From Corelogic:
CoreLogic Reports Homeowner Equity Increased by $908 Billion in 2017
CoreLogic® (NYSE: CLGX), a leading global property information, analytics and data-enabled solutions provider, today released the Home Equity Report for the fourth quarter of 2017, which shows that U.S. homeowners with mortgages (which account for roughly 63 percent of all properties, according to a 2016 American Community Survey) have seen their equity increase 12.2 percent year over year, representing a gain of $908.4 billion since the fourth quarter of 2016.
Additionally, homeowners gained more than $15,000 in home equity between the fourth quarter of 2016 and the fourth quarter of 2017. While home equity grew nationwide, western states experienced the largest increase. Washington homeowners gained an average of approximately $40,000 in home equity, and California homeowners gained an average of approximately $44,000 in home equity (Figure 1).
On a quarter-over-quarter basis, from the third quarter of 2017 to the fourth quarter of 2017, the total number of mortgaged homes in negative equity decreased 1 percent to 2.5 million homes, or 4.9 percent of all mortgaged properties (the third quarter of 2017 data was revised. Revisions with public records data are standard, and to ensure accuracy, CoreLogic incorporates the newly released public data to provide updated results.). Negative equity in the fourth quarter of 2017 decreased 21 percent year over year from 3.2 million homes – or 6.3 percent of all mortgaged properties – in the fourth quarter of 2016.
“Home-price growth has been the primary driver of home-equity wealth creation,” said Dr. Frank Nothaft, chief economist for CoreLogic. “The CoreLogic Home Price Index grew 6.2 percent during 2017, the largest calendar-year increase since 2013. Likewise, the average growth in home equity was more than $15,000 during 2017, the most in four years. Because wealth gains spur additional consumer purchases, the rise in home-equity wealth during 2017 should add more than $50 billion to U.S. consumption spending over the next two to three years.”
Negative equity, often referred to as being “underwater” or “upside down,” applies to borrowers who owe more on their mortgages than their homes are worth. Negative equity can occur because of a decline in a home’s value, an increase in mortgage debt or both. Negative equity peaked at 26 percent of mortgaged residential properties in the fourth quarter of 2009, based on the CoreLogic equity data analysis which began in the third quarter of 2009.
4:20
Man the Trump’s seem like the Word’s biggest douchebags.
Sure, they’ll make you feel warm and fuzzy with a $5 flat fix, but you will rue the day you drop $800-$1,000 there for a new set of rubber. It seems like they up-sell you an alignment (which I *always* buy with a new set of tires, why wouldn’t you?) but then just skip the alignment.
I go lifetime alignment at Firestone. It’s not a bad price and I’ve already had to use it 3 times on my 6 year old car.
Ain’t that the old $19.99 oil change and car wash gig?
They upsell you on the air filter, cabin filter (even if you don’t have one), the tire rotation, the hand-wax-job, air freshener, underbody wash, blah blah blah. The $19.99 oil change ends up costing you $150.00 (because your car is synthetic, and that’s a $70 upcharge too).
Usually, if you are a rube, they’ll walk back with a dirty air filter, not your dirty air filter, just one they have laying around, and show you how bad it is, and tell you how bad your fuel economy is with that dirty filter in there, but no worries, they’ll change it the $9 filter for $45. They won’t though, they’ll shake out your nearly brand new filter and put it right back in.
There’s nothing like the smell of witness tampering and obstruction of justice in the morning.
He said he has “very intentionally wanted to be the witness on the ground” to tell future generations exactly why Congress has not acted. In his view, it’s not because of partisanship or the failure of the Democratic system, but rather special interest money flowing unfettered into campaigns, squelching any potential bipartsian compromises on climate legislation.
“There’s a story that needs to be told, because when some coastal farmer in Malaysia or Madagascar or Sri Lanka has lost their farm and their village has had to go and there’s fighting for resources, all the things the Defense Department talks about at the policy level, all that stuff happens to somebody, to some kid, to some tribe, to some village, that stuff happens, and they’re mad and they want answers,” Whitehouse said.
“And here we are sitting on a hill, with our lamp up to the world, and right now we are providing a disgusting example of corruption of government by a huge special interest. And we’ve got to be able to fix that.”
What you learn by giving 200 Senate speeches on climate change – Mashable
https://apple.news/APQZiqYIgTKe4DV98ZB-bgA
8:49
Grim,
You can’t shake out an air filter. Me bad, I forgot millennials don’t know how to change it themselves and don’t even know how one looks.
BTW, I owned one of these business as of summer of last year. Was a side business for 10 years until 1/2016 when my ‘real job’ employer decided I was too old to work in the IT field. Just turned 60. Hee, Hee. The joke was on them. They never knew what was up because I worked from home. Sold that Lube business because I was on premises (well, half a day anyway), upped sales by 40% and sold for a killing to a buyer who came out of the cold.
Retired now and accumulating more income properties. Just closed on another one yesterday. Paid cash.
Hee. Hee.
There’s another up-sell built into oil changes at the quick-lube places. The price is for up to 5 quarts of oil. It seems to me like every vehicle I’ve come across in the last 20 years, including 4-bangers, require at least 5.5 quarts. We always do the dino oil at Valvoline for our grocery getter and never buy anything else. My wife also scans the mail for $5-$15 off Valvoline coupons. We have $15 one in the kitchen right now. I was just wondering if anyone has run a counter-scam like this: Insist on only paying for 5 quarts to avoid the up-charge, then come back for a free top-up. Our 2002, which met it’s demise last year, burned a bit of oil at the end. We would frequently show up for a free top-up. They ended up changing their policy, probably because of blue smoke specials showing up every week. Now they only allow 1 top-up between changes.
Probably 3 years ago I drove our 2002 to work and I thought I saw an idiot light flash for a second, but I didn’t catch which one. When I pulled into my parking spot at work I saw the low oil pressure light come on, for just a second. Now I know oil pressure and oil fill level are not directly related, but they certainly are when you are down a lot of oil. I checked the dip stick and it was dry! I drove right to the closest Valvoline (not our regular one) and told them my stick was dry and I wanted an oil change. They actually asked me if I wanted a free top-up instead. I said absolutely not, I want whatever is left in the pan drained and I want all clean oil and filter (which I paid for). It took a couple more oil changes before we figured out the problem. My wife was getting the oil changed and they informed her that the drain bolt stripped out. They gave her a free “last chance” oil plug (kind of like a molly bolt). I went right back to the place and complained, since that location had done all of our oil changes for the last dozen years. The manager was nice, he even changed the oil one more time to check the threads. You just know the fill bolt was over-torqued who knows how many times and that’s what stripped to threads. I also found out at that point that the oil pan is aluminum, which seems like a pretty stupid choice by the manufacturer (Ford 3.0L V6) so we just used that last chance plug for the rest of the car’s life. I just know the low paid guys down in the hole don’t use a torque wrench, or don’t know how to use one properly. Anyway, the car started using less oil between changes after they put the new bolt in. That’s where the oil was going. When you don’t have a driveway or a garage it would be easy to miss a slight leak, especially with 5W-30 oil that cools down (as opposed to 0w-20 like they use now).
My most recent car where I actually used synthetic, it certainly wasn’t at one of those places. I would buy my own Mobil-1 at Walmart, an OEM filter and crush ring from the dealer, and then would hand everything over to my “real” mechanic. So it cost me $30 in labor and about the same in materials, but I knew everything was done right for $60.
Cool. The homeowners in jersey can tap into that equity to pay for sewer repairs the town should be paying for but have dumped onto the homeowners instead.
I actually felt bad for pumps. I would be mad too.
X, is everyone. Is always easier to pick a boogeyman than to think it out.
By the way. Sater said last nite after McCabe’s firing, that Trump was getting a financial deal with a Moscow/Putin back forbiden by sanctions, while he was campaigning for prez in ’16.
Sater is an odd character, but has credibility with the 3 letter crowds. He was the one that provided Bin Laden’s 5 phone numbers.
This is starting to look more and more like the Feds starting way before the election, were doing a sting operation on Trump based on his Russian activities reputation and alleged money laundering/tax evasion. It looks like he bit, but also got elected POTUS.
My favorite was when Midas told me my cabin air filter was dirty and wanted to replace it. I asked them if they always go through their customers glove compartment without permission.
CULTURAL COSTS OF HIGH HOUSE PRICES
Much has been written about how high house prices are reducing (pdf) home ownership and depressing real incomes. This is an economic menace: it depresses productivity and increases economic instability (pdf). But I wonder: does it also retard cultural and technological change?
I ask because the emergence of youth culture as we know it in the 1950s was the product of the fact that the post-war economic boom put money into the pockets of young people. As Billy Bragg says:
What happened in 1955, ’56 was the first generation of British kids who were born during the war left school. And they left school at a time of high employment. So they were able to find work pretty quickly. So they were getting paid more, sometimes more than their parents. And they, you know – the only expense they had was giving housekeeping to their mom. So they had a lot of money to spend things on. So sales of cosmetics, of records, of clothes kind of took off in the mid-’50s. And this generation really is the first generation to identify themselves as distinct teenagers.
Friedrich Hayek said a similar thing. In The Constitution of Liberty he wrote that economic progress takes place “in echelon fashion.” New goods at first are “the caprice of the chosen few” and they then spread. He thought the “chosen few” were the rich. But they can equally well be younger people who are more open to new products and experiences: grandparents, for example, have iPads because their children and grandchildren got them first. Blondie-1371666906
All this implies that if the incomes of the young are squeezed by high housing costs then we’ll see less cultural or technical progress. And this, I suspect, is just what we’ve got. The distinctive products and experiences we associate with millennials are small beer – literally so in the craft beers served in what we oldsters call short measures: coffee, avocado toast and free apps. This is not the stuff of cultural dynamism.
There’s more. Art and culture, as much as industry, benefits from agglomeration effects – the ability of creative people to live near each other. In the 60s and 70s countless musicians moved into rundown New York apartments where they could live cheaply whilst they honed their craft and waited for their break. Today, this is no longer possible in New York or London unless you have rich parents. As Chris Stein has said:
The biggest shame is that everybody’s gotta have a job to live in the city now. There’s no time to make art. How can you keep your credibility if you have some stupid job you hate and still be a radical?
Cheap housing gave us Blondie and Philip Glass. Expensive housing gives us Mumford and Sons*.
What it gives us in greater numbers, though, are drones – commute, work, sleep: repeat for 50 years. I know that PR-based surveys are unreliable, but it’s not wholly surprising that so many millennials are suffering quarter-life crises.
In this sense, expensive housing has totalitarian tendencies: it enforces uniformity. For some, this might be a feature not a bug. For those of us who value diversity, however, it is certainly not.
Now of course, all this is necessarily speculative. It’s a story about what hasn’t happened. But then, that is the very nature of opportunity cost: we don’t see the road not taken. And the road closed by high housing costs might well have been a pleasant one.
* I’m not saying that a rich background precludes musical genius; Nick Drake and Townes van Zandt are obvious counter-examples. It’s just that if you draw your talent only from the rich then you have much thinner pickings.
from a blog
http://stumblingandmumbling.typepad.com/stumbling_and_mumbling/2018/03/cultural-costs-of-high-house-prices.html
Animals also produce amity to humans senlo.homework.amsterdam and this is exceptionally signal in the emotional life. Animals like dogs can also be in put off away everyday to to show the physically challenged like the thick and also the old. This is because spacof.homework.amsterdam they shut very lilliputian other to learn atypical other animals.
Pumpkin killer interesting thesis.
Experienced real estate agents across NJ seeing home prices falling. A crisis. Demand nonexistent.
What the hell? Now it’s cold again too? 15 degrees here in Boston.
I just thought of another thing that puts the 1960’s through mid 1980’s in context. The front door of our house was never locked. Not at night, not ever. I may have a vague recollection of the door being locked if we went away on vacation or to my grandparents’ house in PA for the weekend. The only reason I would remember this is because it was a little bit of an ordeal to unlock the door. I might also remember that we locked the front door if we went away, but left the rear sliding glass door open in the back and somebody ran around to the back and opened the front door for the family from inside upon return.
Now we did have a protective dog, a mix of 3/4 collie, 1/4 German shepherd. He laid down three places at night: 1. When everyone was awake he laid with his back against our front door. 2. As some of the family went to bed he laid on the first landing of the stairs, in sight of the front door. 3. When everyone was in bed he slept at the top of the stairs. As implied above, I never had a key to our house, our front door was always unlocked. A few times the door was not closed properly and blew open. Police stopped by when they saw this at least once in the late 70’s. We heard later from them that they couldn’t even check it out or close the door because our dog was laying in the open doorway.
It might seem ridiculous or at least overly trusting to never have your front door locked. It was some of that, but it was another thing, something related to a context I continually try bring up as an oral tradition, much the same way that Pumps used to harp and harp about wage inflation. The other thing was that suburban lifestyle was whole ‘nother thing back then. Families were large, wives didn’t work. There was a slim to none chance that nobody was home. And if by some off-chance, nobody was home, there was almost zero chance that your three closest neighbors (both sides and across the street) were also not home.
I’ll shock you further. During the school day, pre- schoolers played in front yards unattended. The absolute second thing taught after kids learned to walk was not to cross the street. At about age 5 kids were taught to look both ways, twice, and then they were given across-the-street privileges. My own little brother was an early walker and a late talker. He wandered miles (yes, actually miles) away on multiple occasions. He was always found by far away neighbors or the police and returned. It was absolutely no big deal at all. My parents used to pin his name and address, written on a cloth scrap to the back of his shirt when he went outside. I’m talking Morris County, NJ, not Kentucky. My brother actually has a college degree and a life today, btw, but it was sketchy for a long time. He went to WVU and lived there for 10 years before finishing his degree and coming back to NJ.
Again, this long-windedness is just to provide some context to days gone by that I’m guessing even smart guys like grim don’t connect with. If you think it’s crazy that we never locked our front door you might find this even harder to believe. In the mid 1980’s I dated a waspy girl who lived in a beautiful lakeside cabin in Highland Lakes, NJ. Her grandparents had been very wealthy but lost all/most of their money in the early days of the Great Depression. They didn’t lose their wealth in the stock market, rather, they were over-invested in mink farms. Anyway, this beautiful lakefront cabin was the family’s Summer place and by the 1980’s it was their only place. Her Dad was the Superintendent of Schools in Mendham. Their front door had No Lock! it had the original wrought iron lift latch and nothing else. This is in 1988! I’ll go one better. Not only did they have no lock on their front door, they kept all of their car keys in the most logical place to not lose them: the ignition!
“Usually, if you are a rube, they’ll walk back with a dirty air filter, not your dirty air filter, just one they have laying around, and show you how bad it is, and tell you how bad your fuel economy is with that dirty filter in there, but no worries, they’ll change it the $9 filter for $45. They won’t though, they’ll shake out your nearly brand new filter and put it right back in.”
I change my own. Always have since the days it was a ring around the carb. The last time the Acura dealer tried to upsell me with the reminder, I said “reset it, I already changed the filter”. The momentary look of incredulity on her face was something.
Soooooo busy. And being reminded why I don’t like practicing law in NJ.
For a long time I used to use the K&N “rechargeable” air filters. In the later years they came with a sticker that said something like “DON’T DISCARD THIS FILTER”. I’m currently unconvinced as to whether the K&N actually “breathed better” and increased horsepower. It still seemed pretty cool to have, though. I think I used a K&N for the first half our 2002’s fifteen year lifespan and then went pack to the cheap paper ones.
I change my own. Always have since the days it was a ring around the carb. The last time the Acura dealer tried to upsell me with the reminder, I said “reset it, I already changed the filter”. The momentary look of incredulity on her face was something.
^^^ That’s probably another baby boomer marker. I’ll bet that for ages 49 and lower the knowledge of the existence of K&N air filters goes exponentially down.
Wanna see something funny? The top story today should be that McCabe got fired and why. Go to any news outlet, even international, and see what their lead story is. Even fox goes to the wrong extreme.
My wife’s favorite weekend show is CBS Sunday Morning. Their lead headlines were “Sharp Reaction to McCabe’s firing”, Trump stole Facebook Data from 50 million users, and then a Putin’s election story.
I used to work with more than a few guys who were raised in Russia. I asked them if anti-American propaganda was as prevalent on TV as I had heard. They just laughed. They told me that everyone with an ounce of intellect just automatically assumed from 1972 onward that everything on the news was a lie and they just ignored it all. I think we’re about there now.
I worked with a lot of Russian immigrants at Rutgers. None of them ever personally felt like America was an adversary. In fact, they were just happy to be here. The idea that our two countries are competing for anything is laughable. I think the closest we come to competing with the Russians is during the olympics.
For a long time I used to use the K&N “rechargeable” air filters. In the later years they came with a sticker that said something like “DON’T DISCARD THIS FILTER”. I’m currently unconvinced as to whether the K&N actually “breathed better” and increased horsepower. It still seemed pretty cool to have, though. I think I used a K&N for the first half our 2002’s fifteen year lifespan and then went pack to the cheap paper ones.
When I put a K&N on my mustang, it had a little more oomph to it. But just a little. I’d say it was good for 5 to 10 hp on a 4.6 L engine. On a smaller engine, obviously less. But I bought it simply because it was reusable. The hp gains were laughable to a turbo strapped on the car. Back in the day, kids were getting cold air intakes put on their car thinking they were now racers. It was pretty amusing.
I’ll shock you further. During the school day, pre- schoolers played in front yards unattended. The absolute second thing taught after kids learned to walk was not to cross the street. At about age 5 kids were taught to look both ways, twice, and then they were given across-the-street privileges.
My 3 and 6 year old are playing out front on their own right this second. The nosy neighbors look at my wife and I with disdain. When I was 5 (1985), you walked to school on your own and you were allowed to walk home for lunch. We won’t even let the high schoolers do this anymore.
like it!
Chuchundra says:
March 17, 2018 at 9:39 am
There’s nothing like the smell of witness tampering and obstruction of justice in the morning.
don’t have time to engage in silly games
I let the Subaru dealership deal with it
I have important things to do
grim says:
March 17, 2018 at 8:49 am
Ain’t that the old $19.99 oil change and car wash gig?
@TheDweck
Pence is afraid he’ll get drunk and fukc all the dogs
@kevincobbs
A friend in Savannah just told me that the city put out a warning that people are not to have alcohol or dogs near @VP Mike Pence who’s in town for St Patrick’s day. What an incredible nerd.
re: “We won’t even let the high schoolers do this anymore”
I was part of gang of kids in the Bronx growing up. Every apartment had 2-4 kids. We all ran around the neighborhood, parks, and golf course and even hopped on an off the Subway and hung out on Jerome ave and caused all kinds of trouble. We walked to school no parental supervision needed. This was all before the age of 8 when I moved to Jersey.
Flash forward to today and for my house the the bus stop is on the corner. Many of the parents drive their kid to the bus stop. I kid you not it is a block from my house, and three blocks from the farthest home in our 150 house development. There are kids that walk to the bus stop in all kinds of weather. That will be my kids too. The amount of parents dropping off their kids at 7:40 AM to middle school is staggering in the morning, and causes a massive traffic jam for the commuters headed to the parkway. There is no bus service for many of those kids (need to be over the train tracks) but the ones that can walk or ride bicycles a few blocks aren’t allowed.
The town of Fair Haven is not far from me. They promotes bicycling to school. 3rd grade and up.
http://tworivertimes.com/ready-set-go-third-graders-cycle-to-their-new-school-in-fair-haven/
The Russians were the reason we won WW 2 without their sacrifice we would have been far less effective. My own lineage comes from Russia that being said I want neither Old Russian Style communism OR their current flavor of strongman corruption. Thanks.
Ex pat one more 401k story for you regarding keeping a 401k in your old plan or rolling it into an IRA. My wife worked for a sketchy place where the husband and wife (plan admin) were the owners of the company. After leaving I tried to get her 401k rolled over to no avail. The fund companies kept saying without the signature of the administrator you cant roll the money over. The owner’s wife was being a bit of a prcik about this as she was not happy about losing the income my wife produced. So it was 2001 and email, google and internet forums were finally mainstream. I asked for help on the old fatwallet site and someone recommended I send an email to the US Dept of Labor -Director Eastern District in Manhattan. A week later we received a check in the mail and a follow up email from the director. I remember distinctly saying wow the internet is soo cool. Just one more thing to consider if leaving a small place it might make sense to take the money as you leave.
It also helped that the owner only offered 401k to half the employees so a call from the Director was not something he really did not want.
Direct US competitor? Not really, no.
But our “ally” in the Middle East has big plans for the dismantling of Syria that Putin inconveniently is getting in the way of. So he’s now the root of all evil apparently.
Blue Ribbon Teacher says:
March 18, 2018 at 11:32 am
I worked with a lot of Russian immigrants at Rutgers. None of them ever personally felt like America was an adversary. In fact, they were just happy to be here. The idea that our two countries are competing for anything is laughable. I think the closest we come to competing with the Russians is during the olympics.
And today kids have cellphones too and can be tracked
Blue Ribbon Teacher says:
March 18, 2018 at 11:40 am
I’ll shock you further. During the school day, pre- schoolers played in front yards unattended. The absolute second thing taught after kids learned to walk was not to cross the street. At about age 5 kids were taught to look both ways, twice, and then they were given across-the-street privileges.
My 3 and 6 year old are playing out front on their own right this second. The nosy neighbors look at my wife and I with disdain. When I was 5 (1985), you walked to school on your own and you were allowed to walk home for lunch. We won’t even let the high schoolers do this anymore.
4 Fed Hikes in 2018, None in 2019 Says Prestige’s Schenker – Bloomberg
https://apple.news/Am08yE1xTT2WhXpoMopjqKQ
Sounds about right…little fed induced recession and then fire away.
Being a real estate agent, you come from the view of a day trader (short term). If you are playing the long game, should you even worry about current short term market noise? I have no doubt in my mind that most nj real estate within commutable distance to nyc or philly will be worth significantly more come 20-30 years. Agree or disagree?
Yo! says:
March 17, 2018 at 8:52 pm
Experienced real estate agents across NJ seeing home prices falling. A crisis. Demand nonexistent.
Also shore properties, since it’s such a limited imventory.