Thirty years ago, Americans with a college degree accounted for roughly 20% of the population and held the same percentage of household wealth as those without a degree. Today, Americans with a college degree account for 38% of the population and 73% of household wealth.
Dollar
After strengthening nearly 3% since Election Day, the greenback was recently trading at a roughly two-year high.
Inflation Watch
The Labor Department on Wednesday reported that consumer prices in October rose 2.6% from a year earlier. That marks a pickup in the pace of inflation from September, when the consumer-price index was up 2.4% on the year. Core prices, which exclude food and energy items in an effort to better reflect inflation’s underlying trend, were up 3.3% from a year earlier.
Hotel Allocation
Funds targeting hotel assets reached $10B in YTD Q3 2024, an increase of 19% from the same period in 2019.
Q3 RevPAR
National RevPAR of $102 is up 1.2% to 2023 and up 14.3% to 2019, the highest YTD Q3 in U.S. history.
Fed Cut Outlook
Fed funds futures prices now imply a roughly 25% chance that the Fed will leave rates unchanged at the December meeting rather than cutting again, up from 14% a month ago.
Apartment Pipeline
Some 672,000 new apartment units will have been completed by the end of this year, but only about half that number is expected in 2025, and even fewer in 2026.
Apartment Vacancy
The vacancy rate of apartment units stopped rising for the first time in three years last quarter, as demand for apartments rose to its highest levels since 2021.
Commercial Foreclosures
The national commercial foreclosure market peaked in May, at 752 total foreclosures that month. Prior to 2020, the peak in commercial foreclosures by month in the past decade was in October 2014, with 889.
Job Market
After showing remarkable strength and resilience since the pandemic, the job market has started to cool off significantly. The unemployment rate has risen to 4.1% from 3.6% in June 2023, and the number of job openings continues to trend downward.