Yves here. Even though Wolf Richter sometimes likes hair on fire headlines, here the alarm is warranted. The fall in housing prices and pileup of new home inventory is a big deal not just for builders and brokers. For those of you who remember the financial crisis, QE was not about “money printing” but about lowering mortgage rates, both by reducing long term Treasury yields and by lower the spread between Treasury and Fannie/Freddie MBS yields. This was a big focus of policy because….drumroll…housing prices have a much bigger “wealth effect” on spending than increases in securities prices.
By Wolf Richter, editor at Wolf Street. Originally published at Wolf Street
Sales of new single-family houses in April plunged by 16.6% from March and by 26.9% from a year ago, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 591,000 houses, the lowest since lockdown April 2020, according to the Census Bureau today. Sales of new houses are registered when contracts are signed, not when deals close, and can serve as an early indicator of the overall housing market.
By region, sales plunged the most in the South:
- South: -19.8% for the month, -36.6% year-over-year.
- Midwest: -15.1% for the month, -25.5% year-over-year
- West: -13.8% for the month, -12.4% year-over-year.
- Northeast: -5.9% for the month, +17.1% year-over-year
Unsold inventory of new houses spiked in a historic month-to-month leap of 34,000 houses, and by 127,000 houses from April last year, to 444,000 unsold houses, seasonally adjusted, the highest since May 2008.
Both, the month-to-month leap and the year-over-year leap were the largest leaps ever recorded, both in numbers of unsold houses and in percentages.
By region, unsold inventory spiked the most in the South, and dipped in the Northeast. Percent increase year-over-year:
- South: +53%
- Midwest: +39%
- West: +8.4%
- Northeast: -4%
Supply of unsold new houses spiked in a historic month-to-month leap from an already high 6.9 months’ supply in March to a dizzying 9.0 months’ supply in April, having nearly doubled from a year ago:
The bottom fell out under $400,000. At the top end, things weren’t so bad: sales were flat year-over-year in the $400,000 to $750,000 range, though they fell on a month-to-month basis. But you cannot maintain a housing market by just selling to the wealthy.
In the price categories below $400,000, the bottom fell out. The drop in sales year-over-year:
- $300k to $400k: -42%
- $200k to $300k: -71%
- $200: dead.
Collapse in Sales Below $400K Changed the Mix, Skewing the Median Price
The median price is the price in the middle. My favorite example: To get the median price in a market where 9 homes sold, you list them by price from the highest to the lowest, and the price of the fifth house from the top or the fifth from the bottom (same house) is the price in the middle, which forms the median price.
Now imagine, two buyers that would have bought the cheapest two houses can’t afford to buy them, and the sales don’t happen. But the remaining seven homes sell. The middle is now the fourth house down, or the fourth house up. This change in mix skews the metric of the median price simply by the way the median price is determined, though the prices of the homes haven’t changed:
And this change in mix is what happened in reality too. The mix changed dramatically, with the bottom falling out below $400k in terms of sales, but sales above $400k were able to hang in there. And this change in mix pushed up the median price to a new record of $450,600, up by 19.6% from a year ago:
Homebuyers struggle with spiking mortgage rates which make the high home prices that much more difficult to deal with. And with each increase in mortgage rates, and with each increase in home prices, entire layers of potential buyers abandon the market, and sales volume plunges:
Homebuilders struggle with the worst inflation ever in construction costs, amid shortages of materials, supplies, and labor that tangle up construction projects, cause huge delays and cost-overruns, stall deliveries of completed houses, and cause immense frustration all around.
Construction costs of single-family houses – excluding the cost of land and other non-construction costs – spiked by 18.2% year-over-year, the worst spike ever in the data going back to 1964, and the fifth month in a row with year-over-year spikes of over 17%, according to separate data from the Census Bureau today. April was the 12th month in a row with double-digit cost spikes – which explains in part why the bottom is falling out at homes below $400,000:
Homebuilder stocks have gotten crushed for months, and swooned again today upon the news. This list and chart of the major homebuilders show the year-to-date declines in percent as of early afternoon today (data via YCharts):
- R. Horton: -39.6%
- Lennar: -38.5%
- PulteGroup: -29.0%
- Taylor Morrison: -25.5%
- Meritage: -37.2%
- NVR: -31.2
- KB Home: -30.6%
- Century: -39.5%
- LGI Homes: -43.1%
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How long before derecho events are named? :)
They are formed spontaneously and released all in one day. Unlike a hurricane, which is anticipated and occurs with seasonal regularity.
So pretty sure it’s up to the weather channel…
It’s all about supply, demand and the cost of money. Interest rates are going up, so is the cost of everything. It’s up to you to decide whether to cut your losses or ride out the decreasing value of the dollar. What will you do?
In older home news…
Just in the last month, our neighborhood (NW San Diego) has seen a jump in sale listings from around 5 or 6 to now over 20. Where once homes were snapped up within a week, there are now some sitting almost a month. Prices above asking have dropped from over 200-400k to list or slightly below. I think the monies are realizing that a 3/2 1300sqft crapshack is not worth 1.5 M.
Here in SF Bay Area people will stock options/RSUs which have been high growth in the last 5 years are moving that paper money into something they can live in. Property tax in CA is growth capped, but rent isn’t and will follow inflation. So here at least the buy-it-why-you-can argument has merit.
From Northern Los Angeles County. Sales are definitely slowing and I’ve seen some minor price drops in the past few weeks. For a while, houses were selling within a day or two after a bidding war. Last weekend, I saw 3 different open house signs which weren’t happening at all before. Housing prices here have doubled from what they were at the low after the housing crisis (maybe 2009).
Two houses I worked on/was associated with both sold for +10% right away in seattle so it’s still boom town there. Professional couples looking to start a family still puts the buyers in an unenviable bind…school district and etc…, Getting a job is easy because getting a place to live is not…glad to be back in my rustic environs, but seattle public transport is pretty awesome, and I like walking around green lake…
Wolf fails to mention all the low end buyers (And mid range) who carefully budgeted and bought the most house they could qualify for and who are now facing a 50% increase in the cost of fuel and food.
With more inflation coming.
There’s lots of used inventory on the way, short sales will be popular again in about a year…
I know wages are sticky — but they do tend to increase somewhat with inflation unlike a fixed rate mortgage. I think the larger danger is the Fed pushes us into a recession and people lose their jobs
So does this mean all the phone calls/texts I receive wanting to buy my house will stop??
LOL. I get those as well. All the time. Snailmail too. And, here in Baltimore we have this ongoing annoying TV ad by “Express Home Buyers—We buy your house, in 7 days…”
Are you in the northeast? They have restricted supply so well the bubble keeps going. Tap water could cost a dollar a gallon if it were treated the same way.
I am in Kansas City, moved here when I was 10 and bought my house end of 1992. The past year has been absolutely horrible, my phone seems to never stop ringing, plus the emails, texts, postcards. I no longer answer my phone, landline or cell. Where do people get off calling/writing if I am willing to sell them my house? If I wanted to sell my house, I would hire an agent and have a sign in the yard. Between this and destruction of healthcare, I am at my wit’s end. I turned 65 last September and enrolled in Medicare, with insurance both for the deductibles and drugs. I thought I was safe, as I had been without healthcare for several years. Now given the recent post on private equity devouring healthcare, I feel more vulnerable/scared then ever in my life. As others have said “they will kill you”.
Don’t listen to the negative, you’ll be fine.
I wonder if my “friendly” realtor’s (unsolicited) newsletter will finally start describing the woes of the real estate market?
Doubt it! Lol I read an article recently where the author wrote ‘home prices were extremely high, interest rates had doubled, and now is the best time to buy’ in the same paragraph. My guess is he/she was a realtor.
From your keyboard to G-d’s ears. I’ve been pummeled by those calls/texts/mailings. Only thing I haven’t experienced is agents knocking on my door.
Oh, I’m also seeing price drops in my nabe. Two recently sold houses went for below their original asking prices and one currently listing already has a price cut.
I would love to know how this most annoying phone/text industry works–particularly for the callers.
I can’t tell if they’re paid on commission (e.g. an interested buyer) or if it’s some type of mechanical Turk work–i.e. $0.10 a call or $0.01 a text?
In the old days, I guess it would be like Glengarry Glen Ross, waiting around the water cooler for the new leads to come out.
I don’t know how I could maintain my sanity in a job like this.
I hope so I recieve 7 to 10 calls daily asking to buy my house, and I actually received 14 inquiries to buy my house today May 25 2022. I’m not trying to sell, also I have an equity tracker on my home and it has increased 9.73 percent in last 2 months
Straw manning the post is not on. And the plural of anecdote is not data.
Your IP locator says you are in Phoenix. That’s the West. The post shows that the West is the one region where prices are up on average, 8.4% v. the year prior. You further did not indicate if you house is in the <$400k cohort. I am in the best school district in Alabama. This suburb looks like the better parts of Westchester County. My mother's death was listed in the paper. The property is nearly an acre, on a ridge, with great views. I have yet to get a single call from a buyer or broker.
I can expand on this since Phoenix is an old stopping ground and have family there since the 60s.
So my sister just bought a spec house in north east Maricopa county for about 500K, looked like an adobe cut out of Styrofoam, same for interior, to be polite an eclectic acid trip of colors/ textures of of everything you can think of inside the house that even salvador dalí would suffer colour/texture shock from. This coming from someone that owned a successful business in both Las Vegas and Phoenix prior to the GFC but got wiped out after late stage entrance to the prime RE market from the development side – including Sedona.
Anywho its probably more manic than the events leading up to the GFC in this region, 10K per month in suggested RRP, albeit when one does buy they get the feel good of getting it 5% off and lenders are again leaning into the plate for profit today and consequences are some pension fund et al drama down the road. All this spread into the desert is nuts and I have no idea how insurance rolls down the road about all this.
Best bit is the back yard, Besser brick fence, about 40M deep and 15m wide, one medium size kidney shaped pool out in the open, strange 6x4m grass thingy on one side, all gravel with a couple of concrete pads and some desert bushes at the back. UGLY – so 12 pallets of brick pavers and 3 Hispanics and 13 hr later it looks better lol.
Hay Dan I used to spend lots of time on my relatives place Dobson Ranch [epic kid experience on weekend when auntie Gabby [husband Bucky cousins little Roy&Coco] and mistook a Coors Beer can that everyone was spitting into for her drink and the projectile something or the other result] rodeo before it became a Golf Course, ever eat at the Superstitions mining camp thingy, and holidayed at Sedona on Oak Creek Canyon across the road from the Red Rock Church and had my first snails at the Owl Restaurant.
Good grief have some not learned anything and then wobble on about calls from RE sprukiers advancing their own pay day …
Oh my goodness… So, there are these things called periods that end sentences and break up thoughts. They’re real useful in reading comprehension. Just a friendly bit of advice – you should look into these so called periods. They’re there to help!
I use short hand and have done so for years, but like an old decamped NC commenter said … grammar and spelling not checked and don’t care.
You might not want to read any Amfort comments.
Anywho … per above the mania in the region in question is at or above that pre GFC and with more crapification in builds, more environmental stresses, more economic and political upheaval on offer, yet Dan is happy about some phone calls … rim shot …
No kidding… It’s in Alabama. Nothing personal, and right on if you love it there. I’m sure it has its charms, depending on how one defines it.
But in the big picture sense, let’s be honest: nobody in their right mind has any desire to move to Alabama. And it isn’t like there are large or desirable employers in the State, so not a whole lot of corporate transfers and the like.
But hey… I would relish in the peace and quiet you’re afforded by the fact that no one wants to buy your house so bad they harass you all day every day about it.
My goodness, prejudiced! My next door neighbor moved in from Vermont in 2019. The guy across the street moved in from Canada in 2020. You were saying?
The medical industry is the biggest employer in Birmingham. The UAB medical school is the best in the South. About 1/3 of the people in Mountain Brook HAVE moved here, usually by UAB or to take a job at one of the other two big hospital chains headquartered here.
The market in Mountain Brook actually is tight. Brokers tell me I could sell this house without even painting and it would be bid on pronto. It’s just that we don’t have have this aggressive calling business, probably because we don’t have speculators buying properties to rent out here. Oh, and plenty of all cash bids here too.
What’s a housing price without a land value? The @18 year real estate boom & bust cycle…
A better question is: what is a house without utilities? What happens when the municipality can no longer power the sewer treatment plant? Or process clean water? So you homeowners—get that battery-banked PV power on the roof, get a composting toilet (use it to supplement your new lawn-replacing food garden).
how long will americans continue to support nafta billy clintons disastrous economics? his economics have created huge bubbles that burst continually.
those bubbles cannot be supported by wages set in china, nafta billy was warned. bubbles are a direct results of nafta billy clintons gutting of the new deal.
Best stock market returns in modern history followed by Obama. NAFTA started under Bush Sir.
Incorrect. Bush attempted to pass NAFTA but failed because of intense opposition. It was Clinton who got it through congress. After running in its opposition I might add.
Such a powerful sentence. Thank you
“This was a big focus of policy because….drumroll…housing prices have a much bigger “wealth effect” on spending than increases in securities prices.”
So — when’s the recession start?
Last month?
His illustration of ‘Median’ as a metric is hugely important in general econometrics concepts.
I think there is no inventory under $400K in any town that has an economy and amenity appeal to the 21st century American. I perused the article 2x and did not see this addressed. Solely my quibble?
With rate rises and the vast majority suffering wage stagnation not keeping apace of meteoric inflation on ‘volatile’ necessities such as food and energy, and rents/ housing costs, everything UNDER $400K is waaay oversubscribed.
If one can telecommute, are they going to snap up a dirt-cheap home in Bumphuc, County Flyover, without the ‘magical mix’: no college, airport, ski area, or blue mountains and blue rivers?
Or will they try to get closer to that golden egg ruination-amenity elixir?
Very interesting to see that the NE is Red Hot!
My perception is folks are reaching around like the blind, looking for refuge and a simpler happier haven in our new Anthropocene/ Plague epoch.
Van life? Exit city, stage left or right? Buy, rent, travel?
Might just be my circle of pals, but it seems like there is a very broad, common thread.
Waking hour angst and an underlying current of bellyache- the disconcerting, disheartening dither of Modern Life in what can very easily be construed as nearly biblical end of times events, from every quarter.
“Solely my quibble?” Nope, my first reaction also.
“Van life? Exit city, stage left or right? Buy, rent, travel?” Emigrate?
“Waking hour angst and an underlying current of bellyache- the disconcerting, disheartening dither of Modern Life in what can very easily be construed as nearly biblical end of times events, from every quarter.”
I constantly overhear people bemoaning technology and modern life; the endless subscriptions, the expensive phones, needless complexity….this is the zeitgeist. And in my opinion this is why the NASDAQ is crashing more than the DOW. I hope this all leads to a spiritual revival but I know capitalism will fight it by any means necessary.
I think my concern about this post is similar to yours. If the drop in sales of new $400,000 properties, and the complete absence of sales at new $200,000 properties is due to construction costs rather than a lack of buyer demand at those prices, that is a significant supply problem, as perhaps the author is saying, but it does not mean that the bottom has fallen out of demand for such properties. So the post is more about building costs than buyer demand. Sorry if that should have been evident to me from the post, but it wasn’t.
I do tend to agree with you. Another thing that’s does not discuss is the months of inventory available on the market in the Sun Belt the months of inventory new and used are less than one month. An average Market is six month supply. Reality is there are four things that have caused consumers to pause in their home buying decision one is the stock market sell off and this has caused consumer confidence to dwindle as they watch their 401ks and brokerage accounts shrink, secondly is interest rates and they cost are they mortgage be more expensive due to higher rates the public is only pausing wow they see if rates are going to come back down I’ve been in the mortgage business for 21 years and have seen this happen five times for the public plazas for about 45 days to see if rates are coming back down once they realize they are not then the pent-up demand unleashes and back to business as normal, number 3 is Civil War and Russia with the supply chain issue continuing to go on as China still a shut-in. This continues to cause Rising inflation and Rising food and fuel cost, lastly and also very importantly school is getting out it is very common for me to be a slower month and home purchases due to families focused on school getting out and taking their first summer vacation. Due to supply of homes being less than 4 months it is a very strong seller’s market and I am of the belief that beginning in June we will see a very strong home buying summer that will continue through the year because we simply don’t have enough homes for the millennials and jenzie coming into the home-buying market. Currently we have a 3 million home shortage of housing units to meet the demand of the millennial home buying population. We are expected to have a minimum of an eight-year housing shortage is what Harvard study on the housing market has suggested, along with many others.
“and the complete absence of sales at new $200,000 properties is due to construction costs rather than a lack of buyer demand at those prices”
$ 200K? In Sydney, Aust’ I doubt that could buy a one room “Granny flat” ….
Totally agree with both of you. Also the way the article describes increase in inventory on a percentage basis does not describe the actual magnitude. Here in Denver supply went up but it is still only about 2 weeks of inventory. Like you guys are talking about the bottom end fell out just means the poorest of buyers are locked out, for now. I only see that alleviating if there are a lot of foreclosures. For now materials and labor alone can’t drop enough to support the low end, even during a recession. As a GC, my costs have been rising at 1.5% a month since early 21’, well above posted CPI. It’s one of those things people think a recession will alleviate prices but they don’t understand there is no supply to be had anyways. Very different from 08’ where people over-built. My personal opinion is we are seeing a sort of generational lock out from people buying homes on the low end and getting trapped into renting. On the other hand one thing I have been banging on the table about is that we need to build smaller houses. All of our new developments, even on the low end outskirts of the city are 3,000SF houses. Looking around at all of the old houses from the 60s and 70s they are 1,500-2,000SF which is much more reasonable. I haven’t been able to get much support for that because it is not efficient towards the goal of maximizing profits when it takes 2 years at least to permit a development, very hard to cash flow. All of this is my opinion and people must remember that what ever happens, much like 08’ it will probably be very regional…
“Solely my quibble?”
Nope, you’re exactly right.
Been house hunting for nearly 5 years now. (live in SF Bay Area, want out desperately). Any house under $300,000 here would be bid up to 600K with 30 offers.
We look everywhere and there are amazing houses out there in the Midwest, the South but…there’s no way to make a living anywhere near those houses.
Telecommute
Working class doesn’t fricking telecommute.
I actualy work for a damn living. Building and installing custom stained glass windows.
Can’t do that from a damn computer.
Telecommuters are divorced from the real economy.
You’re practicing a medieval trade and it’s the telecommuters who are out of touch?
We can always argue about what is a real job or the real economy, but really, most people likely cannot telecommute, or afford to move, or have obligations like family, or some combination. It just is. Add that the wealthy people and investor ghouls are buying up houses, apartments, and the occasional neighborhood, which continues to drive housing costs up everywhere, but especially in places where the jobs are. The class divide grows with the increasingly wealthy buying everything including housing and driving the costs beyond what the increasingly poor majority population can afford.
So, are we going to tell the majority of the American population that cannot telecommute to go die because profits?
And just what is this cheap shot about medieval trade? Glass making is highly skilled work. Who does the repairs for you? Elves?
Most people do not work in front of a computer and those who do have the chops for it are misallocated to parasitic work to finance, or BS jobs that only move paper about, and the like; we need people to staff the various departments that have been hollowed out or are regulatory captured by their industries. Congress is much less capable than it was decades ago because it got rid of its support staff for political reasons.
Thank you JBird…better put than I.
Cute.
What other “medieval” trades besides glaziers are you prepared to dismiss?
Masons? Oh…I know! Carpenters! That seems like a very old trade. Won’t need those in our All Digital Future, will we?
What about butchers or…what for it…farmers! That’s gotta be an ancient trade! Don’t need them in our telecommuting world!
Jackass.
A friend owns a modest house in Mesa, AZ and homes around her are currently selling for over three times what they cost when built 20 years ago.
And someone should pass Wolf’s report on to TPTB here in SC where new homes are being built on any available bit of land. With so much new housing coming online at the same time you have to wonder who is supposed to be buying them. Will I be getting my sleepy (if bankrupt) ville back? The above news re the South is ominous.
Given the input construction costs and the propensity to cut corners, I can’t help wondering about the overall quality of a home that the new home buyer is obtaining. So much tract building and honestly some very curious location choices.
So, have the big vampire, venture capitalists squids & hedge funds begun buying up at these lows to expand their rentier monopolies yet & pushing up their profits? Or are they waiting for a further market bottom in a recession squeeze?
Recession is a misnomer; the correct word is depression.
Prices under $200k seriously? Tampa Bay can attest to anyone spending that low is being kept renting or flipping. This seems like a good deal for Blackrock buy low rent high. Termites are planning a decades long buffet with stucco on frame multifamily units going up faster than Trump tower deal fell apart. We also have a surplus homeless population. Still stinging from 2008 obamamometer fthb loan against future tax refunds for anyone foolish enough to buy the uninhabitable before the bottom of the crater.
I live in Naples, Fl. My condo was purchased 20 years ago for about 600k. I will place it on the market for 1.5-1.7 million. Unfortunately, I was not smart enough to save for retirement. Homes in Collier County are only increasing in price to the present day. Where can I purchase a fairly new home for 500-600k and invest for the future? Is this even feasible? I feel trapped in my current situation.
I have two offbeat ideas that might appeal to someone who feels trapped.
1) Buy a sailboat with a water maker, find a few crew you can be in close quarters with, and circumnavigate, starting right there in Naples; or
2) Buy two or three blocks around where I live or in a similar inner city, and start your own intentional community or religious cult.
I hope you won’t take this as treating your important and earnest question too lightly. My intent is to make suggestions that expand what you consider to be your universe of options.
I’ve thought about the used sailboat option myself! Similar to living in a van or camper, but a lot less energy cost (esp if you have an electric motor), and a bit more space. Plus can go a lot of varied places…
If this post is correct, we are on the verge of a collapse. So sell now and you will be able to buy much more house in Florida in 4 years.
Living the sailing life is expensive and needs some very complex sailing and fix it skills. Two different friends took this path. Wonderful stories, terrifying we almost sank stories and you can’t believe how expensive fill in the blank costs.
Ana in Sacramento
“Sailing life” sounds practical and romantic but it’s neither. That’s one hell of an expensive lifestyle! Known 2 couples who loved it…but couldn’t afford it. And they were nurses!
If I were in your situation, Denise, I would buy a house in the Midwest in a small town. You will find a beautiful house for a small price. The people will be friendly – but lead simple lives – not many shops, or cafes or restaurants. You might struggle to find anything in common with them. We moved to a small town in Australia and I didn’t like it – very provincial and as an American, I didn’t fit in. But I would be willing to give it a go in the Heartland. You will find a lot of Trump supporters, I would imagine. But only because the Democratic Party abandoned them. These people are the salt of the Earth. For me – I think – it would be OK as long as I had Internet and a telephone to speak to friends.
I’m patiently waiting for the demise of AirBnB et al, and a basic home went from $200k to the current $460k in the last 17 years since we’ve been here, largely on account of that.
A good many of the short term rental homes have been rode hard and put away wet, and as everybody is on a septic system here-you can only imagine how overworked they were when 9 people cram into a 2,300 sq foot house, as was encouraged.
You hear tales about the mysterious ‘LA Investor’ who has a string of 23 homes in tiny town and runs his empire from Monterrey Park-via remote control, the house cleaners coming from as far away as Tulare, about 50 miles away.
There are around 300 homes out of 900 that are short term rentals, if they were to all of the sudden be put on the market, houses would fall to $150k here in a jiffy.
…and then neighbors would know one another again
I tried being a land developer for a few years and gave up. I sold my land and walked out of my city. I got spooky vibes from the market since 2017. Cities do a fantastic job making the crisis worse by making sure McMansions can be built by right while townhouses or modestly more affordable housing is suppressed by zoning code.
At this point, I think insane market hysteria is the main driver of prices compared to zoning. I thought the onset of Covid would crash the market but instead we had an extra two years of hysteria.
Is there a housing shortage? Yes.
Though the firemen are trying to put out the fire by dumping gasoline atop it. Cheap mortgages for McMansions replacing older homes with more expensive ones. I’m lucky, I don’t have to worry about financial difficulties at all. Watching even rich people buy 1.5$ million dollar homes make absolutely no sense though.
There’s no practicality in their 4,000 sq foot homes. They want their ‘family home’, to include an 8,000$ mortgage? Or just use cash?
It’s an insane speculative gamble with everyone else that wants to just own a home forced to endure as well.
Even if the market crashed 50% in the neighborhood I wanted to work in, I still have to pay out the previous property owner. Instead of buying the empty lot for 200,000$, it’s buying a +- 600,000$ defaulted McMansion.
I can try converting the thing into apartments but that would be awkward. Their floor plans don’t translate well into multi-family. Then pay down the costs with rent, tear it down, and build a real apartment building.
Or maybe just eat the costs and tear it down immediately, but I’m not paying for someone’s silly oversized home. Costs would be passed onto consumers either way.
This insane market has made many urban neighborhoods permanently less affordable thanks to a coalition of craptastic urban planning, the FED, and a bankster wanting to own a castle.
I support publicly funded co-ops at this point.