All Forum Posts by: Jon Martin

Quote from @Andrew Steffens:

I manage a few properties in coastal NJ and the season is 3-4 months.  If you are good at managing a budget I think this is fine.

I agree, especially somewhere that is barely habitable those other 6 months, which describes the UP of Michigan quite well. Unless you are near a ski hill, there are very few reasons to be there at that time. 

That said you certainly need to manage your cash well in order to cover the bills in the down season. 

Quote from @Benjamin Louie:

It's definitely a case of people jumping in without fully understanding how drastically different the STR market is from a few years ago. A smarter approach would involve thorough market research, realistic projections on occupancy rates

That, and not taking the furnishing/decor and management aspects of it seriously. They put their old hand me down furniture and cheap plastic Dollar Tree kitchen utensils in there, pass off the management to Vacasa or Evolve, and expected to make a killing. Those days are done unless you have a property in an A+ location. 

"and understanding that not every location is still a goldmine for STRs"

IMO the goldmines are the places that you don't think would be goldmines. Everyday mid-sized cities with growing populations have people traveling to them for all sorts of reasons. Especially with a bigger home. I'm getting weddings and events on weekends booked well in advance and work crews working on new construction booking mid-week. 

Plenty of listings with cell phone pics showing basic interiors in my market have the top 10% trophy and well-populated calendars. Those are the markets I go after, because if I go a few notches about that I know I can easily be in the top 5%.  

The market is saturated if you don’t have the creativity to look beyond the top dozen or so markets. It’s a big country out there, plenty of potential. 

@James Hamling "Your a waste of my energies. You run wild with assumption, infer things I never inferred or stated, disregard facts,"

Um, really? How many times now have I pointed out in this very thread where you changed a few key words and then formulated an argument against it? That is the definition of a Strawman argument. 

""the us and Taiwan lead in....." no, it would just be Taiwan, the US produces diddly squat in contrast to Taiwan" 

The USA and Netherlands make the machinery that is required to make the make advanced semiconductors. 

"And BRICS is resource rich, more so than the US."

If you combine them all together, sure, but the US still has a vast natural and intellectual resource base. China is more dependent on natural resources from elsewhere than the US. 

"And yeah, the melt-down of our society does matter when were trying to convince the planet to use our USD as world reserve, it does matter that the society backing it is a dumpster fire, that = volatility"

Like I said, the culture wars stuff in the US is insane, but why don't you also take an honest look at the social and demographic issues that these countries are dealing with? I'd rather live in a country where there is confusion about what a woman is, than a country where women have minimal rights or where they are in short supply because of failed social engineering policies. 

"The US "democracy" is a faint, it's a perception of choice"

Again- is there a more democratic and less corrupt BRICS country that we can look to? 

You still haven't touched the trust issue in regards to how confident the rest of the world will be in this new currency. If the people of those countries don't even trust their own banks, and instead put USD under the mattress and buy real estate in Europe and the US to store their wealth, what makes you think there will be any trust in this new currency?

Quote from @James Hamling:

Nowhere did I say "superior" and nowhere did I limit what I said to the US. These are western society values. 

The difference is that you won't get arrested in San Francisco and potentially do years in prison for wearing a MAGA hat. 

"The #1 thing the "west" had over BRICS was a moral superiority."

LOL, no, not even close (but maybe also that). The west has far more democracies, better ability to depose of leaders, less dictators, more equal rights, greater transparency, more accessible property rights that are enforced in courts, more trustworthy banking systems. . . The list goes on. The countries in the East where this is also true tend to be more cozy with the US than they are with China. 

Try wearing a Ukraine flad in Russia or a Free Tibet or Uiygur shirt in China and let us know how that goes for you.

"not to mention the US going hard HARD Left with ultra lgbtqxrz15qqfsdb"

I agree that this is crap is absurd, but that has little to do with global currency trading and trust is foreign banks and currency markets. 

"And when you say China is dependent on west for resources, is resource poor..... Sorry, done right there because you obviously are clueless and just talking out your arse."

I said they were dependent on the world for resources, not the west. That's why they invest so heavily in Africa and other nations. If every country were cut off from each other, China would have a tougher go at going alone than many. 

"Tech is reliant on China. Do your research, real actual research, learn a thing or two on this"

More of your condescending garbage. Do I need to post photos of my passport stamps? Happy to do so. The US and Taiwan lead the world in semiconductor technology.

"I don't know what you mean when say it's easy to prop up countries from afar. Are you meaning me? Oh, sorry, last time I was in a BRICS nation was January, 2024.... Yuuup, so, you assumed wrong, yet again."

No, another one of your reading comprehension fails and false assumptions. I'm saying the grass is always greener. Autocratic governments tend to have even more issues because the issues are hidden from the public and nobody within those institutions wants to risk pushing them up the chain to get solved. 

"Look, your clearly not open to any facts so this is pointless. I have lent facts, you reply with opinions, this is just go on forever long as your locked into opinion bias. "

More projection. My point is that you are pointing out everything that is wrong with the US while saying that everything else in the rest of the world is rainbows and unicorns. My point is that we all have our problems, it's simply easier to notice our own because we live here and we have a free media that can talk about them openly.

"Me, personally, I am NOT a fan of BRICS, not in the least. But I am a realist, I accept things for what they are and move forward. I am results based. And those facts are the US is loosing, and we have idiots in charge because we select idiots, who's focus is there personal power, personal enrichment, not the job, the country, the long term ramifications."

And again- these countries are run by geniuses who do everything right? Many Latino immigrants in the US lived through bank appropriations in the 70-00s. China and Russia don't even pretend to have an honest banking system. Do you really think that the rest of the world is going to trust countries with that track record? 

Quote from @James Hamling:

 BRICS..... How about INDIA..... 

Look, fact is the #1 reason why BRICS hasn't kicked the USD's butt all over the planet yet is because the BRICS can't get there sh_t together on a unified reserve currency that is up to the task. RU ruble, no, even RU knows that. Yuan, many arguments for that but they know it's not adoptable internationally due to CCCP ability and actions to readily manipulate it at will. That's really it, that's the last piece to the puzzle. 

They sort that circus out, USD is in very serious trouble. Especially if they do it in a decentralized manner, which they seem to be leaning towards doing given the 40+ new countries entering BRICS sphere of recent. 

You need to do more then regurgitate what your media is feeding you Jon, get out in the world, read market news as in reports of the actual things happening not opinion pieces telling you what to think. The US is on a SIGNIFICANT decline, that's just reality. As is the "west" in large part.     

I would agree with you that India is the bright spot among the 5. Democracy, solid demographics, well educated, diversified economy. I would also agree that Brazil has the foundational pillars if they can solve their corruption and trust issues.

As for Russia, most of the smart kids left and the rest of the men are at risk of not making it out alive. Plus they are largely a commodity based economy. China is natural resource poor and dependent on the rest of the world to fill that void, and with cheap labor drying up they will lose some ground on the manufacturing side. 

“The BRICS, reality is they control such a massive vast majority of world population, land and resources it's ridiculous. India, China, Russia, Brazil and South Africa...... Think about the positioning of these places, these are also strategically placed. Oil, minerals, you name it they have it in VAST supply.”

That’s interesting because last I checked, USA had the most agricultural and oil exports? We arguably have the best geography because we can’t be walked to by a 100+ nations. Given our diverse economy of both commodities and tech, I think we will do fine if the world decides to go multi polar or even isolatonist. 

“Tell me Jon, when is last time you were in a BRICS nation? When is last time you saw with your own 2 eyes? “

I was in South Africa, Hong Kong and Turkey in 2018/19. I’ve spent 6 months in Brazil over several trips. Sold products for my day job in South America. So yeah- I’ve been around. It’s easy to prop up countries from afar, but once you are on the ground you realize that they struggle with a lot of the same issues as we do. Plus, democracy has a way of showing its warts, whereas dictators jail and kill the people who try to expose them, which makes them fester more. 

Which relates to this gem you just posted:

“Problem is the lying is so rampant, hell it's "main-stream" now for cooked-books and out-right lying in reports. 0 accountability anymore, 0.”

. . . Because China and Russia are so well respected on the world stage for their transparency and honesty right? Lolz. This is why the BRICS won’t live up to the hype- there is no trust, which is one of the foundational pillars of a successful currency. 

Quote from @James Hamling:

Wow, have fun in your eco-chamber. 

Last I checked, Hong Kong wants nothing to do with mainland China. Beyond that this isn’t about East vs West, it’s specifically China and Russia where the management of the BRICS currency will be based, which are 2 of the most untrustworthy countries in the world when it comes to human and property rights. 

Which is why there are more Chinese people parking their capital here than the other way around, and same goes for Russians with Western Europe. 

Quote from @Bud Gaffney:

@James Hamling ah another troll. At least your appear to be a real person :)

I’ve been hearing this narrative for decades. Remember when we were talking about “Peak Oil” in the 00s being the end of the global economy?  

Quote from @James Hamling:

Quote from @Jon Martin:

....economic elites in the eastern hemisphere invest their profits in Western banks and real estate for a reason. 

Apparently you've never heard of a little place called Dubai?..... 
Or London, Singapore, Hong Kong......
.... Luxembourg, Isle of Man, Switzerland......
(FYI maybe ya wanna read Global Finance magazine as Luxembourg was rated #1 richest country in the world 2024, give ya 2 guesses how that is as there's no oil, no ocean, land-locked tiny nation middle of Europe.....)
.... Bank of the Bahamas, Cyprus, Qatar, Macao, Ireland.......

Sorry bud, facts don't fit your feelings......

 Sorry bud, but your reading comprehension doesn’t match my post and basic geography. “Western Banks” is what I said, not US banks, which would encompass all of Western Europe. Even countries that are not technically in the western hemisphere. Even if we draw the line between East and West at Greenwich Village, pretty sure that Ireland and Bahamas would count. Lol

Broader point is that currency is based on trust, and China and Russia are the antithesis of that on the world stage. We are no Boy Scout either, but in a relative sense they are different worlds. Which is why there is more investment in real estate and bank deposits  in the “western world” (which includes. Luxembourg and Switzerland) from the East than the other way around.