Happy Friday, friends! In between Maven’s birthday party, Maverick snuggles and summer concerts, we’ve been staying quite busy and, despite what the news depicts, still selling real estate. Not all buyers are sitting on the sidelines: in the last three weeks we’ve closed on three different properties in various price ranges with prices on each of those negotiated down. If you’ve slowed your home search because the market was too crazy or interest rates were too high, don’t forget now is the time to negotiate. There are opportunities to buy, you just have to be in the right mindset.
Nearly every day, Compass’s Leonard Steinberg puts together a handful of real estate news bits that are always so interesting I have to share some of my favorites of the week. To receive these every day from Leonard, please click [_here](mailto:ls@compass.com “”) and include your full name and email address to get on his mailing list.
* In 2021, Elon Musk paid about $11 billion in taxes, slightly more than the close-to-zero taxes some politicians, headlines and tweets suggest the very rich pay. The disparity in taxes paid WITHIN the classes varies dramatically where some are entitled to massive tax breaks and others are not, depending on their influence on those that make our laws….. and yes, some avoid taxes legally, semi-legally and illegally. That happens at all levels: In the US annually about $188 billion is lost due to tax fraud. But it’s not just billionaire’s not paying their ‘fair share’…..
* Could commercial real estate – specifically over-valued, over-paid-for office buildings and retail space – cause a “balance sheet recession” where sectors of the economy are stuck with bad assets from a collapsed bubble. Their primary means of avoiding bankruptcy is to sell, pay down, or otherwise dispose of those assets. The focus on reducing asset holdings makes net new borrowing grind to a halt, and low interest rates have limited effectiveness in stimulating growth. Recoveries from balance sheet recessions, hampered by debt paydown, are slow, weak, disappointing, and painful. Ask Japan. (Barrons)
* According to a Harvard study, jobs that require little human interaction and don’t offer opportunities to build meaningful relationships with co-workers tend to have the most miserable employees…..hence why we are all so happy and cheerful in real estate!
* The primary causes of the 2008 crisis — a glut of poor-quality subprime mortgages that had been spread round the world via derivatives on to the balance sheets of poorly capitalised banks — do not apply in 2023. Credit quality remains decent. And bank capital is two to three times stronger than it was a decade and a half ago. (FT)
* Want to know how your LOCAL economy is performing?…if consumer spending is a huge chunk of CPI, yes spending habits matter and they can be measured by how much sales tax is being collected. Local sales tax collections in New York state increased by 14.1% in February compared to the same month in 2022…..
* Home Services that owns Berkshire Hathaway Home Services, Houlihan Lawrence, Long & Foster, bought out Prudential, etc and over 40 other brands, making it one of the largest brokerages in the US……has not had a single financial report article written about its past quarter’s performance, let alone year-end 2022. More evidence how the media selects only the brands that they feel attract eyeball attention and drive clicks, likes and subscriptions…..