What I'm Reading The Great Unbundling: A recently published Federal Reserve analysis of household formation shows a meaningful decline in living with roommates / others since the pandemic, coupled with a rise of living alone. This happened as consumption of housing went up during the pandemic and I've referred to...
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...
January 17th – In the Spotlight
What I'm Reading In the Spotlight: Non-traditional property sectors like manufactured homes, gaming, cold storage, healthcare and single-family rentals will likely be the top performing CRE assets in 2022. Globe Street Stretched Thin: Guest demand is back across a substantial portion of the hospitality industry. However, shortages caused by supply...
December 14th – Drop Zone
What I'm Reading Drop Zone: Drone delivery is beginning to look inevitable as developers like Alphabet continue to make breakthroughs and retailers like Walmart test in selected markets. The Diff Arms Race: Amenities aren't just for office employees anymore. Gyms, childcare centers, and restaurants are making their way into logistics...
November 22nd – Emergency Measures
What I'm Reading Bottoms Up: Despite all the talk about burnout and reevaluating priorities, the soaring quits rate has little to do with white-collar jobs. It's more about lower-income people getting the chance to move up. Bloomberg Desperate Times: Federal lawmakers are pushing California Governor Gavin Newsome to declare a...
November 1st – Disconnect
What I'm Reading Disconnect: COVID-19 has broken the longstanding connection between wage growth and employment levels. Typically, the rise in wages currently seen would have us at near full employment but that has not yet happened. Full Stack Economics Dispersed: Co-working companies are making big bets on the suburbs, including...
January 7th – Reading the Tea Leaves
One Big Thing Now that the elections have come finally, mercifully come to a close, I thought that it would be a good idea to take a look at the likely winners and losers both in the real estate sector and the economy as a whole. I’m going to do...
December 17th – Flotation Aid
One Big Thing In the first week of December, the proportion of mortgage borrowers that sought forbearance rose to its highest level since August. Delinquencies are climbing as well, as some borrowers are either not eligible for forbearance or are still unaware that they may be eligible. NREI Reading the paragraph...
December 10th – Downdraft
What I’m Reading Downdraft: The National Multifamily Housing Council (NMHC)’s Rent Payment Tracker found 75.4 percent of apartment households made a full or partial rent payment by December 6. While that is a whopping 780 basis point drop from 2019, it should be noted that December 5th and 6th both fell...
November 17th – What Lies Ahead
One Big Thing There has been a lot of COVID news to digest in recent days so I thought it would be helpful to put together a quick summary of what is going on. On the infection side, things are undeniably bad and getting worse. We have now seen over 11...