From MarketWatch:
This is why Americans are losing confidence in the housing market
Today, less people are buying houses. According to Fannie Mae, a mere 24% of Americans feel like now is a good time to buy a house. Looking back to 2013, when 54% of consumers were confident in the housing market, it feels like a lot has changed in a small amount of time. It’s clear that the certainty of prospective homeowner is waning.
…
Houses are getting more expensive — period. A recent Zillow report found that the median home value is around $1 million in 197 different cities. This year alone saw the addition of 23 more cities to this not-so-exclusive club.This data is not reflective of metropolitan areas alone, and, in fact, this trend should concern any prospective homeowner regardless of location. According to a National Realtors Association report, the median price of a single family home is nearly $50,000 more expensive than two years ago.
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According to Pew Research, “Today’s real average wage (that is, the wage after accounting for inflation) has about the same purchasing power it did 40 years ago. And what wage gains there have been have mostly flowed to the highest-paid tier of workers.”The rise in house prices is far outpacing salary growth, and this has serious implications on the financial mobility of American families. In the current market, 1 in 200 people will experience home foreclosure, and anyone who undertakes homeownership without a very reliable income stream runs the risk of becoming one of these statistics.
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One of the greatest threats to the housing market is the consumer habits of young people. Millennials have already ruined Applebees and golf, and some experts predict the housing market could be the next victim of emerging consumer trends.According to Business Insider, millennials are buying homes at a slower-than-usual rate. In the past, 25–34 was the typical age to start shopping for houses, but it seems millennials are lagging behind. Data shows a major deterrent for young people is saving enough money for a down payment.
Financial inhibitors aside, there is a more universal reason millennials aren’t buying houses: young people simply have a different set of values. They are holding off on marriage, having kids older, and moving frequently.
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Mortgage interest rates have reached an all time high of 4.66% — an entire percent higher compared with this time last year, and a record high since 2011.A minor interest rate increase is not worth losing sleep over, but even a little bump can have a huge effect on the cost of homeownership. For example, 3/4 of a percentage point increase in mortgage rates would increase the monthly payment of a $200,000 mortgage by about $85.
As established above, first-time owners are already nervous about plunging into the housing market pool, but high mortgage rates impact another, surprising, demographic: current homeowners.
Homeowners that would normally sell their houses and upgrade to bigger ones are staying put due to high interest rates. It simply doesn’t make financial sense to forfeit a low interest rate for a higher one. High interest rates prevent mobility — someone who might have owned three houses in a lifetime will generally stick to one to avoid unreasonably high interest payments. This is bad for the housing market and even worse for anyone looking to own more than one house in a lifetime.
So, Kavanaugh’s nomination should get interesting this week.
Some interesting background to consider as you watch things unfold this week:
Ford (his accuser) reported this incident to her therapist in 2012. That is now offered as proof that the incident occurred.
Do you know what else was going on in 2012? Oh, just a little presidential election. Guess who Romney said he might pick to be on the supreme court…
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/09/kavanaughs_accuser_recovered_her_memory_at_the_time_dems_were_panicked_romney_would_win_and_nominate_him_to_scotus.html
It is not as interesting as you think D. Politics have gotten so dark in this country that even if Ford presented a video of the act, the Republicans would still give him a pass. Behind closed doors, they’d probably give him high fives for this badge of honor. But I don’t really fault them. Their brethren on the other side of the aisle (what’s left of them), are just as moronic. How Feinstein is still leading after watching the greatest collapse of her party and people like Menendez are still running after the corruption was clearly indicated, is no different. The truth is, it’s all about them and never about us. It hasn’t been about us in forever. Add Howard Dean to that list of people who need to step down.
I would recommend buying NGLOY.
Utilities are going to be beaten down by NI. Wait a bit and buy the others for the dividends.
So now we’re all held hostage by accusations of what we did back in high school? I don’t want to live on this planet any more.
Any questions?
I would recommend buying NGLOY.
Here: https://youtu.be/CV4rqXHIB00
Nah, it will be Kindergarten soon. Video footage will be shown that bullying and harassment tactics started by stealing sippy cups.
Is there a police report?
Kavanaugh underwent 6 FBI full-field investigations from 1993 to 2018. No allegation ever surfaced before.
AI folks. Your buttons are being pushed.
Article from 1992, History Rhymes……
“Politics in the selection of Supreme Court Justices was nothing new in this country’s history, but the anti-Bork effort set a couple of precedents. For one thing, it buried the traditional, largely internal Senate politics of Supreme Court selection under mass-communications techniques developed for national political campaigns. Moreover, it was unabashed in its claim that Supreme Court Justices could legitimately be rejected for their ideology and political views. Thus during and after the anti-Bork campaign, its operatives were happy to give the press the details of their new and successful political tactics. We learned about their organized rallies, their telephone banks to generate mail to key Senators, their computer bulletin boards, their fundraising methods, and their choice of “opinion-making markets” for their TV advertising.”
https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/why-anita-hill-lost/
“High tech lynching for uppity blacks”
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZURHD5BU1o8
NGLOY, feeling it’s a bit early. A lot of money in recently, short term overbought. Plus SMA chart….I’ll wait for another 50 cents or so for it to go through its late August high and presumably the 50 day as well. But do share if you have more….
What in NI re: the utilities?
Just hit the button on a flyer on KEY. Beaten down on a sharp decline last week, very oversold. Looking for bounce back in a couple weeks. Used an option, so I don’t need a large move, 50 cents for sure and I’m out.
What *is* NI re utilities?
FB will be lit with outrage!!!
Dems will do anything to postpone Kavanaugh until after the election. Not just in the (slim) hope they take the Senate but the outrage that the seat was ‘stolen’ from garland is visceral.
Repubs need to see it for what it is, and ram him through. Comity is dead.
Separately, I spent a lot of time in SF in the nineties. Think I’ll go to a shrink and find some ‘recovered’ memories of some assault. I’m sure there are some future SCOTUS appointees for the Left coming out of the Ninth District. I’ll keep those recovered memories and the shrink report in my back pocket for any Dem SCOTUS appointee in the 2020s……
Stu Sighting:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQCmuW3ZEDY
Very funny, but incredible. Right?
Best part is flicking the shaving cream to the floor…..
More on the mad train shaver, it was a night time train ride and he was swigging bud light, so obviously not on the way to work.
“Unidentified passenger was caught on video shaving while riding the 6:50 p.m. outbound Northeast Corridor Train.”
“In a second video, the man can be seen taking a few swigs out of a Bud Light tall boy, and talking about his plans for the evening.
“Yo, lets go, Atlantic City… frantic city! I want to go to frantic city,” the man says, seemingly in response to an announcement that the train was Jersey Avenue bound.”
https://patch.com/new-york/downtown-nyc/s/gifn8/man-shaving-nj-transit-captivates-twitter
Navigating a maze of medical bills and insurace payments.
$30K bill knocked down to $4264 and my portion is now $473.
Criminal…how they bill. Sent me a bill for 79 cents. That one cost more to print and mail than it is worth the effort.
You ain’t seen nothing. D’s total billings are between 3 and 5 million. So many bills, it’s impossible to keep track. Some are in collection. Some are being payed on a plan. Some are incorrect. Some the insurance company knows about. Some they don’t. It’s a cluster.
And as liberal and progressive NJ politicians are, they still won’t dare fix this issue.
Musk was literally blowing smoke.
Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund is investing $1 billion into Lucid Motors, capital that will finance the commercial launch of the startup’s first electric vehicle.
The agreement comes just six weeks after Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted that he was considering taking Tesla private at $420 a share and had secured the proper funding to make the leap. Musk suggested that Saudi’s wealth fund, which already owns almost 5 percent of Tesla stock, was interested in backing the company’s move from public to private.
Here’s what bothers me about this Kavanaugh allegation, other than the timing. Just think about who would be the accuser if this is indeed manufactured. Would it be some suburban Mom in or around DC or Baltimore, where Kavanaugh went to High School, like maybe 99% of his classmates…or would it be the, probably the single and only, classmate who happens to be a California college professor? I think it’s all going to come down to the other guy who was in the room. BTW, his last name is Judge.
No matter what the truth is, this is a genius move by the Democrats. Republicans need to learn and practice.
:-(
You ain’t seen nothing. D’s total billings are between 3 and 5 million. So many bills, it’s impossible to keep track. Some are in collection. Some are being payed on a plan. Some are incorrect. Some the insurance company knows about. Some they don’t. It’s a cluster.
The worst thing that happened to me, medical billing-wise, was I was admitted to the hospital once and they either added or subtracted a digit to my insurance number on admission. That meant that every billing authority within the hospital had the wrong number and all of the bills got kicked back to me as uncovered. I had to tell the same story 50 different times. Small beans compared to others, but still a pain.
Second worst was when I was on COBRa and my wife broke her arm. I had a loose relationship with my ex-employer and was pulling in about $400K per year in billable hours, I was keeping 2/3rds of it. I was an ATM for them and required zero oversight. My 18 months of COBRa had run out (which I was paying $1800 per month out of pocket) and they neglected to tell me. I called up the CFO and told her just two words. “Fix this!!” She did.
^^^My wife ended up needing surgery by the same Doctor who does everything elbow, wrist, and hands for the Boston Celtics. When she was admitted for surgery at New England Baptist I had to sit down with a finance gal first. She told me that my deductible was $1,000 per my coverage. I have never in my life, before or since, been so happy to fork over a $1,000 check to someone.
He is homeless
Juice Box says:
September 17, 2018 at 12:45 pm
More on the mad train shaver, it was a night time train ride and he was swigging bud light, so obviously not on the way to work
My wife still has two titanium screws in her elbow, btw.
My father had 4.5 million in bills issued that would never be paid. When his partner tried to stab him in the back and sue him after she failed to show up for work for 2 months straight, legal counsel advised him to just settle because the judge might say that he owes her 2.25 million based off bills sent out. He ended up paying a year’s salary for a woman who didn’t show up to work at all.
Parking for the train is more crowded since at any time that I’ve been taking it in the last three years. I need to get here earlier and earlier to get a spot. The crowd is getting younger as well. The economy is the best it’s been since the Reagan days.
I’m occasionally a value and income investor, but by and large the majority of my investments are momentum plays in S&P 500 or MidCap 400 stocks. Probably 85% of my purchases are at or near 52 week highs. Pumps will never understand that no matter how long he lives. NGLOY, which I’ve mentioned recently, is a different animal altogether. I’ve traded it for several years, it’s a FTSE 100 stock essentially, though it trades as an ADR here. You have to keep your eye on currencies and the Materials sector to know when to get in and out. The time for in is now.
http://tax1.co.monmouth.nj.us/cgi-bin/m4.cgi?district=0905&l02=090500017____00045____C62-BM
Latest Hoboken resale comp. Any burbs seeing trends like this?