Musings is a solo version of the Notorious POD in which I think out loud about issues in the economy, technology, and real estate industry. This episode is a bit of an exploration, a weaving together of disparate news items that are all interconnected. I look at data on foreclosures in 2021, purchase mortgage applications, … Read more
Happy (?) Bloody Monday. Seems that as of this writing, the Dow is down over 630 points, NASDAQ down 273 points, and the S&P500 is down 90 points. The stock market is tanking like a mofo, and Gold is up $7.80 per ounce. (Though Bitcoin, which should be digital gold, is down sharply as well.) … Read more
First, watch the video above. It’s my doppelganger Lawrence Yun, Chief Economist at NAR, explaining the 1.4% drop in June pending home sales. This comes on the heels of bad news about June released several days ago: June Existing Home Sales down 5.4% June New Home Sales down 8.4% And predictably, the media and various … Read more
One of the most eye-opening books I’ve read in the past few years is Coming Apart: State of White America 1960-2010 by Charles Murray, a sometimes controversial scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. This is not a full book review, as there have been dozens of them already done, and there will be hundreds of … Read more
Courtesy of NAR Research — one of the more valuable things on Facebook — comes this CNBC article on how investors are flooding the residential real estate market: The number of homes sold to investors more than doubled last year, as rising rents and low-priced distressed properties fueled demand. Investors, half of them using no … Read more