From Otteau Group:
September MarketNEWS
After declining by 7% in April, home purchase contracts in New Jersey have increased for four consecutive months. In August, the number of purchase contracts rose by 3% compared to the same month last year. Considering the 18% increase one year ago in July of 2016, home sales have increased at a compounded rate of 22% over the past 2 years. This latest gain was the highest number of purchase contracts recorded in the month of August since 2005, signaling high demand. Overall, home sales have increased in New Jersey by 6% y-t-d.
While the number of home sales has increased across all price ranges this year, the largest gain has occurred for homes priced over $600,000, rising by 9%, while homes priced below $400,000-$599,999 have seen the smallest increases. It’s important to note that home sales in excess of $2.5-Million are increasing for the first time in more than a decade. The gains for more expensive homes is attributable to the continuing economic expansion which is causing greater confidence among higher income households.
Shifting to the supply side of the equation, the supply of homes being offered for sale remains constricted, which is limiting choices for home buyers. The number of homes being offered for sale today in New Jersey has declined by more than 6,500 (-13%) compared to one year ago. This is also about 30,000 (-41%) fewer homes on the market compared to the cyclical high in 2011. Today’s unsold inventory equates to 4.1 months of sales (non-seasonally adjusted), which is lower than one year ago, when it was 4.9 months.
Currently, the majority (95%) of New Jersey’s 21 counties have less than 8.0 months of supply, which is a balance point for home prices. Hudson County is presently experiencing the strongest market conditions in the state with just 2.9 months of supply, followed by Middlesex, Essex, Union, Monmouth, Burlington, Bergen, Somerset, Mercer and Passaic Counties, which all have fewer than 4.0 months of supply. The counties with the largest amount of unsold inventory (6 months or greater) are concentrated in the southern portion of the state including Atlantic (6.8), Cape May (7.0), Cumberland (7.6) and Salem (8.3), however, these counties are also beginning to exhibit strengthening conditions.
Everybody wants a lot in New Jersey…..amirite?
@soledadobrien
The disaster unfolding in Puerto Rico will be Trump’s Katrina. His lack of response, then tweets attacking Puerto Ricans will live in infamy
@NBCNews
San Juan mayor: “I cannot fathom the thought that the greatest nation in the world cannot figure out the logistics for a small island…”
If by trumps Katrina she means being blamed for local corruption and incompetence then she may be on to something. I see the parallel with the helpless populace as well. I’m still trying to figure out what our obligation is down there considering they don’t pay federal income taxes.
Regardless of the corruption which has been going on for years and was ignored by the U..S. government because they did not want to be accused of being colonial masters these are U.S. citizens and we help end of story.
Not seeing much political advertising for the upcoming NJ gubernatorial election. Strange. I guess its a foregone conclusion already that Murphy will win in a landslide. looking forward to seeing if pot will “spark” the NJ economy lol
A local pol down there calling out trump is absurd. You get what you get and you stfu.
If they were managing their affairs in any way responsibly the situation would not be life and death as she put it. It is a tropical island so these things do happen.
Look at that strengthening nj real estate market and economy. It’s heating up.
Maybe Trump wants the PR population to emigrate to the US?
Pumps,
Let’s see how the real estate market does if local and state taxes can no longer be deducted
Grim,
Puerto Rico disaster makes me want to pick up some water purification tablets and another water purification system on my next trip to b@ss pro shop
Wired how the mayor of San Juan has time to have t-shirts pushing a political narrative made for her interview with Anderson Cooper on cnn when the city has no power.
Wired = wierd
Several things,
1- I mentioned here, that taking into account the articles I have read about Puerto Rico in Bloomberg et al, previous to the storm – hinted at a Wall Street vulture party for that island. Like I said -everything is going to be privatized up the wazoo, and it will be gentrified. Think a mix of New Orleans – Cayman Island.
2- NWNJ, the treatment that Puerto Rico is getting, is cubed what the Jersey Shore got. It’s an ugly sentiment, that comes from the minds of boomers. No WW2/Great Depression/Cold War fighter would be so heartless. My bet is, you are a soon to get or presently getting Medicare boomer. Maybe Medicare will disappear for the boomer locust generation. They surely deserve none.
3-Speak of this issue and Trump with Puerto Rican friends like you would speak of the SS or KGB to a camp or gulag survivors. Feelings of betrayal are raw and you might find yourself getting a well deserve whipping.
I hate to sound so Machiavellian, but considering how much of a financial a%% whipping PR was about to receive, the hurricane gives PR a no-argument bailout by the US. I hate to see the loss of life and suffering, but the vast majority of people are going to be MUCH MUCH better off within 24 months than they would have been otherwise.
Bingo! I’m still surprised that no one is talking about this.
chicagofinance says:
September 30, 2017 at 4:01 pm
I hate to sound so Machiavellian, but considering how much of a financial a%% whipping PR was about to receive, the hurricane gives PR a no-argument bailout by the US. I hate to see the loss of life and suffering, but the vast majority of people are going to be MUCH MUCH better off within 24 months than they would have been otherwise.
Unless they prefer to throw the help away by pissing off Trump. Christie was smart enough to bend the knee and suck Oblamer’s balls when he came to town with hurricane money. Of course CNN is looking for people angry at Trump. It’s all they know anymore.
Sorry, but they are not going to get any traditional help like TX, FL or NJ post Sandy got.
What’s coming is out of a chapter of Naomi Klein’s – The Shock Doctrine.
Trump already said DEBT first. The Wall Street pressure is big. Consider that generally everything there is directly or indirectly owned by government. What’s coming is privatize hospitals – (pick your hospital operators), privatize fire/ems (Rural Metro/AMR), privatize prisons, privatize toll roads, much more expensive utilities (water/sewer/electric). It’ll become unaffordable for the present resident’s lifestyle.
You’ll see an out migration of poor/working class types to live with mainland USA relatives. What’s left behind is for development. Think Cayman Islands. The few locals kept hidden away and the rest is for well off folks.
This is from CBS News column circa ‘2007
The Red Cross has just announced a new disaster-response partnership with Wal-Mart. When the next hurricane hits, it will be a co-production of Big Aid and Big Box.
This, apparently, is the lesson learned from the government’s calamitous response to Hurricane Katrina: Businesses do disaster better.
“It’s all going to be private enterprise before it’s over,” Billy Wagner, emergency management chief for the Florida Keys, currently under hurricane watch for Tropical Storm Ernesto, said in April. “They’ve got the expertise. They’ve got the resources.”
But before this new consensus goes any further, perhaps it’s time to take a look at where the privatization of disaster began, and where it will inevitably lead.
The first step was the government’s abdication of its core responsibility to protect the population from disasters. Under the Bush administration, whole sectors of the government, most notably the Department of Homeland Security, have been turned into glorified temp agencies, with essential functions contracted out to private companies. The theory is that entrepreneurs, driven by the profit motive, are always more efficient (please suspend hysterical laughter).
We saw the results in New Orleans one year ago: Washington was frighteningly weak and inept, in part because its emergency management experts had fled to the private sector and its technology and infrastructure had become positively retro. At least by comparison, the private sector looked modern and competent (a New York Times columnist even suggested handing FEMA over to Wal-Mart).
But the honeymoon doesn’t last long. “Where has all the money gone?” ask desperate people from Baghdad to New Orleans, from Kabul to tsunami-struck Sri Lanka. One place a great deal of it has gone is into major capital expenditures for these private contractors. Largely under the public radar, billions of taxpayer dollars have been spent on the construction of a privatized disaster-response infrastructure: the Shaw Group’s new state-of-the-art Baton Rouge headquarters, Bechtel’s battalions of earthmoving equipment, Blackwater USA’s 6,000-acre campus in North Carolina (complete with paramilitary training camp and 6,000-foot runway).
I call it the Disaster Capitalism Complex. Whatever you might need in a serious crunch, these contractors can provide it: generators, water tanks, cots, port-a-potties, mobile homes, communications systems, helicopters, medicine, men with guns.
This state-within-a-state has been built almost exclusively with money from public contracts, including the training of its staff (overwhelmingly former civil servants, politicians and soldiers). Yet it is all privately owned; taxpayers have absolutely no control over it or claim to it. So far, that reality hasn’t sunk in because when these companies are getting their bills paid by government contracts, the Disaster Capitalism Complex provides its services to the public free of charge.
But here’s the catch: The U.S. government is going broke, in no small part thanks to this kind of loony spending. The national debt is $8 trillion; the federal budget deficit is at least $260 billion. That means that sooner rather than later, the contracts are going to dry up — and no one knows this better than the companies themselves. Ralph Sheridan, chief executive of Good Harbor Partners, one of hundreds of new counter-terrorism companies, explains that “expenditures by governments are episodic and come in bubbles.” Insiders call it the “homeland security bubble.”
When it bursts, firms such as Bechtel, Fluor and Blackwater will lose their primary revenue stream. They will still have all their high-tech gear, giving them the ability to respond to disasters — while the government will have let that precious skill whither away — but now they will sell back the tax-funded infrastructure at whatever price they choose.
Here’s a snapshot of what could be in store in the not-too-distant future: helicopter rides off of rooftops in flooded cities ($5,000 a pop, $7,000 for families, pets included), bottled water and “meals ready to eat” ($50 per person, steep, but that’s supply and demand) and a cot in a shelter with a portable shower (show us your biometric ID — developed on a lucrative Homeland Security contract — and we’ll track you down later with the bill. Don’t worry, we have ways: Spying has been outsourced, too).
The model, of course, is the U.S. health care system, in which the wealthy can access best-in-class treatment in spa-like environments while 46 million Americans lack health insurance. As emergency response, the model is already at work in the global AIDS pandemic: Private-sector prowess helped produce lifesaving drugs (with heavy public subsidies), then set prices so high that the vast majority of the world’s infected cannot afford treatment.
If that is the corporate world’s track record on slow-motion disasters, why should we expect different values to govern fast-moving disasters, like hurricanes or even terrorist attacks? It’s worth remembering that as Israeli bombs pummeled Lebanon not so long ago, the U.S. government initially tried to charge its citizens for the cost of their own evacuations. And of course anyone without a Western passport in Lebanon had no hope of rescue.
One year ago, New Orleans’s working-class and poor citizens were stranded on their rooftops waiting for help that never came, while those who could pay their way escaped to safety. The country’s political leaders claim it was all some terrible mistake, a breakdown in communication that is being fixed. Their solution is to go even further down the catastrophic road of “private-sector solutions.”
Unless a radical change of course is demanded, New Orleans will prove to be a glimpse of a dystopic future, a future of disaster apartheid in which the wealthy are saved and everyone else is left behind.
By Naomi Klein.
Reprinted with permission from The Nation
So get to know your Redneck friends for the Zombie Apocalypse,
https://youtu.be/txJhsn386B8
Chgo you are absolutely right about PR. They get a huge do over.
We deserve no better……we are collectively this stupid……
http://nypost.com/2017/09/30/menendez-has-set-a-new-low-for-blatant-corruption-in-the-us/
In terms of Puerto Rico……. the displaced get to leave for a more politically correct reason……a cover as it were…… these people were going to get kicked out anyway….now everything is sanitized for the CNN crowd…….. good for Wall Street…..they got Mother Nature to do the dirty work……..I’m half-kidding…..
Sorry Chi, But don’t judge Menendez until the whole truth about Trump’s money laundering and tax evasion has been outed, investigated, prosecuted, sentenced.
By the way, this is one of Menendez baby’s, which he paid a lot of child support to feed.
http://nhcac.org/
The bash trump news conference staged in front of the pallets of stacked supplies was also a nice touch. When you elect people like her and Nagin you get what you have coming.
D-FENS says:
September 30, 2017 at 3:36 pm
Wired how the mayor of San Juan has time to have t-shirts pushing a political narrative made for her interview with Anderson Cooper on cnn when the city has no power.
Chi
So how is JJ doing on his PR calls?
“Those with the very highest incomes would receive the biggest tax cuts,” TPC’s report, the first in-depth analysis of Trump’s proposals, notes. “Taxpayers in the top one percent (incomes above $730,000), would receive about 50 percent of the total tax benefit [in 2018]; their after-tax income would increase an average of 8.5 percent.”
By comparison, the after-tax income of those in the bottom 95 percent of the income distribution would only rise by somewhere between 0.5 and 1.2 percent”
Hey Gary, Have we reached greatness?
“Meanwhile, Trump has run out of Obama executive orders he can declare void. “
I actually have a lot of friends in Puerto Rico as I played on a softball team with 10 of them in graduate school. Some of them haven’t posted anything but I’ve seen a few updates from a few of them. They generally seem to be upbeat and thankful.
For an investor espousing such a conservative/cash flow philosophy, he really enjoyed the high wire act…….it mostly worked for him I guess…..we will never know fact from fiction though…..
Fabius Maximus says:
September 30, 2017 at 6:53 pm
Chi So how is JJ doing on his PR calls?
It’s difficult for people paying minimal income taxes to get much of a tax break. The statement about benefits from tax changes takes the current state of taxation as the reference point and implies that any movement less “progressive” than that is unfair. Check your premises.
But all this tax debate ignores the more important issue that government spending is rising toward 40% of the economy, and most of it is redistributive consumption that contributes nothing to future economic growth. It can be funded via taxes and/or debt.
Thursday 28 September 2017 08.29 EDT Last modified on Thursday 28 September 2017 09.49 EDT
Theresa May’s hasty attempt to refute Jeremy Corbyn’s conference speech shows how far Labour has set her on the back foot. She needs to defend capitalism? Nothing Corbyn or John McDonnell said this week suggested they were about to cast a shroud of Soviet-era command-and-control over the economy, as if queuing for bread and rationed state coupons beckoned. Of course, May couldn’t resist referencing Venezuela. When the old red-scare, demon-eyes tactics re-emerge from Conservative HQ, you know they’re panicking.
A free market is indeed a fine thing: she called it “the greatest agent of collective human progress ever created”. But no free market thrives without government intervention and a mixed economy of private and state-run functions. Enterprise flourishes only within the constraints of regulation strong enough to create a level playing field for fair competition.
A social democratic mixed economy recognises that only a synergy between state and enterprise prospers: Germany, Scandinavia and plenty more countries succeed far better than us, socially and economically, while we suffered decades of the crude Tory all-or-nothing binary divide.
The failed privatisation of utilities that Labour would bring back under state ownership has been a scandal for so long that even the Tories worry at the public fury over the energy cartels. Even the FT blasts away at the monopolistic cabals of energy and water. Last week’s FT leader started “There are few better examples of a natural monopoly than water.” Twenty-four years after privatisation, “it has failed”, the paper said. “This rent-seeking enterprise” has indulged in “regulatory gaming” and risks “being swept back into public hands.””
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/sep/28/theresa-may-capitalism-jeremy-corbyn-conference?CMP=share_btn_tw
“No Marxists these: just serious analysts of where the worst privatisations have skimmed fortunes from consumers, failed investors and run rings round enfeebled regulators.
Labour has pinpointed these very particular dysfunctions of out-of-control capitalism: in truth, Labour has more chance of saving capitalism from devouring itself than anything May has done – or anything she proposed in today’s string of platitudes as she stood in a Bank of England that was, after all, nationalised by Labour.
Though she said she needed to be “honest about where the free market is currently not working”, actual truths were thin on the ground. Some of her assertions this morning were plain breathtaking for their disconnection with current reality. “The government’s industrial strategy is promoting growth across the UK.” No, it’s not. The gap between the south-east and the rest is widening, not narrowing. She has no industrial strategy worth the name.”
Agree with you for once. Your statement is a result of too much going to the top and the govt stepping in to take their place to keep the economy going. .
If the private sector did a better job redistributing the money like they are supposed to, maybe govt wouldn’t have to do it for them. This means taking risks on new innovation with their capital. Only guy that seems to be doing that is Elon Musk. Other big boys are too complacent with their positions, unwilling to push the bar and take a risk. If this guy hadn’t disrupted the energy and car industry, the tech in those industries would be moving at the pace of a turtle. The big boys know they don’t have to risk everything if they are all complacent with their piece of the pie. Musk told them fu!k you, doesn’t work like that!
“But all this tax debate ignores the more important issue that government spending is rising toward 40% of the economy, and most of it is redistributive consumption that contributes nothing to future economic growth. It can be funded via taxes and/or debt.
Disrupt the market. Has Musk even grabbed 1 percent yet?
Puerto Rico’s cop telling the truth about Hurricane Maria’s aid
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5Uc1pPsKt_s
SMOKING GUN, Puerto Rican Truck Union Leader Sabotaging Hurricane relief Miami Trump Volunteers
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Sdnvu9FHscA&time_continue=55
It’s getting ugly in Spain today.
Gary are you going to watch the giants today?
Fabian,
Hey Gary, Have we reached greatness?
The DOW is at an all-time high and my dividends are producing dividends. We’re doing good personally and job opportunities seem to be a plenty. The rest is just noise to ridicule you puss1es and reveal your weak-minded causes… if that’s what you call them these days. You l1berals are entertaining and I really have no remorse making fun of the mental syphilis that infects your diseased minds.
Gary are you going to watch the giants today?
No. Until the owners and players extend an apology for spitting on the 80% of the fan base that supplies their revenue, I’ll step aside.
@kurteichenwald
9 million children lost their health insurance today. Nine million.
Trump went golfing.
@kurteichenwald
Dengue fever, Zika and conjunctivitis spreading in Puerto Rico. But plz, republicans, keep telling everyone it’s their fault & they’re lazy.
@tonyposnaski
Colin Kaepernick kneeled and donated a million to Americans
Tom Price stood and stole a million from Americans
Who is a real patriot?
You also forgot Colin Kaepernick praised a government that murders their own citizens.
Moana,
Are you aware of the corruption levels in Puerto Rico over the last 30 years? Do you know their infrastructure was in shambles before the Hurricane? Did you know they imposed a 7:00 PM to 5:00 AM curfew not allowing fuel and supplies to get through to areas in greatest need? How’s that for brilliant planning? Did you know the governor is 36 years old and never held a job? Do you know why the island is in debt for $118 billion and is bankrupt? Will you ever get help for your sickness?
Puerto Rico-An uncontrolled economy..
http://money.cnn.com/2016/05/12/investing/puerto-rico-debt-crisis/index.html
Why did the hedge funds steer away from P.R.? Did they know something that other investment advisers not know? High rates, triple tax exempt- these bondholders took these deals knowing there was risk going in…
“In reality, most of that money is owed to everyday investors. Less than 25% of Puerto Rican debt is held by hedge funds, according to estimates by Cate Long, founder of research firm Puerto Rico Clearinghouse.
The rest of the debt is owned by individuals and mutual funds that are held by mom-and-pop investors.”
“These risks forced Puerto Rico to pay high rates that lured bond investors searching for healthy returns in a world of historically-low interest rates. Another bonus: Puerto Rico’s debt is “triple tax-exempt.” That means owners of the bonds don’t face federal, state or local taxes on the interest they earn.”
The last deal underwritten for Puerto Rico was purchased by all institutional and hedge fund accounts. It was strictly forbidden for retail accounts. Minimum denominations was 100m. Any trades in the secondary market below 100m were forced to be cancelled. Most of the mom and pop accounts are out of Puerto Rico paper. Firms have been encouraging investors to sell since at least 2013. And many firms prohibited their retail accounts from purchasing the paper. And with other sophisticated professional retail accounts they were required to acknowledge in writing that they understood the risks of purchasing Puerto Rico paper. The feds turned a blind eye to Puerto Rico corruption because of concerns of being accused of being colonial masters. This all being said they’re are innocent people in Puerto Rico American citizens who are in desperate need of help. That should be all that matters at this point.
http://www.theblaze.com/news/2017/10/01/puerto-rican-mayor-reveals-truth-behind-san-juan-mayors-attack-on-trump-and-it-explains-a-lot/
“When asked about Yulín Cruz’s “genocide” comment, Perez took his criticism a step further and revealed that Yulín Cruz has been absent in many meetings with FEMA and other agencies. He said:
I don’t know why she is saying that. What I can tell you is my experience. She is not participating in any meetings and we had a couple already with the governors and with representation of FEMA and of HUD, of these whole federal agencies that have given us help and she’s not participating in those meetings and some mayors from her political party have been participating, so I don’t know why she is saying that. My experience is very different.“
3:16 think aboUt how f’ed the NY region would be without a bailout, your president is partially owned by the Russians, etc etc
2:04. Code for until dem boys get back in line massa….
Why Chinese Are Diverting Their Consumer Loans to Real Estate – The Wall Street Journal
https://apple.news/AMDNSMXudSlK6Nz5hGKbMQg