The San Diego Case-Shiller index has the largest YTD increase in America, and is the only higher-end market with a 50%-plus increase since March, 2020!
A whopping 53.75% increase in three-and-a-half years!
It’s amazing he has gotten away with this for so long….
“It’s a wake-up call to the middle class,” a booming voice assures listeners during the intro to Grant Cardone’s weekly podcast, This Is Not Your Daddy’s Economy. For listeners, Cardone has become the apotheosis of financial influencers: waking up the middle class and heralding a new economy for its chosen sons and daughters. Brash and populist, he promises anyone who listens that they too can ascend into the realms of passive income by following his real estate playbook.
An ostentatious Louisiana-born salesman with a penchant for down-home relationship advice, Cardone is a practicing Scientologist who casts himself as a plucky opponent to mainstream financial institutions. He rose to fame as a cold-calling guru, building a large online following with videos and courses that promised to reveal the secrets of salesmanship. He subsequently became a fixture on reality TV shows such as Turnaround King and Undercover Billionaire. He now operates a conference circuit that straddles the line between dumbed-down business school and a clumsy revival meeting (Donald Trump was a recent guest speaker). In Cardone’s videos on YouTube and Instagram, he champions a swaggering, somewhat cruel form of hustle culture aimed at a generation struggling to make sense of its economic misfortune.
Crucially, Cardone has been able to make money not just by imparting financial advice but by exploiting his fan base to build a $4 billion residential real estate portfolio. “We are becoming a renter nation,” Cardone explains in a video from 2020. He’s not wrong. But Cardone’s business model relies on increasing rents and squeezing tenants to maintain his debt-laden portfolio.
A newly filed class-action lawsuit against Cardone, however, threatens to unravel his empire. Last month, lawyers filed a suit alleging that he had misled small-time investors who’d put money into one of his recent Cardone Capital real estate funds. Whether Cardone has been cynically leveraging his followers is up to a court to decide. But the image Grant Cardone has fostered through his real estate ventures is as much about what it’s like to be an eccentric internet celebrity as it is about America’s unwieldy and ever-precarious property market—and the potential toxic admixture of the two.
The buyer-agent is under seige, and is being phased out. I love representing buyers and I think I have a lot to offer. But when I consistently get my butt kicked up and down the street by every listing agent I encounter, it just makes me want to go get another listing. P.S. the house on Lone Jack sold for $555,000 over list.
Here they were in Houston last night, and at the 9:25-minute mark you will see Natalie in pink and dancing for two seconds like she’s having the time of her life:
First we learned that the CEO of the San Diego Association of Realtors embezzled $1,000,000+, and now we hear that the National Association of Realtors is full of scumbags. The NY Times ran a story over the weekend that accused the NAR president of sexual misconduct and he resigned this week – but denied any wrongdoing, of course.
More stories have come out this week from various insiders, summarized here:
Higher mortgage rates caused the San Diego Case-Shiller index to take a tumble last summer. The decline moderated towards the end of the year and bottomed in January.
Since then, it went up 9.3%, which is pretty good appreciation for five months!
July and August will be hot too, but we are overdue for a break. It should mellow out for the rest of 2023.
Be prepared for a fast start in 2024. The market should be at full speed in February, which is contrary to the wait-and-see approach I expected as the frenzy was winding down. The frenzy conditions are still around – I sold my listing in Oceanside for $200,000 over list!
Expect to see every city council throw their hands up and approve projects that have low-income housing included. How they sell the “very low” income units, and to whom, will be very interesting in Encinitas, due to them selling the last two units to the same guy who promised to rent them to the appropriate lower-income tenants.
Piraeus Point, a project consisting of nearly 150 townhomes at Piraeus Street and Plato Place in Leucadia, received 3-1 approval from the Encinitas City Council despite resounding opposition from the community.
At a City Council meeting Wednesday, public comments took over an hour. More than 15 people spoke, nine donated their speaking time to others and 10 registered opposition. Over 30 people gave input in one way or another, and none supported Lennar Homes’ plans for development. But the council said its hands were tied, ultimately denying an appeal of the project and allowing it to move forward.
Due to the housing shortage, the state legislature has passed laws making it easier to develop new housing. Piraeus Point fits the guidelines in the Housing Accountability Act, which requires developments to align with zoning laws, not adversely affect the water supply or public health and meet the standards of the California Environmental Quality Act and the California Coastal Act.
The Piraeus Point neighborhood would consist of 52 one-bedroom homes, 37 two-bedroom homes and 60 three-bedroom homes, with 15 of the homes reserved for “very low” income households. All units will be for sale, not for rent.
The Planning Commission approved the project, but the Encinitas Community Collective filed an appeal at the end of May arguing the development would, in fact, negatively impact the environment and public health.
A tough week – the number of active listings went up by 24, and the pendings count dropped by ten – which sounds like a bunch of escrow fallouts.
We should be facing an epidemic of escrows falling apart.
The buyers’ remorse – which has always been real and deadly – must be at extreme levels today and lately the listing agents haven’t had to save deals because everything was closing during the frenzy.
The main reason deals fall apart? The buyers felt disrespected.
They will tell you something different because we’re such a polite, cordial bunch these days. I guess some buyers might just innocently change their minds, but it’s more likely somebody offended the buyers along the way – and it could be either agent.
