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.
Wednesday, the Dow Jones industrial average rose 247.66 points, or 1.4%, to 17,737.16. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index gained 33.14 points, or 1.6%, to 2,083.58. The NASDAQ composite added 89.19 points, or 1.8%, to 5,075.20.
Benchmark U.S. crude rose 8 cents to close at $40.75 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It briefly dipped below $40 a barrel for the first time since August. Brent crude, used to price international oils, rose 57 cents to close at $44.14 a barrel in London. Wholesale gasoline rose 2.8 cents to $1.266 a gallon, heating oil rose 1.2 cents to $1.38 a gallon and natural gas fell 2.4 cents to $2.347 per 1,000 cubic feet.
As US prepares to hike rates, Europe could reap benefits — In a high-stakes juncture for the global economy, the central banks of Europe and the United States are set to take opposing actions in December: the European Central Bank to cut rates, the Federal Reserve to raise them. For the struggling eurozone, it can’t happen soon enough. The divergence between two of the biggest forces in the world economy has the effect of weakening the euro against the dollar, providing a valuable boost to economic growth in Europe at a time of mounting uncertainty. For the more solid U.S. economy, it is creating an unwelcome headwind.
At Last, a Secondary Market Emerges for Private Equity Real Estate Funds “Ever since the financial crisis of 2008 sent the value of many private-equity real-estate funds plummeting, investors have been waiting and hoping for markets to recover. Now, values have rebounded enough for more of those investors to head for the exits by selling their stakes in what has become a burgeoning secondary market for these partnership interests.” (Wall Street Journal)
Healthcare and Rent Drive First Inflation Rise in Three Months “The cost of consumer goods rose in October for the first time in three months owing to higher costs for rent and medical care, but overall U.S. inflation remained extremely low. The consumer price index, or cost of living, increased by a seasonally adjusted 0.2% in October, the government said Tuesday. Even that increase may be overstated.” (MarketWatch)
Housing Starts in U.S. Fall on Decline in Apartment Construction “New-home building declined more than projected in October, led by a slump in apartment construction and showing fitful progress in residential real estate. Residential starts dropped 11 percent to a 1.06 million annualized rate, the slowest since March, from a revised 1.19 million pace the prior month, a Commerce Department report showed Wednesday. The median forecast in a Bloomberg survey called for 1.16 million.” (Bloomberg)
Fifth Avenue Remains World’s Priciest for Retail Space “Manhattan's upper Fifth Avenue was the most expensive place to lease retail space for the second year in a row, with rents almost 50% higher than in the No. 2 shopping district, Hong Kong's Causeway Bay. Rents on Fifth Avenue between 49th and 60th streets rose 3.6% from a year earlier to $3,500 a square foot as of midyear, brokerage Cushman & Wakefield Inc. said in its ‘Main Streets Across the World’ report, released Wednesday.” (Crain’s New York Business)
Silver Trial Shows Cost of Keeping Friends in High Places “Sometimes, you have to pay to keep friends in high places. It cost Manhattan apartment owner Glenwood Management Corp. an extra $100,000 in political contributions in 2012 to stay on the good side of New York Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver. But according to testimony in Silver’s corruption trial in Manhattan, that kind of a payment just scratched the surface of bigger, more complex schemes to keep the speaker happy.” (Bloomberg)
Mall Owners Find Silver Lining in Retailer Busts “Some wobbly retailers are heading into the holiday shopping season with their fates hanging in the balance. Landlords are watching with a mix of concern and anticipation. A spate of retailer bankruptcies this year has left owners of malls and shopping centers scrambling to fill empty stores and dented their quarterly results. The share prices of several real-estate investment trusts that focus on retail properties are lagging behind the overall market in 2015.” (Wall Street Journal)
REITWorld 2015: Panel Sees Encouraging Real Estate Fundamentals “Real estate fundamentals continue to look encouraging across most property types, according to participants on a panel at REITWorld 2015: NAREIT’s Annual Convention for All Things REIT. Ed Fritsch, president and CEO of Highwoods Properties, Inc. (NYSE: HIW) and NAREIT’s 2016 Chair, moderated the panel. Mike Kirby, chairman and director of research at Green Street Advisors, argued that 2015 ‘might be the best year ever in the last 25 years for fundamentals on a net operating income (NOI) basis.’” (REIT.com)
Teacher’s Retirement Fund Continues Meatpacking District Takeover “TIAA-CREF is taking over more of the Meatpacking District with the purchase of yet a third, fully leased and newly reconstructed warehouse. The stunning 430 W. 15th St. site is now in contract to the teachers’ retirement fund for $140 million or $1,400 a square foot, sources say. Douglas Harmon, Adam Spies and Kevin Donner of Eastdil Secured marketed the project, which sits on a long-term ground lease, for the sellers, Rockpoint Group and Atlas Capital.” (New York Post)
The Number of Real Estate Appraisers Is Falling. Here’s Why You Should Care “The ranks of real estate appraisers stand to shrink substantially over the next five years, which could mean longer waits, higher fees and even lower-quality appraisals as more appraisers cross state lines to value properties. There were 78,500 real estate appraisers working in the U.S. earlier this year, according to the Appraisal Institute, an industry organization, down 20% from 2007.” (MarketWatch)
Dan Gilbert Confirms Nike Store in Downtown Detroit “Dan Gilbert this morning confirmed that a Nike store is opening in downtown Detroit. Gilbert, the founder and chairman of Detroit-based Quicken Loans Inc. and Rock Ventures LLC, said in a Twitter post Wednesday morning that Nike Detroit will open this spring in 22,000 square feet at 1261 Woodward Ave. ‘Believe. Then see it,’ he tweeted. Crain's first reported in September that Nike Inc., had submitted plans to the U.S. Green Building Council for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED, certification at the former F.W. Woolworth Co. building.” (Crain’s Detroit Business)
Target profit climbs as customer traffic increases — Target says its sales rose 1.9% at established locations in the third quarter as it worked to revive its business by strengthening flagship categories like clothing and children’s products. Still, the uptick was a slowdown from the previous quarter, when sales rose 2.4% at established locations. Growth of digital sales also slowed to 20 per cent, and fell short of the company’s expectations. Previously, Target had forecast digital growth of 30 per cent for the period. Its shares fell more than 4%.
Lenders taking more borrowers to court over student loans — Fall behind on your student loans these days and you could end up getting more than hectoring phone calls and threatening letters. Some lenders are taking more people to court, attorneys say. The number of lawsuits filed over delinquent student loans that were made by private lenders has increased significantly in the past two years, lawyers told The Associated Press, even though borrowers are missing payments much less often than they did during the height of the recession. While no one tracks exactly how many such lawsuits are brought, an Associated Press review of court websites in several states found several thousand, an overwhelming number of them filed since 2013.
Minutes of meeting show Fed pondering December rate hike — Federal Reserve officials believed last month that the economic conditions needed to trigger the first interest rate hike in nearly a decade could “well be met” by their next meeting in December. Minutes of the October discussions released Wednesday revealed Fed officials’ view that the job market would improve further and that inflation would begin to move toward their 2 per cent annual target. They took note of the U.S. economy’s resilience through a summer of financial market turbulence and felt that global threats had “diminished.” The Fed has kept its benchmark for short-term rates near zero since late 2008.
Canadian Pacific defends bid for Norfolk Southern railroad and offered more details and defended its offer to join two of North America’s biggest railroads, but Norfolk Southern offered only a lukewarm response and regulators have expressed significant concerns about any rail mergers. Norfolk Southern said the offer of $46.72 cash and 0.348 shares in the combined company represented a premium of less than 10% of its stock price on Tuesday. Canadian Pacific said that the offer could deliver nearly 60% premium, but it based its calculation on an estimate of what the combined railroads might be worth next March. It’s clear the two railroads haven’t agreed on the value of their operations or the likelihood that such a merger would be approved.