Anyone believe this?

[Howboutthemdawgs]

That’s generally institutional money. Think Blackrock. That stuff is the corporate farmers of the housing market.

 

[West_Fork]

That’s generally institutional money. Think Blackrock. That stuff is the corporate farmers of the housing market.

And the water....do not forget the water. They (black rocks) now control pretty much all the water in at least southwestern Utah and southeastern Nevada, via DR Horton.
A developer that controls most of the water, can control all.
What do you think happens when govt starts going after ag instead of supporting?

https://www.builderonline.com/building/d-r-horton-to-acquire-vidler-water-resources_o

Vidler water etc purchased by DRH, DRH owned by blackrock, vanguard, et al. These water companies are built to sell using tax payer funds.

 

[Foggy47]

And the water....do not forget the water. They (black rocks) now control pretty much all the water in at least southwestern Utah and southeastern Nevada, via DR Horton.
A developer that controls most of the water, can control all.
What do you think happens when govt starts going after ag instead of supporting?

https://www.builderonline.com/building/d-r-horton-to-acquire-vidler-water-resources_o

Vidler water etc purchased by DRH, DRH owned by blackrock, vanguard, et al. These water companies are built to sell using tax payer funds.

Down in the desert of OZ.......It takes ALLOT more water to farm than it's use in housing. The amount of irrigated ag-land being taken over by housing and commercial/industrial buildings is crazy.

Some of that vertical farming (shown elsewhere) cannot come soon enough. Many thousands of acres are being lost each year to urban sprawl.

 

[SwampCat]

I have a brother in law that lives in atlanta that is a big time home builder. I dont ever know of him in the thirty or more years he has been a builder that he has had a total year of home building lost to weather. He did almost lose a year due to covid - but I think did finish a few houses instead of 200.

I dont know a lot of row crop farmers - but everyone of them has lost an annual crop.
I own a piece of land next to 800 acres row crop that lost two years out of four due to wet springs/flooding a few years ago.

Guy that owns the land where we duck hunt has 3000 acres of row crop. Could not get a tractor in the field until July last year. He has barns full of seed he bought last year hoping it is still viable this year. Said he has lost crops due to wet and drought. Total crops on 3000 acres. He said it is getting more common, too.

I guess a builder could lose a whole year due to hurricane - maybe - but probably build like crazy after hurricane clean up. I am dang sure no expert on this, but the fact there is crop insurance, crop subsidies, etc - and no federal builders insurance or subsidies is because more to go wrong in farming.

Farmers are also subjected to a number of things outside their control. I dont think home builders are affected by the housing market in brazil - but farmers are affected by the success or failure of crops in countries halfway around the world. Govt programs like acreage reduction and export subsidies can affect farmers bottom line, also. I think farmers have more things to deal with that are totally out of control

 

[bwoods11]

Grain markets were bad under Trump. They were much better under FJB. Dems have historically been more farmer friendly. You can actually tell that in the responses here. Although market forces aren't always political. I'm still voting for the R 100 out of 100 times.

You can tell who the farmers trust or think has their back by who they vote for !

Trump received about 75-78% of the farmer vote. I drive 5 hours to Iowa to hunt, and 7 hours to Missouri. It’s huge Trump signs all the way there and back .

I saw one Harris sign on a farm in Minnesota.

 

[Tree Spud]

You can't subsidize profitability, you can only address costs. Large corporate farms do have advantages ...
- Larger corporate owners have more clout in leveraging discounts with input suppliers.
- Equipment costs can be spread out over more acres per piece of equipment.
- A more advanced soil/crop science strategy can be implemented to maximize output/acre.

The reality is, when you look at IL, IA, S. MN, NE,S. WI, and SD/ND, in 10 years tractors will be automated without any human drivers.

Family farms with children who have gone to college and learned about ag science & finance/accounting have taken over the family business and understand they probably have to grow the # of acres under their control to get over the breakeven point to make money. A college degree may not be required, but understanding how to leverage technology & resources will be much different than in the past.

 

[Westwind]

I got a comment on the first paragraph above. They build really small homes in AZ that have perhaps 1000 square feet. These homes (mostly) have two bedrooms and a kitchen, bath and living room. They are only about 5 feet from the next home. Very dense housing area. No garages, very little "green space" but will have a shared playground and many have a community pool too. Also they have security gates.

Fairly decent construction. The issue is.....they are not for sale. Lease only. Much like an appartment....but they are individual homes. Often they will have a hundred or more homes in one of these developments. I suppose the investors are counting on inflation. They seem to all be leased almost as fast as these developments are built.

Crazy growth area I live near......the fastest in the nation.........and these and various apartments and condo's and single family homes are going up like crazy. Also big commercial and industrial growth. I've never witnessed this kinda growth in the midwest. It's nuts.

Foggy, this is interesting to me. Was just out there. Just like the last time, they are building houses LIKE CRAZY.

Also newly married daughter and son in law live in a nice little house in a decent little newer subdivision and they rent. I can’t remember how much it is but I remember tyhinking the rent was pretty cheap.

Is that your experience too? Are rents cheap out there in newer housing, and why would that be?

 

[Foggy47]

Foggy, this is interesting to me. Was just out there. Just like the last time, they are building houses LIKE CRAZY.

Also newly married daughter and son in law live in a nice little house in a decent little newer subdivision and they rent. I can’t remember how much it is but I remember tyhinking the rent was pretty cheap.

Is that your experience too? Are rents cheap out there in newer housing, and why would that be?

I don't know anything about the rental markets. I own the home we live in.....and I live in a 55+ retirement, resort-like community. We are quite a large gated community....with over 6000 homes inside the walls. LOTS of development all around our place....with huge warehouse developments and stores and restaurants and these homes and apartments are being built for the workers.

I dont think the average renter can afford much of a home these days much less afford to buy.....thus all the new apartments, condos, and these small homes. Lots of REIT money and institutional money being spent on these projects. Those little homes are all stucco siding and tiled roofs. They look well made....just small and very dense. they are too closely built to one another to ever sell those homes. I suppose it's a lifestyle some people like ? It might beat an apartment. Dunno.

 

[Howboutthemdawgs]

I have a brother in law that lives in atlanta that is a big time home builder. I dont ever know of him in the thirty or more years he has been a builder that he has had a total year of home building lost to weather. He did almost lose a year due to covid - but I think did finish a few houses instead of 200.

I dont know a lot of row crop farmers - but everyone of them has lost an annual crop.
I own a piece of land next to 800 acres row crop that lost two years out of four due to wet springs/flooding a few years ago.

Guy that owns the land where we duck hunt has 3000 acres of row crop. Could not get a tractor in the field until July last year. He has barns full of seed he bought last year hoping it is still viable this year. Said he has lost crops due to wet and drought. Total crops on 3000 acres. He said it is getting more common, too.

I guess a builder could lose a whole year due to hurricane - maybe - but probably build like crazy after hurricane clean up. I am dang sure no expert on this, but the fact there is crop insurance, crop subsidies, etc - and no federal builders insurance or subsidies is because more to go wrong in farming.

Farmers are also subjected to a number of things outside their control. I dont think home builders are affected by the housing market in brazil - but farmers are affected by the success or failure of crops in countries halfway around the world. Govt programs like acreage reduction and export subsidies can affect farmers bottom line, also. I think farmers have more things to deal with that are totally out of control

Years aren’t measured the same as a farmers year. It’s not a planting cycle obviously so while farmers live and die by a cycle, housing runs a different cyce. Im not an old man but I’ve been around the housing business for 20 plus years. I saw 08-09. I know plenty of guys who lost everything. Guys that are still repairing damage to this day. For every poor old dirt farmer (great Levon helm song btw) I know of another driving a Denali 2500 and buying any ground he can get his hands on. As in any industry there’s successful and not successful folks.

 

[Westwind]

I don't know anything about the rental markets. I own the home we live in.....and I live in a 55+ retirement, resort-like community. We are quite a large gated community....with over 6000 homes inside the walls. LOTS of development all around our place....with huge warehouse developments and stores and restaurants and these homes and apartments are being built for the workers.

I dont think the average renter can afford much of a home these days much less afford to buy.....thus all the new apartments, condos, and these small homes. Lots of REIT money and institutional money being spent on these projects. Those little homes are all stucco siding and tiled roofs. They look well made....just small and very dense. they are too closely built to one another to ever sell those homes. I suppose it's a lifestyle some people like ? It might beat an apartment. Dunno.

Blows my mind to see it all.

Daughter is an outside person but they spend a lot of time indoors. Maybe thats how they can stand the houses being that close. I was surprised how quiet it was there.

Went out to the Superstition Mountains to see the wild horses. That was a good hike.

 

[West_Fork]

Down in the desert of OZ.......It takes ALLOT more water to farm than it's use in housing. The amount of irrigated ag-land being taken over by housing and commercial/industrial buildings is crazy.

Some of that vertical farming (shown elsewhere) cannot come soon enough. Many thousands of acres are being lost each year to urban sprawl.

What a lot of people do not understand about water use and farming; upwards of 50% of the water is returned to the aquafer through the soil.....and it's where their food comes from,,,,and that no one cares about their facebook posts.

 

[West_Fork]

Blows my mind to see it all.

Daughter is an outside person but they spend a lot of time indoors. Maybe thats how they can stand the houses being that close. I was surprised how quiet it was there.

Went out to the Superstition Mountains to see the wild horses. That was a good hike.

You went to see horses? Why in the hell would you go to that god forsaken place to see malnourished and inbred barnyard animals living on the edge of a slow painful death?

 

[Foggy47]

What a lot of people do not understand about water use and farming; upwards of 50% of the water is returned to the aquafer through the soil.....and it's where their food comes from,,,,and that no one cares about their facebook posts.

Yeah well....maybe where you come from.

Not down here in OZ it doesn't. The soil here will not allow very much water to filter down into the auquafir below. Just does not happen due to the soil structure. The soil here n the desert seals up with any amount of water.....and that is that. Very unusual situation....as we sit on a large auquifer below. Folks think a desert means sand......big wrong on that idea. Almost all rainfall water will run-off very rapidly via the arroyos and the sometimes rivers here in the desert.

Getting water to penetrate even a few inches would be a huge thing. Does not happen. The ground here is clay....and HARD clay at that. To dig a hole...you need a pick axe....and allot of time.

 

[West_Fork]

Yeah well....maybe where you come from.

Not down here in OZ it doesn't. The soil here will not allow very much water to filter down into the auquafir below. Just does not happen due to the soil structure. The soil here n the desert seals up with any amount of water.....and that is that. Very unusual situation....as we sit on a large auquifer below. Folks think a desert means sand......big wrong on that idea. Almost all rainfall water will run-off very rapidly via the arroyos and the sometimes rivers here in the desert.

Getting water to penetrate even a few inches would be a huge thing. Does not happen. The ground here is clay....and HARD clay at that. To dig a hole...you need a pick axe....and allot of time.

Well now, our leaders would see that as a huge natural advantage. Our leaders had to expand vast funds to re-route a natural drainage to a sealed basin where it evaporates and create a disaster. The blue is the natural historic flow path where it would go out in to the Great Basin and percolate in to the aquifer. The red is where they re-routed it to a sealed basin so they could protect certain developers with certain last names who wanted to turn the farm in to a low income neighborhood. The aquifer is so depleted there is 3 foot subsidence in areas.

 

[Westwind]

You went to see horses? Why in the hell would you go to that god forsaken place to see malnourished and inbred barnyard animals living on the edge of a slow painful death?

Daughter saw them kyacking.

Daughter told wife.

Westwind goes to see wild horses in the river.

And lot of cactuses and rocks. And some quail.

It was actually one of the more interesting things I have seen in Az.

TBH I would never live there and I would never go there for any reason if my daughter didn’t live there but whatever.

 

[Turkish]

100% agree. Governments in everything. I’m gonna stop litigating the same belabored point after this, but if you agree to the universal truth that food water and shelter are tantamount to human survival, the builder is no less important than the farmer. So to artificially prop up one while hamstringing another is the height of hypocrisy. Now, I’d rather they prop up neither and let market forces shake out but we know that’s not going to happen.

I do believe agricultural stability is more important to national security than is stability in the residential development business. Do you not?

Whether it’s important enough to prompt all the funding it does is an interesting debate. I, too, roll my eyes at some of the dramatization of a farmer’s “plight” these days. But I’ve never once thought stability in the residential buildings industry needed more attention.

The funny thing to me is (and I say this often)… there isn’t a need for more homes. There’s a need for more desirable neighborhoods. We shouldn’t have to build more to achieve that but it’s unfortunately the easiest way to. But that’s getting off topic.

 

[Bowsnbucks]

You mean killing an industry in favor of the flavor of the month such as solar and wind which is notoriously unreliable, inefficient and maybe a worse stain on the landscape than coal? Are the thousands upon thousands of coal industry employees livelihoods not worth saving? What about the rich history of coal communities and generations of families that were shaped by being coal folks…you know, like the family farmer.

What I’m saying is the government meddling in the sustainability of any industry seems wrong.

Killing an industry????? Where was the outcry in the 1980's when Reagan said in a nationally broadcast speech that "..... we're going to change our economy from a manufacturing-based economy to a service-based economy." and the race to move many different industries offshore started - and it continues to this day. What about those millions of jobs??? Who cried for those workers ....... who were told they'd have to re-train for other jobs??? I watched all that happen ..... as it happened. Please don't try to say it's not so. Screwed by one's own party is still screwed. Dems do wrong things too, so it's not a partisan attack. Whichever side puts the screws to American workers is not for most Americans.

As for coal's future - even China is moving away from it. It's simply too damn dirty of a fuel. Every country knows it, and they're moving to cleaner energy sources. Solar and wind can't make up the entire sources for power - this is the industry I've spent 42 years working in - electricity generation, distribution, and control. So I realize that fact. Smaller nuclear power plants that can be / will be site specific, will be the cleanest, zero-carbon-output sources of power going forward. For any of us who have kids & grandkids, I would think that finding cleaner, non-polluting sources of energy is a good thing. Any cleaner sources that cut the amount of greenhouse gases puked into our shared biosphere ought to be welcomed, IMO - just so we don't pass on a toxic, crapped-up world to our heirs. How is cutting back on dirty, polluting energy sources bad???

Lots of good jobs will be / have been created in "greener" technologies. Re-train - as others have been told in past years. BTW - many companies are moving away from dirty energy sources because they can see the future, and it's not with dirty fuels. They didn't make those moves because the government told them to. Investor dollars in those companies voted for a cleaner future in many cases. They looked at what their kids & grandkids might face down the road.

 

[Bowsnbucks]

I agree the war on cheap reliable energy is by globalists and not particularly the US, but I have to point a couple things in your comment;

"polluting sources of energy" eludes to a fictitious paradise where it is possible to produce energy without any pollution (waste). That belief has no place in reality.

China is not pursuing "greener" sources of energy. That is a pure propaganda.

The "green" energy efforts in the US are controlled by unduly influenced politics and people with a money making scheme. There is nothing "green," sustainable, or renewable about it.

You need to read up on where investments are being made, friend. And no one said energy generation must be 100% non-polluting. This is my industry - I worked in it for over 42 years. You aren't schooling me!! But isn't less pollution - fewer dirty sources a better thing for the future???

China is not pursuing "greener" sources of energy.

Wrong. They don't want to breathe air you can grab a chunk of either. Read from independent sources - like where companies are investing in the world - and in what forward-thinking technologies.

 

[Mortenson]

I do believe agricultural stability is more important to national security than is stability in the residential development business. Do you not?

Whether it’s important enough to prompt all the funding it does is an interesting debate. I, too, roll my eyes at some of the dramatization of a farmer’s “plight” these days. But I’ve never once thought stability in the residential buildings industry needed more attention.

The funny thing to me is (and I say this often)… there isn’t a need for more homes. There’s a need for more desirable neighborhoods. We shouldn’t have to build more to achieve that but it’s unfortunately the easiest way to. But that’s getting off topic.

We've been watching a youtuber, Nick Johnson, whose main gig is travelling around the country showcasing bad towns and cities, or bad areas in those places. Pretty shocking to see how rough some residential areas are. In Detroit, he shows entire areas of town that nature has basically taken back. All vacant homes / home lots being reforested. Nationwide, it seems like it's a growing problem. As people don't have the means or sense to maintain these older homes, things will get messy.

 

[Bowsnbucks]

We've been watching a youtuber, Nick Johnson, whose main gig is travelling around the country showcasing bad towns and cities, or bad areas in those places. Pretty shocking to see how rough some residential areas are. In Detroit, he shows entire areas of town that nature has basically taken back. All vacant homes / home lots being reforested. Nationwide, it seems like it's a growing problem. As people don't have the means or sense to maintain these older homes, things will get messy.

I've often wondered, why don't developers bulldoze such places in any city and build condo's / apartment complexes for the many people who like living in cities - rather than commute an hour or more every day?? Shops, stores, restaurants, offices on the first 2 floors - residences on the upper floors, however many. It's not eliminating AG land or other green spaces. Just re-building areas that were already paved and "developed" in earlier decades. Jobs, housing, sense of community .... lots of people like city / town life. Some of this is happening in & around Philly. Doze the rat-infested crack shacks & build new community-centered areas. Why keep moving out further into AG land / green spaces until those places are gone??? Just a thought.