Only 26% of people in the top third of earners—households making about $130,000 or more—said in the three months ending in June that they were better off than a year ago, near the lowest level since the depths of the financial crisis in 2009.
NYC Stabilized
The city’s most recent report about rent-stabilized units says landlords’ profit was up 12.1% between 2022 and 2023.
Private Investments
BlackRock plans to offer a 401(k) target-date fund with a 5% to 20% allocation to private investments, depending on an investor’s age. BlackRock estimates target-date funds with private investments could earn an extra 0.5% annually on average before fees.
LA Hotels
Hotel owners have to contend with what local Los Angeles union leaders say will be the highest minimum wage in the country. The city council voted last month to boost the wage for workers in hotels with 60 rooms or more. Hourly pay, currently $20.32, will increase every year until it reaches $30 in 2028.
International Buyers
America's housing market is showing increased interest from international buyers. The data showed the share of home shoppers who came from outside the U.S. grew from 1.3% in the first quarter of 2020 to 1.9% during the same time this year. It was also up from 1.7% in the fourth quarter of 2024.
Amrize
A Swiss building-materials company will spinoff of its North American operations, Amrize, the biggest cement provider and second-biggest commercial roofing provider in North America. It will debut as a public company with a market capitalization of $30 billion, marking the biggest spinoff so far this year.
Silver
Silver prices have surged this year, up 27% to the highest levels in more than a decade.
Prudential Affirm
An investment arm of insurer Prudential Financial will buy up to $500 million of consumer loans from technology-backed consumer lender Affirm Holdings for a period of three years. Most of the loans come due in six months and Affirm will be able to re-lend the investment throughout the life of the deal, allowing it to finance $3 billion of buy-now-pay-later loans. The deal is part of a growing wave of transactions pairing a handful of large private-credit investors with financial technology companies that are replacing banks as go-to lenders for the American public.
Apartment Occupancy
Apartment occupancy among the nation's 50 largest metro areas stayed steady in May month-to-month, at 95.7%, but is up 90 basis points year-to-date. And while all of those markets posted annual growth in occupancy, 40% were down on a monthly basis.
Office Oversupply
The number of property demolitions and the pace of office conversions into residential buildings are accelerating. Developers, meanwhile, have greatly slowed new office construction because of questions about future tenant demand. As a result, the amount of office supply in the U.S. is on pace this year to contract for the first time in a quarter of a century.