#meanwhile i had 44 transactions to his 6

[nedsseveredhead]

We finally got a manager and assistant so i finally was supposed to have my two days off and ive spent this one fully being ill as hell recovering from exhaustion from the past few weeks only to get a call that the assistant who had his tooth pulled two days ago still isnt feeling well enough to come in so i gotta go and cover the shift tomorrow. Im gonna kill him.

[ntrending]

Black Friday frenzy as throngs of shoppers line up for deals around the country

New Post has been published on https://nexcraft.co/black-friday-frenzy-as-throngs-of-shoppers-line-up-for-deals-around-the-country/

Black Friday frenzy as throngs of shoppers line up for deals around the country

Black Friday still has shoppers across America lining up outside stores, anticipating deep discounts and doorbusters, albeit spending continues to shift online.

By Thanksgiving afternoon, long lines of people were already forming outside of Target, Best Buy and J.C. Penney locations, among other retailers, across the country. Wal-Mart opted to keep its stores open all day on Thursday, with Black Friday deals beginning at 6 p.m.

“There is exceptional traffic,” Craig Johnson, president of Customer Growth Partners, told CNBC. “It’s definitely up.”

His retail consultancy has 20 members surveying customer traffic across the U.S.

Johnson added that he saw many younger shoppers taking to outlet stores Thursday evening to shop athletic brands including Nike, Under Armour and Adidas. His team also monitored particularly longer-than-usual lines forming outside some Best Buy stores, ahead of their 5 p.m. opening.

This year, Deloitte has forecast retail holiday sales to increase a “healthy” 4 to 4.5 percent compared with last year.

“Depending on the weather, I think folks will spend more time in stores today and tomorrow than any day this holiday season,” Rod Sides, vice chairman of Deloitte’s retail practice, told CNBC. He was stationed Friday morning inside the Hanes Mall in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where he saw a wide range of people including grandmothers to high school teens shopping, along with a higher-than-normal amount of younger consumers.

On Black Friday, footwear inventory was “jumping off the shelf,” and one home improvement store was “packed,” with more than double its normal volume of shoppers, he said.

“The cyber side will start to take over toward the end of the season, when people don’t have as much time,” Sides added.

That said, digital sales were also robust, with Adobe Analytics saying U.S. shoppers had spent $640 million as of 10 a.m. ET. That represents an 18.4 percent increase from a year ago. Adobe tracks 80 percent of online transactions at the top 100 U.S. retailers.

At Wal-Mart, customers were seen rushing in for smart TVs, cookware, toys and apparel, Chief Merchandising Officer Steve Bratspies said. Meanwhile, the big-box retailer was facing some backlash on social media for running out of items online.

Target said top sellers included Dyson and iRobot vacuums, Beats headphones, the Instant Pot 7-in-1 pressure cooker and Ninja coffee maker. When the big-box retailer’s doors opened at 6 p.m., it was also selling roughly 600 giant plush teddy bears every minute.

At many J.C. Penney stores, shoppers formed lines outside by lunchtime on Thursday, waiting for doors to open as early as 2 p.m. The department store chain was doling out coupon doorbusters, with the chance to win $500.

Macy’s CEO Jeff Gennette told CNBC Friday morning the holiday selling season is off to a “strong start,” and the retailer is making use of fewer promotions compared with past years. This could entail better profit margins in the company’s fourth quarter, as department stores have struggled of late with traffic dropping off at malls.

Black Friday circular discounts came in slightly less than last year, with retailers offering 44 percent off on average, compared to 45 percent last year, according to Market Track.

Across all categories, the steepest discounts compared to last year were in kids’ outerwear (28 percent steeper) and entertainment (10 percent steeper), the group found.

“The numbers are really positive … and it’s been a few years since we had a really solid holiday season,” Matthew Shay, CEO of the National Retail Federation, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Friday morning. NRF, the industry’s trade group, is predicting a 3.6 to 4 percent gain in retail holiday sales.

Calling this weekend retail’s “Super Bowl,” Shay said stores are set to make money, and it “makes sense” considering the state of the U.S. economy, there’s no looming government shutdown, the weather is “pretty good” and unemployment is notably low.

Most retailers expect heavy foot traffic in stores to continue through the weekend before they hit a lull up until Christmas week, as usually is the case.

Source: NPD

“The challenge for retail is to harness the personal need drivers behind this early spending, convert it into a continued desire to spend on more traditional gift items throughout the season, and do so in ways that extends beyond deep discounting,” NPD analyst Marshal Cohen said.

The market research group has also determined that so far in November, the “hottest products” are mainly related to self-gifting, or shoppers spending on themselves.

Top-performing categories include prestige beauty, women’s apparel, athletic footwear and small home appliances, Cohen said.

To avoid a drop off in foot traffic come early December, Kohl’s CEO Kevin Mansell told CNBC the retailer’s Kohl’s Cash coupons, which are being handed out on Black Friday, are one way to drive shoppers back to stores before they expire.

Mansell added that the top three best-selling items for Kohl’s on Black Friday were the Instant Pot, a Fitbit device and the Apple Watch. Apparel was also selling remarkably well, he said, with athletic brands Nike, Under Armour and Adidas leading the way.

Kohl’s is also kicking off “Cyber Week” Saturday evening, and for the first time will feature the same online deals all week long across its physical stores.

“You can’t lean against the ways that consumers want to buy,” Mansell said. But he added there are still ways to drive excitement around shopping in stores through the holidays.

Shares of multiple department store chains were climbing Friday on holiday sales optimism. Macy’s stock was up more than 4 percent, Kohl’s was up nearly 3 percent and J.C. Penney was climbing close to 2 percent. Shares of Sears Holdings, Nordstrom and Dillard’s were also moving higher.

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[cathrynstreich]

Changing the Rulebook, Charting the Future

Redfin Makes Its Mark on Real Estate

Editor’s Note: This is the cover story in the January 2020 issue of RISMedia’s Real Estate magazine. Subscribe today.

“I want my company to be the Apple Store of real estate,” said Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman back in 2012. “Shopping for a home should be all about the customer. By thinking more like a retailer, it’s possible to make the experience better.”

Today, Kelman has grown Redfin into one of the country’s leading real estate brokerage websites, with full-service agents who build relationships with real estate consumers in personal ways, whether over coffee or during home tours, but who are also equipped with online tools designed to make them smarter and faster.

Over the years, Redfin has set out to make many changes to the classic real estate model to create a better experience for the customer. Redfin’s agents are paid on salary and their commission, which is lower than most real estate firms, is dependent on customer satisfaction. Customers also have access to all listings online, and don’t have to rely on an agent to show them which properties are for sale.

Redfin believes that one tool that truly sets them apart from other real estate firms is their consumer-focused mobile app, which allows prospective buyers to peruse an area and search for nearby listings that fit their criteria. Consumers can search by neighborhood or school district…even by pizza shop.

Redfin believes its model is clearly working. The company reports that its listings sell 17 days faster and for $9,100 more than the average real estate transaction. More than 10,000 customers buy or sell a home with Redfin each year. Perhaps most important of all, Redfin boasts a 95 percent customer satisfaction rating.

Glenn Kelman, CEO, Redfin

The Redfin Customer Survey: Transparency Is Priority Redfin distributes various surveys based on the event at hand. For example, a customer would receive a different survey after making an offer versus taking a home tour. Redfin makes sure that all reviews are shared with agents.

The first part of every survey, however, starts the same way and asks the following questions:

1. How likely are you to recommend your agent’s real estate services to a friend or acquaintance? (Rated 0-10, with 10 being the strongest possible recommendation)

2. Please review your experience with your agent.

3. Can we anonymously share your comments about your agent with other Redfin website users? We will never share your name, email or other contact information.

If a client worked with a Redfin partner agent, his or her survey may include additional questions about that experience.

Once the client submits the first survey, they may be taken to a longer second survey. The second survey asks questions that are specific to the event. These responses are used internally for purposes such as developing demographic statistics, and are not directly displayed on Redfin.com.

www.redfin.com

Foretelling the Future As Redfin plans for further growth in the year ahead, tracking the market and consumer trends will remain a critical part of its strategy. To that end, the company has made some bold predictions for the 2020 housing market.

“We predict the housing market will be more competitive in 2020 as the cooldown that began in the second half of 2018 comes to an end,” says Redfin Chief Economist Daryl Fairweather. “Charleston and Charlotte will lead the nation in home-price gains, thanks to homebuyers moving in from expensive cities. Hispanic Americans will experience the biggest gains in home equity wealth, and climate change will become a much bigger factor for homebuyers and sellers.”

Here are Redfin’s six top housing market predictions for 2020*:

Prediction No. 1: Bidding wars will rebound thanks to low mortgage rates and a lack of homes for sale.

Low mortgage rates will continue to strengthen home-buying demand, but due to a lack of new homes for sale and homeowners staying put longer, there will be fewer homes on the market in 2020 than in the past five years, according to Redfin. More demand and less supply mean bidding wars will rebound in the first quarter.

“We expect about one in four offers to face bidding wars in 2020, compared to only one in 10 in 2019,” says Fairweather. “This increase in competition will push year-over-year price growth up to 6 percent in the first half of the year, considerably stronger than the 2 percent growth seen in the first half of 2019. Supply and demand will become more balanced later in the year as more listings of new and existing homes hit the market, allowing price growth to moderate to 3 percent.”

Prediction No. 2: Thirty-year fixed mortgage rates will stabilize at 3.8 percent.

Throughout 2020, 30-year fixed mortgage rates will remain low, hovering around 3.8 percent, Redfin forecasts. Faced with slowing economic growth, the Federal Reserve will keep interest rates low. Although the housing market is strong, weakness in other sectors, like manufacturing, is pulling down on the economy.

“Because investors are already bracing for the possibility of a recession, we don’t expect mortgage rates to fall much lower than 3.5 percent in 2020 even if the economy weakens,” says Fairweather. “And even if the economy strengthens, we expect mortgage rates to stay below 4.1 percent.”

Prediction No. 3: For the first time, Hispanic Americans will gain more wealth from home equity than white Americans.

According to Redfin, in the next decade, Hispanic Americans will, for the first time, gain more home equity than white Americans; that’s because the majority of new homeowners are Hispanic, and home values in Hispanic neighborhoods are increasing faster than in white neighborhoods.

“There are more Hispanic homeowners in Texas than in any other state, and Texas cities are likely to experience strong gains in home values over the next decade as people move here from more expensive places like San Francisco and Los Angeles,” says Fairweather. “Hispanic families will likely benefit from home equity gains for generations to come. Hispanic Americans could tap their home equity to finance their children’s education or to start businesses. Over time, this will improve economic equality for Hispanic Americans.”

Prediction No. 4: Climate change will become a bigger financial factor for homebuyers and sellers. In 2020, homebuyers and sellers will take the consequences of climate change into account when deciding to buy, says Redfin. The financial costs of climate change are already becoming more tangible as fire and flood insurance premiums rise.

“More people are becoming hyper-sensitive to flood insurance and its costs,” says Houston Redfin agent Irma Jalifi. “They’re thinking about how the weather will change over the next decade and whether there will be more historic floods like we’ve experienced recently. I had a buyer back out of a deal because he found out the property required flood insurance.”

Over the next decade, higher insurance premiums in high-risk areas will make housing even less affordable to more people, predicts Redfin. And in areas with the highest risk, insurers may stop providing insurance altogether, which means it will be nearly impossible to secure a mortgage in those areas.

Prediction No. 5: Charleston and Charlotte will lead the nation in home-price growth. Affordable Southeast cities like Charleston and Charlotte are attracting an increasing number of migrants from expensive cities, which will drive up home-price growth in these areas, according to Redfin. Charleston saw a 104 percent annual increase in the number of Redfin users looking to move there, relative to the number of users looking to move out, in the third quarter of 2019, and Charlotte saw a 44 percent increase. Migrants are attracted to the growing economies of Charleston and Charlotte—Microsoft is spending $23 million to expand its Charlotte campus, and in Charleston, the new Volvo plant is adding thousands of jobs.

“A lot of migrants from up North or out West move to Charleston because it is such a lovely place—out-of-towners fall in love with our Cypress gardens and world-class beaches,” says Redfin agent and Team Manager Jacie Paulson. “The fact that we have an international airport means that companies are more willing to allow their remote employees to live here because it is easy to travel back and forth to headquarters. We also have a strong local economy with jobs at Boeing, Volvo and in the military.”

Prediction No. 6: More city streets will become car-free.

In 2020, Redfin believes more cities will favor green modes of transit and actively discourage driving. Some cities already have plans in the works—San Francisco’s Market Street will transform into a car-free corridor in 2020 and New York City drivers will have to pay to drive into the heart of the city beginning in 2021. In cities that become less car-friendly, those that frequently spend time in the city center will place more value on a commute that doesn’t require a car and move to either the walkable city center or close to public transit. Meanwhile, some people will choose to avoid the city center altogether and put a higher value on homes in the suburbs where they can work, play and live.

The Redfin team at the NASDAQ Market Site in Times Square

Partnering for the Future By consistently staying ahead of the curve on key market trends and consumer demands, Redfin plans to make an even bigger impact in the real estate space in the year ahead.

“We strive to be good partners, as individual agents negotiating a sale with another party, and as a company,” says Kelman. “We pride ourselves on the quality of life we offer our agents who, compared to agents at other brokerages, earn more and stay at their brokerage longer. We believe the only way to advance the careers of agents at Redfin, and, ultimately, at other brokerages, is to innovate, giving agents the best products to serve customers. This is why we’re hopeful that we can develop new partnerships with other brokerages over time, so all of us can help people take advantage of new technologies for selling homes.”

*These predictions reflect the beliefs of the Redfin team about the overall housing market. It’s not intended as historical information or future guidance to the investment community and shouldn’t be relied on for those purposes. To find out which predictions in this article come true, and which predictions turn out to be incorrect, follow the Redfin blog for real-time research on the housing market.

Adam Wiener is Redfin’s chief growth officer. For more information, please visit www.redfin.com.

The post Changing the Rulebook, Charting the Future appeared first on RISMedia.

Changing the Rulebook, Charting the Future published first on https://thegardenresidences.tumblr.com/

[uniteordie-usa]

Grand Jury Empaneled In $10 Million Fraud Probe Involving Jane And Bernie Sanders

http://uniteordie-usa.com/grand-jury-empaneled-in-10-million-fraud-probe-involving-jane-and-bernie-sanders/ http://uniteordie-usa.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Bernie-Hey-Kids-You-Want-Some-Free-College-1.jpg Grand Jury Empaneled In $10 Million Fraud Probe Involving Jane And Bernie Sanders   An FBI probe into a 2010 property deal orchestrated by Jane Sanders, wife of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), has escalated after a report by VTDIGGER reveals that a grand jury has been empaneled, and at least one witness has given sworn testimony in the case. Jane and Bernie Sanders...

  An FBI probe into a 2010 property deal orchestrated by Jane Sanders, wife of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), has escalated after a report by VTDIGGER reveals that a grand jury has been empaneled, and at least one witness has given sworn testimony in the case.

Jane and Bernie Sanders

According to VTDigger, “Former Burlington College board member Robin Lloyd says she testified for about an hour on Oct. 26 before a grand jury at the federal courthouse in Burlington.”

Paul Van de Graaf, chief of the criminal division for the U.S. attorneys office in Vermont, questioned Lloyd about her role as the development chair of the colleges board of trustees during a period when Sanders was collecting donations and pledges for the purchase of a $10 million city lakefront property. –VTDigger

The Grand Jury will decide whether or not indictments should be handed down over a $10 million loan orchestrated by Jane Sanders purchase a 33 acre property for the now defunct Burlington College – allegedly obtained through a ‘fraudulent scheme.’ Mrs. Sanders is accused of having lied about funding for transaction, while the FBI has also been looking into claims that Bernie Sanders’ office pressured the bank to approve the loan.

Burlington College 33-acre property

In June 2017, Politico confirmed that Bernie Sanders and his wife Jane had retained high powered DC lawyers amidst the investigation.

The original request for an investigation into Federal bank fraud was sent in a January 2016 letter to the Vermont District Attorney as well as the FDIC by Brady Toensing – an attorney and chair of Donald Trump’s Vermont campaign. The letter detailed the mechanics of the alleged fraud, which is what reportedly launched official investigations. Toensing told Politico on in June; “The investigation was started more than a year ago under President Obama, his Attorney General Loretta Lynch, and his United States Attorney, all of whom are Democrats.”

A brief history of Jane Sanders and Burlington College

In 2004, Jane Sanders left her position as her husband’s congressional chief of staff to become president of the unaccredited and struggling Burlington College – founded in 1972 and operated out of a former grocery store. When Sanders took over as a “turnaround” president, she set out to rapidly grow the college – announcing a $6 million plan to expand the campus in 2006 which never came to fruition.

Meanwhile, Sanders was rapidly earning a reputation for her “toxic and disruptive” leadership style, and in late 2008, according to a 2016 essay on the college written by a former teacher Greg Guma, “Nearly half of the students and faculty members signed a petition demanding a meeting about the “Crisis in leadership,” while Jane Sanders’ salary rose to $150,000 in 2009 amidst a tuition hike from $5,000 to $22,407 in 2011. Meanwhile, enrollment dropped by almost 25%.

In 2008, literature professor Genese Grill wrote to the school’s academic affairs committee, describing Sanders’ “harassment and unethical treatment of other faculty and staff members, many of whom have since left the college disgruntled and angry.”

And in 2010, Jane Sanders announced a plan to move the tiny underfunded Burlington college onto a 33 acre parcel of valuable lakefront real estate in Northern Burlington. “It was the last piece of undeveloped, prime property on the lake shore,” according to Guma.

The property was owned by the Roman Catholic Diocese, which was strapped for cash after recently settling over two dozen sexual abuse lawsuits for $17.76 million. The 33 acre property hit the market for $12.5 million, and the church agreed to take Jane Sanders’ offer of $10 million.

Scheming for loans

When Jane Sanders made the offer to the Roman Catholic Diocese, Burlington College was nearly broke – with an annual budget just below $4 million. In order to finance the property, Sanders secured a $6.5 million loan from People’s United Bank in the form of a tax exempt bond purchase, and the Catholic Church agreed to carry a $3.65 million second mortgage on the property. Sanders told both institutions that Burlington college had $5 million in likely donor pledges and $2.4 million in confirmed pledges to be used to pay off the debt.

Unfortunately, that was just for the land. Sanders apparently didn’t plan for the $6 million or so required to actually build out the campus on the property to include green space, athletic fields, lecture halls, and walkways.

Compounding an already dire situation, Sanders’ original claim of $2.4 million in confirmed donor pledges was quickly reduced to $1.2 million according to documents filed in the first fiscal year after the purchase – yet in records obtained by VTDigger, Burlington College received only $279,000. Despite hopes by Sanders and college trustees that they could boost enrollment and expand the student body, nothing changed – and the school failed at raising the money to satisfy it’s loans.

And then Jane Sanders was fired, with a $200,000 severance package.

In order to try and avoid bankruptcy, Burlington college sold off pieces of the 33 acre property to a local developer – which allowed the institution to pay off some of the debt Jane Sanders had accumulated, however in April 2016 the bank called it’s loan – and on May 28th, the college closed it’s doors after 44 years in operation.

As part of its bankruptcy, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Burlington lost at least $1.5 million and perhaps as much as $2 million on the $3.65 million loan.

Enter the FBI

Politico revealed in their June report that Federal investigators and FBI agents started to pull apart the $10 million financial arrangement. They showed up at Burlington College to sift through hard drives, audit reports and spreadsheets. They began to interview donors, board members and past president Carol Moore. I was contacted and spoke with an FBI agent numerous times last spring, again last summer, Moore told Vermont Public Radio in May 2017, and recently, maybe a month ago.

With a Grand Jury now empaneled and interviewing witnesses in the Burlington College saga, one can imagine the outcome of their investigation will largely determine whether Bernie Sanders is a viable candidate in 2020, should he wish to challenge Oprah Winfrey of course.

 Read More: https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-01-08/grand-jury-empaneled-10-million-fraud-probe-involving-jane-and-bernie-sanders