Bob Toll and the rest of the mega-homebuilder CEO’s are really optimistic about the future. Too bad it doesn’t jive with declining new orders, plunging mortgage applications, rising mortgage rates, declining real wages, surging student loan debt, fraudulently pumped up home prices, skyrocketing Obamacare created insurance premiums, and shitty job growth.
Can you believe anything reported by anybody anymore?
in my neck of the woods, it is not uncommon for restaurants and other businesses to close shop for the winter. the general stores in the area remain open though. so i was surprised to hear that our little general store will close at the end of november–for the first time. notch another success for the oligarchs and the “recovery”. as i lamented this fact with the nice lady who works there, and who will presumably go on unemployment, she told me that her soda supplier said that it’s happening all over the area. he told her that 3 stores will close for the winter for the first time and another 2 will just shut down for good.
from the bottom of my heart, i want to say thanks to all the pill-popping buffoons and drunken half-wits in washington for all they’ve done.
@archie, I had a feeling many more businessmen were starting to figure it out and are deciding to go Galt on either a part time or full time basis.
My father-in-law owned a business during the days of 78% tax rates. In “good” years he would shut down from July through October, forcing all his workers to lose income, because it ended up costing him his profit for most of the year if he stayed open and made the extra sales.
While we haven’t quite reached that level yet, but it is pretty obvious to most of us that doing less, working less, producing less, has its direct cash advantages in this strange new world order.
Feelings or facts?
It shouldn’t take a genius to drive around this country and see the thousands and thousands of empty commercial buildings, from factories to mom & pops to office buildings, and empty parking lots to figure out that the “recovery” is accounting tricks, fiat, “charity” and lies.
We’ve been circling the drain forever, and as we approach the vortex we whip ever faster.
Bad news just keeps on coming. People just keep on tuning out and ignoring reality.
Eventually reality won’t be suppressed. Then things will really get interesting.
In our surrounding neighborhood this past spring 11 houses went on the market for sale. Most of the homes were owned by people that were relocating or downsizing. Two of the homes were repossessed by the banks through foreclosure. All homes were in the $500-600K range and all but one were priced to maximize the touted increase in home values.
Fast forward to now, the end of summer and the prime selling season, one of the 11 homes sold, the one that was modestly priced and the best value. All the rest of the homes have repeatedly dropped their listing prices, modestly at first and more aggressively as the end of summer approached. The largest drop in price was 24%, the average drop of all the homes was a little over 16%. Three of the homes had children that have gone back to school so the families last week removed the homes from the market and will try again next year. The two bank owned homes will be going up for auction by the end of the month. The remaining 5 will continue to hope for the best by attracting a buyer with further discounts.
This is just a very small sample of a real estate market, that if I were to believe what I read in the papers and see on TV, should be booming, it just isn’t. I’m sure there are segments and areas around us that are fairing much better because they are in more desirable locations or whatever, but from the eye test I am witnessing from my own local perspective, if I was a home builder my sentiment would not be optimistic.
@Peaceout, same thing is happening in metro De’toilet.
My sis-in-law is a realtor in a far-flung, “rural” (was)/lake suburb. Sales died for her this year with the exception of the over $700k homes. And few of those.
She said homes between $250-$700k are not selling at all.
I asked her where the buyers of those homes could come from when the bulk of small businesses and middle managers that could “afford” (debatable, but that is just me) these McMansions are out of business and jobs?
Funny how silent it has been concerning this.
On Cape Cod (where I am originally from and have live almost my entire 55 years of life – in N.E. PA now working in the BOOMING gas fracking industry since 2011) the building trades / business is in the shitter ! Has been since mid 2007. My brother says that he cannot remember the last time that he saw a concrete mixer truck or a dump truck / lowboy trailer with excavator driving down the road. It is a good thing that he is not in that crowd – no, he installs audio / video systems for the wealthy and they (the wealthy) are buying his shit like there is no tomorrow – tons of it. To be sure, there is some building / construction work on the Cape – mostly remodeling and a lot of the work is for the wealthy residents. But there are / were so many people employed in the Cape Cod building industry that today’s level of work is not enough for everyone to have a ‘good healthy slice of it’. In addition, so many looking for so little work of course forces prices down so that making a living let alone making a GOOD living is almost impossible for most.
In 1995 – 1999 or so you could buy a three bedroom 1.5 or two bath ‘Cape’ or ‘Ranch style’ home on a decent sized lot for around 150K. By the year 2005 these same types of houses were being ‘flipped’ for 450K or more. Now the bubble has long since popped but these homes are still ‘valued’ at the 450K ridiculous price from the bubble days. Young families cannot afford these prices and the people that can (for now anyway) want nicer / bigger homes near or on the water. Those few fools that do buy one of these ridiculously priced homes will get ‘kicked in the balls’ when the next crunch comes.
LMFAO. Just got the Phoenix numbers an hour ago. Metro Phx permits down 29% August 13 vs August 14. Oh and by the way Jim, Toll Bros didn’t make the top 15 for permits in August.
“Can you believe anything reported by anybody anymore?”
-Admin
Why would I?
However, I believe you most of the time.
Sisters girlfriend’s husband wanted my sisters boyfriend investor to invest in building ‘downsized housing’
I laughed.
She told me he had pretty much the same reply, “Uh. No.”
Then we talked about housing starts, or rather, the lack of.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNQF9nZncPA
Actually KB, there is probably a huge market/need for housing under $50k.
The problem is that between importing the raw materials, the ridiculous employee expense situation, and the insanity of zoning, building, fire, etc., etc., it probably cannot be done anymore.
And then, of course, you have the NEW problem of the fact that Owner’s can no longer offer financing to buyers unless said owner actually homesteaded the property.
We can thank Dodd/Frank for that shit. Doing nothing to stop the destruction from Wall Street, doing everything to continue gifting every remaining cent to the WS bastards.
Once again, us little guys bear the brunt of the “cost” and bear the brunt of the legislation that was meant to keep the big guys in check.
I laughed a little as I typed that. The Lead Law debacle finally proved the point for me. Mattel violated the law, then led the charge to “protect” our children. Thus driving thousands of small guys out of business while gaining a 30% immediate price increase for themselves.
I can’t name ONE law written since 2000 that doesn’t intentionally force out the little guy competition and directly enrich some mega-corp and their plunder.
Can anyone else? Please? Just one?