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Archives (page 30 of 372)

October 12, 2020

Overnight News: Has Joe Biden frolicked things up just in time?

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Ya think it's easy?

“What do you know for sure when a rumpled old man says, ‘You don’t deserve to know if I have treats in my pocket!’ And who is going to clean up all this drool?”

Speaking of Joe Biden, Barack Obama said, “Don’t underestimate Joe’s ability to [frolic] things up.”

Saturday, I said: “I desperately wanted for this election to be about Marxism: ‘You’re what’s for dinner!™’ Biden wanted for this election to be about Trump. Biden won.”

Guess what? Obama was right: Just two short days later, Biden has managed to make the election about radicalism, at a minimum.

We’ll see how that plays out, but, meanwhile, not much else is news:

Zero Hedge: These Are The US Cities Where Workers Make The Most Relative To Their Cost-Of-Living. Fun take, but why assume work-from-homers will remain in American? Why assume they will even be Americans, in due course?

Forbes: Is Florida The Likeliest To Rebound First From COVID? If only Arizona had a governor like DeSantis…

New York Post: ‘Ghost town’: In-person attendance dwindles at NYC schools. Assuming we do not vote to become North Venezuela, a signal unforced error for Marxism will turn out to be letting up on the stranglehold they have on America’s children. Children can’t get Coronavirus, but some of them are learning to read for a change. Readers are rebels. Ask me how I know.

National Review: If Biden were a Republican.

Issues and Insights: Beyond Court Packing: Here’s How Dems Plan To Create A One-Party State.

Salena Zito: No matter who wins, there is no exit from the roller coaster anytime soon.

Joel Kotkin: Will the Cultural Revolution Be Canceled? The challenge to our civilization is real, but most Americans aren’t sympathetic to social radicalism. I believe no one who worked for what he has wants to see it destroyed. But as everyone in real estate can tell you, a backward-looking approach only gets you so far…

This election is not about Trump, Biden, court-packing, nit-picking or any other media-borne nitwittery. It’s about Marxism and its zeal to extinguish human liberty. First we must renounce the Marxists, but then we must also purge them from Read more

October 11, 2020

Overnight News: Three ways to be counter-culture in today’s world: 1. Work for a living. 2. Work weekends. 3. Vote like Johnny Rotten.

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Ya think it's easy?

“If you’re not committed 24/7, you might as well just take a nap.”

Typical weekend news drought. You’ve got time to read, they’ve got time to vay-cay.

Forbes: Housing Prices Aren’t Coming Down According To Realtor.com. CTRL-F ‘riot’; not found. The national news is so good, the local news cannot possibly be bad… right…?

Fox News: San Francisco tax revenue plunge points to resident exodus. CTRL-F ‘riot’; not found. How long will it take for rioter-friendly cities to realize what they have done?

New York Post: Stealing Soho: Luxury retailers terrorized by shoplifting mobs.

Tablet: Left Fascism.

Breitbart: Sex Pistols Front Man Johnny Rotten: ‘Of Course I’m Voting For Trump.’

October 10, 2020

Overnight News: You can tell Trump is going to lose because everyone hangs on his every word.

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Ya think it's easy?

“Howling dogs tell you nothing. It’s what they’re howling about that matters.”

I desperately wanted for this election to be about Marxism: “You’re what’s for dinner!™” Biden wanted for this election to be about Trump. Biden won. The American people had already priced him out of the deal, and now they have seen that his designated-successor is inept in her own unique ways. We are down to a plebiscite on Trump.

Overnight on BloodhoundBlog:

Eric Blackwell: Rama and Sunil Mehra – The American Dream and teaching young lions to hunt. This is the first installment in Eric’s “Howling about the Positive” series of posts.

And from the great big world out there:

Housing Wire: Home prices rose by record numbers last week. CTRL-F ‘riot’; not found.

The Verge: Microsoft is letting employees work from home permanently. CTRL-F ‘riot’; not found.

Housing Wire: For the first time since April, forbearances fall below 3 million.

The Close: Why Agents Make the Best Real Estate Investors—Even During the Pandemic.

The Federalist: A Riot In The Suburbs: Inside The Changing Face Of Wisconsin 2020.

The Hollywood Reporter: Patty Jenkins: “We Could Lose Movie Theater-Going Forever.”

City Journal: Lab Coat Tyranny: California is using “public health” as a rationale to push progressive political goals.

The Washington Free Beacon: Data Reveal How Yale Discriminates Based on Race.

City Journal: Don’t Defend Columbus—Celebrate Him.

And some pure real estate porn:

Forbes: San Francisco’s Billionaire Enclave Sees Rarely Available Cliffside Home List For $25 Million.

October 10, 2020

Rama and Sunil Mehra – The American Dream and teaching young lions to hunt | Howling about the Positive

by

The Real Estate Group, Virginia Beach and Chesapeake VA

Author website

Author’s note: This post is about Rama Mehra and her team. They work in the East Bay in northern California. Feel free to click that link and see who they are, and what they do. With all of the negativity in the world these days, each week I am going to highlight some of the amazing people I have met during a career of almost 20 years serving as a technologist in the real estate industry. I am also going to highlight a few things that I have learned from each of them. Are any of these people perfect? No, none of us are…but if there is one thing that I have learned, it is that each person does at least one thing REALLY well. Sometimes many things. Finding that good that is in each person and learning from it has been a fun and rewarding life experience for me.

Here is a picture of their team:

So what is your version of the American Dream? Would you chase it to a new country? Would you learn a new language to seek your fortune? Would you be flexible and yet tough enough to deal with new cultures and customs? America offers freedom. Freedom provides opportunity. Opportunity brings challenges. Challenges bring character and strength. This is what attracts the best of the best to immigrate to America. And people like Rama and Sunil coming here is EXACTLY what should be celebrated about this country.

One of the amazing things for me about working in the real estate industry have been the incredible people that I have met. I am a family guy. I love and appreciate the talent that it takes to be a spouse and a parent. I have often fallen short, but I love the relationship that I have now with my kids as adults and wth my wife, Jen. We have 4 young adult (now) kids. When I met Rama Mehra and her husband Sunil there were a few things that almost immediately struck me about them.

First was how well they treated each other as a couple. When they immigrated to Read more

October 9, 2020

Overnight News: The RiotScore™ of Chiefs of Police: When are you safe? When should you flee?

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Ya think it's easy?

“C’mon, look at me: Some of my closest friends are police dogs.”

There is no rioting! More importantly, there is no denial of the rioting that is not happening, anyway! How can you know that’s all true? Because there are no police chiefs quitting in disgust all over the country, that’s how! So there!

Urf… Meanwhile: Yesterday on BloodhoundBlog:

Brian Brady: October 2020 Mortgage Rates Report: Cheeseburgers can only get so cheap.

Greg Swann: Listing Clinic: How I list and sell for top dollar in under seven days-on-market.

And in the rest of the world:

Redfin: U.S. Home Prices Up 15%, Largest Growth Since at Least 2005. CTRL-F ‘riot’; not found. How could a brokerage based in Seattle be expected to know anything about the impact of rioting on real estate?

CNBC: Red-hot home prices have more consumers saying now is a bad time to buy. CTRL-F ‘riot’; not found. Are buyers waiting out the post-election riots?

Redfin: 6.5% More Americans Looked to Relocate to Red and Swing Counties than to Blue Counties in the Spring. CTRL-F ‘riot’; not found. Well, at least we know for sure it’s not because of the rioting Redfin never seems to discuss.

CNBC: Empty rental apartments in Manhattan triple, nearly hitting 16,000. CTRL-F ‘riot’; not found. What’s bleeding all the fun out of Fun City, do you suppose?

Housing Wire: Average U.S. mortgage rate drops to 2.87%.

CNBC: Coronavirus mortgage bailouts fall below 3 million in pandemic’s sharpest decline.

Forbes: Despite Option To Pause Payments, 400,000 Homeowners Fall Behind On Their Mortgage. Not sure if this is connected: Can we look forward to a wave of ‘buy and bail’ foreclosures in Ant-abandoned cities?

Yahoo Finance: Opendoor and other iBuyers’ sales stall despite hot housing market. Very fun article on the scaled cluelessness of buying for resale against the market. The bigger fun doesn’t start until they get to sell that way – for years on end.

Forbes: Alma Maters For Sale: America’s Small Colleges Were Already Hurting Pre-Covid. Things Are About To Get Worse.

Bloomberg: Inside a California Covid Revolt.

Fox Business: Cities are losing police chiefs and struggling to hire new ones. The RiotScore™ of Chiefs of Police: Read more

October 8, 2020

Listing Clinic: How I list and sell for top dollar in under seven days-on-market.

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

There is a better way to list – and I have the stats to prove it.

My listing stats are off-the-scale excellent, stipulating that I’m working for now from a very small sampling. Everybody’s stats are like mine, just now, in this buying frenzy, but my next closing should improve my numbers, anyway: Four days on market, $10,000 over list, all cash.

I happily tell the world what I do – and no one does any of it. Fine with me. I work for my clients, not yours.

Consumers: I work in the West Valley in Metro Phoenix, but if you live somewhere else, find a listing agent with stats like mine.

October 8, 2020

October 2020 Mortgage Rates Report: Cheeseburgers can only get so cheap

by

Commercial Real Estate Finance Expert
Structured Debt and Equity
Licensed Real Estate Broker in AL, CA, and FL

Author website

Why, if the Federal Reserve Bank is keeping rates at nearly zero, are mortgage rates rising from their August lows?

Try to imagine that mortgages are cheeseburgers and it starts to make sense.  Imagine that the mortgage industry is a lot like the fast food/casual dining industry and it makes even more sense.  In my last post here, I tried to give you some background on securitized mortgage lending (aka as ‘nearly every dammed loan being funded today‘) but just think of mortgages like cheeseburgers.

If you want a cheeseburger, you have lots of choices:  Big restaurant chains (like In N Out) sell cheeseburgers, as do big franchised networks (like McDonalds and Burger King) and tens of thousands independent “burger joints” in every burg across our fruited plain.

Now, imagine that there was a “Federal Meat Provider” which set the wholesale price of meat to make cheeseburgers.  A health crisis hit so the Federal Meat Provider dropped that price of meat to a stupendously low figure so everyone could eat.  Subsequently, the chains, franchisees, and independent operators dropped the retail price of a cheeseburger to an historically low price.  Predictably, people were lined up at every burger restaurant in the country, waiting 5 hours to get that cheap burger.  What would you do if you owned a restaurant?

Hire more people so you could sell more cheap burgers and (hopefully) retire when the Federal Meat Provider raised the price of meat again, right?

Well, it’s not that simple.  There are new rules about selling cheeseburgers and those new employees have to be trained.  Moreover, while the Federal Meat Provider is trying to keep cheeseburger costs low to help people during the health crisis, the various State Employment Agencies won’t let the burger restaurant owners hire just temporary / part-time employees without added costs and regulations.  Add in that the local School Board wants to levy higher taxes on burger restaurant owners.  On top of those problems, nobody really knows when the Federal Meat Provider will raise the wholesale cost of meat so it’s hard to predict demand beyond a 3-6 month time frame.  At a certain Read more

October 8, 2020

Overnight News: When your boss promises race-based hiring, does that create a hostile work environment?

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Ya think it's easy?

“If you want to see how a leash really works, tag along with me when I spot a rabbit.”

America’s corporate blowhards may soon discover the price of performative racism. None so deserving – and no error more obvious.

Housing Wire: As home prices increase, sellers have the upper hand. CTRL-F ‘riot’; not found.

CNBC: JPMorgan Chase makes $30 billion commitment to help close America’s racial wealth gap. CTRL-F ‘riot’; not found.

Forbes: How Your ‘Free’ Buyer’s Agent Increases The Cost Of Homeownership (And What Homebuyers Can Do).

Forbes: Stepping Up, Seizing The Time, Walking To School: These Buyers Are Closing On Properties In NYC Right Now.

City Journal: A Failed Experiment: The lockdowns must end.

The Washington Examiner: Labor Department warns firms bragging of hiring only black people that it’s ‘discriminatory’. Labor law will eat corporate America from the inside-out and the outside-in at the same time. Liars get what liars ask for.

Jeff Jacoby: On California’s ballot, an invitation to legalize discrimination. “Will voters let government revert to making judgments based on skin color?”

The Tablet: Is Warren Buffett the Wallet Behind Black Lives Matter?

PowerLine: A Pulitzer Prize that should be revoked.

The Independent Institute: What We Really Need Is a 490 B.C. Project.

October 7, 2020

Overnight News: Grasshoppers discover new and better ways to make Ants move away.

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Ya think it's easy?

“Snarling dogs don’t get treats? Who knew?”

This has been a year of amazingly poor choices. For example, the NBA has only just now discovered that spitting on its fans – again and again – is a poor fan-retention strategy. St. Louis has not scared away enough taxpayers in recent years, so now it is criminalizing self-defense. Who needs a RiotScore™ by now? The NRA can tell you which states still permit human thriving.

Yesterday on BloodhoundBlog: Brian Brady: The Real Estate Correction of 2021. Crystal Ball salesmen: Please phone today!

Redfin: 22% of Homebuyers and Sellers Say the Presidential Election Is Impacting Their Plans. CTRL-F ‘riot’; not found. FWIW, getting things buttoned up before the election is wise – because of the riots.

Housing Wire: 400,000 mortgage borrowers are “needlessly delinquent.”

CNBC: Mortgage rates set another record low, sparking new strength in refinances.

Housing Wire: Mortgage applications rise 4.6%. “Purchase applications hit 20 straight weeks of year-over-year gains.”

Housing Wire: Opendoor discloses that it’s under federal investigation.

Fox News: McCloskeys indicted on gun charges stemming from standoff at St Louis mansion.

Aeon: The desire to fit in is the root of almost all wrongdoing.

Real Clear Politics: Who Wants to Blow Up Our Constitution? (It’s Not Trump.)

The American Mind: The Mount Rushmore Election.

American Greatness: Trump, Atlas: Time to Face Down Coronavirus Fear.

City Journal: In Defense of “Me-First Capitalism”. “Worse than the CEO who tends only to his company’s profits is the one who tends to your innermost thoughts.”

October 6, 2020

The Real Estate Correction of 2021

by

Commercial Real Estate Finance Expert
Structured Debt and Equity
Licensed Real Estate Broker in AL, CA, and FL

Author website

Over 13 years ago, I tried to explain how mortgage securitization would cushion losses to investors and lessen the negative effects of mortgage defaults to real estate prices:

Basically, the Titans of Wall Street never had to answer for the performance of these loans because the money managers wanted that last little bit of yield the risky or exotic mortgages produced. The rising housing market would disguise the loose guidelines (defaults would just be refinanced) and everyone would make their little golden crumbs as the vanishing loaf was buried deep in the breadbox. If that wasn’t enough, the lenders would buy securities firms and the securities firms would buy lenders, all of them buying time before the cat got out of the bag.

Then Alan Greenspan raised interest rates and all hell broke out. Rapid growth in housing arrested and the refinance boom stopped. Alas, the lenders and Wall Street Titans kept the easy money machine flowing. Think about it, it wasn’t their money, it is yours…so why close the bar tab if you never intend to pay it ?

Now…here is the part where you should be infuriated but don’t have to be… This crap has been buried in so many funds that it won’t have too much of a lasting effect. The debacle that we read about will be paid for by you, Mr. and Mrs. America with the $57,254 balance in your IRA account. And it is going to hurt you, probably to the tune of two or three grand. That means these HUGE default rates we read about MAY lower your IRA balance to $54,819 next year. If you’re 50 years old, it means that the monthly check you draw from that IRA when you are 70 years old WILL be some 38 bucks lighter because of this mess.

I was correct in THEORY but things never work out theoretically, right?  Just 18 months later. I posted that same article with a Mea Culpa:

I’m kicking this one up to the top, in honor of today’s events.  It’s a historical look about the early MBS markets.  Now before you jump me for my incorrect Read more

October 6, 2020

Overnight News: “Keep calm? Carry on? What kind of useless advice is that?!?”

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Ya think it's easy?

“‘Run in circles, scream and shout?’ That’s just my game.”

President survives illness that kills almost no one. Grasshopper-influencers lose their minds – again.

Redfin: Home Prices Up 14%, But Price Growth May Wane Soon. CTRL-F ‘riot’; not found.

CNBC: Denver suddenly has one of the most competitive housing markets in America.

Housing Wire: Biden’s first-time homebuyer tax credit in the age of COVID-19.

Housing Wire: Mortgage delinquencies expected to remain above pre-pandemic levels until 2022.

PJ Media: Life on the Streets: A Cop Confesses What Policing Is Like in the Age of BLM/Antifa.

FEE.org: The Pope Just Called Private Property a ‘Secondary Right.’ He Couldn’t Be More Wrong.

City Journal: Against Fear: President Trump’s handling of his coronavirus diagnosis models positive masculinity — rational and unbowed.

October 5, 2020

Overnight News: Why is there no real estate news on weekends – you know, when real estate happens?

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Ya think it's easy?

“Go ahead. Fool around with my food. Find out what happens.”

A beef I’ve had with the internet since there was an internet to have a beef with: Writers don’t write when readers have time to read. Is this classism or cluelessness: Why would the public library be closed on Sunday, the day when taxpayers have time to go there? If you spend too much time thinking about the incongruities of social existence, you could end up a weblogger.

Meanwhile, the only actual real estate news I have to offer this morning is my own scoop: Zillow and OpenDoor are chiseling Buyer’s Agents in their Phoenix listings. Totally not bleeding themselves out.

The Verge: Bond was the last straw: Regal and Cineworld will reportedly close all theaters in US and UK next week. The contractions we are seeing in commercial real estate categories were happening already, anyway. This year is simply accelerating in-motion efficiencies, with the result that 2020 could end up serving up the benefits of a full-on recession – in Trump time.

Science Alert: 35 Years of Research Into Coronavirus Infections Show Long-Term Immunity Is Unlikely.

The Post Millennial: Mathematics association declares math is racist. Not racist, anti-Grasshopper. Everything that makes Grasshoppers feel inadequate is trayf. Totally not a cult.

The City Journal: The Crypto State? How Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other technologies could point the way to new systems of governance.

October 4, 2020

A Sunday sermon for the Phoenix iBuyers: “Do not bind the mouths of the Buyer’s Agents.”

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

“I was going to pay you this whole pizza, but instead I’m keeping a quarter of it for myself. Why? Because you can’t spell sociopath without Ci, that’s why.”

I don’t list a lot, right now, but I have been working for years to list perfectly: Highest/safest/soonest offer in minimal Days on Market. I haven’t done my numbers in a while, but I’ve been under seven days, on average, for a long time, typically selling at or above Fair-Market Value. I sell bread-and-butter houses, and I sell them fast, for top-dollar, with no hassles and minimal showing-damage to the property.

Because I have a listing right now, I am aware of the competition. Interestingly, I ran across listings from both Zillow and OpenDoor that significantly underpay Buyer’s Agents.

Note well: Brokers are advised to avoid discussing commission rates amongst each other, since free speech and free assembly don’t count if you’re in business. Whatever. I certainly have the right to talk about commissions all alone.

So first: I hate it that the Listing Agent pays the Buyer’s Agent. We say the seller does, but the lenders would never allow that, just as they don’t allow buyers to pay for their own representation. Instead, the seller pays the Listing Agent a lot more than he will typically earn, with half or more of that commission income going to the Buyer’s Agent. You say the buyer is getting representation. I say I am paying a brokerage fee: The price of the introduction. If you don’t see the Agency problem here – I am buying your fiduciary’s loyalty, aligning his interests with mine and my seller’s and against yours – the NAR would love to have you testify on its side in the upcoming lawsuit over this idiotic compensation scheme.

But second: I Corinthians 9:7-10: “Do not bind the mouths of the grunts on the ground who are delivering your dinner!” Buyer’s Agents don’t work for their brokers, they work for Listing Agents. Freelance. On spec. They live on dreams and promises, too many of which don’t come true. They drive hundreds of miles a Read more

October 4, 2020

Overnight News: The good news is the bad news won’t last forever.

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Ya think it's easy?

“Joe Biden is my kind of guy: Terrible at defending his corn chips.”

Eric Blackwell wants you to think positive – and who could blame him? We are 30 days from the election, and I predict 30 days of October Surprises – some of them planned.

The worm is about to turn on the real estate news, too: Unsold listings aren’t news until they are canceled or expire. Buckle up.

Daily Mail: Manhattan apartment sales plummet 46%, leaving 10,000 homes on the market, as buyers look to the suburbs after the city’s spike in crime and strict lockdown. So there’s more to this than just months-ago sniffles?

Reason: California Is a Cautionary Tale for America.

Fox News: NYC shootings spiked 127% in October, murders up 76%: NYPD.

Reason: The Case Against Biden: Joe Biden’s Politics of Panic.

Joanne Jacobs: Schools reopen, no surge.

October 3, 2020

Overnight News: How much does six days matter to the world’s most stable asset class? How much are you willing to risk to find out?

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Ya think it's easy?

“Impatience is one of the things I’m best at.”

I listed a house Friday morning, just after midnight. I had planned to list on October 8th. I rushed matter because, as I told the seller, “Six days is a long time in this market.” While I was posting the listing in the MLS, President Trump was announcing his and Melania’s affliction with Coronavirus. Could that screw everything up by Thursday? How much will you wager that it can’t?

Redfin.com: Condo Prices Climb 5.4% in August, Lagging 11.9% Growth for Single-Family Homes. CTRL-F ‘riot’; not found.

Forbes: The Growing Importance Of The Home For Young Consumers. CTRL-F ‘riot’; not found.

Housing Wire: U.S. unemployment drops to six-month low of 7.9%.

CNBC: Millions of Americans may not be able to pay their rent in October. What to do if you’re one of them.

City Journal: Triple America: A new book proposes that we rapidly expand the population in order to maintain our greatness.

Buzzfeed: Tiny Hand Will Be Your New Comic Sans. It’s a font that mimics Trump’s hand-writing. They think they are being clever, but this will end up benefitting the president more than it might hurt him – just like every other dumb stunt they try. You’d think they’d learn by now.

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Welcome to BloodhoundBlog, the national real estate industry marketing and technology weblog written by, for and about real estate professionals. Better yet, welcome to the wired world of real estate. We are busily inventing Real Estate 2.0 – technology, marketing, service and salesmanship. Like all Bloodhounds, we are smart, frisky and fiercely independent. We've built a spot on the earth – beloved over all – where each one of us can be who we are, no matter who that might be. We are committed to an idea of excellence that will flush the bums, the con-men and the crybabies out of the real estate industry. If you yearn to have your failures excused, your moral lapses absolved or your boo-boos kissed, seek elsewhere. But if you are sick to death of mediocrity – welcome home. Read all about us, subscribe to our feed and steel yourself for the hunt. We work hard, we play hard, we learn everything we can – and we bow to no one.

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