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.
Tuesday, the Dow Jones industrial average climbed 222.44 points, or 1.3 per cent, to 17,928.35. The Standard & Poor’s 500 advanced 25.70 points, or 1.3 per cent, to 2,084.39. The NASDAQ composite index jumped 59.67 points, or 1.3 per cent, to 4,809.88.
U.S. crude rose $1.22, or 2.8 per cent, to $44.66 a barrel in New York. Brent crude, the benchmark for international oil prices, gained $1.89, or 4.3 per cent, to $45.52 a barrel in London. In other energy trading, wholesale gasoline gained 4 cents, or 3 per cent, to $1.49 a gallon. Heating oil rose 5 cents, or 4 per cent, to $1.34 a gallon. Natural gas rose 6 cents, or 2.9 per cent, to $2.16 per 1,000 cubic feet.
Analyst: Dick’s Could Snare as Many as 180 Sports Authority Stores “Sports Authority's loss could be Dick's Sporting Goods' gain, analysts say. Dick's, the nation's largest sporting goods retailer, is the most likely bidder for the majority of Sports Authority store leases that could go to auction next week, a Canaccord Genuity analyst wrote Monday in a research note to clients. Analyst Camilo Lyon's base-case scenario has publicly traded Dick's scooping up 80 Sports Authority leases.” (The Denver Post)
Stocks make biggest leap since March on China stimulus — U.S. stocks surged to their biggest gain in two months on Tuesday after the Chinese government moved to stimulate the world’s second-largest economy. That gave a big boost to energy, chemicals and machinery companies. For months investors have worried about the state of China’s economy, which is slowing down after a quarter-century of rapid growth. The prospect of greater sales to China lifted companies that make basic building materials, chemicals, building and mining equipment, and aircraft. The price of oil matched a six-month high and companies that drill for oil and refine it also rose. All 10 industrial sectors of the Standard & Poor’s 500 index finished higher.
Treasury calls for new regulations for online lenders — The Treasury Department has called for additional oversight and some increased regulation of the online lending industry, the first time a government agency has weighed in on this quickly growing, but largely unregulated, part of the financial world. In July 2015, the Treasury Department issued a request for information on the online lending industry and received 100 responses from companies, industry lobbyists, consumer advocates, lawmakers and others. While the Securities and Exchange Commission weighed in on the industry a few years ago, the SEC was looking only at the investors’ point of view. This is the first time a regulator took a holistic view of the industry. (AP)
Supermarket operator Kroger to hire 14,000 employees — Kroger is holding a nationwide hiring event to fill 14,000 open jobs across all its supermarket chains, including Ralphs, Fred Meyer and Food 4 Less. Candidates can apply online at jobs.kroger.com and show up to a store Saturday between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. for an interview. Many of the openings are for part-time associates who bag groceries, stock shelves or ring up items at the cash register. The company says the jobs are permanent. (AP)
Joint Venture Sells 86 Acres in Hanover to Bayer HealthCare “The developers of the sprawling former Alcatel-Lucent campus in Hanover are touting another milestone in its redevelopment: the sale of the remaining undeveloped land to Bayer HealthCare. In a news release Monday, Vision Real Estate Partners and Rubenstein Partners formally announced they had sold 86 acres to the life sciences giant. The parcel sits adjacent to Bayer’s 675,000-square-foot East Coast headquarters at 67 Whippany Road, which the real estate firms developed and completed in 2013.” (NJBIZ)
Midtown TGI Friday’s to Become One57 of Assisted Living “It’s not an accident that Manhattan’s newest senior living facility will rise just blocks away from the gilded co-ops of Park Avenue. Their residents might live in the building someday. Welltower Inc., the biggest U.S. senior-housing owner by market value, is seeking to push into New York, where there’s a dearth of options available for the elderly and those with cognitive issues. Last month, it teamed with luxury developer Hines to buy a site at 56th Street and Lexington Avenue.” (Bloomberg)
High-End Morgans Hotel Chain Dealt to Hospitality Company SBE for $82 Million “Hospitality company SBE Entertainment Group has agreed to acquire Morgans Hotel Group Co., according to people familiar with the matter, ending a long saga in which the two companies have held on-and-off-again merger talks. SBE is paying $2.25 a share in cash for the outstanding shares of Morgans, which were recently trading on the Nasdaq market at around $2, though the shares were trading as low as $1.33 last week before jumping on speculation of a takeover.” (MarketWatch)
How to Attract Millennials to CRE “Commercial real estate service firm Sperry Van Ness took a scientific approach to the industry’s aging employee base: It conducted a study to determine what will attract the next generation of workers. Company COO Diane Danielson of Sperry Van Ness discusses the firm’s findings (which were published in the report “Gen Y: How Commercial Real Estate Firms Can Attract and Retain Millennials”) and the strategies it has consequently developed to attract fresh Millennial talent to the commercial real estate industry.” (Commercial Property Executive)
U.S. Builder Confidence in Senior Housing Remains Positive in Q1 “According to the National Association of Home Builders' (NAHB) 55+ Housing Market Index (HMI) released this past week, U.S. builder confidence in the single-family 55+ housing market remained in positive territory for the first quarter of 2016 with a reading of 56. Despite the five-point dip from the previous quarter, this is the eighth consecutive quarter with a reading above 50.” (World Property Journal)
Gap’s Bloodbath Continues as April Sales Plummet “Last year, CEO Art Peck told investors and analysts that the moves he was implementing would halt sales declines and put the Gap and Banana Republic brands back on track and growing just like the Old Navy brand, its biggest, by spring. Instead, all three banners have been reporting month after month of comparable sales declines, a losing streak that continued into April.” (Fortune)
Real Estate Investment Could Reach $1.2B in Area You Can Walk Around in 45 Minutes “It would take about 45 minutes to circumambulate the area seeing over a billion dollars in investment in downtown Detroit right now. News broke over the weekend that the city of Detroit is trying to get a $267-million mixed-use development off the ground. Around 1,000 housing units and between 30,000 and 45,000 square feet of retail space would be built.” (MLive)
Is Trump Making New York’s Real Estate Industry Nervous? “Investors might not be worried about Donald Trump, but he appears to be making New York commercial real estate brokers nervous. Let's start with the stock market, where the Dow Jones Industrial Average has risen about 200 points in lockstep with the New York billionaire’s success in the Republican primary election campaign. Meanwhile, the commercial real estate broker index from the Real Estate Board of New York fell sharply in the first quarter.” (Crain’s New York Business)
Paul Massey Will Shutter Political Non-Profit if He Runs for Mayor “Cushman and Wakefield’s Paul Massey has decided he will shutter the political advocacy group he launched earlier this year if he goes ahead with a run at Gracie Mansion. With an eye toward a potential mayoral bid in 2017, Massey in January formed the 501(c)(4) 1NY Together – a type of ‘social welfare’ nonprofit that is allowed to raise funds to lobby lawmakers. The group aims to foster a dialogue on issues concerning education, crime, infrastructure and the economy.” (The Real Deal)