Category: Real Estate (page 24 of 266)

It’s Boxing Day, which was not invented by Amazon, all the empty boxes notwithstanding.

We are obliged by the City of Peoria to separate our trash into one of two 80-gallon wheeled bins – garbage and recycleables. We generate one 13-gallon bag of actual garbage a week, but thanks to Amazon, we often fill that recycling bin.

Curbside recycling would be a joke even if it were not a lie: Adding in your uncompensated labor, the value of recycling does not justify its cost. Even if it were not a lie, it would be wasteful in se, literally more trouble than it’s worth.

Here’s what’s even funnier: Curbside recycling is just as real as Santa Claus. Because it is stupid and wasteful – unjustifiable by the only economic standard that matters, an entrepreneur willing to gamble on the stuff – there is no such thing as curbside recycling. Instead, carefully-sorted garbage is collected by two different trucks from two different barrels on two different days – and then it is all taken to the same one landfill.

Do you insist that’s not so where you live? Look into the facts. Chances are, your town’s fathers are lying to you about what happens to the puppies at the pound, too…

Christmas Brutality: Fifty Shades of Bubba: Christmas at The Sex Addiction Clinic of Misfit Celebrities.

Not much going on elsewhere, not counting the huge bombing:

CNBC: Tech was ahead of Covid curve at every stage, but it couldn’t bring the rest of us along.

John Hayward: 7 Ways Governments Used the Coronavirus Pandemic to Crush Human Rights.

New York Post: Majority of Americans hate socialism, reject AOC: survey.

Andrea Widburg: Nashville: A bomb blast unlike any other on American soil.

Parliamentary governments are incapable of sustained sanity. That’s why the CIA and the State Department install them, in the train of their wreckage, everywhere they go. It’s wonderful that the European Union has released the primordial Parliament from its foolishly self-inflicted bondage, but, sadly, there is no reason to suppose that Great Britain will come to be great again. Even so: Up your own organization! A free Britain at least can, someday, strive to do better.

Christmas Brutality: Christmas at the cemetery — with Bubba.”

In happier places:

Housing Wire: Merry Christmas: Mortgage rates reach another record low.

Karol Markowicz: Elite hypocrisy is killing small businesses.

Brendan O’Neill: Brexiteers, we did it. Don’t say Santa don’t come through.

American Thinker: What are the new SCOTUS justices thinking?

City Journal: Christmas in a Dark Time: Meaning and meaninglessness, and a year of trials.

Having punted once on the nation’s palpable election fraud, the United States Supreme Court has resolved to take another swing at the ball – two days after inauguration.

To all appearances, the entire federal government – minus Donald Trump – is already completely in the pocket of the Red Chinese. Chief Justice John Roberts has been voting their way all along, by crook or just by hook, and it now appears that he is commandeering the courts to frustrate Trump – to China’s ultimate advantage.

America’s founding myth turns on a pre-dawn raid the day after Christmas. I could stand to see something like that again…

Christmas Brutality: Cultivating oak trees – for Christmas: “Unbroken things can survive unbroken forever.”

In other realms:

CNBC: November new home sales fall more than expected, builder stocks drop.

Tucker Carlson: The slow, painful death of California.

CNBC: Ignore the tech naysayers — San Francisco isn’t dying.

City Journal: Doorway Denizens: San Francisco’s beleaguered business owners were hoodwinked into building makeshift housing for the homeless.

Tristan Justice: Trump Veto Of Defense Spending Bill And Blue State ‘COVID’ Bailout Is 100 Percent On Brand.

Frontpage Mag: Yes, It Was a Stolen Election.

Andrea Widburg: Overstock’s colorful founder has tales to tell about the Russia hoax.

The Washington Examiner: Supreme Court sets Pennsylvania response date in Trump election challenge for two days after Biden inauguration.

Here’s something that happens all the time: An HOA gets high-handed, so people start selling to get out from under it, pulling resale prices down. To stanch the blood, the homeowners elect a new, better-behaved board-of-directors. In due course, prices recover.

Hurray! That is successfully-self-correcting government, a phenomenon too-rarely seen at higher levels of high-handedness. Half of it happens – the exodus – but since it’s an exodus of Ants, the Grasshoppers left behind in places like Detroit – and now New York, Seattle, Portland, Los Angeles, etc. – don’t know what’s killing them – so they vote for more of it.

Alas, the Grasshoppers will always be with us. Liberty, what’s left of it, is the freedom of Ants to escape the predations of Grasshoppers.

Looking for a happier New Year? It’s easy: Take your business elsewhere.

Christmas Brutality: “Merry Christmas, Princess Peach.”

In other news:

Housing Wire: Existing home sales end five-month streak increase in November.

Housing Wire: Mortgage applications increase for second straight week.

New York Post: NY leads nation in population drop, could lose House seat.

Housing Wire: Movement Mortgage invests $200M into charter school network. Change the world? First, better fathers. Second, better schools.

Kyle Olson: Antonio Sabato, Jr. Launches Conservative Film Company to Produce Movies that ‘Support Our Country’.

Tristan Justice: A ‘Disgrace’: Trump Threatens Veto Of Pork-Stuffed Blue-State Bailout ‘COVID’ Bill.

Rachel Alexander: RINOs Should be Ashamed for Turning on Trump.

Newt Gingrich: Why I will not accept Joe Biden as president.

Paul Bedard: McConnell and GOP told to back Trump: ‘They all won because of him’.

Steve McCann: The Biggest Political Blunder in American History.

The Washington Examiner: 2020 exposed the teachers unions for the frauds they are.

Robby Soave: An Anti-Racist Education for Middle Schoolers.

I love this quote from Redfin, linked below:

“The hotter the market, the less attractive it is for home sellers to let an iBuying company take a cut of the sale,” said Redfin Lead Economist Taylor Marr. “With home prices and demand surging, many sellers figure they can sell their home quickly without having to give away any of their profits.”

Redfin thus demonstrates that it understands at least half-way how pawn shops work: People only sell to them when they’re desperate. They have a solution, of course: Pay more. And since the point is churn, not profit, why not?

What’s fun is that sellers already understand the dipshit iBuyers completely: They’re the lesser gonophs when you’re the greater fool.

But: What happens when nobody’s buying – not even from the pawn shop?

Christmas Brutality: Hacking cancer, chronic pain, Sony and NORAD on Christmas Eve with Reggie and Shake.

You sneer at Reggie and Shake, but they’re making a killing right now in Bitcoin. Among the less-charitable:

Forbes: New Billionaire: Opendoor’s Public Debut Is A Big Win For CEO Eric Wu.

Redfin: iBuyer Home Purchases Were Down Nearly 80% Year Over Year In the Third Quarter.

Joel Kotkin: Peak Progressive? A sliver of hope for California.

FEE.org: New York Lawmaker Begs Goldman Sachs Not to Go to Florida: ‘Please Don’t Leave Us’.

RedState.com: That COVID Relief Bill Gets So Much Worse, and It Should Infuriate You.

American Thinker: Will we go quietly into the night?

City Journal: Protecting Cops – and Citizens: Lawmakers should consider more constructive policies to improve policing while maintaining public safety.

Three things that need to happen soon:

1. The United States cannot fall under Chinese control.

2. And yet the United States cannot fall into Civil War.

3. While China is rescued by Taiwan – in due course – also without intramural warfare.

Does Joe Biden seem like he’s up for any of those jobs? China Joe Biden?

We all know the election was stolen. Grownups can figure out why that matters.

Christmas Brutality: A canticle for Kathleen Sullivan.

Willie makes you cry for the bad guy. Here’s some bad guys to make you cry:

Redfin: Austin Is Attracting Twice As Many Out-of-Town Homebuyers As Last Year.

Investopedia: Why Silicon Valley Companies Are Moving to Texas: They are fleeing high taxes, expensive housing, and governmental regulations.

Los Angeles Times: This capitalist commune is trying to cure L.A.’s loneliness. Plus there’s free coffee. If only there were some enduring human institution for solving these problems… As with all lifestyle stories, add 50 years and see how everything smells.

The Federalist: I Moved From Locked-Down Virginia To Open Florida, And Faces Came Back To Life.

PJ Media: It’s Not a ‘Conspiracy Theory’ When They Do It: Left Is Questioning Mitch McConnell’s Vote Totals in Kentucky.

Lenora Thompson: 5 Ways Biden and Harris Reveal They KNOW They Lost The Election.

City Journal: A Path to Better Days: Thanks to the innovative power of our market economy, we’re closer to the end of the pandemic than to the beginning.

The chanboys finally got around to Caesar and his Rubicon, but Augustus has seemed more apt to me. By now my Overton Window extends to Lucius Cornelius Sulla – a surgical and at least temporarily-restorative blitz. But: As before, as always, we won’t be safe until Marxism is purged as Naziism was – a task Sulla definitely could have handled.

An easy bet from here is that Trump is retiring slowly. Or it could be there is a deviously-disguised Master Plan after all. Or it could be that the hope of all of Western Civilization rests on the Incandescent need of a completely middle-class guy from Queens to be the fifth bust on Mount Everest.

Fun for me, at a remove from the drama and its consequences, that I still can’t tell for sure.

Christmas Brutality: Blow Hard: How The Meshugonoph Grabbed Festivus.

You wanna see meshuga? No real estate news, just craziness…

J.D. Tuccille: Public Schools Are Losing Their Captive Audience of Children. Before: 2% educated to “elite” (Marxist) status, 98% neglected and flushed. Now: 10% being educated to varying standards, some excellent, 90% flailing. No one should drown, but every rescue is a victory – and a shot at more and better rescues.

CNN: In California, wealthy patients are offering top dollar to cut the line for a Covid-19 vaccine. If only there were a way of moderating demand to available supply… FWIW, my local Safeway figured out they they could drop the limits on items in short supply by doubling the prices. Go Team Mises!

Robby Soave: To Mitigate Racial Inequity, the CDC Wants To Vaccinate Essential Workers Before the Elderly.

David Marcus: The American Left Has Now Fully Embraced Racism.

Mike Miller: Trump: ‘Statistically Impossible’ He Lost, Promises ‘Wild’ Protest in D.C. on Day Electoral College Votes Are Counted.

Daniel Greenfield: You Can’t Sue Over Election Fraud Before, During or After the Election.

Big League Politics: IMF Proposes Punishing Dissidents by Lowering Their Credit Score if They Go to Bad Websites.

Glenn Reynolds: It’s time for the Read more

On January 6th, America’s having a house party – or something like that.

I don’t have a link to share yet, but the President has invited his supporters to Washington to remind Congress who owns half of the privately-held firearms in the world.

Trump’s Tweet says: “Be there, will be wild!”

I expect that’s true.

Christmas Brutality: A Costco family Christmas.

Life outside Costco:

Redfin: Housing Market Update: Home Prices Up 15%, Pending Sales Rise 32%.

City Journal: Another Stake in the Heart of New York’s Small Businesses.

Housing Wire: The looming danger facing the affordable housing industry.

City Journal: Urban Reshuffle? Remote work is accelerating a talent migration to cities with lower living costs and better quality of life.

Housing Wire: Tech money is magnifying Austin’s affordability crisis.

Lee Smith: Russia Collusion Wasn’t About Donald Trump, It Was Designed to Protect Hillary Clinton.

Raw Story: BUSTED? Why the numbers behind Mitch McConnell’s re-election don’t add up.

Roger Simon: The ‘Deplorables’ Must Cement Control of the Republican Party.

Christopher Rufo: Teaching Hate: The Seattle school district claims that the U.S. education system is guilty of “spirit murder” against black children.

I think getting the rank and file back into the office is going to prove impossible. Apple-polishers may yearn for the visibility, but a 45-minute commute each way translates to a whole work-day of extra free time every week. Better yet, you can live anywhere…

As I’ve discussed, we may find that remote work is big-tech’s H1B workaround: Don’t import talent, work it where it is. But: Meanwhile: People moving to Phoenix or Austin will soon be people moving to Nashville or Montgomery. There are many wonderful cities in the U.S. where the median price for a single-family home is under $100,000.

Everyone living in those places is petrified of being overrun by big-city Grasshoppers, but this seems overblown to me. Even though they may have some residual Grasshopper affectations, the people moving in this exodus are Ants – people who believe that hard work pays off and crime does not pay.

What’s a great way to demonstrate to your new neighbors how much freedom they have bought with a three-day drive in a U-Haul? Take them to the shooting range – where every day is Independence Day.

Christmas Brutality: How I got thrown out of Walmart at Christmas for unauthorized salesmanship.

Life beyond Walmart:

Housing Wire: Single-family housing starts reach highest level since 2007.

CNBC: Home flipping profits are the highest in 20 years, but fewer are doing it.

Housing Wire: Mortgage rates hit another record low at 2.67%.

Watts Up With That?: The End of Big Cities? The Hill Blames Coronavirus for the Exodus.

Housing Wire: The next coronavirus front: evictions and foreclosures.

Andy Ngo: Portland lets Antifa win big — again.

The National Pulse: ‘Theft By A Thousand Cuts’ Report Conclusive On Election Fraud, Slams Media Cover Up.

R. Emmett Tyrrell: Who’s Attacking Democratic Process?

We’re all just waiting for the hammer to drop. My bets are tomorrow or Christmas Eve.

What if there is no hammer? God help us all.

Christmas Brutality: A father for Christmas.

In snowscapes less slushy:

Housing Wire: Fed will keep interest rates low until economy recovers.

CNBC: Homebuilder confidence drops from record high as rising prices hit buyers.

Housing Wire: 2021 will be the year of the tech-enabled agent.

FEE.org: Why Seattle’s Proposed ‘Poverty Excuse’ for Crimes Would Destroy the City’s Economy.

The Federalist: Mollie Hemingway: When People Claim The Election Was Rigged, They Include Big Tech And Big Media.

Zero Hedge: Year Zero.

The Federalist: Mike Rowe: I Don’t Want To Pay For Your Useless College Degree.

In the rectangle described by the SR-303 and SR-202 freeways – in other words, all of Metropolitan Phoenix, the entire Valley of the Ever-Fecund Sun, from BFE to shimmering BFE – how many single-family-detached homes are Actively for sale for $200,000 or less?

Zero.

Call it an exodus or a diaspora, we are hugely the beneficiaries.

My question, as always: What’s happening on the other end. If y’all are filling all of our houses, it argues that we’re emptying quite a few of yours. What’s up with that?

Meanwhile: It’s a great time to be a lister in Phoenix, a lousy time to be a buyer’s agent, but maybe an excellent time to be on the supply side.

And: Anyone selling without testing the market – anyone selling to wholesalers or iBuyers – is making a five-figure mistake right now.

Christmas Brutality: A dumpster diver’s Christmas.

In environs less fragrant:

CNBC: Refinance demand jumps 105% annually, as mortgage rates set 15th record low of 2020.

Housing Wire: The nail in the coffin for ending GSE conservatorship under Trump?

The Federalist: How Going Soft On Drugs And Crime Has Turned Seattle Into Another American Wasteland.

New York Post: NYC’s mass COVID-19 exodus cost $34B in lost income, study says.

City Journal: Flight of the Icons: Anti-business policies are driving flagship firms out of California.

American Thinker: The Fraudulent 2020 Election Is History Unfolding before Our Eyes.

Victor Davis Hanson: Where Did the New Mad Left Come From?

The American Spectator: The Road to Hell is paved with government intervention.

The big news on Hunter’s laptop – all along – is that China Joe is beyond all doubt China’s hand-picked puppet.

We didn’t see it at the time, but this was the reason for the timing of the virus, along with TrustTheScience’s genocidal campaign against cheap therapeutics:

No panic, no mail ballots, no fraud opportunities.

That’s the bad news. Here’s the good news: Joe Biden cannot be inaugurated – if America is to remain independent. He was nominated and dragged across the finish line (he hopes) to put America and its arsenal under Chinese control.

Hence: We are all of us waiting for a Christmas miracle. Might be time to look in the mirror.

Christmas Brutality: Christmas in Las Vegas with Kim Jong-un.

In worlds less brutal:

Redfin: Redfin’s 2021 Housing Market Predictions: 14.5 Million Americans Will Move Out of Town, Fueling 10% Sales Growth. No mention of the riots, of course, nor of the housing being abandoned to fill all those new builds. Predicting 70% homeownership is fun: If you’re looking for a BubbleScore™ metric, that’s the one.

Housing Wire: Homebuyer snags $1.4 million seed funding for first-time homebuyers. Bravo, Dan Green, a past BloodhoundBlog contributor.

Redfin: Escaping the City: America’s Hottest Neighborhoods of 2021. You cannot make this shit up: “Redfin’s 10 hottest neighborhoods of 2021 all have one thing in common: They’re offering American homebuyers respite from crowded, costly cities during the coronavirus pandemic.” No, they’re all a long way from the riots. Basing real estate projections on ugly, obviously-false psychological projections seems like a poor strategy.

Housing Wire: Opendoor expands suite of services in multiple states. Everything Realty.bots say to the lapdog media is a confession of financial agony. The iBuyers are branching out to find new ways to burn through investor cash without ever having thought through anything.

John Nolte: Nolte: Box Office Revenue Crashes 80 Percent to 40-Year Low.

The Epoch Times: Dominion Software Intentionally Designed to Influence Election Results: Forensics Report.

WND: Pence to decide race? Law profs say VP allowed to ‘count’ electoral votes.

The Epoch Times: At Read more

Welcome to the infowar, y’all. Don’t say you weren’t warned.

I left out the Chinese spies leak yesterday, but then the treasury breach made it plan I was mistaken. The first was old news, narrative manipulation, a shot across the bow. But if SolarWinds is compromised, then much (most?) of the useful internet is compromised.

The quote in the headline is me in a comment on Facebook last night. I’m pithy everywhere.

Rob Hahn: Seven Predictions for 2021.

National File: LEAK CONFIRMED: Chinese Communists Have Infiltrated Top Companies, Governments In US, UK, Australia.

Apple Insider: Foreign hackers breach US Treasury Department.

Just The News: Amid fears of overwhelmed medical systems, data shows ample hospital capacity nationwide.

Real Clear Politics: Republicans Are Blowing It in Georgia, and We May All Pay the Price.

The Federalist: Ben Domenech: Media, Big Tech Deliberately Lied About Hunter Biden To Shield Joe.

Hal Turner: Loud Arguments in US Supreme Court Chambers over Texas Lawsuit – COURT INTIMIDATED.

AmmoLand: Terror, Supreme Court Justices, and the Existential Threat.

Kurt Schlichter: Could Secession Succeed?

City Journal: How to Fix American Capitalism: End insider privileges by renewing the freedoms to build, to work, to sell, and to learn.

I’m not even linking to the Seth Rich news. If you care you know, and if you don’t you’re deathcamp-bait anyway.

The biggest news story in the world is another one that is not being reported: We are at war with China. We have been since the virus, at least, and we still have much to learn about the virus and its lockdowns. This is the year of dropping masks, and the war with China is making itself known over the election fraud.

And: For all of my talk about Peak 2020 occurring in October, that appellation could well apply, successively, to every day this week. Buckle up.

CNN: New York City’s iconic 21 Club is closing down.

The Epoch Times: Newt Gingrich on Georgia Runoff: ‘We Need to Win by a Bigger Margin Than the Left Can Steal’.

John Hawkins: Why Rush Limbaugh Was Right When He Said America Is “Trending Toward Secession”.

PJ Media: How NBC News Helped the Biden Campaign Ruin an Innocent Man and Bury the Hunter Laptop Story.

Monica Showalter: Texas GOP chair calls for a ‘union of states,’ and the left has a cow.

Michael Barone: How the cultural elite came to rule the Democratic Party.

The United States is a club. Of states. We lie to ourselves about this, and Los Federales are ever glad to aggrandize themselves, but the U.S. is an earlier version of the European Union – with better ideals, better ideas, better P.R. and a much greater coherence.

But: Yet: The states are individually and separately sovereign, each entitled to withdraw from the club at will – in theory, which theory Lincoln, et al, disputed.

The Supreme Court exists to mediate disputes among states, thus to avoid dissolution of the union of states.

We’ll see what happens going forward, but yesterday the Supreme Court punted on its reason for existence. Stupid and cowardly. #EverybodyKnows this election was rigged. Doing nothing just makes them look bought, too.

Meanwhile, what would be the alternative to the peaceful resolution of disputes? Another hashtag: #FAFO.

CNBC: Here’s how the eviction crisis could increase the spread of Covid in the US.

Rob Hahn: Disparate Impact and the NAR Code of Ethics.

CNBC: Oracle is moving its headquarters from Silicon Valley to Austin, Texas.

CNBC: Texas governor says companies moving headquarters to the state has turned into a ‘tidal wave’.

Seth Barron: Bailout Bill: Mayor de Blasio can’t conceive of solutions to New York City’s problems that don’t involve massive federal assistance.

The Federalist: SCOTUS Rejects Texas Lawsuit Contesting Biden’s Wins In Swing States.

The Epoch Times: Former Special Forces Officer Warns of Color Revolution Tactics Used Against Trump.

City Journal: Arbitrary and Illogical: California resumes unjustified Covid-19 stay-at-home orders.