Weekly News (October 5, 2022)

Mortgage Interest Rates Review  

(by Fairway Home Loan 10/5/2022)

Willets Point Redevelopment steps further: 윌레츠 포인트 재개발 윤곽 드러나  

(Korea Daily  10/4/2022)

• Queens Community Board 7 revealed re-imagination of Willets Point in ways that would create new opportunities for residents and businesses.
• The project includes 1,100 units of 100% affordable housing across three new residential buildings, 1.2 Ac of publicly accessible open spaces, a new standalone 650-seat public school, new streets, as well as new infrastructure along 126th St, Willets Point Blvd, and environmental remediation  — Willets Point is located within 100-year flood plain.
• Once environmental remediation project is completed in 2023 – 2024, the redevelopment project will begin accordingly.

Famous Chicago Office Tower to become Housing: 시카고 유명 오피스 건물, 주택단지로 변환

(WSJ  10/5/2022)

• Chicago is offering financial help to developers willing to convert aging office towers into residential buildings, a new program that could become a test case for other cities looking to promote these office conversion.
• Developers planning conversions along Chicago’s LaSalle corridor will benefit from the lower office prices. These buildings are for sale and around a half dozen others are either delinquent on their mortgages or in foreclosure, Costar said.
• Mayor Lightfoot said that only projects that meet the city’s affordable-housing goals qualify, not a story of corporate welfare.

“Opendoor” slapped with $60M Fine: “오픈도어” 회사, 6천만불 벌금 형    

(The Real Deal    Sep/2022)

• A Prominent iBuyer’s marketing tactics opened door to a big penalty from the Federal Trade Commission.
• The FTC fined Opendoor $60M, saying that the iBuyer misled customers by saying they could make more money selling their homes to the company than through traditional means. The fine is a part of settlement with the agency.
• According to the FTC, Opendoor’s marketing materials appeared to promise that consumers would make more selling to the company because all fees were bundled together. As it turned out, consumers often paid more. Also it found that Opendoor, on average, paid below market values for homes.

Retail Real Estate Regains Footing: 소매 상가 공실률 감소 시작    

(WSJ  10/5/2022)

• Bricks-and-mortar store owners are emerging from the pandemic with surprising strength, posting some of their best numbers in years and plotting expansions as more Americans venture out to buy things again.
• U.S. retail vacancy fell to 6.1% in 2nd Qt, the lowest level in at least 15 years, while asking rents for U.S. shopping centers in the quarter were 16% higher than 5 years ago.
• The U.S. is still over-retailed. About a third of the 1,100 existing malls and more than 10% of 115,000 shopping centers will likely fail in the coming years and should be demolished, Mr. Kamdem of Morgan Stanley said.

U.S. Population vs Retail space

Mortgage rates are highest since 2007: 모기지 이자률, 2007년 이후 최고치   

(WSJ     9/30/2022)

• Mortgage rates rose to their highest level in more than 15 years, a new high to 6.7% since the 2008-2009 financial crisis that adds pressure to the already cooling U.S. housing market.
• A year ago, rates were 3.01%.
• Mortgage rates usually rise or fall in tandem with the benchmark 10-year Treasury yield, not the rate set by the Fed, but the 10-year yield is heavily influenced by expectations for Fed rates.
• The MBA expects mortgage originations to drop 48% to $2.3T this year, dragged down by a 73% decline in refinancings.

Job openings in U.S. fall sharply in August: 미국 취업 자리 뚜렷하게 감소시작    

(WSJ  10/5/2022)

• U.S. employers pulled back sharply on job openings, and layoffs rose in August, adding to signs the labor market cooled at the end of summer.
• The Labor Department said Tuesday that total job openings fell 10% in August to a seasonally adjusted 10.1M from 11.2M a month before.
• The Fed is aggressively raising interest rates to reduce inflations, which is running near a four decades high, with officials looking to cool down the labor market and growth to help bring the economy into better balance.

U.S. Employment Market

Builders Offer Homes at Discount to Investors: 신축업자들, 투자자들에게 가격 낮추어 판매

(WSJ  10/5/2022)

• American home builders are stuck with more houses and land than they can sell à that presents an opportunity for investors.
• Investors are looking for a deal so they can rent them out while single-family rental market is hot.
• The rental investors still focus primarily on existing homes. But recent years they also have proven to be eager buyers of new constructions à easy to manage in bulk next to each other.

Elon Musk offers to pay $44B to buy Twitter: 엘론 머스크, 440억불에 트위터 사기로 제안  

(Record/WSJ    10/5/2022)

• Elon Musk is abandoning his legal battle to back out of buying Twitter by offering $44B bid, his original offer, for the social media platform.
• Musk claimed that Twitter undercounted the number of fake accounts on its platform by “spam bot”, and Twitter sued when Musk announced the deal was off.
• The price of social media platform’s stock soars almost 22%.

Mini Seminar on YouTube: Go to C LAND REALTY Weekly Mini Seminar

News Brief on YouTube : Go to C LAND REALTY Weekly News Brief