Happy Friday, friends! And happy Father’s Day to all the great fathers I know and even the ones I don’t know. I find that dads tend to get a bit less recognition and acknowledgement—how many athletes look into the camera and say, “HI DAD!”? It’s always mom getting the shout-outs. So shout out to both our dads as we buck the trend and start celebrating Father’s Day Friday all the way through Sunday, giving them a much-deserved full weekend of golf, playing with the kids and laughing at their Dad Jokes.
Nearly every day, Compass’s Leonard Steinberg puts together a handful of real estate news bits that are always so interesting I have to share some of my favorites of the week. To receive these every day from Leonard, please click [_here](mailto:ls@compass.com “”) and include your full name and email address to get on his mailing list.
* November’s 3.1% pace marked the slowest rate of price increases since March 2021. The Fed first began raising interest rates in March 2022. (BARRONS)
* Michelle Serafinni of COMPASS La Jolla, CA has created an amazing journal – GETAWAY HOME – that allows getaway homeowners the ability to journal their experiences at their homes…..the perfect gift perhaps? Purchase it HERE.
* Almost 4% of the $55 million budget to rebuild Southern Ocean Lodge, the multi-award-winning resort on Kangaroo Island in Australia that burnt to the ground during Australia’s Black Summer of wildfires in 2019-20 was spent on fire prevention. Every roof on the premises now collects rainwater; reverse-osmosis technology purifies the drinking water, and some 5 million litres – 3 million more than before – are now available for the anti-fire sprinkler systems. Surrounding the entire lodge in a several-metre-wide ribbon band of boobialla – a native juniper – which is relatively fire-retardant. Fire-retardant plant species that resist ignition include rockrose, ice plant and aloe. (FT)
* Nearly 50% of Christmas-tree fires involve holiday lighting, according to the nonprofit National Fire Protection Association…..pricing that is too-good-to-be-true is often the culprit.
* Alexandra Saghir has started a Compass Affinity group called Caregivers @ Compass for agents and staff who are the primary caregivers for sick or dying loved ones, a support/information group that will meet regularly on Zoom. The first meeting is on January 22 at 12PM EST. This is the link to the WorkSpace group
* The Digital Nomad Visa Index ranked countries based on the following factors:
Active visa availability
Internet speed
Taxation policies and tax-free length
Income requirement for visa applications
Cost of living in Euros
Global Health Score (GHS)
Tourism popularity
And the TOP 10 places for digital nomads are: Spain, Argentina, Romania, UAE, Croatia, Uruguay, Portugal, Malta, Norway and Andora. (CNBC)
* The number of full-time local government workers employed outside of New York City shrank 7.9% from 491,102 to 452,298 from 2007 through 2022, in contrast to the nation as a whole, which saw a 2% increase in the number of full-time employees over this 15-year period while the population increased just under 2%. (State Comptroller)
* While home sales prices have actually risen (on average, not everywhere), rents are coming down in many places as the bottlenecks in the construction pipeline have lifted and thousands of new rental units come to market. Yes, supply is the key to pricing! But this rent relief could be temporary…. A low level of starts now means there’s little new construction to replace the volume of units now being completed. Today’s surfeit of supply can sustain falling rents for a matter of quarters, not years. Renters thinking rent prices will continue to decline over the long term, think again! (Aziz Sunderji)