From Newsweek:
How US home sales are predicted to rise across 2026
Redfin believes that 2026 will be the year of a “Great Housing Reset.” A gradual increase in affordability will release buyers from the sidelines of the U.S. housing market, encouraging more transactions.
This process won’t happen overnight but will be “yearslong,” Redfin said. Income will rise faster than home prices “for a prolonged period of time for the first time since the Great Recession era,” the real estate brokerage wrote. Home prices will stabilize rather than decline, leading to a “long, slow recovery” in affordability nationwide.
Redfin expects the median U.S. home-sale price to rise 1 percent year-over-year through 2026, a slow growth due to the fact that demand will remain hindered by a “weaker economy” and “still-high mortgage rates and prices.”
This smaller price growth, combined with dipping mortgage rates, will also contribute to lower monthly housing payments growing more slowly than wages.
Redfin predicts that sales of existing homes will end 2026 up 3 percent from 2025, with sales coming in at an annualized rate of 4.2 million.
The improvement in affordability, driven by wages growing faster than home prices next year, will get some buyers off the sidelines, but many will stay there.
Homeownership will remain out of reach for many Gen Zers and young families across the country, Redfin said, who will explore non-traditional living situations to afford housing, including living with their parents and with roommates and delaying having children.
1
Frist
WHAT HAPPENED TO THE BUCK STOPS HERE?
Admiral Frank “Mitch” Bradley. He is the one Trump and Hegseth are trying to use as a scape goat, to save their own asses. They are blaming him for the second strike.
4
Income will rise faster than home prices “for a prolonged period of time for the first time since the Great Recession era,” the real estate brokerage wrote.
2026 will be interesting. Will we be able to recognize the transition that Artificial Intelligence will create and the aftermath? Will an energy boom ensue? Where will interest rates be?
By Helene Cooper
Helene Cooper covers national security issues.
Dec. 2, 2025
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Tuesday that he had not noticed survivors in the water during U.S. military strikes that killed 11 people in the Caribbean in September.
His remarks, at a cabinet meeting at the White House in which he cited the “fog of war,” were the latest from Trump administration officials meant to address questions about whether the U.S. military committed a war crime when it launched a second strike on a boat on Sept. 2, killing two survivors of the initial attack who were clinging to the burning wreckage.
Mr. Hegseth had said that he watched the operation live on video before he “moved on” to his next meeting. But following news reports about the second U.S. strike, Mr. Hegseth said he “didn’t stick around” to see it.
Yyeeeeeeshhhhhhhhhhh…..
Sir, you made it through hurricane season without a hurricane,” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said, as Trump quietly said, “Yeah.”
“Even you kept the hurricanes away. We appreciate that,” she continued.
https://people.com/kristi-noem-tells-donald-trump-he-kept-hurricanes-away-11860541
It is a shame that additional narco terrorists were eliminated during the latest boat strike. Any loss of life is regrettable, however the bad guys are killing numerous Americans with the poison they are transporting into the country. More will likely be killed in the future. Interestingly Trump is thinking outside the box in successfully attacking these boats. No one up to this point in the US government had taken any type of decisive action. Meanwhile you have some knucklehead US politicians saying these are fishing boats being hit. The number of anti-American individuals inside the country is amazing.
Europe sits on their thumbs while Russia mobilizes for war, allocating 1/3 of their total budget on military spending. The EU refuses to raise an army while Putin is cutting social services and spending even more on War.
“According to the draft budget, Russia expects to generate 40.27 trillion rubles ($519 billion) in revenue next year, while expenditures are projected at 44.06 trillion rubles ($568 billion), resulting in a deficit of roughly 1.6 percent of gross domestic product or the value of the nation’s goods and services.
Almost a third of the budget, 12.93 trillion rubles ($167 billion), will go toward the military, including arms purchases. The Moscow Times reports this is the highest level of military spending since the Soviet era.
An additional 3.91 trillion rubles ($50.4 billion) is earmarked for “national security,” covering the Interior Ministry, National Guard, intelligence agencies, and the prison system.
In total, spending on the military and security services will reach 16.84 trillion rubles ($217 billion), or 38 percent of the budget. By comparison, in 2021, this share was 24 percent.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGobPhfG1rI
7:13 Trump is busy pardoning convicted drug dealers.
Disband the Department of War Crimes
I don’t disagree, maybe they should spend some more time killing the drug dealers inside the country instead of foreign nationals where we have questionable jurisdiction.
Either way, it’s fun to watch the idiots scramble and backpedal after they so publicly incriminated themselves.
re:” fishing boats being hit..”
You mean that 12-meter-long speedboat with four outboard motors? That is used for commercial fishing?
Fishing boats with four expensive outboard motors that burn up to 25 gallons of fuel an hour each. So how many fish can you catch going 100 mph an hour? They must be really good fishermen to catch fish going that fast and burning that much fuel.
Gary, you sound quite irritated.
Funny you didn’t have anything to say about the pardon of the Honduran drug trafficker.
One of the biggest drug kings
Chad Powers says:
December 3, 2025 at 7:13 am
It is a shame that additional narco terrorists were eliminated during the latest boat strike. Any loss of life is regrettable, however the bad guys are killing numerous Americans
…maybe they should spend some more time killing the drug dealers inside the country…
They are but we’re not privy to that information. Let’s just say, blasting those boats are a symbolic gesture. Ultimately, we’re giving Maduro an offer he can’t refuse. We’re now of the “it’s better to be feared than loved” stage. Nobility in leadership has been attempted, the others didn’t want to play nice so we’ll take care of business. That goes for every player on the planet. The overall message, though, is that we’re still the top dog and we’re gonna show you why.
They are very disrespectful of our military.
Our armed forces deserve better
Grim says:
December 3, 2025 at 7:57 am
Either way, it’s fun to watch the idiots scramble and backpedal after they so publicly incriminated themselves.
Questionable jurisdiction? We are the world police. We shoot and blow up Somali fishermen and South American fishermen equally. Heck if you are riding around in your Toyota Hilux in the wrong part of the desert, you might just end up eating a hellfire missile too.
Grim re: “killing the drug dealers inside the country.” You might be onto something. Recidivism for drug dealers is upwards of 76% within five years of release.
AI says there are approximately 456,000 individuals are in state and federal prisons or local jails for a drug charge on any given night.
Think of the children? No Ok then Think of the savings?
Former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández was convicted of drug trafficking last year in the U.S. and sentenced to 45 years in prison. He conspired to traffic 400 tons of cocaine into the country and was “at the center of one of the largest and most violent drug-trafficking conspiracies in the world.”
Now he is a free man
Ten 406
Believe the crypto bull has finally started after almost 4 year bear market. Let’s go! Hope it’s not another bull trap…
An unfortunate outcome of the US drug war is that more illegal drugs are being smuggled into the EU. Lots of major entry hubs in Europe with a high volume of shipping containers. The drugs are concealed in the legal cargo.
Disband the Department of War Crimes
You’re not that naive nor should you let emotion get in the way of logic at your age. You should know better.
Cool website
https://alerts.in.ua/en
What is most disrepectful is sending them into places by lying about things like “weapons of mass destruction” when they know there aren’t any.
Or this:
Mr. Hegseth had said that he watched the operation live on video before he “moved on” to his next meeting. But following news reports about the second U.S. strike, Mr. Hegseth said he “didn’t stick around” to see it.
Guy is a liar.
VSG says:
December 3, 2025 at 8:06 am
They are very disrespectful of our military.
Our armed forces deserve better
Don’t worry about the drugs. There will always be plenty as long as there is demand, it’s just that the wealthy will be able to get them easier.
I worked near WTC 1 and 2 years ago, knew many people who worked as traders and commodity brokers. Snow was everywhere.
It’s even in the White House, and Biden’s son had all he could use, his ladies loved romping around with him snorting it off his chest.
The wealthy don’t get the garbage laced with fentanyl.
And they will always get their supply. I’d bet Epstein Island had it’s own pharmacy full of goodies to get those underage girls nice and high as the wealthy boys had their way with them.
Honeypot city.
It is highly unlikely that a blood thirsty wannabe like Hegseth walked away from a live feed of “his” missiles obliterating the target.
Shame for that general to have his name dragged through mud for this. He was part of SEAL Delivery Vehicle Team 2, SEAL Team Four, SEAL Team Six. A proud Texan, etc…
He is all that MAGA stands for.
Gary, pardoning leading drug dealers would also seem an unfortunate outcome
Chad Powers says:
December 3, 2025 at 8:34 am
An unfortunate outcome of the US drug war is that more illegal drugs are being smuggled into the EU. Lots of major entry hubs in Europe with a high volume of shipping containers. The drugs are concealed in the legal cargo.
Russians told Witkoff and Kushner to pound salt.
Russians know the deal. They are in it for the long game, and realize it’s going to be a ground game for years. Americans cannot be trusted to keep a deal. Their government is infected.
A nice video here with a girl traveling to Ukraine from Poland, meets a Ukrainian soldier who tells it like it is. How Zelenskyy gets rich, and he has to pay for his own uniforms.
Head to 10:40 to skip to the best part.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZ92iAvxV6A
If people didn’t want it or need it, no one would import it, right??
How much do you buy, Chad?
Some people want to buy Bimmers, others would rather be high. Oh, and it’s not just the junkies that bother you so much. It’s always those, the ones on the streets, that really disgust the “educated” ones.
Drugs are in all of the wealthy towns. Your own kids may be imbibing in them right under your noses. Or selling the dope from their Range Rovers and Bimmers. Sons and daughters of Wall Streeters and Cops.
Chad Powers says:
December 3, 2025 at 8:34 am
An unfortunate outcome of the US drug war is that more illegal drugs are being smuggled into the EU.
Something tells me Chad isn’t the type to want to try and outrun a drone laced with C4.
More the type that wants to hang in a pub getting smiles from a “Fräulein”.
Juice Box says:
December 3, 2025 at 7:17 am
Europe sits on their thumbs while Russia mobilizes for war, allocating 1/3 of their total budget on military spending. The EU refuses to raise an army while Putin is cutting social services and spending even more on War.
Personally I think the Germans and the Poles best get off their dupas and start figuring out how to fix their respective economies.
Maybe VW could start by making cars that don’t require a trip to the dealership to program a car battery installation. I find that to be criminal by a manufacturer to do such a thing.
Corporations are disgusting these days, just look at what John Deere did to the farmers.
I hope the farmers buy all of their equipment from the Chinese from now on.
Dark: Russia is devoting one third of its 2026 budget next year to military spending as per a WSJ article, and the EU is still farting around, and arguing over nonsense. Time for them to set up their own standing army, but they don t want to. As you note Russia is in it for the long haul.
Interesting enough, the train passport control from PL to UA was no joke even in peace times ten years ago. I was on the night train to Lviv. Guards took our passports and then instructed us to disembark the train with all luggage. We then sat in an outdoor cage waiting for the UA train to pull up. We then boarded the new train and waited for what seemed like an hour, with only the sound of barking German shepherds piercing the chilly night air. The female UA guard who boarded the train to return papers was a 10/10 tho. Like why are you walking the halls of this train in camo getup and not runway elsewhere?
Walking out of the train station in Lwów was like stepping back in time into the 1985 Poland I remember. Wild
I don’t like that Pete Hegseth, no managerial experience at all, and now he is running the Department of Defense, stop with the nonsense off changing it back to the Department of War, what is the point of that. Hegseth is a serial cheater too, I know that is personal but it says a lot about character.
This version of the “war on drugs” is the dumbest yet.
Juice: The drug runners are not poor fisherman, they may have started out as such, but now I am sure they are well paid. As far as blowing them out of the water, I am not sure how I feel about that, but as you note we do blow up Somali pirates and Houthis. That said why at the same time did Trump pardon the former president of Honduras a convicted drug dealer/facilitator. WSJ says its because the Biden administration set him up. Trump says he read the information presented in defense of the former president and agrees that he was set up. So now he is released after less than a year in jail, and he gets to enjoy his millions in drug money.
Boomer: You are using the old Polish name for the city, some might have an issue with that. As for border controls, the process on crossing the border from Croatia to Montenegro is pretty intense. Armed military police collect all the passports, for review. All vehicles are heavily checked, although some more than others. We saw one where they were taking off door panels on a car. The military is heavily armed, and the facility is state of the art. The whole process took about 45 minutes or so, when we were there last year, but can take longer depending on volume. Once we got to the Montenegrin border there was only one lightly armed military guard, in a broken down hut, and tattered Montenegrin flag. Croatia is the gate keeper for the rest of the EU as Croatia borders on non EU countries.
America’s handlers may have bankrupted Russia financially, but a cornered dog fights with the most vigor.
Putin won’t be bought. This is how America’s handlers work. They try to suck you in with some cash. But Putin is a man of principle and tradition, and being ex KGB, he knows and has studied American tactics as well.
Hopefully the puppet Presidents of America have enough of a spine to not let their handler’s egos turn it into a bigger mess than it already is.
Donald Trump’s dreams of peace in Ukraine have suffered a brutal blow as Volodomyr Zelensky today canceled his meeting with the President’s envoys.
Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, the architects of the Gaza peace deal, concluded five hours of bruising negotiations at the Kremlin on Tuesday.
The pair were expected to fly to Brussels on Wednesday for talks with Zelensky but they flew directly from Moscow to Washington, DC last night.
‘The Brussels meeting is called off,’ a Kyiv Post correspondent wrote on X, citing sources. Zelensky was going back to Ukraine, the journalist added.
No explanation was provided by either side but the abrupt change of plans likely reflects the lack of progress on ending the war.
Vladimir Putin, meanwhile, issued a chilling warning to Europe on Tuesday, stating that Russia was ‘ready’ for conflict on the continent.
He said that any assault would be so ferocious that there would be ‘nobody left to negotiate peace with’ once it was concluded.
The drug runners are not poor fisherman, they may have started out as such, but now I am sure they are well paid.
If a cartel asks you to drive a drug running boat for them, how wise is it to say “no”?
If you are a poor fisherman, that extra money may be the difference between your kids eating and going hungry.
As far as blowing them out of the water, I am not sure how I feel about that, but as you note we do blow up Somali pirates and Houthis.
Smuggling is not in the same league as piracy or shooting missiles at ships.
Trump the ol’ geezer is all about his legacy. No matter how many MRI scans he gets, the ol’ goat realizes deep down as his pannus hangs lower that his clock is ticking.
It’s not America that he wants great again, it’s all about him. It’s projection.
He needs to be a hero. He needs that elusive Nobel peace prize. He surrounds himself with attracive women to make himself feel powerful. All delusions of grandeur, all detected by his handlers, so he is easy to manipulate by stroking his ego like petting a cat.
It’s really pathetic. Just as pathetic as electing the last one with borderline dementia.
Of all the ways to understand President Donald Trump’s belligerence toward Venezuela — as a campaign against “narcoterrorists,” a play for its oil reserves, a desire to control the Western Hemisphere — the most overlooked is the outcome he covets more than all those things combined: greatness. For Trump, Venezuela is not just a geopolitical question. It is an opportunity to lead in war, a hallmark of presidents considered the nation’s best.
Using billion dollar weapons to shoot the type of boats you find all over Flo-Rida is childish.
It’s like wearing your little brother’s t-shirt to try and make yourself look tougher than you are.
Trump would take on Putin, but his handlers won’t let him cause they know even with all of their money they can’t protect themselves from nuclear annihilation.
The Chinese are a real headache for the handlers as well, they ain’t falling for the bait either.
Dark Phoenix,
At one point I did have a BMW, mainly because I got a great deal on it. I don’t spend all that much money except on real estate upkeep and taxes. I currently have a Ford S-Max and a small VW.
Has anyone here ever been to Porto, Portugal? We’re looking at going there next year for a couple of weeks.
The women thing is so overt and consistent. Seriously WTF?
Dark Phoenix says:
December 3, 2025 at 10:57 am
He surrounds himself with attracive women to make himself feel powerful. All delusions of grandeur, all detected by his handlers, so he is easy to manipulate by stroking his ego like petting a cat.
Has anyone here ever been to Porto, Portugal? We’re looking at going there next year for a couple of weeks.
Didn’t think you were signing up for this:
https://www.bundeswehr.de/en/organization
Dark: We have been to Porto. It is well worth a visit. The food is fantastic! Lots of history, it’s a very old city. You might want to do the river cruise while there. Depending on how much time you have, I would also most definitely visit Sintra, Caiscaix, and Navarre. Although there are similarities with Spain, Portugal is quite different in many ways including the language. Don’t speak Spanish to them, it’s insulting. Many people including lots of young people speak English.
Chad: Sorry, I addressed your Porto question under a comment addressed to Dark.
OC1: Thanks for the lecture.
The corruption of those in charge. Ursula, why are you always VonDerLying?
On Tuesday, 2 December, Belgian authorities detained former EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini and one of the EU’s most senior diplomats, Stefano Sannino, as part of a fraud probe.
According to media reports, police detained three suspects and searched the European External Action Service (EEAS) and the College of Europe over alleged corruption in the establishment of a training academy for diplomats. The searches—conducted at the request of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) and approved by the Belgian police—took place at the EEAS in Brussels, in buildings of the College of Europe in Bruges and at private homes, according to an EPPO statement.
Prosecutors allege that the public tender for the nine-month European Union Diplomatic Academy, an EU-funded training programme for junior diplomats, run by the EEAS, was rigged to favour the College of Europe. According to the charges, the College (with Mogherini as its rector) received confidential procurement information—including selection criteria—in advance, giving it an unfair competitive advantage. This alleged bias in favour of the College may amount to procurement fraud, corruption, undue conflict of interest, and a breach of professional confidentiality rules.
OC1: Thanks for the lecture.
You’re welcome!
I’m here for you, man. ;)
Bit of unrest here too:
https://www.hungarianconservative.com/articles/current/firewall-left-wing-political-violence-state-control-germany/
OC1.
I’d have to agree with you. It’s not like the cartel actually gives you a choice.
The corruption of those in charge.
Corruption is part of the human condition. It has always been with us, and always will.
But good governments fight corruption; bad governments embrace it.
Obama Administration’s Official Estimate: In its first public report released in July 2016, covering the period from January 2009 to December 2015, the Obama administration estimated that between 64 and 116 civilians were killed in drone strikes and other counterterrorism operations in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and Libya. The White House stated it presumed unknown victims in strike zones were non-combatants, a change from earlier, disputed policies.
The Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ): Estimated between 492 and 1,100 civilians were killed by drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia alone during this period.
Airwars: A monitoring group that focuses on the anti-ISIS coalition campaign in Iraq and Syria, estimated that Obama-era actions against ISIS led to approximately 2,300 to 3,400 civilian deaths.
estimated that Obama-era actions against ISIS led to approximately 2,300 to 3,400 civilian deaths.
Guess those lives didn’t matter.
Imagine if some other country came here and did that to your family.
Obama’s handlers wanted that done as well. That is how the wealthy accumulate all the money. They have stock and connections in all of these weapons manufacturers.
Obama also loved the bankers. Gave them a sweet deal during the investigations.
Democrat criminals. Republican criminals.
But Karoline Leavitt’s brother’s wife, well, yeah, the only thing she was guilty of is being more attractive than blondie.
OC1: I don’t need you to be there for me man. I prefer to have discussions not lectures.
Aaaaah the petulant little cunts on this board.
Guess those lives didn’t matter.
Outrage must be selective as long as it fits the narrative.
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/200-year-history-of-u-s-debt/
Debt repayment now higher than military spending.
Well played Boomer.
White Trash Eddie says:
December 3, 2025 at 1:19 pm
Guess those lives didn’t matter.
Outrage must be selective as long as it fits the narrative.
The narrative that fits if you love Trump or Biden that is.
Good ol’ Palantir.
One of the handlers. Nice Job, Alex.
Long time Democrap. Then suddenly a Repuke.
Good cop, bad cop. Or just another handler.
He has no side unlike some of the posters on here
Only side he has is which one he can manipulate to make money.
Karp, formerly an outspoken Democrat who a decade ago said that he respected “nothing” about Trump and that a deportation drive made “no sense,” has staunchly defended the president’s immigration policies in his second term. Declaring Palantir to be “completely anti-woke,” he has repeatedly praised Trump’s ongoing crackdown on immigrants, thrusting the company into one of the country’s most contentious issues.
Palantir’s federal contracting business has bloomed during the Trump administration. Its September tally of new federal contracts was $128 million, its largest monthly sum on record
In case y’all need a nice suit for an occasion, looky see who decided to have his own menswear collection.
The Roger Stone Collection officially dropped on Black Friday of last week. It features four suits available for preorder priced from $1,100 to $3,500, two jackets ($800), a pair of trousers ($299) and seven dress shirts ($199).
Wonder if in the package you get a free temporary Nixon tattoo to put on your back.
1:19 you can barely spell narrative
Dedicated to our favorite Kraut Bastard:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LqIda_-e1QU&pp=ugUEEgJlbg%3D%3D
Okay Upside is here bitches. Take a fucking seat. Y’all
1:59 mein micro dick
Regarding Karp. Heads of defense contracting companies try to have good relations with presidents and congress. Duh. His mistake was opening his mouth to criticize a potential future client in the first place.
Come on an Suk upsides divk comrade cunto fuck
Kneeel before Zod.
Are all you lefties loving Ken Burns’ American Revolution series?
I’ve slogged through the first two episodes, and I don’t think I can take it any more.
Most of the talking head historians he uses are clearly of the modern DEI variety, who can hardly finish a sentence about history without bringing up slavery, race, feminism, native tribes, or something else bad about Founding Fathers. Clearly inspired by Marxist Howard Zinn’s American History textbook.
It’s possible to cover the various injustices and hypocrisies of the time as side topics, but Ken Burns and his woke historians think their anti-white-male complaints deserve fully equal time, and to be woven into every discussion.
So it’s a perfect American Revolution series for anti-Americans.
But I suspect that the academic historians teaching our kids in high school and college today still think the series is too pro-America, which tells you something about them.
After 250 years intellectuals have taught Americans to hate their country, which makes sense given the philosophies of the typical intellectuals.
No One: The radical leftists are winning in this country. Sad, but true. The USA is a flawed country that made mistakes, and some horrific ones. But, this country did much that is good , and contributed much to the world, as well as taking in millions of people from all over the world. The radical left refuses to acknowledge that. They are an incredibly miserable bunch, but they are winning. At some point we may see the political reeducation camps introduced and I am not exaggerating.
Which side wants to claim this one:
https://www.tiktok.com/@haleyrose99/video/7571117130293316894
We already have political re-education camps run by the government. Called public schools.
The private sector also offers re-education camps through the various forms of DEI training, and I hate it.
Founding Brothers by Joseph Ellis was a good book I’ve read about the revolution and the men who led it.
The John Adams HBO series was a good one I’d recommend over the PBS series, though narrower in scope.
PBS these days never misses a chance to prove their critics on the right right. They’re in such a leftist bubble they can’t even see their bias.
3:43 oh look!!! An imbecile
Meanwhile:
A new report from payroll processor ADP found that private employees lost nearly 32,000 jobs in November, far off analyst projections that they would add 10,000 jobs. The data is a sharp decline from October, where businesses overall added 47,000 jobs according to the ADP’s revised estimate.
Upside sounds a lot like Ex when he’s really high. Is that why you’re calling yourself “Upside” -because you got high, starting at about 10am pacific time?
short putdowns that don’t always make sense, check
emphasis on penises and sucking of same, check
All that’s missing is the ascii penis depiction he loves so much, but he often reserves that for his “last word” money shot.
Here’s a video that looks a bit like Ex typing up his penis-heavy commentary:
https://southpark.cc.com/video-clips/domxy7/south-park-a-redwood-forest-of-penises
I can’t imagine what bipolar disorder feels like. What’s worse is not finding the correct medication to suppress it.
5:05 it’s akin to narcissistic personality disorder. Kinda like to orange imbecile potus
Are U a squirter No One?
No One; I will have to checkout his book. PBS has gone completely extreme left. No longer are they about educating, but rather indoctrinating.
Fast: Extreme leftists like to be told how to think. To do other would hurt their brains.
For Dark Phoenix (our Knight In Shing Armour Edition):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBp-0kOOFWU
I’d love to go to Nazare (Portugal – midway between Porto and Lisbon) in the winter.
Insane surfing.
If you haven’t watched 100 foot wave on HBO, it’s a pretty damn good show.
Grim: I have not been there in the Winter, but it is beautiful, and the beaches and natural beauty are breathtaking. Lots of historical too, and the food and libations are excellent, including their beer, Super Bock.
The Beast in me in Netflix was good
Portugal shut down the golden passport. Too many Americans applying for it
Grim: I will check it out. I highly recommend Portugal it’s pretty easy to get around. The only area I might skip is the Algarve in the south, it’s very built up ,similar to Miami Beach.
https://techcrunch.com/2025/12/03/company-backed-by-donald-trump-jr-s-firm-nabs-620m-government-contract/
VSG: Yes it was very good. Highly recommend for those who have not seen it.
Make the check out to: Trump Magnets, Inc.
VSG: I have an Irish passport.
re: Insane surfing
Yah Insane Garrett who is like getting old now.
Good watch for sure.
Are all you lefties loving Ken Burns’ American Revolution series?
I’ve slogged through the first two episodes, and I don’t think I can take it any more.
Most of the talking head historians he uses are clearly of the modern DEI variety, who can hardly finish a sentence about history without bringing up slavery, race, feminism, native tribes, or something else bad about Founding Fathers.
I just watched the first episode. I guess it must go all DEI in the second episode, because the first one certainly isn’t (unless you consider not completely ignoring 2/3 of American population at the time to be “DEI”.)
re: “Russians told Witkoff and Kushner to pound salt.”
Dude stop all ready with the retweets.
The oligarchs would love nothing more than to have free run of 7th arrondissement in Paris or Mayfair or Knightsbridge in London…. Then there are summers on the French Riviera on one of those many now docked yatchs they still have to pay for or they will sink. The Russian rich like many other Europeans who profit from them are trying to wait our Putin..
Dark, regarding the TikTok Video. Give her a break. Newark is now considered one of the worst large metropolitan airports in the world. Just getting to it if you are not a seasoned north jersey resident is a nightmare. When I had to do uncle duties and do driving times, I forced my nephews/nieces to drive there and do a couple of trips in the big circle, exit at Terminal B usually the emptiest and then back home.
Grim, from Business Insider, I got it from Apple News.
Inside the DSCR real estate loan boom — and why landlords are worried
Applying for a home loan is a pain. You have to produce a heap of documents — bank statements, tax returns, employment records, tallies of investment accounts — to prove the stability of your financial footing, then wait for a mortgage underwriter to comb through all of it before giving you the thumbs up. I spoke with one exasperated homebuyer who described the process as a “borderline invasion of privacy.”
While the average American submits to a financial colonoscopy en route to their dream home, wannabe real estate moguls have found a way to sidestep the hassle. With the help of a once-obscure type of loan, they’ve built mini-empires ranging from a few homes to a few hundred — without the usual scrutiny from lenders. These landlords include small-time investors eager to expand their portfolios, TikTok tycoons seeking new streams of real estate revenue, and seasoned property managers looking to make smart bets. In recent years, they’ve taken out billions of dollars’ worth of “debt-service coverage ratio” loans — often abbreviated as DSCR — to hoover up homes. The loans enable income-seeking owners to quickly purchase rental properties while dodging annoying questions about their job history or outstanding debts. DSCRs may sound complicated, but obtaining one is relatively straightforward: A landlord just has to show their lender that the desired property will generate enough rent to cover the monthly payments and other basic expenses, such as taxes and insurance. The lender focuses on the property’s cash flow, not the borrower’s personal creditworthiness.
For some of these landlords, the cash isn’t flowing as planned. Serious delinquencies on DSCR loans have nearly quadrupled in the past three years, data from the real estate analytics firm Cotality shows. Although the troubled loans account for only a small fraction of the total dollar amount of outstanding DSCR loans, they’re a sign that debt-laden landlords face shakier economics amid a rental market slowdown. And while people in the industry defend the idea behind the loans — “It’s still a great product,” one lending veteran tells me — they acknowledge the spread of some sketchy practices that contributed to the spike in bad debt, including ambitious rent targets, hasty approvals, and loans for properties where the rental income wouldn’t even cover the basic monthly payments.
Despite all the hand-wringing over Wall Street-backed giants gobbling up homes, it’s the small and midsize players — prime candidates for DSCR loans — that make up the lion’s share of investor purchases. If lenders tighten their standards in response to the recent turbulence, that could mean fewer budding land barons angling for houses. Regular buyers might benefit from less competition for available homes or the forced sales of some of these places. But a little shakiness in the short term doesn’t mean these loans, along with the investors seeking real estate riches, will disappear. Big asset managers, keen on putting their money to work in real estate, have embraced the product. And with more people turning to rentals instead of buying, more landlords will take on this debt to multiply their holdings — even if some of their dreams of building real estate kingdoms come crumbling down.
Landlords and investors smell opportunity
Most people are content to snag their small slice of the American dream, buying one or maybe a couple of properties that they can call home. But there’s also a growing class of entrepreneurs chasing real-estate riches. Say you decide to become one of those landlords: You own a couple of rental homes that pull in good money, but you’re itching to buy more. Odds are you’ll need a loan — it’s expensive, and probably unwise, to tie up all your cash in a property when you could use it to do all kinds of other things, like pay for repairs or maybe even purchase more places. The Blackstones and Pretiums of the world have ample access to debt, but it’s trickier for a little guy like yourself. Even if your finances are golden, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae limit the number of so-called “conventional loans” you can get to buy up houses and turn them into rentals. Alternatively, you may encounter a limit with your debt-to-income ratio — you can only take on so many liabilities before the typical lenders put the brakes on any further borrowing. This is when you may turn to the world of DSCR loans, where a bevy of lenders promise quick closings, little inspection of your personal finances, and practically unlimited access to more money down the line, as long as you can find rental properties that promise to deliver cash.
True to their name, debt-service coverage ratio loans center on one key metric: the ratio of the property’s expected rental income to its mortgage payment and basic monthly expenses, such as taxes, insurance, and association fees. Let’s say the home you’ve set your sights on brings in $3000 in rent each month, while those expenses total $2,500. Divide that first number by the second, and you get a coverage ratio of 1.2 — well within the typical range for a DSCR loan. Lenders prefer the ratio to be above 1, so that the soon-to-be owner has a little cushion to cover unexpected expenses that are likely to arise, such as a broken water heater or repairs on an aging HVAC system.
DSCR loans for residential investors have been around for more than a decade, but they really came into vogue during the pandemic, when borrowing rates dropped and investors saw a chance to capitalize on rising home prices and juicy rent hikes.
Landlord influencers took to social media to preach the gospel of BRRRR — an acronym for Buy, Rehab, Rent, Refinance, Repeat — which they hailed as the golden path to financial freedom. Some of these evangelists leaned on DSCR loans to buy or refinance their properties, extracting equity from their homes and using the funds to scoop up more rentals. Larger firms also began purchasing loans from smaller private lenders, packaging them into portfolios worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and selling the resulting income streams as bonds, a process known as securitization. The embrace by so-called “institutional investors,” such as insurance companies and asset managers, who purchase these bonds, along with growing demand from small- to midsize landlords, enabled the industry to flourish. Data from SFR Analytics, a real estate analytics firm specializing in single-family rental homes, shows that DSCR lenders churned out more than $44 billion in loans in 2022, up from just $5.6 billion in 2019.
“It really went from an unknown asset class, or very small asset class, overlooked by much of the commercial world,” says Hunter Latta, an executive at the DSCR lender Renovo Capital.
“Fast forward to today, it’s a full-blown, widely accepted asset class.”
Signs of trouble for DSCR loans
However, several things happened in 2022 that made it trickier for investors to wring cash out of their properties. The Federal Reserve began jacking up interest rates to fight inflation, making it more expensive to borrow money. Home prices had surged in the Covid era, so the properties landlords had invested in during the pandemic came with larger loan balances and heftier monthly payments. With Americans feeling financial pressure and fewer forming new households, the pace of rent growth also slowed. By March 2023, according to Cotality, single-family rents were up just 4.3% year over year, down from the 13.3% jump recorded a year prior. Some landlords found themselves in a bind: They’d taken on loans with higher rates, expecting rents to keep pace. But investing in real estate was no longer the slam dunk it had been just a year or two earlier.
The percentage of DSCR loans in “serious delinquency” — meaning that payments are at least 90 days late or the property is in foreclosure proceedings — has nearly quadrupled since mid-2022, Cotality data shows. Just under 2% of securitized DSCR loans (those packaged together and sold as bonds) fell into that bucket as of August, compared with around 0.5% at the same point in 2022. That may not sound like much, but quadrupling the amount of troubled debt has been enough for lenders to take notice. By contrast, only about 1% of conventional loans are seriously delinquent, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association.
Roby Robertson, an executive vice president at LoanLogics, a mortgage technology company, likens this period to a “hangover in a really hot market.” The most challenged loans these days were originated in 2022 and 2023, right when the market was turning. Landlords who might have aimed for a conventional loan couldn’t make the math work, so they turned to a DSCR to make their investment dreams come true.
Some lenders offered quick closings and “sub-unity loans,” which meant that the debt coverage ratio on the home was less than 1 — the rent wouldn’t be enough to cover the loan payments right out of the gate, so the landlord was either betting on the home’s value increasing substantially in the future, or that rents would climb enough to cover the costs. On the other side of the deal, the lender might figure that the landlord had enough skin in the game to make it work: DSCR borrowers usually have to put down at least 20% of the home’s value, and often significantly more, in order to get approval, which makes them unlikely to walk away from a property even if they’re losing money on it.
Other landlords chose to refinance a traditional loan into a DSCR one, a double-edged sword: Though the new loans allowed them to capitalize on higher home prices and pull money out for more deals, they also wound up locked into higher borrowing rates, requiring higher rents to make the payments.
“There is a direct correlation between cash-out refinances and delinquency,” says Alex Offutt, a DSCR executive and industry veteran, referring to landlords who took out loans right as borrowing rates jumped. “You’re taking out the cash to go buy more properties, but rents aren’t keeping pace with property values, right? So you had people that essentially got themselves into an over-leveraged position where they were not able to collect the rent they thought they could.”
ome of these loans left other real estate lenders scratching their heads.
“We’ll have a loan that we look at and say there’s no way we’d finance that, no way we’d get to that leverage amount,” says Sean Kelly-Rand, a managing partner at RD Advisors, an investment firm in Boston. “And then all of a sudden we’ll see them get a DSCR loan, and we’re like, what?”
A mixed bag for rental property owners
Despite the uptick in delinquencies, DSCR loans continue to boom. Landlords secured more than $38 billion in DSCR loans tied to over 100,000 properties last year, according to SFR Analytics. Through October of this year, lenders have cranked out another $32.8 billion on almost 89,000 rental homes. The country’s two largest mortgage lenders, United Wholesale Mortgage and Rocket Mortgage, both now offer DSCR loans, with Rocket announcing its entrance to the space just last month.
Comparing recent delinquency rates to 2022 can be misleading, says Robertson, the LoanLogics executive. Low interest rates and rising home prices at the time made it relatively easy for almost anyone to make money in real estate. Additionally, delinquencies are now trending in the right direction, having decreased slightly from a peak of 2.2% early this year. With this perspective in mind, Robertson refers to the rise in bad debt as “natural growing pains of an industry that’s kind of hot right now.”
“With the market growing as fast as it’s growing, I think it’s actually pretty healthy,” Robertson tells me.
Owners of single-family rental homes face a mixed bag, though. The rent-versus-buy math tilts firmly in their favor — an analysis by the research firm Zelman concluded that the calculation leans toward renting to a degree that hasn’t been seen since the early 1980s. If people continue to choose renting over buying, that’ll be a boon for landlords. On the other hand, rent growth is middling. Single-family rents in August were up just 1.4% year over year, according to Cotality — a 15-year low. And while some of these landlords may be sweating over stagnant or even falling rents, investors who fall behind on their DSCR loans aren’t totally stuck: Because home prices have generally climbed over the past few years, delinquent borrowers are usually able to sell the house and pay off the loan, says Sujoy Saha, an analyst at S&P Global. Still, if fewer well-funded investors are chasing properties and more cash-strapped mini-moguls are dumping their distressed assets, that could mean better odds for regular first-time buyers, who often seek the kinds of entry-level properties that are typically turned into rentals.
For wannabe BRRRRers or members of the FIRE movement, skyrocketing home prices and rock-bottom borrowing rates made the rental business seem like the best way to make a buck just a few years ago. Landlords still see plenty of opportunities to come out ahead — but ultra-cheap loans are no longer part of the equation.
“People got hooked on the cheap money,” Offutt tells me. “Anybody can be successful when the money’s cheap.”
James Rodriguez is a correspondent on Business Insider’s Discourse team.
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