Monday Morning Quarterback

Monday Morning Quarterback

(Monday, December 8, 2025)

One of my most favorite architects, Frank O. Gehry, passed away on Friday at his home in Santa Monica canyon. Gehry brought a new kind of shape-making to his profession as he fundamentally changed the civic landscape of his adopted hometown, Los Angeles, in such projects as the shimmering Walt Disney Concert Hall on Grand Avenue. He was 96. Gehry, who arrived in L.A. as an aimless teenager just after World War II, went on to become the most famous and one of the most influential architects in the world over a prolific six-decade career. His firm, Gehry Partners, pioneered new ways of using technology to help realize geometrically complex buildings. It began with the completion of an ambitious satellite branch of the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain. It opened to the public in 1997, the year Gehry turned 68. The museum was widely praised for its breathtaking and sinuous profile and dramatic relationship to the Nervión River at its feet. Just as important, it helped reenergize and bring new media attention to architecture. The new Guggenheim suggested a fresh, dynamic direction: architecture whose appeal resided in the ravishing large-scale curves made possible with digital design software, perfectly suited to architectural photography and display in the pages of newspapers and magazines. Suddenly cities and museums were clamoring to hire Gehry to try to replicate the windfall of attention and tourism dollars the new Guggenheim had produced. That windfall even earned its own nickname: ”The Bilbao Effect.” On the heels of the Guggenheim came a series of other triumphs for Gehry. They included the opening in 2003 of the long-delayed Disney Hall (actually designed before the Bilbao museum but completed after it) and the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College in New York. Disney Hall (pictured above) is a brilliant, eye-catching building that helped fill a literal and symbolic civic hole at the top of Bunker Hill. And let’s not forget it holds an auditorium that functions superbly in acoustic terms and gave the Los Angeles Philharmonic a new visibility. The hall is at once a luminous public landmark and a workhorse. Gehry was born Frank Owen Goldberg on Feb. 28, 1929, in Toronto. (He would change his last name to Gehry in 1954 because of anti-semantic fears). After moving with his family to Los Angeles, Gehry enrolled in night school at L.A. City College. Gehry earned a bachelor’s degree in architecture from USC in 1954. After a stint in the Army in Atlanta from 1954 to 1956, he returned to L.A. to take a job in the office of Victor Gruen, a Viennese-born architect known for helping invent the American shopping mall. He left to study urban planning at Harvard Graduate School of Design, came back to L.A. to work again for Gruen and the prolific firm of Pereira & Luckman, and then spent a year working in Paris. He returned to L.A. for good in 1962 and, at 33, opened his own firm. He will be sorely missed. Besides Disney Hall, you can still experience his creativity at Chiat/Day Building (Venice), Geffen Contemporary (downtown), Air and Space Gallery (Exposition Park), Gemini G.E.L. Studios (Wet Hollywood), Edgemar Center (Santa Monica), and his own residence since 1978 (Santa Monica Canyon).

Grand Jury Rejects New Mortgage Fraud Indictment Against New York Atty. Gen. Letitia James. Associated Press reports that a Virginia grand jury rejected the Justice Department’s attempt to bring a second mortgage fraud charge against New York Atty. Gen. Letitia James. Forgetting politics for the moment, let’s just focus on the alleged mortgage fraud issue. James was initially charged in October by the U.S. attorney, Lindsay Haligan. The allegations related to James’ purchase of a modest house in Norfolk, Virginia, where she has family. During the sale, she signed a standard mortgage document called a “second home rider” in which she agreed to keep the property primarily for her “personal use and enjoyment for at least one year,” unless the lender agreed otherwise. But rather than using the home as a second residence, James rented it out to her relatives (but didn’t charge them rent). Signing the rider allowed James to obtain favorable loan terms not available for investment properties and save approximately $16,000.00 in interest and fees. The issue is whether allowing your family to live in your second home is a violation of the “second home rider”? Unfortunately, that issue won’t be decided in this case because the Grand Jury rejected the prosecutor’s claims. The rejection came after a judge dismissed previous charges (ruling the U.S. attorney who prosecuted James was illegally appointed by the administration). So that’s why prosecutors went back to a grand jury in Virginia after the judge’s ruling halting the prosecution of James. U.S. District Judge Cameron McGowan Currie took issue with the mechanism the Administration employed to appoint Halligan to lead one of the Justice Department’s offices. Though the defendants had asked for the cases to be dismissed “with prejudice” (meaning the Justice Department would be barred from bringing an indictment again, Currie instead dismissed them “without prejudice”) leaving open the possibility that prosecutors could try to file the charges a third time. In other words, the Justice Department could still go back to the grand jury and try again a third time.

California, Epicenter Of The Nation’s Housing Crisis, Is Finally Getting A Housing Agency. After years of soaring rents, increasingly out-of-reach home prices and an enduring homelessness crisis that touches every corner of the state, California is finally creating a state agency exclusively focused on housing issues. You might wonder what took so long. Earlier this year, Gov. Gavin Newsom (who swears he’s not running for President) introduced a proposal to split up the Business, Consumer Services and Housing Agency (an awkward grab bag of disparate bureaucratic operations) into two fresh agencies: one just for housing and homelessness-related departments and one for everything else. Supporters of the bureaucratic reshuffle say the move is long overdue. In surveys, Californians regularly name housing costs and homelessness as among the state’s top concerns. That alone warrants the creation of a new Cabinet-level advisor to the governor, said Ray Pearl, executive director of the California Housing Consortium, which advocates affordable housing development. “A Cabinet-level secretary who will sit with other Cabinet secretaries, whose purview will be housing … that is elevating the agenda to the highest level,” he said. Pearl, like virtually every expert interviewed about the new agency, described the reorganization as “just the first step” in bringing much-needed order and efficiency to California’s network of funding programs for affordable housing. “Simply moving people around and giving them a new business card doesn’t change the system,” he says. A spokesperson for the governor stressed that the creation of a new housing agency is part of a broader effort by Newsom to prioritize one of California’s most vexing issues. Since taking the helm of state government in 2018, the governor has ramped up pressure on local governments to plan for more housing, urged them to clear encampments of unhoused Californians and pushed for legislation aimed at ramping up construction.

7 in 10 People to Live in Urban Areas by 2050. Seven in ten people will live in urban areas by 2050, according to predictions by the United Nations Population Division. That’s up from just three in 10 in 1950. Let’s look at a small selection of countries from around the world to highlight some of the patterns expected in the future. Of these, China is expected to see the greatest percent change over the 100-year span, increasing from 11.8 percent of the country living in urban centers in 1950, up to 80 percent in 2050 - a difference of 68.2 percent! This has partly been driven by its rise in urban manufacturing and service sector jobs. Japan, Brazil and the United Kingdom are among the group of countries expected to have upwards of 90 percent of their populations living in urban areas by 2050. The UK was highly urbanized early on, largely due to its early industrial revolution and the culture of people living in towns. It’s a similar story for other countries in Northern and Western Europe, which are forecast to have just below 90 percent of their populations living in urban areas by that time. In Southern Europe, the forecast is an average of 82.1 percent, while Eastern Europe is expected to be slightly lower at 79.4 percent. Meanwhile, in the United States, 83.7 percent of people are estimated to be living in urban centers in 2025, set to rise to 89.2 percent by 2050. But why, you ask? There are many reasons for urbanization. These can broadly be understood as “push factors” which include being forced to leave a rural area due to natural disasters or agricultural automation and land consolidation leading to fewer rural labor jobs, while “pull factors” look more like better employment and education opportunities or an interest in a different lifestyle. The impacts of a changing climate are an important factor too, as some areas will become increasingly uninhabitable such as at the equator or along coastlines. This was highlighted in a recent study, which indicates that some 13 million people could be forced to move in the United States by 2100 due to rising sea levels.

Home Builders Boost Sales Incentives To 5-Year High. Confidence among home builders ticked down as home-buying demand remains weak. In response, builders are throwing more incentives at buyers to boost sales. Builders’ sentiment in the market fell last month from the month before. Sentiment was glum as builders face weak demand as well as challenges associated with developing land and building homes. The National Association of Home Builders’ monthly Confidence Index fell to 32, the industry group reports. A year ago, the index stood at 39. Builder sentiment has been in negative territory for the last 16 months in a row, the NAHB notes. And you already know why. Persistently high mortgage rates and home prices are keeping buyers away from the market. The pace of home sales remains depressed, as many buyers can’t afford to enter the market. The median price of a new home is $401,800 in the United States. Concerns over the future of our economy, with reports of a weakening labor market, are behind the reluctance to buy homes right now. Despite the pessimism, investors (including Warren Buffett) have been buying home-builder stocks. Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway recently bought shares in D.R. Horton and in Lennar, the two biggest builders in America. In August, 37% of builders cut home prices, down from a recent high of 38%. The average price reduction was 5% last month, unchanged from the previous month. The use of sales incentives, on the other hand, grew to 66% from 62% the previous month. The share of builders offering incentives reached the highest level since May 2020, the NAHB reports.

Who Holds the Record for the Most Children Born to One Woman. The answer Is Valentina Vassilyeva, a Russian peasant holds the world’s record. Ms. Vassilyeva, better known as “Super Mom,” had 69 children from 27 pregnancies between 1825 and 1865. Her births included 4 sets of quadruplets, 7 sets of triplets, and 16 sets of twins. If you don’t believe me, the births are officially documented and recognized by the Guiness Book of World Records. The photos below show Ms. Vassilyeva's children and grandchildren gathering together. No word on the sanity of the father(s).

Basic Training Investing Boot Camp. This Saturday, December 13, 2025, 9:00 am to 6:00 pm, will be our semi-annual Basic Training Boot Camp. Everything you ever wanted to know about real estate investing but were afraid to ask. Iman Cultural Center, South Hall, 3376 Motor Avenue (between National and Palms), Los Angeles, 90034.The cost of the Boot Camp is $249.00 per person. (Gold Members and former Boot Campers can attend for FREE, but still need to register.) So don’t wait to register. Plus free parking. Please register: www.LaRealEstateInvestors.com.

This Week. Looking ahead, the next Fed meeting will take place on Wednesday, and most investors anticipate that the Fed will reduce the federal funds rate by another 25 basis points. There is a wide range of expectations for the outlook for monetary policy next year, however, so investors will be paying very close attention to guidance from Fed officials. With the end of the shutdown, the schedule for the release of delayed government economic reports continues to be gradually updated. The JOLTS report on job openings is scheduled for Tuesday from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The Producer Price Index, a monthly inflation indicator, is scheduled for Thursday, also from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Weekly Changes:

10-Year Treasuries: Rose 005 bps

Dow Jones average: Rose 400 points

NASDAQ: Rose 300 points

Calendar:

Tuesday (12/9): Jolts

Wednesday (12/10): Fed Meeting

Thursday (12/11): Producers Price Index

For further information, comments, and questions:

Lloyd Segal

President

Los Angeles County Real Estate Investors Association

Lloyd@LARealEstateInvestors.com

www.LARealEstateInvestors.com

310-792-6404