{"id":82320,"date":"2024-03-02T01:15:50","date_gmt":"2024-03-02T09:15:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lenpenzo.com\/blog\/?p=82320"},"modified":"2024-03-03T08:59:09","modified_gmt":"2024-03-03T16:59:09","slug":"black-coffee-2-mar-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lenpenzo.com\/blog\/id82320-black-coffee-2-mar-2024.html","title":{"rendered":"Black Coffee: Breakfast for Dinner"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"It’s time to sit back, relax and enjoy a little joe …<\/em><\/p>\n

Welcome to another rousing edition of Black Coffee, your off-beat weekly round-up of what’s been going on in the world of money and personal finance.<\/p>\n

I’ve got another busy weekend ahead of me, so let’s get right to this week’s commentary …<\/p>\n

Sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

– Lewis Carroll<\/strong><\/p>\n

Credits and Debits<\/strong><\/p>\n

Debit:<\/strong><\/span> Did you see this? Between December and January, the median sales price of a US home – that is, the midpoint of all home sales – climbed from $413,000 to $420,700. However<\/strong><\/em>, the January median was lower<\/strong><\/em> on a year-over-year (YoY) basis – and that<\/strong><\/em> marks the fifth-straight YoY decline<\/a>. Interestingly, the average price of a US home soared from $493,400 to $534,300, which signals more high-end homes are selling than those on the lower end. Confused? Well … you\u2019re not alone. Maybe we should ask an expert like, maybe, the billionaire CEO of JP Morgan. What say you, Jaime Dimon<\/a>?<\/p>\n

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Debit:<\/strong><\/span> Okay … here\u2019s what we can<\/em><\/strong> say about the latest housing data: The median household US income is roughly $74,000<\/a>, which means the median US home price is almost six<\/strong><\/em> times annual household income. In a properly functioning monetary system, that figure should be somewhere between just two and three – for a single<\/em><\/strong> earner, not a dual-income household. That being said, if you ask almost any realtor, they\u2019ll tell you it\u2019s a great<\/em><\/strong> time to buy a home! I know this because realtors put this<\/em><\/strong> commercial out in mid 2007; never mind that the great housing crash began shortly thereafter \u2026<\/p>\n