What I’m Reading
Stop: With the housing market running white hot for a year, calls are growing for the Federal Reserve to start tapering its $40 billion/month purchase of mortgage-backed securities. Given the current environment – both fixed income and housing – there is a heated debate as to what extent such a move will impact the housing market. Axios
Sustainable Edge: A new study by the MIT Real Estate Innovation Lab found that carbon emissions from online shopping are 36% lower, on average than those produced by in-store trips, even after factoring in packaging and higher returns. ProLogis
Tip of the Iceberg: Some states will begin to lift their eviction bans this month and a deluge of court cases are expected to follow. The Real Deal
Misleading? Fundamentals in the industrial market are still great but be careful extrapolating the exponential growth in e-commerce experienced over the past year and a half too far into the future. Globe Street
Stress Test: Yardi Matrix ran a sensitivity analysis of what office vacancy would look like in major US cities under scenarios where 75% and 90% of employees returned full time rather than continuing to work remotely. The results aren’t pretty. Yardi Matrix
Chart of the Day
One of the reasons that I’m dovish about long term inflation is that the aging demographics of the developed world are not about to change. They are only accelerating.
Source: Catherine Rampell
WTF
Tis the Season: A stockpile of illegal fireworks detonated following attempts by the Los Angeles Police Department’s bomb squad to destroy the explosives. The force of the blast destroyed the department’s armored truck, injured 17 people and required the evacuation of nearby homes. Pretty sure this was also the plot of an episode of Reno 911. NPR
Let it All Hang Out: Two nude sunbathers on an Australian beach received emergency assistance and $1,000 fines for breaching COVID-19 public health orders after being startled by a deer and becoming lost in the Royal National Park. (h/t Ty Reed) The Sydney Morning Herald
Basis Points – A candid look at the economy, real estate, and other things sometimes related.
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