What I'm Reading Exodus: Companies continue to abandon millions of square feet of office space. Things appear poised to get worse with a record number of leases expiring in the second half of 2022. Business Insider Doubling Down: Santa Monica is moving to tighten its notoriously tight rent controls even...
July 18th – Contagion
What I'm Reading Contagion: The housing affordability crisis used to be a coastal, blue state issue. It has now gone nationwide. New York Times When it Rains, It Pours: America is facing the twin threats of rail and trucker strikes just as signs emerge that its ports on both coasts...
July 12th – Mixed Signals
What I'm Reading Mixed Signals: The US employment report for June continued to show a strong labor market consistent with a strong economy with moderating inflationary pressures. However, other economic data are telling a worrisome story of an economy that could be entering into recession even while the underlying inflation...
July 11th – Staying Power
What I'm Reading Staying Power: As the pandemic fades, there was a sense that the effort to shorten supply lines and bring production back home would fade. However, that isn't happening. The construction of new manufacturing facilities in the US has soared 116% over the past year, dwarfing the 10%...
June 21st – Help Wanted
What I'm Reading Help Wanted: Construction projects across the U.S. are running short on labor just as $1 trillion in federal infrastructure money starts to kick in. Contractors are responding by offering benefits ranging from signing bonuses to housing allowances to attract and retain workers. Wall Street Journal Drying Up? Over...
May 27th – Dropping the Hammer
What I'm Reading Dropping the Hammer: In a surprising decision, the First District of the California Court of Appeal upheld approval of a 43-unit residential project following years of NIMBY obstruction, government resistance and numerous court challenges. What's interesting here is that the court called out CEQA as a "formidable...
May 12th – Pushback
What I'm Reading Pushback: Consumers are doing less grocery shopping online as health concerns fade and consumers become more cost conscious thanks to inflation. Chain Store Age Offshored: The tech industry is warning that more remote jobs are headed out of the US thanks to worker shortages and a lack...
May 9th – Boomerang
What I'm Reading Boomerang: Millions of older Americans retired early during the pandemic, leaving the US in a severe labor imbalance. However, new data indicates that they are returning to the workforce in large numbers in recent months. Many retirees are being pulled back to jobs by a combination of...
March 31st – Easing Up?
What I'm Reading Slow Motion Crash? Two years after the initial covid outbreak, vacancy rates continue to climb in major office markets around the country, taking a toll on property performance. Barclays analysts noted last week that the share of office mortgages that have been assigned to either "watchlists" of...
March 18th – Taking Flight
What I'm Reading Taking Flight: The message from the Federal Reserve earlier this week was extremely hawkish, forecasting aggressive rate hikes. That being said, the yield curve is now essentially flat (the 5y-30y US OIS curve went negative) and Fed Funds futures are projecting a rate cut in 2024. The...