From HousingWire:
CoreLogic: Home price appreciation strongest since 2006
CoreLogic’s Home Price Index shows that home prices nationwide, including distressed sales, increased 12% in January 2014 compared to January 2013.
This marks 23 months of consecutive year-over-year increases in home prices nationally.
Louisiana, Nebraska, and Texas led in absolute, bottom-line home prices.
This data contrasts with recent reports from Standard & Poor’s Case-Shiller, which suggest that home price appreciation is softening in the first quarter of 2014.
“Excluding distressed sales, all 50 states and the District of Columbia showed year-over-year home price appreciation for January,” said Anand Nallathambi, president and CEO of CoreLogic. “Nationwide price growth like this should continue as the market comes out of hibernation for the spring buying season.”
On a month-over-month basis, home prices nationwide, including distressed sales, increased by 0.9% in January 2014 compared to December 2013.
“Polar vortices and a string of snow storms did not manage to weaken house price appreciation in January,” said Dr. Mark Fleming, chief economist for CoreLogic. “The last time January month-over-month and year-over-year price appreciation was this strong was at the height of the housing bubble in 2006.”
anybody home ?
I got elastic bands keepin my shoes on.
Got those swollen hand blues.
Got thirteen channels of shit on the T.V. to choose from.
I’ve got electric light.
And I’ve got second sight.
And amazing powers of observation.
And that is how I know
When I try to get through
On the telephone to you
There’ll be nobody home.
Eddy, maybe clot can help you drafting it?
@BloombergNews: Can’t compete in a home-buying bidding war? Write a love letter: http://t.co/i4srBCca17j
Joel Goyette and Margaret Cooley walked into the open house for a two-bedroom 1920s Craftsman in Berkeley, California, and knew they’d found their dream house. So did 10 other couples.
Having lost out in two bidding wars, the couple decided to try to connect with the sellers over more than money. Neighbors had told them about all the restoration work the owners had done, including five weekends stripping interior doors down to old-growth Douglas fir. They learned how close-knit the neighborhood was, with “meals shared, tools borrowed” and how “people overall looked after each other,” says Goyette.
So when they sent the sellers their bid, they included a two-page personal letter. They wrote about how much they appreciated the home’s character and the hard work the sellers had put into it, that it would be their first home, and how much they valued being part of a close community. Since Goyette had made a foodie connection with the sellers when they saw him ogling a bookshelf of cookbooks, “we couldn’t resist sharing our plans to construct a masonry grill in the backyard and build a thriving social community with friends and neighbors,” he says.
Short train and standing. Good thing we are only 10 minutes late.
Make that 15. Haven’t pulled in yet.
They crawl out
Of their holes for me
And I die you die
Hear them laugh
Watch them turn on me
And I die you die
See my scars
They call me such things
Tear me, tear me, tear me
anon (the good one) [3],
“Feed the squirrels” letters are back in vogue. Maybe when I find my dream house, I’ll (ahem….) make the owners an offer they can’t refuse.
Putting off the “Lie of the Year” until through 2014 or 2016. Wonder why those years were chosen?
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101467308
Another good reason to GTFO of New Jersey:
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/worst-u-states-die-131449664.html
Nom,
“The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the administration has considered a number of alternatives and could opt to allow renewals of up to three years, which could postpone a new round of cancellations until after the 2016 presidential election. ”
Baa.
Hey folks since it is slow I will throw out two questions.
All the Flood Insurance stuff last night where they are un-doing a lot of the hikes in rates of flood insurance how will that effect Spring 2015 sales of homes down by shore?
Outside of the five boros of New York City and Hoboken type areas, in the rest of New Jersey and Long Island what is average condo maint and what does it include?
Trying to figure it out. Condos in high rises near city often include heat, hot water, gym, maybe pool, security, even doorman etc.
But older condos in commuter/surburban areas often include very little. Trying to figure out what do they pay in average maint.
I was having this discussion with a girl who bought a condo on Monday she pays $500 a month and it includes, heat, hotwater, pool, security etc and she thinks it is a good deal.
However, some of the older garden apt style condos I see in surburbs, owners pay own heat, electric hot water and there are no amenities or security. They have a bit of a lawn and outdoor parking. But really you are getting grass cut, snow removed, gutters cleaned
I know you get insurance covered in all condos but what is average maint in these type older condos with almost no amentities. a month?
What bugs me about recent developments in Healthcare law is that there seems to be no law anymore. Congress used to write laws. Now it seems to be that congress kind of writes laws, but mostly establish regulatory bureaucracies. Those bureaucracies then can be steered by presidents, public opinion, or lobbyists to effectively make up laws ad hoc. Congress has no idea how the health care law they passed really works, I think the president doesn’t have much idea either, other than when the media bugs him about this or that. Rule by 20,000 laws is effectively rule of the career bureaucrat and presidents. Oblamer is certainly not the first to do this, GWB definitely got the ball rolling at high speed, but did it mostly in foreign affairs and “homeland security” stuff where presidential powers were historically stronger. But Oblamer seems to be the first to grasp the public by both hips and thrust the arbitrary regulatory state with full force into the public sphere, so to speak.
http://jerseyshore.craigslist.org/vac/4358544776.html
is it just me or is this guy asking too little for his LBI rental? Yep it is just an apt, but really $1,200 for a week in July seems cheap.
I always thought this guy had some anger management issues. . .
http://news.msn.com/crime-justice/rep-grayson-accused-of-pushing-estranged-wife
13- Bottom line, the law is way too complicated and way too many pages long for anyone out there to have any idea how it truly works. Seems to me, people complicate things when they want to hide something or get over on someone. Hence, why everything is so complicated now. Need a got damn lawyer for contracts, because one party is always trying to get over on the other. That sums our country, they take the law process and judicial process to the next level. No common sense involved, just sue for anything and everything. I spilled hot coffee on myself, I can sue the place for it being too hot. This is the major problem with everything in our country. Got damn, sue for anything, if i don’t get my way, type of mentality. It’s really a shame that people had to corrupt a system installed by our founding fathers, for our own benefit. Too bad, you have a bunch of clowns out there abusing the system. I blame greedy lawyers too for creating this type of sue crazy culture by conning clients into suing for anything. Also, the wealthy, who used their money to sue and change laws to their own benefit. Last but not least, the poor, who took the con line from the lawyer, and try to get rich through a lawsuit. Our country and healthcare system would be better off without this sue crazy culture, that robs peter to give to paul.
Ragnar,
I agree. I’ve often held the view that it’s blatantly unconstitutional for Congress to delegate the authority to write laws (or rules with the effect of law) to current or new executive branch agencies. I say this because All legislative powers are to be vested in a Congress… as well as one branch delegating, formally or by inaction, their powers to another erodes the checks & balances supposedly inherent in the system.
^^^And we’re not even mentioning executive orders being used to create, modify, (dare I say) delay laws.
Jimmy Carter on Barack Obama:
“He’s done the best he could under the circumstances. His major accomplishment was Obamacare, and the implementation of it now is questionable at best.”
I personally think Carter got handed a raw deal on Iran. Otherwise, he was, at that time, the poster child for feckless amateurism in DC. Even Tip O’Neill thought he was an amateur, judging by the less than flattering things he said in his autobiography.
Wonder what the Tipper would say today?
I gotta go and I appreciate the feedback but where’s all the liberal hate? I kicked the hornet’s nest pretty hard today, and all I get is Michael making sense?
anon, tweet something quick. It’s getting too serious in here.
I had to come back. This was too good not to share:
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101456349
“Major tech problems at several state Obamacare enrollment websites are so bad that the federal government Thursday said it would give some people who in frustration bought health insurance outside those websites the tax subsidies that otherwise would be unavailable to them.”
Ragnar, you may want to check your history. People didn’t always agree with GWB, but he always got Congress to vote yay/nay (which irked them, because he forced them to go on record with their stance, even during election years).
For example all the “civil liberties” complainers (Sen Obama, Sen Reid, Sen Clinton, Sen Edwards, Sen Kerry, etc, etc) all voted yes to the Patriot Act:
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=109&session=2&vote=00029
Statler,
I would check yours as well. He, like others before him and after him, decided to interpret/ignore parts of bills as he signed them into law.
Admittedly, I was lazy and went to wikipedia for quick examples:
George W. Bush’s use of signing statements was and is controversial, both for the number of times employed (over 700 opinions, although President Clinton actually issued more [14]) and for the apparent attempt to nullify legal restrictions on his actions through claims made in the statements — for example, his signing statement attached to the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008. Some opponents have said that he in effect uses signing statements as a line-item veto.
Previous administrations had made use of signing statements to dispute the validity of a new law or its individual components. George H. W. Bush challenged 232 statutes through signing statements during four years in office and Clinton challenged 140 over eight years. George W. Bush’s 130 signing statements contain at least 1,100 challenges.[11][16]
The signing statement associated with the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005, prohibiting cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of detainees in U.S. custody attracted controversy:
“The executive branch shall construe… the Act, relating to detainees, in a manner consistent with the constitutional authority of the President to supervise the unitary executive branch and as Commander in Chief and consistent with the constitutional limitations on the judicial power….”
The use of signing statements that fall in to the constitutional category can create conundrums for executive branch employees. Political scientist James Pfiffner has written:
“The president is the head of the executive branch, and in general, executive branch officials are bound to follow his direction. In cases in which a subordinate is ordered to do something illegal, the person can legitimately refuse the order. But if the public administrator is ordered to refuse to execute the law … because the president has determined that the law infringes on his own interpretation of his constitutional authority, the public administrator faces an ethical dilemma.”[17]
Obama Administration:
On March 9, 2009, President Barack Obama ordered his executive officials to consult Attorney General Eric Holder before relying on one of George W. Bush’s signing statements to bypass a statute.[18] He stated that he only plans to use signing statements when given legislation by Congress which contain unconstitutional provisions. In a memo to the heads of each department in the Executive Branch, Obama wrote:[19]
“In exercising my responsibility to determine whether a provision of an enrolled bill is unconstitutional, I will act with caution and restraint, based only on interpretations of the Constitution that are well-founded.”
During his presidential campaign, Obama rejected the use of signing statements. He was asked at one rally: “when congress offers you a bill, do you promise not to use presidential signing statements to get your way?” Obama gave a one-word reply: “Yes.”[20] He added that “we aren’t going to use signing statements as a way to do an end run around Congress.” On March 11, 2009, President Obama issued his first signing statement, attached to the omnibus spending bill for the second half of FY2009.
___________________________________
Back to me now: If one believes that the Supreme is the sole decider of constitutionality, then the president can’t make such determinations as he signs a bill into law.
When President Bush signed the reauthorization of the USA Patriot Act this month, he included an addendum saying that he did not feel obliged to obey requirements that he inform Congress about how the FBI was using the act’s expanded police powers.
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2006/03/24/bush_shuns_patriot_act_requirement/
With regards to Ragnar’s comment, I don’t see a difference between when the Executive is ignoring/creating laws or when Agencies thereof are doing so.
“he included an addendum saying that he did not feel obliged to obey requirements”
An “addendum” is not a law. The president does have powers, under law, but creating “laws” on-the-fly (as Obama continually does) is not one of those presidential powers.
And as far as I know, Obama didn’t even create a Signing Statement when he signed the “Affordable Care Act” into law. A law which he later changed via Press Conference.
24-25
You’re right, team blue sucks… case closed.
” An “addendum” is not a law ”
Neither is an agency regulation, I dare you not to follow them cause they’re not laws. Neither are policy protocols, standard operating procedures, departmental guidelines… but how often do govt agencies large and small use those as justification for their authority and/or hide behind them to escape culpability?
Michael [16];
Seems to me, people complicate things when they want to hide something or get over on someone.
That’s right. It’s been said that exactly three people know how federal farm subsidies are calculated in this country, and that’s exactly the way they like it.
So Rachel Canning (brat suing her parents for HS and college tuition after she left home) got a nice slap down from the court at the prelim. inj. phase.
http://www.nj.com/morris/index.ssf/2014/03/judge_issues_ruling_in_teens_suit_against_parents.html
Noting the cover photo, if I had to guess, I’d say she’s looking not just into her lap, but at her smartphone… I wonder who paid for that?
[28] moose
The judge signals pretty strongly that he doesn’t think much of her case. Parents have the upper hand right now. My guess is that the little brat goes crawling back to her parents, who will essentially make her enter into some sort of an agreement like a prenuptial.
If she doesn’t settle, she will think long and hard about it when the parents subpoena her text messages and those of her boyfriend. That case will get real ugly real fast, and she won’t want to piss off an admissions officer a la Blair Hornstine.
I am guessing that in a week’s time we will hear about a reconciliation.
27- Good example, if you didn’t bring this to my attention, I wouldn’t even have the slightest idea that this was taking place (exactly the way they want it).
28-29= This girl is a great example of what I was talking about before, another product of our sue crazy culture. Not only do I have to pay for her double dipping a$$ of a father who can’t manage his own family, but now I have to pay for the court process for this crap to take place. Do we seriously have to pay a judge to listen to this crap? Another waste of taxpayer money. Who knows how much money our legal system sucks out of the economy in the name of inefficiency.
She’s killed her admissions chances, even the law schools will be wary.
Jenkins: Forgiving Putin — Again
He’s vulnerable, but the West takes a devil-you-know attitude toward the Russian autocrat.
By Holman W. Jenkins, Jr.
Vladimir Putin probably would not have spent 90 minutes on the phone with President Obama on Saturday if he intended to make a grab for eastern Ukraine. He would not have jawed twice on Friday and Sunday on the phone with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who subsequently doubted his grip on reality.
In gratitude, once the headlines about his soon-to-be-rationalized annexation of Crimea settle down, expect Western governments to conspire in his rehabilitation. Don’t be surprised if the June Group of Eight summit in Sochi even appears back on the agenda in some form.
Western leaders are a risk-averse, short-term-minded lot, but if their decisions are dictated by a conviction of Mr. Putin’s iron grip on Russia, they make a mistake. Many sanguine voices, in fact, already note how the U.S. shale revolution has weakened Mr. Putin’s hand. If Western leaders were so inclined, they might surprise themselves at how vulnerable Mr. Putin’s petro-dependency makes him.
Unleash Europe’s antitrust case against Gazprom. A report is due in the coming weeks, with the potential to levy billion-dollar fines and trigger customer lawsuits against the gas giant on which so much of Putin patronage is founded. Embargo Gazprom LNG tankers (it recently bought its fifth) from Western ports.
Withdraw Europe’s support for pipelines Mr. Putin wants to build. These, by way of the Black Sea and the Baltic Sea, aim to reduce Ukraine’s leverage as transit path for gas exports that generate much of his regime’s income. Mr. Putin might like to shut off the gas but he can’t. He needs the money.
Get moving on the pending U.S. trans-Pacific and trans-Atlantic trade partnerships, which grant member countries automatic approval of U.S. liquefied gas exports. The mere prospect of U.S. exports has already eroded Russia’s pricing power.
Let Exxon and other Western oil firms queuing up to explore Siberia and Russia’s Arctic know their efforts are not currently appreciated. A single caustic hearing on Capitol Hill should do it.
Mr. Putin is a modern-day Peter the Great, we’re told. He has visions—of a Eurasian Union to counter the European Union, of Russia leading an orthodox counterrevolution to Western libertinism. These tidbits of Russian propaganda, of extraordinarily recent vintage, explain nothing.
The visions that propel Mr. Putin are of himself hanging by his heels from a lamppost or spending the next 20 years in a dock answering for everything from the disappearance of $90 million in food money in St. Petersburg when he was deputy mayor to the 2006 murder of critic Alexander Litvinenko in London.
His campaign of intimidation aimed at Ukraine is about protecting his position at the head of the Russian klepto-banquet. Popular overthrow of a crony oligarchy so close to home, his corrupt ally Viktor Yanukovych, was not acceptable. Ukraine, with its control of strategic pipelines, moving toward energy independence and even energy competition with Russia (it recently signed shale deals with Shell and Chevron ) was not acceptable.
Most of all, “Putin lost Ukraine” would have been a powerful meme in the hands of his enemies, who are numerous and don’t actually care about Ukraine.
Russian business oligarchs are more forward-looking than they get credit for. They don’t want their country to become North Korea writ large. They would take unkindly to their Manhattan apartments and Western bank accounts being frozen.
Alas none of this is likely to happen. Germany’s foreign minister has already proposed the crisis be settled by direct discussion between Ukraine and Mr. Putin. At least he didn’t offer Munich as a venue.
Former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder still serves as chairman of Nord Stream on the theory that Germany’s energy dependence on Russia is good for peace. Berlin will not sign on to a de facto policy of regime change in Moscow.
The West looked the other way when Mr. Putin seized the Yukos oil giant on trumped-up tax charges, though Western minority shareholders were among the victims. It looked the other way when he double-crossed Western oil companies on a serial basis. It looked the other way from murders of journalists and Russian legislators and other inconvenient persons (possibly even Mr. Putin’s own mentor, a late mayor of St. Petersburg).
The West followed down his path, which bears passing resemblance to the petro-regime of Saddam Hussein, because Russia has nuclear weapons and Mr. Putin seemed preferable to chaos. The West may eventually get chaos anyway. Secretary of State John Kerry managed to put his finger on a truth. Mr. Putin knows no more about the true sources of 21st-century wealth and power than a swordfish knows about macramé. No, the Cold War is not returning. Russia does not have the heft to sustain a Cold War even against placid Europeans or a strategically listless President Obama. His current Western enablers just hope Mr. Putin self-destructs on somebody else’s watch.
May God help the poor slob that marries that girl.
@billmaher: I’d like Ruskies outta Ukraine, but they invaded a place full of Russians who liked it. We invaded Iraq. Its a little hard to make the case.
The End Is Nigh (JJ Domestic Assault Edition):
New Mexico woman bashes mom with v!brator: police report
Sheryl Claffy called cops to say v!brator attack by daughter left her bloody. Daughter says mom bonked herself in the head with sex toy.
An electric v!brator was used by a New Mexico woman to attack her mother, police said.
Sheryl Claffy, 60, called police to complain her daughter had attacked her with a sex toy and was trying to flee, according to a police report posted by The Smoking Gun website.
Officers at the scene found Claffy “bleeding profusely from her head” and were told her daughter, Clara, was sitting in a nearby blue truck.
The driver said he was waiting on Clara, police said.
“I did notice an electric v!brator on the passenger side floor of the vehicle,” the responding officer noted in his report.
After several entreaties by officers, Clara finally emerged from the house and was placed in handcuffs.
Cara Claffy of Albuquerque was charged with aggravated assault and domestic violence after beating her mother in the head with an electric sex toy, police said.
“Clara Claffy told officers she was with her mother today when an argument broke. Her mother came out from a back room, bleeding on her head. She asked her mother what happened and she replied that she had struck herself with a v!brator,” the daughter told cops.
The mother had a much different recollection of Sunday’s events.
The mom said she had been watching TV with her daughter, who is in her 40s, when they started arguing.
“Cara grabbed an electric v!brator which she used to strike Sheryl Claffy over the head. Sheryl Claffy immediately noted blood streaming down her head at which time she fled the house to call for help,” the report said.
Cara Claffy is being held in lieu of $3,500 bail, charged with domestic violence and aggravated assault.
@billmaher: The liberals here are so torn – slavery, aids – wheres a holocaust movie when u need a tiebreaker ?
LOL I found $10K in my pocket today. In a little visited Schwab account I apparently bought $4K of FAs and a little less that $3K of FAA in 2009. Well the triple leveraged FAZ decreased to 1 share worth $20. The 108 shares of FAS is worth just under $10K and I sold it today. Having completely lost track of that account I have a couple other bearish ETFs that I can sell at any time and offset the long term cap gains of FAS. I never found $10K tax fee before and I like it, like it, yes I do!
Jesus, I should learn to type better. $2800 of FAS and $4000 of FAZ were the initial positions that I forgot about. Two 3X leveraged funds that should, by design, eat away at themselves very quickly yet I made money by being stupid and inattentive.
@WSJ: Study: raising the minimum wage to $10.10 would reduce need for 3.5 million Americans to use food stamps. http://t.co/bn8aNB26kz
The people who would lose their jobs are already on food stamps so it wouldn’t increase the overall number… but thanks for playing.
anon (the good one) says:
March 5, 2014 at 9:20 pm
@WSJ: Study: raising the minimum wage to $10.10 would reduce need for 3.5 million Americans to use food stamps. http://t.co/bn8aNB26kz
[33]. Chifi,
“At least he didn’t offer Munich as a venue.”
Classic!
[37] troll who must not be named.
Now that’s beyond pointless.
Rachel Canning’s life as she knows it, is over. Now, what about this guy?
http://o.dailycaller.com/all/2014-03-05-lawyer-on-chris-christies-school-funding-task-force-is-bankrolling-teen-suing-parents-for-college-cash#3
It’s different in NJ. In a lot of other states, Inglesino would find himself distinctly unwelcome.
Wow, I expect this to get resurrected, especially in light of Bridgegate . . .
http://www.nj.com/morris/index.ssf/2014/01/mayor_says_council_president_is_using_position_to_quash_attorney_with_christie_ties.html
This Canning thing is gold. I have been working on a legal guide for parents. This is fast becoming three whole chapters.
I don’t think the CBO said,500,000 people will get fired if minimum wage will increase to $10.10 an hour. 500,000 will lose opportunity to get a job by 2016 if minimum wage was hiked to $10.10 an hour.(“will reduce total employment by 500,000 by 2016” )500,000 less than their projection of number of employed by 2016.
Supply and demand tells you ,if there is demand for the product hiring people that computers can not do, will always go with it,if it will increase productivity.
The increase will be passed on to the consumer just like Ocare.Some restaurants are already adding 1% to the bill to comply with O care. People are paying it
2014 going to be another good year? | New Jersey Real Estate Report
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Touche. Outstanding arguments. Keep up the great spirit.