Wolf Richter: Housing Bubble 2 Already Collapsing for the 99%

[boutons_deux]

This is precisely what shouldn’t have happened but was destined to happen: Sales of existing homes have gotten clobbered since last fall. At first, the Fiscal Cliff and the threat of a US government default – remember those zany times? – were blamed, then polar vortices were blamed even while home sales in California, where the weather had been gorgeous all winter, plunged more than elsewhere.

Then it spread to new-home sales: in April, they dropped 4.7% from a year ago, after March’s year-over-year decline of 4.9%, and February’s 2.8%. Not a good sign: the April hit was worse than February’s, when it was the weather’s fault. Yet April should be the busiest month of the year (excellent brief video by Lee Adler on this debacle).

We have already seen that in some markets, in California for example, sales have collapsed at the lower two-thirds of the price range, with the upper third thriving.

People who earn median incomes are increasingly priced out of the market, and many potential first-time buyers have little chance of getting in. In San Diego, for example, sales of homes below $200,000 plunged 46% while the upper end is doing just fine. But the upper end is small, and they don’t like to buy median homes [read… Housing Bubble 2 Veers Elegantly Toward Housing Bust 2]

Yet it’s going according to the Fed’s plan. Its policies – nearly free and unlimited amounts of capital for those with access to it – have created enormous wealth in a minuscule part of the population by inflating ferocious asset bubbles, including in housing.

But now electronic real-estate broker Redfin has made it official: in 2014 through April, sales of the most expensive 1% of homes have soared 21.1% year over year, while sales in the lower 99% have dropped 7.6%.

And it wasn’t the first year. In 2013, sales of 1%-homes jumped 35.7%, while sales of the other 99% rose 10.1%. And in 2012, sales of 1%-homes rose 17.5%, while the rest of the market inched up a mere 2.9%.

The downtrodden who have to make do with buying the remaining 99% of the homes, these modern hoi polloi so to speak, whose real incomes have stagnated or declined as they face the soaring home prices of the Fed’s second housing bubble in less than a decade, to be financed at still historically low mortgage rates, well, they’ve hit a wall.

But at least luxury is thriving. In 9 of the 29 markets Redfin tracked, sales of the priciest 1% of homes jumped by over 50%. The top three were all here in the Bay Area – not surprisingly, given the miracles of the worldwide money transfer machine of IPOs and multi-billion-dollar startup acquisitions [Momentum Stock Fiasco Pricks San Francisco Housing Bubble].

In Oakland, sales of 1%-homes skyrocketed 96.2%, in San Jose 91.2%, and in San Francisco 72.2%. But in all three cities, sales of the 99% are down so far this year! So this isn’t exactly a booming housing market but a booming luxury market. A lopsided monstrosity that looks like this:



In a number of cities, including in some of the red-hottest housing markets of last summer, sales of homes in the 99% category have plunged. The worst: Los Angeles -11.7%, San Diego -12.3%, Minneapolis -12.5%, Orange County -12.7%, Sacramento -15.5%, Phoenix -15.7%, Las Vegas -16.3%, and Ventura -16.3%.

Some of these cities aren’t exactly cheap places to buy a 1%-home. In San Francisco, the median price is already over $900,000. But the minimum 1%-home? $5.35 million, according to Redfin.

You’ll need enough after-tax income – if you’re not plunking down the cash you got from selling your startup – to cough up a monthly mortgage payment of $21,300. LA is second in line with the minimum 1%-home setting you back $3.65 million, or a monthly mortgage payment of $14,600. That’s the minimum. On the upper end, only the sky is the limit….

Location, location, location. Prices of 1%-homes vary by neighborhood. In my crazy San Francisco, Redfin found that Presidio Heights came out on top at $7.48 million for the average 1%-home, neck to neck with neighboring Pacific Heights at $7.18 million, and well ahead of Russian Hill at $6.53. But Presidio Heights was only the 6th most expensive neighborhood in the report, the top five all being in LA. King of the hill: Beverly Glen, where the average1%-home costs a cool $11.86 million.



There are more expensive towns in the Bay Area, like Atherton, that could compete with the priciest neighborhoods LA has to offer. But they’re too small to make it into the stats. And these stats are a perfect illustration of what the Fed has set out to accomplish: the “Wealth Effect” – a semi-religious doctrine propagated by the Greenspan Fed and elevated to a state religion by the Bernanke Fed.

The relentless money-printing binge and zero-interest-rate policy did what it was designed to do: inflate asset bubbles and make some players rich, but not all.

A home that cost $150,000 and jumps 50% in price will make the owner $75k. A home that cost $15 million and then jumps 50% will make the owner $7.5 million.

A private equity firm that can borrow at near zero cost to buy up 40,000 homes might hope to gain around $5 billion. That’s how the Wealth Effect works.

The problem for the housing market is that there aren’t enough home buyers in that coddled 1%-category. The few can push up prices for a while but aren’t numerous enough to push up sales of the overall market. And they don’t like to buy median homes. Yet, as prices rise, homes move further out of reach of the 99%, and inevitably, sales drop further. At some point, something has to give. We already know from the last housing bubble and bust cycle what will give: prices. And afterwards, we’ll wonder, as we sort through the debris, how the Fed managed to sucker us into a second housing bubble and bust in just one decade.

The equation might not have gone so horribly awry if each class of college graduates had seen their incomes skyrocket in line with their student debt. But that’s a crummy joke in America.

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/05/pervasiveness-health-care-corruption-shown-another-roundup-legal-settlements.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium= feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked +capitalism%29

[CosmicCowboy]

Yeah, I gotta admit I sometimes have my doubts about home ownership being a good investment. I love my "middle class" house, the property, and the area it is in, but I look at the initial cost, the taxes, the maintenance, etc. and question whether I am doing the right thing...when I am ready to sell in 20 years will there be anyone that will be able to afford it? I figure it's worth about a half million in today's market and even at super cheap interest rates there aren't that many people in San Antonio that can bust that monthly note and tax nut...and a lot of those that can are rich imports from California or drug dealers out of Mexico and they are buying those million + garish "Texas Tuscans" in the Dominion and Stone Oak.

[pgardn]

Strong middle class ~ thriving democracy

[boutons_deux]

Strong middle class ~ thriving democracy

That's why American democracy is increasingly a myth, a charade for suckers, as the Wealthy, corps, financial sector rage their Class Warfare and control elections and government.

[pgardn]

That's why American democracy is increasingly a myth, a charade for suckers, as the Wealthy, corps, financial sector rage their Class Warfare and control elections and government.

You really believe the wealthy want to create a country of poor people?

The educated wealthy who have read history and understand what happens to societies with a huge majority of poverty ridden lower class?

[boutons_deux]

You really believe the wealthy want to create a country of poor people?

The educated wealthy who have read history and understand what happens to societies with a huge majority of poverty ridden lower class?

THEY DON'T ING CARE.

eg, look at ALL FOUR of millionaires' House-Approved millionaires Ryan's budgets. screw the poor MORE, enrich/protect the wealthy/corps MORE.

The Inclusive Capitalism Initiative is Trojan Horse to quell coming global revolt

Yesterday’s Conference on Inclusive Capitalism co-hosted by the City of London Corporation and EL Rothschild investment firm, brought together the people who control a third of the world’s liquid assets – the most powerful financial and business elites – to discuss the need for a more socially responsible form of capitalism that benefits everyone, not just a wealthy minority.

Leading financiers referred to statistics on rising global inequalities and the role of banks and corporations in marginalising the majority while accelerating systemic financial risk – vindicating the need for change.

While the self-reflective recognition by global capitalism’s leaders that business-as-usual cannot continue is welcome, sadly the event represented less a meaningful shift of direction than a barely transparent effort to rehabilitate a parasitical economic system on the brink of facing a global uprising.

Central to the proceedings was an undercurrent of elite fear that the increasing disenfranchisement of the vast majority of the planetary population under decades of capitalist business-as-usual could well be its own undoing.

The Conference on Inclusive Capitalism is the brainchild of the Henry Jackson Society (HJS), a little-known but influential British think tank with distinctly neoconservative and xenophobic leanings. In May 2012, HJS executive director Alan Mendoza explained the thinking behind the project:

“… we felt that such was public disgust with the system, there was a very real danger that politicians could seek to remedy the situation by legislating capitalism out of business.”

He claimed that HJS research showed that “the only real solutions that can be put forward to restore trust in the system, and which actually stand a chance of bringing economic prosperity, are being led by the private, rather than the public, sector.”

The Initiative for Inclusive Capitalism’s recommendations for reform seem well-meaning at first glance, but in reality barely skim the surface of capitalism’s growing crisis tendencies:

giant corporations should invest in more job training, should encourage positive relationships and partnerships with small- and medium-sized businesses, and – while not jettisoning quarterly turnovers – should also account for ways of sustaining long-term value for shareholders.

The impetus for this, however, lies in the growing recognition that if such reforms are not pursued, global capitalists will be overthrown by the very populations currently overwhelmingly marginalised by their self-serving activity. As co-chair of the HJS Inclusive Capitalism taskforce, McKinsey managing directorDominic Barton, explained from his meetings with over 400 business and government leaders worldwide that:

“… there is growing concern that if the fundamental issues revealed in the crisis remain unaddressed and the system fails again, the social contract between the capitalist system and the citizenry may truly rupture, with unpredictable but severely damaging results.”

Among those “damaging results” – apart from the potential disruption to profits and the capitalist system itself – is the potential failure to capitalise on the finding by “corporate-finance experts” that “70 to 90 percent of a company’s value is related to cash flows expected three or more years out.”

Indeed, as the New York Observer reported after the US launch of the Henry Jackson Initiative for Inclusive Capitalism, the rather thin proposals for reform “seemed less important than bringing business leaders together to address a more central concern: In an era of rising income inequality and grim economic outlook, people seemed to be losing confidence in capitalism altogether.”

Lady Lynn Forester de Rothschild, who co-hosted yesterday’s conference, told the NY Observer why she was concerned:

“I think that a lot of kids have neither money nor hope, and that’s really bad. Because then they’re going to get mad at America. What our hope for this initiative, is that through all the efforts of all of the decent CEOs, all the decent kids without a job feel optimistic.”

Yep. Feel optimistic. PR is the name of the game.

“I believe that it is our duty to help make all people believe that the elevator is working for them… that whatever the station of your birth, you can get on that elevator to success,” de Rothschild told Chinese business leaders last year:

“At the moment, that faith and confidence is under siege in America… As business people, we have a pragmatic reason to get it right for everyone – so that the government does not intervene in unproductive ways with business… I think that it is imperative for us to restore faith in capitalism and in free markets.”

According to the very 2011 City of London Corporation report which recommended funding the HJS inclusive capitalism project, one of its core goals is undermining public support for “increased regulation” and “greater state” involvement in the economy, while simultaneously deterring calls to “punish those deemed responsible for having caused the crisis”:

“Following the financial crisis of 2008, the Western capitalist system has been perceived to be in crisis. Although the financial recovery is now underway in Europe and America, albeit unevenly and in some cases with the risk of further adjustments, the legacy of the sudden nature of the crash lives on.”

The report, written by the City of London’s director of public relations, continues to note that “the fabric of the capitalist system has come in for protracted scrutiny,” causing governments to “confuse the need for reasoned and rational change” with “the desire to punish those deemed responsible for having caused the crisis.” But this would mean that “the capitalist model is liable to have the freedoms and ideology essential to its success corroded.”

Far from acknowledging the predatory and unequalising impact of neoliberal capitalism, the do ent shows that the inclusive capitalism project is concerned with PR to promote “a more nuanced view of society,” without which “there is a risk that… we will be led down a policy path of increased regulation and greater state control of ins utions, businesses and the people at the heart of them, which will fatally cripple the very system that has been responsible for economic prosperity.”

The project is thus designed “to influence political and business opinion” and to target public opinion through a “media campaign that seeks to engage major outlets.”

The Henry Jackson Initiative for Inclusive Capitalism is therefore an elite response to the recognition that capitalism in its current form is unsustainable, likely to hit another crisis, and already generating massive popular resistance.

Its proposed reforms therefore amount to token PR moves to appease the disenfranchised masses. Consequently, they fail to address the very same accelerating profit-oriented systemic risks that will lead to another financial crash before decade’s end.

Their focus, in de Rothschild’s words in the Wall Street Journal, is cosmetic: repairing “capitalism’s bruised image” in order to protect the “common long-term interests of investors and of the capitalist system.”

That is why the Inclusive Capitalism Initiative has nothing to say about reversing the neoliberal pseudo-development policies which, during capitalism’s so-called ‘Golden Age’, widened inequality and re ed growth for “the vast majority of low income and middle-income countries” according to a UN report - including “reduced progress for almost all the social indicators that are available to measure health and educational outcomes” from 1980 to 2005.

Instead, proposed ‘reforms’ offer ways to rehabilitate perceptions of powerful businesses and corporations, in order to head-off rising worker discontent and thus keep the system going, while continuing to maximise profits for the few at the expense of the planet.

This is not a surprise considering the parochial financial and political interests the Henry Jackson Society appears to represent: the very same neoconservative elites that lobbied for the Iraq War and endorse mass NSA surveillance of western and non-western citizens alike.

Indeed, there is little “inclusive” about the capitalism that HJS’ risk consultancy project, Strategic Analysis, seeks to protect, when it advertises its quarterly research reports on “the oil and gas sector in all twenty” countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Those reports aim to highlight “the opportunities for investors” as well as “risks to their business.”

Just last month, HJS organised a conference on mitigating risks in the Arab world to discuss “methods for protecting your business interests, assets and people,” including “how to plan against and mitigate losses… caused by business interruption.” The focus of the conference was protecting the invariably fossil fueled interests of British and American investors and corporates in MENA – the interests and wishes of local populations was not a relevant ‘security’ concern.

The conference’s several corporate sponsors included the Control Risks Group, a British private defence contractor that has serviced Halliburton and the UK Foreign Office in postwar Iraq, and is a member of the Energy Industry Council – the largest trade association for British companies servicing the world’s energy industries.

The “inclusivity” of this new brand of capitalism is also apparent in HJS’ longtime employment of climate denier Raheem Kassam, who now runs the UK branch of the American Breitbart news network, one of whose contributors called for Americans “to start slaughtering Muslims in the street, all of them.”

Perhaps the final nail in the coffin of HJS’ vision of capitalist “inclusivity” is associate director Douglas Murray’s views about Europe’s alleged Muslim problem, of which he said in Dutch Parliament: “Conditions for Muslims in Europe must be made harder across the board.”

Earlier this year, Murray’s fear-mongering targeted the supposed “startling rise in Muslim infants” in Britain, a problem that explains why “white British people” are “losing their country.” London, Murray wrote, “has become a foreign country” in which “‘white Britons’ are now in a minority,” and “there aren’t enough white people around” to make its boroughs “diverse.”

So abhorrent did the Conservative front-bench find Murray’s innumerable xenophobic remarks about European Muslims, reported Paul Goodman, the Tory Party broke off relations with his Center for Social Cohesion before he revitalised himself by joining forces with HJS.

Yet this is the same neocon ideology of “inclusive” market freedom around which the forces of global capitalism are remobilising, in the name of “sustainable” prosperity for all.

They must be having a laugh.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/05/2...e+Raw+Story%29

iow, THEY DON'T ING CARE (about poor people, or anybody but themselves, and protecting/increasing their unspendable wealth)

[pgardn]

So they don't care about their own (or their offspring) eventual collapse?

I totally disagree that self-destructive greed infects the majority of wealthy people. I disagree based on my own observations of the top 1%. They are not comfortable with wealth disparity. They would totally agree with my statement concerning the middle class. What they disagree with is how this arose and how to solve it.

[boutons_deux]

So they don't care about their own (or their offspring) eventual collapse?

I totally disagree that self-destructive greed infects the majority of wealthy people. I disagree based on my own observations of the top 1%. They are not comfortable with wealth disparity. They would totally agree with my statement concerning the middle class. What they disagree with is how this arose and how to solve it.

what collapse? if any civil disorder breaks out, the police and military will be "good Germans" and crush it with extreme violence, eg, crushing OWS

they know EXACTLY how the inequalty arose, and it wasn't "natural forces". it was the VRWC/1%/corps buying the govt policies the reduced their taxes, reduced financial regulation, busted unions, privatized taxpayer-bought services, and hired right-wing stink tanks and hate media to create an anti-govt/pro-corporate/pro-t% minority sufficient to block govt/social progress.

Plus 10Ks of them evaded even the low US taxes by hiding the $Ms in offshore accounts.

Credit Suisse just got a handslap for encouraging/taking in US tax evaders' $100Ms, while DoJ allowed C-S to keep the names of the US criminals secret.

[pgardn]

what collapse? if any civil disorder breaks out, the police and military will be "good Germans" and crush it with extreme violence, eg, crushing OWS

they know EXACTLY how the inequalty arose, and it wasn't "natural forces". it was the VRWC/1%/corps buying the govt policies the reduced their taxes, reduced financial regulation, busted unions, privatized taxpayer-bought services, and hired right-wing stink tanks and hate media to create an anti-govt/pro-corporate/pro-t% minority sufficient to block govt/social progress.

Plus 10Ks of them evaded even the low US taxes by hiding the $Ms in offshore accounts.

Credit Suisse just got a handslap for encouraging/taking in US tax evaders' $100Ms, while DoJ allowed C-S to keep the names of the US criminals secret.

If the police and military go along with a rotten State and suppress their own families and friends then it has not become bad enough. Especially in a country (after declaring independence) like this without any real history of a dictator or highly repressive regimes. The South repressed a relatively small population of people shipped in. Very different from what the French and English went through. ( used for comparison purposes only as they had such a great deal of influence on law and the way we live today)

You need to travel some. I suggest Africa and South America. Then the Middle East. Then Eastern Europe. Then Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, and then China. Then enter South Korea.

[Nbadan]

Yeah, I gotta admit I sometimes have my doubts about home ownership being a good investment. I love my "middle class" house, the property, and the area it is in, but I look at the initial cost, the taxes, the maintenance, etc. and question whether I am doing the right thing...when I am ready to sell in 20 years will there be anyone that will be able to afford it? I figure it's worth about a half million in today's market and even at super cheap interest rates there aren't that many people in San Antonio that can bust that monthly note and tax nut...and a lot of those that can are rich imports from California or drug dealers out of Mexico and they are buying those million + garish "Texas Tuscans" in the Dominion and Stone Oak.

Well....your not supposed to buy a house to make money off it cause most of the time you won't...that said, I was lucky to get in right before this bubble in "middle class" homes and if I was ready to sell right now I would pocket a nice sum after figuring I lived rent-free for the last 5 years....

[spurraider21]

if you are buying a house with the primary intention of profiting off of it by buying/selling it like a stock, your'e doing it wrong (at least since 08). more so like a car, you buy it so you can eventually live rent free, rather than perpetually renting. and who knows, maybe a 15 years down the line you'll be able to flip it. i'd look at it like a car but with better resale value

[pgardn]

I think his point is partially that houses are not really rent free with taxes, insurance, maintenance, power, etc... These costs usually are not figured in when one sells a house, even for a supposed profit.

There are expensive houses most of us could not afford to live in even if given them free due to the above. All of the above add up over the years just like rent. And I did not mention a mortgage.

[TDMVPDPOY]

most of the houses that hold value are due to the neighborhood its in and surrounding infrastructure, whether its elite schools, transport etc....

seriously i hate it every week when the papers and realtors are in bed together pushing their agenda in the media its a hot market, why dont they tell us who is selling up due to foreclosure or bailing out....

even if you sell, you still must buy somewhere to live, that means across the board there must have been a rise in prices, so wheres the upgrade if ur moving up

[Sportcamper]

Housing market is propped up by low low interest rates…
What will happen when rates rise to a modest level of 9%...

[boutons_deux]

If the police and military go along with a rotten State and suppress their own families and friends then it has not become bad enough. Especially in a country (after declaring independence) like this without any real history of a dictator or highly repressive regimes. The South repressed a relatively small population of people shipped in. Very different from what the French and English went through. ( used for comparison purposes only as they had such a great deal of influence on law and the way we live today)

You need to travel some. I suggest Africa and South America. Then the Middle East. Then Eastern Europe. Then Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, and then China. Then enter South Korea.

you need to work on your ignorance.

The American oligarchy is wealthy, powerful, intelligent enough NOT to be blatantly, violently oppressive, unlike 3rd world dictators. Th American oppression and wealth sucking, their political dominance, is much more subtle.

And OWS and eg Watts riots turn violent, the police and National Guard will mow people down.

[Nbadan]

I think his point is partially that houses are not really rent free with taxes, insurance, maintenance, power, etc... These costs usually are not figured in when one sells a house, even for a supposed profit.

There are expensive houses most of us could not afford to live in even if given them free due to the above. All of the above add up over the years just like rent. And I did not mention a mortgage.

Consider it an investment opportunity rather than a drag on the housing market....you can buy a $200k house in the right neighborhood in SA, the mortgage, taxes, insurance, a house warranty and association fees would be about between 1500 and 1700 depending on how much if anything you put down in the beginning....rent that house for between 2k and 2.2k and you are pocking a few hundred a month plus your paying off an asset that will appreciate over time....do this multiple times, including a few fixer uppers and your a millionaire, on paper....

[The Reckoning]

thanks obama

[pgardn]

Consider it an investment opportunity rather than a drag on the housing market....you can buy a $200k house in the right neighborhood in SA, the mortgage, taxes, insurance, a house warranty and association fees would be about between 1500 and 1700 depending on how much if anything you put down in the beginning....rent that house for between 2k and 2.2k and you are pocking a few hundred a month plus your paying off an asset that will appreciate over time....do this multiple times, including a few fixer uppers and your a millionaire, on paper....

Rent that house for 2.2 K a month...

Yessir, people are renting houses all over San Antonio for 2200 a month.

I leave this up to the great entrepreneurs that have renters who blow town on them every other month.

[TDMVPDPOY]

Rent that house for 2.2 K a month...

Yessir, people are renting houses all over San Antonio for 2200 a month.

I leave this up to the great entrepreneurs that have renters who blow town on them every other month.

nothin beats all these wankers with mulltiple investment properties spruiking buying more on credit and renting it out, using whatever negative gearing to minimise tax on rental income or capital gains....play the waiting game appreciate in value and sell out...bunch of wankers to me

any of you clowns have any realtors on ur social networking page, every fkn posts update is about house for sale, pissin me off

[pgardn]

nothin beats all these wankers with mulltiple investment properties spruiking buying more on credit and renting it out, using whatever negative gearing to minimise tax on rental income or capital gains....play the waiting game appreciate in value and sell out...bunch of wankers to me

any of you clowns have any realtors on ur social networking page, every fkn posts update is about house for sale, pissin me off

They have stinking seminars on this advertised on the radio here in SA all the time.

Why have seminars, go out and do it yourself if it's so damn easy and risk free?
I see a huge problem with renters just walking on these owners all the time and them having to go months before they find a new traveling tenant.

[TeyshaBlue]

Rent that house for 2.2 K a month...

Yessir, people are renting houses all over San Antonio for 2200 a month.

I leave this up to the great entrepreneurs that have renters who blow town on them every other month.

Troof. I own several properties in the 100 - 150K range. I currently have two that are 30 days delinquent. It seems like every month there's a couple that I really have to lean on to get rent....Im not always successful.

[Nbadan]

Troof. I own several properties in the 100 - 150K range. I currently have two that are 30 days delinquent. It seems like every month there's a couple that I really have to lean on to get rent....Im not always successful.

If your gonna go half ass and anything, that's what your gonna get.....vet your renters better, hire a property manager company to handle delinquencies, vacaters and movers...there are homes in my neighborhood renting for more than 2.2K....it's a renter's market...

[pgardn]

If your gonna go half ass and anything, that's what your gonna get.....vet your renters better, hire a property manager company to handle delinquencies, vacaters and movers...there are homes in my neighborhood renting for more than 2.2K....it's a renter's market...

Sure.

It's a renters market at 2,200 bucks a month in San Antonio Texas?
Your world is small.

[TeyshaBlue]

If your gonna go half ass and anything, that's what your gonna get.....vet your renters better, hire a property manager company to handle delinquencies, vacaters and movers...there are homes in my neighborhood renting for more than 2.2K....it's a renter's market...

I vet my renters exactly like the local property management groups do. I've got a buddy that runs one. . I use their forms and use the same credit and background services. Still manage to struggle collecting rent. No way I'm paying those management fees tho unless I'm stupid enough to buy another 10 or so properties. How many properties are you handling, dan?
lol at half assed.

[Nbadan]

I vet my renters exactly like the local property management groups do. I've got a buddy that runs one. . I use their forms and use the same credit and background services. Still manage to struggle collecting rent. No way I'm paying those management fees tho unless I'm stupid enough to buy another 10 or so properties. How many properties are you handling, dan?
lol at half assed.

The half-assed remark was direct at those naysayers who think this isn't possible...I manage 3 properties, but I only keep my one home here in SA..the rest of my properties are out of state.....thinking of downsizing and renting my current home in SA ... figure I could get between 2.4 and 2.6k per month......