Consumers tapped brakes on spending last month. Core retail sales dipped 0.7 percent on a monthly basis in July. Flattening consumer confidence likely indicates that the increase in coronavirus cases due to the delta variant is impacting shopping behavior. Clothing store sales, for instance, declined 2.6 percent last month, while department stores reported a 0.3 percent decline. The termination of federal unemployment benefits in roughly half of U.S. states may have also impacted retail sales… Read More

Completions climb to a three-month high. Builders finalized more single-family and multifamily housing units combined in July than in either of the previous two months. Deliveries will likely trend higher in the coming quarters as well. The moderation in the cost of a few key materials, most notably lumber, has boosted permit activity and is helping the pipeline of stalled residential developments move toward the finish line. In July, apartment permit filings lifted by 10… Read More

Rising infections prompt moratorium extension. On Aug. 3 the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention enacted a new order halting residential evictions in counties with substantial or high levels of COVID-19 community transmission. As of Aug. 17, most counties in the U.S. met that criteria, effectively extending a ban on residential evictions that has been in place in one form or another since April 2020. Once the order expires, currently slated for Oct. 3, pending… Read More

Restrained stock and rising costs pose challenges for developers. Over the past year, a lack of available building materials and skilled labor contributed to sizable surge in prices and delayed or canceled the completion of some residential and commercial real estate projects. Year over year, the cost of lumber has jumped 90 percent and steel pric-es rose 67 percent, while gypsum used to make drywall is up 12 percent and concrete rose 3 percent. Labor… Read More

Growth remains steady. In the second quarter, the economy ex-panded 6.5 percent on an annualized basis. Gains would have been larger but supply-chain challenges and a labor shortage hamstrung improvement. Those issues should be transitory, however, as amplified federal unemployment benefits sunset in September. In May, 9.2 million jobs were available nationwide, the highest level on record. Additionally, the national eviction moratorium may expire soon, which could encourage more workers to reenter the workforce. Supply-chain… Read More

Apartments attracting more investors. Investor confidence in multifamily is strengthening after the record-setting second quarter performance and an outlook that is bolstered by a lack of moderately priced homes available for purchase. The buyer pool for apartments is growing, facilitating a competitive bidding market. Multifamily assets traded for an average of $171,000 per unit over the past year ended in June, up 5 percent annually. Meanwhile, the average cap rate fell 20 basis points to… Read More

Pandemic heightens changes in lifestyle. The leading edge of the 72 million millennial cohort began to age into the homebuying stage of life during the global financial crisis. Deterred by the housing crisis that followed, many delayed purchasing. Although millennial homebuying had picked up before the health crisis began, it was sped up dramatically as companies sent employees home to work. No longer tethered to the office and confronted with economic uncertainty, priorities and lifestyles… Read More

 Unemployment steadily tightens. Job creation surpassed 900,000 new positions for the second consecutive month in July, lowering the unemployment rate 50 basis points month over month to 5.4 percent. While above the historically low 3.5 percent unemployment recorded just prior to the pandemic, the measure is still below the 5.9 percent average from 2000-2019. The restoration of 16.7 million jobs has been the driving force behind this drop in unemployment, although the exit of about… Read More

Marcus & Millichap’s President and CEO Hessam Nadji joins Steve Forbes and Shana Sissel on Fox Business What Post-pandemic Resurgence, Hybrid Work Models Mean for the Future of CRE As workers shift to a hybrid model, what is the effect on CRE? How the Office sector’s recovery reflects long-term thinking Apartment market setting new records showing pandemic- driven changes that may last Inflation, interest rates and the future of CRE pricing  

Consumer spending continues to grow. In June, core retail sales increased 1.1 percent as Americans continued to use money accumulated from stimulus and savings. Although more spending is aimed at services due to the broad reopening, plenty of new cash in the system supported growth for traditional retailers. Nonetheless, rapidly rising inflation, which measured 0.9 percent last month, dampens the better-than-anticipated retail sales figure. A portion of the increase comes from higher prices rather than… Read More