Weekly News (March 25, 2020)

This week’s Interest Rate (13th Week)

(Fairway Asset)

 30 Y Rate: 3.625%/ 15 Year Rate:3.125%/ 10 Y Treasury: 0.879%/  FHA:3.375%/  VA:3.250%
Prime Rate:3.0% / Ref IR: 0.00- 0.25%

NYC is planning to increase property tax for single homes

(The Korea Daily  3/24)

• NYC is changing the law that property tax will be adjusted according to current market value for single homes of which tax was not adjusted even tough home price was increased under good economy.
• Entire single home owner’s tax will be increased by average 42% and total additional tax amount will be $953M. Staten Island will be an exception to this adjustment.
• Coop’s tax will be lowered by 20% from the current tax level.  Condo’s tax will be remaining the same except new construction built after 2010 in which tax will be increased by about 20%.

NY Stock market DOW index rose by 2113p : highest increase in 87 years

(The Korea Times 3/25)

• DOW index was closed at 20,704.91 increased by 11.37% (2112.98p) which is highest increase span in 87 years. S&P index rose to 2,447.33 which is increased by 9.38%.  Nasdaq index rose to 7,417.86 which is increased by 8/12%.
• This surprising jump of stock market indexes is caused by government’s “Quantitative Easing” policy with tremendous amount to overcome COVID-19 influence.
• The stock market is responded to the anticipation that both parties, Democrats and Republican, will to agree for $2T in order to boost the current economy under the influence of COVID-19.
• It was affected also by the news that G7 (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, UK, US) treasury and central bank leaders promised the global cooperation to attack the current threat of world economy.

Javits Center in Manhattan will be used for temporary COVID-91 treatment center 

(The Korea Times  3/24)

• NYC has begun working to use Javits center as temporary treatment center by deploying Amy Engineering Team, announced at the press interview.  The center will be able to handle around 1000 patients. The construction will take 7 0- 10 days to finish.
• NYC will make total capacity for 75,000 patients for this situation.  The state governor ordered each hospital to increase hospital beds by 50%.
• Also the Governor is asking help from retired doctors and nurses.  According to the Governor’s  administrator office, about 30,000 medical professionals pledged to join.(www.health.ny.gov/assistance)
• Meadowland Expo Center in NJ also to be field hospital.  Four US military hospitals – mobile medical units that provide temporary care during mass casualty situations- are on the their way to New Jersey to help the healthcare system deal with am expected surge in COVID-19 cases.  In New Jersey, also New Jersey Convention and Exposition Center in Edison, and the Atlantic City Convention Center will be used for temporary hospital. (The Record 3/25)

 COVID-19 long term effect to Residential Market in US.

(The Korea Times  3/21)

• California Association of Realtors foresee the long term impact to residential market.
• Not economy recession, but economy slow-down. Wells Fargo and other research centers expected GDP growth forecast dropped by 0.1%-0.2%, but still grow.
• Mortgage interest rates will be still low level, even further drop.  Worry about economic uncertainty will be compensated by stronger buying demand.
• Longer term, buyers can save buying cost including interest payment.
• High end homes will face weaker demand and it will become a better time to invest high end homes because of price benefits.
• Foreign buyers will be decreased, but not give bigger impact because they are reduced already for some other reasons such as trade war between US and China. Last year, foreign buyers were decreased to 3.9% while it was 8% a year before.  When they try to sell the properties in US, they have to prepare enough time to get notarized because of US embassy’s limited service.
• New construction will be slowed down due to slow down of imported construction materials form oversees.  This will trigger home price increase.  Feb new construction initiation has been dropped to 1.599M which is decreased by 1.5% from last month. (The Korea Daily 3/19)
• Recovery from Impact of COVID-19 might take longer than SARS virus crises in early 2000.

In Tri-states(NY, NJ, CT),  gas price is going down

(The Korea Daily  3/19)

• According to AAA Northeast, gas price is average $2.48 per gallon while the average price was $2.56 last week.  In some NJ area, it went down to $2.36.
• The reason are 1. global crude oil price is going down and 2) much less traffic due to COVID-19 situation.

33,980 sf triplex on the top three floors in Koreatown sold at $35.68M ($1,050/sf)

(The  NYT  3/25)

• 13 story building at 20 West 33rd St between Broadway and Fifth Ave was built in 1912, was renovated in 2016.  This triplex unit has a roof top of 5,130 sf.
• The owner has been owned since 2015, 4th currently the unit has a lease in place till 2024.
• Seller brokers are Kelly Killoren Bensimon and Marc Roman at Douglas Elliman.

Other/Tech News :  Tokyo Olympic is delayed to next yea

 – Original schedule : 7/24 – 8/9/2020
 – Name will be still “Tokyo 2020”