From April through June 2020, 15 percent of homes sold were bought by multigenerational families, up 11 percent July 2019 through March 2020 and the highest rate since at least 2012, according to the National Association of Realtors (NAR). The trend began in previous years with Millennials moving in with parents in a difficult job...
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REAL ESTATE AGENTS OUTNUMBER HOUSES FOR SALE
On 31 January, there were 1.04 million homes for sale in the U.S., according to the National Association of Realtors (NAR), 26 percent fewer than a year earlier and the lowest on record since at least 1982. On the same date, the NAR listed 1.45 million members. The only other time agents have outnumbered houses...
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AMERICANS STILL FLEEING URBAN CENTERS
A record 31.2 percent of people using real estate brokerage Redfin’s website to look for new homes in January and February were searching outside of their current residence areas, the company said. The number was 26 percent for the same period last year, which predated the COVID pandemic. As more employers allow workers to work...
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SPACs RAISE REGULATORS’ CONCERNS
Wall Street’s favorite new gimmick, which we noted in last week’s Trends Journal and this one – special-purpose acquisition companies (SPACs) – is drawing interest from regulators, which sent SPAC index prices tumbling last week. (See last week’s “U.S. MARKETS OVERVIEW” for more on SPACs.) A SPAC is a company that makes no product, performs...
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STIMULUS POSES NO INFLATION DANGER, POWELL SAYS
The new $1.9-trillion stimulus Congress has pumped into the U.S. economy is unlikely to spark prolonged inflation, Jerome Powell, chair of the U.S. Federal Reserve, told the House Financial Services Committee in testimony on 23 March. If inflation does pose a problem, the Fed has the tools it needs to control it, Powell added. “We...
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DEMOCRATS MULL TAX HIKES
Democrats in the U.S. Congress are considering raising corporate taxes and the marginal tax rate on individuals, in part to pay for President Biden’s upcoming proposal to spend about $1.5 trillion on a first-round infrastructure plan and the same amount for education programs and to reduce poverty, the Wall Street Journal reported. The tax hikes...
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POWELL: U.S. DEBT LEVEL IS MANAGEABLE
The U.S. government can manage its record new $28 trillion levels of debt, Jerome Powell, chair of the U.S. Federal Reserve, said in a 25 March interview on National Public Radio. “Given the low level of interest rates, there’s no issue about the United States being able to service its debt at this time or...
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NEW JOBLESS CLAIMS LOWEST IN A YEAR
In the week ending 20 March, 684,000 people filed new claims for unemployment benefits, the U.S. Labor Department reported, the first time new claims have fallen below 700,000 since mid-March 2020. New claims fell by 97,000 from the previous week’s total of 781,000. New claims in Illinois plunged 80 percent from the week before; Ohio’s...
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BREAKTHROUGH IN MASSLESS BATTERIES
What if your electric car didn’t have a battery but was a battery? Turning a car chassis into a battery would save space inside for more people and cargo, save weight, and probably even cut cost. Engineers have been trying for years to turn structural components into energy storage cells. But past attempts have yielded...
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OLD MACDONALD HAS A NEW AUTONOMOUS TRACTOR
Self-driving vehicles aren’t confined to roadways. They’re making their way into farm fields to make growing crops more efficient with less human labor. Companies such as Case, CNH, and Kubota, among others, are fielding tractors that can identify and automatically attach themselves to specific pieces of equipment; follow pre-mapped paths to designated fields; and drive...