Crazy RE - Redfin CEO Tweetstorm

[FreeBear]

Interesting info. I work for a large cap multinational real estate information company. So, you can imagine the push to get into the office is strong since that what we "sell." We have pent up turnover from the pandemic, but even so, we're still running high at about ~20% instead of ~8%. A significant part of it is a no flexibility 5 days in the office requirement. Telework is not even an option. Our corp response is simply to replace those people. We began hiring before the policy was announced to replace the expected >10% of the people we figured would want to leave. That was widely considered by managers to be a down payment on what the and number would be.



That said, there is a rumor that once we get people back in the office and we're running ~50% right now, we may see an easing of this requirement on the tech side of the house, but not the rest of the company.

I’m so glad we’re retired and don’t have to go into the office!!

 

[MatatuPuncher]

Everyone say this when "in the bubble" every time! I simply look at the long term inflation adjusted home price chart. It has to revert to its mean if history is any proof. Some interesting charts/data here. Looks like we are already past 2008 peak! I am calling it a bubble.

Damn, this sure didn't age well.

 

[Koolau]

Damn, this sure didn't age well.

Heh, heh, we'll let it go - this time.

 

[pjigar]

Damn, this sure didn't age well.

I still standby that we are in a housing bubble! Just look at all the structural factors: artificially low supply of houses (existing homeowners don't want to move due to high mortgage rates, builders building way less than the market demand), slow income growth compared to RE price growth, institutional RE buyer, etc. Something always gives when anything is too far away from it's mean: no-one knows when or how because humans are very illogical beings when it comes to investing. The chart like this worries me most:

Separate story: I was expecting high inflation 'any day' in 2012 due to all the structural changes past 2008 money printing spree (QE). High inflation didn't come for another 10 years! Based on my expectations, I put my money where my mouth was: In 2013, we went all out and bought several rental properties (single family and multi-family) because that is the only thing I knew a poor retail investor can do in order to benefit from high inflation. This served us well. I am least bothered by being wrong for a very long time.

 

[pjigar]

Anecdotal story: A small builder (less than 100 SFH per community) was under a contract buying next door land last month. His financing fell through (I know because we were supposed to trade some land for mutual benefit). I don't know why financing fell through: Was land over priced? Was builder stretched too thin? Either way not a good sign for land market.

 

[tryan]

I am the president of a home owners association in a resort area (a thankless position!) .... one member stopped paying his dues 12 years ago. I decide to foreclose on his 11 acres. No one showed for the auction in Feb 2024 except me. The association picked up 11 acres for less than 4k/acre. Crazy town!

 

[calmloki]

We sold a couple small houses on a large chunk of land on 5/2007 to a developer who got trapped by it for over a decade - he did manage to keep his nose above water by renting the places out, and I see he's now added a duplex to the land, so believe he'll do ok - finally. We bought our SoCal winter house at auction on 11/2010 and should have been buying hard for the next few years but didn't, as we were trying to back away from rental ownership. It's gone up in value by about 3.5x. All this to say real estate moves as it wishes and I sure don't know nothing.

 

[Time2]

Lumber yards better get some security to watch their product. Some may be using the five finger discount to get the product.

Lowes already has their copper wire under lock and key. And I'll add, yesterday I went to buy a new door knob to replace a bad one. I grabbed it and went to get it re-keyed to match my existing locks. Nope, they don't do that anymore, I was told a law was passed (Fl.) that says only licensed locksmiths can re-key locks. So Lowes and Home Depot can no longer Re-key Door hardware.

 

[Patience]

No wonder why people flock to parts of FL. A home valued at $280K and property taxes are $1.4K per year and no state income tax.

I seriously need to move.
$400k house and we pay almost $12,000 a year in Prop and school tax. No trash collection, no town water, no town sewer. Just snow plow service.

 

[5Miler]

And I'll add, yesterday I went to buy a new door knob to replace a bad one. I grabbed it and went to get it re-keyed to match my existing locks. Nope, they don't do that anymore, I was told a law was passed (Fl.) that says only licensed locksmiths can re-key locks. So Lowes and Home Depot can no longer Re-key Door hardware.

Depending on who makes your door knob, you may be able to do it yourself with a little help from Amazon. Ran into a problem getting a Schlage door knob rekeyed at both Lowes and Home Depot a few years back. I also tried a local locksmith without success. It was a new at the time, electronic lock with key backup. I got so vexed I found a Youtube on how to do it myself and ordered a $10 pin kit from Amazon which did the trick. Found it to be deceptively easy and have done many since then.

 

[Koolau]

I seriously need to move.
$400k house and we pay almost $12,000 a year in Prop and school tax. No trash collection, no town water, no town sewer. Just snow plow service.

The fact that you need snow-plow service would be MY first inclination to move but $12K for virtually no other service is ridiculous. Move. Move NOW!

 

[Koolau]

Depending on who makes your door knob, you may be able to do it yourself with a little help from Amazon. Ran into a problem getting a Schlage door knob rekeyed at both Lowes and Home Depot a few years back. I also tried a local locksmith without success. It was a new at the time, electronic lock with key backup. I got so vexed I found a Youtube on how to do it myself and ordered a $10 pin kit from Amazon which did the trick. Found it to be deceptively easy and have done many since then.

Heh, heh, was the guy on the YouTube a "veteran" of a lock-smith school (like Folsom State?)

 

[Teacher Terry]

Property taxes in Nevada are very low. Part of the formula includes the age of the home. 3 years ago when we sold the house for 400k our taxes were 700/year but the house was 71 years old and completely renovated. My condo is 45 years old completely renovated and the taxes are 360/year and worth 250k.

Plus we have no state income tax. When people complain about the tourists I say we should be thankful. Californians moving in has caused our COL to skyrocket but I’m still better off paying more for food, car gas, vet bills, etc than paying much higher taxes.

 

[calmloki]

Lowes already has their copper wire under lock and key. And I'll add, yesterday I went to buy a new door knob to replace a bad one. I grabbed it and went to get it re-keyed to match my existing locks. Nope, they don't do that anymore, I was told a law was passed (Fl.) that says only licensed locksmiths can re-key locks. So Lowes and Home Depot can no longer Re-key Door hardware.

Several decades ago we were changing locks with each new tenant at the apartments or houses. It got expensive enough that I bought several boxes of Kwikset locking knobs and deadbolts to get a bulk price. Then had an AhHah moment when I found out that they could be re-keyed to work with a tenant key and a master key, meaning I didn't have to carry keys for every place, just the master, making my response time faster. Then I found out rekeying a lock for tenant/master or just a different key is fairly trivial, so bought a fairly serious re-keying kit:

Amazon.com

Been free of locksmiths since, but just spent some bucks to change all the locks in our Oregon house - they were pretty crusty after 25 years of weather. These are Kwikset Smartkey locks, which can be changed to a different Kwikset key in 30 seconds. Haven't studied up whether they can be set for dual keycodes, kinda doubt it. The law that only locksmiths can change a lock to match (presumably) a key (vs. a key code) sounds like nonsense, but you do say that's Florida, so...

 

[teej1985]

No wonder why people flock to parts of FL. A home valued at $280K and property taxes are $1.4K per year and no state income tax.

I always heard that FL had insanely high property taxes? Not to mention insurance...