Gravy Train

Agents suggest price based on local comps and how quickly the owner needs to close. Appraisers, well, who the fuck knows what they do, they're just telling buyers exactly how much they're overpaying for the address. This shouldn't be a "new norm" because only 4% of the U.S. SFH inventory turned in 2020 and 4.6% of the market transacted in 2021. It's as if the small portion of the market that needs a new car is getting caught at the dealer paying $15K, $20K on ADM (very much a Covid-era thing) and instead of telling the dealership to fuck off for MSRP, they just shrug their shoulders and assume a bigger loan because the 4-square box made their monthly payment palatable at a 72-month term.

Some made a healthy windfall along the way and are now impacted by the market fallout. But you know what would fix that problem sooner? Deeper corrections on listing/contract pricing, and the power to do so is in their hands. We shouldn't be fighting listings priced like it's 2021 in an era of 6.xx% rates and further erosion of consumer confidence. These shanties don't justify the 40% premiums appended in just a 30-month dwell. I'd be writing offers like it's 2019.

An abundance of cheap capital and [forecasted] better returns than other equities and REITs. It feels grimy to me, that wholsale investors shouldn't be able to leverage housing as an speculative asset, especially when their activity drives up standard living costs for all, playing tax haven shell games on inventory the next generation should be able to purchase to for their budding families and financial security.

Agreed on the norm of the benchmark rate and perhaps that'll tamper further price escalation. Stating the instant affordability issue was due to supply is a lazy take, however.. It wasn't a supply issue when AirBnB inventory shot off like a rocket and institutional investors scooped up 40% of sold inventory between 2020-2022, repurposing them into perpetual rentals, completely locking out the starter home category, and iBuyers became a norm with "cash" to secure the offer. Price was fueled by Fed policy and the demand side, which is difficult to justify for those who actually homestead their property: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-07-07/new-fed-paper-finds-surging-home-prices-driven-by-demand-not-supply?srnd=premium#xj4y7vzkg&leadSource=reddit_wall https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/feds/files/2022041pap.pdf

How do property taxes work? Affordability is eroded not only by mortgage rates, but by all basis costs. "Cheap" mortgage is relative if we don't return to said benchmark rates and pre-Covid pricing. Few are covering that spread in income, so perhaps we should just wait a while longer. Eric Bramlett's Austin metro numbers:

I'm sidelined like most of the market, either locked in by a sweet 2021-era mortgage or locked out of the price category that was budgeted in 2019, but escalated by some $200K in 2022, even in markets where the demand side shouldn't drive such appreciation, like that lake house in West Hillfuck, TX. That "buyer demand" wasn't borne of new buyers (e.g. the tail end of the Millennial generation suddenly able to afford their first home), it was due to Fed policy and a massive opportunity for the institutional and mom-and-pop investor to scoop up anything and everything on the market for leverage. With most buyers today constrained by 2019-era affordability measures, a price correction might fix that supply problem. Right now, it's seller-buyer-stalemate. I should study for those six weeks or whatever joke it takes to get with TREC just so I can write lowball offers all day every day.

I knew I'd put my shit on blast with that reply last night but I'm sour grapes on the health of the current market and the sudden valuation hikes of $200K+ for the same SFH that should never have seen such price appreciation for nothing other than hotter buying demand fueled by too-cheap capital, landlording as a revenue stream, and an asset class to park liquidity. I want to upgrade my home and/or buy a lake house, but feel sidelined for years until the health of the market is restored and right now, price isn't moving down as fast as it should to reflect affordability with lost transactional volume. Like it's 2008 all over again, I can point to mortgage brokers for gaming the system and appraisers for sticking their thumb tacks on the new valuations, practically working for the realtor. Here we are in April where FHFA increased Fannie and Freddie SFH loan limits up to $1,089,300 in HCOL locations and $726,200 in the rest of the country. Fannie took it one step further in their decision to waive property appraisal for lending: https://selling-guide.fanniemae.com/Selling-Guide/Doing-Business-with-Fannie-Mae/Subpart-A2-Lender-Contract/Chapter-A2-2-Contractual-Representations-and-Warranties/1645976621/A2-2-06-Representations-and-Warranties-on-Property-Value-03-01-2023.htm Appraisers are a meaningless barrier of entry to home ownership and certainly haven't stopped buyers from making poor financial decisions, nor of their realtors from discouraging zesty offers, to the detriment of eating their own lunches. And being residents of Texas, we all pay significantly greater property tax on the purported valuations.

We can fix that... with a very real (2018-2019-era) price correction, but sidelined inventory locked into too-sweet 3% rates, questionable appraisals, and the racket of the NAR driving price agenda for bigger commissions aren't helping. Let it burn.

...so like 22 routers and a couple Nexus switches? 😆 Good job, Russia, now you all get to deploy Huawei or some bootleg Sonicwall or whatever remains on the black market with unknown firmwares.

Seems like the ideal warhead type to counter embedded trenches but that also implies a healthy air fleet to deliver such munitions.

Apparently people hate their experiences at dealerships so much that they don't want to deal with the hassle of returning every 2-3 years for a lease schedule, which snarls the used car market. Since January 2020, around the time dealerships started playing shell games with dwindling inventory, lease originations have dropped 40% and aren't coming back. Of course, their buying power has dramatically decreased over that same short period, with rising vehicle prices and finance rates, which might never be reversed. https://jalopnik.com/people-aren-t-leasing-cars-and-it-s-killing-the-used-m-1850018655

Harkening to the very title of this thread, we learn Russia's petty bitchassedness went so far as to torture Ukrainian PoWs captured from Snake Island, desperately searching for the warfighter who told the Moskva to go fuck themselves.

There used to be an Austin area ticket broker who posted on TOS, don't know if he made it over here. Austin, Dallas, Houston, doesn't matter... If you know one or someone posts here, shoot me a PM, I'm looking into a couple events coming up.

They're becoming too busy-looking for me. Mercedes are on a whole other level of busy gimmicky interiors but BMW is starting to throw more textures and random polyagonal shapes in than Lexus ever had.

Passing by the shopping cart full of Russian Standard Vodka marked down for 50% within the entry of my local Spec's has been awkward. Shit's been there for months.

Sounds like you also need an effective CTO or VP of Technology, if you wanna shoot me a PM

I thought they're basic pre-programmed, GLONASS-guided drones that aren't very precise with course-correction or final approaches. Many of their cheaper cruise missiles work the same but add heat signature logic into guidance, which is why they've been so prolific with power infrastructure and civilian residences.

Thanks, he's unsure how often he can get away but that most of his client-development opportunities are in Texas, and there's a chance he's visiting Austin over this current trip. Crowdsourcing scarce medical supplies or Starlink terminals seems high on the priority list still.

I nearly forgot about an important impression Kostiantyn noted in our dialogue last night-- that most Ukrainians who fled Europe for safety at the start of the war share the desire to return, rebuild and settle as quickly as peace is restored. Many of his software engineers relocated to Romania temporarily, which seemed like an easier route to exit the country in the early days of conflict, but none have the desire to permanently settle there. We share confidence that the rebuilding effort will be epic and that this fight for their independence will permanently reduce the liklihood of corrpution returning to local offices, that they all realize how poorly prepared they were in 2014, and it's served as a lesson for their culture.

Fortunately, I believe Congress has enough intel where our support will remain bipartisan, even if consituents from one party feel disillusioned over it. Like most things, the White House and our Press could do a far better job underscoring our need to support our allies and stability in Europe. I want to say the messaging could be better, but most of the opposition has failed to pick up a book or doesn't realize they're regugitating Russian-spiced agendas.

They love our support and our way of life, but are taken aback by our internal political struggles and social issues which bubble up in the press. He says that Ukrainians share an American ethos in that the people of a nation can put their differences aside to fight for their independence. He starkly stated that's the difference between Ukraine/U.S. vs Russia- that Ukrainians (or Americans) would fight for their nation, where Russian's cause is to fight for their president. Pretty sure any American who visits Ukraine right now is treated as royalty, and he wants me to come over and visit as soon as I'm ready. He flashed me a smile with confidence that I'd be safer in Lviv than The Bronx right now and that he lives a normal way of life, enjoys stable electricity and uses Starlink Internet. I forgot to mention, he's a couple years younger than me (guessing around 42) and does have a military 'slip,' issued by the government, whereby it's possible he could be called up for duty. This hasn't happened though, as he doesn't have prior military service and his specialty is in IT, not in any fabrication or military hardware skill. He said he's had colleagues who were once IoT engineers and are now providing service to the military by modifying civilian drones, so now I know how one of the radio contacts was hijacked to serve as a grenade-drop mechanism. His travel to Dallas started by way of car to the Polish border checkpoint, where he has to declare what he's taking, what he's returning with, and when he's coming back. Says their border guards are really picky over that kind of stuff as they're hesitant to let any able-bodied man leave the country. He then flew from Warsaw to DFW via Atlanta. In order to return to Ukraine in good-standing with his military slip, he has to bring back an item or donation of high value to the country. He was last over here in December, when he returned with a Starlink terminal to donate. This time, he's bringing a $2700 Butterfly mobile ultrasound device to donate for the front lines.

Okay, back home and can try to gather thoughts on my conversation over dinner: Zelenskyy was over his head when he first received Western intelligence on Russia's invasion plans. I can understand how improbable it seemed to him at the time, but the perspective is he had warning and overlooked the threat for almost a year leading up to the Feb 24 strike. Poroshenko knew military conflict was inevitible and tried to coach on Russia's buildup as Zelenskyy took office Yanukovich really set them back as a prospering nation attempting to disassociate from Russia The average Ukrainian trusts nothing communicated from Russian sources-- it's usually false there's always an agenda behind a message The average Ukrainian knows about the human atrocities taking place in the East, regardless of where they reside The average Ukrainian also gives no fucks about changing their way of life with conflict raging around them-- there's a sort of bravado about standing their ground, and there's a quote from an old woman on national news who once stated, "we lost our roof, our running water, our gas, our electricity, but we have freedom" The average Ukranian knows Russia is getting their shit pushed in on their territory and that they are running out of missles Russia will run out of money before running out of men, and that spells the real trouble within. Once the money dries up for military supply, for conscripts and for subsidies in the poorer oblasts, watch the discontept boil over So much of Russia's somewhat-modern military capability was borne of Ukrainian engineering and supply, including some of the Sarmat programs. My friend is involved with a Ukrainian Mil-Hacker group on Telegram. This is a pretty tight knit group of around 200 volunteers, most with advanced software and IT infrastructure backgrounds. Each day, the Telegram channel declares a 'challenge' on something related to the war, targeting Russia. Many are coordinated DDoS attacks on Russia telecom networks, some are hyperlocal and target their military comms. They're among the group responsible for halting Russian banks, breaking their postal and delivery services, and bringing down cellular networks Russian expats in Europe are grating. Most are still drinking the propaganda kool-aid and can be awful to deal with Germany does have a Russian problem- Ukrainians are disgusted with Scholz and understand enough Russians fled to Germany that they don't have a handle on everyone with a visa Poland is Ukraine's 'brother in arms,' and that anti-air coverage in Lviv is largely augmented by Polish missle systems He believes internal political parity exists to counter Putin but none united and loud enough to overcome their state propaganda. Ukrainians don't give any credit to Navalny, after his statements on Crimea (that Ukraine had little position over it any longer). In Ukraine, Sergei Furgal's efforts are more admirable for his membership in the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia and leading anti-establishment opposition in the far east. Unfortunately, his influence isn't going to be noticed in the west aside from means to send him to trial in Moscow and lock him up, in which he's serving 22 years for a sham trial on a double-murder accusation. Igor Girkin gets a free pass to talk shit about the MoD as he still carries FSB credibility China is already bending Russia over in Siberia-- since 2019, there's a Chinese shadow logging industry operating mills in the region and and transporting lumber down the Trans-Siberian, but few are seeing any economic benefit from their rapid deforestation

They legit used maps that were published prior to 1986 and had no idea of the containment area. I met my 'Ukrainian brother' tonight in Dallas, an old colleague I've kept up with on LinkedIn, who now is the CEO of a Ukraine based software development firm. He's in town to prospect clients, but as a condition of his exit, he must return with an article of significant aid to his country. I bought him a beef rib and beers from Terry Black's BBQ. We probably spent three hours catching up on life and the conflict he deals with on a daily basis. Fortunately, he and his family are safe in Lviv, but he did have to move from Kherson a year ago and his brother was left behind. I'm gonna forget all the talking points and perspectives and some may come back to me. I gotta check on some things at home before I post, and he's inspired me to make a visit soon. If I do, I'm best to smuggle in any high dollar medical equipment needed on the front lines.