What I’m Reading
Bid Em Up: A new report from real estate technology company Zavvie on iBuying transactions over the first half of 2021 found that offers from iBuyers were on average 104.1 percent of market value. That’s a marked increase from 2020, when iBuyers offers were coming in at 97.6 percent. The Real Deal This is great news for sellers but not so much for shareholders in entities that have – thus far at least – operated on a business plan of “lose money on every transaction but make up for it with volume.”
Right on Schedule: Last Thursday the Biden Administration called on Congress to extend an eviction moratorium that expires Saturday. The White House said in a statement that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention can’t unilaterally extend the moratorium, following a related Supreme Court decision. Market Watch I’ve been saying that this was likely since the last extension announcement. What is interesting is that the self-reported data set in question – suggesting that 11 million renters are at risk of eviction – is in conflict with the much larger rent collections data set. RealPage
Breaking Down: After soaring since October, public and bond-market expectations of inflation have fallen back, suggesting sustained higher prices are less likely. Wall Street Journal
Backing Out: Tesla will be vacating many of its showrooms within luxury malls as it focuses its sales teams on remote working. The electric car maker founded by Elon Musk will instead look to lease space in mall parking lots, warehouses and other less expensive property types to keep cars for test drives and deliveries. Tesla’s growing mall presence was one of increasingly few bright spots in the mall space and one that mall owners regularly pointed to as a sign that the space was still desirable to innovative tenants. I suppose one minor bright spot is that the move will pretty much exclusively impact class A malls which have been performing substantially better than their downstream cohort. Bisnow
Trees Don’t Grow to the Sky: US lumber prices were up 54% year over year as of the second quarter. However, they are also down massively from the peak and the pandemic-driven perfect storm conditions have dissipated. That being said, prices will probably decrease more slowly for the consumer than they have in the commodity market because suppliers are better positioned right now to earn a little bit more with the falling rates for plywood and other lumber. Globe Street
Chart of the Day
Up, up and away.
Source: Apartment List
WTF
If the Trailer’s A Rockin’… A new trailer park for swingers in Louisiana is luring potential residents with the slogan ‘Bring your house, share your spouse.’ Remember this next time some fool tells you that real estate isn’t an innovative sector.(h/t Steve Sims) NY Daily News
Here Kitty, Kitty: A Florida man was hospitalized last after jumping over a barrier at the ‘Range of the Jaguar’ exhibit located inside of the Jacksonville Zoo and Gardens and then inserting his hand into the big cat’s enclosure because Florida. Tampa Bay Free Press
Basis Points – A candid look at the economy, real estate, and other things sometimes related.
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