In response to California Banker: Views from the Business Banker’s Chair I received a pair of emails from readers tuned into Virginia.
Livs in Virginia (LIV) writes …
Hi Mish
Richmond VA, where I live, is inundated with radio commercials to get rich quick by flipping houses. And I’ve seen articles in the paper about flippers. I, too, viewed this as being indicative of a top.
We’ve also seen a huge surge in new restaurants.
There has been a really big surge has been in microbreweries, and its now in the bubble phase, something not seen since 1996. The GM of Legend Brewing, which has been around for 22 years, told me he’s counted > 25 new breweries opened in the greater Richmond area. Most of these have no distribution, no access to shelf space in grocery stores, and are simply trying to find a niche in a crowded market. They will be washed out in the next recession; good brands and brewing tanks will sell for 10 cents on the dollar. I suspect that most of these ventures have been funded with private capital and SBA loans rather than bank lending, but I have no hard data to support this view.
And my local banker has repeatedly told me loan demand is as strong as he’s seen in years. The COO of the local ‘bankers bank’ tells me that loan covenants and pricing have been getting weaker for several years due to competition for good loans. The bankers will lend right into the top and won’t recognize the top until it’s too late. Happens every time. And the small banks have taken much duration risk in the investment portfolios in search of yield.
There has been a huge 25-year wave of converting old buildings in Richmond into apartments and I’d say in the last 5 years that move has gone into warp drive. I’ve wondered for the past 5 years how many apartments Richmond can possibly support. And if there should ever be some event (e.g. riots) that change the perception of young adults to not wanting to live in the inner city, then good luck finding a bid. FNMA has helped fuel this boom by offering long term cheap fixed rate, nonrecourse financing.
LIV
State Tax Plunge
Meanwhile, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports State Revenue Growth Loses Steam in April as Income Tax Payments Lag.
Total revenues fell by 3.4 percent compared with the same month a year ago, but that’s not what most concerns budget officials. They’re wondering why estimated and final income tax payments from nonwithholding fell almost 18 percent in the month and 4.2 percent for the year to date.
“It’s probably weaker than we’d like to see,” Secretary of Finance Richard D. “Ric” Brown said in an interview.
State revenues had come out of March strong, growing 4.6 percent for the first nine months of the fiscal year compared with an annual projection of 2.9 percent. The results in April dropped the growth rate for the year to 3.6 percent.
“I think the optimism in March gave way to the reality in April,” House Appropriations Chairman S. Chris Jones, R-Suffolk, said Thursday.
What can possibly go wrong?
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
Unless there is a very real downturn it’s hard to imagine the Fed changing tack on rate rises. Onward, upward, until something does indeed break.
If the cause is low rates, the cures probably the opposite so long as banks remain intact and stable during the fall-out.
Let the little people take the hit.
Micro breweries spring up everywhere. There are a ton of them in Texas and two months ago a new opened in Arlington. The problem with these micro breweries is the prices they charge for tier beers. I can buy a six pack of good established beer (Shiner and a few others) for 7-8 dollars while the new micro brews cost 9-10 a six pack. I guess marketing is what makes the difference in their quality and taste. Here in Europe I haven’t seen anything like a micro brewery and I suspect that is due to the nanny state and its regulatory strangle hold on business. It is far easier to become a winery, go figure.
Yeah, Richmond’s apartment conversions are nothing new. I suspect there may be an uptick in armature builders reaching for the brass ring. It’s one thing to do simple remodels and flip them in a strong marker, it is completely different when attempting a complete renovation. Yes, all those HGTV shows make it look simple but you should notice they those “flippers” or home buyers have a couple of professional craftsmen doing the work. The work looks easy but without a couple years experience one gets lost very easy and can make costly mistakes.
Gentrification has negative aspects. Baltimore has shown that when neighborhoods of old or at least older housing are being renovated close to the “Hoods”, one often finds exhortations to burn it down. This seems to be a “Black Thing”, we don’t need (insert insult name here) coming into our neighborhoods. We have had eight years of race war incitement from Obama and we could lay another eight at the feet of Bush and perhaps another eight at the feet of Clinton. Obama just made it extremely obvious. The last two generations of black men and women are angry and blaming anyone they perceive as white, and by extension must be racist, supremacist, colonialist) as the problems and think violence is the best way to correct their lives.
We are facing more problems than failed micro breweries, restaurants, and converted housing failures. We are seeing social breakdown on the horizon and that will be the ugly part of life for some period of time. Meanwhile we continue to dance as the good ship sinks. No iceberg, just a million little leaks.
Microbrews are trendy because they market themselves as a unique product, almost like art pieces. The brewmasters are artisans who will happy BS you about all the “special imported hops” and describe flavors that aren’t really there or are drowned out by the overwhelming hops that these guys use.
microbrews are successful when they are really just pubs with a small brewery out back.
They also are successful when the downtowns gentrify. Appears Richmond is succesfully experiencing a renaissance.
The grumpy old guy yelling at clouds in Mish’s first report sure is in for a shocker when he tries to sell his McMansion in a couple of years. His McMansion out in the ex-urbs will be plummeting in value. Meanwhile, those brick mills renovated in downtown Richmond will skyrocket in value.
In the early seventies I “discovered” wine and started my process of becoming a “wine snob”. Do all those flavors really exist? Most likely. My first lesson in the game of wine snob came in Los Gatos at a wine tasting where I had paid $100 to partake of approximately 3 ounces of six first growth Bordeaux. That was 1976 if memory serves and it was my birthday treat to myself. The bottles were opened and the glasses poured, then as if someone said, “Gentlemen, start your engines.” the tasting began. Three people at a table a little removed from me were a little loud in their comments among them. What I saw and heard became a pattern which I recognized. with each one throwing our some description at the others, each had to admit that they too, smelled that same aroma. And he who came up with the most aroma wins unless the other default by not being able to recognize some particular aroma. And of course one cannot challenge as to whether a particular aroma is in the nose of the wine. To say that you cannot recognize it or that it isn’t there is to admit that your palate is not as good as everyone else’s.
That night I stopped trying to find all the aromas in a wine and started to enjoy the wine for what it was. I am quite a bit older these days and my nose is not as good as it used to be, its ability declines with age as do the muscles. But my enjoyment of wine, beer, alcohols has not diminished. Being in France for the next three months is like a second young adulthood. I will taste a hell of a lot of good wine we don’t get in the states and much or what I taste costs less than California cab or chardonnay. I get non vintage village box wine in the ten liter size from Beaune at a buck and a half per liter that makes Calif pinot look stupid. The fact is, there are a thousand “village” wines that are 100 time better than anything Gallo ever tried to make as jug wine. Of course not to knock Gallo, they had garbage to work with and made better than garbage wine, it was at least drinkable and millions of people enjoyed. That is the purpose of any beverage, that one should enjoy it, even water.
But back to trendiness. Yes, wineries are still going through that cycle and micro breweries are still climbing the steep learning curve. It all comes down to money. Bud and Miller are essentially commodities. Microbrews are still “bespoke”. After some period of popularity a microbrewery will survive and expand its production. As it does it slowly loses quality and the essential difference that set it apart. As many drinkers of Elephant beer here in Europe discovered when the Mexican corporate behemoth bought the company a a few years ago, cost cutting and automation of processes and ingredients has a price. Becks suffered the same fate.
So the little fish get eaten or die for the most part unless they grow larger and then they lose their edge. I’m sure KFC was much better when Sanders only had the one store.
Enjoyed your post on the wines. A good fresh cask beer is unlike anything that can be bottled, and therein lies the attraction. Actually, an area can support many dozens of microbreweries, if the clientele is there. Whether I would loan them money or not is another story. Portland, Oregon has over 50 in just the city proper. The Portland microbreweries are amazingly varied and also compete with excellent chefs and food offerings that make them eating destinations. The Portland brewers also compete on brew quality and originality, and they can add herbs and ingredients that defy the imagination. Regulations prohibit brewing with medical marijuana, though I am told home brewers do it. Talk about “micro,” one place I visited had over 50 different brews going at any one time. So, impossible to run out of new brews to sample. Lots of blue collar working people drinking there. Indianapolis, Indiana has over two dozen microbreweries around the downtown area, and they seem to fill up when the football team is home.
You are right about beers and breweries. Beer in many places centuries ago, even in Greece, used beer because the water was “bad”, meaning generally unhealthy. I like a good amber or red beer with my steak, ale with my pork chops, and white wine with my seafood. Of course I also love a good red wine with my beef. But if all a restaurant has is PBR or Coors Light or some other atrocity to taste I either have water or I stop going there. Yes, beer is enjoyable to the senses. Thanks for the information.
I enjoy good wines also. But if there’s one bubble brewing it’s grapes/wineries. They are now everywhere and someday they will be giving it away.
Unsustainable comes to mind.
How to deconstruct white identity for the good of… not sure really… everyone ? … our own good ? … the good of white people ? … by
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/12/30/why-white-genocide-is-key-to-the-earths-survival-white-genocide-from-baldwin-to-ciccariello-maher/
What do people become afterwards ?
Numbers ?
Better make sure they’re all even so no one gets called odd.
I am still looking for a term that describes ‘non-descrimination’ as a form of discrimination, but maybe “misplaced and selfish opportunistic annihilism of any differences ” will just have to do, that would be M.A.S.O. for short.
Hands up who wants to become an acronym ( no, I didn’t really want to know, it was spoken in jest and has nothing to do with becoming timeless … eye roll ) ?
One does not deconstruct “White Identity”, after all, the idea of deconstruction is to reduce to a sort of atomic scale the whole so that one can reconstruct except no one ever bothers to put the parts back into the whole. This is why social science and philosophy are not sciences, they fail the theory – test- verify – repeat – compare results type of inquirers.
So what to do? Obviously label terms that once had clear meaning but are now more of an emotional construct. Then divide these individuals and groups into separate classes or groups while point out that they have no value to the rest of the world. And then go on diversity hunts so that identity of even the least difference becomes a cause celebrate which we can offer upon the altar of Diversity and show how wise and tolerant we are as long as everyone acknowledges the right values and all becomes meaningless. It is best to remain totally ignorant or at least profess blandness of one’s identity lest one need to prove he or she or it (choose your pronoun) actually knows something and thus subject to ridicule.
the ultimate diversity in a society is when everyone is the same and their diversity become totally meaningless. To know oneself is a crime against humanity or at least diversity. Remember, now all diversities are equal, some are more equal than others.
In other words, a fair portion of the world’s western societies might as well be back in the 7th century where ignorance is king and knowledge is death. That is what our institutes for higher education teach and will continue until the ignorant have no further need of their services.
So have faith, the western societies are headed for the dark ages, sort of like being thrown in the basement closet with all the black beetles until we learn better.
Epic comment.
What put me onto the topic was reading up on discussions of whether France is close to dropping its non recognition of race/religion at state level, if it will go the multicultural path.
Laicity in France, the fully secular approach, seems to me both the pinnacle and epitomy of state. The pinnacle because it is strict to non-discrimination by authority, the epitomy because the politics of demographics and legislative maneuver it allows will lead to its own demise.
It ignores the tradition of the nation it is supposed to serve, corrupting it along the way. What they are talking of is introducing a multicultural system of management, and frankly this is not necessarily better. I used to think the US/UK model was ok, much better than the French denial of cultural and ethnic shifts occuring , but after decades of watching what kind of authority feeds off it, and understanding who ends up paying, I don’t think it is a valid model either – seems to be no way to keep the forces at play in moderation.
Western societies have not much space left to straighten this out , the alternative not necessarily doomed but certainly little of what we know and appreciate of today, or maybe better said – of yesterday.
Anyway, here is a random chosen link on the question for anyone who reads French:
http://jforum.fr/edouard-philippe-futur-premier-ministre.html
Well, first things first. I would recommend you read Victor Davis Hanson and in particular his “The Father Of U All: War And History – Ancient and Modern- as a prelude to understanding the world we inhabit.
Then one become familiar with a number of writers but i haven’t the time to list them all. If you read Milton’s Paradise Lost, written during the times of the English Civil Wars, and then follow with Marx’s tome on Communism, you would be struck by the similarities. Garden of Edens or Utopias are like that, they all read the same. Even much of the current progressive liberalism writing reads the same way. To wit: society and its individuals can and will be saved and conveyed to heaven or paradise by the act of perfection. For Milton, this paradise was temporal but also could have been otherworldly. It makes no difference in the real world. Marx saw the need for the state to become the untilmate dictator and rearrange society and the economic process until the spirit of communism , just as the spirit of god for Milton, would take hold in all individuals and the need for a dictator would disappear and all would be governed by this new spirit. For the progressives, it’s the elites by virtue of their training who will make the decisions even to the lowest lever and all individuals should gratefully submit to the authority of the elites. hat is actually Plato and his dream state of new Sparta where a few philosophers would rule the masses.
In all cases, the individual at each level, call it a class or caste system, knows his or her place and his or her duties to the state and to others, and accepts them without question.
Marxism having failed economically now has its sights set on cultural appropriation as the means for power. That is, the centrally planned economy was an absolute failure and would have failed within a few years but the planners kept looking at the prices in the western countries as a means to stay within the ball park. Pretty soon they ran out of ball park. But culture is another matter. After all, how can a culture fail?
Well, if we remove all references to a central culture that used to define our society and replace it with a new set of values, values that have little meaning or are more or less duplicitous, then how would all those future citizens discover the truth, that the culture is meaningless?
Do you see the point? If everything revolves around a meaningless set of moral values, if all you know is a limited bit of knowledge of what you have been taught and if you have been prevented by one means or another of thinking for yourself and, god forbid, actually asking questions that demand answers the elites can’t provide, well you see the problem. You must be kept ignorant at all times. You will find this thesis in Orwell’s book, 1984. As long as one is ignorant the truth no longer matters.
Does this make sense for you? I admit this is a bit sweeping in scope but there are a good many writers out there who have weighed in on these very assertions.
“The last two generations of black men and women are angry and blaming anyone they perceive as white, and by extension must be racist, supremacist, colonialist) as the problems and think violence is the best way to correct their lives.”
That’s the Leftist Agenda narrative maybe, but i don’t see that in my personal life.
I would direct you to Michael Flarthy
I hate it when the program becomes so intrusive i can’t finish my post. Michael Flarthy, and I can’t vouch for the spelling, has written a couple of books: White Girl Bleed A Lot, Don’t Make The Black Kids Angry, and a new one that is coming out. I would also recommend Jessie Lee Peterson’s books as well.
For the most part, the liberal left, the progressives ignore what is happening in the Black communities and society. I use society as if somehow it is separate from the rest of the country. The evidence suggests that even at the upper middle class and upper class Blacks, their view of society is a bit different from that of the white, hispanic, or asian communities. Not to make a “color” issue out of it, but in these times where the narrative being pushed is more about differences, read diversity, between individuals and groups we start to see identity politics as real problem in this country.
The liberal media has for the past two decades pushed to cover up the identity of criminal activity by not identifying the perpetrator as black. The idea that somehow there must be a problem with society when black children are disproportionately punished in our public schools and it is due to race rather than the individual behavior has become a knee-jerk reaction. So we are faced with either suppressing the number of offences or simply not recognizing the criminal behavior. What is the easy way to lower crime statistics? Don’t bother to report them. If you live in a large city and own a retail business you already know that shoplifting, while a crime, remains a non-crime by the police departments. You know that property crimes are all too often placed on the lowest priority or simply ignored by the police in order to reduce the crime statistics. And you know that most often your “suspect” is black.
So as long as the media is complicit in non reporting of serious crime by black individuals, as long as police departments are ordered to reduce crime by under reporting and not answering petty or even minor crime complaints the success of the reduction of crime can be announced. But the people in the city know the difference. True, they may make changes to their daily routines, decide not to attend certain social functions for fear of being targets of criminal attacks, and so on. But that doesn’t change the reality of living in the big city or even some small ones.
The neighborhood I live in is a mixed one, my guess is about a third white, a third hispanic, and a third black. My neighbors across the street are landscape contractors. their vehicles were the constant targets of break ins until they put up surveillance cameras. Once the police saw the camera feeds, they knew which individuals were behind the break ins. They were all black. I have placed surveillance cameras on my house and am left alone for now.
Why should it be this way? There are several theories but the best I can state is that when you have been told that you are the recipient of attacks by white supremacists and racism and all your failings are due to racism and white supremacist all the time and that explains everything, and that you have the right to act out in your own way, the law has no right to tell you what to do, and so it goes (go Read Critical Theory), then what can we expect from those groups who believe that they are owed so much and don’t owe society anything?
Do I like this “theory”? No, but unfortunately it explains the fact all too often. And the evidence in all over the internet. There are literally a hundred thousand hours of video of crimes in progress, of victims, of police trying to do their job only to be met with hostile actions. If the media constantly refuses to show such video, it the civic leaders constantly disavow any such evidence, if it all remains well hidden, then what are we to believe? All must be well and the problem is us. It is a rude awakening when we find that we have been lied to for political purposes and things have only been made worse so that a few may profit from the sufferings of the many.
When will the shit hit the fan? When welfare reform is forced by necessity and all those ebt cards run out of money. And as more and more proponents of Critical theory believe that “whitey” must pay and wish to use force the more we shall see the “Hoods” surrounded by barbwire fences and house to house searched for weapons, most illegally obtained, and the more death comes to those Hoods. There will be no other choice. That is the sad part, so many people are being lied to and taught the wrong values. And so many will die for it. I wish that there was another way.
Ron – I am about as multicultural as they come without it being ‘incorrect’ , I have lived in tens of countries, most of my life abroad, have friends of many nationalities, without grievance but from the nationality called ‘state’ in its official roles.
So as far as I am concerned the question is not what kind of hood or neighbour we might have, it is the evolution of those that govern us, it is about the nature of our government and the kind of society, politics, and economics it litterally imposes in its subtle and not so subtle ways.
What William is talking of does exist, it can be marginalised or exaggerated, remembering that conflicts have started over lesser themes. The point being that there seems to be no fully acceptable solution to these differing criteria, and that the shift in power is increasingly moving towards a vague global statist non-national framework that necessarily seeks to eliminate independent and local opposition, by dilution, by socialism, by demographics and by any other subversive means available. That is happening, both in Europe and the US. Eventually society will not be left with a country, nation, people or whatever category you care to choose, worth fighting for on traditional sentiment or knowledge.
The world evolves, we hope it would be in a peaceful and positive sense, many seem to think that is not the case, that they have been sold out.
The problem with multicultural neighbourhoods as I see it is was influenced by a movie about the separation of the Indian subcontinent directed by Deepa Mehta; Earth. Suddenly, communities that lived harmoniously for centuries got into a crazy murderous rampage when the top policemen, the British empire withdrew. This kind of tribalism could also happen when the economy collapses and the state is not able to maintain order and is overwhelmed. The downward spiral will be epic.
Of course, the monument to epic failure of society lies in the middle of Pacific; Easter Islands. Now the planet with 7 billion inhabitants is an island in the middle of the hostile universe. I pray nothing happens in my lifetime.
Um. Shiner is not the worst beer out there, but it’s hardly top notch stuff. Although I do enjoy a Shiner bock from time to time.
America is in a sorry state if good beer is left undrunk.
true, and Shiner Bock is a decent beer. Modelo Negro is another decent beer. Out of the ambers, I really like Alaskan Amber. At least here in the US we have more than a bevy of beauties to drink.
They’re converting buildings, including a large 20 YO class A office building in White Plains NY into apts, tearing down ratty old malls for hi rise rentals. There’s a residential building boom rivaling the one 10 years ago except it’s thousands of rentals, not condos this time. This is an echo boom driven by outrageous priced rentals in Manhattan, driven by 100 story condos, driven by suspicious foreign money.
And yes, there is a microbrewery planned downtown which will go into a new building with a retro industrial conversion look.
I assume all these buildings are rentals because the millenial residents don’t qualify for condo mortgages. It took a long time to absorb the last overbuild and most are still in the pipeline and I doubt they’ll be finished before this bubble pops.
Microbrews taste skunky and are expensive,I consider microbrewers to be modern versions of gentlemen farmers except their hobbies are funded with other peoples money which is even better.
I live in Michigan and they have been saying Detroit is coming back, LOL. I have heard this since college, a long time ago. Most of these cities will never be gentrified. Detroit has a high school graduation rate of <20%. A state university located in Detroit was offering free college to anyone who graduated high school but had to discontinue it because of the pathetically low graduation rate. Detroit has higher per pupil school funding than the national average. These problems are not caused by lack of govt funding or white people.
35 years ago, I did some consulting for the SBA on a loan made to a microbrewer in Sacramento. The guy couldn’t make his loan payments, but was asking for an additional loan to expand. The owner and I did a proforma income statement assuming a maximum sales price per bottle/glass at full production. He couldn’t breakeven! Apparently, nothing has changed at the SBA!
I believe he’s correct about brew tanks selling for 10 cents on the dollar. That’s what pizza ovens purchased new a few years earlier go for at auction. A family friend spent $900K on a pizza joint with no seating which went under a few years ago.
My liquor store carries a ton of micro brews, unfortunately many are past their expiration date. Bars that carry 100 beers on tap can’t be selling all fresh beer. Spend $9 on a glass of keg beer that was opened weeks ago? No thanks!
I used to pay $10.99 for a 4 pack of Founders Breakfast Stout. A month ago when the season ended it was on special for $4.99. I feel like an idiot paying that much before.
4 different BBQ joints closed down in my area in just a few years. The all had quick flame up booms, but could never stay afloat very long which turned into quick burnout busts exactly like our Fed induced Economic Bubbles.
Under the heading of what could go wrong?
Richmond ranks high among ‘murder capitals’ in the U.S.
FEBRUARY 29, 2016, BY TRIBUNE MEDIA WIRE, UPDATED AT 10:01AM, FEBRUARY 29, 2016
http://wtvr.com/2016/02/29/the-30-murder-capitals-in-the-u-s/
One thought about restaurants and all the regulation, this is why chain restaurants are the norm. They’re more than happy to comply with all the crazy rules, because they wrote most of them. Some state like New York or California (or as the case in the article, Nevada) comes up with a crazy health code, the chains comply and it becomes standard. Then they lobby the other states’ legislatures to adopt the same rules, no matter if the local market can support the added expense. Since the chains deal in volume they spread that up-front cost around, make it easy for franchises to get loans, and while the small un-franchised restaurant struggles to scrape up marketing money the chains get national marketing.
Meanwhile we all get the same old tired chains, and local restaurants that have been around since the 1940s because anything new means they have to comply with the current rules.
If you knew how big the profit margin on “micro-brewed” beer is (assuming you actually have sales), you would want to open a micro-brewery too.
Margin is good. Being able to sell your product is even better. We shall see how this shakes out.
Same here in MA – see article from Globe earlier this month on declining tax revenues. Of course the same thing happened last year to MA taxes – never enough tax revenues.
Makes me wonder how many states are missing tax revenues targets this year…
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2017/05/03/state-falls-short-tax-revenue-way-short-again/MEo0VjLmCIopIvuceMbCuI/story.html
My town just had a town meeting and published last 10 years of data – no one seemed to notice that school costs are going to double every 20 years or so and population is not.
Governments answer to all problems is pour in more money. When this does not work, double down with more. Then blame anything else when it fails. Trump actually cares and is becoming frustrated with the system. He is the bad guy here because he actually wants to do something.
As I watched a school bus empty its full load of kids in an Eastside of Seattle community, I noticed that over 80% of the kids were Chinese and Indian, their parents job and home taking H1b’s. New homes are over $1 million, and used homes in the $900’s. Great time to seek, but it won’t likely be to an American.
to sell
The phenomenal growth in apartments is very normal. The baby boom of 1991 is moving into apartments. In time there will be home formation, and they will want houses, and the apartment vacancy rates will rise, but for now they will be building more apartments, just as they were in back in 1980-84. What doesn’t make sense to me is why home prices are rising when it seems they should be falling. I guess it is a function of how low interest rates are – people can pay more with the same payment.
certain home prices are rising. If one parses the numbers, one realizes that 3/4 of homes are still below their 2007 peak. Only 25% of homes are increasing in value.
I see this in the metro NY and SoCal market where I have property. The outer ring properties are stagnating in value still under their 2007 peak. The close to downtown properties are worth 30-50% more than their 2007 peak.
“The bankers will lend right into the top and won’t recognize the top until it’s too late. Happens every time.”
Somebody said that those who fail to learn the lessons of history…
This is why Keynseanism doesn’t work. Cycles keep repeating themselves, despite all the attempts to interfere with them. The one thing Keynes could not eliminate, was human nature.
I recently saw a billboard advertising classes on flipping homes. Is this “Apocalypse yesterday”?
As P T Barnum once said, there’s one born every minute.
They are converting the warehouses to attract young affluent buyers and renters. Taxes for city residents are already high as it is and the City of Richmond has a high density of minority SNAP and welfare collectors many of them in hud housing so they don’t pay property taxes. Most high paid professionals live in the suburbs of Short Pump, Hanover, and Chesterfield.
Frankly the city of Richmond is just not nice enough to be a draw for me personally. I have friends that live in the affulent areas of “The Fan” who have had several car break ins. One of my freinds bought a 450k rowhome and had his car stolen and taken for a joyride (although he had left his keys in the ignition parked on the street in front of his house). Minority kids from the neighborhood constantly search thru his trash and he has chased them down side streets and alleys on several occasions. Homelessness and bums are also a problem as they flock to sections of the city where Students and young professionals live.
BTW Is Liv single? I’m looking for a chick without tattoo’s!