From the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard:
THE STATE OF THE NATION’S HOUSING 2024
Both homeowners and renters are struggling with high housing costs. On the for-sale side, millions of potential homebuyers have been priced out of the market by elevated home prices and interest rates. Homeowner cost burdens are also on the rise, driven by growing taxes and insurance costs. For renters, the number with cost burdens has hit an all-time high as rents have escalated. While single-family construction is accelerating and a surge of new multifamily rental units is slowing rent growth, any gains in affordability are likely to be limited by robust household growth, ongoing development constraints, and high construction costs. All stakeholders must work together to address the affordability crisis and many related urgent housing challenges, including the inadequate housing safety net, the record number of people experiencing homelessness, and the growing threat of climate change.
Windy afternoon took out a huge tree on my property, crashed through my fence and smashed the stairs on the neighbors deck. Thank god nobody was outside. The kids were all outside playing soccer an hour earlier.
Reminder that trees are a liability. Chop-chop time. Off to file a permit this morning.
https://www.northjersey.com/story/news/new-jersey/2024/06/24/strong-winds-in-nj-cause-downed-trees-blocked-roads-power-outages/74199462007/
Wind was no joke, gusts had to be 50+. Crap down all over the place in Monmouth. Pool is a mess.
Played Plainfield CC in that wind yesterday. Highest point in Middlesex County. Wind was blowing balls off of the tees. Never seen that before. If it hadn’t been a bucket list course I would have walked off.
Another NJ couple that lost 91,000 last year. Same circumstances, fake wire instructions sent by fake sellers attorney etc? This has to be an inside job.
100% this is an insider collecting all of the information, and passing it to a third party (probably offshore) to commit the fraud. I would imagine these are international wires, which should be a huge red flag.
I think the most probable location is with the lender (offshored and outsourced doc/loan review), or secondarily, title or the real estate agency.
Hacking into email to get this information? Highly unlikely.
I remember a few years back in Brazil, the gangs all hung out at the entrances/exits to the bigger favelas to bribe workers for information. Some of the more egregious gangs hung out outside of their offices. You could make more than double the money providing information to the gangs than the company paid you in salary. Cell phone companies were a very hot target when I was there.
I remember listening to call recordings of gang members calling into the “800” numbers to recruit employees directly. “Hey, would you like to make a lot of money? We are at XYZ, come visit us. Now tell us you aren’t interested and hang up the phone”
Likely happening all the same in the US, it’s not a shock: https://www.shreveporttimes.com/story/news/crime/2024/04/25/21-defendants-charged-in-usaa-bank-fraud-conspiracy-case-in-shreveport/73453649007/
There are a bunch of Twitter feeds going back to last year on this same escrow wire fraud. I agree has to be an insider, they are going after the title companies and lawyers.
Just google escrow wire fraud
One Twitter feed says there are thousands of investigations at Chase bank alone.
One thing to point out banks are exempt somewhat
for wire transfers lawsuits. The law from 1978 does not cover wired money. Electronic Funds Transfer Act, EFTA.
“Email Hack” feels like it’s a convenient excuse for not having to investigate internal fraud and the potential liability associated with that.
Not surprised that the banking industry has weaseled its way out of any liability for fraud. Hell, look at Zelle, anyone that uses that has got be a complete idiot. It’s by far the most egregious scheme ever pulled by banks on consumers.
That said, checks are wildly insecure, the fact that they still exist as a form of payment boggles my mind. Why mess up a good thing?
Contrast this with the credit card industry and pci dss 4.0 that went into effect this year, wickedly high bar for security.
Checks? Nah, we’re going to do the same shit as we’ve done for the last 65 years when MICR encoding was invented. We’re going to plaster all of your PII data on the front of this piece of paper, along with the exact account number string you need to forge a payment, and literally ship this piece of paper around (touching dozens of “hands”), containing all of this private data, as the mechanism for transferring payment. What could possibly go wrong?
Everyone along the way has everything they need to steal all your money, and if it happens, expect the minimum of help from the banks in resolving it.
It’s not expensive, it’s all in people’s heads.
Hughsrep,
I decided to walk 9 holes at Fiddler’s Elbow 530 to 7 yesterday after work. Skipped warmup at the range, and my first 3 holes were all uphill and into the wind. Difficult to tell how much my shots stunk vs the wind effects, but my usual 230-260 drives didn’t even go 200 in those conditions. Playing solo, it was more about trying some things out than focusing on my round score anyway.
Besides the wind, how did you like the course? I haven’t played there.
The only “elite” course I’ve played is Somerset Hills a few times. It often feels unfair, with lots of hidden dangers and funky greens that only someone who has played many times will be familiar with. Some golfers point out that when Tillinghast designed the hilly greens, a typical stimp was 7-8, not the 10+ they play now that creates so much roll. Honestly I prefer to play a course without so many blind shots, trees & fescue, and hard greens. I play to a 10hc, but those tough courses make me feel like a 20.
The wire fraud could get worse too. Today it time limited to mostly banking hours for wires.
There are discussions about extending it to 22 hours a day seven days a week. I cannot imagine the banks want to increase the amount of customer support hours, you get a text message now about a charge late at night and there is nobody you can call until the next morning.
Boeing Starliner stuck at the ISS now. It was leaking helium before it launched and they went ahead with the mission anyway.
Aerojet rocketdynre parts apparently. Stock is LHX
Elon to the rescue?
Grim
I thought in NJ homeowner isn’t responsible for damage caused by their tree falling? We had a neighbor on our street with untrimmed oak trees that were so tall the tree would hit the house across the street if it fell. Home owner refused to have them pruned, claiming she couldn’t afford it. But had money to drive German car, take international vacations, and dye her hair and get her nails done every week.
Have I mentioned how much I despised the people who lived in the 3 different blue ribbon towns we lived in before we moved to Texas?
Insurance turns neighbors into enemies in NJ.
If a neighbors tree falls into your yard, you are responsible for it.
And no, your insurance will not pay for the tree removal.
If your property is damaged, insurance will pay less the deductible.
Of course in this case, I’m paying for it, and paying my neighbors deductible too.
You would need to be a serious douchebag to f@ck your neighbor over, but it happens all the time.
Fast Eddie est à Montréal. Des filles canadiennes-françaises se promenant sans soutien-gorge et parlant français. Sexy!
there is a small loophole with insurance and fallen trees. if it is touching any part of your insured property at all – insurance will pay for it… i.e. your deck, your porch, your house, etc.
few years back my neighbors tree fell (100+ foot oak) across his yard, onto my deck/fence and hit my other neighbors house on the other side. my cost for fence + tree removal was nearly $6000 – i paid my deductible only, neighbors were not negligible in their tree care either. I did not go after their insurance at all, not worth it.
No One-
I’m a 10 as well…
It was a great course. I may have to look up highlights from an old Barclays played there.
Even in the wind it was very fair tee to green. Hit a good shot and you were fine, get off line and it’s brutal. Rough is thick, even with a caddy finding balls in the rough was a chore a few times. Greens were tough. Decent sized, but lots of zones and elevation changes. I think that’s a result of Gil Hanse redoing the original Donald Ross course. Not a fan of Hanse courses, like Dr. Seuss designed a golf course. Wind was blowing putts around quite a bit. I shot an 86 from 6400 yards that felt like a 76. They slowed down the greens some, otherwise balls wouldn’t have stayed still in the wind. I’d like another run at it under normal conditions just to see.
I get around to some pretty nice courses. Have a friend that is a member at two top ten clubs in NJ as well as a more working man’s club where I know him from. There is a group of about 20 very high end clubs in NJ / PA that let their members play inter club a few times a year usually on Mondays. Fortunate enough that he invites me along fairly often. Last year was Aronimink, Metedeconk, and he got us on Medalist in Jupiter amongst others. I’m completely out of my league, but I can play, respect the places, and don’t run up his bar bill. This year he got Plainfield. Next month I’m tagging along to Philly Cricket.
Grim
That’s very generous and nice of you.
I knew people in Livingston who were out 6k or more because their neighbors trees fell in their yard and wouldn’t do anything to help them.
Very nice, Hughesrep.
I’ve been playing about 9 years. I drive the ball long enough but not accurately enough, so narrow fairways with lots of hazards, forests, traps, or even worse, OOB, can crush me. I think I’m on track to be a 13 in a month or two. Got down to 7 in November after playing 2 really strong sub-80 rounds with all cylinders firing on a course that IMO the USGA over-rated by about 3 strokes in a recent re-rating – or the course really suits my strengths and weaknesses.
I had a line of very tall dead ash trees on my neighbors property that was jettisoning spear-like branches into my backyard. I had a toddler at the time. Neighbor stone-walled me, I called the City, violá. Trees were cut down.
I had a tree fall over the fence into our yard. I had a fun conversation with the neighbors, I knew they would be moving within a few years. I said that I would pay for the tree removal and they could correct the survey error when they fix the fence. It was their fence for their pool, but it was six feet on my side when it was put in to get around said tree. Neighbor was pissed, but couldn’t say anything.
If you have to fall out with neighbors, do it with the old ones, so you have a fresh start with the new ones.
New ones came in and redid the deck with a stone patio. All off the books no permits with a crew of stone masons from the old country. They ran the drainage halfway down the fence so it was flooding me. I asked him nicely just extend it down to the creek at the bottom of our lots and I won’t have an issue with it. It was done and we are great neighbors.
I played golf when I was a kid with my rich school friends. Their dads were all members to these great clubs and the kids had family memberships. From 16-18 I played with my friends with borrowed clubs for the price of the kids green fee and gas for the car for the lift I got there in.
I played when I lived in London for a few years. London was great as there where so many great courses you could just drive to and play.
When I came to the US I was out in San Francisco where I bought my first set of real clubs. We were working New York hours so we would be in the office at 6AM and technically be finished at 2pm. But we were working so much overtime, we would be working through to 7PM and weekends.
We told the boss, to give us a break, we would take a day usually midweek where we would finish at 2pm go play golf at Presidio. They agreed and we had a lot of fun as midweek tee times were easy to get.
My big nightmare In SF came when I sliced my finger with a Wine Glass. Not only did I now have to navigate the American Healthcare system as Non Insured, the injury left me unable to grip a club correctly. There is still glass in the finger, but as they said at the time they would do more damage going in. At this point it has scarred over I might take it back up.
Last golf course I played was Donnie’s Bedminster before he ran. For all his faults, he runs a good golf course. My round was down on power, but chipping and putting (as Dave Peltz says) is where it matters.
Maybe its time to get back!
Where is the new thread?
Ithaca has rebounded. It is glorious. Great vibe.
It is also teeming with lesbians in love. Feels like moths to light