Juggling Dynamite

Zillow plans to sell roughly 18,000 homes through its home-flipping algorithm, called Zillow Offers, and expects to lose about 5% to 7% on the failed venture, the company told investors last week.  Zillow says it underestimated the risks inherent in buying homes en masse to sell them for a quick profit.

The discussion below offers some lucid big picture on the mess that low rates and misguided policy incentives have made in America, and the economic and financial risks inherent.

The percentage of homes in the US purchased by investors is rising sharply. It’s now nearly 1 in 4. The average homebuyer is having a harder & harder time competing, especially as this influx of institutional capital continues to drive up prices.

Is America in danger of becoming a nation of renters, leasing their homes from hedge fund landlords? Here is a direct video link to part one.

Here is a direct video link to part two.

Similar conditions have led to similar behaviour in Canadian property markets.  As shown below, the downside is even more significant in Canada thanks to the obscene residential over-investment–more than 10% of Canada’s nominal GDP in 2021.  As charted below, since 1947, this is a ludicrous four standard deviations above the historical mean.  This suggests that the mean-reversion this cycle is likely to be gruesome for highly levered participants and Canada’s under-diversified economy.

It’s not okay or sustainable that two-thirds of our population is overweight and obese and status quo food is driving a pandemic of chronic illness that is far more destructive than COVID-19.  Worse, the health-destroying food is designed to be addictive and social apathy around this fact is helping to perpetuate the plague that ails us.

When you hear the word ‘addiction’, our attention typically turns to mind-altering substances — illicit drugs, alcohol, and prescription medications.Typically overlooked in this conversation? Food.But food addiction isn’t just real, it just might be our biggest problem. In fact, the hyper-industrialized western world is firmly entrenched in an epidemic of dysfunctional eating, fueled by an outsized appetite for an ever-increasing array of highly processed foods that are scientifically designed — with just the right amount of sugar, salt and fat — to hijack our nervous system. Enslave us to compulsive habits that lead to illness. And ultimately render us wards of the pharmaceutical industry.  Meanwhile we’ve normalized this twisted and deleterious relationship. So much so that right now, more than two-thirds of adults in the industrialized world are overweight or obese. Nonetheless, millions of people find it extremely difficult if not downright impossible to change their dietary habits — and simply break the fatal, addictive grip.So how does one effectively transition to a healthy diet sustained over time?  Here is a direct audio link.

Little acknowledged is that natural gas emits methane which has 80 times the warming power of carbon dioxide over the first 20 years after it reaches the atmosphere. So even though CO₂ has a longer-lasting effect, reducing methane emissions now has immediate benefits.  At least 25% of today’s warming is driven by methane from human actions. One of the largest methane sources is the oil and gas industry.

For this reason, some U.S cities and municipalities have begun prohibiting natural gas to new builds, including Vancouver, starting in 2030.

Getting it out of our existing homes must now be a focus.  This requires exchanging gas furnaces, fireplaces, stoves and dryers to electric heating/cooling pumps and appliances.

Today, about 65% of Canada’s electricity comes from renewable energy sources. In 2018, some 96% of electricity in Ontario was produced from zer0-emitting sources: 60% from nuclear, 26% from hydroelectricity, 7% from wind, and 2% from solar.   The wind and solar portions are now expanding rapidly.

So despite much propaganda to the contrary, plugging into the electrical grid is healthier than burning fossil fuels, and this goes for electric vehicles too (University of Toronto study). As more renewable power is added to the grid each year, the benefits of the switch increase immediately and exponentially.

According to the New York Times, America has more work to do as it presently uses natural gas to produce about 38% of its electricity, 39% in California, 53% in Texas and almost 90% in Delaware.

Individuals can see more steps on a household level in changes towards a plant-based diet and transportation improvements, here:  How I cut my use of fossil fuels: Tips from the pros.