Matrix Blog

Although I’ve shared the following CNBC clip before, it’s worth showing again given my 15-year ago hairstyle. In 2005, I was interviewed by CNBC in the midst of the Housing Bubble and said that 75% of the appraisals being done then weren’t worth the paper they were written on (hey it was 2005 and they were done on paper, not pdf). They found me because I had just started my Matrix Blog because no one seemed to be listening to appraisers. Incidentally as of this week, Matrix is 15 years old!!!

And the October Research stats presented indicating that 55% of appraisers felt pressure to hit the value rose to 90% in the next year! The outlook was dire.

When I was interviewed, I was trying to keep it together because I assumed my business and my livelihood would be gone by 2008 if things continued. Thoughts about supporting my family of 4 sons and making my mortgage payments loomed large, but I couldn’t be morally flexible unlike many of my local peers who thrived as a result. Most lenders and mortgage brokers didn’t care about valuation quality, just hitting the numbers to make the deal. The appraisal profession became seen as one of “deal enablers” instead of neutral valuation benchmark setters. My big competitors at the time (who were part of the 75%), told me essentially: “Aw Miller, You Don’t Get It.” No, I didn’t. All my “75% competitors” during that era lost their licenses and/or went out of business after Lehman collapsed in 2008.

This is why this new documentary “THE CON” means so much to me. It tells the story that “good appraisers” like me and my firm have never been able to tell. Instead, good appraisers have been lumped in with the bad appraisers who are long gone.

Watch for my appearance along with several of my colleagues around the country in this week’s episode 2!

Think too much risk was the reason for the 2008 financial crisis? Nope. Unmitigated greed and systematic fraud are the real issues — and no one’s discussing them…. Until now. @theconseries is now available on virtual cinema: thecon.tv/watch #TheCon

Beginning now, you can watch entire THE CON series, episodes 1-5 through a network of independent cinema outlets.

Watch Last week’s Episode 1

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Cheddar TV reached out to me on March 11th as I was 4 days into my self-quarantine and my voice sounded quite scary. Aside from bad lighting and a red face, the discussion was long-form in nature covering low mortgage rates, which is why I so appreciate Cheddar’s format.

March 11 was soooo long ago!

Using Skype (which has been improved since Microsoft acquired it to be less of a horror show) I am able to blur out the background so you don’t get distracted by my prized autographed drum head from Lynyrd Skynrd, my 2002 March Madness pool victory plaque and my certificate for passing a 1978 Italian Cooking class in my Dad’s former cooking school in the DMV.

Tags: Cheddar, mortgage rates

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Diana Olick at CNBC reached out to me this week to talk about the Q1-2019 Elliman Report on the Greenwich, CT housing market (as well as Q1-2019 Fairfield County, CT) and the impact of the federal tax law on high-end suburban markets in NYC metro.

We spoke on Greenwich Avenue in Greenwich at 8:30 am and had to keep doing segments over because of the random roars of delivery and garbage trucks. The irony was not lost on me – a busy downtown with not a lot of empty parking spaces so early in the morning – combined with a slow housing market. Anecdotal but this is what we are seeing at the macro level – a robust regional economy with soft housing conditions.

We were set up in front of a Vineyard Vines store while I was wearing a bright Ted Baker tie (Hey, I can be a social media style influencer too). The irony in this product placement “ties” this story altogether (in my own mind). I received more feedback about my tie than I did on my content. Oh well. And for the record, Diana made very clear to me that she commented on my tie first.

Here’s the segment that also includes my friend Jennifer Leahy of Douglas Elliman, their number one agent in Connecticut who just sold the massively oversized home of 50 Cent.

New tax laws take a toll on home sales in Connecticut from CNBC.

Tags: Diana Olick, CNBC, Greenwich CT, Tax Cut and Jobs Act of 2017, Jennifer Leahy, Squawk Alley

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Coming to a theatre near you in December…

Aside from playing my favorite Led Zeppelin song “When the Levee Breaks” and being based on one of my favorite books about the housing bust/financial crisis “The Big Short” that was written by one of my favorite authors Michael Lewis (Blind Side, Flash Boys, Moneyball, Liar’s Poker, The New New Thing, etc.) that includes pretty much all my favorite actors – it’s a freakin’ incredible story.

Tags: Michael Lewis, Too Big To Fail, housing bubble, The Big Short, Led Zeppelin

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Had a nice conversion this morning with Matt Miller and Stephanie Ruhle on Bloomberg TV’s ‘Market Makers.’ Never been on this show before. Wow. Energy+.

Before the show started, we had a active debate on whether ‘American Flyers‘ or ‘Breaking Away‘ was the best bicycling movie. Clearly ‘Breaking Away” was the better of the two HANDS DOWN but I liked the other a lot, especially for someone who likes the whole culture of bike racing. Not sure what bike movies had to do with our ‘state of the Hamptons market’ discussion covering our Hamptons market report for Douglas Elliman, but hey, it was obviously more important to settle the bike movie issue first.

Tags: Market Makers, Matt Miller, Stephanie Ruhle, Breaking Away, American Flyers

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A few months ago I was approached by film students Clàudia Prat & Eric French to speak to the housing market as part of a larger project called “What is Home?” series.

I’m a big fan of documentaries and this is worth watching.

Their effort was called: NYC Home Shuffle (5:51 minutes):

Part of a global trend, New York City’s homes become a commodity: an investment instead of a right. Yet a global movement responds.
By Clàudia Prat & Eric French
whatishome.nyc // May 2015

NYC Home Shuffle from Studio 20 on Vimeo.

Tags: documentary, Clàudia Prat & Eric French

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Always enjoy having a conversation with Deirdre Bolton. Her new show was moved to a new studio and given a prime time slot. I’m dropping in again next Thursday at 5:30pm ET.

Tonight we spoke about this WSJ piece: Call It a Comeback for Risky Home Buyers.

Tags: Fox Business, alternative financing, Risk & Reward, Deirdre Bolton, WSJ

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It’s time to share my Three Cents Worth (3CW) on Curbed Hamptons, at the intersection of sand dunes and real estate in the East End of Long Island, NY.

Check out my 3CW column on @CurbedHamptons:

Now that we’ve crossed over into June, I thought I’d illustrate the price trend relationship between the Hamptons and Manhattan. The former seeing a majority of single family sales and many second home purchases. The latter with a housing market of 98% apartments and single family family sales are a rounding error. Despite the differences in their housing stock, their behavior in terms of price trends has been similar over the past decade…

[click to expand charts]

My latest Three Cents Worth column: Three Cents Worth: Comparing Price Trends in the Hamptons and Manhattan [Curbed]

Three Cents Worth Archive Curbed NY

Three Cents Worth Archive Curbed DC

Three Cents Worth Archive Curbed Miami

Three Cents Worth Archive Curbed Hamptons

Three Cents Worth Archive Curbed LA

Three Cents Worth Archive Curbed Ski

Tags: Three Cents Worth, Curbed Hamptons, Wall Street Bonus, 3CW, foreign buyers, financial crisis, apartments, single family, sand

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Read my latest Bloomberg View column Hedge-Fund Guys Have Foreclosure Fatigue. Please join the conversation over at Bloomberg View. Here’s an excerpt…

One of the most important ways to strengthen the U.S. housing recovery is to get distressed properties into financially stronger hands. Shortly after the financial crisis began, institutional investors started snapping up foreclosed homes. These buyers, according to RealtyTrac, are entities that buy more than 10 properties in a calendar year. Blackstone Group has been among the most active, acquiring more than $20 billion of foreclosed properties, then making necessary repairs and renting them out…

[read more]

My Bloomberg View Column Directory

My Bloomberg View RSS feed.

Tags: hedge fund, REO, foreclosure

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I was recently approached by Bloomberg View, the editorial arm of Bloomberg LP, to provide commentary on the housing market. I seem to be in good company.

Although their well oiled machine began to append my additional title “Bloomberg Contributor” earlier in the month when being sourced, it wasn’t an oversight on their part. I didn’t submit my first post until last week. It took me a few weeks to get my groove on as I was in the midst of a 2Q14 market report release gauntlet.

Last Wednesday evening I wrote my first post about Lawrence Yun’s attendance at the Zillow Housing Forum and how NAR had become just one of the crowd, and the symbolism of it all. I got the idea when I was sent the Zillow e-vite to attend the conference and I noticed that Yun was to speak.

Excited, I submitted my first post on Thursday morning, unfortunately just before the Zillow-Trulia bombshell deal jumped into the headlines. So I needed to add this new twist – which thankfully made my original point even stronger. I re-wrote my first post and it was placed online last Friday.

Here is the first column of hopefully many to come: Homebuying Gets a Housecleaning

My Bloomberg View RSS feed.

Tags: Zillow, Lawrence Yun, NAR, National Association of Realtors

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The city of Detroit has a problem with goats, among other significant challenges. It has been battered with political corruption (two former mayors are in jail) and it is trying to sheppard (pun intended) through a huge bankruptcy but goats are where the city draws the line.

The city also a tremendous amount of potential and is desperately trying to reinvent itself. My wife’s family is from the Detroit suburbs and I went to college in the Michigan for 4 years – one thing I noticed – the suburbs and the City of Detroit are mutually exclusive unlike most big US cities I have visited. One of the best explanations of Detroit’s fall was a recent read of mine: Detroit: An American Autopsy by Charlie LeDuff. The original urban planners got it all wrong.

But let’s talk about goats. Last year a Detroit city councilman had a vision, that vision was eventually carried out by a billionaire hedge-funder who brought unlicensed goats to control the overgrown vacant lots of Detroit. Goats as lawnmowers are used in other cities.

I don’t think many people in the US realize just how much abandoned property there is within the city boundaries – the size of Paris.

An op-ed piece in the Detroit News made an argument for it, but the city was not interested.

The hedge funder explains:

Detroit is very much a place that lives by what I call ‘home rule.’ The people are bound by a lot of laws from years ago that restrict them from doing things that can help their community. The people of Brightmoor have decided to step up to ensure the survival of their families and the community. One of the ways they are doing this is with guerrilla farming. Guerrilla farming brings attention to pieces of publicly controlled land within the city that have been abandoned, left vacant or have been left to grow wildly out of control by absent owners. It cleans these areas, brings them into a productive capacity and converts them from a nuisance to an asset within the community.

The housing market won’t recover without the abandoned elements being removed ie unkept lawns, condemned housing and commercial structures. One of the surprising aspects of Detroit’s rise from the ashes has been the non-conventional nature of progress. Goats would definitely fit in.

Arguably my favorite type of goat entered this world from 1964-1967.

Tags: Detroit, goats, urban farming, hedge fund, Pontiac GTO, Curbed Detroit

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Wlliam Black, a former bank regulator, made a TED Talk last fall that I wish I had made (but I couldn’t be as eloquent although I have a cooler tie). It should be required viewing by anyone who is connected with the housing industry.

Black’s presentation lays out the financial crisis in the proper context. He provides the recipe for disaster for all to see and it is NOT complicated to understand. Change the perverse incentives and a lot of this goes away. So many opportunities to avoid this crisis were missed.

And this is the first time I’ve heard someone talk about the unrelenting pressure that banks (and mortgage brokers) placed on appraisers, essentially forcing our industry to either make the number of get out of town. By 2007, 90% of appraisers said they were coerced by banks to make the number. That seems low to me. It had to be 100% or else those 10% of appraisers were living in a cave.

I’ll be returning to this video periodically for the foreseeable future as a reminder.

Tags: Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke, OCC, TED, OTS, William Black, Regulators

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