Peak Insanity: This “Trophy Apartment” In Manhattan Is Going For A Cool $250 Million

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Peak Insanity: This “Trophy Apartment” In Manhattan Is Going For A Cool $250 Million:

In April we pointed out that due to an already abundant supply of condos on the market, luxury real estate developer Extell Development Co couldn’t sell luxury condo’s at its One57 tower, in the heart of New York’s premier ultra luxury destination.

Extell decided that instead of leasing luxury apartments, it would sell the units as higher end apartments in order to fill vacancies and generate cash. As a reminder, Bill Ackman paid $91.5 million for a condo in One57 in April of 2015 just “for fun” in hopes of flipping the unit at some point. 

Read morePeak Insanity: This “Trophy Apartment” In Manhattan Is Going For A Cool $250 Million

Housing Starts Plunge 8.8%, Permits Plunge 7.7%; Bloomberg Cites “Fundamental Strength”

Housing Starts Plunge 8.8%, Permits Plunge 7.7%; Bloomberg Cites “Fundamental Strength”:

Those expecting a strong Spring start to housing (and you know who you are),  were miles off their forecast.

Both starts and permits were down steep percentages, both below the bottom ranges of economists’ estimates.

Read moreHousing Starts Plunge 8.8%, Permits Plunge 7.7%; Bloomberg Cites “Fundamental Strength”

A Drone Flies Through A Rotting, Abandoned $17.5 Million Vancouver Mansion; This Is What It Saw (Video)

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A Drone Flies Through A Rotting, Abandoned $17.5 Million Vancouver Mansion; This Is What It Saw:

Over the past several months we have repeatedly noted a recurring peculiarity of the Vancouver housing bubble: there are numerous multi-million dollar mansions, which rot, abandoned, their owners having long ago disappeared.

Two months ago, we first postulated the hypothetical timeline that starts with the purchase of a Vancouver mansion

Read moreA Drone Flies Through A Rotting, Abandoned $17.5 Million Vancouver Mansion; This Is What It Saw (Video)

Did The Canary Of New York’s Luxury Housing Market Just Die: Real Estate Developer Files For Bankruptcy

Did The Canary Of New York’s Luxury Housing Market Just Die: Real Estate Developer Files For Bankruptcy:

The Bauhouse Group has filed bankruptcy for BH Sutton Mezz LLC, their entity that was to build out a 78 floor luxury condominium tower at Sutton Place, located on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. The bankruptcy comes on the heels of foreclosure efforts by Gamma Real Estate, who alleges that Bauhouse has defaulted on a loan of roughly $147 million.

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UK Housing Bubble Pops: London Offers 20% Discounts On Luxury Apartments

UK Housing Bubble Pops: London Offers 20% Discounts On Luxury Apartments:

Another major city is experiencing a pullback in demand for its property – once again as a direct result of Government action to dampen the impact of foreign investment. In London, as Bloomberg reports, demand has slumped so badly that developers are offering discounts of up to 20% for their newly constructed homes. And just as the case was in Manhattan, it’s a result of the UK putting in a speed bump. The UK recently increased taxes on those deemed to be purchasing a second home, specifically designed to slow the pace of overseas investment.

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“Made Out Of Sand” – A Dramatic Look Inside A Newly Built Chinese Apartment Building

“Made Out Of Sand” – A Dramatic Look Inside A Newly Built Chinese Apartment:

While real estate is all about “location, location, location,” it appears there are sometimes more prescient factors that any prospective buyer should pay attention to. Amid yet another government-fueled housing bubble, it seems in their haste to fulfil a rapacious demand for property in which to gamble their hard-grafted assets, Chinese construction companies have cut a few corners. As the following stunning video shows, a “newly constructed apartment” crumbles before the owners’ eyes as the ‘concrete’ walls turn to sand

LiveLeak exposes, in the following video, just how poor the standards can be of so-called “new” properties. LiveLeak footage shows two men in a supposedly “new apartment building” in China where the concrete walls crumble like sand.

Housing Starts Plunge To 7-Month Lows As Rental Units Tumble

Housing Starts Plunge To 7-Month Lows As Rental Units Tumble:

With new and pending sales tumbling and lumber prices down, yesterday’s drop in homebuilders sentiment – from 10 year highs! – appears justified entirely now as Housing Starts collapsed 11% in October to the weakest level since March. This is the biggest miss (and MoM drop) since Feb. Multi-family  unit starts plunged 25.5% MoM as single-family dropped just 2.5%. Starts in The West and South plunged as The Midwest saw a 30.8% collapse in housing completions. Building Permits rose 4.1% after tumbling 4.8% in September but SAAR remains notably below the Q2 cycle peak levels (1.337mm) at around 1.15mm homes (with multi-family permits rising 6.8% MoM).

This “Unlivable $350,000 Shack” Is The Cheapest Home In San Francisco

This “Unlivable $350,000 Shack” Is The Cheapest Home In San Francisco:

According to the broker, it’s the cheapest home on the market in San Francisco, and it’s an unlivable shack.

As Fortune reports, it is a worn-down, decomposing wooden shack that was built in 1906, and the interior is unlivable in its current condition. The San Francisco house is also selling for $350,000.

According to Zillow, $350,000 would comfortably fetch a 1,500-square-foot, three-bedroom home in many smaller cities in the U.S., including Cincinnati, Ohio.

The Cheapest Home In San Francisco

Realtor Alexander Han, would definitely advise against moving in too soon.

“The house still needs a lot of work. I would not recommend anyone moving right in. The bathroom is not functioning. The kitchen needs a bit more work. The flooring has a couple of places that are little bit weaker, and needs to be reinforced.”

Existing Home Sales Extrapolation Surges To Highest Since Feb 2007

Existing Home Sales Extrapolation Surges To Highest Since Feb 2007 (ZeroHedge, Aug 20, 2015):

By the miracle of NAR extrapolation and seasonal adjustment, the SAAR Existing Home Sales data just printed 5.59mm units – the highest since Feb 2007. Sales were dominated by increases in The West and The South with The Northeast falling. We have two questions for NAR – where are the buyers coming from… and how long is this sustainable?

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In These 13 US Cities, Rents Are Skyrocketing

In These 13 US Cities, Rents Are Skyrocketing (ZeroHedge, July 26, 2015):

Seven years ago, the American homeownership “dream” was shattered when a housing bubble built on a decisively shaky foundation burst in spectacular fashion, bringing Wall Street and Main Street to their knees.

In the blink of an eye, the seemingly inexorable rise in the American homeownership rate abruptly reversed course, and by 2014, two decades of gains had disappeared and the ashes of Bill Clinton’s National Homeownership Strategy lay smoldering in the aftermath of the greatest financial collapse since the Great Depression.

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In short, decades of speculative excess driven by imprudence, greed, and financial engineering and financed by the world’s demand for GSE debt had come crashing down and in relatively short order, a nation of homeowners was transformed into a nation of renters.

It wasn’t difficult to predict what would happen next.

Read moreIn These 13 US Cities, Rents Are Skyrocketing

Why The Record Drop In Chinese House Prices Suggests Beijing Is Already In A Recession

Why The Record Drop In Chinese House Prices Suggests Beijing Is Already In A Recession (ZeroHedge, April 18, 2015):

If one compares the history of the Chinese and US housing bubbles, one observes that it was when US housing had dropped by about 6% following their all time highs in November 2005, that the US entered a recession. This is precisely where China is now: a 6.1% drop following the all time high peak in January of 2014. If the last US recession is any indication, the Chinese economy is now contracting! So much for hopes of 7% GDP growth this year.

UK Housing Bubble Bursts: Sales Of Luxury Homes Crash By 80%; “Waves Of Wealthy People Are Leaving”

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From the article:

As the FT reports, “sales of homes worth more than £2m have dropped by 80 per cent in the past year.”… “It is like the 1970s again, when waves of wealthy people left Britain and it was a disaster.”


UK Housing Bubble Bursts: Sales Of Luxury Homes Crash By 80%; “Waves Of Wealthy People Are Leaving” (ZeroHedge, April 12, 2015):

About a year ago, when the Chinese housing bubble had just begun to burst (as a reminder Chinese house prices are now crashing at a faster pace than in the US after Lehman) and forcing the real estate bubble blowers to consider a different venue, namely the stock market, another housing bubble several thousand miles away was in full blown escape velocity mode – that of the UK. In fact, as we showed in the following table from last June, the appreciation in UK home prices had surpassed that of China as recently as 10 months ago.

Read moreUK Housing Bubble Bursts: Sales Of Luxury Homes Crash By 80%; “Waves Of Wealthy People Are Leaving”

America’s Poor Spend 60% Of Their Income On Food & Housing Proving CPI Is Meaningless

America’s Poor Spend 60% Of Their Income On Food & Housing Proving CPI Is Meaningless (ZeroHedge, April 6, 2015):

Governments and the mainstream media are fond of reporting inflation figures that strip out things no one ever uses like food and energy. As anyone who follows these things knows, leaving out “volatile” categories that track meaningless price movements in the things people eat and the commodities humans burn to sustain themselves is key when it comes to accurately tracking inflation which is why we can’t exactly sympathize with the following, that seems to indicate that even though everyone with a PhD in economics knows that endless money printing does not lead to inflation, people who aren’t rich are somehow managing to spend a greater percentage of their income on food and housing.

Here’s more from WSJ:

Read moreAmerica’s Poor Spend 60% Of Their Income On Food & Housing Proving CPI Is Meaningless

The Canadian Housing Bubble Has Begun To Burst

The Canadian Housing Bubble Has Begun To Burst (ZeroHedge, March 24, 2015):

Energy accounts for 10% of Canadian GDP and around 25% of exports and the swift fall in oil prices is having a profound effect in the nation’s oil producing regions where home sales are collapsing by as much as 65%.

 

Crash Landing: China Home Prices Plunge At Fastest Pace On Record, Surpass Post-Lehman Collapse

Crash Landing: China Home Prices Plunge At Fastest Pace On Record, Surpass Post-Lehman Collapse (ZeroHedge, March 18, 2015):

Less than three weeks ago, when the PBOC proceeded with its latest “surprise” rate cut, we showed a chart that should scare everyone who is hoping that China will avoid a hard-landing would prefer would never have been revealed: the annual collapse in Chinese home prices is now so sharp and so widespread, that it has surpassed the housing collapse in the aftermath of the Lehman collapse.” Overnight things went from bad to worse, when China’s National Bureau of Statistics reported that contrary to hopes for a modest rebound, China’s average new home prices fell at the fastest pace on record in February from a year earlier.

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Existing Home Sales Plunge (and Don’t Blame The Weather)

Existing Home Sales Plunge (and Don’t Blame The Weather) (ZeroHedge, Feb 23, 2015):

With homebuilder sentiment slipping,blamed on the weather (despite improvement in the Northeast), Architecture billings down, and lumber prices down, it should not be totally surprising that existing home sales collapsed in January (-4.9% against expectations of -1.8% to a worse than expected 4.82 million SAAR). This is the lowest existing home sales since April. Oh – and before the talking heads blame the weather – the biggest drop in home sales was in The West (with its warm, dry, sunny home-buying climate). Considering that existing home sales most recent peak in 2014 failed to take out the previous government-sponsored peak in 2013 and remains 30% or more below the 2005 peak, and claims that the housing recovery is in tact are greatly exaggerated.

Why Housing Is Dead: First-Time Buyers Collapse To 27-Year Lows

Why Housing Is Dead: First-Time Buyers Collapse To 27-Year Lows (ZeroHedge, Nov 3, 2014):

The Millennials (one of the biggest generations in US history) are just not getting with the status quo program. As we detailed previously, with lower credit scores, less disposable income, and a soaring number of people living with their parents; so it should be no surprise that The National Association of Realtors (NAR) today admitted that first-time homebuyers plunged to the lowest level in 27 years. The blame – of course – rather than low/no-growth fiscal policies, student debt servitude, and inequality-driving cheap-funding monetary policy, is price comnpettion from ‘investors’ and too “stringent credit standards,” perfectly mirroring FHFA’s Mel Watt’s Einsteinian insanity desire to dramatically ease lending standards and slash minimum down-payments (as we noted previously). Perhaps NAR accidentally stumbles on the biggest reason no one is buying in their profiling: the typical first-time buyer was 31-years-old, while the typical repeat buyer was 53 – smack in the middle of the Millennial collapse.

Federal Housing Finance Agency Head Is Pushing Banks To Make Extremely Risky Home Loans

Mel Watt, Federal Housing Finance Agency Head, is Pushing Banks to Make Extremely Risky Home Loans (Liberty Blitzkrieg, Oct 16, 2014):

Mel Watt is one of the most dangerous financial oligarch puppets operating in America today. The first time he came across my radar screen was back in 2009, when he “gutted” Ron Paul’s End the Fed bill while it was in subcommittee, something I outlined in the post: Leverage in PE Deals Soars Despite Fed Warnings; Amidst Insatiable Demand for Risky Fannie Mae Debt.

Read moreFederal Housing Finance Agency Head Is Pushing Banks To Make Extremely Risky Home Loans

French Housing ‘In Total Meltdown’, ‘Current Figures Are Disastrous’

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French Housing “In Total Meltdown”, “Current Figures Are Disastrous” (ZeroHedge, July 30, 2014):

If Venezuela is the case study of a country in the late stages of transition into a socialist utopia, then France is the clear runner up. The most recent case in point, aside from the already sliding French economy, whose recent contraction can be best seen be deteriorating PMI data…

France vs Europe PMI

… which hints at the dreaded “triple dip” recession, nowhere is the economic collapse in France more evident than in its housing market which as even Bloomberg admits, citing industry participants, is now “in total meltdown.

The reason? The belief of the socialist president that a few economists know better than the overall market, especially when the sanctity of the “fairness doctrine” and the greater good is to be upheld at all costs. To wit: “French President Francois Hollande’s government may have made a housing slump worse, pushing the construction market to its lowest in more than 15 years. Housing starts fell 19 percent in the second quarter from a year earlier, and permits — a gauge of future construction — dropped 13 percent, the French Housing Ministry said yesterday.

Read moreFrench Housing ‘In Total Meltdown’, ‘Current Figures Are Disastrous’

Housing Starts Tumble, Miss Most Since January 2007; Permits Have Biggest Two-Month Plunge Since Lehman

Housing Starts Tumble, Miss Most Since January 2007; Permits Have Biggest Two-Month Plunge Since Lehman (ZeroHedge, July 17, 2014):

“Epic disaster.” Those two words best explain what just happened with US housing starts and permits in June.Those who want a slightly more detailed narrative of what the Department of Commerce just reported here it is: in June housing starts were expected to print at a solid 1020K, to validate the sustainable “recovery.” Instead, what happened was that the May downward revised number of 985K, which was a consensus beating 1001K last month, crashed to 893K, a drop of 92K which was the biggest since the January “polar vortex” effect, the biggest miss to permaoptimistic expectations since January 2007, and which brought the total number of starts to the lowest level since September 2013. Was it the harsh weather’s fault this time too?