From HousingWire:
Black Knight: Home prices rise 1% in April from March
U.S. home prices were up 1% for the month, rising 4.9% on a year-over-year basis, according to Black Knight’s latest Home Price Index report, based on April 2015 residential real estate transactions.
This puts national home prices up nearly 3% since the start of the year and up just under 24% since the bottom of the market at the start of 2012.
At $248,000, the national level HPI is now just 7.6% off its June 2006 peak of $268,000.Washington led gains among the states, seeing 2.0% month-over-month appreciation, while Seattle led metro areas with 2.2% growth from March.
Detroit, Michigan; San Jose, California, and Ft Collins, Colorado all saw home prices rise 2.0% for the month, making them three of the nation’s best performing metro areas.Among the nation’s 20 largest states, four hit new peaks in April:
Colorado ($294K)
New York ($345K)
Tennessee ($174K)
Texas ($208K)
…
Of the nation’s 40 largest metros, 10 hit new peaks:Austin, TX ($277K)
Columbus, OH ($181K)
Dallas, TX ($209K)
Denver, CO ($314K)
Honolulu, HI ($526K)
Houston, TX ($214K)
Nashville, TN ($213K)
San Antonio, TX ($189K)
San Francisco, CA ($701K)
San Jose, CA ($847K)
Both Boston, MA and Portland, OR are within 0.75% of reaching new peaks.
Good Morning New Jersey
Look at this dirtbag Ted Cruz. Spewing his idiocy on Today show.
Calling for Supreme Court elections. Just madness.
Ted Cruz / Bristol Palin is a dream ticket
Group called Jersey City Peace Movement held a flag burning this weekend?
Oh bother.
Lots of hypocrisy on all sides. Who would have thought that extreme liberals are the least tolerant people and most in favor of using censorship to silence opposition?
If and when someone gay commits a massacre, are we going to see the demands for the banning and removal of all items depicting a rainbow?
#8
Do you mean like Jeffrey Dahmer?
[8] NWNJ
or John Wayne Gacy?
[8] nwnj
Based on what I’ve seen (yay, Google), gays are not so much mass killers as they are serial killers. Mass killers kill 2+ people at once, trying to maximize death in one event, while serial killers kill one at a time but often kill many more people than mass murders.
I guess the moral is that if you kill one at a time, there can’t be any association with your lifestyle and homicide. In fact, one site that compiled stats took pains to point out that h0m0sexuality doesn’t equate to serial killing (and I am doing my best to ignore the seemingly strong correlation–must be my privilege acting up).
[6] nwnj
“Who would have thought that extreme liberals are the least tolerant people and most in favor of using censorship to silence opposition?”
Anyone who studied history.
[3] splat
“calling for Supreme Court elections. . . . madness”
Of course it is. We already have them.
Everybody have their popcorn and comfy chair ready? They’re going to implode a country today over on the Aegean. Should be fun to watch.
There’s actually nothing in the Constitution that explicitly promises federal judges lifetime appointments.
#11
Yep, 21st century brownshirts in their tactics. Virtually picketing and blackmailing any businesses who they disagree with philosophically or politically. Calls for censoring or pulling distribution of movies the days agenda are increasing. Degenerate art I suppose.
Higher turnover of Federal Judges actually will create more opportunity for gender and racial diversity.
[14] juice
Holding office during good behavior is understood to mean lifetime. But that extends only to Art. III courts–Art. I courts are not similarly restricted. And states can set whatever rules they want.
Here we go JJ http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-29/puerto-rico-governor-says-debt-is-unpayable-as-deadlines-loom
Interestingly, I am aware of only twice in the last century when the court system was actually meddled with in order to sway its makeup.
First, the infamous “court packing” scheme of FDR.
Second, Clinton’s expansion of the influential but little known Court of Federal Claims, an Article I court from 18 to 24 judges. Naturally, he appointed all six new judges, though some, like this guy, turned out to be somewhat less than liberal.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/01/29/federal-judge-blasts-doj-lawyers-in-case-fast-furious-whistleblower/
Also, over the past 45 years, Republican nominees were shot down by democratic senators more often than Democratic nominees were shot down by Republicans.
So which side is messing with the courts?
Salt mine is calling my name. Someone abuse anon now that he’s back.
Returning briefly to share this on judicial selection. Nothwithstanding the subtle bias, its a very good article.
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/10/27/obama-brief
(full disclosure of my own bias: I studied extensively under Prof. Goldman, whose work is oft cited in this article)
re #17 – I doubt the framers expected someone to serve for more than a decade, based upon life expectancy of 34 years old at the time, now people live a long long time, heck a 100 years ago men were expected to live to only about 49. If Healtcare continues to progress as it has we could see well into the 100 + for many people especially those with means.
“…especially those with means.”
what’s a supeme court justice pulling down these days? what’s their benefits/retirement?
and how many hours/days they work regularly? as little as congress?
re: # 18 – Worldwide there is a debt hangover.
China was trying to cure their debit hangover with IPOs and secondary stock offerings. Estimates by UBS predicted only two months ago secondary stock offerings would be a record $161 billion by December on the Shanghai exchange.
News today is bad. Bear Market and possible suspension of all IPOs in China.
Bad news all around and Debt Deflation is rearing it’s ugly head again, you know what is next right?
Just watch for the QE. Raise Rates? What inflation?
Economist Robert Shiller: Buying a house is ‘a consumption choice,’ not an investment
http://theweek.com/speedreads/563510/economist-robert-shiller-buying-house-consumption-choice-not-investment
I blame Gary. From MarketWatch:
Pending home sales rise to over nine-year high in May
Pending home sales in May rose to their highest level in over nine years, the National Association of Realtors said Monday. The pending home sales index rose 0.9% in May after a slight downward revision in April, the NAR said. The index level of 112.6 — 100 was the average level of activity in 2001 — is the highest since April 2006 and up 10.4% from May 2014. A sale is listed as pending when the contract has been signed but the transaction has not closed, though the sale usually is finalized within one or two months of signing.
re: # 25 – Shiller should be strapped down and made to watch HGTV for two weeks ala the Ludovico technique from Clockwork Orange.
re # 26 – Gary did you get outbid?
Nothing is more fun than watching straight white male Christian (or any combination there of) privilege destroy itself.
After some shopping in Manhattan yesterday, accidentally got trapped with the rainbow coalition in Greenwich Village yesterday evening. Wow, what a freakshow.
No manners on display, despite all the talk about loving one another. The most disappointing thing is how ugly the lesbos (hundreds of them) were. Yogi Berra is better looking than most of them.
As a straight, white, male, who I suppose might be considered moderately religious in some circles, I take offense to your racism, sexism, gender and religious bias. Did you forget to work in a slight against nationality or heritage as well?
I had no choice in being born this way either.
That said, I’m a fan of uprising, revolution, societal collapse, and social/economic upheaval, so bring it on. I’ll make the popcorn.
Ottoman,
You have a problem?
re: # 30 – Grim – schadenfreude no longer allowed here?
No, I’m all for it.
re: # 31- You may get a collapse on Sunday after the Greek referendum vote. I like how the banks decide to shut down during peak tourist season too, should make for a nice dip in GDP.
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-06-28/greek-referendum-is-more-con-than-democracy-ibg6vcmz
re: # 30 – “After some shopping in Manhattan yesterday.”
Rags I used to live in the Village and Chelsea. I always made a late arrival back from the Shore on this weekend or Monday morning, it was always a sh*it* show.
Did you get grabbed? Apparenly there was allot of that going on yesterday.
Ottoman’s biggest problem is that he’s genetically challenged.
Personally, I’d rather see political privilege implode on itself, and that applies to both parties. The American political arrogance bubble is at astounding levels.
I hear NJ passed a resolution banning the flying of the confederate flag in other states.
Perfect example. We can’t fix shit here but we’ll spend the time to tell other states what to do.
A thank you and a goodbye
Grim, thanks for running this blog. It has been moderately entertaining and enlightening at the same time. I am leaving for the Philippines soon, as I have written here before. We just passed inspection contingency and the container van is coming this week — so things might just be too busy to log on and I might forget once we are in the middle of everything. By the way, we priced our house about 15% below the Zillow price estimate, got an offer matching asking within 12 hours. Did we underprice? Maybe, but we always saw the house as a place to live, not an investment — so we walk away with something still.
I do not share many of the views here, but I find the ability to learn and understand alternative arguments worth it — sometimes there really is no conclusive answer and absolutes do not work. My final points:
The tax payments for a moderately priced home in a good school district in NJ are worth it, especially if you have two kids. I am enrolling them in an international school in Manila that costs 20K each head. My house will cost 1600 a month, for 8000 sq feet with a pool. So my total cost of housing plus education is about 5K a month. The upside is that once the 7th grader ends high school, that goes down to 3.5K a month, and then 1.5K once the second kid graduates. So unless you have kids, owning a house in BC, where I live, is a doubtful proposition.
The other disincentive is healthcare. I will get insurance for about 6K in the Philippines for our whole family. On a cost of living basis comparison metric, that means healthcare insurance in the US should be about 12K-14K theoretically , but since healthcare costs currently about 20K+ for a family of four (both my employer and my contribution), there is definitely overpricing in US healthcare. This is not exact, but I am just putting numbers on it.
Finally, I will not miss NJ Transit, the Lincoln Tunnel and the Port Authority Bus Terminal — those three in combination are the definition of the evil of living in NJ.
Juice,
No grabbing, fortunately. I guess my family was too good looking. But there was a lot of rainbow painted flab flopping around.
It was my daughter’s fault. She wanted to get a cup from Big Gay Ice Cream for nostalgia’s sake (she had lived in the apartment above it for a few weeks last summer during a dance camp). There was a line 100 people long, so we tried getting out via subway, but the police had fenced off everything, and we got trapped in the freak-smush. My wife just wanted out, so we took the subway going the wrong way, just to escape, switching directions later.
Good luck Duck. A close coworker of mine is moving out that way too in a few years. He married a Filipino and has always been enamored by the islands and their low cost.
DuckVader,
Good luck in Manilla. I hope the international school works well for you. I’d suggest you try to supplement it with online (or book-based) enrichment. The common complaint I’ve observed with international schools is that they make everything too easy, in terms of material. (Observations from mine and related kids in China). Even if they assign a lot of work, they didn’t teach at the high levels they would get here.
You know, they have the internet in the Philippines, just saying. I’ll look you up when I’m in town.
BTW, the latest media double standard, could you imagine the contrived outrage had the two escaped cons in upstate NY been another ethnicity? I don’t think they deserved anything less but one was shot while running away the other killed with a shotgun “nearby”.
Fun times ahead…..China, Greece, Confederate Flags, gay rights…what’s next?
Goldman Says Ukraine To Default In July
Ukraine could default on its debt obligations as soon as next month, according to Goldman Sachs GS -1.88%, leaving international investors holding about $19 billion of the country’s bonds likely facing losses, or “haircuts.”
The U.S. bank says it thinks the most likely scenario is that Ukraine will not make the July 24 coupon payment on its bonds. As a result, says analyst Andrew Matheny, “it will enter into default at that point.” The process would start with the country invoking a so-called ‘moratorium’, a law which allow the government to suspend payments on its debt.
Four creditors holding about $9 billion of the outstanding debt are currently involved in tense negotiations with the government over the restructuring process of their debt holdings.
http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2015/06/25/goldman-says-ukraine-to-default-in-july/
VIX shot up 24% today so far.
http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=%5EVIX
Good Luck DuckVader.
I have friends kids that went to Ateneo,La Salle and UP that did well when they came back and work in The US. A fraction of the cost that you will pay in an IS. $350 a month compared to $3,400 a month. Just saying.
Again, Good Luck! I will be retiring there soon. House paid.Only expense will be utilities and living expense. Still figuring out the Health Care. I can either just pay cash when I need it or buy Insurance as you said. Healthcare cost is not that expensive if converted to $
[30] rags
I had some friends over the years who were straight women. I often thought about encouraging them to hop the fence so at least they’d get something.
But I also saw the most improbable couplings. I’m talking butt ugly women who found mates. Made me realize that there’s someone out there for everyone.
[48] redux
Should have said straight, homely women.
(Just to preempt JJ, these were classmates, coworkers, neighbors, and friends. Not as fortunate as you to know only supermodels and other glitterati)
Pending home sales in May rose to their highest level in over nine years,
even though there’s no inventorythe National Association of Realtors said Monday.JJ….is this definition accurate?
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=corncob
Nevermind Greece……be on the lookout…
Serial p00p smearer on the loose in Ridgewood
http://www.nj.com/bergen/index.ssf/2015/06/serial_poo_smearer_on_the_loose_in_ridgewood.html
Comrade,
My wife was asking why at least some of the gay men looked like they paid attention to their looks, while virtually all of the ladies were scary looking. I didn’t have an answer, other than that their “mating” rituals were different.
I, as a man, would only date/yearn for woman that are several years younger. Perhaps even a decade or two as I age. It’s more or less something imbedded into the male genome.
On the other hand, if two men looked to date each other, would age matter? Who gets to take care of the elder as he ages?
Comrade, your brain is working really well today!! Learned a few things !
Lib [41];
$5k/mo. in housing and education for 3 kids is “low cost”? If you (he, whatever) has it to spend, more power to them. But the median household income in this country — one of the richest on the planet, is $50k/yr.
Gary,
Can’t you see that full levitation mode has been reached and all the spinning plates are in the air? We can now have, all at once, another housing bubble, a rental bubble, a stock bubble, a bond bubble…and all without wage growth, solid job creation or positive GDP. Why did we not think of this magical economy before? You should bid on two houses and there is nothing but blue skies ahead. A realtor told me so..
Moose…he’s in his late 50s and they already have paid off housing. Cost of living is next to nothing otherwise.
Corncobbing, poop-smearing and ugly lesbi8ns.
Got my daily fix of zeitgeist in less than 30 seconds.
I think gary is the Westfield Watcher.
Previous occupants of house Gary is trying to buy:
http://tinyurl.com/pejtap4
I am now expert in identifying the smell of rotting deer carcass……
Yes, we have no kalamata olives today
If you are older, why would you want to move to a low cost location where the healthcare might kill you? Getting a heart attack in the Philippines or some low cost country like Costa Rica is playing Russian roulette with your life. Increase your odds drastically by living within close proximity to a place like valley hospital. I wouldn’t trust another country or even most parts of this country when it comes to urgent medical care like a heart attack. Just my two cents. Everything has their positives and negatives, just make sure you understand them.
re: # 31- You may get a collapse on Sunday after the Greek referendum vote. I like how the banks decide to shut down during peak tourist season too, should make for a nice dip in GDP.
Landed yesterday morning. Up at this ridiculous hour because I forgot to turn my phone to silent. And a little jet lag.
Our hotel is directly across from Parliament, on Syntagma Square. If our room didn’t front the acropolis we would be looking at parliament. People with balconies on the front were out there watching.
ATMs limited to 60 euro withdrawal. Long lines. Banks closed. Kid got on BBC.
People seem fatalistic. Very little anger. Went to the Parliament protest last night after dinner. Had the air of a carnival. Bands, food being cooked from carts, people walking around with beers in hand.
Protests to date have had a weird recipe. In support of current government and in support of staying in euro/eu. Leftists supporting staying Europe…if the government were center/right and conditions this way probably would have riots…The Left can get the crowds out but they aren’t going to pull up cobblestones and throw them at their own leaders.
Well advertised that tonight the opposition is having the protests at Parliament. Don’t know if center/right can get out the numbers, nor if ‘protesting’ is their political philosophy. Plus, they want to stay EU so the only thing they would protest is against current admin, not Brussels, so may be a non-event.
Guess there is always the potential for violence if the Left decide to come out and mix it up but that hasn’t been the tone so far. Ton of ‘We are all Europe’ signs last night. Very weird, Left not making Europe the bogeyman.
Referendum on July 5. That may be an issue as locals are getting their backs up with Merckle’s repeated comments to approve. Feel that is meddling by Germany.
I’ll be on Santorini by then….won’t mind getting stuck there.
The Great Pumpkin makes some great, enlightened points today….
…Of course he doesn’t!!!!!! HAHAHAHAHA.
loosening the lariat a bit, we allowed our 13 year old to go into Boston after school today and skulk around with her friends. She brought me back some good eats that I’m enjoying right now. Already she’s learning how to increase her sphere of influence, while learning the art of the bribe;-)
66-
“Measuring health outcomes at the point of intervention
If you really want to measure health outcomes, the best way to do it is at the point of medical intervention. If you have a heart attack, how long do you live in the U.S. vs. another country? If you’re diagnosed with breast cancer? In 2008, a group of investigators conducted a worldwide study of cancer survival rates, called CONCORD. They looked at 5-year survival rates for breast cancer, colon and rectal cancer, and prostate cancer. I compiled their data for the U.S., Canada, Australia, Japan, and western Europe. Guess who came out number one?”
http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2011/11/23/the-myth-of-americans-poor-life-expectancy/
68-
“Measuring health outcomes at the point of
interventionpasting….NOT!”Like I said, even in our country it matters where you live when it comes to healthcare. You want to be in the rich areas…shocker!! So enjoy that low cost of living, but understand what comes with it.
“Through advances in prevention and treatment, more Americans now survive heart attacks than ever before. Still, Southerners are more likely to die from heart attack than anywhere else in the country, according to research presented at the American College of Cardiology’s 63rd Annual Scientific Session.”
https://www.cardiosmart.org/News-and-Events/2014/04/Heart-Attack-Survival-Rates-Poorest-in-the-South
69- instead of mocking me, apologize for being wrong.
I can’t think of punkin’ without thinking of this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXRviuL6vMY
Expat, since you are so smart, you are telling me there are good hopitals that will send an ambulance to you if you get a heart attack in these low cost areas of the country and world? You will be dead before they even get to you. Same thing with the ghetto areas of our country located by rich areas, you think the ambulance makes it to that ghetto location in 5 minutes?…lmao. They don’t care about the poor. So you want to live with the poor(low cost living), you will get treated like the poor even if you have money. The services just aren’t there in these locations.
Pretty creative, coming up with a character named blurry face to represent the insecurities that hold us back.
The Original NJ ExPat says:
June 29, 2015 at 8:11 pm
I can’t think of punkin’ without thinking of this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXRviuL6vMY
Just hoping that the ambulance Punkin’ eventually needs blows a tire.
I like the the blog has a foreign correspondent on site in Greece for the festivities.
Booking a mostly Euro-denominated vacation for the fall. Already paid for the flight, now I’m wondering if I should sleep on booking the lodging for a couple weeks and see how things go with Grexit.
Left
While your waiting for things to kick off (don’t think they will), here is a game to keep you amused.
http://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-krugman-battles-austerians/
Tax News of the day.
Trump Plaza could be closed for at least 10 years
http://www.nj.com/atlantic/index.ssf/2015/06/trump_casino_10_years_closed.html
Re#77 – ever know somebody willing give up welfare? They be starving by Sunday, and then cave. going long tomorrow, place yer bets.
Offered without comment. I’ll leave that to the legal wonks!.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2015/06/25/king_v_burwell_decision_john_roberts_explains_why_he_just_saved_obamacare.html
“In 2004, at the age of 92, the late Sir John Templeton, a pioneer in the world of mutual funds, issued a stark warning to investors. “The stock market is broken,” he said in an interview. He went on to predict the housing bubble would spark the sort of terrible market crash we witnessed four years later. But Templeton saw a bigger problem than just the bubble then emerging. Stock markets are now dangerously short-sighted. “Mass media, especially TV today, is so short-term that few in its audience grasp the lasting damage and corrective impact which will continue to linger from the greatest financial crash in world history,” he said. In the wake of that very crash, short-term thinking is as much a problem as ever before.
The stats behind investors’ amputated attention spans are astonishing, and reveal the damage caused to the wider economy. According to the New York Stock Exchange, in the 1960s the holding period for stocks was eight years. By 1990 it had fallen to two years and today the average stock is held for just nine months. As investors have shortened their time horizons, companies have been focused on each next quarter’s financial results at the expense of the next decade, say experts. Last spring, the U.S. Senate banking committee held hearings to examine the plague of short-term thinking in capital markets. Some astonishing revelations emerged. In a survey of 400 chief financial officers, 80 per cent said they’d cut research and development spending to goose short-term performance. To make matters worse, when companies do beat expectations, executives are lavished with huge paycheques and millions of stock options that dilute existing shareholders even further.”
There is a lot in here even I can get behind.
http://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/2015/06/christie_announces_change_to_nj_gun_policy_on_eve.html
Commissioning a study to tell us what we already know, swell.
[80] Rory Martin
I’ve already commented. Wrote my firm’s white paper on this today.
Slate piece is even more boring than the opinion.
Us Healthcare and NJ School excellence is over rated. Time and time again studies have been made. New drugs and new technology are not available in the US. When you go to live in a developing Country depends how deep is your pocket just like everywhere else. Difference is how little you need for the same procedure at a Top Hospital compared in the US, if you are Dollar denominated.
Just like DuckVader. He chose to send his kids to school at an IS. Which charges the same amount as if you are in a foreign Country. You can get a better education at a Top Local University for much much less. This local Universities produced Doctors,Lawyers,Nurses,Accountants ,Programmers etc that we use in the US and all over the World.
Again,if you live same as the locals,yes you might not have the same quality of care. But if you live with the well to do, you get the better care. Two sets of standard unlike the US
NJ schools are uniformly some of the best in the nation. All you need to do is ask touring educational companies what they see. The talent the shows up to their offerings creates the impression that eastern MA, NJ and suburban NYC are noticeably of higher quality.
In practicality what does that comment mean? Not so much the top 5-10 percentile. It is similar to the comments from Ben…….don’t bend over backward to get into the top NJ school districts. Most any town of reasonable quality will do. Obviously if you move to a joke town, you will be punished, but as opposed to the bulk of the US, the average town in NJ has a really solid shot of delivering the goods.