Weekly News (September 8, 2021)

This week’s Interest Rate (36th Week)

(By Fairway Home Loan)

  

   30 yr fx(%)  15 yr fx(%) FHA(%) 10 yr Tr Y (%)
A year ago      2.875       2.375     2.625          0.672
A month ago      2.699       2.225     2.375          1.246
Last week      2.750       2.125     2.375          1.299
This week      2.874       2.125     2.490          1.365

 

 Prime Rate:3.0% / Ref IR: 0.00- 0.25%

  • 3% Down payment for 1st home buyer is available
  • 5% Down payment 2-4 units FHA program available
  • 15% Down payment 2 families -conventional program available
  • Potential home buyer — Have a pre-approval first before the shop.  Now we have 48hour underwriting turn-around times for regular loans.
  • 2021 Conventional loan limit: Conforming SFR: $548,250/ Conforming high balance: $882,375 / Confirming Family: $702,000/ Confirming High Balance: $1,053,000

 

NY, Eviction moratorium extends till 1/15/2022

(WSJ/Korea Times   9/1)

  • NY law makers passed a bill to extend the state’s eviction moratorium until 1/15/2022, a move they said would give officials more time to distribute rental assistance funds after the Supreme Court struck down federal protections last month
  • US Census surveys suggest that some 700,000 New York adults could live in households behind on their rent for any reason
  • As of August 23, New York had distributed about $203M of its $2.3B ERAP, which is mostly fueled by federal funds
  • New York groups representing both landlords and tenants have criticized the slow rollout of the state’s rental assistance program, which was approved in April and opened to applicants on June 1. Around 176,000 people applied for assistance, and 46,327 applicants were approved as of Aug.23, according to the State Office of temporary and Disability Assistance

 

Thin Supply Slows House Flippers

(WSJ 9/8)

  • Wall Street has made a mountain of money available to house flippers, and selling move-in-ready rehabs has rarely been easier this year. The challenge is finding beat-up and out-of-date properties that can be renovated and resold for a profit
  • Foreclosure moratoriums have shut off a big source of fixer-upper since last spring’s lockdown. Meantime, competition is stiff from regular home buyers armed with super low mortgage rates and inspired by cable-TV renovators
  • Just 2.7% of home sales were flips – sales within a year of a prior sale – during the first Qt, according to Attom’s report, which is the lowest portion of sales since 2000
  • Mortgage trusts, pensions, hedge funds, private-equity firms, investment banks, and insurance companies all want so-called flip loans, drawn by yield in the range of 8% to 12% at a time when one-year Treasury’s pay less than 0.1%

 

 

Now rental market is soaring and REITs for small fund are emerging

(Miju News 9/3)

  • As would-be buyers gave up buying homes, rental market becomes hot and landlords are receiving multiple offers. In July, 1 Br apartment rent rose 7% from a year ago and 2Br apartment rent rose 8%
  • Some areas show different rent increase rates: according to Rent Cafe, rent applications become double this spring compared to last spring in NYC, and San Francisco rose 79% and Seattle rose 55%
  • The stocks for REITs which invest apartment complexes rose more than 30% such as Avalon Bay, UDR, and Express Property Trust
  • REIT companies such as Invitation Homes, American Homes 4 Rent are available for small investment. Fundraise, which started cloud funding platform in commercial sector, has expanded investment to single home rental market and people can invest a small fund as low as $500.00

 

Office Occupancy Fell in August

(WSJ   9/8)

  • Workers in big cities business districts are ending the summer back home or at other remote locations, as momentum to return to the office in spring and early summer mostly petered out in August
  • Property owners only months ago anticipated that office towers would fill up again after Labor Day, thanks to rising vaccination rates and falling infection rates. But the spread of the Delta variant and rising Covid-19 case numbers upended that calculation. As the summer wore on, most offices stayed largely vacant, or became even emptier
  • In New York and San Francisco, the worst markets among 10 major metros tracked by Katle, occupancy rate were 22% and 20%, respectively. Both were slightly off their July highs
  • Delayed returns to the office are a heavy blow to businesses that cater to office workers, such as restaurants, gyms, and hotels. They are also bad news for landlords. While most tenants continue paying rent even when their offices are empty, companies that get used to work remotely may become less eager to lease office space in the future, said Daniel Ismail, senior analyst at real-estate analytic firm Greet Street

 

 

Billionaire Marc Lore unveiled the plan for his utopia called “Telosa”

(New York Post   9/3)

  • Former Walmart executive and e-commerce billionaire Marc Lore wants to build a woke city from scratch – somewhere in the U.S.  “Telosa” from the Greek word Telos, meaning “highest purpose”
  • The mission of Telosa is to create a more equitable, sustainable future. “We are going to be the most open, the fairest and the most inclusive city in the world by Equitism. The city would feature indoor farming, energy efficient buildings, autonomous electric cars, and high-speed transportation. It’s most novel concept is how land would be owned: Anyone would be able to build homes and sell them, but the city retain ownership of the land underneath
  • The initial phase of the project, targeted for completion by 2030, would be built to accommodate 50,000 residents across roughly1,500 acres at a cost of $25B Businessweek reported
  • Over 40 years, the city will eventually require $400B in funding and grow to house as many as 5M people across 150,000 acres
  • The project’s planners have yet to commit to a location, but the website identified Nevada, Utah, Idaho, Arizona, and the Appalachian region as possible sites

 

Walmart Plans to Add 20,000 Workers and Amazon Seeks to Hire 55,000

(WSJ 9/2)

  • Walmart Inc is hiring 20,000 workers for its supply-chain operations ahead of the holidays, highlighting the growing role of distribution and delivery as the retailer competes with e-commerce giant Amazon.com Inc. The full- and part-time jobs range from order pickers, freight handlers, and forklift operators to technician and management roles at more than 250 Walmart and Sam’s Club distribution centers and transportation offices
  • Walmart online sales growth slowed in the 2nd Qt, rising 6% over the pandemic-fueled e-commerce sales seen during the same period in 2020, as consumers emerged from homes and returned to in-store shopping
  • Amazon,com Inc said it is seeking to hire about 55,000 people globally among its corporate and technology ranks during a recruiting event set for Sep 15, as the e-commerce giant continues a hiring spree begun at start of the Covid-19 pandemic
  • The Seattle-based company is aiming to fil roles in cloud-computing unit Amazon Wed Services, as well as in divisions such as Amazon Studio, advertising and its broadband satellite Project Kuiper
  • Amazon hiring underscores in continued growth in many different industries. The roles Amazon is seeking to fill also include Positions in its Alexa speaker division and I physical retail as the company plans to open department stores to sell clothing and other products

 

Others/Tech News: KIA donated $200K to American Red Cross to help IDA Victims

(Kore Times/ Korea Daily   9/8)

  • From 2019, KIA corporation in US is leading the project “Accelerate the Good” and has been donating more than $2.5M in U.S. During the pandemic, they have distributed 55,000 individual PPE to hospitals and medical centers throughout the U.S.  The $200K donation to American Red Cross is a part of this project
  • Also, they opened up the Customer Service Center for IDA victims to provide various help and services of their loans

 

 

Join The Discussion

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Compare listings

Compare