What I'm Reading Outside Set: With travel restrictions set to be lifted on 33 countries, brokers in cities popular with wealthy foreign investors are reporting a substantial uptick in requests for showings. This is looking like a big shot in the arm for the luxury segment in coastal gateway cities....
November 8th – The Weakest Link
What I'm Reading The Weakest Link: Environmental and anti-business regulations make California the absolute worst possible place to be the US focal point for supply chain issues. Wall Street Journal Narrative Violation: Last week's taper announcement was met by rates falling substantially at the long end of the yield curve. ...
November 5th – Danger Zone
What I'm Reading Leverage: Just when you thought that the situation at west coast ports couldn't possibly get worse, contracts for 15,000 west coast dockworker union members are due to expire on July 1, 2022. Obviously, this situation gives the union a ton of negotiating leverage. As a point of...
November 4th – Sitting Ducks
What I'm Reading Sitting Ducks: Idle cargo containers piling up in ports and storage yards have created a target-rich environment for thieves, resulting in yet another supply chain headache. Cargo theft has increased 42% YoY in California during the 3rd quarter. CargoNet Out of Their Hands: The inflationary episode of...
November 3rd – Fire Sale
What I'm Reading Fire Sale? Zillow is looking to unload 7,000 homes for $2.8 billion after royally screwing up their iBuying strategy and substantially overpaying for acquisitions. They are listing the homes at a loss. The news came after Zillow announced that they would be taking a pause from buying...
November 2nd – Sell the News
What I'm Reading Sell the News: Interest rates have increased in recent months as the Federal Reserve began signaling that they will begin tapering their bond purchasing. However, recent history suggests that yields tend to fall once actual tapering begin. US Housing and Mortgage Market Weekly Staying Close: Relocations are...
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...
October 29th – Clutter Patrol
What I'm Reading Misplaced Blame: The Biden administration has pushed the Ports of LA and Long Beach to begin fining carriers who don't move their containers from the port complexes quickly enough. By this logic, the problems are apparently not a massive backlog and capacity constraints but rather that the...
October 28th – Safety First
What I'm Reading Safety First: Proligis's Q3 earnings call characterized industrial demand as being in "panic mode" with tenants showing an insatiable appetite for space. Bisnow A primary driver here is the fundamental shift in the way that retailers handle their supply chain management. Space was already tight in the...
October 27th – Between a Rock and a Hard Place
What I'm Reading Between a Rock and a Hard Place: The pandemic has highlighted how many office buildings need to be renovated in order to fit the needs to today's workers and companies. However, the supply chain crisis and labor shortage means that it has never been more expensive to...