Blackstone Inc. agreed to buy student-housing owner American Campus Communities Inc. in a deal valuing the company at about $12.8 billion, including debt, a bet that rents will continue to rise as more college students return to campus.
HOAs
Home Owner Associations are blocking companies from buying single-family homes, rewriting homeownership rulebooks to thwart investor purchases of suburban housing as rental properties.
Mortgage Rates
Interest on the average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage climbed from 4.72% a week ago to over 5%, its highest level since early 2011. Fifteen months ago, mortgage rates were at all-time lows.
Office Space
Office building landlords are bracing for a record amount of U.S. office space that is hitting the market this year with leases for 243 million square feet of U.S. office space set to expire in 2022, a 40% increase since 2018.
Airfares
Airlines are passing higher costs on with domestic ticket prices in March 20% higher than 2019 levels, and up 15% from February,
8.5% Inflation
U.S. inflation accelerated to 8.5% in March, a new four-decade high, as surging energy prices and higher food costs hit consumers.
Recession Forecast
Economists put the probability of the economy being in recession sometime in the next 12 months at 28%, up from 18% in January and just 13% a year ago.
Hotel Development
Compared to pre-pandemic levels, hotel development costs have increased between 15% and 23%.
Unibail
Europe’s largest mall operator Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield SE wants to shed most of its U.S. properties by the end of 2023, bracing for a potentially sizable loss after it paid about $14 billion four years ago for some of the country’s top-performing malls.
Wage Gains
Average hourly earnings were up a seasonally adjusted 0.4% in March, following February’s relatively weak 0.1% rise. In the previous six months, by contrast, monthly wage gains averaged 0.5%.