Wall Street Journal (July 20)
“With American homeowners “reluctant to sell because they can’t afford to give up the low mortgage rates they have now,” homebuyers are increasingly turning to new construction. Just over a million existing homes were on the market at May 31, a record low. In contrast, “newly built homes accounted for nearly one-third of single-family homes for sale nationwide in May, compared with a historical norm of 10% to 20%.” This marks “another example of how this housing market is behaving like no other.”
Tags: Construction, Existing, Homebuyers, Homeowners, Housing market, Mortgage rates, Newly built, Record, Reluctant, Sell, Single family, U.S.
Financial Times (October 30)
Empty housing poses an increasing threat to both Japan and China. The former already grapples with surplus units while the latter “may already have enough housing to meet its future needs.” Nomura Research Institute has forecast that in Japan, “even as the number of empty units roughly doubles between 2023 and 2038, construction will add more than 8mn new ones.” Due to the rise of single person households, the total number of households will only peak next year. From that point, “the housing surplus will rise more acutely and the downward pressure on property prices strengthen.” The major demographic issue facing China, “may be how to avoid a Japan-style property crisis.”
Tags: China, Construction, Demographic, Downward pressure, Empty, Households, Housing, Japan, NRI, Peak, Property crisis, Surplus, Threat, Units
Bloomberg (October 6)
“Even after $100 billion, self-driving cars are going nowhere. They were supposed to be the future,” but “the losses get bigger.” Several decades in, there remain few actual self-driving vehicles, mostly “confined to a handful of places in the Sun Belt, because they still can’t handle weather patterns trickier than Partly Cloudy. State-of-the-art robot cars also struggle with construction, animals, traffic cones, crossing guards, and … left turns.”
Tags: $100 billion, Animals, Construction, Crossing guards, Going nowhere, Left turns, Losses, Self-driving cars, Sun Belt, Traffic cones, Weather
Reuters (January 28)
“A growing number of Chinese construction and decoration companies are writing off assets or issuing profit warnings as debt woes at China Evergrande Group and other property developers debilitate their suppliers.” Despite government measures “to ease developers’ liquidity stress and support the cooling economy, recent data suggests the problem will get worse.”
Tags: Assets, China, Companies, Construction, Debt, Evergrande, Government, Liquidity, Profit warnings, Property developers, Suppliers, Woes
Miami Herald (June 24)
“There’s a sense of déjà vu to the new grief in our community over the collapse of… a 12-story building packed with residents, Surfside’s Champlain Towers South Condo…. Just as the FIU bridge collapse taught us many lessons about ignoring cracks on new construction, and about raising structures while people are driving underneath it, this condo collapse must also come under the most rigorous of investigations.” Today’s horror, “should serve as an urgent alert that older Florida structures need auditing and stricter oversight by the government.”
Tags: Building, Champlain Towers, Collapse, Condo, Construction, Déjà vu, FIU bridge, Government, Grief, Investigations. Oversight, Rigorous
Washington Post (August 14)
“Even in a world where the United States’ military and diplomatic power seems to be in retreat, there is an element of the U.S.-led order that’s as strong as ever — our dominance of the global economy.” President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey “may think he can bluff his way through the Brunson crisis, but Turkish banks, construction companies and bondholders know better. In the still-global economy, going it alone really isn’t an option… This summer, as ever, we sink or swim together.”
Tags: Banks, Bondholders, Brunson, Construction, Crisis, Diplomatic, Dominance, Erdogan, Global economy, Military, Power, Retreat, Turkey, U.S.
Bloomberg (June 13)
“China’s skyscraper age is over,” but not everyone realizes this. China currently boasts “46 percent of the 500-foot-plus buildings under construction in the world,” but things are changing. Standing at over 2,000 feet, Shanghai Tower provides a stark reminder. Though it “is the world’s second-tallest building…only 60 percent of Shanghai Tower is rented out, and only a third of current tenants have actually occupied their leased space.”
Tags: Buildings, China, Construction, Leased, Rented, Shanghai Tower, Skyscraper, Tenants
Reuters (September 1)
“Activity in China’s manufacturing sector unexpectedly expanded at its fastest pace in nearly two years in August as construction boomed, suggesting the economy is steadying in response to stronger government spending.” The strong performance “may reinforce growing views that China’s central bank will be in no hurry to cut interest rates or banks’ reserve requirements, for fear of adding to high debt levels or fuelling asset bubbles.”
Tags: Asset bubbles, Boom, China, Construction, Debt, Economy, Government, Interest rates, Manufacturing, Pace, Reserves, Spending, Steadying
The Economist (June 14)
In China, golf is “a barometer of change.” Banned under Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping allowed a few golf courses for foreign investors. Then, with rising affluence, “more locals wanted to try the sport. Suddenly more golf courses were being built in China than anywhere else, despite the fact that their construction was technically illegal.”
Tags: Affluence, Barometer, Change, China, Construction, Deng Xiaoping, Golf, Golf courses, Illegal, Investors, Mao Zedong, Sport
