What I’m Reading
Fuel on the Fire: Every $1 billion in additional e-commerce sales requires 1 million square feet of new warehouse space to support it. Using this calculation as a baseline, the US will need 330 million square feet of new space by 2025 just to keep up with online retail demand (this doesn’t include demand from traditional brick and mortar retail which still makes up 82% of the market). To put things in context, warehouses in the US total around 10.2 billion square feet. However, a substantial portion of that stock is older product that isn’t suitable for modern e-commerce needs. CBRE
Stuck in the Past: Despite rapid technological advances elsewhere, the global shipping industry still bumps up along the limits of the physical world. What we are experiencing currently is what happens when the demand for physical goods exceeds the capacity of infrastructure to deliver those goods. Its not as easy as simply building larger ships. As we scale ships to hold more containers, we also need to scale rail and trucking accordingly. That isn’t happening. A16Z
My Way or the Highway: An increasingly large number of people don’t want to work unless they have the option to do so from home. This preference breaks down quite differently across gender and age lines. IMO, we are headed for a future where promotions are more likely to go to those who are visible to bosses in the office (think younger men), creating cultural issues. Recode
Short Term Thinking: Investors hunting for returns in the frenzied U.S. real estate market are tapping a new strategy: building massive portfolios of houses to rent out on Airbnb. In a balanced market, the move would be a non-issue. However, in a market defined by scarcity, such a plan will probably generate substantial pushback from municipalities. Bloomberg
Counter Intuitive: COVID 19 plunged the US into a deep recession. However, U.S. households added $13.5 trillion in wealth last year, according to the Federal Reserve, the biggest increase in records going back three decades. Wall Street Journal
Chart of the Day
People in the US are delaying adulthood milestones across the board.
Source: JBREC
WTF
A Salsa Battery: In an unprovoked attack, a 7-Eleven customer was injured when a fellow patron threw a glass jar of Tostitos salsa at him with such force that the container broke on the victim’s back because Florida. (h/t Steve Sims) The Smoking Gun
Let It All Hang Out: Two nude sunbathers in Australia 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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