Average build times for construction 2022

Thought this information was interesting.

The average time to build a new single-family home in 2022 was 9.6 months, 6 weeks longer than in 2021

Average Build Times

8.9 months built for sale
11.6 months build to rent
11.3 months built by hired contractor
13.4 months custom builds

@uscensusbureau
@GlobeStcom

Car 🚙 wash 🧽 cap rates surpassing other Net Lease categories

By Richard Berger
May 18, 2023 at 07:54 AM

Auto parts, convenience stores and dollar stores are other high-fliers.

Here’s one a reason why car wash properties, along with certain gas stations and convenience stores, saw the highest cap rate spikes in Q1. Their 80% bonus depreciation rate is available in the first year of purchase making them attractive to investors that were already interested in the single tenant net lease asset class.

Those sectors were part of a steady rise in cap rates across the board, according to a new report by B+E. Car-wash cap rates rose by 49 basis points between the fourth quarter of 2022 and the first quarter of 2023 to sit at an average 5.77% cap rate.

Auto parts (5.54% cap rate) rose by 47 bps; followed by convenience stores (5.12%) and dollar stores (6.05%), which each rose 30 bps.

Strickland Brothers 10 Minute Oil Change (6.16%) and Advance Auto Parts (5.95%) had the highest cap rates in this space. Tops in the convenience store category was Quik Mart (6.38%) and for Dollar Store, it was Family Dollar (6.60%).

Grocery (5.52%), casual dining/restaurants (5.88%) banks (5.41%), big boxes (5.98%) and pharmacies (5.83%) also had their cap rates elevate in the first quarter, according to B+E.

The firm said it expects this cap rate movement to continue upward because of market volatility.

“Single-tenant net lease becomes more appealing, especially in assets with longer lease terms, investment grade tenants, and highly passive lease structures,” according to the report.

“This makes it an attractive option for investors who are looking for more stable, lower-risk investments in the face of an uncertain market.”

B+E showed that specialty assets such as early learning, dialysis, and urgent care saw minimal fluctuations in cap rates.

“These assets are less susceptible to economic downturns, pandemics, and e-commerce factors, their resilience making them an enduringly attractive option for investors,” B+E wrote.

Click here for full article and similar stories

Are Rent Concession’s enough?

via Janover, Inc.

With the wave of new apartments hitting the market, many operators are quick to jump to rent concessions as a sort of silver bullet.

While it might be a better idea than lowering rents outright, the question remains: If you offer concessions, is it enough to keep your units occupied?

It shouldn’t be any secret that renewals are getting a little more challenging for most properties these days. Take Berkadia’s recent report: Renewal rates hit a 10-year high of about 58% in the third quarter of 2021. By the end of 2022, renewals had fallen to 52.6%.

Occupancy is always going to be one of the most important metrics for an apartment building. But keeping your units full is an ongoing battle, filled with pain — even when the market’s hot.

A summary of Berkadia’s report.

Over the past few years, multifamily concessions have increased to accommodate renters from the pressures the pandemic put on the economy.

Nationally, concessions peaked in the third quarter of 2021, reaching 6.3%. From 4Q20 to 4Q21, concessions were above 6.0%, a substantial amount above the pre-pandemic five-year average of 3.4%. Regionally, markets in the Northeast were offering more concessions compared to others, peaking at 7.6% in 2021. Meanwhile, concessions in the South remained the lowest due to positive net in-migrations to southern markets such as Dallas-Fort Worth and Austin. As pandemic restrictions lifted and the economy began recovering, concessions began to drop at the start of 2022, lowering to 4.5% by the end of the year.

Click here for full report

Financial Updates and News

Banks Giving ApplePay a Run for its Money

A group of banks, including Wells Fargo, J.P. Morgan Chase, Bank of America, and four other banks, are set to partner to create a digital wallet to compete with Apple’s Apple Pay and PayPal. The digital wallet would be serviced by Early Warnings Service LLC, which currently operates the money transfer product Zelle. The cohort of Banks expects to permit 150 million Visa and Mastercard debit and credit cards for use within the wallet once launched.

Titan’s Takeaway

Apple’s ambition of entering the banking business is no secret, and the biggest financial institutions, like Goldman Sachs, are lamenting old agreements with the iPhone juggernaut. After rushing to partner with ApplePay after its debut in 2014, banks are increasingly getting sidelined after paying a disproportionate amount of fees to Apple. Because ApplePay is the default tap-to-pay method, banks have been hesitant to build their own digital wallet, but it looks like they have had enough.

Meanwhile, Apple continues to trudge forward in the financial sector, allegedly working with Goldman Sachs on a savings account and a buy-now-pay-later product. Is there any sector Apple can’t waltz into? Considering the iPhone is the gateway to everything, the company can pretty much do anything it wants. 

Photo by PhotoMIX Company on Pexels.com

Google Joins the Layoff Trend

Alphabet, the parent company of Google, is set to slash its workforce by ~12,000 jobs or 6% of its company. Google’s layoffs come as part of a broader wave of tech layoffs amid a dark economic outlook, with Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta all reducing their workforces. CEO Sundar Pichai conceded in a memo to employees that Alphabet “hired for a different economic reality than the one we face today.” 

Titan’s Takeaway

We’ve said it before, and we will say it again. The growth at all-costs model is dead as part of a more considerable regime change mandating a tighter belt and more discretion when it comes to spending. While it may have seemed that Big Tech was exempt from the broader economic turmoil, like any industry, Silicon Valley is just as susceptible to the same macro forces.

“As shareholders, we welcome the news and estimate the cuts could expand 2023 EBITDA margins by up to 1.4 percentage points,” said Titan analyst Justin Yoo. Moreover, we agree with Altimeter’s Brad Gerstner’s observation that “it is a poorly kept secret in Silicon Valley that companies ranging from Google to Meta to Twitter to Uber could achieve similar levels of revenue with far fewer people.” The last ten years were one big long party, and the midnight oil has burned out. But it is leaving some of the best companies in the world alongside robust free cash with valuations that look quite attractive.

What to Know About Recessions

You’re probably seeing frequent headlines about layoffs and inflation, and hearing lots of talk about a recession. These dynamics are extremely unsettling, especially if this is the first time you’ve encountered them.Recessions HappenRecessions are an inevitable part of the economic cycle. In fact, 14 recessions have occurred since the Great Depression. Going through one is difficult but recoveries do come – on average, recessions post World War II last 10 months. The shortest on record is the COVID recession in 2020, which lasted 2 months.

What Makes a Recession?Interestingly, there is not one single definition or arbiter of recessions. The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) is the most often cited scorekeeper, and outlines a recession as a “significant decline in economic activity that is spread across the economy and that lasts more than a few months. ”A Bear Market vs a Recession” The two are often talked about in the same conversation. A recession refers to the economy while a bear market refers to market conditions. A bear market is defined as a 20% drop in a market from recent highs. Bear markets are typically accompanied by recessions, but not always. The average length of a bear market is less than a year: 289 days. Many portfolios recover their losses to set new all-time highs within a few years. Based on data from almost 50 years of historical performance, a diversified portfolio on Titan has less severe drawdowns on average for extended drawdowns greater than a year—2.8 years on average for diversified Titan portfolios versus 4.1 years for all-stock portfolios. Source: Titan, Bloomberg. Based on a hypothetical Titan Aggressive recommended portfolio versus U.S. Large Cap Equities from January 1973-October 2022, using proxy data when live returns are not available. Full Methodology available at request.

The most active tertiary markets for apartment development.

Jay Parsons is one of the Multifamily real ones at realpage, Inc and his wealth of knowledge, research and commentary is monumental to keep the industry on the pulse of what’s happening.

Check out this map highlighting the most active tertiary markets for apartment development. Multifamily construction isn’t just a major market thing. It’s not just a Sun Belt thing. It’s all over the country at multi-decade highs or all-time highs. Lots of focus typically goes to big markets like Seattle and Austin. But what about tertiary markets?

Note the nation’s leaders for apartment construction (on an inventory growth basis, adjusting for market size) are heavily concentrated in and around the Mountain region of the country.

Lots of buzz around Boise ID, but look at others like Bozeman MT, Provo UT, Colorado Springs CO, Greeley CO, Billings MT, Coeur d’Alene ID and Rapid City ID. Sioux Falls ID up there too.

And West region markets like Santa Fe NM, Prescott AZ and Bremerton WA.

The Southeast has surprisingly few entrants on this list (and none in Texas!?) led by Ocala FL, Huntsville AL, Lakeland-Winter Haven FL and Jacksonville NC. Just missing the cut were: Gainesville (GA, not FL), Sarasota/Bradenton FL, Port St. Lucie FL, and Asheville NC.

All of these have been hot demand markets since COVID (and most were attractive pre-COVID, too), but certainly will get tested in the short run by supply. Smaller markets tend to take an outsized hit in the short run as supply delivers. BUT most of these are likely well positioned longer term.

Our view is that the “Zoom towns” and tertiary markets with attractive long-term demand drivers and a nice job mix (not just a one-trick pony spring break town) should thrive in the next cycle.

apartments #multifamily #construction #housing

2023 Mortgage Forecast: Rates Expected to Decline

U.S. News interviewed top housing economists about their mortgage rate predictions and housing market outlook for 2023.

By Erika Giovanetti. Jan. 13, 2023 via US NEWS

Mortgage rates are widely expected to fall this year as inflation recedes and the U.S. economy prepares for the possibility of a modest recession, according to some of the nation’s leading real estate economists. This comes after mortgage rates saw record-breaking annual gains in 2022.

Relatively lower mortgage rates could bring homebuyers who were priced out last year back to the table, but forecasters say that housing affordability will remain a top concern. Although higher borrowing costs have weakened homebuying demand, home prices are propped up by a longstanding supply shortage. And even with inventory expected to improve in the coming months, housing supply still sits well below pre-pandemic levels.

Here’s where mortgage rates are headed in 2023 and how that will impact the housing market as a whole.

Mortgage Rate Predictions for 2023

Fannie Mae: 6.3%

The latest monthly Housing Forecast from Fannie Mae has the average 30-year fixed rate declining from 6.5% in the first quarter of 2023 to a flat 6% by the end of the year.

“We expect housing to continue to slow, even though mortgage rates have come down recently,” Doug Duncan, Fannie Mae’s senior vice president and chief economist, says in a Dec. 19 statement. “Home purchases remain unaffordable for many due to the rapid rise in rates over the last year and the fact that house prices, though certainly slowing and in some places declining, remain elevated compared to pre-pandemic levels.”

Freddie Mac: 6.4%

Freddie Mac’s most recent Quarterly Forecast, released in October 2022, is pretty much in line with Fannie Mae’s predictions. The mortgage giant puts the 30-year mortgage rate between 6.6% and 6.2% throughout 2023, with an average annualized rate of 6.4%.

“Mortgage rates generally follow 10-year Treasury yields, which would indicate that rates should be flat given the path of Treasurys. However, in recent months the spread between the primary mortgage rate and 10-year Treasurys has widened as the mortgage industry adjusted to dramatically lower transaction activity and recent interest rate volatility,” the forecast said. “If spreads gradually return closer to historical averages, then mortgage rates will decline modestly over the next year.”

Mortgage Bankers Association: 5.7%

MBA’s December 2022 Mortgage Finance Forecast puts the 30-year fixed mortgage rate at 6.2% in the first quarter of 2023, gradually falling to 5.2% by year-end. Joel Kan, MBA’s vice president and deputy chief economist, estimates that rates will average 5.7% throughout the year.

“You might have some weeks or some months where things might buck the trend,” Kan says. “You might see a month or two where rates may come up because something happens in the market. The baseline is one thing, but there’s always some room for surprises.”

ERIKA GIOVANETTI

National Association of Realtors: 5.7%

Nadia Evangelou, NAR senior economist and director of forecasting, says that the 30-year fixed mortgage rate will likely average 5.7% this year, stabilizing below the 6% threshold in the spring and summer months.

“It seems that mortgage rates may have peaked,” Evangelou says. “After surpassing the 7% threshold … rates are finally moving down as inflation is cooling. In fact, two of the main factors affecting today’s mortgage market have turned recently more favorably for mortgage rates. Inflation continues to ease while the Federal Reserve has switched to smaller interest rate hikes.”

Realtor.com: 7.4%

Realtor.com’s Housing Forecast for 2023 has the highest mortgage rate predictions, with the average 30-year fixed rate hovering above 7% throughout the year. Danielle Hale, chief economist at Realtor.com, says that while that forecast is “likely to overestimate mortgage rates for the year,” a 7.4% average rate “is still within the range of possibility.”

“The Fed has made it clear that we have seen some improvement with inflation, but there hasn’t been enough,” Hale says. “So we may not yet have seen the peak for mortgage rates. I think there still is that risk for rates to climb.”

Redfin: 6.1%

Redfin expects the 30-year fixed rate to decline throughout the year, ending the fourth quarter around 5.8%, according to the brokerage’s 2023 Housing Outlook. All said, the average homebuyer’s rate this year would be about 6.1%. Taylor Marr, deputy chief economist at Redfin, says that with the latest data on cooling inflation and a tempering job market, rates are now on a more downward trajectory than originally forecast and could be below 6% by the end of the first quarter.

“Typically when you look at the 10-year Treasury yield, the 30-year fixed mortgage rate is some spread higher than that, usually about 180 basis points,” Marr says. “Right now, that spread is still around 260 to 280, which makes it a full percentage point higher. … That spread is still wide. If you then look into the end of the year, we have a narrowing. That spread is going to normalize because there will be a little less volatility and uncertainty, at that point we will be going through a recession, but there will be less uncertainty with inflation.”

Why Mortgage Rates Are Expected to Drop This Year

Forecasters interviewed by U.S. News predict that mortgage rates will begin the year higher, falling by year-end. That’s due to the widespread belief that inflation has peaked as the Federal Reserve slows the pace of its benchmark rate hikes. And rate hikes aren’t the only tool the central bank has been leaning on to fight inflation – the Fed also began selling off mortgage-backed securities and Treasury bonds last year to reduce the size of its balance sheet, which put even more upward pressure on mortgage rates in 2022.

“Looking at history when there’s a rapid rise in rates, traditionally there’s a bit of a recovery, almost a regression to the mean,” says Redfin’s Marr, adding that sub-3% rates were “a bit of an anomaly.”

ERIKA GIOVANETTI

….

Experts Weigh In: How Rates Will Impact the 2023 Housing Market

Affordability Will Remain a Top Concern for Buyers

“Even with a 6% mortgage rate, (first-time) buyers still earn $30,000 less than the income needed to purchase a starter home. As a result, less than 20% of the renters can afford to buy a starter home. Thus, homeownership rate may continue to fall in 2023 as the share of first-time homebuyers will likely shrink even further from the 2022’s all-time lows. Housing affordability is going to be the main driver of the housing market in 2023.” – Evangelou, NAR

“We are seeing more homes available for sale, which is helping, but they’re still listed for sale at higher prices than we saw a year ago. Combined with higher mortgage rates, it’s going to be a challenging market.” – Hale, Realtor.com

“Even with prices falling and rates falling and incomes growing at still faster rates, we still expect a hurt with affordability relative to 2019 or even 2021. Affordability overall is still not going to see that much of an improvement.” – Taylor Marr, Redfin

“Because affordability is really the issue in the market today, the more affordable markets will see relatively healthier levels of activity. People moving from really expensive markets to more affordable markets can see their mortgage payments stay the same, if not lower.” – Divounguy, Zillow

 

Inventory May Improve, but There’s Still a Housing Supply Shortage

“We still have this big-picture, long-term housing shortage where we’re just not building enough housing to keep up with the number of households we have in this country, and it’s not going away. We’re seeing a temporary pullback in demand that’s brought about some better balance, but if demand were to rebound to normal, which we expect as inflation is reined in and the market normalizes, you’re still going to have that tightness in supply. Yes, the market will be in better balance, but it’s largely because we’re going to have less demand and not really because we’ve addressed the fundamental supply issues that we have.” – Hale, Realtor.com

“We were undersupplied going into the pandemic, and that unexpected demand boom just made things a lot worse. The slowdown in building of late is certainly not going to help the supply issue. If we do see rates continue to fall, we’re still going to need that supply.” –Joel Kan, MBA

“We have a record number of homes under construction in the United States. In almost every neighborhood, there’s construction, there’s unfinished projects. Those are going to come on the market and help with that inventory. … Inventory is slowly creeping up but is still much lower than it was before the pandemic.” – Divounguy, Zillow

Current Homeowners Will Remain Reluctant to Sell

“You have a lot of existing homeowners who bought in the past two or three years who have lower mortgage rates than what’s out there now. That’s one sort of wild card to see if or when these people might sell and lose their lower mortgage rate. Who might be willing then to buy a home even at a 5% mortgage rate? You certainly have buyers who don’t have to forgo a lower rate, like first-time buyers and renters, and for them, the right kind of home and right mortgage rate might be manageable from an affordability standpoint.” – Kan, MBA

“As mortgage rates come down, we’re going to see a lot of potential sellers who had been locked into their really low rates. A decrease in mortgage rates will help to facilitate that a little bit because 70% of sellers end up buying again. If affordability is a problem for buyers, it’s also a problem for sellers.” – Orphe Divounguy, Zillow

“The tightest supply is at the lower price end of the market. Those buyers are looking for smaller houses and condos. The lower rates are holding up those move-up buyers who are looking at holding onto a townhome as an investment property. We’re anticipating that a lot of these homeowners will stay in place or they won’t sell their entry-level units.” – Kan, MBA

“Homes are going to sit on the market, and that’s going to make it look like there’s more homes for sale, but that’s not necessarily going to change the number of homes for sale that are available to buyers. What we will see is less competition from other shoppers.” – Hale, Realtor.com

There is quite a bit more content in this article and to view it all, please visit US NEWS here <——

“We will stay the course until the job is done.”– Jerome Powell

Powell Softens Stance

In a speech Wednesday, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell seemed to signal a potential slowdown in interest rate hikes. Powell said, “the time for moderating the pace of rate increases may come as soon as the December meeting.” Though the Chairman acknowledged some “promising developments” in the economy, he maintained a cautious approach, saying, “we have a long way to go in restoring price stability.” 

Titan’s Takeaway

While Powell did signal a downshift in the Fed’s tightening pace next month, rates are likely to stay at restrictive levels for some time. The market reacted positively to the news, with the S&P 500 ticketing higher, the dollar turning lower, and treasuries trimming their losses. However, with inflation still materially above the Fed’s 2% target, higher levels of interest rates are likely here for a while.

Private Hiring Slows

127,000 jobs were added in the private sector in November, according to ADP, materially below estimates and a slowdown from the 239,000 added in October. Leisure and Hospitality continue to add workers, but steep drops in manufacturing, financial activities, and information services are a sign that the labor market is loosening. Job openings also fell to 10.3 million from 10.7 million a month earlier. 

Titan’s Takeaway

The Fed’s monetary tightening is beginning to have a material impact on the labor market as companies turn to cost-cutting measures instead of growth. The continued slowdown in the labor market could be a key measure the Fed is waiting for to slow the pace of its rate hikes.

Hope you and your families have an Awesome Thanksgiving!

Here are some news tidbits to set you off on a hopefully relaxing and fun holiday!

Great time of year to spend time with family! – Picture from movie Step Brothers

via the research team at

Is crypto dead?

Not a day goes by without another headline about FTX and crypto.  To recap, FTX was a crypto exchange, founded in 2019 by Sam Bankman-Fried. It shot to international prominence. Then it all collapsed in a matter of days. It turns out Bankman-Fried was lending FTX customer funds to his trading firm, Alameda Research, to generate yield, and using its own token, FTT, as collateral. When market participants caught wind of the scheme, panic ensued. In essence, it was a liquidity crisis, an old-fashioned bank run, and FTX was left holding the line with anywhere from $10B-$50B in liabilities.  With the scandal unfolding and the price of crypto dropping precipitously, people will be asking around the table, is this the end of crypto?

Visit Titan here to learn more

In today’s crypto market, borrowers, lenders, and investors facilitate a complex and mutually dependent ecosystem, but their interconnectedness can also break it. Like a virus, one sick firm can infect an otherwise healthy market. But to some extent, contagion in financial markets is inevitable.  It’s important to note that most of the crypto destruction and contagion this year has been centered in the CeFi (centralized finance) space and has less to do with the underlying crypto technology and more with the entities that broker transactions across the crypto market.

Titan’s Thanksgiving Takeaway

What differentiates the crypto market from others is how young and unregulated it is. As crypto continues to mature, we believe that it is necessary that exchanges, lenders, and other market participants institute stringent guardrails to prevent one renegade firm from wreaking havoc on the entire ecosystem.  Despite the fallout this year, we believe that use cases will only increase for the asset classes and as DeFi (decentralized finance) technology becomes more mainstream and adopted, crypto may yield a risk premium for long-term investors and patient investors may be compensated for bearing the risk.

Stock photo via Titan email.

What can I do about inflation?

The cost of a turkey could be up by 73% this year! You can bet whoever is preparing the Thanksgiving feast will bring up how much more expensive everything is. As shoppers we intuitively know what to do about inflation – bite the bullet and accept the higher costs, buy less, or buy different things. But what about as investors? Investors worry about inflation because it erodes the real value of investments, as well as the value of income generated from those investments.  What can you do to protect investments? Inflation hedging is a strategy for investing in assets that have a higher probability of keeping up with the rate of inflation, perhaps even generating returns exceeding inflation.

Titan’s Thanksgiving Takeaway

There are many types of investments that are commonly used to hedge against inflation.  Stocks: In the past century, the stock market has had average annual returns of about 10%, making it a long-term investment that has beaten inflation. During inflationary periods, investors might buy non-cyclical stocks–companies that generally succeed through good and bad times in the economy’s cycle. Stocks of staple consumer goods, food processors, utilities, and health care and pharmaceuticals are some examples. Inelastic goods and services, or products without acceptable substitutes, are generally good hedges against inflation as consumers are less price sensitive.  International diversification: A greater allocation to foreign stocks and bonds may help cushion against the effects of inflation, as some countries such as Australia and South Korea have economic cycles that don’t correlate with the U.S. economy. Some emerging markets may also offer hedging opportunities.‍  Real estate: For many investors, real estate can offer a low correlation to equity markets, consistent cash flow, and potential historical appreciation. While the asset class has generally been reserved for the select-few, it is our view that investors should and can benefit from investments in real estate. Given today’s macro climate, we believe that the asset class has the ability to act as an inflation hedge and benefit from secular tailwinds from the supply chain.

Commodities: Agricultural, energy and industrial metals tend to track inflation, as they are used in products and services that make up the Consumer Price Index (CPI), which factors into the inflation calculation. Gold is often regarded as the inflation hedge of choice among commodities.‍‍  Inflation-indexed bonds: These bonds are designed to rise in value with consumer inflation, such as the CPI in the U.S. The interest rate is typically lower than for conventional bonds, while the bonds’ principal value is adjusted higher to compensate investors. The best example is Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS), which are sold by the U.S. government.   Direct lending: These are loans to private, middle-market companies, known as private-credit investing. Private credit seeks to provide investors with predictable income, and stability as it reduces volatility from public markets, and potentially offers risk-adjusted returns. We  believe that private credit is uniquely positioned to benefit from today’s economic climate with higher yields, lower default rates, and floating rate credit that increases as interest rates rise.

What’s happening with the tech layoffs?

Big tech has been letting go of a lot of talent over the last few weeks. There are of course the major headlines, like Elon Musk firing almost half of Twitter and Mark Zuckerberg letting go of 13% of Meta’s workforce. The Twitter firings may be unique to Musk’s burn-it-down-first brand of restructuring and Meta’s are unique to Zuckerberg’s particular bet on the metaverse not panning out. However, more generally, tech companies are suffering a COVID-times hangover.   Many tech companies saw an increase in traffic and revenue during the height of the pandemic as people were stuck at home, seeking out information and entertainment. The industry responded by hiring and expanding at a rapid pace. And now as consumers are moving back into the real world, the tide is turning.

Titan’s Thanksgiving Takeaway

We view the mega-cap tech players within our Flagship fund, aka “The Generals”, as bellwethers for the broader economy given their global reach with consumers and businesses alike and the large percentage of the S&P 500 earnings that they make up. In short, these companies foresee slower discretionary spending from the consumer and sluggish enterprise spending over the coming quarters. These trends showed up in our research, and Titan elected to trim Alphabet and Microsoft earlier this year.  As for jobs, it’s important to note that layoffs are only a problem for the sector if workers can’t get re-hired.  Data suggests that this is not the case in the tech sector, which is keeping up with growth, adding 175,000 jobs alone this year. This indicates that talent will be spread around to smaller, earlier-stage tech companies, supporting the health of the sector.

Complimentary Property Valuations and Analysis

https://mailchi.mp/085abf9a7c5e/let-us-perform-a-complimentary-property-analysis-for-you-we-can-add-value-and-be-of-service

“A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.” – John A. Shedd

Two key economic pieces of information from Titan and their research team. If you’d like to learn more about Titan, CLICK HERE <<<<<<

➊Futures fall 200 points: After a brutal sell-off for Wall Street on Friday, stock futures fell Sunday evening, with the Dow sliding 0.7%, and the S&P 500 and NASDAq 0.8% and 0.9% respectively. Both Friday and Sunday’s drops can likely be attributed to Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s statement that the Federal Reserve remains committed to rate hikes to combat stubbornly high inflation, even if it causes economic pain.   Titan’s Takeaway: Inflation still isn’t going away, so neither are rate hikes. Friday’s sell-off and Sunday’s slide indicate that investors remain cautious about the markets and the appetite for risk has shrunk. Hopefully Powell’s firm stance will start to pay off, and the futures will look brighter soon.

➋ Drought discoveries persist: Severe droughts across the globe are exposing both historical secrets and food supply problems. In Texas, a dried up river revealed 113 million year old dinosaur tracks. Low water in the Danube led to the discovery of a sunken warship from WW2. Winemakers in France just recorded the earliest harvest ever in wine country due to drought conditions, and farmers worldwide have seen diminished harvests this season.  Titan’s Takeaway: While re-discovering ancient relics is exciting, a global food crisis is not. With grain supply already threatened due to Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine, drought conditions affecting harvests only adds more pressure to the problem. We’ll be curious to see how this affects food prices in the coming months.