The closing of HUD’s Los Angeles field offices by the ongoing riots, Ohio lawmakers kowtowing to the Cleveland Browns, and a real estate agent who keeps selling at 100. From the wild and wooly world of real estate, here are our Hits and Misses for the week of June 9-13.
Miss: Los Angeles Anarchy. Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Scott Turner took to X with photographs showing the level of vandalism inflicted on his department’s Los Angeles office building by the rioters who have disrupted the city’s downtown area and shut down the department’s local operations. Turner added that three HUD field offices were forced to shut down because of the riots. “Peaceful protestors don’t chant and destroy property under the banner of ‘Death to Amerikka!’” Turner stated, referring to the vile graffiti sprawled on federal program. Turner also praised “the law enforcement and National Guard who are working overtime to keep HUD and our Federal buildings safe from violent rioters.” Let’s hope these disgraceful anarchist-inspired riots come to a quick close and not spread to other cities.
Hit: A First-Rate Number Two. Congratulations to Andrew Hughes, who was confirmed by the US Senate this week as the new HUD Deputy Secretary. Hughes previously served as HUD Chief of Staff under Ben Carson in the first Trump administration and was most recently Chief of Staff under HUD Secretary Scott Turner. Hughes, who is the youngest Deputy Secretary in the department’s history, stated, “Serving at HUD is more than a job – it’s a calling. I’m humbled to help lead an agency that expands opportunity for all communities – rural, tribal, and urban.”
Miss: Pummeling Powell. High-profile real estate investor Grant Cardone took to X this week to declare, “President Donald Trump urges Fed idiot Jerome Powell to slash interest rates by a 1 full point. And he should! He was too late to raise and now he’s too late to lower. The entire world is lowering rates.” Cardone also called on Trump to fire Powell immediately. While Cardrone might qualify for a Hit by rightfully questioning Powell’s leadership of the central bank, he gets a Miss for dropping into the tiresome and crass name calling that has disfigured the national political discussion while also ignoring the president’s repeated statements that he had no plans to fire Powell. Come on, Grant, you can and should do better.
Miss: Out of Sync. Ohio’s Senate approved a budget proposal that proposes a $600 million grant out of $4.8 billion in the state’s unclaimed funds for a new Cleveland Browns stadium in Brook Park. However, the Ohio Capital Journal reports the House approved a budget that borrows $600 million by issuing bonds and repaying the debt, with interest, over 25 years at a cost of about $1 billion. Seriously, didn’t anyone in the state legislature sit down ahead of the budget talks to come up with a single solution instead of giving taxpayers dueling proposals? Or, even better, why are the lawmakers giving taxpayer money to the millionaires running the Browns? Senate Minority Leader Nickie Antonio, a Democrat, may have said it best: “If they could find that money for the Browns and their stadium’s move to Brook Park, why didn’t they decide to use those funds for the schools?”
Hit: And a One and a Two. From the better-late-the-never department: the State Historical Society of North Dakota completed the installation of flush toilets at the boyhood home of television bandleader Lawrence Welk, a historic site located about 50 miles southeast of the capital city of Bismarck. The Associated Press reports this installation was part of the Society’s initiative to bring modern plumbing to sites that only had pit toilets. Chris Dorfschmidt, a historic sites manager, explained, “A lot of our sites are kind of in the middle of nowhere. As I like to put it, history didn’t happen where it’s convenient. Because of that, if you’ve driven all the way out there, and that’s the best we can do to kind of accommodate you, it’s not the most pleasant experience.” Clearly, this installation will be appreciated by the mostly elderly Welk fans who make the trek to the historic site of their favorite star – although the Society didn’t go the extra mile by adding Welk-worthy bubble machines to its lavatories.
Hit: A Centenarian Scores. Kudos to Mary Wykes, a real estate agent at Long and Foster’s North Potomac Rockville office in Maryland, who recently celebrated her 100th birthday. Wykes was profiled this week by WUSA, who detailed her networking skills at a senior center and her continuing success – she’s sold three homes since the beginning of the year. Even at her 100th birthday celebration, she was passing out business cards in search of new clients. And when asked about the favorite part of her work, Wykes happily replied: “Getting the direct deposit in my bank account.”
Phil Hall is editor of Weekly Real Estate News. He can be reached at [email protected].
Photo: Adventtr / Getty Images
