From MarketWatch:
U.S. home-price gains keep slowing as higher rates scare off buyers, Case-Shiller shows
The S&P/Case-Shiller 20-city index rose a seasonally adjusted 0.4% in October but in a clear sign of the housing market’s recent struggles the increase in prices over the past 12 months slipped to the lowest level in two years.
The year-over-year advance in prices fell to 5% from a revised 5.2%.
The Econoday consensus was for a 0.4% monthly increase for the 20-city index and a 5% yearly increase.
…
What happened: Home prices are still rising faster than the incomes of prospective home buyers, but not nearly as fast as they were a few years ago. Sales and construction have also slowed.
…
How come? Higher interest rates are the chief reason. The rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage climbed to as high as 4.94% last month from less than 3.5% at the start of 2017.Rates have fallen sharply in the past few weeks amid a stock-market selloff and growing worries about the economy, but they are still more than a full percentage higher compared to two years ago.
Big picture: The housing market is unlikely to regain momentum anytime soon despite some softening in mortgage rates.
…
What they’re saying: “The combination of higher mortgage rates and higher home prices rising faster than incomes and wages means fewer people can afford to buy a house,” said David Blitzer, managing director and chairman of the index committee at S&P Dow Jones Indices.
How were our soon-to-be expats not quoted in this?
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/26/realestate/house-hunting-in-costa-rica.html
Also from the NYT:
Fair Lawn, N.J.: An Unpretentious Place That Smells Like Cookies
Fair Lawn is a great town. I’ve had relatives there since the 60s and know it well.
NYT comments are all surprisingly positive. Somewhat nostalgic, but positive.
I don’t expect Libturd will hire a full-time gardener to tend to less than an acre of land.
Lib says you can hire a live in housekeeper who will do everything, including watch you place while you’re gone for $400/month.
Does that guy write anything except fluff BC second tier towns? When you’ve had enough of Unpretentious Fairlawn, you can bone up on Comfortable And Unassuming Bergenfield:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/25/realestate/living-in-bergenfield-nj.html
BTW, just about zero police presence all over CR, probably why their taxes are so low. Private security abounds. We stayed at a small ocean front hotel, I would be surprised if they had 10 rooms, I’m thinking 8. They had a lot for us to park in, also right on the ocean, behind a tall iron gate to the street that you had to open and close manually with an old school key lock. They told us that they had a security guard who worked 11PM to 7 who watched the cars. Sure enough, I was sitting out at 3AM, drinking a beer or four, and there was a guy, not just sitting idly, but with a high power LED flashlight, checking out every corner of the property (since anyone could just wander in from the beach). Including the parking, there couldn’t have been even 1/8th of an acre of grounds, but that guy was checking every corner of it. If you do the math, there can’t ever be an occupancy rate of more than 5 rooms per night, so let’s say $500 of total revenue per day, yet some guy probably has a 56 hour per week gig walking the place every night, with purpose, for, what, $30 per night?
Another place, secluded beach, 6 or 7 people total on the beach at high noon, no commerce whatsoever: There was this well maintained wooden walkway through 100 yards or less of woods (probably lit at night too, with knee-level lights).
Uniformed and packing security guards at both ends of the walkway at high noon.
Probably paid by an HOA, as they kicked Lib and I out after an hour or so. I think this guy who was sitting next to us (chaise lounges already on the beach, maybe 6 of them, and a rustic bar, empty and unmanned at the time) overheard us talking and told the security guard to toss us when he left. We probably could have stayed on the beach, we just couldn’t use their furniture. I think the guy (white guy with bluetooth Apple earbuds) said something to the guy at the street end of the walkway and he radioed the guard on the beach end, who tossed us, but in a very nice and cordial way.
No matter, probably 7×24 security provided by two armed guards, with not a dime of revenue being taken in at the spot. It can’t be that expensive.
I’m guessing that armed security runs about $3 per hour. If you provide your own gun and uniform, maybe $4
Imagine the security force you could employ if your taxes were $200 per year instead of $15,000?
Should have just payed the taxes, money vanished into thin air anyway.
“Like many large companies, Apple has used much of its windfall from the 2017 tax overhaul to buy back shares. But the recent plunge in stock prices has made that look like a bad idea. Apple and companies including Wells Fargo & Co., Citigroup Inc. and Applied Materials Inc. repurchased their own shares at rich prices, only to see their value decline sharply.”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-investment-that-cost-apple-9-billion-in-2018-11545925184?emailToken=c946492aef838072584e45036b5d2b3cdgbceB3hcxk8lby0gJUP9qi8zCrilIcwM31jhRwXOTZkuo4hfJjtF1k6YlQGSxHuDihYT89FccI/sckRei/WSSmG1BFFQWzjxRUvmq5TcM4%3D&reflink=article_copyURL_share
Luckily, you get to pay your taxes forever, as your equity vanishes similarly.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahaha
Should have just payed the taxes, money vanished into thin air anyway.
Pumpkin Seed,
You have a 5500 sq. ft. house on a double yellow? I guess you plan to stay there until retirement?
Does that guy write anything except fluff BC second tier towns? When you’ve had enough of Unpretentious Fairlawn, you can bone up on Comfortable And Unassuming Bergenfield:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/25/realestate/living-in-bergenfield-nj.html
I grew up about 500 ft from that old chair factory pictured in that puff piece. That pond in the 80s was all sludge and duck crap. They cleaned it up around 88 and let it go to crap again. What they didn’t picture was the friggin freight train 2 blocks behind the pond that comes through at 1 am rumbling the whole town.
Washington ave went from traditional downtown to alternating Indian, Filipino, and Mexican joints, not a bad thing, but might not be everyone’s cup of tea.
I liked growing up there but in hindsight, it was a little odd. All the tennagers in town used to take pride in mentally terrorizing any little kids that walked to and from school. Also, you could never leave your bike unlocked or even in an open garage. Kids used to steal them nonstop. The crowd behind foster village near the armory was just bad news.
Best story I have from the area was that I was in 2nd grade learning about the chair factory on the pond and how it burnt down in the 60s. They presented it to us like it was a mystery to us. Meanwhile, I’m sitting there knowing that my dad and his friends lit a little wooden sailboat on fire and the wheel brought the thing into the factory and torched it.
Cooling off market in 2019 as per Redfin
https://www.cnbc.com/video/2018/12/26/housing-market-will-continue-to-cool-in-2019-says-redfin-economist.html
What no thousand point reversal into the close?
Cooling off market in 2019 as per Redfin
“Sellers will have to adjust expectations.”
Lol! You mean fat, f.ucking Mary can’t expect top dollar for the Rheingold and Chesterfield reek?
Pumps is betting on his RE value going up when everyone commutes by jet pack. Flood plain should go up in value then too (who wants to live on the highest hill when all the George Jetsons are flying right over your yard to get to their jobs at Spacely Sprockets)
Pumpkin Seed,
You have a 5500 sq. ft. house on a double yellow? I guess you plan to stay there until retirement?
Washington Ave is sad and depressing. Bergenfield has been in decline for 30 years. Parts of it look like rural Kentucky. The part close to Teaneck is popular with Orthodox Jews who need to be able to walk to Temples in Teaneck.
Working From Home in Big Apartment Buildings, Making Small-Batch Rye
I make a fantastic small batch rye, 100% jersey grown rye.
Oh shit!
Grim says:
December 27, 2018 at 1:52 pm
What no thousand point reversal into the close?
DOW +260 at the close.
137 points shy, darn
Pretty amazing…
I got a bartender in the Islands that lets me know when the bankers get called off the beach
LOL. So many punchlines.
I got a bartender in the Islands that lets me know when the bankers get called off the beach
The last few days should tell you everything you need to know for a while.
Big ass sideways baby, at least for Q1.
Good traders market, but nothing to write home about to your buy and hold customers until we get healthily above 2745
FYI, another thing I stumbled on today. Certain shit is being censored right off the internet, and maybe further. If you don’t believe me, show me where I can see the 2/26/1977 episode of SNL. If you happen to own it on DVD, take a look and tell us what you see. I recalled something from that episode today and could barely find a thing, I’m lucky I was even able to figure out the date.
I googled it on my iPad and it came right up. Steve Martin, the Kinks, etc
Find the roots sketch
Snltranscripts.jt.org shows a transcript
^^^And you won’t find another thing. Anywhere.
Premise: Alex Haley is getting paid millions of dollars to come up with “Roots II” and “Roots III”. He(Garrett Morris) does a rush job, which he admits. It took him 12 years to write Roots, 4 days to write Roots II. Steve Martin is a slave owner, John Belushi is a slave, being whipped into accepting his new name, Peggy Fleming.
Try to find it. Try to find anybody talking about it. Try to find anybody saying it ever happened.
Oh, fiddle! I’m tired of this fiddlin’! No crazy cracker’s gonna sell the son of a Mandingo warrior! I am Bop Shoo Wop! Son of Sha Na Na! Grandson of the great holy man, Shboom Shboom!
I think the actual sketch deviates from the sketch. My memory is that Belushi gets whipped once and then concedes, “Peggy Fleming is a nice name!”
deviates from the script. I was 17 and my mind and memory was working pretty well.
Hi an interestingoffers
Just click
http://bit.ly/2QMa7f8
Speaking of the 2008 housing collapse, one might naturally be alarmed by the prospect of a housing slowdown, given the financial calamity that occurred as a result of the last housing slowdown. But conditions today are almost the complete inverse of conditions in 2008.
For example, most of the ills of the housing market leading up to 2008 were marked by lending practices that ranged from irresponsible to downright reckless. Ill-advised mortgages were spread through the entire global financial system via complex financial instruments, and when defaults started to rise, the system collapsed. But lending today is incredibly strict, so strict in fact that some in the industry believe the lessons of 2008 were over-learned.
There was also a housing surplus in the years prior to 2008. Regional home building companies had recently consolidated to form large national builders, which pumped out houses at dizzying pace. When the housing bust happened, the surplus of housing made price drops worse. But as mentioned, today there’s a housing shortage, even with the recent jumps in homes for sale. This means any type of slowdown would have a hard floor as far as home prices go.
It’s also possible that instead of home prices dropping, the pace at which they go up merely slows down or even flat lines. The overall strength of the economy remains strong, despite the recent stock market selloff. Unemployment remains remarkably low, and the U.S. is still gaining jobs. Wages continue to rise. The general conditions for the housing market to do well remain, even if a few high-priced markets went up a little too fast. Stay tuned.
https://www.curbed.com/2018/12/21/18148570/housing-market-predictions-2019
Wife hit another double digit percentage raise. Economy still going strong.
Wife hit another double digit percentage raise. Economy still going strong.
What does your wife do for a living?
10:15 it rhymes with “blowies”…..
Stu,
I expect the idea of using private police to gain traction here. It isn’t a new idea.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/private-police-carry-guns-and-make-arrests-and-their-ranks-are-swelling/2015/02/28/29f6e02e-8f79-11e4-a900-9960214d4cd7_story.html?utm_term=.f0d1273c0606
Where I am in PA, some townships don’t have police (though mine does). Not a lot of crime and a lot of carry permits means that hoods largely stay out or hit the soft targets and beat a hasty retreat into Wilmington. State police have primary jurisdiction and are called in as needed. Dems hate this and are proposing legislation to punish the towns in the ‘Conservative T” where this is most prevalent.
Pumps thinks 2.2% is double digits. Also 3.3, 1.1, etc.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/28/us-pending-home-sales-fall-unexpectedly-in-november.html
Unless this fake poster’s wife left her current position and went to another company, she didn’t get a double-digit raise.
At the rate she gets double digit raises, she’ll be clearing $300k per year in no time.
Fast you are exactly right! No one is getting double digit raisers unless they bounce to a new position.
The last time I got a double digit raise was in 2007
🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃
🎃 ………………………………………………………🎃
🎃……….Bachelor of Delusion………….🎃
🎃……….Awarded to Pumpkin………….🎃
🎃……….By Pumpkin………………………….🎃
🎃……….Awarded this fine day………….🎃
🎃……….in my own mind…………………..🎃
🎃 ………………………………………………………🎃
🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃
Pumps might also not know the difference between a raise and a bonus because hourly people don’t usually get them.