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.
Thursday, the Dow Jones industrial average fell 12.69 points, or 0.1%, to 16,272.01. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index added 3.79 points, or 0.2%, to close at 1,923.82. The NASDAQ composite gained 6.92 points, or 0.2%, to 4,627.08.
The price of crude oil fell 35 cents to close at $44.74 a barrel in New York. Brent Crude, a benchmark for international oils used by many U.S. refineries, fell 68 cents to close at $47.69 in London.
Wholesale gasoline remained unchanged at $1.367 a gallon. Heating oil fell 1.7 cents to close at $1.520 a gallon. Natural gas fell 9.1 cents to close at $2.433 per 1,000 cubic feet, its lowest level since the summer of 2012, on high supplies.
MetLife Group Loans $1 Billion for Taubman’s Mall at Short Hills “MetLife Inc. is among insurers providing a $1 billion loan to refinance Taubman Centers Inc.’s Mall at Short Hills, a 1.4 million-square-foot luxury shopping center in New Jersey. New York Life Insurance Co. and Pacific Life Insurance Co. are also part of the group on the 12-year mortgage at 3.48 percent, New York-based MetLife said Wednesday in a statement.” (Bloomberg)
Short-Term EB-5 Regional Center Program Extension Would Defy Logic “A Regional Center Program extension and the resulting lengthy EB-5 backlog would directly benefit the largest real estate development projects in affluent areas such as those found in lower Manhattan due to the marketing advantages these types of large glamorous projects have in China. Further, recent EB-5 history has evidenced that the larger theEB-5 project, the greater the susceptibility to fraud.” (The Hill)
Auctions Set for A&P Stores “More than 100 bidders making 300 offers for A&P-owned stores are expected to participate in a court-led bankruptcy auction of the retailer's stores Thursday and Friday in New York. On Thursday, the Montvale, N.J.-based retailer will auction its highest-volume store in Mount Kisco, N.Y., as well as its stores in the five boroughs of New York, Westchester County, N.Y., and Northern New Jersey.” (Supermarket News)
Meet the Hipster Real Estate Developers Building for Millennials “If you’re the sort of twentysomething who needs rhubarb bitters in her cocktail, you’re not going to live just anywhere—and Timberlane co-founders Chaffetz, 32, and Dave Enslow, 37, are counting on that. Much of their Seattle- and Los Angeles-based firm’s strategy is straight out of the developer playbook, but when fixing up a property, Timberlane takes extra care to provide touches it can market specifically to the perceived whims of millennial tenants.” (Bloomberg)
Downtown Office Vs. Suburban Office National Income/Expense Review “The Institute of Real Estate Management (IREM), an international community of real estate managers, collected income and expense data from over 2200 private-sector buildings across the U.S. This year’s sample represents 1,914 office developments, some of which contain multiple buildings. The typical suburban office property contained an average of 109,457 SF and is occupied by an average of eight tenants.” (Bisnow)
Microsoft Sets Fifth Avenue Debut While Apple in Williamsburg Nears Completion “Microsoft flagship store announced this morning that it'll open at 677 Fifth Avenue — the previous tenant, Fendi, decamped to Madison Avenue — on Monday, October 26th at noon. Expect five floors and 22,269 square footage of shopping space, plus plenty of shoppers shuffling to and from the Apple Cube just up the street to compare products.” (New York Racked)
Choosing to Crowdfund the Real Estate Market “More people are being drawn into this increasingly crowded space, with platforms like Realty Mogul, Property Moose and Fundrise leading a sector which globally raised over $1 billion in real estate during 2014. By the end of this year, that figure is expected to almost triple, up $2.57 billion worldwide, according to a Massolution report released this year.” (CNBC)
A Time for Prayer and a Local Real Estate Pitch “As Pope Francis prepared to celebrate mass at Madison Square Garden Friday night, volunteers were distributing literature to the faithful, seeking support for a land use matter they have before the city. The Archdiocese of New York is backing a rezoning in East Midtown that would enable St. Patrick's Cathedral to sell the space above its property — known as unused air rights — throughout the Midtown Manhattan business district.” (Capital New York)
New York REIT Plans Strategy Review Following Litt Critique “New York REIT Inc., an owner of properties in Manhattan and Brooklyn, plans to review its business and add independent directors after investor criticism that the company was underperforming.” (Bloomberg)
As oil wealth dwindles, Saudi Arabia faces change — At a gas station in Saudi Arabia’s second largest city of Jiddah, drivers are fueling up their cars at just 45 cents a gallon — four times less than the price of water. To make that possible, the kingdom spends up to $10.7 billion per year on gasoline subsidies. It also offers a range of perks and welfare support to its citizens such as free health care and education, including thousands of scholarships to expensive Western universities. Such largesse, however, is likely to be rolled back as the world’s largest oil exporter looks to curb spending for the first time in years due to a plunge in the price of crude, which accounts for 90 per cent of government revenue.
Applications for US jobless aid rise, but remain near lows — Applications for unemployment benefits rose last week, but Americans are seeking jobless aid at historically low levels consistent with a healthy job market. The Labor Department said Thursday that weekly applications for jobless aid rose 10,000 to a seasonally adjusted 277,000. The four-week average, a less volatile figure, declined to 270,750. Applications are a proxy for layoffs. The low level of applications indicates that companies trust that the U.S. economy will continue to expand and will possibly boost hiring. The report indicates that employers have yet to be frightened off by the slowdown in China’s economy and fierce sell-offs in the U.S. stock market.
US manufacturing barely expands as global economy slows — U.S. manufacturers expanded at their slowest pace in two years last month, held back by faltering global growth and cutbacks in oil and gas drilling. The Institute for Supply Management said Thursday that its index of factory activity fell sharply to 50.2 in September from 51.1 in August. That is the lowest level since May 2013. Any reading above 50 indicates expansion. New orders and production both fell sharply and a measure of hiring also declined, according to the ISM, a trade group of purchasing managers. All three measures still barely remained in expansion territory.
Average US rate on 30-year mortgages eases to 3.85% — Average long-term U.S. mortgage rates eased slightly this week, continuing at low levels that could entice potential homebuyers. Mortgage giant Freddie Mac said Thursday the average rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage declined to 3.85% from 3.86% a week earlier. The rate on 15-year fixed-rate mortgages ticked down to 3.07% from 3.08%. Rates have stayed below 4% for 10 straight weeks.