“‘Mail-in voting is horrible. It’s corrupt,’  Trump said during a Coronavirus Task Force press briefing. ‘Sure I can vote by mail… because I’m allowed to.  Well that’s called out-of-state,’  Trump continued, attempting to justify what observers denounced as a glaringly hypocritical position. ‘You know why I voted? Because I happened to be in the White House and I won’t be able to go to Florida and vote.'”   [Common Dreams]

So Trump is against someone voting by mail.

And too many who do it should wind up in jail.

When reminded  he did

What he wants to forbid,

He went after fake news like  Ahab the whale.

On Tuesday I reported on how the coronavirus is hitting the Chicago real estate market with a dramatic plunge in both contract and listing activity. What I didn’t go into at the time is whether or not this has created a buyer’s or seller’s market – i.e. how is the balance in the market? I didn’t go into it at the time because to discuss it properly I need to get a little geeky.

What I like to look at is inventory levels, for which there must be a dozen ways of calculating it. Looking at absolute numbers of homes for sale doesn’t tell you much because it’s only meaningful relative to how many buyers are out there. That’s why we like to look at months of supply – i.e. how long would it take to sell through the current inventory given some sales rate.

Well, it turns out there are probably half a dozen ways of doing that too. You can look at end of the month inventory or inventory available at some point during the month. You can also use either contracts or closings in the denominator and you can use either current month activity or an annual average. See what I mean? It gets pretty geeky.

Let me start by explaining that what I’ve been looking at in my monthly updates is months of supply based upon homes for sale and the average number of sales during the year. Notice that I didn’t define that very precisely. That’s because it comes out of a black box system for realtors which doesn’t define it very precisely. I’m trying to get more information and when I do I’ll come back and update this post. In the meantime, the important point is that it uses an average level of activity for the year and that means that the months of supply will be high in September and low in December when the number of homes for sale are high and low respectively.

That may be intuitive but it’s actually better to base the months of supply on the level of activity for each month for which you are calculating the inventory level which better represents the supply/ demand balance at a moment in time. When you do that you actually get a graph that is shifted to the right by several months compared to what I normally show you. So the relative inventory low point is actually April instead of December.

The inventory of homes, based upon months of supply using contracts written, hits the low point in the spring.

You could justifiably ask why I don’t normally report the inventory this way. Honestly, the reason is that the system I use for this only goes back 2 years and doesn’t produce a graph. So it would be a lot more work for me to archive the data and manually create my graphs.

But what does all this mean for the impact of the coronavirus on the Chicago real estate market? Well, if you look at the graph above you’ll see that the March inventory level is indeed higher than it has been in the previous 2 years but not by much. More importantly, inventory was still way, way lower than it often is from September – December. So I would say that right now it’s still a seller’s market. Later this year, with an expected further decline in contracts and more homes on the market, probably not so much.

#RealEstate #ChicagoRealEstate #Coronavirus

Gary Lucido is the President of Lucid Realty, the Chicago area’s full service real estate brokerage that offers home buyer rebates and discount commissions. If you want to keep up to date on the Chicago real estate market or get an insider’s view of the seamy underbelly of the real estate industry you can Subscribe to Getting Real by Email using the form below. Please be sure to verify your email address when you receive the verification notice.

Things we treasure from long ago.

With more time at home, there is more time to think about what makes a house a home. Yes we built this house and there are the fancy touches, the designer accents, the unique pieces that have caught Barb’s eye, and the few technical geegaws I try, often unsuccessfully, to operate (are you listening, Alexa?) But today I am thinking of a few things that precede this 3-year-old adventure. I have in mind a few pieces that have been with us for 35 years or so, things that have been in our possession since Barb’s mother Bea passed away in the early years of our marriage. Little pieces of legacy.

A Timeless Clock

I don’t know how this piece found its way into Barb’s household. It is a wall clock with a wooden frame, a mother of pearl face and a key-wound spring mechanism.  Family legend describes it as a “French Bakery Clock” and web research suggests it was made around 1900 in the Mobier area of France. The frame is badly cracked, and despite the careful ministrations of a co-worker’s father who had an interest in old clocks, the little treasure no longer keeps time. But it hangs in the loft bedroom, where someday one of our grandkids will see it and ask Nana and Baba to tell them the story of the beautiful clock.

WearEver Forever

I have one recipe in my cooking arsenal. And when I want to brown the ground turkey, onions, jalapeño peppers,  and garlic for a batch of my 4-alarm chili, I grab the WearEver frying pan, part of a set that was the go-to pots-and-pans set for Barb growing up. It is all aluminum and while the outer surface shows the residue of decades of frying, the cooking surface is bright and shiny and holds up well to an SOS pad. Some people, worried about aluminum being absorbed into their food, won’t cook with aluminum pans, but Cook’s Illustrated calls it perfectly safe and I’m going with that. Besides, I’d rather ingest a few aluminum molecules than a bunch of tiny Teflon particles. Or virus particles.

My Grandfather’s Clock Was Too Large For The Shelf

Barb’s dad Lee was a great salesman. He won lots of sales prizes. A microwave oven. The original version of the video game Pong. And a grandfather clock. I love that clock. Six feet tall, Westminster chimes, phases of the moon on the face, it has survived and thrived through numerous moves and months in storage. We modified our blueprints for this house to give the clock its own niche, right outside our bedroom door.  Every five days I pull the chains to raise the weights and carefully adjust the pendulum to ensure the clock maintains perfect time. No power failure can stop its course or dull its peal. In the middle of the night, I will sometimes lay awake waiting for it to count out the hour for me. It brings comfort on a sleepless night.  And in an odd bit of synchronicity–as I type this the clock is chiming 11, while my radio station is playing Clocks by Coldplay. The world works in mysterious ways.

Three pieces of family history. What will we pass on to our children when we no longer have a need for a house full of “things?” I know they will covet our piano, but I hope they will also find some little things that will remind them of us, and make them happy.

Have a joyous Passover or Easter.

Some recent blogs:

Haiku for our times.

Antisemitism.

Songs for Shut-ins.

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Drive for Uber or Lyft?  Freelance writer?  Actor? Business consultant?  Self-employed?   Is your mortgage due? Can’t afford food starting next week?

The state of Illinois has about 18 percent of its workforce in the Gig Economy, according to ADP Research.

On March 27, the federal government passed a 2-trillion dollar stimulus bill that included provisions for the self-employed (gig workers) to collect a special type of unemployment compensation, which would be administered by the state.  This has come about, in part, because various levels of government are stopping gig workers from earning a living due to COVID-19.  There is no date in sight as to when Illinois gig workers may access their benefits.

safetyandhealthmagazine.com

The state of Illinois is telling gig workers that they have to wait until work with an outside vendor completes the necessary parameters for them to apply.  State Senate Republican Leader, Bill Brady, wrote Governor Pritzker on the issue:

Governor Pritzker,

I am writing to you on behalf of my caucus, and the citizens we represent, who have made hundreds of calls to our offices to express their frustration about their inability to access critical unemployment benefits.

Residents throughout Illinois impacted by the economic crisis resulting from the COVID-19 outbreak are struggling to pay their rent and feed their families. During these unprecedented times, we must do everything we can to ensure they are getting the help they need as soon as possible.

One segment of our population impacted by this economic crisis are those self-employed “gig” workers who, according to ADP Research Institute, make up 18 percent of our workforce. Under the recently signed federal stimulus law, these gig workers will now be eligible for unemployment benefits, and states must modify their websites in order to review these claims. This is most welcome news. However, it is our understanding that this modification to the Illinois Department of Employment Security’s (IDES) website could take months.

Weeks ago, our constituents were told the IDES website would be improved, and access would be enhanced. However, based on what we are hearing from our constituents, delays with the site continue and frustrations continue to mount.

With the addition of gig workers, timely access to this site is even more critical, especially given the fact that we are hearing other states already have a system in place to handle gig claims.

When can we tell our constituents they will be able to apply for these crucial resources?

Sincerely,

Bill Brady
Senate Republican Leader

Response from the governor’s press secretary, Jordan Abudayyeh…

This administration is committed to lifting up working families during this crisis. IDES is working around the clock to handle the unprecedented volumes of claims and improvements have been made while the office continues to work through the historic number of claims. The CARES Act created a brand new program for workers who have never participated in the unemployment insurance system. The state has contracted with a vendor to get that new program up and running as soon as possible. If lawmakers have ideas on how to improve the process or expand resources for working families even further we’re happy to work with them.

Looks like plain old bureaucratic process, the thing all of us in Illinois suffer through at all levels of government, but what if there is a political motivation?

Last fall, Illinois decided to study and perhaps follow California’s example of trying to re-classify gig workers as employees of the companies with which they contract.

With eighteen percent of state workers in the gig economy,  Illinois can never be sure that these freelancers are paying their taxes to Illinois standards, because of deductions and the gig workers having to write a check themselves to the state of Illinois, as opposed to W2 employees who have their taxes reliably withdrawn from their payroll checks.

Governor Pritzker is in front of us every day imploring us to be safe and save lives.  Nearly every time he takes a swipe at the federal government for incompetence at not having provided or allowed for the necessary supplies.  In the case of gig workers the federal government has made this money avaialbe but the state is taking its ever sweet time in providing relief to a big part of its working population.  Meanwhile, rents cannot be paid, mortgages met, medicines purchased, food procured.

Is Governor Pritzker playing politics with lives for the sake of future income tax revenue?

10% of Americans have applied for unemployment benefits as a temporary measure due to closures of businesses over Covid-19. This is different than 10% of jobs having gone away, as was the case in the past, and is the real definition of unemployment. This administration acted preemptively and every working American who earns less than $75,000 a year, even those who have not temporarily lost their jobs, will receive a check for $1,200. In addition, small businesses with less than 500 employees are eligible for loans to cover eight weeks of payroll, benefit and rent expenses. If 75% of those funds are used to keep employees on the payroll, those loans will become grants. According to the Small Business Administration, 99.7% of small businesses employ less than 500 people.

In other words, once the lockdowns and shelter-in-place orders are lifted, the vast majority of that 10% who have applied for unemployment benefits will return to their jobs. But, the longer the lockdowns and shelter-in-place orders stay in effect, the slower the recovery. Both sides of our political mess know this…one side wants to get people back to work as soon as possible, the other side is looking at extending these shelter-in-place and lockdown orders into the Fall…to make sure there isn’t a resurgence of the virus next year.

Two points to mention about that. First, yes the virus is almost certain to make a resurgence, they (almost) always do. Second, the most effective way to combat this virus is with herd immunity. This is why it is more important to find and approve effective antibody tests than a vaccine. With antibody tests, we will know who will not get Covid-19 in the future, and who is still susceptible. Antibody tests are coming right now, any vaccine will be twelve to eighteen months away.

Once we know who has had it and recovered, we can shift from everyone being locked down for the protection of the few to the few locked down for the protection of all i.e., the economic health and welfare of the Nation and ultimately the world.

All this raises another question for another day…why are we not hearing about the numbers of those who tested positive and have now recovered? Why are we not tracking those numbers alongside the cumulative list of all those who have tested positive? With a death rate of 1.4-1.8%, reported in raw and frightening numbers, wouldn’t it be equally salient to report the recovery rate, in equally raw numbers? Would that give people too much hope?

A friend recently said, when news media or politicians use the phrase “let me put that in perspective”, that is mediaspeak or politicalspeak for “let me tell you how to think about something according to my agenda”. There is more than a grain of truth in that.

So, in the interest of complete transparency, I’ll state my agenda right here…

…To combat the media-driven hype and hysteria.

Yes, the situation right now is bad, scary and grim. Lots of people are sick, and lots are dying from this virus. In response, the entire world, it seems, is hitting the pause button. Some are desperately hitting it again and again in hopes of slowing the pandemic, of giving our healthcare system time to react. Kind of like hitting the elevator call button repeatedly, but thankfully this actually is producing the desired effect.

Some are hitting the pause button in the hopes that it will also function as a reset button, so people will accept the agendas that have been repeatedly rejected at the polling booth.

So, here is the truth, the unadulterated facts. These are the Historic Unemployment Rates. For a change of pace and in contrast to how both the media and politicians operate, I’m including the link at the bottom for the source so everyone can see for themselves. It’s a chart. A simple to read, easy to follow chart. No interpretation is necessary. Or helpful, unless you have an agenda. (You will need to click on the “Show Table” at the bottom of the graph).

November 2009,10.5% for Whites, 15.6%for Blacks, 12.7% for Hispanics

December 2010, 8.7% for Whites, 15.8% for Blacks, 12.9% for Hispanics

October 2019, 3.2% for Whites, 5.4% for Blacks, 4.1% for Hispanics

March 2020, 4.0% for Whites, 6.7% for Blacks, 6.0% for Hispanics

The economy that was built by the end of 2019 – and still exists – brought about these historically low unemployment rates, the lowest ever recorded for both Blacks and Hispanics, as well as for women (didn’t quote those rates, follow the link at the bottom for the source). The conditions that created these low – and declining – rates still exist and in fact will be improved upon by the return to the US of manufacturing of essential goods and equipment to include medical supplies.

The last recession that caused the 10.5%, 15.6% and 12.7% rates in 2009 was a direct result of bad policies and regulations…most of which no longer exist, thanks to the current administration. It is critical to recognize it will not be possible to have a repeat of that situation under the current laws, regulations, policies and most importantly, administration. Unless of course, Pelosi, Schumer, et al, get their way. Everything they have said about where and how this pandemic started and the U.S. response has been a flat-out lie. Not a massaging of the truth, not an interpretation of events, but a flat-out lie. Remember that. There is no valid reason for this other than pure, partisan politics.

Don’t allow them to take advantage of a global pandemic. Don’t let them. Remember we have a vote coming up in November. It gets said every election cycle, but this time it is actually true.

This November will be the most important election of our lifetimes, our children’s lifetimes and our grandchildren’s lifetimes. Both sides know it. One side wants the American people to control their own destiny. The other side wants to control it for you. This is the difference between Democrat and Republican philosophies.

We already know our Governor and the Mayor of Chicago are Democrats…who believe it is both the right and responsibility of the Federal government to dictate and control what happens in every state, city, town and community, irrespective of the actual needs or wishes of each. The Democrats and their useful idiots in the media are repeatedly calling for the Federal government to issue the same orders for all States. The argument is couched in humanitarian terms, “but, but, if we don’t those states will see dramatic increases too”, and the perennial “but it is for their own good and the safety of their own people”.

What is not said, equally true and more to the point, is this is the basic difference between Democrat and Republican. Once again, the brain-trusts of the coasts are attempting to impose their superior intellect on the uneducated, backwards masses of the fly-over country. This situation is another example writ large of the enduring wisdom of our Founding Fathers.

Come November, choose wisely. Generations to come are counting on you.

Civilian Unemployment Rate, Seasonally Adjusted, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

(click on “Show Table” at the bottom of the graph).

BTW – I absolutely love to be fact-checked. Go ahead. But before you respond with your completely original and brilliantly snarky comment, be advised that ad hominem, straw man and other supercilious, innane and purely partisan responses will be dealt with as all such crap is and should be. Here is where you can envision the toilet, with my hand on the flushing mechanism.