From Realtor.com (yes, realtor.com):
More Bad News for New Jersey? Or Is It Good News for the Middle Class?
If we can’t blame New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie for the traffic jams, maybe he can’t take the hit for this news either: While home prices are spiking in the rest of the country, in the home state of Tony Soprano, they’re still more than 20% below the 2006 peak, according to a report from CoreLogic.
No, it’s not that people are stuck in traffic and can’t get to the open houses, or that too many goodfellas are getting whacked. It’s that the number of foreclosed properties is high (8.12% according to the Mortgage Bankers Association).
Is it just that those “Joisey” folk live waaaaay beyond their means (Hello, Teresa Giudice!)? Not entirely. It’s a kind of stagnation.
“People are both unwilling to list their homes and are unwilling to buy, in many cases, because they fear that their prices will be undercut when these distressed mortgages finally go to market,” said economic researcher Patrick O’Keefe of CohnReznick in Roseland. New Jersey’s population growth is also to blame. It’s half the national average, which in turn keeps the demand to buy a home down.
To be fair to the Garden State (so called, the joke goes, because “Oil, Petroleum, Nuclear, Landfill, and Toxic Waste State” didn’t fit on a license plate), home prices are rising (3% from the year before—about a $150,000 average sales price at last count).
And that’s actually good news, at least for home buyers: Perhaps New Jersey, despite its record high income taxes, can maintain its place as the everyman’s state, and can be one of the last refuges for the middle class in the New York City area.
Down in Asbury for the weekend, almost a year since last time, place keeps getting nicer and nicer. Keep this up and it will be one of the best spots on the shore.
It does…that being said…they gotta get rid of that friggin unfinished parking garage or whatever the hell it is oceanside. Whoever has been sitting on it for 30 years has to be able to either sell it for a huge profit or at the very least, build some useful building on it.
I envision the locals getting displaced past the train tracks where one side of the tracks is very nice and the other is same ol’ Asbury.
Fast Eddie is gonna cream over the lead article
homeboken,
The housing syndicate knows that people outside of this blog are generally f.ucking 1diots. They know they’ll always be had, just like they were ten years ago. They could f.uck around with bullsh1t pieces like this one because yes, they know another Guidice-type family is just around the corner. It’s where comedy meets tragedy and the reason why old school guys like me are actually trying to do a transaction weaving around the @assholes. And they are all @assholes; from the buyers and sellers to the brain surge0ns who are “brokering” the deal.
Perhaps New Jersey, despite its record high income taxes…
I mean, read this statement without laughing out loud.
home prices are rising…
Supply and demand? Assh0le?
Do you know the sh1t I went through two weeks ago to get a pre-approval (A F.UCKING PRE-APPROVAL) to carry two over-lapping mortgages for a brief period of time? It was comical. Hysterical!
Gary,
I thought you’d welcome the (re)enforcement of traditional lending standards demanding credit worthiness to weed out the phonies.
joyce,
I do welcome it. I just thought it was funny the sh1t I had to endure for a pre-approval. Yes, it will weed out the unqualified buyers. Now, I just need to find more qualified sellers.
It already has plans. I was at a small breakfast with Tom Gilmour about 2 weeks ago across the street……first off, AP was on the Trenton dole for about $29M/year about ten years ago…..he said for fiscal 2016 it will be $1.5M…..I asked him how he did it and he said, we had a plan, and we diligently executed it, and then a little bit of luck too. He said the last thing you want is Trenton involved, so getting rid of the dole was high priority, and they can’t wait to be away from them……I asked him why he wasn’t being hailed across the state as an example to parade in front of Newark, Patterson, Trenton, Camden and Atlantic City…..he kind of no commented, but I drew the inference that it is a non-starter to gives examples of how to fix problems that people don’t want fixed……..the steel skeleton is going to be mixed use residential with first floor retail……
Ben says:
July 11, 2015 at 11:15 am
It does…that being said…they gotta get rid of that friggin unfinished parking garage or whatever the hell it is oceanside. Whoever has been sitting on it for 30 years has to be able to either sell it for a huge profit or at the very least, build some useful building on it.
I envision the locals getting displaced past the train tracks where one side of the tracks is very nice and the other is same ol’ Asbury.
the steel skeleton was owned by a bankrupted contractor and the post-Sandy situation as well as the politically connected developer (who is committed to the town in a good way) is taking it over…..they already have several other projects going including boutique hotels going up…..
grim: can report on this if possible?
http://www.crustandcrumble.com/
can you
Once Again NJ RE Report ahead of the curve……
Who Needs an ObamaPhone?
Only one in 20 users needs the federal cellphone subsidy.
Now this is awkward. Income redistribution plans are always sold as vital assistance to address otherwise unmet needs. But it turns out that most recipients of a popular government telephone subsidy would buy the service on their own.
This revelation concerns the Federal Communications Commission’s Lifeline program, which uses Universal Service fees collected from telephone consumers to provide cheaper service to low-income households.
ENLARGE
PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES
Georgetown University research, cited in a recent report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, finds that in the absence of the subsidy, only one in eight Lifeline households would not have phone service. And only one of 20 households benefiting from a Lifeline subsidy specifically for wireless telephony would not have service absent the government benefit. This raises the issue of how low the incomes really are in many Lifeline households.
Concerns about eligibility, amid a surging population of beneficiaries, already prompted the FCC to reform the program in 2012. But even post-reform, last year more than 12 million households participated in Lifeline, up from about seven million in 2008, according to GAO.
Many of President Obama’s predecessors also helped build the telephone subsidy machine. And even now most of Washington wants to ignore the inconvenient truth about a federal benefit that almost nobody seems to need. Fortunately for taxpayers, Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R., Tenn.) and FCC Commissioner Mike O’Rielly are shining a light on this boondoggle. They’re urging a cap on its roughly $1.6 billion in annual spending and a careful targeting to make sure subsidies don’t go to people who would buy phone service anyway.
FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler recently proposed an expansion of the Lifeline program into broadband Internet services, so the Blackburn-O’Rielly campaign for reform could not come at a better time.
So while he should be planning a 10-year anniversary GTG for the board, grim is choosing instead to bust a nut with the transgender hookers in AP……
Check out this article from USA TODAY:
Powerful drug ‘flakka’ shakes Kentucky county
http://usat.ly/1IPZtIE
So should a Chubb IT employee quit now or wait till 2016 in the hopes of a severance package? ACE is almost certain to not need the vast majority of us.
Oh and NJ loses another HQ.
Brian,
Been to Seaside Park lately? Was driving there earlier and passed a pickup truck with a billboard erected in the back…
whistleblowerrn.com
http://www.whistleblowerrn.com/
#17 Quit (if you have something else lined up). I don’t know if you’re vested or not
but if you are…be gone. The severance package is Sh~t. I worked there.
*They will make you jump through hoops to get your hands on the pension
money. Take the lump sum and transfer that GENEROUS 401K.
*Note – Chubb offered both a tradition pension AND matching 401K!
I would have marked the days there until retirement but saw my department was
going to be outsourced (it was).
WAS a great place to work until the last family member/owner was forced out.
After that…
The 401k isn’t that generous. They match 4%.
The sev package is 2weeks per year of service, min 4 wks max 52. Healthcare benefits continued for severance duration.
I’m fully vested so yeah, I think starting to look for other work is wise. Most of my colleagues are convinced they’ll have work in the new organization (today’s ACE Group, to be rebranded as Chubb) but I don’t share their optimism. My thinking is they have their own IT already, they might need a few guys from the Chubb side but most of us not so much.
#21 – Yeah 4% is not GREAT but my investment choices (got advice from senior employees) were. Did WELL. If you’ve been there awhile your CCAP (Chubb regular pension) must be large. IF you want to cash it out you won’t believe the paperwork involved! Felt like I was closing on a house.
They’ve been outsourcing IT (combo overseas and inhouse H1Bs) piecemeal since about 2007? Outside of IT they are not replacing retirees or terminations instead they pile the work onto those that remain. Last year I was there (2013) I didn’t see one new hire at Whitehouse Station (not saying there were not).
Unless your 55 and got in 25…go. I don’t regret it.
Lemme ask you. Are they still giving 0-3% raises and bonus’? I didn’t get one (raise) the last three years I was there. But then I had to request pier reviews from people I didn’t even work with! That place is rapidly contracting towards oblivion.
#21
Filter appropriately:
http://www.glassdoor.com/GD/Reviews/Chubb-Corp-Reviews-E150.htm?sort.sortType=RD&sort.ascending=false&filter.employmentStatus=REGULAR&filter.employmentStatus=PART_TIME&filter.employmentStatus=UNKNOWN
I’ve always gotten raises between 2.5 and 3.5 percent. You’re right about IT, both infrastructure and app dev, being outsourced over the years. It started in 2005 when ACS got to run infrastructure and the Branchburg data center was shut down and folded into ACS’ facilities in Dallas. App dev outsourcing came next.
Of course, now that Chubb is being bought by ACE, what little NJ footprint remains will degrade over time.
What good is Asbury Park if you can’t score any old-time quality smack?
punkin (16)-
Is this flakka shit what’s messed up you and anon’s brains?
chi (15)-
What an absolute slackwad. He’s obviously a casualty of the new Amerikan prosperity.
“So while he should be planning a 10-year anniversary GTG for the board, grim is choosing instead to bust a nut with the transgender hookers in AP……”
OTOH, if you told me at the beginning I’d be hanging out at a RE bust blog that’s lasted for ten years, I’d tell you to put a bullet between my eyes.
njt (20)-
Did you work with Jim West in Whitehouse Station?
“#17 Quit (if you have something else lined up). I don’t know if you’re vested or not
but if you are…be gone. The severance package is Sh~t. I worked there.”
Flakka flakka flakka ain’t got nothing on Krokodil. Google image it. I dare ya.
Hey Grim,
Should have have walked a bit north tonight, we were grilling lamb chops on Allenhurst Beach. Could hear the concert at the Pony like we were right there. Stop by tomorrow for a Painkiller.
For the last several years, the only reason I peruse this board is for your infrequent updates from the PRI (People’s Republik of Ithaka)…….I am still patiently waiting for an Occupy Ithaca movement……we will all drive Maseratis up there and take over the Ithaca Commons with rented party tents for extended hookers and blow……
Splat What Was He Thinking says:
July 11, 2015 at 8:11 pm
chi (15)-
What an absolute slackwad. He’s obviously a casualty of the new Amerikan prosperity.
“So while he should be planning a 10-year anniversary GTG for the board, grim is choosing instead to bust a nut with the transgender hookers in AP……”
OTOH, if you told me at the beginning I’d be hanging out at a RE bust blog that’s lasted for ten years, I’d tell you to put a bullet between my eyes.
In the PRI last week. Amazingly, they are finally finishing the Commons.
Other than that, no news to report. Other than lots of fat chicks who don’t shave their armpits walking around town smoking blunts in the open.
PRI the only place in the world where you can’t tell the hipster chicks and the trailer trash apart.
Teeth. One has them. The other does not. Have not figured out which.
Trailer Trash take showers; Hipsters do not.
Splat What Was He Thinking says:
July 12, 2015 at 10:24 am
PRI the only place in the world where you can’t tell the hipster chicks and the trailer trash apart.
leftwing says:
July 12, 2015 at 12:34 pm
Teeth. One has them. The other does not. Have not figured out which.
“For those who missed today’s festivities in Brussels, here is the 30,000 foot summary: Europe has given Greece a “choice”: hand over sovereignty to Germany Europe or undergo a 5 year Grexit “time out”, which is a polite euphemism for get the hell out.”
Got Bitgold?
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-07-12/greek-choice-hand-over-sovereignty-germany-or-take-five-year-euro-time-out
Trailer Trash make minimum wage; Hipsters protest for minimum wage, but live off their trust funds.
I think that soon Hipsters will start to protest for minimum RETURN legislation on their investment portfolios.
Everything you need to know about Greece in a pithy little soundbite. The destiny of a nation hangs in the balance AND BY TWEET…….
Yanis Varoufakis, says family obligations will keep him away from Friday night’s parliament session to debate the government’s proposed reforms in return for a third bailout. The government has asked for parliament’s approval to use the Greek proposals sent to creditors Thursday as the basis for negotiations with the creditors due to start Saturday. The vote is expected sometime overnight Friday. Varoufakis tweeted that he would be spending the weekend with his daughter before she returns to Australia, where she lives. He sent parliament a letter saying he was voting in favor of the motion.
Didn’t he resign last week?
He is still a voting member of parliament who has been highly involved in this entire process. You would think someone who would hold such an office would have enough pragmatism and reverence to offer his insights…..
To be clear, I think it is readily apparent to most of us that the Obamunist would behave in the identical petulant and self-indulgent temper tantrum……..so maybe we are no better…..
#24 [sync]
They took infrastructure back from ACS in 2010(?) and hired one of their consultants as a FT Chubb employee (a far as I know he is still there but his bags are packed). On the other hand they outsourced the entire QA division in late 2013. A coworker and I managed one aspect of it (mostly SO, CM and final software releases). Heard that they have a small army H1Bs handling it now…badly.
Splat. The name sounds familiar but there were thousands working there. I did however know a JJ but definitely not the same one on here.
Funny thing the last few years at Whitehouse: Every time there was a fire drill (once a quarter?) there were noticeably fewer people (yup I was a ‘volunteer(d)’ Fire Marshal).
Wish I could have coasted a few more years…but then I might have punched someone (every man has a BS toleration point, I reached mine) Nah, left at the perfect time.
BTW – I attended the Chubb Institute in Parsippany, too (back when it was a real school). Reminded me of the USAF – it was that tough! Even had to wear a suit and tie!
School is gone (2003? – it was crap after about 1991) and now the company will be, too.
Kick the Greeks outa the goddam EU already, and let’s get this party started.
#11 Chi
“the steel skeleton was owned by a bankrupted contractor ”
That is the funniest thing I have read in here in a long time. Did the mayor tell you they took “gullible” out of the dictionary?
You need to do a bit more research on AP. Here’s a starter.
http://www.nj.com/business/index.ssf/2007/12/asbury_parks_esperanza_condo_p.html
NJT #42:
The ACS contract ended in 2011; Chubb gave the job to IBM starting 2012.
Igate manages QA now. The original team was quite good. The Chubb guy running it was British (I think, maybe Ozzie) and he knew his stuff. He had some good Igate resources assigned to him. But he’s gone, his Igate people are gone and the new crowd (both on the Chubb side and igate) are a bunch of clowns. The new Chubb managers (outside hires) are self promoting windbags; the Igate guys are just their B team.
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