by stephenlee This week’s Interest Rate (50th Week)
30 Y Rate: 3.750%/ 15 Year Rate:3.125%/ 10 Y Treasury: 1.831%/ Prime Rate:4.75%
Ref IR: 1.50- 1.75%
Leonia school uses dehydrator to cut food waste
(The Record 12/11)
- Anna C Scott Elementary School will reduce food waste volume and weight by 80 to 90 percent by using a food dehydrator. The Leonia Green Team, a group of parents and school officials, hope to limit cafeteria waste to one or two trash bags daily for the school of 720 students.
- The shrunken final product out of the machine is like dirt and smells faintly like a coffee beans and it has a 30-1 ratio of carbon and nitrogen which can be good food for plants.
- A tube in the back drains sterile, portable water from the system – 10 gallons per 100 pounds of food waste – which will be used on school grounds or flushed back into the system.
Removal of GWB Car Pool Discount System might be blocked
(The Korea Times 12/10)
- As of 1/5/2020, Car pool discount over GWB is supposed to be stopped. However public opinion is different and the petition for keeping this car pool discount system is gathering momentum. Also NY/NJ Port Authority has decided to raise toll fee to $16 from $15 as of 1/5/2020 along with removal of car pool discount system.
- Currently if a car with 3 and more passengers pays $6.50 without time limit instead of $15.
- Port Authority’s position is that it is impossible to recognize car pool by cashless toll system which they will implement very soon.
Amazon will come in to Manhattan, NY
(The Korea Daily 12/9)
- According to WSJ, Amazon signed on the lease of 335,000 sf office near Hudson Yard at 410 10th Ave. This time Amazon did not get any benefits form NYC and announced it will create about1500 jobs.
- Meantime, Google is preparing 1.3M sf sales complex in Manhattan. Facebook is also moving forward to lease 700,000 sf office in 3 different places in Hudson Yard.
- They will become those gigantic tenants along with JP Morgan and Bank of America I Manhattan.
Charter school in Newark subpoenaed over site flip
(The Record 12/11)
- A Federal grand jury has subpoenaed a Newark charter school seeking information on the purchase by its nonprofit support group of two former public school buildings that were flipped at a markup of close to $10M.
- The deal – financed with state-issued bonds – was revealed in a series of stories by NorthJersey.com and USA Today.
- In 2106, appraisers hired by the Newark Housing Authority reported that the buildings were worth a total of $7.5M. In the application for financing that the supporting group submitted to the Economic Development Authority, letters from an appraisers were submitted showing that the buildings were worth a combined $16M by mid-2018.
Chinese Commercial property buyers are decreased sharply
(The Korea Times 12/9)
- Chinese commercial buyers are decreased sharply by 76% to $1.4B from last year due to 1). Trade War 2).Chinese government set up the limit on oversea spending.
- According to RCA (Real Capital Analytic), Hong Kong buyers also are decreased. They reported that foreign buyers in general are turning into more sellers for last 6 years while buyers from Korea, Germany, and Turkey are increased bit. In September Korean investment company MiRae Asset purchased a bundle deal of $5.8B for Chinese AnBang group’s hotel package.
MBA forecasted increase of home mortgage and decrease of re-financing in 2020
(The Korea Times 12/10)
- Mortgage Bank Association announced it forecast for 2020 that home buying mortgage will be increased by 1.6% to $1.29T while home re-financing will be decreased by 24.5% to $599B level.
- MBA forecasted on interest rates that same low level rates will be kept because of uncertainty of global politics and global economy weakness, also mentioned that rates will be slightly increased toward the end of 2020 to up to 4%.
- While less re-fi will be applied, more M Gen will get into home buyer market.
- In order to analyze re-fi is good or not, individual can use the on-line calculator: “DoIrefi”.
Other/Tech News : Kim, WooJoong (83) passed away on 12/9/2019
- He has established the 2nd largest company (DaeWoo) in Korea between 1980 – 1999. He was running GYBM, based in Vietnam.