From National Mortgage News:
Homeowner’s Equity Rises 11% from 2015 Levels: CoreLogic
The amount of equity homeowners hold grew by $726 billion, or 10.8%, in the third quarter of 2016 versus the year before, according to data from CoreLogic.
On a quarterly basis, the equity in residential properties secured by mortgages rose by $227 billion, or 3.1%, CoreLogic reported Thursday. The increase pulled 384,000 borrowers out of negative equity.
Altogether, 93.7% of all mortgaged properties are now in positive equity. The rise in home equity was mainly the result of price appreciation.
“Home equity rose by $12,500 for the average homeowner over the last four quarters,” Frank Nothaft, chief economist for CoreLogic, said in a news release. “There was wide geographic variation with homeowners in California, Oregon and Washington gaining an average of at least $25,000 in home equity wealth, while owners in Alaska, North Dakota and Connecticut had small declines, on average.”
From Time:
Move Over, New Yorkers: You Have No Idea How Small an Apartment Can Really Get
Manhattanites, think those 300-sq.-ft. apartments in the Big Apple are small? Please.
One property project under development in suburban Hong Kong caused an uproar in the semiautonomous Chinese territory late November, when its developers revealed that the smallest studio suites in the completed apartment block would measure just 128 sq. ft. — or nearly 12 sq m.
No, that’s not a typo. A property developer in one of the world’s key financial hubs is offering apartments only two-fifths the size of what New York City’s then mayor Michael Bloomberg referred to as “micro-units.”
The Hong Kong project attracted even more ridicule when a representative of the developers told local media that the Lilliputian units — to be sold to grown-up buyers as condominiums — took inspiration from student accommodation.
But even those 128-sq.-ft. “gnat flats,” as they’re sometimes called locally, are out of reach of many young people, never mind owning a palatial 300 sq. ft. of real estate. The latter is an extravagant fantasy.
“You wouldn’t think [owning a micro apartment is] exceptionally good” Joe Kok, 24, tells TIME. But “It is the stuff of dreams for many people. The price of everything just keeps growing exponentially.”
Corelogic has the NJ statewide number at 9.3% and the New York-Jersey City-White Plains, NJ-NY MSA at 5.1% – of mortgaged properties (not total properties).
This is an improvement from last year’s Q3 numbers of 10.4% and 5.7% respectively.
Pretty good improvement since Q3 2012, when the NJ number was at 19.9%.
Shiny….bitchez?
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-12-08/deutsche-bank-records-alleged-to-show-banks-rigged-silver-prices
Eight months after Deutsche Bank AG settled a lawsuit claiming it manipulated gold and silver prices, documents it disclosed as part of the accord provide “smoking gun” proof that UBS Group AG, HSBC Holdings Plc, Bank of Nova Scotia and other firms rigged the silver market, plaintiffs claim.
The allegation came in a filing Wednesday in a Manhattan federal court lawsuit filed in 2014 by individuals and entities that bought or sold futures contracts.
According to the plaintiffs, records surrendered by Deutsche Bank show traders and submitters coordinating trades in advance of a daily phone call, manipulating the spot market for silver, conspiring to fix the spread on silver offered to customers and using illegal strategies to rig prices.
From the train: Omg, gold and silver are not investments. Buy equities in the form of index funds, etf’s, individual companies and go to bed for 20 years.
Eddie,
True enough. The only metals I’m keeping are the kind that will actually be useful in the event of a complete economic collapse. And they are the sort that the anonunists cannot easily redistribute
Proposal Would Let TTF Borrow From NJ Pension Funds
By Phil Gregory, WBGO News
Trenton. December 8, 2016
https://www.wbgo.org/newsarticle/proposal-would-let-ttf-borrow-from-nj-pension-funds
Instead of issuing bonds to generate funds for New Jersey’s Transportation Fund, some lawmakers suggest borrowing from the state’s pension funds.
Senate President Steve Sweeney says proposed legislation would allow interest from the loan to go into the pension funds and help put them back to fiscal health.
“So if the Transportation Trust Fund borrows $1.2 billion, at 5 percent interest that’s $60 million and not paying Wall Street fees, not going to Wall Street to do this but to do it here, that’s another $6 million.”
Senator Dawn Addiego says it’s a smart move.
“By doing this we are doing something that people in the private sector wish they could do. We are guaranteeing a rate of return for our pension system while avoiding fees.”
The borrowed money would be repaid with revenue from the gas tax.
If the concept works, Sweeney says it could be extended to borrowing for school construction projects.
And that’s the bottom line.
Fast Eddie says:
December 9, 2016 at 7:44 am
From the train: Omg, gold and silver are not investments. Buy equities in the form of index funds, etf’s, individual companies and go to bed for 20 years.
Two things concern me about borrowing from the pensions…
1. Politicians are not known for their honesty and trustworthiness…if I were a retiree…I’d be nervous about allowing them to withdraw from the fund to pay for infrastructure projects
2. The gas tax is now indirectly funding the pensions in this arrangement…motivating them to continually raise it…
Risk on baby – like going long 100% company stock in your retirement fund.
http://nypost.com/2016/12/09/man-blows-1m-on-cars-strippers-and-cocaine-after-bank-glitch/
…company stock in your retirement fund.
Worst thing in the world!
But he told the Daily Telegraph he did not miss his lavish multimillionaire lifestyle “besides the cocaine, the strippers and fast cars.”
What is your definition of hell?
Lost says:
December 8, 2016 at 11:34 pm
Seriously, Obama was a hell of a president. Anyone stating otherwise is severely biased.
You’re probably right for the most part…but don’t tell that to my uncle. It made him a millionaire.
Fast Eddie says:
December 9, 2016 at 9:26 am
…company stock in your retirement fund.
Worst thing in the world!
Gold and silver are just alternate currencies…that can’t be taken out of circulation(easily) and can’t go to zero. A simple 1964 Washington quarter (90% silver) buys about the same amount of gasoline as it did in 1964. Total coincidence, I just took a call from a rare coin dealer in Boston trying to sell me early 1920’s Saint Gaudens for $2250 each. No thanks. Anybody ever bought rare gold? I’m a bullion guy, but not in a big way.
Queue Goldman Sachs….
“Steve Mnuchin, President-elect Donald Trump’s choice to lead the Department of the Treasury, recently said that “getting Fannie and Freddie out of government ownership” is one of the Trump administration’s top 10 priorities.”
I used to put 20% of my gross income into company stock just before the turn of the century. It was an ESOP, outside of retirement. We used to get issued the stock quarterly at a publicly known date at 15% below closing price. It wasn’t until I was well into my first quarter of payroll deductions that I realized that the market share price would automatically inflate on these dates. I figured the only way to lock in a guaranteed arbitrage profit was to simultaneously short the same amount of shares in my personal margin account. This actually worked out perfectly. After the stock was issued (there was no holding period), I would call up Harris Bank in Chicago, the fiduciary, and request my shares be sent to me. I would then hand deliver the shares to Schwab and they would use them to close my short position. Interestingly, there was not even a commission on the closing trade. I would of course go a few shares less on my short position so I would end up with a small long position after “over delivering” shares to close. I wish I had guaranteed 15% annual returns available to me today.
Risk on baby – like going long 100% company stock in your retirement fund.
Roof deck for entertaining!
https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2016/11/13/tiny-house-movement-lands-lawrence/d56XB1gCkLqtZh9KL0el5K/story.html
I’m not arguing bad or good, just risk on or risk off.
Plowing retirement into the company stock is great on the way up, but what happens if the company fails? Out your job and your retirement.
Re: Saint Gaudens Gold coins…
The most beautiful coin ever minted. Walking Liberties are beautiful, too. ExPat, you can get an MS62 St. Gaudens for about half that price. What a gorgeous coin. Occasionally, I get a 1964 quarter (or earlier) in change. I feel like a kid. You can actually hear the “clinking” difference among other coins and you know there’s silver in there somewhere. Sometimes I get a pre-1964 dime in there as well. It’s becoming few and far between anymore. Look for 1964 – 1969 Kennedy halves, they are 40% silver.
re: “what happens if the company fails”
The answer is work for a TBTF.
Gary Cohn just took a Trump position. Told you not to expect any change. Tax cuts and more spending financed by massive amounts of new debt. Kick that can down the road!!!
Accepting a role would allow Cohn to divest his Goldman shares — valued at some $190 million — free of capital gains taxes and provide the opportunity for a harmonious exit.
https://www.bloomberg.com/gadfly/articles/2016-11-30/if-gary-cohn-sneezes-in-d-c-goldman-won-t-catch-cold
This was fun to watch. Certain details make it more plausible.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NfFAaPZqs8
If you know any hopeless leftists who post a lot on Twitter, it’s kind of fun to back their twitter feed up to a day or two before the election and then read forward. Here’s one:
https://twitter.com/mathowie?lang=en&lang=en
3b, let this sink in when you bash the jersey area as finished.
“Galka points out that the greater New York area’s economy of $1.5 trillion surpasses that of 11 nations, including Australia and South Korea, and ranks just below Canada and Russia. Atlanta sits at the bottom of the U.S. economic top 10, but if it were a country, Atlanta would rank among the top 50 economic powerhouses in the world, below Denmark and Malaysia but above Singapore and Israel.”
http://blogs.voanews.com/all-about-america/2016/02/29/most-us-wealth-is-concentrated-in-these-10-areas/?from=more
Chris Christie messed up with the tunnel. Fine, cancel it, but come up with a quick plan to get another tunnel plan put in place. That’s the greatest investment we could make with our tax dollars. Tunnels to the city are like injecting a vein into a heart that pumps pure gold. Get as many veins injected as you can!! Use our location to our advantage.
Best investment as of lately is the port. Smart to invest in the port so it can handle these super sized ships.
NJ is an OK place to live if you have an ankle bracelet and aren’t allowed to leave.
Pumpkin let this sink in take out NYC and come back to me. I was out in Roseland today on business. Tons of empty office space there. Lots of empty store fronts too and Livingston. Drive around Montvale and it’s the same thing. All nj has is proximity to NYC. It used to be able to stand on its own. and yet for all that proximity companies are not all that interested with the exception of Jersey city. So keep looking to the sky because it’s coming right pumpkin?
Yes, then we would be just like everyone else, right? You highlight exactly why we are so special. We are not like everyone else, we are at the heart of one of the most powerful economic engines in the world.
“Pumpkin let this sink in take out NYC and come back to me. “
Pumpkin doof us. Yes NYC is the heart and new jersey is the anus.
And pumpkin is the sphincter.