Happy Friday, friends! This week we decided to expand Maverick’s palette and start feeding him solid foods, which was really exciting. We had mixed results with the rice cereal, and he definitely doesn’t like peas, for now. But he loved the banana to the point that we had to cut him off. Whether he seems to like the food or not, he’s got a huge smile on his face which hides of that food under his adorable double chin.
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.
* Municipalities get about 70% of their revenues from commercial real estate…..so anyone thinking commercial real estate problems are not MY problem, think again!
* About 90% of the global population in 2022 experienced unhealthy air quality, according to a new report from Swiss air quality technology company IQAir. The top 5 most polluted countries in 2022 were Chad, Iraq, Pakistan, Bahrain and Bangladesh. Only 6 countries met the WHO’s updated health limits: Australia, Estonia, Finland, Grenada, Iceland and New Zealand. The 2022 report used air quality data from more than 30,000 regulatory air quality monitoring stations and air quality sensors from 7,323 cities across 131 countries, regions and territories. Air pollution takes more than 2 years off the average global life expectancy, according to the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago. 60% of particulate matter air pollution comes from fossil fuel combustion. Pollution costs the US an estimated $600 billion annually in lost productivity and healthcare costs.
* If the biggest threat to banks is (often unfounded) depositor panic withdrawals, surely the easiest solution is to offer an insurance premium to depositors depositing amounts about the FDIC-insured threshold of $250,000? Its being discussed already….. we insure homes valued at $500k and $20 million, why not deposits? (CNBC)
* The New York metro area is home to 5,100 life sciences companies – about 30% more than Boston – and nearly 150,000 jobs in life sciences, 14,000 more than San Francisco, the 2nd-largest market for jobs in the sector. (FT)
* Robert will be on CNBC’s SQUAWK BOX this morning around 10.40am.
* TESLA plans to slash the cost of building next-generation EV cars by 50% in coming years…..deflation perhaps? Maybe the original concept of EV’s – to reduce energy consumption – may happen after all? (PS: those mega-hyper-fast-and-powerful EV’s use LOTS of energy!)
* The 44-story, 659-unit fully furnished West Eleventh Residences in Miami’s Arts District will be the first centrally managed luxury condo tower allowing owners to host 365 days on Airbnb. The turn-key studios and one-bedroom residences are priced from the mid $400,000’s.
* Credit Suisse – the 167 year old Swiss bank – was acquired by UBS in a deal valued around $3.23 billion, the first huge crisis bank merger since the 2008 financial crisis. At the end of 2022, the amount of insured deposits in all FDIC insured institutions nationwide was just over $10 trillion, or about 50% of the total deposits nationwide…….At both Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, more than 90% of deposits were uninsured. New York Community Bank is buying out a major portion of Signature Bank for $2.7 billion. (FT/NYT)