Aug042016
Is Coastal California housing looking frothy?
House prices are high in Coastal California causing sales to wane and many to question whether or not we pushed prices up too high.
In previous real estate cycles, when house prices began to rise, people became excited about participating in the real estate market, and the buying activity would sometimes become frenzied. This desire for real estate was enabled by lenders providing alternative financing products, products that later proved disastrous.
In this cycle both potential buyers and lenders behave differently. At this point in previous cycles, affordability products proliferated, and house prices rose rapidly. With affordability products effectively banned this cycle, the only thing pushing house prices higher is record low mortgage rates. As prices rise, the buyer pool gets thinner and thinner, so despite an improving job market, people aren’t buying more homes this year than last.
If mortgage rates are at record lows and if more people are going back to work, why aren’t more homes selling?
Are prices too high?
Prices are high. Numerous articles over the last year or two reported on new peak prices across most of Coastal California. Our markets respond the best to record low mortgage rates. The added affordability actually improved the rating of the Orange County housing market. Despite the high prices, if you translate that into a mortgage and a cost of ownership, it’s still cheaper to own than to rent in many areas.
Prices and rents are both rising together and both at approximately the same rate. It is classic textbook housing market behavior — albeit juiced by low rates.
Low rates push rental parity almost straight up, which is why the high prices look undervalued.
Resale home price appreciation and rental rate growth are both within historic norms.
The low cost of ownership drives the high rating.
Coastal California is very expensive, but unfortunately, so are the rents. The two costs are in balance with a slight edge toward home ownership.
The Most and Least Affordable Places to Buy Your First Home
By Wei Lu, Victoria Stilwell, and Christopher Cannon, July 28, 2016
Being a first-time homebuyer often comes with a lot of advice. Make sure you can afford your mortgage. Pick a real estate agent who knows the market. Scrape together a good-sized down payment.
We’ve got one more to add to the list: Don’t buy out West.
Bloomberg News analyzed the 100 largest U.S. metropolitan areas to determine the least and most affordable places for people between ages 25 and 44, a proxy for those in their prime home-buying years. We ranked places by the difference between the median household income for that age group and the estimated minimum earnings needed to purchase a single-family home in the region as of 2015.
Affordability Gap
There were six locations that registered an affordability gap—where the minimum salary needed to afford the mortgage outstripped actual income. Urban Honolulu took the top spot, with the following five regions all located in California.
It won’t surprise many of us to find that California dominates the list of the most expensive places to live.
Swaths of the Midwest offer first-timers the best deal, the Bloomberg Housing Affordability Index shows. In the region of Des Moines, Iowa, the estimated monthly mortgage is just $613, implying an annual income of just over $22,000 needed to make payments. That compares with the area’s median household income of about $72,200 last year, making it the most affordable for a would-be buyer.
I grew up where housing was affordable. In the Midwest homeownership rates are very high because it’s so much cheaper than renting that only those with the greatest need for mobility would consider renting. Apparently, there is plenty of housing available to meet the needs of those who live there.
Pittsburgh and Baltimore also ranked among the most reasonable, followed by the regions near Minneapolis; Kansas City, Missouri; and Omaha, Nebraska—three other Midwestern cities.
“We really see this vastly different story about the prospects for homeownership if you’re a young household,” said Ralph McLaughlin, chief economist at real-estate search engine Trulia. The outlook is “really great if you’re in the middle part of the country, and not-so-great if you’re on the western or eastern extremes.”
It’s the same even within the state of California. If you live and work in the east half of the state, you generally enjoy abundant and inexpensive housing of high quality. If you live in the western half of California, you endure scarce and expensive housing of diminishing quality.
Tight supply is one of the primary culprits behind affordability problems in certain U.S. regions. Inventories of available homes across the nation are tight, and entry-level properties especially are in short supply.
In areas such as California, “really it’s a combination of strong job growth and little new housing supply” that’s led to an affordability crunch, McLaughlin said. “If you want to find a home it’s going to be difficult, and even if you do find one, it’s going to be expensive.”
That about sums up California.
Looking more broadly, there are still several economic forces working in first-time buyers’ favor. Borrowing costs are declining, joblessness is improving and household formation is finally starting to rise, which could set the stage for first-time buyers to jump into the market.
Eventually, the market is bound to improve. The media reports the 9-year highs in everything real estate, but they make less of the fact that the last 10 years witnessed 7 of the worst years in housing market history for both sales and prices. The market still sucks by most historical benchmarks. There is plenty of room for improvement, certainly on the sales volume side.
“If you’re in the Midwest, it’s almost a no-brainer in those markets—you wouldn’t have to be in your home for longer than about two or three years for it to be a better deal than renting,” he said. “If you’re in parts of the costly coasts, maybe think twice.”
Always good advice.
[listing mls=”OC16168297″]
Las Vegas, Southern Nevada Housing Markets Heat Up in June
According to the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors (GLVAR), the local housing market seemed to be taking its cue from June’s warmer weather, with local home prices and sales heating up last month compared to the same time last year.
GLVAR reported the median price of existing single-family homes sold in Southern Nevada during June through its Multiple Listing Service (MLS) increased to $235,000. That was up 6.8 percent from $220,000 one year ago.
Meanwhile, GLVAR said the median price of local condominiums and townhomes, including high-rise condos, sold in June was $115,000, the same as one year ago.
“It’s shaping up to be a strong summer for our local housing market, and I think most of our members are optimistic that we can continue this momentum in the coming months,” said 2016 GLVAR President Scott Beaudry. “As we’ve been saying all year, we’re still concerned about our limited housing supply, which is about half of what we’d like it to be. But overall, the housing market seems to be moving in a positive direction and avoiding the volatility we experienced in past years.”
According to GLVAR, the total number of existing local homes, condominiums and townhomes sold in June was 3,957, up from 3,693 total sales in June of 2015. Compared to the same month one year ago, 6.3 percent more homes, and 11.3 percent more condos and townhomes sold in June.
Beaudry said local home sales for the first half of 2016 have been outpacing 2015, when GLVAR reported 38,578 single-family home, condominium, townhome and high-rise condo sales. That was more than in 2014, but fewer sales than during each of the previous five years.
Buyers not “Boomeranging” Hastily
Are those Americans who lost their homes to foreclosure permanently turned off of home ownership? CoreLogic’s Senior Economist Kristine Yao looked at that question in an article on the company’s Insights Blog and found they do become homeowners again, but not as quickly as they might.
She notes that the seven years that have passed since their peak of the foreclosure crisis in 2010 is enough time for the black marks of foreclosure to be erased from many consumers’ credit histories so that at least is not standing in the way of what has become known as “boomerang buyers.”
More than half of the 3.1 million homeowners, 1.9 million to be exact, who lost their homes to foreclosure between 2007 and 2013 have passed the credit report seven-year rehabilitation mark. The return of these buyers to homeownership would, Yao says, have a significant impact on home sales but history tells us this isn’t the way it happens. Retrospective data shows a more gradual return rate, with less than half buying a home even 16 years after their foreclosure. Recent rates show “incremental volumes of 150,000 boomerang buyers returning per year, or 12,500 per month.” Of the 4.4 million owner-occupied foreclosures completed since 2000 less than one-quarter of the owners have returned to the market.
http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/cfs-file.ashx/__key/CommunityServer.Blogs.Components.WeblogFiles/jann.0000201608/2016_2D00_8_2D00_4-core1.jpg
It would be interesting to study homeowners who “lost” homes during the Great Recession. What did their financials look like before 2007? What about after the house was lost to foreclosure/short sale/distressed sale? Did they accrue more personal debt after eliminating the mortgage payment? etc.
The data behind stated income loans and rampant mortgage fraud in general means that type of study is probably impossible. Any repository of mortgage originations data from that era is bound to be so distorted, or so full of gaps, that you couldn’t rely on it to conduct anything close to a scientific study. There would be too many six-figure gardeners muddling things up. 😉
I suspect most of the people who got in trouble were already financially fragile and overindebted. The housing mania offered a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to spend free money, and for those who already have issues with financial restraint, they are the ones mostly likely to embrace the financial innovations of the era.
Landlord Nation: Boomers’ New Retirement Plan Is Millennials Paying Rent
Pete Pollinger and his wife, Julie, are relocating from Boca Raton to Melbourne, a city of about 70,000 on Florida’s Space Coast, named for its proximity to NASA rocket sites at Cape Canaveral and the Kennedy Space Center.
They weren’t just hunting for a place to live. As they get ready to move this year, they’re also looking for single-family homes they can buy, fix, and rent out.
“We want to be more in control of our financial destiny,” said Pollinger, 51, a computer systems consultant. “As far as traditional investments go, we have less control of what really happens to those.”
He and Julie hope to build a portfolio of about 10 homes, buying when they see good value or selling a fixed-up home when the market presents the opportunity to take a profit.
The Pollingers are joining the ranks of what Redfin Chief Executive Glenn Kelman calls Landlord Nation, a group of mom-and-pop investors who have seized on low mortgage rates and robust rent growth to plow savings into rental properties. Together, they’ve lifted the percentage of single-family houses used as rental properties to stratospheric heights, even as many would-be first-time home buyers struggle to reach ignition.
The number of starter homes on the market dropped by more than 44 percent from the first quarter of 2012 to the first quarter of this year, according to research published by Trulia. With entry-level homes in short supply, median prices in the category increased by nearly a third.
Did anybody else notice that the headline doesn’t match the story? The featured couple are early Gen X’ers with about 15 years to retirement, not Boomers who are already retirement age looking to supplement income on the backs of Millenials.
They could have picked my parents instead of this family. They paid off their mortgage prior to retirement, yet I talked them into borrowing a lot of money to become landlords to Millennials.
Homeowners Aren’t Leaving California, Despite False Claims
For years it seems hopeful governors have been bombarding Californians with sad stories involving the exodus of our finest minds, highest earners and entrepreneurs. It’s a great story to tell if you want to present a case for your candidacy, but unfortunately it’s just not true. In fact, the statistics would argue for quite the opposite story…
It’s not just that California has outpaced the rest of America economically for most of the last 20 years. It’s not merely that innovative businesses and venture capital investments here are the largest and most successful in the world.
It’s not only that coastal California real estate, property in the state’s most populous areas, brings more cash than comparable real estate anywhere else in America except Manhattan, but also that there are plenty of buyers around with the cash to pay seemingly outrageous prices.
It’s also that truth matters little anymore, with one of the principles peddled by master Nazi propagandist Josef Goebbels in the 1930s and ’40s proving at least somewhat correct: The more often you repeat and broadcast an untruth, the more people will come to believe it.
That especially holds when some numbers appear to back up the untruth. In terms of people leaving California, there is such a number: California had a net population outflow to other states of 625,000 residents between 2007 and 2014. Newborn children and immigrants more than made up for that loss, so don’t expect the state to lose congressional or Electoral College clout after the next Census in 2020.
But the majority of those departing are not the extremely prosperous residents about whom we so often hear from folks described by Gov. Jerry Brown as California “declinists.”
Rather, of those who left during the latest years for which statistics exist, the vast majority earned less than $30,000 per year. A net total of 469,000 of those leaving possessed no college degree. Given the prevailing levels of rents and home prices in California, it’s easy to see their financial motive in leaving for far lower-priced states like Texas, Nevada, Oregon and Arizona.
“The more often you repeat and broadcast an untruth, the more people will come to believe it.”
So sad, and never more true.
A few thoughts:
If you can’t win on the merits, add volume and repetition – a debate technique my 3-year-old has mastered.
A winning argument doesn’t have to be true, just arguably true. Debate skill and consistency then become paramount.
Ethos, pathos, and logos. If a speaker is perceived as ethical and empathetic, then his/her arguments only need appear tolerably logical. If the person is roundly viewed as amoral with contempt for their fellow man, then even perfect logic need not apply.
Hillary has good pathos with voters, debatable logos, and no ethos. Donald has pathos with his constituency, no logic to his arguments, and ambivalent ethos. I score it: 1,.5,0 = 1.5 Hillary; and 1,0,.5 = 1.5 for Donald. Virtual tie.
Sounds fair.
So many etiquette and decorum lines have been crossed in the past few months. I just hope this is an aberration for political discourse, rather than a new low common denominator to be imitated.
e.g. I have to give credit to Larry Kudlow (establishment supply-sider) today. He was on Squawk Box this morning discussing the jobs report. Rick Santeli (tea-party starter, anti-Fed, raging ranter) pulled a “Trump.” He suggested the jobs report numbers were good and will continue to be ’til the election, speciously insinuating the Bureau of Labor Statistics was involved in a conspiracy to alter the data to benefit Clinton.
Kudlow could’ve let this go unaddressed. The other five people on the panel did, shamelessly. He interrupted the next guy speaking, and said something to the effect, “You know, I just can’t let that go. I know the people at the BLS, and they’re hard working honest people. Let’s not do that.”
Kudos Kudlow. There is no room for this type of political speech.
That type of conspiracy-mongering was prevalent on the Lansner blog and even the early days of this blog by the commenters. You don’t see very much of that anymore.
Average U.S. 30-year mortgage rate declines to 3.43 percent
WASHINGTON – Long-term U.S. mortgage rates declined this week after rising for three straight weeks, continuing to lure prospective homebuyers.
Mortgage giant Freddie Mac said Thursday the average for the benchmark 30-year fixed-rate mortgage fell to 3.43 percent from 3.48 percent last week. The average rate is down sharply from 3.91 percent a year ago.
The 15-year fixed mortgage rate dipped to 2.74 percent from 2.78 percent last week.
Record-low interest rates this year have helped spur home purchases and boost the housing market. The Federal Reserve has been holding its key short-term rate near zero since 2008, and a statement from the Fed last week after its latest policy meeting had led many economists to conclude that a strengthening economy would lead the central bank to resume raising rates as soon as September.
But after a government report last Friday showed a surprisingly lackluster economy in the second quarter, many economists said a September rate hike was now probably off the table. The Commerce Department data showed that gross domestic product — the broadest gauge of the economy — grew just 1.2 percent in the April-June period.
To calculate average mortgage rates, Freddie Mac surveys lenders across the country at the beginning of each week. The average doesn’t include extra fees, known as points, which most borrowers must pay to get the lowest rates. One point equals 1 percent of the loan amount.
The average fee for a 30-year mortgage remained at 0.5 point this week. The fee for a 15-year loan also was unchanged from last week at 0.5 point.
Say hello to the new face of CMBS deals, courtesy of Dodd-Frank
http://www.forbes.com/sites/elyrazin/2016/08/04/say-hello-to-the-new-face-of-cmbs-deals-courtesy-of-dodd-frank/#295fc261a45d
When an industry is subject to new legislation, a lot of questions are left hanging in the air: What changes need to be made? What ramifications will these rules have on the market?
Now the first CMBS deal to be compliant with the U.S. risk retention rules governing commercial mortgage-backed securities has hit the market – and it’s highly significant because it helps commercial real estate players begin to answer some of these questions.
The risk retention rules, legislated under the Dodd-Frank Act, go into effect Dec. 24, which means the time to figure out how to comply is now.
The new deal, Wells Fargo Commercial Mortgage Trust 2016-BNK1, is a conduit deal with an initial pool balance of $870.6 million, and includes 40 commercial real estate loans secured by 46 properties, according to a preliminary prospectus filed with the SEC this week.
This CMBS deal is a “landmark securitization,” the Kroll Bond Rating Agency said in its pre-sale report on the deal. Kroll described the deal as having a “vertical” structure, one way of structuring deals so that they comply with the new regulations.
“While the US risk retention rules may not yet be applicable, the subject transaction is nonetheless a landmark securitization because it will provide the marketplace with a much needed structural example of a vertical risk retention execution, and will also provide adequate time for market constituents, as well as regulators, to provide feedback on the structure that can be utilized in future transactions prior to the effective date of the US risk retention rules for CMBS,” Kroll said.
Vertical risk retention execution, or eligible vertical interest, is one of two main methods of structuring a CMBS deal to comply with risk retention rules, and means sponsors retain 5% of the face value of each class of securities in the deal. The other method is eligible horizontal interest, in which sponsors retain the most subordinate class of securities “in an amount equal to 5% of the ‘fair value’ of all of the CMBS issued,” as New York City law firm Cadwalader, Wickersham and Taft describes it. The second method allows for the risk to be transferred to willing B-piece buyers.
Three-quarters of the loans in the deal were sold by Wells Fargo, Bank of America or both of them together, and the rest were sold by Morgan Stanley, according to the preliminary prospectus.
The initial filing also said the three dominant property types in the deal are office (32%), retail (26%) and hospitality (15%), and the top five states with properties in the deal are California, Massachusetts, Texas, Nevada and New York.
The top loan, an $80 million loan issued by Wells Fargo and Bank of America in June, is for The Shops at Crystals, a 262,327-square-foot Las Vegas shopping center and the base of a luxury condominium. The Simon Property Group shopping center, which was built in 2009 and had an 88% occupancy rate in April, houses luxury retailers such as Louis Vuitton, Prada, Tiffany and Gucci. The CMBS loan, part of an initial balance-sheet loan of $550 million, matures in 2026.
No. 2 in the pool is an $80 million Morgan Stanley loan, part of an initial balance-sheet loan of $425 million, for two pharmaceutical company properties in Boston’s Seaport District.
The CMBS loan is for 50 Northern Ave. and 11 Fan Pier Blvd., two adjacent office and laboratory buildings that are linked by a skybridge and serve as headquarters for Vertex Pharmaceuticals, which develops treatments for cystic fibrosis.
The pharmaceutical complex totals 1.1 million square feet and is located on the Boston Harbor, between the Federal Courthouse and the Institute of Contemporary Art. It has retailers and a preschool on the ground floor, and a 99.9% occupancy rate as of April.
The buildings were constructed with the aid of a $355 million construction loan originated in 2011 by lenders including Fortress Investment Group’s Drawbridge Special Opportunities Fund, according to CrediFi data.
The Wells Fargo deal, in other words, is important because it could potentially serve as a model for other CMBS players trying to figure out how to structure deals that would meet the demands of the Dodd-Frank risk retention rules. These are also known as “skin in the game” restrictions because they aim to increase accountability by requiring sponsors (or their majority-owned affiliates) to hold on to an interest of at least 5%.
This article discusses commercial mortgage-backed securities, but the exact same Risk Retention Rule applies to residential mortgage-backed securities. So it provides some insight into how MBS pools will be structured.
Remember, mortgages insured or guaranteed by the government (GSE [Fannie/Freddie], FHA, VA, USDA) are excluded from the Risk Retention requirement. So, in the residential mortgage context, the rule affects primarily jumbo loans (loosely $600K+) which are concentrated in high-priced areas of the US.
Also excluded from the Risk Retention requirement are mortgage loans that qualify as QRMs. A QRM is currently defined as any loan meeting ATR’s QM standard. This further encourages lenders to originate mortgage loans that meet ATR’s QM standard, and conversely creates more risk making loans in the non-QM space.
Clarification – The Risk Retention Rule solely applies to securitizations. If a big bank is lending in the non-QM space and keeping those mortgage loans in its portfolio, obviously, they’re retaining all of the risk.
Big banks/investors therefore can create non-QM products, originating the loans themselves and/or “purchasing” the loans from smaller non-bank mortgage lenders. The big banks/investors hold 100% of the risk. If at any point in the mortgage loan’s life cycle, they pool these loans together to securitize them and sell the pieces, that’s when they’ll need to comply with the Risk Retention Rule and retain 5% of the risk.
For the record, Trump has vowed to “dismantle Dodd-Frank.” Is this wise? Do you support Trump’s desire?
The Republican Platform reportedly calls for RESTORING Glass/Steagall – the wall between Federally guaranteed banks and investment banking activities. Clinton signed the legislation repealing this. No wonder Goldman Sachs, etc. love Hillary so much!
Political rhetoric aside, I need to learn more about this. I thought the proposed Volcker Rule restores much of the separation of “retail banking” and “investment banking.” I don’t know what Glass/Steagall adds, the the Volcker Rule isn’t providing.
By the way, proposing to restore Glass/Steagall is a complete reversal for Republicans.
http://www.federalreserve.gov/bankinforeg/volcker-rule/
Inconvenient facts.
Inconvenient for whom? This repeal was widely supported by the Right, no?
Inconvenient for those that support Hillary. Trump wasn’t part of the right when the repeal was made.
So, your argument is, the fact that Bill Clinton, a Democratic President, repealed Glass-Steagall with overwhelming support from Republicans, is inconvenient for Hillary Clinton who was First Lady at the time; and that this is not inconvenient for Trump because we don’t know if he supported the repeal, much less whether he was a Democrat or Republican at the time?
Specious.
Way to kill that strawman. You sir are a true knight.
Just trying to develop your cryptic snark into an argument to reveal its emptiness.
It took them eight months to do the first deal after the new rules went into place? I’m glad I don’t make a living in that industry.
End of an era as China’s love affair with U.S. real estate fades
http://www.sfgate.com/realestate/article/End-of-an-era-as-China-s-love-affair-with-U-S-9122583.php
(Bloomberg) — For David Wong, the business of selling homes isn’t as good this year as it was in 2015, and he’s blaming that on a decline in customers from China.
“The residential-property market here, especially for those priced between $2.5 million to $3 million, has been affected by China’s measures to control capital flight,” said the New York City-based Keller Williams Realty Landmark broker. “You need to cut the price, or it may take a real long time.”
Wong is not the only one who has felt the cooling in the U.S. real estate market for foreign buyers. Total sales to Chinese buyers in the 12 months through March fell for the first time since 2011, to $27.3 billion from $28.6 billion a year earlier, according to an annual research report released by the National Association of Realtors. The number of properties purchased by Chinese also declined to 29,195 units from 34,327 units.
While the total international sales saw its first decline in three years, the 1.25 percent pace is slower than 4.5 percent recorded for Chinese buying. In terms of U.S. dollar value, the total share of Chinese buying of international sales dropped from 27.5% to 26.7%.
“Some capital flow control measures have definitely affected the sales to Chinese buyers,” Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the Realtors group and lead author of the report, said in a phone interview.
Capital Controls
The yuan began plummeting in August, driving the Chinese currency to a five-year low versus the U.S. dollar. The Chinese authorities have been compelled to increasingly tighten the noose on cross-border capital flows to defend the yuan and to slow down the burnout of the nation’s foreign-exchange reserves since then. This includes increasing scrutiny of transfers overseas, to closely check whether individuals send money abroad by breaking up foreign-currency purchases into smaller transactions.
New measures were also introduced in December to crack down on illegal China UnionPay Co. card machines, which were suspected of being used to channel funds offshore via fake transactions. Meanwhile, illegal foreign-exchange transactions from underground banking were brought to regulators’ attention, as China busted the nation’s biggest underground bank, which handled $62 billion, according to a November report by the official People’s Daily.
China’s efforts, coupled with restrictions on companies’ foreign exchange business as well as curbing the offshore yuan liquidity to make currency shorting costlier, finally managed to work: China’s foreign reserve outflow has been mostly contained after climbing to a peak of $108 billion in December. The reserve resumed an increase in March and April.
“Many Chinese buyers are paying all cash in the U.S. because they neither have a credit history nor income proof here, making it impossible for them to obtain mortgages from banks,” Wong said.
Seventy-one percent of Chinese buyers in the U.S. real estate market paid completely with cash, the Realtors group said in its report. One-fifth secured mortgages from banks operating in the U.S. In comparison, only 7 percent of Indians paid all in cash, while 90 percent had financing from U.S. banks.
Devaluation
A slowing economy and the weaker yuan also played significant roles in suppressing the Chinese demand, said Yun.
The median price of existing-home sales in the United States increased by 6 percent in March 2016 from one year ago, but when measured in the Chinese currency, they were 10% more expensive, Yun estimated. They were costlier when it comes to California and New York, major destinations favored by the Chinese buyers, he said.
The Chinese currency depreciated 4 percent during the reporting period of the Realtor group’s research. The onshore yuan fell 2.92 percent against the U.S. dollar in the three months ended June 30, the biggest quarterly drop since 1994. The CFETS RMB Index fell to an all-time low of 94.25 on July 8, before rebounding slightly.
China’s economy expanded 6.9 percent in 2015, with 22 of the mainland’s 31 provinces decelerating from a year earlier as the nation’s growth slowed to the weakest pace in 25 years.
Chinese Dominance
While the buying spree from China has slowed somehow, “our report still shows the dominance of Chinese buyers compared with other international buyers, ” Yun said in the interview. “China is expanding by above 6 percent in its economy. It is not a spectacular growth but still far better than many other countries, and hence they have more millionaires to further support the U.S. property market. ”
Chinese ranked first among international buyers, spending three times as much as those from Canada, who came in second place, with $8.9 billion in acquisitions. Chinese buyers’ 26.7 percent share of international purchases surpassed the total share of the next four biggest countries of origin, Canada, India, Mexico and the U.K.
Chinese buyers tend to purchase more-expensive properties too, according to the Realtors group. Their average purchase price rose 12.6 percent from a year earlier to $936,615, while the average price for international buyers was $477,462. The median price paid by Chinese buyers gained 11.5 percent from a year earlier to $542,084.
“The increase of average price and median price indicate that those really wealthy people are still able to get their money out in some way,” Yun said. “Maybe they can bypass the capital control measures.”
“The Chinese buying profile is very unique and different from many other international buyers,” Yun said. “For example, the buying activities from Europe are more related to their financial capabilities — if the dollar strengthens, then fewer European buyers are expected. But the Chinese view is that U.S. property buying is more than investment, but some kind of safe-haven– it is a much safer diversification than just keeping everything in China.”
IR – Your OCHN Market Timing System shows that buying now is as desirable as buying in 2012. Does that surprise you? It did me.
Yet in the story Trulia’s chief economist says:
“If you’re in the Midwest, it’s almost a no-brainer in those markets—you wouldn’t have to be in your home for longer than about two or three years for it to be a better deal than renting,” he said. “If you’re in parts of the costly coasts, maybe think twice.”
A totally ignorant statement!
I am surprised. The market has stable rent growth and home price appreciation, so the momentum aspect of the rating is at its highest levels. Usually, when those two components are good, valuations are too high and the rating gets lowered for that. However, with record low mortgage rates, the valuations are still attractive, so the rating remains high. It is surprising considering how far prices went up over the last four years.
Well, it’s official. Not only does Trump hate Mexicans and Muslims, women and the disabled, he now hates mothers and babies.
NPR: Donald Trump Asked That a Mother Take Her Crying Baby Out of His Rally
CNN: You Can Get the Baby Out of Here
Politico: Trump at rally: ‘Get the baby out of here’
LA Times: Today’s Trump target: A crying baby at his rally
TMZ: Donald Trump Tells Audience Member The Baby’s Gotta Go
Then you have the story of somebody actually at the rally:
The rally itself was super cool. Lots of energy, packed room (something like 2000 people had to be turned away because the auditorium was packed – and just on 24 hours notice!), everyone stood the entire time even though they all had seats. One thing I want to mention is the baby crying, because that has been national news. Contrary to news stories, it was a very funny thing, Trump was very supportive of the mom calling her and her baby “beautiful” and “wonderful”, and then when the baby kept crying he turned it into a joke. Everyone was laughing and it was actually very endearing and funny. Not at all anti mom or anti baby like the media has portrayed it to be.
Which brings me to the final point: I was there and saw and heard the entire event with the mom and baby. There was nothing to it. But then after I’m reading all the news coverage saying “Trump hates moms and babies!!!” I started to doubt myself. Did I really miss a huge story right in front of me? I started asking others who were there, including a husband and wife with young kids. And everyone in the room said the same thing: there was no story here. Trump was being funny and personable and going out of his way to make sure the mom wasn’t embarrased by making it a funny situation. My conclusion is that the media is selling us a narrative. Be very skeptical of what the media is telling you, because I saw it with my own eyes and it was something very different.
https://www.facebook.com/will.estrada.31/posts/10153841720390922
I usually don’t place much stock in the blame-the-media technique constantly employed by the right, but there are enough of these real instances of media bias to keep the meme alive.
It’s funny to tell a mom to “Get that baby out of here!”?
Let’s stop the joking (if it’s really attempted humor), and let’s get serious here.
It was a spontaneous moment of levity.
Mother with crying baby at Trump rally: “Trump NEVER kicked me or my child out”
A message from Devan Cierra Ebert, who other attendees confirmed to be the mother at the Ashburn rally, was shared on Facebook. In her statement, she said, “Mr. Trump NEVER kicked me or my child out of the Briar Woods High School, Trump rally.”
“The media has severely blown this out of proportion and made it out to be something that it wasn’t and is clearly using this as political gain for the Democratic Party. I hope this message sheds light to what really happened,” she said.
No one from the press spoke with the mother before running their stories, and if they did, they would have learned she is still a vocal Trump supporter. “I fully support Mr. Trump,” the statement reads.
The statement is actually directed at Trump. She wanted him to know that she never felt kicked out, was not kicked out, and walked out on her own accord. “I would just like him to know personally that I, by no means felt I was ever ‘kicked out’ of his rally. I excused myself and my child when he awoke from his nap and began to cry.”
When the baby originally began to cry, Trump said, “Don’t worry about that baby. I love babies. I love babies. I hear that baby crying, I like it. What a baby, what a beautiful baby. Don’t worry, don’t worry. The mom’s running around, like, don’t worry about it, you know? It’s young and beautiful and healthy and that’s what we want.”
A few moments later, he changed tone. “Actually, I was only kidding – you can get the baby out of here.”
How did the mother respond to Trump’s change?
“I actually was out of the auditorium before he even made his follow-up comment about my child and even then, when I was informed of his comment, I laughed. I understand he says things jokingly, and I understand no one wants to speak over or struggle to listen over a crying baby. I am in no way offended,” she said.
http://redalertpolitics.com/2016/08/05/mother-crying-baby-trump-rally-trump-never-kicked-child/
I took it as a joke, but with my eyes squinting while asking, “Why? Just stop. Stop.”
“In this latest poll, Clinton enjoys a significant advantage among women (51 percent to Trump’s 35 percent), African Americans (91 percent to 1 percent), all non-white voters (69 percent to 17 percent), young voters (46 percent to 34 percent), and white voters with a college degree (47 percent to 40 percent).”
http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/first-read/nbc-wsj-poll-clinton-jumps-nine-point-lead-over-trump-n623131
Some of these spreads in groups are historic. White collar voters always vote Republican because taxes are their biggest issue.
This isn’t trending well for Trump.
Mark my words, Trump will exceed expectations in the actual voting. Nearly every poll will be wrong and slanted toward Hillary. This is what happens to true populist candidates.
We have limited our watching of the news anymore because any political story is so slanted towards Hillary. Apparently laundering money in your foundation, being irresponsible with email, and purposely trying to rig outcomes against your own party competitor aren’t worth reporting on. Instead, let’s take out of context remarks from a guy who can’t keep his mouth shut and blow them out of proportion.
Were Trump truly a populist, I might be more accepting of this theory. He isn’t trying to become popular with the average American. He’s trying to become popular with the white working class Rustbelt man. His focus in our increasingly diverse country, is far too narrow to be a populist.
Hillary referred to her black friends as her ‘crew’ in front of the association of Black and Hispanic journalists today. When asked by one journalist what the most significant conversation she has had with a black friend was, she punted and claimed that it would betray her friendships to talk about such a personal matter.
Odd question. If you asked me that, my response would be, “That’s a silly question. What are you trying to elicit from me? Let’s just be straight. Ask me what you want to ask me, directly.”
What was it they were trying to elicit? It seems like a softball question for the purpose of getting her to pander to the crowd. Hell, she could have just made up a story about her and Obama having a heart to heart in the White House and they would have lapped it up.
“Bow down and kiss the Establishment ring, Mr. Trump.” Ryan & McCain.
Was that the most insincere forced endorsement in the history of modern politics? He read it, and even smirked after finishing the statement.
Trump’s support for Hillary a few years ago was more sincere:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5A02pNcGHs
I didn’t see where the “yes” is in the article.