Shortage of Sellers/Surfeit of Buyers [Note: the following column is dedicated to the memory of Ned Krahl, a good friend who passed away unexpectedly over the Summer, and whose opinions and sense of humor are sorely missed.] On an elemental level, every asset bubble in history is reducible to a simple phenomenon: a (relatively) sustained...Read More
Where’s All the Cash Coming From? “Using cash allows real estate investor Jeremy Rupp to pay less than the asking price, then after the deal closes, he gets a mortgage on the home to free up more cash to keep buying.” –Jim Buchta, “Cash is Still King“; The Star Trib (11/3/2013) Call it the real estate version...Read More
Proof that Stocks Are “Bubble-icious” “The degree to which this market is dependent on continued Fed easing was demonstrated just last week when rumors of a Jon Hilsenrath article on the Fed’s exit strategy knocked the market down nearly 100 points in a matter of minutes Thursday afternoon. Hilsenrath is known — or at least...Read More
What’s Behind It? Can You Say, “Financial Arbitrage?” “After a period when cheap mortgages were too available, the pendulum has swung too far; a lack of finance is holding the economy back. The clearest evidence is the growing number of lower and middle-income families paying rents to the private-equity firms that own their homes at rates...Read More
The “Alice in Wonderland” Stock Market; or, Figuring Out What the Fed Will Do “The next level analysis is [determining] whether . . . good news is bad (meaning less accommodation) or good (economic improvement); or conversely, whether bad news is good (meaning more accommodation) or bad (economic deterioration).” –Barry Ritholtz, “Predicting Jobs Data is Hard...Read More
When Supply & Demand (Especially “Supply”) are Broken “The sale of a home actually represents two, discrete transactions. To a Seller, it represents a lump-sum payoff; to a Buyer, it represents a series of monthly payments.” –Floyd Norris; The New York Times To explain the dearth of homes for sale nationally as well as locally...Read More
