Leaders of the Maasai ethnic group in Narok, Kenya are seeking a court order to demolish a new Ritz-Carlton luxury safari camp they say blocks a key route of the famous Serengeti migration.
Crypto Leverage
The dollar-denominated value of outstanding loans from centralized crypto lenders and decentralized lending platforms ballooned to a record high around $74 billion at the end of September, exceeding the previous record of $69 billion set in the fourth quarter of 2021.
Office Stats
The U.S. office vacancy rate is 14.1%, near a record high. Office mortgage delinquency rates for commercial mortgage-backed securities reached 11.8%, nearly six times the 2019 rate. Office property sales totaled $45.4 billion in the first three quarters of this year, less than half of 2019’s $102.6 billion.
AI Spending
Big tech companies are expected to spend nearly $3 trillion on AI through 2028 but only generate enough cash to cover half that tab.
San Fran Four Seasons
Blackstone is set to acquire the 277-room Four Seasons hotel in downtown San Francisco for approximately $130 million.
Builders’ Mortgages
People who borrow from a builder are more likely to overpay for their property and be underwater after they move in.
Consumer Sentiment
Consumer sentiment declined in November, with the index falling from 53.6 to 50.3. The reading is now just slightly above the levels that sentiment sank to amid the historic inflation that hit in 2022 during the Covid-19 pandemic, making it among the lowest results recorded in the survey’s decades of history.
Luxury Hotels
The average daily room rate at a U.S. luxury hotel is a record high at $394 this year. It is also $168 more than the average cost for a room in the next-priciest tier. The divide has been widening since 2008, when the difference was $60, but it has grown sharply in recent years to its largest ever.
Americans Wealth
Americans gained more than $63 trillion dollars in wealth from the first quarter of 2020 through the second quarter of 2025, according to the Federal Reserve. Real-estate wealth rose more than 61% during that span, while wealth from stocks and mutual funds went up 127%.
BX Senior Housing
Real-estate giant Blackstone is liquidating a major investment gone wrong: a $1.8 billion wager on senior housing that has saddled the firm with more than $600 million in losses. It is shaping up to be one of the New York firm’s worst investments in recent years. The firm also said its losses were part of a $33.5 billion fund that otherwise had strong performance, nearly doubling investors’ capital.