What I'm Reading Looking Forward: CPI hit a 40-year high but its a backward-looking number. Many forward looking indicators are starting to tell a very different story – a story of falling demand and falling prices, and the risk of falling into deflation. Pragmatic Capitalism Beat the Heat: Some employees...
June 10th – Back From the Dead?
What I'm Reading Back from the Dead? Single room occupancy units, once a prominent feature of city life in America that cater to low income residents, have been largely zoned out of existence. Now, cities are taking another look at SROs as a revived source of low income housing. Governing ...
March 15th – Lockdown
What I'm Reading Political Risk: With the housing market tight and rents exploding higher in much of the country, an increasing number of municipalities are considering rent control measures. Wall Street Journal What is most astounding here is that this hasn't worked anywhere that its been tried and typically makes...
February 10th – Shrinkage
What I'm Reading Shifting Focus: Foreign investment in US commercial real estate has exceeded pre-pandemic levels. The big difference is that overseas investors are focusing much more on warehouses and apartments than they were before the pandemic - just like domestic investors. Wall Street Journal Rise of the Machines: Advances...
November 15th – Tilting the Scale
What I'm Reading Tilting the Scale: Target allocations to commercial real estate increased for the eight straight year in 2021 according to a recent survey by Hodes Weill & Associates and Cornell University. The average target allocations increased to 10.7 percent, up 10 basis points from 2020, indicating the potential...
November 10 – In the Money
What I'm Reading Double Edged Sword: Long-underfunded state and local pension funds are reaping a historic windfall thanks to billions of dollars in record market gains and surplus tax revenues. Now they need to decide what to do with the money in an environment where assets are richly priced and...
October 12th – Held Back
What I'm Reading Trailing Indicator: Soaring home prices mean that more appraisals are coming in below contractual sales prices, causing deals to collapse. The fact that it often takes a couple of months to close these transactions means that comps, which appraisers rely heavily upon, tend to lag. While painful...
April 26th – Diamond Hands
One Big Thing One universal rule that becomes even more apparent when raising young children is incentives - whether positive or negative - drive everything. Tell a kid to clean her room and you may get an attitude. Promise her a reward of some sort if its clean for a...
April 13th – Back to School
What I'm Reading Back to School: The first half of 2020 was all about a shortage of demand for goods and services. The experience of 2021 has been exactly the opposite - demand is booming, yet supply is limited. The current labor shortage that American businesses are facing is playing...
April 7th – Light the Fuse
What I'm Reading Light the Fuse: After a decade-long drought, worker productivity might be about to accelerate thanks to pandemic-induced technological adoption, which could lift economic growth and wages in coming years while staving off inflation pressure. Companies made massive investments in technology, automation and videoconferencing software over the past...