From CNBC:
US home prices rise 5.9 percent to 31-month high in Jan: S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller
US home price gains reached a 31-month high in January, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price Index.
The index, which measures all nine U.S. census divisions, found that home prices rose 5.9 percent year-over-year in the month, up from December’s 5.7 percent annual gain.
Of the nation’s 20 largest cities, three reached their all-time highs in January: Seattle, Portland, and Denver. And 12 cities reported greater price increases in the year ending January 2017 versus the year ending December 2016, the report said.
The S&P/Case Shiller 20-city composite index, which tracks the nation’s largest cities, gained 5.7 percent year-over-year in January, up from 5.5 percent the previous month.
The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Indices is a monthly report published on the last Tuesday of each month, constructed to accurately track the price path of typical single-family homes located in each metropolitan area provided.
“Housing and home prices continue on a generally positive upward trend,” said David M. Blitzer, managing director and chairman of the index committee at S&P Dow Jones Indices.
@paulkrugman
So much winning you’ll get sick of winning.
Housing market in North Jersey healthy? Historically low interest rates, constricted supply and almost no appreciation in most areas. NOT HEALTHY! This doesn’t mean we are headed for another 30% drop in values. It does mean you shouldn’t be betting on substantial appreciation any time soon.
When do you become “31 year realtor”?
30 year realtor says:
March 31, 2017 at 9:20 am
Housing market in North Jersey healthy? Historically low interest rates, constricted supply and almost no appreciation in most areas. NOT HEALTHY! This doesn’t mean we are headed for another 30% drop in values. It does mean you shouldn’t be betting on substantial appreciation any time soon.
Four more years to 40 year realtor.
Watch as Flynn punks the entire Democratic Party. Again!
Just received the “spring selling season” letter from our Realtor, inventory constrained Bla Bla Bla and he is basically begging for our listing.
Flynn is a case of be careful you may get more than you asked for. He knows where the bodies are buried. Flynn was head of DIA under Obama, and a host of other top Army positions during the wars of the last two decades.
Watch as Flynn punks the entire Democratic Party. Again!
LOL!
Wait, I thought housing prices never go down in North Jersey?
Also that limited immunity means a book deal too.
Was Krugman referring to the bill to de-fund planned parenthood?
Grab them by the puzzy says:
March 31, 2017 at 8:26 am
@paulkrugman
So much winning you’ll get sick of winning.
Now, for all of you readers who actually think Real Estate
Just closed on a two family in western Jersey this past week. Not P’burg. Price: high $11x,000. Property was listed last year at 30% higher. On first contact attempt, Broker was a jerk, never returned my call. Never asked for my name, hehe. So, I waited till listing was about to expire and contacted owner directly. We agreed to wait and eventually negotiated privately.
The two units were well maintained as the owner lived in one of them and kept the other empty for many years. Advantage #1: non-occupied apartments scare many buyers and the banks. Banks won’t lend based on ‘perceived’ income streams. I paid cash.
Owner is renting his apartment back to me for $1200. I am in process of getting other unit leased for $1100. This one is HUD supported. Showed the prospective tenants the unit BEFORE property was even closed upon.
I have already filed a tax appeal this week on the property as it is 50% overassessed. Had to go to county seat to look up valid comparable sales, as no town accepts ‘tainted’ sales for appeals. There is a trick to this. Not broadcasting it here. Subsequently had to go to this town and neighboring one to figure out which ones were actually multi-unit. No tax record or on-line source lists this. Time consuming!
But, I got the job done. 5 comparables. See what happens.
Now, cash-to-cash NET return expected is 16%. I intend to do a cash out refinance once all the paperwork and leases settle down. Soon, hopefully. I have memberships in ethnic-based Credit Unions where they don’t abide by FNMA rules. They hold the mortgages. I can get up to 75% of the evaluation back. That will be a tricky part. Hopefully, this process will cascade.
If refinance works, my net cash2cash return will be about 75%.
Wish me luck.
Is anyone on this forum brave enough to attempt anything similar?
Pumpkin?
““The concern is that financial conditions are quite easy and we are generating a sizable positive impulse to growth at a time when the economy seems to be at full employment and inflation is close to the Fed’s target,” Hatzius said. “So, at a time when you really probably want more trend growth rather than well-above-trend growth, it seems like we are on track for a period of well-above-trend growth.”
Some FOMC participants, like Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren, are already making that case. He said in a March 29 Bloomberg Television interview that “we don’t want to grow so much faster than potential at this point,” as he argued for four rate increases in 2017.
Ultimately, the Fed’s response to easier financial conditions should hinge on whether or not that boost in business sentiment translates to an actual acceleration in consumption, said Freedman.
“Stock markets go up. That in itself is not relevant,” he said. “What is relevant is its effect on people’s willingness to spend.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-31/how-the-yellen-fed-got-religion-over-the-stock-market-and-policy
30 year. Seriously ? What do you know I mean it’s not like real estate is your livelihood career etc just wait and pumps will set you straight.
Wouldn’t even think twice! First off, your risk is minimal. Even if you lose 100% (impossible), you are only in for 100k. The returns you will make if this all works out make it a no brainer. The risk to reward would have me licking my chops. I would take that risk every single time.
The best part of the deal is the actual price paid. You are going to create a cash flow of 2300 and only pay 100,000 for this opportunity. I dream of opportunities like that. I would pay 230,000 based on that income return (obviously rental demand in that area plays into the price). I play by the multiple of 10. If the property produces an income of 10,000 a year, a great price for that property would be 100,000. That’s almost impossible to find and my definition of an extremely favorable deal, so your purchase price looks like a lottery ticket based on income produced.
Good luck, think you are making a very good move. Obviously, don’t know all the details, but looks good based on the information provided.
“Is anyone on this forum brave enough to attempt anything similar?
Pumpkin?”
Sorry, was thinking fast and made a mistake. I would pay 276,000 based on the monthly income produced on this property.
Nj’s economy was last to catch up. Give it some time to see real appreciation, have to let the wage inflation go to work. Labor market improving big time, we are below the national avg in unemployment. So another year or two for the impact to start being felt. Consumer is getting more confident by the day. Once you start seeing real appreciation in most towns, the dominoes will fall. Everyone will start chasing those gains and you know the rest of the story. Rinse, wash, repeat.
30 year realtor says:
March 31, 2017 at 9:20 am
Housing market in North Jersey healthy? Historically low interest rates, constricted supply and almost no appreciation in most areas. NOT HEALTHY! This doesn’t mean we are headed for another 30% drop in values. It does mean you shouldn’t be betting on substantial appreciation any time soon.
I have to tell my boss about this wage inflation.
30 year see pumps just explained it to you! Listen and learn!!
“THE news that average wages grew by 2.9% in December, the final full month of the Obama presidency, provides more evidence that America’s labour market is heating up. For some time, America has been creating plentiful jobs—2016 was the fifth consecutive year with more than 2m job gains. But wage growth has been weak enough to cast doubt on the labour market’s strength. A commonly cited reason for paltry pay rises was the number of 25- to 54-year-olds—dubbed “prime age” workers—who had stopped looking for work after the recession, and hence were no longer counted as unemployed. Wages, the argument went, would not pick up until they were encouraged back to work.
With the average pay-cheque now growing faster than at any time since 2009—when layoffs of low-paid workers were artificially boosting average wages—that argument is getting harder to make. In fact, 2.9% wage growth may be close to the limit of what the economy can produce without sparking inflation. Prime-age labour-market participation surged in the past year or so, and has now recovered about a third of its fall after the recession. Some of the remaining shortfall is almost certainly structural, rather than something stimulus, such as lower interest rates, can fix. After all, the participation of prime-age men has been falling since the 1960s, suggesting supply-side factors, such as the declining value of the skills of uneducated workers, are at work. And as the returns to schooling rise, you would naturally expect more people to choose to study rather than work.
Productivity growth, meanwhile, has been slow for a decade. That limits the potential for wage gains that do not spark inflation. Demographic forces are a further brake on how fast average wages can rise sustainably. The onset of the recession coincided with the first retirements of the baby-boom generation. As high-earners at the end of their careers have left the workforce, they have been replaced by low-earning younger folk. According to researchers at the San Francisco Fed, that has helped keep average pay rates down. That, too, suggests a lower speed-limit for wage growth than before the financial crisis, and hence that December’s wage growth indicates a labour market at close to full health.
That recovery is to be cheered. But the timing is frustrating for the outgoing president. If paychecks swell in 2017, Donald Trump will claim the credit, despite the fact that wage growth first began picking up in 2015 (see chart). During the campaign, Mr Trump cast doubt on official labour-market statistics, saying that they painted a rosy picture of the economy. Next year he will probably champion them.”
http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2017/01/america-s-labour-market
D-FENS says:
March 31, 2017 at 11:46 am
I have to tell my boss about this wage inflation.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/10/21/after-15-flat-years-american-wages-are-finally-really-rising.html
“There’s terrific news in the federal government’s latest, and most detailed, annual report on pay: American wages reached record levels last year after stagnating or falling from 2001 through 2012. Wages began rising in 2013, but initially at anemic rates.
Even better, my analysis of this data shows that the rate of wage growth per worker is accelerating and that the number of people with any paid work has been growing for a record 79 consecutive months, both signs that the economy is improving for more than just the tenth of workers paid $90,000 or more.
The most important measure is the median annual wage—half make more, half less. Last year the median wage rose to a record $29,930, up $1,074 over 2014.
To put that in perspective, in the 15 years from 2000 to 2014 the inflation-adjusted median annual wage rose by just $6. That’s right—six dollars.”
Pumps consumer sentiment unexpectedly fell in March. Just saying.
“It has been a long time coming — eight years, in fact — but the economic recovery is finally showing up in the average American worker’s paycheck in a big way.
There have been plenty of winners in the recovery, which began in mid-2009: companies, homeowners, investors and, especially, households at the apex of the economic pyramid. But the paucity of gains in take-home pay has stoked anxiety and frustration for many others, a factor in the wave of discontent that President-elect Donald J. Trump rode to victory in November.
But even as Mr. Trump prepares to succeed President Obama in two weeks, the Labor Department reported on Friday that average hourly earnings rose by 2.9 percent last year, the best annual performance since the recovery began.
And many economists expect the trend to gain momentum this year, as a tighter labor market forces employers to pay more to hire and retain workers. “This is a turning point for the overall economy,” said Diane Swonk, a veteran independent economist in Chicago.””
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/06/business/economy/unemployment-jobs-report-h
Once again, paying attention to too many details. Stick to the main picture. Demographics and business cycle are converging to create a big boom. That’s all you need to know.
3b says:
March 31, 2017 at 12:14 pm
Pumps consumer sentiment unexpectedly fell in March. Just saying.
Big Boom?
Reminds me of the time we were in Chinatown buying fireworks – pre-Guiliani.
Was looking for the big stuff, bigger than m80s.
Chinese kid who looked like short round from Indiana Jones takes us into a back alley and basement, full of fireworks. Pulls out what looked like a god damn stick of dynamite.
BIG DAMAGE YOU BLOW UP CAH
(Car).
I miss those days.
Speaking of Short Round. Just got finished showing the first two Indiana Jones films to Gator Jr. He loved them. The third was pretty weak, but now it’s a necessity. Was impressed that son recognized Mr. Jones from the recent Star Wars film we saw. I explained to him (once I noticed) that the score was also performed by the same conductor/creator.
back in those days, it was all about Blockbusters and Pineapples. We put one in a porter john and put a 30 min wick on it. The end result was awful.
Yeh, Blumpy, I will show your analysis to my boss and demand a wage increase. I will also tell all co-workers without a raise this year to prepare for big one soon. Lastly, I will tell a former co-worker that a job offer is coming soon even though he was let go last July. If there are jobs now then there are much fewer in banking and pharma than other industries, perhaps pizza delivery or bus boy.
Damn things looked like they filled cardboard toilet paper tubes with gunpowder and capped them with wax.
Do that today and they’ll shoot you dead and call you a terrorist.
Feel bad for the kids today, they have no idea what 4th of July meant to the kids in my generation. Cherry bombs, M-80’s, and blockbusters. M-80 roman candles happen to be one of my favorites. Nothing like a good ol m-80 roman candle battle. Man, what good times.
Wh-wh-what? That would run counter to Professor Pumpskin’s peer-reviewed research on demographics and cycles.
Housing market in North Jersey healthy? Historically low interest rates, constricted supply and almost no appreciation in most areas. NOT HEALTHY! This doesn’t mean we are headed for another 30% drop in values. It does mean you shouldn’t be betting on substantial appreciation any time soon.
That tried and true method got Hillary the nomination.
Flynn is a case of be careful you may get more than you asked for. He knows where the bodies are buried.
That tried and true method got Hillary the nomination.
Flynn is a case of be careful you may get more than you asked for. He knows where the bodies are buried.
I feel your pain. Your industry has been evolving and going through tough changes. But for a majority of the workers out there, things are finally getting better to the point where they are comfortable quitting their job to look for better opportunities. This is one of the first signals of coming wage inflation. When people are scared to leave their job due to lack of better opportunities like 8 years ago, the writing is on the wall.
Bystander says:
March 31, 2017 at 1:32 pm
Yeh, Blumpy, I will show your analysis to my boss and demand a wage increase. I will also tell all co-workers without a raise this year to prepare for big one soon. Lastly, I will tell a former co-worker that a job offer is coming soon even though he was let go last July. If there are jobs now then there are much fewer in banking and pharma than other industries, perhaps pizza delivery or bus boy.
Why was the South Korea president arrested? She did the same damm thing as Hillary.
Do you know which employees are experiencing the greatest wage inflation? Those that work in a fantasy world. Passaic County. Live there. Die there. Get carried out of your “investment” feet first.
Steam,
You’re correct in that Flynn is trying to punk the Dems. I don’t think Congress gets proffers. So Flynn is going to pull a Pantangeles and testify to nothing.
I bet the Dems fight it. And I bet the committee grants it. But to my knowledge, it doesn’t inoculate against prosecution so I expect Flynn to get it and then say nothing of consequence.
The bigger question is, Is there a stranger in our house?
Is there a Gunter Guillaume to a Willy Brandt?
Is there a Yevgeny Ivanov to a John Profumo?
Gentleman, you are looking at it as a Left/Right issue. Until proven otherwise this is a Spy/Spy thing.
Elon musk: Developing AI is like summoning the devil
@nytimes
Fox News has stood by Bill O’Reilly despite 5 sexual harassment settlements — including 2 since Roger Ailes left
@alt-nyt
The media establishment has stood by Bill Clinton despite proven sexual assault that would have caused immediate dismissal of any other executive, rather a front row box at the Democratic nomination.
Long, but very well worth the read.
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/03/27/the-reclusive-hedge-fund-tycoon-behind-the-trump-presidency
Some gems from the article.
“Magerman told the Wall Street Journal that Mercer’s political opinions “show contempt for the social safety net that he doesn’t need, but many Americans do.” He also said that Mercer wants the U.S. government to be “shrunk down to the size of a pinhead.” Several former colleagues of Mercer’s said that his views are akin to Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand. Magerman told me, “Bob believes that human beings have no inherent value other than how much money they make. A cat has value, he’s said, because it provides pleasure to humans. But if someone is on welfare they have negative value. If he earns a thousand times more than a schoolteacher, then he’s a thousand times more valuable.” Magerman added, “He thinks society is upside down—that government helps the weak people get strong, and makes the strong people weak by taking their money away, through taxes.” He said that this mind-set was typical of “instant billionaires” in finance, who “have no stake in society,” unlike the industrialists of the past, who “built real things.””
“Patterson said that his relationship with Mercer has always been collegial. In 1993, Patterson, at that time a Renaissance executive, recruited Mercer from I.B.M., and they worked together for the next eight years. But Patterson doesn’t share Mercer’s libertarian views, or what he regards as his susceptibility to conspiracy theories about Bill and Hillary Clinton. During Bill Clinton’s Presidency, Patterson recalled, Mercer insisted at a staff luncheon that Clinton had participated in a secret drug-running scheme with the C.I.A. The plot supposedly operated out of an airport in Mena, Arkansas. “Bob told me he believed that the Clintons were involved in murders connected to it,” Patterson said. Two other sources told me that, in recent years, they had heard Mercer claim that the Clintons have had opponents murdered.
The Mena story is one of several dark fantasies put forth in the nineties by The American Spectator, an archconservative magazine. According to Patterson, Mercer read the publication at the time. David Brock, a former Spectator writer who is now a liberal activist, told me that the alleged Mena conspiracy was based on a single dubious source, and was easily disproved by flight records. “It’s extremely telling that Mercer would believe that,” Brock said. “It says something about his conspiratorial frame of mind, and the fringe circle he was in. We at the Spectator called them Clinton Crazies.””
““Most people at Renaissance didn’t challenge him” about politics, Patterson said. But Patterson clashed with him over climate change; Mercer said that concerns about it were overblown. After Patterson shared with him a scientific paper on the subject, Mercer and his brother, Randall, who also worked at the hedge fund, sent him a paper by a scientist named Arthur Robinson, who is a biochemist, not a climate expert. “It looked like a scientific paper, but it was completely loaded with selective and biased information,” Patterson recalled. The paper argued that, if climate change were real, future generations would “enjoy an Earth with far more plant and animal life.” Robinson owns a sheep ranch in Cave Junction, Oregon, and on the property he runs a laboratory that he calls the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine. Mercer helps subsidize Robinson’s various projects, which include an effort to forestall aging.
Patterson sent Mercer a note calling Robinson’s arguments “completely false.” He never heard back. “I think if you studied Bob’s views of what the ideal state would look like, you’d find that, basically, he wants a system where the state just gets out of the way,” Patterson said. “Climate change poses a problem for that world view, because markets can’t solve it on their own.””
“Trump greeted Caddell warmly in North Charleston, and after giving a speech he conferred privately with him, in an area reserved for V.I.P.s and for White House officials, including Stephen Bannon, the President’s top strategist, and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law. Caddell is well known to this inner circle. He first met Trump in the eighties. (“People said he was just a clown,” Caddell said. “But I’ve learned that you should always pay attention to successful ‘clowns.’ ”) Caddell shared the research he did for Mercer with Trump and others in the campaign, including Bannon, with whom he has partnered on numerous projects.
The White House declined to divulge what Trump and Caddell discussed in North Charleston, as did Caddell. But that afternoon Trump issued perhaps the most incendiary statement of his Presidency: a tweet calling the news media “the enemy of the American people.” The proclamation alarmed liberals and conservatives alike. William McRaven, the retired Navy admiral who commanded the 2011 raid that killed Osama bin Laden, called Trump’s statement a “threat to democracy.” The President is known for tweeting impulsively, but in this case his words weren’t spontaneous: they clearly echoed the thinking of Caddell, Bannon, and Mercer. In 2012, Caddell gave a speech at a conference sponsored by Accuracy in Media, a conservative watchdog group, in which he called the media “the enemy of the American people.” That declaration was promoted by Breitbart News, a platform for the pro-Trump alt-right, of which Bannon was the executive chairman, before joining the Trump Administration. One of the main stakeholders in Breitbart News is Mercer.”
“Everyone has a right to express their views.” But, he adds, “when the government becomes more like a corporation, with the richest 0.001% buying shares and demanding board seats, then we cease to be a representative democracy.” Instead, he warns, “we become an oligarchy.”
This is what I’m talking about…
https://youtu.be/0Ev8t-UzeH0?t=3m33s
So, the polar opposite of your posts, right Pumps?
Long, but very well worth the read.
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