Market News

The average sale price of golf courses tracked reached more than $6.87 million last year, up 38% from an average of just under $5 million in 2023. The last time the average price reached that level was 2007, shortly before the financial crisis and Great Recession.

Park Avenue’s vacancy rate has fallen to 8.9%, its lowest rate since the end of 2018. Manhattan and U.S. office vacancy overall sits at 16.1%.

The FOMC voted to hold the federal funds rate at 4.25% to 4.5%. In its quarterly economic projection, the committee lowered its full-year 2025 GDP growth expectation to 1.7%, down from the 2.1% it forecast in December. The current unemployment rate is 4.1%, and the committee expects the median rate to be 4.4% at the end of the year.

U.S. existing-home sales rose 4.2% in February from the prior month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.26 million. That was far better than economists estimated decrease of 3.2%.

Lincoln’s private-markets fund with Bain will invest in a cross section of credit, including loans to companies and loans to finance purchases of assets such as cars and real estate. A portion of the fund will also be invested in more easily traded assets. The vehicle will accept investors of any wealth level and allow them to cash out once a quarter. Lincoln thinks it is the first insurance company to launch private-market funds.

Nasdaq, long associated with its prime Times Square location, will open its first regional headquarters in Dallas. It’s the latest push by a New York institution into Texas, which is trying to unseat the Northeast as the epicenter of U.S. business.

The federal government is the country’s largest land owner, controlling 650 million acres, or more than a quarter of all U.S. land.

The small-business optimism index fell in February but remained above average. Uncertainty, however, rose to the second-highest level on record.

American consumers’ spending on the luxury market, which includes high-end department stores and online platforms, fell 9.3% in February from a year earlier, worse than the 5.9% decline in January.

As of the fourth quarter of 2024, the average household’s credit-card debt surpassed $10,000, adjusted for inflation, for the first time since 2009.