Friday Update, October 2, 2020

What a week huh?  The Facebook has been so full of positivity and the Presidential candidates handled themselves pretty well.  And housing in Colorado Springs suddenly became abundant and afforable.  El OH EL.  None of that happened!

Here's what did happen.

We finished September super strong with 1480 sales of single family and patio homes here in the greater Colorado Springs area.

Median price for September hit another record at just under $385,000.

Going into October inventory levels are #notgreat at 553 single family homes on market.  Remember we have over 730,000 people living here.

Interest rates have been stupid low for a minute now and remain that way.  Consistently closing loans below 3%.  We talked about this so many times I feel I've killed the horse, kicked it, ran over it with a car, brough it back to life only to kill it and kick it again.

  I'm gonna go off on a little tangent about current events.  I'm sure you've seen at this point that President Trump is hospitalized with the Covid.  There are already plenty of theories being floated around about how this is just a way to drum up support or a way to avoid debating Biden.  I can honestly say that having witnessed the previous "debate" neither candidate stands even a hint of a chance of convincing anyone that's not already hardcore in their favor to support them.  So if you truly think that Trump, the showman, is afraid of getting on a stage with a barely coherent Biden I think you're delusional.  I'm pretty convinced that Donald Trump feeds off confrontation and I honestly think he seeks it out.  

So if we take all these conspiracy theories and put them where they belong, back in your uncle's mouth, we can focus on what's at stake here.

The President of the United States of America regardless of who that person is represents the US in front of the whole world.  The entire world looks to this spokesperson for our nation.  Whether you love Trump or you hate him it doesn't matter, he is indeed the one representing ALL of us on the international stage.  So again regardless of your feelings, which for the sake of world markets are completely irrelevant, Trump is the face of this nation.  When the face of the nation goes down with the Covid it is super important that he recovers quickly and completely.  Anything less than that would means a disruption in market confidence which would lead to more uncertainty and a further loss of jobs.  In short I truly from the bottom of my heart wish the President a quick recovery not because I like him as a human, but because it's wrong to wish harm on others and because all of our futures actually depend on it.

Here is a nightmare scenario I don't want to live through.   Let's say Trump does not recover fully or worse.  Then there is a power vacuum on the Republican side right before an election.  Maybe this leads to a quick loss to the Democrats but maybe the Republican party becomes emboldened by the death of their candidate?  Maybe there really is not a peaceful transition of power.  Maybe Vladimir Putin jumps out from inside of Joe Biden's body and picks Snoop Dogg as his VP?  The maybes are the problem.

Financial markets hate uncertainty.  One thing that true and critical levels of uncertainty bring are higher real interest rates and tighter standards of lending.  You can refer to the bullshit we went through in March and April of this year for some good examples of that.  So let's say we have uncertainty about continuity of power in this country.  That is going to hurt us all except for the very richest members of our society who will gladly mop up everything that we as a people are dropping.  Higher rates and reduced liquidity paired up with social unrest and one of the widest wealth gaps in history is going to lead to some serious shake ups in the financial and all other markets.  Most people, like probably the bottom 90% of all people, are going to lose their asses in this situation.  Many people are already barely treading water due to the pandemic and all of its ripples so a secondary crisis is the last thing we all need right now.

Not to mention the weakness being portrayed to the rest of the world by the lack of unity in the United States.  

I'm not asking you to like challenge your politics or see things really any different or any of that.  I'm just saying that this shit here is a lot more serious than the life of one person.  This is the image of a nation.  A nation that happens to hold the world's reserve currency at this point.  Understand that a quick recovery by the President leads to a highly contested and emotional election, but anything less than a recovery leads to God knows what.  Never wish harm on anyone.  I love you guys. The cover picture is from the summit of Capitol Peak which I once hiked before getting all fat and ranty.