From Reuters:
US existing home sales hit 7-month high; affordability remains a challenge
U.S. existing home sales increased to a seven-month high in September, but economic uncertainty and a stalled labor market could limit an anticipated boost from easing mortgage rates.
The rise in home resales last month, which was reported by the National Association of Realtors on Thursday, was concentrated in the upper end of the housing market as higher-income households enjoy strong wealth gains thanks to a robust stock market.
Though mortgage rates have declined to one-year lows and housing inventory has improved, economists said affordability remained a challenge for many prospective buyers, especially lower and middle-income households. That problem is being compounded by a hazy economic outlook and lack of hiring by employers against the backdrop of import tariffs.
“We expect existing home sales to move sideways through the end of this year and into early next before improving over the course of 2026 as mortgage rates fall further and the economy and labor market get back on firmer footing,” said Nancy Vanden Houten, lead U.S. economist at Oxford Economics.
Home sales rose 1.5% last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.06 million units, the highest level since February, the NAR said. The increase was broadly in line with economists’ expectations. Home resales increased in the Northeast, South and West regions, but declined in the Midwest.
Home resales jumped 4.1% on a year-over-year basis.
Pecker
The whole Mandani panic from Manhattan’s 1% is based on the possibility that he has the organizational ability and at the same time there is a need from the working class to build up a strong Democratic Party machine again.
You don’t have to go to Boss Tweed days. Think the equivalent of Trump at the local level. Think the McCann Jersey City machine, which as Fat Eddie can attest his family benefited from.
The 1%’s $$$ will still have influence. But not as much influence as now. Presently is their world and everyone else is a guest, courtesy of Bloomberg.
So instead of making a phone call and getting things done. They will have to convince and grease local boards and groups to support their plans.
Polymarket.
*Mandani: 93%
*Sherrill: 84%
*LA Dodgers 70%
Home resales increased in the Northeast, South and West regions, but declined in the Midwest.
Not the South, that’s incorrect. Nobody wants to move down South. That’s what VAG has posted here numerous times.
Think the equivalent of Trump at the local level. Think the McCann Jersey City machine, which as Fat Eddie can attest his family benefited from.
Ahhh… the McCann years! Nobody could relate unless they were entrenched in Hudson County. You had to bear witness the transformation, the before and after to realize the emergence. McCann, the wacko that he was, ushered in a golden era for Jersey City that is still rising to this day. My family didn’t benefit from those years, they took advantage of the opportunity and worked tirelessly to climb a few rungs on the ladder. There was no entitlements, just an open road to get to a new destination for those willing to drive.
NYC is the greatest, most capitalist city in the world.
They love capitalism but hate Republicans.
Fiscal conservatism and pro-capitalism are compatible with social liberalism.
Damn, that’s a lot of ism.
Fiscal conservatism and pro-capitalism are compatible with social liberalism.
Libertarian?
Indeed.
grim says:
October 24, 2025 at 7:39 am
Fiscal conservatism and pro-capitalism are compatible with social liberalism.
Grim: True, social liberalism, not social radicalism.
Agree
The mayor of NYC just needs to make sure the people are safe and the garbage gets picked up. Mamdani is going to fail at both. Let’s give him a crisis and see what happens. But at least the snot nosed Gen Z hipsters from OH living in Billyburg will feel like the stuck it to The Man.
Ten 397 after report; was over 400 previous
Chicago: Yep, all those blow ins from Ohio, and Wisconsin, and Minnesota etc, who move to NYC, and then believe they are native NY ers. I had one tell me years ago, while I still lived in the Bronx , that the boroughs were not really NYC proper! This from someone who tipped cows over at night for fun.
The U.S. housing market is in spooky season: 15% of home sellers are getting ghosted by buyers
https://fortune.com/2025/10/23/us-housing-market-spooky-season-sellers-ghosted-by-buyers-delistings/
The housing markets with the highest percentage of pending sales that fell out of contract include:
Minneapolis (11%)
Boston (10%)
New York City (9.6%)
Seattle (9.5%)
Montgomery County, Pa. (9.2%)
Target’s 1800 HQ layoffs are not going to help that Minneapolis number. UHC had some major layoffs over the last few months in that market as well.
My money is on layoffs directly driving those numbers.
3.0 inflation rate.
Yeah, right.
Grim – Target jobs were offshored… Target’s India global capacity center…is around 30% of the Target’s corporate workforce. 4,500 employees in the the Bengaluru and now another 1800 more…only 1500 are IT.. The rest are for any other business operation you can think of.
The Layoffs were planned for a while now. They like everyone else want cheap labor either offshore or replaced with AI.
Whether AI takes your job or a worker in India does it’s going to happen..
..
BTW – regarding Target layoffs.
All I see on Fakebook are posts saying it is because Target got rid of DEI and I won’t shop there anymore etc.
Amazing how these online astroturfing campaigns cover more than half the posts on feeds from Bloomberg and other new organizations. It’s almost as if they are paying Zuckerberg for priority ranking in the postings….. to get their fake astroturfing at the top of messages.
I have a feeling they are headed the way of Sears…I have held their stock too long already..I should have sold it in 2021 when it was 261 a share…it’s trading at 95 now. I don’t see it coming back anytime soon.
What Target really needs is another Pandemic to get their stock back up to 261 a share.
Juice: Well Target and the other businesses that are dumping workers for AI, and or India, need to realize at some point, that if people don’t have jobs. they cant buy your goods and services.
LA Housing market is slowing too, increased inventory and price declines.
I hope someday they pass the Hire Act or something similar. I’m really tired of constantly running from the outsourcers everywhere I work.
D Fens:That must be very stressful, people should not have to live with that.
Free Luigi!!
3b – Just like ESG initiatives was a big deal now all the boards are being “coached” to push for this.
Wall St aka BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street are among the top five shareholders in 90% of S&P 500 firms. The directors on these company boards are now expected to engage in year round dialogue with these major investors outside of proxy season. Every board initiative about AI or offshore or DEI, ESG and M&A comes from them..
Have to remember the cottage industry of being a board member comes with allot of money and perks.. $320,000 average salary. Working on and collecting salaries from several boards at the same time. Flying first class and many other expense perks. None of that would be possible without the vote to get on the board aka support from Wall St.
The difference between a Libertarian and a Liberal is a Social Conscience.
D-Fence – “I hope someday”
How about today?? The Bad Orange man is trying to at least so something. H-1B visa crackdown, and trying to tie funding for tech to no offshoring…
I am not saying his ham handed approach will work but it’s better than nothing. The Global Capability Centers (GCCs) the American companies have in India and other places are massive 1,700 centers in India alone, and then more in the Philippines, Poland, Mexico, and China…..
Heck I just spoke to a large multinational that wants us to host in China for their new GCC. We are being “incentivized” to stand up our systems there or we will lose them as a customer.
Last time I saw McCann, he was going round Paulus Hook harassing the Brownstone owners as inspector for the Historic Preservation Commission
Paulus Hook, 1980 – Brownstones – around $25,000 a piece.
Can you imagine?
Fab – memory lane – McCann was knocking on doors in Hoboken years ago to “canvass” for voters for Councilman Chris Campos when he was running against Dawn Zimmer.. Zimmer won the council seat after a bunch of challenges. She later became Mayor.
https://www.nj.com/hobokennow/2007/10/zimmer_accuses_campos_of_voter.html
Campos later went to jail for millions of dollars in fraudulent car loans. 20 straw buyers to purchase more than 200 new automobiles. He went to jail….Federal Prison…
Believe it or not is a practicing attorney again….Only in Dirty Jersey….
https://hudsoncountyview.com/ex-hoboken-council-pres-campos-has-law-license-reinstated-after-3-year-suspension/#google_vignette
Will we get a mug shot released today of „Big Tish“ James? Tish and her crime family are definitely keeping law enforcement officials busy. I‘m hoping she only gets 30 years. 60 would be way too much. She can serve her time if convicted and then perhaps contribute to society as a reformed felon.
VSG says:
October 24, 2025 at 7:10 am
“NYC is the greatest…They love capitalism but hate Republicans.”
Best NYC mayors of the past 100 years…
– Rudy Giuliani (Rep)
– Mike Bloomberg (Rep/Ind)
The two guys that made NYC the greatest; all downhill since the Dems took control again.
grim says:
October 24, 2025 at 7:39 am
“Fiscal conservatism and pro-capitalism are compatible with social liberalism.”
Try telling that to the Germans…
‘Germany: Migrants Committed Nearly 3 Million Crimes Since Merkel Opened Borders’
grim says:
October 24, 2025 at 8:59 am
‘Target’s 1800 HQ layoffs…”
Walked in to the Bridgewater Target in July/Aug to get storage bins; first thing you saw when entering the store were two fat, female mannequins modeling extra large bathing suits. That was all I needed to know that Target hadn’t gotten the message, but walking to the storage bin aisle, the store looked like it had been ransacked — merch on floors, red plastic price tags on aisle end caps broken or partially missing. Place was a dump. Dead man walking…
Chad – Again who is paying for this? Multi-million dollar spend to defend her.
They are filing in court today that the prosecutor Halligan texted a supposed “journalist” last week to complain about the coverage in the media.
Well the “journalist” Anna Bower, a senior editor at Lawfare….. immediately went to the Defense with that information, apparently, and it is in the filing for dismissal of this case.
Rookie move on the prosecutor to comment to the media…..especially when they aren’t really media but a partisan who has an agenda.
Trump: F you, pay me.
Germany: Es ist fast Winter und es wird kalt hier werden wir frieren
Germany races to secure US sanctions exemption for Rosneft refineries
Berlin says Washington should not target subsidiaries of Russian oil company located in Germany
The threat to the refineries is yet another challenge for the German government, which is struggling to reignite a stagnant economy grappling with high energy prices — the costly legacy of previous chancellors to shut down nuclear plants and to rely on cheap Russian energy imports. The PCK refinery also poses a political problem for the ruling coalition between Merz’s Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats: it is a large employer in the former communist state of Brandenburg, where support for the far-right Alternative for Germany party has surged.
Phoenix – it’s about time. Germany and EU have had three years to replace their oil and gas with West Texas crude and American LNG… We are now the biggest LNG exporter.
Pay up if you want our billions and production capacity for war as well as US boots on the ground to protect Europe from the Russian Orks…
In terms of the overall level of prosperity and wealth of Americans, are AI and outsourcing really any different than, say, the mechanization of agriculture, or factory automation? It’s all about producing more at a lower cost.
In 1900, 40% of the American workforce was in agriculture; today it’s less than 2%.
Yet we produce way more, and US consumers spend much less of their total incomes on food than in 1900. And all those (former) agricultural workers wound up getting much better and higher paying jobs.
Same with manufacturing. Manufactoring employment peaked around 1980. The total number of manufaturing employees in the US today is about 30% lower than 1980. but
Yet America is still an industrial powerhouse (#2 in the world, behind China). Our industrial production (in real terms) has doubled since 1980. (BTW, the value of China’s industrial production is only about twice the US, despite the fact that China has more than four times our population).
Today, despite those big employment declines in specific sectors, American’s incomes (in real terms, from the bottom of the income scale to the top,) are higher than ever.
The employment disruptions were painful at first, but ultimately lead to the creation of new and better jobs, and more American prosperity.
Hell, half the people who post here work in jobs that didn’t even exist 50 years ago!
I think the “Hire Act” might better be named the “Protect American IT professionals from competiton so their salaries stay high and American consumers pay more” Act.
Walked in to the Bridgewater Target in July/Aug to get storage bins; first thing you saw when entering the store were two fat, female mannequins modeling extra large bathing suits.
Fat people need swimwear too! Any visit to the Jersey Shore would tell you that.
Re AI-
Even though the capabilites of AI are growing at a tremendous rate, I think that the actual large scale adoption of AI in the US will happen at a slower rate than people think because of one limiting factor- electricity production.
There will be tremendous opposition to AI data centers once Americans start to see their electricity prices soar.
And those soaring electricity prices won’t come down until we build a lot more electrical production (via solar, wind, nuclear and nat gas).
Our entrenched NIMBYism (along with bad government policies) will make that difficult.
Maybe we can replace the POTUS with AI?
Speaker won’t swear me in. It is totally about the Epstein files’
Democrat Adelita Grijalva — who would provide the last vote needed to force a full release of the documents — is suing Republican Mike Johnson.
U.S. Representative-elect Adelita Grijalva speaking at a press conference with U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries in the background.
Adelita Grijalva, who was elected in September, has yet to be sworn in.
AL DRAGO/REUTERS
George Grylls, Washington Correspondent
Friday October 24 2025, 12.00pm BST,
Lib – reboot of Max Headroom as President?
Arizona attorney general sues Mike Johnson for failing to seat Adelita Grijalva
“Constitutional rights cannot be used as a bargaining chip,” Kris Mayes wrote.
Adelita Grijalva, a Democrat, has accused Johnson of slow-walking her swearing-in ceremony because she has vowed to sign on to an effort to force a vote on legislation related to releasing files about the investigation into sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Our esteemed Senator Booker just got engaged to a woman 30 years his junior.
He must be running for President again.
The German energy policy is a disaster. The left wing parties have had a lot of influence in these coalition governments over the years. They drove the decision to shut down all of the nuclear power plants in Germany. However, the German government has no problem buying electricity from neighboring countries that is produced from nuclear power.
Indices crashing… DOW down 1,350, NASDAQ falling off a cliff!
Juice: Cory’s Fiance is in real estate investment whatever that is exactly. Cory is another phony, grew up in leafy Harrington Park, then decides to become Mayor of Newark, because of course he understood the needs of the residents. His record was mixed, but did establish a lot of charter schools, which is ironic considering how many Democrats hate charter schools. Have not heard anything lately about a potential run for President in 2028, but it is early.
Jefferies endorsed Zoran for Mayor of NYC. In other news Zoran apparently owns some property in his native Uganda, ironic considering his views on private property. But that is how it goes with the radical left, one law for you, but for me another.
Corey is gay. Common knowledge.
What are my views on private property?
Ugandas love NYC and would never move to maga controlled territories. And neither would you
for 3b
VSG says:
October 24, 2025 at 4:47 pm
Ugandas love NYC and would never move to maga controlled territories. And neither would you
Polymarket:
*Mandani: 93%
*Sherrill: 84%
*LA Dodgers 70%
Where are my privates on view?
Zoran (But I know who you really are )let me refresh your memory from the video that resurfaced in July of this year:
If there was any system that could guarantee each person housing—whether you call it the abolition of private property or you call it a statewide housing guarantee—it is preferable to what is going on right now”. He dismissed attempts to use such comments against him as “gotcha games,” emphasizing his priority is ensuring people have homes.
VSG: Homosexuality is illegal in Uganda, and is one of the harshest anti Gay/Lesbian etc laws in the world. Ugandans would think MAGA too Liberal. You should think before you post a silly comment.
I know, but Hunter…..
A small company that has been manufacturing motors domestically for only a few weeks and has Donald Trump Jr. as an adviser won a parts order from the Army.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/24/us/politics/trump-drones-pentagon.html
Hughes: Not surprising.
Huges drones? Heck you can probably get a contract for paper airplanes….
hughesrep says:
October 24, 2025 at 5:47 pm
“but Hunter…..A small company that has been manufacturing motors domestically…”
No normal person would take time out of their day to go online and shill for Hunter Biden. Find a new hobby — for your own sake.
OC1 says:
October 24, 2025 at 12:08 pm
“Fat people need swimwear too!”
That’s what Sports Illustrated said when they replaced Brooklyn Decker with fatties in their once-great swimsuit edition. How’d that work out?
Pecker.
Di you say Pecker?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYSOmYyNHpU
You wanna see my pecker:
https://youtu.be/_RPDa4eSkHA?si=Ejw0Ia2pBCq0rO6Z
Ex: you want to see this? A leftover
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=orgnOgq1wGE&list=RDorgnOgq1wGE&start_radio=1&pp=ygUMZGVwZWNoZSBtb2RloAcB0gcJCQYKAYcqIYzv