberg U.S. Corporate Investment Grade Index, the biggest gap in decades.
Investors burned over the last two years may be suspicious of yet another bond bull call – for valid reasons, namely inflation, the public finances and uncertainty surrounding many of the Trump administration’s proposed policies. But the third time truly could be the charm.
…
“when interest rates are high”
Interest rates are not high. Or high enough.
[Some old news (three days old) …]
The Unelected in Brussels Deny Romania Democracy.
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/international-news/europes-current-economy/the-unelected-in-brussels-deny-romania-democracy/
Posted Jan 22, 2025 by Martin Armstrong
The vote of the Romanian people must be ignored, according to the European Court of Human Rights, which upheld the annulment of the results of the first election. The next election is slated for May 18, and while Calin Georgescu is permitted to run again, will the establishment respect the vote?
Georgescu is called a far-right extremist for daring to speak out against the globalist narrative. He is firmly against NATO and promoting forever wars. He does not want the neocons to use his country as a “door for a war.” Millions of Romanians agree but their voices have been stifled by the establishment. The Romanian government under President Klaus Iohannis initially called into question Article 146(f) of the Romanian Constitution that demands elections must be legal. Romanian courts declared that RUSSIAN INTERFERENCE was at play and the vote of the people was null and void.
The European Court of Human Rights has sided with Romania’s establishment. How could this court have the authority to override Romania’s democracy? Well, all European Union members knowingly or unknowingly agreed to bend the knee to Brussels. The European Court of Human Rights is composed of 46 judges who each represent their respective member state in the Council of Europe.
Each member state presents three options for judge selection and one must be female. The Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe then determines if the three proposed candidates are qualified, and the Parliamentary Assembly elects the judge who best aligns with the overall EU narrative. The people have absolutely no say or vote.
So, not only did the Romanian government tell their citizens to ignore the election results, but judges UNELECTED by the Romanian people were able to solidify this gross misjustice. Then, the government acted puzzled that thousands took to the streets to protest, and some questioned whether they should even vote when government plans to install its candidate of choice.
Georgescu ran on a platform of ending Romania’s involvement in the Russia-Ukraine war and repeatedly said it is not their war to fight. The establishment will not permit Romania to remain neutral. He still holds a 38% majority of support over all other candidates but the questions remains whether the establishment will ever allow a true election is such a geographically crucial area for the next world war.
[From yesterday’s New York Times …]
What Trump Knows Now.
The new president’s advisers have become masters of the government bureaucracy they have promised to upend.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/24/us/politics/trump-second-term-differences-lessons.html
During his Inaugural Address on Monday, President Trump made a point of telling the country that he had learned “a lot” over the past eight years.
The four and a half days since have revealed what he meant.
Gone are the Washington outsiders who took the reins of government in 2017 and struggled to get its wheels turning. Instead, we’ve seen a hailstorm of action that reflects how Trump’s advisers have become masters of the government bureaucracy they have promised to upend.
My colleague Charlie Savage has covered law, government and the way presidents use their power for more than two decades. He reported extensively on the first Trump administration as well as on Trump’s plans for his second, and I asked him to talk us through just how much is different this time around — and what that could mean for the presidency to come.
Our conversation was condensed and edited for clarity.
JB: You covered the first Trump administration, and now you’ve covered the first week of the second one. What was different in the opening days of Trump II, compared with Trump I?
CS: The opening of the first Trump administration was chaotic and dysfunctional. Trump had little support from the Republican establishment during the 2016 campaign. He and many of the officials he gathered around him when he took office simply did not know what they were doing at first — and it showed. Trump issued only four executive orders in his first five days in office in 2017. Even when the pace later picked up, many of his early directives were effectively press releases that did not do much of substance, or were so poorly developed that it was a no-brainer for courts to block them.
By contrast, the second Trump administration has begun with a blizzard of consequential executive orders. A few are vague nothing-burgers — like ordering the government to think about ways to reduce prices — but most are very substantive. Many of his policy changes will strike many people as extreme. Some, as I wrote this week, pushed at the limits of legitimate executive power and may not survive court challenges. One about ending birthright citizenship has already been blocked for now. But inarguably, Trump is moving much more quickly to achieve his goals.
This is partly because he and his advisers learned a lot about how government works over the course of his first term. And partly because, over the past eight years, Trumpism has become the conservative establishment, and policy think tanks in Washington are now aligned with and helping him — like Project 2025.
To be sure, things are still bumpy, but Trump’s advisers have been carefully planning out this takeover.
What, specifically, does it seem like Trump — or the people around him — have learned since 2017? Have they figured out how to be bureaucrats?
Here’s one example of how they are operating more shrewdly. One of the executive orders that got less attention this week was about foreign visitors to the United States. It has a section that requires the government to take two months to study vetting and screening procedures in countries around the world, and then to deliver a report identifying which are so deficient as to supposedly warrant banning entry to the United States by any citizens of those countries.
It appears that the administration is planting a seed to later revive Trump’s controversial ban on travel by people from several predominantly Muslim countries. Last time, he abruptly imposed that policy days after taking office without careful planning, and the courts immediately blocked it. Making a show of having studied the issue first may make it easier to defend a new travel ban in court.
Who has been most responsible for putting these changes into practice?
One person who seems to have learned a lot is Stephen Miller, a top domestic policy adviser to Trump who has long been an architect of his immigration crackdown policies. He was a Senate aide before 2017, and learned over the course of Trump’s first term how to avoid pitfalls and get things done within the executive branch bureaucracy. He spent the four years out of office cultivating donors and relationships, both on Capitol Hill and with lawyers and others now going into the administration. He also helped get specific allies into key positions around the new administration, positioning them to keep the gears of bureaucracy turning the way he wants them to.
Trump clearly wanted to put a stamp on the first week of the presidency. But, in a way, is it actually Miller’s imprint that we are seeing, given how much preparation and nuts-and-bolts strategizing he has put into this opening salvo?
No president personally performs the nuts-and-bolts work of drafting the executive orders and proclamations that he signs. That said, I have no doubt that Miller played a major role in developing the cluster of immigration actions we saw this week. He had previewed a lot of those very steps back in the fall of 2023, when I and my colleagues Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman were working on a series about the policy stakes of a potential return to power by Trump.
Plenty of other people were heavily involved, too. For example, Russell Vought, who was Trump’s head of the Office of Management and Budget in his first term and is set to reprise that role, has been very interested in other policy themes we have seen reflected in these early orders, such as efforts to impose tighter political control over the federal bureaucracy. At Project 2025, Vought was in charge of drafting executive orders that Trump could consider issuing early on if he got back into power. Of course, during the campaign Trump tried to distance himself from Project 2025; we don’t know yet whether or which of these early orders trace back to that effort.
Taken together, what does Trump’s first week in office tell us about how he now views power, and about his hold on the levers of government? What might it tell us about how he’ll approach the next four years?
Trump has tightened his grip on the Republican Party, and that party controls Congress, so he has no fear of impeachment. He cannot run for president again, so he has no fear of rejection by voters. He appointed a large number of federal judges during his first term, which means he now faces a federal judiciary that is much more tilted in his favor than when he first took office. He managed to wriggle free from two federal indictments and even survived an assassination attempt. The decision last summer by the six Republican-appointed Supreme Court justices to declare a constitutional doctrine of broad immunity for presidents can only be giving him additional confidence.
Against the backdrop of all that, I think the scope and aggression of his early executive orders and his decision to grant clemency to even those Jan. 6 rioters who violently assaulted police officers are clear signals that he is feeling little constraint.
Fartcoin has been on a RALLY today. And all you sour grapes missed out on those sweet, sweet gainz:
https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/fartcoin/
Trump’s HHS Sec. Has Perfect Response When Smug Democrat Tries To CENSOR & SLANDER Him
HAMARATBEBEK
4 hours ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ckrzvx0aweY
18:24.
Another vociferous joo, Ms. Schultz.
Rubio Tells Chinese Counterpart That US Interests Come First
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has told his Chinese counterpart that the Trump administration will prioritize American interest in its relationship with communist China, according to the State Department.
Rubio conveyed this message during a phone call on Jan. 24 with China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi, marking his first publicly known formal exchange with Wang as the top U.S. diplomat.
Rubio emphasized that the Trump administration will pursue a relationship with China that “advances U.S. interests and puts the American people first,” according to the U.S. readout of the call.
On Jan. 22, Trump said that an extra 10 percent tariff on Chinese imports could start as early as Feb. 1. The extra duties, according to the president, were based on the “fact that they’re sending fentanyl to Mexico and Canada.”
https://www.theepochtimes.com/china/rubio-tells-chinese-counterpart-that-us-interests-come-first-5798716
‘Nearly 40,000 home-purchase agreements were canceled in December, equal to 16.2% of homes that went under contract that month. That’s the highest December percentage in records dating back to 2017’
Redfin hasn’t been around that long. So we don’t know how big a record this is.
‘Some assessments exceed the value of the homes themselves, forcing owners to sell, face foreclosure, or abandon their properties entirely. The hard truth is that many buildings — and, tragically, some residents’ life savings — are beyond saving. No amount of reform or repair funding can change the fact that some properties are simply too far gone’
The lending was sound, at the time.
‘If I can get the price I want, I’ll move…There’s an increasing lack of urgency. When you present the comps to a seller, it’s a reality check—it feels like a cold splash of water. It’s shocking for some people to realize how far we are from the pandemic buying spree’
They aren’t going to give it away John. You can forget it!
‘the report found it’s the third time in recent Denver history when prices dropped annually. The last two times were after the 9/11 terror attacks coinciding with the dotcom bubble bursting in the early 2000s, and the 2008 housing bubble. ‘Winter arrived, because finally we got the big surge in the number of completed units,’ Bruteig said. Absorption was about negative 4,800 units in the fourth quarter’
How do you like those 5% cap rates now Cary?
‘At Equitable Bank, that figure is even higher, with 70 per cent of clients using reverse mortgages to consolidate debt. Both institutions said a large portion of that is mortgage debt’
There’s always somebody doing the race to the bottom in shack lending.
‘It’s a very simple solution, there’s a mismatch in the demand and supply but it’s really due to pricing which is at least 20-40 percent overvalued. Those units could be sold off in a year if priced ‘to market’
Et tu, Brute? We aren’t giving it away Mike, forget it!
Benny Johnson
@bennyjohnson
🚨BREAKING: CIA favors the belief that COVID-19 originated from a lab leak in China according to analysis released by new Director John Ratcliffe.
1:55 PM · Jan 25, 2025
https://x.com/bennyjohnson/status/1883227307701399893
Illegal Alien Charged With DUI Manslaughter After Running Over 6-Year-Old Boy in Florida – Police
by Dan Lyman
January 25th, 2025 5:15 PM
An illegal alien with a history of drunk driving arrests has been charged with DUI manslaughter after a 6-year-old boy was struck and killed in Florida last week.
The horrifying incident unfolded at around 4:45 p.m. on Jan. 18 in Orange County.
The driver of a Chevrolet Suburban blew a stop sign in a residential neighborhood, striking a child who was riding a bicycle, according to a crash report reviewed by Click Orlando.
The driver continued onward, reportedly unaware of the collision or that he was dragging the victim under his SUV until bystanders stopped him.
The boy, identified as Emiliano Garcia, was rushed to AdventHealth Apopka where he was pronounced dead.
Francisco Rosillo Arriola, 53, was taken into custody and hit with a slew of charges, including DUI manslaughter, DUI third violation, vehicular homicide, no driver’s license causing death, and running a stop sign.
Investigators say Arriola had “bloodshot eyes, slurred speech, and smelled of alcohol after the crash.”
Florida State Highway troopers confirmed he is illegally present in the U.S. but his nationality remains unclear.
Arriola has been arrested twice before for driving under the influence, as recently as October, which led to the suspension of his license.
However, he was allowed to remain in the U.S.
Illegal Alien rimes
@ImmigrantCrimes
Illegal alien faces DUI Manslaughter charge in death of 6-year-old.
🚨 Orange County, FL: Last week, illegal alien Francisco Rosillo Arriola was arrested for DUI Manslaughter in connection to the death of six-year-old Emiliano Garcia.
Rosillo Arriola is accused of running a stop sign before striking the child, who was riding a bicycle.
12:05 PM · Jan 25, 2025
https://x.com/ImmigrantCrimes/status/1883199440439459955
FJB
https://www.orlando-news.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/f6432922f57b094e11907aa238b5f076.png
Francisco Rosillo Arriola
Bill Melugin
@BillMelugin_
NEW: Per senior Trump admin official, ICE has arrested three more Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang members, all of whom were previously caught and released at the border by the Biden administration in 2023. The arrests took place in San Antonio & Nashville.
Details:
On January 23, 2025, ICE San Antonio obtained a federal indictment and arrest warrant for Nestor Jose MENDOZA-Garcia, a citizen of Venezuela and active member of TdA, for illegal alien in possession firearm, a violation of 18 USC 922. The subject was initially arrested by U.S. Border Patrol in October of 2023, processed as a Notice To Appear and ordered released. Subject was arrested by the San Antonio police department in November 2024, after being found in possession of a weapon that was associated to an unsolved murder from earlier in the month. (Neck tattoo photo).
On January 23, 2025, ICE Nashville reports the criminal arrest of Elmer APARICIO-Castillo, a Venezuelan national, for violations of Alien in Possession of a Firearm, with links to TdA. The subject has one prior immigration encounter by the U.S. Border Patrol on September 30, 2023, in El Paso, TX. During this encounter, the subject was administratively processed by the USBP, issued a Notice to Appear, and released on his own recognizance (NTA/OR). The subject’s criminal history consists of charges including 1) Evading Arrest; 2) Prostitution – Promoting; 3) and Poss w/Int – Cont. Sub. – Marijuana in Nashville, TN. (Blue shirt photo).
On January 23, 2025, ICE Nashville reports the administrative arrest of a 36-year-old Venezuelan national and TdA member. The subject has one prior immigration encounter by the U.S. Border Patrol on December 19, 2023, in Eagle Pass, TX. During this encounter, the subject was administratively processed by the USBP, issued a Notice to Appear, and released on his own recognizance (NTA/OR). The subject’s criminal history consists of charges including 1) Evading Arrest; 2) Prostitution – Promoting; 3) and Poss w/Int – Cont. Sub. – Marijuana in Nashville, TN. (No photo)
4:03 PM · Jan 25, 2025
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https://x.com/BillMelugin_/status/1883259385855807757