Appliance payoff models explode
^58 percent increase in requested quotes to thousands of appliance repair businesses y/y (2022-2023)
^43 percent increase in appliance spend in 2023 compared to 2013—rising from $390 to $558 over the decade
Why? 1987. Home appliances...
Office to apartments
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Hybrid work is likely here to stay. This shift isn’t just changing lifestyles—it’s also affecting commercial spaces. Office vacancy rates post-COVID shot up almost overnight, and they remain near 20 percent nationwide, the...
Rents fall behind inflation
Tracking rents is important for understanding the dynamics of the housing market. For example, the sharp increase in rents helped me deduce that there was a surge in household formation in 2021 (September 2021:...
Disparate impact of high interest rates
Disparate impact of high interest rates has adversely impacted millions of low- and middle-income families—and housing providers. More often high interest rates depress stock and housing prices, and other asset values— impacting all income...
Rent control still the wrong solution to housing woes
Restricting the price of housing kills incentives to supply places to live.
Rent control is having something of a moment: In Los Angeles, tenants are invoking a law that imposes limits on apartments built on...
L.A. homeless tower building cost rings bells
Gym, balconies, restaurant, soundproof music studio, business center, located in downtown Los Angeles, and it’s pet friendly.
Sounds like a pretty good hotel, four-stars at least.
Sounds like it, but it isn’t. It’s the new Weingart...
Major U.S. Supreme Court decisions coming down the track MAJOR UPDATE
June 28, 2024 Update: The Supreme Court in an unprecedented victory for multifamily and other businesses, has today reversed its 40-year-old decision in Chevron v. Natural Resource Defense Council. This law governed how courts...
The incredible disappearing Starwood CRE investor
The $10 billion fund from Starwood Capital Group has been trying to preserve its available cash and credit by limiting investor redemptions. In the first quarter, the fund was hit with $1.3 billion in...
Why Johnny can’t build
We were once a nation of builders—from the toll roads and canals of the early nineteenth century and the railroads of the second half of that busy century, to the construction of power, energy,...
Interest rates slow apartment development
Rising interest rates, tighter lending and flattening rents in parts of the country have left property companies from California to Florida waiting for financing that may not come soon.
+500 days (up 45% from 2019)...
Investors circle overleveraged apartments
Rescue capital is available for apartment borrowers that need it, but relatively few owners of over-leveraged apartment properties are willing to pay the price—so far.
High interest rates have stranded the owners of over-leveraged apartment...
Rules that make dishwashers, wash machines perform worse also illegal
Plaintiffs argue that the Department of Energy has no legal authority to impose its own water use limits on energy-consuming home appliances.
The federal regulations that make dishwashers and washing machines worse are also illegal....
