re: US Home Sellers outnumber Buyers by almost 500,000, the largest gap ever recorded

Speaking of insurance, these fricking crooks at State Farm fricking dragged arse on a legit claim at the beginning of the year. I ended up paying out of pocket under the impression they were going to cut me a check. They then denied for bullshite reasons. Then closed the claim and referred me to a 3rd party engineering firm they contracted who then wouldn’t return my request for the report he made.


And now the jackoffs want to sent me a renewal with some bullshite upgraded coverage. They can get fricked

My wife works for the real estate division of an attorney’s office. She does the closings where you go in and sign a mountain of papers. From what she’s told me, the last several months were very slow. Where they had been averaging 4-5 closings a day, they’d been averaging that number in a week. However, that trend has reversed in the last month. They did seven just yesterday. I know that’s purely anecdotal. So take it for what it’s worth.

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Good news, prices need to come down

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Yet they aren't.

We need to figure out why that is.

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Normal economic forces are at play, but there's a hidden reason most people don't know about much less consider. Absolute fraud on the part of builders...and likely the banks as well.

Builders bake their desired gross margin into the "costs" of interim construction loans. I'm talking 6 figures' worth. The banks are either dumb as shite or they're complicit because they like those sweet loan amounts.

The banks either knowingly or unknowingly loaned out the margin, so they're assuming all of the risk of the project. The asset "value" HAS to stay elevated because the liability was fluffed 25% on top of what was already heavily (and I mean HEAVILY) padded.

Every line item is fluffed/padded, then phantom costs are added (and those are padded/fluffed), then contingencies are built in ("you know, just in case"), then the GM/NP is baked back into the big ticket items, a bloated loan is taken, as much money as possible is siphoned off and away from the core business, then the builder pays the interest on the interim with the GM/NP they took from the bank in the first place.

Those of you who haven't seen behind the curtain on construction, especially home building, would be absolutely shocked at how much bullshite is baked into the price of a home. When I say it's "criminal," I don't mean it's in poor taste.

So the "cost" to build the house includes the builders GM (or in some cases, their desired NP) and then, because they're greedy as hell, they can't stop there...so they tack on another big chunk to the GTM price. Now you have an asset for sale at ridiculous prices. (Which means total cost of ownership - taxes and insurance, etc. - also outrageously high...)

When money was free to borrow, people just paid it because they could manage the monthly payment. That's not the case now. Mortgage rates aren't coming down and the asset values CAN'T come down or the banks are undercollateralized...so now it's stuck.

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Still waiting for a market crash is Westerly. Wishful thinking.

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I have my long-term house already, hoping the market here keeps going up and up.

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Louisiana needs to raise the homestead exemption rates. $75K is nothing compared to how quickly values have risen. They are trying to raise it to $125K, which is still too low IMO.

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We need to eliminate the homestead exemption, IMO. Let everyone suffer through property taxes and maybe it will level out for everyone. Lower millages across the board to adjust it down. If you raise the homestead exemption, everyone's assessment value is just going to magically go up to make up for that lost revenue.

Until they start eliminating "reassessments" other than at the point of sale (property transfer), this is the only fair way to tax people.

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Wait, what happened to the housing shortage, or was it just a shortage of low income housing?

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It was a shortage in certain areas due to the mass migration of covid. Major swaths of the country never had a shortage.

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A drop in interest rates could reverse that, but the 10-year yield has shown no signs of relenting.

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Why would you even say this? Everyone knows Jerome Powell controls mortgages.

This is finally it. 2025 will end like 2008


Better cash out all your equity homeowners. Better max that HELOC before they freeze it

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Better build some more neighborhoods full of claptrap shoddy 3/2 cardboard boxes with no parking and plastic fences.

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Don’t forget about these garbage 3/2 houses not having any storage or attic space requiring you to use garage to store things, thus cars parked all over street.