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 rose 23.70 points, or 0.1 per cent, to 19,121.60. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index rose 2.94 points, or 0.1 per cent, to 2,204.66. The Nasdaq composite rose 11.11 points, or 0.2 per cent, to 5,379.92.
Benchmark U.S. crude fell $1.85, or 3.9 per cent, to close at $45.23 a barrel in New York. Brent crude, used to price international oils, tumbled $1.86, or 3.9 per cent, to close at $46.38 a barrel in London. In other energy commodities, heating oil fell 5 cents to $1.46 a gallon, wholesale gasoline fell 4 cents to $1.38 a gallon and natural gas was mostly unchanged at $3.32 per 1,000 cubic feet.
Sign project continues on Tohono O’odham routes west of Tucson The Arizona Department of Transportation is continuing sign-replacement work on various local routes on the Tohono O’odham Nation this week. Motorists traveling on Federal Route 34 and Federal Route 15 may encounter delays while crews continue putting in sign foundations and signs on those routes. The work on Route 34 will include brief delays as a moving operation slows traffic through the work areas, while the work on Route 15 will require lane closures and a flagging operation to direct traffic through the work area between mileposts 30 and 50. On Route 15, drivers should expect delays of 15 minutes. Work hours for this project are 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays. Crews continue work on Federal Route 19 using shoulder closures and no delays for motorists. Drivers should proceed through the work zone with caution, slow down and watch for construction equipment and personnel. For more information about this project, please call C.T. Revere, ADOT senior community relations officer, at 1.520.705.3574 or email at crevere@azdot.gov.
First Data: Thanksgiving, Black Friday sales up 9 per cent — Shoppers put in a strong showing on Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday. Holiday spending rose 9 per cent Thursday and Friday combined, compared with the same two-day period last year, according to First Data. The bump was fueled by shoppers turning to online deals. E-commerce sales rose 10.8 per cent for the two-day period, while sales at physical stores grew 8.6 per cent, according to First Data, which analyzed online and in-store payments across different forms of payment cards from nearly one million merchants Thanksgiving and Friday. The data captures about 40 per cent of all card transactions in the U.S. but excludes cash. (NEW YORK AP)
Consumer Confidence Soars to Highest level in Nine Years “Consumer confidence soared in November to a post-recession high, according to the Conference Board's monthly report published on Tuesday. The confidence index rose to 107.1, the highest level since July 2007. Economists had forecast that the index rose to 101.5 from 98.6. This was the first full report from the Conference Board since the US election. However, only a few responses were received after the election.” (Business Insider)
U.S. Home Prices Have Set a New Record, Says S&P Case-Shiller “Home prices continued to climb in September, setting a new all-time record and surpassing the highs from before the financial crisis. On a national basis, single-family home prices increased by 5.5%, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price Index, which covers all nine U.S. census divisions. That’s up sharply from 5.1% the month before. Home prices have risen particularly fast out West, with the highest year-over-year price increases in Seattle (11%), Portland (10.9%) and Denver (8.7%).” (Forbes)
Real Estate Prices Should Trend Up, Says REIT Startup CEO “Up until recent years, REITs were pretty much the only option for investors who wanted to invest in real estate, but lacked a strong professional background in the industry. The economic crisis, low interest rates and the rise of algo-trading, led Millions of investors to search for real estate investment opportunities, and as a result, dozens of crowdfunding and other platforms were founded, in order to serve this growing market. One of the fastest growing and fascinating startups is an Oakland based RoofStock.” (Forbes)
Indian-American Real Estate Executive May Join Trump Administration “Sandeep Mathrani, 54, the Chief Executive Officer of General Growth Properties, met the President-elect at the Trump Towers in New York on Monday. The presidential transition team, except for announcing the scheduled meeting, did not issue a read-out of the meeting Trump had with Mathrani, real estate executive from Chicago, the hometown of outgoing President Barack Obama. Local media reports speculated that Mathrani could join the Trump administration.” (The Tribune)
US bank earnings up nearly 13 per cent in 3Q — U.S. banks’ earnings in the July-September period jumped nearly 13 per cent from a year earlier as continued growth in lending fueled interest income. The data issued Tuesday by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. showed strength in the banking industry more than eight years after the financial crisis struck. However, the impact of low oil prices on energy companies led banks to continue to post bigger losses on commercial and industrial loans. Some energy companies have struggled to repay loans, causing distress for banks in oil and gas producing regions. (WASHINGTON AP)
China Tightening Capital Controls Bodes Ill for Real Estate “Over the short term the yuan is under pressure, so investors should expect capital outflows to be curtailed even more. The most sensitive areas are the U.K., and especially London, property markets; in London, the housing market has been slowing post-Brexit vote but housing is still unaffordable, with the average price around 14x average earnings, so Chinese buyers were important to prevent prices from falling. Other property hot spots are New York, Sydney and Vancouver, although a tax on foreign property buying has cooled down speculation in the Canadian city.” (The Street)
In the Future, You Might Work in an Inflatable Office “Taking second place was a proposal by designer Jie Zhang that allows workers to truly become digital nomads, with inflatable offices that can be set up practically anywhere. These collapsible structures are insulated, both thermally and acoustically, and offer a futuristic view of how people might work someday. One of Zhang’s submitted diagrams shows a person carrying the inflatable in a shoulder bag. The directions: ‘arrive,’ ‘unroll’ and ‘inflate.’” (MarketWatch)
Ex-Best Buy CEO Urges Big-Box Chains to Make Amazon-Type Changes or Die “The likes of traditionally brick-and-mortar-centric Best Buy and Wal-Mart have made great strides to compete more effectively online, but they need to continue to evolve in order to close the gap with e-commerce powerhouse Amazon, said former Best Buy CEO Brad Anderson. Appearing on CNBC's ‘Squawk on the Street’ on Cyber Monday, he said Amazon is an ‘incredible company,’ built for innovation in the digital age. ‘In its core culture, [Amazon is] constantly making changes, adapting, making mistakes, using the bottom of the organization as well as the top of the organization.’” (CNBC)
US economy grew at 3.2 per cent in third quarter — The U.S. economy in the third quarter grew at the fastest pace in two years, with a revised report showing stronger consumer spending than first estimated. The gross domestic product, the country’s total output of goods and services, expanded at an annual rate of 3.2 per cent in the July-September period, the Commerce Department reported Tuesday. The 3.2 per cent increase was expected to be the best showing for the year. Economists believe growth has slowed to around 2 per cent in the current quarter. At the moment, they forecast growth of around 2 per cent to 2.5 per cent for 2017. (WASHINGTON AP)
Air Rights on the High Line Are Selling at Huge Prices “It might be a last gasp of a vanishing market, but a chunk of precious High Line district air rights has sold for a whopping $800 per buildable square foot. Highcap Group’s managing principal Josh Goldflam and Senior Director Michael Ferrara brokered the sale of 4,900 square feet of High Line Transfer Corridor air rights from 509-511 W. 27th St., owned by a local partnership, to development company Six Sigma for $3.92 million.” (New York Post)
Home Depot Could Be the Surprise Winner of the Holiday Shopping Season “Forget the sweaters and socks. Home Depot Inc. is popping up as an analyst choice for holiday season sales amid elevated promotions for the category and strong appliance sales in the recently reported third quarter. Home Depot is the top holiday pick for analysts at BTIG due to a number of factors, including the home retailer’s low earnings-per-share exposure in the fourth quarter and positive tailwinds. Coming out of its third-quarter earnings announcement, Home Depot identified appliances as a standout category, reporting a double-digit same-store sales increase for the quarter.” (MarketWatch)