May 26th – Piling On

What I’m Reading

Piling On: The US Commerce Department has made a recommendation to more than double tariffs on Canadian softwood lumber in the midst of a housing affordability crisis that has been driven in part by soaring building costs.  If the Biden Administration wanted to make the crisis worse, I can think of few better ways to do so than more lumber tariffs and first time buyer credits.  Yet that is exactly what we are getting for some inexplicable reason.  The Globe and Mail

Don’t Call it a Comeback: A recovering economy and high demand from yield-starved investors has pushed issuance of collateralized loan obligations (CLO) to a 16-year high.  What’s particularly remarkable here is the CLO market completely shut down a little more than a year ago when COVID first hit.  Life comes at you fast.  Wall Street Journal

Tea Leaves: Recent statement by Federal Reserve members suggest that they may act sooner than initially planned if housing continues to overheat.  Barron’s

Repositioning Play: High demand for lab space, particularly in biotech hubs has developers turning to office-to-lab conversions as a way to reposition underutilized properties.  Given current trends and the capital narrative forming around such conversions, its reasonable to believe that we will be hearing more about this in the coming quarters.  Newmark

Dispersed: The US Government is joining a growing list of employers that are making pandemic-induced remote and hybrid work policies permanent.  Washington Post

Chart of the Day

Almost no one is building condos these days.

Source: NAHB

WTF

Sliced: A man was arrested for striking his 20-year old daughter in the face with a slice of pizza during an argument because Florida.  The Smoking Gun

Hide and Go Seek: An intoxicated man who was arrested after he was found sleeping behind the wheel of a pickup truck on the side of a freeway shoved two bags of cocaine in his anus in the back of a police car because Florida.  NBC 2

Basis Points – A candid look at the economy, real estate, and other things sometimes related. 

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