Editors’ Weekly News Round Up March 11 – March 15
Friday is often considered a slow news day, but that certainly wasn’t the case this past week. Connect CRE posted a breaking news story on a settlement reached by the National Association of Realtors (NAR) over claims that the residential real estate industry had conspired to keep agent commissions high, and it quickly became the most-read story for the week ending March 16.
Under the headline NAR Reaches Settlement on Agent Fees in Home Sales, the story detailed a $418-million settlement that included changes in the decades-old formula for determining agents’ fees. Going forward, listings of homes for sale in most parts of the country will no longer include upfront offers to buyers’ agents and buyers will be able to negotiate compensation upfront with their agents. The settlement was reached about five months after a federal jury in Kansas City delivered a $1.8-billion verdict against NAR and two national brokerages.
Even as the retail sector overall has rallied from its uncertain outlook during the pandemic, major chains are still closing brick-and-mortar locations. One of the most dramatic rounds of closures year-to-date was an announcement from Dollar Tree that became the week’s second most-read Connect CRE story.
Dollar Tree to Shutter 970 Family Dollar Stores was a breaking news story on Wednesday. The retailer didn’t identify the Family Dollar sites that would go dark, but the scale of the planned closures comes as the dollar-store segment faces headwinds emanating from competition such as Walmart along with changes in consumer preferences. The company posted a $1.71-billion loss for the fourth quarter of 2023.
Earlier on Wednesday, Connect CRE readers read that the newly released monthly report on inflation was likely to stay the hands of the Federal Reserve when it came to making changes in the federal funds rate at the next meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee. Fed Chair Jerome Powell has reiterated that the central bank is aiming for inflation levels in the 2% range before it begins rolling back the rate increases it enacted in 2022 and 2023. The headline on Fed Seen Likely to Hold Off on Rate Cut Following Feb. Inflation Report, our third most-read story, signaled that the FOMC’s February meeting was probably not going to mark the beginning of those reductions.
However, former Boston Fed president Eric Rosengren told the Wall Street Journal that February’s inflation report didn’t change the scenario of three rate cuts by the end of 2024. A few months earlier, though, the markets had anticipated as many as five.
Continuing the theme of actions by the federal government, Connect CRE’s fourth most-read story last week reported a letter to the White House from 10 associations representing America’s housing providers, lenders and residents, including NAR and the National Multifamily Housing Council. The groups expressed concerns over a slate of proposed regulations intended to boost housing production and lower housing costs, concerns we reported in Industry Coalition Flags Biden’s Proposed Rental Regulations.
Our top five for the week was rounded out by another story about for-sale housing, this one on a local level. Although the developers of 600 Miami Worldcenter have just broken ground on the project, buyers broke out their checkbooks. Garnering readership both in Florida and nationally, 600-Unit Miami Condo Project Sells Out Two Years Before Completion recounted a success story at what will be the nation’s second-largest urban development after Hudson Yards.
The latest edition of Weekender charts the evolution of two common CRE terms – “gateway markets” and “core property types” – that no longer mean quite what they once did. You can read that, along with the fourth story in a series on student housing, by signing up here.