Found this TikTok video from a truck driver on Twitter: Brian w/ an i on Twitter: “I actually see this as a win. Food shortages cause revolutions and there’s no other way outta this mess. pic.twitter.com/RlIVdIaqKu / Twitter” I actually see this as a win. Food shortages cause revolutions and there’s no other way outta … Read more
Let’s take a break from examination of macroeconomic storm clouds and such. Because of a project I’m working on, I was introduced to this fun little free tool called Interact. Since I know many of you run brokerages or teams, and even if you don’t, real estate agents are very concerned about personal branding, I … Read more
From The Real Deal: With home values surging, American homeowners are tapping their equity at a rate not seen since before the Great Recession. Homeowners tapped a combined $80 billion in equity through cash-out refinancing in the fourth quarter of last year, according to mortgage data provider Black Knight — the highest amount in any … Read more
This topic likely deserves far more detailed treatment. But I thought I’d park a couple of thoughts here, maybe to be revisited in the future. Wall Street Journal points out that “If Russian Currency Reserves Aren’t Really Money, the World Is in for a Shock.” I was getting ready to put on my doomsayer robes … Read more
With the news that the West (particularly the US) has banned Russia and Russian banks from the SWIFT system, it seems fairly obvious that Russia got orangepilled hard. Blockworks has a post up about how Russia thought it had $600 billion in foreign reserves… until it didn’t. And a lot of rich Russians thought they … Read more
CoreLogic released January home price numbers and… well… crypto ain’t the only thing going to the moon: Home prices nationwide, including distressed sales, increased year over year by 19.1% in January 2022 compared with January 2021. On a month-over-month basis, home prices increased by 1.4% in January 2022 compared with December 2021 (revisions with public … Read more
From Attom: Total mortgages drop at fastest pace in three years Banks and other lenders issued 3,266,907 residential mortgages in the fourth quarter of 2021. That was down 10.7 percent from 3,656,892 in third quarter of 2021 and down 13.5 percent from 3,775,894 in the fourth quarter of 2020. The quarterly and annual declines were … Read more
According to Google Trends, consumer’s interest in learning about a potential “housing bubble” is back at its rolling 12-month high. Given my recent speculation about the government’s misleading CPI calculation, I certainly am a contributor to the increase in Google searches on the topic of housing bubbles. Lately, I’ve written about why the housing market … Read more
This is going to be a slightly different kind of a Quick Take. I stopped by the RE/MAX R4 Convention, and then took off to speak at the OREA REality conference in Niagara Falls, so frankly, I did not have a lot of time for writing. Instead, I wanted to share some quick takes kind … Read more