Don’t Be Afraid To Lowball
A report from WMAR in Maryland. “Real estate agent Michelle Pappas has been selling real estate for 21 years, riding out the housing market’s twists and turns. Especially, in the last six months. Pappas says she’s noticed some changes recently. ‘The comps aren’t quite lining up with the current market conditions,’ she says. ‘So, if you pull the comps for the house that you’re going to price, that’s not the same market even three months ago than we are today. We’ve seen the inspections come back into place. That’s caused some deals to fall apart in the last month or two. Issues that come up and the seller doesn’t want to reduce their price and/or do the repairs and then the buyer is less enthralled with the house.’ Yet, she has good news for those who’ve been trying to get into a new home. ‘With some inventory staying on the market longer, forcing the seller and or their list agent to reduce the price,’ she says.”
Gulf Shore Business in Florida. “The Punta Gorda Metropolitan Statistical Area, which encompasses all of Charlotte County, saw one of the steepest year-over-year declines in home sale prices. The median home sale price in the Punta Gorda MSA fell 8.6% compared to the same period in 2024, tying with Crestview for the fourth-largest decline in the U.S. Only North Port-Sarasota (down 12.1%) and Cape Coral (11%) had greater losses. Charlotte County home prices are in a correction phase after what Realtors call ‘the cowboy market’ of the pandemic years, said Cindy Marsh-Tichy, president of Realtors of Punta Gorda-Port Charlotte-North Port-DeSoto Inc. ‘The market is pretty stagnant; this happens every few years,’ she said, but offered glimmers of hope to sellers. She suggested that although it’s a good time for buyers, sellers may want to hold off until prices begin to rise again. The market is truly a buyer’s market with inventory levels of 8.3 months for single-family homes and 12.7 months for condos and townhomes.”
WOKV in Florida. “One Dream Finders Homes homeowner is taking Action News Jax through her home, showing examples of what she calls poor craftsmanship, work left undone, and repairs that could cost thousands of dollars. And she’s not alone. Some homeowners tell Action News Jax’s Deja Mayfield that they feel like they’ve been robbed. One owner told Mayfield she still can’t get the repairs she’s been asking for since 2021. ‘We invested a lot of money in this house,’ Robin Barrett said. Barrett purchased her brand-new $420,000 home in Clay County four years ago, and she took us through her home, pointing out problem after problem. ‘I would call my realtor, who would call them and go, ‘Listen, this is unacceptable,’ and they’re like ‘Oh well. If you want to back out, we’re going to keep your deposit,’ Barrett said. ” … I’ve talked to other neighbors who said basically they did that to them too. ‘Hey, you can walk away, we’ll just keep your money.’ Barrett said she and her husband are still left feeling helpless, having to make these repairs on their own. ‘We didn’t expect to have to fork another 30, 40, $50,000 to fix what they didn’t finish,’ she said.”
Covering Katy in Texas. “A recent analysis from the Fort Bend Central Appraisal District (FBCAD) revealed that nearly 60% of homeowners in the county saw their home’s taxable value decline in 2025. While that report was based on property appraisals, local MLS sales data from Katy and Fulshear shows many of the same underlying trends — including growing inventory, longer time on market, and price adjustments. Median Sale Price (June 2025): $364,740, down 9.0% from $401,000 in June 2024. While appraisal values and market prices are calculated differently, both datasets point to the same conclusion: the housing market is normalizing after years of rapid growth.”
From Oregon Live. “A 35-story high-rise that brought the storied Ritz-Carlton brand to Portland has gone back to the lender. Ready Capital announced the long-expected transfer Tuesday evening, saying it had taken possession of Block 216. All parts of the mixed-use building — which includes offices and Ritz-Carlton-branded hotel rooms and residences — will continue to operate as normal, the company said. In March, Ready Capital said it planned to take control after only about a dozen of the building’s 132 condos had sold and less than a quarter of its office space had leased. In a court hearing in April, a Ready Capital attorney said the building was ‘completely underwater.’ Court documents stated that appraisals completed after Block 216 opened valued it at $425 million, tens of millions short of the construction loan. One of the firms’ top executives, Barclay Grayson, sued his employer in Multnomah County Circuit Court, claiming it failed to close a deal struck nearly two years ago to sell him a Block 216 penthouse, as The Oregonian/OregonLive first reported. As first reported by Willamette Week, he appears to be on the hunt for a new job. ‘I’m seeking a new role and would appreciate your support,’ Grayson wrote in a recent post on LinkedIn. ‘If you hear of any opportunities or just want to catch up, please send me a message or comment below. I’d love to connect.'”
From KQED. “President Donald Trump’s executive order promising to crack down on street homelessness across the country drew prompt criticism from service providers in California and Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office, which called it a harmful imitation of the state’s approach. The order, signed Thursday, also calls for increased institutionalization of people with mental illness and promises to defund the state’s — and nation’s — longstanding ‘housing first’ policy, among other provisions. It essentially means providing housing without requiring that someone be enrolled in substance abuse or mental health treatment, though those services are typically offered. ‘Does that mean we do drug testing?’ asked Vivian Wan, CEO of the nonprofit Abode Services. ‘Do we ask people, ‘Are you sober?’ The devil is in the details.'”
“But other observers have welcomed the move. Paul Webster, a senior fellow at the conservative Cicero Institute, called it ‘a huge step in the right direction.’ He pointed to Los Angeles, where seven unhoused people, on average, died each day in 2023 — a rate that’s 4.5 times higher than the general population. Drug- and alcohol-related overdoses accounted for 45% of those deaths, the Los Angeles Times reported. ‘We’ve known for years that homelessness isn’t just about housing but that it’s about folks who’ve got serious illnesses, addictions, mental health challenges, behavioral health challenges,’ Webster said. ‘This is a humanitarian crisis on the streets of some of our largest cities, and we’ve ignored it for far too long.'”
From Wealth Awesome. “In 2022, Thompson Rivers University (TRU) in Kamloops didn’t have enough rooms for students. The school had to bring in a 113-bed workcamp from northern B.C. as a quick fix. Now, less than three years later, TRU is thinking about closing a 305-bed dormitory. This big change is happening because fewer international students are coming to Canada. ‘The international demand has tapered right off because of the federal changes,’ said Matt Milovick, TRU’s vice-president of administration and finance. He added, ‘The dramatic decline for international applicants is really going to start to be felt this fall and next fall.'”
The Financial Times. “This summer it will have been five years since the UK housing market reopened after seven weeks of pandemic-induced shutdowns. Before the pandemic, Hamptons lead analyst David Fell explains, the typical time between a home being put on the market was a decade or so; that average has now halved. ‘Of the homes put up for sale in 2025, more were bought in 2021 than in any other year,’ he says. The change is most evident in the countryside but Fell stresses there is a similar pattern across suburban areas too. Such a change feels particularly impactful because of the sheer volume of sales in 2021. ‘During the pandemic people jumped without looking — or at least with less research than they would have done if they’d moved in, say, 2019,’ adds Fell. ‘Perhaps they’re less happy with the area than they thought they might be,’ he says — or even just dissatisfied with the broader move from the city to the country.”
“‘Covid buyers are facing a reality check,’ says Philip Harvey, senior partner of buying agents Property Vision. ‘For some, the idyllic house on the sea, for example, has started to feel like an expensive miscalculation and we’re seeing that reflected in the number of properties quietly returning to the market,’ says Harvey. In the countryside, where the pool of buyers has contracted, price cuts are common. In Cornwall, 42 per cent of homes for sale in May and June were reduced in price, compared with 36 per cent in London, according to Rightmove. ‘Homes in country villages more than 20 minutes from a station or with poor local amenities are being cut by as much as 20 per cent, especially those on for more than £2mn,’ says Harvey. ‘Scour Rightmove for everything that has sold in the past year: understand the pros and cons of each home; identify the key features that make a great home in your price bracket,’ he says. These are useful ‘checks and balances’ restraining the sort of impulsive Covid-era purchases that buyers are now regretting. ‘Finally, don’t be afraid to lowball: your fear the seller will never speak to you again, or that a bidding war will leave you overpaying, is typically unfounded,’ he says.”
The Helsinki Times. “Landlords in the Helsinki region say rent prices are no longer the main obstacle to filling vacant apartments. The problem, they argue, is a shortage of reliable tenants. Juha Parviainen, a property investor with two decades of experience, said one of his apartments in East Helsinki has remained empty since March, despite a 10 percent drop in rent. ‘I’ve already lowered the rent, but it’s still hard to find a suitable tenant,’ Parviainen said. ‘It’s not the price anymore.’ He holds regular viewings to attract tenants but said attendance is low and often unreliable. ‘There might be five showings booked, and only one person shows up, if that. The rest don’t even cancel,’ he said. Martti Korhonen, chief actuary at Statistics Finland, said the decline is due to oversupply. ‘There are simply more rental flats than people who want them,’ he said.”
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‘Pappas says she’s noticed some changes recently. ‘The comps aren’t quite lining up with the current market conditions,’ she says. ‘So, if you pull the comps for the house that you’re going to price, that’s not the same market even three months ago than we are today. We’ve seen the inspections come back into place. That’s caused some deals to fall apart in the last month or two. Issues that come up and the seller doesn’t want to reduce their price and/or do the repairs and then the buyer is less enthralled with the house.’ Yet, she has good news for those who’ve been trying to get into a new home. ‘With some inventory staying on the market longer, forcing the seller and or their list agent to reduce the price’
Michelle is a UHS in what I think is Lutherville. The writer tagged it as LUTERHVILLE, Md.
Baltimore has its own beltway, I-695. Lutherville is at the top stretch of that beltway. It’s fairly far away from the bad part of Baltimore, and not really close enough to DC to have any Fed workers.
Realtors are liars.
(People are stupid.)
WS Journal – The Hottest Business Strategy This Summer Is Buying Crypto
Small companies are raising billions of dollars to buy bitcoin and other, more obscure cryptocurrencies. What could possibly go wrong?
https://archive.ph/ML7Xg
(snip)
It’s the hottest trade of the summer.
Companies are raising tens of billions of dollars, not to invest in their businesses or hire employees, but to purchase bitcoin and more obscure cryptocurrencies. A Japanese hotel operator, a French semiconductor manufacturer, a Florida toy maker, a nail-salon chain, an electric-bike maker—they’re all plowing cash into tokens, helping to send all kinds of digital currencies to record levels. News that a new company plans to buy crypto is enough to send its shares flying—spurring others to consider joining the frenzy.
(snip)
Skeptics say the rush of companies buying crypto is a sign the market is overheating, noting that digital tokens, especially the obscure ones, are notoriously volatile and have uncertain futures. They scratch their heads about why an investor would buy shares of a company purchasing cryptocurrencies when they can buy them on their own through low-cost exchange-traded funds and other vehicles.
Others note that many of these companies are worth much more than the cryptocurrencies they hold, as if investors are willing to pay $2 for a $1 bill.
That hasn’t stopped big-name bankers, investors and others from jumping in. Mutual-fund giant Capital Group, hedge fund D1 Capital Partners and investment bank Cantor Fitzgerald are among those backing recent efforts by companies to raise huge sums to purchase cryptocurrencies.
Venture capitalist Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund, Mike Novogratz’s Galaxy Digital and other investors backed a move by a company called Bitmine Immersion Technologies to raise $250 million to buy ether. The company, worth $26 million on June 27, the Friday before its announcement, is now worth over $2 billion after a surge of more than 800%. Thiel, the tech billionaire known for starting PayPal and Palantir, holds a 9.1% stake in the company, according to a recent filing. He declined to comment.
(snip)
“In my three decades experience I have never witnessed a period where investors are willing to pay such large premiums for assets they can readily purchase on their own,” says Michael O’Rourke, chief market strategist at JonesTrading.
(snip)
Last week, Volcon, an electric-bike maker based in Austin, Texas, raised $500 million in just seven days to initiate its bitcoin treasury strategy, according to co-CEO Ryan Lane. Shares of Volcon jumped from $9.22 to more than $44 on the day of its announcement as speculators rushed to snap up the stock. Shares have fallen every day since, closing Friday at $13.40.
Two weeks ago, French semiconductor manufacturer Sequans Communications raised $384 million from more than 40 institutional investors to buy bitcoin. The company’s stock jumped 215% that week and peaked at $5.83 a share—but it’s since fallen back down to $1.98.
(snip)
Executives of some of the companies aren’t waiting to see if their plans work out—they’re dumping their personal shares after making the announcements, pocketing millions in the process.
On June 16, for example, SRM Entertainment, a toy-and-souvenir manufacturer in Winter Park, Fla., with a market value of $25 million the Friday before, announced plans to spend $100 million on a cryptocurrency called Tron.
The token purchase is part of a reverse merger between SRM and crypto entrepreneur Justin Sun’s company, also called Tron. SRM’s stock, which traded between 28 cents and $1.45 a share all year, shot up past $9.
Over the next several days, the company’s CEO, Richard Miller, and its chief financial officer, Douglas McKinnon, exercised previously issued stock options to buy a combined 600,000 shares at 56 cents a share, according to data from The Washington Service. They sold a combined $2 million or so of the newly acquired shares. A vice president of the company sold $941,000 worth of stock.
Japanese hotel operator, a French semiconductor manufacturer, a Florida toy maker, a nail-salon chain, an electric-bike maker
No shoeshine boy. Must be the real deal.
“…riding out the housing market’s twists and turns.”
…riding out the housing market’s graft and corruption.
Here are a lot of twists and turns in a free fall.
If FBs flap their arms hard enough, maybe they can slow their descent.
‘Charlotte County home prices are in a correction phase after what Realtors call ‘the cowboy market’ of the pandemic years’
I’ve heard it called the bat-sh$t crazy market Cindy.
Speaking of batsh*t crazy, Trump wants to make insane asylums great again. This is long overdue for dealing with the severely mentally ill who require institutionalization rather than being cast out onto the streets to fend for themselves. However, the prospect of being involuntarily committed will result in predictable meltdowns by the unhinged blue-haired future cat ladies who wept so copiously when Trump squashed Crooked Hillary & Comrade Kamala like the insects they are.
https://revolver.news/2025/07/trump-issues-eo-to-bring-back-insane-asylums/
This never gets old: Butt-hurt crying Clinton supporters after Trump trounced Screech in 2016.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grD_IINiH9c&t=9s
Tents, needles, and feces: it’s a Vote Blue No Matter Who kind of thing. Because muh progressive, compassionate, etc.
The hills they choose to die on tell all about this corrupt, degenerate party.
Every last Democrat hates their country.
This is long overdue for dealing with the severely mentally ill who require institutionalization rather than being cast out onto the streets to fend for themselves
This concerns me. Remember when it was suggested that “mentally ill” who refused to get vaccinated should be herded into “concentration camps?” Who gets to determine mental illness? The Progressive Woke left?
Just quit funding them with tax dollars and throw them in jail if they break the law.
There are a lot of severely mentally ill homeless people in Colorado Springs. It’s criminal that they are being forced to fend for themselves when they require institutionalization and care. Yes, the Democrat-Bolsheviks wanted to send the unvaxxed to internment camps, but such abuses & gov’t overreach doesn’t change the fact the we need to get mentally ill homeless people off the street.
Half the country is mentally ill depending on which side of the aisle you’re on.
I’m not talking meds-dependent unhinged future cat lady Kamala Harris supporter mentally ill. I’m talking paranoid schizophrenic and similarly whacked out head cases who are incapable of functioning in society.
“…mentally ill…”
Mental illness is frequently hereditary.
I don’t believe that any of the homeless are mentally ill. It’s the narcotics talking.
When people are doing these hard drug powders, their brains turn to mush in my opinion. I include meth. They are walking useless crime sprees. Lock em up. These aren’t potheads or drunks.
“I don’t believe that any of the homeless are mentally ill.”
Really! None of them are mentally ill!
Very broad inclusive conclusion don’t you think?
“ The Snake Pit”
New York Times roundtable discussion. If you can force yourself to read the whole thing, ask how out of touch with reality one would have to be to say this and take themselves seriously:
“What Trump has done is trade one form of chaos and disorder for another. He’s taken whatever may exist at the southern border and then just plopped it into American cities. If he’s just trading one form of chaos and disorder for another, there’s actually, I think, a good amount of evidence to suggest that this is going to be harmful — actively harmful to him because he isn’t getting rid of the chaos. He’s just redistributing it.”
https://archive.md/X7K35
Real Journalists you people are such a joke.
They really are worried that as more ICE agents come online that the deportation numbers will soar.
It’s the New York Times. These writers are so out of touch with the prevailing sentiment in this country now.
I have a friend who thinks that Americans will soon stop caring about sending invaders home and that “things will calm down”.
I think he’s in for an unpleasant surprise.
The other day, an opinion columnist at Fox News (Liz Peek) again floated the idea of legalization for the nice ones. I hope 47 doesn’t cave.
floated the idea of legalization for the nice ones
RINOs gonna RINO
I’m sure Chambers of Commerce across the country would like an amnesty and for “things to calm down”. They don’t want to lose their taxpayer subsidized cheap labor.
They aren’t out of touch they are willfully trying to manipulate and divide. Don’t let them off the hook.
‘Some homeowners tell Action News Jax’s Deja Mayfield that they feel like they’ve been robbed…‘We invested a lot of money in this house,’ Robin Barrett said. Barrett purchased her brand-new $420,000 home in Clay County four years ago’
You did get robbed Robin, in more ways than one.
‘local MLS sales data from Katy and Fulshear shows many of the same underlying trends — including growing inventory, longer time on market, and price adjustments. Median Sale Price (June 2025): $364,740, down 9.0% from $401,000 in June 2024’
I’m pretty sure this is way higher than the 2000’s.
The median home sale price in the Punta Gorda MSA fell 8.6% compared to the same period in 2024, tying with Crestview for the fourth-largest decline in the U.S. Only North Port-Sarasota (down 12.1%) and Cape Coral (11%) had greater losses.
But…but…muh generational wealth!
‘Grayson, sued his employer in Multnomah County Circuit Court, claiming it failed to close a deal struck nearly two years ago to sell him a Block 216 penthouse, as The Oregonian/OregonLive first reported. As first reported by Willamette Week, he appears to be on the hunt for a new job. ‘I’m seeking a new role and would appreciate your support,’ Grayson wrote in a recent post on LinkedIn. ‘If you hear of any opportunities or just want to catch up, please send me a message or comment below. I’d love to connect’
I’ve got a couple of trucks that could use a good wash Barclay.
I just weeded my entire backyard by hand. You could’ve bid on the job, Barclay.
I used to beat my head against weeds. But I wised up and pay a company to spray pre-emergent herbicide. Best yard move I ever made.
I refuse to use pesticides in my yard. Would rather pull up weeds by the roots.
Virtue signalling.
Better living thru chemistry.
sponsored by Monsanto
Heh, in my neighborhood we just mow the weeds along with everything else. My front yard is mostly weeds, but nobody cares, because their yards are weeds too. The clay soil just doesn’t seem to hold fescues very well. You either get zoysia grass, which turns brown in the winter, you drown the yard in herbicides, or you get weeds. Most people are choosing the weeds.
I’m a tellin ya. I was in the same boat. I went with common bermuda grass (which was already present) and pre-emergent herbicide. A year and a half I’m 95%+ all bermuda and people stop their cars to tell me how good it looks. I haven’t seeded nor sod. I transplant runners to the bald spots and keep that watered until it takes.
bermuda grass
When I moved to Louisiana I put in an above ground pool for my kids to play in. Nobody else had an above ground pool. I soon found out why.
pre-emergent herbicide
You aren’t talking about “weed-n-feed”. are you?
“You aren’t talking about “weed-n-feed”. are you?”
No. The good stuff requires an applicator’s license from a county weed control board. If you do business with these guys they’ll watch the weather closely during early Spring and let you know they’re coming. The commercial stuff is in a huge tank on their truck with a pump sprayer and long hose on a reel that can reach everywhere on your property. These guys are the only real solution for crab grass control. If it does take hold nothing can kill it that won’t also kill your yard too. However, if I see it during the season I boil water in a kettle, and pour it directly on the crab grass, and it’s dead-brown the following day. Lawn will begin growing in its place within days.
I boil water in a kettle, and pour it directly on the crab grass
I have used a propane blowtorch, right after or during a rain.
‘The market is pretty stagnant; this happens every few years,’ she said, but offered glimmers of hope to sellers.
“It’s just a gully.” Does the NAR have a central repository of approved lies and spin for dissemination to its liars, er, agents, in the field?
‘We didn’t expect to have to fork another 30, 40, $50,000 to fix what they didn’t finish,’ she said.”
For the past decade at least, social media and even the garbage legacy media have highlighted the shoddy construction and structural defects that are a feature, not a bug, on shacks hastily thrown up by publically-traded homebuilders out to maximize short-term “shareholder value” and CEO pay at the expense of the dolts who who buy such garbage. Buyers oblivious to what they’re taking delivery of clearly haven’t performed even a cursor due diligence.
Court documents stated that appraisals completed after Block 216 opened valued it at $425 million, tens of millions short of the construction loan.
Will the trillions of Yellen Bux “value” growing wings & flying away to debauched currency heaven have an eclipse-like effect as they block out the sun?
‘Does that mean we do drug testing?’ asked Vivian Wan, CEO of the nonprofit Abode Services. ‘Do we ask people, ‘Are you sober?’ The devil is in the details’
That’s why you make the big bucks Vivian.
‘He pointed to Los Angeles, where seven unhoused people, on average, died each day in 2023 — a rate that’s 4.5 times higher than the general population. Drug- and alcohol-related overdoses accounted for 45% of those deaths’
I would say example 10,000 of ‘Californians are stupid,’ but I’ll post some more stupidity on the subject from Denver later. In this article the guvnah says President Trump is ‘imitating’ their ideas. Maybe, but he’s pulling the plug whereas all you do is talk. You guys pat yerself on the back if you move a few dozen people half a mile away and pick up 20 tons of toxic bum trash. And it will take you half a year, dozens of dead bums/bystanders and 30 resolutions to do it.
I would say example 10,000 of ‘Californians are stupid,’ but I’ll post some more stupidity on the subject from Denver later.
Ben, if you wish to capture the full magnitude of the stupidity and fecklessness coming out of commie-controlled Denver, you might want to create a separate blog devoted to the subject – and give up yer day job.
“President Donald Trump’s executive order promising to crack down on street homelessness across the country drew prompt criticism from service providers in California and Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office, which called it a harmful imitation of the state’s approach.
Hell hath no fury like the Comrades of Proven Worth deprived of their six-figure salaries, slush funds, & stuffed brown envelopes by defunding Compassion, Inc. patronage & graft rackets.
They are truly evil people.
‘We’ve known for years that homelessness isn’t just about housing but that it’s about folks who’ve got serious illnesses, addictions, mental health challenges, behavioral health challenges,’ Webster said.
Treating most of the homeless like the vermin that they are, to include sweeps to remove them from public spaces and concentrate them in facilities with basic life support functions and care, but removing their ability to sully residential areas and engage in criminal and antisocial behavior, would be a major incentive for vagrants & bums to rethink their poor life choices. Seeth harder, Compassion, Inc. Comrades of Proven Worth – the gravy train might be running out of track.
Foreclosure.com sent me this pre-foreclosure just now:
Est. $372,800
1329 E Galewood Dr, Williams, AZ 86046
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1329-E-Galewood-Dr-Williams-AZ-86046/109599178_zpid/
As is often the case this isn’t in Williams. It’s in an area called Red Lake, which is off the highway north going to the Grand Canyon. I worked on dozens of foreclosures there. It’s a got-forsaken sh$thole of an area. Check out the photo and the zestimate! More than doubled since 2020.
Here’s a comp:
1.39 mi
6083 N Joshua Tree Rd, Williams, AZ 86046
Sale date: 03/31/2025 $549,000
https://www.servicelinkauction.com/property-details/1329-e-galewood-dr-williams-86046-az-united-states-tps
Here’s that beauty:
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/6083-N-Joshua-Tree-Rd-Williams-AZ-86046/67139133_zpid/
Looks like an old open pit mine behind it.
In love with that garage!
$500K for a mobile home in the middle of nowhere?
Looks like an old open pit mine behind it.
Yes it does. I wonder what the runoff contains. Guessing, at a minimum, a lot of sulfur as the pyrite gets exposed to water and air.
I’m guessing there is no runoff from a hole in the ground in Arizona.
What’s your theory on the tanning bed?
Reality is setting in for the elbows-up cohort:
Just closed on a home. Two weeks later—fired.
3.5 years of remote work gone in a flash.
No car. A 2-year-old to care for.
And a job market that doesn’t care.
Welcome to 🇨🇦 new reality:
You can do everything right and still lose everything.
https://x.com/ShaziGoalie/status/1948965296326205703
Humm… has anyone noticed how all the “I’m so effective working from home” news articles just suddenly vanished ?
And the K-dn snowbird shack buyers leaving the US stopped right after their election.
K-dans who levered up on debt to get up on that housing ladder to effortless riches are finding out the hard way that they were sold a bill of goods. Time to go elbows up against those debt collectors and foreclosure notices, K-dan FBs!
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/investing/markets/inside-the-market/article-real-estate-is-not-a-financial-slam-dunk-canadians-are-learning-the/
K-dans who levered up on debt to get up on that housing ladder to effortless riche
Well, when you think about it, most are socialists, so yeah, they expect to get rich without working.
Let’s see if Sheinbaum’s Mexico holds up its part of the agreement to stop sending raw sewage to California beaches. Maybe in return, Trump could pledge to stop CA libtards from driving up housing prices in Mexico City.
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2025/07/got_it_done_trump_secures_a_deal_with_mexico_to_stop_sending_its_raw_sewage_to_california_s_beaches.html
Mexico has been promising to fix that for decades. I wouldn’t hold my breath.
In Mexico’s defense, exporting raw sewage while importing CA libtards means we all know who’s getting a raw deal here.
“She suggested that although it’s a good time for buyers, sellers may want to hold off until prices begin to rise again”
Hold off? Assuming this cycle is like any other before it, your seller better be willing to wait years before their warm and fuzzy number becomes a reality again.
Sorry, but the dolts who accept such “advice” from NAR dissemblers or the REIC shills in the garbage legacy media deserve to suffer the consequences. If stupid didn’t hurt, fools would never learn.
Remember, Heritage Canadian young people – the Great Replacement is a conspiracy theory, even if your globalist quisling government is implementing it on a national scale before your lyin’ eyes.
There. Are. No. Jobs.
But Ottawa just made it policy to keep 25% of 🇨🇦 workforce made up of immigrants and refugees no matter what.
Even as youth unemployment hits 17.4%.
Even as layoffs surge.
Even as 🇨🇦 get ghosted by the job market.
This isn’t immigration policy. It’s forced labour market engineering.
https://x.com/ShaziGoalie/status/1948796749373469001
There. Are. No. Jobs.
Was chatting with a Canuck who bragged about her .ca.gov job at her local public library and how she was fireproof. I reminded her that there is no such thing and if library funding is reduced she might see her hours shrink or even become dejobbed.
Gated communities and private security forces: part of the “secession of the successful” and an effort to keep the consequences of commie malgovernance at bay.
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/07/25/why-americans-love-gated-communities.html
I heard through the grapevine that the latest narrative is that the real purpose for ICE is to make the rainbow people disappear.
Anyway, I heard that the elbows up country might grant them asylum. Sounds like a win-win to me.
Colorado advocates alarmed by Trump’s executive order aimed at homelessness
Colorado advocates told Denver7 they are alarmed by President Donald Trump’s new executive order that will make it easier for cities to remove unhoused people from city streets and forcibly hospitalize those facing mental health issues or drug addiction.
Trump described his executive order as “a new approach” to homelessness that is focused on increasing public safety and restoring public order.
“Endemic vagrancy, disorderly behavior, sudden confrontations, and violent attacks have made our cities unsafe,” Trump said in his executive order. “The Federal Government and the States have spent tens of billions of dollars on failed programs that address homelessness but not its root causes, leaving other citizens vulnerable to public safety threats.”
The executive order directs the attorney general “to seek…the reversal of Federal or State judicial precedents and the termination of consent decrees that impede the United States’ policy of encouraging civil commitment of individuals with mental illness who pose risks to themselves or the public or are living on the streets and cannot care for themselves in appropriate facilities for appropriate periods of time.”
On Friday, Trump cited encampments near the White House as an example of a problem he said has gotten worse in many cities.
“When leaders come to see me to make a trade deal for billions and billions and even trillions of dollars, and they come in and there’s tents outside the White House, we can’t have that,” Trump said.
Advocates for the unhoused in Colorado will make things worse and deprive people of their rights.
“We’re extremely disappointed to see this executive order, mostly because it really looks at homelessness as an issue that should be addressed with criminalization enforcement and mandatory treatment, which just really undermines the whole issue of homelessness, which is a housing issue,” said Cathy Alderman with the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless. “His executive order takes no responsibility for actually solving homelessness.”
Alderman said the executive order also mischaracterizes the majority of unhoused people.
“This executive order does really mischaracterize how individuals are experiencing homelessness,” Alderman told Denver7. “It assumes that everyone experiencing homelessness has a substance use disorder or has a mental or a behavioral health issue. And that’s just simply not the case.”
Alderman said what’s needed to solve homelessness is an individualized approach that takes into account factors that led to someone becoming homeless and that might be keeping them in homelessness.
“This executive order instead takes this criminalization, this enforcement, this authoritarian we-know-what’s-best-for-you approach, which has never worked in the past to solve homelessness and won’t work today,” Alderman said.
Trump said using civil commitment to place unhoused people into long-term institutional settings for treatment will restore public order.
“Surrendering our cities and citizens to disorder and fear is neither compassionate to the homeless nor other citizens,” Trump said. “My administration will take a new approach focused on protecting public safety.”
Trump’s executive order also prioritizes federal funding for local jurisdictions that enforce camping bans and for programs that require treatment.
Denver Mayor Mike Johnston has made resolving homelessness a central goal of his mayoralty and said he has developed a blueprint for other cities to follow. His office said it agrees that the focus should be on getting people into long-term treatment, but said the president’s approach was wrong.
“We actually agree with President Trump that we need to focus on helping people struggling with addiction and mental health issues get into long-term treatment – something we’re prioritizing through our innovative Roads to Recovery program that has helped hundreds of Denverites access and stay in treatment. But relying on enforcement and the jail system to do this just won’t work – we need federal funding for real, community-based treatment options,” Johnston’s office said. “While addiction is a real and pressing issue, it is far from the only cause of homelessness. We need real reform in bringing down the cost of housing and ensuring that folks aren’t one unexpected expense away from being on the streets. We hope the Trump Administration will join us in prioritizing this need.”
Aurora uses a different approach to address homelessness. Aurora City Councilwoman Danielle Jurinsky called Trump’s executive order “excellent news for Aurora!”
Joe Rubino, a spokesperson for the City of Aurora, said the city has been in communication with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development about the city’s future navigation campus, which will expand the city’s resources for addressing unsheltered homelessness.
“While the city is still reviewing and assessing the potential impacts of President Trump’s executive order, Aurora is encouraged that the administration is discussing funding for alternative housing methodologies,” said Rubino.
The campus is expected to open in November, and Rubino said no one will be turned away.
https://www.denver7.com/news/politics/colorado-advocates-alarmed-by-trumps-executive-order-aimed-at-homelessness
A bum campus?
More like they are afraid of losing their “no results required” jobs.
There is an open air drug market at the corner of Acoma St and Englewood Pkwy, at the bus stop by king Soopers.
Nobody does anything about it.
Trump’s sweeping order on homelessness could have major impacts in Denver
The order, called “Ending Crime and Disorder on America’s Streets,” attempts to defund “housing first” and “harm reduction” approaches to homelessness. Both strategies have played heavily in Mayor Mike Johnston’s housing efforts in Denver, and many researchers say they are backed by evidence.
The new order “prioritizes criminalization and involuntary civil commitment of those forced to live on the streets due to the federal government’s failure to invest in housing solutions that could have solved homelessness decades ago,” the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless wrote in a statement on Friday.
Trump’s order says that cities should force people experiencing homelessness into treatment for addiction and mental health issues. It attempts to end the practice of providing housing to people who can’t or won’t enter treatment programs.
The order also would defund harm reduction strategies, like local programs that provide clean syringes for people who use drugs. And it would punish cities that embrace housing first and harm reduction with civil and criminal investigations and sweeping funding cuts.
“His approach to the street folks is, ‘We’ll put you in institutions,’” said Don Burnes, the co-founder of the Burnes Center for Poverty Research at the Colorado Center on Law and Poverty. “And the problem is that we don’t have enough of those institutions.”
If implemented, the order could trigger sweeping federal funding cuts to Denver’s current homelessness and public health strategies— the sort of budget fallout the city is already fighting in multiple lawsuits over other executive orders.
Mayor Mike Johnston defended Denver’s efforts, saying in a statement that the city had provided a “a blueprint for how cities across the country can address this crisis that to many seems unsolvable.”
He welcomed anyone, including Trump, to come learn “best practices for tackling the issue.” But in a recent speech, he also implied the city could embrace at least some of the strategies Trump is now ordering.
Since Johnston took office, the city has spent millions bringing thousands of people living in tents indoors. Many went into hotel shelters, where they have stayed for months or years. The city has largely eliminated large outdoor encampments, which Johnston described as “historic” but imperfect progress.
Trump has asked federal agencies to prioritize funding for cities that:
-enforce laws on open drug use, urban camping and loitering, and urban squatting.
-jail people and mandate treatment if they are a danger to themselves or others and suffer from mental illness or substance use disorders, or live outside and cannot care for themselves and force them to go through either out-patient or in-patient treatment.
-track people who are homeless and on the national Sex Offender Registry.
The city is still wrestling with significant problems in and out of the shelters. Overdoses, homicides and accidents have occurred and medical care has been unevenly funded by a city that has lagged in contracting with service providers. Most people brought into hotel shelters have still not found permanent housing, and 47 percent have experienced unknown or negative outcomes: death, jail, or a return to the streets.
“Virtually all studies” suggest housing first works better than programs that require treatment first, Burnes said.
“The problem is [Trump] thinks that substance abuse and mental illness are the root causes, which is why he is taking the position he’s doing,” said Burnes. “That’s not the problem. The problem is housing, and it’s the cost of housing and the availability of units that people can afford, and this executive order doesn’t address that at all.”
Over time, some research has shown that “it works to coerce people into treatment,” Carnegie Mellon University researcher Jonathan Caulkins previously told CPR News. “The longer you stay in treatment, the better you do. And if dropping out of treatment means there’s gonna be a criminal sanction, that can be a motivation.”
Still, there is rising criticism among some advocates and academics about the idea that people should be coerced into receiving medical care, Caulkins said. Multiple studies referred to by the National Institutes of Health show the risk of overdose is multiplied when users leave incarceration. And involuntary treatment may also increase the risk of overdoses.
Meanwhile, even as Trump pushes for a crackdown on addiction, ,his administration has delayed and may cut $140 million in federal funding to address the fentanyl overdose crisis, NPR reported.
In response, some Democrats have been embracing this vision of “tough-on-crime” solutions to homelessness. California Gov. Gavin Newsom demanded cities and counties “take back the streets” and shutter encampments.
Mayor Johnston has offered mixed messages on the topic.
On Friday, he said the city needs to focus on helping people get into treatment. “But relying on enforcement and the jail system to do this just won’t work – we need federal funding for real, community-based treatment options,” he said in a statement.
However, earlier this week, Johnston said in a speech that the city could use a more punitive approach for people who commit crimes and refuse treatment for addiction and other issues.
“For those who refuse services and continue to commit crimes, we will hold them accountable, and work with our partners in the criminal justice system to direct them toward services and treatment as part of their sentence,” he said.
https://denverite.com/2025/07/25/trump-homelessness-executive-order-denver-impact/
Why do we call them homeless? We could call them jobless, or showerless. Or stinking lazy drugged out bums!
Why do we call them homeless? We could call them jobless, or showerless. Or stinking lazy drugged out bums!
They were once called hobos and tramps.
Depression-era hobos and tramps would find comparisons with “our unhoused neighbors” of today highly defamatory.
My understanding was that Depression-era hobos would ask if they could do odd jobs for food. They would be very polite and thankful and move on to the next farm so as not to be a burden on any one place for too long.
Today they would kill the owners and take the land. Oh wait, didn’t they do that in Zimbabwe?
As more realtors join the ranks of the homeless, here is a good hobo stew recipe, although I’d recommend against using a water source where you just washed your dog’s a$$.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TAkyYEBc1M
Years ago I had an associate who referred to them as urban campers. He correctly would lecture everyone that most of them are there by choice.
In response, some Democrats have been embracing this vision of “tough-on-crime” solutions to homelessness.
Oh please. Remind me again who the #1 donor to the Democratic Party is. Remind me again of how this “billionaire philanthropist” is planting prosecutors in every blue state and city to undermine, not uphold, law and order. Any “solution” the Democrats embrace will take the form of patronage and graft efforts that enable and encourage vagrancy and antisocial behavior, not crack down on it.
Denver Homelessness Programs Threatened by Trump’s Latest Executive Orders
“We actually agree with President Trump that we need to focus on helping people struggling with addiction and mental health issues get into long-term treatment,” Jordan Fuja, a spokesperson for the Denver mayor’s office, says in a statement. “But relying on enforcement and the jail system to do this just won’t work. We need federal funding for real, community-based treatment options.”
According to CCH, one of the largest nonprofits addressing homelessness statewide, the “harmful and illegal” order “cruelly targets people experiencing homelessness.”
“The order prioritizes criminalization and involuntary civil commitment of those forced to live on the streets due to the federal government’s failure to invest in housing solutions that could have solved homelessness decades ago,” CCH says in a statement. “Against best practices and rigorous studies and data, the order directs [HUD] to de-prioritize and de-fund evidence-based programs like housing first…the data-proven solution to homelessness is safe, affordable housing with appropriate wrap-around services.”
HUD will also require federally funded homelessness and housing programs to “collect health-related information” of homeless residents and share the data with law enforcement “to provide appropriate medical care.” According to CCH, the data collection will lead to “further violating the privacy rights of those experiencing homelessness.”
Trump’s executive order also demanded that HUD only fund housing programs if they require homeless residents with a history of substance abuse or mental illness to accept treatment. Trump claims it’s the only way to “increase accountability” and “promote treatment, recovery and self-sufficiency,” but the Denver mayor’s office says funding affordable housing is more important to solving homelessness than treating addiction.
“While addiction is a real and pressing issue, it is far from the only cause of homelessness,” according to Fuja. “We need real reform in bringing down the cost of housing and ensuring that folks aren’t more than one unexpected expense away from being on the streets. We hope the Trump administration will join us in prioritizing this need.”
The order goes after harm reduction and safe consumption sites, which are meant to reduce overdose deaths by providing monitored areas for drug use. Trump wrote that these sites “fail to achieve adequate outcomes” and “facilitate illegal drug use.”
The directive likely won’t change how often Denver sweeps encampments, says Andy McNulty, a civil rights lawyer who helped secure the 2019 Lyall Settlement that requires the City of Denver to give homeless residents a week’s notice before a sweep.
The Lyall Settlement resulted from a class-action lawsuit against the city by Denver homeless residents who claimed sudden sweeps violated their right to due process. The city still follows guidelines to give proper notice when sweeping encampments, except when done for public health or safety reasons. According to McNulty, Trump’s order will “have no effect on the Lyall Settlement” as the executive order is “not anything other than guidance on a federal agency. It doesn’t affect the judiciary.”
McNulty says the city doesn’t have to comply unless it wants to risk losing federal funding for homelessness initiatives.
https://www.westword.com/news/denver-homelessness-programs-threatened-latest-trump-orders-25140031
LA housing vouchers will soon cover less rent. City officials blame Trump funding cuts
More than 50,000 low-income families in Los Angeles are only able to afford the city’s high rents because of the Section 8 housing choice voucher program. But soon, those vouchers will cover less rent — leaving many tenants with fewer places to go.
Officials with the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles say Trump administration budget cuts have forced them to reduce how much rent they can subsidize moving forward.
Starting Aug. 1, rent limits for new Section 8 leases will decrease by 10%.
Heeyoung Linda Park, a Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles attorney who works with voucher holders, said tenants will have to face tough choices.
“They have to settle for worse or smaller housing,” Park said, “or they could lose their voucher.”
Section 8 tenants put about a third of their personal income toward rent, with federal funding paying the remainder. Next month’s changes won’t affect existing leases. Voucher payments will only be reduced if tenants move somewhere else after Aug. 1.
The change will affect tenants who have received a voucher, but who have not yet found a place to use it. California law bans landlords from refusing to rent to a tenant solely based on their participation in the Section 8 program. But recent undercover testing found that most L.A. area landlords still discriminate against voucher holders.
Javier Beltran, deputy director of the L.A.-based Housing Rights Center, said the payment reductions will make it increasingly difficult for renters to find options in wealthier neighborhoods. And that undermines one of the program’s key goals.
“It keeps it more segregated to the areas that are just poor, low-income neighborhoods,” Beltran said. “Part of the purpose of Section 8 is to get folks out of those neighborhoods.”
Section 8 limits vary by ZIP code. For example, the current cap on a one-bedroom apartment is $2,820 per month in 90034, a ZIP code that includes L.A.’s renter-heavy neighborhood of Palms.
Starting Aug. 1, the city will reduce that ZIP code’s limit to $2,585 per month for a one-bedroom unit. According to RentCafe.com, the current average rent for an apartment in Palms is $2,815.
https://laist.com/news/housing-homelessness/los-angeles-housing-authority-city-hacla-section-8-voucher-rent-cuts-trump-funding
Holy sh!t. No wonder prices keep going up.
We have GOT to kick out all the illegals doing the housecleaning and chicken-chasing jobs, and taking the apartments.
This family self-deported to Mexico, and lost everything
URUAPAN, Mexico, July 26 (Reuters) – As broadcasters declared Donald Trump the next President of the United States, Sonia Coria turned to her husband and asked if they should go home.
For seven months they had been living in Glendale, Arizona, sharing a two-bedroom apartment with Coria’s aunt and slowly building a life far from the threats and cartel violence that made them flee Mexico.
Coria, 25, took odd jobs as a cleaner and her husband, Carlos Leon, also 25, worked as a gardener. Their eldest child Naomi, eight, was going to a local charter school, making friends and picking up English. In the small kidney-shaped pool of the condominium building where they lived, she had learned to swim. Little Carlos, five, was learning to ride a bike.
Their neighborhood in western Glendale – a city of some 250,000 people just outside Phoenix – was home to lots of Mexican migrants. Opposite their apartment block was a small butcher, Carnicería Uruapan, named after the town they had fled in the dangerous Mexican state of Michoacan.
They had bought their first car on installments – a tan-colored 2008 Ford F-150 pickup truck that cost them $4,000. They were still poor, sometimes going to soup kitchens for a meal or picking up appliances and toys that neighbors had thrown out, but it was a life they could only have dreamed of back home in Mexico.
Trump’s campaign, and his victory, changed how they felt about living in the United States. They had followed the law, entering the United States at a border crossing and applying for asylum. The application was in process. But they now worried they could lose everything.
“We run the risk of them taking away the little we’ve managed to scrape together,” Coria remembers telling her husband that night as election coverage played on the television.
Leon nodded and hugged his wife. They began to cry quietly, afraid Carlos and Naomi would hear them as they played on the floor in the bedroom they all shared. The kids had been allowed to stay up late, so that Coria and Leon could watch the results come in.
The family’s account is based on interviews with Leon, Coria and NGOs that helped them on their return to Mexico. Reuters was not able to verify all details of their journey, but core facts were supported by photos, videos, messages, and customs documents the family shared.
As they discussed returning to Mexico, Leon set one condition: That they wait until after Trump took office on January 20, to save up some more money and to see if he proved as hardline on migration as he’d promised. In the end, fear led them to leave before Trump had even been sworn in.
On January 19, Coria, Leon, and the two kids packed what they could fit into their F-150 and drove toward the Mexican border. It was just a three-hour drive.
A few weeks before, they had witnessed immigration enforcement detaining the father of a Mexican family living two doors down from them. That, Coria said, had made up their minds.
A lawyer they saw at the Mexican consulate in Phoenix reinforced their view, telling them that their asylum application was weak and they would likely be deported.
Now, they were going back. But the family hoped their savings would make a difference. They had managed to scrape together $5,000 and the plan was to buy land and open an auto repair shop using their pickup truck to help with the business.
At 5 p.m., on January 19, they drew up to the Dennis DeConcini border crossing at Nogales. As they passed Mexican customs, the Mexican National Guard stopped their vehicle and asked for papers, the family said.
Leon didn’t have the car title, just a temporary permit issued that day, so officials confiscated the truck and threatened to arrest him for vehicle smuggling. The officials also took $5,000, the family’s entire savings, for what they called a fine before Leon could go free.
With no car and no money, Coria, Leon, Naomi and Carlos sat on the ground outside customs, surrounded by their remaining possessions – 100 kilos of clothing, tools, kitchen utensils, a television, refrigerator, and children’s toys.
“We lost everything,” Coria recalled, in tears. “We left with nothing and came back worse off.”
As the sun began to set, the dry desert air turned cold. The family worried about where to spend the night and how they would reach Michoacan, some 2,000 kilometers away. They were spotted by Francisco Olachea, a nurse with Voices from the Border, a humanitarian organization that works on both sides of the border.
Olachea remembers approaching the crying family outside customs and offering them a hand. They loaded the Corias’ belongings onto the NGO’s ambulance and a rented pickup truck paid for by Olachea and another NGO, Salvavision.
That night, Olachea took them to NANA Ministries, a Christian organization in the border town of Nogales. They were offered water, fruit, coffee, and pozole, a traditional Mexican broth made from corn kernels with meat and vegetables. The four spent the night in a small room.
Together, Voices from the Border and Salvavision raised just over $1,000 to buy the family bus tickets to Michoacan and send some belongings to Sonia Coria’s mother’s house in black garbage bags. What they couldn’t send was donated to the church where they had spent the night. On January 20, the family returned to Uruapan.
The four of them shared a small room with no door in the tin-roofed home belonging to Coria’s mother. The couple slept on the floor, and the kids shared a bed with no mattress. They later moved into an even smaller room at an aunt’s house.
Leon eventually found work in a car repair workshop. Coria got a job in a Chinese restaurant. The children complain about leaving the United States. Carlos asks for his bike; Naomi is forgetting her English.
In June, a 62-page letter from customs seen by Reuters informed them that their truck had been seized and had become property of the federal treasury. Also, that they owe the equivalent of $18,000 in customs duties for bringing in the F-150 to Mexico.
https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/this-family-self-deported-mexico-lost-everything-2025-07-26/
Welcome to Mexico Carlos!
They had bought their first car on installments
Further proof that we treat illegals better than their own government does.
And my Spidey sense is tingling. I would think that the consulate would have helped them out, especially with the truck, making sure they had the right documentation and an import permit for it.
Why is the word i l l e g a l sending posts into moderation?
I double checked, it’s not from any setting I have.
Weird, something sent it to moderation. Oh well
Why wouldn’t they have the title if everything was on the up and up? The journalists of proven worth conveniently leave us guessing.
He was making installment payments.
In other words, they thought — justifiably — that he was stealing the truck.
Wow! Mexican Govt is hard core – love it
At 5 p.m., on January 19, they drew up to the Dennis DeConcini border crossing at Nogales. As they passed Mexican customs, the Mexican National Guard stopped their vehicle and asked for papers, the family said.
Leon didn’t have the car title, just a temporary permit issued that day, so officials confiscated the truck and threatened to arrest him for vehicle smuggling. The officials also took $5,000, the family’s entire savings, for what they called a fine before Leon could go free.
That wasn’t really the guberment. Just all the crooks in the guberment. I’ll never step foot in that sh$thole country again after they locked me up in Matamoros for not having enough money to bribe a cop.
The migrants heading south
It’s 10:30 a.m. on a Thursday in July in Guatemala City. A charter flight operated by Eastern Air Express, the airline contracted by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in February to operate deportation flights, lands on the runway of the Guatemalan Air Force. A few minutes later, the aircraft doors open and a silent line of about 50 people, escorted by personnel from the Guatemalan Institute of Migration, step onto the tarmac. Some are still wearing gray overalls and blue slippers, the uniform of U.S. detention centers for undocumented people.
Among them is Olinda, 31, originally from the north of Guatemala. With one hand she pulls on the collar of her sweatshirt to cover her face, with the other she wipes away her tears. Head down, she enters the Returnee Reception Center with the others to receive a welcome talk, food, and legal guidance. Here, the staff of the Institute of Migration is in charge of reception. Job orientation is provided in the new Care Center for returned migrants, inaugurated on June 2, to which most of them move after completing the initial stage. An attempt is being made to make deportation a less traumatic experience. But Olinda continues to cry.
Olinda cannot forget the four months she spent in detention in Pennsylvania, nor the chains that bound her hands, feet and midriff until the plane entered Guatemalan airspace; less still the moment when she was torn from her life in the U.S. – it happened when she and her husband were going to buy material for the remodeling company where they worked in Maryland. When the police stopped the car for a check, she began to shake. Neither she nor her husband had legal residency papers. It was a March day and as they pulled the car over and rolled down the window, only one thought crossed her mind: Will I ever see my daughter again?
“I haven’t seen her since that day,” she says. “She is 13 and was at school when they grabbed me. I have only spoken to her on the phone since the arrest. At first, I asked for her to be deported with me, but I stopped when I realized that there are no doctors in prison, no decent food. I didn’t want my girl to go through this.”
Olinda sobs and blows her nose. Her words are echoed by Micaela, who has already taken off her gray jumpsuit and got back into the clothes in which she was arrested. She lived in the U.S. for 12 years. She has left three children behind: the two youngest are American citizens by birth, a right enshrined in the 14th Amendment, though it could still be revoked by the Trump administration. “They caught me at home. I don’t know how they knew I didn’t have papers,” she says. “My children are still there, but I’ll die if I don’t see them again. I want to bring them over, but I have to get organized first because they have always lived there, and changing everything will not be easy for them. Life here is very different.”
Micaela is 45 and has had a hard life in both countries. She is illiterate and signs with her fingerprint. She is sad because she thinks that not knowing how to read or write will make it even more difficult to be reunited with her children.
Olinda also plans to bring over her daughter, who now lives with a neighbor and has not been to school since her mother’s arrest. “As she is a minor, she needs me for any school procedure,” she says, still crying. “She’s stranded without me. I hope to find a job here to pay for her ticket no matter what.”
John eyes the scene and sighs. “I was arrested with 15 other colleagues while we were working,” he says. “The police came in and the boss said nothing. After years working there, it was horrible. That guy [Trump] is fucking crazy,” he blurts out in English, clenching his jaw and touching his forehead, before looking for a way to call his relatives to let them know he has arrived.
Guatemala, a country that has historically been a source of migrants, is increasingly becoming a place of return and transit, with more people heading south than north. David, a 16-year-old Venezuelan who left Colombia for the U.S. in January 2024 with his mother Marisol, 50, knows this. With a squeegee in one hand and a container of disinfectant in the other, he practices how to clean the windows of a car parked in the center’s carpark. It’s his first day on the job, because he usually helps his mom sell candy at traffic lights. A year ago, they did it to finance their trip to the north. Now they are doing it to pay for their return to the south, after eight months living on the streets of Mexico City, waiting for a humanitarian flight that would allow them to “self-deport” to Colombia or Venezuela, but which never arrived.
“We didn’t achieve the American dream,” Marisol says. “We are depressed, but we couldn’t take it anymore on the streets.” After Trump’s inauguration, which canceled the CBP One application for asylum and humanitarian parole – a temporary permit that benefited migrants from Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Haiti – thousands of Latin American migrants decided to turn back and make for home.
The backward migrant journey has also been turned into a business. “The crossing between Panama and Colombia is done by raft and costs $300 dollars per person,” says Beti, a 32-year-old Venezuelan. “It’s better than crossing the Darien jungle, but I don’t know how many candies we will have to sell to raise $1,500.”
Beti is five months pregnant. She is traveling with her husband Edwin, 38, and three other children, in addition to the one on the way. They are returning to Caracas after a year and a half, trapped in a round trip that has cost them about $30,000. “I never imagined I’d be migrating backwards,” she continues. “The worst thing is that police and drug traffickers still target us. It’s the same. We are still merchandise, although we just want to return.”
Richard, a 50-year-old Venezuelan who has a cane with an iron whip hidden inside, is going with them. “After what I experienced, you have to be able to defend yourself,” he says, smiling nervously. He was deported from the U.S. to Mexico on March 1, after being arrested while working for Uber in Dallas.
“They deported me even though I had a work permit and a driver’s license,” he says. “They took me to the detention center, and I only managed to call a friend to ask him to take care of the car.” Then he traveled by bus to Panama, but after two months he tried to head north again. In June, he reached Mexico, where he lived on the streets for three weeks, defending himself every night from drug traffickers and thieves, but when he was told about the increase in border controls, he decided to give up. “Now I’m going to Costa Rica,” he says. “It has a better economy and is less violent than Mexico, a place that has traumatized me.”
Lorena Pérez, project manager at the Casa del Migrante in Guatemala City, has never seen such a flow of people heading in the opposite direction. “Between 2023 and 2024 we dealt with 2,000 people a month, now it’s an average of 700. Fifty percent are reverse migrants, and the rest are deportees and asylum seekers,” she explains. “Only 5% are headed to the U.S.”
Although Guatemala has never been a regular destination for asylum seekers, requests are on the rise: from 962 in 2022 to 1,837 in 2024 and 664 through May 2025, more than in the same period last year. Among them is Pablo, a civil engineer of Venezuelan origin. Since November 2024, his has been a familiar face at the center. With his Elmo puppet he gives shows at traffic lights in exchange for a few coins with a sign on his neck that reads: “Help me bring food home. God bless you.” The phrase ends with chamo which in Venezuelan slang means friend. “I have applied for political asylum and I have already brought my whole family from Venezuela,” says Pablo. “My children are already in school and I plan to live here forever.”
https://english.elpais.com/international/2025-07-26/the-migrants-heading-south-i-never-imagined-id-be-migrating-backwards.html
You’ll get used to the outhouse Pablo.
With his Elmo puppet he gives shows at traffic lights in exchange for a few coins with a sign on his neck that reads: “Help me bring food home. God bless you.”
Didn’t Elmo go off script recently?
Boo-f*cking-Hoo
Regarding the discussion of hail yesterday, was in the town of Wallowa Oregon a few years back when hail the size of baseball’s hit town. Destroyed every vehicle and RV in the campground where I was staying. I was a few miles north at the time fishing where the hail was brief and pea sized. Came back to the campground and it looked like a tornado had hit, no leaves on the trees. This was hours later and the hail still on the ground was golf ball sized even after melting. SUV next to me that night had it’s side view mirror knocked off.
I almost forgot my own hail story. I was driving out to Arizona in 2004 from my Texas summer job and planned to spend the night in Socorro, NM. Just as I got to town it was very dark with storm clouds. At one point I could see a tornado trying to form a couple hundred years from my truck. I had never seen something like that. Just as I pulled into town a tremendous hail storm started. I quickly pulled under a gas station canopy, but one hail stone smacked the edge of my hood. It put a 2 inch deep dent in it. Then I watched that storm shred everything. Signs, windows, cars, everything. I had never heard hail be so loud from the damage, it was like a roar. It last a while from my memory. Sure enough they remember it out there too:
Throwback Thursday: 20th Anniversary of 2004 Socorro Hailstorm
On Oct. 5, 2004, a line of violent thunderstorms swept across the area between Albuquerque and Socorro, dumping rain and large hail in a very short time. But Socorro and New Mexico Tech’s campus were hit hardest, with baseball-sized hail that caused more than $10 million in damage. The entire event (Oct. 4-5, 2004, affecting Albuquerque to Socorro to almost Las Cruces) caused an estimated total of $40 million in damage, with more than 8,300 auto claims and 4,100 homeowner claims, according to Claims Journal, an insurance industry publication.
Many ran for cover and hoped for the best, but some NMT scientists headed to rooftops, and when safe, collected samples, took videos and photographs. Then-associate physics professor Dr. Richard Sonnenfeld did some analysis and published a note in the peer-reviewed New Mexico Geology (26:4) the following month.
In that note, he wrote: “I calculated the terminal velocity achieved by a 2-inch-diameter spherical hailstone would be 78 mph, whereas a 3-inch hailstone would hit the ground at more than 95 mph. The more typical pea-sized hail would be one-fifth inch in diameter, would reach a terminal velocity of slightly over 25 mph.” The momentum transfer of the larger stone would be over 3,500 times that of the pea-sized hail.
More links to the photos from that day are here.
https://www.nmt.edu/news/2024/2004-hailstorm.php
Socorro Rewind
October 6, 2004
SOCORRO RESIDENTS scrambled for cover when one of the most damaging hailstorms the county has ever seen cut a swath through the city. The storm blew in around 2 p.m. and deposited hail nearly as large as baseballs, causing widespread damage in the millions throughout the city. The National Weather Service reported that Doppler radar indicated tornadic activity about six miles east of Socorro, although there were no eyewitness accounts of a tornado touching down. Police Chief Joel Haley said the storm caused property damage all over the city. 200 to 300 cars damaged. Haley said there were also damaged power lines, which caused the traffic lights to stop working along California Street. A Socorro Electric Cooperative employee said lines were down all over the county including the city. Vehicles and trees at New Mexico Tech may have absorbed the most damage. Outside of Brown Hall, there was a line of cars without glass and trees without leaves. Buildings around campus were reported to have broken windows and the entire campus was closed due to no electricity. Bullock Avenue and Franklin Street were both closed due to flooding.
https://www.dchieftain.com/community/socorro-rewind/article_7e71461c-a2a6-11ef-b5cc-d7f048759dc9.html
That eastern tornado was probably right, I was coming in from the east. There’s a video too:
Hail Storm!
A monster hail storm hit the campus of New Mexico Tech in Socorro, N.M., in the afternoon of Oct. 5, 2004. Produced by New Mexico Tech Distance Education Department.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxSsiLHoOYg
4 minutes.
ICE arrests all adults without children at S.F. immigration court today
All six men were in court that morning for routine hearings related to their asylum cases. About 20 people crowded into the courtroom Friday morning for these hearings, many of whom were families with young children. Every one of those families appeared to leave without being arrested. Every single adult in court without a child — six men — was arrested.
As has become routine in San Francisco, in all six cases, the attorney representing the Department of Homeland Security moved to dismiss each case. This is a novel tactic that the Trump administration is using to place asylum-seekers in a process called expedited removal, which fast-tracks them out of the country, often without the opportunity to see an immigration judge again.
When one asylum-seeker asked why his case was now being dismissed, the Homeland Security attorney responded with what has also become a routine script: “The department has different priorities and policies right now.”
“I understand,” the man said.
In the five cases not including the man who decided to self-deport, the judge gave the asylum-seekers time to respond in writing. That should have allowed them to leave the courtroom and return home. Instead, as has also become routine, ICE officers swarmed them right outside the door. Many of the ICE officers Friday morning were masked. One wore a jacket that said “POLICE ICE” in all capital letters.
After the first two arrests, one asylum-seeker, from Venezuela, clearly frightened he would be detained, too, asked for voluntary removal to leave the country.
“I don’t want to be arrested,” he said. “I want to go voluntarily.”
Park responded that if he did leave voluntarily, he would lose his right to claim asylum. “Are you sure you want to do that?” Park said.
“If I won’t be arrested, and they will let me leave, yes.”
“I cannot guarantee the department will not arrest you, sir,” Park said.
The man chose to give up his asylum case anyway — the second time Mission Local has seen someone in court give up their asylum cases because they are afraid of arrest.
The man waited more than an hour for his order from the judge, showing that he had agreed to leave the country. ICE officers lurked outside the door the entire time. When he finally did walk out, holding the signed order, it was futile. Officers immediately arrested him.
It was the second time in two days that ICE officers had arrested someone, despite unusual circumstances, as the Trump administration is pressuring ICE to reach an arrest quota of 3,000 per day.
On Thursday, in a nearby courtroom, also at 630 Sansome St., a different judge said that he was concerned about the possible mental impairment of one man whose case the Department of Homeland Security moved to dismiss.
“It’s obvious to me that there are competency issues,” the judge, Patrick O’Brien, said in court, citing the fact that the man had been muttering to himself throughout the morning and was unable to even say his own address.
In that case, the lawyer with the Department of Homeland Security offered to continue the case, essentially scheduling a new hearing rather than immediately moving to dismiss.
Moments later, Mission Local saw the man being arrested outside of the courtroom, anyway.
Mission Local has never seen ICE officers enter the courtroom. But, officers arrest people immediately outside, even if that person is with an attorney and is trying to get to the nearby room dedicated for attorneys to meet with clients.
San Francisco has immigration courts in two buildings, at 100 Montgomery St. and 630 Sansome St. In recent weeks, protesters have gathered outside of 100 Montgomery St., trying to block ICE vans transporting immigrants who were arrested at that court to 630 Sansome St., which also has an ICE field office and is where most migrants in San Francisco are processed, before being sent to longer-term detention.
But, at 630 Sansome St., ICE can arrest asylum-seekers in the hallway, and whisk them onto another floor to be processed, without the asylum-seekers ever having to leave the building—and without the same sort of publicity that would come from an arrest at 100 Montgomery St.
https://missionlocal.org/2025/07/hed-ice-steps-up-arrests-at-s-f-immigration-court/
For every illegal that has been convicted of a violent crime we need to chop a thumb off before deportation to mark them so no attempt can be made to get back into the country unnoticed.
I would also be ok with a middle finger, as in no, F you!
the man had been muttering to himself throughout the morning and was unable to even say his own address.
Glad ICE arrested him, or else every single case after that would be muttering and pretending not to remember their address.
ICE, Coast Guard detain Guatemalan fisherman at city port
NEW BEDFORD — A Guatemalan fisherman was detained Wednesday in an apparent immigration enforcement operation at the Port of New Bedford.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement alongside the U.S. Coast Guard detained Luis Guillermo Castro Alvarez, 31, early Wednesday morning, according to local activists. According to the ICE detainee locator, he is currently being held at the Plymouth County Correctional Facility in Plymouth.
Alvarez is the 43rd New Bedford immigrant detainee confirmed by The Light since February. Neither representatives for ICE or the Port immediately responded to emails requesting comment.
“The U.S. Coast Guard is providing vessel support to ICE as requested, in a supporting role,” a Coast Guard spokesperson said in an email. “The Coast Guard is focused on ensuring safe and secure operations in support of federal partners.”
Adrian Ventura, executive director of the Centro Comunitario de Trabajadores, said he has been in communication with Alvarez’s wife. He said Alvarez was detained after returning from a fishing trip while on his boat at a dock in the port.
Ventura said Alvarez initially entered the country as a minor but that his guardians never took him to his immigration court hearings, resulting in a loss of status.
According to New Bedford District Court records obtained by The Light, Alvarez had two misdemeanor charges of unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle and leaving the scene of property damage in 2023. The first charge was dismissed by the state in May 2024 and the second on May 27, 2025.
Alvarez admitted that the prosecution had enough facts to pursue the case but did not plead guilty, resulting in a dismissal of the charges by the Probation Department.
In December 2024, he received misdemeanor charges on a first offense of operating under the influence of liquor and negligent operation of a motor vehicle. Both charges were still in active process and his last court date took place on July 7. Another hearing in the case is scheduled for Aug. 8.
The move happened two days after ICE detained an undocumented Salvadoran man, Juan Carlos Abarca-Jovel, 48, near his home in the South End as he was leaving for a trial at New Bedford District Court. The arrest was ICE’s first in the city since June 19.
The hearing stemmed from a misdemeanor assault and battery charge from a February incident when Abarca-Jovel allegedly slapped his adult son across the face. According to court documents, the charges were dismissed due to a failure to prosecute.
“The Commonwealth answered not ready for trial as the victim in the case, the defendant’s adult son, was not present and he was a necessary witness in order for the trial to go forward,” Second Assistant District Attorney for Bristol County Jennifer Sowa told The Light in an email, adding that Abarca-Jovel was not in custody at the time. “My office attempted contact previously to secure his appearance. The court dismissed the case as the commonwealth could not move forward to trial, and we did not expect the defendant’s son to appear if another date was given.
“The defense attorney represented to the Court that the defendant was taken into ICE custody somewhere outside of the courthouse,” she continued. “My staff were not present when that happened, had not communicated with ICE about this defendant nor did they receive any communication from ICE about this defendant.”
According to the ICE detainee locator, Abarca-Jovel is still being held at the Plymouth County Correctional Facility.
Combined with the recent suspension of 47 employees at Market Basket following an I-9 Inspection — the result of a two-year long investigation according to the grocery chain — local activists said they feel that a second wave of enforcement actions is taking place in the city.
“We expected this uptick after the passage of the new federal bill which significantly increases the budget of ICE enforcement,” said Alicia Lopez Gonzalez, director of Mujeres Victoriosas. “We just didn’t know how soon it would happen and how often we would see the impact of that bill.”
The budget bill recently signed into law by President Donald Trump will increase ICE’s annual budget from about $8 billion to over $27 billion, a 218% increase. It means that the agency would have a budget larger than that of the armed forces of Turkey, NATO’s second largest military.
The agency will look to double the number of ERO agents in its ranks to about 10,000 with the funding. It will also aim to use $45 billion to increase its detention capacity through new 287(g) agreements, contracts with private prison companies, and new detention facilities, to increase the number of beds on hand from 56,000 to over 100,000.
“These actions will just continue to create chaos and trauma in the community,” Gonzalez said. “We continue to see men being targeted, leaving behind women and children.
“This will impact the economy,” she continued. “These actions impact families’ [finances] and it destroys the trust in law enforcement, especially in New Bedford,” where officers have been working hard to improve relations with the immigrant community.
Ventura told The Light in Spanish that he worries about what he believes is coming soon.
“I think we’re going to see these actions cause more fear in the community,” he said. “And we’re going to see firings in the fishing industries.”
Gonzalez added that immigrant communities in New Bedford are at a loss as to who to turn to.
“People in the process of obtaining legal status, applying for asylum, and in the process of adjusting their status are also being targeted and detained,” she said. “Our community doesn’t know who to trust anymore.”
https://newbedfordlight.org/ice-coast-guard-detain-guatemalan-fisherman-at-city-port/
“These actions will just continue to create chaos and trauma in the community,” Gonzalez said. “We continue to see men being targeted, leaving behind women and children.
They could just all go home together, then no one gets left behind.
Women held in limbo at ICE’s downtown S.F. center awaiting bed space
Three women who were detained by federal immigration officers at court Wednesday were held overnight inside the Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s downtown San Francisco field office and remained there Thursday afternoon because there were no available beds at migrant detention facilities, one of the women and her attorney told the Chronicle.
The 27-year-old Colombian woman from San Jose said in an interview she was held overnight in a cell on the sixth floor of 630 Sansome St., along with two other women who were also detained on Wednesday afternoon at the U.S. Department of Justice’s San Francisco Immigration Court. She described the room as a small space with a toilet, a bench, a thin mattress and a small window where she could see officers standing outside.
The women are among many immigrants who have been held at the San Francisco ICE field office in recent weeks while officials make arrangements to transfer people to detention centers, said Jessica Yamane, an immigration attorney with Pangea Legal Services and Santa Clara County’s Rapid Response Network. Some have been held for days, she said, a source of additional trauma as they already face uncertainty over what will happen to them.
Yamane said ICE representatives told her that the woman was being held at the field office because there were no available beds at migrant detention facilities. Detained migrants from the Bay Area are typically transferred to detention centers in Southern California.
Yamane said the overnight detentions at the 630 Sansome St. building reminded her of when immigration officials used the upper floors of the building as a detention center for Chinese immigrants post-World War II. “It’s been the same mechanism of terror through detention that have broken people’s spirits for generations,” she said.
On Thursday afternoon in a cold visitation room, the Colombian woman told the Chronicle through a glass window that plainclothes ICE officers arrested her as she exited a courtroom at 100 Montgomery St. around 3:30 p.m. on Wednesday. An asylum seeker, the woman said she had just attended her first courthouse appointment, where the judge rescheduled her appointment for October because she didn’t have an attorney.
“Everything was going well. I didn’t see any risk because the judge gave me another date,” she said.
Two men identified themselves as ICE agents, handcuffed her and walked out the building through a back door, she said. They forcefully pushed her into an unmarked car and told her they were taking her to the ICE field office, she said.
“They were hurting me,” she said, tears falling down her cheeks. “I hadn’t done anything wrong.”
She was placed in a cell with two other women. During the interview with the Chronicle, an immigration official walked into the visitation room to drop off a meal – a bean and cheese burrito, a breakfast bar and bottled water. She said ICE officials have not told her where she will be sent.
“They’re treating us like criminals,” she said. “We don’t deserve this treatment. We are just trying to do the right thing.”
She said she flew to Mexico and crossed the U.S. border in December 2022, fleeing violence she experienced in her hometown of Bogota. In the U.S., she moved in with her boyfriend in San Jose and worked at a local restaurant and delivered food via UberEats with her partner. Their dream, she said, was to save enough money to open their own auto repair and body shop.
“It’s a dream that I don’t know will happen now,” she said.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/we-dont-deserve-this-women-held-in-limbo-at-ices-downtown-sf-center-awaiting-bed-space/ar-AA1JfDcF
Gee, she entered the country illegally and she thought there would never be any consequences. I’m pretty sure that if I entered Colombia illegally and caught I would be deported.
These articles are all the same sh*tty narrative. Everybody’s a victim.
Except for the U.S. taxpayers footing the bill.
crossed the U.S. border in December 2022, fleeing violence she experienced in her hometown o
I really don’t buy the violence aspect. I got to know a woman in working in Singapore who was from Myanmar. She flat out stated that she wanted to go back to Myanmar and hated Singapore. So I asked her, Don’t they have a civil war going on in Myanmar? She said yes, but she didn’t really worry about it and only came to Singapore (one of the safest countries in the world) for the money.
I suspect a lot of people here illegally are only here for the money as well.
With a few exceptions they are economic migrants. And they would be far fewer if not for being able to join the free sh!t army
ICE targets Los Angeles homeless shelter
LOS ANGELES — Immigration officials have been repeatedly spotted outside a Hollywood homeless shelter since May, leading staff to accompany residents from war-torn countries to work, errands and court.
An executive at the shelter that serves people ages 18 to 24 said she saw two Venezuelan men handcuffed and arrested by ICE agents after they returned to the shelter from work.
“There was no conversation,” said the employee, Lailanie, who asked that her last name not be used because she feared retribution from Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
She said about half a dozen immigration officers went up to the residents “and put their hands behind their backs right away.”
Homeless shelters appear to be another target in the Trump administration’s ongoing immigration crackdown, which has resulted in nearly 3,000 arrests in the Los Angeles area. They now join Home Depots, 7-Elevens and cannabis farms as locations where the federal government is carrying out its mass deportation effort.
In addition to the Hollywood shelter, service providers have reported seeing immigration enforcement at shelters in North Hollywood and San Diego, according to local media.
Donald Whitehead Jr., executive director of the National Coalition for the Homeless, said the aggressive operation “puts a target” on the backs of homeless immigrants. “It villainizes them,” he said.
At another shelter, The People Concern in downtown Los Angeles, fewer clients are stopping by to use showers and other public facilities because they are afraid ICE agents will show up, said CEO John Maceri.
He said even U.S. citizens at its permanent housing facility in the San Fernando Valley are hesitant to go outside because they are afraid they will be stopped and questioned by ICE.
“Frankly, anybody who’s dark-skinned, Black and brown people, but particularly dark-skinned brown people, don’t want to go out,” Maceri said. “They don’t want to go to the grocery store. A few of them are missing work. They’re really scared. This fear factor is really taking effect.”
At the homeless shelter where the two Venezuelan men were arrested, residents remain on high alert, Lailanie said. Immigrants are now accompanied to work, errands and court appointments by staff in unmarked cars without the organization’s logo.
Officials at the shelter requested that its name not be used out of fear of retribution by the Trump administration.
The Venezuelans, who are 20 and 22 years old, barely speak English and had been living at the shelter for a few weeks before they were arrested, she said.
They had not been there long enough to be paired with immigration lawyers, she said. The 22-year-old was deported, and employees have been unable to locate the younger man, she said.
Since the arrests, staff members have witnessed at least three immigration stakeouts around the facility, two shelter employees said.
On one occasion, a uniformed officer asked to use a bathroom inside the center. A maintenance worker allowed him to enter because he didn’t know what else to do, the two employees said.
Staffers have also seen unmarked black SUVs parked near the center and in the parking lot.
Most recently, an asylum-seeker from the Democratic Republic of Congo who had been living at the shelter was arrested after reporting to immigration court, according to two people who work at the shelter.
The employees said that before his arrest, he had difficulty applying for jobs because he wore an ankle monitor, which was given to him when he presented himself to immigration officials.
Confused, he went to immigration court and asked officials to remove the monitor, the two employees said, but he was arrested instead. He was taken to the High Desert Detention Center in Adelanto, California, while his lawyer pleaded his asylum case, which is still pending, according to Lailanie.
He fears being returned to central Africa, where his father was killed, she said.
“People are scared and people are hurting, but people are also compelled to continue to do the work and do the right thing and try to fight for the right thing,” she said.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/ice-targets-los-angeles-homeless-shelter-rcna220597
She’ll get used to the outhouse Lailanie.
“There was no conversation,” said the employee
Why would there be one with the shelter? If they were harboring a bank robber would the expect the police to inform them that they will nab the robber while away from the shelter?
Immigrants are now accompanied to work, errands and court appointments by staff in unmarked cars without the organization’s logo.
Wait until ICE starts cracking down on harboring.
Are you a stubborn buyer who refuses to make an offer on an insanely overpriced home?
Hold your ground! Delusional sellers will eventually see the light and capitulate, if buyers are sufficiently patient.
Real Estate·Fortune Intelligence
The American housing market is in a deep freeze—Even lower prices aren’t enough to convince stubborn buyers
By Ashley Lutz
July 25, 2025 at 2:23 PM EDT
Real estate
…
https://fortune.com/2025/07/25/american-housing-market-new-home-sales-slowdown/
‘In 2022, Thompson Rivers University (TRU) in Kamloops didn’t have enough rooms for students. The school had to bring in a 113-bed workcamp from northern B.C. as a quick fix. Now, less than three years later, TRU is thinking about closing a 305-bed dormitory…‘The international demand has tapered right off because of the federal changes,’ said Matt Milovick, TRU’s vice-president of administration and finance. He added, ‘The dramatic decline for international applicants is really going to start to be felt this fall and next fall’
Recession proof!
‘During the pandemic people jumped without looking — or at least with less research than they would have done if they’d moved in, say, 2019,’ adds Fell. ‘Perhaps they’re less happy with the area than they thought they might be,’ he says — or even just dissatisfied with the broader move from the city to the country’
That’s some sound lending right there.
‘Covid buyers are facing a reality check,’ says Philip Harvey, senior partner of buying agents Property Vision. ‘For some, the idyllic house on the sea, for example, has started to feel like an expensive miscalculation and we’re seeing that reflected in the number of properties quietly returning to the market’…In Cornwall, 42 per cent of homes for sale in May and June were reduced in price, compared with 36 per cent in London, according to Rightmove. ‘Homes in country villages more than 20 minutes from a station or with poor local amenities are being cut by as much as 20 per cent, especially those on for more than £2mn,’ says Harvey. ‘Scour Rightmove for everything that has sold in the past year: understand the pros and cons of each home; identify the key features that make a great home in your price bracket,’ he says. These are useful ‘checks and balances’ restraining the sort of impulsive Covid-era purchases that buyers are now regretting. ‘Finally, don’t be afraid to lowball: your fear the seller will never speak to you again, or that a bidding war will leave you overpaying, is typically unfounded’
That’s the spirit Phil!
‘I’ve already lowered the rent, but it’s still hard to find a suitable tenant,’ Parviainen said. ‘It’s not the price anymore.’ He holds regular viewings to attract tenants but said attendance is low and often unreliable. ‘There might be five showings booked, and only one person shows up, if that. The rest don’t even cancel’?
How do you like those 5% cap rates now Juhu?