Articles

One of the largest problems is the rapidly aging demographics facing developed economies. For an economy to grow, there must be a balance of consumers and producers. This balance necessitates a growing population that skews to the younger end of the spectrum. An aging populace creates a lack of producers and tends to grind down growth as workers retire and begin pulling money and other resources from the economy. Read More

Before March 2020, the COVID-19 virus seemed like something sort of far away. While world health experts had been nervously tracking and documenting its spread and there were some isolated cases in the United States, people didn’t think it would be very serious. One of the biggest shifts is how consumers shopped, with a dramatic shift to online. Digital Commerce 360 estimates that the pandemic contributed an extra $219 billion to ecommerce’s bottom line over the past two years, with consumers spending $871 billion online in 2021. From March 2020 to February 2022, U.S. consumers spent $1.7 trillion online. Read More

The last five years saw some of the most cataclysmic changes in society and the economy since the Great Recession. And the last two years were even more tumultuous. Between the global pandemic, an ominous war abroad and major swings in consumer mood and sentiment, it’s hard to pick what the most significant event is. Indeed, there’s a meme going around that says, “When they said history repeats itself, I wasn’t expecting all of the 20th Century in the last two years.” Read More

There are growing concerns of an impending housing bubble. While the housing market is obviously seriously overheated, there are several reasons to think that it won’t end up as another bubble bursting. Lenders are much more cautious now than they were during the housing boom leading up to the Great Recession. Read More

Sales of new single‐family houses in April 2022 were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 591,000, according to estimates released jointly by the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development, 16.6% below the revised March rate of 709,000 and is 26.9% below the April 2021 estimate of 809,000. Read More

Confidence in the market for new multifamily housing turned downward in Q1 2022, according to results from the Multifamily Market Survey (MMS) by the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB). Read More

After expanding by 5.9% in 2021, The Conference Board expects global economic growth to slow to 2.9% this year, representing a downgrade of 1.0 percentage point from the February global economic outlook. Read More

Total existing-home sales slid 2.4% from March to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.61 million in April, according to the National Association of Realtors. Year-over-year, sales dropped 5.9% (5.96 million in April 2021). Read More

The single-family housing market continued to show signs of slowing in April as rising mortgage rates and ongoing supply chain disruptions continue to raise housing costs and take a toll on the housing market. Read More

Housing affordability posted a modest gain for average conditions in the first quarter of 2022 as a strong jump in national median income helped to offset a gradual rise in interest rates. However, home builders warn of current deteriorating conditions as a sharp jump in mortgage rates in March and April coupled with ongoing building material supply chain disruptions, labor shortages and high inflation drive up housing costs. Read More