Emily Elliott, I have your COVID-19 card

On my 10 mile morning walk today, I found your COVID-19 Vaccination Record Card on Market Street in Ballard.  

You received dual Moderna shots in March and April of this year.  You are 22 years old, Emily Elliott.

You will need this to enjoy basic human freedoms, to be employed, to attend concerts and sports events, and to visit bars and restaurants in the time you have left.

Please drop me a line at cgustafson at gmail dot com, and I'll gladly return this to you.  

A walk to Ballard is a fine excuse to visit the Twice Told Tales bookshop; on my last visit I found a hardcover 1st ed. of Strauss and Cropsey's History of Political Philosophy, if you can believe it.  

In darkest Ballard, I know!

Friendly reminder to friends that the results of the Maricopa County 2020 election audit are due out after market close this Friday, September 24.  Chow down on me, hogs.

End of the housing bubble in north Seattle

In the last real estate bubble, the north end of Seattle -- particularly the Crown Hill, Greenwood, and Loyal Heights neighborhoods, all north of Ballard -- had abandoned projects and vacant lots left in its wake.  In the current stupid cycle, we now have one last wave of frantic development, a desperate effort to build as much bugman housing as possible while the going is still good.

I won't mince words.  The developers and lenders for these projects-in-progress are going to be splendidly fucked, all of them, as the bubble pops and demand evaporates overnight for this garbage.  Did you not get the memo?  Amazon stopped hiring months ago.  It's over.  It's all over.

There are two houses on my block going on the market in the next few weeks, one from a smart friend of mine, a long-time owner, who I'm sure gets it, and the other from the worst sort of scum real-estate flipper.

I'm seeing for-rent signs on buildings, and Wolf Richter is seeing what I'm seeing in the aggregate numbers.

So let's take a look at some of the chipboard sawdust nightmares about to flood the stagnating RRE market on the north end of Seattle.

progress in Ballard

85th Street NW

A large sawdust development on 15th Ave NW ...

... so shitty and shoddy it's embarrassing ...

... I see ... black mold ... in your future

15th Ave NW

future tenements

someone please mortgage your future for this

on my weekend walk, 15th & Dravus NW

almost finished, ready for a bloated market

Good luck, FIRE sector jerks

more at Dravus & 15th.  a Starbucks closed recently near here.

Hurry up and finish these so you can discount the rents

future tenements

big project almost up on Market Street & 15th in Ballard ...

... I think that is actual concrete used in the structure, how about that!

YUGE project going in northeast of the Ballard Bridge ...

... this will be a very special disaster for the developers 

they have broken ground and can't turn back

once there was actual productive industry here

loose credit, credulous tech bubble idiots ...

... and you get this shite on 15th Ave NW

for fuck's sake, read the Austrians already

dead Crown Hill Hardware ... so build more housing!

finished product 85th & 80th NW, ugly as hell

absolutely disgraceful, what they have done to our city

dead shitty Mexican restaurant 15th Ave NW -> more housing!

Crown Hill, replace the brick bungalow with some chipboard shit

dead Radio Shack, re-zone this for condos?

Restaurants gone, new housing coming, dead Pizza Hut

who will blow up the Pizza Hut?  for housing

dead strip club, more housing coming

who will demolish this dead sushi restaurant?  85th & 15th NW

bugman housing going up behind Value Village

I think I saw actual plywood used in this construction

new plots just dug out at 85th & 12th NW, more garbage coming

there were dead vacant lots left on 85th in 2009

black mold and rot ahead in Sunset Hill ...

... the garage has better bones than the house!

Everyone get ready for the panic and crash cycle.  Seattle is so over.

Charts 01-03: Big week ahead

This weekend the Burke Museum had their annual Archaeology Day; the girls and I were 2nd in the door for this one.  They had a guy demonstrating how to make clovis points and other stone tools out of obsidian, which can be found in our Cascades volcanoes.

Creating stone tools with ... stone tools

We got some pho and hit our usual bookstore, Magus Books, good shop.

Out before sunrise for a long walk on a chilly Sunday morning, here are some boats in the Shilshole Bay Marina.  The tide was high, and the Puget Sound water was very clear.

Shilshole Bay Marina

A statue of Leif Ericson stands guard over the boats.

Leif Ericson

This apartment block is almost finished in Ballard.  It's funny that they had to wrap it around this shitty gas station.  The only good thing that can be said for it is that it appears to use real plywood instead of the usual chipboard garbage.

Market St & 24th Ave

One block north, they have just got the hole in for this beauty.  I'm sure it's needed, yes, of course.

Moar apartments now, moar!

The Olympics were out in the crisp air.

Olympic mountains over Olympic Manor 

It looks like a set of townhouses are replacing the old Crown Hill Lutheran Church on 15th Ave.

Moar townhouses!

Here's the old church last year before it was demolished.

Crown Hill Lutheran Church, R.I.P.

This week is important in the markets because we still do not know if the January 1 Bradley turn date did indeed mark a top and a turn, much less the top.  We need some follow-up and confirmation.  We need some carnage on the indexes before op-ex, to get us down in the 1720s on the SPX before a big bounce.

SPX 01-03

It's still very early, but we need some big red candles soon.