Weekly News (July 19, 2023)

Mortgage Interest Rates Review

Fairway Asset Corp. 7/19/2023

Federal Fund Rate: 5.00% -5.25%        Prime Rate: 8.00%-8.25%

NJ will ban combustion engine car sale in 2035

Korea Times  7/19/2023

뉴저지, 2035년 내연 기관 신차 판매 금지

• The Governor Murphy will announce the executive order to ban internal combustion engine car sales by 2035 on 8/21/2023.
• The plan is to increase EV sales by 35% in 2026 and continually keep increasing by 6-8% annually till 2035. This regulation is applied to the cars under 10,000 pound.
• With this regulation, NJ is joining other 12 states in the U.S. who are planning to ban internal combustion cars by 2035.

The most expensive area in NYC is Hudson Yard

Korea Times   7/19/23

• For home price, the expensive area in NYC is Hudson Yard and the 2nd place is SoHo, according to Property Shark.
• The median price in Hudson Yard in 2nd Qt 2023 is $5.75M, increased 12% from a year earlier. The median price in the same period in SoHO is $3.543M, which pushed Tribeca to 3rd place who kept the 2nd place for 9 consecutive quarters.
• In Queens, the most expensive area is Hunters Points whose median price is $1.136M.
• Overall NYC’s home price is $750K, decreased 1% from year earlier. Queen’s overall median price went up 2% from year earlier.

New York City Renters, Builders Flock to Bronx

WSJ   7/18/23

• New York’s rental market of the moment is in the Bronx, where a cluster of new luxury apartments along the Harlem River and competitive prices are drawing crowds.
• Developers are pouring money into new buildings in the Bronx, especially in the popular Mott Haven neighborhood. Even global giants such as Brook-field Properties are developing multifamily towers in the area, which boasts riverfront views of the Manhattan skyline.
• Rent in the newly developed Mott Haven area has grown 31% since May 2019. The median for May 2023, $2,950, is the most expensive in the Bronx. The region is attracting attention for its emerging skyline, waterfront properties with short commutes to Manhattan.

Median asking rent in Mott Haven

WSJ  7/18/2023

Korean American stay longer in Korea

Korea Daily   7/18/23

한국 장기 체류 미주 한인 급증

• After the pandemic, Korean American who stay loner in Korea sharply increased – 54,752 in 2022 which is almost double compared to 2005.
• Among them, there are many youngsters like 2nd generation in U.S. and large number of them accepted jobs in Korea. Most of Korean corporates are welcoming the 2nd generation Korean American because of their bi-lingual skill.
• Also many of them are getting jobs teaching English in elementary and middle schools, and private language schools.

Trends of longer stay in Korea

Korea Daily 7/18/2023

Inflation Cools to Slowest Pace Since 2021

WSJ    7/13/23

2021년 이후 처음으로 가장 낮은 인플레이션 인상률

• Chances grow that Fed will halt raising rates after expected increase this month.
• Inflation cooled last month to its slowest pace in more than two years, boosting the chances that the Federal Reserve will stop raising interest rates after an expected increase this month.
• The consumer-price index climbed 3% in June from a year earlier, the Labor Department said Wednesday, sharply lower than the recent peak inflation rate of 9.1% in June 2022, when gasoline prices hit a U.S. record average of $5 a gallon. The June rate declined from 4% in May. Inflation was last close to 3% in March 2021.

Consumer-price Index, change from a year earlier

WSJ 7/13/2023

Loan Delinquencies Jumped Even After Credit Scores Rose

WSJ   7/13/23

펜데믹 이후 크레딧 카드 연체률 상승   

• Americans whose credit scores jumped early in the pandemic are falling behind on loan payments at higher rates than expected.
• Delinquency rates for credit cards and personal loans opened in mid-2021 more closely resembled those of borrowers with credit scores 25 points lower in the first quarter of 2023, according to an analysis of more than 75 million scores by credit-reporting company TransUnion. For auto loans, delinquency rates looked more like borrowers with credit scores that were 10 points lower.
• The economy remains in decent shape, despite warnings about a recession and the Federal Reserve’s aggressive rate increases. But the rise in loan delinquencies could be an early sign of financial pain to come.

Credit-Card delinquencies rates by score band

WSJ  7/13/2023

Cooler Inflation Lifts Hope of Soft Landing

WSJ   7/14/23

인플레이션 식어가면서 연착륙에 희망 증가

• Americans’ two biggest economic worries are recession and inflation. The two are connected: the more stubborn inflation remains, the more likely it will take a recession to get it down.
• The latest data suggest the risk is diminishing. Headline inflation has slid from 9.1% in June last year to 4% in May and 3% in June of this year.
• More encouraging is that underlying inflation has edged lower in recent months, even though the labor market has yet to weaken significantly. This suggests the odds of a soft landing, in which inflation returns close to the Fed’s 2% target without a recession, are improving.

Three-month annual rate of change

WSJ  7/14/2023

Google’s AI Chatbot Aims to Go Global

WSJ  7/14/23

구글 AI 챗봇 43개국 언어 기능 추가하며 국제 무대로

• The Alphabet unit on Thursday added several new features to Bard, its generative-AI chatbot, including the ability to converse in 43 additional languages, from Arabic to Vietnamese. The company will also make Bard available across much of Europe and in Brazil, territories that are home to hundreds of millions of people.
• Google initially was slow to bring to market. That changed after OpenAI last November released Chat-GPT, a computer program that can fluently respond to a range of queries across subjects. Its largest backer, Microsoft ,later built the technology into its Bing search engine—a potential threat to Google’s core search business.