Wanna hear something crazy? I have some good real estate news to report. Like, a good sum of good news. Good vibes, bro. I feel like a hippie after Woodstock: all engorged with positivity and in desperate need of a burger and a bath.
Second quarter bank earning are pegged to indicate an expansion of loans on their balance sheets. A bunch of the nation’s biggest lenders are quietly modifying loans without request to create more man-ageable terms for borrowers they deem to be ‘at risk’. National housing starts are up 9% month-over-month. Orlando got named one of the top 10 cities to purchase investment properties in. We’re also on track to show a gain in local real estate prices by the end of this year.
Wanna watch a video that validates my optimism? Yes you do. By the mortgage planning guru himself Barry Habib.
Between Greece, Spain, Portugal, and now Italy, Europe has proceeded to don the title of international financial pariah, gracefully lifting that crown off of American real estate’s head. It’s like real estate was the class nerd and then someone transferred in who is on the math team AND had a dorky accent. Suddenly we’re yesterday’s news. No more wedgies here. Sweet, sweet forgetful nature of folk.
We have this report called the ADP (automatic data processing) employment report that comes out approximately a week before the actual employment report comes out. In a perfect world, this will be a good computer-generated signal as to what to expect in the actual employment numbers. And ADP said we gained 157,000 jobs from May to June! Huzzah! Champagne and caviar all around!
And then the employment report came out that we added just 18,000 jobs and the unemployment rate ticked up to 9.2%. Huzz-wha??? Just goes to show you that when computers finally do dominate the human race al la Terminator/The Matrix, they won’t do any better of a job running the place than the idiots we got doing the job now.
Speaking of idiots running the place, the “should we or shouldn’t we raise the national debt ceiling” debate rages ever closer to the August 2nd deadline. Spoiler alert: they’re gonna figure it out before we default. The bi-partisan “Gang of Six” has already begun the process of breaking the gridlock on this issue. Fed Chief Bernanke even went so far as to announce the possibility of a third round of stimulus on the 13th before promptly and ominously rescinding his statement on the 14th.
Do you really think he’d even casually suggest issuing more new debt if he honestly thought that we’d default on the debt we’ve already got? I mean, whatever your opinion of Fed chief Ben Bernanke is, he’s not blind. Meanwhile, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner has indicated that he’s looking to shag-ass out of there once debt talks have settled. Having dealt head-on with the crossfire of the greatest economic tumult since the 30’s, I can’t say that I blame him.
So why all the pomp and circumstance? I get it. Republicans don’t dig the unadulterated spend-orgy that has been going on since Lehman fell. And since their voter base is comprised predominantly of fiscal conservatives, this seems as good a time as any (cough cough election year around the corner cough cough) to take a stand against runaway government spending. 10-4 kids. But if we actually default, holy international economic collapse Batman, it’s gonna get ugly fast.
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