It could be said that 2023 was a year of breaking records, rules and reality. Weather. Girl’s sports. Rates of addiction and depression. National and personal debt. Number of dystopian end-of-times movies produced by former U.S. presidents.
It was also a year with large swaths of loans on apartment buildings changing hands in Great Recession-like fashion. Too-big-to-fail bank takeovers resulted in the transfer of apartment mortgages to new owners at remarkable speed and discounts, making even Barney Frank’s head spin.
After spending a record $31 trillion of largely borrowed money, the nation’s leaders found themselves with a Federal Debt Crisis creating a quandary on just how much more to spend.
American consumers broke records. Despite three years of high inflation, ever-rising interest rates, gas and energy prices, record withdrawals from personal retirement accounts and many using credit cards to pay bills, the country blew past the previous Cyber Monday record by spending $12.7 billion. The story of two Americas persists.
Congress broke its own record by ending 2023 as the most inactive legislative term since the Great Depression. Of 12,103 bills introduced—22—or 0.001 percent were enacted. This might be why the U.S. has three branches of government; four if you count federal agencies.
Which brings us to the Supreme Court, who may be on the verge of trimming the sails of Chevron Deference (hence the legal power of unelected federal agencies) in its January session.
Federal agencies (EPA et al) and their regulatory ilk have much to do with the rising cost of housing contributing upwards of 40.6 percent (NAHB) to the cost of homebuilding. Dialing back their regulatory power could unleash the nation’s anemic housing supply chain and favorably alter the cap rates of multifamily housing operations across the country.
Four in 10 Americans think that 2023 was one of the worst years in American history according to YouGov.
On the other hand, after a crushing 2022, Nasdaq was up 55 percent, rising along with just about every other stock index, including those for international stocks.
This is not to say that the possibilities of existential threats do not continue to rise and that the nation’s economic gap doesn’t continue to widen.
Mercifully or sadly—depending on which side of the 2023 coin you’re on, the past year will take its final bow.
With 2024 comes a number of exciting events, including a national election that may prove to be a lot like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day. I already can’t get I Got You Babe out of my head.
May you have a happy and prosperous new year as we shake off the dust from 2023. I don’t know about you, but I’m buckled in. It promises to be a “locker ride.”
