The episode that went down in history and amazed the world on America’s Got Talent 2024
Sydnie Christmas sings song Simon Cowell hates – and the performance changes her life
A stunning performance from “Britain’s Got Talent” is gaining recognition from all over the world.
The clip is from the audition of Sydnie Christmas, and she is heard telling the judges that she’s an aspiring singer who just moved to London.
Sydnie is charming and funny as she introduces herself. She’s an easy contestant to root for.
Then she tells the judges which song she plans to sing for them: “Tomorrow” from the hit musical “Annie”. The crowd goes silent and you can almost hear judge Simon Cowell’s eyes rolling.
He doesn’t like that song and doesn’t appreciate when singers use it as their audition. But that doesn’t deter Sydnie from singing it anyway.
She jokes that the last time she sang it was when she first started singing at the age of 4. She’s now 28.
And then, with her two grandmothers in the audience cheering her on, the song begins … and so do the tears.
Here is Sydnie Christmas’s full “Britain’s Got Talent” audition.
As the song came to an end, Sydnie was met with a roar from the crowd and a standing ovation, the four judges included.
Judge Amanda Holden praised Sydnie for how “naturally funny, warm, and brilliant” her presence was and raved about her “heartfelt” and “beautiful” version of “Tomorrow”. “That was the best version I have ever heard in my life, so I’m going to do this…”
And that’s when Holden hit the Golden Buzzer, which means Sydnie automatically advanced through the auditions to the semifinals of the main competition.
As one commenter wrote, “What was that? This was not an audition. It was an experience. Bless her.”
And as so many other people admitted, her rendition of the song was unlike anything they’ve ever heard before. Simon even agreed.
“Everyone’s aware, it is tough to get the break for something that you really love. You so deserve what you just got,” Simon told her. “Your control was amazing. And I used to hate that song. And now I absolutely love it.”
“Good for you. That was brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.”
“America’s Largest Landlord Adds $1 Billion For Its House Hunt” Why It Matters, And It Does!
By Jay Voorhees
October 8, 20203 min read
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Country’s Largest Rental-Home Owner Buying Up More Homes
The title of today’s blog was lifted directly from this WSJ article.
I blogged last week about why inventory levels are so low. One of the reasons was investors buying up properties en masse, and today’s WSJ article is case and point.
Per the WSJ: “Real-estate investors have a mountain of money looking for a home. Lately a lot of it is ending up in suburban single-family houses.”
Invitation Homes, the country’s largest rental-home owner, recently raised an additional $1 billion to buy up more homes. Invitation currently owns 80,000 houses and the additional cash will allow it to buy about 3,500 more.
Why This Matters
This matters because Invitation is not the only major fund buying up houses. There are now many huge landlords/funds doing the same because they believe that real estate and single-family homes in particular are now one of the most viable asset classes for investors.
This is for all the usual reasons: (1) the stock market is too volatile and overheated; (2) a mass movement to the suburbs; (3) the Fed throwing money at the economy like never before, pushing up asset prices; (4) very low interest rates; and (5) an acute housing inventory shortage, among other things.
There is also a trend towards renting in lieu of buying, as housing continues to get more expensive and out of reach of even affluent buyers. Per the WSJ, Invitation’s typical tenants are parents with kids, pets, and six-figure incomes.
Once again, this is great information to share with potential buyers who are nervous about a repeat of the 2008 meltdown.
(As an interesting aside, we had an appraiser come in under contract price last month in a very hot market because he was worried that “we might be on the cusp of another 2008…” He was not on our panel for the area, and we will make sure we won’t use any appraiser who will add that much subjectivity to appraising, but I was fascinated by the fact that a seasoned appraiser was so unaware of all the data I have been sharing about the housing market in general and why this is not 2008.)
Buyers should be very comforted by the fact that huge funds like this, with all of their resources, analyses, data, and sophistication, believe so strongly in residential real estate.
This is also great info to share with buyers who are wondering why it is so hard to find a house and/or who are wondering why their agent is asking them to bid so aggressively.
Please note that we cannot share entire WSJ articles with nonsubscribers because they are copyrighted, but we can share key excerpts, so feel free to request them from us.
