Weekly News (March 6, 2024)

Mortgage Interest Rates Review

United Mortgage Nation  3/6/2024

Federal Fund Rate: 5.25 -5.50%        Prime Rate: 8.25 – 8.50%  

NYC Outdoor dining application for $1,500

수수료 1050불 – 아웃도어다이닝 신청시작    

Korea Daily   3/6/24 

• While the outdoor dining regulation becomes permanent, DOT announced the online link(www.diningoutnyc.info/apply) for online application with $1,500 fee.
• The fee is paid upfront which is effective 4 years. $1,050 for sideway café, $1,050 for roadway café, $2,100 for both application. When approved, there is security deposit of $2,500 and applicants will have to build it in 30 days. 
• For details, www.diningoutnyc.info/rules.  

Try Again: Rent Broker Fee paid by Landlord

렌트 ‘브로커 피 집주인 부담 재 추진

Korea Daily  2/29/24 

• NYC Council tries again new bill that rent broker fees will be paid by landlord.  This bill was proposed last year, but it is pending due to Real Estate industries’ strong objection.   
• The major rationale is that whoever hires real estate professionals pays the pertinent service fees.
• Traditionally, in NYC, it is not easy environment to get a rental place without professional’s help and the broker fees is usually 15% of a year rent.   

Hot Real Estate Market In Nvidia’s Backyard

엔비이어 귓마당 뜨거운 부동산 마켓   

WSJ   3/1/24

•  The housing market in Santa Clara, Calif., is cutthroat right now. But that is not because Nvidia, a local tech juggernaut. 
• Instead, the Santa Clara real-estate market’s driving forces are its lack of inventory and its relatively affordable prices compared with other Silicon Valley cities. It attracts tech employees from all over the region looking for entry-level housing, said Dave Walsh, manager of Compass’s San Jose office.
• Nvidia, a tech company known for its AI chip making, has been based in Santa Clara since the 1990s. Nvidia’s explosive earnings report will add to the AI mania that has been propelling big tech stocks and helping to fuel the Valley’s real-estate industry, said Adam Touni of Compass.

Apartment Buildings Get Bigger, Taller

아파트 빌딩, 크게 높게 

WSJ   3/6/24 

• U.S. cities added more than 2,900 buildings with more than 200 apartment units between 2021 and 2023. That is 17% more than were built from 2018 to 2020. It also outpaced the increase in the number of smaller properties of at least 50 units, according to property data firm Yardi.
• Most of the large apartment buildings going up now were planned at least a few years ago, when rents were rising rapidly. Rent growth has since slowed in most of the country, but steady tenant demand makes multifamily development still appealing. Record home prices, limited inventory of homes for sale and steep mortgage rates are keeping relatively high earners in rentals for longer.

New Apartment Buildings in U.S

Possible Silver Tsunami in Residential Market? 

주택시장에 역대급 실버 쓰나미 닥칠까?    

Korea Daily   3/2/24

•  Whitney Advisory Group who forecasted 2008 Financial Crisis accurately, forecasted again that Silver Tsunami might start even this year due to the boomers’ downsizing. 
• According to Redfin’s research, baby boomers owned $18T while millennials owned $5T as of 1St Qt in 2023.  AARP reported that 80% of population over 50 years old own their houses, and forecasted 51% would sell their houses within a few years. 
• Zillow reported in 2019 that about 20M houses will be on the market till 2037 due to aging population while Whitney Group said it might be as much as 30M houses. 

Lawyers who Beat NAR Take on Buffett

NAR을 이긴 변호사, 다음으로 버페를 쫓음

WSJ   3/5/24

• The lawyers who won a historic verdict, $1.8B, against the NAR and brokerage firms are turning to a new target as part of their antitrust litigation: Warren Buffett.
• On Monday they named a large subsidiary of Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway as a defendant in one of their lawsuits.
• They are aiming to move beyond NAR’s more limited financial resources and tap Berkshire’s deep pockets.  NAR, the other remaining defendant, had total assets of roughly $1 billion at the end of 2022. Berkshire, on the other hand, held more than $160 billion in cash and equivalents at the end of 2023.

AI Talent in Demand despite Cost Cutting

AI 개발인력 수요 증가  

WSJ   3/6/24 

• U.S. companies are ramping up recruitment of artificial-intelligence professionals and paying a premium for talent.  AI-related jobs including machine-learning engineers and data scientists existed before the debut of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, but the chatbot put a user interface on the technology, he said, opening eyes about ways to embed AI into products and workflows. 
• Amazon has cut jobs across several areas in recent months, citing changing priorities across its businesses that include AI. Alphabet has been working to marshal resources toward developments in AI while also cutting back on spending. United Parcel Service, which plans to cut about 12,000 jobs this year, has been increasing its use of AI and machine-learning tools. And last week, Apple abandoned a decade-long electric-car project and will be redeploying some employees to work on AI efforts.

Newly listed U.S. jobs, change from a year earlier

AI Startup Making Humanoid Robots Raises $675M

인간형 로봇 회사에 $675M 초기 투자액 확보

WSJ   3/1/24 

• Jeff Bezos, Nvidia and Microsoft are betting a human-like robot could be one of the hot developments in artificial intelligence.
• They are among a group of investors, including OpenAI, that invested $675 million in an AI robotics company called Figure, the startup said on Thursday, valuing it at $2.6 billion.
• Tech companies are pouring cash into AI at a breakneck pace, with more investors and analysts believing the AI boom is sustainable. More than $29 billion was invested in generative AI companies last year, according to research firm PitchBook. Nvidia, the chip maker at the heart of the AI craze, has a market cap around $2 trillion.

A Humanoid robot at Figure AI’s test facility in Sunnyvale, CA