Real Estate Daily News Buzz is designed to give news snippets to readers that our (yet to be award winning) editors thought you could use to start your day. They come from various business perspectives, real estate, government, the Fed, local news, and the stock markets to save you time. Here you will find the headlines and what the news buzz of the day will be.
Monday, the Dow Jones industrial average lost 78.57 points, or 0.4%, to close at 17,719.92. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index lost 9.70 points, or 0.5%, to 2,080.41 and the NASDAQ composite lost 18.86 points, or 0.4%, to 5,108.67.
Benchmark U.S. crude fell 6 cents to $41.65 a barrel in New York. Brent crude, which is used to price international oils, lost 25 cents to close at $44.61 a barrel in London. In other energy trading, wholesale gasoline fell 3.2 cents to $1.359 a gallon, heating oil fell 1.6 cents to $1.337 a gallon and natural gas rose 2.3 cents to $2.235 per 1,000 cubic feet.
Cyber Monday sales still on top, but losing some lustre — Shoppers traded bricks for clicks on Monday, flocking online to snap up “Cyber Monday” deals. However, the 10-year-old shopping holiday has lost some of its lustre as online sales on Thanksgiving and Black Friday have increased. But enough shoppers have been trained to look for “Cyber Monday” specific sales to ensure the holiday will still mean big bucks for retailers. It’s too early for sales figures, but Monday is still expected to be the biggest online shopping day ever, likely racing up more than $3 billion in sales, according to comScore. (AP)
Chinese Pull Back From U.S. Property Investments “Capping a five-year real-estate binge, Chinese nationals surpassed Canadian snowbirds as the top foreign buyers of U.S. homes for the year that ended in March—the most recent annual data—scooping up everything from $500,000 condos in New Jersey to $3 million vacation homes in California to $13 million Manhattan condos. But in recent weeks, some Chinese buyers have started to pull back, scared off by China’s stock-market selloff, slowing economic growth, currency devaluation and tightened restrictions on capital outflows.” (Wall Street Journal)
Chinese Cash Floods U.S. Real Estate Market “In the United States, the home-buying spree began on the coasts, where Chinese buyers snapped up luxury condos in Manhattan and McMansions in Silicon Valley, pushing up home values in big cities. It is now spreading to the middle of the country, where prices are more modest and have room to run. The great property rush is part of the tidal wave of Chinese money that is pouring into the global economy and reshaping financial markets.” (New York Times)
Prediction: Hudson’s Bay Will Try to Buy Macy’s in 2016 “After snapping up retailers like Lord & Taylor and Saks Fifth Avenue in recent years, Hudson’s Bay Company bagged German department store Kaufhof this year for $3.3 billion. And HBC has made no secret of the fact that it is on the hunt for more big-name stores. The company’s M.O. is to target underperforming department stores that also have very attractive real estate. Sound familiar? That could very well describe Macy’s.” (Fortune)
Weak Black Friday Will Make Macy’s Rethink Real Estate “After a weak third quarter and a lackluster Black Friday if early figures are any indication, Macy's (M) may want to reconsider the advice of activist shareholder Jeffrey Smith, of Starboard Value LP. The shares of the retailer are down 39% for the year, trading around $40. The stock peaked at $72.80 in July, soon after Smith proclaimed, at CNBC's Delivering Alpha conference, that they could nearly double.” (The Street)
Regulators Ready to Block Staples-Office Depot Merger “Federal regulators scrutinizing Staples’ $6 billion-plus bid to buy rival Office Depot are leaning against the deal and are preparing to block it, The Post has learned. Regulators are wary of a tie-up that will result in a single nationwide office supply giant to serve big corporate and government clients, two sources said. The Federal Trade Commission has until Dec. 8 to decide whether to sue to halt the deal after extending its review.” (New York Post)
Norway Boosts Wealth Fund Oversight with New Deputy Governor “Norway named central bank executive board member Egil Matsen as deputy governor in charge of overseeing its $860 billion wealth fund. Matsen, 46, is a professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim. He was appointed to a six-year term for the newly created position. Matsen, who has a PhD from the Norwegian School of Economics, has served as a member of the board that decides monetary policy and oversees the wealth fund since 2012.” (Bloomberg)
Shorenstein Properties Head Dies after Battle with Cancer “Douglas Shorenstein, the chairman and chief executive officer of Shorenstein Properties, died yesterday following a battle with cancer. He was 60. The San Francisco-based executive largely credited with turning his family’s company from a local to a national real estate development and investment firm. That includes raising and investing $7.9 billion in 60 million square feet of real estate over the last 20 years, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.” (Commercial Observer)
Volatile Times Ahead for S-REITs as Fed Looks to December Rate Hike “The Republic’s real estate investment trusts, or S-REITs, will face greater volatility if the United States Federal Reserve proceeds with an interest rate hike next month, especially at a time when fundamentals are weakening across many property segments, analysts told TODAY. Rising interest rates will result in higher borrowing and financing costs, which may hinder the REITs’ expansion plans and affect their yields.” (TODAY)
It Is Getting Worse in Houston “A severe slowdown could be on its way to Houston. John Moran and David Chen at Macquarie looked at multifamily (MF) and commercial real-estate (CRE) markets in Houston in a note on Friday. The analysts say there has been much ‘handwringing’ over the banking sectors' loan exposure to oil and gas companies but there could be a more serious ripple effect.” (Business Insider)
Holiday Weekend Shoppers Skip the Store and Buy Online “Sales at retailers’ brick-and-mortar locations suffered during the weekend after Thanksgiving as more shoppers skipped the malls and bought online. About $1.73 billion was spent online on Thanksgiving Day, a 25 percent increase from last year, according to Adobe Systems Inc. On Black Friday, about $822 million was spent by 11 a.m., 15 percent more than in 2014, the company said.” (Bloomberg)