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 for the day will be.
Thursday, the Dow Jones Industrial average fell 21 points, or 0.1%, to close at 16,846. It was down as much as 121 points earlier. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index lost two points, or 0.1%, to 1,957. The NASDQ composite slipped less than a point to 4,379.
Benchmark U.S. crude for August delivery fell 66 cents to $105.84 on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude, used to price international oils, dropped 79 cents to $113.21 a barrel in London.
PASSWORDS GOT YOU DOWN? SOLUTIONS ARE OUT THERE
CHICAGO (AP) — Good thing she doesn’t need a password to get into heaven. That’s what Donna Spinner often mutters when she tries to remember the growing list of letter-number-and-symbol codes she’s had to create to access her various online accounts. “At my age, it just gets too confusing,” says the 72-year-old grandmother who lives outside Decatur, Illinois. But this is far from just a senior moment. Frustration over passwords is as common across the age brackets as the little reminder notes on which people often write them. “We are in the midst of an era I call the ‘tyranny of the password,’” says Thomas Way, a computer science professor at Villanova University. “We’re due for a revolution.”
AFTER AEREO, WHAT’S NEXT FOR INTERNET TV?
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The Supreme Court shot down Aereo’s business model this week, but that doesn’t mean customers’ desire for a better TV experience is gone. Americans are still fed up with huge channel bundles, high prices, poor service and the lack of ability to watch all their shows on all their devices. That’s part of why Aereo was attractive: It offered a few dozen local broadcast channels and the Bloomberg TV financial channel on multiple devices for just $8 a month. Industry watchers say the pay TV business must continue to evolve to win over unhappy customers, even if the nation’s top court said grabbing signals from the airwaves and distributing them online without content-owner permission isn’t the way.
THREAT OF HOUSING BUBBLE PUSHES BRITAIN TO ACT
LONDON (AP) — Can Britain avoid bubble trouble in its economy? Concerns are mounting that the country’s housing market is overinflated, with London house prices rising almost 19 per cent in 12 months. Experts fear it is fueled by debt and the market might ‘pop’ and come crashing down, as it did in the U.S. during the financial crisis, dragging the country into recession and leaving millions of homeowners with properties that are worth less than their mortgages. In an attempt to avoid such a scenario, the Bank of England on Thursday announced measures to tighten credit and cool off the sector. The move is of interest globally, as it will show how much a major central bank can keep a specific sector from overheating in an economy that is otherwise still recovering.
FDA GRAPPLES WITH OVERSIGHT OF FECAL TRANSPLANTS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Imagine a low-cost treatment for a life-threatening infection that could cure up to 90 per cent of patients with minimal side effects, often in a few days. It may sound like a miracle drug, but this cutting-edge treatment is profoundly simple — though somewhat icky: take the stool of healthy patients to cure those with hard-to-treat intestinal infections. A small but growing number of physicians have begun using these so-called fecal transplants to treat Clostridium difficile, commonly referred to as C-diff, a bacterial infection that causes nausea, cramping and diarrhea. The germ afflicts a half-million Americans annually and kills about 15,000 of them.
GOOGLE BEGINS EDITING EUROPEAN SEARCH RESULTS
AMSTERDAM (AP) — Google has begun deleting some search results at the request of its users, following a court ruling that European Union citizens have a right to ask for the removal of embarrassing personal information that pops up on a search of their names. Several weeks after the May ruling by the European Court of Justice on the so-called “right to be forgotten,” the company set up an online interface for users to register their complaints. The company said Thursday it has begun taking down results this week. But Google’s European spokesman Al Verney said there is a significant backlog to work through. At last report, more than 50,000 people from multiple nationalities had filed requests to have information removed.
STOCKS HEAD LOWER ON WALL STREET, LED BY BANKS
NEW YORK (AP) — Banks and other financial firms tugged the stock market slightly lower Thursday as a mixed batch of economic reports and earnings results gave investors little reason to push the market up. Barclays sank following news that New York’s attorney general sued the British bank, claiming that it favored high-frequency traders over large institutions in its private-trading platform, known as a “dark pool.” It was only the third loss in 10 trading days for the Standard & Poor’s 500 index, which closed at its latest record high just under a week ago, on June 20. Many investors have been saying stocks could be due for a pullback given their rapid rise recently.
CONSUMER SPENDING IN MAY WAS DISAPPOINTINGLY WEAK
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. consumers boosted their spending only modestly in May, a disappointment to economists who said the weaker-than-expected gain will likely mean a lesser economic rebound in the April-June quarter than many had envisioned. Spending rose just 0.2% last month after no gain in April, the Commerce Department said Thursday. The two months followed a robust spending surge of 0.8% in March. Income rose a solid 0.4% in May after a 0.3% April gain. Last month’s 0.2% gain in spending was just half the increase that analysts had been expecting. Some said that unless June brings a big increase, spending may not provide as much support to the economy in the second half of the year as they had been expecting.
AVERAGE US 30-YEAR MORTGAGE RATE FALLS TO 4.14%
WASHINGTON (AP) — Average U.S. rates on fixed mortgages declined this week, hovering near historically low levels. Mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday that the average rate for a 30-year loan eased to 4.14% from 4.17%last week. The average for the 15-year mortgage fell to 3.22% from 3.30%. Rising prices and higher interest rates beginning in mid-2013 have made homes less affordable for would-be buyers. At the same time, a limited supply of homes is available to buy. Sales of new homes are running about half the rate of a healthy housing market. Home prices rose in April from a year ago at the slowest pace in 13 months, reflecting the recent drop-off in sales, according to the latest Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller 20-city home price index released Tuesday.
DRINK UP, NYC: BAN ON BIG SODAS CANNED
NEW YORK (AP) — Big sodas can stay on the menu in the Big Apple after New York state’s highest court refused Thursday to reinstate the city’s first-of-its-kind size limit on sugary drinks. But city officials suggested they might be willing to revisit the supersize-soda ban. The Court of Appeals found that the city Board of Health overstepped its bounds by imposing a 16-ounce cap on sugary beverages sold in restaurants, delis, movie theatres, stadiums and street carts. The appointed board tread on the policy-making turf of the elected City Council, the court said.
WATER USAGE IN TUCSON AT 1994 LEVELS
TUCSON - Even though Tucson's population grew by more than 156,000 people since 1994, water usage in the city is about the same now as it was back then. Tucson Water spokesman Fernando Molina says conservation, low flow devices, and fewer swimming pools in Tucson help control water use, but the pricing of water also is a factor. Tucson was one of the first cities to go to a tiered system for water rates in the 1970s. Tucson Water offers homeowners enough water for showers, laundry and drinking at a comparatively low rate. However, when you have a drip system for landscaping, a swimming pool, or a leaky faucet, the next tier can cost significantly more. Tucson Water also is banking some of its allotment from the CAP to help with any potential shortage in the future, Molina said. Tucson Water: https://1.usa.gov/1kA18Hj
BE PREPARED TUCSON
TUCSON - With the monsoon right around the corner, Tucson officials are urging you to be prepared for an emergency, such as a multi-day power outage or an interruption in utilities. Be Prepared Tucson advises all residents to create a 72-hour emergency kit. Each member of your family, including pets, should have a kit. A website (linked below) from the City of Tucson, U.S. Department of Energy, Homeland Security, and FEMA has a checklist of everything you need to be ready for an emergency. Be Prepared Tucson: https://www.bepreparedtucson.com/
SUMMER SAFARI NIGHTS PROGRAM CONTINUES FRIDAY AT REID PARK ZOO
TUCSON - Enjoy the Zoo and cooler evening temperatures at a series of themed nights featuring different zookeeper chats, animal encounters, artifact stations, enrichment-making activities, crafts, and scavenger hunts. The event runs every Friday, from 5:30 p.m. - 8 p.m., through July 11. Tomorrow night's theme is Big Cat Night, featuring lions, tigers and jaguars. Learn about big cats in Southern Arizona with the University of Arizona's Jaguar Survey and Monitoring Project and Saguaro National Park. View the schedule and admission prices at Reid Park Zoo: https://bit.ly/1ibHcV2 Jaguar Survey and Monitoring Project: https://bit.ly/TkqqwS Saguaro National Park: https://1.usa.gov/1nuHU1Y