Wire Fraud Warnings Matter More as Closing Scams Keep Growing

Good morning everybody. Ed Barko here. Real Estate Jerky Daily. And Mike Kelly, I was just looking at my very dry skin. Hold on. Hold on a second. Mics are not working there. That's better. Real Estate Jerky Daily here with Mike Kelly. And Mike Kelly and I was looking at my dry skin. Well, stop doing that. Nobody wants to hear nobody about your stuff. Dry skin. That's what happens when you get old. Everything gets dry. That sounds horrible. No, that's just you got to use lotion forever. What? Yeah, it's for everything. I got dry elbow, too. Yeah, well, that's cuz you just put lotion on. It puts the lotion on. Go ahead and give your numbers. What do you got this morning? Oh, I can do those. They're they're pretty pretty phenomenal.

You know, all things being said. 865 active listings. What do we have yesterday? 863. Um 367 pendings. I think that's the same as yesterday, but we got more closings. 143 closings for the month of September. And we're sitting here on the Oh my god, it's the 18th, isn't it? Yes, it is. Yes, it is. Wow. Wow. You want to hear some other stuff? Sure. You got something else? Yeah, let me let me talk about this. No. So, in the state of California, according to the California Association of Realtors, we had 366 closed sales per day for the week ending September 12th. That's a drop of 32. 4%. That's a big drop. 413 pending sales per day, a drop of 28. 1%. And 664 listings per day. That's an increase of 5.

3% from the previous week. We're still at 27 Well, we were at 28 days uh on the market for a median days on the market and but now we're at 27. So, we dropped a day. Look at things are starting to move now. And the percentage Now, Stanislaus County, I think most most in Modesto, most listings 50% of the listings in Modesto have a price reduction before they sell. And in the state of California, 40 40. 9% have a price reduction before they sell. So, there we go. Those are the facts, Jack. Oh, here you go. Rates are worse by 31 basis points. Uh the 10-year is at 5. 0023. Wow, that's Yes, it's high again. That's high. It's since 23, 22? Almost 2007. Oh. Uh Dow is uh down 191. Probably just taking profits.

Who knows what they're doing. Yeah. Uh what There was not much So, the whole the oils come down a little bit compared to where it was this week, as high as it's been. Uh and the reason is I think the highs was $101 a barrel this week and it's come down off of that. But what happened is supposedly Saudi is going to be able to fix their pipeline um quickly. Quickly. But I read somewhere else in here um that the pipeline uh where did it go? I had this all perfect and you know, it's going to take a few weeks. It's going to take weeks more than they say. Uh so, it says three to five weeks for the full repair. Bloomberg says about six weeks. So, it's going to be two years. Okay. Yeah. Nobody knows how long Is Bloomberg working working on the pipeline?

No, they're just saying how long it's going to take them cuz there's it's it's been beat up a lot worse than the last time. Yeah, it's a guesstimate. Yeah, and it's just a detour. It's like a freeway detour. Uh the Bank of Japan hiked their uh their their bonds also, you know, like we did this week, 25 basis points, which is a 31-year high. Still just at 1. 25 for them versus where we are. I wonder where 31-year high. For them. Yeah, but there were like negative rates for so long. It was Yeah, so. And that's important to know because they're trying to do everything they can. And the question is always who Why in Modesto do I care about what Tokyo's doing? Well, it's global economy. It kind of affects us.

That is correct. Yeah. Uh the biggest issue that we're having right now uh besides what I told you about the bonds is back to the oil prices and gas prices cuz diesel is $8 and some cents a gallon. And that just means more You know, that's everything that gets used for diesel. We don't move lumber. Everything's moved that way. Some things are moved on the train. Boxes of Cheerios. But they don't I think the train still uses diesel, right? Not steam. Yeah, and there You know what? Uh there's no electric trains. No, cuz you can imagine us trying to build an electric train here in California. No, no way. Could you imagine us trying to put in a high-speed rail here in California? Yeah, it's going to be finished in 2085.

2020. 2020. 2085. At At a At a cost of 31 billion. Uh What was it? 31 billion for the for it to be completed in 2020? I don't remember. I just that's such a money grab. It's going to be It's going to be hundreds of billions. Actually, what's going to happen is more people are going to get filthy rich and nothing is going to happen to the speed the medium speed rail. I don't know where I lost my thing about the other stuff, but I said enough of it. Next week, we have ADP weekly employment on Tuesday, shocking. Wednesday, mortgage applications. Thursday, jobless claims, new home sales. And Friday, durable goods orders. So, it's kind of a week and understand that the market's not going to move. And the only thing's going to move the bond market is the oil thing, anything to do with oil.

That's exciting. Yep. Uh Governor Newsom is is is in the bill signing window through September 30th. On Tuesday, he signed four bills. Wildfire recovery package. According to his office, this bill will expand mortgage protection for fire survivors, strengthen insurance coverage, tighten testing and cleanup standards. Ooh, testing and cleanup standards. That means you're not going to be able to get your land back. Yeah. Yeah, those those people in the Palisades, boy, they're building their places back to suite. Yeah. California diesel, as I was trying to explain earlier, is $8. 34 a gallon, up more than a dollar in a month. Uh every load of lumber, concrete truck, moving van in this valley runs on diesel.

Yeah. Yep. Yeah, so that's hurting a lot of things. How um this big time downtown this weekend, Saturday night, Tony winner uh Ida Menzel. Oh, Menzel, yeah. Yeah, is that the Gallo Center. Thank you for helping me there. Saturday is also Fall Neighborhood Market at Culture Coffee and local marketers, local vendors. So, go down there. Yeah, yeah. Ida Ida Ida Ida Ida um She's got an amazing voice. And then uh next Thursday, the 24th is the 40th annual edible Extravaganza. Thank you. Thank you. I didn't sleep well last night. No, neither did I. Yeah. Uh and that thing's been going on for like 40 years. That's why it's the 40th. Wow. Make sure you call the title company for any wire cuz that's a fraud still going on.

It's actually getting worse. Um there are more people saying this is pretty easy. This is Especially um most buyers. Oh, really? I'm going to save money on my uh escrow fees and my um Alta insurance policy. I'll send that over in a wire today. Oh, you know, your money to purchase that house is now gone. Right. So, in San Francisco, uh I do not know how to say this first word in triangle. It's d u b o c e. The bose? Yeah, thank you. I guess so. It's a 1907 Victorian top floor residence, three bedrooms, about 2,500 square feet, asking 2,900 Wow. 95,000. The twist is the seller will accept payment in Anthropic and OpenAI stock. Really? Yeah, because those are private shares. They went didn't go public yet.

Okay. Yeah, so that's about $1,200 a square foot payable in shares of companies that haven't gone public like I said. So, I I told it to find me some weird stories. So, that's one of them. Another one is in Nashville, the 40th floor of the Four Seasons just went under five just under 5,000 square feet, asking $33. 5 million is the most expensive listing in the city. The owner I won't get into who he is, but he's a Malibu luxury agent. He bought it as raw concrete, you know, just a concrete shell and then for about 12 million and then he designed it and he calls it the James Bond meets Lenny Kravitz. That's got to be a weird thing. It's got a circular floating fireplace and more than a million dollars in smart home tech, including voice AI systems that runs the lights, the sounds, the climate.

The write-up called it not a smart home, a sentiment home. So, basically, if it doesn't want you to leave, you're not leaving. Yeah. How does it float? Is it on magnets or something? I have no idea. I didn't get into that part of it. So, the HOA dues alone in that place Wow. A million dollars a month. is three Modesto mortgage payments. So, 9 grand a month? Wow. All right, so this was a story earlier in the year that we uh I don't even know if we covered it, but uh Washington DC, a rental listing. The agent ran photos through AI tool to tidy up the bathroom counter and then hit publish without looking. Remember the story? The AI did tidy up the counter. It also added a fleshy eyeless creature crawling out of the bathroom mirror, reaching for a flower pot.

It went viral. One commentator asked how you did not notice the melted demon before you hit publish. So, funny or not funny, but if you use AI to do your pictures, remember you should look at them. But also in California, as of January, you have to tell them that you Exactly. That's an AB 723. I'm so impressed that you knew the number, the the assembly bill. Well, yeah, I just have it right there. It's right there in front of you. So, they wrote this thing says AI is a fine assistant and a terrible proofreader. Yeah. And I mean, there's AI bots that I'm creating through Grock that are amazing, um but you still have to double check stuff. Yeah. Well, yeah, and you're going to take those those uh dashes out and the hyphens and all that stuff.

You can just tell it to never write uh uh What is it? What are those dashes called? Anyway, you can tell it never to write those in your stuff and it'll never write it in your stuff. If you tell it to remember I don't want m dashes and don't ever put them in my stuff, it will never put them in your stuff. I should also upload the uh unallowable words um according to NAR and and all the bleeding hearts uh that you can't use like family. You mean like master bedroom? Master, it's got to be primary. It I've seen master all over the place. Well, the funniest thing is, you know, the MLS as you're inputting a a new property into the MLS, um you're not allowed to use the word primary, but when you're doing your checkboxes, it still says master.

So, you're not supposed to use master. Right. You're supposed to use primary. You said it You said you're not supposed Yeah, exactly. So, you're looking for the primary, but it's it's under the the the name of master still. See, what I would do is I would take the with my listing, I would to make it go viral, I would do the same thing. Yeah. But put it like a hot girl or a hot guy in one of those mirrors. Yeah. Even though you're not supposed to have anybody in the pictures, but it's funny how some of those people would take pictures of their own their own pictures and they're standing there in the bathroom. All the time and they're in the mirror. Hey, that's a that's a good one. I got a photographer that would always leave his tripod and usually he would you know, take it out digitally.

Always like it when uh the appraisers go in to take pictures of a house and they take pictures of the bathroom and the seat's up. It's like people, put the seat down. Put the seat down. Finchway, you're letting all the good energy out of your house. It's going down your toilet. Down the drain. So, that's my story and I'm sticking with it. You're sticking to it. Good. Well, it sounds like it's going to be an amazing weekend. Well, it's not going to be super hot and eventually we'll get into the fall weather. I'm supposed to be somewhere tomorrow morning, but I forget. Oh wait, it's the Alzheimer's um walk, helping Dez out with registration and stuff in the morning. And I think that's at Grace Ada Park.

You don't remember though. Yeah, I have no I have no clue. She said she's going to text me, I think. That's what she said. And she could have. You just forgot she did. Yeah, no, I I checked my texts this morning at That was Alzheimer's. That was Alzheimer's. Alzheimer? Old timers, they call it. No, that's what old you old timers call it. Yeah, I'm an old-timer. All right, make it a great day. Have a great weekend. If you want to listen to us again, we're on the radio tomorrow and then at noon and replace Sunday at 3:00 p. m. And then I need to check to see if they're still doing the Wednesday at 7:00. Yeah. All right, make it a great day. Wednesday nights. All right. Peace out, brothers and sisters.

And a great weekend. Bye. Kick butt this weekend.